The son of the house, Don Pepe, a young man of five and twenty, who usually attended us on any difficult excursion, was also frankly outspoken in his disapproval of the clergy. He could hardly hold his countenance in passing a Franciscan friar. "There walks the ruin of Spain," he muttered once, with bitter accent, turning to scowl after the bareheaded, brown-frocked figure so common in Granada streets. We had, indeed, our own little grudge against the friars, for they were the only men of the city who forced us off the narrow sidewalks out into the rough and dirty road. All other Granadines, from dandies to gypsies, yielded us the strip of pavement with ready courtesy, but the friars, three or four in Indian file, would press on their way like graven images and drive us to take refuge among the donkeys.
This escort of ours, formally a Catholic, was no more a lover of State than of Church. He was eager to get to work in the world and, finding no foothold, charged up his grievance against the Government. He was firmly persuaded that Madrid had sold the Santiago and Manila victories to Washington for sums of money down, – deep down in official pockets. But his talk, however angry, would always end in throwing out the hands with a gesture of despair.
"But what use in revolutions? Spain is tired – tired of tumult, tired of bloodshed, tired of deceit and disappointment. A new government would only mean the old dogs with new collars. We, the people, are always the bone to be gnawed bare. What use in anything? Let it go as God wills."
The Silvela and Polavieja ministry came in during our stay at Granada, and the Liberal and Republican chorus against what was known as the Reactionary Government swelled loud. "It means the yoke of the Jesuits," growled our burly host. Our Alhambra dream suffered frequent jars from these ignoble confusions of to-day. When we were musing comfortably on the melancholy fortunes of Boabdil, a cheap newspaper would be thrust before our eyes with an editorial headed "Boabdil Sagasta." It is always best to do what one must. Since we could not be left in peace to the imagination of plumy cavaliers, stars of Moslem and Christian chivalry, who sowed this mount so thick with glorious memories, we turned our thoughts to the poor soldiers from Cuba, especially during the week throughout which they paraded the cities of Spain in rag-tag companies under rude flags with the ruder motto: "Hungry Repatriados." Their appearance was so woful that it became a by-word. A child, picking up from a gutter one day a mud-stained, dog-eared notebook, cried gleefully, "It's a repatriado." There was no glamour here, but the courage and sacrifice, the love and anguish, held good.
Granada had borne her share in Spain's last war sorrow. So many of her sons were drafted for the Antilles that her anger against America waxed hot. A few months before our arrival every star-spangled banner that could be hunted out in shop or residence was trampled and burned in the public squares. The Washington Irving Hotel hastened to take down its sign, and even the driver of its omnibus was sternly warned by the people to erase those offensive American names from his vehicle on pain of seeing it transformed into a chariot of fire. A shot, possibly accidental, whistled through the office of the English consul, who was given to understand, in more ways than one, that Spain made little difference between "the cloaked enemy" and the foe in the field. Meanwhile, month after month, the recruits were marched to the station, and the City Fathers, who came in all municipal dignity to bid the lads godspeed, were so overwhelmed by the weeping of the women that they forgot the cream of their speeches.
Among the new tales of Spanish valor told us on the Alhambra hill was this: —
When lots were drawn for military service, one blithe young scapegrace found in his hand a fortunate high number, but, walking away in fine feather over his luck, he met the mother of a friend of his, sobbing wildly as she went. Her son had been drafted, and the two hundred dollars of redemption money was as far beyond her reach as those dazzling crests of the Sierra Nevada are above the lame beggar at the Alhambra gate. Then the kindly fellow, troubled by her grief and mindful of the fact that, orphan as he was, his own parting would be at no such cost of tears, offered to serve in her boy's stead. Her passion of gratitude could not let his service go all unrecompensed. Poorest of the poor, she went about among her humble friends, lauding his deed, until she had collected, peseta by peseta, the sum of sixteen dollars, which she thrust into his hands to buy comforts for the campaign. But another sobbing mother sought him out. He had saved her neighbor's son; would he not save hers? Laughing at her logic and moved by her faith in him, he answered: "I am only one man, señora. I cannot go in place of two. But here are sixteen dollars. If you can find a substitute at such a price, the money is yours."
Sixteen dollars is a fortune to hunger and nakedness, and the substitute was found. As the year wore on those two mothers did not let the city forget its light-hearted hero, and a great assembly gathered at the station to honor his return. A remnant of his comrades descended from the train, but as for him, they said, he had died in Cuba of the fever months before.
His was no poetic death like that of the Abencerrages. Happy Abencerrages! They knew the Alhambra in the freshness of her beauty. Their last uplifted glances looked upon the most exquisite ceilings in the world. Their blood left immortal stains on the marble base of the fountain. But this young Spaniard, in his obscure Cuban grave, only one out of the eighty thousand, will promptly be forgotten. No importa. There must be something better than glory for the man who does more than his duty.
IV
A FUNCTION IN GRANADA
"O Love Divine, Celestial Purity,
Pity my cries!
My soul is prone before a clouded throne.
Let thy keen light arise,
Pierce this obscurity
And free my dream-bound eyes!"
The civilization of Spain, streaked as it is with Oriental barbarisms, belated and discouraged as the end of the nineteenth century finds it, is still in many respects finer than our own. In everything that relates to grace and charm of social intercourse, to the dignified expression of reverence, compassion, and acknowledgment, Spain puts us to the blush. I was especially touched in Granada by the whole-souled sympathy and veneration with which the city rendered public honors to one of its sons, Angel Ganivet, who died in the preceding winter, a poet hardly thirty.
Although I had glanced over obituary notices of this Spanish writer in the Paris papers, I had but a vague idea of his work and life, and sought, before the night of the memorial ceremonies, for further information. I appealed, first of all, to our table waiter, whose keen black eyes instantly turned sad and tender.
"Pobre! Pobre! He threw himself into the river at Riga, in Russia, where he was consul. It was at the close of the war. And he such a genius! So young! So true a Spaniard! But all Granada will be at the theatre. He left his play to Granada, asking that it be seen here first of all. I have never read his books, but I have met him in the streets, and lifted my hat to him for a wise caballero who cared greatly for Spain."
My next appeal was to our kind neighbor, the English consul, who assured me laughingly that he, like myself, was vainly ransacking the few bookstores of Granada for Ganivet's works.
"The first time I ever heard the name," he added, "was some three or four years ago, when I noticed an old gentleman standing often in front of my house, and gazing at the British coat-of-arms above my door. He told