Poor Folk in Spain Part 2

"At two, Senora."

I was dismayed. It was now eleven o'clock--we had eaten little since the night before.

"But," I stammered, "I am hungry. Tengo hambre." My memory shuffled with conversation-book sentences and faint recollections of Majorca, but could find nothing about the minutiae of food.

"Tengo hambre," I repeated desperately. Suddenly inspiration came to me. I made motions of beating up an omelet and clucked like a hen that has laid an egg.

For a moment there was a silence, a positive kind of silence, which is much more still than mere absence of noise. Then a roar of laughter went up. The fat hostess shook like a jelly, the tout guffawed behind a restraining hand--he had not yet received his tip--while an old woman who had been sitting in one of the darker corners, went off:

"Ck! Ck! Ck! He! He! He! Ck! Ck! Ck! He! He! He!"

At this moment Jan arrived, having deposited the bigger luggage and having been informed that the train to Avila, our first stopping-place, went out at 8 a.m. I led him along the dark pa.s.sage and upstairs. He flung wide the shutters. The window looked into a deep, triangular well at the bottom of which was a floor of stamped earth, a washtub and a hen-coop. Windows of all sizes pierced the walls at irregular intervals and across the well were stretched ropes, from some of which flapped pieces of damp linen or underclothes. In the light of the open window the room was dingy. We wondered if there were bugs in it, for we had been cautioned against these insects.

But the room did not smell buggy; it had a peculiar smell of its own.

The strong characteristics of odours need more attention than novelists give them. For instance, I remember that German mistresses had a faint vinegary scent, but French governesses an odour like trunks which had been suddenly opened.

This room had an austere smell. It smelt, I don't know how, Roman Catholic: not of incense nor of censers, but of a flavour which, by some combination of circ.u.mstances, we have a.s.sociated with Roman Catholicism in bulk. The bedroom door was largely panelled with tinted gla.s.s; it had a very flimsy lock, but we did not fear that we would be murdered or burgled in our bed.

The omelet was ready when we came down. The diningroom had two doors, one leading to the kitchen, one up some steps and into the street. There was a broad stretch of window and almost all the other walls of the room were covered with big mirrors.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

About five grim people, mostly clad in black--including the old lady--sat in the room and stared at us as we ate. We could not avoid this disconcerting gaze--look where we would we either caught a human eye or else, what was worse, we were fascinated by a long procession of eyes pa.s.sing away into the dim mysteries of reflection and re-reflection of the mirrors. We had to choose between the gaze of one real old lady or of twenty-five reflected old ladies, of one callow youth or of twenty-five youths diminis.h.i.+ng towards the infinite. The audience stared at us as we ate our omelet, watched the fruit--apricots, cherries and hard pears--with which we finished the meal, and noted each sip of coffee. At last, unable to bear any longer the embarra.s.sment of this mechanically intensified curiosity, we took refuge in our bedroom and lay down. We then noted that the bed was too small, all the rest of the furniture, on the contrary, being much too big.

We rested till lunch. The omelet and the fruit had but filled some of the minor vacancies within us and we were ready again on the stroke of two. Once more we faced the Spanish stare and all the reflected repet.i.tions of it. A fair number of persons lunched at the hotel. As they came in the women sat themselves directly at the table, but the men without exception went to the far corner where, suspended against the wall, was a small tin reservoir with a minute tap and beneath it a tiny basin. Each man rinsed his hands in the infinitesimal trickle, before he sat down to dinner. Why the men and women made this distinction we could not guess. It seemed to be a custom and not to be dependent upon whether the hands were dirty or not. Even if the hands had been dirty the small amount of water used would not have cleaned them.

In the centre of the dining table were white, porous vessels containing drinking water. The water oozes through the porous clay and appears on the outside of the vessel as a faint sweat. This layer of moisture evaporates and keeps all the water in the vessel at several degrees cooler than the surrounding atmosphere.

Between mouthfuls of soup and wedges of beef the diners were watching us. As soon as the meal was over we fled into the streets of Irun. One cannot call Irun Spanish. It is abominably French, though France is pleasant in its own place. The cafe in the little plaza is French, with a French _terra.s.se_, French side screens of ugly ironwork and gla.s.s, 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 _applique_ 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 cafes. It is marked by exaggerated curves. The whole bottom story of this building was sculptured in this fantastic fas.h.i.+on; 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Cheap.]

CHAPTER IV

MEDINA DEL CAMPO

If civilization were without a flaw, the happy civilized traveller could pa.s.s through and circ.u.mambulate 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 G.o.ddess: 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+llings, so that the spirit of economy in us was cheered and inspirited. Of our fellow pa.s.sengers we remember n.o.body save a gigantic priest who waddled slowly along the corridors, carrying, suspended on a plump finger, a very small cage in which, like a mediaeval 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 gla.s.s windows and "Precio Fijo"[2]--"No bargaining," in other words--was painted across the gla.s.s 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-gla.s.s 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 on either hand. A cadaverous, unshaven waiter lounged about amongst this magnificence and lazily flicked at the flies with his napkin.

This huge, deserted room, expectant of so many guests, made one think of the introduction to a fairy story: one could have sat the mad hatter, the dormouse and the March hare down there, but one could never imagine that fifty pa.s.sengers could in sober earnestness crowd to have supper at Medina del Campo upon the same day. No, rather here was one flutter of the dying pomp and majesty of Spain.

We placed our bags in a corner of the pretentious room and went from the station to look for the town. It was nowhere to be seen. A white road deep in dust gleamed beneath the afternoon sun and led away across the ochreous plain, but, of town, not a sign. Yet the white road was the only road; Medina must be somewhere, so off we walked. The plain was not quite flat, it flowed away in undulations which appeared shallow, but which proved sufficiently deep to swallow up all signs of Medina del Campo at the distance of a mile.

First we came to a line of little brightly coloured hovels, square boxes, many of only one room, then to a church, an ancient Spanish-Gothic church surrounded by gloomy trees. Suddenly the road turned a corner and we were almost in the middle of the town. Medina was Spanish enough. Here was the plaza at the end of which towered a high cathedral decorated with colour and with carving. The plaza lay broad and s.h.i.+ning beneath the sunlight; loungers sprawled in the shadows beneath the small, vivid green trees, and in the deep stone arcades which edged the open square the afternoon coffee-drinkers, clad in cool white, lolled at the cafe tables.

In the centre of the plaza was a fountain running with water, and about it came and went a continual procession of women bearing large, white amphoras upon their hips, children carrying smaller drinking vessels, and men wheeling long, barrow-like frameworks into which many amphoras were placed. The shops and cafes were painted in gay colours which were brilliant in the sun and which contrasted pleasantly with the crude--as though painted--green of the trees and the clear, soothing hue of the sky.

I know that historical things have happened at Medina del Campo, but we are not going to retail second-hand history. To us, as living beings, it is far more important that we bought our first oily, almondy Spanish cakes here than that Santa Teresa (who started off at the age of ten years to be martyred by the Moors) founded a convent in the town.

Medina is a dead place and must be typical of Spain. It has a market, a plaza and a few ragged fringes of streets more than half full of collapsing houses, and in this gay-looking remnant of past glory are at least three enormous churches with monasteries in attendance. But even the churches are falling into ruin and the storks' nests are cl.u.s.tered flat on the belfries, while Hymen's debt collectors, clapping their beaks, gaze down from aloft into the empty roadways.

Sunset had played out a colour symphony in orange major by the time we had arrived back at the station where we asked for a meal; but the cadaverous, blue-jowled waiter had not laid covers for fifty in order that intrusive strangers might push in and demand food at whatever hour they chose.

"Supper," he said with some dignity and disgust at our ignorance, "is at eight."

So out we went on to the pavement platform, found a lattice seat and ate the cakes we had bought. They were like treacly macaroons, so oily that the paper in which they had been wrapped was soaked through, but it was with pure almond oil and the cakes were delicious. Lunch had been eaten at twelve and in trains one never eats quite at one's ease; hunger had gripped us when eight o'clock struck by the station clock. We took our seats at the long table before those piles of plates. A quarter-past eight went by, half-past eight was approaching. One by one about six or seven persons sauntered into the room and seated themselves, distant from each other in comparison with the size of the table as are the planets in the solar system. Nearest to us, our Mars, as it were, was a very fat commercial man, his face showing the hue of the ruddy planet.