Читать книгу The Royal Road to Romance - Richard Halliburton - Страница 9

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It was an extraordinary introduction. I had gone to bed on Friday night in a Barcelona pension, more dead than alive from the three devastating days of travel by foot and train from Andorra, and by Sunday morning was still sleeping off Pyrenean fatigue when the piercing nasal whine and drumbeats of an Algerian orchestra, beginning suddenly to rend the heavens in a near-by square, brought me back to consciousness. Before I was fully awake the lilt and wild rhythm of the Oriental bagpipes had set my toes to dancing. Such stirring music was irresistible. I waltzed out of bed, hornpiped to my bath, boleroed into my clothes, fandangoed to breakfast, cancaned out the front door, and mazurkaed down the street in search of those mad, mad pipes. I found them playing furiously on a platform in the Plaza de la Paz, surrounded by circles of Spanish idiots doing the most ridiculous dance I’d ever seen. A circle consisted of from three to thirty dancers, holding hands shoulder-high, and revolving with a slight dip of the knee four steps to the left and then four steps back again. The groups moved with perfect unity, every member reversing direction on the same note, and bobbing up and down at the same instant. I laughed out loud at such an inane spectacle. Nevertheless something must be done about that tantalizing music. I simply couldn’t stand still, so, looking furtively around to be sure there was no other American on hand, I jumped into a stepping sextet and soon caught the simple movement.

It was a most ludicrous sensation. The very seriousness of the dancers was absurd. There was not a word spoken or a smile smiled as the thousand people, not a twentieth of them women, stepped and dipped to the right, stepped and dipped to the left, with oppressive solemn dignity. Entire circles, including my own, were made up of men, all holding hands and all wearing their hats. Although I was continually uneasy for fear some one I knew should catch me doing this, I was as disappointed as any when the music stopped.

As my circle broke up, I saw the young man next to me reach into his pocket and pull out a fiery red English edition of Baedeker’s Spain and Portugal. Minerva’s owl! What was a dancing Barcelonan doing with that! The horrible truth dawned upon me—He was not a Barcelonan; he was an American examining his guide-book.

“Didn’t you feel silly doing that fool dance?” I asked him abruptly.

He almost dropped his Baedeker.

“Why—why, of course,” he said, looking unutterably sheepish. Then, with an afterthought, he added: “But see here, my lad, you were doing it too!”

We agreed never to tell.

“Name and occupation?” he demanded with mock officiousness.

“Halliburton—horizon chaser. Yours?”

“Paul McGrath—Chicago—architecture student.”

Evening found the architecture student and the horizon chaser celebrating their Terpsichorean meeting, appropriately in a music-hall, and shouting “bravo” at Gracia, and showering her with centime pieces and coffee spoons. Gracia! Never was a girl named so appropriately—Grace. Never did a girl dance with such joyousness. She was about seventeen, a true rose from Andalusia, seemingly unspoiled and uncoarsened by her Barcelona music-hall environment. When she first walked before the footlights there was supreme indifference and aloofness in her manner as if to say: “I do not know whether I shall condescend to dance or not.” A noisy ovation from the pit encouraged her. Yes, perhaps she would. Her castanets were adjusted; she stamped the floor scornfully with her heels. There was a burst of music, and Gracia threw herself into the wildest, most spirited dance abandon ever seen on the Iberian peninsula including Portugal. Her flashing black eyes and superbly agile limbs would have melted a slug of pig-iron. This young Spanish flower took the music-hall by storm. Every one cheered and applauded and showered her, as is the Spanish custom, with coins, caps, cigarettes, coffee spoons, while one man from a box above, in a delirium of delight, took off his coat and dropped it at her feet as if he had been Sir Walter Raleigh and she Queen Elizabeth. We had never before seen so electrifying a dancer. Perhaps she was Salome come back to life—at least we could find out by visiting the adjoining ballroom, where after the entertainment was over, she acted as one of the hostesses.

She was there, but, oh, how changed. Her glistening black hair had been freshly frizzed. She wore a severe tailored suit becoming a woman of fifty. A stiff ugly hat, pulled low over her forehead completely hid her expressive eyes. We groaned to see our Rose of Andalusia turned into a would-be-chic Parisian. We were to groan many times again during our succeeding six weeks in this country as the Spain of our dreams was brutally supplanted by the Spain of reality. I had thought of Spain as a land filled with art, lilting music and romantic adventure—the Spain that used to be. Disillusionment began with this first glimpse of Gracia in a Sears-Roebuck street dress.

But we could not surrender our first impression of her without a struggle. The music-hall proprietor introduced us and by the closing hour we had learned that her sophistication was only costume deep. She was really as naive and ingenuous in manner as we had hoped. She spoke not a word of English, and while Paul chatted away in the most fluent Castilian, I was confined to expressions out of my “How-to-speak-Spanish-in-five-minutes” book.

The next afternoon it was agreed that if she would leave her Paris hat at home and wear a mantilla—oh, yes, and bring her castanets—we would take her for a drive in the park.

Afternoons such as that happen only once in a lifetime. We three had a victoria open to the sky and sunshine. Paul brought his mandolin (which, like Irvine’s dumb-bell exerciser, he carried everywhere), and I a basket supper from my pension. We found a shady spot in the municipal park and dismissed the carriage. Gracia was in the gayest humor; she sang all the songs she knew, while Paul supplied the music, playing everything from Chinese hymns of the second century to Irving Berlin’s latest jazz-time. She spent an hour teaching me castanet technique, and ended by contributing her own clickers to the cause of my musical education. Once I had mastered them our artistic unity was complete. Gracia danced, Paul played, I clicked. We grew more and more confident as darkness began to hide us from amazed spectators. Gracia gave an imitation of a colorature soprano, Paul stood on his head and I juggled three lemons. It was unanimously agreed that we should form a company and become wandering minstrels, and perhaps we should have, had Gracia not suddenly remembered that she was due at the music-hall in ten minutes.

Depositing our charming friend at her dressing-room, we bade her a sad farewell, went to the railway-station, and, to compensate for the victoria extravagance, bought our tickets for Valencia third-class.

One who has not traveled third-class in Spain has yet to experience the uttermost depth of discomfort. The twelve hours’ ride on the galloping, oscillating coach would have proved fatal to both of us had Paul not had his inseparable mandolin and I my castanets. All through the weary night he tinkled away his variegated repertoire while I accompanied him with the clickers.

Valencia is the very breath of Spain. The view from the bell-tower of the huge cathedral makes one forget the mud and decadence in the streets. Here December is a brilliant month. There is never a wisp of cloud to be seen. Close about us the ancient white walls glittered, nestled beneath the myriads of exquisite towers, red and gold and gray. Acres of green orange and olive trees stretched to the blue Mediterranean, breaking on the Gibraltar-like Cape of St. Antoine, which rose behind the fleets of white specks sparkling and scudding before the southern breeze.

The glitter of forty Madrids could not have lured Paul away from his golden towers, and so, as I was impatient to visit the capital, I had to go on alone, planning to meet him later at Granada. Twenty-two hours more of third-class travel had to be endured, and without any Paul to while them away on his mandolin. However, my fellow passengers were not bad substitutes. For a part of the journey, a father and his three daughters, aged four, ten and twelve, sat across the aisle and supplied me with a three-ring circus. Getting out the “Five-Minutes” Spanish book I made an attempt at conversation with these chatter-boxes, and thanks to my amazing mispronunciation, succeeded.

“Que preciosos son los aretes que Usted ostenta,” (What beautiful earrings you are wearing) was the initial attack, having first looked it up.

“Black Eyes” the eldest sister, put her dainty hand to her bobbing gold pendants and naively admitted the fact.

“Usted es también muy bella, Señorita,” (you are very beautiful yourself, Señorita).

“Creo que tengo el cabello bonito,” (I think I have pretty hair), she replied artlessly.

“Le daria una peseta por él,” (I’ll give you a peseta for it.) My offer was not accepted, but it made us fast friends.

Then we explored my camera, and since it was empty they could wiggle everything to their heart’s content. Remembering the castanets I dug them from my knapsack, whereupon ten-year-old “Brown Eyes” clapped her hands in delight, slipped the strings over her fingers, and, unable to resist the stimulation of their click, jumped into the aisle. Father and I began to stamp the proper rhythm, and daughter, with a broad grin on her face, threw back her curls and fandangoed and boleroed till she was out of breath. Here was another Gracia in the making. She twirled and swayed; her castanets rolled and syncopated. She had not had a lesson in her life, but what sense of rhythm she had not inherited from centuries of fandangoing forbears she had assimilated from ten years of association. Such grace deserved recognition. I gave her the clickers, Gracia’s clickers—and had the pleasure of seeing before me the happiest child in Spain.

“Adios, Princesita,” I said to her, as she led Butter-Ball off the train at their station.

“Adios, Señor Americano.”

Then as they disappeared across the platform they turned and waved, and from that hour their country was to me a new place. I rode on into the capital in my frightful third-class coach with a light heart. I had fallen in love with Spain.