In the windy month of March a sudden gloom falls upon
Madrid,—the reaction after the folie
gaiete of the Carnival. The theatres are at
their gayest in February until Prince Carnival and
his jolly train assault the town, and convert the
temples of the drama into ball-rooms. They have
not yet arrived at the wonderful expedition and despatch
observed in Paris, where a half hour is enough to convert
the grand opera into the masked ball. The invention
of this process of flooring the orchestra flush with
the stage and making a vast dancing-hall out of both
is due to an ingenious courtier of the regency, bearing
the great name of De Bouillon, who got much credit
and a pension by it. In Madrid they take the
afternoon leisurely to the transformation, and the
evening’s performance is of course sacrificed.
So the sock and buskin, not being adapted to the cancan,
yielded with February, and the theatres were closed
finally on Ash Wednesday.
Going by the pleasant little theatre of Lope de Rueda,
in the Calle Barquillo, I saw the office-doors open,
the posters up, and an unmistakable air of animation
among the loungers who mark with a seal so peculiar
the entrance of places of amusement. Struck by
this apparent levity in the midst of the general mortification,
I went over to look at the bills and found the subject
announced serious enough for the most Lenten entertainment,—Los
Siete Dolores de Maria,—The Seven Sorrows
of Mary,—the old mediaeval Miracle of the
Life of the Saviour.
This was bringing suddenly home to me the fact that
I was really in a Catholic country. I had never
thought of going to Ammergau, and so, when reading
of these shows, I had entertained no more hope of seeing
one than of assisting at an auto-da-fe or a witch-burning.
I went to the box-office to buy seats. But they
were all sold. The forestallers had swept the
board. I was never able to determine whether I
most pitied or despised these pests of the theatre.
Whenever a popular play is presented, a dozen ragged
and garlic-odorous vagabonds go early in the day and
buy as many of the best places as they can pay for.
They hang about the door of the theatre all day, and
generally manage to dispose of their purchases at
an advance. But it happens very often that they
are disappointed; that the play does not draw, or that
the evening threatens rain, and the Spaniard is devoted
to his hat. He would keep out of a revolution
if it rained. So that, at the pleasant hour when
the orchestra are giving the last tweak to the key
of their fiddles, you may see these woebegone wretches
rushing distractedly from the Piamonte to the Alcala,
offering their tickets at a price which falls rapidly
from double to even, and tumbles headlong to half-price
at the first note of the opening overture. When
I see the fore-staller luxuriously basking at the
office-door in the warm sunshine, and scornfully refusing
