Dagonet Abroad

by George R. Sims

The Spaniards have a couplet which runs thus:—‘El aire de Madrid es tan sotil Que mata à un hombre y no apaga un candil.’ This, in plain English, means that the subtle air of Madrid, which won’t extinguish a candle, will put out a man’s life. For two or three days in Madrid I was up in the stirrups. I think I have been ill in all the principal towns of the United Kingdom and the Continent; but in Madrid, for the first time for many years, I felt absolutely well. The dry, exhilarating air suited me admirably. I did an endless round of sightseeing by day, I went to three or four theatres at night, and I stopped in the magnificent cafés until the waiters began to pile the chairs on the tables and put on their hats and cloaks to go home to their families. And when I got back to my hotel I sat up in my room and wrote till the small hours. With all this exertion, I was able to get up early the next morning, with a beautiful complexion and a perfect temper.

But with my first bull-fight a change came o’er the spirit of my dream. On Sunday all Madrid crowded to the great open arena, ‘La Plaza de Toros.’ On Monday all Madrid was coughing and sneezing, and I outcoughed and outsneezed them all. The stone seats of the bull-ring and the boxes open to all the winds of heaven are dear to the hearts of doctors and undertakers. The sun beats down upon an excited multitude, and it is not till nearly sunset that the last bull dies. Then out the great populace pours, and takes a chill at the most dangerous hour of the day. I caught a champion cold at the bull-fight, and it was no consolation to me that everywhere I went during the next two or three days there was a chorus of coughs, and that all my neighbours were as miserable as myself. At the theatre on Monday evening the play I witnessed was absolutely performed in dumb show. The actors strove in vain to make themselves audible over the perpetual hacking and barking of an audience in the agonies of asthma, the inconveniences of influenza, the convulsions of catarrh, and the breath-battle of bronchitis.

The arrangements at Spanish theatrical performances are unique. They must be seen to be believed. But before I come to the theatres I have to get through the bull-fight, and before I come to the bull-fight I should like to say a word or two about the illustrious gentlemen who get their living by it, and who are commonly called toreros. This term includes the espadas, the picadors, and the banderilleros, whose various parts in the performance will presently be made clear to you.

The profession of bull-fighter is in Spain the royal road to fortune. There are half a dozen men, not yet middle-aged, who have become millionaires by killing bulls, and their names are idolized wherever the Spanish language is spoken. Their society is courted by the highest nobles in the land, and they are au mieux with many a fair and aristocratic dame. The leading matadors ('espadas’ is the technical name) receive for a single afternoon’s show sums varying from £200 to £500. They star in the provinces on sharing terms, and when you take into account the fact that a good ‘house’ at a bull-fight means between two and three thousand pounds, you can imagine what these starring engagements are worth. After they have conquered Spain they go to South America, and there some of them make sums which would cause even Sir Henry Irving and Madame Sarah Bernhardt to open their eyes to their fullest extent.

Mazzantini, who at the time of my visit was starring in Havannah, was the idol of the hour. Long telegrams were published in the principal Spanish papers announcing his magnificent receptions, and describing in ‘the language of the ring’ his feats with the bulls. Some time ago Mazzantini, who as a bull-fighter makes £20,000 a year, was a porter on the Great Northern Railway of Spain. He was strong and handsome and full of pluck, and he said to himself, ‘I want to make money. In Spain there are only two ways—to be a tenor or a bull-fighter. I can’t sing, but I know I could kill a bull.’ He began as one of the gang of assistants at small shows; he soon acquired skill, and to-day whenever he travels his is a royal progress; his diamonds are the envy of prima donnas, he has his town mansion and his shooting-box and his villa at the seaside, and the reigning belles of Society send him love-letters. Frascuelo, who has now retired, being rich beyond the dreams of avarice, was nearly being made a marquis by King Amadeus.

To read of these riches and honours, to see the receptions given to these princes of the ring by all grades of society, you would think that a bull-fight was a magnificent spectacle, and the matadors were men of splendid bravery and consummate skill.

You had better sit a Corrida de Toros out with me from beginning to end, and then you will be able to form your own judgment. There is one thing, however, you must do first, and that is, get rid entirely of your English views with regard to cruelty to animals. You will see plenty of that; but if you argue with a Spaniard about it he will tell you that you are quite as cruel to animals, only in another way, in England. You will reply that in your sports where the death of an animal is involved the animal has ‘a chance.’ In bull-fighting the animals have none.

But if you are wise, you will not argue at all. You will take a bull-fight as it is, and come away thankful that it is not the national sport of England. There have been many attempts to revive it in the South of France, and the French would, I fancy, take kindly to it, if it were once made legal, and could be carried out with all the pomp and splendour of Spain.

All Englishmen do not dislike bull-fighting. Many Englishmen who live in Spain follow it enthusiastically; and a young Irish gentleman of fortune at one time took to the bull-ring professionally, and attained a certain amount of distinction.

Madrid is covered with red bills announcing a bull-fight for Sunday. The bills are curious reading and interesting to the student of the language of Cervantes. Here is one of them: