href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@49962@[email protected]#illCybele" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Fountain of Cybele, Alcalá, Madrid

BARCELONA.

IT was a rainy morning in February, and lacked an hour of sunrise. My mother accompanied me to the hall, anxiously repeating all the counsels she had been giving me for a month: then she threw her arms about my neck, burst into tears, and disappeared. I stood a moment stricken to the heart, looking at the door, on the point of calling out, “Let me in! I am not going! I will stay with thee!” Then I ran down the stairs like an escaping thief. When I was in the street it seemed that the waves of the sea and the peaks of the Pyrenees were already lying between me and my home. But, although I had for a long time looked forward to that day with feverish impatience, I was not at all cheerful. At a turn of the street I met my friend the doctor on his way to the hospital. He had not seen me for a month, and naturally asked:

“Where are you going?”

“To Spain,” I replied.

But he would not believe me, so far was my frowning, melancholy face from promising a pleasure-trip. Through the entire journey from Turin to Genoa I thought only of my mother, of my room, now empty, of my little library, of all the pleasant habits of my domestic life, all of which I was leaving for many months.

But, arrived at Genoa, the sight of the sea, the gardens of the Acquasola, and the company of Anton Giulio Barili restored me to serenity and cheerfulness. I recollect that as I was about to step into the boat that was to take me to the ship a porter handed me a letter which contained only these words: “Sad news from Spain. The condition of an Italian at Madrid in time of insurrection against the king would be perilous. Do you persist in going? Consider!” I leaped into the boat and was off. Shortly before the ship sailed two officers came to bid me good-bye. I can still see them standing in the middle of the boat as the ship began to move.

“Bring me a Toledo blade!” they cried.

“Bring me a bottle of Xeres!”

“Bring me a guitar! an Andalusian hat! a stiletto!”

A little while, and I could see only their white handkerchiefs and hear their last cry: I tried to answer, but my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth; I began to laugh, but brushed my hand across my eyes. Soon I retired to my little hole of a stateroom, where, lulled into a delicious sleep, I dreamed of my mother, my purse, France, and Andalusia. At dawn I awoke, and was soon on deck. We were not far from the coast, the French coast—my first view of a foreign coast. Strange! I could not look at it enough, and a thousand fugitive thoughts passed through my head, and I said, “Is it France, in very truth? And is it I who am here?” I began to doubt my own identity.

At mid-day Marseilles came into view. The first sight of a great maritime city fills one with an amazement which destroys the pleasure of the marvel. I see, as through a mist, a vast forest of ships; a waterman who stretches out his hand and addresses me in an incomprehensible jargon; a customs official who, in accordance with some law, makes me pay deux sous pour les Prussiens; then a dark room in a hotel; then the longest streets, endless squares, a throng of people and of carriages; troops of Zouaves, unknown regimentals, a mingling of lights and of voices, and finally come weariness and profound sadness, which end in uneasy sleep.

By daybreak on the following morning I was in a railway-carriage on my way from Marseilles to Perpignan, in the midst of a group of ten Zouave officers arrived from Africa the previous day, some with crutches, some with canes, some with bandaged arms; but all as happy and boisterous as so many school-boys. It was a long journey, consequently conversation was necessary. However, from all I had heard of the bitterness with which the French regarded us, I did not venture to open my mouth. But how foolish! One of them spoke the word and the conversation was started: “An Italian?”

“Yes.”

It was as good as a holiday. All but one had fought in Italy; one had been wounded at Magenta. They began to tell anecdotes of Genoa, of Turin, of Milan, to ask a thousand questions, to describe their life in Africa.

One began to discuss the Pope. “Oh!” said I to myself. Why? He talked even stronger than I should have done: he said that we ought to have cut the knot of the question, and to have gone to the root of the matter without considering the peasantry.

Meantime, as we were approaching the Pyrenees, I amused myself by observing the increasing difference in the pronunciation of the passengers who entered the carriage; by remarking how the French language died, so to speak, into the Spanish; by feeling how near Spain was growing