"
That was well toward a century ago. It is not quite like that now, but
it is something like it; the human race has become inured to the
Escorial; more tourists have visited the place and imaginably lightened
its burden by sharing it among their increasing number. Still there is
now and then one who is oppressed, crushed by it, and cannot relieve
himself in such ironies as Gautier's, but must cry aloud in suffering
like that of the more emotional De Amicis: "You approach a courtyard and
say, 'I have seen this already.' No. You are mistaken; it is another. .
. . You ask the guide where the cloister is and he replies, 'This is
it,' and you walk on for half an hour. You see the light of another
world: you have never seen just such a light; is it the reflection from
the stone, or does it come from the moon? No, it is daylight, but sadder
than darkness. As you go on from corridor to corridor, from court to
court, you look ahead with misgivings, expecting to see suddenly, as you
turn a corner, a row of skeleton monks with hoods over their eyes and
crosses in their hands; you think of Philip II. . . . You remember all
that you have read about him, of his terrors and the Inquisition; and
everything becomes clear to your mind's eye with a sudden light; for the
first time you understand it all; the Escorial is Philip II.
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