At dinner Antonina, a fairy of five who lived next door, brought in a plate of rosquitas de San Antonio, delicious little crisp cakes baked only this day in all the year. Jaime, who had come in while we were still at table, ate one of the cakes as a reward for having been to church.
“In England,” the Don remembered, “they eat hot cross buns on Good Friday and pancakes on Shrove Tuesday; they have forgotten the rosquitas of Saint Anthony and the tortas of San José.”
On the nineteenth of March, the fiesta of San José and of all his namesakes, I asked Pedra if we should have one of the tarts of St. Joseph for dinner.
“In all Madrid there is no house so poor that the torta of San José will not be eaten to-day. He is the patron of the church, and as such we all must venerate him.” It was a busy day for Don José Villegas; a flood of visitors, cards, letters, telegrams and presents poured through the Tower of Babel from daylight till midnight. He sat in his study busy writing notes of congratulation and sending despatches to all the other Josés of his acquaintance. I looked over the cards; there were the names of statesmen, artists, poets, singers, musicians and bull-fighters, all linked together into a sort of fraternity, because they bore in common the name of good Saint Joseph.
In almost every circumstance of life or death, the Church plays a leading part. The wife of a friend of Don Jaime died while we were in Madrid, and the Don arranged that I should see the funeral procession and one of the many services. The cortége was headed by four men dressed in white broadcloth short clothes and Louis-Seize coats, white wigs, silk stockings and three cornered hats; each carried a long white staff. The hearse was a gorgeous white affair, drawn by four white horses with sweeping ostrich plumes. It was preceded and followed by a large company of priests, monks and choristers carrying wax candles and chanting a miserere. The mourners followed on foot. More than a week after the lady’s death I went with Jaime and his sister Candalaria to the house of mourning. In the private chapel we listened to a long service lasting over an hour. The chaplain of the family officiated, reciting the rosary, the litany and many prayers. This was the last and ninth day of these services. When it was over, I went home, Don Jaime and Candalaria remaining behind to speak with the mourners. Afterwards they told me something of the visit. Candalaria found the ladies of the family in one room surrounded by a crowd of women friends dressed in mourning.
“They all talked at once,” said Candalaria, “saying the same thing over and over again. ‘Poor soul! So young to die! So good, so devout! What will her husband do without her?’”
The Don had found the widower in another room with his men friends about him. He told the Don that his greatest grief was that his wife had died suddenly, without having time to make a confession or receive the sacraments. The Don wondered what possible sin she could have had on her soul. Everybody said, and he believed, that the dead woman was very nearly a saint.
Candalaria—her name means Candlemas—is a Majorcan. When I asked Don Jaime to tell me something about the island of Majorca where she lives, he said: “In Majorca all properties is oranges. It has a fine weather as well.” I said it must be a pleasant place to live.
“Candalaria she finds it so. She is bery clever, she plays piano and biolin.” Jaime always assumed b and v to be interchangeable in English as they so often are in Spanish. “Her husband is topographic engineer. Candalaria helps him to draw the geographic carts.”
Don Jaime’s sister is married to an officer of engineers; she draws so nicely that she often helps her husband in making his army maps. She is a small, energetic woman with consuming eyes, fiery, energetic, practical, everything Don Jaime is not. She had come to Madrid to see her brother and the carnival. Jaime introduced us to her, and during her stay, we were often together.