Wanderings in Spain

We had now been at Valencia some nine or ten days, waiting for another steamer, for the weather had disorganized the regular departure of the boats, and had greatly interfered with all correspondence. Our curiosity was satisfied; and all we now thought of was returning to Paris, to again behold our parents, our friends, the dear boulevards, and the dear gutters; I even think – may Heaven forgive me! – that I cherished the secret desire of seeing a vaudeville; in a word, civilized life, which had been forgotten for the last six months, called imperiously for our return. We longed to read the daily papers, to sleep in our own beds, and had, besides, a thousand other Bœotian fancies. At length, a packet arrived from Gibraltar, and took us to Porte Vendres, after allowing us to visit Barcelona, where it stopped for a few hours. The aspect of Barcelona resembles that of Marseilles, and there is hardly any trace of the Spanish type about it; the edifices are large and regular, and, were it not for the immense blue velvet trousers and the ample red caps of the Catalonians, you would fancy yourself in a town of France. In spite of its Rambla, planted with trees, and its handsome straight streets, Barcelona appears somewhat cramped and stiff, like all towns which are too tightly laced in a doublet of fortifications.

The cathedral is very handsome, especially the interior, which is sombre, mysterious, and almost inspires you with fear.

The organ is of Gothic structure, and shuts with two large panels covered with paintings; a Saracen's head is making a frightful grimace beneath the pendentive which supports the organ. Beautiful lustres of the fifteenth century, full of open-worked figures like reliquaries, hang from the nervures of the roof. On leaving the church, you enter a fine cloister of the same epoch; its silence incites to reverie, and its half-ruined arcades are characterized by the greyish tints of the old buildings of the north. The calle of La Plateria (the goldsmith's art) dazzles the eyes by its shop-fronts and glass-cases, which sparkle with jewellery, especially with enormous ear-rings as large as small bunches of grapes, of a heavy and massive richness; and, though rather barbarously made, productive of a very majestic effect: they are principally bought by peasant-women in easy circumstances.

The next day we entered, at ten o'clock in the morning, the little bay at the end of which Porte Vendres rises. We were in France. And – must I own it? – on setting foot on the soil of my country, I felt my eyes fill with tears, not of joy, however, but of regret. The Vermilion Towers, the silvery tops of the Sierra Neveda, the rose-bays of the Generalife, the long, soft, limpid looks, the pink-blossom lips, the little feet and the little hands of the daughters of Spain, all came back to my mind so vividly, that it appeared to me that France, where, however, I was about to see my mother again, was a land of exile for me. My dream was over.

1

This work corresponds to "The Heads of the People," published, some time since, in London. – Translator.

2

Culotté is the term applied by smokers to a pipe coloured by long use. – Translator.

3

The well-known popular source of amusement to the Parisian pleasure-seeker of days now past.

4

The hangman.

5

£800 or £1000.

6

Philippe d'Orléans.

7

The Temple in Paris is a sort of large market where old clothes are sold, something like what Monmouth-street used to be.

8

Eighty degrees Fahrenheit. The author here, as well as all through his works reckons the degree of heat by the thermometer termed "Centigrade."

9

The song says, "her arms," —los brazos.

10

A brigand is said to receive the benefit of the indulto when he voluntarily gives himself up and is pardoned.