Legends, Tales and Poems

[Footnote 1: She later married Don Benigno Quiroga Ballesteros, an illustrious engineer, congressman, minister of state, and man of public life, who is still living. She died in January, 1907.]

His friends were not slow in discovering that the tall, dark, and beautiful Julia was the object of his adoration, and they advised him to declare his love openly. But his timid and retiring nature imposed silence upon his lips, and he never spoke a word of love to her. It cannot be said, moreover, that the impression created upon the young lady by the brilliant youth was such as to inspire a return of his mute devotion. Becquer was negligent in his dress and indifferent to his personal appearance, and when Julia's friends upbraided her for her hardness of heart she would reply with some such curt and cruel epigram as this: "Perhaps he would move my heart more if he affected my stomach less."[1]

[Footnote 1: Facts learned from conversation with Don Manuel del Palacio, since deceased.

The editor of this sketch is indebted to the courtesy of the Excmo. Sr. D. Benigno Quiroga Ballesteros and to his lately deceased wife, Doña Julia, the muse of at least some of Becquer's Rimas, for an opportunity to examine a couple of albums containing some of the poet's verse and a most interesting collection of pencil sketches, which but confirm his admiration for Becquer's artistic talent. Here is a list of the sketches:

First Album:

Lucia di Lamermoor—Eleven sketches, including frontispiece.

A dream, or rather a nightmare, in which a man is pictured in a restless sleep, with a small devil perched upon his knees, who causes to fly as a kite above the sleeper's head a woman in graceful floating garments.

A fat and jolly horned devil in the confessional box, with a confessor of the fair sex kneeling at one side, while at the extreme right two small acolytes point out to each other a suspicious looking tail that protrudes from beneath her skirts, thus stamping her as Satan's own.

A belfry window with a swinging bell, and bestriding the bell a skeleton tightly clutching the upper part of it—ringing the ánimas perhaps.

Gustavo himself seated smoking, leaning back in his chair, and in the smoke that rises a series of women, some with wings.

A nun in horror at discovering, as she turns down the covers of her bed, a merry devil.

A woman's coffin uncovered by the sexton, while a lover standing by exclaims, "¡¡Cáscaras!! ¡cómo ha cambiado!"

A scene at the Teatro Real with Señor Espin y Guillén in a small group behind the scenes, and a prima donna singing. Actors standing apart in the wings.

A visit to the cemetery. A skeleton thrusting out his head from his burial niche, and a young man presenting his card. "DIFUNTO: No recibo. VISITANTE: Pues hai (sic) queda la targeta (sic)."

A fine sketch of "Eleonora," a stately form in rich fifteenth-century garb.

A number of sketches of women, knights, monks, devils, soldiers, skeletons, etc.

Second Album: Les morts pow rire, Bizarreries dédiées à Mademoiselle Julie, par G. A. Becker (sic).

Fantastic frontispiece of skulls, bones, and leafy fronds, and two young lovers seated, sketching.

Skeletons playing battledore and shuttlecock with skulls.

A tall slim skeleton and a round short one.

Skeletons at a ball.

A skeleton widow visiting her husband's grave.

The husband returning her visit, and coming to share her lunch in the park.

A circus of skeletons, in two scenes: (1) Leaping through the hoop. (2) One skeleton balancing himself, head downward, on the head of another who is standing.

A skeleton singer on the stage.

A skeleton horse leaping a hurdle.

A skeleton drum-major with his band.

A skeleton bull-fight.

A duel between skeletons.

A tournament on skeleton horses.

A woman recently deceased, surrounded by skeletons offering their compliments. They are presented by one of their number, with hat in hand.

A balcony courting scene between skeleton lovers.

The word FIN in bones concludes the series of grotesque and uncanny sketches, which but emphasize a fact ever present in the poet's mind—that while we are in life we are in death.]

Finding his devotion to Julia unrequited, Becquer, in a rebellious mood, and having come under the influence of the charms and blandishments of a woman of Soria, a certain Casta Estéban y Navarro, contracted, in or about the year 1861, an unfortunate marriage, which embittered the rest of his life and added cares and expenses which he could ill support. He lived with his wife but a short time, during which period two sons were born to them—Gustavo, whose later career was unfortunately not such as to bring credit to the memory of his illustrious father, and, Jorge, who died young. Becquer was passionately fond of his children, and succeeded in keeping them with him after the separation from his wife. They were constantly the objects of his affectionate solicitude, and his last thoughts were for them.

About 1858 the newspaper El Contemporáneo had been founded by the able and broad-minded Jose Luis Albareda, and Correa, who was associated with the management, succeeded in obtaining for his friend a position on its staff. Becquer entered upon his new labors in 1861, and was a fairly regular contributor until the suppression of the paper. Here he published the greater part of his legends and tales, as well as his remarkable collection of letters Desde mi Celda ("From my Cell"). The following year his brother Valeriano, who up to that time had exercised his talents as a genre painter in Seville, came to join him in Madrid. He too had been unfortunate in his domestic relations, and the brothers joined in sympathy to form a new household. A period of comparative comfort seemed to open up before them. This period was of short duration, however; for Gustavo (who was never strong) soon fell ill, and was obliged to withdraw from the capital, in search of purer air, to the historic monastery of Veruela, situated on the Moncayo, a mountain in northern Spain. His brother Valeriano accompanied him, and there they passed a year in complete isolation from the rest of the world. The spur of necessity, however, compelled them both to keep to their work, and while Gustavo was writing such legends as that of Maese Pérez, and composing his fascinating Cartas desde mi Celda, Valeriano was painting Aragonese scenes such as La Vendimia ("The Vintage") or fanciful creations such as El Barco del Diablo or La Pecadora.

The next year the two brothers returned to the capital, and Gustavo, together with his friend D. Felipe Vallarino, began the publication of La Gaceta literaria, of brief but brilliant memory. During this same year and during 1863 Gustavo continued on the staff of El Contemporáneo, enriching its pages with an occasional legend of singular beauty.

At the Baths of Fitero in Navarre, whither, with his inseparable brother, he had gone to recuperate his health in the summer of 1864, Gustavo composed the fantastic legend of the Miserere, and others no less interesting. On his return from Fitero he continued in El Contemporáneo, and shortly after entered a ministerial daily, the irksome duties of which charge he bore with resignation.

At this time Luis Gonzalez Bravo, a man of fine literary discrimination, whatever may be thought of him politically, was prime minister under Isabel II. He had become interested in the work of Gustavo, and, knowing the dire financial straits in which the young poet labored, he thought to diminish these anxieties and thus give him more time to devote to creative work by making him censor of novels. A new period of calm and comparative comfort began, and for the first time in his life Becquer had the leisure to carry out a long-cherished project, at once his own desire and the desire of his friends: that of gathering together in one volume all his scattered verse and of adding to the collection other poems as well that had not yet seen the light. This he did, and the completed volume so charmed his friend and patron, Gonzalez Bravo, that he offered of his own accord to write a prologue for the work and to print it at his own expense. But in 1868 came the revolution which dethroned Isabel II, and in the confusion that followed the downfall of the ministry and the hasty withdrawal of Gonzalez Bravo to the French frontier the volume of poems was lost. This was a sad blow to Becquer, but he courageously set to work to repair the loss, and with painful effort succeeded in recalling and rewriting his Rimas, which were published after his death in the third volume of his works by his friend Correa.

Becquer, with extreme punctiliousness, tendered his resignation as censor of novels. A pension of 10,000 reals that the government had assigned to Valeriano for the study of national customs was withdrawn, and both brothers were again deprived of permanent employment. They joined forces, and while the one sketched admirable woodcuts for the Almanac Anual of Gaspar y Roig, the other wrote such original articles as Las Hojas Secas, or chafed under such hack work as the translation of popular novels from the French, which language he read with ease, though he did not speak it well. Gustavo had already felt and described the charm of the old Moorish city of Toledo in his Historia de los Templos de España, and in 1869 he and Valeriano moved their little household temporarily to the city of their dreams, with a view to finding inspiration for their pens and brushes, and thus subsistence for their joint families.[1]

[Footnote 1: It was at this time that Gustavo wrote the letter which is published for the first time on page xxxix.]

An amusing account is given by Correa of an adventure that befell the two brothers one night in Toledo as they were wandering about its streets. He says: "One magnificent moonlight night both artists decided to contemplate their beloved city bathed in the fantastic light of the chilly orb. The painter armed with pencils and the writer with his souvenirs had abandoned the old city and on a ruined wall had given themselves up for hours to their artistic chatter … when a couple of Guardias civiles, who had doubtless those days been looking for marauders, approached them. They heard something of apses, squinches, ogives, and other terms as suspicious or as dangerous … and observing the disarray of those who thus discoursed, their long beards, their excited mien, the lateness of the hour, the solitude of the place, and obeying especially that axiomatic certainty of the Spanish police to blunder, they angrily swooped down upon those night birds, and, in spite of protests and unheard explanations, took them to continue their artistic themes in the dim and horrid light of a dungeon in the Toledo jail.... We learned all this in the office of EC Contemporáneo, on receiving from Gustavo an explanatory letter full of sketches representing the probable passion and death of both innocents. The staff en masse wrote to the mistaken jailer, and at last we saw the prisoners return safe and sound, parodying in our presence with words and pencils the famous prisons of Silvio Pellico."[1]

[Footnote 1: Correa, op. cit., pp. xxi-xxiii.]

In this same year, 1869, we find the brothers housed in modest quarters in the Barrio de la Concepción in the outskirts of Madrid. Here Adolfo wrote some new poems and began a translation of Dante for a Biblioteca de grandes autores which had been planned and organized by La Ilustración de Madrid, founded by Gasset in 1870. The first number of this noteworthy paper appeared on January 12 of that year, and from its inception to the time of his death Gustavo was its director and a regular contributor.[1] His brother Valeriano illustrated many of its pages, and here one can form some idea of his skill as a portrayer of Spanish types and customs. "But who could foretell," says their friend Campillo, "that within so short a time his necrology and that of his beloved brother were to appear in this same paper?"[2]

[Footnote 1: These articles of Gustavo's have not, for the most part, been published elsewhere. There remains for the future editor of his complete works a large number of such articles, which it would be well worth while to collect.]

[Footnote 2: La Ilustración Artística, p. 360.]

Their life of hardship and anxiety was tearing to shreds the delicate health of the two young artists, and on September 23, 1870, Valeriano breathed his last in the arms of Gustavo. His death was a blow from which Gustavo never recovered. It was as though the mainspring was broken in a watch; and, though the wheels still turned of their own momentum, the revolutions were few in number and soon ceased. "A strange illness," says Correa, "and a strange manner of death was that! Without any precise symptom, that which was diagnosed as pneumonia turned to hepatitis, becoming in the judgment of others pericarditis, and meanwhile the patient, with his brain as clear as ever and his natural gentleness, went on submitting himself to every experiment, accepting every medicine, and dying inch by inch."[1]

[Footnote 1: Correa, op. cit., p. xix.]

Shortly before the end he turned to his friends who surrounded his bed, and said to them, "Acordaos de mis niños."[1] He realized that he had extended his arm for the last time in their behalf, and that now that frail support had been withdrawn. "At last the fatal moment came, and, pronouncing clearly with his trembling lips the words 'Todo mortal!', his pure and loving soul rose to its Creator."[2] He died December 22, 1870.

[Footnote 1: This fact was learned from a conversation with Don Francisco de Laiglesia, who, with Correa, Ferrán and others, was present when the poet breathed his last.]

[Footnote 2: Correa, op. cit., p. xx.]

Thanks to the initiative of Ramón Rodriguez Correa and to the aid of other friends, most of the scattered tales, legends, and poems of Becquer were gathered together and published by Fernando Fe, Madrid, in three small volumes. In the Prologue of the first edition Correa relates the life of his friend with sympathy and enthusiasm, and it is from this source that we glean most of the facts that are to be known regarding the poet's life. The appearance of these volumes caused a marked effect, and their author was placed by popular edict in the front rank of contemporary writers.

Becquer may be said to belong to the Romantic School, chief of whose exponents in Spain were Zorilla and Espronceda. The choice of mediaeval times as the scene of his stories, their style and treatment, as well as the personal note and the freedom of his verse, all stamp him as a Romanticist.

His legends, with one or two exceptions, are genuinely Spanish in subject, though infused with a tender melancholy that recalls the northern ballads rather than the writings of his native land. His love for old ruins and monuments, his archaeological instinct, is evident in every line. So, too, is his artistic nature, which finds a greater field for its expression in his prose than in his verse. Add to this a certain bent toward the mysterious and supernatural, and we have the principal elements that enter into the composition of these legends, whose quaint, weird beauty not only manifests the charm that naturally attaches to popular or folk tales, but is due especially to the way in which they are told by one who was at once an artist and a poet.

Zorilla has been said to be Becquer's most immediate precursor, in that he possesses the same instinct for the mysterious. But, as Blanco Garcia observes, "Becquer is less ardent than Zorilla, and preferred the strange traditions in which some unknown supernatural power hovers to those others, more probable, in which only human passions with their caprices and outbursts are involved."[1] Correa says of his legends that they "can compete with the tales of Hoffmann and of Grimm, and with the ballads of Rückert and of Uhland," and that "however fantastic they may be, however imaginary they may appear, they always contain such a foundation of truth, a thought so real, that in the midst of their extraordinary form and contexture a fact appears spontaneously to have taken place or to be able to take place without the slightest difficulty, if you but analyze the situation of the personages, the time in which they live, or the circumstances that surround them."[2]

[Footnote 1: La Literatura Española en el Siglo XIX, Madrid, 1891, vol. II, p. 275.]

[Footnote 2: Correa, op. cit., p. xxx.]

The subtle charm of such legends as Los Ojos Verdes, La Corza Blanca, Maese Pérez el Organista, etc., full of local color as they are, and of an atmosphere of old Spain, is hard to describe, but none the less real. One is caught by the music of the prose at the first lines, enraptured by the weird charm of the story, and held in breathless interest until the last words die away. If Becquer's phrase is not always classic, it is, on the other hand, vigorous and picturesque; and when one reflects upon the difficult conditions under which his writings were produced, in the confusion of the printing-office, or hurriedly in a miserable attic to procure food for the immediate necessities of his little family, and when one likewise recalls the fact that they were published in final book form only after the author's death, and without retouching, the wonder grows that they are written in a style so pleasing and so free from harshness.

Becquer's prose is doubtless at its best in his letters entitled Desde mi Celda, written, as has been said, from the monastery of Veruela, in 1864. Read his description of his journey to the ancient Aragonese town of Tarazona, picturesquely situated on the River Queiles, of his mule trip over the glorious Moncayo, of the peacefulness and quiet of the old fortified monastery of Veruela, and you will surely feel inspired to follow him in his wanderings. Writing of his life in the seclusion of Veruela, Becquer says: "Every afternoon, as the sun is about to set, I sally forth upon the road that runs in front of the monastery doors to wait for the postman, who brings me the Madrid newspapers. In front of the archway that gives entrance to the first inclosure of the abbey stretches a long avenue of poplars so tall that when their branches are stirred by the evening breeze their summits touch and form an immense arch of verdure. On both sides of the road, leaping and tumbling with a pleasant murmur among the twisted roots of the trees, run two rivulets of crystalline transparent water, as cold as the blade of a sword and as gleaming as its edge. The ground, over which float the shadows of the poplars, mottled with restless spots of light, is covered at intervals with the thickest and finest of grass, in which grow so many white daisies that they look at first sight like that rain of petals with which the fruit-trees carpet the ground on warm April days. On the banks of the stream, amid the brambles and the reeds, grow wild violets, which, though well-nigh hidden amongst their creeping leaves, proclaim themselves afar by their penetrating perfume. And finally, also near the water and forming as it were a second boundary, can be seen between the poplar trunks a double row of stocky walnut-trees with dark, round, compact tops." About half way down the avenue stands a marble cross, which, from its color, is known in the vicinity as the Black Cross of Veruela. "Nothing is more somberly beautiful than this spot. At one end of the road the view is closed by the monastery, with its pointed arches, its peaked towers, and its imposing battlemented walls; on the other, the ruins of a little hermitage rise, at the foot of a hillock bestrewn with blooming thyme and rosemary. There, seated at the foot of the cross, and holding in my hands a book that I scarcely ever read and often leave forgotten on the steps of the cross, I linger for one, two, and sometimes even four hours waiting for the papers." At last the post arrives, and the Contemporáneo is in his hands. "As I was present at its birth, and as since its birth I have lived its feverish and impassioned life, El Contemporáneo is not for me a common newspaper like the rest, but its columns are yourselves, my friends, my companions in hope or disappointment, in failure or triumph, in joy or bitterness. The first impression that I feel upon receiving it, then, is one of joy, like that experienced upon opening a letter on whose envelope we recognize a dear familiar handwriting, or when in a foreign land we grasp the hand of a compatriot and hear our native tongue again. The peculiar odor of the damp paper and the printer's ink, that characteristic odor which for a moment obscures the perfume of the flowers that one breathes here on every hand, seems to strike the olfactory memory, a strange and keen memory that unquestionably exists, and it brings back to me a portion of my former life,—that restlessness, that activity, that feverish productiveness of journalism. I recall the constant pounding and creaking of the presses that multiply by thousands the words that we have just written, and that have come all palpitating from our pens. I recall the strain of the last hours of publication, when night is almost over and copy scarce. I recall, in short, those times when day has surprised us correcting an article or writing a last notice when we paid not the slightest attention to the poetic beauties of the dawn. In Madrid, and for us in particular, the sun neither rises nor sets: we put out or light the lights, and that is the only reason we notice it."

At last he opens the sheet. The news of the clubs or the Cortes absorbs him until the failing light of the setting sun warns him that, though he has read but the first columns, it is time to go. "The shadows of the mountains fall rapidly, and spread over the plain. The moon begins to appear in the east like a silver circle gleaming through the sky, and the avenue of poplars is wrapped in the uncertain dusk of twilight.... The monastery bell, the only one that still hangs in its ruined Byzantine tower, begins to call to prayers, and one near and one afar, some with sharp metallic notes, and some with solemn, muffled tones, the other bells of the hillside towns reply.... It seems like a harmony that falls from heaven and rises at the same time from the earth, becomes confounded, and floats in space, intermingling with the fading sounds of the dying day and the first sighs of the newborn night.

"And now all is silenced,—Madrid, political interests, ardent struggles, human miseries, passions, disappointments, desires, all is hushed in that divine music. My soul is now as serene as deep and silent water. A faith in something greater, in a future though unknown destiny, beyond this life, a faith in eternity,—in short, an all-absorbing larger aspiration, overwhelms that petty faith which we might term personal, that faith in the morrow, that sort of goad that spurs on irresolute minds, and that is so needful if one must struggle and exist and accomplish something in this world."[1]

[Footnote 1: Obras, vol. II, pp. 222–229.]

This graceful musing, full in the original of those rich harmonies that only the Spanish language can express, will serve sufficiently to give an impression of the series as a whole. The broad but fervent faith expressed in the last lines indicates a deeply religious and somewhat mystical nature. This characteristic of Becquer may be noticed frequently in his writings and no one who reads his works attentively can call him elitist, as have some of his calumniators.

Beautiful as Becquer's prose may be considered, however, the universal opinion is that his claim to lasting fame rests on his verse. Mrs. Humphrey Ward, in her interesting article entitled "A Spanish Romanticist,"[1] says of him: "His literary importance indeed is only now beginning to be understood. Of Gustavo Becquer we may almost say that in a generation of rhymers he alone was a poet; and now that his work is all that remains to us of his brilliant and lovable personality, he only, it seems to us, among the crowd of modern Spanish versifiers, has any claim to a European audience or any chance of living to posterity." This diatribe against the other poets of contemporary Spain may seem to us unjust; but certain it is that Becquer in the eyes of many surpasses either Nuñez de Arce or Campoamor, with whom he forms "a triumvirate that directs and condenses all the manifestations of contemporary Spanish lyrics."[2]