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Spain lovers have said to me, "Do not go to the bullfight!" But in facing Spain as in facing any other country with some desire to know it, not merely to be struck by it, one must face what is dark and sinister as well as what is beautiful and annunciatory.

Hence a visit to the Square of the Bulls at Madrid on Easter Sunday, and the King is there and the President of the Sport, and a vast populace in sun and shade. Christ rose this morning; this afternoon six bulls must die. He rose indeed. Fifty thousand church bells told the world, lilies triumphant rose from bare boards in every home; we and all the children ate eggs of peace. This afternoon—Easter has gone—the populace will watch the bulls.

Next to me on the one hand sits a Japanese artist with a score of paper fans. In front are Madonna-faced women with high yellow combs in the crown of their hair and cream-colored lace hanging therefrom in an exquisite effect. The Japanese has crayons and decorates his blank fans rapidly. Group after group he sketches in on these fluttering fans, and then the grand parade of toreadors in all their finery, and then the picadors, and then the fighting. He is concentrated; he seems to feel nothing, but when his twenty fans are done he gathers them together, picks himself up, looks round him circumspectly, and departs.