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Hemingway Adventure
Pamplona, Spain (fourth day)
The 'amateurs' today. A cow retires after a romp round the ring.
After a while the cow is brought back in and there is a brief pause before the next one emerges, which gives a chance for the bolder boys to play chicken by sitting in the ring as close to the gate as possible. Those brave enough to remain at the front can scarcely avoid being trampled by the animal as it's released.This mass larking about goes on for another half-hour, and by nine o'clock the bullring starts emptying and the streets start filling again. Outside, by the television mobile trucks, a line of Hemingway fans waits to be photographed at the bust of Ernest which stands under the trees of an avenue called Paseo Hemingway. His head and shoulders seem trapped in the bulky granite plinth as if he's half stuck in a recycling bin.
The celebrations seem to have mellowed out on this second day. The dangerous sports boys have either crashed out on distant campsites or left town, looking for the next adrenalin rush. There are more locals on the streets, more bands playing, more families, more dancing and more entertainments laid on by the infinitely patient authorities of Pamplona. The police, who once fought the crowds here, seem to have learned the lesson that a crowd is only really dangerous when it has an enemy.
At La Perla a woman with a dressing-gown, smoking and agitated, is in the lobby trying to make the receptionist understand that her hand-bag has been stolen from her room. She went down the passage to the lavatory and when she came back it was gone. A moment later it's found. In her room. There's a lot of this hyperactivity around but I've seen little crime and almost no aggression. But the pace is relentless and there is a sense in the air, if not of self-destruction, then something pretty close to it.
It certainly stimulated Hemingway's imagination and his third visit here, with his Anglo-American friends in July 1925, provided him with personal intrigues worthy of the location. By the time he left for Madrid he was putting the place and the people together in his mind, and when he reached Valencia, a fortnight later, he was ready to write the novel that immortalised Pamplona.
Seventy-four years later, I'm leaving too. From the train window the sharp-ridged mountains and the twisting green valleys of Navarre are broadening into the plains as I head south to see Madrid and Valencia for myself.
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PALIN'S GUIDES
- Series: Hemingway Adventure
- Chapter: Pamplona, Spain (fourth day)
- Country/sea: Spain
- Place: Pamplona
- Book page no: 107
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