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62 DAYS IN THE SUN
But down in the streets the city is still white. From
the depths of the narrow alleys, one’s glance ascends
over blindingly white sun-lit wall spaces, framing frag-
ments of blue sky. The white penetrates the interior
of the houses, where ceilings and walls are white-
washed and where insistence on whiteness goes to such
excess that the women in their daily house-cleaning de-
vote most of their time to mixing kalsomine and ap-
plying it with a brush.
Along the road between Seville and Cordoba, the
villages stand like great lumps of clay, crude efforts to
relieve the crusty level of the soil. We stop in front
of such an uncanny cake of loam, the only life in the
picture the vivid red and blue dresses of the women.
I have committed the grave error of praising the lin-
ing in a merchant’s cloak, which forces the poor man
to urge me to accept the cloak, which he had abso-
lutely no idea of giving to me.
‘You like it,” he says, as he takes it off quickly;
“very well, it is yours.” He folds up the coat neatly
and hands it to me.
“No, thank you,” I stammer in great embarrass-
ment, “I didn’t intend it so—”’
“But don’t you like it—how? Do take it; it is not
of the slightest value, not the slightest! It is a poor
coat, a miserable coat; I am very sorry I cannot offer
you a finer one—”
And as I refuse to accept it, he simply walks over
to my baggage and deposits the coat upon it in a man-
ner and with an expression which indicate that he will
tolerate no further resistance.
I am fulfilled in one of my dearest wishes, for the
possession of a Spanish cloak, and a beautiful and
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