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The Story of My Life, volumes 4-6. Augustus J. C. Hare
Читать онлайн.Название The Story of My Life, volumes 4-6
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4057664593016
Автор произведения Augustus J. C. Hare
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
“Hôtel Siete Suelos, Granada, March 19.—We had a dreadful journey here—rail to Las Salinas and then the most extraordinary diligence journey, in a carriage drawn by eight mules, at midnight, over no road, but rocks, marshes, and along the edge of precipices—quite frightful. Why we were not overturned I cannot imagine. I could get no place except at the top, and held on with the greatest difficulty in the fearful lunges. We reached Granada about 3½ A.M., seeing nothing that night, but wearily conscious of the long ascent to the Siete Suelos.
“How lovely was the morning awakening! our rooms looking down long arcades of high arching elms, with fountains foaming in the openings of the woods, birds singing, and violets scenting the whole air. It is indeed alike the paradise of nature and art. Through the first day I never entered the Alhambra, but sat restfully satisfied with the absorbing loveliness of the surrounding gorges, and sketched the venerable Gate of Justice, glowing in gorgeous golden light. This morning we went early to the Moorish palace. It is beyond all imagination of beauty. As you cross the threshold you pass out of fact into fairyland. I sat six hours drawing the Court of Blessing without moving, and then we climbed the heights of S. Nicolas and overlooked the whole palace, with the grand snow peaks of Sierra Nevada rising behind.”
“Granada, April 1—Easter Sunday.—To-day especially I do not feel as if I was at Granada, but in the churchyard at Hurstmonceaux. I am sure Mrs. Medhurst and other loving hands will have decorated our most dear spot with flowers. Aunt Sophy is most kind, only too kind and indulgent always, but the thought of the one for and through whom alone I could really enjoy anything is never absent from me. I feel as if I lived in a life which was not mine—beautiful often, but only a beautiful moonlight: the sunlight has faded.”
“Toledo, April 11.—We had twelve hours’ diligence from Granada, saw Jaen Cathedral on the way, and joined the railroad at the little station of Mengibar. Next morning found us at Aranjuez, a sort of Spanish Hampton Court, rather quaint and pleasant, four-fifths of the place being taken up by the palace and its belongings, so much beloved by Isabella (II.), but since deserted. We went to bed for four hours, and spent the rest of the day in surveying half-furnished palaces, unkempt gardens, and dried-up fountains, yet pleasant from the winding Tagus, lilacs and Judas-trees in full bloom, and birds singing. It was a nice primitive little inn, and the landlord sat on the wooden gallery in the evening and played the guitar, and all his men and maids sang round him in patriarchal family fashion.
“On the whole, I feel a little disappointed at present with this curious, desolate old city: the cathedral and everything else looks so small after one’s expectations, and the guide-books exaggerate so tremendously all over Spain.
“My last day at Granada was saddened by your mention of what is really a great loss to me—dear old Mr. Liddell’s death,[13] so kind to me ever since I was a little boy, and endeared by the many associations of most happy visits at Bamborough and Easington. I had also sad news from Holmhurst in the death of dear sweet Romo, the Mother’s own little dog, which no other can ever be.”
“Madrid, April 20.—We like Madrid better than we expected. It is a poor miniature of Paris, the Prado like the Champs Elysées, the Museo answering to the Louvre, though all on the smallest possible scale. It has been everything to us having our kind friends Don Juan and Doña Emilia de Riaño here, and we have seen a great deal of them. They have a beautiful house, full of books and pictures, and every day she has come to take us out, and has gone with us everywhere, taking us to visit all the interesting literary and artistic people, showing us all the political characters on the Prado, escorting us to galleries, &c., and in herself a mine of information of the most beautiful and delightful kind—a sort of younger Lady Waterford. She gives a dreadful picture of the immorality of society in Madrid under the Italian King, the want of law, the hopelessness of redress; that everything is gained by influence in high places, nothing by right. A revolution is expected any day, and then the King must go. The aristocratic Madrilenians all speak of him as ‘the little Italian wretch,’ though they pity his pretty amiable Queen. All seem to want to get rid of him, and, whatever is said by English newspapers, we have never seen any one in Spain who was not hankering after the Bourbons and the handsome young Prince of Asturias, who is sure to be king soon.
“The pleasantest of all the people Madame de Riaño has taken us to visit are the splendid artist Don Juan de Madraza and his most lovely wife.[14]
“The Layards have been very civil. At a party there we met no end of Spanish grandees. The Queen’s lady-in-waiting (she has only two who will consent to take office), Marqueza d’Almena, was quite lovely in white satin and pearls—like an old picture.”
“Segovia, April 28.—I was quite ill at Madrid with severe sore throat and cough, and this in spite of the care I was always taking of myself, having been so afraid of falling ill. But it is the most treacherous climate, and, from burning heat, changes to fierce ice-laden winds from the Guadarama and torrents of cold rain. I was shut up five days, but cheered by visits from Madame de Riaño, young Arthur Seymour an attaché, and the last day, to my great delight, the well-known Holmhurst faces of Mr. and Mrs. Scrivens (Hastings banker), brimming with Sussex news. Mr. Layard was evidently very anxious to get us and all other travelling English safe out of Spain, but we preferred the alternative, suggested by the Riaños, of coming to this ‘muy pacifico’ place, and waiting till the storm was a little blown over. Madrid was certainly in a most uncomfortable state, the Italian King feeling the days of his rule quite numbered, houses being entered night and day, and arrests going on everywhere. I do not know what English papers tell, but the Spanish accounts are alarming of the whole of the north as overrun by Carlists, and that they have taken Vittoria and stopped the tunnel on the main line.
“It was a dreadful journey here. The road was cut through the snow, but there was fifteen feet of it on either side the way on the top of the Guadarama. However, our ten mules dragged us safely along. Segovia is gloriously picturesque, and the hotel a very tolerable—pothouse.”
“Salamanca, May 5.—One day at the Segovia table-d’hôte we had the most unusual sight of a pleasing young Englishman, who rambled about and drew with us all afternoon, and then turned out to be—the Duchess of Cleveland’s younger son, Everard Primrose.[15]
“May-day we spent at La Granja, one of the many royal palaces, and one which would quite enchant you. It is a quaint old French château in lovely woods full of fountains and waterfalls, quite close under the snow mountains; and the high peaks, one glittering mass of snow, rise through the trees before the windows. The inhabitants were longing there to have the Bourbons back, and only spoke of the present King as ‘the inoffensive Italian.’ Even Cristina and Isabella will be cordially welcomed if they return with the young Alfonso.
“On May 2nd we left Segovia and went for one night to the Escurial—such a gigantic place, no beauty, but very curious, and the relics of the truly religious though cruelly bigoted Philip II. very interesting. Then we were a day at Avila, at an English inn kept by Mr. John Smith and his daughter—kindly, hearty people. Avila is a paradise for artists, and has remains in plenty of Ferdinand and Isabella, in whose intimate companionship one seems to live during one’s whole tour in Spain. It was a most fatiguing night-journey of ten hours to Salamanca, a place I have