XII

It was not the weather for fans in Madrid, where it rained that cold
rain every afternoon, and once the whole of one day, and we could not
reasonably expect to see fans in the hands of ladies in real life so
much as in the pictures of ladies on the fans themselves. In fact, I
suppose that to see the Madrilenas most in character one should see them
in summer which in southern countries is the most characteristic season.
Theophile Gautier was governed by this belief when he visited Spain in
the hottest possible weather, and left for the lasting delight of the
world the record of that _Voyage en Espagne_ which he made seventy-two
years ago. He then thought the men better dressed than the women at
Madrid. Their boots are as "varnished, and they are gloved as white as
possible. Their coats are correct and their trousers laudable; but the
cravat is not of the same purity, and the waistcoat, that only part of
modern dress where the fancy may play, is not always of irreproachable
taste." As to the women: "What we understand in France as the Spanish
type does not exist in Spain... One imagines usually, when one says
_mantilla_ and _senora,_ an oval, rather long and pale, with large dark
eyes, surmounted with brows of velvet, a thin nose, a little arched,
a mouth red as a pomegranate, and, above all, a tone warm and golden,
justifying the verse of romance, _She is yellow like an orange._ This
is the Arab or Moorish type and not the Spanish type. The Madrilenas are
charming in the full acceptation of the word; out of four three will be
pretty; but they do not answer at all to the idea we have of them. They
are small, delicate, well formed, the foot narrow and the figure curved,
the bust of a rich contour; but their skin is very white, the features
delicate and mobile, the mouth heart-shaped and representing perfectly
certain portraits of the Regency. Often they have fair hair, and you
cannot take three turns in the Prado without meeting eight blonds of all
shades, from the ashen blond to the most vehement red, the red of the
beard of Charles V. It is a mistake to think there are no blonds in
Spain. Blue eyes abound there, but they are not so much liked as the
black."

Is this a true picture of the actual Madrilenas? What I say is that
seventy-two years have passed since it was painted and the originals
have had time to change. What I say is that it was nearly always
raining, and I could not be sure. What I say, above al