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.
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