Pepita

by Vita Sackville-West

  We knocked, and were admitted. The street door shut behind us, quickly and secretively.

  The patio,fn1 after the dusk of the streets, seemed brilliantly lit, but in fact it only glowed with the coloured lights of many lanterns festooned along the balconies of the upper storey. So subdued and mellow were the lights that they gave us only the impression of a great deal of colour and the indistinct forms of people grouping in the shadows. Looking up, I could see other people looking over on the balconies, whispering together above the gaudy shawls which, after the fashion of the Andalusian bull-ring in the time of the fiesta, they had hung over the balconies all round the patio. There was a fountain splashing in the middle of the patio. The night-sky made a square of black ceiling with its stars.

  Someone struck a few chords on a guitar. An immensely fat woman, the fattest woman I had ever seen, strode out from under the balcony and, planting herself down on a perilously small chair beside the fountain, her knees wide apart and a hand splayed on each knee, began to sing. She sang what appeared to be an interminable lament, in a voice like a trombone, and as she sang she began to sway backwards and forwards, as though she indeed bewailed some personal grief too intolerable for her mountainous flesh to bear. The combination of her grotesque appearance and the magnificently profound notes of her complaint, suggested some primeval sorrow untranslatable save into the terms of that bellowing song.

  She ceased as abruptly as she had begun, and sat there complacently mopping the sweat from her brow. The guitar took up again, in another strain this time, a twanging strain, and one by one the indistinct figures came out from the shadows. I saw then that they were all gypsies, for by their lineaments and their garments they could have been nothing else. They were without exception the most beautiful human beings I ever wish to see. Some of them, of course, were old and wrinkled, but even those still bore the traces of their youthful looks in the bony architecture of their features and in the tragic dignity of their sunken eyes. Others were in their prime, adult and arrogant; but others were divinely young, elusively adolescent, like wild things that never ought to have submitted to the coaxing of even the kindliest hand. There was one pair in particular, a girl of perhaps eighteen, a youth perhaps two years older; they kept close together, suspicious and alert as though the outside world threatened the affinity between them; he watched her with a close and jealous eye, ready to snatch and guard her; and she, for her part, shrank closer to him whenever another man by chance came near; they were both as fine and graceful as a pair of antelopes, and seemed just as ready to bound away.

  The guitars by then were twanging in unison; the little patio was filled by those strange minor cadences; feet were beginning to tap; the enormous singer, still planted on her tiny chair by the fountain, was beginning to sway again and to clap her hands together in the monotonous, exciting rhythm. Little by little, and as it were impelled by no organised intention, they began to dance. At first it was little more than an instinctive balancing of their bodies, then feet fell into measure, fingers began to snap, and the patio was alive with these strangely undulating and sinuous figures, dancing with a curious intensity in which there was no thought of anything but rhythm and dancing. They seemed, indeed, to be part of the rough music and the scented night. There was no thought of sex in it; or perhaps it might be said that the whole thing was an expression of sex, love, passion, so impersonal as to transcend anything trivial or ephemeral in the emotion, and to translate it into eternal terms with which the music, the night, and the colour were inherently mixed. The extraordinary purity and beauty of the performance was only enhanced by the vast black figure seated by the fountain, a powerfully obscene goddess immortalised by some sculptor of genius.

  I thought the guitars would never end; they twanged on and on until their effect became almost hypnotic. I noticed then that the centre of the patio was emptying, and that most of the dancers had retreated again into the shadows. They crouched there, beating time with the clapping of their hands, and as the music grew faster and wilder they uttered hoarse cries and rose again to their feet with the excitement of the music, pressing round in a narrowing circle until they ringed the solitary pair left dancing in the light of the lanterns. These were the two that I had specially observed. Forgetful of all else, tawny and beautiful, they swayed opposite to one another, as though each dared the other in a mortally dangerous game. Then he sank on to one knee, watching her, clapping softly, half in admiration, half in a menacing derision, as she danced alone. The wild animal in him crouched, waiting to spring. Provocative, she would pass a little closer to him, when he made a half-gesture as though to catch her; elusive, she would glide away, and all the time there was an undercurrent of truth running with a snarl between them.

  The next thing I knew was that they were all laughing like children at some purely farcical incident. The two young creatures were gone, and I never saw or wished to see them again. I had seen them once, and that was enough. I had seen unforgettable beauty in human form, and they, all unaware, had brought me nearer to Pepita.

  V

  On January 10th, 1851, Juan Antonio de la Oliva and Pepita Duran y Ortega were married at the church of San Millan, where Juan Antonio had been baptized nearly twenty-two years previously. Oliva’s sister, Isabel, tells us that when once the marriage was seen to be inevitable her parents resigned themselves to it and ‘everything became pleasant and agreeable’. The ceremony provided an occasion for a great gathering of family and friends, and for subsequent festivities which are recorded with appreciation by Isabel. The bride naturally could not produce as many relations in the city where she was, after all, a stranger, as the bridegroom whose native town it was. So far as the records make out, her only contribution to the party consisted of Catalina her mother, Manuel Lopez, her brother Diego, and the child Lola. Oliva, on the other hand, was nobly supported by a host of relations who saw an opportunity for getting not only a breakfast and a dinner at somebody else’s expense, but a dance and its attendant jollity thrown in.

  At about 8 a.m. on the wedding day Juan Antonio, with all his more immediate relations, went to the house of the bride. There were his father and mother, his sister Isabel, his brothers Joaquin, Agustin, and Frederico with his son and daughter, and a friend named Ramon Acero who was to act as padrino. At the Calle de la Encomienda, Catalina, Lopez, Diego, Lola, and the bride herself were waiting for them, when they all proceeded together to the church of San Millan. Pepita, according to the usual custom, was dressed in black. She wore a black lace mantilla but no veil, and drew from one of the Madrilenian guests the comment that she looked dressed like an Andalusian going to a bull-fight. A great many more friends and relations were waiting for them at the church, including ‘at least fourteen uncles and aunts’ and Pedrosa, who had come very reluctantly because Oliva had pressed him to do so, accepting the invitation only on the understanding that he should not be asked to go to Catalina’s house. Oliva seemed surprised to see him, and the first words he said were, ‘Oh, I thought you were not coming’. After the ceremony Pedrosa went into the Sacristy for Oliva’s sake and shook hands with Pepita. He saluted Catalina but avoided shaking hands with her. Lopez, however, came up to him and shook hands before he could prevent it. Oliva, who had been paying the marriage fees while everybody else collected their hats and coats, came up in his turn and pressed Pedrosa to come to the wedding dinner; Pedrosa agreed, but did not go, because of his objection to Catalina and Lopez.

  Another very small guest survived to leave a rather rueful record nearly fifty years later. This was Luisa, the bridegroom’s niece. ‘I was just six years of age. I remember having seen my uncle several times before his marriage and knew him as being my Uncle Juan Antonio. I recollect being taken to the church of San Millan and seeing a great number of people. I had some impression that Mass was being performed. It was the first wedding ceremony I had ever attended. I think I was too young to be taken notice of.’

  Agustin Oliva, however, the bridegroom’
s brother, who had attained the age of seven and a half, preserved quite a definite impression of his new sister-in-law. ‘She was muy guapa (very pretty) and dark.’ He remembered being taken to some café after the wedding, and having something, but he couldn’t remember what. His sister-in-law had evidently made more impression on him than the subsequent cakes.

  Luckily we have more to go on than the evidence of these two children. Isabel Oliva leaves a graphic account. ‘After the ceremony, we all adjourned to the Café Suiza, where some took coffee, others chocolate, and others whatever they pleased. From the Café Suiza, both parties returned to their respective homes and changed their wedding clothes, and afterwards the Oliva family, including Juan Antonio, went to Pepita’s house, from whence both families walked about the streets arm-in-arm till three-thirty or four o’clock, when they went to dinner at the Fonda de Europa, where we had the wedding feast in a room specially engaged for the purpose. It is the custom for the padrino to provide the wedding feast at his own cost. After dinner we retired to another room and passed the evening dancing till about one o’clock in the morning. Juan Antonio had an engagement at the Teatro Español, and had to leave the wedding party for a short time to go and perform his part. After that we all accompanied the bride and bridegroom to the house in Calle Encomienda and said goodbye to each other at the door.

  ‘As soon as the marriage had been seen to be inevitable, the differences between the families ceased and everything was pleasant and agreeable at the wedding and the dinner.’

  And pleasantly noisy too, we might credibly add. The family of a Spaniard associated with the theatre was not likely to comport itself with much restraint on such an occasion as the marriage-feast of its brilliant and successful young scion. We are told that they danced polkas, waltzes, and quadrilles, and that Pepita ‘threw herself with zest into every dance that went forward’. I imagine that they must have been very gay and uproarious, and that they looked with a good deal of curiosity at the dark Andalusian swaying in the arms of her bridegroom.

  VI

  Between two and three months later, Juan Antonio Oliva turned up again in Madrid. He went straight to Pedrosa’s house, and found Pedrosa still in bed. Pedrosa was surprised to see him, although it was no unusual thing for Oliva to visit him on his return from fulfilling some dancing engagement, even before he had called in at the house of his parents, but on this occasion he had believed him to be far away, touring Spain with his young wife and her family. Pedrosa knew that after the marriage they had remained living in the Calle de la Encomienda with Catalina and Lopez, for although he had declined to visit them there, he had once or twice met Oliva and Pepita walking arm-in-arm together in the street and on each occasion had stopped to converse with them. He had evidently not noticed what the Oliva family had noticed, ‘that almost from the day of the marriage Juan Antonio appeared to be depressed and down-hearted’. He knew only that they had all left Madrid together, had heard of them passing through Ocana and Toledo, and had had news of them again in Valencia. Now here was Juan Antonio, alone.

  They had breakfast together, and over breakfast Oliva told Pedrosa that he had quarrelled with Catalina and had come away. Pepita had not wanted him to come away, but he had insisted on doing so. ‘He said’, added Pedrosa, ‘that it was one of those questions which sometimes arise between a man and his wife on account of the mother-in-law.’ What that question exactly was, we shall never know, nor shall we ever know what exactly had taken place at Valencia to send Oliva flinging away by himself in spite of Pepita’s protests; but we do know that Pedrosa always laid the blame at Catalina’s door. ‘I am certain’, he says, ‘that the cause of the separation was Catalina’, and it is manifest that in his loyal way he felt deeply indignant on behalf of his injured friend. Oliva, indeed, fully agreed that it was Catalina who had made the trouble, but it was not a question he ever cared to discuss. ‘He was very reticent in the family circle as to the relations between himself and Pepita’—this is his sister Isabel speaking again;—‘He stated that the causes of the separation were not honourable to Pepita, that there were some things which he could not tolerate, and that he blamed mostly her mother.’ Beyond this, he told his family nothing, though poor Isabel’s curiosity was whetted to an unbearable pitch. His state of dejection was obvious to all, and ‘having once made his reserved revelation, he could never bear to hear even the name of Pepita mentioned by the family’. Once, however, when he caught sight of Lopez in a box at the theatre, he started up with the exclamation, ‘There is that rogue!’ (bribon). But ‘so punctilious in matters of honour’ was he, that he would never breathe a word of disparagement against Pepita. It is all very mysterious. There is no doubt that he had been very much in love with Pepita; and as for Pepita herself, she had tried to prevent him from leaving her, and it was many months before she could speak of him without tears coming into her eyes. Whatever it was that Catalina said or did, or forced Pepita to do in Valencia in the spring of 1851, it was certainly something which effectively wrecked the married life of her daughter and son-in-law. They would have been better off away from the tyranny of that jealous, possessive, and, I suspect, mercenary, though generous and charitable woman, Catalina Ortega.

  fn1 Inner courtyard, open to the sky, common to all Spanish houses.

  3

  The Star of Andalusia

  I

  ‘The cholera began to get serious and to kill many people’, said Jose Ligeno Castillo. ‘Most deaths occurred on St Peter’s Day, which is the 29th of June.’

  It had broken out in Granada, and amongst other refugees who came flying in the heat of summer from the plague to seek safety in neighbouring villages were the ex-peddlers Lopez and Catalina, accompanied by the girl Lola and attended by a down-trodden poor relation named Rafaela, who was said to be a niece of one of them and whom they treated little better than a servant. Catalina’s son Diego, who had been with them in Madrid, was no longer with them now, for they had had a quarrel (it will be observed that quarrels were frequent in this family), and he had disappeared from the house. It was to the little village of Chaparral that they first came, but before very long they removed to Albolote, some three and a half miles north of Granada, and there proceeded to dazzle their new neighbours by the luxury and extravagance of their preparations. For the fortunes of the family had undergone a startling change since the days of the basement in Madrid. Lopez had now got a thick gold watch-chain, and rings on his fingers; Catalina had a gold chain too; Lola had a German governess; Catalina had a French maid called Marie; they had horses, carriages, a coachman, and dogs with foreign names. Altogether their arrival aroused great interest and curiosity at Albolote, which was a quiet place, lying a little way off the main road, 32 so that its southern monotony could not be disturbed even by the passing of the public diligence, periodically drawing up in a cloud of dust on its way between Jaen and Granada.

  Their new neighbours remembered details of the establishment for many years afterwards. The carriage-horses were bright bays called Garbozo and Malagueño; the Galician pony for fetching water was Gallego; the saddle-horses were Esmeralda and Pia, the former a dark chestnut, the latter a white jaca (a pony or small horse) with chestnut spots. Andalusian horses were, of course, prized above all others in Spain, with their peculiar loose-limbed gait, flowing tail, and long mane which their owners delighted to plait with coloured ribbons. The principal carriage was a galera, which is described as a four-wheeled carriage with a cover over the top, and seats facing sideways,—in fact a sort of roofed-in waggonette,—the ends of which might be closed or opened though the top was permanent. This conveyance was always drawn by at least two horses and sometimes three, but on occasion Lopez substituted mules. He always drove the carriage himself, taking the coachman (who had no livery) to sit beside him on the box.

  It is stated that ‘they used sometimes to drive unicorn’. For one wild moment I imagined that the fabulous beast was meant, and that the correct plural of what I had always
called unicorns was unicorn, as sheep is the plural of a single sheep, and fish of fish; it seemed to me that so fantastic an equipage would have exactly appealed to Catalina’s mind; but then to my chagrin I discovered that it meant only a pair of horses with a third horse in front.

  The family had arrived at Albolote in their galera, and I am irresistibly reminded of Ford’s description of just such a removal as must then have taken place: ‘The packing and departure of the galera, when hired by a family who remove their goods, is a thing of Spain; the heavy luggage is stowed in first, and beds and mattresses spread on the top, on which the family repose in admired disorder’. Even if Lopez, Catalina, Lola, their servants and their dogs conducted themselves with a little more dignity as befitted their recent rise to fortune and the fact that the carriage was their own and not a public vehicle which might be hired, one imagines that they still managed to present a sufficiently untidy and raffish appearance. Perhaps even their dogs were carried in the loose open net hanging beneath the carriage, ‘in which lies a horrid dog, who keeps a Cerberus watch over pots and sieves and suchlike gypsy utensils, and who is never to be conciliated’.