Selected Writings (Dario, Ruben) (57 page)

Decadent or not, the bullfights will go on in Spain. There is no king, no government that dares end them. Charles III had that bad idea, and soon enough his other defects appeared, too. Jovellanos, in his letter to Vargas Ponce, was not ashamed to maintain that the diversion is not, strictly speaking,
national,
since Galicia, Léon, and Asturias care little about bullfighting. “What glory do we derive from it?” he exclaimed. “What is Europe’s opinion in the matter? Rightly or wrongly, do they not call us barbarians because we preserve and defend these
fiestas de toros
?” He claimed that
toreros
were not, in fact, brave men, and derided their general stupidity outside the bullring. He pointed out the damage that the sport causes agriculture, for raising a good bull for the bullring costs as much as raising fifty oxen for the plow; and to industry, for nations who attend bullfights are not, generally speaking, the most hard-working. As for customs, the paragraph that Jovellanos dedicates to the influence of bulls upon customs and traditions would be perfect if inserted into a chapter of Léon Bloy’s
Cristophe Colomb
devant les taureaux.
. . . [There is a theory that] the basis for a taste for those cruel diversions may be found in the sediment of animality that remains even after society has evolved. This theory is not new, and before it was sustained by scientific arguments it was already cemented in the wisdom of most nations.

But if there is no doubt that the Spaniard, collectively, is the clearest example of regression to primitive ferocity, there is also no doubt that in every man there is something of the Spaniard in this regard—not to mention a bit of the perversity that Poe reminds us of. And the proof of this is the contagion, individual or collective—the contagion of a traveler who goes to the bullfight out of curiosity, or the contagion of an entire population, or a large part of it (such as that of Buenos Aires or Paris), into which this entertainment has been imported, with the risk that if curiosity is drawn, first, by exoticism, then later will come the sport and all its consequences.

In Buenos Aires, despite the numerousness of the Spanish colony and the Spanish blood that still prevails among the inhabitants, the spectacle could not be sustained for long, but once one passes over the cordillera, and in countries less Saxonized than Chile, the case is different. From Lima to Guatemala and Mexico, there is still enough Peninsular “essence” to give life to the taste for the bullring.

“In any people,” says Varona, “this public spectacle would be noxious to the culture; among the Spaniards and their descendants, it is infinitely more so. All the propensities of their character, which are the product of their race and their history, incline them toward violent, even homicidal passions. So far as I personally am concerned, I am simultaneously drawn and repulsed by the spectacle; I have still not been able to slit the throat of my beloved little suckling pig.”

Given that the multitudes must have their diversions, must have some way to manifest their
joie de vivre,
I, too, would prefer that nations congregate on their holidays to enjoy a double, noble, mental and physical pleasure by listening,
à la greque,
to a declamation under the canopy of the heavens while seated upon the rising tiers of an open amphitheater, or that a procession of men, women, and children wind their way up into the mountains or along the seashore in harmonious liberty, singing songs to nature. But since no nation on earth has such traditions today, and since our customs tend increasingly to diverge from the eternal poetry of bodies and souls, then let there be bullfights, I say, let there be enormous bullrings like ancient circuses, filled with beautiful women, and sparkling eyes, and glints and gleams of steel and jewels, and shouting, and gesticulating. . . .

I assure you that my sympathies are always on the side of the animals, and between the
torero
and his horse, I would choose the horse, and between the bullfighter and the bull, my applause is for the bull. Courage, bravery, has very little to do with this sport, wherein what is most required is good eyesight and agility. I would not be the one to cheer the establishment of a bullring among us, but I would also not cheer the day that Spain abandoned those lovely exercises that are a manifestation of her national character.

The river of people turned down Calle Alcalá; past the Cibeles Fountain flowed a constant stream of carriages; the evening was turning to night, and the golden globe of the Banco de España reflected the glory of the West, where the sun, like an incandescent peacock tail, or the spokes of a gigantic Spanish fan, red and yellow, cast from a diamantine center its symmetrical and outspreading rays. The radiant eyes of the women sparkled tempestuously under their graceful
mantillas
; springlike vendor-girls offered their white tuberoses and red roses; golden dust motes floated in the air; and from every body, blood and desire sang forth a hymn to the new season. The
toreros
passed in their carriages, making the fleeting evening light all the brighter; there was the sound of distant music, and the Prado thrilled with children’s laughter.

And I understood the soul of that Spain that does not perish, that Spain that is the queen of life, empress of love, joy, and cruelty—that Spain that will always have conquistadors and poets, painters and bullfighters.

Castles in Spain! the French say. Yes, of course: castles in the air and on the ground, filled with legend, history, music, perfume, nobility, color, gold, blood, and iron, so that Hugo may come and find in them everything he needs to sculpt a mountain of poetry. Castles in which Carmen lived, and Esmeralda, and where the Gautiers, the Mussets, and all the other artists of the world may drink the most intoxicating wines of art. And as for you, don Alonso Quijano the Good, dear beloved Don Quijote, you know that I will always be on your side.

“BLACK SPAIN”

A few days ago I paid a brief visit to Aranjuez. If Versailles holds the memory of an enchanting lady who limped, Aranjuez still breathes the perfume of a bewitching one-eyed lady. A trip to that lovely
buen retiro
⁹⁵
of Castilian royalty is most worthwhile, a journey to pay homage to that Princesa de Eboli. Among the evocative, fragrant woodlands, the distant scenes rise up again, and in the air of the groves and gardens there are sleeping echoes that await only the lover or poet to bid them wake. In the Royal Palace and the “Workman’s House,” a spirit of sadness comes over you from the moment you step inside the sumptuous, solitary rooms. As you wander the countless rooms and apartments, adorned with centuries of gold, silver, marble, onyx, agate, silk, ivory; as you gaze upon those ceilings that have sheltered so many tragic, gay, or mysterious hours in the lives of so many Spanish monarchs, you are overcome by the somberness and gloom: This place and its furnishings have been so long without life; the mirror that held so many images in the past, the Manuel Rivas clock that has stopped; the pillow on which Philip II laid his head; the fresco, the painting, the locket, the old stove with its odd, sad beauty. . . . And the guide who pronounces his rote story yet removes his cap before a painting that portrays a chapel in El Escorial where mass is being said. . . . What comes to mind is Black Spain.

I had just finished reading that recent book by Emile Verhaeren and Darío de Regoyos,
La España negra,
and Barrès’ Spanish novel
Un amateur d’ames,
and that positive volume on Spain’s political and social evolution by Yves Guyot—and in all of them I found that observation, suggestion, and detail produced the dark note that contrasts, in this land, with the luxury of sunlight, the perpetual feast of light. On account of some spectral effect, so much color, so much polychrome gleam, produces, with the turning of the wheel of life, the color black.

This is the land of happiness and gaiety—the reddest of happiness, in fact: the bulls, the Gypsy festivities, the sensual women, Don Juan, Moorish voluptuousness. But for that very reason, the cruelty is all the more cruel, and lust, the mother of melancholy, all the more unbridled. Torquemada, immortal, still lives in this land. Granada lies open to the sun like the pomegranate that gives it its name, perfumed, sweet, acidly pleasing, but there is a Toledo, a concretion of time, that is as dry and immutable as a stone, and inside its walls a burst of laughter would be rare indeed, and out of place. There, in the heat that bakes Castile to aridity, there can be no love affairs but those that end in sadness or fatal tragedy, and the passion that makes this place bear such bitter flowers has the sinister, ardent savor of an act of incest. Verhaeren notes his dolorous impressions, copies onto his engravings hot, desiccated landscapes, displays the country’s violent, barbarous souls as though they were the products of a lush, rare, tropical flora. His Belgian blood is overmatched, atavistically, by the fierce savagery of a Spain that enchained his ancestors in the irons of the Duque de Alba. Through the optics of theory he sees the bloody crystallization in the subsoil of this race, whose natural energies are roiled and complicated by the crude need for tortures, and the concept of death and grace are decked with mourning by a feverish, exacerbating Catholicism, by a fierce tradition that has lighted the most horribly beautiful bonfires and imposed the most crimson, exquisite martyrdoms. Art reveals that incomparable history. The symbolism of religion turns the naves of churches and cathedrals into morgues, and I can understand how they moved Verhaeren, as they move all thinking visitors whose footsteps take them through these bloody sanctuaries in which Rivera or Montañés, to mention just two, exhibit to human horror their lamentable crucifixions.

A talented Spaniard says this to me: “In every one of us there is the soul of an inquisitor.” It is true. Tell me that José Nakens is not the living parallel—into infinity itself, like geometric lines—of Torquemada. One sees in him the same fierce and terrible faith, the intransigence that becomes blindness, the desire to impose the rack on all and sundry, the certainty of salvation through suffering, so magnificently illuminated in the plays of Hugo. In the Americas, the conquistadors and friars simply worked instinctively, under the impulse of their native proclivities: The Indians torn to pieces by dogs; the acts of subtlety, deceit, and violence; the deaths of Guatimozín and Atahualpa; the enslavement; the fires and swords and harquebuses—all these things were
logical,
and only an exceptional heart, a foreign soul among them, like Las Casas, could be grieved and astonished by that manifestation of Black Spain. . . .

The political glooms of yesteryear are repeated today, though of course without that lost magnificence. . . . The shadow of Rome still falls over the palace in Madrid, the confessors still play their role, and the intrigues are the same, the only difference being the players and the mental aptitudes.
Oh, Spain will change!
That is the cry the moment the Yankees’ injustice and strength are felt. And what changes is the Ministry.

The national verbosity overflows from a hundred mouths and pens belonging to self-appointed regenerators. It is a new national pastime. Yet the Gypsy celebrations are not interrupted. “Spain,” says a French author, “is attempting, no doubt, to imitate those great ancient Eastern nations that crumbled into public drunkenness.” But that is not correct; it is not trying to imitate anything. It works from its own impulses. Its gaiety is a native product, among so much tragedy; it is the red carnation, the red flower of Black Spain. Thus, when the conservatives returned to power, it was believed abroad that the reaction would bring on a revolution. . . . But nothing happened. Silence. Stagnation. . . .

SEVILLE

Though it is winter, I have found roses in Seville. The sky has been pure and openly hospitable, after the first few hours of the morning. La Giralda stands tall against the splendid field of azure. Then the women of Seville, glimpsed through the wrought-iron gratings that stand at the entrance to the marmoreal, flowering patios, show reason for the city’s fame. I have seen wonders.

Not without reason is this the city of Don Juan and Don Pedro. Poetry, legend, tradition forever come out to greet you. Estrella, the Burlador, the cruel Monarch, the Barber. . . .
⁹⁶
Tourism arrives, fashionably, during Holy Week. Not so much out of holiness as to pay outrageous hotel bills, sleep on a billiard table if nothing else presents itself, and watch the processions pass by—the crowds of irreligious Catholics, macabre saints, livid, bloody Christs with human hair. At the same time, the traveler will hear the cries of the
saetas,
those extraordinary Flamenco songs sung at only this time of year, and the wails of the
carceleras,
those songs bemoaning the harshness of imprisonment. During the day, he will go to see the cigar-makers in the factory, with their suggestive
deshabillés;
if he has read Pierre Louÿs’
La femme et le pantin,
so much the better, and he will return to his country saying that he felt the enchantment of Seville.

But the enchantment of Seville lies, most certainly and unarguably, elsewhere. Holy Week and its celebrations are singular notes, and the cigar-rollers help the local color that one has gleaned from one’s readings, but the soul of Seville has little to do with all that compulsory picturesqueness. Or with the industrialism and commercial life that bustles about the boats on the banks of the Guadalquivir, either. Or even with the battalion of callipygian
toreros
that wines and dines itself along the narrow, winding Calle de las Sierpes. No, the intimate enchantment of Seville lies in what it communicates to us of its past. Its soul speaks in silent solitudes—as does the sad soul of all Old Spain. The ancient byways whisper their secrets in the hours of night. And nothing compares with the grave melancholy of the city’s gardens, those gardens that have been interpreted so masterfully in paint, in melodies of color, by the exceptional, profound talent of Santiago Rusiñol—that “nightingale”
⁹⁷
of strong Catalonia.