We were awakened from our siesta by the spherical maid who mouthed and pantomimed that a Señor was waiting for us in the hall. Luis Garay, a young painter and lithographer to whom our friend had written about us, had come at the earliest opportunity. He was slim, sallow, almost dapper, with dark frank eyes, and we took a liking to him at once. Together we went outside the hotel and sat at a table in the open place facing the principal promenade of Murcia. The river was on the right-hand side, and on the left was a line of tall buildings, some cafés, others municipal. The heat attacked one in waves, it seemed as palpable as though it possessed substance. When we took our seats the plaza was empty because the siesta was not yet over, but after four o'clock had passed gradually the life of the town blossomed out.
The army of beggars attacked us; in monotonous undertones they moaned their woes.
"Hermanito, una limosna qui Dios se la pagara,"[5] they whined.
To those who seemed unworthy Luis answered, "Dios le ayude."[6]
How exquisite is the courtesy of the Spaniard even to a beggar. Our manners have not this fine habitual touch—after the international occupation of Scutari the beggars of the town had learned two English phrases; one was "G'arn," the other "Git away." It is true that under this harsh exterior the Englishman may hide a soft heart; he may be like the schoolmaster who feels the caning more poignantly than does the schoolboy; indeed many a man puts a deliberately rough exterior on to mask the flabbiness of his sentimental nature; and the Spaniard, for all his courtesy, may have the harder nature. Yet the courtesy which recognizes a common level of humanity is a precious thing. It may be that by refusing alms with respect one may be preserving in the beggar finer qualities than would be generated by giving with contempt. A Spaniard once said, "I like a beggar to say 'Hermanito, alms which God will repay.' It is naïf and simple. It has a beauty for which one willingly pays a copper. But when a beggar whines that he has eaten nothing for three days, it is offensive. It is an insult to give a man a halfpenny who has eaten nothing for three days; and one cannot afford to give him the price of a square meal; and anyhow one knows that he is lying."
As well as the pitiful beggars there were the musical beggars. Two men came playing the guitar and laud. Another followed with a gramophone which he carried from his shoulder by a strap. Then came the barrel-organ. We had not noted its arrival. Suddenly the most appalling din broke out. Awhile ago in Paris M. Marinetti organized a futurist orchestra; one could imagine that it had been transported in miniature to Murcia. There were bangs and thumps and crashes of cymbals, and tattoos of drums, and tinkles of treble notes, and plonkings of base notes intermixed apparently without order, rhythm or tune. What a state the barrel must have been in! Once we presume that it played a tune, but now it was so decrepit that nothing as such was recognizable. It was dragged by a donkey and a cart and shepherded by a fat white dog which had been shaved, partly because of the heat, partly because of vermin. It was an indecent-looking dog, and the flesh stood out in rolls all round its joints. No sooner had this musical horror disappeared round the corner than another organ in an equal state of disrepair took its place.
A MURCIAN BEGGAR-WOMAN