This university is fragrant with the good fame of Ximenez. In the
principal court there is a fine medallion of the illustrious founder and
protector, as he delighted to be drawn, with a sword in one hand and a
crucifix in the other, - twin brother in genius and fortune of the
soldier-priest of France, the Cardinal-Duke Richelieu. On his gorgeous
sarcophagus you read the arrogant epitaph with which he revenged himself
for the littleness of kings and courtiers: -
"Praetextam junxi sacco, galeamque galero, Frater, dux, praesul,
cardineusque pater. Quin, virtute mea junctum est diadema cucullo, Dum
mihi regnanti patuit Gesperia."
By a happy chance our visit was made in a holiday time, and the students
were all away. It was better that there should be perfect solitude and
silence as we walked through the noble system of buildings and strove to
re-create the student world of Cervantes's time. The chronicle which
mentions the visit of Francis I. to Alcala, when a prisoner in Spain,
says he was received by eleven thousand students. This was only twenty
years before the birth of Cervantes. The world will never see again so
brilliant a throng of ingenuous youth as gathered together in the great
university towns in those years of vivid and impassioned greed for
letters that followed the revival of learning. The romance of Oxford or
Heidelberg or Harvard is tame compared with that electric life of a
new-born world that wrought and flourished in Padua, Paris, and Alcala.
Walking with my long-robed scholarly guide through the still, shadowy
courts, under Renaissance arches and Moorish roofs, hearing him talking
with enthusiasm of the glories of the past and never a word of the
events of the present, in his pure, strong, guttural Castilian, no
living thing in view but an occasional Franciscan gliding under the
graceful arcades, it was not difficult to imagine the scenes of the
intense young life which filled these noble halls in that fresh day of
aspiration and hope, when this Spanish sunlight fell on the marble and
the granite bright and sharp from the chisel of the builder, and the
great Ximenez looked proudly on his perfect work and saw that it was
good.
The twilight of superstition still hung heavily over Europe. But this
was nevertheless the breaking of dawn, the herald of the fuller day of
investigation and inquiry.
It was into this rosy morning of the modern world that Cervantes was
ushered in the season of the falling leaves of 1547. He was born to a
life of poverty and struggle and an immortality of fame. His own city
did not know him while he lived, and now is only known through him.
Pilgrims often come from over distant seas to breathe for one day the
air that filled his baby lungs, and to muse among the scenes that shaped
his earliest thoughts.
We strolled away from the university through the still lanes and squares
to the Calle Mayor, the only thoroughfare of the town that yet retains
some vestige of traffic. It is a fine, long street bordered by stone
arcades, within which are the shops, and without which in the pleasant
afternoon are the rosy and contemplative shopkeepers. It would seem a
pity to disturb their dreamy repose by offering to trade; and in justice
to Castilian taste and feeling I must say that nobody does it. Halfway
down the street a side alley runs to the right, called Calle de
Cervantes, and into this we turned to find the birthplace of the
romancer. On one side was a line of squalid, quaint, gabled houses, on
the other a long garden wall. We walked under the shadow of the latter
and stared at the house-fronts, looking for an inscription we had heard
of. We saw in sunny doorways mothers oiling into obedience the stiff
horse-tail hair of their daughters. By the grated windows we caught
glimpses of the black eyes and nut-brown cheeks of maidens at their
needles. But we saw nothing to show which of these mansions had been
honored by tradition as the residence of Roderick Cervantes.
A brisk and practical-looking man went past us.
I asked him where was the house of the poet. He smiled in a superior
sort of way, and pointed to the wall above my head: "There is no such
house. Some people think it once stood here, and they have placed that
stone in the garden-wall to mark the spot. I believe what I see. It is
all child's play anyhow, whether true or false. There is better work to
be done now than to honor Cervantes. He fought for a bigot king, and
died in a monk's hood."
"You think lightly of a glory of Castile."
"If we could forget all the glories of Castile it would be better for
us."
"Puede ser," I assented. "Many thanks. May your grace go with God!"
"Health and fraternity!" he answered, and moved away with a step full of
energy and dissent. He entered a door under an inscription, "Federal
Republican Club."
Go your ways, I thought, radical brother. You are not so courteous nor
so learned as the rector. But this Peninsula has need of men like you.
The ages of belief have done their work for good and ill. Let us have
some years of the spirit that denies, and asks for proofs. The power of
the monk is broken, but the work is not yet done. The convents have been
turned into barracks, which is no improvement. The ringing of spurs in
the streets of Alcala is no better than the rustling of the sandalled
friars. If this Republican party of yours cannot do something to free
Spain from the triple curse of crown, crozier, and sabre, then Spain is
in doleful case.
