The Spanish Temper by V. S. Pritchett

Author:V. S. Pritchett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1954-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter VI

There are two roads to the south: one straight across the tableland of La Mancha, with the sharp mountains burning and floating like crisp blue gas flame on the horizon; the other, the long way round, over the Gredos mountains into the sheep drives, the wilderness, the cork woods of Extremadura, where the great estates begin. The river Tagus lies green as a snake in its deep ravines in this country; in the oasis of Aranjuez it is muddy; at Toledo the river circles the town like some green viper in its gorge.

La Mancha is Don Quixote’s country. Under a sun of brass it is greener than old Castile, for the short vines grow here mile after mile, the pony turns the waterwheel under the trees, and the villages and towns are white, single-storey places. Valdepeñas is a wine town; this wine and the heavier wines of Rioja in the north are the best-known wines of the country. There are no vintages and no châteaux. One takes the wine of the locality, some of it delicate, some of it tasting of the pine cask like the wines of Greece, some of it thin and sour. “This is the best wine in the world,” people say. And they say the same of the water, which is generally pure, crystalline, and excellent. After Valdepeñas the soil reddens. The heat comes down on the earth like a crushing load, the people stare under the weight of the sun, the women fan themselves and sigh. We travel in the strong smell of the earth and its herbs, the scented smell of the soft-coal smoke, sweet human sweat, face powder, urine. In the towns the odours of olive oil, charcoal, and polish stand, almost like persons themselves, in the cold doorways of the hot streets. The olive groves begin, striping and furring the red hills for mile after mile, and in such wealth it is hard to understand Spanish poverty. We see those thin, crumpled-up monkey peasants, those lean and noble-looking people; we see the extraordinary division of Spain between them and the bland, unlined faces of the fat, who carry their bellies like terrestrial globes before them, whose chins appear like motor tyres under the jaws, whose small eyes have the innocence, the surprise, the resignation, and the malice of the obese. It is a country divided between those who eat well and those who do not, and when you talk about the next town to a countryman there is always the gesture of the fingers to the mouth: “There they eat well.” Or “Here we do not eat.” And by “well” they mean quantity. Since the war—“no se come”—there is nothing to eat; how many scores of times I have heard those words! “Eat”—it is the governing Spanish word; mañana is nowhere near it. We are always brought down to the fundamentals of life; he eats well; he does not; here I conducted my love affairs; there I have my family; my parents are dead; my parents are alive; life is sad; life is gay; I am alive; people manage to live.

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