XXII Deyá, and a Palma Procession
The last lingering trails of rain-clouds had vanished and the sun shone from a cloudless blue sky when next day we drove off behind Pepe and his pair of white horses to picnic at Deyá, the curiously distinctive little town that perches on a hill betwixt mountain and sea, half-way between Sóller and Miramar.
The road was a good one, and as the way, though steep, was set in zigzag fashion, its ascent would have been easy but for the barbarous way in which, acting with the empty cunning of these would-be crafty island road-menders, someone had littered the road with lumps of stone, thus forcing the passing vehicle to act the ignominious part of road-roller by threading its way out and in over the newly mended parts. Sometimes the stones were so evilly placed as to impel us to venture perilously near the edge of the precipitous track.
It was a relief as we slowly mounted upwards to come upon the perpetrator of the crime in the very act of further blocking our path. Taken thus red-handed, he was not one whit dismayed, but complacently stepped aside to let us pass.
The opportunity was not one to be missed. Half drawing up and turning round on the box, Pepe launched towards him a few objurgations in trenchant Majorcan. And the Good Fairy, putting her head out of the carriage, added the weight of her gentle reproach.
“What is this you do?” she asked in her pretty Spanish. “Placing stones on the road to welcome the strangers! Is this the way you show them the delicacy of the Spaniard?”
Thus doubly reproached, the caminero stood transfixed; and our emotions having found vent, we drove on, leaving him with his hand raised to his brass-bound hat, his mouth open but speechless.
Having reached the summit, we began the descent, losing sight of our grand mountains, but gaining a glimpse of the Mediterranean, which glowed in that warm blue that makes one wonder—until one tries the temperature—why sea-bathing should be confined to the summer months.
The tawny-roofed houses of Deyá cluster on a high rock that rises like an island from out a sea of valley which is girdled by precipitous mountains. Streams in cascades were rushing down in a joyful pell-mell, the cherry-trees were heavy with blossom, and the pomegranates were opening their first delicate copper-tinted leaves as we drove along the highroad that follows the curve of the valley.
The attentive chef of the Marina had made us independent of fondas, and Pepe had promised to find us a good place to lunch in. So when he drew up at a path that branched off from the highway on the Miramar side of Deyá, we took our hamper, from which the neck of a bottle protruded alluringly, and started to explore it.
The path ended at a gate that opened into private grounds. In any other country the most presumptuous among us would have hesitated before invading the garden of unknown owners. But we were in the Fortunate Isles and the charm of their unconventionality influenced us. Walking in, we found some conveniently placed stone seats under the shade of a huge lemon-tree, and there we spread our feast of lamb cutlets, potato omelets, cakes and fruit.
The house, of one corner of whose quaintly terraced garden we had taken possession, appeared to be untenanted. Its windows were closely shuttered, its stable empty; but soon from the highest terrace an old head peeped at us. A little later it appeared on a terrace lower, then nearer still, the attached body becoming gradually more and more visible, until the owner appeared before us in the person of an aged woman whose frivolously abbreviated petticoats seemed incompatible with her sober face.
It was the caretaker, come not to warn us that we were intruding, but to urge us to leave the place we had chosen for one where there was a proper table and much water.
We resisted her enticements and she trotted off, her appearance a ludicrous combination of propriety and indecorum, with her serious face swathed in its black kerchief and her lavishly displayed light drab ankles.
She did not quite abandon us, however; and when the men had gone off to paint she returned, and was so evidently desirous that we would not leave before seeing the marvels of the garden, that we consented to allow her to show them.
And, indeed, the arrangement of the grounds revealed much ingenuity. The spot where she would have had us eat was a stone-built mirador, through a shallow cave, at whose back a mountain torrent had been induced to flow. As she had promised, there was both “a table” and “much water.” In summer the suggestion of coolness imparted by even a trickle of water would be charming. Then, with the torrent rushing at breakneck speed, the effect was a little overpowering and the noise positively deafening. Our chosen place under the big lemon-tree might not be so extraordinary, but it had a placid charm that soothed while it did not detract from the matter in hand.
The nephew of our unconsciously serio-comic cicerone, in the person of a one-eyed calender—I beg his pardon, gardener—joined us to reveal fresh attractions of summer-house and rivulets, and of a grotto where, amid a perfect cascade of maidenhair-fern, a graceful statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was embowered. From every point the view was lovely, but I defy anybody to find a spot about Deyá that does not afford a lovely prospect.
When we left the place our lady of the stockings, eager to do something for the generous tip the Good Fairy had slipped into her hand, insisted on carrying our hamper. And during the remainder of our afternoon at Deyá, whether we went up hill or down dale, amongst the picturesque houses clustered on the church-crowned hill or through the gardens that lined the side of the river, we seemed always to be encountering her. Whether she was paying a round of visits to display her coin, or bound on an exhaustive shopping expedition to squander it, we did not know; but at every turn of the road we seemed to see the twinkle of those drab ankles.
One of the many charms of Deyá is the proximity of the sea, which laves the foot of its valley. Another is its delicious irregularity. I do not believe there are a half-dozen yards of straight road in Deyá. Every house has its own elevation, its individual bypaths. Another and an invaluable charm to artists is the manageable quality of its pictorial effects. The extensive grandeur of Miramar is almost unpaintable, but Deyá has a complete picture at every turn. We saw many in the course of that afternoon stroll. Women washing, men gathering oranges, a handsome woman in a petticoat of vivid scarlet leading a recalcitrant black goat: all ready for transference to canvas.
The hours flew past. Almost before we knew, dusk was falling and we were on our way back to where the snow-capped Puig Mayor presides over the wonderful Sóller valley.
We had been a little apprehensive, expecting a repetition of the somewhat hazardous morning journey. But the Good Fairy’s appeal to the chivalry of the Spaniard had borne immediate result. Every stone had been laboriously removed from the path. So without hindrance we rattled gaily down into the valley, where lights were already twinkling through the dusk.
The final day of our visit to Sóller brought yet another experience of unusual interest. Our hostess had still another surprise in store for us. We had viewed the high mountains from beneath, now we were going to see them from the crest of one of their number.
Pepe took the reins in his skilled hands and guided the surefooted mules, who, for this expedition, replaced the white horses, up a perilous road that curved about the mountain-side, rising higher and ever higher until we looked down over the many terraces of olives into the valley that lay placidly basking in the afternoon sunshine.
Our ascent was necessarily very deliberate. As we wound slowly up we passed neither dwelling nor human being; and those of us to whom the way was new began to wonder why any road should have existed on so lonely a height. Then when we had got so high that it seemed as though an eaglet’s aerie would be the most likely habitation, the road ended on a flat plateau, and we found ourselves driving into the outer courtyard of a farm-house so old and weather-beaten that in appearance it resembled the rocks and crags that surrounded it.
We alighted unnoticed. Doves were flying overhead. A dog greeted our advent with an interrogative growl; fowls clucked about unheeding. Pepe, rolling himself up in a striped blanket, curled up on the box to await the hour when it might be our pleasure to return. And we walked on, wondering if we had left the everyday world behind in the valley and had all unwittingly climbed to the palace of the sleeping beauty.
A stone-cast from the house was a mirador known to our conductress. Securely seated therein, poised right on the edge of the mountain-crest, we looked at the vast panorama. Crags rose high about us. Behind and above us towered an unfamiliar side of the Puig Mayor, its massive shoulders deep in drifted snow.
Far beneath, looking like some gaily coloured map when seen from that height, lay the port of Sóller with its lake-like harbour and pigmy headlands. And northwards spread the far-reaching sea, whose grandeur no altitude could dwarf.
The sensation of being above the world was gloriously exhilarating. When a bird flew overhead we almost felt as though we too had wings, and two lines from Davidson’s Ballad of a Nun kept running through my mind:
“I am sister to the mountains now,
And sister to the sun and moon.”
Leaving the mirador, we wandered happily about the plateau. Among the grass a strange flower was blooming, and it seemed quite natural that this amazing location should boast a flower of its own. It was an orchid whose sugarloaf-shaped spike was covered with florets of dull purple, close-packed after the manner of a grape hyacinth. In many of the plants the flowers burst into a tuft at the top. It was strange and not pretty, but curiously in keeping with its isolated situation.
When we returned to the house Pepe, swathed in his blanket, was still deep in the slumber of the man of tranquil mind: but the mistress of the house was at hand. Approaching, she greeted us with grave courtesy. She had the remains of much beauty. The soft bloom of girlhood lingered on her matronly cheeks, and the retrospective look of one accustomed to deep solitude was in her fine dark eyes.
On her invitation we entered the house, whose tall sides surrounded an inner courtyard. One end of the big cool kitchen was partitioned off with high-backed settles, and right on the middle of the floor of the “cosy corner” thus formed a pile of logs was glowing. Looking up, we saw that overhead the roof contracted until it became a wide chimney, through which a glimpse of blue sky was visible. A gun hung on the whitewashed wall, and on one of the seats which was thickly spread with skins a shepherd lad was resting.
Returning to the mirador, we watched the sun sink in a golden glory over the misty blue sea. Then, lamenting the inevitable close of another perfect day, we drove back down the vagrant deviating way, feeling as though we had for a brief space been translated to a new and inspiring world.
It was with sincere regret that on the morning of Holy Thursday we bade the Good Fairy farewell and, with Pepe again as charioteer, started on our drive back by way of Deyá, Miramar, and Valldemosa to Palma, where we had an afternoon engagement.
The scenery of this coast road must rank with the finest in the world, and on that March morning it was looking its loveliest. There was no wind, and both sea and sky were of that deep warm azure that makes so fitting a background to Balearic Island vistas.
On reaching the first houses of Deyá, we stopped the carriage, and alighting, climbed the easy ascent to the church. Halfway up the slope a French artist was painting, filling in his canvas with a delicate mosaic of heliotropes and pinks and purples.
He was enthusiastic about the pictorial quality of his surroundings. “Deyá,” he declared, was “un paradis pour les peintres.”
When we peeped into the church Mass was being celebrated, and from the dusk of the interior the eyes of young communicants looked gravely at us from under their white wreaths.
Amid the clustered houses halfway down the hill a quaint old building proclaimed itself the Casa Consistorial. A worm-eaten stair led to the town hall. The iron-barred door of the dungeon opened at a touch, revealing its abandonment to the base uses of a lumber-shed. As far as we could see, the sole person in charge of the municipal chambers of Deyá was a year-old infant who occupied a low chair in the wide-roofed porch. He, however, maintained a magisterial dignity of demeanour throughout our cursory inspection of the premises.
As we left the valley the lofty crags and olive-clad slopes of Miramar rose about us. Their appearance was already familiar, and it was with a positive thrill of pleasure that we saw them again. Across the smooth surface of the Mediterranean a liner was passing, and we wondered what impression the passengers would get of the island.
We reached the Hospederia to find that for the moment the solitude that in November we had found so attractive had vanished. Evidently some periodic household inspection was in process, for in the wide doorway women sat mending house-linen, and children clinging to their skirts glanced shyly at us.
Fernando was absent, but Netta remembered us, and brought a large glass jug of the matchless Miramar water out to the mirador overhanging the sea just beyond the house whither Pepe had already carried our lunch.
Valldemosa was looking lovely in the fresh green beauty of spring, when an hour later we drove through its steep streets. The terrace gardens of the old Carthusian monastery were sweet with bud and blossom; and on the road beneath, a couple of bearded brown-robed Franciscan monks, treading softly on sandalled feet, gave us greeting.
As we left the gorge whose precipitous sides rose high overhead, an eagle, clearly outlined against the azure sky, gave the finishing touch to the wild beauty of the spot.
After the soul-inspiring grandeur of the everlasting hills, the plain, in spite of its luxuriant verdure, seemed tame; and even Palma appeared almost uninteresting. But it must be admitted that we were approaching it by the back way—by the kitchen entrance, so to speak—and in strict justice Palma should be entered by the front door, which is the port.
We had been invited to the palace of one of the noble Majorcan families to witness the passing of the Holy Thursday procession, and as we walked into Palma in the early evening, signs of preparation for the ceremonial were in evidence. Strangely clad figures, looking supernaturally tall in their long robes and high pointed hoods, were advancing towards the city. And their odd garb and masked faces gave them the appearance of beings strayed from out the dread days of the Spanish Inquisition.
By the gate of Santa Catalina one of the masked men—his face-covering thrown back—was having a heated argument with a consumero respecting a demand for payment of duty on the tall candle he carried. And within the gates like figures were to be seen all advancing towards some given point.
Outside the walls, where the buildings were comparatively new, the weirdly garbed shapes had seemed anachronisms, with more than a hint of the fancy dress carnival about them; but once within the walls of the ancient city, its narrow streets and tall closely shuttered dwellings made fitting setting for their mediæval guise.
In the streets ladies wearing mantillas and the costumes of black brocaded satin that they reserve for religious ceremonials were hastening, rosaries in hand, from one church to another. It is the custom to visit as many churches as possible on Holy Thursday. One lady we knew told us she had entered twenty-two that day.
Just opposite the old palace on whose balconies we were placed was one of the five churches through which the procession was to pass. In the roadway beneath, people had already gathered in expectation of its approach, and as we waited a sound of distant music, monotonous, penetrating, reached us. Then the town drummers, led by a small body of mounted civil guards (who defiled to a side and rode on to await their exit from the farther door of the building) appeared, and still vigorously plying their drum-sticks, marched into the church.
Very few members of the clergy were to be seen. The participants in the solemnity were almost entirely laymen. Representatives of many municipal bodies took part in the procession. There were civic authorities who carried a well-brushed silk hat in one of their white-gloved hands and a lighted candle in the other: doctors, members of the Red Cross Society, the town band, firemen, police, boys from the orphanage, old men from the workhouse—all evidently proudly conscious of the importance of their position.
At intervals a platform supporting one of the fine carved images from the Cathedral was borne by. When the beautiful effigy of the Crucified Christ from the Church of La Sangre—that exquisite statue to whose flowing hair so many women have gloried to contribute their tresses—was carried past, the expectant crowd fell upon its knees before it.
To our untutored eyes a striking feature of the observance was the long succession of masked penitents, who, bearing tall lighted candles, walked in a double line. The hue of their robes varied from almost bright blue to the more effective black and white. Some were handsomely embroidered, others plain. Two of the men were laden with chains; and one at least trod the cobble stones with naked feet, in public fulfilment of a vow taken in a time of impending danger.
Most of the penitents held lace-edged handkerchiefs to protect the candles from the warmth of their hands; but in spite of the precaution certain of the candles already showed signs of softening. Many of the processionists bore emblems of the Passion, and one group as it entered the church broke into a mournful chant.
One of the observances of the function appeared to be the distribution of sweets. It was curiously incongruous to see the masked figures drop comfits into outstretched hands. We noted one pause before a pretty pink-clad señorita, who with her dueña was standing opposite our balcony, and signing to her to open the silver chain-bag she held, he poured into it a great handful of sugared almonds, to her blushing satisfaction.
The ceremony was imposing, touching, full of affecting suggestion; but even as we looked we could not help regretting that night had not fallen. Then the sight of a long sequence of quaint figures bearing the tall lighted tapers through the sombre crooked streets of the old town would have been much more impressive.