Four Months Afoot in Spain Part 12

So bare and uninviting are her environs--and she has no suburbs--that Madrid never retires outwardly as other cities for her picnics and holidays, but crowds more closely together in the Buen Retiro. The congestion is greatest about the Estanque Grande. The largest body of water the normal madrileno ever sees is this artificial pond of about the area--though not the depth--of a college swimming-pool. On it are marooned a few venerable rowboats, for a ride in which most of the residents of Madrid have been politely quarreling every fair day since they reached a quarrelsome age. Small wonder dwellers in the capital cry out in horror at the idea of drinking water. One might as sanely talk of burning wood for fuel.

Obviously no untraveled native of "las Cortes" has more than a vague conception of the sea. Indeed, the ignorance on this point is nothing short of pathetic, if one may judge from the popular sea novel that fell into my hands during my stay. The writer evidently dwelt in the usual hotbox that const.i.tutes a Madrid lodging and had not the remotest, wildest notion what thing a sea may be, nor the ability to tell a mainsail from a missionary's mule. But he was a clever man--to have concocted such a yarn and escaped persecution.

Madrid, however, like all urban Spain, comes thoroughly to life only with the fall of night. Occasionally a special celebration carries her populace to some strange corner of the city, but the fixed rendezvous is the Paseo de Recoletos, a broader Alameda where reigns by day an un-Spanish opulence of shade enjoyed only by the chairs stacked house-high beneath the trees. There is nothing hurried about the congregating. Dinner leisurely finished, the madrileno of high or low degree begins to drift slowly thither. By nine the public benches are taken; by ten one can and must move only with the throng at the accepted pace, or pay a copper to sit in haughty state in one of the now unstacked chairs. Toward ten-thirty a military band straggles in from the four points of the compa.s.s, finishes its cigarette, languidly unlimbers its instruments, and near eleven falls to work--or play.

About the same time there come wandering through the trees, as if drawn here by merest chance, five threadbare blind men, each with a battered violin or horn tucked tenderly under one arm. During the opening number they listen attentively, in silence, after the manner of musicians. Then as the official players pause to roll new cigarettes the sightless ragam.u.f.fins take their stand near at hand and strike up a music that more than one city of the western world could do worse than subsidize.

Thereafter melody is incessant; and with it the murmur of countless voices, the sc.r.a.pe of leisurely feet on the gravel, the cries of the hawkers of all that may by any chance be sought, and louder and more insistent than all else the baying of newsboys--aged forty to sixty and of both s.e.xes--"_El Pais!_" "_El Heraldo!_" "_La Cor-r-respondencia-a-a-a!_"

Midnight! Why, midnight is only late in the afternoon in Madrid. The concert does not end until three and half the babies of the city are playing in the sand along the Paseo de Recoletos when the musicians leave. Besides, what else is to be done? Even did one feel the slightest desire to turn in there is not the remotest possibility of finding one's room less than a sweatbox. The populace shows little inclination to disperse, and though many saunter unwillingly homeward for form's sake, it is not to sleep, for one may still hear chatting and the m.u.f.fled tw.a.n.g of guitars behind the blinds of the open windows. As for myself, I drifted commonly after the concert into the "Circo Americano" or a zarzuela, though such entertainments demonstrated nothing except how easily the madrileno is amused. Yet even these close early--for Madrid; and rambling gradually into my adopted section, it was usually my fortune to run across a "friend of the house"--of whom more anon--to retire with him to the nearest _Juego de Billar_, or billiard-hall, there to play the night gray-headed.

The doors of Madrid close at midnight, and neither the madrileno nor his guests have yet reached that stage of civilization where they can be entrusted with their own latch-key. But it is easy for all that to gain admittance. One has only to halt before one's door, clap one's hands soundly three or six or nine or fifteen times, bawl in one's most musical and top-most voice, "Ser-r-r-r-reno!" not forgetting to roll the r like the whir of a broken emery-wheel, and then sit calmly down on the curb and wait. Within a half-hour, or an hour at most, the watchman is almost sure to appear, rattling with gigantic keys, carrying staff and lantern, and greeting the exile with all the compliments of the Spanish season, unlocks, furnishes him a lighted wax taper, wishes him a "good night" and a long day's sleep, and gracefully pockets his two-cent fee.

Theoretically the sereno is supposed to keep order--or at least orderly.

But nothing is more noted for its absence in Madrid by night than order.

The sereno of the calle San Bernardo showed great liking for the immediate neighborhood of our casa de huespedes--after I had been admitted. Rare the night--that is, morning--that he did not sit down beneath my window--for my promotion to the third-floor back was postponed until I left the city--with a pair of hackmen or day-hawks and fall to rehearsing in a foghorn-voice the story of his n.o.ble past. Twice or thrice I let drop a hint in the form of what water was in my pitcher.

But the serenos of Madrid are imperturbable, and water is precious. On each such occasion the romancer moved over some two feet and serenely continued his tale until the rising sun sent him strolling homeward.

"Don Ricardo," of our German boarders, aspired to change from his stool in a banking-house to the bullring. He had taken a course in Madrid's Escuela Taurina and was already testing his prowess each Sunday as a banderillero in the little plaza of Tetuan, a few miles outside the city. In consequence--for "Ricardo" was a companionable youth for all his ragged Spanish--our casa de huespedes became a rendezvous of lesser lights in the taurine world. Two or three toreros were sure to drop in each evening before we had sipped the last of our wine, to spend an hour or two in informal _tertulia_. I had not been a week in the city before I numbered among my acquaintances Curdito, Capita de Carmona, Pepete, and Moreno de Alcala, all men whose names have decorated many a ringside poster.

There appeared one evening among the "friends of the house" a young man of twenty, of singularly attractive appearance and personality.

Clear-eyed, of lithe yet muscular frame, and a spring-like quickness in every movement, he was noticeable above all for his modest deportment, having barely a touch of that arrogant self-esteem that is so frequently the dominating characteristic of the Spaniard. His speech was the soft, musical Andalusian; his conversation quickly demonstrated him a man of a high rate of intelligence.

Such was Faustino Posadas, bullfighter, already a favorite among the aficionados of Spain, though it is by no means often that a youth of twenty finds himself vested with the red muleta. Son of the spare-limbed old herder who has been keeper for many years of the Tabladas, or bull pastures, of Seville, he had been familiar with the animals and their ways from early childhood. At sixteen he was already a banderillero. A famous espada carried him in his caudrilla to Peru and an accident to a fellow torero gave him the opportunity to despatch his first two bulls in the plaza of Lima. He returned to Spain a full-fledged "novillero" and was rapidly advancing to the rank of graduate espada, with the right to appear before bulls of any age.

Once introduced, Posadas appeared often in the calle San Bernardo; much too often in fact to leave any suspicion that either his friends.h.i.+p for "Don Ricardo" or the charms of our conversation was the chief cause of his coming. A very few days pa.s.sed before it had become a fixed and accepted custom for him to set out toward nine for the Paseo with the radiant daughter of the house--though mother waddled between, of course, after the dictates of Spanish etiquette. Within a week he was received by the family on the footing of a declared suitor; and of his favor with the senorita there was no room for doubt.

There was always a long hour between the termination of supper and the time when Madrid began its nightly promenade, during which it was natural that our conversation should touch chiefly upon affairs of the ring.

"Don Henrico," asked Capita one evening--for I was known to the company as "Henrico Franco"--"is it true that there are no bullfights in your country?"

"Vaya que gente!" burst out Moreno, when I had at length succeeded in making clear to them our national objections to the sport. "What rubbis.h.!.+ What does it matter if a few old hacks that would soon fall dead of themselves are killed to make sport for the aficionados? As for the bull-- Carajo, hombre! You yourself, if you were in such a rage as the toro, would no more feel the thrust of a sword than the p.r.i.c.king of a gadfly."

Posadas, on the other hand, readily grasped the American point of view.

He even admitted that he found the goring of the horses unpleasant and that he would gladly see that feature of the corrida eliminated if there were any other way of tiring the bull before the last act. But for the bull himself he professed no sympathy whatever.

"What would you have us do?" he cried in conclusion. "Spain offers nothing else for a son of the people without political pull than to become torero. Without that we must work as peasants on black bread and a peseta a day."

"As in any other trade," I inquired, "I suppose you enter the ring without any thought of danger, any feeling of fear?"

"No, I don't remember ever being afraid," laughed the Sevillian, "though when Miura furnishes the stock I like to hear ma.s.s before the corrida."

"What are the secrets of success?"

"I know only one," answered Posadas, "and that is no secret. Every move the bull makes shows first in the whites of his eyes. Never for an instant do I take my eyes off his. So it has been my luck not to be once wounded," he concluded, making the sign of the cross.

"Cogidas!" cried Capita, pa.s.sing a hand over a dull brown welt on his neck. "Caramba! I have five of them, and every one by a cursed miura.

No, I never felt pain, only a cold chill that runs down to your very toes. But afterward--in the hospital! Carajo!"

One would suppose that men engaged in so perilous a calling would take extreme bodily care of themselves. Not a torero among them, however, knew the meaning of "training" as the word is used by our athletes.

They drank, smoked--even during the corrida--ate what and when they pleased, and more commonly spent the night strolling in the Paseo with an "amiga" or carousing in a wineshop than sleeping. Whether it is a leaving of the Moor or native to this blear, rocky land, there is much of the fatalist in the Spaniard, especially the Andalusian. He is by nature a gambler; be he torero, beggar, or senator, he is always ready and willing to "take a chance."

"If a man is marked to be killed in the ring he will be killed there,"

a.s.serted Pepete. "He cannot change his fate by robbing himself of the pleasures of life."

Posadas was engaged to appear in the plaza of Madrid on the first Sunday of our acquaintance. When I descended to the street at three the city was already drifting ringward, a picador in full trim now and then cantering by on his Rozinante--a sight fully as exciting to the populace as the circus parade of our own land. I had reached the edge of the Puerta del Sol when I heard a "Hola, amigo!" behind me and turning, beheld none other than Jesus the Sevillian bearing down upon me with outstretched hand. He had found work at his trade in the city--though not yet a barber apparently.

"And Gasparo?" I asked.

"Perdido, senor! Lost again!" he sighed. "Perhaps he has found a new amiga. But I much more fear he has fallen into the fingers of the police. Mira V., senor. In all the journey we have not been able once to hide ourselves on a freight train. At last, senor, in Castillejo, Gasparo goes mad and swears he will ride once for nothing. With twenty people looking on he climbs a wagon. A man shouts 'thief!' and around the station comes running a guardia civil. I have not been able to find Gasparo since. Senor, I have come to think it is not right to ride on the railroad without a ticket. Gasparo, perhaps, is in prison. But we will meet again when he comes out," he concluded cheerfully, as I turned away.

At the plaza fully twelve thousand were gathered. The corrida was distinguished particularly for its clumsiness, though the fighters, while young, were not without reputation. Falls and bruises were innumerable and the entire performance a chapter of accidents that kept the aficionados in an uproar and gave no small amount of work to the attendant surgeons. Of the three matadores, Serenito, a hulking fellow whose place seemed last of all in the bullring, was gored across the loins by his first bull and forced to abandon his task and fee to the sobresaliente. Then Platerito--"Silver-plated"--a mere whisp of a man, having dedicated to the populace as is the custom in Madrid the death of the fifth bull, gasconaded up to the animal, fell immediately foul of a horn, whirled about like a rag caught on a fly-wheel, and landed on his shoulders fully sixty feet away. To the astonishment even of the aficionados he sprang to his feet as jaunty as ever and duly despatched the animal, though not over handily.

The misfortunes of his fellows served to bring out by contrast the skill of Posadas. Not only did he pa.s.s the day unscathed, but killed both his bulls at the first thrust so instantly that the thud of their fall might be heard outside the plaza, how rare a feat only he knows who has watched the hacking and butchering of many a "novillero." Indeed, so pleasing was his work that he was at once engaged, contrary to all precedent, to appear again on the ensuing Sunday.

By that time I had learned enough of the "fine points of the game" to recognize that the Sevillian was approaching already true matador "form," and as I took leave of him next day it was with the conviction that success in his chosen career was as sure as the certainty of soon winning his most cherished reward.

"Vaya, Don Henrico," he laughed as we shook hands. "We shall see each other again. Some day when I go to Mexico or the Americas of the south I shall come by New York and you shall show me all you have told us of."

There are few countries in which it is more difficult to lay out an itinerary that will take in the princ.i.p.al points of interest without often doubling on one's track than Spain. By dint of long calculation and nice adjustment of details I sketched a labyrinthian route that my kilometer-book, together with what walking I should have time for, would cover. As for my check-book there was left exactly three pesetas a day for the remainder of my time in the peninsula.

So one cloudy morning in early August I took train at the Estacion del Norte and wound away upward through the gorges of the Guardarrama to Segovia. Only there did I realize that the rumble of Madrid had been absolutely incessant in my ears; the stillness of the ancient city was almost oppressive, even more than in Toledo one felt peculiarly out of the world and a sensation that he must not remain too long lest he be wholly forgotten and lose his place in life's procession.

In the morning I set off by the highway that follows for some miles the great unmortared aqueduct, that chief feature of Segovia, a thing indeed far greater than the town, as if a man's gullet, or his thirst should be larger than himself, so difficult is it for a city to obtain water in this thirsty land. Where the road abandoned the monument it continued across a country brown and sear, with almost the aspect of an American meadow in autumn, steadily rising all but imperceptibly. Well on in the morning I entered a forest, at a side road of which I was joined by two guardias civiles, who marched for an hour with me exchanging information and marveling that I had wandered so far afield. It has been my lot to become well, nay, intimately acquainted with the police of many lands, and I know of none that, as a body, are more nearly what police should be than these civil guards of Spain, to whom is due the suppression of all the old picturesque insecurities of the road. They have neither the bully-ism of our own club-wielders nor the childishness of Asiatic officers. Except in blistering Bailen the bearing of every pair I met--they never travel singly--was such as to win at once the confidence of the stranger and to draw out of him such facts as it is their duty to learn so naturally that it seemed but a mutual exchange of politenesses.

There are, no doubt, petty corruptions in so large a body, but in the presence of almost any of them one has a conviction that their first thought is their duty.

The highway ended its climb at noon in La Granja--The Grange--residence of the king in spring and autumn, a town little Spanish in aspect seated in a carefully cropped forest at the base of a thickly wooded mountain.

I roamed unchallenged for half the afternoon through the royal park, replete with fountains compared with which those of Versailles are mere water-squirts; playthings that Philip the half-mad accused of costing three million and amusing him three minutes. I was more fortunate, for they cost me nothing and amused me fully half an hour.

After which I picked up the highway again and, winding around the regal village, struck upward into the mountains of Guardarrama. At the hamlet of Valsain I had just paused at the public spring when the third or fourth tramp I had seen on the road in all Spain swung around a bend ahead, marching doggedly northward. As I stooped to drink, a moan and a thud sounded behind me. I turned quickly around to behold the roadster writhing in the middle of the highway, the gravel of which had cut and gashed one side of his face. The simple villagers, swarming wide-eyed out of their houses, would have it at first that he was my companion and I to blame for his mishap. He bore patent signs of months on the road, being burned a tawny brown in garb and face by the sun that was evidently the author of his misfortune. For a time the village stood open-mouthed about him, the brawny housewives now and then giving vent to their sympathy and helpless perplexity by a long-drawn "ay de mi!" I suggested water, and a dozen women, das.h.i.+ng away with the agility of middle-aged cows, brought it in such abundance that the victim was all but drenched to the skin before I could drive them off. He revived a bit and while a woman clumsily washed the blood and gravel from his face, I addressed him in all the languages I could muster, for he was evidently no Spaniard. The only response was a few inarticulate groans, and when he had been carried to a gra.s.sy slope in the shade, I went on, knowing him in kind if awkward hands.

A half-perpendicular hour pa.s.sed by, and I seemed to have left Spain behind. The road was toiling sharply upward through deep forests of evergreen, cool as an Alpine valley, opening now and then to offer a vista of thick treetops and a glimpse of red-tiled villages; a scene as different from sterile, colorless, sunken-cheeked Castille as could well be imagined. Nor did the dusk descend so swiftly in these upper heights. The sun had set when I reached the summit at six thousand feet and, pa.s.sing through the Puerto de Navacerrada, started swiftly downward in the thickening gloom; but it was some time before the night had settled down in earnest.

I had marched well into it when I was suddenly startled by a sound of m.u.f.fled voices out of the darkness ahead. I moved forward noiselessly, for this lonely pa.s.s has many a story to tell. A dim light shone through what appeared to be a window. I shouted for admittance and a moment later found myself in the hovel of a peon caminero.

Within, besides the family, were two educated Spaniards, one indeed who had been a secretary in the American Legation up to the outbreak of the recent war. When he had been apprised of my mode of travel and my goal, he stared wonderingly at me for a moment and then stepped out with me into the night. Marching a few paces down the highway until we had rounded some obstruction, he pointed away into the void.

"Do you see those lights?" he asked.

Far away and to the right, so far and so high in the heavens that they seemed constellations, twinkled three cl.u.s.ters of lights, almost in a row but far separated one from another.

"The third and farthest," said my companion, "is El Escorial; and your time is well-chosen, for to-morrow is the day of Saint Lawrence, her patron saint."

We returned to the hut, where the wife of the peon was moved to cook me a bowl of garbanzos and spread me a blanket on the stone floor. In the morning the sharply descending highway carried me quickly down the mountain, and by sunrise I was back once more in the familiar Castille.

It was verging on noon when, surmounting a sterile rise, I caught sight of the dome and towers of the Escorial. A roadside stream, of which the water was lukewarm, removed the grime of travel, and I climbed sweltering into the village of Escorial de Arriba, pitched on a jagged shoulder of the calcined mountain high above the monastery.

Spain is wont to show her originality and indifference to the convenience of travelers, and on this, the anniversary of the grilling of him in whose honor it was built, the great monastery was closed for the only time during the year. I experienced no regret, however, for the vast gloomy structure against its background of barren, rocky hills had far too much the aspect of some dank prison to awaken any desire to enter. Least impressive of famous buildings, the Escorial is certainly the most oppressive. There is poetry, inspiration in many a building, in the Taj Mahal, the Cathedral of Cologne; but not in the Escorial. It suggests some frowning, bulky bourgeois of forty whose mother thinks him and who would fain believe himself one of the most poetic and spiritual of men.

I wandered away the day in the town, drifting in the afternoon down into the village "de Abajo." There, in the mult.i.tude about the stone-pile of a bullring, I ran across Curdito in festive garb. He was scheduled to kill all three bulls of the day's corrida, but in spite of his urgent invitation I felt in no mood to sit out the blistering afternoon on a bare stone slab of this rough-and-tumble plaza.

El Escorial was so overrun with visitors to her annual celebration that not a lodging of any sort was to be had in either the upper or the lower village. The discovery brought me no shock, for a night out of doors I neither dreaded nor regretted. But as I sauntered at dusk down past the great building into the flanking "woods of Herrera," I could not but wonder how those travelers who bewail the accommodations of the "only possible hotel" would have met the situation.