Читать книгу Impressions of Spain - Albert Frederick Calvert - Страница 6

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THE COUNSELLOR OF THE VILLAGE. AN ORANGE SELLER.

AN ANDALUCIAN DANCER: FULL LIST OF LOTTERY RESULTS.

collection that is not only a perfect epitome of the history of the science of attack and defence, but is full likewise of touching record and suggestion.

The Royal Palace of Madrid is admittedly one of the most magnificent in the world; it is, in every sense of the word, a Royal residence. The building is a square of 470 feet by 100 feet high, occupying, it is said, the site of the original outpost alcazar of the Moors. The exterior, despite its noble proportions, does not fulfil the expectations inspired by the distant view; but once it is entered, the princely magnificence of its decorations fills the beholder with feelings of wondering ecstacy. Throughout the palace the appointments are of extreme richness, and remind one of a time when Spain was in the zenith of its glory. All the countries of Europe have been laid under tribute for the art treasures that crowd every corner. In one apartment there is a collection of timepieces, some of which are worth almost their weight in gold, and they were all collected by one monarch; while another sovereign devoted much time to completing a collection of china which is one of the proudest possessions of the palace. Other kings have covered the walls with the priceless works of old masters, and the result is a gallery of paintings of various schools which is one of the wonders of Europe. But undoubtedly the finest apartment in the palace is the throne room, which glows with rich colouring and scintillates with a lavish display of precious metals. The superb throne, made for the husband of Mary of England, is entirely of silver; the huge lions that mount guard on each side being of the same metal. Marbles of almost every colour of the rainbow are to be seen everywhere; and the furniture, made of the rarest of inlaid woods, delights the eye with its graceful form. The whole apartment is given a finished and warm appearance by the costly hangings of crimson velvet. The ball room of the palace is the largest in Europe. All the arts and manufactures seem to have contributed to its splendour.

In Madrid I sampled for the first time the cooking of the country. The untravelled Englishman still clings to the superstition that the visitor to Spain must either starve, or condescend to consume food fried in rancid oil and seasoned with garlic. The fastidious tourist will be fed as well in Spain, both in the cities and the country inns, as in any city or provincial district in Europe. That born master of commissariat, the Switzer, has introduced himself into the country; and he has banished garlic and bad oil from Spain, even as he expelled “rare” beef and parboiled cabbages in England. But the hotel charges of New York and Paris have not yet been adopted in Madrid, and one can live sumptuously at the Hotel de Paris for £1 per day. Throughout Spain the charges are remarkably reasonable, and in the principal cities 10s. a day, including wine at meals and all et ceteras, is the average at the best hotels.

But the cooking of the Hotel de Paris is not to be met with all over Spain, nor are the menus of the city caravansary the ones adopted for the general use throughout the country districts. Pork, in its various phases—bacon, ham and sausage—is the meat par excellence of provincial Spain, occupying the same elevated position in the department of gastronomy as English beef, Welsh mutton, and Irish potatoes. Judging from the Continent generally, an Englishman is apt to fancy that a rasher is a delicacy confined to the British Isles; but before he has been long in Spain, he will discover the truth of Ford’s eulogium: “The pork of Spain has always been unequalled in flavour. The bacon is fat and well flavoured; the sausages delicious, and the hams transcendently superlative, to use the very expression of Diodorus Siculus, a man of great taste, learning and judgment. Of all the things of Spain, no one need


SKETCHES IN SPAIN.

feel ashamed to plead guilty to a predilection and preference for the pig.” And wherever one travels in the peninsula, one is met by the local dish, which is, indeed, rather a dinner than a dish; and when one has become used to it, it is both satisfying and exquisite. The puchero, or stew, would have delighted the heart and stomach of Huckleberry Finn, whose gastronomic prejudices, it will be remembered, favoured a “barrel of odds and ends” in which “things get mixed up and the juice kinds of swaps around and things go better.” The chief ingredients of the national puchero are bacon, beef, fowl, according to the state of the larder, cooked in one mass with garbanzos, a bean of peculiar size and tenderness and flavour, cabbage, carrots, gourd and long-pepper, a sausage or two being thrown in by way of make weight. The puchero is amenable to unending expansion, according to the status of the householder. Where the means are straightened, it consists of meat and garbanzos only, but the wealthy housewife adds to it a hundred delicious tit-bits; and if the juice that “kinds of swaps around” is sometimes a trifle over-seasoned, the general result is, as a rule, delicious. Dumas has left it on record that he suffered from hunger in Spain. I can only suppose that the supply of puchero was insufficient for his requirements. I cannot believe that the dish deprived him of his appetite. Then, again, the Spaniards are great people for sweets; they are, indeed, masters of this branch of the culinary art, and their preserved fruits and quince jelly seems to form an indispensable complement to the dinner table; while their fruits and vegetables, their oranges, Malaga grapes, asparagus and artichokes are famous in song and story.

In one field of enterprise, and that, curiously enough, the one in which their late antagonists, the Americans, claim pre-eminence over the civilised world, viz., in the journalistic arena, Madrid is ahead of New York, England, and Paris. In influence the press of Spain is second to none; in variety it is equal to that of Paris; and in La Correspondencia de España, Madrid has invented a newspaper which has no counterpart in any other city in the world. It is supposed that nobody can retire to rest before reading the latest edition of this “night-cap of Madrid,” as it is commonly styled; and it is certain that few people in the capital, who profess to take a lively interest in the world’s doings, ever go to bed until they have perused it. It is innocent of politics, and almost contemptuous of parties. The object of its wealthy originator and proprietor is not to propagate views, but to give news. Nothing in Spain, or out of it, which reaches Madrid is omitted from La Correspondencia, of which there are three editions published during the day, the last of which appears somewhere between ten o’clock and midnight. Nobody takes it for its views, or its special articles, although the mania of the moment has seized its millionaire proprietor, and compelled him to adopt something of the movement of contemporary journalism, but for its news it is read by everybody in Madrid. Its advertisement charges are, consequently, very high; and also, consequently, it has its imitators. But they do not prosper.

Although the Spaniard has an enormous capacity for enjoyment, his popular pastimes are not numerous. Bull-fighting, as I shall explain, is meat and drink to him, and it is something more, because it is his horse-racing, cricket, football, and the prize-ring rolled into one. It is his National sport. Horse-racing is creeping into popularity; but although all Madrid attends the meetings at the Hippodrome, and ladies don their most gorgeous gowns to do honour to the sport, it is doubtful if it will imperil the strong position which the bulls hold in the affections of the people. After bull-fighting, the only other universal amusement is the guitar and the dance. The upper classes affect polo and tennis; in the Basque provinces Pelota rouses enthusiasm, and cock-fighting is still practised amongst the lower classes in most of the Spanish towns; but these must be classed in “side-shows” in the gallery of their general recreations.


A MILK STALL.

A widespread and entirely erroneous impression prevails in this country that the Spanish national dances are indecent. People who entertain this notion may dispense with it as soon as possible. Londoners are frequently given the opportunity of witnessing Spanish dancing at the Alhambra by Otero, or Guerrero, or that even more splendid exponent of the art, Consuelo Tortajada. I was present one evening at London’s Alhambra, when the last-named was dancing the “Malagueña”—a variety to which the description “poetry of motion” may be applied with full justice—and a spectator remarked to me: “Very fine, very fine indeed, but you should see it danced in Madrid. You wouldn’t recognise it for the same thing.” And his look was more meaningful than his words. Although he was not aware of it, he had informed me that he had never been to Madrid, or at least had never witnessed the Andalucian dance on the stage of a theatre there; and I suspect that if I had displayed a craving for further information, I should have been assured that Spanish women generally are ladies of flexible ethics, who indulge in cigarettes. I believe that by paying for the edifying spectacle, certain gipsy dances of the Hindoo “nautch” variety can be witnessed in the gipsy quarter of Seville; but the Spaniard leaves these exhibitions to the English and American tourists, who call it “studying the life of the country,” or “gaining experience.” Those shows have no more connection with the national dances than has burglary with the marriage service. In the streets outside the cafes, and in the theatres, the dances of Spain are as irreproachable as a pas de seul by Miss Topsy Sinden.

In the Spanish theatre, with the exception of the leading playhouses in the larger cities, the two, and even more shows a night system is an ancient and universal practice. The pieces are short, and the charges for admission are not based on the idea of so much a seat, but so much a piece. Each item costs the spectator fivepence, and the audience is constantly being changed and renewed during the evening. Variety is the spice of the entertainment; and in the provincial towns, where the theatres are always well patronised, a constant change of bill is maintained. Madrid alone supports no less than nineteen theatres; and Madrid, let it be remembered, is a city with under half-a-million inhabitants. At the same rate, London would have over two hundred.

If one could extend the list of amusements without fear of being thought irreverent, I should be inclined to include the saints’ festivals in this category. Although these religious observances are conducted with sincere devotional decorum, they provide, as they do in all Roman Catholic countries, the excuse for, as well as the main feature of, a general holiday. I have seen many festival crowds in Spain, and the good humour, the innocent happiness and universal sobriety that characterise them, is to an Englishman acquainted with English holiday-makers, as novel as it is delightful. The festival of San Isidro del Campo, the tutelary saint of Madrid, is the principal festival of the Madrilenian year, and is religiously celebrated by all the lower classes and the peasants


THE BULL-RING, MADRID.

who come from the neighbouring villages. It takes place on May 15th, and provides the most genuine bit of local colour that is to be witnessed outside Toledo. The great concourse sets out early; and crossing the Manzanares, follows a road which is lined with men and women offering their “agua fresca” (cold water) from large jugs. Water, it may be noted, is the staple beverage of all Spanish fairs and festivals. On the other side of the river—in May, the Manzanares belies the description—the miscellaneous vehicles (some drawn by as many as six mules) discharge their crowded freights, and soon the country is like an ant-hill, except that ants are usually in mourning, and do not wear such bright colours as the peasant women and the soldiers who form so large a portion of the crowd. There are innumerable booths for eating and drinking, and other common features of folk festivals. More unique are the family groups scattered everywhere, eating their slices of cold meat, salad, red pepper and oranges. Many have their wine in the same old pig-skins of which one reads in Don Quixote. At every hundred yards there is some sort of primitive music, to the rhythm of which the young men and young women dance with an expression of delighted absorption. Indeed the whole crowd wear a look of indifference to the past and future, and a determination to make the most of the passing moment. Away up the hill are long rows of booths with pottery, toys for children and cakes, and further up still is the saint’s chapel, into which all the people crowd in turn to kiss a silver image held by the priest, to receive a printed picture of the saint, and to drop a copper. But that wonderful crowd, whether at dance, or meat, or its devotion, contained the greatest number of happy faces I have ever seen together in my life.

Impressions of Spain

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