MADRID--BULL FIGHTS, THEATRES, CAFÉS, AND COCIDO.
The journey from Burgos to Madrid takes ten hours by the express. There
is only one good train a day to anywhere in Spain. When it doesn’t start
at eight at night it starts at eight in the morning. This is a dreadful
nuisance to people who object equally to travelling all night and to
getting up at six in the morning. All trains, except the one express,
are fearfully slow. You can take twenty-two hours to do a hundred miles
on some of the lines.
The Spaniards have a couplet which runs thus:--‘El aire de Madrid es tan
sotil Que mata à un hombre y no apaga un candil.’ This, in plain
English, means that the subtle air of Madrid, which won’t extinguish a
candle, will put out a man’s life. For two or three days in Madrid I was
up in the stirrups. I think I have been ill in all the principal towns
of the United Kingdom and the Continent; but in Madrid, for the first
time for many years, I felt absolutely well. The dry, exhilarating air
suited me admirably. I did an endless round of sightseeing by day, I
went to three or four theatres at night, and I stopped in the
magnificent cafés until the waiters began to pile the chairs on the
tables and put on their hats and cloaks to go home to their families.
And when I got back to my hotel I sat up in my room and wrote till the
small hours. With all this exertion, I was able to get up early the next
morning, with a beautiful complexion and a perfect temper.
But with my first bull-fight a change came o’er the spirit of my dream.
On Sunday all Madrid crowded to the great open arena, ‘La Plaza de
Toros.’ On Monday all Madrid was coughing and sneezing, and I outcoughed
and outsneezed them all. The stone seats of the bull-ring and the boxes
open to all the winds of heaven are dear to the hearts of doctors and
undertakers. The sun beats down upon an excited multitude, and it is not
till nearly sunset that the last bull dies. Then out the great populace
pours, and takes a chill at the most dangerous hour of the day. I caught
a champion cold at the bull-fight, and it was no consolation to me that
everywhere I went during the next two or three days there was a chorus
of coughs, and that all my neighbours were as miserable as myself. At
the theatre on Monday evening the play I witnessed was absolutely
performed in dumb show. The actors strove in vain to make themselves
audible over the perpetual hacking and barking of an audience in the
agonies of asthma, the inconveniences of influenza, the convulsions of
catarrh, and the breath-battle of bronchitis.
The arrangements at Spanish theatrical performances are unique. They
must be seen to be believed. But before I come to the theatres I have to
get through the bull-fight, and before I come to the bull-fight I should
like to say a word or two about the illustrious gentlemen who get their
living by it, and who are commonly called toreros. This term includes
the espadas, the picadors, and the banderilleros, whose various parts in
the performance will presently be made clear to you.
The profession of bull-fighter is in Spain the royal road to fortune.
There are half a dozen men, not yet middle-aged, who have become
millionaires by killing bulls, and their names are idolized wherever the
Spanish language is spoken. Their society is courted by the highest
nobles in the land, and they are _au mieux_ with many a fair and
aristocratic dame. The leading matadors ('espadas’ is the technical
name) receive for a single afternoon’s show sums varying from £200 to
£500. They star in the provinces on sharing terms, and when you take
into account the fact that a good ‘house’ at a bull-fight means between
two and three thousand pounds, you can imagine what these starring
engagements are worth. After they have conquered Spain they go to South
America, and there some of them make sums which would cause even Sir
Henry Irving and Madame Sarah Bernhardt to open their eyes to their
fullest extent.
Mazzantini, who at the time of my visit was starring in Havannah, was
the idol of the hour. Long telegrams were published in the principal
Spanish papers announcing his magnificent receptions, and describing in
‘the language of the ring’ his feats with the bulls. Some time ago
Mazzantini, who as a bull-fighter makes £20,000 a year, was a porter on
the Great Northern Railway of Spain. He was strong and handsome and full
of pluck, and he said to himself, ‘I want to make money. In Spain there
are only two ways--to be a tenor or a bull-fighter. I can’t sing, but I
know I could kill a bull.’ He began as one of the gang of assistants at
small shows; he soon acquired skill, and to-day whenever he travels his
is a royal progress; his diamonds are the envy of prima donnas, he has
his town mansion and his shooting-box and his villa at the seaside, and
the reigning belles of Society send him love-letters. Frascuelo, who has
now retired, being rich beyond the dreams of avarice, was nearly being
made a marquis by King Amadeus.
To read of these riches and honours, to see the receptions given to
these princes of the ring by all grades of society, you would think that
a bull-fight was a magnificent spectacle, and the matadors were men of
splendid bravery and consummate skill.
You had better sit a Corrida de Toros out with me from beginning to end,
and then you will be able to form your own judgment. There is one thing,
however, you must do first, and that is, get rid entirely of your
English views with regard to cruelty to animals. You will see plenty of
that; but if you argue with a Spaniard about it he will tell you that
you are quite as cruel to animals, only in another way, in England. You
will reply that in your sports where the death of an animal is involved
the animal has ‘a chance.’ In bull-fighting the animals have none.
But if you are wise, you will not argue at all. You will take a
bull-fight as it is, and come away thankful that it is not the national
sport of England. There have been many attempts to revive it in the
South of France, and the French would, I fancy, take kindly to it, if it
were once made legal, and could be carried out with all the pomp and
splendour of Spain.
All Englishmen do not dislike bull-fighting. Many Englishmen who live in
Spain follow it enthusiastically; and a young Irish gentleman of fortune
at one time took to the bull-ring professionally, and attained a certain
amount of distinction.
Madrid is covered with red bills announcing a bull-fight for Sunday. The
bills are curious reading and interesting to the student of the language
of Cervantes. Here is one of them:
PLAZA DE TOROS DE MADRID
CORRIDA EXTRAORDINARIA
QUE SE VERIFICARÁ (SI EL TIEMPO NO LO IMPIDE)
EL DOMINGO 6 DE MARZO DE 1887
PRESIDIRÀ LA PLAZA LA AUTORIDAD COMPETENTE
ORDEN DE LA FUNCIÓN
=1.º= CUATRO TOROS de puntas, defectuosos, de las ganaderías y con las
divisas siguientes: DOS, con azul turquí, de la acreditada de DON MANUEL
BAÑUELOS Y SALCEDO, de Colmenar Viejo, y DOS, con blanca, de la de DON
ALEJANDRO ARROYO (antes MAZPULE), de Miraflores de la Sierra.
LIDIADORES
=Picadores.=--Francisco Parente (_El Artillero_), Francisco Coca,
Antonio Bejarano (_El Cano_) y Mariano Ledesma (_El Morenito_), sin
que en el case de inutilizarse los cuatro pueda exigirse que salgan
otros.
ESPADAS
RAFAEL GUERRA (GUERRITA), de Córdoba
JULIO APARICI (FABRILO), de Valencia
=Banderilleros.=--Miguel Almendro, Rafael Rodriguez (_Mojino_), José
Martínez (_Pito_), Rafael Sánchez (_Bebe_), Rafael Llorens y Miguel
Burguet (_Pajalarga_).
=Sobresaliente de espada.=--Miguel Almendro.
=Puntillero.=--Antonio Guerra.
=Y 2.º= CUATRO NOVILLOS EMBOLADOS para los aficionados que gusten bajar al
redondel á capearlos.
La corrida empezará á las TRES Y MEDIA en punto
Las puertas de la Plaza se abrirán dos horas antes
Se observarán con todo rigor las prevenciones vigentes para esta
clase de espectáculos.
La banda de música de Baleares tocará antes de empezar la corrida y
en los intermedios.
PRECIOS DE LAS LOCALIDADES
PESETAS.
{ Barreras 3
_Tendidos_ { Contrabarreras y delanteras 2.50
{ Asiento sin numeracion 1.50
_Gradas_ { Delanteras 3
{ Filas 1.ª, 2.ª, 3.ª, 4.ª y Tabloncillos 1.25
_Andanadas_ { Delanteras 3
{ Filas 1.ª, 2.ª, 3.ª, 4.ª y Tabloncillos 1
_Meseta del Toril_ { Delanteras 3
{ 1.ª y 2.ª filas 1.50
_Entrada para palco_ 2
Toda ocalidad que exceda de una peseta pagará diez centimos de
impuesto.
ADVERTENCIAS
Los billetes se venderán en el Despacho establecido en la calle de
Sevilla, el _Viernes_ 4 del corriente, de una á cinco de la tarde, el
_Sábado_ 5 de diez de la mañana hasta las cinco de la tarde, y el
_Domingo_ 6, día de la corrida, de neuve de la mañana á tres y media de
la tarde, y en los de la Plaza de Toros desde la una y media en
adelante.
Después de tomados los billetes no se admitirán en los Despachos sino en
el caso de que se suspenda la función antes de comenzada; no se darán
_contraseñas de salida_ y los =ninos que no sean de pecho necesitan
billete=.
No se correrán más torros ni novillos que los anunciados.
No se permitirá estar entre barreras sino á los precisos operarios, ni
bajar de los tendidos hasta que el último toro esté enganchado al tiro
de mulas.
Se prohibe bajar á torear los novillos embolados á los niños y ancianos,
á fin de evitar desgracias, así como que lleven palos, pinchos ú otros
objetos con que puedan perjudicar al ganado.
Four bulls are to be killed, each four years old. Their names are
Bailador, Cigarrero, Manquito, and Primoroso. The ‘stars’ on this
occasion are the two espadas, Guerrita and Fabrilio. The first man is a
famous matador; the second a beginner. Having made the acquaintance of a
retired bull-fighter--an affable, gray-haired old gentleman, who still
wears the chignon and pigtail, which are _de rigueur_, and by which you
can always tell a bull-fighter in the crowd--I ask him to accompany me,
and explain the points of the performance. He readily consents, and he
secures me a private box next to the box of the president--the
gentleman, generally a member of the Town Council, who is the official
master of the ceremonies, judge, referee, and several other things
rolled into one. I ought to mention that, the arena being open to the
sky, one-half of the spectators have to sit with the blazing sun in
their faces. This causes one side to be dearer than the other. There are
two prices--the sol and the sombra. Seats in the shade are 50 per cent.
the dearer. When I enter my box in the great arena, the spectacle is a
magnificent one. Sixteen thousand people are crowded into the building,
and a fourth of them are women. There are elegantly-dressed ladies in
the boxes, and in the cheaper seats are gaily-attired women and girls of
the lower class. Many of the women have brought their babies with them
to see the show. Everybody is on the tiptoe of expectation. As we enter
our box, my friend the bull-fighter has a friendly greeting from the
mob. In the next box is a duke--a grandee of Spain of the first
class--and a general renowned in war. Both of them lean over and shake
hands effusively with my friend the bull-killer. Presently the president
and his suite enter the official box. Then a trumpet sounds, and two
alguazils, dressed in black velvet suits and plumed hats, ride into the
ring on gaily-caparisoned steeds. They wheel round, face the president,
and bow. The president then bids them summon the bull-fighters. Off go
the alguazils across the ring with the message. The gates of the barrier
are flung open, and a grand procession enters, and marches across the
arena to salute the president. This is the prettiest part of the show.
The costumes of the twenty or thirty toreros are brilliant and
beautiful. Silver and gold, and yellow and crimson and blue are their
jackets and breeches; their hats, of black velvet, are most picturesque;
and their mantles, worn in a peculiar fashion, are such as the courtiers
of a king might be proud to wear on gala days. Terrific applause breaks
from the huge crowd of spectators as popular favourites advance with the
band. About six of the men are mounted on wretched, broken-down horses.
These men carry long lances, and are the picadors. You will see what
they do presently.
The procession having saluted the president, the members of it scatter
themselves about the arena, and prepare for business. Another trumpet
sounds. The alguazil, in black velvet, rides up again and salutes the
president. The president from his box flings him the key of the cells
where the bulls are imprisoned, and he catches it in his hat. He hands
the key to a torero, who opens the door of a kind of stable opposite,
called the toril, and, out of the darkness into the light, out of the
silence into the roar of thousands of voices, rushes an infuriated bull,
full of life and spirit and courage--a magnificent beast, with terrible
horns, already goaded to fierceness by sharp spikes which have been run
into him in his prison.
He enters the arena alone. Everybody except the picadors leaps the
barriers, and lets him have a run to himself. We are all on the tiptoe
of expectation to see how the bull will behave. We can judge by his
manner at first what sort of sport he will give. Now several of the
toreros, mantle in hand, take their places, and begin to bait the bull
to make him lively, and then the first act of the tragedy begins.
Unfortunately for the foreigner who _wants_ to see sport in a
bull-fight, the first act is the most disgusting and dastardly. The
picadors--the men with lances, mounted on wretched horses--have it to
themselves. The picador, sitting bolt upright on his horse, charges the
bull, and digs the spear into him just to tickle him up. The picador
then prepares to receive the return charge of the bull. He turns his
horse broadside to the bull (the poor horses have their eyes bandaged on
one side), and calmly allows the infuriated beast to plunge its sharp
horns right into the side of the steed. No attempt is made to save the
horse. It is only used by the picador as a barrier between himself and
the bull’s horns.
If the bull catches the horse fairly underneath, the sight is a hideous
one. The wretched animal staggers and falls over, the life blood pouring
from it. The audience shouts with delight. The men with the cloaks rush
and turn the bull from the prostrate heap, and then pick the picador up.
He always falls cleverly, and his legs, being encased in iron, are
rarely hurt either by the bull’s horns or the falling horse. If the
horse is only wounded, it is beaten on to its legs again with sticks,
and the wound is stuffed with tow. It is remounted, beaten, and dragged
up to the bull to be gored again. On the day of my visit, I saw a horse
with its entrails hanging out actually dragged up, cruelly beaten, and
remounted. This was considered glorious sport by the Spaniards. As they
rode that poor disembowelled beast round the arena again, the spectacle
was so hideous that I went to the corner of my box. ‘When that horse is
dead, tell me, and I’ll look again,’ I said to my friend the
bull-fighter. He laughed, but the next minute he leaned across to the
president and said something. The president smiled and raised his hat to
me, and then called down an order to one of the ring attendants. A
moment afterwards the picador dismounted, and the staggering, bleeding
horse was mercifully killed with a blow of the ‘puntilla.’ I saved one
poor beast a few moments’ agony, at any rate, that day.
I saw four bulls killed, and the bulls between them killed seven horses.
It was always a great relief to me when the bugle sounded, and the
horses still living were led out of the ring. Each bull has so many
minutes to live, and goes through three acts. The first with the
picadors, the second with the banderilleros, and the third with the
espada or matador. A bugle sounds the ‘time’ which terminates each act
of the tragedy. I was always glad when the first act was over and the
horses were done with. But my delight at seeing one or two go out alive
was considerably modified when I was informed that the poor beasts would
be kept half-starved until the following Sunday, and then brought out to
be gored again. Many of the horses I saw were only fit for the knacker,
but they had been good in their time. Some of them still retained fine
action, and had probably, in the days of their strength, drawn the
carriage of some aristocratic dame now looking down upon the ruthless
slaughter. The horses are in no way necessary for the bull-fight. It is
wanton cruelty to bring them in to be gored; but that is a part of the
show which the Spaniards love best. When a bull has killed five or six
horses, as sometimes happens, and there is a delay in bringing in
others, the people go mad, and yell at the president, ‘More horses! more
horses!’
After the picadors have ridden out, the banderilleros commence on the
bull. Their feat is a dangerous one. They have to go up to him and
stick long darts, ornamented with coloured paper, into his neck. Both
darts must be stuck to a nicety side by side. The banderillero must wait
till the bull comes full tilt at him, stick the darts in, and slip
aside. This is a feat requiring perfect aim, a quick eye, and a steady
foot. While this is going on the toreros continue to draw the bull now
this way and now that with their mantles. When, maddened by the darts
hanging into his bleeding neck, he dashes at them, they have to run for
their lives, and leap the barrier. By this time the poor beast has been
baited and worried and chased and chivied until he is fairly tired. Now
the bugle sounds for the last act, and all is intense excitement.
The espada advances to the president’s box, takes off his hat, and says
‘Señor President, here is to you, to your family, and all Spaniards.’ He
then says that he will kill the bull. All the assistants retire. The
espada takes a long Toledo sword and his red cloth, and advances to the
bull. Man and beast are alone in the great ring. Intelligence and skill
are pitted for the first time in the contest against brute force and
passion. But daring, graceful, and clever as the matadors are, the
chances are a thousand to one in their favour. The bull--poor
beast--always runs at the cloth and not at the man. The matador’s real
danger is a slip when running from the bull. But the toreros, or
assistants, are all watching, and at the slightest symptom of danger
they rush at the bull and turn him, or envelop his head with their
cloaks. Fight he never so bravely, the bull is doomed. He must be
killed--that is the rule of the game.
There are a score of names for the different passes and feints and
tricks the matador performs with the bull for a few minutes, until he
raises his sword in token that he intends to kill it. He baits the bull
now this way and now that with the red cloth until he gets the animal to
run fairly at him. Then he thrusts the long sword just between the left
shoulder and the blade. If the thrust is true and well delivered, the
bull falls on his knees. His proud head is raised in defiance for a
moment, and then he falls over on his side dead. When the blow does not
kill him, the butchery is completed by one of the toreros with the
‘puntilla.’ There are many ways in which the espada receives the last
charge of the bull. Some are dangerous, and are only practised by the
great masters of the art. Some of the matadors will even dispense with
the red cloth, called in the parlance of the ring ‘muletta,’ and defy
the bull with folded arms. These feats call forth deafening applause.
When the bull is dead, a team of gaily-bedecked mules enters, and drags
out first the dead horses, and then the dead bull. The sand is raked
over the pools and tracks of blood, and another bull is turned into the
arena to go through the same performance. The second bull that I saw was
furious at first, but was baited at last into absolute terror. Long
before it came to the turn of the matador the poor brute was bellowing
piteously, and trying to leap the barriers and escape. At last he got
behind a dead horse, and, making a rampart of it, gored its carcass
again and again. It took the whole staff five minutes to get him out
into the arena to be killed.
After the bull-fight proper was over, I witnessed a curious spectacle.
As the last of the four bulls fell to the ground dead, hundreds of the
spectators leaped over the barriers into the arena and took off their
cloaks. Then a young bull with knobs on its horns was turned loose among
them for them to bait. Hundreds of lads became amateur toreros, and
practised the art on the harmless animal. He knocked down a dozen and
tossed one or two, to the intense amusement of the spectators. I left
young Madrid thus amusing itself, and came out of the Plaza de Toros a
wiser man as to bull-fights and a much sadder one. If I live fifty years
in Spain, I never want to see such another cruel ‘game of blood.’
The bull-ring is _the_ amusement of Spain, but the theatre is well
patronized. I always study the theatres of foreign countries when I get
a chance, and the Spanish theatre is one of the most curious I have
seen. The Opera or Teatro Real is the principal, and is patronized by
the aristocracy. Gayarré is the star there at present. The Teatro
Español is devoted to the legitimate drama. The other theatres which
play operettas, farces, and topical reviews are the Apolo, the Princesa,
the Variedades, the Lara, the Eslava (so called after a priest who left
the money to build it), and the Novedades. I will deal with this latter
class first.
At nearly all Spanish theatres the performance commences at half-past
eight, and is divided into four parts, each of which is called a
‘funcion.’ You pay for each of these--so much for entrance and so much
for your seat. Thus, when you go to the Apolo, the performance commences
at half-past eight with ‘La Gran Via.’ This is over at a quarter-past
nine, and out you all go. A new audience now comes in and sees the first
act of ‘Cadiz,’ an operetta, which terminates at ten. Out you all go
again, and a fresh audience comes in and sees the second act of ‘Cadiz,’
which is over at a quarter to eleven. Out we all go again, and a fourth
audience fills the theatre for another performance of ‘La Gran Via,’
which terminates about half-past eleven.
There is a prison scene in ‘La Gran Via.’ Several Vias are represented.
One of them is called the ‘Via de la Liberdad,’ and it shows the side of
a prison wall.
Some time before I arrived in Spain there had been a military revolt,
and six sergeants who had taken a prominent part in the insurrection
were confined in a State prison on the charge of high treason,
but--owing to the notoriously lax discipline of Spanish prisons--the
sergeants very shortly afterwards managed to make their escape, and
eventually they succeeded in crossing the Pyrenees into France.
The escape of the sergeants is a standing joke among Spaniards of every
shade of political opinion, and the scene in which the six sergeants are
seen scudding along the prison wall, called the ‘Via de la Liberdad,’ is
always received with tremendous roars of laughter, and it is probably
the main cause of the great success of ‘La Fiesta de la Gran Via.’
One day a governor of a gaol who went to a bull-fight was astonished to
see several of his prisoners who were under sentence of death enjoying
themselves at the spectacle. There is always a golden key to a Spanish
prison, and you can generally get a day or a night out if you are on
good terms with the officials, and give your word of honour that you
will come back again. I dare say a good many people will credit me with
giving an extra throw to the hatchet, a stronger pull than usual at the
long-bow; but the truth of my prison story is amply borne out by a
sensational crime which has startled all Spain, shaken the Puerta del
Sol to its foundation, brought lumps of the Generaliffe rolling down the
Alhambra hill, caused the Alcazar of Seville to contemplate suicide in
the Guadalquivir, and shaken up the coffins of the Kings of Spain in the
gloomy Pantheon of the Escorial.
One night an old lady was found murdered in Madrid. She had been first
killed, and then saturated with petroleum and set on fire, but the fire
had gone out before it had done its work, and the wounds which had
caused death were visible. I need not repeat all the incidents, but
after suspicion falling on various persons, the crime has at last been
brought home to the old lady’s son, who was supposed at the time the
murder was committed to be a prisoner in close confinement in the Madrid
gaol.
Here is a shilling shocker with a vengeance. The young gentleman had, it
was proved, actually got out of prison with the connivance of the
authorities, spent the night at liberty, and returned early in the
morning very much the worse for liquor. Yet not a word was said by the
officials of the place who knew the facts, because they knew it would
get them into hot water. The story reads like an invention of the
romancer, but it is only a series of facts. Spain still remains one of
the most remarkable countries in Europe, and its manners and customs are
more worthy of the ‘Arabian Nights’ than modern history.
It was at one of the minor theatres that I heard one of the performers
imitate an actor with a peculiar voice and mannerism. The audience
recognised the imitation, and encored it again and again. ‘Ah,’ said I
to myself, ‘Spain has its Henry Irving. I must find him out.’ I made my
inquiries, and the result was that I booked a stall to sit out a
four-act Spanish drama at the Teatro Español written by one of the great
dramatists of to-day, Don José Echegaray, and entitled ‘Haroldo el
Normando.’ When the principal actor, Rafael Calvo, stepped upon the
stage and gave off his first speech, I recognised the original of the
caricature in a moment, and I knew by the reception and the bursts of
applause that I was seeing Spain’s favourite tragedian. Calvo’s acting
and declamation were splendid, but his voice was disagreeable; his
gestures were natural, but his mannerisms were marked enough to enable
me to give a good imitation of him after one visit to the theatre.
Calvo, who is only a little over thirty, is not a handsome man, but he
is very intense and powerful, and is the great exponent of the modern
_natural_ school. His great rival is Antonio Vico, who is of the old and
stilted school. Vico also has a bad voice, a defect from which many of
the Spanish actors suffer.
At many points in the play the ladies wept and the gentlemen used their
pocket-handkerchiefs. The mounting and dresses were beneath contempt,
and there was not a line of comedy or a laugh from beginning to end of
the play.
The audience was not a large one, considering the size and sumptuous
embellishments of the theatre. I inquired of a Spanish friend why the
legitimate drama was not better patronized. He told me that there was
never a great house when Echegaray was the author. Ladies were afraid of
him. His plays were so dreadfully miserable, they cried for a week after
seeing them. He would spring scenes of horror on his audience without a
moment’s preparation. Suddenly the scene would change, and you would see
a mother weeping over two dead children on the stage. Nothing that could
harrow the feelings was spared, and the author persisted in leaving
everybody miserable at the end. After a new play by Echegaray everyone
in Madrid asks, ‘Well, how many deaths are there in it?’ He is a grand
writer, full of nervous force and poetic thought, but his plays make
people so wretched that those who do not enjoy the luxury of a good cry
stop away. Everybody says, ‘What a splendid writer!’ The newspapers laud
him to the skies. The critics point to him as a man who maintains the
prestige of Spanish dramatic literature. But the Spanish people, like
the English people, decline to take out their theatrical amusement in
essays and sermons delivered from the stage. They go to the theatre to
be amused, not to study literature, and so, in spite of the abuse of the
critics, who are some of them authors themselves of neglected ten-act
tragedies in blank verse, the Spaniards flock to operettas, farces,
comedies, reviews, medleys, pieces of any sort so long as they are
laughable or interesting, and they leave the legitimate drama and the
plays of misery by Señor Echegaray to the amateur and professional
critics, who think, because they choose to sit at a theatre as in a
church, that there should be no more cakes and ale.
But to return to the Spanish custom of taking a play at an act a night.
Of course you may wish to see a play through in one evening. In this
case you buy tickets for the second and third ‘funcion,’ and keep your
seat. A man comes round between each act and collects the tickets for
the next. Say you want to see the whole four ‘funcions’ out, you
purchase four tickets. The ticket is a slip of paper--half of it is for
your numbered seat, another half your entrance ticket. You must buy four
entrance tickets and four tickets for your seat to entitle you to sit
out the whole performance. The tickets are different colours, so that
the checktakers may recognise at once for which funcion they are issued.
The first audience comes in with green tickets, the second with pink,
the third with white, and the fourth with yellow. The great draws at the
present moment at three of the theatres are local reviews in rhyme, and
full of topical allusions. The singing and dancing are good, and the
points are taken up all over the house in a manner which would gladden
the hearts of our burlesque writers. ‘La Fiesta de la Gran Via,’ which
is being played at the Eslava, has beaten all previous records. I
assisted at the 41,500th performance! Where are our long runs after
that?
The piece is played twice a night, and on Sundays and fête days, of
which there are scores in Spain, four times--twice at the morning and
twice at the evening performance.
The anti-Conservative demonstrations in Madrid and other Spanish towns,
which have been lately of such a violent character as to make some
people think we were on the eve of another Spanish revolution, are
really volcanic in their origin. The Spaniards are not a very
demonstrative people. As a rule, if you offered them a perpetual pension
they wouldn’t utter a shout or wave a hat. But every now and then,
suddenly and unexpectedly, without any previous warning, Castilian pride
and Moorish stolidity give way to the wildest excitement and the most
utter disregard of the conventionalities of life. Be the offending party
a Cabinet Minister, a bishop, or a bull, the Spaniard has but one cry,
‘Muerta!'--death! It does not mean all that it says. It is the language
of the bull-ring carried into public life, and that is all. The
bull-ring enriches Spanish language as the racecourse enriches the
English.
Madrid is very much like a volcano on the eve of an eruption. Day and
night there is a seething mass of cloaked gentry promenading the streets
and squares in the eager hope of something turning up. The Puerta del
Sol is as much alive at two in the morning as our Mansion House corner
is at two in the afternoon. When the Spaniards go to bed is a mystery.
Special editions of the evening papers come out in Madrid at 1 a.m., and
small boys of the street-Arab type yell their ‘Speshal ‘Dishuns’ under
your window till three, and if anything is on, until four. This
all-night shouting and the ceaseless traffic no one who has the
misfortune to sleep in a room looking on to the Puerta del Sol will ever
forget. And the reason that Madrid is on the alert all night is that it
is waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for something to turn up. When something
does turn up to justify a row, the Madrileños make the most of it, and
they yell ‘Muerta!’ just as a London mob would yell ‘Let him have it!’
‘Muerta!’ is cried when the spectators in the bull-ring have had enough
of the bull, and want him got rid of. ‘Muerta!’ shouted concerning a
politician, a prelate, or a prince, means ‘Let him take his hook!’
That expression, by-the-by, though it looks like English slang, is quite
a classical utterance. Its origin lies among the Roman gladiatorial
games. A gladiator took his hook when the pole with a hook at the end of
it was used to drag his dying or dead body from the arena.
The window of my sitting-room looks out upon the world-famed Puerta del
Sol. Night and day a mighty, ever-changing crowd passes before me. Night
and day the plashing fountain plays in the middle of the great public
square. Night and day trains and ‘buses and mule-drawn waggons and
beautiful landaus and phaetons and broughams and mail-coaches drawn by
horses not to be surpassed in Hyde Park dash here and there. Night and
day the hum of the idle, sauntering crowd rises and falls, and makes
music to my ears.
Madrid is not a city. It is only a town. But such a town!--such streets!
such shops! such horses! such carriages! such drives! such promenades!
and over all the everlasting gaiety and insouciance of a people whose
grand motto in all things mundane is this, ‘We have only one life--let
us make the best of it and worry about nothing.’ Your true Spaniard
never hurries and never worries and never frets. He inherits the dignity
and the fatalism of the Moors, who have left their mark not only on the
architecture of the cities, but upon the character of the citizens. If
anything is a little beyond him, he folds his hands, smokes a cigarette,
and waits for the dénouement.
Quietly and calmly, with a Spanish guide who walked everywhere so
leisurely that I had to keep walking round and round him in order not to
leave him miles behind, I saw everything that was to be seen in Madrid.
I saw the royal palaces, I saw the bed--ay, and the mattress and
bolster--on which King Alfonso died. I saw the royal stables and the
royal carriages, I got a desperate fit of the blues in the Escorial--the
eighth wonder of the world, the morbid outcome of a morbid mind; the
last home of Spanish kings--that glowing palace on a barren rock, in
which the monkish Philip died a hideous death of lingering agony,
loathsome to himself and all around him, and in his last hours smitten
by a gnawing terror that, after all, the royal road to heaven might not
be over the dead bodies of countless victims slain ‘to the greater glory
of God.’ I drove in the Prado, and saw grandees of Spain by the gross. I
met the sisters of the King and ‘el Rey Chico,’ ‘the King Baby,’ with
his royal mamma, all out for a drive, and I had all the scandals poured
into my ear as great and titled ladies passed in their magnificent
equipages.
Some years ago the ladies of Madrid took to driving high-stepping horses
in mail phaetons, and even tooling showy teams through the principal
thoroughfares. In the crowded traffic this was the cause of frequent
accidents. The alcalde (clever man!) made it a regulation that no lady
under thirty should drive, except in the Park. You may go all over
Madrid now, and you don’t meet a single lady holding the reins. They are
all under the regulation age.
Next to the bull-fights and the theatres, the things in which I have
taken the greatest interest in Spain are the dances and the funerals.
Both of these are so curious that I shall leave them until I have
travelled with the reader a little further afield. One thing struck me
in Madrid as it has struck me everywhere in Spain, and that is the way
in which the Germans are monopolizing the trade of the country. Every
hotel is crammed with German commercial travellers, and the shops are
filled with German goods. The Germans I meet are excellent linguists.
They speak Spanish fluently, and many of them can carry on a
conversation in English and French as well. The Germans have displayed
an enterprise in getting the trade of Europe into their hands which is
truly remarkable. Their dealers and manufacturers visit the different
countries, study the popular taste, and then produce articles which are
as national as possible in character. For instance, half the fans and
mantillas which are sold in Madrid and the large provincial towns are of
German make. And yet they are absolutely Spanish. Many other things are
of German make, and thousands of French and English tourists who carry
away with them boxes full of specimen Spanish goods to present to their
friends are really taking home things which have been imported from the
Fatherland. As to cigars, the Germans supply three-fourths of the
genuine Havannahs, even in Spanish seaports at which ships from Havannah
constantly touch.
France and England also do a large trade with Spain in manufactured
goods. But they supply only the articles which are purely French and
English. It has been reserved for Germany to supply, not only German,
but _Spanish_ goods to Spain.
The cafés in Madrid are enormous and gorgeous in the extreme. The
climate does not allow the guests to sit out of doors, but the saloons
inside are so vast that in some of them a regiment might go through its
manœuvres. The cafés are thronged night and day. Here the revolutions
are hatched, here governments are overthrown. Chocolate is the great
Spanish drink, but of an evening quite half the people have tea.
And such tea! It is a pale lemon colour when you pour it out, and
consists principally of hot water. I noticed several ladies and
gentlemen flavoured it with a small glass of rum. The tea I had in one
of the grand cafés was rum without being flavoured. In fact, it was the
rummest tea I ever tasted in my life.
One evening, hot and thirsty after seeing four ‘funcions’ at four
different theatres, I was wondering what I could drink, when I saw a
café in the Calle de Azenal that had a large advertisement outside,
‘English refreshments.’ I rushed to the door to read the list of English
refreshments that was displayed on a card outside. I only read the top
line, and that was enough.
This was the top line: ‘Zurzaparilla!’ One travels and learns. I never
knew before that sarsaparilla was the national drink of the Briton.
I stayed at an excellent French hotel in Madrid, but I got tired of the
French _table d’hôte_. I wanted to eat as the Spaniards eat. One evening
I persuaded a Spanish gentleman to take me to a real Spanish
middle-class restaurant, and let me taste the fare of the country. The
Spanish are a frugal and moderate race. Two or three dishes and
dessert--that is their dinner. There is no long bill of fare as among
the French.
The restaurant was a quiet room on the ground-floor of a modest-looking
house. There were one or two families and several single gentlemen
dining. The women wore handkerchiefs on their heads and shawls over
their shoulders. People dropped in, had a soup and a dish of meat, an
orange and some nuts, and went away satisfied. Our bill of fare was more
extravagant, but it created a sensation. The landlord and all the
waiters came in turns to look at the extraordinary Englishmen who had
such gigantic appetites.
Here is the exact menu. We began with olives and pickled pimientos and
guindelias and chilis. These were the _hors d'œuvres_. Then cigarettes.
Then we had an ordinary thin soup, followed by cigarettes; then came the
great national dish, called cocido. If you have a good dish of cocido
(pronounced cothido, because of the Spanish lisp given to the c before
certain vowels) you have a good deal for your dinner. It is a savoury
stew of chicken, potatoes, sausage, bacon, and white beans, all boiled
up with pieces of beef. In most Spanish families this is the everyday
dish. Of course the poorer classes have to leave out some of the
ingredients, except on festive occasions. In Andalusia the peasants will
sit round a huge panful of their version of this article. It is made
according to their means, and often vegetables are plentiful, but the
pieces of meat few and far between, and each man ladles it out by
spoonfuls into his mouth. Plates are dispensed with.
The foreigner who is suddenly confronted with a huge dish of cocido and
politely requested to help himself is in some difficulty. He takes a
spoonful at hazard. The waiter still stands at his elbow. ‘The señor has
only taken beans.’ Again you make a dash with the spoon and secure
something else. The waiter stares, but does not move away. ‘The señor
has only taken sausage.’ The señor, confused, requests the waiter to
assist him; and then the process, though slow, is interesting. A
spoonful of beans on the plate; then, selected with the greatest care; a
piece of chicken; then a patient search for a slice of sausage buried
under a mound of cabbage; then the cabbage itself; then a minute devoted
to a voyage of discovery in search of the nicest piece of beef; then an
exploration in search of a succulent morsel of bacon; then a spoonful of
the potatoes; and then, over all, an extra spoonful of the beautiful
gravy. I timed my waiter, and he took six minutes and a half to help me
to cocido. When the dish passes down a _table d’hôte_ it takes about an
hour to go round. It is for this reason that the Spaniards help
themselves all together at the same time from the common dish.
The cocido was excellent. Well cooked, it is a dinner for a king. I
intend to introduce it into England upon my return. But I am afraid it
will give rise to a good deal of ill-feeling in families. Somebody will
get all the slices of the sausage, and then there will be recriminations
and angry words. We have neither the patience nor the politeness of the
Spaniards; and cocido is a dish that requires a good deal of both.
The next item after cigarettes was a Spanish salad. This salad is
prepared in a peculiar way, and spread out upon bread into which the oil
and vinegar have been allowed to soak. This, too, was excellent. Then
more cigarettes; then a cheese made of honey and cream, and several
other ingredients which require to be taken on trust; and then, after
more cigarettes, some ‘angel’s hair,’ which is really a preparation of
orange-rind very thinly shredded. More cigarettes; then an orange,
raisins of Malaga, and almonds and Barcelona nuts, dried and salted, and
delicious. I am so enchanted with these ‘almindras’ that I have made all
my boxes overweight with them. The wines with this feast were
Valdepeñas--a red wine made from grapes grown on the rocky plains around
Madrid--and Jerez, which, of course, is sherry. I have been to Jerez
lately, and, having seen the extent of the vineyards, I beg to add that,
though Jerez is, of course, sherry, it does not follow that all sherry
is Jerez--very, very far from it--often thousands of miles from it. And
we wound up with more cigarettes.
To finish the evening in a real Spanish way, after going to a rather low
Spanish café to see the real Spanish dancing, we had, before retiring to
rest, ‘Dos chocolates con pica-tostes'; and that, if you please, is two
cups of thick chocolate, with square fingers of bread beautifully fried
in olive-oil. And we weren’t ill.