From time to time
there were church-bells, variously like tin pans and iron pots in tone,
without sonorousness in their noise, or such wild clangor as some
Italian church-bells have. But Cordova had lived through it, and at the
station was lively with the arriving and departing trains. The morning
was not only bright; it was hot, and the place babbled with many voices.
We thought one voice crying "Agua, agua!" was a parrot's and then we
thought it was a girl's, but really it was a boy with water for sale in
a stone bottle. He had not a rose, white or red, in his hair, but if he
had been a girl, old or young, he would have had one, white or red. Some
of the elder women wore mantillas, but these wore flowers too, and were
less pleasing than pathetic for it; one very massive matron was less
pleasing and more pathetic than the rest. Peasant women carried bunches
of chickens by the legs, and one had a turkey in a rush bag with a
narrow neck to put its head out of for its greater convenience in
gobbling. At the door of the station a donkey tried to bite a fly on its
back; but even a Spanish donkey cannot do everything. There was no
attempt to cheat us in the weight of our trunks, as there often is in
Italy, and the _mozo_ who put us and our hand-bags into the train was
content with his reasonable fee.
Pages:
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275