THE first, motley spirit of the city. He wanted to behold many things, to school himself, strengthen himself with all these new impressions. Above all he wanted to feel the life-currents of Madrid beating about his migratory feet.
A few minutes before he had been sitting up there in the "peanut gallery" of the Teatro Real. And from that vulgar place he had beheld the theater with its vast ranges of seats and its boxes all drenched under the blinding dazzle of hundreds of electric lights. The theater had looked to him like some rare and beautiful garden; or maybe it had been a kind of gigantic nosegay, where the sparkling diamonds on women's throats had seemed dew-drops caught on great silk petals, on glossy velvets, on white, bare shoulders.
So entirely absorbed had he been in this spectacle that he had hardly paid any attention at all to what the orchestra and the actors had been about. Every other emotion had been shut from his soul by these dazzling sight-impressions, that had never wearied him. The wonderful, human garden spread out below him had exhaled rare perfumes. A sensual and soporific kind of vapor had risen all about him—an incense blent of the odors of new-mown hay, of jasmine, musk and Parmesan violets, of daintily-bathed women's flesh, of wonderful lingerie. And he had studied all this luminous picture, resplendent as the climax of a brilliant play. Above all he had studied the women, with their sensuous bodies; their unashamed bosoms that had been the targets of analytical eagerness through many opera-glasses; their gay and laughing faces, whereof the beauty had been enhanced by the placid security of wealth. He had observed their deftly combed and curled little heads, their jewel-laden hands—hands that had waved big feather-fans to and fro over the gauzy stuff of their gowns.
Enrique wanted to see all this wonderful world at close range, so he went down to the foyer. And there he stopped, just a bit ashamed of himself. For the first time he was beginning to realize that his out-of-date slouch hat, his skimpy black suit that made him look like a high-school boy, and his old boots that needed a shine were greatly out of place. He felt that his flowing necktie, which he had tried to knot up with student-like carelessness, was just as ugly as all the rest of him. Correctly dressed men were passing all about him, with elegant frock-coats that bore flowers in their buttonholes and with impeccable Tuxedos. Women were regally trailing grosgrain and watered-silk skirts over the soft, red carpet. It all seemed a majestic symphony of silks, brocades and splendid furs, of wonderful ankles glimpsed through the perverse mystery of open-work stockings, of fascinating adornments, of bracelets whose bangles tinkled their golden song on the ermine whiteness of soft arms.
Abashed, feeling himself wholly out of place, young Darlés self-consciously strolled over to look at a bust of Gayarre—a bronze bust that showed the man with short, up-tossed hair. Its energy made one think of Othello. Quite at once, a hand dropped familiarly on Darlés' shoulder. The young man turned.
"Don Manuel! You? What a surprise!"
Don Manuel was a man of middle height, thick-set and just a trifle bald. He looked about fifty. A heavy, curling red beard covered his full-blooded, fleshy, prosperous cheeks and chin. He wore evening-dress. His short, thick, epicurean nose supported gold-bowed spectacles.
"Well, my boy," he exclaimed. "You, here?"
Enrique blushed violently, without exactly understanding why, as he answered:
"Yes, I came to—to see——"