“Moral, don’t let yourself be put on the retired list,” said Patsy.
“What a great, big, beautiful profession is art!” cried Villegas; “a man is not retired till he goes blind or loses his wits! Titian was at work on a picture when he died, at ninety-nine. If the pest had not carried him off, he would have been alive now, is it thus?”
“Claro!” Don Luis agreed. “The artist’s is the only calling for a man of sense and imagination, except, of course,” with a bow to Patsy, “the writer’s.”
“For us,” said Patsy, “the race-course is never closed. Heat after heat may be lost, the Great Futurity Stakes always remain open! Don Luis knows his picture may end up with a hole knocked through it in the Rastro, but he hopes, in his heart believes, that it will one day hang in the Prado. And, who knows? a generation or two from now, some traveller may pick up my book in Las Grandes Americas for three perros chicos!”
XII
CARNIVAL
“TO-DAY is the fiesta of San Antonio the Abbot,” said Pedra, when she came in to light the fire. “The Señora should go to see the blessing of the animals at his church.”
Fasts, feasts, everything connected with the Church has far greater importance in Madrid than in Rome. One gets some idea here of what the power of the church was in Italy before 1870. Pedra, who was very devout, never let me forget a saint’s day. It was like living in ancient Rome, this strict observance of the days of fest and ne fest.
“Then this must be your mother’s fiesta, her name is Antonina,” I said.
“No, Señora. There are two San Antonios and two religions; the patron of my mother is San Antonio of Padua,—see, here is his picture; his fiesta comes in June.” A photograph of Murillo’s Vision of Saint Anthony hung on the wall.
“How can you tell the difference between the two?”