The Madrileños spend their lives in the streets and squares, almost all of which are wide, clean, and well paved. The houses are ornamented with balconies, the first of which, supported by pillars, forms in many parts of the city a piazza where the inhabitants may walk under cover. The Puerta del Sol, the largest and most animated plaza, and the centre of Madrid, is the rendezvous of the idlers of the city. From eight o’clock in the morning, and far into the night, it is thronged with groups of men wrapped in their cloaks, which they wear to protect them from the treacherous winds that sweep the city even in summer. Furnished with several dozen cigarettes and coppers for azúcar and water, they pass the hours in endless talking. Politics form the chief subject of conversation, and the progressive element in Spanish society discusses here.
Most of the cafés are in this quarter, and they are always filled. They are less attractive in their outside appearance than the cafés of Seville, but the refreshments served are excellent. The Madrileños, like all Spaniards, drink more water than wine. In every street and paseo you see the picturesque aguadore, with his cántaro of white or brown clay and reed basket, containing glasses, sticks of azucarillos, and oranges or limes. He has not changed from the day when Velazquez painted him; he still wears a loose jacket of snuff-coloured cloth, breeches, leather gaiters, and a peaked hat.
Perhaps it is the climate which causes the Madrileños always to suffer thirst. The bebidas heladas, or iced drinks, flavoured with orange, lemon, strawberry, cherries, or almond, which are sold in every café, are far superior to any English or American beverages. Spanish preserves also deserve to be mentioned, and there is one variety, known by the name “angel’s hair,” cabello de angel, which is delicious.
Madrid is so much a modern city that at first the stranger hardly realizes how pleasantly its inhabitants live. It is most fortunately rich in well-shaded parks and beautiful green promenades.
The Prado is the evening gathering-place of the fashionable Madrileños, and the tree-shaded promenade, from seven o’clock onwards, affords the most animated sight. An astonishing number of people collect here. In the crossways which intersect the carriage-drive, all the families of the city walk to enjoy the cool of the evening. The Madrileños are seen at their finest here. The majos, resembling plates of fashion in their tight, faultless clothes, stand about in groups admiring the ladies who roll past in landaus, for carriages are essential to fashionable Madrid. Some of the men ride the splendid Andalusian horses; with manes, long sweeping tails, and gay trappings, like the horses that Velazquez painted. The Madrileñas have adopted the costumes of Paris, and in fashionable attire Spanish women always look badly dressed. The mantilla is, however, worn by most women, and even a plain face looks beautiful in this fascinating head-dress. Like all Spanish women, each Madrileña carries a fan, which is held open as a parasol to give shade from the sun. A woman without a fan is unknown, and there is something truly Spanish in the use these vivid, bewitching women make of them. The Madrileña collects fans as an English lady collects jewels; she will often own more than a hundred of various colours and patterns.
During summer this outdoor parade in the Prado is in gay career until midnight; and as the night advances the promenades are full of gay noise. There are open-air concerts, and dancing takes place upon the open spaces of grass. Around the stalls of the refresco sellers, families are seated talking gaily together. The greatest animation prevails. The Madrileños never seem to be tired. The abandonment to happiness is contagious, and the stranger will gain a sense of the joy of life as he sees the ardent faces of men, women, and children, in whom mirth is never vulgar, but as natural as speech.
In the winter season the Madrileños visit the theatre, which every Spaniard adores. Gautier writes that “long before Shakespeare the Spaniards invented the drama.” Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries produced an almost countless number of dramatic works, and a passion for the drama still animates the people. Spanish women, as we should expect, are first-rate actresses; they mark all shades of character with appreciation and fine delicacy. It is interesting to note that it was in Spain that women first played women’s parts, which in England at the same period were entrusted to boys.
The Teatro Real at Madrid is devoted to Italian opera, but at the more popular Teatro Español, where La Guerrero, the Bernhardt of Spain holds sway, there is an opportunity of witnessing the native dramas of Zorilla, Hartzenbusch, and Tirso de Molina, or the modern society plays of Echegaray and Galdos. The sainete, which takes the place of our “curtain-raiser,” is usually comic, and those that are most popular are adapted from the farces of Cervantes and Lope de Rueda.
Even in the heat of summer the Madrileños visit the theatres, but at this season the performances are limited to the popular zarzuelas, operettas, four of which are given in each evening.