Pagan Spain (IV)

Okay, I’ll do one more post. A collection of briefer,random excerpts – all so keenly observent:

Heading toward my pension, I reached a street corner and found my path blocked: a vast flock of sheep was ambling down the broad, modern avenue. I stared, doubting my eyes. Yet, there they were, mincing along slowly in the center of the city, occasionally bleating. A boy with a long staff was leading them. I watched them until they were out of sight, then I became aware of the pavement vibrating under my feet from the rushing force of a subway train. Barcelona was so sophisticated that one was likely to see anything.

Wright attends a bullfight. It’s in chapters 14-19. Utterly mesmerizing account.

It had been beautiful and awful and horrible and glorious, and ought to have been forbidden, for there had been something undoubtedly criminal about it. I shifted nervously on my slab of concrete to watch and wait for what would come next. My mouth hung open; I was revolted, but hungry for more. I was indignant, but bewitched, utterly.…

….

Contrary to popular belief, which has it that bullfighters are something like ballet dancers, bullfighting does not demand much muscular exertion, physical fitness, or strength, and its practice does not develop the body as football, basketball, baseball, or cricket does. Indeed, some of the most memorable bullfights ever witnessed in modern times were executed by a man almost too ill and too weak to stand upon his feet. That man was Juan Belmonte, perhaps the most intelligent, courageous, and perceptive of all the men who ever entered a ring to kill a bull. Belmonte has characterized bullfighting as being “fundamentally a spiritual exercise and not merely a sport. Physical strength is not enough.”

But what is this mysterious “spiritual exercise” of which Belmonte speaks? It there something hidden here? If there is something hidden, why are bullfights enacted out in the open, before thousands of spectators? The answer is not often recognized even when one is directly confronted with it. It is the conquering of fear, the making of a religion of the conquering of fear. Any man with enough courage to stand perfectly still in front of a bull will not be attacked or killed by that bull. It has been known for a man to sit in the bullring in a chair reading a newspaper in front of the bull-pen gate. The gate was thrown open; the bull thundered out, stopped, gazed at the seated man, and trotted away. But to remain immobile when a beast of more than a thousand pounds is hurtling toward you is usually beyond human capacity

On Madrid:

This city surpassed Barcelona in the sumptuousness and splendor of its imposing ministries, its quiet, gleaming museums, its bubbling fountains, and its proud, ornate monuments, but, as in Barcelona, I had to exercise caution to keep from running down chickens, goats, and sheep in the center of the city just a few blocks from some of the world’s most luxurious hotels. I passed four slovenly-dressed young men sauntering abreast down the middle of one of the main, busy streets caroling flamenco songs at the top of their tremulous voices to the accompaniment of a twanging guitar, and I was surprised because no one else was surprised.

Finally, in Seville for Santa Semana:

In 1455 the Pope had divided the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese and those nations had had not only the right, but the moral duty of enslaving those infidels who failed to kneel and kiss the cross and accept Christ as their Redeemer. Yet how was it that four hundred desperate, half-starved white men, with this cross, had conquered millions? True, the white men had been brave and the minds of their red-skinned adversaries had been ridden with superstition, but even that did not explain how a mere handful could subdue millions.

That they had triumphed in the name of a dead God nailed to a cross was undeniably true, but what had that cross meant to them? And what had it meant to the millions whom they had subjugated? If anywhere in the Western world there was an answer to that riddle, it was here in this slow and sleepy city of Seville, here where tradition had remained intact for four centuries, here in this pile of Gothic stone that soared with such fragile majesty toward a blue sky, here in these narrow medieval streets where each store window showed the images of penitents in white, red, and blue robes.

The weather was sunny and bright. Seats along the routes of the religious processions were in the hands of speculators and I had to pay a premium for my chair. More than the usual number of candles were being lighted in the dim and hushed cathedrals. Women were shopping for black lace shawls. Newspapers were filled with photos of Tortured Christs and Weeping Virgins.

While in the center of the city, I saw a fashionably dressed woman walking along barefooted! I blinked, then looked to see if others saw what I saw. No. People were passing her as if her attire, or lack of it, were normal. Back in my pension, I asked Señora F. the meaning of it.

“She was doing penance. Many people pledge to their priest not to wear shoes, or not to eat on certain days, or to walk a certain number of kilometers. It’s quite common.”