Spain, v. 1 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

They marched in platoons. As they passed, at a signal from the commander, they cried, “Viva el Rey! Viva Don Amadeo primero!” It was an unfortunate idea for the first officer to give the cry. The spontaneous cheer of the first became a duty to all the others, and this resulted in the public taking the greater and the less vigor and harmony of the voices as a sign of political demonstration. Some of the platoons gave such a weak, short cheer that it seemed like the cry of a group of sick men calling for aid; then the crowd burst out laughing. Other platoons gave a deafening shout, and that was interpreted as a demonstration hostile to the government. There were several reports passing among the people crowded about me. One said, “There comes such a battalion: they are republicans; you will see they will not cheer.” The battalion passed without cheering. The people coughed. Another said, “It is an outrage, a fault of education; I don’t like Amadeus much myself, but I keep quiet and respect him.” There was some disturbance. A young fellow shouted Viva in a falsetto voice, and a caballero told him he was impertinent; he resented this, and they both raised their hands, whereupon a third separated them.

Between the different battalions marched citizens on horseback; some did not raise their hats or even look toward the king, and then one might hear different expressions through the crowd, as “Well done!” and “What bad manners!” Others, whose will was good enough to salute him, were afraid to do so, and passed with bowed head and blushing face. Others, on the contrary, disgusted by the spectacle, made a courageous demonstration for Amadeus in the face of them all, marching past, hat in hand, and looking first respectfully toward the king and then fiercely toward the crowd for the distance of ten paces. The king sat until the end of the procession motionless, with an unchanged expression of serene haughtiness. So ended the review.

This national militia, although it is not so disorganized and exhausted as ours, is nothing more than the ghost of an army: the ridiculous has gnawed at its very roots; but as an amusement on a holiday, although the number of volunteers is much reduced (they numbered thirty thousand at one time), it is always a spectacle which far surpasses all the flag-poles and red rags of Signor Ottino.

THE BULL-FIGHTS.

The thirty-first of March inaugurates the spectacle of the bull-fights. Let us discuss them at leisure, for they form a worthy subject.

He who has read Baretti’s description may consider that he has read nothing. Baretti saw only the bull-fights of Lisbon, which are mere child’s play beside those of Madrid. Madrid is the home of the art: here are the great artists, here the stupendous spectacles, here the skilled spectators, here the judges who distribute the honors. The circus of Madrid is the Theatre della Scala of the art of bull-fighting.

The inauguration of the bull-fights at Madrid is even more important than a change of the ministry. A month beforehand the news spreads throughout all Spain: from Cadiz to Barcelona, from Bilbao to Almeria, in the palaces of the grandees and the cabins of the poor, they talk only of the artists and the breed of bulls; they arrange fights for pleasure between the provinces and the capital; he who is short of money begins to save so as to get a good place in the circus on that great day; fathers and mothers promise their children to take them if they will study well; lovers make similar promises to their sweethearts; the papers assure you that it will be a good season; the famous toreros, who already begin to appear in Madrid, are pointed out with the finger; rumors are afloat that the bulls have arrived, and some have seen them or have arranged to do so.

There are bulls from the pastures of the duke of Veragua, the marquis de Merced, and of Her Excellency the dowager of Villaseca, prodigious and terrible. The office is opened to receive subscriptions; the dilettanti crowd around, together with the servants of the noble families, the brokers, and friends commissioned by the absent. The first day the manager has received fifty thousand francs, on the second thirty thousand, and a hundred thousand in a week. Frascuelo, the famous matador, has arrived; Cuco has arrived; Calderón has arrived, and all the others three days before the time. Thousands of people can talk of nothing else; ladies dream of the circus; ministers have no thought for other affairs; old dilettanti can hardly contain themselves; soon laboring-men stop buying their cigarettes to have a few pennies on the day of the spectacle. Finally, on Saturday morning, before dawn, they commence to sell tickets in a room on the street Alcalá. A crowd collects before the doors are opened, yelling, pushing, and knocking each other about; twenty policemen with revolvers in their belts are scarcely able to keep decent order; there is a continuous stream of people until night.

The long-expected day has arrived. The spectacle commences at three o’clock; at noon the people start from all directions toward the circus, which stands at the edge of the suburb of Salamanca, beyond the Prado, outside of the gate of Alcalá; all the streets which lead there are crowded with a procession of people. The circus looks like a great anthill; troops of soldiers and Volunteers of Liberty arrive, headed by bands of music; a crowd of water-carriers and orange-sellers fill the air with their cries; ticket-sellers run here and there, hailed by a thousand voices. Woe for him who has not yet bought his ticket! He will pay double, treble, quadruple! But what cares he if a ticket costs even fifty or eighty francs? They are looking for the king; they say the queen is coming too. The chariots of the great guns begin to arrive; the duke Ferdinando Nunes, the duke d’Abrantes, the marquis de la Vega de Armijo, a crowd of the grandees of Spain, the goddesses of the aristocracy, the ministers, generals, and ambassadors—all that is beautiful, splendid, and powerful in the great city. One may enter the circus by many doors, but before entering one is deafened by the noise.

I entered. The circus is immense. The outside is in no way remarkable; it is a low circular yellow building without windows, but on entering one feels the liveliest surprise. It is a circus for a people, where ten thousand spectators can be seated and in which a regiment of cavalry might drill. The arena is circular, and so vast that it could hold ten of our equestrian circuses. It is encircled by a wooden barrier about even with a man’s shoulders, provided on the inside with a narrow ledge a little way from the ground, on which the toreros place their feet to jump over when the bull chases them. Beyond this barrier there is another higher one, for the bull often leaps over the first; between the two a narrow course, a little more than a metre in width, runs all the way round the arena; here the toreros stroll before the combat, and here stand the attendants of the circus—the carpenters ready to repair the gaps which the bull has made, the guards, the orange-venders, the dilettanti who enjoy the friendship of the manager, and the great guns who are allowed to transgress the rules. Beyond the second barrier rises a tier of stone seats, and beyond this are the boxes; below the boxes runs a gallery containing three rows of seats. The boxes are each large enough to hold three or four families; the king’s box is a great drawing-room; next to it is that of the city officials, in which sits the mayor or whoever presides at the spectacle. Then there is the box for the ministers, for the governors, and for the ambassadors; every noble family has one; the young bon tons, as Giusti would say, have a box to themselves; then there are boxes to let which cost a fortune.