The Inn of the Cats · I

In Seville and halfway along the road leading to the convent of San Jerónimo from the Macarena gate, there is, among other famous taverns, one which, by the place where it stands and the special circumstances that meet in it, may be said to have been, if it is not still, the most genuine and characteristic of all Andalusian taverns.

Imagine a little white house as pure as a drift of snow, with a roof of tiles, some reddish, others greenish-black, among which grow an endless number of wallflowers and clumps of mignonette. A wooden shed casts a shadow over the lintel of the door, on either side of which are two benches of brick and mortar. Embedded in the wall, which is broken by several small windows opened at random to let in light to the interior—some lower, some higher, this one quadrangular, that one imitating a double window or a skylight—can be seen at intervals various iron stakes and rings used for tying up mounts. An ancient grapevine twists its blackened trunks through the wooden framework that supports it, clothing them in tendrils and broad green leaves, and covers like a canopy the tavern yard, which is made up of three pine benches, half a dozen rickety rush-bottomed chairs, and as many as six or seven lame tables made of poorly joined planks. Up one side of the house climbs a honeysuckle, clinging to the cracks in the walls, until it reaches the roof, from whose eaves hang trailing shoots that sway in the breeze, resembling floating green pavilions. At the foot of the other runs a reed fence, marking the limits of a small garden that looks like a reed basket overflowing with flowers. The crowns of two stout trees rising behind the inn form the dark background against which its white chimneys stand out, while the decoration is completed by orchard fences full of agaves and blackberries, the broom shrubs growing along the water’s edge, and the Guadalquivir, which winds away, dragging its sluggish, tortuous current between those wild banks until it reaches the foot of the old convent of San Jerónimo, which peers out over the surrounding dense olive groves and traces the black silhouette of its towers against a transparent blue sky.

Imagine this landscape brought to life by a multitude of figures—men, women, children, and animals—forming groups, each more picturesque and characteristic than the last: here the innkeeper, chubby and ruddy-faced, sitting in the sun on a low stool, shredding tobacco between his hands to roll a cigarette with the paper in his mouth; there a petty merchant from the Macarena, singing with half-closed eyes and accompanying himself on a little guitar, while others keep time by clapping or striking the tables with their glasses; further on, a crowd of girls with multi-colored gauze headscarves and a whole cluster of carnations in their hair who play the tambourine, and shout, and laugh, and talk loudly while pushing like mad things on a swing hanging between two trees; and the inn’s waiters coming and going with trays of manzanilla and plates of olives; and bands of townspeople swarming along the road; two drunkards arguing with a majo who pays court to a pretty girl as he passes; a crowing rooster puffing himself up proudly on the corral fences; a dog barking at the children who goad it with sticks and stones; oil boiling and sputtering in the frying pan where fish is being fried; the cracking of coachmen’s whips as they arrive raising a cloud of dust; the sound of songs, castanets, laughter, voices, whistles, and guitars, and blows on the tables and clapping, and the shattering of breaking jugs, and a thousand and one strange, discordant noises that form a cheerful hubbub impossible to describe. Imagine all this on a mild, serene evening, on the evening of one of those most beautiful days in Andalusia, where days are always so beautiful, and you will have an idea of the spectacle that presented itself to my eyes the first time that, guided by its fame, I went to visit that celebrated inn.

This was many years ago now: ten or twelve at least. I was there like a fish out of water: starting with my clothing and ending with the astonished expression on my face, everything about me jarred with that scene of frank and boisterous gaiety. It seemed to me that people, as they passed, turned to look at me with the displeasure one feels upon seeing an unwelcome intruder.

Not wishing to draw attention or make my presence the object of more or less veiled mockery, I sat down to one side of the inn door, asked for something to drink, which I did not drink, and when everyone had forgotten my strange apparition, I took a piece of paper from the sketching portfolio I was carrying, sharpened a pencil, and began to search with my eyes for a characteristic type to copy and keep as a souvenir of that scene and that day.

At once my eyes fixed on one of the girls forming a merry circle around the swing. She was tall, slender, slightly brunette, with sleepy, large, black eyes, and hair even blacker than her eyes. While I was making the drawing, a group of men—among whom was one who strummed the guitar with great flair—was singing in chorus songs alluding to the personal charms, love secrets, inclinations, or stories of jealousy and disdain of the girls amusing themselves around the swing, songs to which the latter in turn replied with others no less charming, spicy, and lighthearted.

The dark-haired, slender, and witty girl I had chosen as my model led the singing among the women, composing the verses and reciting them to the sound of clapping and her companions’ laughter, while the guitar player seemed to be the leader of the young men and the one who stood out among them all for his grace and carefree wit.

For my part, it did not take me long to perceive that between the two of them there existed a feeling of affection revealed in their songs, full of transparent allusions and amorous phrases.

When I finished my work, night was beginning to fall. Already the two lanterns of the bell-tower altarpiece had been lit in the cathedral tower, and their lights looked like the fiery eyes of that brick and mortar giant dominating the entire city. The groups were gradually dissolving and losing themselves along the road in the twilight mist, silvered by the moon, which was beginning to outline itself against the dark violet background of the sky. The girls walked away together, singing, and their silvery voices gradually grew fainter until they blended with the other indistinct and distant murmurs trembling in the air. Everything was ending at once: the day, the commotion, the animation, and the fiesta; and of it all nothing remained save an echo in the ear and in the soul, like a most gentle vibration, like a sweet torpor akin to that experienced upon waking from a pleasant dream.

As soon as the last people had disappeared, I folded my drawing, put it back in the portfolio, called the waiter with a clap of my hands, paid for the small expense I had incurred, and was preparing to walk away when I felt myself gently detained by the arm. It was the guitar player I had noticed earlier, and who while I was drawing had watched me intently and with a certain air of curiosity. I had not realized that, after the fun was over, he had stealthily approached the spot where I was sitting in order to see what I was doing as I stared with such persistence at the woman in whom he seemed to take an interest.

“Señorito,” he said to me, in an accent he tried to soften as much as possible: “I am going to ask you a favor.”

“A favor!” I exclaimed, without understanding what his intentions might be. “Speak up, for if it is in my power, it is already done.”

“Will you give me that painting you have made?”

Upon hearing his final words, I could not help remaining perplexed for a while; on the one hand, I found the request quite strange, and on the other, the tone, which could not be precisely defined as either a threat or a plea. He must have understood my hesitation and hastened to add at once:

“I ask it of you for your mother’s health, for the woman you love most in this world, if you love any; in return, ask me for anything I can do in my poverty.”

I knew not what to answer to evade the commitment. I almost would have preferred him to come ready for a quarrel, in exchange for keeping the sketch of that woman who had so deeply impressed me; but whether due to the sudden surprise, or to my inability to say no to anything, the fact is I opened my portfolio, took out the paper, and handed it to him without saying a word.

To recount the boy’s expressions of gratitude, his exclamations upon looking at the drawing once again by the light of the inn’s streetlamp, the care with which he folded it to tuck it away in his sash, the offers he made me, and the hyperbolic praises with which he weighed the luck of having found what he called a cool and sharp gentleman, would be a most difficult task, not to say impossible. I will only say that, as between one thing and another, it had grown completely night, and despite my reluctance, he insisted on accompanying me to the Macarena gate; and he argued it so much that I finally resolved for us to set off together. The road is very short, but while it lasted he found a way to tell me from start to finish the whole story of his love affairs.

The inn where the event had taken place belonged to his father, who had promised him, for when he married, an orchard bordering the house that also belonged to him. As for the girl, the object of his affection, whom he described to me with the most vivid colors and the most picturesque phrases, he told me her name was Amparo, that she had been raised in his house since she was very small, and it was unknown who her parents might be. All this and a hundred other details of lesser interest he recounted to me along the way. When we reached the city gates, he gave me a firm handshake, offered his services to me once more, and walked away singing a song whose echoes faded into the distance in the silence of the night. I stood for a while watching him go. His happiness seemed contagious, and I felt cheerful, with a strange and nameless cheerfulness, with a cheerfulness, so to speak, of reflection.

He kept singing at the top of his lungs; one of his songs went thus:

Little companion of my soul, look how pretty she was: she looked like the Virgin of Consolation of Utrera.

When his voice began to fade away, I heard in the gusts of the breeze another thin and vibrant voice sounding even further off. It was she, she who was waiting for him impatiently...