Part 21

at the pictures and thought about them; many of the people he has helped Villegas take through the museum walk through as if it were a duty to be got over as soon as possible. The Prince asked how much various of the pictures were worth. He studied carefully St. Paul and St. Gerome in the desert, by Velasquez (the dear one with the ravens flying to the hermitage carrying loaves of bread in their beaks to feed the unthrifty old saints).

“How much is that picture worth?” he asked. “Almost anything, isn’t it?”

Villegas says royalties never know what things cost. They may have a sense of the value of money, but no sense of the value of things.

The Prince lingered longest in the portrait room. Well he might--it contains some of the consummate portraits of the world!

“That is very fine,” said the Prince, pointing to Van Dyke’s portrait of himself with his patron the Earl of Bristol; “and that Cardinal of Pavia by Raphael, and this Holbein. Yet one hears more about John Sargent’s portraits. I don’t think them as good as these, do you?”

It was very hot in the Ribera room, where they had lagged a little behind the others. J. took off his hat to mop his brow, and for the sake of being cooler did not put it on again.

“Keep on your hat,” said the Prince. Supposing this was merely politeness J. forgot all about it, and a few minutes after did the same thing again.

“_Please_ put on your hat,” said Mr. Keppel; “we don’t want to attract attention to the party.”

“Yes, yes,” laughed the Prince lightly, “we don’t want to attract attention!”

That, then, was the reason such short notice of the visit had been given--they did not wish to attract attention! The only person who showed the least nervousness was the detective from Scotland Yard, who followed with the Chief of the Madrid police. The detective, J. said, “was in a blue funk; he seemed to see a nihilist in everybody who came within bomb-shot of the Prince.” While they were lingering in the Ribera room, the detective begged Mr. Keppel that the Prince should keep up with the Princess and Villegas; “they must all keep together; it was too dangerous, too difficult for the chief of police to watch them if they scattered.”

We heard that the English police had informed the Spanish before the outrage that a man had been observed practising throwing various articles from a balcony, as if gauging the distance to the street.

The shadow of fear darkened every sunny hour of these festival days. It was with us when we started at eight o’clock one golden June morning to drive to the review, held on the Castilian plain eight miles from Madrid. We had tickets for the grand stand of the Senate. We were a little late; by the time we arrived the seats were all taken. We were turning sadly away when Patsy espied Don Luis.

“Here is the Key!” he cried. “He will get us in somewhere.” Don Luis was called the Key because he contrived to open every door to us. How did he manage it? It was not with a silver key; Don Luis was very poor. He had an uncle who stood high in office; he was never caught without the uncle’s card, the open sesame of many doors. This time it opened the military tribune, where we found admirable places. This tribune was less crowded than the others; most of the military were busy with the manœuvres. It was a morning of extraordinary emotions; there was a thrill of controlled excitement in the air; every face wore a smile, every heart held a fear. The royalties were all present; the young Queen, looking fresh and rosy, drove by with her mother-in-law. Don Alfonzo, in the uniform of an officer of halberdiers, rode at the wheel of her carriage. All through the fêtes the young lovers were the centre of interest; we saw them so often that we grew to feel quite intimate with them.

All the ambassadors extraordinary were there, and all the royalties. We saw the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Crown Prince of Sweden, the Russian Grand Duke Vladimir, the Duke of Genoa, Prince Albert of Prussia, and Prince Louis Philippe, the young Crown Prince of Portugal; a lovely looking lad, about whose future consort, young as he was, the court gossips were already busy.[4]

We trembled for these great people, come together from every part of the world to take part in the wedding celebration; our hearts were full of fear and pity for them.

“It seems,” said Patsy, “as if the Reign of Terror had returned, only instead of being in France alone it is over the whole world. A list has been found of Anarchy’s next victims, headed by----” he whispered three great names.

Meanwhile the infantry regiments, the backbone of the army, were marching by. The men were well dressed, well looking, full of dash and vigor; they marched worse than any troops I ever saw.

“When it comes to the drill, the steady hammer, hammer, hammer, of the drill sergeant, they haven’t it in them,” said Patsy. “They may get it, they haven’t it now.”

The music was very bad; the military bands lacked the same thing that the soldiers lacked,--training, the stiff, hard, daily grind, the thing that makes the difference between every man and his brother, between every nation and her sister. What remains, if marching and music are bad? The glory and insolence of youth in those squadrons of cavalry and artillery dashing by. The vast arid plain soon became like a battlefield as soldiers describe it and as painters of battles try to paint it. The bands of cavalry began to pass slowly, the officers in advance, picked men, with picked horses, as gallant a troop as I ever saw. The officers rode with the naked sword raised as if for a charge. Just after they passed our stand, the pace quickened from a trot to a canter, to a mad gallop, as each troop swung short round an imaginary curve and disappeared in a cloud of dust. The dust they raised gave the effect of dust and smoke combined. A real battle-field must look like a thing seen on the stage with transparencies of dust and smoke. Through the veil of gray haze, we caught glimpses of distant squadrons marching and countermarching, pack mules with mountain batteries, engineers with field telegraph apparatus and pontoon bridges, long boats made very squat and solid so they will not easily capsize, and longer planks to lay upon the boats.

“They can bridge a river in fifteen minutes,” said Don Luis.

“The Guadalquiver or the Manzanares, perhaps,” murmured Patsy, “hardly the Amazon or the Mississippi. These pontoons are metal, the latest thing. Ours are of wood; we shall soon have them of metal like these Spanish ones.”

“Who told you so much?” I asked.

“I heard Lieutenant Grant say so,” said Patsy. “Didn’t you see him drive by with our Ambassador? I should like to ask him if this looks to him as it does to me, like a miniature Gettysburg.”

We were thankful when the review was safely over and everybody gone home safe and sound. It seemed to us the most dangerous of all the fêtes. The distance covered was so great that to protect all these royal people must have been well-nigh impossible.

“Lightning never strikes twice in the same place,” said Patsy. “The only thing to do is to assume that there is no danger.”

The most original of all the fêtes was the balloon race. Engracia sent us invitations to the Park of the Society of Aeronauts to see the start. We found all Madrid in the large enclosure; what was more important, we found Engracia in the midst of that crowd of smartly dressed people.

“The race,” Engracia told us, “has been arranged as a compliment to the Queen. She and the King will see it from their windows. All the balloons will pass over the palace.”

“Wind and weather permitting,” laughed Patsy. “Isn’t this the latest word in the way of Sport? I never heard of such a thing in New York or Paris.”

“_Claro!_” the _Madrileña_ flashed out at him. “You think Spain is behind the rest of the world, yet you must come to Madrid to see a balloon race.”

The centres of attraction were the thirteen balloons entered for the race. Each monster air ball swaying in the stay ropes was surrounded by a group of people. Engracia led the way to one where the crowd was thickest.

“It is a good thing to have a friend in every place, even in the inferno,” she said. “I have a friend who is going up in that balloon. It must be terrible to go alone!”

Way was made for Engracia; Patsy and I followed, and took a good look at the balloon at close quarters. It was shaped like a globe with a stovepipe coming out of the bottom. The basket car was small and high, coming up to the armpits of Engracia’s friend, a man of average size. The color of the balloon was like a modern warship’s neutral gray, the tint most easily confounded with cloud or smoke. Patsy peeped inside the basket, hoping to see some interesting apparatus for steering or at least guiding the flight.

“Nothing inside,” he reported, “except a few bags of sand just like those:” he pointed to the sand bags hanging from the outer edge of the basket. “That,” he showed a small instrument shaped like a pedometer hanging in the shrouds, “is to measure the distance, and that to gauge the velocity of the wind.”

“What, nothing more? No modern contrivance to help them navigate the air?”

“Nothing but sand,” said Patsy. “It takes a lot of two kinds of sand.”

It was such a breathless afternoon: it seemed as if there could not be wind enough to lift the great captive swaying awkwardly in its ropes. The breeze must have come up without our noticing it, for there was a sudden commotion in the crowd, and we were all ordered to stand back. Engracia waved a last adieu to her friend.

“_Abour!_” she cried, as the balloon shot up to a great height. “If he had only taken some one with him!” There was something terrible in the loneliness of that solitary figure in the balloon.

In a few seconds another balloon shot up; it was perhaps lighter than the first, for it seemed to overtake it immediately. The two great balloons drifted nearer and nearer to each other; when just above our heads they noiselessly collided.

“_Por Dios!_” cried Engracia, and hid her face.

There was a slight depression in each balloon, then they sprang apart, like two vast rubber balls, and sailed off, each in a slightly different direction, neither the worse for the collision.

Taking advantage of the light breeze, the remaining eleven balloons were loosed and shot up to a great height. Soon the whole fleet looked no larger than so many toy balloons. We watched them sail away over the palace of the King, where the young Queen was watching for them, forgetting perhaps for a moment her terror, as the balloons sailed over the palace, over the bare plains of Castile, towards the Guadarramas, and the grim Escorial, her last home.

In the Park of the Society of Aeronauts, there was a deal of jesting, as the toy balloons sent off by Engracia and a dozen other ladies, followed the real ones.

“They all behaved,” said Patsy, as we drove home after the race, “as if there were no such things as bombs; courage, it seems, is still an aristocratic virtue.”

* * * * *

The night of the reception at the palace was very dark. The sky looked like black velvet; the streets blazed with clusters, chains, pyramids of light. The Puerta del Sol was a sea of sparkling flames, that shone on triumphal arches, flags, flowers, and the entwined letters A and V.

The servants at the palace recognized Villegas. They did not even look at our invitation, but motioned us to pass with him through that door we knew so well from the outside. We found ourselves in a big shining hall at the foot of the _escalara principal_, a magnificent double staircase, guarded by fierce marble lions and fiercer halberdiers standing on each step, their halberds touching, making a line of flashing steel on either side, just as the Argentino described--a sight “well worth seeing indeed!” We lingered at the foot of the stair to watch some of the people pass up.

“Who is that?” I asked, as a lady of superb bearing walked slowly up the stair. “I think she is the most distinguished looking woman I have seen in Spain.”

“That is the Duquesa San Carlos,” said Engracia, who had just come in.

“And who is that?” A beautiful Saxon woman in white satin and rubies was passing.

“That is one of the English party, Lady Castlereagh.”

As each Grandee or Ambassador passed, the halberdiers saluted by striking the marble stair with their halberds. It had a fine effect, like a peal of thunder or a salvo of artillery. When we had seen a few of the King’s guests go up, we followed after them.

Bang, bang! the halberds came down again in another salute. I looked behind to see who was coming. Nobody, we were the only people on the stair.

“Can that be for you?” I cried.

“Oh, no!” laughed Villegas. “For this,” touching the decoration he wore, “or possibly for the Director of the Prado.”

We entered a room paved with marble, ceiled with porcelain, hung with ivory satin embroidered in gold. It was filled comfortably, not crowded. Many of the uniforms were very handsome; some of the ladies were sumptuously dressed, with beautiful jewels, others wore very simple evening gowns. In Spain you cannot judge people by what they wear; they dare to be poor here as nowhere else. The King and Queen were receiving the Ambassadors in the Salon de Embajadores. This we could not see at the time. Later in the evening we went in and admired the superb throne with its four steps guarded by big gilt lions, the rock crystal and silver chandeliers, the painted ceiling by Tiepolo, representing the “Majesty of Spain.” Standing under this picture, the King said to one of the Ambassadors:

“Well, here I am, you see. I came very near not being with you to-night!”

A little later the King and Queen made the tour of the apartments leading from the throne rooms. The crowd here was so great that we could see nothing but two lines of people bowing and curtseying as the royal cortége passed down the middle.

“Come,” said Villegas, “you can see nothing here.” He led us through hall after hall. I caught glimpses of a marble room and a porcelain room, of cabinets filled with precious pictures, sculpture and bric-a-brac. We halted in a perfectly empty gallery hung with the most astonishing tapestries.

“Flemish,” said Villegas, “but unlike any others ever made in Flanders. _Miré_, they are worked with silver and gold thread.”

While we were looking at the wonderful tapestries, and puzzling out the subjects, Isabel and Larz Anderson came into the room. We were all studying the tapestry representing the “Conquest of Tunis” when we heard voices, and suddenly, without a moment’s warning, the royal party entered the gallery. The King and Queen walked first. Don Alfonzo wore a white broadcloth uniform. The Queen looked charming; there was no trace of what she had endured in her radiant complexion or her calm blue eyes. She wore white satin brocaded with little pink and blue velvet flowers, and on her head the new diamond crown made especially for her, Engracia had told us about. It was small, of the real classic shape, like the crown of the queen in Walter Crane’s picture book.

The King and Queen both bowed and smiled to the Andersons and ourselves. Then Don Alfonzo, recognizing the Maestro, waved his hand and cried out in a cheery genial voice:

“_Ai Villegas, com’ esta V.?_”

Queen Maria Cristina, who was walking next, stopped, called Villegas, and gave him her hand. The Infanta Isabel, the Infanta Eulalia, and the Infanta Maria Teresa, all stopped and spoke to him. The tall Swedish Crown Prince followed suit, and the Russian Grand Duke Vladimir, who seemed overjoyed at seeing him, patted him on the shoulder.

When the royal cortége swept out of the room, I was breathless with surprise and excitement.

“They all seem to know you,” I cried. “What is the bond between you and the Russian Grand Duke?”

“_Quien sabé?_” said Villegas. “He has been at my studio; and the Czar once bought a picture of mine.”

That reminded me of the portrait of the King. I persuaded Villegas to take me to the room where it hangs--and holds its own--among the other royal portraits.

XVII

HASTA OTRA VISTA

“Are you painting?” Don Luis, the Valencian, put his head into the studio. “Am I too early? The fandango is to-day, isn’t it?”

“_Adelante!_” cried Villegas, “the ladies have come. Imperio will be here soon. I am only preparing my work for to-morrow.” He stood before a new canvas making a charcoal drawing of Angoscia.

“He cannot waste five minutes!” sighed Lucia.

“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,

‘Are these dingy old pictures all you have to show?’ I once took a Chilian to Rome. When he saw the Sistine Chapel he was furious. ‘Why do the writers deceive us?’ he said, ‘we have better chapels in Valparaiso.’ Suppose Don Alfonzo should order a hundred portraits of himself--people might laugh but nobody could stop him. If the President of the Argentine ordered twenty, or five, or even one portrait of himself, and paid for it out of the public money, would you reëlect him?”

“Art is a luxury,” the Argentino began.

“Ah, there’s your mistake, it’s a prime necessity, it is the great civilizer!” Don Luis was roused. “North Americans are not so ignorant of art as South Americans,” he added, remembering there were two present. “They are the great buyers now. Villegas’ Baptisimo is in New York, and now his Dogaressa has gone to Washington.”

Here Patsy plunged into the talk and reminded Don Luis of the Age of Phidias, the painters of the Dutch and Venetian Republics. The great periods of art had little to do with the form of government under which they flourished. Art was a rare and wonderful flowering of the human intelligence, the fairest flower on the tree of life. It depended on the development of the race, not the will of the ruler.

“That may be,” said the Argentino, “but if we are ever again to have a great art, the artist must be protected, his trade must be taken as seriously as the baker’s or the plumber’s. If art is the fine flower of civilization, it must in its very nature be the costliest of products--so to most people it seems a luxury.”

“Is religion a luxury, is poetry a luxury? Is anything that lifts the ideals, or stimulates the imagination a luxury?” cried Don Luis, passionately.

The old arguments were brought forward and threshed out, the discussion became heated; meanwhile Villegas worked on steadily. On the flat bare canvas a dim foreshadowing of what would be Angoscia’s perfect face grew and grew under his hands. While the others talked about art he was at work upon his latest masterpiece, the portrait of Angoscia.[5]

This was our last visit to the dear studio in the Pasaje del Alhambra, where for six months J. had worked, where we had all been so happy together. Our stay in Madrid was drawing to a close; we counted the hours now as misers count gold.

“The picture the Czar bought is of the same subject as this,” said J., pointing to The Death of the Matador.

The wounded matador lies on a litter in the chapel of the bull-ring. An old priest stands at his head, reading the prayers for the dying. A group of gorgeously dressed bull-fighters stand about him, their eyes fixed on their comrade’s pale face. At the back of the picture an opening in the wall gives a glimpse of the crowded arena, where the spectators are watching the great game of death, unconscious that a few feet away one of the heroes of the _corrida_ is dying, gored to death by the last bull.

While I was looking for the last time at the picture, Don Jaime came into the studio with a stranger, an immense man, deep in the chest, broad in the shoulders, small in the hips. His head was scarred, so were both his hands. He wore his hair brushed down on his forehead. At the first glance he looked like a priest, at the second like a prize fighter.

“Jaime has kept his word,” whispered J., “that is--the most famous matador in the world.”

“That is something I have seen more than once,” said the matador, looking at the picture. “In my time there was a mass before every _corrida_, when the priests carried the oils of the extreme unction in procession. I stopped that; it took the heart out of a man.”

The matador came nearer the picture, studied it carefully, taking now the attitude of one figure, now of another. “_Muy bien!_” he said, nodding his great head in approval.

“You cannot know,” said the Argentino to me, “how good that picture is. No one who is not familiar with the ways of _torreros_ can know. See the one who crosses himself, and bends his knee--it is exactly their manner. See the civil guard in the corner explaining to the other how the accident happened--look at his hand, it tells the story.”

“How many bulls have you killed?” asked Patsy of the matador.

“In twenty-five years I killed three thousand five hundred bulls.”

“Were you ever afraid?”

“I was afraid many, many times. On those occasions I never put my faith in the Virgin, but rather in my legs and ran as fast as I could. The bull, however, is the noblest of animals and the bravest. He never makes a cowardly attack from behind; he is so frank! He is terrible, though; a man needs nerve to face him when he comes into the ring pawing the earth and bellowing.”

“Will you tell me about the bull that was the hardest of all to kill?” asked Patsy.

The matador’s face changed: “He was a white bull,” he said, slowly, “and he didn’t want to fight. When he first came in, he put his muzzle in my hand. He followed me about like a little

dog. I led him with the cloak wherever I wanted him to go. Yes, that was the hardest bull of all to kill.”

J., who had been looking at the matador ever since he came into the studio, nodded his head as if satisfied.

“He’s the man,” he said. “I had forgotten the name; I remember the face. I saw you kill a bull in Cadiz once. I wonder if you remember it? The bull put his head down to charge, and you put your foot between his horns, stepped on his head, ran along his back and jumped down behind.”