Her long princess frock sheathes the slim figure closely, to swell out, however, at the ankles in a swirl of foamy flounces. Brilliant with sequins or the multi-coloured broidery of the mantón, the costume curls about her in a gorgeous haze of orange, azure, mauve, and scarlet while she dances. Her fine long feet are arched and curved into a thousand different poses; her body the mere casing for a spirit of flame and mystery; her face the shadow curtain of infinite expression, infinite light.
And while her castanets are sounding every shade of rhythm and seduction, and her white long arms are swaying to and fro—in the ancient Jota, or the Olé Andaluz, or perhaps in the Sevillana, or the Malagueña—the dance of her particular city; while men’s throats grow hoarse with shouting bravos and women’s eyes dim with staring at such grace, there lives before one not La Goya, La Argentina, Pastora Impéria—not the idol favourite of the hour, but something more wonderful and less substantial: the ghost of old Spain. It flits before one there, in its proud glory; its beauty, its passion, and its power; baring the soul of half of it—the woman soul, that is.
And when one looks beyond her fire and lovely dignity, over her shoulder peers the cool, dark face of a torero.
A TYPICAL POSTURE OF THE SPANISH DANCE
III
ONE OF HIS “BIG SCENES”
Twenty-eight years ago Alfonso XII died, leaving a consort whom the Spanish people regarded with suspicion, if not with actual dislike. She was Maria Christina of Austria, the second wife of the king; and six months after his death her son, Alfonso XIII, was born.
Sullenly Spain submitted to the long regency of a “foreigner”; and Maria Christina set about the desperate business of saving her son to manhood. From the first he was an ailing, sickly child, and his mother had to fight for him in health as well as in political position every inch of the way. She was tireless, dauntless, throughout the struggle. Time after time the little king’s life was despaired of; she never gave up.
Every morning during his childhood the boy was driven to the bracing park of La Granja, where he ate his lunch and stayed all day, only coming back to Madrid to sleep. In this and a hundred other ways it was as though his mother, with her steel courage, literally forbade him to die. And today, for her reward, she has not only a king whom the entire world admires with enthusiasm, but a son whose devotion to herself amounts almost to a passion.
I like to remember my first glimpse of the king—it was so characteristic of his personal simplicity in the midst of a court renowned for its rigid ceremonial. I was one of the crowd that lined the Palace galleries on a Sunday before Public Chapel; we were herded between rows of halberdiers, very stiff and hushed, waiting for the splendid procession soon to come.