Wanderings in Spain. Gautier Théophile
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more noble, and more graceful than an Andalusian stallion, with its plaited mane, long, thick tail reaching to the ground, trappings ornamented with red tufts, stately head, sparkling eye, and neck swelling out like a pigeon's breast. I saw one ridden by a lady, of the colour of a Bengal rose (the horse and not the lady), frosted over with silver, and of the most marvellous beauty. What a difference there is between these noble beasts who have preserved all their splendid primitive form, and those locomotive machines made of muscles and bones, called English racers, which have nothing of the horse left about them, save four legs and a backbone on which to place a jockey!
The Prado most certainly offers one of the most animated sights it is possible to behold. The promenade is one of the finest in the world; not for the place itself, which is of the most ordinary description, in spite of all the efforts made by Charles III. to supply its natural defects, but on account of the astonishing concourse of persons that are collected there every evening, from seven o'clock until half-past ten. There are very few bonnets to be seen on the Prado. With the exception of some few bright yellow affairs resembling coal-scuttles, which may have been used to decorate the head of some learned ass, you meet with mantillas only. The Spanish mantilla is therefore a fact. I had previously believed that it existed no longer, save in the ballads of Monsieur Crevel de Charlemagne. It is made of black or white lace, but generally black, and is worn at the back of the head, on the top of the comb; a few flowers placed on each side of the forehead complete the head-dress, which produces the most charming effect imaginable. When a woman wears a mantilla, she must be as ugly as the three theological virtues not to appear pretty; unfortunately, it is the only part of the Spanish costume which has been preserved, all the rest is à la Française. The lower folds of the mantilla float above a shawl, an odious shawl, and the shawl is accompanied by a gown of some stuff or other, which does not bear the remotest resemblance to the basquina formerly worn. I cannot avoid being astonished at such blindness, and I cannot understand how it is that the women, who are generally so clearsighted in all that relates to their beauty, do not perceive that their immense efforts to be elegant only cause them, at most, to look like provincial fashionables, which, after all, is but a poor result. The old costume is so admirably adapted to the peculiar beauty, proportions, and manners of the Spanish women, that it is really the only one that can by any means become them. The fan corrects, to a certain extent, the bad taste of this pretension to Parisianism. A woman without a fan is something that I have not yet seen in this happy land; I have seen some who had satin shoes without stockings, but they always had a fan. The fan accompanies them everywhere, even to church, where you come across groups of them of all ages, kneeling down or squatting on their heels, and praying and fanning themselves most fervently. The proceedings are frequently varied by their making the sign of the cross in the Spanish manner, which is much more complicated than ours; they execute this manœuvre with a degree of rapidity and precision worthy of Prussian soldiers. The management of the fan is an art that is totally unknown in France. The Spanish women excel in it; the fan opens, shuts, and is twirled about in their fingers so rapidly and so lightly, that a conjurer could not do it better. Some ladies who are great amateurs have a most valuable collection of fans. We ourselves saw a collection of this kind which numbered more than a hundred, of various patterns. There were fans of every country and every period; fans made of ivory, tortoiseshell, sandal-wood, adorned with spangles, or painted in water-colours, in the style of Louis XIV. and Louis XV.; fans made of China or Japan rice-paper; in a word, fans of every possible description. Some of them were decorated with rubies, diamonds, and other precious stones. This custom of forming large collections of fans is a piece of tasteful extravagance, a charming mania in a pretty woman. The shutting and opening of the fans produce a little hissing sound, which, being repeated more than a thousand times a minute, pierces the confused hum which floats above the crowd, and has something very strange about it for a French ear. When a woman meets one of her acquaintance, she makes a little sign with her fan, and pronounces the word agur as she passes him. At present let us say something about Spanish beauty.
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