The Leading Roles Are No Joke, - Carrying Fifty Kilos
Of Wood Over The Mud And Cobble-Stones For Half A Day.
The Judas or
Gestas must be paid double for the kicks and cuffs he gets from
tender-hearted spectators, - the curses he accepts willingly as a tribute
to his dramatic ability.
His proudest boast in the evening is Querian
matarme, - 'They wanted to kill me!' I once saw the hero of the drama
stop before a wine-shop, sweating like rain, and positively swear by the
life of the Devil, he would not carry his gallows a step farther unless
he had a drink. They brought him a bottle of Valdepenas, and he drained
it before resuming his way to Golgotha. Some of us laughed
thoughtlessly, and narrowly escaped the knives of the orthodox ruffians
who followed the procession."
The most striking fact in this species of exhibition is the evident and
unquestioning faith of the audience. To all foreigners the show is at
first shocking and then tedious; to the good people of Madrid it is a
sermon, full of absolute truth and vivid reality. The class of persons
who attend these spectacles is very different from that which you find
at the Royal Theatre or the Comic Opera. They are sober, serious
bourgeois, who mind their shops and go to mass regularly, and who come
to the theatre only in Lent, when the gay world stays away. They would
not dream of such an indiscretion as reading the Bible.
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