The Army Is A Corrupting Influence, But Not
Modern.
The vice that follows the trail of armies, or sprouts,
fungus-like, about the walls of barracks, is as old as war, and links
the present, with its struggle for a better life, to the old mediaeval
world of wrong.
These trim fellows in loose trousers and embroidered
jackets are the same race that fought and drank and made prompt love in
Italy and Flanders and butchered the Aztecs in the name of religion
three hundred years ago. They have laid off their helmets and hauberks,
and use the Berdan rifle instead of the Roman spear. But they are the
same careless, idle, dissolute bread-wasters now as then.
The town has not changed in the least. It has only shrunk a little. You
think sometimes it must be a vacation, and that you will come again when
people return. The little you see of the people is very attractive.
Passing along the desolate streets, you glance in at an open door and
see a most delightful cabinet picture of domestic life. All the doors in
the house are open. You can see through the entry, the front room, into
the cool court beyond, gay with oleanders and vines, where a group of
women half dressed are sewing and spinning and cheering their souls with
gossip. If you enter under pretence of asking a question, you will be
received with grave courtesy, your doubts solved, and they will bid you
go with God, with the quaint^ frankness of patriarchal times.
They do not seem to have been spoiled by overmuch travel. Such
impressive and Oriental courtesy could not have survived the trampling
feet of the great army of tourists. On our pilgrim-way to the cradle of
Cervantes we came suddenly upon the superb facade of the university.
This is one of the most exquisite compositions of plateresque in
existence. The entire front of the central body of the building is
covered with rich and tasteful ornamentation. Over the great door is an
enormous escutcheon of the arms of Austria, supported by two finely
carved statues, - on the one side a nearly nude warrior, on the other the
New World as a feather-clad Indian woman. Still above this a fine, bold
group of statuary, representing, with that reverent naivete of early
art, God the Father in the work of creation. Surrounding the whole front
as with a frame, and reaching to the ground on either side, is carved
the knotted cord of the Franciscan monks. No description can convey the
charming impression given by the harmony of proportion and the loving
finish of detail everywhere seen in this beautifully preserved fagade.
While we were admiring it an officer came out of the adjoining cuartel
and walked by us with jingling spurs. I asked him if one could go
inside. He shrugged his shoulders with a Quien sabe? indicating a doubt
as profound as if I had asked him whether chignons were worn in the
moon. He had never thought of anything inside. There was no wine nor
pretty girls there. Why should one want to go in? We entered the cool
vestibule, and were ascending the stairs to the first court, when a
porter came out of his lodge and inquired our errand. We were wandering
barbarians with an eye to the picturesque, and would fain see the
university, if it were not unlawful. He replied, in a hushed and
scholastic tone of voice, and with a succession of confidential winks
that would have inspired confidence in the heart of a Talleyrand, that
if our lordships would give him our cards he had no doubt he could
obtain the required permission from the rector. He showed us into a dim,
claustral-looking anteroom, in which, as I was told by my friend, who
trifles in lost moments with the integral calculus, there were
seventy-two chairs and one microscopic table. The wall was decked with
portraits of the youth of the college, all from the same artist, who
probably went mad from the attempt to make fifty beardless faces look
unlike each other. We sat for some time mourning over his failure, until
the door opened, and not the porter, but the rector himself, a most
courteous and polished gentleman in the black robe and three-cornered
hat of his order, came in and graciously placed himself and the
university at our disposition. We had reason to congratulate ourselves
upon this good fortune. He showed us every nook and corner of the vast
edifice, where the present and the past elbowed each other at every
turn: here the boys' gymnasium, there the tomb of Valles; here the new
patent cocks of the water-pipes, and there the tri-lingual patio where
Alonso Sanchez lectured in Arabic, Greek, and Chaldean, doubtless making
a choice hash of the three; the airy and graceful paraninfo, or hall of
degrees, a masterpiece of Moresque architecture, with a gorgeous
panelled roof, a rich profusion of plaster arabesques, and, horresco
referens, the walls covered with a bright French paper. Our good rector
groaned at this abomination, but said the Gauls had torn away the
glorious carved panelling for firewood in the war of 1808, and the
college was too poor to restore it. His righteous indignation waxed hot
again when we came to the beautiful sculptured pulpit of the chapel,
where all the delicate details are degraded by a thick coating of
whitewash, which in some places has fallen away and shows the gilding of
the time of the Catholic kings.
There is in this chapel a picture of the Virgin appearing to the great
cardinal whom we call Ximenez and the Spaniards Cisneros, which is
precious for two reasons. The portrait of Ximenez was painted from life
by the nameless artist, who, it is said, came from France for the
purpose, and the face of the Virgin is a portrait of Isabella the
Catholic. It is a good wholesome face, such as you would expect.
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