Madison Morrison's Web / Sentence of the Gods / Possibly
Possibly,3

Antoni Miró, “The Territory of Don Quixote” (oil on canvas)

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“The knights of the present time,” said Don Quixote, “for the most part are accompanied by the rustling of damasks, brocades and other rich stuffs that they wear rather than by the rattling of coats of mail. There is none that sleeps in the field, exposed to the inclemency of the heavens and fully armed from head to foot. There is none who, as they say, snatches forty winks without taking foot from stirrup, merely leaning on his lance. There is none who, sallying forth from a wood, will go up onto yonder mountain and from there come down to tread the barren and deserted shore beside a sea that is almost always angry and tempest tossed; or who, finding upon the beach a small craft, without oars, sail, mast or rigging of any kind will leap into it with intrepid heart and entrust himself to the implacable waves of the stormy deep, waves that now mount heavenward and now drag him down into the abyss.”

 

Barcelona street scene: drum and four wooden reed-blown instruments accompanying with martial music two marching figures on stilts, who break into dance. Amadis of Gaul had much to do with creating the splendid “Golden Century” of Spain and Portugal. Both are 20-feet tall, both dressed in Catalan attire. Romances of chivalry, especially this one, appealed strongly to the aristocratic and popular tastes that they had helped to mold. The young man, a cap on his head, a lantern in his hand, wears a red cummerbund and a black skirt, a gray frock-shirt above it. Psychologically this redoubtable breed of men and woman made Iberia great in every field of sixteenth-century endeavor. In her arms the young woman holds a pig. They helped to develop an entire culture and were one reason why Spain’s tercios proved invincible on European battlefields for more than a century.

 

She has a white apron over a long black dress, a black babushka controlling her locks. The literary virtues of Amadis of Gaul are much greater than usually supposed. The crowd is well-mannered, in good spirits and familiar with these routines. The book vaunts moral rather than physical superiority, for only God gives victory, and the knight is God’s agent. The pair of dancers pauses to rest before an ecclesiastical building. Amadís has been called, by Félix Olmedo, a great narrative poem, “because this prose flows in purity, freshness and transparency with the movement of life itself.” Near the Ronda de Sant Pau, where a more formal dance is transpiring. “A novel of war, love and courtesy,” John J. O’Conner has called it, “as close to the hearts of its sixteenth-century readers as it is distant from ours.” As the crowd claps rhythmically, it ends with extra-musical pirouettes.

 

“Today, sloth triumphs over diligence, idleness over exertion, vice over virtue, arrogance over valor, and theory over practice of the warrior’s art. Tell me, if you will, who was more virtuous or more valiant than the famous Amadís of Gaul? Who more prudent than Palmerin of England? Who more gracious and reasonable than Tirant lo Blanch? Who was more the courtier than Lisuarte of Greece? Who was more slashed or slashing than Don Belianís? Who more intrepid than Perión of Gaul? Or who more forward in facing the danger than Felixmarte of Hircania? Who more sincere than Esplandián? More daring than Don Cirongilio of Thrace? Who was braver than Rodamonte? Wiser than King Sobrino? Bolder than Rinaldo? More invincible than Orlando? Who was more gallant and courteous than Ruggiero, from whom the present dukes of Ferrara are descended, according to Turpin’s Cosmography.

 

Jan Morris, in her brilliant Spain, defines for us “the essence of Quixotry: ‘The Character,’ as they call him, was crazy — but in his craziness he expressed great truths. . . . Just as the Galicians have convinced themselves that St. James fought the Muslims at Santiago, and Londoners look in all seriousness for 221B Baker Street, likewise many Spaniards take it for granted that Don Quixote actually existed. I once stopped my car in the colorless expanses of La Mancha, the knight’s homeland, and asked a couple of ploughmen which of the villages I could see around me was in fact Don Quixote’s birthplace. ‘Don Quixote de la Mancha?’ said they, for they always give him his full title, out of respect. ‘Why, he was born just outside Argamasilla de Alba. They’ve pulled the house down, but you can still see the place — over there, señor, beyond the church tower, that’s where Don Quixote de la Mancha was born!’”

 

“That,” declared Don Quixote, “is another error into which many have fallen, those who do not believe that such knights ever existed. I have tried to correct this common mistake. Sometimes I have not succeeded in my purpose, but other times, sustained upon the shoulders of truth, I have been more fortunate. . . . I can almost assure you that I saw with my own eyes Amadís of Gaul. He was a tall man, of fair complexion and with a beard which, though black, was quite handsome. His countenance was half mild, half stern; his words were few, but he was slow to anger and quick to lay aside his wrath. . . . And I might go on, to portray and describe all the other knights-errant . . . For I feel sure that they were what the histories make them out to have been . . . and from their exploits . . . it would be possible, with the aid of a little sound philosophy, to reconstruct their features, their complexions and their stature.

 

We have been witnessing a public performance in the Rambla, Barcelona’s famous walking street. The dancers having finished, the operators of the stilt figures now exit their elaborate contraptions, as the dancers walk backwards through the door of a building from which they had issued, over whose portal, in a single niche, stands Christ, a book open in one hand, a shepherd’s crook in the other, a small pig at his feet. On closer inspection it appears that the figure represents not Christ but perhaps a Catalan saint. The music recommences, from within the closed ecclesiastical doors, whose bare panels reveal no identities. Farther along the Rambla, which means “stream” or “riverbed” in Arabic, we come upon theater-goers who have gathered at the Teatro Apolo, for a performance of Los verdes campos del Edén by Antonio Gala. A man smoking a cigarette, his collar pulled up, is followed by his bleach-blond wife.

 

Discoursing on the relation between the knight errant and the courtier, the Don said: “More impressive is the former, succoring a widow in some unpopulated place than a courtly man of arms making love to a damsel in the city. The crowd assembling and dissipating along the route begins in their 50s and moves quickly to their 60s and beyond. “Let the courtier wait upon the ladies and lend luster by his liveries to his sovereign’s palace.” The people of Barcelona are happy, full of feeling, expressive. “Let him nourish impoverished gentlemen with the splendid fate of his table.” The Avenida Paral.lelo (the dot between the two “l”s indicating an extended Catalan pronunciation) is full of theaters. “Let him give tourneys and show himself truly great, generous and magnificent.” Two women in black boots and black slacks are wearing mink coats. “And a good Christian above all, thus fulfilling his particular obligations.”

 

Across the way, in the window of the Arnaud bookshop, its triangular red neon “A” and “a” surrounded with diamond triangles pointed downward, sits Las Obras Completas de Shakespeare (Abreviadas). “But the knight-errant’s case is different.” Above the volumes stands a portrait of Groucho Marx. “Let the latter seek out the nooks and corners of the world.” Bearing the face and hair style of William Shakespeare. “Let him enter into the most intricate of labyrinths.” A large cigar protrudes through the figure’s pink lips. “Let him attempt the impossible at every step.” Three women emerge from a taxi, one in a knee-length leopard-skin coat. “Let him endure on desolate highlands the burning rays of the midsummer sun and in winter the harsh inclemencies of wind and frost.” Two other women seize the taxi that has just been vacated. “Let no lions inspire him with fear, no monsters frighten him.”

 

“Discover the Caribbean,” reads a poster in a travel agent’s window. “Let no dragons terrify him.” “Egypt, Marrakesh, Tunisia.” “For to seek them out, attack them and conquer them all. “Buenos Aires, Peking, New York, Bali, London.” “Is his chief and legitimate occupation.” “Paris, Rome, Istanbul.” “Accordingly I, whose lot it is to be numbered among the knights-errant, cannot fail to attempt anything that appears to me to fall within the scope of my duties. The theater-goers, having exited their entertainments, are strolling, presumably on their way to dinner. “Just as I attacked those lions a while ago.” Others are heading for aperitifs at the neighborhood bars, whose signs read: “Carnes Gallegas,” “Parrilladas,” “Gran Variedad Tapas.” “Even though I knew it to be an exceedingly rash thing to do.” Through the last window at 9:20 one can see that every seat is taken. “For that matter much concerned me.”

 

The space behind the counter is crowded with bottles; high above hang shanks of meat with the hooves still attached. “Knight-errantry,” said Don Quixote, “which is the equal of poetry and even a fraction of an inch or so above it.” Outside a menu reads: “It is a discipline,” the knight went on to explain, “that comprises within itself all or most of the others in existence.” “Jamón Ibérico.” “For the one who professes it has to be skilled in jurisprudence to give each that which is his by right.” “Lomo Ibérico.” “He must be a theologian that he may give a logical reason for his Christian faith.” “Chorizo Ibérico,” “He must be a physician, and above all an herbalist, so that when he finds himself in a desert he will know what plants possess the property of healing wounds. “Salchichón Ibérico.” “He must be an astronomer to tell time by the stars.” “Queso Manchego.” “And he must have a knowledge of mathematics.”

 

We have reached the undistinguished if elaborate gray and cream trim of the 19^th century Port de Barcelona building. At the center of the Plaça rises a high column, the setting sun catching on the golden letters of the word “Gloria” about its base. Atop this pillar stands Christopher Columbus, his finger gesturing backwards across Spain to The New World. Among the surrounding trinket stalls, author examines statuettes of the gods: an olive Zeus, a bronze Aphrodite, Mars in red marble, Hermes in pink fleshy tones; the three Graces; Alexander in bas relief. (Behind us is the raucous sound of gulls squawking as they bend out over the bay.) The head of Michelangelo’s David; earlier figures, of Demeter at Eleusis, of a Cretan god posed against a maroon painted background; others of Leonardo’s Last Supper, of Napoleon in precious profile. The display trails off into Egyptian, Hindu and Buddhist images.

 

I am thinking these things (Cees Nooteboom, Roads to Santiago) as I sail toward Barcelona, very early one July morning. Two black-framed oxen under glass. I shall rent a car and drive across Spain to visit Santiago for the third time. At another display table, drawing the largest crowd in this kitsch market: medallions, lapel pins, Russian znatshki. It will be a pilgrimage not to the apostle but to an earlier self, the recapture of an earlier passage. “Arizona Rangers # 7,” “Armed Forces,” “Defense Investigative Service.” In search of what? “The United States of America,” “NYC Police,” “Lieutenant.” One of the few constants in my life is my love —. Several pins from the “Fuerza Aérea.” A lesser expression will not do —. Little camels. Of Spain. In relief. Women and friends have often vanished from my life. Drifting along the Saharan dunes. But a country does not run away so easily.

♥

The density of late morning traffic enforces a panoramic view of the Plaça (author has returned by another route). When I first went to Italy I was twenty. So many its circulating vehicles, it cannot be crossed on foot. There I thought I had found everything. We stroll its perimeter. That I had been looking for. In black shirt and blue jeans a man stands at the bar of the “Cava Universal.” After that experience, Spain was a disappointment to me. “Fundada 1858.” Under the same bright Mediterranean sun, its language struck me as harsh, its landscape as barren, its everyday life as coarse. The single darkened lane of “Carrer de Josep Anselm Clavé” issues into/out of the Plaça. It didn’t flow. “Holá.” It wasn’t pleasant. “Holá.” It was obstinately ancient and out of reach. “Holá.” It had to be conquered. “Holá.” Each “Holá” is followed by an exclamation mark and preceded by another one (inverted).

 

I can no longer think in those terms. The four “Holá”s belong to a newspaper headline. Italy is still a delight, but I have the feeling – it is only possible to talk of such things by resorting to a mystical terminology – that the Spanish character and landscape correspond to what in essence I am, to conscious and unconscious things in my being, to what I am about. The vendors of the evening before have begun to open again their stalls and shops within the colonnade. Spain is brutish, anarchic, egocentric, cruel. The Rambla once more is filled with tourists, mostly Spanish. Spain had conquered the world but then did not know what to do with it. A chic, middle-aged woman smells of expensive perfume. She harks back to her Medieval, Arab, Jewish and Christian past. Past an advertisement for the Wax Museum (bearing the admonition, “Don’t touch!”) careens an enormous black woman.

 

She sits there impassively like a continent that is appended to Europe and yet is not European. Accompanied by a frail white man with a pencil mustache, dressed in a black, white polka-dotted shirt open at the neck (to reveal multiple gold chains). With her obdurate towns studding those limitless empty landscapes. Fifteen years her junior, he is smoking a cigarillo. Those who know only the beaten track do not know Spain. A red-haired, red-mustachioed artist stands next to his easel, perched on which is a delicate rural scene full of clichés sketched in oil on paper. Those who have not roamed the labyrinthine complexity of her history do not know what they are traveling through. Behind him stands a black-fronted “Librería” (the letters in painted gold), still shuttered, the paint chipped from the bottom of its doors. It is the love of a lifetime. Illegible graffiti deface its walls. The amazement is never-ending.

 

The lone traveler proceeds to his cabin and lies down on the small iron bunk. The bookstore’s windows are bordered in yellow, red and silver. Several times during the night he will wake up and look out though the porthole to view the vast surface of the ocean swaying in a slow, glistening dance. Other artists — portraitists, caricaturists — recline in their lounge chairs, awaiting customers. Gradually he surrenders to the rolling motion of a ship pitching in her mighty mother’s dance, and he knows what it will be like. Shivering in the morning cool, they are engaging one another with desultory gossip. In the course of the night, though, he at last will really fall asleep. The caricaturists are happy, the portraitists dour. The first light of day will stream in through the cabin’s unavailing curtains. Across the way stands the Hotel Oriente, its entrance blocked by a huge tour bus disgorging its passengers.

 

He will ascend to the deck and stand there with the other bleary-eyed passengers to watch Barcelona slowly approach. Above the hotel’s portal are two communicating angels. The city looking improbably lovely in the early sun. Within the portal a window opens. Which will cast a golden impressionistic veil. A woman, presumably a guest of the hotel, pokes her head out to gawk. Over the horror of gasworks and smog. “Salón de Té.” “Banquete,” read glass plaques next door. So that it will seem for a moment as if we are heading towards. “Bodas,” “Siestas.” A hazy paradise. We continue on past a kiosk crammed with every imaginable international newspaper and magazine. Instead of the uncharitable buffers of an industrial metropolis. Ciclo del Nuevo Milenio reads the title of one. The ship glides into the stone welcome of the harbor, dwarfed by its towering cranes.

 

Author has reached the point in the Rambla that yesterday evening he arrived at from the opposite direction. Now my route takes me from Barcelona through Zaragoza to Castilla la Vieja, which appears like a distant vision shimmering in the heat. Here the true Spain begins, the meseta, the high plain, empty, scorched, as huge as an ocean. Not much has changed since the thirteenth century, when the principal sheep farmers joined forces to secure free passage of their flocks from the drought-ridden prairies of Extremadura to the green pastures of the northern cordillera. This is where the kingdoms of Castile and Aragón met the Muslim south. . . . I have walked under the quarterings of Ferdinand’s coat of arms, but they have lost their meaning. I see, but am blind to what I see, marks of power and heritage trying to tell me a story in a language I can no longer understand.

 

We have left the Rambla for a wealthy residential neighborhood, where a bookstore is advertising, in between two other books, about Dragon Ball Chess, about Marcello Mastroianni, Historia de la literatura: Homero, Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Molière, Goethe, Balzac, Tolstoy, Proust and Joyce. One gorgeous apartment block follows another, in beige, in gray, in cream, in white, all with balustrades and colonnades humanly proportioned. At a stand advertizing Marxist literature the face of Che Guevara has been semi-superimposed on South America. A troop of school kids passes. At last we arrive at the Plaça de Catalunya. In magenta smock-jackets and Levis, laced-up tennis shoes, senior citizens are dancing, among them a 75-year-old in blue corduroys and maroon sweater-vest; his cane in hand, he goes through his paces. This pleasantly irregular public space is filled with buildings of recent vintage.

 

In the nearby park, two girls, an older sister of ten, a younger of five, are feeding pigeons from bags of seed. As they cautiously stand still, four pigeons hover about their shoulders in mid-flight. Other children waddle about in imitation of the birds’ gait. A two-year-old trudges past, his hand in his mother’s. “Dog” reads his overalls, the “o” in the shape of a paw print. Having crossed the park, on a street that borders it, we emerge before a new hotel facing a building whose sign reads “La Sudamericana.” Atop its squarish cupola a clock says “1:26.” Three orange awnings on the third floor read “Detectives,” “Detectives,” “Detectives.” We have reached Passeig de Gràcia and turn into Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, along whose expanse buildings rise to eight or nine stories. We have reached the Via Laetana, where signs direct us toward the Cathedral and the Port, the latter indicated by an incoming steamer.

 

At Carrer Fontanella we pause to examine images in a photographer’s studio. Among ancient emulsion and modern digital prints sits a landscape painting, its brushwork and conception undistinguished: oxen drawing a cart unconvincingly loaded. In a second window a painted tree has been filled with family portraits. Low on its trunk is represented Mariano Gutiérrez, his tie loosened, his wife dourly seated beside him. Another family photograph shows nineteen relatives, two middle-aged gat-toothed brothers anchoring the scene. One shop over the “Antic Olímpic” offers “Especialidad en Carnes a la Brasa,” its door made of glass, in which recording author is seen reflected. Behind him reads a gray apartment block, above his head, two pairs of eyes (within the shop) that have turned their suspicious gaze upon him. A clock has been implanted in the sidewalk, bulbs lighting the hours, at its center, Hermes.

 

Much farther along on his stroll author encounters a girl in coppery hair talking to her boyfriend across a square. We arrive at a candy store, “Tutti Frutti,” the “Frutti” in magenta, brown, orange, yellow and green letters, the “Tutti” in purple, blue, magenta, brown and orange. On in-line skates is a sister in a sweatshirt reading “Feminine Fine,” her brother in one reading “99,” negotiate potted palms on the sidewalk. We traverse a long mall to approach the Cathedral, on whose steps an informal concert is in progress. Below, a circle of men and women in white dancing shoes performs. Amateurishly a brass band blares the rhythm. The dancers disbanded, the Plaça quickly clears. Author mounts high steps past a glum, leather-clad, long-haired man of 30, as two dark-skinned beauties descend, bearing between them a black baby stroller. The Cathedral is crowded with parishioners, who continue to arrive and depart.

♥

After three days had gone by, during which time they had been feasted and entertained like royalty, Don Quixote asked the swordsman-licentiate to provide him with a guide who would conduct him to the Cave of Montesinos. . . . A cousin finally arrived leading an ass in foal, with a pack-saddle covered by a striped carpet or sackcloth; and Sancho thereupon proceeded to saddle Rocinante and get his gray ready, taking care to stuff his saddlebags to keep company with those the newcomer had brought with him. Being thus well provisioned, they commended themselves to God and, taking leave of all present, set out along the road that led to the celebrated cave. On the way Don Quixote inquired of the cousin what his pursuits were, and his studies. To this their companion replied that his profession was that of humanist, adding that his pursuits and studies had to do with composing useful books for printers.

 

Exiting the subway, author turns into the Rambla de Cataluña, heading in the direction of the Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes. Catalonia’s defeats at the hand of Spanish forces in the 1640s and especially in 1714 are still seared into the minds of modern Catalans (Michael Eaude, Catalonia: A Cultural History). We have arrived in upper-middle-class Barcelona. Their rights were suppressed. “Harmonia,” reads a sign in broad letters. Their language banned. In a quadrate of three blocks, three green, one red, the red peaked. Their wealth reduced. Within the stem of the “i” has been added in silver spray paint “Esther,” who has also adorned the dot of the “i” with a star. The most interesting period follows. In the final “a” of “Harmonia” she has inscribed the numerals 2, 0, 0, 0. The 19^th century Catalan renaissance in politics, art and language. Redirected, we have turned into Carrer de Mallorca.

 

With this and other pleasing talk they spent the day, and when night came found lodgings in a little village which, as the cousin informed Don Quixote, was not more than a couple of leagues from the Cave of Montesinos. Their guide took occasion to remind the knight that if he was resolved to make the descent, he would have to find ropes with which to lower himself into the depths. To this Don Quixote’s answer was that even if it was as deep as Hell, he proposed to see the bottom of it; and so they bought nearly a hundred fathoms of rope, and the following day, at 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon, they reached the cave, the mouth of which is broad and spacious but clogged with boxthorn, wild fig trees, shrubs and brambles, so dense and tangled an undergrowth as wholly to cover over and conceal the entrance. All three then dismounted, and Sancho and the cousin bound Don Quixote very stoutly with the ropes.

 

We have been looking for Avinguda Diagonal. When Catalans talk of the renaixença, they are talking of this proud rebirth, not the post-medieval period we think of as the Italian Renaissance. Redirected again, this time backwards, we will finesse the Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes to enter more directly into the Diagonal. The renaixença laid the basis for the painting and architecture that has made Catalonia’s capital, Barcelona, one of the world’s art-tourism capitals. Along the Passeig de Gràcia we are passing one of Gaudi’s great buildings, the Estai Gaudí, which we cross the street into the sunlight to examine more closely. This story is told in the present book by chapters on Catalonia’s national poet, the priest Jacint Verdaguer, and on its most famous architect, Antoni Gaudí, both sponsored by wealthy industrialists. It houses the famous Collection Thyssen-Bornemisza.

 

“Look well what you do, master,” said Sancho as they were girdling him. “Don’t go burying yourself alive or get yourself caught so you will hang there like a bottle that has been let down into the well to cool. If you ask me, I would say it is not of your grace’s affair to be prying into this cave, which must be worse than a dungeon. “Keep on tying and keep still,” Don Quixote admonished him. “It is just such an undertaking as this, Sancho, that is reserved for me.” The guide then addressed him. “Señor, Don Quixote,” he said, “I beg your Grace to view thoroughly and inspect with a hundred eyes what you find down there; who knows, maybe it will be something that I can put in my book on Transformations.” “Leave the tambourine,” Sancho advised him, “to the one who knows how to play it.” By this time they had finished tying Don Quixote, passing the rope over his doublet, not over his battle harness.”

 

“Dios” reads a spray painted graffito on a tessera bench surrounding a sycamore, as we continue on down the avenue. In 1871 Antonio López paid for the society wedding of the year. The skies are perfectly clear. His eldest daughter Isabel married Eusebi Güell, thus joining two of the richest families in Catalonia. We have arrived at the Plaça de Joan Carlos I, above which rise the blue opaque windows of the Deutsche Bank. Like Antonio López, Eusebi’s father Joan Güell had made his money from slave trading and sugar plantations in Cuba. Instead of continuing along the Diagonal, we head without a map in search of La Sagrada Familia. Their children became connoisseurs and patrons of the arts. Quickly our search describes circles upon circles with no success. Having unwittingly passed the cathedral, we reach the Diagonal again, heading back up it toward Carrer de Mallorca.

 

Kneeling, the Don prayed quietly to heaven for success, then raised his voice: “O lady who dost inspire my every deed and action, O most illustrious and peerless Dulcinea del Toboso! If it be possible for the prayers of this thy fortunate lover to reach thine ears, I do beseech thee to hear them. What I ask of thee is nothing other than thy favor and protection, of which I so greatly stand in need at this moment. I am now about to sink, to hurl and plunge myself into the abyss that yawns before me here, simply in order that the world may know that there is nothing, however impossible it may seem that I will not undertake and accomplish, provided only that I have thy favor. If the outcome of an experiment is not certain but all its possible outcomes are predictable in advance, then the set of all these possible outcomes is called the sample space of the experiment (Saeed Ghahramani, Fundamentals of Probability, 2^nd edition).

 

The outer green neon of a pharmacy’s sign blinks at a different rate than its inner red neon. Eusebi Güell had better luck than Claudio López, for his protégé was Gaudí, now a world-renowned figure and Barcelona’s main tourist attraction. The twists and turns that our wanderings have described in search of Barcelona’s greatest attraction are more complex than any mere circle. The money made from the sweat of slaves was thus converted into beautiful houses, parks and chapels. A new storefront of pure glass has been daubed with four dollar signs. Güell’s name became identified with great art, like Maecenas in Ancient Rome or the Medicis in Florence. To keep inattentive wanderers from running into them. The money’s origins may have been forgotten, but spare a thought, as you gaze on Gaudí’s wonderful buildings, for the Africans who died to create Barcelona’s tourist boom.

 

At last the Don began his descent, calling for his helpers to give him rope, and they let it out for him little by little. By the time that they could no longer hear his voice, which came out of the cave as through a pipe, they had let him have the entire hundred fathoms, all the rope there was, and were of a mind to pull him up again. Therefore the sample space consists of all possible outcomes of the experiment. They decided, however, to wait for half an hour, and then they once more began hauling in the line, with no effort whatever, for they could feel no weight on the other end, which led them to think that Don Quixote must have remained behind. These outcomes are sometimes called sample points or simply points, of the sample space. Sancho, continuing to pull, however, finally caught sight of the Don. “Welcome, master, we are glad to see you again,” he cried. “We thought you had stayed down there to found a family.”

 

We have reached another parting of the ways. The Sagrada Família, Catalonia’s most famous building, was begun in 1882 and Gaudí took it on in 1883. An eighty-year-old man is pushed across an intersection in a wheel chair. It was conceived of as an Expiatory Temple. A red, late-model Volkswagen is parked on the sidewalk, its yellow lights flashing. The idea was to build an offering to the glory of God to expiate the sins of Barcelona. Passersby are attired in expensive if not very fashionable clothes. These sins were not those of the city’s slave-trading or barbarian industrial magnates, but rather those of the godless workers and their revolutionary ideologies. We enter a broad esplanade. From the start. A large sculptural owl hovers over the plaza, its wide eyes like yellow CDs with black pupils. The cathedral was a counter-attack on revolutionary Barcelona. At last we reach Carrer de Mallorca.

 

Don Quixote said not a word in reply, and when they had retrieved him they saw that his eyes were closed and that he was asleep. In the language of probability, certain subsets are referred to as events. They laid him on the ground and untied him, but even this did not wake him. So events are sets of points of the sample space. It was not until they had turned him over and given him a thorough shaking that he finally regained consciousness, stretching himself as if he had been roused from a profound slumber and gazing about him with a bewildered look. “God forgive you, friends,” he said, “for you have taken me away from the most delightful existence mortal ever knew. Examples follow. Now truly do I begin to understand how all the pleasures of this life pass away like a dream. (O unfortunate Montesinos! O sorely wounded Durandarte! O unhappy Belerma! O tearful Guadiana!) Hell you call it, do you?”

 

We pass “La Bar Palizada,” the “Palizada” flashing red, the “Bar,” green. Gaudí, the bright, inquiring student, the dapper young man of his early work, became gradually possessed by religious passion. Continuing, we pass from one little plaza to another. He neglected his appearance and nutrition for this spiritual project. Scaffolding appears above one of the uncompleted spires of La Sagrada Familia. By 1912 he abandoned all other work for the Sagrada Família. Author skirts the cathedral’s facade as he heads, hungry, for a Snack Bar. There Gaudí worked non-stop and almost lived, sleeping on a cot in the workshop. Over an espresso, he studies a black-and-white photo of the cathedral seen across a field of rubble filled with goats. Religious mania had gripped him. Having finished his expensive ham sandwich, author tours the dusty cathedral, where work is very noisily continuing.

 

It was around four in the afternoon when the subdued light and tempered rays of the sun, which was now covered over with clouds, afforded Don Quixote an opportunity to tell his two illustrious listeners, without undue heat or weariness, what he had seen in the Cave of Montesinos. He recollected his experience of a beautiful and pleasant meadow, where he had awakened to see a castle of clear, transparent crystal. “There emerged,” he recalled, “and came toward me a venerable old man clad in a hooded cloak of mulberry-colored stuff that swept the ground. Around his head and his bosom was a collegiate green satin sash, and on his head a black Milanese bonnet. His beard was snow-white and fell below his waist, and he carried no arms whatever, nothing but a rosary which he held in his hand, a string on which the beads were larger than fair-sized walnuts, every tenth one as big as an ordinary ostrich egg.”

 

On a white stone slab set atop two gray work horses, a man with an electrical saw cuts a complicated matrix. An elevator, its safety fence in orange, ascends alongside a soaring stanchion. At a plaster casting station, a worker, his green-ribbed shirt spattered with plaster, measures details, as nearby an assistant puts his two hands into a bag of cement. The foreground is filled with already molded, abstract but figurative, forms. The corrugated wall of the work space gives way to a grated window, which in turn looks down into a basement area filled with large stone-cutting machinery. A blue-clad foreman, clipboard under his arm, strolls through, examining things. We have reached an assortment of olive, yellow, red and purple finials, balanced on wooden blocks. As we turn a corner, a Coke machine displays a picture of the fully completed cathedral. “We have one life to enjoy what we love,” reads a graffito.

 

“It is a long time, O valiant knight,” said the old man, “that we in these enchanted solitudes have been waiting for a sight of you, that you might go back and inform the world of what lies locked in the depths of this cave, an exploit solely reserved for your invincible heart and stupendous courage. At a party, fifteen married couples are seated at random about a round table. Come, illustrious sir, and I will show you the hidden marvels of this transparent castle, for I am the Montesinos himself, after whom the cave is named.” What is the probability that all men are sitting next to their wives? “No sooner,” said Don Quixote, “had he informed me that he was Montesinos, than I asked him if the story was true that was told in the world above, to the effect that with a small dagger he had cut out the heart of his great friend Durandarte and had borne it to the lady Belerma as his friend had asked him to.”

 

Suppose that of these married couples, five husbands and their wives are older than 50 and the remaining husbands and wives are all younger than 50. Whereupon the venerable Montesinos took me into a chamber where lay a knight stretched at full length. What is the probability that all the men over 50 are sitting next to their wives? “This is my friend, Durandarte,” said Montesinos, “flower and mirror of the brave and enamored knights of his age. There is no doubt that after his death I took out his heart with my own hands. It weighed two pounds.” He recounted how, after Durante’s death, he had done as he had asked. At which Durandarte, though dead, cried aloud to confirm it. Montesinos addressed him, confirming in turn that he had done as he had promised to do. “I put a little salt upon your heart,” he said, “so that it would not have an unpleasant odor when I presented it to lady Belerma.”

♥

We have entered the Passeig de Sant Joan, its broad sidewalks an enlargement of life. The balconies on its luxury apartments bend gracefully, as though naturally flourishing, some in fantastic arrays of stone foliage. We cross to the center of the boulevard, so as to pass through an arch — grand, glorious and inviting — that connects its two sides. A pair of police officers strides along in front of author, one, male, in black on black, the other, female, in electric chartreuse vest atop her shoulders. A girl of 22, her red notebook in hand, strolls on ahead of author, revealing a gray knit sweater extending to mid calf. Along the sidewalk, attached to an apartment building, are gorgeous stanchions made of iron encasing aqua-painted stone columns, from which depend two street lamps in neo Art-Nouveau designs. Palms line the sidewalk in front of the magnificent Palacio Justizia, as we all trace a gentle decline to the sea.

 

“La Unión es Nuestra Fuerza” reads a graffito in the plaza, which continues on past a truncated obelisk. Barcelona was founded at the time of the Emperor Augustus, between the years 15 and 10 BC. At the beginning of its sandy continuation stands a Hermes, his waist swathed in marble. It received the name of Iulia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino and held the status of a colony. Opposite him is positioned what appears to be a representation of Aphrodite with Cupid. It had a population of about 1000 at most. The mother has her hand on a waist-high gear. The industrial-bourgeois Barcelona, a city of increasingly radicalized proletariat and management classes, witnessed the birth of a new cultural and political movement, Catalanism. Vehicular traffic in the park is prohibited. Which together with republicanism and labor anarchism would transform the political panorama in the first half of the 20^th century.

 

A round sign, red on its border, white within, reads “Excepte Bicicletes.” In 129 BC Lucius Minicius Natalis, a citizen of Barcelona, won the quadriga races of the 227^th Olympiad. In bright blue someone has lined out the word for bicycles and added the Spanish word for whores. The 4^th century AD records the earliest presence of a Christian community in the city. On our right we pass the Museu de Zoologia. In 717-718 Barcelona was seized by the Moors. Where long-tailed metallic sculptures of lizards flick their bronze tongues at our heels. In 801 Louis the Pious, Charlemagne’s son, captured the city, incorporating it into the Carolingian Empire. The skies are serene and cloudless. The year 1058 saw the consecration of the Romanesque Cathedral of Barcelona. The trees are denuded of foliage. In 1237 Ramon Berenguer IV married Petronella of Aragon. Underfoot is a pure beige sward of sand.

 

Distant skyscrapers are visible between the trees. The year 1150 saw the instigation of the legal code, as Usatges de Barcelona. We pass the marble walls of another museum. The 13^th and 14^th centuries saw the construction of what was later known as the Medieval Wall. We pass the Museum of Modern Art. The year 1401 saw the creation of the Taula de Canvi, a municipal bank. The great esplanade comes to conclusion in a traffic roundabout. The year 1527 saw the monumentalization of the sea wall. At whose center stands an equestrian figure. With the 1705-1714 War of Succession came the end of Barcelona’s political autonomy. A worn marble slab designates him as Juan Prim Prats. The year 1716 saw the formation of the Principality of Catalonia. We turn and exit this truly splendid public space. In 1833 was built the first steam-driven factory. A girl rolls by on in-line skates. In 1845 the city walls were demolished.

♥

After our pedestrian tour of Barcelona has taken us to many more sites: The 1890 May Day Demonstrations. The railway station and the port, with its commercial and leisure traffic. The “Tragic Week” of 1909. The aquarium and the sea itself. The 1911 foundation of the National Confederation of Labor. We return the following morning to the Rambla, to inspect Barcelona’s Picasso museum, one of five such institutions, and view both early and late work by her most successful artist. The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. First, however, author stops for coffee at a harbor-side brasserie, with its early radio background of rock ’n’ roll, where other customers are availing themselves of J&B whiskey, of coffee and whiskey, of a concoction that looks like the French pastis. In 1979 were founded the first democratic clubs. As they depart they almost uniformly take a whack at the gambling machines on either side of the door.

 

We begin with Barcelona 1970, a view from within a room out over a balcony to the Christopher Columbus monument. The museum in the Carrer Montcada is mainly a record of Picasso’s early days in the city and of the Blue Period (Eaude). A cartoon figure uneasily poised atop a sphere points the finger of a gun-like hand toward The New World. The list of historical events concludes with the 25^th Summer Olympic Games of 1992. Enhanced by his own gifts in the late 1960s. There follow collections of stuff: guitars, for example, both on the balcony and in the room where the canvasses were painted. It includes his Meninas series (after Velázquez). Viewed against skies overcast, bright, or in between. It has been for two decades the most popular museum in Barcelona. There follow two pencil drawings on paper of the Villa Medici in Rome, then an idyll of bathers, then another idyll of lovers.

 

This is explained perhaps by the romance of the young Picasso in Barcelona. Two large white shades have been pulled down in the second room to keep out the light from the inner courtyard. And by the museum’s grand setting in a series of merchants’ mansions, or palaus (palaces) as they are called in Catalan. Overhead is an elaborate coffered ceiling painted in gold, silver, yellow and red. Several of these mansions are works of art in their own right: We move on to the 1920s and the clutter of the artist’s studio. The Aguilar and Finestres palaces have rare painted ceilings from the 14^th century. The clutter of the courtyard beyond. Of animals and scenes from daily life. The clutter of Picasso’s imagination. Rare because most surviving paintings of the period are religious. Paintings of windows seen from the outside, and paintings of more interior clutter, classical clutter, cubistic and other clutter.

 

More interiors, more facades. When the museum opened in 1963. A still life donated by Marie McNeil Sweeney in memory of John L. Sweeney (1987). It was called the Sabartés Foundation. A still life with blue and black mandolin. Its stock was small and, up to Picasso’s death on the 8^th of April 1973. Onward to the broken arm of classicism. It was considered an embarrassing failure. A landscape with a bowl, a landscape with empty windows. The rise of the museum has been intimately connected with the city’s remarkable transformation. A bust with a palette. From a slum city, during the 1960s. The bust in black and white. In which the barely changed Old City would have been instantly recognizable to Picasso. We move outside. To a world-renowned tourist city. Or rather inside. The post-Franco authorities understood the attraction of its association with Picasso. The room is windowless.

 

They liked him, too. The landscapes are sketchy and not particularly attractive. He was not just the artist who had found himself in Barcelona. Surrealism on the beach. He also hated Franco and supported Catalan independence. An abandoned nude. More than anything. A group of Spanish women in early middle age enters. For Catalans, squeezed throughout their history between Paris and Madrid. Their hair tinted red, tinted rust, tinted blond. Picasso came from the Spanish provinces to Barcelona. They undulate in their uniformly butt-length coats, over their arms heavy leather bags. Where he educated himself in the new artistic trends brought back from Paris by Rusiñol and Casas. As they comment on the paintings and other matters. Afterwards he went to Paris and conquered what was then the art capital of the world. A woman anatomized rather mercilessly on a couch.

 

He entered Paris like a “vertical invader.” Her anus shown beneath her heart-shaped buttocks. In the beautiful phrase that John Berger appropriates from the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset. The sculptor celebrating himself in 1933, seated on a couch. Berger explains Picasso in terms of how Spain had not experienced a bourgeois revolution. The nude model he causes to stand beside him. Of the type that the rest of Europe saw in the 19^th century. The Sculptor and his Model, he calls it. This meant that Catalonia, despite being the most developed part of Spain, was “stretched on the rack” of history. And back to the beach at Cannes, for more vacation and more women. He means by this that different historical periods existed there simultaneously. Where Picasso smoked cigarettes in his studio, painted new paintings and had sexual relations with various willing females.

 

This led to the extraordinary violence of Barcelona’s labor and political protests. A nude asleep on the beach. a giant regarding her; the kept woman beginning herself to paint, in a series of canvasses. Picasso, coming up through successive and co-existing stages of history, brought revolution to Barcelona, in paint of course, not bombs, from Parisian drawing rooms. The painter shown desperate, stroking his own sacrificial throat, becoming the Minotaur that he had earlier painted objectively. “A painting,” said Picasso, in an utterance worthy of the anarchists, “is a sum of destruction.” An interior view, the bed too now filled with clutter. On Barcelona’s Passeig de Picasso, beside the Ciutadella Park, is a careful pile of rubbish in a glass cube. The bed treated as a landscape. This work, by Antoni Tàpies, is titled “Homage to Picasso” (I do not believe that Tàpies thinks Picasso is rubbish).

 

At last Picasso returns to Madrid to battle with Velázquez. (Tàpies instead is showing that Picasso thought capitalist society was rubbish.) He looks out the window again. Picasso had not only urban Catalan roots. This room has only one window, its shade drawn. He had also spent nine months in 1898 recovering from scarlet fever at Horta de Sant Joan, the village of his fellow student. More interior landscapes, more exterior views interiorized. Though Horta today is accustomed to Picasso fans, it is still at the back of beyond. A child is born, the artist much taken by himself, though his jealousy of Velázquez, a greater painter, is palpable. Here he worked on the land, picking grapes and olives, making wine and oil, as he painted and learned Catalan. Mindlessly he studies the kitchen and produces an ugly picture of the cathedral. “Everything I learned I learned in Horta,” he was later to say.

♥

We exit the Picasso Museum into Carrer Montcada, arriving soon at Carrer Princesa. The historian Labande defines the medieval pilgrim as “a Christian who at some point in his life makes the decision to travel to a particular place and surrenders his entire existence to achieving that goal” (Nooteboom again). We look into the window of a fancy “Pharmacia,” at its displays of “Cosmética,” “Dermopharmacia” (with stylish ads for expensive skin care products). No small matter. The Pharmacia faces a “Confiteria” (pastry shop), its yellow letters on a brown background. And what about me? In its windows are slices of pizza, little ham sandwiches, pastries of all sorts. I still have a long way to go. A photograph of the Emperor and Empress of Japan sampling the Confiteria’s offerings. I have roamed the countryside of Catalonia and Aragón, stopping at many churches and castles along the way.

 

As we turn the corner its display broadens: I am entering Castile now. Into circular patterns of llardons, surrounded by bottles of Muscatel; candies packaged in cellophane bags; “Caramelos Eucalypto”; “Caramelos Piñon”; “Caramelos Acidos,” the last in the form of sections of fruits. I am driving from Sigüenza to El Burgo de Osma. Red wine, white wine and rosé too, lining an alcove at the shop’s entrance. On the map the red road has given way to a yellow road, the yellow to a pink. Having finished our survey of its window’s high points, we enter the Confiteria and its very sweet aroma. I stop the car on one of these unnumbered pink roads, in the midst of a silence punctuated only by an eerie wind. “Bescuit,” “San Marx,” “Cornets,” “Canyes” with lemon, strawberry, crème and chocolate lobes. And my attention is caught by a rust-colored track winding away from this country road.

 

On elaborate doilies tarts have been laid out. Where does it lead? Chocolate bonbons have been wrapped in vermillion tinfoil. The last place that I drove through was called Barcones. In gold, in pale green tinfoil. Dwellings with side walls no taller than a meter are huddled against the hillside. “Trufas Aglades” (candied truffles), “Frutas Confitadas” in tall flasks of green glass, their facets triangulated. Mud walls, thatched roofs, pigs in the mire. In a showcase behind the displays are many fancy boxes of assorted candies, in suave colors never before seen in such combinations: There is no one to be seen but an urchin. Mauve, olive, rouge, cream and burnt orange. Who runs up to the car shouting, “Hijo de puta” (son of a whore). As author leaves its affiliated café. Before scurrying off as fast as he can. A blue-clad security guard, heavily equipped, stands gripping the Confiteria’s two door handles.

 

What next? His back to author, his belt reveals silver handcuffs, a black truncheon, a walkie-talkie, keys, a spray container of mace. I drive some way farther along the dusty tracks. Even more leather cases, strapped to his vest, reveal (but hide) other professional tools. The ground becomes rock hard. He is supervising the removal from a truck, backed in between two parked cars, of an Olma forklift. Rigid channels have been scored in the road. He now turns about to face author, his dark glasses hanging from the “V” of his leather jacket. Some crop may once have been cultivated here. The Olma op, liberated into Carrer Princesa, pivots his vehicle about beneath a circulating orange light over his cab. But now there are only sharp, stiff plants with prickles, grayish blue, low on the ground, hostile: Author exits this sweet ambiance to head on up the street. Like iron spikes, hooks, instruments of torture.

 

We pause to enter Angel Jobal, a spice emporium: “Azafranes,” “Tés,” “Especias.” For what purpose do these plants exist? A man at a counter, in a blue work smock, stands packaging with brown paper assortments of herbs. The random track falls away into a sudden hollow. Open bins of pimento abstract contribute their heavy aroma. Where the surface becomes even more deeply rutted. “Pimentón Esencia,” “Pimentón Extra,” “Pimentón Picante.” I am afraid my wheels may get stuck. Around a corner the bins continue. I get out of the car. “Piñones Castilla,” “Anís Grano,” a saucepan lying atop its pile of herbs; “Pimienta-Negra,” “Singapur Grano,” “Oregano Hoja,” “Cilantro Molido.” Now that even the sound of the engine has died, I can hear the silence that a moment ago I could only see. Sneezing as he enters, a boy wheels a silver dolly with two burlap sacks marked “Malawi” atop it.

 

It is an eerie quiet, not like the silence that one would experience elsewhere. A phone rings with a liquid-sounding bell, rings again, rings, unanswered, a third time. No sounds of animals, not even the flight of a bird, only the wind hauling the hot air across the plain and on its way brushing against the blades of those parched plants. The phone continues to ring, until at last a woman in a black, magenta and olive shawl answers it. But that sound too is silence. She is obscured by, but visible behind, three computers, a manual typewriter. The ground dips slightly in the distance and the track itself disappears from view. Leaving the spice shop we cross a small plaza, where Carrer D’Allada Vermell meets Career Princesa. I am determined to see where it goes, and like an agent on a mission, alone with myself, I set off into the distance. Author heads on across Barcelona to visit the maritime museum.

 

Many centuries ago three pilgrims traveled here from Germany, father, mother and son. Having traversed a good many plazas to reach it, in preparation for his visit, he first stretches out for a nap on an unoccupied bench. They stopped for food at a wayside inn, where one of the serving girls fell in love with the son. During his sleep author has dreamt that he had returned to his hotel, where the concierge has withdrawn from his mailbox a postcard sent to author from abroad. He did not return her affections. Beaming onto the bench, the winter sun has warmed the extra batteries for his tape recorder that author keeps in the pocket to his jacket. So, she reported him to the magistrate, not for unrequited love. It is time now to enter the museum, which begins with a “Welcome Aboard.” But rather for stealing. Six sturdy horses in its first display are pulling a ship on wheels. The young man was sentenced to death.

 

In the next display coal is being unloaded from a Vaixell Carboner. A lighthouse beacon beckons us farther, illuminating a painting of the high seas, behind which, in an open case, is spread a map of the world, which once belonged to Amerigo Vespucci. It is adorned with gold and green, red and blue illuminations. We view oil paintings of the harbor that yesterday we traversed but did not describe in detail. We come upon a model of the “silver cigar,” the first submarine. The next room opens up into terrible murals, looking down upon life-size boats. “La Gran Aventura del Mar” reads a sign behind three attendants at a desk volubly discussing some serious matter. Author declines a set of earphones, entering in silence instead to observe a 16^th century galleon, from whose butt-like stern a long-haired figure glares out. Mounting stairs to the level of its deck, we observe two conquistadores pacing as they dully stare out to sea.

 

On learning of their son’s arrest the parents hurried off to see the magistrate, who happened to be dining on roast chicken. Author, it appears, is the only visitor to the museum this afternoon. Protesting the boy’s innocence, they begged the judge to spare his life. We descend beneath the plaster of Paris surface of the sea to study displays of life below it. The magistrate wiped his lips and said: We have entered the 19^th century by way of exploring one of its ships. “First: he is hanged already, and second: he is as innocent as this chicken on my plate is alive.” We have entered the 20^th century to gaze up at silhouetted representations of tourists, passengers aboard a cruise ship. Whereupon the plump, plucked fowl miraculously regained its plumage and stepped off the plate, clucking. We have boarded the ship and taken our place on deck next to a naturalistically modeled woman, only her umbrella real.

 

The whole town now flocked to the gallows and, sure enough, the youth was still alive. Other ships slide along the horizon, the mechanism for their motion audible. We enter into a submarine; next into a space in which we observe it from under water, as its hull hovers above us. Lights in the submarine illuminate its mustachioed, plaster-cast captain within. Nearby a helmeted diver investigates the rotted remains of a 16^th century ship on the ocean’s floor. Ever since that day a live hen and a live cock have been kept in the cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada. A montage of slides on a screen depicts two penguins, replaced by a dolphin, next by a shark, then by a landscape with a lighthouse, the whole display reviving us from colonial history into a state of recreational reality. There are those who believe that it is still the same hen, and I dare say they are right. Our maritime tour has come to an end.

♥

La Constitución define a España como un Estado social y democrático, proclama la soberanía nacional y consagra la monarquía parlamentaria como forma del Estado; reconoce el derecho a la autonomía de las nacionalidades y regiones de España; establece la separación de poderes, la aconfesionalidad del Estado, la unidad jurisiccional y la independencia de los jueces; garantiza los derechos individuales y colectivos, delimita la atribuciones de las Fuerzas Armadas, instituye el Tribunal Constitucional y crea la figura del Defensor del Pueblo. Las Cortes son el órgano representación nacional. (Imágenes de España, “El Estado de Derecho”)

 

Nous venons de découvrir quelqu'un qui enseigne de façon originale comment améliorer sa vie. Nous voulions vous en parler, parce que cette méthode s'applique à la Spiritualité, à la Santé, aux Relations Humaines et au Secteur Financier. (Communi-Clé Santé)

 

Today we travel by train from Barcelona to Zaragoza to Madrid. As we settle in. On the way out of Barcelona we follow the sea, along the rocky Costa Dorada. A famous John Ford movie, 3 Godfathers, begins to play on the three video monitors in our coach. He who translated this great history from the original manuscript left by its author, Cid Hamete Benengeli, states that when he came to the chapter dealing with the adventures in the Cave of Montesinos. Three cowboys, their leader John Wayne, bring their horses to a watering hole. We hurtle through the gorgeous white city of Sitges and on out into the countryside, past parish church, past new construction, past roadside pines. He found in the margin, in Hamete’s own hand, the following words: Then arrive at the residence of B. Sweet. “I cannot believe that everything set down in the preceding chapter actually happened to Don Quixote.”

 

The Kingdom of Spain, which looks so compact on the map, is composed of distinct provinces, each of which in earlier times formed an independent kingdom; and although they are now united under one crown by marriage, inheritance and conquest, the original distinctions, geographical as well as social, remain almost unaltered. The mountains which intersect the whole peninsula, and the rivers which separate portions of it, have, for many years, operated as so many walls and moats, by cutting off inter-communication, and by fostering that tendency to isolation which must exist in all hilly countries, where good roads and bridges do not abound. As similar circumstances led the people of ancient Greece to split into small principalities, tribes and classes, so in Spain, man has little in common with the inhabitants of the adjoining districts. (Richard Ford, Gatherings from Spain [1846])

 

Mrs. Sweet now serves them steaming mugs of coffee, two of the cowboys still astride their steeds. We enter one tunnel after another. “The reason is that all the adventures that have hitherto taken place have been both possible and likely seeming, but as for this one, of the cave, I see no way in which I can accept it as true, since it is so far beyond the bounds of reason.” We emerge from a tunnel to look down upon a creamy blue sea, whose color deepens several hundred meters from shore. “On the other hand, it is impossible for me to believe that Don Quixote lied, for he is the truest gentleman and noblest knight of his age.” As we leave the town, with its modern apartments blocks. A stagecoach pulls into town, a pretty woman atop it. “And he would not utter a falsehood, even if he were to be shot through with arrows.” “WANTED,” reads a poster, “The Abilene Kid,” who materializes on horseback.

 

“Furthermore I must take into account that he related the story in great detail and that in so brief a space of time as given he could not have fabricated such a farrago of nonsense.” Accordingly, it would be far from easy to predicate any single thing of Spain or Spaniards which will be equally applicable to all its heterogeneous component parts. “I would consider the episode to have the appearance of being apocryphal.” There follows a chase, a two-horse carriage pursuing the two riders, one horse bearing two desperados. “The fault is not mine.” John Wayne’s sidekicks have realized that they are all being outpaced. “And so, without asserting that it is either false or true, I write it down.” We proceed over increasingly rough terrain. The horsemen must pause at a railroad crossing. We stop at a station, whose name is announced in Spanish and Catalan. It is Sheriff and posse, not the desperados.

 

The rude agricultural Galician, the industrious manufacturing artisan of Barcelona, the gay and voluptuous Andalucian, the sly vindictive Valencian, are as different from each other as so many distinct characters in the same masquerade. The Sheriff deputizes members of the community. Spain was long without the advantage of a fixed metropolis, such as Rome, Paris or London, which have been capitals from their foundation and accordingly recognized. The horses are put aboard the train. Here, the cities of Leon, Burgos, Toledo, Seville, Valladolid, and others, each in its turn has been the capital of the kingdom. By one or another means of transportation they are going to reach their goal. We stop at another town to take on more passengers. The desperados drag their horses across the desert. “You, wise reader, may decide for yourself; for I cannot, nor am I obliged, to do any more.”

 

They have uncorked a canteen, presumably of whiskey, and are celebrating, until, that is, they sight the enemy train approaching. We ourselves are pausing to take on water, as a single yellow engine passes us. John Wayne trudges out to view the horizon, where he is joined by his Hispanic sidekick. The cousin was astonished at Sancho’s boldness, at his master’s patience, and he concluded that the good humor which the knight displayed on that occasion had come from the happiness that he felt at having seen his lady Dulcinea del Toboso, even though she was enchanted. In the sand the leader draws a map with his finger. Otherwise Sancho deserved a clubbing for the things that he had said, as he had certainly been rather impudent. We have started up again; we enter another tunnel. They turn to load the third companion, who is exhausted or drunk, onto his horse, strapping him in place.

 

It was to the knight that the student guide addressed himself: As we exit another tunnel, the three desperados are traversing windy dunes. We have reached a long coastal beach. “I, Señor Don Quixote de la Mancha,” he said, “look upon this journey that I have made with you as having been exceedingly worthwhile, since from it I gained four things. The sky is quite cloudy. “First, I have made your Grace’s acquaintance.” The light gleams on the surface of the sea. “Second, I have learned what lies hidden in the Cave of Montesinos.” The wind whips up the dust of a service road into a genuine storm. “Third, I have discovered something about the antiquity of cards, for from Durandarte’s words, as your Grace quoted them, they must have been in use at the time of the Emperor Charlemagne, because, after Montesinos spoke to him, Durandarte said, ‘Patience, and shuffle.’” The sun begins to appear through the clouds.

 

“Fourth, he concluded, “I have established for a certainty what is the source of the Guadiana River, which up to now had not been known.” It shines brightly on a tennis court, on a pre-school playground, on other recreational facilities. The narrator explained how our first father, upon lighting in Italy, was perplexed. Dunes separate the sea from inland pools of water, on the surface of which ducks are floating. The winds have become so ferocious that the third companion can no longer stay astride his horse. Between the dunes are visible whitecaps cresting and dissolving, as two huntsmen, rifles in hand, forage the heathery scrub for ducks. At last John Wayne must sequester his companions against a dune, where they cover themselves with their blankets to wait out the storm. We have reached a sun-drenched town, whose “Club Maritime” is advertising itself in blue letters against a whitewashed wall.

 

Crossing the Alps into Germany, our first father had found nothing that he could understand, the narrator tells us. We traverse its main street, bordered with pollarded trees. Arrived at Paris, he found matters darker and stranger. Disagreement has broken out among the desperados, who set out on foot across the dunes, at some distance from one another. Until, on reaching England, he was altogether lost, confounded and abroad, being unable to make out anything. The Sheriff and his men arrive by train at Apache Wells. Spain was his next point, where, to his great satisfaction, he found himself quite at home, so little had things changed since his absence, or indeed since the sun at its creation shone over Toledo. “Bar Restaurant Roses,” says a sign that we barely glimpse. The horses are being pulled unwillingly down a ramp from the train. High atop a sunlit hill, on our right, a castle emerges.

 

The story concluded, a distinguished Spaniard present, hurt perhaps at the somewhat protestant-dissenting tone of the speaker. We skirt a car park full of trailers as we are leaving another town. Gravely remarked, the rest of the party coinciding: The movie train is leaving Apache Wells. “Si, Señor, y tenia razon; la España es el Paraíso.” The three desperados are seen approaching the very same town, laughing, exultant. “Adam, Sir, was right, for Spain is Paradise.” Until John Wayne senses that something is wrong. “In many respects this worthy, zealous gentleman was not wrong.” Across a plain we view a monastery situated by the sea.Though it is affirmed by his countrymen that some portions of it are inhabited by persons not wholly exempt from original sin.” He draws his pistol and looks down upon a covered wagon from a knoll. Having cleared his fields, a farmer has set the brush afire.

 

Thus the Valencians will often say, of their ravishing huerta, or garden, “Es un Paraíso habitado por demonios — It is an Eden peopled by subjects of his Satanic Majesty.” Gorgeous ropes of dark gray smoke enliven, enchant the landscape. Again, according to the natives, Murcia, a land overflowing with milk and honey. Where gray mason-work houses and low-lying conifers, fruit trees and fields of waving cereals, create a most harmonious scene. Where Flora and Pomona dispute the prize with Ceres and Bacchus. The three desperados sit on the sand to rest and reconnoiter. Possesses a cielo y suelo bueno, el entresuelo malo — has a sky and soil that are good, while all between is indifferent. The plain opens out more broadly to accommodate orchards planted in rows. Which the entresol occupant must settle to his liking. The clouds are gradually dispersing, the sea once again come into view.

 

Modernity was precisely what the Civil War was about (Cees Nooteboom again). A tanker, several miles out from the coast, heads toward Barcelona. And that it was won by those who seem to have lost. Camping grounds, resort hotels, beautiful open beaches alternate with one another. It felt as though Franco would rule forever. On the rocks before a narrow beach a solitary fisherman, his rod held between his knees; on a broad beach, kids at play. In the meantime the “other” Spain was preparing itself. We pass a deserted school, either out of session or finished for good. And before long it seemed as though someone pushed aside the barrier of the Pyrenees. Emerging from a tunnel, we view an industrial wharf. As though the country had just now recovered from the bankruptcy of Philip II. The three video monitors continue to portray the “three godfathers” in their desperate search for sustenance.

 

Having digested the loss of colonies and international influence, Spain can at last join in with all the pent-up energy of someone who has slept for four centuries. Author glances at the monitor: John Wayne is using his machete to open a cactus plant for water. In Spain they refer to this moment as Transición. At Tarragona a new station platform is being constructed; a black-hatted, black-clad woman enters our compartment, looks at her ticket and takes a seat. One must remember what the country was like under Franco to appreciate the frenetic rate at which the changes are occurring, not least in the art world. From Tarragona we begin our move inland toward Zaragoza: birds settle on an electric line; we dip beneath the modern Autostrada; we skirt a field of oil tanks, a Bic pen warehouse. One could say that Spain is celebrating a vitalistic change. Scenes of domesticity are dominating the movie.

 

The museums mount huge exhibitions to underscore her new presence in Europe. Soon we will cross from Catalunya into Aragón, connecting the Roman capital of Tarragona. Its special position between Europe and Latin America. With Roman Zaragoza (the name derived from “Caesar Augustus”). Its emotional and historical ties with the countries of North Africa. Then turn south and head for the modern capital. From Madrid I began my journey to La Mancha. We arrive in the station at Reus, with nothing to look at but the interminable scenes of the movie, which has turned into slapstick. In a book of 1875, Castilian Days, written by John Hay, I have read about the house where Cervantes had lived in Madrid. “Central Aragon,” says the guide book, “consists mainly of a series of treeless depressions and forlorn plateaus, many the sites of nasty fighting during the Civil War.”

 

I wanted to see it. Author decides to take a long nap, one that he hopes might carry him over Castilla y León into Castilla-La Mancha. It is to be found, no surprise, in the Calle de Cervantes, the same street where Lope de Vega lived, though it was denominated differently in those days. Atop a crumbled building, a leaning smokestack threatens to fall. Other signs of ruin and decay appear in this landscape. Today there are two narrow ancient streets close together, named for two great men of Spanish letters. In the desperado narrative a cowboy holds a baby rattle in one hand and his pistol in the other. As we move further inland, a mountain ridge emerges, capped by a butte. The third desperado, his arm in a sling, reads from the Bible. We pass through a tunnel. As is usual in literary circles, the two had many unpleasant things to say of each other. At a dried up river bed, author falls asleep.

 

As he dreams, the landscape turns into an arid plain surmounted with windmill-covered heights. Across from the great author’s house there is now a launderette. One of the desperados extracts the Bible from the pocket of another and reads its verses aloud. But that is about the only sign of modernity in the whole street. The mountainous villages grow more and more inviting. A few doors down I see a despacho de carbones, a dimly lit cavern piled high with charcoal, a churrería, a small wall-tiled bakery where churros, loops of dough fried in oil, are baked in a wood-burning oven. John Wayne, using his wide-brimmed hat, shades an old man from the sun. I observe the old charcoal vendor, black as a miner, and the iron-banded wheels of his handcart. We have entered into a very long tunnel. I do not need the wheels to know how they will sound on the big cobblestones of the alleyway.

 

The Hispanic desperado makes the sign of the Cross. Round the corner I find the convent where Cervantes is supposed to be buried. For a brief moment we exit from the tunnel, only to enter another one. An inscription on the facade identifies the building as a convent of the Holy Trinity. John Wayne hurls an empty canteen into the landscape but retains the few pages that have been ripped from the Bible. The writer was buried there at his own request, in gratitude for his rescue from slavery, by a member of the Trinitarian Order. “Go into the village over against you to stop their flutter,” reads a Biblical passage that he holds in his hand. I fumble with the knob and let myself into a gloomy hallway, off which a second door stands ajar. “And straightway you shall find a donkey tied and a colt with her.” I find myself before what is clearly the entrance to the church, but its door is closed.

 

We are moving slowly through a landscape of individual farmhouses, carefully tended fields and vineyards. The humble ass, burro. borrico, is the rule, the as in presenti, and part and parcel of every Spanish scene. And cinematic high-jinx. He forms the appropriate foreground in streets or roads. Mines are joined by olive trees and fruit trees. Wherever two or three Spaniards are collected together in the market. The leader is joined by his Hispanic and blond comrades. . junta or “congregation,” there is sure to be an ass among them. We cut to the Sheriff cocking his rifle. He is the hard-laboring companion of the lower orders. As we are about to descend from another mountain, a donkey appears before a cactus. For whom to work is the greatest misfortune. As we emerge from a long plain into an even duller landscape John Wayne places the baby on a donkey, against whom he supports his own weight as well.

 

Sufferance is the common virtue of both tribes. The Quixotic Sheriff dismounts, enters a saloon, tosses his rifle on the pool table and makes a long speech. Traveling on horseback, so unusual a gratification for Englishmen, is the ancient, primitive and once universal mode of traveling in Europe, as it still is in the East. Smiling, as he is finishing such eloquent gestures, he collapses, face-down on the floor. Mankind, however, soon gets accustomed to a changed state of locomotion, and forgets how recent its introduction. A short man in a bowler hat has been arrested and, in the next scene, is playing chess through the bars of his cell with his jailor. It has been our good fortune to conduct many expeditions in Spain on horseback. We have entered another long tunnel. Thus we made the pilgrimage from Seville to Santiago, through Extremadura and Galicia, returning by the Asturias, Biscay, Leon and the Castiles.

♥

9:18 am, “Explosiones in Madrid.” Don Carlos, by the grace of God, King of Castilla, Léon, Aragón, Two Jerusalems. In Vergin del Puerto. Jerusalem, Navarra, Granada. Carrer Pietara. Jaén, Valencia, Galicia, Mallorca. Basque separatists have managed to engineer two bombings in adjacent neighborhoods. West and East Indies. A heavy-set female anchorperson, in blue blouse with gray stripes. Lord of Biscay. Is talking by telephone to a reporter in the area. Was already Count of Flanders and titular ruler of the Netherlands and Franche-Comté on his father Philip’s death in 1507. As her TV channel re-reels earlier footage. A total of seventeen titles with their respective domains. Fire trucks, which had awakened author 45 minutes earlier, are returning from the scene. His coronation in 1515 took place in the Parliament Hall of the Ducal Palace at Brussels, his first capital.

 

As he lay asleep in the Calle de Alcalá. Where he returned 40 years later to give his farewell speech. More coverage of the bombings: And abdicate his vast empire “on which the sun never set.” Explosives and other devices being removed from a van. Born and bred in the Burgundian Court of Mary and Maximilian. The Ministro de Interior being interviewed. The spiritual and political center of the Holy Roman Empire. Blue, yellow, red and black microphones in front of him. He knew no Castilian or any other peninsular language and spoke only French. Photos of the Basque terrorists captured. Surrounded by Flemish advisers. Black police vehicles. He arrived in Laredo (Santander), one of the northern ports of Castile. Captured guns being displayed for the media. Which were experiencing growth and prosperity from increasing trade with Flanders and Northern Europe.

 

Now back by telephone to the scenes of the bombings. From the start he was aloof and dismissive of those. 9:30 coverage of 9:00 o’clock events. Like Cardinal Cisneros. Followed by a panel of three editorial consultants. Who had served the Crown of Castilla in the difficult period following his grandmother’s death. The principal commentator of these events wears an orange tie, a blue white-striped shirt, a dark blue blazer. As for his mother, Doña Juana. More distant shots of the bombing scenes. Still Reina y Señora de Castilla. From different angles. He visited her in Tordesillas but only to ensure her enforced seclusion from political intrigues in a tower overlooking the River Duero. A mustachioed commentator in dark blue tie and wide-collared light blue shirt, black suit, comments with a grim certainty of tone. Ignored and forgotten by the world. Gesturing symmetrically with two hands.

 

As much as she had been neglected by her father, husband and son, she lived to be 76 and died in 1555, six months before her son’s abdication in Brussels. 9:47, Channel 4 anchorperson, balding, mustachioed, no tie, pale blue shirt under black sweater, a black jacket in double, white, horizontal stripes, identifies one victim of the bombings. The Infante Fernando, the King’s brother and his junior, born and bred in Castilla. It appears that he had just been passing by. Familiar with its habits, customs and language, was also spirited away. We shift now, on several channels, to the effect of these events upon morning traffic into Madrid. And put on a ship in Santander bound for Flanders. Views of it backed up. Lest support might gather round him to threaten the King’s own position. Along the route that author had taken as he entered by train yesterday. (Juan Lalaguna, A Traveler’s History of Spain.)

 

Don Quixote inquired of the innkeeper who Master Pedro was and about the puppet show and the ape. Traffic entering Madrid along other major routes is unaffected. “This man,” replied the landlord, “is a puppet master who for a long time now has been roaming the Mancha de Aragon region, giving a performance that shows the freeing of Melisendra by the famous Don Gaiferos.” “Completely normal,” in the news commentator’s phrase.” “In addition, he carries with him one of the cleverest apes that you ever saw.” Amidst reports of amputations, more police rescue vehicles race up our side street, past author’s hotel, their sirens blaring. “Indeed, you cannot imagine his like among men.” The bombings have taken place near the Puerto de Toledo, we are told. “For if you ask him anything, after listening carefully to what you say, he will jump up on his master’s shoulder and whisper the answer into his ear.”

 

After summary coverage at 10:00 o’clock Channel 1 has gone to a soap opera. “And then Master Pedro will announce it.” Channel 2 is reviewing future programming. “He can tell you a good deal more about past events.” Channel 3, however, is dealing with incoming reports. “Than he can about those that are to come.” Channel 4 is re-running original pictures of the first explosion. “And although he does not always hit the truth.” Voicing over them commentary. “In most cases he does not miss it.” Likewise Channel 5, with the voice now of Presidente P.P. Pais Vasco. “Until we are forced to think that he has the devil in him.” The BBC in summary reports that a bomb was attached to a lieutenant’s car, and that several persons were severely injured. “He gets two reales for every question if the ape answers it.” Now, at 10:30, we go direct to the scene of the bombings, to a red-headed reporter in heavy black coat and red scarf.

 

“Tell me,” said Sancho “and here are my two reales for this Sir Ape of Apes,” tell me what my wife, Teresa Panza is doing right now and how she is amusing herself.” In professorial glasses, the reporter holds an olive-colored microphone before her lips. In great haste Pedro next ran over and threw himself on his knees before Don Quixote. As she speaks, earlier amateur footage is being intercut. “I embrace these legs,” he said, as I would the columns of Hercules.” It was taken with a hand-held video camera by someone running along the avenue. “O illustrious reviver of the now-forgotten profession of knight-errantry.” The redheaded reporter continues in dialogue with a gray-clad anchorwoman back at the studio. “O Don Quixote de la Mancha, thou who canst never be praised enough, bringer of courage to the faint of heart, support of those that are about to fall, arm of the fallen, staff and counsel of all the unfortunate!”

 

Meanwhile, one suspects that something else is going on in the city. “All I have to say,” observed Don Quixote, “is that he who reads much and travels far, sees much and learns a great deal.” Channel 4, however, is re-running old footage, as it over-voices a live interview with news summary. “For what could ever have led me to believe that there are apes in this world than can divine things, as I have seen this one do with my own eyes?” Channel 5 offers a large woman in a Frank Stella pin-stripe suit of charcoal and thin white stripes. “I am that same Don Quixote de la Mancha this animal has mentioned, though he has gone a bit too far in his praise of me.” Her short hair has been dyed blond. “But whatever sort of man I may be, I thank Heaven that it has endowed me with a tender and compassionate heart.” Speaking authoritatively through narrow glasses. Always inclined to do good to all and evil to none.”

 

The rapacity and arrogance of the King’s Flemish and Bugundian entourage fanned the flames of disappointment and discontent among Castilians. Channel 1 is showing live coverage of Calle Pizarro, the site of the first bombing. Which gave vent to their feelings in no uncertain terms, when the King first met the Cortes in Valladolid during February 1518. A camera pans up the side of the brick apartment building to observe broken glass, broken shutters in two of its windows. There was no challenge to his right of succession to the Crown of Castilla, but he was firmly reminded that he must recognize the laws and liberties of the realm and govern in accordance with the guiding principles laid down by Isabel I in her will. At 10:42 we cut to the President of Spain calling the events “completely incomprehensible.” Which contained an explicit prohibition against foreigners in Castilian offices.

 

Video technicians walk about, passing between the spectators and the police. “I wish,” said Sancho to Don Quixote, “that you would have Master Pedro ask his ape if what happened to your Grace in the Cave of Montesinos is true or not.” The name of the one dead victim is repeated. “For, begging your Grace’s pardon, it is my opinion that it was all humbug and lies, or something that you dreamed.” Over the live coverage has been superimposed a map of the city, cut to include only the neighborhood of the bombings, the buildings in perspective. The knight obliged and requested the puppet master to ask the ape if certain things that had taken place in the Cave of Montesinos were true or if they were but dreams. Channel 5 has brought in a writer named Raoul to discuss today’s events with the Stella-clad anchorperson, a woman in gray coat and black sweater, and a gray-haired historian named Cesar in horn-rimmed glasses.

 

“The ape,” announced Master Pedro, “says that the things your Grace experienced are in part false and in part credible, and that is all he can tell you.” Raoul, Cesar and the two anchorpersons are talking simultaneously. “He says that if your Grace wishes to know more, he will answer any questions you wish to ask him next Friday, as his powers have left him for the present.” The King was urged to learn Castilian and recognize that Juana was still Queen of Castilla. The focus of this new discussion is the political problem behind the bombings and its possible solutions. And allow his younger brother Fernando, first in the line of succession to the throne, to return to Castilla, until the King should marry and father an heir. At 10:53 Channel 3 is covering the clean-up of the street. “Let us go,” said Don Quixote, “and see the good Master Pedro’s show, for I fancy there is going to be something novel about it.”

 

At 10:59 Channel 1’s “Buenos Días Madrid” gives us a one-minute wrap-up of the morning’s events. Don Carlos then proceeded to Zaragoza to meet the Aragonese Cortes, where he encountered similar opposition; it took him eight months to obtain recognition. At 11:04 Channel 5 solicits phone calls from the audience. In February 1519, on his way to the Catalan Cortes, he was apprised that his grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian, had died. At 11:12 the Head of Police comments. His main concern now was the election to the Holy Roman Empire; he made haste to the capital of Cataluña to be sworn in by the Catalan parliament and obtain additional financial support for his imperial campaign to succeed to the position of Holy Roman Emperor. On Channel 4 two anchorpersons, their laptops open before them, are discussing the advantages and disadvantages of democracy.

♥

We have had enough TV: The failure is not surprising, if one compares Spain with other European countries. Out we go into the brisk, slightly hazy brilliance of the late morning. (Richard Herd, An Historical Essay on Modern Spain.) We head to Puerta del Sol for passage into Plaza Mayor. (The vast square was the heart of old Madrid, the setting for religious ceremonies, including autodafés, royal occasions and proclamations — Michelin’s Spain.) Past Televisión 3 antennae, its truck still parked in the street, its car blocking the sidewalk. The European revolutions of mid-century, those of 1848, had also been defeated. “Itch,” reads a graffito on a yellow mail box. By century’s end, France, Germany and Italy had conservative regimes representing the propertied classes (which included the peasants in France). We have entered the sunless cavern between the high buildings on either side of Calle Mayor.

 

All such regimes functioned under more or less democratic parliamentary systems. A bronze onion dome surmounts the cupola atop a tower. It is ironic but in historical perspective understandable that the doctrine of popular sovereignty introduced in Europe in 1789 had the effect for over a century of strengthening the political power of the upper classes. A gold figure sits on a ledge, part of an enormous bronze quadriga display. The Spanish revolutions of 1854 and 1868. Astride the four horses that pull the chariot are nude figures. Have been compared to the general European revolutions of 1848. At the Banco Bilbayo we have reached Metro Sevilla, designated in red, white and blue. These revolutions suffered and eventually fell partly because the groups supporting them were divided. At this point author realizes that he is heading in the wrong direction and must turn back to pursue his original destination.

 

The unforeseen appearance of radical extremists and workers’ groups preaching doctrines threatening property frightened off many middle-class moderates. Making a virtue of his mistake, author pauses to purchase unusual postcards that might otherwise have proven unavailable: scenes tinted purple and pale green, a plaza depicted in yellow, its skies in red, orange and citron. Spain was not, however, simply repeating 1848 with delayed timing. Now more sirens are sounding, in the Puerta del Sol, as two policemen in army green uniforms with silver stripes negotiate the traffic on motorcycles. The revolutions of 1848 were the product of a spirit that had tied bourgeois liberals together across national frontiers. They are heading in the direction of the morning’s disaster. They still embodied the humanitarian ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. At last we enter the Calle Mayor.

 

Spain under Carlos I and Felipe II — Lonely Planet’s Spain — reached the apogee of imperial greatness, its possessions spreading from Vienna to the Low Countries, from Seville to the Americas. It is 3 degrees centigrade, 11:55 am. Habsburg successors were largely responsible for expressing that glory in the center of Madrid. A large red and black Kawasaki, its seats at two different levels, is parked on the sidewalk. Don Carlos’ candidature to the imperial crown (Lalaguna again) was probably the strongest. A man in a black coat and red scarf raises his wrist to eye level to check his watch. The seven German electors had already made promises to his grandfather, the deceased emperor, and the Habsburg and Burgundian hereditary holdings in central Europe gave him a significant advantage. The sunlit plaza’s cobblestones are arranged in a grid of black on white, red-gray diagonals interspersed.

 

During these modern revolutions (Herd) nationalism destroyed the international revolutionary spirit in the middle class. Beside the equestrian statue at the center of the plaza has been opened a large trench, whose sides a worker is chalking in pink and green. Liberal revolutions henceforth became local affairs, such as the French Commune of 1870-1871, which ceded to the propertied classes political power. An orange generator sits on the paving stones between this and another large, shallow trench. Only socialist proletarian movements remained international. On the shaded side of the plaza, caricaturists and painters in oil work at their monstrosities, light floating above their heads in chiaroscuro toward the Calle de Toledo, which leads out of the square. With sufficient money to purchase votes, Carlos I of Castilla thus succeeded his grandfather to gain the Holy Roman Empire as Charles V.

 

Spain was different. Policemen, blue bulbs atop their squad car, circle the square. It had never really formed part of the “Liberal International,” even if Spanish refugees in Paris or London mingled with those from other countries. One of the cops notes author’s tape recorder held to his mouth. In 1801 most liberal Spaniards rejected the constitution imported by Joseph Bonaparte. The squad car stopped, its occupants have been joined by three more cops, one having drawn up his gray motorcycle alongside it. They wrote instead their own Constitution of 1812, against the French invaders, not under their auspices. The others lean against the vehicle, smoking cigarettes. In 1820 Europe took its cue from Spain, not France. An overweight American tourist accosts the policemen, asking them where he may find cigars. Thus except for France and England, Spain was ahead of the rest of Europe.

 

Here once again Master Pedro raised his voice: “Speak plainly lad, and don‘t indulge in any flights. All affectation is bad.” One of the most egregious of the male nudes in the palace’s decoration holds a golden arrow in his limp wrist. The interpreter continued: “Seeing Melisendra descend from the balcony and mount her husband’s horse.” Above him are ill-formed notes in the treble clef. “These persons notified King Marsilio, who at once ordered the call to arms, causing the city to be drowned in the sound of bells, pealing from the towers of all the mosques.” In a darkened entryway a sign reads “La Torre del Oro.” Don Quixote interrupted him: “No,” he said, “that won’t do, for in this matter of bells Master Pedro is far from accurate, since bells are not in use among the Moors, who use kettledrums and a flute instead.” A mechanized floor-polisher is sweeping through the plaza, past the “Bar Andalú.”

 

Master Pedro obliged by stopping the bells, but the noisy Moors continued to pursue the Catholic lovers. In individual shops: stamps and coins, sombreros, cigars are on sale. Upon seeing so many Moors and hearing such a din, Don Quixote thought that it would be good for him to aid the fugitives and, rising to his feet, cried out: Author begins a counterclockwise circuit of the plaza’s arcade, remaining outside it. “Never in my presence will I permit such violence to be done to so famous a knight and so bold a lover as Don Gaiferos.” Monzi is showing, among souvenirs, scimitars in silver scabbards. “Halt, lowborn rabble, or you shall do battle with me,” he cried. A golden hat against a background of fans. With these words the Don drew his sword and in one bound was beside the stage. Mostly in black. Then, with accelerated and unknown fury, he began slashing at the Moorish puppets, beheading some, crippling others.

 

In the window of Bazar Arribas black castanets are displayed. Social constructivism is sociological realism; and sociological realism carries with it a wide range of realist consequences (Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies). The white floor-polisher pursues its route: in green letters on its front it reads, “La Machina Verde”; as it passes, rear red lights. The philosophically strongest argument is traditionally that which is self-grounding, certain in itself, without appeal to empirical observation. An expensive restaurant, Mesón del Corregidor, is showing in its window porcelain tubs of squid, of shrimp in solution with celery and green peppers; metal trays full of clams in a brown sauce. The classic argument of this kind, the cogito, seeks irrefutable truths by passing statements through the acid bath of doubt. Bar Cristina shows metal plates of large-cut pommes frites, onion rings,

 

“I am thinking” is irrefutable because “I am not thinking” nevertheless displays oneself thinking (Epilogue: “Social Realism, The Sociological Cogito”). Author follows in the wide swath of the pavement cleaner, past a picture of Velázquez holding his rapier-like brush in his paw-like hand. The familiar conclusion from the cogito is the existence of the self. A bookstore advertizes copies of El Semblante de Madrid. Madrid de las Austrias: Walking Tours, Guía Literaria de la Puerta del Sol al Paseo del Prado. This is not the most useful path of argument. Mandrino is showing a broad-chested ceramic harlequin with an asymmetrical heart. The self that is proven is ambiguous, conceivably only momentary, and insubstantial. “Hay caldo casero” announces Plaza Mayor Bar. Consider what else is proven by the cogito. Its impeccable interior is revealed by glass doors next to Fama’s underwear for men.

 

First of all, time exists. The pavement-cleaner returns, forcing author to the curb. To doubt this (“time does not exist”) is to make a statement in time. Ferquin is showing checked tams in black-and-white. Conscious thinking occupies the saddleback of the present, merging imperceptibly with past and future. In orange-olive-and-darker olive. Second, thinking exists. In black leather. This thinking, irrefutably proven, takes place in language. In brown corduroy. It constitutes a kind of conversation, myself saying something to myself. A restaurant called “Hegar” shows bottles of wine balanced against an uprooted vine. The cogito reveals a speaker and an audience. We pass Calle del Sol. Denial proves it. Which exits the plaza without much slope next to “El Gato Negro.” To say “there is no one speaking” is uttered by a speaker; likewise, “there is no audience” is received by an audience.

 

“Lanas,” is displaying in its window signs lettered in gold on black: “Labores,” “Fibras,” “Algodones,” and “Perlés.” We have not yet proved the existence of other people. Another restaurant has, in its window, small paintings on tiles, framed in gold, by Rubens, Velázquez and El Greco. This too is given by verbal thinking. A philatelic shop completes our circuit, this one offering for sale Disney issues from Sierra Leone, American birds and flowers, a James Dean set of nine portraits from République du Tschad, another set from République du Mali showing views of the Titanic (consisting of old photos of its crew). Language takes place in words that carry meaning, and it follows a grammar that is to a large degree inescapable, if statements are to make sense. As author continues on down Calle de Mayor, he sees one of the cops encountered in the Plaza standing before an ATM machine to withdraw a little cash.

 

We arrive at our first view of the Palacio Real (the Royal Palace). The news reached Carlos I in Barcelona. A visit to Germany became imperative. From France came warnings of Francis I’s machinations for a political alliance with Henry VIII of England against him. Parliamentary business kept him in Barcelona for the rest of the year and at the beginning of 1520 he hurried through Aragón on his way to Castilla for more funds to finance his trip to Germany. After paying his respects to his mother in Tordesillas, he proceeded to Santiago de Compostela in the Kingdom of Galicia, where against all precedent he summoned the Castilian Cortes for the end of March, in the hope of setting sail from La Coruña as soon as he had obtained further subsidies for his imperial progress. In the shade we skirt a haughty bust of green corroded bronze, representing “Larra,” to return to the sunlight.

 

The assembled deputies, however, insisted on satisfaction for their grievances before they would consider a grant. Bribes and threats brought no change to the proceedings, and Carlos I had to reassemble the Cortes at La Coruña, with members from Salamanca and Toledo refusing to attend. After 22 days of debates he was voted a servicio of 400,000 ducats by a majority of one. Two old men, equally portly, in identical red horn-rimmed glasses, their skin equally swarthy, move out of author’s way for him to work. Throwing caution to the wind as hereditary ruler of these territories, Carlos set sail for Dover, leaving behind his personal representative. From England, where he signed an alliance with Henry VIII to keep Francis I from any aggressive action, he traveled to Aachen, the city of Charlemagne, to be crowned Emperor on 23 October 1520 (Lalaguna). We pass a tour bus named “Vera.”

 

He transported himself in imagination to the deck of the corsair (Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Nautical Chart: A Novel of Adventure). Before the Royal Palace, as a cream truck issues out of it, followed by a policeman on a motorcycle, a vibrant middle-aged woman in a red rug of a coat, her orange tresses laid out across her shoulders, is photographed alongside her olive top-coated husband. According to the details of the ship Lucio Gamboa had described to them in Cádiz, the Chergui, a polacre-rigged xebec, would have had all sails set, the lateen on the foremast swollen with wind and hauled to the bowsprit, the sails on the mainmast set, topsail and another lateen on the mizzenmast, cutting through the waves with the lines of a ship constructed for the Mediterranean, her gun ports closed but the battle-trained crew preparing their guns. A bronze statue of Neptune sits beneath the hind quarters of an equestrian statue.

 

And that Englishman, that Captain Slyne, or Misián, or whatever the SOB’s name was, would have been standing on the high, slanting poop, never taking his eyes off his prey. The stern chase would be long, as the brigantine was also swift. The crew of the corsair would be calm, aware that, unless the prize damaged something, they wouldn’t close on her. Coy could imagine renegades, the dangerous scum of the ports, Maltese, Gibraltarians, Spaniards and North Africans. The worst from every rooming house, whorehouse and tavern, skilled pirates who sailed and fought under the legal cover of letters of marquee, which in theory kept them from hanging if they were captured. (“Map pages reproduced under permission of the Istituto Hidrográfico de la Marina. Not valid for navigational purposes.”) The Guardia Civil has posted an olive-hooded, white fendered car, before which stands a cop in a bulletproof vest.

 

We are in time for the changing of the guard. The Poem of the Cid. Two soldiers stand in 18^th century uniforms along with two more on horseback. Both the Charlemagne and the Roland of Spain, in the sense that he was glorified as the national hero and was celebrated in a cycle of extravagant legends, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar actually lived during the 11^th century. As soon as they are finished with their ceremony, an Aussa maintenance truck issues from a portal. By virtue of the historical fact that he was a great leader and a valiant warrior in a battle-torn era of civil war and conflict between Christians and Moslems, he was known to the Arabs as “El Cid” (the lord) and won the idolatry of his fellow Castilians (Spanish Goths) in a single compact with an opponent chosen by the enemy, after which the added title of Campeador (champion) became part of his designation.

 

More sirens fill this neighborhood, not too far from the morning’s bombings. Although born of a noble family of Vivar, employed by the king in high state affairs, and married to the granddaughter of Alphonso V, the Cid later aroused the king’s enmity and became a freebooter on a heroic scale, collecting hordes of personal followers and fighting on any side of any quarrel that seemed opportune. We have moved downhill past the modern senate building, before which limply hangs a museum-quality flag of Spain, to enter the modern Plaza de l’España, centered by a high-rise building with stylized mansard roof. His greatest exploit was the taking of Valencia in 1094. Atop it reads the inscription, “Santa Lucía.” He died there in 1099, leaving his wife to hold the city successfully for three more years. The trees here have been pollarded and read against an advertisement for “Philippine Airlines.”

 

Don Quixote’s bronze hand waves at us vaguely; the right rear thigh of Rocinante, like the front left pastern of Sancho’s donkey, have been polished by much fond caressing. This picaresque hero, given to cruelty, plunder and self-aggrandizement, was exalted in the popular imagination to the status of a saint, devotedly invoked as “my Cid,” prayed to and known to be a worker of miracles even after his death. Turning the dark brown bronze to gold. Ballads, chronicles and epics about him began to multiply along with legends of incredible exploits and impossible glories. With glaucous eyes, the two volumes of his masterpiece in hand, Cervantes oversees a lake. The Poem of the Cid, a fragment in crude Alexandrine assonantal lines, was composed in the second half of the 12^th century. In graffito a blue sign of anarchy has been inscribed beside him. A Spanish classic.

 

Behind the huge statuary complex, rustling streams of a fountain murmur over marble. Fragmentary ballads describe the early part of the Cid’s career, which begins with his killing of Don Gómez in revenge for an insult to his mother. Entering the upper reaches of the Plaza we face the Edifício España, whose beige sandstone and red brick facades suggest an inedible cake. He is thereby named head of the family. Within a police van sit four officers anticipating trouble. Next he defeats five Moorish kings who attack Castile and earns the epithet of “Cid.” The driver is reading the morning paper. When Donna Ximena demands satisfaction for her father’s death from King Ferrando of Castile and consents to waive her claims if Rodrigo will be her husband, she is married to the Cid and placed under the care of his mother until, that is, he has won sufficient fame to be worthy of the honor.

 

We have climbed even higher. In a dispute over the possession of Calahorra, King Ferrando chooses the Cid as his champion to fight in single combat to decide the issue. The Lope de Vega Theater is showing Disney’s La Bella y la Bestia. Millions of visitors, even those who place Pirates of the Caribbean and Space Mountain among the wonders of the world. We pass Cafeteria Nebraska. Are hard-pressed to come up with an accurate definition for Walt Disney World (Fodor’s Complete Guide to All the Magic). The midmorning traffic is light (if not light-hearted). On his way to the lists, the Cid pauses to raise a leper from a bog, takes him to an inn, insists on sharing his own bed with him, and awakes to discover St. Lazarus beside him, who assures him of his future success. As you exit I-4 or U.S. 192 you are already on the grounds, even though there is no Cinderella Castle yet in sight.

 

He of course triumphs in his succeeding duel. Tío Pepe shows a whole windowful of dolls, starry eyed, dowdily accoutered. The sheer enormity of the property — 27,400 acres near Kissimmee, Florida — suggests that WDW is more than a single theme park with a fabulous castle in the center and the most dazzling rides on earth. A TV cameraman and grip are working to register the extent of the show, the speakerine in a velvet dress with a huge wreath of pearls mounted about her neck, an embroidered shawl over her shoulders, a yellow microphone in her hand. High in the royal favor, the Cid arouses the jealousy of the other courtiers, who plot with the Moors against him. The lens of the camera, as large as the director’s head, has fallen into a knot of mauve and yellow confetti. The property’s acreage translates to 43 square miles, 60 times larger than Monaco, only a little smaller than Liechtenstein.

 

We continue on up the hill past a theater emblazoned with Romantic ads for the Spanish film, El Corazón del Guerrero. When their treachery is revealed, the king banishes them, but the wife of one of them, Don García, persuades the Cid to commend her lord to one of the conquered Moorish kings. The theater “Callao” (in magenta letters reading downward) is advertising Ana y el Rey. If you were to drive at 60 miles per hour from one side of the property to the other, it would take close to 45 minutes. We are passing the Residencial California. Don García is accordingly given the city of Cabra, proves untrustworthy and is expelled by the Cid. It is still only 6 degrees centigrade. On a tract this size, 98 acres is a mere speck, yet that is the size of the Magic Kingdom. In retaliation for a Moorish invasion, the Cid conquers the city of Coimbra, Portugal, is made a knight and awarded the rule of Zamorra.

 

When most people imagine Walt Disney World, they think only of those 98 acres, but there is much much more. A woman licking an ice cream cone passes author. When the Pope sends an army to enforce King Fernando’s homage, the Cid ensures the independence of Spain by winning a total victory. Casa del Libro is advertizing Historia in yellow on a black background. On the verge of death, Fernando divides his realm among his children. El Legado de Roma: Carlos V Imperator. The oldest, Don Sancho, attempts to reconquer the entire country, falls prisoner to one of his brothers, and regains his own and the brother’s portion through the Cid’s prowess. His sword is broken in half. A third son, Alfonso, is also defeated with the Cid’s aid and seeks refuge in the Moslem city of Toledo. La Epoca de Carlos V y Felipe II. A passing woman has lottery tickets pinned to both her breasts.

♥

Afternoon coverage of the ETA bombing. A group of men and women at a funeral. Television views from within the Madrid apartments, their windows blown to bits, their floors littered with shards of glass, some bloodied. Usually an image of relative simplicity: death is represented by the coffin (Cees Nootebaum, in his Chapter XVII, “A Riddle for Creon.”) An interview with the father of one of the injured, standing outside the hospital. A coffin on its own, without a body, also betokens death, as can be seen in demonstrations nowadays. A direct shot of the street (the live coverage intercut with footage of the panic following the attack). If there is a dead body, then it is more about death itself, you could say. People, fearful of another explosion, running away from the site. The coffin that I am concerned with here is not empty, but the scene is no ordinary funeral, it is a political demonstration.

 

The Mayor of Madrid, appearing on TV, denounces the terrorists. There may be no proof that a body is actually in the box, but there is circumstantial evidence. Eye witnesses being interviewed. The coffin rests on the shoulders of several strong men. Views of city employees sweeping up the refuse, of police at the scene, of other citizens. They are not staggering under its weight, but it is certainly not empty. Views of other cars, damaged, burned, in the larger but limited conflagration caused by the bombs. Then we note the faces of the bystanders; no, bystanders is not the right word, even though they are standing by. A tribute to the dead lieutenant with his photographic portrait; a government spokesman lamenting his death. Their expressions are too intense for bystanders, they are here for a reason. With dramatic gestures he reads from a prepared statement. In a sense they are family.

 

The spokesman’s performance intercut with views of the deadliest terrorists still in circulation displayed on the screen. To some extent one can choose one’s family. Followed by an interview with a representative of the city of Madrid. The men have not dressed for the occasion. Two yellow microphones thrust before his face. They are wearing those lived shoes that joggers wear, with thick, ribbed soles. A map of the site displayed again. Their shirts worn outside their trousers, their sleeves rolled up. A view of the Hotel Printania, where one of the terrorists was known to have stayed. The women that you can see in the photograph are mostly middle-aged and wear two-piece suits or floral print dresses, their handbags swinging crookedly from their elbows, because their arms are raised to show clenched fists. Police are depicted pulling an Uzi and a handgun from clothes on a closet shelf.

 

My mother would have recognized them as ladies at once. The investigation, we are assured, is going forward. Some raise the right fist, others the left. At a press conference: a Basque Separatist denounces the attack. Then the usual décor of paving stones, foliage, a smokestack, random buildings. Followed by an interview with “Xavier”; with another spokesman (before his face are thrust red, green, blue and black microphones, which surround his jaws like a bouquet of flowers); finally we cut to another interview with “Joaquín,” in a big black tie, striped diagonally in blue and white. The deception of a photo lies in its arrested movement (what happened when the picture started moving is reported in the papers). An interview with Francisco Frutas. The person in the coffin is Rafael Etxebeste.

 

Jordi Pujol expresses his thoughts and sentiments on the subject, comparing the situation faced by Israel. What he looked like is seen in one of the two accompanying mug shots: The 3:00 o’clock news gives appropriate emphasis to the death of the lieutenant, showing, first, his calling card, shredded by the explosion, then, his photograph (in a moment of silence). A man of about thirty, balding, more hair at the sides than on the top. The criminal dereliction that has led to the injury of innocents is noted. The side-hair blends into the black hair of his beard; no mouth is to be seen, but something about the shape of the beard tells you that his lips are thin and turned up at the corners. Another channel is interviewing the lieutenant’s cheerful secretary, “a friend of the family.” It is strange how even when you are dead a photograph gives you away: The interviewer returns us to a saddened anchorwoman.

 

Last night on television I saw that face (the big black eyes, a high, pale forehead, a steady gaze). 7:30 pm: a political protest has begun in the Puerta del Sol, author out to mingle with the crowd, a well-mannered, well-dressed selection of Madrid’s citizenry surrounding more vocal protestors. Along with images of the burnt-out, blackened, twisted carcass of a car. The well-to-do hold aloft a long, neatly lettered banner reading “Por la Paz: ETA No!” The death of objects inspires its own horror. A Picasso-like face follows the message. Etxebeste and María Teresa Pérez Ceber were traveling in that car when the bomb that they were carrying, presumably to blow someone up with, exploded. In the government building to one side of the square all the lights are on. Both were killed instantaneously, an instant which, some say, lasts an eternity. Diplomatic servants are visible through its glass doors.

 

Recently they had returned from France, where they had been leading a clandestine existence, to join the summer offensive of ETA Militar. The diplomats can be seen kissing one another on both cheeks, as they prepare to head for home. Police claimed that they had already been involved in three murders that summer. Busses and cars from half a dozen TV stations arrive simultaneously, parking in irregular fashion. Not that they called it murder — words can be put on and taken off, just like items of clothing. Within van-like trucks newsmen may be seen seated at desks, speaking their reports or recording events that have not yet occurred. At 19:00 hours (punctuality is appreciated, even though bombs may sometimes detonate prematurely) the coffin arrives in Rentería. On the third floor of the government building a porter almost closes two French windows open too wide.

 

That is close to the border with France; truly this war is not far off. CNN has driven its largest silver truck to the scene, “CNN” in white, outlined in red, followed by a black field, in which appears a white Coptic cross. The coffin is covered with the ikurriña, the holy Basque flag, and the ETA anagram. “24 Horas de Información.” It is not I who call that flag holy. Women in fur coats. It is the people who die and kill in its name. Women in leather coats with fur collars. And who, as in San Sebastián and Bilbao during the past few days. All with their hair dyed blond and highly coifed. Go berserk when it is not hoisted on its own without the Spanish flag. Standing about with husbands in camel hair coats. On the balconies of public buildings. “ETA Asesina,” reads a sign. La Guerra de las banderas is what they call it, the war of the flags, and the war would be comic, if it were not for all the corpses.

 

Scaffolds have been erected. Back to the coffin. For the television cameramen. Herri Batasna is the name of the political party which maintains close ties with the terrorist ETA organization. As one moves closer to the center of the protest one encounters groups of less-well-dressed men discussing politics. But despite that connection the party has a say in local councils, provincial parliaments and even in the European Parliament. “Basta! Ya!” reads a large red sign. Where its representative was the only member not to support the motion against terrorism. “Terrorismo = Fascismo,” reads another. Every time a terrorist is buried, Herri Batasuna is there. The pace of the protest begins to pick up. Thus the schism within Spanish politics, the poisonous, squalid schizophrenia that reveals itself. What had seemed the protest of a conservative majority against a violent minority no longer seems so.

 

The body about to be buried usually belongs to someone who, according to all the laws of the Spanish state, is a murderer. It appears instead to be a popular protest against the terror. Legalists may prefer the term “potential murderer” in certain cases. At the end of the square, outlined in pink neon, rises Tío Pepe, styled as a bottle of wine dressed in a pink jacket. And yet the state permits graveside ceremonies with full honors, from which potential victims must stay away at all costs. A pink sombrero is perched atop the bottle. I am referring to the members of the Guardia Civil. In Pepe’s hand, leaned against the ground, is a guitar outlined in yellow neon. Indeed it would be hard on them to have to listen to the graveside rhetoric. The bottle of wine is outlined in green. During the funeral, Batasuna said:

 

Within the architrave of the public building three pigeons have settled, atop the head and shoulders of a classical bust, before a coat of arms. The dead activists “had been the bravest of all, for they had done what others would not dare.” Two stone lions, mild as housecats, look down upon the scene. Then a thirteen-year-old boy had danced the aurresku by the coffin. Groups of the better-dressed have initiated political discussion. Thus the ceremony acquires a mythic and religious dimension, familiar from other fanatical movements. A policeman looks on, hunching up, shivering a little. The only contemporary parallels that I know are the dismal funerals of IRA heroes, where masked men fire hand-guns in salute over the coffins. A walkie-talkie protrudes from his open leather jacket’s pocket. But there is an ancient parallel that offers a better illustration of the dilemma facing the Spanish government:

 

A woman in green hair passes. Oedipus’s sons, Eteocles and Polynices, have driven their blind father from Thebes. About her neck a mauve scarf. Oedipus curses his sons, who wish to rule the city. Another woman in blond-streaked hair nervously smokes a cigarette. They quarrel; Polynices seeks help from outside to attack his own city. Ambulances stand at ready. In the ensuing battle the brothers kill each other; Jocasta (Oedipus’ wife) commits suicide; Creon, the boys’ uncle, is crowned king. The buildings look on serenely. Creon will not allow Polynices a proper burial and Antigone, his sister, protests. Their windows are lit from below. Accordingly, Antigone evokes different laws, of Religion and Nature, but Creon threatens to execute anyone disobeying his order. A full moon. Antigone ignores him. Hangs above the horizon. Thus both are trapped in their stances, both are doomed.

♥

Forty-four years of age when he succeeded his half-brother Fernando VI to the Spanish throne. Having traversed much of the relatively small compass of official Madrid, we reach the Prado. Carlos III (1750-1788) came from Naples after 25 years of experience ruling that country. Outside whose touristic office a painter of small still-lifes, portraits and landscapes has set up his business al fresco. He brought with him capable administrators (Grimaldi and Esquilache) and also proved to be a lavish patron of the arts. Reproductions of Hieronymus Bosch’s famous triptych and Velázquez’ painting of Breda are advertised in the museum’s bookstore window. During his reign two new royal residences were erected, La Granja (Segovia) and the Palacio Real (Madrid), the Prado Museum and the Puerta de Alcalá, in the best neoclassical tradition of 18^th century European architecture. Inside, more books:

 

“Goya, Goya, Goya, Goya” read the spines of a pile of four in Spanish, French, German and English. His leadership in the cultural and scientific fields found expression in the foundation of the royal academies. The museum’s lawn this morning is covered with frost. And the support and encouragement given to the “Economic Societies of Friends of the Country.” A group of several dozen Japanese tourists has assembled outdoors to photograph themselves.  Which, modeling themselves on the Sociedad Vascongada of 1765, sprang up all over the land to promote agriculture and industry. Mostly in family groupings, against the backdrop of a bronze portrait bust of Goya. He was endowed with a great deal of common sense and readiness to allow his most enlightened ministers to govern without too much interference. An Afro-American tourist is photographing her middle-aged brother and his portly wife.

 

Author enters the collection. I saw paintings that I had known for years and others that were quite new to me, a total of 79: We begin with Fra Angelico’s Anunciación, the first superhighway of light, the angel’s golden wings, though, burdensome. History paintings and portraits that accompanied the reign of a king. And rather unconvincingly attached. Scenes mythological and religious. Even less convincing is Raphael’s Transfiguration. Horsemen, dwarfs, drinkers, half-wits. At the gift shop, Japanese tourists line up to make purchases from a salesperson in orange. Repeatedly, the eyes and mouth of the Habsburg king, Philip IV. Tintoretto has filled half a wall. But most of all I had seen Velázquez, and I did not know who this courtier was that had penetrated so deeply into the web of power that he was on domestic, intimate terms with the central characters he was assigned to portray.

 

Veronese’s Venus controls the sleeping Mars, Cupid in turn our animal nature. He is shrouded in mystery, just as Rembrandt and Vermeer are mysterious. Titian represents Venus as a marble statue. Not only in that most enigmatic of paintings, Las Meninas. Or at least as a thing apart. But also in the series of portraits of the king that span the period of both his and the artist’s adult lives. Her grasp on Adonis seems less than secure, her recreation in music and art, fictitious. More than thirty years separate the first portrait and the last. Her dream of money in the Danae more convincing, but less Venusian. This shared life — Velázquez lived at court, the king frequently visited his studio and had him come along on his travels —. Titian is more at home with Charles V. Undoubtedly added an element of self-portraiture to the likenesses of the king, Danae discernible perhaps only to them.

 

Though the horse and the king seem badly connected. The one was a courtier rising to ever higher positions of Byzantine complexity. In his representation of mother and child. At a court where the king could neither eat in the presence of his wife nor attend the baptism of his children. Bellini strikes a note not felt before. The other was a king who wrote clandestine letters to an Aragonese nun. As does El Greco with his ruffled portraits. Describing his uncontrollable sexual desires. A Japanese guide, an El Greco-like hand held above her head, indicates the height of the five religious subjects. His adultery, his promiscuity and the subsequent punishments by God: For the benefit of five black-clad clients. The defeat at the hands of the French at Rocroi and the Portuguese rebellion. Two with bangs, two in very short hair, one with her curly locks dyed red. And the decline of the Habsburgs.

 

Titian, it seems, is actually best at family groups. Which coincided with the rise of the hidalgo-artist. The Japanese-speaking Spanish guide wears ornate, red high heels, worthy of a prostitute; the five young Japanese women, basketball shoes in various colors, their laces in yet more colors. Both portraits of Philip must have been painted between 1655 and 1660. We mount stairs from Italy to Spain. The artist died in 1660 and the king, who was five years younger, survived him by only a couple of years. We begin with platters of fruit and seafood, these Spanish tranches de vie not very appetizing. Two paintings, a single king, a disillusioned middle-aged man, unable to stem the dissipation of his vast inherited empire. Likewise, the Spanish 18^th century, which leaves one cold. And a weak man racked by self-doubt, a ruler who recognized his own weakness but left government to the wrong advisers.

 

Goya puts us on the firing line. What the king’s friend saw was the end of a dynasty. His meat is human, foregrounded, standing in a family made of power. Only one more Habsburg ascended the Spanish throne: Charles the Hexed. Nervously a guard wiggles his fingers in a gallery of Goya’s “black paintings.” Seven ancestors descended from Joanna the Mad. The Goyas go on for rooms. They not only passed down the grotesque jawbone. The painter made his portrait subjects sit up. (Charles was unable to close his mouth properly.) Velázquez had put them up on horseback. But all manner of other deficiencies from the incestuous melting pot. Introduces some manners. So that the physical collapse of the last in the line of the Habsburgs. And draws Goya into the handling of the minor figures.

 

Coincides with the beginning of his empire’s demise. We continue on through more excess. Indecision, fatal vacillation, profligacy, economic maladministration, religious zeal, fanatical imperialism: Then back to portraits. The misdeeds of six successive generations had been given plenty of time to simmer together. The figures are all dressed in black. Along with gout, epilepsy, speech defects, obsessive sexuality, nervousness and religious melancholia. Felipe I is definitely nervous about something, but the figures in The Triumph of Bacchus know what they are doing. In 1647 Philip IV married his niece Mariana of Austria. With the infanta he finally gets the hang of it. The bride was thirteen years old. We have reached the point of everything: a woman in silver mink stole, her fingernails silver too, rotates her high heels as she and another 65-year-old, in blond hair and black cape, act out details of the painting.

 

Of her 56 forebears she had 48 in common with her uncle whom she was to marry and whose son she would have married had he not prematurely died. The elder of the ladies comments by means of an extended leg kick, as the husbands, both in gold-rimmed glasses, look on. To keep the French Bourbons at a safe distance, it was imperative that there should be a Habsburg heir. A petite Asian girl in a green ribbed sweater, red shirt under it, removes the lens cover on her expensive Canon camera. The menstrual cycle of the child-queen became a factor in the struggle for power in Europe. Two gay Spanish men, one 60, one 45, stand in awe of the painting, the former holding his rust-colored leather jacket behind his back with two hands. And all the while at court, where political rumor took on a life of its own, the artist portrayed the pawns in the game as well as the most accomplished players.

 

The audience of visitors politely jockeys for position. When Velázquez painted the queen in 1653, she was barely nineteen and far from happy. Careful not to obscure the view of others. Just as Japanese emperors must spend the night before their investiture communing with the sun god. A Japanese matron in a whisper practices her pronunciation of “Velázquez” for her amused husband’s benefit. So the Spanish Habsburgs would be introduced to their future wives in the most god-forsaken places, conspicuously lacking in luxury, even in food or drink. Three European women line up in front of the painting, all tilting their heads in the same direction. Navalcarnero in the case of Philip and Mariana, a desolate hamlet on a rock-strewn plain. What is it about this painting (Las Meninas) that gives to it such power, author asks? She was kept ignorant of him, so that he could spy on her.

 

One of the women tilts her head right and moves out of the range of the others, including her husband as well. After all, he had never seen her before. So as to gain new perspective on the painting. The marriage would be a disaster, but on that particular evening she pleased him. From this angle the painting comes to life; she tilts her head to the left again. We will never know what her smile looked like, but she may have laughed on that occasion, because a little comedy was performed to amuse them. As the painter tilts his head to the right. Was the artist present? Now the woman moves back to her original position to look Velázquez in the face. There is no way of knowing that either. She examines the foreground closely, the morbid dog, the mongrel dwarf. His king had conferred ever higher ranks on him since 1623, from pintor de cámara to ujier de cámara (the keeper of the bed-chamber).

 

Next she examines the edge of the painting that the painter is painting within the painting. Before long he rose to alguacil de casa y corte (high chamberlain of the royal family and court). Meanwhile a thin Spanish guide explains the painting to three overweight European “graces.” And from this position, to ayuda de guardarropa, a title so daft in translation that I prefer to leave it as it stands. Unconsciously the guide’s gesturing hand moves from one finger to two, to three. He was to rise much higher in later years, but the bizarre designations reflected social reality, the offices were real enough and also time-consuming, which probably explains why Velázquez did not leave a more extensive oeuvre. El Greco and Titian, Poussin and Picasso, hold their own, but they are not in the same league with Velázquez. “He paints the truth,” says a thoughtful critic, “not as it is but as it appears to be.”

♥

9:18 am (again), ticket purchased, ready for departure from Atocha Station, its vast interior refurbished, lit by blue and orange spotlights. The geological construction of Spain is very peculiar and unlike that of most other countries (Richard Ford, 1846); it is almost one mountain or agglomeration of mountains, as many of our countrymen who are speculating in Spanish railroads are beginning to discover. It contains a jungle: palm, banana plant, low-lying tropical foliage, as though to prepare the traveler for the South. The interior rises on every side from the sea, and the central portions are higher than any other table-lands in Europe, ranging on an average from two to three thousand feet above sea level, while from this elevated plain chains of mountains rise again to a still greater height. The information board does not list our train or its departure time. Madrid is about 2000 feet above Naples.

 

Could this be the “journey of the Soul to the Divine Light” of which the Neoplatonists speak? It is to the difference between elevations that the extraordinary differences of climate and vegetables in the two capitals are to be ascribed? On the floor of the station, in bronze, are represented suitcases, trunks, a hat, an umbrella, all from a century earlier. It has been possible to bracket the golden age of Spanish philosophy — the five generations bounded by Ibn Gabirol after 1035 to Maimonides and Averroës just before 1200 — from the rest of Islamic philosophy. Fruits which flourish on the coasts of Provence and Genoa are rarely to be met with in the elevated interior of the Peninsula; on the other hand, the low and sunny maritime belts beneath it are replete with a tropical vegetation. Middle-class passengers must line up in the cold to board the train; security is tight; the sun glares in our eyes.

 

Influences flowed from the east to the west, this end of the Islamic world, but little flowed back (Randall Collins). Finally, a man in Madrid’s upper-middle-class uniform (gray suit, navy blue coat, beige plaid scarf with blue and red stripes) boards ahead of author, who takes a seat across the aisle from him; we are off. The later descendants of both the Muslim and Jewish intellectuals of Spain are found to the north, across the religious frontier in Christendom. Farewell, Madrid. Geographers have divided the Peninsula into seven chains of mountains, commencing with the Pyrenees and ending with the Andalucian ranges, cordilleras arising on each side of intervening plains, which once formed the basins of lakes, until their accumulated waters, bursting through obstructions, found a passage to the ocean. A brochure on the seat advertizes oranges from the South, jewelry from Mallorca.

 

 Although subsequent Islamic philosophy continued in the east, a channel had diverged, which drained into another sea. “Pour Homme: Agua de Sevilla Hombre”; “Gafas Unisex Negra”: black sunglasses, male and female. Once emptied, it disappeared, leaving the two great realms of medieval philosophy, heirs of the Greek and eastern Mediterranean culture, to their separate fates. The inclination of the country is from east to west and accordingly the chief drains flow into the Atlantic, their courses in a transversal and almost parallel direction. The complex intellectual life at the time of the Baghdad, Basra and Nishapur centers was running out just as the Spanish episode began. “Whisky de Malta Cardhu,” advertized under the heading “La Paciencia.” Spain was the high point not only for Islamic philosophers but also for the most innovative Jews of the Middle Ages.

 

“Para Niños: Lata Disney Gominolas,” a picture of Mickey with his hands spread open. Thus the Duero, the Tagus, the Guadiana and the Guadalquivir flow into their recipient from between their distinct chains of mountains. Against a blue globe crisscrossed with latitudes and longitudes. The sources of these arteries arise in the higher longitudinal range of elevations, approaching rather to the eastern than to the western coast. “Chocolates Solitaire; Gorra-Guantes Lana Niños.” Whereby a considerably greater length is obtained by each of four rivers, when compared to the Ebro, which disembogues in the Mediterranean. Our train glides out of the station, past an incoming train. The central districts are composed of vast plains and steppes, Parameras, Tierras de campo y Secanos, resembling each other in their monotonous denuded aspect, their scarcity of fruit and timber and their abundance of grain.

 

It was here that the scientific and mathematical texts of the Greeks and the Hindu-Arab algebra and number system were transmitted north. Past the sunlit surfaces of newly installed platforms. It was here too that Aristotle was revived and restored, with such revolutionary effect after 1200 on Christian philosophy. The sky, white at the horizon, shifts subtly to a whitish blue, to a pale blue, to the deep blue dome overhead. The eye wanders over a vast level extent bounded only by the horizon, a faint blue line of other, distant sierras; this space, which appears to be one townless level, is intersected by deep ravines, barrancos, in which villages lie concealed, by streams, arroyos, which flow unperceived. Aristotle’s texts were not lost, but in the earlier Middle Ages he was seen through the lens of Neoplatonism. The elevation’s other important effects are dryness and the rarefaction of its air.

 

The historian Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz takes this a step further (Nooteboom): The city is hazy. “It is thanks to the Spaniards,” he says, “that Europe was not overrun. Such are the causes of the pulmonia, which in a few days carries off the invalid, and is known as the disease of Madrid. He quotes Livy: Our timetable, also in three hues of blue, shows our fast train arriving at Ciudad Real in an hour and one minute. “Hispania was more suitable than Italy to wage war and to persevere by virtue of the nature of the land and its inhabitants.” Then continuing on to arrive in two hours at Córdoba. In Christian Europe (Collins) Aristotle was famous for his logic, as introduced by Porphyry, who, as Plotinus’ follower, elaborated The Stagyrite’s classification of the levels of abstraction from genera and species down to individuals (as exemplifying Plotinus’ metaphysical hierarchy of emanation).

 

Sánchez-Albornoz (in Nooteboom’s account) draws from this a number of fantastic conclusions: by sweeping down from Asturias and Navarre after crossing the no-man’s land between the Duero and the Ebro, then driving the Moors out of reconquered Castile over the next seven centuries, Spain succeeded not only in keeping Europe apart from the political influence of Islam — while preserving for Europe and her ultimate renaissance the treasures that scholars, writers, philosophers, physicians and Arab translators had salvaged from the Greek and Hellenistic heritage — but also in gaining from seven centuries of fighting the experience and mentality that led to the discovery and conquest of the western hemisphere. A silver jet is streaking southward, leaving a vapor trail. He sums this up with a paradox, which he decides is not a paradox at all, but rather reality:

 

Collins: This was a reversal of ontological emphasis. Sánchez-Albornoz: “Si los musulmanes no hubiesen conquistado España en el Siglo VIII, los españoles no habrían conquistado América en el XVI.” You can turn it around, and it becomes a paradox after all, or a fantasy. If the Spaniards had not put a stop to the advance of Islam, it is conceivable that not only Europe, but also the Americas, would have been Islamic. Collins: For Aristotle the greatest reality is the concrete individual, whereas for Porphyry and the Neoplatonists the true reality is the transcendent One, with each descending level more and more shadowy until the concrete individual is almost an illusion. This identification of Aristotle with Neoplatonism was so firmly accepted that one of “his” best known texts was “The Theology of Aristotle,” which consisted of portions of Plotinus’ Enneads.

 

We are passing a train yard of bright containers: red, yellow green. “Leche Pascual,” reads a sign. We have begun a rather rapid descent from Madrid, entering into a frost-covered agricultural landscape, miniature cows (from our perspective) distributed throughout large fields; orchards, with their trees in rows; fields cleared of stones, in regular piles or converted into low walls. Within the train compartment on the TV monitor are yet more hues of blue. On a map our route has been outlined in yellow, topical gradients indicating changes of altitude. The plain visible through our windows is broad and only slightly undulant. Four spheres appear, decorated in red and white squares diminishing in size between the equators and poles. Presumably the spheres contain natural gas. The monitor returns us to Atocha Station for a view of the bronze representation of luggage. A satisfied customer is being served by a blond agent.

 

Collins: The Jews formed the hinge of intellectual development in Spain, and they underwent a crucial shift in their relationship to their host communities at just the time of the Spanish creativeness in philosophy. In the video it is 10:27. Judaism, Christianity and Islam each has a universalistic core, mixed with particularistic loyalties and symbols. Out the window the landscape is timeless. Each may veer to one or the other side; the question remains: We speed past greenish fields grayed by the frost. What determines when the stress will be on the universalistic side and when it will it be on the communally distinctive and the traditionally arbitrary? The fields have all been ploughed and now lie at rest, awaiting the spring planting. Without political sovereignty or a cult center, the Jewish as practiced in medieval Spain religion emphasized private piety and high ethical standards.

 

In one a large white sheepdog stands motionless. Early Christianity had originally been a rival movement within the same social group — disenfranchised Jews of the Roman Empire. The odor of sulfur pervades the coach, as we pass a chemical plant, a constant plume of white smoke emerging from a high stack. In both movements universalism and particularism figured. The landscape, though subdued, is subtle in its beauty: olive trees planted along its rolling hills, villages rising modestly atop their ridges. In Spain, the early Jewish population was persecuted by Christian princes, especially the Visigothic successors to Roman rule. Three men with hunting dogs cross a field diagonally. The Jews welcomed the Islamic conquerors of 711 as liberators and for several centuries allied themselves with the strong Muslim state. Overhead swoops a flock of twenty birds, configured as a single wing.

 

Two patterns are important among the philosophers of Spain. A single word on a chain-link fence, composed of separate letters made of white plastic, reads “F  A  B  R  I  C  A.” First, in the east, Jewish philosophers were unoriginal, imitators of the prevailing schools of Islamic philosophy and theology. Much of the time now our view of the fields is obscured by the cross-section of the hillside into which the tracks have been cut. Only in Spain did Jewish intellectuals become creative. We have left the past, entered the present and are hurtling on toward the future. Second, this occurred as Jews began to move into the world of Christians. We rise high above a river and an adjacent filling station. By the end of the period Jews had shifted over into living within Christendom. More farmers are seen tramping through fields, their rifles subdued. Meanwhile relations with Islam had deteriorated into hostility.

 

We on the other hand are knifing through the landscape to Córdoba, our speed if anything increasing. Mature olive trees stand in a brown field frosted only in their shade. There is little ancient in these views but the Earth itself. At an otherwise modern rail yard four green cars are filled to overflowing with coal. Having arrived at Ciudad Real, we scarcely pause long enough to examine its new plaza, instead starting up again at once to cross over the new highway and on out into the countryside. Before long, shadowed by a mountain ridge, we begin a steep ascent that culminates in arrival at Puertollano. Nuns clad in white surplices expectantly await the train. From the station a small town rises up a hill, which includes large rugged outcrops interspersed among contemporary houses. Remnants of the older town are also discernible: gray buildings with red doors, with green doors, with pale blue doors. A man starts up his motorbike.

 

Earlier Jewish philosophy in the east consisted of parallels with, or even branches of, Islamic thought. It is Sunday morning. The first round of medieval Jewish philosophical creativity represents a competitive appropriation of rival lines of thought established by the Muslims. The landscape returns to barrenness; not till 20 kilometers out of town do we get a fleeting glimpse of a village, and then only because it rises on a knoll. Linguistically too the Jewish intellectuals merged themselves with the dominant Muslim culture. We have entered into a region that blends one’s expectations of Europeanness with one’s memories of the American Southwest. Virtually all the Jewish intellectuals of the period wrote Arabic, in philosophy as well as science and medicine. We begin another rapid descent and before long are tunneling through another mountainside. Even the Talmud was turned into Arabic.

 

The landscape grows yet more rugged. We enter three tunnels in a row. Glacially strewn rocks have been collected into walls, which gradually elongate to define ever larger homesteads. Only at great intervals do we glimpse signs of animal life, much less human habitation. As we begin our approach to Córdoba the rugged orogeny returns, the hillsides become forested, green interspersed with yellow. A single roan stallion grazes at an elevation. The tunnels recommence, our southward descent accelerating. At last a long tunnel heralds our imminent arrival, but before we reach our destination there opens up a new landscape in which a white bull stands beside a lake. We cross a river (likely the Guadalquivir) preparing to enter the city. Still, intermittent fields are lush with greenery. At last we pull into the station, arise from our seats and practice a philosophical attitude of patience, as we wait for many other passengers to exit the train.

♥

Dominating the galaxy of industrious, prosperous, cultivated Islamic centers was Córdoba, until 1031 the capital of the independent Umayyad Emirate (756) and Caliphate (929) (John Lalaguna, A Traveler’s History of Spain). As author descends from his hotel into the Calle Al-Mansur, thence into the Calle Al-Romero, a bevy of bells, from the Mezquita Cathedral, nearby but not yet visible, begins to “r-r-ring,” growing louder and louder as we approach. Rivaled in population and splendor only by Baghdad and Constantinople, with its Great Mosque Córdoba was the best example of the full flowering of Moorish culture on the Iberian peninsula. Now visible in the belfry, they “cl-cl-clang,” syncopate, “r-r-rang,” their sound gradually dissipating, as they finally exhaust their babble of energy. The foundations of the mosque were laid by Abd Al-Rahman I in 785, successive emirs extending it.

 

A single bell continues to sound, until it too winds down to nothing. Abd Al-Rahman III, the first independent caliph of Córdoba, built a new palace west of the city called Medina Azahara, where 10,000 masons and laborers and 1800 camels and donkeys toiled for 25 years. We have arrived in Calle del Palacio, its stone wall heavily eroded, moss-covered in its lower reaches. His son and successor, Al-Hakam II, was a poet and lover of books. The streets of the Judería (Jewish Quarter) are, intermittently, alternately left and right, sun-filled and shaded. He is believed to have owned a private library of 400,000 volumes. Author mounts a step in the roadway itself, passing an old man in dark glasses, gray mustache, olive coat and maroon vest, whose fly is absent-mindedly open. His chief minister, Al-Mansur, closed the Umayyad era with the construction of Medina Azahir to the east of Córdoba.

 

Abd Al-Rahman I, the only remaining member of the Umayyad dynasty, managed to escape from the Abbasids, the new ruling dynasty in Damascus. Otherwise it is a well-dressed crowd of citizens: a threesome of women in long fur coats (mink, beaver and rabbit), their hairdos in various coifs and subtle shades of gray. His ability and daring had already shown itself in the epic flight from one end of the Mediterranean to the other. We enter the precinct of the cathedral through the Pardon Door. He restored order to the Emirate of Córdoba and brought a measure of consensus to the motley array of ethnic and social forces in the land. Within the outer courtyard oranges are ripening despite this early season. He allowed Muslimization to proceed slowly, honored the rights of tributaries and permitted religious freedom. A little girl in a red coat and red tights rides on her father’s back.

 

When he felt that he had stabilized his position, he embarked on a massive building program to ratify his power and authority, thus laying the foundations for the greatness of Córdoba. Spires of cypresses arise to transcend the orangerie. In addition to the Great Mosque he built the Citadel adjoining it, as well as the summer residence modeled on the palace that his ancestor Caliph Hisham had built amid the gardens irrigated by the Euphrates. We have left the forest of orange trees for the forest of Moorish keystone arches, in cream and pale rose. He was succeeded by his second son, Hisham I (788-796), who presided over seven years of uninterrupted peace at home. The interior’s arrangement is traditionally Muslim: a crenellated square perimeter enclosing a forecourt with a basin for ritual ablution. Abd Al-Rahman III (912-962) was a typical hybrid of Al-Andalus, Arab and Basque.

 

A policeman stops author: An Arab father and a Basque or perhaps Frank concubine mother. “Solamente por la missa,” he says, at the entrance to the chamber for prayer. His grandmother was Princess Inigo, the daughter of King Fortún Garcés of Pamplona, who was sent to Córdoba as a pledge of her father’s loyalty. Author returns to the more edifying garden, having been denied a view of the Qiblah in the form of a Mihrab. This Abd Al-Rahman had red hair and blue eyes and was excellently endowed both physically and intellectually. Outside again, we pass an intersection with the Calle Encarnación. He was fluent in Arabic and in “the Romance language,” according to Andalusian chroniclers. We continue on down past a flank of the cathedral. His first task on ascending the throne was to restore his authority and consolidate power throughout the realm, ending Sevilla’s ten-year secession.

 

The Judería includes a synagogue, a mosque and another Christian church. Abd Al-Rahman dispatched regular expeditions to raid Léon, Navarra and Castilla and assert his military pre-eminence on the frontier territories. We pass two golden doorways reading green, as the light shifts across their surfaces. To counter possible designs from the new Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa, he occupied Melilla (927), Ceuta (931) and Tangier (951). They are surmounted by damaged Moorish arches in stone. He also severed all religious connections with Bagdad and in 929 assumed the title of Caliph and Emir al-muminin (Commander of the Believers). On a wall painted gray a graffito in carmine has been added: “El Consumo me Consume.” He celebrated the splendor of his military and political achievements in the Citadel, which he had started to build outside Córdoba in 936.

 

To this another hand has added, in green, “Chaos.” By the end of his life the Caliphate of Córdoba was the undisputed authority of the Iberian peninsula. On the southern side of the Cathedral we enter the Calle Corregidor Luis de la Cerda to approach the Puerta del Puente. The southern borders had been secured against Fatimid interference. The windows on the Hotel Restaurante Triunfo have been fitted with black bars. The three main territories of the north, Léon, Navarra and Castilla, paid annual tribute. Author steps out of the sun into the shade, then back into the sun. They were forced to recognize the sovereignty of the Caliph. An ancient building newly painted in bright yellow has been equipped with classically bolted wooden doors. Al-Hakam II (961-976) presided over the zenith of Umayyad scholarship, but his son, Hisham II (976-1013) had to rely on others to maintain his own authority.

 

We arrive at the sun-filled Plaza del Triunfo. His all-powerful minister, who came close to asserting Muslim control over the whole Iberian peninsula, was Al-Mansur (938-1002). Against the largest building, with arched balconies, a banner has been unfurled: “El Verbo Se Hizo Carne Y Habitó Entre Nostros.” A Yeminite, his ascendancy over the Caliph went so far as to take the Caliph’s mother, a Basque concubine, as his mistress. While author is reading the banner, a Japanese Travel Bureau Europe bus pulls out, obscuring, then revealing it once more: “Año Jubilar 2000 Diócesis de Córdoba.” His military prowess inflicted terrible wounds on Christian lands. We cross the Avenida del Alcázar to gaze down into the Río Guadalquivir. Barcelona was sacked in 985, Santiago de Compostela in 997, its cathedral doors carried off and its cast bells taken to Córdoba to hang in the Great Mosque.

 

With irregular motion the waters flow through one or two of half a dozen arches in the Puente Romana. By the stages described, or undescribed, two days after leaving the grove Don Quixote and Sancho reached the River Guadalquivir. Al-Mansur died in Medinaceli during his last campaign against the Rioja in 1002. It was a sight that brought back fond memories, reminding him in particular of the things that he had viewed in the Cave of Montesinos. His son Abd Al-Malik, succeeded him as chief minister to Hisham II. For although Master Pedro’s ape had said that some of those things were true and others were lies. In 1003 he forced Castilla and Léon to help him lay waste to Barcelona. The Don regarded them all as true. Then another son, Abd Al-Rahman (known as Sanjul), had the audacity to persuade the Caliph to designate him as his heir. Whereas for Sancho they of course were all lies.

 

While the Caliph was on a campaign in 1009, the Umayyad family and the Arab aristocracy arose against Abd Al-Rahman and in March executed him. Proceeding along the bank, they came upon a small boat without oars or rigging of any kind that was lying at the water’s edge, it being moored to the trunk of a tree. A few months later Hisham II abdicated in favor of Muhammad II, who was himself deposed by Berber troops, who proclaimed Sulayman, another grandson of Abd Al-Rahman III as Caliph. Don Quixote looked around in all directions, and, seeing no one, without more ado dismounted from Rocinante and ordered Sancho to get down off his donkey and tie both animals securely to an elm or a willow tree that stood nearby. After ten years of dangerous anarchy, Hisham III was deposed, in 1021, and the Umayyad Caliphate finally ceased to exist as a unified structure of power.

 

Sancho wanted to know the reason for all this. “I will tell you,” said his master, “that the bark you see is unmistakably inviting me to enter it and proceed in it to give succor to some knight or other highborn personage who stands in need of my assistance and who must be in dire straits indeed; for that is the way it is in the books of chivalry, such as Amadis of Gaul or The Poem of the Cid, in the stories, that is, in which enchanters figure and speak. When one knight is in some difficulty from which he can be freed only by the hand of another knight, even though they be two or three thousand leagues distant from each other, or perhaps more, the enchanters will either snatch him up in a cloud or provide a bark for him, and in less than the wink of an eye they will carry him through the air or over the sea, wherever it is they wish to take him and where his aid is needed. And this bark, O Sancho, is placed here for the same purpose.”

 

There are six great rivers in Spain (Richard Ford, Gatherings from Spain). Islands covered with bushes, even tall trees, block the course of the flood. They are the arteries running between the seven mountain chains. Off in the distance another bridge with larger arches is visible. The vertebrae of the geological skeleton. We turn our back on a large Roman arch at the entrance to continue on foot across the bridge. These water-sheds are each intersected in their extent by others on a minor scale. At a traffic light before the bridge a gray car, followed by two white cars, another gray, another white, another gray, must line up. By valleys and indentations, in each of which runs its own stream. Ahead of author stroll three female Spanish pedestrians, a redhead, a girl in longer blond tresses, and a brunette, who turns to glance at author over her shoulder. Thus the rains and melted snows are collected in an infinity of ramifications.

 

Remnants of earlier bridges, complete with the ruins of tollhouses, fill the riverbed. They are carried off by these tributary conduits into one of the main trunks. A green tour bus swings in front of the Torre de la Calahorra Córdoba. Which all, with the exception of the Ebro, empty themselves into the Atlantic. “Puente Entre Oriente y Occidente,” the medieval point between East and West. The Duero and Tagus, unfortunately for Spain, disembogue in Portugal. Author continues across the bridge, then turns back to view the town, whose eastern buildings are in white, whose western buildings are in cream. And thus they become a portion of a foreign dominion exactly where their commercial importance is the greatest. For the sake of warmth he circumambulates in the sun the plaza formed by the crenellated wall of the moat and the great tower that rises above it. Philip II saw the true value of these riverine possessions.

 

Having completed a 360-degree circuit we enter the Museo Torre de la Calahorra, which, according to a French guide, represents the bridge between the Moors and the West, “l’entente entre musulmans, juifs et chrétiens.” The rivers that are really adapted to navigation however, consist only of those perpetually fed by the tributary streams that flow down from mountains covered with snow all year, and they are not many. On the first floor we examine a model of the urban locale, according to which the two structures misidentified as “tollhouses” served to administer the operation of a waterwheel, which has here been reconstructed. The majority of Spanish rivers are very scanty of water during the summer time, and very rapid in their flow when filled by rains or melting snow. Author waits for his eyes to adapt to the darkness, so that he can read the text on a plaque: In these periods they are impracticable for boats.

 

“The agriculture and irrigation methods of the Muslims of Spain were an improvement over the Roman system: terracing and aqueducts.” They are, moreover, much exhausted by being drained off, sangredo — that is, bled, for the purpose of artificial irrigation. “As in the model, Arabic dams were equipped with locks and vents to regulate the accumulation and excavation of silt.” Thus at Madrid and Valencia, the wide beds on the Manzanares and the Turia are frequently as dry as the sands of the seashore when the tide is out. Though the lights for the whole exhibition have been turned off, author has decided not to take the audio tour. They seem only to be entitled to be called rivers by courtesy, because they have so many and such splendid bridges. Two small bulbs, though, remain, one illuminating a carpet, whose design may represent the Tree of Life, the second, a Plexiglas case in which is a bronze astrolabe.

 

With this he leaped into the boat, followed by Sancho, and severed the rope that held it. Thus the traveler at Madrid, if he wishes to see its Thames, should run down or take the bus as he can, when it rains, or the river will be gone before he gets there. The boat drifted slowly away from the shore and gradually gained speed with the current. The navigation of Spanish rivers is oriental, classical and imperfect. Before long Don Quixote, crazed, cried out: The boats, barges and bargemen carry one back beyond the medieval ages. “We must surely be on the sea by now,” he said. “Indeed, we must have gone seven or eight hundred leagues, and if I but had an astrolabe I should be able to tell you exactly how far we have traveled.” They are better calculated for artistical than for any commercial purposes. “We have already passed the equinoctial line,” he added, “which lies, I believe, between the two opposite poles.”

 

“The astrolabe is an instrument that is used to measure the distance of the stars above the horizon,” continues the text in the Plexiglas case. The “great river,” the Guadalquivir, which was navigable in the time of the Romans as far as Cordova. “The one before you was devised by Al-Zarqalla, who was born at Córdoba.” Is now scarcely practicable for sailing-vessels of a moderate size even up to Seville. “The astrolabe made it possible to determine one’s position in space and also the hours of the day, to navigate and to call the faithful to prayer at a given time.” There is considerable talk in Aragon about rendering the Ebro navigable, and it has been surveyed this year by two engineers — English of course. Photographs have been displayed of the globo celeste and of the sistema geocéntrico de Tolomeo. On the museum’s wall a much larger map of the world has been introduced for comparison, it too inscribed in Arabic.

 

Passengers, however, have available the steamers which run backwards and forwards between this capital and Cadiz. Its center lies above Saudi Arabia, near Beirut. The local newspapers compared the astonishment of the herns and peasantry, created on the banks by the arrival of such a steamer. Taiwan is shown with a bridge to China; India as a little spit of land, off which rides a larger Ceylon. As second only to that occasioned when Don Quixote and Sancho ventured into the enchanted bark. Italy quite dominates the Mediterranean, where Sicily is grossly inflated in size, as are Mallorca and Majorca. There has been greater talk about water communication by way of the Tagus. Medical instruments are on display in open velvet-lined cases, bordered in filigree. Between Lisbon and Toledo. Rooms 5, 6 and 7 of this medieval castle, billed by a brochure as “multi-vision,” are reached by a red-carpeted stairway.

 

At that moment they descried some watermills moored in the middle of the river. We have come upon a photograph of a water color painting once displayed at the Moorish court. When Don Quixote caught sight of them he called out, in a loud voice: We approach it by way of a small rug, atop which lie vessels of highly worked silver. “Do you see that, my friend?” Author makes a tour of a small maquette that depicts a cloister with church and tower. “There is the city, castle or fortress where they must be holding a knight in captivity, or a wronged queen, infant or princess, to rescue whom I have been called.” As he does so, the lights go on. “What the devil, city, fortress, or castle is your Grace talking about?” said Sancho. A display of Andalusian musical instruments occupies several cases. “Can’t you see, master, that those are nothing but watermills on the river?” “The word from which ‘lute’ comes in Arabic means “wood.”

 

“Be quiet, Sancho,” Don Quixote admonished him, “for though they may appear to be watermills, they are not.” “It appears that the ud was introduced by the Persians, who called it barbat (duck breast).” “I have already explained to you how enchanters change and transform things from their natural shapes.” “In Arabia it became the instrument par excellence; it had three, and later four, double strings, lengthened by the neck of the ud.” “I do not mean that they actually change them from one shape to another, but they appear to do so, as experience has taught us in connection with the transformation of Dulcinea, sole refuge of my hopes.” “It has been modified several times since the Middle Ages, and it passed into Europe through Spain.” By this time the bark was in midstream and was moving as gently as it had been up to then. “Doubtless of Syrian origin, the tar has become the rhythmic instrument of choice.”

 

The millers, seeing this boat coming down the river and perceiving that it was about to be sucked in by the millwheels, came running out in all haste to stop it. “It was covered with goat, or better, fish skin, fitted around its edges by thin disks of copper or brass.” Many of them carried poles and, as their faces and their clothes were covered with flour, they presented a sinister appearance. “Rabbab,” reads a museum label, “an ancient bowed instrument, from the Arabic ‘to resonate.’” “Devils of men!” they cried out, “where are you going?” “According to tradition, it is always played by the leader, or the oldest musician, of the ensemble.” “Do you come in desperation to drown yourselves or be battered to pieces by those wheels?” In his Book of Music, Al-Farabi describes it as the instrument most closely resembling the human voice.” “Which persons and castle are you talking about, you fool?”one of the millers replied.

 

A selection of important instruments in the Museum’s collection has been posed on a red carpet, tilted at various angles in a space that originally formed one of the niches in the wall that had enabled the medieval soldiery to defend the castle against attackers by shooting them. We mount higher to rooms 7 and 8 and look out on a brilliantly sunlit scene: four serene palms front a building painted white and dark yellow. Over rooftops are signs reading, in green, “Café Bar,” and, in red, “Los Tomillos.” Within a heavily perfumed room we proceed to examine elaborate scenes of medieval Arabic life, depicted in porcelain and clay, dioramas that include a representation of Ibn Sirnes, the first man of the 10^th century to use wings, fallen into a sea fashioned out of waves made of blue porcelain, each striped and heavily worked into a peak. “The wind blows that we may use our spirit and feel his wings,” says a didactic caption.

 

The university is represented as a group of scholars huddled together on Persian carpets in front of massive cases filled with thick books. “Où les astronomes decouvraient dans les premiers movements des astres, comme les médecins dans le microcosme d’un corps human des ‘signes’ de la présence de Dieu et son unité et de sa beauté.” Through larger arches we view the red-and-white Moorish arches of the Mezquita. We continue past Arab baths, past the Gardens of Alcazar, in which a mammoth butterfly floats above a monkey and a peacock, past the Caliph’s Palace of Abd Al-Rahman III, “who entered into,” the caption reads, “most cordial relations with the Christian Emperor of Besance.” As author continues, again not having accepted the audio tour, the lights on these displays give out, making them shadowy. One, however, remains illuminated: a dervish with a flute, prying a snake out of his basket in a busy courtyard.

 

“Did I not tell you, Sancho,” said Don Quixote, “where we have arrived?” On the 8^th room’s balustrade perches an owl and a human skull. “We have reached a place where I must display the might of my arm.” Author returns to the only point of illumination, a square window giving onto the Roman Bridge. “Look at those roués and scoundrels who have sallied forth to meet me! Look at those monsters who would oppose me!” Through its tinted glass a panorama of Córdoba is visible, including the beautiful hills beyond and the sky above. “You shall soon see, you villains!” A narrow spiral stair leads to a terrace, and suddenly we are outdoors again. Then, standing up in the boat and shouting at the top of his voice, he hurled threats at the millers: “Lowborn and ill-advised rabble, set free and restore to liberty the person whom you hold in durance vile within that fortress or prison, whether such person be of high or low degree.”

 

Across the way, the red-yellow-and-red flag of Spain, the green-white-and-green flag of Andalusia, are flapping simultaneously in the breeze. “For I am Don Quixote de la Mancha, otherwise known as the Knight of the Lions.” We lean between the crenellated ramparts to view the earlier scene, now flooded in a more determined sunlight. “For me it is reserved by order of the highest heavens, to bring this adventure to a fortunate conclusion.” A woman of 65 or 70, in a long magenta coat, trudges across the bridge from the modern city. Saying this, he drew his sword and began brandishing it in the air by way of intimidating the millers. The view to the west shows the river meandering on downstream, its banks shaded in the green of a tree-lined esplanade. Who, hearing but not understanding these nonsensical remarks, now fell to with their poles to prevent the bark from entering the millrace, as it was on the verge of doing.

 

In one of the crenellated niches, yellow wildflowers have taken root. Sancho meanwhile had dropped to his knees to pray. From the eastern side we look down upon older tiled roofs. Thanks to the quick work of the millers, his prayer was granted. “Bar Estanco” has a red-and-white Coca-Cola sign in front of it. By the aid of their poles they succeeded in stopping the boat, but not without upsetting it and throwing Don Quixote and Sancho into the water. Luckily for the knight of la Mancha, he could swim like a duck, but the weight of his armor twice dragged him under, and if it had not been for the millers who dived in and hauled them both out, it would have been the Fall of Troy. As soon as they were rescued, Sancho fell to his knees and fervently prayed again to God. While he was thus engaged, the fishermen who owned the boat, which had been hacked to pieces by the millwheels, fell upon Sancho, stripping him of his clothing.

 

At the same time they demanded that Don Quixote make good their loss. The knight, however, was not in the least perturbed by this, and instead calmly informed the millers and the fishermen that he would be glad to pay for the boat on condition that they would deliver up to him, free and unharmed, the person they were holding in that castle. Having concluded his tour of the major monuments, author returns to his hotel. “Do you by any chance, want to carry off those who come to grind corn in these mills?” Retracing the labyrinthine course that history has required of him to revisit the heroes of Andalusia. That will do,” said Don Quixote to himself. “It would be preaching in the desert to attempt by entreaties to induce this rabble to perform any worthy deed. Two powerful enchanters must have clashed, and one has undone what the other proposed to do. God help us all, this world is nothing but schemes. I can do no more.”

 

Long will it be before the thirteen kingdoms which have grown with the growth of the monarchy, and are engraved in the retentive memories of the people, can be effaced. The thirteen divisions have grand and historical names: they belong to an old and monarchical country, not to a spick and span vulgar democracy, without title-deed. They fill the mouth when named, and conjure up a thousand recollections of the better and more glorious times of Spain’s palmy power, when there were giants in the land, not pigmies in Parisian paletots, whose only ambition is to ape the foreigner and disgrace themselves. First and foremost Andalusia presents herself, crowned with a quadruple, not a triple tiara, for the name los cuatro reinos, “the four kingdoms,” is her synonym. They comprise those of Seville, of Cordova, of Jaen and of Granada. There is magic and birdlime in the very letters.

♥

A man in a public carriage ceases to be a private individual. 10:11 am departure from Córdoba for Sevilla by “super-fast” train. He is merged into the fare and is booked like a parcel. Author is preceded on platform by two brown-clad nuns, white surplices, black hoods. How free, how lord and master of himself, does the same dependent gentleman mount his eager barb, who by his neighing and pawing exhibits his joyful impatience to be off. Waddling, pear-like, their Velcro-clasped polyurethane handbags dangling from their shoulders. Traveling on horseback, so unusual a gratification to Englishmen, is the ancient, primitive, and once universal mode of traveling in Europe, as it still is in the East. A car passes over a bridge within the station. Mankind, however, soon gets accustomed to a changed state of locomotion and forgets how recent its introduction. Its newly-laid marble floors highly polished.

 

Don Quixote opens with food (Pepita Aris, The Spanishwoman’s Kitchen). A man passes in a coffee-colored shin-length camel’s hair coat. “His diet consisted of a stew, more beef than mutton, hash most nights, duelos y quebrantos (sorrow and suffering) on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays and a young pigeon as a Sunday treat.” Beneath his coat descend the pant legs of his suit, over his shiny shoes. This took three quarters of his income. By its handle he carries a thin leather brief case. The puzzle is: what are duelos y quebrantos? Beneath his horn-rimmed glasses and well-shaven face is a red necktie against a blue-striped, white-collared shirt. “Boiling bones,” says the Penguin translation. As we pull out of the station, on the monitors, a high-speed chase is taking place. This is not what is served now in La Mancha. A Frenchwoman heads her car up an expressway in the wrong direction.

 

There are eggs for certain. Oncoming cars veer to one side of her, flipping over an embankment. I’ve been offered eggs-and-brains hashed. A huge truck skids and rams into half a dozen cars. In the end I found an academic who had given it a corner of his mind. The chase ends with the woman and her accomplice trapped in their overturned vehicle. It’s the same as “scraping the barrel,” he said. The landscape is modulated into strips of broad, fertile farmland, either green or deep brown. Finally, to Calderón de la Barca: huevos y torreznos bastan que son duelos y quebrantos. Hills grow up on the rim the plain. We are back to eggs and bacon! Whizzing past cypress-encircled villages, the windows of our coach make flickering reflections on the trackside berm. Hunger being, as Cervantes says, the best of sauces, it is the main reason why eating is their huge delight. We traverse acreages of orange trees.

 

The plain has flattened considerably. All such expeditions on horseback are conducive to bodily health. From each whitewashed, horizontal village a vertical steeple arises, like a lance. After the first few days of fatigue, the frame becomes of iron, hecho de bronze, and the rider, a centaur not fabulous. As the rich, ploughed earth rushes past, a touristic video prepares us for Seville. The living in the pure air, the sustaining excitement of novelty. At the end of which a family sets out the ground plan for its house on a green field, rolls out a rug and sits down in its open-air living room. Exercise and constant occupation are sweetened by the willing heart, which renders even labor itself a pleasure. The suburbs of Seville come into view; we reduce our speed by half; we pass, on a spur, a freight train filled with new automobiles. A novel, vigorous life is infused into every bone and muscle. Suddenly we reach the station.

 

Two centuries later the great king Carlos III gave this Palace the noblest of destinies as the archive of the grandest enterprise ever undertaken by a nation, that of discovering, conquering, evangelizing, colonizing, humanizing, and populating an empty and silent continent from pole to pole, from sea to sea. The cases that you are looking at hold 38,000 papers and documents, including the most important diary of Columbus and the mapa mundi of Juan de la Cosa, the narrative and graphic birth certificates of America, which contain the names of the conquerors of the sea, of the semi-gods of the epic poems, of the ambassadors of Christ, of those who took with them wheat, the horse, the wheel and the plow, of those who moved the university, law, dignity and liberty, of those who gave their flesh, their blood and their word to fill an empty continent with a dark smile and a sweet accent (Manuel Bendala, Lucot Sevilla, [1983]).

 

Author approaches Plaza de las Tendillas, from the direction of Conde de Gondomar, past SineQuaNon, ABC, Wall Street English; as he prepares to leave in direction of Plaza de la Compañía, he glimpses Creusa on the 5^th story of a large building called Seguros. The Moors brought the pestle and mortar whose cheerful clang is the prelude to an Andalusian meal. We exit past Bingo, Palacio del Cine, past Lepanto, past Nuevo San Rafael. And with it came exquisite recipes, still in use, like gazpacho and recipes with pounded nuts, like the chicken pepitoria de gallina or the almond sweetmeat alfajores. Córdoba Novias, its letters all in silver, the spaces filled in, is showing wedding gowns, their price tags accompanied by the sentiment, “Forever Yours.” The Arabs loved saffron and cinnamon as flavorings for fish and meat; they introduced pickled fish: delicate, vinegary escabeches and frying in olive oil.

 

Whatever be the number of the party, and however they travel, on wheels or horseback, no one should ever dream of making a pedestrian tour in Spain (Richard Ford). Black, blue, gray evening dresses fill one corner of the shop. Dominated by the large, square Romanesque tower of the Iglesia de Santo Domingo, the Plaza de la Compañía is filled with other monuments too: the Church of Santa Victoria, the Church of El Salvador. A gray-and-white dog with a red kerchief about its neck, its fur obscuring its eyes, has arrived with its owner, who is tending to two stray cats. Walking is the manner by which beasts travel, who have been given four legs. At Soymo a yellow cross begins small and expands itself. Those bipeds who follow the example of the brutes will soon find that they will be reduced to their level in more particulars than they had imagined or bargained for. “Ortopedia Optica,” a pigeon fluttering before it.

 

“In the 16^th century the merchants of Seville carried out their transactions by shouting in the Patio of Oranges of the Cathedral. But when the sun beat down fiercely or it was cold, or it poured rain, they continued their business within the Cathedral. When the merchants of Seville were thrown out for the last time, the Archbishop himself used all his influence with Felipe II to have a special place built worthy of such an important matter (Bendala again). Two old ladies make their way on foot toward Gabinete Audio Protésico. A solitary wanderer is certainly the most unfettered as regards his notions and motions. Author approaches Victoria, her rounded, neoclassical architrave looming. No tengo padre ni madre, ni perro que me ladre, which is to say, he who has neither father, mother nor dog to bark at him can read the book of Spain, as it were, in his own room, dwelling on what he likes, and skipping what he does not.

 

As long as the inflow of American ingots continued to arrive safely and regularly to Sevilla there were always bankers, Germans, Genoese and Portuguese, ready to bail out the Crown and advance the cash required to pay soldiers and functionaries of the empire in Flanders, Germany and Italy. The large intakes of gold and silver were collateral security underpinning the vast borrowing requirement of the Imperial enterprise. Furthermore, monetary stability was a constant, from the currency reform of the Catholic Monarchs in the late 15^th century to the 1620s. For a long time the Crown enjoyed a near monopoly of the best currency in Europe, easily and frequently minted, with high purchasing power and highly versatile. Sixteenth-century Spaniards may have believed that El Dorado was indeed inexhaustible, that they were in the midst of a Golden or at least a Silver Age.

 

Librería Luna is offering many-colored paper products but is short on books, it would seem. At Luque Música author pauses to study two guitars, two sets of castanets, a modern tambourine, a tall drum in green and white, and two cornets, all in its window. In a courtyard behind the church two basketball hoops are visible. “Negro,” in bright green, reads a graffito. At Angel de Saavedra we turn before an international yield sign emblazoned with the word “Blaze” in magic marker. We skirt Piel de Tauro and pause before Fidela’s display of masks. The encierro, or the driving of the bulls to the arena, is a service of danger. Having passed Encarnación, we reach Horno del Cristo. They are enticed by tame oxen into a road which is barricaded on each side. We arrive at a stepped plaza to find its fountain inoperative. Then driven full speed by mounted and spear-bearing peasants into the Plaza de Toros.

 

Its three basins, progressively larger, progressively lack water. You need not ask the way, just launch into the tide. “Libertad Insumisos,” reads an ancient graffito. Which in these Spanish affairs will assuredly carry you away. On the wall beside the empty basins read two childlike images of birds. Nothing can exceed the gaiety and sparkle of a Spanish public heading, eager and in full-dress, to the fight. Being menaced by a bat, it would seem. They could not move faster were they running away from a real one. We have arrived at the front of the Museo de Arqueología. All the streets near the area present by themselves a spectacle to the stranger. A modern moving truck is parked before its entrance. Genuine Spain is far better observed in the streets than in the saloon. Behind the truck a ladder-like winch has been extended up to the second story of the museum. All around is a perfect Saturnalia.

 

Before our arrival on the scene the winch has clearly deposited something on the balcony of the third floor, which has been received within. All ranks are fused in one stream of living beings, one bloody thought beats in every heart, one heart beats in ten thousand bosoms. Though the Museum is patently open, a sign on the doors says, “Closed Mondays.” The lover leaves his mistress, unless she will go with him; the doctor and lawyer renounce patients, briefs and fees. And so the guard turns author away unceremoniously. A city of sleepers is awakened and all is life, noise and movement, where tomorrow will be the stillness of death. In the absence of Spanish archaeology we turn about to enter Julio Romero de Taures, a street named for Cordova’s most popular and romantic artist. The plaza is the focus of a fire, which blood alone can extinguish. “Ask!” reads a yellow graffito on a brown wooden door.

 

The Moors planted citrus fruit and the almond tree (Pepita Aris). Don Quixote heard voices from the next room (separated from his own by a thin partition). They cultivated sugar cane and rice and brought aubergines, mint and spinach. “Upon your life, Don Jerónimo,” someone said, “while they are bringing our supper, let us read another chapter of the Second Part of Don Quixote de la Mancha.” Africa is still an influence in the kitchen. No sooner did he hear his name mentioned than Don Quixote rose to his feet and began listening intently to what they were saying about him. The moors brought barbecued and skewered meat, like the charcoal-scented churrascos of Cordoba or the popular little kebabs, pinchitos morunos, flavored with Arab cumin. “Why would your Grace have us read such nonsense,” came the reply, “if he who has read the First Part can find no pleasure in the Second Part.

 

On the road the cook should take with him a stewing-pan and a kettle for boiling water. “For all that,” said Don Juan, “it would be well to read it, since no book is so bad that there is not some good in it.” He need not lumber himself with much batterie de cuisine, which is not needed in the imperfect gastronomy of the Peninsula, where men eat like beasts that perish. “What displeased me most is that it depicts Don Quixote as no longer in love with Dulcinea del Toboso.” All sort of artillery is rather rare in the Spanish kitchen or fortress. Hearing this, the knight, filled with anger and resentment, called out: An hidalgo would as soon think of having a voltaic battery in his sitting-room as a copper one in his cuisine. “Whoever says that Don Quixote has forgotten or can ever forget the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso will have to answer to me, and I will show him with evenly matched weapons how far he is from the truth.”

 

Presently the first act of the taurine spectacle, its length uncertain, terminates. We turn to face a wall dripping with purple bougainvillea. Sometimes it is most brilliant, since one bull alone has been known to kill a dozen horses and clear the plaza. We continue to descend on a route out of the labyrinth, through many turns, finally arriving at the Arco del Portillo. Then, as he roams, snorting about, he is adored, lord of all he surveys, and becomes sole object of worship by his ten thousand devotees. All is cast in light and shade, as the sun peeks above a high tiled wall. At the signal of the president, and the sound of a trumpet, the second act commences, with the performance of the chulo, a word that signifies, in the Arabic, a lad. “Se Vende Este Solar,” reads a hand-lettered sign on a door. A merryman, as at our fairs. Having passed through one arch we admire another arch, at the Church of San Francisco.

 

The duty of these skirmishers is to draw off the bull from the picador when he is endangered. We continue on in our search of the inner city. Next the chulos approach the bull with the small barbed darts called banderillas. To reach it we must enter the Romero Barros. Just when the animal stoops to toss his foes, they jerk them into his neck and slip aside. We enter the courtyard within which Don Quixote stood on the back of Rocinante so as to raise his hand to the “maidens,” who were enticing him. The agony of the tortured animal makes him plunge and bound like a sportive lamb, to the intense joy of the populace. The fountain gurgles with delight. The last trumpet sounds, the arena is cleared, and the matador, the executioner, the Man of Death, stands before his victim, holding in his right hand a long Toledan blade, waving in his left the muleta, the red flag, or the engaño, the lure.

 

In the course of the supper Don Juan asked Don Quixote what news he had had of the lady Dulcinea del Toboso. Tapas suits this society, morsels partnering drinks in a bar to stave off hunger. Was she married or not, had she given birth or was she with child, or was she still a virgin, preserving her modesty and good name and cherishing amorous thoughts of Señor Don Quixote? Once they were free: a few oval Jordan almonds or a saucer of olives. “Dulcinea,” replied the knight, “is yet a maid, and my passion for her is more unwavering than ever.” Now one must pay for a chunk of Manchego cheese on bread, or slivers of raw, scarlet Serrano. “Our relations are as unsatisfactory as they were before. Two of Spain’s greatest hams are produced locally at Jabugo and Trevélez but lesser copies hang over every tapas bar, tipped (against drips) with a little upside-down paper umbrella.

 

“As for her beauty, it has been transformed into that of an unclean peasant lass.” The matador concentrates in himself all the interest, advancing toward the bull to entice him, or, in technical idiom, citarlo à la juridicción del engaño. He then told tell them all about the spell laid upon the lady Dulcinea and what had occurred in the Cave of Montesinos. In these brief but trying moments the matador generally looks anxious, as well he might, for life hangs on the edge of a razor. The two gentlemen were delighted as they listened to Don Quixote’s account of these strange events in his history, were at once astonished at the nonsense he talked and at the polished manner in which he told the story. The doorway to the tavern is crammed with Arabic and Spanish curiosités touristiques. There are many ways of killing the bull, the principal for the matador to receive him on his sword when he charges.

 

A blue tiled plaque reads: At times they would take him for a man of intelligence, at times for a fool. “El príncipe de los ingenios de España Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra de Abolengo Cordovés mencionó este lugar barrio en la mejor novela de mundo.” Without being able to make up their minds as to just where they were to place him in the vague realm between sound sense and madness. Then the weapon, which is held still and never thrust forward, enters just between the left shoulder and the blade-bone. A white poodle approaches author, only to be rebuffed. A firm hand, eye and nerve are essential, since in nothing is the real fancy so fastidious as in the exact nicety of the placing of this death-wound. He approaches again in his turtle-necked sweater. The bull often is not killed at the first effort; if not true, the sword strikes a bone, and it is ejected. The dog tries again, only to be recalled by his owner.

 

When the blow is true, death is instantaneous, and the bull, vomiting forth blood, drops at the feet of his conqueror. Author obviates a third attempt by leaving the plaza and continuing on till he reaches the river. It is indeed the triumph of knowledge over brute force. We have reached a more industrial part of town. All that was fire, fury, passion and life falls in an instant, silent forever. Huge coils of red plastic pipe have been stacked in front of one shop. The gay team of mules now enters, glittering with flags and tinkling with bells. Along the sidewalk author passes two rather unprepossessing Spanish students grasping their books to their breasts. The dead bull is carried off at a rapid gallop, which always delights the populace. At a construction site a huge green crane lifts a form for casting. The matador then wipes the hot blood from his sword and bows to the spectators with an admirable sang froid.

♥

 

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