“It seems that we are either working, or getting ready to work, day and night. Where does life come in?” asked Don Luis.
“Turn the head this way,” said Villegas to the model. “Hold the guitar better—so.” Then to Don Luis: “To those accustomed to work, work is life.”
“I have noticed,” said the Argentino, who came in at that moment with Patsy, “that only working people know how to play. That’s the reason artists play so much better than the rest of us.”
“What did you see in Barcelona that made up for missing the fêtes?” I asked the Argentino.
“A woman clerk who sold me a railroad ticket. A butcher’s shop where the meat was cut up and sold by women,” he answered.
There were cries of protest from all the party. “That’s going a little too far if you will,” the Argentino acknowledged; “but it’s a sign of progress—things will adjust themselves. I saw the cathedral too; that’s a joy forever. I hardly knew the old city—expensive buildings are springing up everywhere in the art nouveau style, pandemonium in stone, an echo of the ‘greenery-yallery Grosvenor Gallery’ nonsense, the tag end of the ‘æsthetic’ movement. Big granite buildings with window frames, whole façades even, carved into flowers. Lilies, poppies, what you like. No more idea of architecture, of style, of subordinating parts to the whole, than—than——”
“That comes of progressive republican ideas,” growled Don Luis; for once our cheerful Valencian was out of sorts.
“You have no sympathy with them?” I asked.
“Frankly, I have never had time to occupy myself with such matters,” Don Luis confessed. “I don’t know if a Republic is good for the arts or not. The Republicans I know are all barbarians. They come to the Prado; I hear them say to the guides,