Mouths agape, eyes agog, minds awol, a group of fifty or sixty people walk backwards at the same slow speed as the approaching virgin which is keeping pace to the steady beat of a drum. The other band members are waiting to launch into strident, high pitched almost military music. But it is this comparatively small group of people that fascinates me. They gaze up at the face of the virgin. But is it with veneration or adoration? The difference is important because the first signifies a religious experience, the second is idolatry or paganism. And what of the card carrying communists who form part of that group of fifty? Certainly not religious and they would be most offended to be accused of being pagans, so what sort of experience is it for them? Something folkloric? Really I don't know, but they like the other people of Sevilla are there year after year and in increasing numbers. On the night of Easter Thursday there are more than a million people on the streets of the city centre watching the processions.

Semana Santa is obviously different things to different people and everybody accepts that and is prepared to allow others to make of it what they will. From it being a deeply religious experience for some to being yet another excuse for a street party for others. But leaving this issue aside, Semana Santa can be both censorially exhilarating and crushingly boring. Seen one virgin, seen em all , is a comment that more than one anglo-saxon pagan friend of mine has made as we head off to fight our way to a bar, only to be confronted by the ubiquitous virgin hovering over the barman s head.

The intoxicating smell of orange blossom mixed with incense fills the streets, the steady beat of a single drum, the first high note of a trumpet to signal to the rest of the band to get ready are all constants. As is the quiet, uniform shuffling of eighty feet, traditionally wearing alpargatas , now regrettably changing to Nikes and Reeboks, so the sound is different. Constant also is the crash of the knocker to signal the bearers to hoist the paso , as one, across the backs of their necks and shoulders. Constant is the sight of hooded nazarenos and penitentes , walking singly or in pairs through the narrow streets in the dawn shadows, on their way from or even to a procession.

Other things are not constant and when you come across them, your hair stands on end. An unaccompanied voice, from a balcony, singing a saeta to the virgin, the packed crowd in absolute silence. Normally a procession has two bands, one accompanying the virgin, the other the Christ, but there is one procession that has no bands and it wends its way through Seville for hours in hushed silence. As it approaches the crowd falls dead quiet, all chatter stops, children stop shouting, even babies stop wailing as the black hooded figures glide slowly past lit by the inconstant flicker of candles. And should the agonized Christ stop in front of you even the most cynical and insensitive experiences a shudder up and down the spine.

Some people will wait for hours in one spot for a particular procession to come. Other people rent chairs in the same place year after year to watch the processions. They will take a week of their annual holidays to watch thousands of penitentes and nazarenos file past. It s like going to the beach every summer, claiming your bit of sand and watching topless girls file past at the water s edge. But with the addition of the star turns of the virgins and the Christs. Personally, I can't stand the waiting, the endless filing past. That is what is desperately boring. I like the unexpected, the turning of a corner and there in front of you all your senses are assailed for a magical moment at 4 o clock on a hot sunny afternoon or at 4 o clock on a cool and dark morning.

The biggest procession is the Macarena, it is made up of 2,200 people or more, complete with Roman soldiers, and it takes 90 minutes to pass a given spot. The paso of the virgin weighs more than 2,000 kilos and it is carried on the shoulders of 36 men. That is 55 kilos per man. This procession is on the streets for 14 hours. When any procession finishes and the bearers emerge from underneath, the backs of their necks are red raw and bleeding. This year two suffered heart attacks, one aged 36 died. And they fight for the privilege.

Many people are extremely knowledgeable about the whole business and look for the minutest change from the year before. From what the bejewelled and beflowered (smile away Freud, you didn't catch me out) virgin is wearing, to a movement of a paso around a corner, or its stopping at a convent door to be sung to by a chorus of cloistered nuns. They look for artistry in movement, it s ballet, but the prop weighs 2000 kilos.

Other people are very knowledgeable about the artistic background and worth of the sculptured figures. Some figures are centuries old and were sculpted by famous artists of the day. The first paso dates from the 13th century and so like many things of Seville there is a lot of history involved. All in all Semana Santa is a part of Sevilla, without it, Sevilla would be a different place and it is perhaps this feature which impels the young to carry on the tradition with even more fervour than in years past.

But for me I can't wait from them to bring back a bit of flagellation and when it won't be frowned upon if I sprinkle just a little broken glass in the path of a barefoot penitente as he struggles with three or four crosses. But then I'm not a very nice person. However for me, others like me and the penitentes, the Feria started last night at midnight. So now there is a week of drinking, eating, dancing and general debauchery. Maybe something to be penitant about for next year's Semana Santa; one can always hope. In any case it will take me that long to recover and mercifully by that time most sins will have been forgotten.

Patrick
April 1999