By Each Hand She Led One Of Her Two Pretty Boys, Don
Jaime, The Prince Of Asturias, Heir Apparent, And
His younger brother.
She walked swiftly, with glad, kind looks around, and her ladies
followed her according to their state;
Then ushered and followed by the
gentlemen assembled to receive them, they mounted to their motors and
whirred away like so many persons of a histrionic pageant: not least
impressive, the court attendants filled a stage drawn by six mules, and
clattered after.
From hearsay and reasonable surmise we learned that we had not come from
Escorial in the Sud-Express at all, but in the Queen's special train
bringing her and her children from their autumn sojourn at La Granja,
and that we had been for an hour a notable feature of the royal party
without knowing it, and of course without getting the least good of it.
We had indeed ignorantly enjoyed no less of the honor than two other
Americans, who came in the dining-car with us, but whether the
nice-looking Spanish couple who sat in the corner next us were equally
ignorant of their advantage I shall never know. It was but too highly
probable that the messed condition of the car was due to royal luncheon
in it just before we came aboard; but why we were suffered to come
aboard, or why a supplementary fare should have been collected from us
remains one of those mysteries which I should once have liked to keep
all Spain.
We had to go quite outside of the station grounds to get a cab for our
hotel, but from this blow to our dignity I recovered a little later in
the day, when the king, attended by as small a troop of cavalry as I
suppose a king ever has with him, came driving by in the street where I
was walking. As he sat in his open carriage he looked very amiable, and
handsomer than most of the pictures make him. He seemed to be gazing at
me, and when he bowed I could do no less than return his salutation. As
I glanced round to see if people near me were impressed by our exchange
of civilities, I perceived an elderly officer next me. He was smiling as
I was, and I think he was in the delusion that the king's bow, which I
had so promptly returned, was intended for him.
VIII
CORDOVA AND THE WAY THERE
I should be sorry if I could believe that Cordova experienced the
disappointment in us, which I must own we felt in her; but our
disappointment was unquestionable, and I will at once offer it to the
reader as an inducement for him to go to Cordova with less lively
expectations than ours. I would by no means have him stay away; after
all, there is only one Cordova in the world which the capital of the
Caliphate of the West once filled with her renown; and if the great
mosque of Abderrahman is not so beautiful as one has been made to fancy
it, still it is wonderful, and could not be missed without loss.
I
Better, I should say, take the _rapido_ which leaves Madrid three times
a week at nine-thirty in the morning, than the night express which
leaves as often at the same hour in the evening. Since there are now
such good day trains on the chief Spanish lines, it is flying in the
face of Providence not to go by them; they might be suddenly taken off;
besides, they have excellent restaurant-cars, and there is, moreover,
always the fascinating and often the memorable landscape which they pass
through. By no fault of ours that I can remember, our train was rather
crowded; that is, four or five out of the eight places in our corridor
compartment were taken, and we were afraid at every stop that more
people would get in, though I do not know that it was our anxieties kept
them out. For the matter of that, I do not know why I employed an
interpreter at Madrid to get my ticket stamped at the ticket-office; it
required merely the presentation of the ticket at the window; but the
interpreter seemed to wish it and it enabled him to practise his English
with me, and I realized that he must live. In a peseta's worth of
gratitude he followed us to our carriage, and he did not molest the
_mozo_ in putting our bags into the racks, though he hovered about the
door till the train started; and it just now occurs to me that he may
have thought a peseta was not a sufficient return for his gratitude; he
had rendered us no service.
At Aranjuez the wheat-lands, which began to widen about us as soon as we
got beyond the suburbs of Madrid, gave way to the groves and gardens of
that really charming pleasaunce, charming quite from the station, with
grounds penetrated by placid waters overhung by the English elms which
the Castilians are so happy in having naturalized in their treeless
waste. Multitudes of nightingales are said to sing among them, but it
was not the season for hearing them from the train; and we made what
shift we could with the strawberry and asparagus beds which we could see
plainly, and the peach trees and cherry trees. One of these had
committed the solecism of blossoming in October, instead of April or
May, when the nobility came to their villas.
We had often said during our stay in Madrid that we should certainly
come for a day at Aranjuez; and here we were, passing it with a five
minutes' stop. I am sure it merited much more, not only for its many
proud memories, but for its shameful ones, which are apt to be so much
more lasting in the case of royal pleasaunces. The great Catholic King
Ferdinand inherited the place with the Mastership of the Order of
Santiago; Charles V. used to come there for the shooting, and Philip
II., Charleses III.
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