his for his matchless sake? Then if Valladolid had come back at me with
the fact that Cervantes had lived pretty well all over Spain, and what
had Seville done, Cordova done, Toledo done, Madrid done, for the upkeep
of his divers sojourns more than she had done, after placing a tablet in
his house wall?--certainly I could have said that this did not excuse
her, but I must have owned that she was not alone, though she seemed
most to blame.




IX


Now I look back and am glad I had not consciously with me, as we drove
away, the boy who once meant to write the life of Cervantes, and who I
knew from my recollection of his idolatry of that chief of Spaniards
would not have listened to the excuses of Valladolid for a moment. All
appeared fair and noble in that Spain of his which shone with such
allure far across the snows through which he trudged morning and evening
with his father to and from the printing-office, and made his dream of
that great work the common theme of their talk. Now the boy is as
utterly gone as the father, who was a boy too at heart, but who died a
very old man many years ago; and in the place of both is another old man
trammeled in his tangled memories of Spain visited and unvisited.

It would be a poor sort of make-believe if this survivor pretended any
lasting indignation with Valladolid because of the stench of
Cervantes's house. There are a great many very bad smells in Spain
everywhere, and it is only fair to own that a psychological change