The Last Lion And Other Tales Part 1

The Last Lion and Other Tales.

by Vicente Blasco Ibanez.

VICENTE BLASCO IBANEZ

Don Vicente Blasco Ibanez was born on the 29th of January, 1867, in the city of Valencia, that same picturesque sunshiny Valencia which was captured from the Moors by the formidable Cid a little over eight centuries ago. But Blasco Ibanez is a _valenciano_ only by birth, for his family came from the old kingdom of Aragon.

The Aragonese are a st.u.r.dy, hardworking, adventurous people, somewhat stubborn, suicidally valorous, pa.s.sionately independent, fanatically religious, fond of music and of the honest pleasures of life. Their adventurous spirit led them in ages gone by as far as Asia Minor, where, with the Catalonians, they gave a good account of themselves. They fought against the Moors as doughtily as did the Castilians, and when their kingdom was united to that of Castile, under Isabella and Ferdinand, Granada was conquered and Mahomedan domination in Spain ceased for ever. The great Napoleon had no fiercer antagonists than the Aragonese, and when, after two sieges, his troops took Saragossa, they found in it nothing but corpses and ashes. The Aragonese were so jealous of their liberties that when one of their kings was being crowned, the Chief Justice of Aragon, addressing His Majesty in the familiar form, reminded him that they, the people, were greater than their king, "_somos mas que tu_".

Of his Aragonese ancestry, we find in Blasco Ibanez the intense love of freedom, the adventurous spirit and the untiring energy for work.

Blasco Ibanez was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth; his earlier years were a continual struggle for existence in which he made a close acquaintance with poverty and even hunger. He followed many trades and occupied, after a hard hunt, minor clerical positions. Yet, he managed to study law and at the age of eighteen he was a full fledged lawyer.

His studies may have impressed him with the august majesty of the law, but did not imbue him with any respect for the then existing government, and he proceeded to write a sonnet which gave full vent to his contempt for it.

Considering that many sonneteers escape the gallows they so richly deserve for their miserable productions, it was hard on Blasco Ibanez that he should have to go to jail for a period "not exceeding six months," but perhaps it was just as well for him, as he no doubt has made good use of his experience.

Jails, as we all know, are not meant to correct political ideas: they are merely punitive inst.i.tutions. Blasco Ibanez took his punishment like the man he is, and at the first opportunity attacked the government with renewed vigor and was banished from Spain. During his exile, Blasco Ibanez lived in France and visited Italy.

Returning to Valencia after an amnesty, he founded a newspaper, "El Pueblo" (The People) in 1891. From the columns of his paper, which he still edits, he continued his fight "agin' the government," advocating a republican form of government. He became a leader in the Republican party and was elected Deputy to the Spanish Parliament, for the city of Valencia, six consecutive times.

Though his political career has been a most strenuous one, it by no means exhausted his tremendous energy, and he managed at the same time to do an immense amount of literary work. As a young man, he became secretary to Manuel Fernandez y Gonzalez, a prolific writer--he is said to have written over three hundred novels--whose name has been almost forgotten. Fernandez y Gonzalez was an old man when Blasco Ibanez made his acquaintance, and it often happened that the old man, exhausted by age, or merely feeling heavy after a hearty meal, fell asleep while dictating to his young secretary. Blasco Ibanez, however, did not stop writing; he let his own fancy do the dictating, for a change, and he continued the novel until the old man woke up of his own accord. Then, he read what he had written, and Fernandez y Gonzalez, who must have had good literary taste, was generally delighted with the collaboration.

It is extremely doubtful whether Fernandez y Gonzalez had any influence on Blasco Ibanez as a writer. He was an excellent example of an energetic worker ... and that is all. But Blasco Ibanez did not need any such examples. He is, and has always been, activity personified.

While Blasco Ibanez was actively engaged in political warfare, editing his own paper, contributing radical articles to other papers and periodicals, issuing innumerable pamphlets, preparing speeches, and addressing meetings, he still found time to write novels. Seventeen novels, two books of short stories, and three of travels stand to his name, as well as many uncollected critical and biographical essays.

His first novels were written at odd moments, after he had edited "El Pueblo" and attended to political business. In later years, he has devoted less time to politics and more to literature. Whereas his earlier novels required little preparation, for they deal with his native city, which he has known all his life, his later works represent a gigantic amount of study and forethought, for Blasco Ibanez is nothing if not thorough. He studies his characters at first hand. When he was preparing _Flor de Mayo_, he became one of those tobacco smugglers of whom he speaks; he obtained his material for _La Horda_ by living with the sc.u.m of Madrid and joining some of the poachers in their excursions to the royal preserves at El Pardo, thereby running the risk of being shot at sight by the guards; later on, while he was planning _Los Muertos Mandan_, he joined the fishermen on the coast of Ibiza, in the Balearic Islands, and having been caught in a storm, nearly lost his life; he lived a long time among bullfighters before writing _Sangre y Arena_ and became intimately acquainted with the famous "espada" Antonio Fuentes.

As if all the activities we have enumerated were not enough to keep an ordinary Hercules busy for a life-time, Blasco Ibanez has been interested for many years in a publishing firm which has been the means of introducing into Spain what is more instructive or interesting in the literatures of other countries. Some of the publications of this firm--Prometeo, of Valencia--bear witness to the indefatigable energy of the man. Such are the "New Universal History," by Lavisse and Rambaud, of which ten volumes have thus far been published; the "History of the French Revolution," by Michelet, in three volumes; the "New Universal Geography," by Reclus; "The Thousand Nights and One Night," all of them translated by Blasco Ibanez. The same firm is now publishing a monumental "History of the European War of 1914," from the pen of Blasco Ibanez. Six ponderous tomes of this work have already been published.

Blasco Ibanez has travelled extensively. He has visited most of Europe, the Near East, and Argentina. In the latter country, he has acquired some land and has founded a colony.

There is a curious contradiction between Blasco Ibanez' personal appearance and his life's activities. In his younger days, when he was more of a man of action than to-day, he wore a curly beard and a mustache that grew untouched by scissors. They gave him an artistic appearance and harmonized well with the rest of his features. In those days he was a decidedly handsome man. To-day, when he is more of an artist, perhaps, than a man of action, the beard has disappeared and the mustache is close-cropped. The hairy camouflage, sacrificed--as we suspect--to the G.o.ddess of Anglo-Saxon fashion, concealed a determined chin and two deep lines, running from the base of the nose to the corners of his mouth, that give him an energetic air. His forehead is now larger than ever, for he is getting somewhat bald; his eyes are piercing, with moderate eyebrows and slightly puffed lower eyelids, and they have lost that touch of dreaminess they had in their younger days; his nose is large and shapely modelled, his face broad and fleshy, his ears round and big. Altogether, his head--supported by a short bullish neck--is that of a deep thinker, a sharp observer, and active energetic man, and withal a _bon vivant_. In other words, a true Aragonese.

_Ecce h.o.m.o!_

MARIANO JOAQUIN LORENTE

THE LAST LION

Scarcely had the meeting of the honorable guild of _blanquers_ come to order within its chapel near the towers of Serranos, when Senor Vicente asked for the floor. He was the oldest tanner in Valencia. Many masters recalled their apprentice days and declared that he was the same now as then, with his white, brush-like mustache, his face that looked like a sun of wrinkles, his aggressive eyes and cadaverous thinness, as if all the sap of his life had been consumed in the daily motions of his feet and hands about the vats of the tannery.

He was the only representative of the guild's glories, the sole survivor of those _blanquers_ who were an honor to Valencian history. The grandchildren of his former companions had become corrupted with the march of time; they were proprietors of large establishments, with thousands of workmen, but they would be lost if they ever had to tan a skin with their soft, business-man's hands. Only he could call himself a _blanquer_ of the old school, working every day in his little hut near the guild house; master and toiler at the same time, with no other a.s.sistants than his sons and grandchildren; his workshop was of the old kind, amid sweet domestic surroundings, with neither threats of strikes nor quarrels over the day's pay.

The centuries had raised the level of the street, converting Senor Vicente's shop into a gloomy cave. The door through which his ancestors had entered had grown smaller and smaller from the bottom until it had become little more than a window. Five stairs connected the street with the damp floor of the tannery, and above, near a pointed arch, a relic of medieval Valencia, floated like banners the skins that had been hung up to dry, wafting about the unbearable odor of the leather. The old man by no means envied the _moderns_, in their luxuriously appointed business offices. Surely they blushed with shame on pa.s.sing through his lane and seeing him, at breakfast hour, taking the sun,--his sleeves and trousers rolled up, showing his thin arms and legs, stained red,--with the pride of a robust old age that permitted him to battle daily with the hides.

Valencia was preparing to celebrate the centenary of one of its famous saints, and the guild of _blanquers_, like the other historic guilds, wished to make its contribution to the festivities. Senor Vicente, with the prestige of his years, imposed his will upon all the masters. The _blanquers_ should remain what they were. All the glories of the past, long sequestrated in the chapel, must figure in the procession. And it was high time they were displayed in public! His gaze, wandering about the chapel, seemed to caress the guild's relics; the sixteenth century drums, as large as jars, that preserved within their drumheads the hoa.r.s.e cries of revolutionary Germania; the great lantern of carved wood, torn from the prow of a galley; the red silk banner of the guild, edged with gold that had become greenish through the ages.

All this must be displayed during the celebration, shaking off the dust of oblivion; even the famous lion of the _blanquers_!

The _moderns_ burst into impious laughter. The lion, too?... Yes, the lion, too. To Senor Vicente it seemed a dishonor on the part of the guild to forget that glorious beast. The ancient ballads, the accounts of celebrations that might be read in the city archives, the old folks who had lived in the splendid epoch of the guilds with their fraternal camaraderie,--all spoke of the _blanquers'_ lion; but now n.o.body knew the animal, and this was a shame for the trade, a loss to the city.

Their lion was as great a glory as the silk mart or the well of San Vicente. He knew very well the reason for this opposition on the part of the _moderns_. They feared to a.s.sume the role of the lion. Never fear, my young fellows! He, with his burden of years, numbered more than seventy, would claim his honor. It belonged to him in all justice; his father, his grandfather, his countless ancestors, had all been lions, and he felt equal to coming to blows with anybody who would dare dispute his right to the role of the lion, traditional in his family.

With what enthusiasm Senor Vicente related the history of the lion and the heroic _blanquers_. One day the Barbary pirates from Bujia had landed at Torreblanca, just beyond Castellon, and sacked the church, carrying off the Shrine. This happened a little before the time of Saint Vicente Ferrer, for the old tanner had no other way of explaining history than by dividing it into two periods; before and after the Saint.... The population, which was scarcely moved by the raids of the pirates, hearing of the abduction of pale maidens with large black eyes and plump figures, destined for the harem, as if this were an inevitable misfortune, broke into cries of grief upon learning of the sacrilege at Torreblanca.

The churches of the town were draped in black; people went through the streets wailing loudly, striking themselves as a punishment. What could those dogs do with the blessed Host? What would become of the poor, defenseless Shrine?... Then it was that the valiant _blanquers_ came upon the scene. Was not the Shrine at Bujia? Then on to Bujia in quest of it! They reasoned like heroes accustomed to beating hides all day long, and they saw nothing formidable about beating the enemies of G.o.d.

At their own expense they fitted out a galley and the whole guild went aboard, carrying along their beautiful banner; the other guilds, and indeed the entire town, followed this example and chartered other vessels.

The Justice himself cast aside his scarlet gown and covered himself with mail from head to foot; the worthy councilmen abandoned the benches of the Golden Chamber, shielding their paunches with scales that shone like those of the fishes in the gulf; the hundred archers of la Pluma, who guarded _la Senera_, filled their quivers with arrows, and the Jews from the quarter of la Xedrea did a rushing business, selling all their old iron, including lances, notched swords and rusty corselets, in exchange for good, ringing pieces of silver.

And off sped the Valencian galleys, with their jib-sails spread to the wind, convoyed by a shoal of dolphins, which sported about in the foam of their prows!... When the Moors beheld them approaching, the infidels began to tremble, repenting of their irreverence toward the Shrine. And this, despite the fact that they were a set of hardened old dogs.

Valencians, headed by the valiant _blanquers_! Who, indeed, would dare face them!

The battle raged for several days and nights, according to the tale of Senor Vicente. Reinforcements of Moors arrived, but the Valencians, loyal and fierce, fought to the death. And they were already beginning to feel exhausted from the labor of disembowelling so many infidels, when behold, from a neighboring mountain a lion comes walking down on his hind paws, for all the world like a regular person, carrying in his forepaws, most reverently, the Shrine,--the Shrine that had been stolen from Torreblanca! The beast delivered it ceremoniously into the hands of one of the guild, undoubtedly an ancestor of Senor Vicente, and hence for centuries his family had possessed the privilege of representing that amiable animal in the Valencian processions.

Then he shook his mane, emitted a roar, and with blows and bites in every direction cleared the field instantly of Moors.

The Valencians sailed for home, carrying the Shrine back like a trophy.

The chief of the _blanquers_ saluted the lion, courteously offering him the guild house, near the towers of Serranos, which he could consider as his own. Many thanks; the beast was accustomed to the sun of Africa and feared a change of climate.

But the trade was not ungrateful, and to perpetuate the happy recollection of the s.h.a.ggy-maned friend whom they possessed on the other sh.o.r.e of the sea, every time the guild banner floated in the Valencian celebrations, there marched behind it an ancestor of Senor Vicente, to the sound of drums, and he was covered with hide, with a mask that was the living image of the worthy lion, bearing in his hands a Shrine of wood, so small and poor that it caused one to doubt the genuine value of Torreblanca's own Shrine.

Perverse and irreverent persons even dared to affirm, to the great indignation of Senor Vicente, that the whole story was a lie. Sheer envy! Ill will of the other trades, which couldn't point to such a glorious history! There was the guild chapel as proof, and in it the lantern from the prow of the vessel, which the conscienceless wretches declared dated from many centuries after the supposed battle; and there were the guild drums, and the glorious banner; and the moth-eaten hide of the lion, in which all his predecessors had encased themselves, lay now forgotten behind the altar, covered with cobwebs and dust, but it was none the less as authentic and worthy of reverence as the stones of el Miguelete.[A]

[A] A belfry in Valencia.

And above all there was his faith, ardent and incontrovertible, capable of receiving as an affront to the family the slightest irreverence toward the African lion, the ill.u.s.trious friend of the guild.

The procession took place on an afternoon in June. The sons, the daughters-in-law, and the grandsons of Senor Vicente helped him to get into the costume of the lion, perspiring most uncomfortably at the mere touch of that red-stained wool. "Father, you're going to roast."--"Grandpa, you'll melt inside of this costume."

The old man, however, deaf to the warnings of the family, shook his moth-eaten mane with pride, thinking of his ancestors; then he tried on the terrifying mask, a cardboard arrangement that imitated, with a faint resemblance, the countenance of the wild beast.

What a triumphant afternoon! The streets crowded with spectators; the balconies decorated with bunting, and upon them rows of variegated bonnets shading fair faces from the sun; the ground covered with myrtle, forming a green, odorous carpet whose perfume seemed to expand the lungs.

The procession was headed by the standard-bearers, with beards of hemp, crowns, and striped dalmatics, holding aloft the Valencian banners adorned with enormous bats and large L's beside the coat of arms; then, to the sound of the flageolet, the retinue of wild Indians, shepherds from Bethlehem, Catalans and Majorcans; following these pa.s.sed the dwarfs with their monstrously huge heads, clicking the castanets to the rhythm of a Moorish march; behind these came the giants of the Corpus and at the end, the banners of the guilds; an endless row of red standards, faded with the years, and so tall that their tops reached higher than the first stories of the buildings.

Plom! Rotoplom! rolled the drums of the _blanquers_,--instruments of barbarous sonority, so large that their weight forced the drummers to bow their necks. Plom! Rotoplom! they resounded, hoa.r.s.e and menacing, with savage solemnity, as if they were still marking the tread of the revolutionary guild regiments, sallying forth to the encounter with the emperor's young leader,--that Don Juan of Aragon, duke of Segorbe, who served Victor Hugo as the model for his romantic personage _Hernani_!

Plom! Rotoplom! The people ran for good places and jostled one another to obtain a better view of the guild members, bursting into laughter and shouts. What was that? A monkey?... A wild man?... Ah! The faith of the past was truly laughable.

The young members of the trade, their shirts open at the neck and their sleeves rolled up, took turns at carrying the heavy banner, performing feats of jugglery, balancing it on the palms of their hands or upon their teeth, to the rhythm of the drums.