They Are At Last Divided, And The First Two Have Been
Sorely Weakened In Detail.
The last should be the easiest work.
The scorn of my radical friend did not prevent my copying the modest
tablet on the wall: -
"Here was born Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of Don Quixote. By
his fame and his genius he belongs to the civilized world; by his cradle
to Alcala de Henares."
There is no doubt of the truth of the latter part of this inscription.
Eight Spanish towns have claimed to have given birth to Cervantes, thus
beating the blind Scian by one town; every one that can show on its
church records the baptism of a child so called has made its claim. Yet
Alcala, who spells his name wrong, calling him Carvantes, is certainly
in the right, as the names of his father, mother, brothers, and sisters
are also given in its records, and all doubt is now removed from the
matter by the discovery of Cervantes's manuscript statement of his
captivity in Algiers and his petition for employment in America, in both
of which he styles himself "Natural de Alcala de Henares."
Having examined the evidence, we considered ourselves justly entitled to
all the usual emotions in visiting the church of the parish, Santa Maria
la Mayor. It was evening, and from a dozen belfries in the neighborhood
came the soft dreamy chime of silver-throated bells. In the little
square in front of the church a few families sat in silence on the
massive stone benches. A few beggars hurried by, too intent upon getting
home to supper to beg. A rural and a twilight repose lay on everything.
Only in the air, rosy with the level light, flew out and greeted each
other those musical voices of the bells rich with the memories of all
the days of Alcala. The church was not open, but we followed a sacristan
in, and he seemed too feeble-minded to forbid. It is a pretty church,
not large nor imposing, with a look of cosy comfort about it. Through
the darkness the high altar loomed before us, dimly lighted by a few
candles where the sacristans were setting up the properties for the
grand mass of the morrow, - Our Lady of the Snows. There was much talk
and hot discussion as to the placing of the boards and the draperies,
and the image of Our Lady seemed unmoved by words unsuited to her
presence. We know that every vibration of air makes its own impression
on the world of matter. So that the curses of the sacristans at their
work, the prayers of penitents at the altar, the wailing of breaking
hearts bowed on the pavement through many years, are all recorded
mysteriously, in these rocky walls. This church is the illegible history
of the parish. But of all its ringing of bells, and swinging of censers,
and droning of psalms, and putting on and off of goodly raiment, the
only show that consecrates it for the world's pilgrimage is that humble
procession that came on the 9th day of October, in the year of Grace
1547, to baptize Roderick Cervantes's youngest child. There could not be
an humbler christening. Juan Pardo - John Gray - was the sponsor, and the
witnesses were "Baltazar Vazquez, the sacristan, and I who baptized him
and signed with my name," says Mr. Bachelor Serrano, who never dreamed
he was stumbling into fame when he touched that pink face with the holy
water and called the child Miguel. It is my profound conviction that
Juan Pardo brought the baby himself to the church and took it home
again, screaming wrathfully; Neighbor' Pardo feeling a little sheepish
and mentally resolving never to do another good-natured action as long
as he lived.
As for the neophyte, he could not be blamed for screaming and kicking
against the new existence he was entering, if the instinct of genius
gave him any hint of it. Between the font of St. Mary's and the bier at
St. Ildefonso's there was scarcely an hour of joy waiting him in his
long life, except that which comes from noble and earnest work.
His youth was passed in the shabby privation of a poor gentleman's
house; his early talents attracted the attention of my Lord Aquaviva,
the papal legate, who took him back to Rome in his service; but the
high-spirited youth soon left the inglorious ease of the cardinal's
house to enlist as a private soldier in the sea-war against the Turk. He
fought bravely at Lepanto, where he was three times wounded and his left
hand crippled. Going home for promotion, loaded with praise and kind
letters from the generous bastard, Don Juan of Austria, the true son of
the Emperor Charles and pretty Barbara Blumberg, he was captured with
his brother by the Moors, and passed five miserable years in slavery,
never for one instant submitting to his lot, but wearying his hostile
fate with constant struggles. He headed a dozen attempts at flight or
insurrection, and yet his thrifty owners would not kill him. They
thought a man who bore letters from a prince, and who continued cock of
his walk through years of servitude, would one day bring a round ransom.
At last the tardy day of his redemption came, but not from the
cold-hearted tyrant he had so nobly served. The matter was presented to
him by Cervantes's comrades, but he would do nothing. So that Don
Roderick sold his estate and his sisters sacrificed their dowry to buy
the freedom of the captive brothers.
They came back to Spain still young enough to be fond of glory, and
simple-hearted enough to believe in the justice of the great. They
immediately joined the army and served in the war with Portugal. The
elder brother made his way and got some little promotion, but Miguel got
married and discharged, and wrote verses and plays, and took a small
office in Seville, and moved with the Court to Valladolid; and kept his
accounts badly, and was too honest to steal, and so got into jail, and
grew every year poorer and wittier and better; he was a public
amanuensis, a business agent, a sub-tax-gatherer, - anything to keep his
lean larder garnished with scant ammunition against the wolf hunger.
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