MADRID
We took seats in the omnibus belonging to the Hôtel de Paris, drawn by
three richly harnessed grey mules with half-shaven tails like poodles.
After lunch we went out for a stroll round the town, which does not
differ greatly from other European cities. There is a continual
thoroughfare in the streets of Madrid. We made our way with difficulty
through a crowd of lookers-on surrounding a mountebank who was selling
an elixir against toothache of his own concoction. He was standing on a
chariot, dressed up in a swallow-tail and silk hat, and uttered in a loud
voice the panegyric of his remedy. When passing the Royal Palace we saw
a squadron of Blue Hussars, a company of infantry and two cannon drawn
by mules, who came to relieve the guard. This ceremony takes place every
day, and always gathers a great crowd, kept back by a line of soldiers.
Before returning to the hotel we went through the Museum where we
admired the marvels of art painted by Murillo, Velasquez, Michael Angelo
and other celebrities. Murillo’s “Madonna Anunziata” and Tintoretto’s
“Paradise,” an immense picture in which appears, between the chorus of
angels, the lovely face of the painter’s wife, attracted particularly our
attention. A party of negroes, very up-to-date, were walking about the
Museum and seemed very interested with all they saw.
After dinner we went to see the “Arenas” where barbarous bull-fights,
the favourite spectacle of the Spaniards, take place. The bull-ring is a
large round building which can hold up to 16,000 spectators. We entered
a chapel where Toreadors, Matadors as they are called here, say prayers
before starting for the bull-fight. In the next room we saw six beds
prepared for the wounded Matadors. We were also shown the stalls where
stood thirty horses doomed for the next courses. The poor animals didn’t
get any food or drink, “It wasn’t worth while,” said one of the grooms,
as they would all be embowelled on the following day! The bulls travel by
train to Madrid in a box put on wheels hardly big enough to hold them.
On arriving at Madrid mules are harnessed to these boxes, and the bulls
are brought behind the bull-ring where they are being kept in some dark
place, and just before the beginning of the “Corrida” they are pushed
into the arena, with long sharp iron rods, through a door which is opened
from the top galleries by a cord on a pulley.
We drove back to the hotel through two beautiful parks, “Del Retiro”
and “Reservado.” After dinner we went to the Apollo to see a modern
play “La Grande Via,” about which the town was raving. The theatre was
packed to the very ceiling. I perceived in one of the boxes a very ugly
Matador who did not at all resemble Carmen’s Toreador. After the second
act I began to yawn, for the play was rather a bore, and the actors’
appearance very unattractive. Sergy proposed to go and spend the rest
of the evening in a Music Hall where painted women were sitting in a
circle, singing and shrieking in oriental fashion, accompanied on guitars
by suspicious-looking individuals. The audience consisted of rather
ferocious-looking Spaniards with hair which seemed to have never been
touched by the comb and eyes blazing under their wide black sombreros,
who had the air of demanding “Your money or your life!”
The next morning we were again present at the ceremony of the change
of watch, and saw General Pavia, the commandant of the town, enter
the Palace, directing his steps to Queen Maria Christina’s private
apartments, with his report in his hand. To-day it was the Red Hussars,
mounted on white horses, and a detachment of infantry, who relieved the
guard. When the big Palace clock struck half-past eleven, a piercing horn
gave the signal for the beginning of the ceremony which lasted about an
hour, whilst a military band played selections from “Faust” on the Square
before the Palace. Fair women are in favour on the other side of the
Pyrenees, as it appears; I was the only blonde person in the place and
most of the officers were paying attention to me, especially one of them,
a very good-looking chap who was throwing fiery glances at me all the
time, but I pretended not to notice him and he got nothing for his pains.
After luncheon, we left Madrid for Saragossa, where we arrived in the
middle of the night.