As we entered in the evening the play had just begun. The scene was the interior of the Temple at Jerusalem, rather well done,--two ranges of superimposed porphyry columns with a good effect of oblique perspective, which is very common in the Spanish theatres. St. Simeon, in a dress suspiciously resembling that of the modern bishop, was talking with a fiery young Hebrew who turns out to be Demás, the Penitent Thief, and who is destined to play a very noticeable part in the evening's entertainment. He has received some slight
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A MIRACLE PLAY 281
from the government authorities and does not propose to submit to it. The aged and cooler-blooded Simeon advises him to do nothing rash. Here at the very outset is a most characteristic Spanish touch. You are expected to be interested in Demás, and the only crime which could appeal to the sympathies of a Castilian crowd would be one committed at the promptings of injured dignity.
There is a soft, gentle strain of music played pianissimo by the orchestra, and, surrounded by a chorus of mothers and maidens, the Virgin Mother enters with the Divine Child in her arms. The Madonna is a strapping young girl named Gutiérrez, a very clever actress; and the Child has been bought in the neighboring toy-shop, a most palpable and cynical wax-doll. The doll is handed to Simeon, and the solemn ceremony of the Presentation is performed to fine and thoughtful music. St. Joseph has come in sheepishly by the flies with his inseparable staff crowned with a garland of lilies, which remain miraculously fresh during thirty years or so, and kneels at the altar, on the side opposite to Miss Gutiérrez.
As the music ceases, Simeon starts as from a trance and predicts in a few rapid couplets the