great square, leading this life so busy yet so apathetic, as if in a
slow fever, Madrid struck me as only one more great human ant-hill,
where the ants were trying to believe themselves in Paris. The Parisian
resemblance, however, is confined to strips through the middle and on
the edges of the city, and as soon as one's steps are bent away from
those, the narrow ways and older architecture of Spain re-appear. Only a
few rods from the Puerta del Sol lies the Plaza Mayor, which once
enjoyed all the honors of bull-fights and heretic burnings--occasions on
which householders were obliged by their leases to give up all the front
rooms and balconies to be used as boxes for the audience. From the Plaza
Mayor again an arch leads into Toledo Street--old meandering mart full
of mantles and sashes, blankets and guitars, flannel dyed in the
national colors of red and yellow, basket-work and wood-work, including
the carved sticks known as _molinillos_ (little mills), with which
chocolate is mixed by a dexterous spinning motion. The donkey feels
himself at home once more in these narrow thoroughfares; the evil sewage
smell, which oozes through even the most pretentious edifices in the new
quarters, diffuses itself again in full vigor, and the cafés become
dingy and unconventional. On the Alcalá, or San Geronimo, the
carefully-dressed men sip beer and cordials, or possibly indulge in
sparkling sherry--a new and expensive wine like dry champagne; but here
the rougher element is satisfied with _aguardiente_ (the liquor
distilled from anise-seed), and quite as often confines itself to water.
The lower orders are temperate. Peasants and porters and petty traders
will sit down contentedly for a whole evening to a glass of water in
which is dissolved a long meringue (called _asucarillo_, literally
"sugarette"), or to a snow lemonade. Another esteemed cooling beverage
is the _horchata de chufas_, a kind of cream made from pounded cypress
root and then half frozen. The height of luxury is to order with this,
at an added cost of some two cents, a few tubular wafers, fancifully
named _barquillos_ (or little boats), through which the semi-liquid may
be sucked. This barquillo is considered so desirable that boys carry it
on the street in large metal cylinders, the top of which is a disk
inscribed with numbers. You pay a fee, and he revolves on the disk a
pivotal needle, the number at which it stops deciding how many wafers
fall to your lot. In this way the excruciating pleasure of barquillos to
eat is combined with the national delight in gaming.
European costume has fallen on the Madrid people like a pall, blotting
out picturesqueness; but peasants of all provinces are still seen, and
now and then a turbaned figure from Barbary moves across the street. Nor
is the fascinating mantilla quite extinct among women, in spite of their
more than Parisian grace and splendor of modern robing. There are humble
old women squatted on the sidewalk at street corners, who sell water and
liquors and shrub from bottles kept in a singular little stand with
brass knobs like an exaggerated pair of casters; and when one sees the
varied types of peasant, soldier, citizen, or priest, with perhaps a
veiled woman of the middle class, gathered around one of these, the
Spanish quality of the town re-asserts itself distinctly. So it does,
too, when a carriage containing the princesses of the royal household
rattles down the Prado Park, drawn by mules in barbaric red-tasselled
harness, and preceded by a courier who wears a sort of gold-braided
nightcap.
[Illustration: WATER-DEALER.]
[Illustration: OLD ARTILLERY PARK.]
There is no cathedral at Madrid, but the churches, smeared as usual with
gold and stucco and paint in tasteless extravagance, are numerous
enough; and on many a balcony I saw withered straw-like plumes, long as
a man, hung up in commemoration of the last Palm-Sunday. The morning
papers have a "religious bulletin" in the amusement column, giving the
saints and services of the day; besides which special masses for the
souls of departed capitalists are constantly announced, with a request
that friends shall attend. These paid rites doubtless offer a pleasant
exception to the routine of commonplace church-going. Thus, while the
men are absorbed by their cafés and politics, their countless cigarettes
and lottery tickets, with a minimum of business and a maximum of
dominoes, the women fill up their time with matins and vespers,
confessions and intrigues. It would be merely repeating the frank
assertion of the Spanish men themselves to say that feminine morals here
are in a lamentable state; but at least appearances are always carefully
guarded, and if judged by externals only, Madrid is far more virtuous
than London or Paris. As for local society, it exists so much on
appearances that the substance suffers. It is true, the ladies are
beautiful and of noble stature; and their costumes, governed by the
happiest taste, surpass in luxury those seen in public in almost any
other city. The cavaliers are, without exception, the best-dressed
gentlemen in the world; and the mass of sumptuous equipages, with
polished grooms and surpassingly fine horses, which crowds the broad
Castilian Fountain drive, or the Park road on the east of the Buen
Retiro gardens, during fashionable hours, is amazing. Great wealth is
gathered in the hands of a few nobles, who often draw heavy salaries
from government for long-obsolete services; but the most of this
costuming and grooming is attained by semi-starvation at home. By
consequence, dinners and dancing-parties are rarely given even in the
season, and royalty itself provides no more than a couple of balls, with
two or three state dinners, a year.
[Illustration: THE ESCORIAL.]
To be sure, no capital is better provided with sundry of the higher
means to cultivation, as its Royal Armory, its Archæological Museum, and
its glorious Picture-gallery--in some respects the noblest of
Europe--remind one. Moreover, in the neighboring Escorial, that dark
jewel in the head of Philip II., travellers find a rich monument of art,
albeit to many eyes unseen inscriptions perhaps record there more than
enough of Spain's misfortunes. In the Madrid gallery the stately,
severe, and robust royal portraits by Velazquez, or his magnificently
healthy "Drunkards," reveal in their way, as do the Virgins of Murillo,
floating divinely in translucent air, that deep and deathless power of
Spanish temperament and genius over which slumber has reigned so long.
The pictures of Ribera, hanging together, are like loose pages torn from
Spanish ecclesiastical history and legend: a collection of monks,
ascetics, martyrs--scenes of torture depicted with relentless and savage
vigor. Goya, again, scarcely known out of Spain, left at the beginning
of this century portraits of wonderful vitality and finish, fresh
glimpses of popular life, and wild figure compositions marked by the
fierce, half insane energy of a Latinized William Blake. His imagination
and manner were both original. Though falling short, like all other
Spanish painters, in ideality, he had that faculty of fertile
improvisation so refreshing in Murillo's naturalistic "Madonna of the
Birdling," or in his "St. Elizabeth," and "Roman Patrician's Dream," at
the Academy of Fine Arts. But it is not with these past splendors, still
full of hopes for new futures, that the Castilian gentlemen and ladies
of our varnished period concern themselves. The opera, the circus, and
the _Corrida de Toros_--the irrepressible bull-fight--are to them of far
more consequence.
In every crowd and café you see the tall, shapely, dark-faced, silent
men, with a cool, professionally murderous look like that of our border
desperadoes, whose enormously wide black hats, short jackets, tight
trousers, and pigtails of braided hair proclaim them _chulos_, or
members of the noble ring. Intrepid, with muscles of steel, and finely
formed, they are very illiterate: we saw one of them gently taking his
brandy at the Café de Paris after a hard combat, while his friend read
from an evening paper a report of the games in which he had just
fought--the man's own education not enabling him to decipher print. But
the higher class of these professionals are the idols, the demi-gods, of
the people. Songs are made about them, their deeds are painted on fans,
and popular chromos illustrate their loves and woes; people crowd around
to see them in hotels or on the street as if they were heroes or star
tragedians. Pet dogs are named for the well-known ones; and it was even
rumored that one of the chief swordsmen had secured the affections of a
patrician lady, and would have married her but for the interference of
her friends. Certain it is that a whole class of young bucks of the
lower order--"'Arrys" is the British term--get themselves up in the
closest allowable imitation of bull-fighters, down to the tuft of hair
left growing in front of the ear. The _espadas_ or _matadores_
(killers), who give the mortal blow, hire each one his _cuadrilla_--a
corps of assistants, including _picadores_, _banderilleros_, and
_punterillo_. For every fight they receive five hundred dollars, and
sometimes they lay up large fortunes. To see the sport well from a seat
in the shade, one must pay well. Tickets are monopolized by speculators,
who, no less than the fighters, have their "ring," and gore buyers as
the bull does horses. We gave two dollars apiece for places. The route
to the Place of Bulls is lined for a mile with omnibuses, tartanas,
broken-down diligences, and wheezy cabs, to convey intending spectators
to the fight on Sunday afternoons. A stream of pedestrians file in the
same direction, and the showy turnouts of the rich add dignity to what
soon becomes a wild rush for the scene of action. The mule-bells ring
like a rain of metal, whips crack, the drivers shout wildly, and at full
gallop we dash by windows full of on-lookers, by the foaming fountains
of the Prado, and up the road to the grim Colosseum of stone and brick,
in the midst of scorched and arid fields, with the faint peaks of the
snow-capped Guadarrama range seen, miles to the north, through dazzling
white sunshine.
[Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO THE BULL-FIGHT.]
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE BULL-RING.]
Within is the wide ring, sunk in a circular pit of terraced granite
crowned by galleries. The whole great round, peopled by at least ten
thousand beings, is divided exactly by the sun and the shadow--_sol y
sombra_; and from our cool place we look at the vivid orange sand of the
half arena in sunlight, and the tiers of seats beyond, where swarms of
paper fans (red, yellow, purple, and green) are wielded to shelter the
eyes of those in the cheaper section, or bring air to their lungs. No
connected account of a bull tourney can impart the vividness, the rapid
changes, the suspense, the skill, the picturesqueness, or horror of the
actual thing. All occurs in rapid glimpses, in fierce, dramatic,
brilliant, and often ghastly pictures, which fade and re-form in new
phases on the instant. The music is sounding, the fans are fluttering,
amateurs strolling between the wooden barriers of the ring and the
lowest seats, hatless men are hawking fruit and aguardiente, when
trumpets announce the grand entry. It is a superb sight: the picadores
with gorgeous jackets and long lances on horseback, in wide Mexican
hats, their armor-cased legs in buckskin trousers; the swordsmen and
others on foot, shining with gold and silver embroidery on scarlet and
blue, bright green, saffron, or puce-colored garments, carrying cloaks
of crimson, violet, and canary. At the head is the mounted _alguazil_ in
ominous black, who carries the key of the bull-gate. Everything is
punctual, orderly, ceremonious.
Then the white handkerchief, as signal, from the president of the games
in his box; the trumpet-blare again; and the bull rushing from his lair!
There is a wild moment when, if he be of good breed, he launches himself
impetuous as the ball from a thousand-ton gun directly upon his foes,
and sweeping around half the circle, puts them to flight over the
barrier or into mid-ring, leaving a horse or two felled in his track. I
have seen one fierce Andalusian bull within ten minutes kill five horses
while making two circuits of the ring. The first onset against a horse
is horrible to witness. The poor steed, usually lean and decrepit, is
halted until the bull will charge him, when instantly the picador in the
saddle aims a well-poised blow with his lance, driving the point into
the bull's back only about an inch, as an irritant. You hear the horns
tear through the horse's hide; you _feel_ them go through _yourself_.
Ribs crack; there's a clatter of hoofs, harness, and the rider's armor;
a sudden heave and fall--disaster!--and then the bull rushes away in
pursuit of a yellow mantle flourished to distract him.
The banderilleros come, each holding two ornamental barbed sticks, which
he waves to attract the bull. At the brute's advance he runs to meet
him, and in the moment when the huge head is lowered for a lunge, he
plants them deftly, one on each shoulder, and springs aside. Perhaps,
getting too near, he fails, and turns to fly; the bull after, within a
few inches. He flees to the barrier, drops his cloak on the sand, and
vaults over; the bull springs over too into the narrow alley; whereupon
the fighter, being close pressed, leaps back into the ring light as a
bird, but saved by a mere hair's-breadth from a tossing or a trampling
to death. The crowd follow every turn with shouts and loud comments and
cheers: "Go, bad little bull!" "Let the picadores charge!" "More horses!
more horses!" "Well done, Gallito!" "Time for the death!--the
matadores!" and so on. Humor mingles with some of their remarks, and
there is generally one volunteer buffoon who, choosing a lull in the
combat, shrieks out rude witticisms that bring the laugh from a thousand
throats.
But if the management of the sport be not to their liking, then the
multitude grow instantly stormy: rising on the benches, they bellow
their opinions to the president, whistle, stamp, scream, gesticulate.
It is the tumult of a mob, appeasable only by speedier bloodshed. And
what bloodshed they get! A horse or two, say, lies lifeless and crumpled
on the earth; the others, with bandaged eyes, and sides hideously
pierced and red-splashed, are spurred and whacked with long sticks to
make them go. But it is time for the banderilleros, and after that for
the swordsman. He advances, glittering, with a proud, athletic step, the
traditional chignon fastened to his pigtail, and holding out his bare
sword, makes a brief speech to the president: "I go to slay this bull
for the honor of the people of Madrid and the most excellent president
of this tourney." Then throwing his hat away, he proceeds to his task of
skill and danger. It is here that the chief gallantry of the sport
begins. With a scarlet cloak in one hand he attracts the bull, waves him
to one side or the other, baffles him, re-invites him--in fine, plays
with and controls him as if he were a kitten, though always with eye
alert and often in peril. At last, having got him "in position," he
lifts the blade, aims, and with a forward spring plunges it to the hilt
at a point near the top of the spine. Perhaps the bull recoils, reels,
and dies with that thrust; but more often he is infuriated, and several
strokes are required to finish him. Always, however, the blood gushes
freely, the sand is stained with it, and the serried crowd, intoxicated
by it, roar savagely. Still, the "many-headed beast" is fastidious. If
the bull be struck in such a way as to make him spout his life out at
the nostrils, becoming a trifle _too_ sanguinary, marks of disapproval
are freely bestowed. One bull done for, the music recommences, and mules
in showy trappings are driven in. They are harnessed to the carcasses,
and the dead bulks of the victims are hauled bravely off at a gallop,
furrowing the dirt. The grooms run at topmost speed, snapping their long
whips; the dust rises in a cloud, enveloping the strange cavalcade. They
disappear through the gate flying, and you wake from a dream of ancient
Rome and her barbarous games come true again. But soon the trumpets
flourish; another bull comes; the same finished science and sure death
ensue, varied by ever-new chances and escapes, until afternoon wanes,
the sun becomes shadow, and ten thousand satisfied people--mostly men in
felt sombreros, with some women, fewer ladies, and a sprinkling of
children and babies--throng homeward.
What impresses is the cold blood of the thing. People bring their
goat-skins of wine, called "little drunkards," and pass them around to
friends, between bulls; others pop off lemonade bottles, and nearly all
smoke. Even a combatant sometimes lights a cigar while the bull is
occupied at the other side of the ring. During the hottest encounters
grooms come in to strip the harness from dying horses or stab an
incapacitated one; to carry off baskets of entrails, and rake fresh sand
over the blood-pools, quite calmly, at the risk of sharp interruption
from the vagarious horned enemy. In the midst of a dangerous flurry,
while performers are escaping, an orange-vender in the lane outside the
barrier pitches some fruit to a buyer half-way up the _gradas_, counting
aloud, "One, two, three," to twenty-four. All are caught, and he neatly
catches his money in return. Afterward, when a bull leaps the barrier,
this intrepid merchant has to fly for life, leaving his basket on the
ground, where the bewildered animal upsets it, rolling the contents
everywhere in golden confusion. Another time we saw a horse and rider
lifted bodily on the horns, and so tossed that the horseman flew out of
his saddle, hurtled through the air directly over the bull, and landed
solidly on his back, senseless. Six grooms bore him off, white and
rigid. But the populace never heeded him; they were madly cheering the
bull's prowess. A surgeon, by-the-way, always attends in an anteroom;
prayers are said before the fight; and a priest is in readiness with the
consecrated wafer to give the last sacrament in case of any fatal
accident. The utter simple-mindedness with which Spaniards regard the
brutalities of the sport may be judged from the fact that a bull-fight
was once given to benefit the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals!
On occasion, the drawing of a charitable lottery is held at the _Corrida
de Toros_, and then there are gala features. The Queen and various
high-born ladies present magnificent rosettes of silk or satin and gold
and silver tinsel, with long streamers, to be attached by little barbs
to the bulls before their entrance, each having his colors indicated in
this way; and these ornaments are displayed in shop windows for days
before the event. The language of the ring is another peculiarity. There
are many fine points of merit, distinguished by as many canting terms.
There is the "pair regular," the "relance," the "cuartos," and the darts
are playfully termed "shuttlecocks;" the swordsman deals in "pinches"
and "thrusts," and so on--all of which is recorded in press reports,
amusing enough in their airy and supercilious half-literary treatment.
These are among the most polished products of Spanish journalism. Fines
are imposed on the performers for any achievement not "regular;" and, on
the other hand, good strokes are rewarded by the public with cigars, or,
as the dainty reporters say, they "merit palms." The three chief
swordsmen are Lagartijo, Frascuelo, and Currito; "Broad Face," "Little
Fatty," and the like, being lesser lights. Frascuelo is so renowned for
hardihood that I once saw him receive, in obedience to popular will, the
ear of the bull he had just slain--a supreme mark of favor.[4]
[Illustration: A STREET SCENE.]
Madrid is now the head-quarters of the national game, as it is of
everything else. It is outwardly flourishing, it is adorned with
statues, its parks are green, and its fountains spout gayly.
Nevertheless, the impression it makes is melancholy. Beggary is
importunate on its public ways. Palaces and poverty, great wealth and
wretched penury, are huddled close together. Its assumption of splendor
is in startling contrast with the desolate and uncared-for districts
that surround it from the very edge of the city outward. The natural
result of extremes in the distribution of property, with a country
impoverished, is public bankruptcy; and public bankruptcy stares surely
enough through the city's gay mask. There is another unhappy result from
the undue concentration of resources at this artificial capital. Madrid
prides itself on being the spot at which all the avenues of the land
converge equally, the exact centre of Spain being close beyond the
city's confines, and marked--how appropriately--by a church! But Madrid
is, notwithstanding, a national centre only in name. It enjoys a false
luxury, while too many outlying provinces sustain a starveling
existence. And, seeing the alien, imitative manners adopted here, one
feels sharply the difficult contrasts that exist between the metropolis
and the provinces: no hearty bond of national unity appears. We looked
back over the ground we had traversed, and thought of the gray bones of
Burgos cathedral, lying like some stranded mammoth of another age, far
in the north. Oh, bells of Burgos, mumbling in your towers, what message
have you for these sophisticated ears? And what intelligible response
does the heart of the country send back to you?
"Come," said I to Velveteen. "It is useless to resist longer. Let's
surrender to these two white-capped guards who have dogged us so, and be
carried away."
[Illustration]
THE LOST CITY.
I.
[Illustration: I]
It was of Spain's past and present that we were speaking, and "What," I
asked, "have we given her in return for her discovery of our New World?"
"The sleeping-car and the street tramway," answered Velveteen, with
justifiable pride.
He was right; for we had seen the first on the railroad, and the second
skimming the streets of Madrid. Still, the reward did not appear great,
measured by the much that Spain's ventures in the Western hemisphere had
cost her, and by the comparative desolation of her present. The devoted
labors of Irving and Prescott, which Spaniards warmly appreciate, are
more in the nature of an adequate return.
"It strikes me, also," I ventured to add, "that we are rendering a
service in kind. She discovered us, and now we are discovering her."
If one reflects how some of the once great and powerful places of the
Peninsula, such as Toledo and Cordova, have sunk out of sight and
perished to the modern world, this fancy applies with some truth to
every sympathetic explorer of them. It had been all very well to
imagine ourselves conversant with the country when we were in Madrid,
and even an occasional slip in the language did not disturb that
supposition. When I accidentally asked the chamber-maid to swallow a cup
of chocolate instead of "bringing" it, owing to an unnecessary
resemblance of two distinct words, and when my comrade, in attending to
details of the laundry, was led by an imperfect dictionary to describe
one article of wear as a _pintura de noche_, or "night scene," our
confidence suffered only a momentary shock. But, after all, it was not
until we reached Toledo that we really passed into a kind of forgotten
existence, and knew what it was to be far beyond reach of any familiar
word.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO TOLEDO.]