Poor Folk in Spain. Jan Gordon
It is abominably French, though France is pleasant in its own place. The café in the little plaza is French, with a French terrasse, French side screens of ugly ironwork and glass, and faces a square full of shady trees between which one sees modern fortifications of French appearance. So we sat sipping coffee and we said to ourselves: "Forget that you are in Spain. Put off your excitement. Don't waste your sensations with false sentiment"
Nor did the fact that all the wording on the shops was Spanish, nor even the sight of a building of pure modern Spanish architecture rouse us from our cloudy resignation. The building which towered into some six stories by the side of the railway was of a maroon brick. The lower story, including the entrance door, was decorated with appliqué in the design which the French used to call "l'art nouveau," and which now is confined almost exclusively to the iron work on boulevard cafés. It is marked by exaggerated curves. The whole bottom story of this building was sculptured in this fantastic fashion; in order to fit in with the decorations the front door was wider at the top than it was at the bottom, while the windows were of every variety of shape, squashed curves, dilated hearts, indented circles and so on. Above this story the building rose gravely brick save for the corners, which were decorated with bathroom tiles of bad glaze upon which flowers had been painted; roses, violets and pansies: the top story, however, was part Gothic, part Egyptian, with a unifying intermixture of more bathroom tiles.
A munition millionaire went to an art dealer saying he wanted a picture, but he didn't mind what sort of a picture it was provided it looked expensive. We imagined that the architect of this house had received a similar order. Later on we were undeceived.
A yellow tram went by bearing the name "Fuentarabia." Having heard eulogies of this place, we decided to go. We reached the terminus of the tramway and the conductor told us we were there. Since then we have met so many people who were in ecstasies about the beauties of Fuentarabia, about its pure Spanish character, etc., etc., that we are still wondering if we went to Fuentarabia after all
Footnote
[1] Cheap.
CHAPTER IV
MEDINA DEL CAMPO
If civilization were without a flaw, the happy civilized traveller could pass through and circumambulate a foreign country yet never come into closer contact with the inhabitants than that transmitted through a Cook's interpreter. So that if you want to learn anything about a country, either you must put a sprag into the wheels of this civilization or you must let Opportunity do it for you. Opportunity is a very complaisant goddess: give her an inch and the ell at least is offered to you. She smiled upon us when we decided to stay the night at Irun; once more she smiled when the porter told us that the train to Avila left about eight o'clock, so we humped the two rucksacks and the suit-case from the inn to the station, got our trunk and hold-all from the baggage office and went to buy our tickets. Then we realized what Opportunity had been up to. The ticket clerk refused to give us tickets to Avila.
"Why not?
"The train does not go through Avila, it goes to Madrid by the other branch through Segovia. The train by Avila goes at four."
"Where, then, does it branch off?"
"At Medina del Campo."
"Then give us tickets to Avila and we will wait at Medina del Campo."
But the authorities did not approve of this novel idea. It seemed that the through-ticket system had not become the custom in Spain. We must then take tickets to Medina or wait in Irun till the proper, respectable Avila train should go, so to the astonishment of the booking clerk we said:
"All right, give us tickets for Medina."
|
|
I do not believe that any pleasure traveller had stopped at Medina before we did. That is the impression we received, both from the behaviour of the porters at Irun and of those at Medina itself.
The scenery from the railway was, as scenery always is, fascinating because of one's elevation and the scope of one's view, tiring because of its continuous movement. We passed through mountains worthy of Scotland, very Scotch in colour, and at last came out upon the big plain of Valladolid.
While we were streaming across this and the mountains were fading slowly into a distant blue the luncheon-car waiter announced his joyful news. We had heard that living in Spain was going to be dear, so, with some trepidation, we decided to take that train luncheon—for our financial position did not encourage extravagance. The whole trip was, in theory, to come within the limits of Jan's war gratuity—about £120. We had calculated the railway travelling as £50 in all; this gave us £70 for all other expenses, including the purchase of the musical instruments upon which we had set our minds, and we hoped to stay for four or five months. Yet in spite of the need for economy luncheon called us if only as an experience.
The meal cost us about three and fourpence apiece: it was a complicated affair of many courses—even in a Soho restaurant the same would have come to about ten shillings, so that the spirit of economy in us was cheered and inspirited. Of our fellow passengers we remember nobody save a gigantic priest who waddled slowly along the corridors, carrying, suspended on a plump finger, a very small cage in which, like a mediæval captive in a "little ease," was a canary almost as large as its prison.
Medina station looked like an exaggerated cart-shed on a farm; two long walls and a roof of corrugated iron—there were no platforms, only one broad pavement along one of the walls. A small bookstall was against the wall and further along the pavement a booth of jewellery. This booth had glass windows and "Precio Fijo"[2]—"No bargaining," in other words—was painted across the glass in white letters.
Why Spaniards, en route, should have mad desires to purchase jewellery, we have not learned, but these jewellery booths are common on Spanish stations. The jewellers seem to detest bargaining, for these words always appear on the windows. I suppose the fact that the purchaser of jewellery
has got to catch a train may give him some occult advantage over the seller. One may imagine him slamming his last offer down on the counter and sprinting off with the coveted trinket to the train, while the defrauded merchant is struggling with the door-handle of his booth—so "No Bargaining" is painted up, very white and very positive.
As we had nine hours to wait, there was no need to hurry, so we allowed the crowd to drift out of the platform before we began to see about the disposal of our luggage. Stumbling about in Hugo Spanish we discovered that, owing to the receipt that had been given us at Irun, our big trunk would look after itself until claimed, but that there was no luggage office or other facility for getting rid of our smaller baggage. We, however, insinuated understanding into the head of a porter, who thereupon led us to a door amongst other doors in the wall labelled "Fonda." We came into a huge hall. Across one end stretched a majestic bar four feet high, of elaborately carved wood, upon the top of which were vases of fruits, tiers of bottles and glittering machines for the manufacture of drink. Three long tables were in the room, two spread simply with coffee-cups. The third table occupied the full length of the middle of the room. It seemed spread for some Lord Mayor's banquet. Snowy napery was covered along the centre with huge cut-glass dishes, stacked with fruit, alternated with palms flanked by champagne bottles and white and red wine bottles. Fully fifty places were laid, each place having seven or eight plates stacked upon it while the cutlery sparkled