You may find a duke in the disguise of a chimney-sweep, or a
butcher-boy in the dress of a Crusader.
There are none so great that
their dignity would suffer by a day's reckless foolery, and there are
none so poor that they cannot take the price of a dinner to buy a mask
and cheat their misery by mingling for a time with their betters in the
wild license of the Carnival.
The winter's gayety dies hard. Ash Wednesday is a day of loud merriment
and is devoted to a popular ceremony called the Burial of the Sardine. A
vast throng of workingmen carry with great pomp a link of sausage to the
bank of the Manzanares and inter it there with great solemnity. On the
following Saturday, after three days of death, the Carnival has a
resurrection, and the maddest, wildest ball of the year takes place at
the opera. Then the sackcloth and ashes of Lent come down in good
earnest and the town mourns over its scarlet sins. It used to be very
fashionable for the genteel Christians to repair during this season of
mortification to the Church of San Gines, and scourge themselves lustily
in its subterranean chambers. A still more striking demonstration was
for gentlemen in love to lash themselves on the sidewalks where passed
the ladies of their thoughts. If the blood from the scourges sprinkled
them as they sailed by, it was thought an attention no female heart
could withstand.
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