He Spoke, With A Certain
Hesitation, A Beautiful Castilian, Delicately Lisping The Sibilants And
Strongly Throating The Gutturals; And What He Said You Could Believe.
He
never was out of the way when wanted; he darkled with your boots and
shoes in a little closet next your door, and came from it with the
morning coffee and rolls.
In a stress of frequentation he appeared in
evening dress in the dining-room at night, and did honor to the place;
but otherwise he was to be seen only in our corridor, or in the cold,
dark chamber at the stair head where the _camareras_ sat sewing, kept in
check by his decorum. Without being explicitly advised of the fact, I am
sure he was the best of Catholics, and that he would have burnt me for a
heretic if necessary; but he would have done it from his conscience and
for my soul's good after I had recanted. He seldom smiled, but when he
did you could see it was from his heart.
His contrast, his very antithesis, the joyous concierge, was always
smiling, and was every way more like an Italian than a Spaniard. He
followed us into the wettest Madrid weather with the sunny rays of his
temperament, and welcomed our returning cab with an effulgence that
performed the effect of an umbrella in the longish walk from the
curbstone to the hotel door, past the grape arbor whose fruit ripened
for us only in a single bunch, though he had so confidently prophesied
our daily pleasure in it.
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