Glories of Spain

by Charles W. Wood

In the foyer, between one of the acts, we came into closer contact with this aristocratic crowd.

It was a very large long room, gorgeously fitted up; great mirrors giving back full-length reflections. Few ladies honoured it with their presence, but a crowd of short, dark, handsome Spaniards went to and fro, smoking cigarettes, wildly gesticulating about Margaret, abusing the unfortunate Siebel, openly passing their opinions upon the ladies of the audience. Mixing freely amongst them we heard many an amusing remark upon people we were able to identify on returning to our seats. At the end of the third act we began to feel like old habitués. A week in Gerona and we should be familiar with every one's history.

"A happy thought, coming here to-night," said H. C. "I am now quite at home amongst these people, and should like to call upon some of them to-morrow. That exquisite creature, for instance, with the lovely eyes, perfect features, and complexion of a blush rose. I believe—yes, I am sure—look—she is gazing at me with a very sweet expression!"

He was growing excited. We grasped his arm with a certain magnetic touch which recalled him to himself. Keepers have this influence on their patients.

"Look at the old woman next to her," he went on indignantly. "Can she be the mother of that lovely girl? She ought to blush for herself. Her dress-bodice ends at the waist. And behind her fan she is actually ogling a toothless old wretch who has just sat down near her."

Here, fortunately, the curtain went up, and H. C.'s emotions passed into another channel.

The performance had equalled our modest expectations. One must not be too critical. If Faust was contemptible and Siebel impossible, Margaret and Mephistopheles saved all from failure. She was pretty and refined, with a certain touching pathos that appealed to her hearers. She sang with grace, too, but her voice was made for nothing larger than a drawing-room, and when the orchestra crashed out the dramatic parts, we had to imagine a great deal.

Siebel was the great stumbling-block and burlesque; her singing and acting so excruciating that when the audience ought to have melted to tears they laughed aloud. When Valentine died she clasped her hands, not in despair but admiration of the fine performance, looked at the audience as much as to say, "Would you not like him to get up and die again?" and when his body was carried off, skipped after it, as though assisting at some May-day frolic.

Faust was beneath criticism, and one felt angry with Margaret for falling in love with him. In reality she must have hated him. Mephistopheles, on the contrary, was admirable, and would have done honour to Her Majesty's in the days of Titiens and Trebelli.