Gautier, Théophile, 1811-1872 -- Travel -- Spain; Spain -- Description and travel; Spain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
the fair sex bury their faces, in so-styled civilized countries.
I cannot express the disagreeable sensation I experienced at the
sight of the first Englishwoman I met, with a bonnet and a green
veil on her head; I seemed, all at once, to be placed face to face
with the spectre of civilization, that mortal enemy of mine, and
this apparition struck me as a sort of warning that my dream of
vagabond liberty was at an end, and that I should soon be obliged
once more to re-enter the mode of life of the nineteenth century,
never to leave it again. Before this Englishwoman, I felt quite
ashamed of having neither white kid gloves, eye-glass, nor patent
leather shoes, and I cast an embarrassed glance on the extravagant
embroidery of my sky-blue mantle. For the first time during six
months, I felt that I was not presentable, and that I did not look
like a gentleman.
At Gibraltar, which has become heretic since the English occupy
it, there are a great number of Jews, who have either been driven
away, or looked on with an evil eye by the Spanish, who, if they
have no more religion, still possess superstition. They walk about
the streets, displaying their hooked noses, thin lips, and yellow,
polished foreheads surmounted by rabbinical caps, placed on the
back of the head, and their threadbare, narrow, sombre-coloured
robes. The Jewesses, who, by a singular privilege, are as beautiful
as their husbands are hideous, wear picturesque black cloaks,
bordered with scarlet and having hoods. Their appearance caused
us to think vaguely of the Bible, of Rachel at the well, and the
primitive scenes of the time of the patriarchs, for, like the women
of all oriental races, they still preserve in their long black
eyes and the golden tints of their complexions, the mysterious
reflexion of a world that has now disappeared. There are, also, at
Gibraltar, a great many natives of Morocco, as well as Arabs from
Tangiers and the places along the coast: they have little shops,
where they sell perfumery, silk sashes, slippers, fly-flappers,
ornamented leathern cushions, and other knick-knacks of barbarous
industry. As we wished to purchase a few trifles and curiosities,
we were conducted to one of the principal dealers, who lived in
the upper part of the town. We had to pass through a number of
streets like staircases, which were less English in their character
than the streets in the lower part of the town, and whence, at
certain turnings, our eye glanced over the gulf of Algeciras, which
was magnificently illuminated by the last rays of daylight. On
entering the Morocco merchant's house, we were enveloped in a cloud
of oriental perfumes: the sweet, penetrating odour of rose-water
greeted our olfactory organs and made us think of the mysteries of
the harem and the marvels of the _Thousand-and-One Nights_. The
merchant's sons, two fine young men about twenty years of age,
were seated on benches near the door, enjoying the coolness of the
evening.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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