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 stire. What I say, above all, is that I am
not a Frenchman of the high Romantic moment and that what I chiefly
noticed was how beautiful the mantilla was whether worn by old or young,
how fit, how gentle, how winning. I suppose that the women we saw
walking in it were never of the highest class; who would be driving
except when we saw them going to church.
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