IVTHE BLACK VEIL

SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.

Those goblin, demon heads are carved low down, where the hand rests, the knees push. They are worn away, polished smooth by the rubbing of the palms and the calves of generations of monks. Safe above, where the uplifted eye strikes, are the heavenly visions,—angels, saints, prophets, the Virgin in glory, fresh as the day old Nufro Sanchez carved them. In the middle of thecorostands the tallfacistolholding the yellow vellum music books open at the page where the monkish illuminators painted their most beautiful miniatures.

“There’s Villegas’s picture,” J. whispered, as we passed thecoro, “the old choirmaster holding up his baton, scolding the choristers. I know every inch of this church; there’s not a corner he has not painted.”

“And how he has painted it!” sighed Pemberton; “as a man paints the portrait of his mother. How you feel the artists, dead and alive, who have worked here; that’s part of the fascination of the place.”

“Put the camp chairs there,” said Concepcion. She had found us the perfect position, between thecoroand thecapilla mayor. “Did he tell you that screen is gilded with the first gold that came from the Americas?”

The ship that brought that first gold must have been the size of the Mayflower, from the amountof “first gold” it is supposed to have brought to Spain.

There was no crowd, only a few women dressed like Concepcion, all in black; some poor bodies, a sprinkling of tourists, and one brown Franciscan. The sunlight pouring through the painted window of the Assumption stained the nearest columns blood-red, sapphire, emerald. In thecoro, sombre and rich, the crimson and scarlet cloaks of the old canons, sitting slumbrous in the stalls, glowed like jewels in the dusk. Grouped in couples about thefacistolwere the choir boys, their black-letter scores held between them. The high altar of thecapilla mayorwas covered by a thick, White Veil, that hung from the groined roof to the floor. Two by two the tonsured acolytes in long purple gowns, with tassels of gold and violet, prepared for the service, dressed the pulpits, laid ready the missals. The three officiating priests appeared, each preceded by a pair of altar boys in scarlet and ivory, carrying silver candlesticks twice as tall as they. The priest at the middle pulpit was a big, powerful man, with a fine resonant voice. His intoning of the gospel was masterly; Concepcion said the finest in Seville, if not in Spain. The old priest with the delicate, spiritual face, like a wax mask with jewel eyes, and the high treble voice, must have been as good at intoning in his day.The little boys who held the candles close for his old eyes to see, leaned towards him with a pleasant, human tenderness. It was easy to see there was love in their service.

“Et posuit eum in monumento,” the old priest quavered out the last words of the story, as it is told by Luke; the three celebrants left the altar with much ceremony of book and bell and kiss ecclesiastical, and took their stand before the white veiled altar; the purple acolytes swung their gold censers till we saw the glowing coals; the smoke of frankincense and spice rose up in clouds. There came a moment of strained silence. The only sound was the clinking of the censer chains. The air between priests and people was thick and blue with incense.

Brrrrrrrrrrm, brrrrrrrrrrrm! The silence was shattered by a loud clap of thunder, another and another, as if a fierce tempest had sprung up outside. While the thunder rolled and echoed through the aisles, the White Veil was rent from top to bottom, fell to the ground, and disappeared as if by magic. In its place hung the Black Veil. Before this stood in studied attitudes the big priest, the old priest, and a little priest. The brown Franciscan kneeling by the great tenabrium had thrown back his head in ecstasy.

“Look,” whispered Pemberton, “the Saint Anthony of Murillo; I will show you the picture in the baptistry; it’s the one the figure of Anthony was cut out from and sent to New York. They have put the piece back, but the ‘joining’ shows.”

We came out of the cathedral into the light and perfume of the Court of Oranges, sat down upon a sun-warmed marble bench, and looked up at the pigeons flitting about the Giralda. A little cloud floated before the face of the sun, a shadow fell upon the fountain.

“That fountain where the women are gossiping is the old Moorishmidhâ, where the musselmen washed before prayer, as I have seen them do in Turkey. Women weren’t allowed in the Court of Oranges then,” mused Pemberton. “Where we sit, the temples of Astarte and of Salambo once stood. It’s curious how you catch the echoes of the older religions in these ceremonies of Holy Week. Some of the rites were practiced before Rome was. The mosque, the Moors who worshipped there, seem things of yesterday, in comparison.”

“Almost of to-day, that cry, that man are more than half Arab.”

“Agua, agua fresca!” The cry twanged of the Orient. The water seller, lean and brown, with impenetrable black velvet eyes, turned into the courtyard. He was dressed all in white, with

ENTRANCE TO COURT OF ORANGES, SEVILLE.

odd, hemp-soled shoes,—a grave man who offered water from his clean cup, then passed on his way, his cry growing faint, fainter, till it was drowned in the clangor ofel Cantor, the great, green, bronze bell of the Giralda.

The afternoon of Holy Wednesday found us in the Plaza de la Constitucion. Before the florid façade of the Casa de Ayutamiento a grand stand had been built. In the center was a dais hung with crimson velvet, garlanded with flowers. Under a gold embroidered canopy stood three gilded thrones.

“For the King, the Queen Mother, and the Infanta Maria Teresa,” Concepcion explained. Opposite, across the plaza, Pemberton pointed out the Audienza, a handsome Renaissance building, over whose door were the arms of Charles V, the Pillars of Hercules with the old motto borrowed from the old hero,ne plus ultra. A marble column shows where the public executions once took place. The plaza, scene of tournaments, bull-fights, and carnival fêtes, was crowded by those who could afford the best seats for the processions of penitence, the famous pageants of Holy Week. The audience assembled in twos and threes, the dark, full-bosomed Andalusian women, with fan and mantilla, the men in uniform or afternoon dress. In a neighboring box sat ayoung girl with a lovely oval face, masses of wavy black hair, and eyes like cool, brown agates.

“That is Luz,” said Pemberton, “called the prettiest girl in Seville.” He looked at Concepcion as he said it.

“There is a woman who is as beautiful,” I said, truthfully, and knew that Pemberton was my friend for life.

Luz had many visitors (the seats in her box were never empty), they came and went like moths about a candle. One remained, a monk in a brown habit, the Franciscan of the cathedral. In spite of his rope girdle, his bare sandaled feet, he had once belonged to that world of fashion where Luz rules, and where he was still at home.

A fanfare of trumpets rang out above the babble and the laughter. Fans were closed, flirtations broken off. Luz turned in her seat; all eyes were fixed on the corner where the Calle de Serpientes turns into the plaza. Down the narrow street, out into the full light of the square, rode a troop of resplendent cavalry,—white Andalusian horses with delicate, high-stepping feet, men who sat straight in the saddle, in spite of rich trappings and gorgeous uniforms. Thepenitentesfollowed, sombre, masked men in long, purple velvet gowns, the train folded over the arm, showing violet silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes. From theirtall, pointed caps hung down the antefaces covering the entire head, falling low upon the breast: through the eyeholes one caught the flash of dark eyes. In their gloved hands they carried silver staffs of office ten feet high. Behind walked theNazerenos. The foremost carried a large cross; the others, standards of the order, or flaming torches that smoked and flickered as they walked. Before thepenitentespassed in front of the grand stand, they spread out their trains that trailed behind them on the ground. In the midst of these maskers strode a band of Roman centurions,—helmets, cuirasses, spears, and standards with the familiar S P Q R glancing in the sun. The music to which they marched had a melancholy refrain, a sort of insistant grieving that knocked at the heart.

“The funeral march of Eslava; you will know it well before Easter,” said Pemberton.

“Ai, ai!” A great sigh breathed by a thousand people as the firstpasocame in sight,—a huge float moving, as if miraculously, down the Street of Serpents out into the plaza. On a base of wrought silver, at the height of a man’s shoulder, stood a life-sized statue of the Virgin.

“Nuestra Señora de la Vittoria,” murmured Concepcion.

The statue, of painted wood, was sumptuouslydressed. The front of her robe was of costly lace; over this fell from the shoulders a train of black velvet, two yards long, heavily embroidered in gold arabesques. The hair was real. On the head sparkled a stupendous diamond crown. Slowly, slowly the float drew near, wrapped in a cloud of incense from the censers of thepenitentes. A rain of flowers fell from window and balcony; the velvet and gold baldequin over the Virgin’s head was almost hidden by lilies and roses. At her feet were flaunting daffodils in silver vases, and row on row of blazing candles at various heights. She was covered from throat to waist with superb jewels, strings of pearls, diamonds, and sapphires. Her wrists were laden with bracelets, in her hand she carried a lace pocket handkerchief. As she entered the plaza a tremendous peal shook the soft air; the vast green bells of the Giralda seemed to fling themselves like live creatures towards Mary. The glitter of the gewgaws, the glow of the candles lighted up the face, showed the tears (pearls of great price) on the cheeks, the beauty and tenderness of the expression.

“A masterpiece by the sculptor, Montañes, the friend of Velasquez,” said Pemberton. In spite of all the frippery of the dress you feel the hand of the master sculptor in the painted statue. The

THE SCULPTOR MARTINEZ MONTANES.VelasquezPORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST’S SONGreco

loving, tender face, the feminine outstretched arms divinely express the eternal womanly.

“Miré, Miré, Vd! el Rey y la Reina!” whispered Concepcion. She had not been too much engrossed to see the young King and his mother take their places. Thepasoturned slowly as if on a pivot till the queen celestial faced the queen terrestrial. The King uncovered and saluted, the Queen Mother, Cristina Maria, courtesied,—so they stood facing each other for a single heart-beat, then the King left the dais, walked down into the plaza, and took his place at the head of those masked men.

“Don Alfonzo is the Elder Brother of the Confraternity of the Cigar Makers,” whispered Concepcion. “See, he escorts their patron, our Lady of Victory, through the plaza.”

To the mournful grieving of Eslava’s dirge, the Virgin of the cigar makers, escorted by the King, disappeared on the way to her station in the cathedral.

“Te dea major eris!” murmured Pemberton, “so they carried Salambo through Seville. I hope you admired the dress; it was new this year, a present from the ladies of Seville. It cost one hundred and fifty thousandpesetas; I know because I helped pay for it. You saw there were bread riots last week, not fifty miles from here?It’s the old spirit of Seville, the spirit that built the cathedral during the hundred years when Spain was pouring out blood and money like water in defence of the faith. We can always get what we really want in Seville, and most other places!”

During the long waits between the acts of the drama of the Passion, the little dramas of every-day life went on all around us. In the boxes the young people looked into each other’s eyes, theduennasmanœuvred, encouraged the eligible, frowned on the ineligible. A slim young officer in a cloak slipped a note into Luz’s hand as he passed her box, and only the Franciscan saw it. In the crowd below, the flirt of an orange skirt challenged beauty in the grand stand.

“Imperio, the dancing girl,” said Pemberton. “She’s come home for the fêtes. That old fellow, her father, is the crack matador tailor; he makes all Bombito’s toggery.”

“Miré,” whispered Concepcion, “The Lord dressed in a handsome tunic of cloth of silver, embroidered in gold.”

The entry into Jerusalem, a realistic float, was passing. It represented the Master mounted on an ass, Peter, John, and Sant Iago kneeling before him. This was followed by a largepaso, illustrating the Betrayal in the Garden. Peter, sword inhand, Judas—he was always dressed in yellow, the color of treachery—the Roman soldiers as well as the Christ, are all the work of Montañes. It is said that Montañes while he was at work on this, often got up at night to look at it, and was once overheard to say, “How could I have done anything so beautiful?” In spite of the Master’s ruby velvet robe and the tawdry gilt rays behind his head, the thing took hold of one, the picture “bit” into the memory plate and will not easily be erased. There was a moment of silence as the scenes of the Passion were presented in these wonderful vivid pictures, but as soon as each paso swung by the grand stand, the laughter and flirtation began again. The tragicpasoof the Crucifixion was escorted by a brotherhood of boypenitentesfollowed by a band of child musicians. Directly behind the cross marched a tiny drummer in uniform, beating a big drum. If he was not a dwarf, he could not have been more than four years old.

“What a funny little boy!” murmured Concepcion, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. The supreme scene of the Crucifixion, the figures all by Roldan, the sculptor who spares no grim detail of pain, was followed by stifled laughter. The merriment struck an awful anti-climax.

“Remember,” Pemberton explained, “you areseeing this thing for the first time; these people have seen it all their lives; familiarity breeds, not contempt, but a certain callousness. The young women are so strictly guarded, you must not blame them if they ‘make eyes’ a little. This is one of their few chances to see and be seen.”

“Do you make as much of Christmas as of Holy Week?” I asked Concepcion, to turn the conversation. “Which is the greaterfiesta?”

“There are three greatfiestasof the Church,” she answered, “but Christmas is, undoubtedly, the greatest. There is a saying, ‘Who does not fast on the vigil of Christmas is either a Turk or a dog.’ This is true for people of our religion, for at midnight the Niño Jesus was born. I do not know how it is with you, for we are Catholics and you are Christians.”

“In what does the difference lie?”

“In the manner of baptism. You are baptized all over in a great vat with water only; we, with water, oil, and salt that is put in the mouth. There are also other ceremonies,—there is the godmother who holds the candle.”

“What are the Christmas services like?”

“Ah, you must return, if only to see the dancing of theseisesin the cathedral. I am told this can be seen only at Seville. Theseisesare boys, who wear curious dresses and long blond curls.It is an ancient custom,—my husband says, in memory of the Israelites dancing before the ark, but I think differently.”

“At one time there was an effort to break up the dance of theseises,” Pemberton interrupted. “Some busybody complained to the Pope that it was a heathenish thing. The result of the meddling was a papal bull ordering that the dancing should stop when the dresses were worn out. That was long and long ago; the dresses have not worn out yet. They are renewed a piece at a time, one year a sleeve, another year a cap, so the day has never come when they are completely outworn. Ourseisesstill dance at Christmas, Corpus Christi, and the feast of the Conception—that’s my wife’sfiesta, you know.”

“The Christmas ceremonies in the villages are also interesting,” said Concepcion. “I once saw a procession when the Niño Jesus was carried through the streets. It was a very large image, the size of a big baby. It had a beautiful head, and was nicely swaddled. One Christmas as they were carrying him on his procession (this was years and years ago), there was a quarrel in the crowd and one man stabbed another. The Niño Jesus grew pale and turned his head on one side, so that he might not see that dreadful sight. He has remained in that attitude ever since. I myselfhave seen the Niño. Yes, it was a wonderful happening. It is a much venerated image and has always remained in the care of the good Franciscan monks.”

Concepcion saw that I was interested, that Pemberton was busy explaining things to the others, and, out of the immense goodness of her heart, she went on to speak to me of religious matters.

“I have always heard it said,” she began, “that there are seven religions.”

“I, too, have heard it, indeed, my pastor has written a book on the subject;[1]can you tell me their names?”

“Not all of them. There are Catholics, Christians, and those who worship Mahomet. There are the Israelites,—they have the strangest religion! They worship a calf’s head. In their church they put on the queerest garments, gather round a great calf’s head in the middle, and sing such a curious hymn, ‘Wow, Wow!’ It sounds like that. It would make you laugh, only they will not let you into the synagogue, and if you do just manage to peep in, they drive you out.”

I told her of the wailing of the Jews outside the wall of Jerusalem, hoping to rouse some sympathy for them, but Concepcion could feel none.

“Though,” she acknowledged, “our Lordwasan Israelite. He did not become a Catholic till he was thirty-three years old, when He had Himself baptized by San Juan Battisto. Before that He occupied Himself with preaching His religion.”

I asked Concepcion which of the saints was her especial patron.

“The blessed saints are all very good,” she answered, “but I myself do not put much dependence on them. I place all my hopes on the Virgin.”

As Concepcion talked, the sun went down; long shadows fell across the plaza. The pale rose-colored Giralda glowed a deeper pink in the sunset, and then faded. The new moon came up in the faint lavender sky and hung, a golden scimitar, the evening star beside it, over the tower. In the minaret where the muezzin once cried his shrill “Allah il Allah,” San Miquel and el Cantor, rocked and pealed, saluting each float as it passed.

“See, the crescent and the star over the Giralda,” said Pemberton; “the cross gleams red on the cathedral. Mary reigns in Mahomet’s place, and her robe is worked in the arabesques of the Moors.”

Walking home, we came upon apasoat rest in a side street. The velvet hangings that fall from the base to the ground were parted. We caught a glimpse of the hidden motive power, twenty-fiveor thirty men, with quaint, padded turbans on their heads, the ends hanging down and covering the shoulder. The water seller in his white garments was in attendance. He filled and refilled his glass, passing it to the thirsty bearers, who drank, and mopped their faces silently. The maskedpenitentesstood at ease, fanning themselves, theNazerenostrimmed their torches.

“Vamos!” The leader struck the ground with his silver staff; the velvet hangings fell in place (the embossed pattern was so contrived that the air holes were invisible), and the heavypasomoved steadily down thecalleon the heads and shoulders of those hidden men.

In the processions of Holy Thursday and Good Friday afternoons, the mysteries of the Passion were represented again and again with endless variations. Thepasosseemed to grow more splendid, the dresses and accessories more lavish. The brotherhoods, calledhermandadsorcofradias, have charge of the floats, calledpasosorandas, the statues, and all the paraphernalia of the pageants. There is a certain rivalry between them; some excel in one particular, some in another. One of the treasures I remember was a huge and very beautiful crucifix of tortoise shell and silver. The dresses ofpenitentesandNazerenoswere never alike; some were in white with bluemasks, some in black and silver. They all followed the same plan, the head and face were so disguised that it was impossible to recognize the man in the penitent’s dress. TheHermandadofNuestro Padre Jesus de la Passion, founded in the sixteenth century, is the oldest brotherhood. In its early days theHermanos de Sanguescourged themselves as they walked barefoot through the streets. Those who carried the torches were distinguished from the flagellants by the titleHermanos de Luz.

“Brothers of light,” Pemberton translated it. “Who would not be glad to deserve such a title? To be a true ‘Brother of light!’”

“Hark, Pan pipes!” said J., “don’t you hear that lovely thin music of the shepherd’s flute?”

“Here in Seville? Is it possible?”

“Why not? All things are possible when you are living half in the tenth century, half in the twentieth!”

The sylvan melody, shrilling louder, pierced the city’s drone. At our gate the piper paused and played his little tune again. He was a tall young man with a bold eye and a gay lilt of the head.His blue apron was tucked under his jacket, he wore a red rose behind his ear. There was something free and debonair about him that spoke the youth of the world; his music stirred the blood. I could have followed him and his pipe through the streets without a thought of the business of the day.

“A wandering knife grinder from La Mancha,” said J., pulling out his sketchbook. “Find some scissors or something for him to sharpen. Can’t you keep him busy a moment, while I try to draw him?”

He would not stay; you cannot deceive a Manchegan. He saw at a glance there was “nothing doing” for him in our patio; sounded his flute and went lightly on his way, his wheel at his back. If knives were to grind, he was ready to grind them even on afiesta grandelike Holy Thursday.

Before his music was out of earshot, Concepcion appeared at the gate, a pink japonica in her hair, her fan the same color, a shade darker. Behind her, like a tall, thin shadow, came Pemberton.

“Another fan? Do you never carry the same twice?”

“Oh, yes, she has to, poor child,” said Pemberton. “She possesses only fifty-five fans; Luz, I hear, owns three hundred and fifty. You’re feeling fit, I hope? We have a long day before us. We go first to San Lorenzo to see the monument,—sepulchre you call it in Italy. Concepcion says we shall be in time to see the arrival of the royal party. They must go on foot like the rest of us to-day; not a bell may ring, not a wheel turn in all Seville, this week, from Wednesday night till Saturday noon.”

Only the wheel of the Brother of Light, the wandering knife grinder of La Mancha!

The Plaza San Lorenzo was filled with people, the trees with small boys; a mannerly crowd with no hoodlums; indeed, I think the genus does not exist in Spain. Soon the word was passed: “They are coming.” The throng shifted, a way was made for the king’s halberdiers, fierce men with twisted moustachios and bronzed skins, the very flower of the army. Their duty is to guard, day and night, the person of the King. The civil governor, Lopez Balesteros, followed with his aides, and the Alcalde of Seville, a bulky, puffing man. His gown and his fat made it hard for him to keep the pace of those tough, quick-marching swashbucklers. Last, surrounded by his major domos of the week and his gentlemen of the chamber, the King, long of leg, slender of body, with the heavy, underhung jaw, the slovenly nether lip of the Hapsburgs, a boyish dignity, and a frank smile all his own. He wore a smart uniform with a white plumed helmet.

PORTRAIT OF PHILIP II.Coello

“Don Alfonzo has as many incarnations as Jupiter,” said Pemberton. “To-day he is a major general of cavalry. Notice that gold chain and tell me, if you can, what it is.”

The chain, wide and flat, with elaborately wrought links, was flung over the King’s shoulders. From it hung a little gold animal uncomfortably tied by the middle; its head and legs all flopping down in a dreadful way, like a horse being hoisted on board ship.

“By the great horn spoon!” cried Patsy; “it’s the grand order of the Golden Fleece! I would rather own that than be King of Spain.”

The golden toy hung on the young King’s breast just as it hangs in Alonzo Coello’s portrait of Philip II. Beside the King walked his mother—she looks a bigot worthy of Philip’s house—and his sister, the Infanta Maria Teresa, enough like him, in spite of her white mantilla, to be his twin.

Sanchez Lozano, Elder Brother of the Parish Confraternity, José Ponce, the archpriest, and half a dozen other bigwigs met the royalties at the door of San Lorenzo. The bigwigs made oration, long and loud, the King took off his helmet and mopped his crimson face. It was a cruelly hot day for the season.

“They work the boy hard,” said Pemberton. “He was at the cathedral at half past nine, thismorning, and led the procession to deposit the Host in the monument. Next he went to the church of San Salvador; this is his third sepulchre. They have walked him all over the place; warm work in that thick uniform. If every Spaniard earned his salt as honestly as Don Alfonzo, Spain would not be where she is to-day.”

Pemberton heard afterwards, from one of the Brothers, what passed in the church while we waited in the plaza. The King, after praying by the sepulchre, a flower-decked, candle-lighted space before the altar, and admiring thepasosof the Virgin of Solitude and the Christ of Great Power, talked with the elder Brother, asked if he too, walked masked in the procession of penitence. Sanchez Lozano said that he did, and reminded Don Alfonzo that Isabel II, the King’s grandmother, and Ferdinand VII, his great grandfather, had been members of this Brotherhood. The King and the Infanta, without more ado, took the oath and signed the articles of the Brotherhood.

“Of course it had all been cut, dried, and smoked beforehand,” Pemberton added. “Royalty does not often have an opportunity to enjoy the unforeseen!”

When they came out of church, the King had faded to a healthy pink; we no longer fearedapoplexy for him. The gorgeous, sweating company crossed the plaza, the crowd cheered, the ladies in the balconies clapped hands and waved ’kerchiefs.

“Come,” said Pemberton, “to see beauty, follow in a monarch’s wake. We shall find the handsomest women of Seville inside the church.”

A dozen ladies, their flushed, excited faces reflecting the royal smile, clustered about the sad Virgin. A señorita, in black gauze with pink camelias in her hair and bodice, tapped a silver money tray with a copper coin:

“Did they desire to purchase a photograph of our Lady?” She spoke to me, she looked at Patsy.

A nun in a coarse habit passed; the rough woolen of her gown caught in the hem of the young lady’s silk dress, and showed a pair of little feet in flesh-colored silk stockings and satin shoes.

“At the feet of the young lady,” said Patsy, “I desire greatly to purchase a photograph. Will she do me the divine favor of choosing?”

“I kiss the hand of the horseman. It appears this large one is the most good; it is, as well, the more dear.”

The slight lisp, the smell of jasmines, the turn of wrist, as the pink fan opened and shut, were all familiar. Where—when—had we seen her? Patsy knew: it was Luz of the agate eyes!

I forget what day it was that Pemberton and I stayed at the cathedral after mass to hear the Archbishop’s sermon, but this seems a good time to tell about it. The Archbishop was a refined, silvery old ascetic, who looked like Cardinal Newman. He preached as the students of the Theatre Français talk, as if speech were first a fine art, second an expression of thought. Pausing now and then from exhaustion, he poured out an eloquent appeal to love the Mother of God. After service the Archbishop was escorted to the episcopal palace near the cathedral, by a sacristan, carrying a silver mace, another with a tall, double cross, and six haughty young priests in new purple silk gowns.

“Do you notice,” asked Pemberton, “the difference between the Italian and the Spanish priests? The Italian looks at you sidelong, when you are not looking; sizes up your feeling about him and his church. Your Spaniard is a bird of a different feather; he doesn’t give a maravedi what you think of him. You are on trial, not he. The only question is, are you what you should be? That he is, there can be no peradventure.”

We joined the crowd of women and beggars following the Archbishop in his fine violet robe, scarlet moire skull-cap, and amethyst cross. A wild-eyed woman with a bruised face threw herselfat his feet, holding up a despairing hand as if in appeal. Tired and feeble, the old man paused patiently, and said some words of fatherly comfort. She kissed the great sapphire on his transparent old hand and drew back weeping, as if ashamed.

“The heart of man changeth not,” said Pemberton. “In the days of the Inquisition there were priests tender-hearted as the Archbishop. He could not send a cat to torture or the stake. That big priest, with the brutal jaw, the one who limps, looks cruel as Torquemada; he would condemn a man to la Parra (the dungeon in the Bishop’s Palace over there) as quick as winking—if he could!”

The shadow on the sun-dial over the palace door pointed to twelve. We followed the women into the handsome courtyard, hung with blue and striped hangings, and watched the Archbishop totter feebly up the fine marble stair. At the door he turned and gave the episcopal blessing, two fingers raised, and went indoors with his escort. He was followed by people bearing gifts of fruit and cakes. Four strong men carried up a large tray of yellow frosted pyramids stuck all over with candied cherries.

“Red and yellow, the Spanish colors,” said Pemberton. “I hope Torquemada and the others stay to luncheon and eat up those pyramids; they would not be good for the Archbishop.”

On Holy Thursday afternoon, the ceremony of the Washing of Feet was celebrated in the cathedral. The King, it was said, would take the first rôle; the Archbishop, however, officiated in his place. On a platform before the high altar stood the benches for the apostles. The twelve poor old men who impersonated them came toddling in, each carrying a clean, fringed towel over his shoulder. They took the shoe and stocking from the right foot. One old fellow, Concepcion’s friend, the beggar at the cathedral door, was so infirm that he could scarcely untie his shoe. He persisted bravely, though, and to him Torquemada, who assisted the Archbishop, first presented the silver basin. The pauper placed his foot in it, Torquemada poured water from a silver flagon; the old Archbishop, kneeling, kissed the beggar’s foot.

“Isn’t it a pleasant ceremony?” said Pemberton. “Poor old chaps, no wonder they look so proud. To-day they have dined with the Archbishop in his palace, and those fine new clothes are their very own for keeps.”

The service was followed by the singing of thetenebrae. It was growing dark in the cathedral; all the light and color were concentrated in thecoro, glowing like a live jewel in the centre of the shadowy church. An aged crone, a batteredderelict on life’s stream, drifted by, touching here and there at altar and at shrine, as at so many friendly ports. She came to anchor before our Lady of Good Counsel, and took out her rosary. At everypater nostershe kissed her beads. Those pathetic, mumbling old lips must have had sore need of something to kiss. She pressed them over and over again on the cold glass that covered a little chromo of Our Lady of Good Counsel, set conveniently low in the wall, for the kisses of the forlorn old lips that missed perhaps the warm cheeks of child or grandchild. Outside thecoro, below the black veil that hung before the altar, stood the vast bronzetenebrium, with its fifteen great candles. An acolyte with a long torch kindled the candles, and the first lamentation rang through the cathedral. One by one, as each pitiful lament commemorating the suffering and death of Christ trailed into silence, a candle was extinguished, till the fourteen symbolical of the apostles were all put out. It grew darker and darker; at last only the taper at the top remained alight in memory of Christ, the unquenchable light of the world.

Later that evening we returned to the cathedral for the miserere. The Calle de Sierpes was filled with a holiday crowd. In the balconies outside the cafés, at the street corners, were groups of young and old, little children, graybeards, andgrandams; during Holy Week it seemed that nobody in Seville went to bed.

“El Liberal!” A newsboy offered the sheet, wet from the press.

“Agua, agua fresca!” The grave water seller followed close on his heels.

“Dos por uno perro chico,” cried a correct old man, with beautifully curled silver hair and beard, selling shoe laces. A woman who looked like a caryatid, with a basket of royal purple flags on her head, bought a pair of laces. A young girl with a dimple, carrying her boots in one hand and two large dried codfish in the other, accidentally jostled me. The caryatid, evidently her mother, cried, “Cuidada!” rather sharply.

“Dispense V.,” said the dimple, blushing and distressed at the mischance.

“Manos blancas no ofendan” (white hands never hurt), said Pemberton.

“What good manners these people have!” I said, as we passed on, leaving the girl still under the shadow of the caryatid’s displeasure.

“The finest manners in the world,” Pemberton agreed.

In the cathedral flickering torches shone on a vast congregation met to hear Eslava’s miserere: matadors, gypsies, nuns, babies, beggars, beauties of court and theatre. Every girl in amantilla looked a heroine, every lad with a straight back, a hero, in that witchery of light and shadow. From our places neither orchestra nor musicians were in sight, only solemn columns, long aisles, and twinkling lamps before pictured Nativity and Pietá. Two votive candles were burning before Santa Teresa, showing the wax ex-votos of little hands, legs, and feet, hanging from long braids of hair around the shrine. Near thepuerta mayora blaze of glory shone from the white and gold monument over the tomb of Ferdinand Columbus, where the Host had been that morning deposited to remain till the first mass on Saturday morning, surrounded by kneeling monks.

“I fancy,” said Pemberton, “that here, in the cathedral where he was chapel master, Eslava planned his miserere,—caught, while he sat dreaming at the organ, the divine harmonies it repeats.”

The twin organs called and answered each other, the deep notes thrilled and thundered through the aisles. The clear boy voices scaled the heights of song; the mellow altos held the middle ground, the deep basses welded voices, organs, instruments, into a full glorious harmony that swept the soul. The miserere over, one by one the greatpasosof the afternoon’s procession, taking on a new and awful beauty in the dim cathedral, swung slowlydown the aisle, halting at the monument on the way to their several stations.

“This seems to link Columbus with thefiestas,” said Pemberton, “and makes me feel that I, too, have some part in them,—he is so much more ours than theirs!”

As we came down the steps of the cathedral, we passed the knife grinder of La Mancha. He had taken off his apron, and left his pipe and wheel at home. As he strolled along under the burning stars, he hummed a snatch of the music we had just heard, and hummed it correctly.

“Rich and poor, vagrant and King, there is room for us all in the Heart of Seville,” sighed Pemberton.

Good Friday

That night the King slept in the old palace of the Alcazar. Did he sleep? In the gardens the nightingales were singing to split their throats; palms and orange trees rustled, fountains whispered of things that might well keep a lover awake. Here in the old palace of the Moorish kings lived the beautiful Maria del Padilla, beloved of Pedro the Cruel. Here died the royal Moor, Abu Said, murdered by his host, Don Pedro, for his jewels. The rarest, the great spinel ruby, Pedro gave toEdward, the Black Prince. Henry V wore it in his helmet at Agincourt,—to-day it glows in the front of England’s royal crown. England, always England! How often, for good or evil, the fates of the reigning houses of Spain and England have intertwined!

“Ena,” sang the nightingales; “Ena,” rippled the fountain,—for the King was a lover. If he slept that night it must have been to dream of the yellow hair and the blue eyes of the English princess who, one happy day, shall wander with him through the mazes, gather the roses of that matchless garden of the Alcazar.

There was serious business for Don Alfonzo that Good Friday morning. As he came down to the patio (passing the splendid chamber where Maria de Padilla bathed, and where Don Pedro’s courtiers showed their gallantry by drinking the water of her bath), the drums and fifes of his halberdiers sounded the royal march. Lopez Ballesteros, the Governor, was waiting; with him, Garcia Pierto, Minister of Grace and Justice. Preceded by the halberdiers, followed by the Court, they all set off together for the cathedral. The way was lined by soldiers with furled flags. In thecapilla mayora throne had been placed for the King; here he sat with his grandees and generals (one of them called Pacheco, a descendant,perhaps, of the old painter, writer, and familiar of the Inquisition, who taught Velasquez), and listened to the singing of the Passion. The great Crucifix of Montañes was then uncovered, and the royal party moved to thecoro, where the King performed the act of adoration, and made his offering of an ounce of gold.

At the act of adoration, Don Alfonzo was confronted by his Minister of Justice, carrying a basketful of parchment scrolls, each tied with a black ribbon.

“Señor,” said the Minister, “do you pardon the condemned felons whose names are written here?”

“I pardon them, that God may pardon me,” answered the King. One by one he untied the black ribbons and retied the scrolls with white silk cord.

The wild woman with the bruised face the Archbishop had comforted that day in the street, had forced herself as near the front as the guard allowed. She peered between two halberdiers, watching the ceremony with desperate eyes. Was the name she loved among the fourteen names of felons condemned to death, written on those white decrees of pardon?

“Did you ever,” asked Pemberton, “see a ceremony so touching, so human, in the dead cathedrals of England, or even in St. Peter’s?”

PORTRAIT OF VELASQUEZ, BY HIMSELF.PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST’S WIFE.Velasquez

We left by the Door of the Lizard, passing under the big stuffed crocodile that gives the name.

“See that horrid beast!” said Concepcion. “A present from the Sultan of Turkey to Alonzo el Savio, whose daughter he wished to marry. I think our Don Alfonzo will take nicer presents when he starts for England to-morrow.”

I asked if the people were pleased with the proposed marriage.

“Mad about it,” said Pemberton. “The Princess Ena will have a warm welcome; may she bring as good luck as Elenor Plantagenet brought, when she came to marry Alfonzo III of Castille. Their daughter Berenguela (she was a rare one), joined Leon and Castille, and practically laid the foundation of United Spain. Look for the woman, you know, and you will find her at the bottom of most things practical!”

On the borderland of sleep that night, I was overtaken and called back to earth by the wail of Eslava’s dirge. I sprang up and ran to the balcony to watch the passing of a midnight procession. It was very late, the air was chill, the stars pale, thecalledeserted, save for thepenitentesandNazerenos(hidalgosall) in white gowns, black antefaces, and scapularies. On the firstpasostood the Virgin of Solitude, who, by rule of the order, may only be absent from thechurch of San Lorenzo for the two hours after midnight on Good Friday. The secondpasorepresented Calvary. The body of the Christ nailed to the cross shone pale and ghastly in the torchlight; the footsteps of the masked men sounded like muffled drums in the funeral march. Before the Christ walked a female penitent representing Santa Veronica: her hair fell over her shoulders in a dark flood. She carried in extended hands the handkerchief, whereon, the legend says, the Master dried his face on his way through the Street of Sorrows, leaving the impress of His features on the linen. A second penitent followed the cross, a young woman all in white, who personified Mary Magdalen, carrying a box of ointment. There was something familiar about this Magdalen. As she passed, a rose fell from a balcony, catching in her curls. She looked up; could it be Concepcion, walking so painfully with bare feet over the rough cobbles?

Sabbado de Gloria

“Vayan Vds. con Dios,” said the beggar at the cathedral door, lifting the heavy leather curtain for us.

The black veil still hung before the altar, the bells had not yet spoken. Life seemed at a standstill. There was no present, only the momentouspast, in the Heart of Seville that bright Saturday of Glory. In thecoroa pair of stooping, weedy old men—twin brothers—with ancient bassoons under their arms, several violins, flutes, and bass viols, added their music to the voices of the choir. There was an acute sense of waiting, of holding the breath in anticipation of some great event. Concepcion was very silent. There were dark rings under her dovelike eyes. In a moment all was changed. The bells of the Giralda burst out in sudden clamor. Thunder once again rolled through the cathedral, the black veil parted and fell to the ground, revealing theretabloof Dancart. In this wonderful altar-piece the sculptor has carved in larchwood the story of the life whose last hours on earth Seville has been living over again during the last three days! It is all here, told once again in faithful, loving art. Instead of wandering from chapel to shrine to read it pictured in marble, wood, color, miniature, and fine needlework,—an Annunciation here, a Nativity there, it is all here in theretabloillustrated by a series of marvellous wood carvings. Concepcion studied them with me, pointing out her favorite panels.

“Behold the blessed Saint Anne, the grandmother of God, San José, husband of Nuestra Señora. These be Peter and Paul,—two of our saints.”

“They are saints of us all,” Pembertoninterrupted, “Christians as well as Catholics. Peter and Paul pray for us all!”

Concepcion was glad of that. “You asked,” she said, confidentially to me, “something of the blessed saints. At the convent where I was educated, they have a great reverence for San José. Last year the nuns were in much need of a house in the country where they might go in summer. So they tied a little house around the neck of the statue of San José. Well, what do you think? Last August a lady died and left the convent her country house. Would you believe it? The house is exactly like the little house the sisters tied about San José’s neck. The other day, being in great need of a pig, they tied a small pig about the saint’s neck. That prayer has not been answered, but the sisters are sure that they will have their pig before the month of Mary is over.”

“Prophecies sometimes fulfill themselves,” said Pemberton. “What Concepcion tells you is perfectly true; I know the house; it is just possible some one in the convent knew it, too. Do not say so to Concepcion. If she had not ‘taken up’ with me, she might, some day, have been the prioress of that convent.”

Domingo de la Resurrecion

There was little sleep in Seville the night ofSabbado de Gloria! The streets were crowded, the music and the laughter only stopping when the Easter bells began to ring. Under our windows three boys squatted on the ground playing at cards and rattling dice. They were “flush of cash”;perro chicosandgrandesclinked as they changed hands.

“Cacahuete!” cried the peanut man. The largest cardplayer bought a double handful of nuts, dividing them fairly with the other two.

“Eá! los altramuzes!” The seller of lupins, a peasant in a brown capa, stopped at the hail. After some haggling, the second sized boy laid in a stock of the large green lupin beans the people eat at all odd times of day and night. Thechicosmunched their lupins, spat, and munched again, their game ofbriscagoing cheerfully on, not without some discussion. The smallest lad, he who wore a working blouse and a blue cap, won heavily. At the end of the hand he scooped the coppers into his pocket, scrambled to his feet and strolled jauntily away singing:

“En los sopas y amores los primeros son los mejores” (with soups and with loves, the first are the best).

“Vengo sofocado!” (I suffocate with rage) cried the big boy who had lost most. “Maldita sia tu estampa!” (accursed be thy beastly portrait).

Was he mean enough to draw out of the gamewhen he was winning? The winner crossed the street, loitered outside a sweets shop opposite, flattened his snub nose against the pane, and gazed at the goodies. At last he entered the shop, reappearing with a paper bag full of sweets of Jijona, cakes of almond paste and honey. The cakes were shared equally, the big boy shuffled the cards, the little one “shook” for deal, and the interrupted game ofbriscabegan again.

Let into the wall of the corner house was a shrine with a lamp before it. The light fell on the face of a pretty girl behind the iron bars of the lower window. She was talking eagerly with a soldier standing outside in the street, a lover, plucking the hen turkey, as the saying goes.

Easter morning we went to the cathedral by the sacristy, filled with kneeling women in black mantillas. A long line of penitents waited outside each confessional: as we came in, Torquemada slipped into the one nearest the door. At the altar rail knelt a row of communicants. An old priest and a young server walked up and down the ever recruited line, administering the communion. The server carried a lighted candle, the priest a gold chalice with the wafer. At each communicant they stopped, the priest took a wafer from the ciborium, made the sign of the cross, and placed it in the mouth of the person before him.

“See how quiet all this is,” said Pemberton; “and this is the real thing! Now for the cathedral, the stage of the church, the last act of the drama. Nowhere in the world can you see so splendid a mass as you will see to-day.”

Archpriests and priests were glorious in priceless embroidered vestments. Boys and acolytes must have been chosen for their beauty. The little fellows were like cherubs; the elder lads, like angels. The boys stood in groups of three, the candles burned in threes; theretablowas lighted by trios of candles,—the mystic number was repeated at every point. On the lower altar steps stood the scarlet and ivory altar boys, each holding a mighty silver candlestick, so tall that the base of the candle stood at the height of the shoulder, and the winged silver angel supporting the taper rose far above the head. From every spire of the greatretablosprang a crucifix, the highest towering up in to the dim roof. Under this crucifix was a painted, wooden group of Virgin and Child. Directly below, in a straight line, one behind the other, stood the three celebrants in their Easter splendor. At one side blazed the vast paschal candle.

“It is of the most fine wax,” Concepcion whispered, “and of the weight of twelve kilos.”

At the moment of the elevation, two stiff, gawkytourists, Germans, I think, stood by, guidebook in hand, staring at the ceremony with no pretence of being anything but spectators.

The Archbishop held up the wafer in his transparent old hands; thick clouds of incense rose; at every tinkle of the golden mass bells, Concepcion, kneeling beside me, crouched lower. A young deacon in a white robe motioned the outlanders to kneel. They paid no attention; he approached and whispered what he had said in pantomime; again they refused. Then, like a young archangel, he drove them from the place with his silver staff. They shrugged stiff, protesting shoulders, and moved on.

Mass over, a procession formed. Two cherubs walking backwards, held open the illuminated missal for the Archbishop to read the prayers; followed Torquemada and the other priests, the old canons from thecoro, the choristers, their long goffered white sleeves folded over their arms, their black letter scores held between them, singing as they walked, to the bassoon accompaniment of those two old weedy brothers. Near a gigantic, faded fresco of Saint Christopher, the ferryman with the Niño Jesus on his arm, they stopped beside the tomb of Columbus, a brand new bronze monument in the aisle that makes the right arm of the cross—a place of high honor. Here the first prayerwas recited. We waited by the tomb, watched the procession with the glittering cross, the lights, the incense, the booming bassoons, move slowly down the aisle, stopping at one and another of the chapels.

“As a work of art that monument is simply impossible,” said Pemberton; “humanly, it means something. You catch the idea? Those four kings in armor stand for Castille, Leon, Arragon, and Granada. In that sarcophagus they bear on their shoulders lies what is left of the dust of Columbus.”

A vision of life’s morning came back to me! The cathedral at Santo Domingo City on Easter day; my father, my mother, and myself standing by the place in the worn brick pavements that then covered the dust of the Great Admiral. There had been a mass, with incense and candles, and splendid priests, that Easter in Hispaniola, and we had watched, in the plaza before the cathedral, Judas burned in effigy!

“Columbus was born to wander!” said Pemberton. “Even his poor bones have no rest. From Valladolid, where he died, they were taken to Seville; from Seville to Santo Domingo; from Santo Domingo to Havana; from there,—read the inscription, that tells the story.

“Quando la ingrata America se emancipe de la madre España, Sevilla obtuvo el deposito de losrestos de Colon y su ayutamiente eligio este monumento.”

“The sculptor was a poor artist and a good Spaniard,” said Pemberton. “In spite of the thing’s being so baroque, taken with the inscription, and the date, 1901, it is moving; it expresses the pride and humiliation of this brave people who won the new world only to lose it. I tell my friends here that the loss of Cuba and the Philippines was the dawn of a renaissance, the beginning of a new Spain. It was cutting back the vine that had gone to wood. Now the sap runs, there is new life, fresh growth. Knockdown blows are what men and nations need to get up their muscle. He said it,—your father: ‘Obstacles are things to be overcome!’”

The pigeons fluttered in and out of the Giralda, careless of the great bells swinging to and fro, and the shadow of their wings wove a new pattern on the face of the roseate tower.

“Christ is risen!” The bells rang out the triumphant pean. A shadow larger than that cast by a dove’s wing passed over the face of the Giralda.

“Take Concepcion home with you,” said Pemberton, quickly, in English; “she did not see it. Do not, if you can help it, tell her.” He led the way to a side street, made some excuse to his wife,

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