IV
THE BROKEN-DOWN ACTOR
(Madrid)
THE SOUL OF OLD SPAIN
I
HIS CORNER APART
In spirit, as in distance, it is a far cry from the childlike gaiety and extravagance of Vienna to the gloom and haughty poverty of Madrid. Gloomy in its psychic rather than its physical aspects is this city of the plain, for while the sun scorches in summer and the wind chills in winter, thanks to the quite modern architecture of New Madrid, there is ample light and space all the year round.
Any Spanish history will tell you that Charles V chose this place for his capital because the climate was good for his gout. One author maintains that it was for the far subtler reason that Madrid was neutral ground between the jealous cities of Toledo, Valladolid and Seville. But everyone, past and present, agrees that the Spanish capital is the least Spanish of any town in the kingdom. It shares but one distinctive trait with the rest of Spain—and that the dominant trait of the nation: pride, illimitable and unconditioned, in the glory of the past; oblivion to the ruin of the present.
Like a great artist whose star has set, Spain sits aloof from the modern powers she despises; wrapped in her enshrouding cloak of self-sufficiency, she dreams or prattles garrulously of the days when she ruled without peer—not heeding, not even knowing, that the stage today is changed beyond her recognition.
The attitude is, however, far more interesting than the bustle and mere business efficiency of the typical modern capital. After the vastness and confusion of Waterloo and St. Lazare, one arrives in Madrid at a little station suggestive of a sleepy provincial town. Porters are few and far between, and one generally carries one’s own bags to the primitive horse cabs waiting outside. Taxis are almost unheard of, and the few that are seen demand prices as fabulous as those of New York. Every Madrileño who can possibly afford it has a carriage, but the rank and file use the funny little trams—which I must say, however, are excellently conducted and most convenient.
Both the trams and all streets and avenues are plainly marked with large clear signs, and the pleasant compactness of the city makes it easy to find one’s way about. The centre of life and activity is the Puerto del Sol—Gate of the Sun—an oval plaza which Spaniards fondly describe as “the busiest square in the world.” There is no doubt at all that it is the noisiest; with its clanging trams, rattling carriages, shouting street vendors, and ambulant musicians.
These latter, with the beggars, form to my mind the greatest plague of Madrid; their number is legion, their instruments strangely and horribly devised, and they have the immoral generosity to play on, just the same, whether you give them money or not. Though, as a matter of fact, when you walk in the Puerta del Sol, they are forever under your feet, shaking their tin cups for centimos and whining for attention.