Chapter VII: Prologue (5)

I resigned myself to accompany her; but when we reached the Albertina Burg I was persuaded to take “a tiny stroll” into the Graben, and return for Patsy in half an hour. There seemed nothing out of bounds in this, as the library where Archduke Albert housed his engravings, like most libraries, is sternly shunned by all but the semi-defunct and care-takers. It shares the usual old court with the usual old palaces of mediæval Austrian nobility; and I waited at the gate till Patsy had entered the open square, hesitated a moment before the several doors confronting her, and finally followed sedately in the wake of some Americans--past a pompous gold-lace porter--into the first door on the right. The rest of the story is hers.

She walked leisurely up some shallow stairs, without noticing at first that the Americans had stayed behind to converse with the porter; and that finally they went out instead of following her above. She did think the porter was rather elaborate for a library, said Patsy, but in Austria he didn’t seem extraordinary. The staircase was, however; and she wondered why Baedeker had passed it by. Beautifully carved in white marble, it was carpeted with old Turkish rugs and hung with splendid portraits of the Hapsburgs, and--at the landings--with charming old French clocks.

Patsy admired all these treasures at length, serenely ignoring another and still more imposing guard who scrutinized her sharply as he passed. She has a way with guards, has Patsy; they are generally reduced to becoming humility, no matter how arrogantly they start in. This one stalked on downstairs, leaving her to proceed on her way upward. She was still searching Baedeker for the key to the interesting portraits, and also to the whereabouts of the famous engravings--as yet nowhere to be seen.

According to the guide-book, these should be “in two long rows above the book-cases”; and “one should sit down at the small tables provided for inspecting them, as the crowd of tourists makes it difficult to see the drawings satisfactorily.” This was puzzling. Patsy, now in solitary possession of the large room at the head of the stairs, saw neither engravings nor tables nor tourists. She was quite alone in the centre of the beautiful empty apartment.

She looked at the Louis Quinze furniture, at the gorgeous onyx table set with miniatures; at the impressive portrait of Maria Theresa over the mantelpiece, and several autographed pictures of kings. Baedeker said nothing of all this. It occurred to Patsy then that it must have been the reception-room of the late Archduke, and that the engravings were probably on the floor above. But, before going on, she paused in one of the gold and grey chairs for a moment, further to admire the exquisite room.

While she sat there, she was startled by the sudden appearance of two footmen, in the same grey and gold livery of the porter downstairs. They showed no signs of surprise at her presence, however, but mumbled obsequious greetings and backed into the room beyond. Hardly had they disappeared when another installment of flunkies came in, carrying great trays of food; they too, at sight of Patsy, bent as low as they could under the circumstances--but she now was thrown into a tumult of trepidation. When the door into the other room was opened again, she had a glimpse of a great round table laid with gold plate and crystal and _sèvres_; grand high-backed chairs surrounded it, and more Hapsburg portraits lined the walls.

Patsy gasped with terror and astonishment. At last it dawned on her that she was in the wrong place!

She caught up her furs and the miserable guide-book, and started towards the door. Only to suffer still worse fright, when she was confronted there by a tall man in uniform; who in most courteous French insisted on her staying to lunch. He was young and had black hair and blue eyes (I will not vouch for the authenticity of these details, as Patsy just then saw all uniforms possessed of black hair and blue eyes); and it was hard to be stiff with him. But she managed to explain with some dignity that she had come to the Albertina to see the engravings, but had evidently entered the wrong door; that she deeply regretted the intrusion, which she begged this gentleman to excuse, and that she must forthwith find her uncle who was waiting in the court below.

I wasn’t, but that is beside the story. The blue eyes of the young man being as keen as most Austrians’ at a second glance, he realized his own mistake, and apologized in turn; hastening to add that mademoiselle could not intrude in this house, as it was honoured by her presence, and that she and her esteemed uncle would be welcome whenever they might be gracious enough to visit it. He begged leave to accompany her downstairs and, as Patsy could hardly refuse, she went with him--“knees wobbling, and my heart still in my mouth, Uncle Peter! When the glum old porter saw us, he all but went into catalepsy; and bowed to the ground, while the nice uniformed man was talking fast to him in German.

“Then he--the nice man--kissed my hand, and held the door for me himself, and said all the polite things over again. I was feeling relieved by this time, so I thought I might smile when I said _Au revoir_, and begged pardon once more for my stupidity. I stole a last look too at that lovely staircase and the fierce old portraits; and now, Uncle Peter, I want to get Captain Max and find out directly whose they are!”

Captain Max was inclined to be what Patsy calls “starchy” over the affair. “Gray uniform--blue eyes--black hair?” he repeated tersely. “And the door was the first on the right, in the Albertina Palace?”

Patsy nodded. Suspense overpowered her speech.

“Then it was Salvator, brother of Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the throne. He was probably having one of his famous little luncheons in the Archduke’s palace.” And Captain Max scowled darkly, first at Patsy, then at me. He thinks, poor enamoured young man, I should have a guardian, myself.

“Then I was in the Archduke Ferdinand’s palace?” cried Patsy. “But why was I allowed? Where were all the guards and things? I might have had a bomb in my muff!”

“We don’t have suffragettes in Austria,” said Captain Max loftily. “And the Heir is what you say ‘strong’ for democracy. He has fewer servants than anybody. Those that he has were probably getting Salvator’s luncheon ready!”

A look I well know came into Patsy’s limpid eyes. “It looked like a very nice luncheon,” said she; “I wish now that I’d stayed.”

The _hauptmann_ coloured furiously. Then all at once he laughed. “You will have a chance to tell him so,” he said blandly, “when you make your curtsey to him at the ball next week!”

Really, he is not so bad, this young man for whom I opened the door.

The ball was the famous _Metternich Redoute_, given every year, during Carnival, by the old Countess who was Austrian ambassadress at the court of the third Napoleon. Each year she names her _masque_ by a different fantasy and, once it is announced, excitement runs high over costumes, head-dress, etc. This winter it was _Meeresgrund_, “The Bottom-Of-The-Sea Ball,” and the shops along the Graben and Kärtnerstrasse displayed seductive ropes of coral, glittering fish-skins, pearls and golden seaweed--all the heart of mermaid could desire. The one topic of conversation at parties, between acts at the opera, and in the boudoir at home, closeted with anxious maids, was: what shall her costume be for the _Meeresgrund_?

It must be something original, something _chic_ (that word that is almost more Viennese than French), something beautiful and costly--for does not Royalty open the ball? Patsy’s Titian head all but turned grey during the racking period of indecision. When finally with impressive secrecy she and the recovered _mädl_ had spirited her disguise behind locked doors, there was still a tantalizing week before the great event. I did what I could to assuage impatience, in the way of opera tickets, concerts and a performance of Duse.

Over the actress Patsy went as mad as any Viennese; and even I cried a mild _bravo_ or two. Curious, how the sight of a charming woman playing a captivating part, like _La Locandiera_, has the effect of opening one’s mouth, and making one emit strange sounds! The same thing happened to me at the Sunday-morning concert of the _Männergesangverein_--it looks like a Sanskrit idiom, but it is a simple society of simple Viennese business-men, clubbed together to sing a delightful two hours on an occasional Sabbath morning. They make no pretense at high art, but are fated (by birth and every instinct) to achieve it; and when they stand up, two hundred strong, and roll out the majestic phrases of Beethoven’s “Hymn of Praise,” it is time for even a moth-eaten mere relative to make a fool of himself.

I behaved better at opera. If there is any behaviour in one, opera will bring it out. In Vienna, I mean, of course; not in New York or Paris or Covent Garden, where manners and clothes to be _au fait_ must be _au minimum_--and where the real performance is mannequin parade, by the great jewellers and dressmakers. In Vienna, opera-goers have the unique custom of going to hear opera. They arrive on time; or if they do not they wait outside in the corridor till the end of the first act. The conclusion is drawn by the audience in general, that it is present to hear and see what is going on up on the stage; any interruption to this, whether of whispering or rattled programmes, is rudely hissed. While one who attempts to leave or to approach his seat after the first note of the overture has been sounded finds himself detained with greater force than fondness. The rare premise is entertained that opera is designed to furnish music, and that the music is worth hearing. It does not seem to occur to anyone to dispute this by leaving before the final note is struck, and the final curtain falls. To the New Yorker especially, thirsting for his champagne and lobster, this must be a diverting system.

But the New Yorker has probably disdained Vienna opera altogether as too cheap to be worth anything. The best seats in the house are only three dollars, while excellent places may be had for half that price, and the students and enthusiasts up in the gallery pay a sixth of it. Officers come off better still: in the circular pit reserved for them, though they have to stand, these servants of the Emperor pay the Imperial Opera only eighty _hellers_ (eight-pence). Of course there is a goodly show of uniforms all over the house as well; and, with the pretty toilettes of the women, the audience is a gay and attractive one. Though the horseshoe is only about half the size of the New York Metropolitan Opera, there is a comfortable intimacy in its rich gold and scarlet loges; besides (the one elegance the Metropolitan lacks) the quartered trappings of the royal box.

This last is often occupied by one or another of the Archdukes and their wives, and several times a year the Emperor himself is present. Then it is gala performance, and all ladies who attend must be in light evening frocks; gentlemen, of course, in the regulation claw-hammer. It is somewhat disconcerting to see--as I did for the first time--this fashionable assembly extract from its coat pockets a generous ham sandwich, and begin to eat it before the curtain goes up; also to watch the rows of elegant ladies and gentlemen waiting their turn in line at the refreshment bar between acts, and to behold the enthusiasm with which they devour large cheese cakes and beer. The fact is that opera in Vienna begins so early--seven o’clock, as a rule--few people have a chance to dine before they leave home; and they are far too sensible to sit hungry through a long performance, or to satisfy their appetite surreptitiously, as Anglo-Saxons would. They want food, and they go and get it--in as frank quantity as they desire. I have seen our charming Frau Gräfin dispose of as many as nine ham sandwiches in the course of an evening, calmly whisking the crumbs from her white satin gown meanwhile.

It is superfluous to speak of the all-satisfying delight of the music itself at the Imperial Opera. No one who has seen Weingartner conduct needs to have it described. For no one who has not seen him can it be described. Sufficient to say that the merits of the piece are not left in the hands of a quartet of fabulously paid principals, or to the luxurious detail of extravagant mounting; but that every voice in the chorus, every inconspicuous instrument of the orchestra, is planned and trained and worked into an _ensemble_ as perfect as a master ear can make it. And the _bravos_ that resound at the end of each act are the sure token of the master’s success; for nowhere is there a more critical or a more appreciative opera audience than in Vienna.

This is true of the _Volksopera_ as well as of the Imperial. Though at the “People’s Opera” the lighter pieces are given for half the price charged at the more pretentious house, the lower middle class who attend them are no less musically trained and difficult to satisfy.

But while every class demands and is given high excellence in classical music, it is in the operette that they unconsciously recognize and worship the true soul of Vienna. As far removed from English musical comedy as caviar from candy, this sparkling, rippling, dashing whirl of airs and waltzes seems to catch up the familiar types out of the streets and cafés, ballrooms and boudoirs, and present them here on the stage _en masse_. In place of the musical comedy milkmaid, with her Louis heels and pink satin décolleté, we have the well-known students and _grisettes_, _grandes dames_ and varnished old _noceurs_ seen in the Graben every day. They wear real clothes, and say real things, and make real mistakes--all to the most entrancing music Franz Lehar or Leo Fall can contrive; and the result is a madness of delight on the part of the audience, such as comes only when people are shown _themselves_.

Shocking? Yes, frequently. The Viennese and their operettes that reflect them are apt to shock many a conventional-minded foreigner. They even shock themselves sometimes--but excuse the episode a minute later. For they are quick to forgive, and are not over-particular as to morals, if the person eschewing them be gay, attractive and clever. Hence the heroes and heroines of their operettes are audacious to a degree somewhat startling to the uninitiated in Viennese life.

But they make up for it in _verve_ and brilliancy. See them dash through three acts of wit and lightning movement--with all their liveliness they never romp; hear them sing their complicated, racing songs, without a fault; watch them whirl and glide in the heady waltz--laughing, dancing, singing all at once, and perfectly. Shocking? you cry, pounding your cane to bits in time with the tune. Piffle!

It does not do to say this to Patsy. But Patsy, happily, understands very little German; so that I was able to indulge my vice for operettes with her uncurbed. Patsy’s thoughts were all on the _Meeresgrund_. As we intended to leave Vienna the day after that, it may without fantasy be supposed that some of her less well-behaved thoughts left the bottom of the sea for a certain skating rink, where she had learned the guiding value of blue eyes and black hair. But outwardly everything was concentrated on the Redoute.

I am not a spiteful person, but I was inclined to gloat when the momentous night arrived, and Patsy, in her shimmering costume, confronted our good Countess. American youth settled its score, I think. For the good lady--herself marvellous in lobster pink and a white wig--flew to Patsy, kissed her on both cheeks, and cried: “_Aber!_ It is of an enchantment, a loveliness of fairies, _wunderbar_!”

And, if I do say it who had no part in the creation, she was right. Patsy stood before us as a fisher girl, her filmy golden nets caught over her shoulders and round the waist with glistening crabs and little brilliant lizards. In contrast with the other women present and their elaborate headgear, the witch had let down her rippling auburn curls to fall in simple glory to her waist. Her cheeks were softly flushed, and her big yellow-brown eyes were shining as she asked demurely, “Do you like me, Uncle Peter?”

I was not too dazzled to forget it was not I actually being asked. But as Captain Max maintained absolute silence--that most ominous of answers!--I replied with nice restraint that I found her charming. And we entered the ball.

It was a vast hall surrounded by shallow galleries, and at the far end a platform arranged in the style of a royal drawing-room. In the ballroom itself great ropes of seaweed and ruddy coral hung pendant down the blue-green walls; mammoth shells of palest pink held the mermaids’ chaperones; a fairy ship twinkled one entire side of the hall with favors and fancies awaiting the dance of the sirens; while at every nook and corner lustrous crinkled pearls gleamed forth light.

The glassy floor pool in the midst of all this fantasy was crowded with Neptunes and nereids, water sprites, lovely white chiffon gulls, and Loreleis with their combs of gold. But they were very modern Loreleis, who kept their hair up in correct ondulation, and whose fascinations proved less irresistible than those of one little red-locked fisher girl. Like everybody else, she was masked, and flitted about the giant circle of the promenade with a tall Captain of the Guards in brilliant full-dress uniform. The Metternich Redoute is the one event of Carnival at which only the women appear in fancy dress. The officers and civilians, in sober garb, form a phalanx in the center of the room, whence they watch the gorgeous procession of _promeneuses_. For until the Court arrives everyone walks about and admires everyone else, while one of the two royal bands plays constantly. Laughing masked ladies, unknown to one another, exchange gay greetings; compliments are bestowed and received in German, French, English, Spanish, Italian and Hungarian; while the familiar “_du_” is the rule of the evening.

All at once something electric passes over the chattering assembly. From a splendid shifting mass it divides into two solid lines, leaving a broad open space down the centre. The sprightly old hostess is in her place, the bands burst into the stirring chords of the national hymn--and the Court enters!

First the old Emperor with his two gentlemen of the Household: erect, fiercely handsome in his blue-gray uniform of the Hapsburgs glittering with orders. The young lieutenants who have spent the afternoon ridiculing his war policy, at sight of the well-known, grizzled head, forget their grievances and salute with a fervour. The old man, haughtily unconscious, passes on. Next comes the young Heir Apparent, with Archduchess Maria Annunziata--the Emperor’s niece and the first lady of the land--who wears Maria Theresa’s emeralds and a magnificent tiara overshadowing those of the ladies who follow her. But each of them, too, is ablaze with jewels, while for sheer beauty and distinction a more remarkable retinue of women could not be found.

There is the ruddy fairness of the German, the wild grace of the Slav, the rich olive and great dark eyes of the Hungarian, the chestnut hair and black brows of Lombardy: every type as it passes is sworn the loveliest--and then forsworn when the next comes by. The court ladies have confined their fantasy to the coiffure, and some of these headdresses are marvels of ingenuity and elegance. Wigs are much favoured; white and high, and crowned with ships of jewels, or monster pearls, or nets of diamonds interwoven with every sort of precious stone. The archdukes and high officers, in their mere uniforms, for once are insignificant in the trail of this effulgence of their women; and Patsy did not even see her Prince Salvator till all of them were seated on the platform and the ball was formally begun.

Twelve young girls and men of the nobility open the dance with a quadrille, prescribed according to court etiquette, and marked by a quaint stateliness. The girls are dressed alike in simple frocks of white and silver, while the young men are in more or less elaborate uniform. After the quadrille, dancing is general, but the crowd is too great for it to be any pleasure at first. Not till after the Court has gone is there really room to move about in. Meanwhile, favoured personages are led to the Master of Ceremonies, and by him presented to Royalty on its dais.

Thanks to Countess H----, Patsy and I were permitted to pay homage; and even the severe old Emperor himself unbent to smile at the witch in her shimmering frock when she made her _révérence_. There was a look about Patsy that night that a stone image must have melted to--a radiance at once so soft and so bright, no man could have resisted, or woman failed to understand. I can see her now, the colour deepening in her cheek as she made her curtsey to Archduke Salvator. Captain Max was just behind her, the Countess and I at one side.

The Archduke--who did have blue eyes and black hair--was about to return Patsy’s salutation with his bow of ceremony when suddenly he looked into her face. His own for a moment was a study. Then, gazing over her shoulder at Captain Max in his glowering magnificence, he inquired gravely: “And this, then, is the uncle?”

The rose swept Patsy’s cheek to her slender neck. For an instant she hesitated; then, looking straight at me instead of at the Archduke, she said sturdily: “This is the uncle’s nephew-to-be, and your Highness is the first one to learn of it.”

Of course the Countess turned faint, and all but forgot court etiquette in a frenzied hunt for her salts; and the Archduke kissed Patsy’s hand and shook Max’s, and amid a host of incoherent congratulations, discovered that he and Max belonged to the same regiment; and somehow we bowed ourselves out of the Presence and into the gallery again.

The Countess embraced Patsy, within shelter of a blue--pasteboard--grotto, and would have carried her off for a good cry, but Patsy turned to me. “Uncle Peter,” she swung to my arm with that destructive wheedlesomeness of hers, “Uncle Peter, you _are_ pleased?”

Max, too, approached me with an anxiety that would have flattered a Pharaoh. “Patsy,” said I, admirably concealing my overwhelming surprise, “I have only one thing to say: _you_ shall be the one to tell your mother!”

Of course she wasn’t. I knew from the first that she wouldn’t be; and I meekly endured the consequences. But all that is sequel. For the rest of the Redoute I sat with the Countess in the jaws of a papier mâché crocodile, and ate macaroons and discussed family pedigree; and Patsy and my nephew-elect fed off glances and waltzed till five in the morning. It was the most hectic evening of my two score years and ten.

When at last we left the bottom of the sea, gaiety was at its crest. The Court had departed long since, but nymphs and nereids whirled more madly than ever, Lorelies spun their lures with deeper cunning than before--now they were unmasked; and mere men were being drawn forever further and further into the giddy, gorgeous opalescence of the maze. In retrospect they seemed caught and clung to by the twining ropes of coral; mermaids and men alike enmeshed within the shining seaweed and pale, rosy shells--compassed, held about by the blue-green walls of their translucent prison. The pearly lights gleamed softer, the music of the sirens floated sweeter and more seductive on each wave, the water sprites and cloudy gulls circled and swam in wilder, lovelier haze.

And then--the wand of realism swept over them. They were a laughing, twirling crowd of Viennese, abandoned to the intoxication of their deity: the dance. Reckless, pleasure-mad, never flagging in pursuit of the evanescent _joie de vivre_, they became all at once a band of extravagant, lovable children who had stayed up too late and ought to have been put to bed.

But I was always a doting uncle. I left them to their revel, and departed. I shall go back some day, for I have now in Vienna the gay, the _gemütlich_, a niece named Patsy--and it all came from choosing a train that arrived before breakfast!

IV

THE BROKEN-DOWN ACTOR

(Madrid)

I

HIS CORNER APART

In spirit, as in distance, it is a far cry from the childlike gaiety and extravagance of Vienna to the gloom and haughty poverty of Madrid. Gloomy in its psychic rather than its physical aspects is this city of the plain, for while the sun scorches in summer and the wind chills in winter, thanks to the quite modern architecture of New Madrid, there is ample light and space all the year round.

Any Spanish history will tell you that Charles V chose this place for his capital because the climate was good for his gout. One author maintains that it was for the far subtler reason that Madrid was neutral ground between the jealous cities of Toledo, Valladolid and Seville. But everyone, past and present, agrees that the Spanish capital is the least Spanish of any town in the kingdom. It shares but one distinctive trait with the rest of Spain--and that the dominant trait of the nation: pride, illimitable and unconditioned, in the glory of the past; oblivion to the ruin of the present.

Like a great artist whose star has set, Spain sits aloof from the modern powers she despises; wrapped in her enshrouding cloak of self-sufficiency, she dreams or prattles garrulously of the days when she ruled without peer--not heeding, not even knowing, that the stage today is changed beyond her recognition.

The attitude is, however, far more interesting than the bustle and mere business efficiency of the typical modern capital. After the vastness and confusion of Waterloo and St. Lazare, one arrives in Madrid at a little station suggestive of a sleepy provincial town. Porters are few and far between, and one generally carries one’s own bags to the primitive horse cabs waiting outside. Taxis are almost unheard of, and the few that are seen demand prices as fabulous as those of New York. Every _Madrileño_ who can possibly afford it has a carriage, but the rank and file use the funny little trams--which I must say, however, are excellently conducted and most convenient.

Both the trams and all streets and avenues are plainly marked with large clear signs, and the pleasant compactness of the city makes it easy to find one’s way about. The centre of life and activity is the Puerto del Sol--Gate of the Sun--an oval plaza which Spaniards fondly describe as “the busiest square in the world.” There is no doubt at all that it is the noisiest; with its clanging trams, rattling carriages, shouting street vendors, and ambulant musicians.

These latter, with the beggars, form to my mind the greatest plague of Madrid; their number is legion, their instruments strangely and horribly devised, and they have the immoral generosity to play on, just the same, whether you give them money or not. Though, as a matter of fact, when you walk in the Puerta del Sol, they are forever under your feet, shaking their tin cups for _centimos_ and whining for attention.

I infinitely prefer the gentle-voiced old men--of whom there is also an army--who offer soft balls of puppies for sale; and, when they are refused, tenderly return the cherished scrap to their warm pockets. The swarm of impish newsboys are hard to snub, too: Murillo has ingratiated them with one forever--their rags and their angelic brown eyes in rogues’ faces.

But I find no difficulty at all in refusing the beggars. These are of every age, costume and infirmity; and enjoy full privilege of attacking citizen or stranger, without intervention of any kind by the police. A Spanish lady naïvely explained to me that they had indeed tried to deal with the beggars; that the government had once deported them one and all to the places where they were born--for _of course_ none of them came originally from Madrid! But, would I believe it, within a week they were all back again? Perhaps I, as a foreigner, could not understand how the poor creatures simply loved Madrid too passionately to remain away.

I assured the señora gravely I could understand. In fact, it seems to me entirely normal to be passionately attached to a place that yields one a tidy income for nothing. No, rather for the extensive development and use of one’s persuasive powers. Imagination, too, and diplomacy must be employed; and sometimes the nice art of “coming down.” The monologue runs like this:

“Good afternoon, gentleman. The gentleman is surely the most handsome, the most kind-hearted, the best-dressed, and most polite of all the world. If the gentleman could part with a peseta--nine-pence--to a brother in deepest woe, God would reward him. God would give him still more elegant health and more ravishing children. If he has no children, God would certainly send him some--for only half a peseta, oh, gracious gentleman. To a brother whose afflictions could not be recited from now till the end of the world, so multiple, so heartrending are they. I am an old man of seventy, oh, most beautiful gentleman--old as the gentleman’s illustrious father, may Mary and the angels grant him long life! Only twenty centimos, my gentleman--God will give you a million. Ten centimos--five!... _Caramba!_ a curse on your hideous face and loping gait. There is no uglier toad this side of hell!”

One thing beggars _can_ choose with proficiency: their language. In Madrid they would be less disgusting were it not for their loathsome diseases and deformities. The government is far too poor to isolate them in asylums, so they continue to possess the streets and the already overcrowded Gate of the Sun.

From this plaza the principal thoroughfares of the city branch off in a sort of wheel, and mules, goats and donkeys laden with every imaginable sort of burden pass to and fro at all hours of day and night. Shops there are, of course, of various kinds; and cafés crowded round the square; but the waiters carry the trays on their heads, and the whole atmosphere is that of a mediæval interior town rather than a modern cosmopolitan city.

To be sure, in Alcalà, the principal street off the Puerta del Sol, there are clubs and up-to-date restaurants; but only men are supposed to go to the restaurants, and in the clubs they look ill at ease and incongruous. The life of the Spaniard is inalienably the life in the streets, where you will find him at all hours, strolling along in his clothes of fantastic cut and colour or sitting at a café, drinking _horchatas_--the favourite beverage, made from a little nut. His constant expression is a steady stare; varying from the dreamily absent-minded to the crudely vulgar and licentious.

The widely diversified ancestry of the Spanish people is keenly interesting to follow out in the features of the men and women of today; among no race is there greater variety of type, though it is four hundred years since the Moors and Jews were driven out, and new blood has been practically excluded from Spain. Yet one sees the Moorish and Jewish casts as distinct today as ever they were; to say nothing of the aquiline Roman or the ruddy Gothic types from the far more ancient period.

In names, too, history is eloquent: we find Edwigis, Gertrudis, and Clotilde of the Gothic days; Zenaida and Agueda of the Moorish; Raquel, Ester of the Jewish. I think that in no language is there such variety or beauty in women’s names. Take, for example, Consuelo, Amparo (Succour), Luz--pronounced Luth and meaning Light--or Felicitas, Rosario, Pílar, Soledad, and a wealth of others as liquid and as significant.

It is hard to attach them to the rather mediocre women one sees in the streets on their way to mass: dressed in cheap tailored frocks, a flimsy width of black net over their heads. The mantilla is no longer current in Madrid, except for _fiestas_ and as the caprice of the wealthy; but this shoddy offspring of the mantilla--the inferior black veil--is everywhere seen on all classes of women. The _Madrileña_ who wears a hat announces herself rich beyond recounting, and is charged accordingly in the shops. Needless to say, there is no such thing as a fixed price in any but the places of foreign origin.

I have often wondered whether Spanish women are stupid because they are kept in such seclusion or whether they are secluded because they are stupid. It is hard to separate the cause from the effect. But certainly the Spanish beauty of song and story is rarer than rubies today; while the animation that gives charm even to an ugly French or American woman is utterly lacking in the _Española’s_ heavy, rather sensual features. I am inclined to think, from the fact that it is saliently a man’s country, she is as he has made her, or allowed her to become. And when you remember that her highest enjoyment is to drive through the rough-paved streets, hour after hour, that she may see and be seen; when you consider that the rest of her day is spent in a cheerless house without a book or a magazine, or any occupation but menial household drudgery, you pity rather than condemn the profound ignorance of the average Spanish woman.

Married at sixteen, the mother of four or five children by the time she is twenty-five, she grows old before her time even as a Latin woman. While by men she is disregarded and treated with a rudeness and lack of respect revolting to the Anglo-Saxon. Her husband precedes her into and out of the room, leaves her the less comfortable seat, blows smoke in her face, and expectorates in her presence; all as a matter of course, which she accepts in the same spirit. Her _raison d’être_ is as a female; nothing more. What wonder that the brain she has is expended in gossip and intrigue and that her husband openly admits he cannot trust her out of his sight?

Like the Eastern women she resembles, she is superstitiously devout; as, indeed, the men are, too, when they remember to be. All the morning, weekdays as well as Sunday, the churches are full; one mass succeeds another. It is a favourite habit of the younger men to wait outside the fashionable churches until the girls and their duenas come out, and then to remark quite audibly on the charms of the former. The compliments are of the most bare-faced variety, but are affably received; even sometimes returned by a discreet retort _sotto voce_. The blades call the custom “throwing flowers”; and the bolder of the maidens are apt to fling back over their shoulder, “thanks for the flower!”

One can always see this little comedy outside the well-known church of San Isidro--patron saint of Madrid--which, with the more important clubs and public buildings, is in the Street of the Alcalà. The Alcalà connects the Puerta del Sol with the famous promenades of the Prado and the Castellana, which are joined together by an imposing plaza with a fountain, and extend as far as the park of the Retiro.

Spaniards are firmly convinced that the Castellana is finer than the Champs Elysées; but it is, in reality, a rather stupid avenue--broad, and with plenty of trees in pots of water, yet quite flat, and lacking the quaint _guignols_ and smart restaurants that give color to the French promenade. Galician nursemaids, with their enormous earrings, congregate round the ice-cream booths, while their overdressed charges play “bullfight” or “circus” in the allées nearby.

But the Castellana is an empty stretch of sand, for the most part, until half-past six in the evening, when it becomes for an hour or two the liveliest quarter of the city. The mansions on either side of the street open their gates, carriages roll forth, _señoras_ in costumes of French cut but startling hue are bowled into the central driveway, _señors_ in equally impressive garments appear on horseback, and the “_paseo_”--the event of the day--has begun.

Strangers who have not been asked to dine with their Spanish friends because the latter cannot afford a cook will be repeatedly taken to drive in a luxurious equipage with two men on the box and a pair of high-stepping bays. For a Spanish family will scrimp and save, and sometimes actually half starve, in order to maintain its place in the daily procession on the Castellana. This is true of all classes, from the impoverished aristocracy to the struggling bourgeoisie; and is so much a racial characteristic that the same holds in Manila, Havana, and many of the South American cities. What his house is to the Englishman, his trip to Europe to the American, his carriage is to the Spaniard. With this hallmark of social solvency he can hold up his head with the proudest; without it he is an outcast.

The Madrileños tell among themselves of certain ladies who afford the essential victoria by dressing fashionably from the waist up only. A carriage rug covers the other and well-worn part of their apparel. This is consistent with stories of economy carried into the smallest item of the household expenses--such as cooking without salt or pepper, and foregoing a tablecloth--in order that the family name may appear among the box-holders at the opera. Spanish people look upon these sacrifices, when they know them, as altogether admirable; from peasant to grandee, they are forever aiding and abetting each other at that most pitiful of all games: keeping up appearances. But, however petty the apparent motive, there is a certain tragic courage behind it; the desperate, final courage of the _grand artiste_, refusing to admit that his day is dead. And under all his burdens, all his bitter poverty, silent, uncomplaining.

Seen in this light, that stately queue of carriages on the Castellana takes on something more than its mere superficial significance--which is to show oneself, and further to show one’s daughters. Officers and civilians walk up and down, on either side of the driveway, or canter along near the carriages, with one object: to stare at the young girls. Far from being snubbed, their interest is welcomed with complaisance, and many and many a marriage is arranged from one of these encounters on the Castellana.

The young man notices the same girl for two or three days, then asks to be presented to her; the heads of the two families confer, finances are frankly discussed, and, if everything is found satisfactory, the courtship is allowed to proceed. Parents are generally easy to satisfy, too, being in frantic haste to marry off their daughters. The old maid and the bachelor girl are unknown quantities in Spain, and an officer with a salary of five pounds a month is eagerly snapped up as an excellent catch.

This gives some idea of the absolute pittance whole families are used to live on, and to consider ample. The bare necessities of life are gratefully counted by Spaniards as luxuries; while luxuries, in the modern sense of the word, are practically unheard of. Private motor cars, for example, are so rare as to be noticed when they pass through the streets; while, on the other hand, a sleek pair of mules is considered almost as emphatic a sign of prosperity as a pair of horses. It is an everyday sight to see the gold cockades of royalty, or the silver of nobility, on the box behind two mules. And a Spaniard realizes nothing curious about this. If it is a habit of his countrymen, it is right, and proper, and elegant, and to be emulated by all who can afford it.

If you tell him, moreover, of the conveniences of other countries--not in comparison with his own, but quite casually--he looks at you with an indulgent smile, and believes not a word of it. He himself is far too poor to travel, so that naturally he is skeptical of what he calls “traveller’s tales.” I once showed a Marqués whom I was entertaining in Madrid a picture of the Metropolitan Tower in New York. He laughed, like an amused child. “Those Americans! They are always boasting,” he said, “but one must confess they are clever to construct a photograph like that.” Nor was I able to convince him during the remainder of the evening that such a building and many others as tall actually did exist.

The old actor sits with his eyes glued to his own pictures, mesmerizing himself into the belief that they are now as ever they were: representative of the greatest star of all the stage. He cares not to study the methods of the new generation, for he loftily ignores its existence. Tradition is the poison that infests his bones, and is surely eating them away.

He has a son who would save him if the dotard would permit: a tall young man, with a splendid carriage and an ugly, magnetic face--alert to every detail of modern régime. But the young man is a king, and kings, as everyone knows, have the least power of anybody. Alfonso XIII, with all his indefatigable energy, can leaven but a very small lump of the blind self-sufficiency of Spain. He plays a hopeless part bravely and is harder-working than most of his peasants.

His palace stands at the edge of old Madrid, on the high land above the river, where the old Moorish Alcazar once stood: a magnificent situation. The façade fronts and dominates the city; the rear looks out on the river Mazanares and beyond, on the royal park of the Casa del Campo. Here one can often see the King shooting pigeons in the afternoon or taking tea with the Queen and the Queen Mother. The people are not permitted in this park, but foreigners may apply for a card of admission and go there at any time, provided their coachman is in livery.

_Franzen_

THE QUEEN OF SPAIN AND THE PRINCE OF THE ASTURIAS]

One Sunday I saw the royal children, with their nurses, building a bonfire in a corner of the park. They were shouting and running about most lustily, and it was a relief to see royalty--though at the age of three and four--having a good time. The little Prince of the Asturias was in uniform, Prince Jaimé in sailor’s togs, and the two small Infantas in white frocks with blue sashes. They all looked simply and comfortably dressed, and a credit to the good sense of their father and mother. The nurses, who are Englishwomen--pink-cheeked and cheerful--wore plain blue cotton frocks and shady straw hats, like anyone else’s nurses. It was a satisfying picture, after the elaborateness and false show that surround the average Spanish child.

Of all the royal children, Jaimé is the beloved of the people. He has a singularly sweet and at the same time animated face, and, the Spaniards proudly declare, is the true Spanish type. Doubtless, too, his sad infirmity--he was born a deaf mute--and his patience and cleverness in coping with it have endeared this little prince to everybody.

The reigning Spanish family are the last of the powerful Bourbons, and their court is conducted with all the Bourbon etiquette of Louis XIV. It is a less brilliant court than the Austrian, being very much poorer, but the shining white grandeur of the palace itself makes up for elegance foregone by the courtiers. For once, Spain’s overweening pride is justified: she boasts the loveliest royal residence of any nation.

An interesting time to visit it is at Guard Mount in the morning. Then the beautiful inner court is filled with Lancers in plumed helmets and brilliant blue uniforms, riding splendidly matched roans. Two companies of infantry, in their darker blue and red, line the hollow square; and in the centre are the officers, magnificently mounted and aglitter with gold braid and orders. They advance into the court to the slow and stately measure of the Royal March, and sometimes the King appears on the balcony above--to the delight of the people, who are allowed to circulate freely in the passages of the pillared _patio_.

Peasants are there by the score, in their shabby earth-brown corduroys, and soft-eyed girls with stout duenas, swaying fans between the threadbare fingers of their cheap cotton gloves. Students with faded capes swung from their shoulders; swarms of children and shuffling old men in worn sombreros; priests, bullfighters, beggars, and vendors of everything from sweetmeats to bootlaces, wander in and out the arcades while the band plays.

In spite of the modern uniforms of the soldiers, it is a scene out of another age: a sleepy, sunny age, when all the simple people demanded was a heel of bread and the occasional spectacle of the pomp of their masters. Yet it is the Spain of today; in the foreground its brave show of traditional splendour; peering out from behind, its penury and rags.

The old actor sees none of this. In his forgotten corner he has wound himself within his gorgeous tattered cloak of long ago; and crouches into it, eyes closed upon a vision in which he never ceases to play the part of Cæsar.

II

HIS ARTS AND AMUSEMENTS

_Pan y toros!_ The old “Bread and the circus” of the Romans, the mediæval and modern “Bread and the bulls!” of Spain. One feels that the dance should have been worked in, really to make this cry of the people complete. For in the bullfight and the ancient national dances we have the very soul of Spain.

Progressive Spaniards like to think the _corrida de toros_ is gradually dying out; many, many people in Madrid, they tell you, would not think of attending one. This is true, though generally the motive behind it is financial rather than humane. And the great mass of the people, aristocracy as well as _bourgeoisie_, put the bulls first, and go hungry for the bread if necessary. Every small boy, be he royal or beggar, plays “bullfight” from the time he can creep; every small girl looks on admiringly, and claps her hands. And when the small boy is grown, and dazzles the Bull Ring with his daring _toreo_, the girl in her brilliant dancer’s dress still applauds and flings him her carnations. Throughout Spain the two are wedded in actual personal passion, as in symbolic truth.

It is said that the bullfight was founded by the Moors in Spain in the twelfth century, though bulls were probably fought with before that in the Roman amphitheatres. The principle on which the play depends is courage, coolness, and dexterity--the three-in-one characteristics of the Arabs of the desert. In early days gentlemen, armed only with a short spear, fought with the bulls, and proved their skill and horsemanship. But with the coming of the Bourbons as the reigning house of Spain the sport changed from a fashionable into a national one, and professional bullfighters took the place of the courtly players of before.

It is by no means true, however--as so many foreigners imagine--that the _toreros_ are invariably men of mean birth and vulgar education. On the contrary, they are frequently of excellent parentage and great mental as well as physical capability; while always their keen science and daring make them an aristocracy of themselves which the older aristocracy delights to worship. They are the friends and favourites of society, the idols of the populace; you never see one of them in the streets without an admiring train of hangers-on, and the newspapers record the slightest item in connection with each fighter of the hour. Whole pages are filled with photographs of the various feats and characteristic poses of distinguished _toreros_; and so well known do these become that an audience in the theatre recognizes at once an “imitation” of Bombita, or Gallito, or Machaquito--and shouts applause.

Even the average bullfighter is a rich man and known for his generosity as well. Directly there is a disaster--railway accident, explosion or flood--a _corrida_ is arranged for the sufferers; and the whole band of fighters give their earnings to the cause. The usual profits of a skilled _torero_ are seven thousand pesetas--two hundred and eighty pounds--a performance. Out of this he must pay his assistants about three thousand pesetas, and the rest he has for himself. When not the lover of some famous dancer, he is often a married man, and they say, aside from his dangerous profession, makes an excellent husband and father. One and all, the bullfighters are religious; the last thing they do before entering the arena is to confess and receive absolution in the little chapel at the Bull Ring, and a priest remains with extreme unction always in readiness in case of serious accident.

The great part of the bullfighters come from Andalucia--there is an academy at Seville to teach the science--but some are from the North and from Mexico and South America, and all are impatient to fight at Madrid, since successful _toreo_ in this city constitutes the bullfighter’s diploma. At the first--and so of course the most exciting--fight I saw the _matadors_ were Bombita and Gallito, from Seville, and Gaona, from Mexico. The latter was even more cordially received by the Spaniards than their own countrymen after they saw his splendid play; but Bombita is acknowledged the best _matador_--killer--in Spain, and Gallito, a mere boy of eighteen, is adored by the people. Each of the three killed two bulls on the afternoon I attended my first _corrida_.

It is impossible to describe the change that comes over the whole aspect and atmosphere of Madrid on the day of a bullfight. The old actor in his corner rubs his eyes, shakes himself and looks alive. Crowds are in the streets, buckboards packed with country people dash through the Puerta del Sol and towards the Plaza de Toros; the languid _madrileño_ in the cafés is roused to rapid talk and excited betting with his neighbour, and in the clubs, where the _toreros_ are gathered in their gorgeous costumes, the betting runs higher. Ticket booths are surrounded by a mob of eager enthusiasts, while behind her grating the señora is shaking out her mantilla, fixing the great red and white carnations in her hair, draping the lace above them and her monstrous comb. A carriage drives swiftly down the street to her door, her husband hurries in, calling impetuously to make haste. The slumbrous eyes of the lady catch fire with a thousand sparks; she clicks her fan, flashes a last triumphant smile into her mirror, and is swept away to the Bull Ring.

Here all is seething anticipation: the immense coliseum black with people moving to their seats or standing up to watch the crowd in the arena below; Royalty just arrived, Doña Isabel and her ladies lining the velvet-hung box with their picturesque mantillas; the President of the Bull Ring taking his place of honour; ladies unfurling fans and gossiping, _aficionados_ waving to one another across the ring and calling final excited bets; small boys shouting cushions, cigarettes, postcards, or beer and _horchatas_. Suddenly a bugle sounds. People scuttle to their seats, the arena is cleared as by magic, and, to a burst of music and thunderous applause from ten thousand pairs of hands, the splendid _entrada_ takes place.

_Matadors_ in their bright suits heavy with gold, _banderilleros_ in their silver, _picadors_ on their sorry horses, march proudly round the ring; while the band plays and the crowd shouts itself hoarse--just for a starter. Then the _picadors_ go out, the _torero_ who is to kill the first bull asks the President for the keys to the ring; the President throws them into the arena, and--the first bull is loosed!

From this point on there is no wit in regarding the spectacle from a humane or sentimental standpoint. He who is inclined to do so had better never have left home. If he has eyes for the prodigal bloodshed, the torture of the bull with the piercing darts, the sufferings of the horses, he will be acutely wretched from beginning to end. But if he can fix his attention solely on the beauty of the _torero’s_ body in constant action, on the utter fearlessness and superb audacity of the man in his taunting the beast; if, in short, he can concentrate on the science and skill of the thing, he will have something worth remembering all his life.