Further inquiry elicited that the washerwoman was a cigarrera by profession—hence the cigarette, for respectable women in Spain do not smoke. And her name was Carmen! Shades of Bizet and his “toreador”! Alas! The landlady dismissed her next morning, and I never had another scene from that play enacted before me. Incidentally I may remark that drunkenness among women is extremely rare in Spain, and I can only remember coming into direct contact with one other old lady the worse for aguardiente in all the years I have lived here.
PART III.—WINTER
CHAPTER XII
A December festival—The “Mystery”—A holy war—The story of the Seises and their Dance—The Triduum of Carnestolendas—The real Don Juan—The Dancers of Corpus Christi—The defeat of Don Jaime de Palafox—The Christmas Ship—Marzapan and Polvorón—The Cock’s Mass on Christmas Eve—“Nativities”—The midnight “lunch” in the mansion—The “Good Night” of the poor.
Probably every one who takes any interest at all in Spain has heard of the famous Dance of the Seises before the high altar of Seville Cathedral on certain festivals, i.e. that of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady in December, the Carnival in February, and Corpus Christi in June. But no one either in Spain or out of it can give definite information with chapter and verse about the origin of the dance, still less of the name.
THE DANCE OF THE SEISES IN SEVILLE CATHEDRAL.
(From the picture by Gonzalo Bilbao. By permission of the owner, the Earl of Rosebery, K.G.)