of Portugal. We had visions of them flitting by like figures in a
panorama, on their way to the bull-fight, driving to the gala
performance at the opera, reviewing the troops. The review began with an
open-air mass, the salute of the flag by the new recruits, and the
defile before the two kings, Don Alfonzo and Don Carlos. The artillery
was much applauded, especially the mountain battery, a troop of mules
with cannon on their backs. The cavalry, a fine body of men and horses,
galloped by the grand stand at breakneck speed. One company, all mounted
on white horses, preceded by two lines of buglers, came flashing past
with a splendid dash and brilliancy that pleased Don Carlos, for he
clapped his great hands and cried “Bravo.” After the review the two
kings rode down the Paseo de la Castellana side by side. Don Carlos, an
immense man with a strong likeness to his uncle, Victor Emanuel, was in
uniform; he wore the broad blue ribbon of Charles III, and a row of
other decorations on his coat. He rode a gigantic sorrel horse. He
seemed very popular, for there was a deal of hand clapping and hurrahing
as he passed. The young King rode beside him, looking gallant and
boyish; he had a happy genial smile for everybody. Queen Amelia, a
beautiful woman, built on a generous plan to match Don Carlos, followed
in a _daumont_ with four horses and two postilions. How often I have
remembered the answer of a Spanish diplomat to my question that day:
“Is Don Carlos as popular at home as he is in Madrid?”
“I fear not. He spends too much money. If the things were done here that
go on in Portugal, Spain would be in revolution from one end to the
other.”
Don Luis had more time for Patsy and me in those days than any of our
friends. He was always ready to take us to see sights or studios. One
day we surprised him in his own studio, an eyry at the top of a tall
building. A card pinned to the door by a thumb tack told us where to
knock. A little old lady with a white cap tied under her chin opened the
door. She had a kind face, wrinkled like the skin of a late russet
apple, and eyes like Luis’. She led us along a narrow passage--so low
Patsy was forced to stoop--to a little door where she tapped.
“Is it thou, Mama?” called Luis from inside. “Come in, if thou art
alone.” When he heard Patsy’s voice he ran to let us in. The studio, an
attic with a slanting roof, was filled with piles of canvases stacked
against the wall.
“Ay! _Virgincita!_ don’t sit down on the palette,” cried the old lady,
“nor on that sofa; this chair is quite safe!”
On an easel stood the picture Luis had been working on, a palace
interior. There were flowers, jewels, light, warmth, and atmosphere in
the pictured room, above all there was luxury; that was the thing most
insisted upon.
“This is the papa, and this is the mama.” Don Luis’ mama in her cotton
cap hung over the picture as she described it. “How it is painted, this
lace! And the jewels, they shine as if they were real; is it not true?”
When we had admired all the pictures Don Luis would show us, they were
not many, he was afraid of boring us, Patsy reminded him of his promise
to take us to the Rastro.
“Go thou with them now,” said mama. “He has not been out to-day; he
needs the air.” She pushed him from the studio.
“If thou wilt promise not to dust”----
“_Ojala!_ what a son I have! I promise, if thou wilt go, nothing shall
be touched. I swear thou shalt find the studio as thou dost leave it.”
The Rastro is a vast rag fair, a city within a city, where the poor of
Madrid who cannot afford to buy at first hand may buy whatever they need
at second hand.
“We will go first to Las Grandes Americas,” said Don Luis, leading the
way into an enormous enclosure surrounded by high brick walls. “This is
the quarter of the building materials. Here you can buy doors and
windows, girders, ceiling beams, stairs, everything necessary to build a
house. Across the way are fittings, fireplaces, stoves, gas fixtures,
plumbing. Here you can furnish your house, your studio, even your
church!”
If we had been bent on picking up antiquities, we might have found some
nice things in the quarter where the refuse of the churches is
gathered. There was a Madonna dressed in a fine silk robe, standing in a
little shrine, a cherub’s head in carved wood, a gilded ciborium, a
carved bas-relief of Santa Justa and Santa Rufina, the patrons of
Seville.
It was a sharp, clear day, we stopped to warm our hands at a fire of
fagots kindled on the bare ground in the middle of an old book stall. A
pale, near-sighted priest, on the other side of the fire, stood first on
one leg then on the other, drawing up one foot at a time under his gown
for warmth. He had his long nose between the leaves of a parchment book,
and looked absurdly like a learned crane as he shifted from foot to
foot.
The firelight brought out now one name, now another, as the flames
flickered and the light played along the backs of the old books. On a
sudden the immortal name Don Quixote leapt from the shadow in letters of
gold. You can always pick up the best books cheap because, like bread,
they are among the necessaries of life.
“Bayard Taylor’s Voyage to Japan! I never knew he went to Japan. It
looks so lonely among all these Spanish books, I must rescue it!” said
Patsy. Don Luis bought him the volume for three _perros chicos_.
“Here’s your Spanish and English dictionary,” said Patsy, who has the
scent of a ferret for old books. “How much for the dictionary?” The
dealer, a lean, dyspeptic man in black, who looked like his kind the
world over,--the old bookman is a type apart,--sold us the dictionary, a
large, clean and most precious book, for four pesetas. A shabby
photograph album stood on the shelf next the dictionary. As Patsy opened
it, a photograph fell from the torn leaves. Don Luis picked it up.
“_Pobrecita!_” he showed the faded photograph of a young girl in the
dress of thirty years ago. He turned it over and read what was written
on the back.
“_Mi Corazon!_”
“What a lovely face!” said Patsy.
“Too lovely to be sold for old paper!” Don Luis crushed the photograph
in his hand, threw it on the fire, and watched it burn till nothing was
left but blackened cardboard.
In an old print shop, among heaps of dusty engravings, stood a picture
of a Roman model in a _ciociara_ shirt. The canvas had a hole knocked in
it and lacked a frame.
“Manuel’s Rosina!” sighed Don Luis! “Painted the second year we were at
the Spanish Academy in Rome. He died last summer and all his things were
sold for his widow!”
“Come away,” I cried, “it has grown cold!”
On our way from the Rastro to the Tower of Babel we passed through the
Pasajé del Alhambra. Villegas and J. were just leaving the studio, so we
all walked home together. It was the hour at which the old General and
his wife (the couple who always watched for Villegas as he passed their
house on his way to and from his work) usually started for their
afternoon drive. The proud porter stood at the gate in his best uniform,
with all the General’s coats-of-arms and his wife’s woven into the
yellow galloon trimmings. A carriage with two men in livery drove up to
the door. A young woman came out of the house, followed by three flossy
white poodles, their topknots tied up with strawberry and buff,--the
General’s colors.
“We call her the dog governess,” J. explained.
“You are to take the dogs out, Tomaso,” she said; “nobody will drive
to-day. _They_ are both ill; I am going for a walk.”
Tomaso, the coachman looked exactly like the eldest poodle; he glanced
scornfully over his shoulder at the dogs sitting up grandly, with their
dear little paws in air. Their manners showed a martinet’s training. The
governess held up a warning finger.
“Sit up, Prim,” she said. Prim gave a reassuring bark, and the General’s
carriage drove solemnly through the big bronze gates, on the way to the
Park of the Buen Retiro.
“How horrible to have to drive every day!” said Patsy, “as if it was not
enough to have to eat and sleep away so much time. If anything is to be
exercised, rather my body than my horses!”
“_Se sabé!_” Villegas agreed.
“The General was well till he was put on the retired list,” said Don
Luis. “People say he is only ill because he is idle.”
“Moral, don’t let yourself be put on the retired list,” said Patsy.
“What a great, big, beautiful profession is art!” cried Villegas; “a man
is not retired till he goes blind or loses his wits! Titian was at work
on a picture when he died, at ninety-nine. If the pest had not carried
him off, he would have been alive now, is it thus?”
“_Claro!_” Don Luis agreed. “The artist’s is the only calling for a man
of sense and imagination, except, of course,” with a bow to Patsy, “the
writer’s.”
“For us,” said Patsy, “the race-course is never closed. Heat after heat
may be lost, the Great Futurity Stakes always remain open! Don Luis
knows his picture may end up with a hole knocked through it in the
Rastro, but he hopes, in his heart believes, that it will one day hang
in the Prado. And, who knows? a generation or two from now, some
traveller may pick up my book in Las Grandes Americas for three _perros
chicos_!”
XII
CARNIVAL
“To-day is the _fiesta_ of San Antonio the Abbot,” said Pedra, when she
came in to light the fire. “The Señora should go to see the blessing of
the animals at his church.”
Fasts, feasts, everything connected with the Church has far greater
importance in Madrid than in Rome. One gets some idea here of what the
power of the church was in Italy before 1870. Pedra, who was very
devout, never let me forget a saint’s day. It was like living in ancient
Rome, this strict observance of the days of _fest_ and _ne fest_.
“Then this must be your mother’s _fiesta_, her name is Antonina,” I
said.
“No, Señora. There are two San Antonios and two religions; the patron of
my mother is San Antonio of Padua,--see, here is his picture; his
_fiesta_ comes in June.” A photograph of Murillo’s Vision of Saint
Anthony hung on the wall.
“How can you tell the difference between the two?”
[Illustration: DETAIL FROM “MOSES.” _Murillo_]
“But it is so easy! San Antonio the Abbot is an old man with a beard; he
is always represented with a pig; he carries a bell. It is said that
whenever he rings his bell all the animals kneel down. San Antonio of
Padua is young, and has no beard. It is he who grants so many favors. To
him I burned the candle when the Señora lost her brooch; she found it
the day after, she remembers.”
Don Jaime, old pagan, took me to see the blessing of the animals. He
brought me a little image of the saint with a pig following at his
heels, as a dog follows.
The Abbot was very wise, Jaime explained; he knew, good man, that in
case of hunger, pig is better eating than dog. In Madrid people are
rather indifferent to him. All the Antonios the Don knew claim San
Antonio of Padua for patron because he is more aristocratic. Only the
peasants will have the Abbot for their patron, because he takes care of
their animals.
As we drew near the church, we met a great number of horses, mules and
donkeys on their way to be blessed. A white horse with the _paso
castellano_, a beautiful silky mane braided with bright ribbons and a
pretty silk head-stall, was so exactly like the horse the young dealer
from Ronda showed at the Seville fair that I half believed it to be the
same animal. The man who led him wore Andalusian dress, and a carnation
behind the ear. Man and horse picked their way through the crowd of
loafers, women, children and sweetmeat-sellers, to the church. A priest
soon came out followed by an acolyte all in scarlet like an embryo
cardinal, and from the church steps the priest sprinkled the horse with
holy water, the acolyte swung his silver censer, the incense rose in a
blue cloud. From a side window a sacristan passed the young man a bag of
fodder that had been blessed, and with the payment of a little money,
the ceremony was over.
The church was full of kneeling people; the altars were ablaze with
candles. I wished to go in to see the Goya, a picture of the Last
Communion of Saint Jerome.
Don Jaime said I had better see it another time; to-day there were too
many people. There was some small-pox about--not enough to be nervous
over--but to avoid contagion it was well to keep out of the churches. If
there is a desperately sick child in the house, of course one goes
continually from the bedside of the child to the church and prays for
its recovery. The old grandmother, or the little children who can do
nothing to help, can at least spend the morning in the church, out of
harm’s way, praying for it!
At dinner Antonina, a fairy of five who lived next door, brought in a
plate of _rosquitas de San Antonio_, delicious little crisp cakes baked
only this day in all the year. Jaime, who had come in while we were
still at table, ate one of the cakes as a reward for having been to
church.
“In England,” the Don remembered, “they eat hot cross buns on Good
Friday and pancakes on Shrove Tuesday; they have forgotten the
_rosquitas_ of Saint Anthony and the _tortas_ of San José.”
On the nineteenth of March, the _fiesta_ of San José and of all his
namesakes, I asked Pedra if we should have one of the tarts of St.
Joseph for dinner.
“In all Madrid there is no house so poor that the _torta_ of San José
will not be eaten to-day. He is the patron of the church, and as such we
all must venerate him.” It was a busy day for Don José Villegas; a flood
of visitors, cards, letters, telegrams and presents poured through the
Tower of Babel from daylight till midnight. He sat in his study busy
writing notes of congratulation and sending despatches to all the other
Josés of his acquaintance. I looked over the cards; there were the names
of statesmen, artists, poets, singers, musicians and bull-fighters, all
linked together into a sort of fraternity, because they bore in common
the name of good Saint Joseph.
In almost every circumstance of life or death, the Church plays a
leading part. The wife of a friend of Don Jaime died while we were in
Madrid, and the Don arranged that I should see the funeral procession
and one of the many services. The cortége was headed by four men dressed
in white broadcloth short clothes and Louis-Seize coats, white wigs,
silk stockings and three cornered hats; each carried a long white staff.
The hearse was a gorgeous white affair, drawn by four white horses with
sweeping ostrich plumes. It was preceded and followed by a large company
of priests, monks and choristers carrying wax candles and chanting a
miserere. The mourners followed on foot. More than a week after the
lady’s death I went with Jaime and his sister Candalaria to the house of
mourning. In the private chapel we listened to a long service lasting
over an hour. The chaplain of the family officiated, reciting the
rosary, the litany and many prayers. This was the last and ninth day of
these services. When it was over, I went home, Don Jaime and Candalaria
remaining behind to speak with the mourners. Afterwards they told me
something of the visit. Candalaria found the ladies of the family in one
room surrounded by a crowd of women friends dressed in mourning.
“They all talked at once,” said Candalaria, “saying the same thing over
and over again. ‘Poor soul! So young to die! So good, so devout! What
will her husband do without her?’”
The Don had found the widower in another room with his men friends about
him. He told the Don that his greatest grief was that his wife had died
suddenly, without having time to make a confession or receive the
sacraments. The Don wondered what possible sin she could have had on her
soul. Everybody said, and he believed, that the dead woman was very
nearly a saint.
Candalaria--her name means Candlemas--is a Majorcan. When I asked Don
Jaime to tell me something about the island of Majorca where she lives,
he said: “In Majorca all properties is oranges. It has a fine weather as
well.” I said it must be a pleasant place to live.
“Candalaria she finds it so. She is bery clever, she plays piano and
biolin.” Jaime always assumed b and v to be interchangeable in English
as they so often are in Spanish. “Her husband is topographic engineer.
Candalaria helps him to draw the geographic carts.”
Don Jaime’s sister is married to an officer of engineers; she draws so
nicely that she often helps her husband in making his army maps. She is
a small, energetic woman with consuming eyes, fiery, energetic,
practical, everything Don Jaime is not. She had come to Madrid to see
her brother and the carnival. Jaime introduced us to her, and during her
stay, we were often together.
“In your country, Señora,” Candalaria said when we first met, “you have
the largest of everything of the world. Is it rivers? The Mississippi.
Is it a cataract? Niagara. Is it mountains? The Andes. Your fortunes are
also the largest. Where we count in millions of _reals_, you count in
millions of _duros_.”
It was Candalaria who presented me to Doña Emilia Pardo de Bazan, one of
the leading Spanish novelists, a gray-haired woman with a powerful face.
Doña Pardo Bazan spoke with me about the position of women in Spain.
“I look for nothing from the women of my country,” she said; “whatever
is done to improve their position must be done by men. Our laws are
good. Women have a right to enter some of the universities and some of
the professions, but they take no advantages of these privileges. It is
the fear of ridicule that keeps them back.”
I told her that we used to hear a great deal about the fear of ridicule
in the old days at home, and that it had been proved a bugbear. She went
on to say that she had been asked to help form a woman’s club and had
refused; she knew it would be of no use, because it would be laughed at.
At the reception where I met Doña Pardo Bazan I was introduced to a
pretty Marquesa Fulano and her prettier daughter. “Tell me,” I said to
the Marquesa, “the title of Doña Pardo Bazan’s most important book.”
“I do not know it,” was the answer; “she writes for gentlemen, not for
ladies. I will enquire, if, among the many books she has written, there
is one that you could read.”
Though I never saw the Marquesa again, I read _La Tribuna_, one of the
writer’s strongest novels, and I know the Marquesa and I should not
agree about what books a woman may with advantage read. I know, too,
that everything is to be looked for from the women of Spain, for whom
Doña Pardo Bazan--I have heard her called the foremost literary woman in
Europe--has done so much.
I asked Jaime how many children Candalaria had.
“Eleven,” he said; “that gives me eleven to remember in my will. To whom
God sends no children, the devil sends nephews and nieces.”
The carnival Candalaria had timed her visit for, was well worth seeing.
It was a famous year in Spain for pageants of all sorts. The King’s
engagement and approaching marriage put everybody in a good-natured,
money-spending mood. Great enthusiasm was expressed for what was always
spoken of as “the English alliance.” Whenever the King gave his
ministers the slip, and ran off in his automobile to see the Princess
Ena at San Sebastián, everybody was delighted.
Carnival began the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. The chief feature was a
parade of cars, or floats, competing for prizes offered by the
municipality. The parade took place in the splendid avenue that, under
various names, runs through the new quarter of Madrid from north to
south.
Lucia, Patsy and I started from the Tower of Babel soon after three
o’clock. We had not driven far, when we caught sight of Villegas in the
crowd at the corner.
“I knew he was dying to come with us all the time,” murmured Patsy; “in
spite of what he said.”
“Angoscia disappointed me; they are all mad;” sighed Villegas, as he
climbed into the carriage.
“That is well,” said Lucia. “Thou hadst need of a holiday; thou hast not
taken a day of repose this year.”
“Though the premium is offered for the best car, the best car will not
get the premium, thou wilt see.” Jaime called to Villegas from his cab,
following at a foot-pace, along the Castellana.
“_Se sabé!_” Villegas agreed. The “best car” came creaking towards us, a
vast float drawn by four gray oxen with gilded horns and
gold-embroidered head-dresses. Two Catalan peasants
[Illustration: DETAIL FROM “MOSES.” _Murillo_]
walked beside, driving the oxen: they wore wide sombreros, and bright
_mantas_ folded over the shoulder. The car was an excellent
representation of the House of Congress, with its Greek façade, white
columns, timpanum, and bronze lions on either side the door. Behind the
columns was a brazen pot filled with men dressed as locusts. The car was
greeted with roars of laughter and applause.
“Thou seest?” said Jaime to Villegas. “The government devours the
country like locusts! It is true! We have the best people in the world,
and the worst government!”
“_Bravo!_ _El Congreso!_” yelled the people in the carriages. “_Muy
bien!_” The crowd that lined the sidewalks answered with cries of
“_Magnifico!_ _Bravo!_ _El carro satirico!_”
Jaime was right, the prize was not awarded to the Congreso, but to the
parrots. A mammoth cage in the middle of a float with a big sham parrot
hanging on a ring and all around the cage a group of _señoritas_ and
_caballeros_ dressed to look like parrots with green velvet coats, gray
satin vests, red velvet caps and big beaks.
“It almost deserves the prize, only the Congreso should have had it!”
said Patsy.
As the Government appoints the judges, that was hardly to be expected.
The second prize was awarded to a wagon-load of toy soldiers in French
uniform. They stood stiff as wooden dolls, till you looked close and
saw, under the soldiers’ caps, the faces of pretty girls and laughing
lads.
“Seville, the Feria, Concepcion!” cried Patsy; “this is magic!”
It was little short of it. On the float coming towards us was the patio
of an Andalusian house with Moorish columns and _azulejos_, from which a
_maya_ and a _mayo_ looked out on the crowd. The _maya_ wore a black
chenille overdress with a yellow satin skirt and a rose in her hair like
Concepcion.
Down the middle of the Paseo de la Castellana, the most fashionable part
of the route, a line of gaily decorated tribunes had been built; these
were filled with well-dressed people.
“That is the tribune of La Pena, the fashionable club in the Alcalá,”
Patsy said. “The next is the Press Club. This is the Artists’ Club, and
this last is the tribune of the French Colony.”
The crowd of men, women and children in the stands were armed with
flowers, huge sacks of confetti, and rolls of colored paper ribbons,
which unwind when they are thrown, like rockets or lassos. In a white
carriage drawn by four silver-gray mules with postilions and outriders,
sat two beauties dressed in silver. Passing in the other direction was a
car with a representation of Carthage. The Carthaginians were
splendidly dressed. As car and carriage met, a pair of dark Carthaginian
men lifted a bag of violet confetti and poured it down on the white
carriage, so that we saw the beauties through a purple haze. The effect
of the changing colors was dazzling. Violet, declared at Paris _the_
color of the season, predominated over all others.
“This,” said Patsy, “is like walking through a gallery of living
impressionist pictures.”
“_Maestro!_ _Ay Maestro!_” we were passing the tribune of the Artists’
Club, when, bifferty! a long yellow streamer coiled about Villegas’ neck
and flew out behind. Soon the landeau was hung in a maze of paper
ribbons, every color of the rainbow, tangling in the wheels, wound round
the hubs, filling the carriage, half strangling us. A fine victoria with
a harlequin and a mask in pink satin, stopped close to us. A servant was
sent to our carriage and presented Lucia with a pretty porcelaine
_bonbonnière_ of caramels. It was growing late and people began to be
hungry. The flowers were exhausted; chocolates and candies hailed into
the carriage. In the cab behind, Candelaria unpacked a box of
sandwiches, a bottle and two glasses.
“_Un poco de ginevra de campana?_” said Don Jaime, offering a glass to
Patsy.
“Luz, Luz, Luz!” The cry came from a box of caramels filled with young
_caballeros_ done up like bonbons in pink paper. Luz, lovely as
daybreak, smiled as her carriage passed the caramels; we saw her through
a storm of rosy confetti. We drove down for a last turn to the end of
the Castellana.
The sunset was pink, gold and violet, to match the prevailing tone of
the carnival. Against the sky the Guaderramas stood out boldly with the
eternal white confetti on their summits. Our carriage halted by the
statue of Isabel the Catholic, sitting on her horse between her good and
her evil genius, Columbus standing at her bridle and just behind her the
cowled, sinister figure of Torquemada.
“Don Alfonzo!” The young King in his automobile flew by, a dent in his
bowler hat, his coat covered with confetti. He threw a bunch of roses to
a _señorita_ dressed like a strawberry, sitting in a basket of fruit,
the other strawberries all answered with double handful of pinkish
confetti, and cries of “_muy bien!_” He was supposed to be incognito and
was throwing flowers and confetti just like any other jolly boy of
nineteen. Of course everybody recognized him, but the fiction of the
incognito was strictly respected, which seemed very sensible. It must be
supposed that he needs a little fun for his soul’s sake, like the rest
of us. He got his full share that afternoon.
Last of all we drove through the Alcalá, Madrid’s main artery, to the
Puerta del Sol, the city’s mighty heart. The rest of Madrid sometimes
sleeps a little; here the life blood pulses ceaselessly to and fro.