POOR FOLK IN SPAIN

CONTENTS


CHAP. PAGE

I. LONDON 3

II. JESUS PEREZ 7

III. THE FRONTIER 17

IV. MEDINA DEL CAMPO 29

V. AVILA 40

VI. MADRID 51

VII. A HOT NIGHT 60

VIII. MURCIA--FIRST IMPRESSIONS 70

IX. MURCIA--SETTLING DOWN 81

X. MURCIA--BLAS 90

XI. MURCIA--THE ALPAGATA SHOP 95

XII. MURCIA--BRAVO TORO 98

XIII. AN EXCURSION 109

XIV. VERDOLAY--HOUSEKEEPING 123

XV. VERDOLAY--SKETCHING IN SPAIN 133

XVI. VERDOLAY--CONENI 142

XVII. VERDOLAY--THE INHABITANTS 147

XVIII. VERDOLAY--THE DANCE AT CONENI'S 156

XIX. MURCIA--THE LAUD 161

XX. ALICANTE 169

XXI. JIJONA--THE FIESTA 185

XXII. JIJONA--TIA ROGER 200

XXIII. JIJONA--A DAY'S WORK 207

XXIV. JIJONA--THE GOATHERDS 218

XXV. MURCIA--AUTUMN IN THE PASEO DE CORVERAS 226

XXVI. LORCA 244

XXVII. MURCIA--LAST DAYS 260

XXVIII. THE ROAD HOME 268




LIST OF PLATES


_To face page_

SPANISH COURTYARD _Frontispiece_

CARTERS IN THE POSADA 70

A MURCIAN BEGGAR WOMAN 78

GIRL SINGING A MALAGUEÑA 220

THE VALENCIAN JOTA DANCED BY THREE COUPLES 222




POOR FOLK IN SPAIN




CHAPTER I

LONDON


We had tasted of Spain before ever we had crossed her frontiers. Indeed,
perhaps Spain is the easiest country to obtain samples from without the
fatigue of travelling. The Spaniard carries his atmosphere with him:
wherever he goes he re-creates in his immediate surroundings more than a
hint of his national existence. The Englishman abroad may be
English--more brutally and uncompromisingly English than the Spaniard is
Spanish--yet he does not carry England with him. He does not, that is,
re-create England to the extent of making her seem quite real abroad;
there she appears alien, remote, somewhat out of place. So, too, neither
the Russian, the German, the Dane, the Portuguese, the Italian, nor the
American can carry with him the flavour of his homeland in an essence
sufficiently concentrated to withstand the insidious infiltration of a
foreign atmosphere. To some extent the Scandinavian countries, Norway
and Sweden, have this power; but Spain is thus gifted in the greatest
measure. These three countries seem to possess a national
unconsciousness which fends them off from too close a contact with lands
which are foreign to them; perhaps one might almost accuse them of a
lack of sensitiveness in certain aspects....

However, be the reason what it may, we had gathered some experience of
Spain in Paris before, and in London during the war. What we had tasted
we had liked, and so when in our low-ceilinged attic refuge in London we
gazed out upon a sky covered with flat cloud, as though with a dirty
blanket, and wondered how we might escape in order to seek for our
original selves--if they were not irretrievably lost--we thought of
Spain. I think that we went to Spain to look for something that the war
had taken from us. It was as though the low ceiling of our room, and the
low-lying sky, shut us in with something which was not altogether true;
indeed, we feel that many years must pass before the dissipation of this
curious sensation of unreality which the war had stamped on to every
one, except the most callous.