My Spanish Year

by Ellen M. Whishaw

I first saw the tango danced by a handsome gipsy at a public performance, and I am bound to say I never witnessed anything less graceful or more disgusting. That was in the early days of our residence in Spain, and we had stopped to see the end of the entertainment, unaware that everything that might offend the proprieties is always reserved to the last, and that the offence is likely to be considerable in the final scenes of a late function.

It is easy to avoid these when one knows the ropes, for theatrical shows are generally of the “triple bill” variety, and ladies may attend the pieces put on before eleven o’clock quite comfortably. Popular comediettas, musical or otherwise, are given from night to night at different hours, and varied to suit all tastes, being carefully Bowdlerised for the earlier audiences. A play called Las Bribonas (The Impostors—female) had an immense success one winter, and I went with a party to a performance which began at ten. It was amusing and well acted, but there was one scene which was decidedly vulgar, although not actually indecent. I happened to speak of it afterwards to two English friends who had seen it on different occasions. One, who went to an eight o’clock performance, found it food for babes; the other unfortunate lady, who in her ignorance had gone to the latest one, was almost too shocked to talk about it. The tango, it is hardly necessary to say, was one of the chief features in the doubtful scene in Las Bribonas.

The most amusing tango I ever saw was danced at the wedding of a servant of ours, who had politely fixed the day to suit the convenience of her Señores, so anxious was she to have the great event graced by our presence.

The mother was a well-to-do laundress who rented the whole of the ground floor of a small tenement house, and the guests overflowed from the patio into the bridal sala and alcoba. The alcoba or alcove is a recess curtained off from the sitting-room and furnished with a bed, which, in the homes of the poor, generally completely fills it. The same arrangement also obtains in the houses of the rich, and here it is usual for the mistress’s bedroom to open out of the drawing-room, with the doors between thrown back and the curtains drawn aside to display the elegant appointments of the marital chamber. Although the other bedrooms are often lacking in what we should call common necessaries, this one is always furnished at least as handsomely as its corresponding sala, forming a striking contrast to the rest of the private rooms. The explanation is that, when a child is born, the mother receives her whole family, her husband’s relatives, and all her intimate friends in her bedroom when the infant is twenty-four hours old; thus this room has to be at least as well furnished as the drawing-room; and the same custom prevails in all classes of society. It never seems to occur to the doctors or any one else that these social celebrations have anything to do with the excessive mortality among young wives and their babies, and I have often been pressed to go and sit with some unfortunate acquaintance, seriously ill after a bad confinement, when I have called to inquire for her and her child, on the ground that she had had only a few callers that day and as she was very weak my company would cheer her up.

The alcoba of Carolina, the laundress’ daughter, just held the bedstead and a table with her Santos—a chromo-lithograph of a Murillo Virgin, flanked by a St. Anthony of Padua and a “San Juan de Dios,” before which were placed vases of artificial flowers and, on this great occasion, a couple of lighted candles. All the rest of the bedroom furniture was in the sala. Here we were invited by the bride to drink Manzanilla, and as the guests of honour we (more fortunate than at Carmencita’s wedding) each had a glass to ourselves. It was all clean and bright and gay, and when we went out into the patio Carolina’s girl friends began dancing seguidillas.

It was a pretty sight to see them dancing under the February sky, with a brilliant moon irradiating the old courtyard and blending its beams with those of an electric bulb hanging from the crazy balcony, which was all the light a generous landlord provided for his twenty or thirty tenants. The thrumming of the single guitar was completely drowned by the hand-clapping and foot-stamping with which the spectators accompanied the dancers, but we did not miss it. Indeed, it would be a powerful instrument that could have made itself heard above all that rhythmical clatter. Personally I find the palmas, as this hand-clapping is called, very trying, for the noise is overwhelming; but that is because I have no Eastern blood in my veins. To Andalucians of whatever class, noise of any kind seems to be sheer delight.

Things gradually grew more lively as the slight restraint caused by our arrival wore off, although the guests were always perfectly well-mannered and decorous; and presently Carolina came to tell me that Juanillo Carrera, a famous singer and dancer, would perform the tango in her mother’s kitchen, if the Señores would care to see him.

“Why would he not dance in the patio?” I asked, for I was enjoying the picture made by the moonlight.

“Oh, that would not suit the girls, who wanted to go on dancing themselves. But if we would step into the kitchen and would kindly not mind standing for a few minutes, Juanillo would dance on the table, so that the señora viuda (the widow lady) who came with the Señora, and so much likes Andalucian dancing, would see him to the best advantage.”

Juanillo was a thin pock-marked man of forty or so, without a redeeming feature in his face save a pair of brilliant deep-set black eyes. He wore a striped cotton blouse and trousers with a black sash wound many times round his waist, and bright yellow boots with long pointed toes. I thought he looked an unfortunate specimen of the Andalucian dancer, but I soon found that appearances were deceptive in this as in so many other cases.