But
When In The Evening I Meet Him Haggard And Feverish, Hawking His Unsold
Places In Desperate Panic On The
Sidewalk, I cannot but remember that
probably a half dozen dirty and tawny descendants of Pelayo will eat no
beans
To-morrow for those unfortunate tickets, and my wrath melts, and I
buy his crumpled papers, moist with the sweat of anxiety, and add a
slight propina, which I fear will be spent in aguardiente to calm his
shattered nerves.
This day the sky looked threatening, and my shabby hidalgo listened to
reason, and sold me my places at their price and a petit verre.
As we entered in the evening the play had just begun. The scene was the
interior of the Temple at Jerusalem, rather well done, - two ranges of
superimposed porphyry columns with a good effect of oblique perspective,
which is very common in the Spanish theatres. St. Simeon, in a dress
suspiciously resembling that of the modern bishop, was talking with a
fiery young Hebrew who turns out to be Demas, the Penitent Thief, and
who is destined to play a very noticeable part in the evening's
entertainment. He has received some slight from the government
authorities and does not propose to submit to it. The aged and
cooler-blooded Simeon advises him to do nothing rash. Here at the very
outset is a most characteristic Spanish touch. You are expected to be
interested in Demas, and the only crime which could appeal to the
sympathies of a Castilian crowd would be one committed at the promptings
of injured dignity.
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