The general aspect of the district of Las Tenerias brought to the imagination pleasant fancies of all that had taken place during Moorish rule, the abundance of brick, the long gable ends, the irregular fronts, the window lattices with shutters, the complete architectural anarchy, making it impossible to know where one house ended and another began, or of distinguishing whether this had two floors or three, or if that roof served to support the walls of that one over there. The streets at best ended in yards with no ways out. The archways, which gave entrance to a little square, reminded me that here was a vista upon another Spanish people, very different from those now here.
This amalgamation of houses which I have described to you, this suburb built up by many generations of laborers and peasants and tanners, according to the caprice of each, without order or harmony, had prepared itself for the defence on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth days of January, at the time when the French began to display their pomp of attack by placing forces on that side. All the families living in the houses of this suburb proceeded to build works according to their own strategic instincts. There were military engineers in petticoats who demonstrated a profound knowledge of war by walling up certain spaces and opening others to the light, and for purposes of firing. The walls of the eastern side were spiked along their length. The turrets of the wall of Caesar Augustus, built to resist arrows and sling stones, now upheld cannon.
If any one of these pieces were turned upon one of the neighboring roofs, the roof or the entire house, whatever was there, would be immediately blown to pieces. Many passages had been obstructed, and two of the religious edifices of the suburb, San Augustine and Las Monicas, were veritable fortresses. The wall had been rebuilt and strengthened; the batteries had been joined together, and our engineers had calculated the positions and the reach of the enemy’s guns very well, in order to accommodate our defences to them.
Our line had two advanced points, the mill of Goicoechea and a house which, because it belonged to a certain Don Victoriano Gonzalez, has gone into history by the name of the Casa de Gonzalez. This line, running from the Puerta Quemada, met first the battery of Palafox, then the Molino, the mill, in the city, then the garden of San Augustine; it continued to the mill of Goicoechea, situated a little out of the district, then to the orchard of Las Monicas, and on to those of San Augustine; further up, a great battery and the house of Gonzalez. This is all that I remember of Las Tenerias. There was over there a place called the Sepulcro, because of its nearness to a church of that name. More than one portion of the suburb, indeed, deserved the name of sepulchre. I tell you no more in order not to tire you with these descriptive minutiae, unnecessary to one who knows those glorious places, and insufficient for one who has been unable to visit them.
XIV
Augustine Montoria and I stood guard with our battalion in the Molino until after nightfall, the hour when we were relieved by the Huesca volunteers; then we permitted ourselves to be all night outside the lines. But it must not be believed that during these hours we strolled about hand in hand; for when our military services were over, there were others no less onerous in the interior of the city, where the wounded had already been carried to La Seo and to the Pilar—burning houses to carry things out of, or materials to carry to the friars, the canons, and the civil officials, who were making cartridges in San Juan de los Panetes.
Montoria and I went there by way of the Calle de Pabostre. I walked along munching a crust of bread with good appetite. My companion, taciturn and gloomy, amused himself by throwing his to the dogs that we met as we walked along. Although I exerted my imagination in efforts to cheer his sad spirit, he remained dull and insensible to it all, replying but sadly to my merry chatter. As we entered the Coso, he said to me—
“It is ten by the clock of the Torre Nueva. Do you know—I wish to go there tonight.”
“Tonight you will not be able to go. Try to stifle the flame of love in its ashes, while we are threatened by those other burning hearts, the flaming bombs which are coming to break in the houses and among the people.”
It was even so. The bombarding, which had not ceased during all the day, was continued during the night, though with a little less vigor; and from time to time projectiles fell, augmenting the already large number of victims within the city.
“I must go there this night,” he said. “Did not Mariquilla see me among all those who crowded in front of the door of her house? Will she not think me one of those who abused her father?”
“I don’t believe so. That young woman would know how to distinguish between individuals. She has already made inquiries, and now is no time for stolen sweets. Do you see? From that house coming this way are some poor women in need of help. Look, one of them is not able to creep further, and falls to the ground. Is it not possible that
