a
Noah's Ark. The scene was so artificial that it brought to my mind the
setting of a pantomime. I stopped, almost expecting a thousand
ballet-girls to appear from the wings, scantily clad, and go through a
measure to the playing of some sudden band, and retire and come forward
till the stage was filled and a great tableau formed.

But the day grew quite dim, and the vast stage remained empty. The
painted scene became still more unreal, and presently the park was
filled with the ghostly shapes of all the light-hearted people who had
lived their hour and exhibited their youth in the empty garden. I heard
the whispered compliments, and the soft laughter of the ladies; there
was a peculiar little snap as gaily they closed their fans.

XXXIX

[Sidenote: El Genero Chico]

In the evening I wandered again along the quay, my thoughts part
occupied with the novel things I expected from Morocco, part sorrowful
because I must leave the scented land of Spain. I seemed never before to
have enjoyed so intensely the exquisite softness of the air, and there
was all about me a sense of spaciousness which gave a curious feeling of
power. In the harbour, on the ships, the lights of the masts twinkled
like the stars above; and looking over the stony parapet, I heard the
waves lap against the granite like a long murmur of regret; I tried to
pierce the darkness, straining my eyes to see some deeper obscurity
which I might imagine to be the massive coasts of Africa. But at last I
could bear the solitude no longer, and I dived into the labyrinth of
streets.

At first, in unfrequented ways, I passed people only one by one, some
woman walking rapidly with averted face, or a pair of chattering
students; but as I came near the centre of the town the passers-by grew
more frequent, and suddenly I found myself in the midst of a thronging,
noisy crowd. I looked up and saw that I was opposite a theatre; the
people had just come from the second _funcion_. I had heard that the
natives of Cadiz were eager theatre-goers, and was curious to see how
they took this pleasure. I saw also that the next piece was _Las
Borrachos_, a play of Seville life that I had often seen; and I felt
that I could not spend my last evening better than in living again some
of those scenes which pattered across my heart now like little sorrowful
feet.

* * *

The theatre in Spain is the only thing that has developed further than
in the rest of Europe--in fact, it