When we definitely turned our backs on the potential poultry-farm
offered us at our hotel, we found ourselves in as good housing at
another, overlooking the length and breadth of the stately Plaza San
Fernando, with its parallelogram of tall palms, under a full moon
swimming in a cloudless heaven by night and by day. By day, of course,
we did not see it, but the sun was visibly there, rather blazing hot,
even in mid-October, and showing more distinctly than the moon the
beautiful tower of the Giralda from the waist up, and the shoulder of
the great cathedral, besides features of other noble, though less noble,
edifices. Our plaza was so full of romantic suggestion that I am rather
glad now I had no association with it. I am sure I could not have borne
at the time to know, as I have only now learned by recurring to my
Baedeker, that in the old Franciscan cloister once there had stood the
equestrian statue of the Comendador who dismounts and comes unbidden to
the supper of Don Giovanni in the opera. That was a statue which, seen
in my far youth, haunted my nightmares for many a year, and I am sure it
would have kept me from sleep in the conditions, now so perfect, of our
new housing if I had known, about it.




III


The plaza is named, of course, for King Fernando, who took Seville from
the Moors six hundred years ago, and was canonized for his conquests and
his virtues. But I must not enter so rashly upon the history of Seville,
or forget the arrears of personal impression which I have to bring up.