When the Holy Week came round, Gallardo gave his mother a great pleasure.

In previous years as a devotee of "Our Father Jesus of Great Power" he had walked in the procession of the parish of San Lorenzo, wearing the long black tunic, with high pointed hood and mask, which only left the eyes visible.

It was the aristocratic brotherhood, and when the torero found himself on the high road to fortune he had entered it, avoiding the popular brotherhood, whose devotion was generally accompanied by drunkenness and scandal.

He spoke with pride of the serious gravity of this religious association. Everything was well ordered and strictly disciplined as in a regiment. On the night of Holy Thursday, as the clock of San Lorenzo struck the second stroke of two in the morning, the church doors would be suddenly opened, so that the crowd massed on the dark pavement outside could see the interior of the church, resplendent with lights and the brotherhood drawn up in order.

The hooded men, silent and gloomy, with no sign of life but the flash of their eyes through the black mask, advanced slowly two by two, each holding a large wax taper in his hand, and leaving a wide space between each pair for their long sweeping trains.

The crowd, with southern impressionability, watched the passing of this hooded train, which they called[Pg 248] "Nazarenos," with deepest interest, for some of these mysterious masks might be great noblemen whom traditional piety had induced to take part in this nocturnal procession.

The brotherhood, obliged to keep silence under pain of mortal sin, were escorted by municipal guards to prevent them being molested by the drunken rabble, who began their Holy Week holiday on Wednesday night by visits to every tavern. It happened now and then that the guards relaxed their vigilance, which enabled these impious tipplers to place themselves alongside of the silent brothers, and whisper atrocious insults against their unknown persons, or their equally unknown families. The Nazarene suffered in silence, swallowing the insults, offering them as a sacrifice to the "Lord of Great Power." The rascals emboldened by this meekness would redouble their insults, till at last the pious mask, considering that if silence was obligatory inaction was not, would lift their wax tapers and thrash the intruders, which somewhat upset the holy meditations of the ceremony.

In the course of the procession, when the porters of the "pasos"[96] required rest, and the huge platforms hung round with lanthorns on which the figures stood, halted, a slight whistle was enough to stop the hooded figures, who turned facing each other, resting their large tapers on their feet, looking at the crowd through the mysterious slit of the mask. Above the pointed hoods floated the banners of the brotherhood, squares of black velvet with gold fringes, on which were embroidered the Roman letters S.P.Q.R., in commemoration of the part played by[Pg 249] the Procurator of Judea in the condemnation of the Just One.

The paso of "Our Father Jesus of Great Power" stood on a heavy platform of worked metal, trimmed all round with hangings of black velvet which fell to the ground, concealing the twenty half-naked and perspiring porters. At each of the four corners hung groups of lanthorns and golden angels, and in the centre stood Jesus, crowned with thorns and bending under the weight of His cross; a tragical, dolorous, blood-stained Jesus, with cadaverous face and tearful eyes, but magnificently dressed in a velvet tunic, covered with gold flowers, which only showed the stuff as a slight arabesque between the complicated embroideries.

The appearance of the Lord of Great Power drew sighs and groans from hundreds of breasts.

"Father Jesus!" murmured the old women, fixing their hypnotised eyes on the figure—"Lord of Great Power! Remember us!"

As the paso stopped in the middle of the Plaza with its hooded escort, the devotion of this Andalusian people, which confides all its thoughts to song, broke out in bird-like trills and interminable laments.

A childish voice of trembling sweetness broke the silence. Some girl pushing her way to the front would send a "saeta"[97] to Jesus, the three verses of which celebrated the Lord of Great Power, "The most divine sculpture," and the artist Monta?es, a companion of the artists of the golden age, who had carved it. The hooded brothers listened motionless, till the conductor of the paso, thinking the pause had been long enough, struck a silver bell on the front of the platform. "Up with it," and the Lord of Great Power, after many oscillations, was[Pg 250] hoisted up, while the feet of the invisible porters began to move like tentacles on the ground.

After this came the Virgin, Our Lady of the Greatest Sorrow, for all the parishes sent out two pasos. Under a velvet canopy her golden crown trembled in the surrounding lights. The train of her mantle, which was several yards long, hung down behind the paso, being puffed out by a frame-work of wood, which displayed the splendour of its rich, heavy and splendid embroideries, which must have exhausted the skill and patience of a whole generation.

To the roll of the drums a whole troup of women followed her, their bodies in the shadow, and their faces reddened by the glare of the tapers they carried in her hands. Old barefooted women in mantillas, girls wearing the white clothes which were to have served them as shrouds, women who walked painfully, as if they were suffering from hidden and painful maladies, an assembly of suffering humanity saved from death by the goodness of the Lord of Great Power and His Blessed Mother.

The procession of the pious brotherhood, after having slowly walked through the streets, with long pauses during which they sang hymns, entered the Cathedral, which remained all night with its doors open. With their lighted tapers they wound through the gigantic naves, bringing out of the darkness the immense pillars hung with velvet trimmed with gold, but their light was unable to disperse the darkness gathered in the vaults above. Leaving this crypt-like gloom they came out again under the starlight, and the rising sun ended by surprising the procession still wandering about the streets.

Gallardo was an enthusiast about the Lord of Great Power and the majestic silence of the brotherhood. It was a very serious thing! One might laugh at the other pasos for their disorder and want of devotion. But to[Pg 251] laugh at this one!... Never! Besides, in this brotherhood one rubbed against very great people.

Nevertheless, this year the espada decided to abandon the Lord of Great Power, to go out with the brotherhood of la Macarena, who escorted the miraculous Virgin of Hope.

Se?ora Angustias was delighted when she heard his decision. He owed it to the Virgin, who had saved him after his last "cogida." Besides, this flattered her feelings of plebeian simplicity.

"Every one with his own, Juaniyo. It is all right for you to mix with gentlefolk, but you ought to think that the poor have always loved you, and that now they are speaking against you, because they think you despise them."

The torero knew it but too well. The turbulent populace who sat on the sunny side of the Plaza were beginning to show a certain animosity against him, thinking themselves forgotten. They criticised his constant intercourse with wealthy people, and his desertion of those who had been his first admirers. Gallardo wished therefor to take advantage of every means of flattering those whose applause he wanted. A few days before the procession, he informed the most influential members of la Macarena of his intention to follow in it. He did not wish the people to know it, it was purely an act of devotion, and he wished his intention to remain a secret.

All the same, in a few days the suburb was talking of nothing else, it was the pride of the neighbourhood. "Ah! we must see la Macarena this year," said the gossips as they spoke of the torero's intention. "The Se?ora Angustias will cover the paso with flowers, it will cost at least a hundred duros. And Juaniyo will hang all his jewellery on the Virgin. A real fortune!"

And so it was. Gallardo gathered together all the[Pg 252] jewellery in the house, both his own and his wife's, to hang on the image. La Macarena would wear on her ears those diamond ear-rings which the espada had bought for Carmen in Madrid, which had cost the proceeds of many corridas. On her breast she would wear a large double gold chain belonging to the torero, on which would hang all his rings and the large diamond studs that he wore on his shirt front.

"Jesus! How smart our Morena[98] will be," said they often, speaking of the Virgin. "Se?o Juan intends to pay for everything. It will make half Seville rage!"

When the espada was questioned about it, he smiled modestly. He had always felt a deep devotion for la Macarena. She was the Virgin of the suburb in which he was born, besides his poor father had never failed to walk in the procession as an armed man. It was an honour of which the family was proud, and had his own position admitted of it he would have been delighted to put on the helmet and carry the lance, like so many Gallardos, his forebears, who were now underground.

This religious popularity flattered him: he was anxious that every one in the suburb should know about his following the procession, but at the same time he dreaded the news spreading about the town. He believed in the Virgin, and he wished to stand well with her, in view of future dangers; but he trembled when he thought of the derision of his friends assembled in the cafés and clubs of the Calle de las Sierpes.

"They will turn me into ridicule if they recognize me," said he. "All the same, I must try and stand well with everybody."

On the night of Holy Thursday he went with his wife to the Cathedral to hear the Miserere. The immensely high Gothic arches had no light but that of a few wax[Pg 253] tapers hung on to the pillars, just sufficient for the crowd not to be obliged to feel their way. All the people of better social position were seated in the side chapels behind the iron gratings, anxious to avoid contact with the perspiring masses pouring into the nave.

The choir was in complete darkness, except for a few lights looking like a starry constellation, for the use of the musicians and singers. The Miserere of Eslava was sung in this atmosphere of gloom and mystery. It was a gay and graceful Andalusian Miserere like the fluttering of doves' wings, with tender romances like love serenades, and choruses like drinkers' rounds, full of that joy of life, which made the people forgetful of death, and rebel against the gloom of the Passion.

When the voice of the tenor had ended its last romance, and the wails in which he apostrophised "Jerusalem! Jerusalem!" were lost in the vaults, the crowd dispersed, much preferring the liveliness of the streets, as gay as a theatre, with their electric lights, and the rows of chairs on the pavements, and wooden stages in the Plazas.

Gallardo returned home quickly to put on his Nazarene dress. Se?ora Angustias had prepared his clothes with a tenderness which carried her back to her youthful days. Ay! her poor dear husband! who on that night would don his bellicose array, and shouldering his lance, would leave the house, not to return till the following day, his helmet knocked in, his "tonelete"[99] a mass of filth, having camped with his brethren in every tavern in Seville.

The espada was as careful of his underclothing as a woman, and he put on his "Nazarene" dress with the same scrupulous care as he did his fighting costume. First he put on his silk stockings and patent leather shoes, then the white satin robe his mother had made[Pg 254] for him, and above this the high pointed hood of green velvet, which fell over his shoulders and face like a mask, and hung down in front like a chasuble as far as his knees. On one side of the breast the coat of arms of the brotherhood was delicately embroidered in variegated colours. The torero having put on his white gloves took the tall staff which was a sign of dignity in the brotherhood. It was a long staff covered with green velvet, with a silver top, and pointed at the end with the same metal.

As Gallardo took his way through the narrow street on his way to San Gil he met the company of "Jews," that is to say, of armed men, fierce soldiers, their faces framed by their helmets' metal chin strap, wearing wine-coloured tunics, flesh-coloured cotton stockings and high sandals, round their waists was fastened the Roman sword, and over their shoulders, like a modern gun strap, was the cord which supported their lances. These soldiers, young and old, marched to the roll of drums and carried a Roman banner with the senatorial inscription.

An imposingly magnificent personage swaggered sword in hand at the head of this troup. Gallardo recognised him as he passed.

"Curse him!" said he, laughing beneath his mask. "No one will pay any attention to me. This 'gacho' will carry off all the palms to-night."

It was Captain Chivo, a gipsy singer, who had arrived that morning from Paris, faithful to his military discipline, to put himself at the head of his soldiers.

To fail in this duty would have been to forfeit the title of Captain, which El Chivo ostentatiously displayed on every music-hall placard in Paris, where he and his daughters danced and sang. These girls were as lively as lizards, graceful of movement, with large eyes, and a delicacy of colouring and suppleness of figure which[Pg 255] drove men mad. The eldest had had the good fortune to run away with a Russian prince, and the Parisian papers for days were full of the despair "of that brave officer of the Spanish army," who intended to avenge his honour by shooting the fugitives. In a theatre on the boulevards a piece had been hastily mounted, on the "Flight of the Gipsy," with dances of toreros, choruses of friars, and other scenes of faithful local colouring. El Chivo soon compromised with his left-handed son-in-law in consideration of pocketing a good indemnity, and continued dancing in Paris with the other girls in hopes of another Russian prince. His rank as Captain made many foreigners, well informed as to what was going on in Spain, thoughtful. Ah! Spain! ... a decadent country which does not pay its noble soldiers, and forces its hidalgos to send their daughters on the stage.

On the approach of Holy Week, Captain Chivo could no longer bear his absence from Seville, so he took farewell of his daughters with the air of a severe and uncompromising "pére noble."

"My children, I am going.... Mind that you are good ... observe propriety and decency.... My company is waiting for me. What would they say if their Captain failed them?"

He thought with pride as he travelled from Paris to Seville of his father and grandfather, who had been captains of the Jews of la Macarena, and that to himself fresh glory accrued through this inheritance from his forefathers.

He had once drawn a prize of ten thousand pesetas in the National Lottery, and the whole of this sum he had spent on a uniform suitable to his rank. The gossips of the suburb rushed to have a look at the Captain, dazzling in his gold embroideries, wearing a burnished metal[Pg 256] corselet, a helmet over which flowed a cascade of white feathers, and whose brilliant steel reflected all the light of the procession. It was the fantastic magnificence of a red skin; a princely dress, of which a drunken Auracanian might have dreamt. The women fingered the velvet kilt, admiring its embroideries of nails, hammers, thorns, in fact all the attributes of the Passion. His boots seemed trembling at every step from the flashing brilliancy of the spangles and paste jewels which covered them. Below the white plumes of the helmet, which seemed to make his dark Moorish colouring darker still, the gipsy's grey whiskers could be seen. This was not military. The Captain himself nobly admitted it. But he was returning to Paris, and something must be conceded to art.

Turning his head with warlike pride and fixing his eyes on the legionary eagle, he shouted:

"Attention! let no one leave the ranks! ... observe decency and discipline!"

The company advanced, marching slowly, stiffly and solemnly to the rubadub of the drum. In every street were many taverns, and before their doors stood boon companions, their hats well back, and their waistcoats open, who had lost count of the innumerable glasses they had drunk in commemoration of the Lord's death.

As they saw the imposing warrior come along they hailed him, holding up from afar glasses of fragrant amber-coloured wine. The Captain endeavoured to conceal his inward perturbation, turning his eyes away, and holding himself up even more rigidly inside his metal corselet. If only he had not been on duty!...

Some friends more pressing than the others, crossed the street to push the glass under the plumed helmet; but the incorruptible centurion drew back, presenting the point of his sword. Duty was duty. This year at all[Pg 257] events it should not be as other years, in which the company had fallen into disorder and disarray almost as soon as they had started.

The streets soon became real Ways of Bitterness for Captain Chivo. He was so hot in his armour, surely a little wine would not destroy discipline; so he accepted a glass, and then another, and soon the company were moving along with gaps in their ranks, strewing the way with stragglers, who stopped at every tavern they passed.

The procession marched with traditional slowness, waiting hours at every crossway. It was only twelve at night, and la Macarena would not have to return home till twelve the following day; it took her longer to go through the streets of Seville than it took to go from Seville to Madrid.

First of all advanced the paso of "The Sentence of our Lord Jesus Christ," a platform covered with figures, representing Pilate seated on a golden throne, surrounded by soldiers in coloured kilts and plumed helmets, guarding the sorrowful Jesus, ready to march to execution, in a tunic of violet velvet with resplendent embroideries, and three golden rays, representing the three Persons of the Trinity, appearing above His crown of thorns. But this paso in spite of its many figures and the richness of its decoration did not rivet the attention of the crowd. It seemed dwarfed by the one following it, that of the Queen of the popular suburbs, the miraculous Virgin of Hope, la Macarena.

When this Virgin with her pink cheeks and long eye-lashes appeared, beneath a canopy of velvet, which swayed with every step of the concealed carriers, a deafening acclamation rose from the populace assembled in the Plaza. Ah! how beautiful she was; the Queen of Heaven! A beauty which never aged!

Her splendid mantle, of immense length, with a wide[Pg 258] reticulated gold border like the meshes of a net, extended a long way behind the paso, like a gigantic peacock's folded tail. Her eyes shone, as if they were moistened with tears at the joyous welcome of the faithful. The image was covered with flashing jewels, like a brilliant armour over the velvet dress. They were in hundreds, possibly thousands! She seemed covered with shining rain drops, flaming with every colour of the rainbow. From her neck hung rows of pearls, gold chains on which hundreds of rings were strung, and all the front of her dress was plated with gold watches, pendents of emeralds and brilliants, and ear-rings as large as pebbles. All the devotees lent their jewels for the Santisima Macarena to wear on her progress, and the women showed their unornamented hands on that night of religious mourning, delighted that the Mother of God should be wearing those jewels which were their pride. The public knew them, for they saw them every year; they could tell all the tale of them, and point out any novelties; and they knew that the ornaments the Virgin wore on her breast hanging on a gold chain belonged to Gallardo the torero.

Gallardo himself, with his face covered, leaning on the staff of authority, walked in front of the paso with the dignitaries of the brotherhood. Others carried long trumpets hung with gold-fringed green banners. Now and again they put them to their lips through a slit in their masks, and a heart-rending funereal trumpeting broke the silence. But this horrifying roar woke no echo in the hearts of the people, the soft Spring night with its perfume of orange flowers was too sweet and smiling; in vain the trumpets roared funereal marches, or the singers wept as they sang the sacred verses, or the soldiers marched frowning like veritable executioners, the Spring night smiled, spreading the perfume of its thousand flowers, and no one thought of death.

[Pg 259]

The inhabitants of the suburbs swarmed in disorder round the Virgin, small shopkeepers, with their dishevelled wives, dragging tribes of children along by the hand on this excursion which would last till dawn; young men with their black curls flattened over their ears flourishing sticks as if some one intended to insult la Macarena, and their strong arms would be required for her protection, crowds of men and women flattening themselves between the enormous paso and the walls in the narrow streets. "Olé! La Macarena!... The first Virgin of the world!"

Every fifty paces the saintly platform was stopped. There was no hurry, the night was long. In many cases the Virgin was stopped so that people could look at her at their ease; every tavern keeper also requested a halt in front of his establishment.

A man would cross the road towards the leaders of the paso.

"Here! Hi! Stop!... Here is the first singer in the world who wants to sing a 'saeta' to the Virgin."

The "first singer in the world," leaning on a friend, with unsteady legs and passing on his glass to some one else, would, after coughing, pour forth the full torrent of his hoarse voice, of which the roulades obscured the clearness of the words. Before he had half ended his slow ditty another voice would begin, and then another, as if a musical contest were established; some sang like birds, others were hoarse like broken bellows, others screamed with piercing yells, most of the singers remained hidden in the crowd, but others proud of their voice and style planted themselves in the middle of the roadway in front of la Macarena.

The drums beat and the trumpets continued their gloomy blasts, everybody sang at once, their discordant voices mixing with the deafening instruments, but no[Pg 260] one ever got confused, each one sang straight through his saeta without hesitation as if they were all deaf to other sounds, keeping their eyes steadily fixed on the image.

In front of the paso walked barefoot a young man dressed in a purple tunic and crowned with thorns. He was bending beneath the weight of a heavy cross twice as high as himself, and when the paso resumed its way after a long pause, charitable souls helped him to readjust his burden.

The women groaned with compassion as they saw him. Poor fellow! with what holy fervour he fulfilled his penance. All in the suburb remembered his criminal sacrilege! That cursed wine which was men's undoing.

Three years before on the morning of Good Friday, when la Macarena was on her way back to her church, this poor sinner, who in point of fact was a very good sort of fellow, after wandering about the streets all night with his friends, had stopped the procession in front of a tavern in the market place. He sang to the Virgin, and then fired by holy enthusiasm broke out into compliments. Olé! the beautiful Macarena! He loved her more than his sweetheart! In order to display his devotion he wished to throw at her feet what he held in his hand, thinking that it was his hat, but unfortunately it was a glass which smashed itself on the Virgin's face.... He was carried off weeping to prison. He did love la Macarena just as if she were his mother! It was all that cursed wine which took men's wits away! He trembled at the thought of the years of jail awaiting him for this disrespect to religion, and he wept so effectually that even those who were most indignant with him ended by pleading in his favour, and everything was settled on his giving a promise to perform some extraordinary penance as a warning to other sinners.

[Pg 261]

He dragged along the cross, perspiring and gasping, shifting the place of the heavy weight when his shoulders became bruised by the sorrowful burden. His comrades pitied him, and offered him glasses of wine, not by way of mockery of his penance, but from sheer compassion. He was fainting from fatigue, he ought to refresh himself.

But he turned his eyes from the longed-for refreshments towards the Virgin, taking her as witness of his martyrdom. Never mind, he would drink well, without fear, next day when la Macarena was safely lodged in her church.

The paso was still in the suburb of la Feria, while the head of the procession had reached the centre of Seville. The green-hooded brothers and the company of armed men marched forward with warlike astuteness. It was a question of occupying la Campana, and so gaining possession of the entrance to the Calle de las Sierpes,[100] before any other brotherhood could present itself. Once the vanguard were in possession of this point they could wait quietly for hours till the Virgin arrived, enjoying the angry protests of other brotherhoods, quite inferior people, whose images could in no way compare with their Macarena, and who were therefore obliged to take up a humble position behind her.

Often the rabble escorting the different pasos came to blows, heads were broken, and one or two lads were hurried off to prison or to the nearest chemist's shop. Meanwhile Captain Chivo had executed his great strategic movement, occupying la Campana up to the entrance of the Calle de las Sierpes, to the noisy and triumphant[Pg 262] roll of his drums. There is no thoroughfare here! Long live the Virgin of la Macarena!

The Calle de las Sierpes was turned into a saloon, its balconies were full of people, electric lights hung across it from house to house, all the cafés and shops were illuminated, heads filled every window, and crowds of people sat on the rows of chairs placed against the walls, on which they stood up whenever a roll of drums or the blast of trumpets announced the coming of any paso.

That night no one in the town slept, even old ladies of regular habits waited now till dawn to watch the innumerable processions.

Although it was now three in the morning, nothing indicated the lateness of the hour. People were feasting in the cafés and taverns, succulent odours escaped through the doors of the fried fish shops; in the centre of the street itinerant sellers of drinks and sweets had established themselves, and many families, who only came out on great holidays, had been there since two o'clock on the previous afternoon, waiting to watch the endless passing of Virgins of bewildering magnificence, whose velvet mantles several yards long drew forth cries of admiration, of Redeemers with golden crowns and tunics of brocade: a whole world of absurd images in theatrical splendour, about which there was nothing religious beyond their cadaverous and bloody faces.

The Sevillians in front of the cafés pointed out the pasos by name to the foreigners who had come to see this strange Christian ceremony, as lively as a pagan holiday.

They enumerated the paso of the Holy Decree, of the Holy Christ of Silence, of Our Lady of Bitterness, of Jesus with the Cross on His shoulder, of Our Lady of the Valley, of Our Father Jesus of the Three Falls, of Our Lady of Tears, of the Lord of a Holy Death, of Our[Pg 263] Lady of the Three Necessities, and all these images were accompanied by their special Nazarenes, black or white, red, green, blue or violet, all masked, and preserving their mysterious personality beneath their pointed hoods.

The heavy pasos advanced slowly and laboriously through the narrow streets, but when they emerged into the Plaza de San Francisco, opposite the boxes raised in front of the Palace of the Ayuntamiento, the pasos gave a half turn, so that the images might face the seats, and by a genuflexion performed by their porters salute the illustrious strangers or Royal personages who had come to see the fiesta.

Alongside of the pasos walked lads carrying jars of water. As soon as the platform halted, a corner of the velvet hangings was raised, and twenty or thirty men appeared, perspiring, half naked, purple with fatigue, with kerchiefs tied round their heads and the look of exhausted savages. These were the Gallicians,[101] the strong porters, for any of that calling were merged in that nationality; they drank the water greedily, and if there were a tavern at hand mutinied against the conductor of the paso to obtain wine or food.

The crowd surged restlessly with eager curiosity in the Calle de las Sierpes as the pasos of the Macarenos ramp along in a compact procession accompanied by bands of music. The drums redoubled their beating, the trumpets roared furiously, all the tumultuous crew from the suburb shouted and yelled, and every one got up on the chairs in order to see better this slow but noisy cortége.

At the door of a café, El Nacional with all his family stood watching the passing of the brotherhood—"Retrograde superstition!"... But all the same, he came[Pg 264] every year to watch this noisy invasion of the Calle de las Sierpes by the Macarenos.

He immediately recognized Gallardo from his magnificent stature, and the elegance with which he wore the inquisitorial garments.

"Juanillo," cried he, "make the paso stop. Here are some foreign ladies who would like to see it close."

The holy platform stood still, the band broke out into a spirited march, one of those which delighted the public at the bull-fights, and immediately the hidden porters of the paso began to lift first one foot then the other, executing a dance which made the platform sway with violent oscillations, throwing the surrounding people against the walls. The Virgin, with all her load of jewels, flowers, lanthorns, and even the heavy canopy danced up and down to the sound of the music. This was............