The sky of Spain is high. It is above earth very high. It is above Spain very high. It is separate from Spain. . . It is a clear white sky. Sunlight is white in it. And the clouds are white. . . It is a still sky. The clouds stand still in a great height and fixed as in a crystal. . . The hight of the sun becomes the light of the sky, becomes the light of the clouds, far from the dark red earth of Spain. Spain is her earth and her sky. . . I am within the pasture plains of Extremadura. Behind me lies Badajoz. . .
I have walked at dawn upon an ancient bridge of granite across the summer-shrunken river. The water curls and swerves through gold sand. In little steel-blue pools it lies deep; then it runs off in thinning saffron ribbons. Soldiers sit on black horses who drink the water silkening at their knees. The bridge swings in yellow arches. There is a bastioned gate cut with the conquering arms of Leon and Castile.
In the east, a low sun. Its horizontal hand touches my face. It is hot, striking across cool dawn. Badajoz ss houses gray and gold over shut streets around a Gothic church. The sun is outside the cool city. On the Cathedral porch sit two old women. Their day has begun: it is to sit with open claw and to close on coin and to bless the giver of coin.
In my pocket is naught but the moldy paper of Portugal and the silver duros of Spain. I shake my head at the two aged women. “No tengo suelto. Lo siento.” I smile. She to my left smiles back. The other frowns and mutters. They are one, save for the difference between a frown and a smile.
Hairy goats clatter, swinging creamy udders. Burros pass with men and women, stolid, on their haunches.
7
