Letters from Spain

We had just felt the approach of that peculiar kind of ennui which lurks in every corner of an inn, when the sound of a fife and drum, with more of the sporting and mirthful than of the military character, awakened our curiosity. But to ask a question, even at the best Spanish fonda (hotel), you must either exert your lungs, calling the waiter, chambermaid, and landlord, in succession, to multiply the chances of finding one disposed to hear you; or adopt the more quiet method of searching them through the house, beginning at the kitchen. Here, however, we had only to step out of our room and we found ourselves within the cook’s dominions. The best country inns, indeed, consist of a large hall contiguous to the street or road, and paved like the former with round stones. At one end of this hall there is a large hearth, raised about a foot from the ground. A wood-fire is constantly burning upon it, and travellers of all ranks and degrees, who do not prefer moping in their cold, unglazed rooms, are glad to take a seat near it, where they enjoy, gratis, the wit and humour of carriers, coachmen, and clowns, and a close view of the hostess or her maid, dressing successively in the same frying pan, now an omelet of eggs and onions, now a dish of dried fish with oil and love-apples, or it may be the limbs of a tough fowl which but a few moments before had been strutting about the house. The doors of the bed-rooms, as well as that of the stable-yard, all open into the hall. Leaving a sufficient space for carriages and horses to cross from the front door to the stables, the Spanish carriers, or harrieros, who travel in parties of twenty or thirty men and double that number of mules, range themselves at night along the walls, each upon his large packsaddle, with no other covering but a kind of horse-cloth, called manta, which they use on the road to keep them dry and warm in winter.

Into this truly common-hall were we brought by the sound of the drum, and soon learned from one of the loungers who sauntered about it, that a company of strolling-players were in a short time to begin their performance. This was good news indeed for us, who, unwilling to go early to bed with a certainty of not being allowed to sleep, dreaded the close of approaching night. The performance, we were told, was to take place in an open court, where a cow-house, open in front, afforded a convenient situation both for the stage and the dressing-room of the actors. Having each of us paid the amount of a penny and a fraction, we took our seats under a bright starry sky, muffled up in our cloaks, and perfectly unmindful of the danger which might arise from the extreme airiness of the theatre. A horrible screaming fiddle, a grumbling violoncello, and a deafening French-horn, composed the band. The drop-curtain consisted of four counterpanes sewed together; and the scenes, which were red gambroon curtains, hanging loose from a frame, and flapping in the wind, let us into the secrets of the dressing-room, where the actors, unable to afford a different person for every character, multiplied themselves by the assistance of the tailor.

The play was El Diablo Predicador—“The Devil turned Preacher”—one of the numerous dramatic compositions published anonymously during the latter part of the Austrian dynasty. The character of this comedy is so singular, and so much of the public mind may be learned from its popularity all over the country, that I will give you an abstract of the plot.

The hero of the play, designated in the Dramatis Personæ by the title of primer galan (first gallant), is Lucifer, who, dressed in a suit of black velvet and scarlet stockings—the appropriate stage-dress of devils, of whatever rank and station—appears in the first scene mounted upon a griffin, summoning his confidant Asmodeus out of a trap, to acquaint him with the danger to which the newly-established order of Saint Francis exposed the whole kingdom of darkness. Italy (according to the arch-demon) was overrun with mendicant friars; and even Lucca, the scene of the play, where they had met with a sturdy opposition, might, he feared, consent to the building of a Franciscan convent, the foundations of which were already laid. Lucifer, therefore, determines to assist the Lucchese in dislodging the cowled enemies from that town; and he sends Asmodeus to Spain upon a similar service. The chief engine he puts in motion is Ludovico, a wealthy and hard-hearted man, who had just married Octavia, a paragon of virtue and beauty, thus cruelly sacrificed by her father’s ambition. Feliciano, a cousin of Octavia, and the object of her early affection, availing himself of the husband’s ignorance of their now-broken engagement, makes his appearance at Lucca with the determination of seducing the bride and taking revenge on Ludovico. The Guardian of the new convent of Saint Francis, being obliged by the rule of his order to support the friars by daily alms collected from the people, and finding the inhabitants of Lucca determined to starve them out of their city, applies to Ludovico for help. That wicked man thrusts the Guardian and his lay-brother Antolín—the gracioso of the play—out of the house, to be hooted and pelted by the mob. Nothing, therefore, is left for the friars but to quit the town: and now, the poet considering Horace’s rule for supernatural interference as perfectly applicable to such a desperate state of things, the Niño Dios (the Child God),25 and Michael the archangel, come down in a cloud (you will readily conceive that the actors at our humble theatre dispensed with the machinery), and the last, addressing himself to Lucifer, gives him a peremptory order to assume the habit of Saint Francis, and under that disguise to stop all the mischief he had devised against Octavia; to obtain support from the people of Lucca for the Franciscans; and not to depart till he had built two convents instead of the one he was trying to nip in the bud.

To give, as you say in England, the Devil his due, it must be confessed, that Lucifer, though now and then exclaiming against the severity of his punishment, executes his commission with exemplary zeal. He presents himself to the Guardian, in the garb of the order, and having Brother Antolín appointed as his attendant, soon changes the hearts of the people, and obtains abundant supplies for the convent. The under-plot proceeds in the mean time, involving Octavia in the most imminent dangers. She snatches from Feliciano a letter, in which she had formerly avowed her love to him, which, imperfectly torn to pieces, falls into Ludovico’s hands, and induces him to plan her death. To accomplish this purpose, he takes her into the country, and stabs her in the depth of a forest, a few minutes before Monk Lucifer, who fairly and honestly had intended to prevent the blow, could arrive at the place with his lay-companion.

To be thus taken by surprise puzzles the ex-archangel not a little. Still he observes, that since Octavia’s soul had neither gone to heaven, purgatory, nor hell, a miracle was on the point of being performed. Nor was he deceived in this shrewd conjecture; for the Virgin Mary descends in a cloud, and touching the body of Octavia, restores her to life. Feliciano arriving at this moment, attributes the miracle to the two friars; and the report of this wonder exposes Antolín to a ludicrous mobbing in the town, where his frock is torn to pieces to keep the shreds as relics. Lucifer now endeavours to prove to the resuscitated wife, that, according to the canon law, her marriage has been dissolved by death; but she, distrusting the casuistry of that learned personage, immediately returns to her husband. Her unwilling protector is therefore compelled to prevent a second death, which the desperate Ludovico intends to inflict upon his too faithful wife. After this second rescue of the beautiful Octavia, Lucifer makes a most edifying address, urging Ludovico to redeem his sins, by giving alms to the Franciscans. His eloquence, however, making no impression upon the miser, Saint Michael gives the word from behind the scenes, and the obdurate man is swallowed up by the earth. Michael now makes his appearance; and, upon a very sensible remonstrance of Lucifer, as to the hardship of his present case, he allows the latter to strip off the cowl, and carry on hostilities against the Franciscans by the usual arts he employs against the other religious orders, i. e. assaulting the monks’ virtue by any means except their stomachs. Food the Franciscans must never want, according to the heavenly promise made to their founder.

This curious play is performed, at least once a year, on every Spanish theatre; when the Franciscan friars, instead of enforcing the standing rule, which forbids the exhibition of the monkish dress upon the stage, regularly lend the requisite suits to the actors: so favourable is the impression it leaves in favour of that mendicant order.

Our truly Thespian entertainment was just concluded, when we heard the church-bell toll what in Spain is called Las Animas—the Souls. A man, bearing a large lantern with a painted glass, representing two naked persons enveloped in flames, entered the court, addressing every one of the company in these words:—The Holy Souls, Brother! Remember the Holy Souls. Few refused the petitioner a copper coin, worth about the eighth part of a penny. This custom is universal in Spain. A man, whose chief employment is to be agent for the souls in purgatory, in the evening—the only time when the invisible sufferers are begged for about the towns—and for some saint or Madonna, during the day, parades the streets after sunset, with the lantern I have described, and never fails to visit the inns, where the travellers, who generally entrust their safety from robbers to the holy souls, are always ready to make some pecuniary acknowledgement for past favours, or to engage their protection in future dangers. The tenderness of all sorts of believing Spaniards for the souls in purgatory, and the reliance they place on their intercession with God, would almost be affecting, did it not originate in the most superstitious credulity.

The doctrine of purgatory is very easily, nay, consistently embraced by such as believe in the expiatory nature of pain and suffering. The best feelings of our hearts are, besides, most ready to assist the imagination in devising means to keep up an intercourse with that invisible world, which either possesses already, or must soon possess, whatever has engaged our affections in this. Grief for a departed friend loses half its bitterness with a Catholic who can firmly believe that not a day shall pass without repeated and effectual proofs of attachment, on his part, till he join the conscious object of his love in bliss. While other articles of the Catholic faith are too refined and abstract for children, their tender and benevolent minds eagerly seize on the idea of purgatory fire. A parent or a brother, still kind to them in another world, yet suffering excruciating pains that may be relieved, shortened, and perhaps put an end to by some privation or prayer, are notions perfectly adapted to their capacity and feelings. Every year brings round the day devoted by the church to the relief of the departed souls. The holy vestments used at the three masses, which, by a special grant, every priest is allowed to perform that morning, are black. Large candles of yellow wax are placed over the graves within the churches; and even the church-yards, those humble places of repose appointed among us for criminals and paupers, are not neglected on that day of revived sorrows. Lights are provided for them at the expense of the society established in every town of Spain for the relief of the friendless spirits, who, for want of assistance, may be lingering in the purifying flames; and many of the members, with a priest at their head, visit these cemeteries for nine successive evenings.

Thus, even benevolence, under the guidance of superstition, degenerates into absurdity. It does not, however, stop here; but, rushing headlong into the ludicrous, forces a smile upon the face of sympathy, and painfully compels our mirth where our tears were ready to flow. The religious ingenuity of the Catholics has gone so far as to publish the scheme of a lottery for the benefit of such souls as might otherwise escape their notice. It consists of a large sheet of paper fixed in a frame, with an open box beneath it. Under different heads, numbered from one to ninety, the inventor of this pious game has distributed the most interesting cases which can occur in the debtors’ side of the infernal Newgate, allotting to each a prayer, penance or offering. In the box are deposited ninety pieces of card, distinguished by numbers corresponding to the ninety classes. According as the pious gambler draws the tickets, he performs the meritorious works enjoined in the scheme—generally a short prayer or slight penance—transferring their spiritual value to the fortunate souls to whom each card belongs. Often in my childhood, have I amused myself at this good-natured game. But the Inquisition is growing fastidious; and though the lottery of purgatory is as fairly grounded on the doctrines of Rome, as the papal bulls for the release of suffering souls, which are sold for sixpence, with a blank for inserting the name of the person in whose behalf it is purchased; the inquisitors, it seems, will not allow the liberation of the departed to become a matter of chance, and the lottery scheme has lately been prohibited. Fortunately, we still have various means of assisting our friends in Hades; for, besides masses, Bulls, prayers, and penances, the Pope has established eight or ten days in the year, on which every Spaniard (for the grant is confined to Spain) by kneeling at five different altars, and there praying for the extirpation of heresy, is entitled to send a species of habeas animam writ to any of his friends in purgatory. The name of the person whose liberation is intended should, for fear of mistakes, be mentioned in the prayers. But, lest the order of release should find him already free, or perhaps within those gates to which no Pope has ever ventured to apply his keys, we are taught to endorse the spiritual bill with other names, addressing it finally to the most worthy and disconsolate.

These privileged days are announced to the public by a printed notice, placed over the bason of holy water, which stands near every church-door; and, as no one enters without wetting his forehead with the blessed fluid, there is no fear that the happy season should pass unheeded by the pious. The words written on the tablet are plain and peremptory: Hoy se saca Anima; literally, “This is a soul-drawing day.” We must, however, proceed on our uninterrupted journey.

Osuna, where we arrived on the second day after leaving Seville, is built on the declivity of one of the detached hills which stand as out-posts to the Sierra de Ronda, having in front a large ill-cultivated plain, from whence the principal church, and the college, to which the university of that town is attached, are seen to great advantage. The great square of the town is nearly surrounded by an arcade or piazza, with balconies above it, and is altogether not unlike a large theatre. Such squares are to be found in every large town of Spain, and seem to have been intended for the exhibition of tournaments and a kind of bull-fights, less fierce and bloody than those of the amphitheatre, which bear the name of regocijos (rejoicings.)

The line of distinction between the noblesse and the unprivileged class being here drawn with the greatest precision, there cannot be a more disagreeable place for such as are, by education, above the lower ranks, yet have the misfortune of a plebeian birth. An honest respectable labourer without ambition, yet with a conscious dignity of mind not uncommon among the Spanish peasantry, may, in this respect, well be an object of envy to many of his betters. Gentlemen treat them with a less haughty and distant air than is used in England towards inferiors and dependents. A rabadán (chief shepherd), or an aperador (steward), is always indulged with a seat when speaking on business with his master, and men of the first distinction will have a kind word for every peasant, when riding about the country. Yet they will exclude from their club and billiard table a well-educated man, because, forsooth, he has no legal title to a Don before his name.

This town, though one of the third order, supports three convents of friars and two of nuns. A gentleman of this place who, being a clergyman, enjoys a high reputation as a spiritual director, introduced us to some of the ladies at the nunneries. By this means I became acquainted with two very remarkable characters—a worker of miracles, and a nun in despair (monja desesperada). The first was an elderly woman, whose countenance and manners betrayed no symptoms of mental weakness, and whom, from all I was able to learn, it would be difficult to class either with the deceiving or deceived. The firm persuasion of her companions that she is sometimes the object, sometimes the instrument of supernatural operations, inspires them with a respect bordering upon awe. It would be tedious to relate the alleged instances of her prying into futurity, and searching the recesses of the heart. Reports like these are indeed easily raised and propagated: but I shall briefly relate one, which shows how stories of this kind may get abroad through the most respectable channels, and form a chain of evidence which ingenuity cannot trace up to involuntary error, and candour would not attribute to deliberate falsehood.

The community of the Descalzas (unshod nuns) had more than once been thrown into great consternation on seeing their prioress—for to that office had her sanctity raised the subject of my story—reduced, for many days together, to absolute abstinence from food and drink. Though prostrate, and with hardly any power of motion, she was in full possession of her speech and faculties. Dr. Carnero, a physician well known in these parts for skill and personal respectability, attended the patient, for though it was firmly believed by the nuns that human art could not reach the disease, it is but justice to say, that no attempts were visible to give it a supernatural character among strangers. The doctor, who seems to have at first considered the case as a nervous affection, wished to try the effect of a decided effort of the patient under the influence of his presence and authority; for among nuns the physician is next in influence to the professor. Having therefore sent for a glass of water, and desiring the attendants to bolster up the prioress into a sitting posture, he put it into her hand, with a peremptory injunction to do her utmost to drink. The unresisting nun put the water to her lips, and stopped. The physician was urging her to proceed, when to his great amazement he found the contents of the glass reduced to one lump of ice.—We had the account of this wonder from the clergyman who introduced us to the nun. Of his veracity I can entertain no doubt: while he, on the other hand, was equally confident of Dr. Carnero’s.

Our visit to the other convent made me acquainted with one of the most pitiable objects ever produced by superstition—a reluctant nun. Of the actual existence of such miserable beings one seldom hears in Spain. A sense of decorum, and the utter hopelessness of relief, keep the bitter regrets of many an imprisoned female a profound secret to all but their confessor. In the present case, however, the vehemence of the sufferer’s feelings had laid open to the world the state of her harassed mind. She was a good-looking woman, of little more than thirty: but the contrast between the monastic weeds, and an indescribable air of wantonness which, in spite of all caution, marked her every glance and motion, raised a mixed feeling of disgust and pity, that made us uncomfortable during the whole visit. We had, nevertheless, to stay till the customary refreshments of preserves, cakes, and chocolate were served from within the double grate that divided us from the inhabitants of the convent. This is done by means of a semicircular wooden frame which fills up an opening in the wall: the frame turns upon its centre, presenting alternately its concave and its convex side. The refreshments being placed within the hollow part; a slight impulse of the hand places them within reach of the visitors. This machine takes the name of torno, from its rotatory motion. But I must leave the convents for a future letter.

After a few days not unpleasantly spent at Osuna, we proceeded to Olbera. The roads through all the branches of the Sierra de Ronda, though often wild and romantic, are generally execrable. A mistake of our servant had carried us within two miles of a village called Pruna, when we were overtaken by a tremendous storm of hail and thunder. Rain succeeded in torrents, and forced us to give up all idea of reaching our destination that evening. We, consequently, made for the village, anxious to dry our clothes, which were perfectly wet through; but so wretched was the inn, that it had not a room where we could retire to undress. In this awkward situation, my friend as a clergyman, thought of applying to the vicar, who, upon learning his name, very civilly received us in his house. The dress of this worthy priest, a handsome man of about forty, shewed that he was at least as fond of his gun and pointer, as of his missal. He had a little of the swaggering manner of Andalusia, but it was softened by a frankness and a gentleman-like air, which we little expected in a retired Spanish vicar. The fact is, that the livings being poor, none but the sons of tradesmen or peasants have, till very lately, entered the church, without well-grounded hopes of obtaining at once a place among the dignified clergy. But I should rather say that the real vicars are exempted from the care of a parish, and, under the name of beneficiados, receive the tithes, and spend them how and where they please. The nomination of curates belongs to the bishops; some of whom, much to the credit of the Spanish prelacy, have of late contrived to raise their income, and thereby induced a few young men, who, not long ago would have disdained the office, to take a parish under their care. The superiority, however, which was visible in our host, arose from his being what is known by the name of cura y beneficiado, or having a church, of which, as is sometimes the case, the incumbency is inseparable from the curacy. He was far above his neighbours in wealth and consequence; and being fond of field sports and freedom, he preferred the wild spot where he had been born, to a more splendid station in a Spanish cathedral.

The principal, or rather the most frequented, room in the vicars house was, as usual, the kitchen or great hall at the entrance. A well-looking woman, about five and thirty, with a very pretty daughter of fifteen, and a peasant-girl to do the drudgery of the house, formed the canonical establishment of this happy son of St. Peter. To scrutinize the relation in which these ladies stood to the priest, the laws of hospitality would forbid; while to consider them as mere servants, we shrewdly guessed, would have hurt the feelings of the vicar. Having therefore, with becoming gallantry, wound ourselves into their good graces, we found no difficulty, when supper was served up, in making them take their accustomed places, which, under some pretence, they now seemed prepared to decline.

Our hearty meal ended, the alcalde, the escribano (attorney), and three or four of the more substantial farmers, dropped in to their nightly tertulia. As the vicar saw no professional squeamishness in my reverend companion, he had no hesitation to acquaint us with the established custom of the house, which was to play at faro till bed-time; and we joined the party. A green glazed earthen jar, holding a quart of brandy, flavoured with anise, was placed at the foot of the vicar, and a glass before each of the company. The inhabitants of the Sierra de Ronda are fond of spirits, and many exceptions to the general abstemiousness of the Spaniards are found among them. But we did not observe any excess in our party. Probably the influence of the clergyman, and the presence of strangers kept all within the strictest rules of decorum. Next morning, after taking a cup of chocolate, and cordially thanking our kind host, we took horse for Olbera.