ping Castilian stories of Madrid. First
of the Madrid of Felipe Cuarto: _corridas_ in the Plaza Mayor, _auto da
fe_, pictures by Velasquez on view under the arcade where now there is
a doughnut and coffee shop, pompous coaches painted vermilion, cobalt,
gilded, stuffed with ladies in vast bulge of damask and brocade, plumed
cavaliers, pert ogling pages, lurching and swaying through the
foot-deep stinking mud of the streets; plays of Calderon and Lope
presented in gardens tinkling with jewels and sword-chains where ladies
of the court flirted behind ostrich fans with stiff lean-faced lovers.
Then Goya's Madrid: riots in the Puerta del Sol, _majas_ leaning from
balconies, the fair of San Isidro by the river, scuttling of ragged
guerrilla bands, brigands and patriots; tramp of the stiffnecked
grenadiers of Napoleon; pompous little men in short-tailed wigs dying
the _dos de Mayo_ with phrases from Mirabeau on their lips under the
brick arch of the arsenal; frantic carnivals of the Burial of the
Sardine; naked backs of flagellants dripping blood, lovers hiding under
the hoop skirts of the queen. Then the romantic Madrid of the thirties,
Larra, Becquer, Espronceda, Byronic gestures, vigils in graveyards,
duels, struttings among the box-alleys of the Retiro, pale young men in
white stocks shooting themselves in attics along the Calle Mayor. "And
now," the voice became suddenly gruff with anger, "look at Madrid. They
closed the Cafe Suizo, they are building a subway, the Castellana looks
more like the Champs Elysees every day.... It's only on the stage that
you get any remnant of the real Madrid. Benavente is the last
_madrileno_. _Tiene el sentido de lo castizo._ He has the sense of the
..." all the end of the evening went to the discussion of the meaning
of the famous word "_castizo_."

The very existence of such a word in a language argues an acute sense
of style, of the manner of doing things. Like all words of real import
its meaning is a gamut, a section of a spectrum rather than something
fixed and irrevocable. The first implication seems to be "according to
Hoyle," following tradition: a neatly turned phrase, an essentially
Castilian cadence, is _castizo_; a piece of pastry or a poem in the old
tradition are _castizo_, or a compliment daintily turned, or a cloak of
the proper fullness with the proper red velvet-bordered lining
gracefully flung about the ears outside of a cafe. _Lo castizo_ is the
essence of the local, o