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SEVILLE 4I
concentration, almost of all consciousness. We find
ourselves, without knowing how it came about, sud-
denly staring down a tunnel five hundred feet long, in
which four rows of women are seated side by side,
close together over their tobacco troughs.
As they look up, their faces shine white in the brown
mist of tobacco, and the noise ceases as with a single
stroke. They stare at the stranger with wide-open
eyes and mouths, while their fingers roll the cigarettes
with a speed that affects our eyes like the flicker of a
moving picture. Now two heads incline to meet and
a whisper shoots along the rows. One can follow it
like an undulating wave, until it encounters the saint’s
image at the end of the tunnel, where it rebounds and
again passes down the rows—suddenly to be thrown
into our faces in the form of a saucy question uttered
in a burst of laughter. Once more the bustle bubbles
over, the composite racket of hundreds of laughing,
chatting, scolding groups, surging up in shrill falsettos
while the robust female guardians pass through the
rows to maintain order.
It is here that the merry mood of Seville gives forth
its gayest blossoms; they sprout from the envenomed
soil in dazzling bloom. Under this single low barrel-
vault, fifteen hundred women are working. Many
thousands of pounds of tobacco cover tables and
troughs, but there is not a single opening to admit
fresh air. The tobacco dust blinds our eyes and the
exhalations of tobacco and of human beings will not
permit us to breathe. Although I am a hardened
smoker, I had such a pounding headache after a few
moments spent in this place that I thought my eyes
would pop out of my head. My mental powers
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