‘MY AMPLEFORTH YEARS 1: Spanish Impressions’

Friday 3rd of August … My journey from Palencia to León was not so fortunate. The train was crowded, and I had to stand all the way, trying grimly not to look too tired; we arrived at León station at five in the morning. It was bitterly cold, with the stars glittering sharply in the morning light, the crescent moon eerily clinging to a rapidly changing sky.

I asked a station mozo to take me immediately to the nearest pensión, provided it was not too costly. These mozos are to be found at all times of the day or at night; when at their best they wait in an orderly row at the back of the station, hoping to be selected by a tired traveller like myself; often they swarm annoyingly all over the station, round the baggage, round the trains.

Five minutes later I was waiting in the hall of a pensión; I dismissed the mozo with an over-generous wage of ten pesetas, and waited for my bed to be made. An oldish, harassed lady in dressing-gown wandered slowly and sleepily in circles round the sheets; the bed was eventually made, but only after a manner. I was tired, and soon fell asleep in a bed too large for three and too hard for one.

Saturday 4th of August

I slept until eleven in the morning, when I paid my bill, had a cup of chicory-tasting coffee, packed and left. I made for the station in order to find out in advance the times of trains leaving that night for Zamora, the next town on my list.

I had an irritating encounter with a boy of about nineteen, who semed at first sight to be a limpiabotas. I was crossing the large white bridge that leads to the station when he stopped me, took me very firmly by the arm, and led me back to the city end of the bridge. He took me to the side of the road. I here thought it advisable, or at least helpful, to tell him that my sandals did not need cleaning, and in any case that I did not want them cleaning; he paid no attention. He seized my left leg, tapped the sole of my sandal, grinned, and began taking some tools out of a small box he was carrying. I took the hint and also made it clear that they did not even require mending; this he denied with a vigorous shake of his head. He began to nail on a rubber sole, telling me all the time that I would soon have needed it, as my leather sole was beginning to detach itself from my sandals. I repeated every few moments that all this was unnecessary, but with little success; I told him he was wasting my time; he denied it. After a while he began on my right shoe, and by then I had come to the conclusion that any job done thus in five minutes, and only involving a few pieces of rubber, might prove useful, and could not possibly cost more than six or seven pesetas. I learnt meanwhile that his mother had been French, which explained his blond hair. He finished with the right sandal; I took ten pesetas from my purse; he asked for twenty-five. I told him he had made a mistake, but he showed me a labour-card with wages marked: this time I should have paid more attention to what was written there, but it was all too technical, and I preferred to believe him; it didn’t worry me in the least how much he wanted. I gave him my ultimatum: I said that he might have the 15 pesetas in my purse, and nothing else, or else he was at liberty to take the rubbers off, seeing that they had never been put there with my consent. He argued for a few moments, but was incapable of changing fifteen pesetas into twenty-five; the rest of my money was tucked away in my wallet, which I had not revealed. In the end he began to take off the sole, gave up, took the fifteen pesetas, cursed me roundly, and made off. Had there been one of my friends at hand – these friends of mine are the police, whom I know inside out – then I would have applied to him for justice; when wanted, the police are out of sight. I was irritated at this encounter with the bootmender, which revealed all the worst side of Spanish generosity; he had insisted that I needed his aid against all admonitions to the contrary, and had then charged me five times as much as any normal person would have asked. I made all the necessary enquiries at the station; later I discovered that all they had told me there was wrong. I made for the Cathedral …

Some Spanish Impressions: Leon, Simanca and the Escorial             Spanish Impressions: the diary