In Rembrandt Peale’s picture of the Court of
Death a cadaverous shape lies for judgment at the
foot of the throne, touching at either extremity the
waters of Lethe. There is something similar in
the history of the greatest of Spanish writers.
No man knew, for more than a century after the death
of Cervantes, the place of his birth and burial.
About a hundred years ago the investigations of Rios
and Pellicer established the claim of Alcala de Henares
to be his native city; and last year the researches
of the Spanish Academy have proved conclusively that
he is buried in the Convent of the Trinitarians in
Madrid. But the precise spot where he was born
is only indicated by vague tradition; and the shadowy
conjecture that has so long hallowed the chapel and
cloisters of the Calle Cantarranas has never settled
upon any one slab of their pavement.
It is, however, only the beginning and the end of
this most chivalrous and genial apparition of the
sixteenth century that is concealed from our view.
We know where he was christened and where he died.
So that there are sufficiently authentic shrines in
Alcala and Madrid to satisfy the most sceptical pilgrims.
I went to Alcala one summer day, when the bare fields
were brown and dry in their after-harvest nudity,
and the hills that bordered the winding Henares were
drab in the light and purple in the shadow. From
a distance the town is one of the most imposing in
Castile. It lies in the midst of a vast plain
by the green water-side, and the land approach is fortified
by a most impressive wall emphasized by sturdy square
towers and flanking bastions. But as you come
nearer you see this wall is a tradition. It is
almost in ruins.
The crenellated towers are good for nothing but to
sketch. A short walk from the station brings
you to the gate, which is well defended by a gang
of picturesque beggars, who are old enough to have
sat for Murillo, and revoltingly pitiable enough to
be millionaires by this time, if Castilians had the
cowardly habit of sponging out disagreeable impressions
with pennies. At the first charge we rushed in
panic into a tobacco-shop and filled our pockets with
maravedis, and thereafter faced the ragged battalion
with calm.
It is a fine, handsome, and terribly lonesome town.
Its streets are wide, well built, and silent v as
avenues in a graveyard. On every hand there are
tall and stately churches, a few palaces, and some
two dozen great monasteries turning their long walls,
pierced with jealous grated windows, to the grass-grown
streets. In many quarters there is no sign of
life, no human habitations among these morose and now
empty barracks of a monkish army. Some of them
have been turned into military casernes, and the bright
red and blue uniforms of the Spanish officers and
troopers now brighten the cloisters that used to see
nothing gayer than the gowns of cord-girdled friars.
A large garrison is always kept here. The convents
are convenient for lodging men and horses. The
fields in the vicinity produce great store of grain
and alfalfa,—food for beast and rider.
It is near enough to the capital to use the garrison
on any sudden emergency, such as frequently happens
in Peninsular politics.
