Glories of Spain Part 31

It was the time of the War of Succession. Into this he madly plunged, seeking death and finding it. As a rule death is said to avoid those who court him; but here it was not so. The knight, faithful to the end, was found upon the battlefield, his eyes wide open, looking upon the heavens; where perhaps he saw the vision of his lovely wife, whilst her miniature lay next his heart.

The house still stands much as it stood in those days, but two centuries older. It is the most beautiful in Zaragoza, perhaps has few equals in all Spain. A special atmosphere surrounds it: and as we look a vision rises.

Standing in the courtyard and gazing upon that wide staircase, we see that youthful pair, so favoured by nature, pa.s.sing to and fro; we see them looking into each other's eyes, hear their love vows. Their arms entwine, their love-locks mingle. A mist blurs the scene, and when it pa.s.ses all has changed. A sad cortege is descending. A coffin bearing the remains of what was once so fair and full of life. A knight armed cap-a-pied follows, with clanking sword and spur; but his face is pale and his eyes are red with weeping, though they weep not now. They will never weep again. The fountain of his tears is dried.

Again the mist blurs the scene, and when it clears nothing is visible but the solitary knight ascending to his lonely room, love flown, hope dead, his life gone from him.

Presently the palace is closed; no one ascends or descends the staircase; voices are never heard, footsteps never echo. Surely ghosts haunt the sad corridors, look out from the vacant arcades upon the silent courtyard. For the knight has long lain dead upon the battlefield and no one comes to claim the palace and once more throw wide its portals to life, and laughter and sunshine.

We paid it more than one visit during our sojourn in Zaragoza, and each time there pa.s.sed before us in vivid colours the love-poem of two hundred years ago.

In the bright sunshine, the morning after our arrival we had gone forth to acquaint ourselves with the city. No view was more striking than that beyond the river looking upon the town.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FAIR LUCIA'S HOUSE: ZARAGOZA.]

We stood on the farther bank. The stream flowed rapidly at our feet.

Before us the wonderful bridge spanned the water with its seven arches: a ma.s.sive, time-edifying structure. Above this in magic outlines rose the towers, turrets and domes of the new cathedral of El Pilar, as splendid from this point of view as it is really worthless both outwardly and inwardly on a closer inspection. It is certainly one of the most remarkable scenes in all Spain: and from this point Zaragoza possesses few rivals.

The new cathedral of El Pilar: so called because it possesses the pillar on which the Virgin is said to have descended from heaven. It is a very large building, and the domes from a distance are very effective, but the interior is in the worst and most debased style.

As we stood within the vast s.p.a.ce that morning, wondering so much wealth had been wasted on this poor fabric, a female, apparently a lady, dressed in sable garments, her face veiled by the graceful mantilla, glided up to us and solicited alms.

At the first moment we thought we had mistaken her meaning, but on looking at her in doubt, she repeated her demand more imploringly.

"Senor, for the love of heaven, give me charity." The building was large, the worshippers were few, it was easy to converse.

"But what do you mean?" we said. "You look too respectable to be asking alms. Surely you cannot be in want?"

"In want? I am starving."

And throwing back her mantilla she disclosed a face still young, still fair to excess, but pale, pinched and careworn.

We felt terribly uncomfortable. She walked and spoke as a lady. There was a refinement in her voice and movement that could only have come from gentle breeding. How had she fallen so low? Eyes must have asked the question tongue could not.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRIDGE AND CATHEDRAL OF EL PILAR: ZARAGOZA.]

"Listen, senor," she said, as though in reply. "Listen and pity me. I was tenderly and delicately brought up, possessed a comfortable home, indulgent parents. We lived in Madrid, where my father held an office under Government. I was an only child and indulged. Pale, quiet and subdued as you see me now, I was pa.s.sionate, headstrong and wilful. I fell under the influence of one outwardly an angel, inwardly a demon. He was a singer at the opera, and his voice charmed me even more than his splendid presence. He was beneath me, but we met clandestinely again and again, until at last he persuaded me to fly with him. I was infatuated to madness. All my past life, all past influence, teaching, thought of home, love of parents--all was thrown to the winds for this wild pa.s.sion. We were secretly married before we fled, for mad as I was I had not lost all sense of honour. Almost from the very first day retribution set in. My father had long suffered from disease of the heart though I knew it not, and the shock of my flight killed him. The home was broken up, my mother was left almost dest.i.tute, and in a frenzy of despair, a moment of insanity, took poison. I was an orphan, and then discovered that my husband had thought I should be rich. On learning the truth, he began to ill-treat me. His fancy had been caught for a moment by my fair face. Of this he soon tired and, base villain that he was, transferred his worthless affections elsewhere. Things went from bad to worse. There were times when he even beat me--and I could not retaliate. I had come to my senses; I recognised the hand of retribution, and accepted my punishment. But what wonder that in my misery I learned to seek oblivion in the wine cup? Perhaps my worthless husband first gave me the idea of this temptation, for he was seldom sober. It was in one of those terrible moments that he fell from a height and so injured himself that after five days of intense agony he died. I was free but penniless; knew not where to go, which way to turn. I had not a friend in the world--all had forsaken me. There was but one thing I could do. I had a voice and could sing. I sang in cafes, at small concerts, wherever I could get an engagement and earn a trifle. Now I am in Zaragoza. Most nights I sing in the great cafe, but my small earnings all go in the same way--to satisfy my craving for wine. Wine, wine, wine; it is my one sin, but oh!

I feel that it is fatal. I know that it is surely drawing my feet to the grave. And after that?"

She shuddered; then pointed to a tawdry image of the Virgin, before which we stood.

"There, before that altar, I have knelt day after day and prayed to be delivered; but I have prayed in vain; no answer comes, and the chains are binding about me. Senor, I saw you enter; recognised that you were a stranger. Something told me I might address you and you would at least listen; would not spurn me or turn away in hateful contempt. But what can you do? I have asked for alms. I have told you I am starving--and so I am; but it is the soul that is starving more than the body. You will bestow your charity upon me--I know you will--and it will not go in food but in wine. Ah, if you could cure me, or give me an antidote that would send me into a sleep from which I should never waken, that indeed would be the greatest and truest charity."

Then we realised that the pale face and pinched look were not due to want of food. The cause was deeper and more hopeless. It was one of the saddest stories we had ever listened to; and it came upon us so abruptly that we felt helpless and bewildered: sick at heart at the very thought of our want of power to minister to this mind diseased.

"Give us your name and address," we said, after trying to think out the situation. "Let us see if there is any way of escape for you. Your sad story has clouded the sunshine."

She drew a card from her pocket in a quiet, ladylike way and placed it in our hands with a pathetic, appealing look that haunts us still.

We watched her turn away and noted the quiet, graceful movement with which she glided down the aisle and disappeared through a distant door; and our keenest sympathy went out to the poor, fair, frail creature whose burden of life was greater than she could bear. Could by any possibility a way of escape be found for her?

We pa.s.sed out of the church, which now seemed laden with an atmosphere of human sorrow and suffering, glad to escape to the free air and pure skies of heaven. From the Cathedral Square we turned into the narrow streets with their great grey palaces and enormous courtyards all full of suggestions of the past centuries. But the mighty have fallen: Aragon has not escaped decline any more than the rest of Spain.

CHAPTER XXIII.

IN ZARAGOZA.

Bygone days--Sumptuous roosting--Old exchange--Traders of taste--Glory of Aragon--Cathedral of La Seo--Modernised exterior--Interior charms and mesmerises--Next to Barcelona--Magnificent effect--Parish church--Moorish ceiling--Tomb of Bernardo de Aragon--The old priest--Waxes enthusiastic--Supernatural effect--Statuette of Benedict XIII.--Mysterious chiaroscuro--One exception--Alonza the Warrior--Moorish tiles--Bishop's palace--Frugal meal--Trace of old Zaragoza--Fifteenth century house--Juanita--Streets of the city--Caesarea Augusta--Worship of the Virgin--Alonzo the Moor--Determined resistance--Days of struggle--Falling--Return to prosperity--Fair maid of Zaragoza--The Aljaferia--Ancient palace of the Moorish kings--Injured by Suchet--Salon of Santa Isabel--Spanish cafe--Four generations--Lovely voice--Lamartine's _Le Lac_--Recognised--Reading between the lines--Out in the night air--An inspiration--Night vision of El Pilar--In the far future.

The prosperity of Zaragoza to-day is entirely commercial, but on a small scale. It is not a great financial or manufacturing town. The rooms that once echoed with the voices of dames and cavaliers, flashed with the blaze of jewels and the gleam of scabbards, have now in many cases been turned into stables. The courtyards, once crowded with mailed hors.e.m.e.n setting out for the wars, are now given over to the fowls of the air, that roost in the eaves and have little idea how sumptuously and artistically they are lodged.

Going on to the old Cathedral Square, we faced the ancient Exchange with its splendid cornice and decorations of medallion heads of the bygone kings and warriors of Aragon. The Gothic interior is very interesting, with low, vaulted pa.s.sages leading to the one great room with its high roof and fine pointed windows, where once the merchants of the town carried on their operations. It would seem that in those past days the sale of stocks and shares, the great questions of finance, did not imply a contempt for the charms of outline and refinement. They loved to surround themselves with the splendours of architecture; and in more than one Spanish town the last and best remnant of the Gothic age is to be found in the Exchange.

The whole square was striking. In the centre was a splendid fountain, at which a group of women for ever stood with their artistic pitchers, filling them in turn. Fun and laughter seemed the order of the day. The square echoed with merriment, to which the many-mouthed plashing fountain added its music.

On the further side of the square is the great glory, not of Zaragoza alone, but of the whole kingdom of Aragon--the old cathedral of La Seo.

The exterior has been much modernised, and perhaps was never specially striking. It is curious only at the N.E. angle, where the wall is inlaid with coloured tiles of the fourteenth century; of all shapes, sizes, patterns and colours. The whole has a rich Moorish effect almost dazzling when the sun shines upon them. Above this rises an octagonal tower decorated with Corinthian pillars.

From all this glare and sound, hurry and bustle of life, you pa.s.s into the interior and at once are charmed, mesmerised. Calmness and repose fall upon the spirit; in a moment you have suddenly been removed from the world. At once it takes its place in the mind as ranking next to Barcelona. If some of its details are not to be too closely examined, the general effect is magnificent in the extreme.

In form it is peculiar and unlike any other cathedral, for it is almost a perfect square, but this is not observed at the first moment; the Coro occupies the centre, and a mult.i.tude of splendid columns support and separate the double aisles. The nave and aisles are all roofed to the same level, giving a very lofty appearance to the whole interior. The vaulting springs from the capitals of the main columns with an effect of beauty and grace seldom equalled. To look upwards is like gazing at a palm-forest with spreading fronds.

Like many of the Spanish churches, the light is cunningly arranged, and the shadow-effect is very telling. A solemn obscurity for ever reigns, excepting when sunbeams fall upon the windows. Towards evening the gloom deepens, and all looks weird and mysterious. The outlines of the lofty roof and spreading capitals are almost lost. We seem to be in a vast building of measureless dimensions: a dream-structure. The grey, subdued colour of the stone is perfect. Immense b.u.t.tresses support the side walls, and between these are the chapels.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OLD NOOK IN ZARAGOZA.]

The first chapel on the left on entering is used as a parish church.

Its Moorish ceiling is magnificent, though difficult to make out in the dim religious light that too often reigns. The chapel also contains a very remarkable alabaster tomb of Bernardo de Aragon, brother of King Alfonso. When we entered, it was almost at the end of a service, and for congregation the old priest had no one but the verger. He seemed relieved when it was over, waddled down the steps and disrobed. Then in a very kindly way he turned to us, bowed as gracefully as his rotund personage permitted, and bade us note the beauty of ceiling and tomb.

"Light a few more candles," he said to the verger, "and let us try to get at a few of the exquisitely carved details. It is considered one of the finest Moorish ceilings in Spain," he continued; "and in my opinion it is so. You will mark the depth of the sections, beauty of the workmanship, rich and gorgeous effect of the whole composition. There never was a people like those wonderful Moors--never will be again as long as the world lasts. How these candles add a charm to the scanty daylight, giving out almost a supernatural effect! Has it ever struck you in the same way, this strange mingling of natural and artificial light? It is especially refining. Then look at this tomb, and admire its beauty--though it is of a very different character from the ceiling.

Here we have nothing Moorish. That overwhelming wealth and gorgeousness of imagination is absent from the cold marble. But how pure and perfect!

Note that exquisite statuette of Benedict XIII.: the figures of the knights that surround him with their military orders; the drooping figures of the mourners in the niches. But after all, what is all this compared with the splendours of the cathedral itself," cried the old priest, without pausing to take breath. "Put out the lights, Mateo,"

turning to the verger; and then without further ceremony led the way into the larger building.

He had a large, red, amiable face, this old priest; some day we felt sure that he would die of apoplexy; but he was evidently a lover of the beautiful, and as evidently one who loved his fellow-men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NORTH WALL OF CATHEDRAL: ZARAGOZA.]

"Look!" he said, throwing up his hands as we stood entranced at the scene. "What can be more perfect? Whichever way you gaze you are met by a forest of pillars--a true forest, full of life and breath, for are not those growing like spreading palms? And where will you find pillars so lofty and ma.s.sive? Where will you discover such a feeling of devotion, so mysterious a chiaroscuro? Apart from their beauty, we must not disdain these influences. They are aids to devotion, and poor, frail, erring human nature needs all the help it can receive both from without and within, from below and Above. I always tell our organist to play soft voluntaries and pull out his sweetest stops, so that he may make music which will creep into the spirit and rouse all its capacities for worship. That should be the true aim of all harmony. Look at the richness of the coro--the splendour of the carving. It all forms an effect which makes this the most wonderful and perfect cathedral in the whole of Spain."

"With one exception," we ventured modestly to observe.

"Which is that?" cried the old priest, evidently sharpening his weapon of warfare--the tongue that did him such good suit and service.