There
Was No Sign Of Fashion Among The Ladies Of Burgos, So Far As We Could
Distinguish Them; There Was
Not a glowering or perking hat, and I do not
believe there was a hobble-skirt in all the austere
Old capital except
such as some tourist wore; the black lace mantillas and the flowing
garments of other periods flitted by through the chill alleys and into
the dim doorways. The only cheerfulness in the local color was to be
noted in the caparison of the donkeys, which we were to find more and
more brilliant southward. Do I say the only cheerfulness? I ought to
except also the involuntary hilarity of a certain poor man's suit which
was so patched together of myriad scraps that it looked as if cut from
the fabric of a crazy-quilt. I owe him this notice the rather because he
almost alone did not beg of us in a city which swarmed with beggars in a
forecast of that pest of beggary which infests Spain everywhere. I do
not say that the thing is without picturesqueness, without real pathos;
the little girl who kissed the copper I gave her in the cathedral
remains endeared to me by that perhaps conventional touch of poetry.
There was compensation for the want of presence among the ladies of
Burgos, in the leading lady of the theatrical company who dined, the
night before, at our hotel with the chief actors of her support, before
giving a last performance in our ancient city. It happened another time
in our Spanish progress that we had the society of strolling players at
our hotel, and it was both times told us that the given company was the
best dramatic company in Spain; but at Burgos we did not yet know that
we were so singularly honored. The leading lady there had luminous black
eyes, large like the head-lamps of a motor-car, and a wide crimson mouth
which she employed as at a stage banquet throughout the dinner, while
she talked and laughed with her fellow-actors, beautiful as
bull-fighters, cleanshaven, serious of face and shapely of limb. They
were unaffectedly professional, and the lady made no pretense of not
being a leading lady. One could see that she was the kindest creature in
the world, and that she took a genuine pleasure in her huge, practicable
eyes. At the other end of the room a Spanish family - father, mother, and
small children, down to some in arms - were dining and the children
wailing as Spanish children will, regardless of time and place; and when
the nurse brought one of the disconsolate infants to be kissed by the
leading lady one's heart went out to her for the amiability and
abundance of her caresses. The mere sight of their warmth did something
to supply the defect of steam in the steam-heating apparatus, but when
one got beyond their radius there was nothing for the shivering traveler
except to wrap himself in the down quilt of his bed and spread his
steamer-rug over his knees till it was time to creep under both of them
between the glacial sheets.
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