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I cannot take up the trade of a footpad, though disbanded soldiers turned robbers are common enough in Spain. What is to be done?" "If I am not mistaken," Geoffrey said with a smile, "your mind is already made up. It is not quite by accident that you are in the gardens of the Retiro every evening, and that a few words are always exchanged with a certain young lady as she passes with her duenna."
At dinner I told the story of my sufferings at Buen Retiro, and the conversation I had just had with the Count of Aranda, who had returned me my letters. The company expressed a desire to see them, and everyone gave an opinion on the matter. The guests were Abbe Bigliardi, the French consul, Don Rodrigues de Campomanes, and the famous Don Pablo d'Olavides.
Above the scattered growth the ancient church of Los Jerónimos, with its gothic masonry, outlined against the blue sky its twin towers and ruined arcades. The wintry foliage of the Retiro served as a background for the white mass of the Casón. Renovales thought of the frescos of Giordano that decorated its ceilings.
On three nights in the week there is music in the Retiro Garden, not as in our feverish way beginning so early that you must sacrifice your dinner to get there, and then turning you out disconsolate in that seductive hour which John Phoenix used to call the "shank of the evening," but opening sensibly at half past nine and going leisurely forward until after midnight. The music is very good.
At dinner I told the story of my sufferings at Buen Retiro, and the conversation I had just had with the Count of Aranda, who had returned me my letters. The company expressed a desire to see them, and everyone gave an opinion on the matter. The guests were Abbe Bigliardi, the French consul, Don Rodrigues de Campomanes, and the famous Don Pablo d'Olavides.
We had some trouble in capturing this town; in the first place, because his Majesty recommended the greatest moderation in making the attack, not wishing, as he said, to present to his brother a burned-up city; in the second place, because the Grand Duke of Berg during his stay at Madrid had fortified the palace of Retiro, and the Spanish insurgents had intrenched themselves there, and defended it most courageously.
He staggered with embarrassment and shame. Some one said aloud: "He has been drinking," and all that the poor man could do was to go back into the salon of his box and close the door. Ordinarily that little retiro was filled during the entr'actes with financiers and journalists.
October the 21st, we went to see the Buen Retiro. The Duke de Medina de las Torres, who has the keeping of this house of the King's from his Majesty, sent two of his gentlemen to show us all that belongs thereunto.
It may be that Ortega has no great sympathy for my manner of living, which is insubordinate; it may be that I look with unfriendly eye upon his ambitious and aristocratic sympathies; nevertheless, he is a master who brings glad news of the unknown that is, of the unknown to us. Doctor San Martin was fond of telling how he was sitting one day upon a bench in the Retiro, reading.
King Joseph had retired on our approach, leaving a garrison in the fortified palace of El Retiro; but they surrendered some days afterwards, and we remained there for three months, basking in the sunshine of beauty, harmony, and peace. I shall ever look back to that period as the most pleasing event of my military life.
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