He Was The Frowsiest Bookseller I Ever Saw,
And He Was In The Third Day Of His Unshavenness With A
Shirt-front and
coat-collar plentifully bedandruffed from his shaggy hair; but he
entered into the spirit of my affair
And said if that Spanish play had
succeeded so wonderfully, then I ought to pay fifty per cent, more than
the current price for the other Spanish plays which I wanted him to get
me. I laughed with him at the joke which I found simple earnest when our
glowing concierge gave me the books next day, and I perceived that the
proposed supplement had really been paid for them on my account. I
should not now be grieving for this incident if the plays had proved
better reading than they did on experiment. Some of them were from the
Catalan, and all of them dealt with the simpler actual life of Spain;
but they did not deal impressively with it, though they seemed to me
more hopeful in conception than certain psychological plays of ten or
fifteen years ago, which the Spanish authors had too clearly studied
from Ibsen.
They might have had their effect in the theater, but the rainy weather
had not only spoiled my sole chance of the bull-feast; the effect of it
in a stubborn cold forbade me the night air and kept me from testing any
of the new dramas on the stage, which is always giving new dramas in
Madrid. The stage, or rather the theater, is said to be truly a passion
with the Madrilenos, who go every night to see the whole or the part of
a play and do not mind seeing the same play constantly, as if it were
opera. They may not care to see the play so much as to be seen at it;
that happens in every country; but no doubt the plays have a charm which
did not impart itself from the printed page. The companies are reported
very good: but the reader must take this from me at second hand, as he
must take the general society fact. I only know that people ask you to
dinner at nine, and if they go to the theater afterward they cannot well
come away till toward one o'clock. It is after this hour that the
_tertulia,_ that peculiarly Spanish function, begins, but how long it
lasts or just what it is I do not know. I am able to report confidently,
however, that it is a species of _salon_ and that it is said to be
called a _tertulia_ because of the former habit in the guests, and no
doubt the hostess, of quoting the poet Tertullian. It is of various
constituents, according as it is a fashionable, a literary, or an
artistic _tertulia,_ or all three with an infusion of science.
Oftenest, I believe, it is a domestic affair and all degrees of
cousinship resort to it with brothers and sisters and uncles, who meet
with the pleasant Latin liking of frequent meetings among kindred. In
some cases no doubt it is a brilliant reunion where lively things are
said; in others it may be dull; in far the most cases it seems to be
held late at night or early in the morning.
VI
It was hard, after being shut up several days, that one must not go out
after nightfall, and if one went out by day, one must go with closed
lips and avoid all talking in the street under penalty of incurring the
dreaded pneumonia of Madrid. Except for that dreaded pneumonia, I
believe the air of Madrid is not so pestilential as it has been
reported. Public opinion is beginning to veer in favor of it, just as
the criticism which has pronounced Madrid commonplace and unpicturesque
because it is not obviously old, is now finding a charm in it peculiar
to the place. Its very modernity embodies and imparts the charm, which
will grow as the city grows in wideness and straightness. It is in the
newer quarter that it recalls Rome or the newer quarters of Rome; but
there is an old part of it that recalls the older part of Naples, though
the streets are not quite so narrow nor the houses so high. There is
like bargaining at the open stands with the buyers and sellers
chaffering over them; there is a likeness in the people's looks, too,
but when it comes to the most characteristic thing of Naples, Madrid is
not in it for a moment. I mean the bursts of song which all day long and
all night long you hear in Naples; and this seems as good a place as any
to say that to my experience Spain is a songless land. We had read much
of the song and dance there, but though the dance might be hired the
song was never offered for love or money. To be sure, in Toledo, once, a
woman came to her door across the way under otir hotel window and sang
over the slops she emptied into the street, but then she shut the door
and we heard her no more. In Cprdova there was as brief a peal of music
from a house which we passed, and in Algeciras we heard one short sweet
strain from a girl whom we could not see behind her lattice. Besides
these chance notes we heard no other by any chance. But this is by no
means saying that there is not abundant song in Spain, only it was kept
quiet; I suppose that if we had been there in the spring instead of the
fall we should at least have heard the birds singing. In Madrid there
were not even many street cries; a few in the Puerta del Sol, yes; but
the peasants who drove their mule-teams through the streets scarcely
lifted their voices in reproach or invitation; they could trust the wise
donkeys that led them to get them safely through the difficult places.
There was no audible quarreling among the cabmen, and when you called a
cab it was useless to cry "Heigh!" or shake your umbrella; you made play
with your thumb and finger in the air and sibilantly whispered;
otherwise the cabman ignored you and went on reading his newspaper.
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