It was the first
exhibition of the national repose of manner which we were to see so
often again, south as well as north, and which I find it so beautiful to
have seen. In a Europe abounding in volcanic Italians, nervous Germans,
and exasperated Frenchmen, it was comforting, it was edifying to see
those Castilian peasants so self-respectfully self-possessed in the
wrong.
From time to time in the opener spaces we had got into the sun from the
chill shadow of the narrow streets, but now it began to be cloudy, and
when we re-entered our hotel it was almost as warm indoors as out. We
thought our landlord might have so far repented as to put on the steam;
but he had sternly adhered to his principle that the radiators were
enough of themselves; and after luncheon we had nothing for it but to go
away from Burgos, and take with us such scraps of impression as we
could. We decided that there was no street of gayer shops than those
gloomy ones we had chanced into here and there; I do not remember now
anything like a bookseller's or a milliner's or a draper's window. There
was no sign of fashion among the ladies of Burgos, so far as we could
distinguish them; there was not a glowering or perking hat, and I do not
believe there was a hobble-skirt in all the austere old capital except
such as some tourist wore; the black lace mantillas and the flowing
garments of other periods flitted by through the chill alleys and into
the dim doorways.
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