Chapter VI The Dream of Valencia
Spain, with face turned east away from the sun, takes her afternoon siesta. She has dined well. Soup of seven meats, codfish, the seven meats, cheese rich as manure, Galician greens, Toledan mazapan, Sevillan dulces, wines from Málaga, Jérez and La Mancha, heroic tobacco from the Canary Islands, fill her. She was hungry. For her day had been active. She had served and fused the wills of many peoples: swift Phœnicians, heavy-headed Romans, meteor Greeks, Goths with wild hair and tender eyes, intricate introvert Jews, Arabs with convictions about the materiality of Cosmos, Moors whose blood was fierce like Atlas avalanche, sportsmen like the Cid whose charity was of the sword, whose religion was of the moment, mystics of Castile parsing Christ with Horace, Spaniards at last... Torquemada, Isabela, Celestina... makers of the dominance of Castile. So Spain was hungry and heartily ate: was weary and heavily slept. And her dream was a city of the eastern coast.
Its name Valencia. Its streets a Carnival. Its life a Masquerade.
Medieval towers stand over streets that shrill with modern shops. Great Gates of Rome pinion the labyrinths of Orient. Arches of Islam throw into shade white mansions built by American concerns of sewing machines and fountain pens. All masquerade. The people speak a tongue close to the French languedoc: they ride in Citroens and Fords. Put no trust in this, they are not European. These open knots of barter, these entrail alleys, murmurous and fluid, speak of Fez and Tunis. Fraud again: this is not Africa. Islam puts a mockery on Rome. Judah redargues the Castilian dogma. Moorish marts belie the modern measure. Avenues of villas stretch straight from the town in gleams, and end in rice swamps: near the bungalows toss galleys on the tide, with sails like the sails of Carthage. Masquerade.
Here is the market place. Lonja de seda, the silk exchange, is Gothic. (The mulberry trees are thick upon the huertas.) But the base from which the Gothic rises is a Moorish palace. And from the noble height hangs Arab ornament. The gargoyles indeed lean down like muedzins—fossil muedzins with a frozen Allah on their lips. Under the holy walls, upon the floor, squat merchants: they masquerade for Greece of the Völkerchaos, for Talmudry of gain. And their commercial heads bathe in the light of a fairer east—the Sun.
Outside are throngs. A church façade, rococo over-blown from the French Renaissance, echoes the shouts of women at their sheds. Oranges in tons, winesacks like human bodies, dates from Elche, potatoes, flowers, donkeys towing tartinas... all produce of the lush Valencian huerta. The women wear great red aprons and have purple eyes....
Valencia in chaos is a masquerade. Greece, Carthage, Rome, Alexandria, Mecca, Fez annul each other here. Turbulent Valencia does nothing, says nothing. It is a dream of Spain, laden with her ages.