crossed except at intersection. Whenever anyone did start
across the street in the middle of the block, the traffic police-
man invariably blew his whistle and then left his post to chase
the violator in pursuit of the two-peseta fine while he permit-
ted the other traffic to flow in raucous confusion.

I was one of the violators the first few days. Like an Ameri-
can I crossed the streets at the most convenient angles and
thereupon would hear the police whistle. I had had so much
difficulty obtaining permission to remain in the city that I
merely thought the officials were peculiarly gifted in sighting
foreigners. When the policeman approached, I therefore
merely smiled and pulled out my passport to show him that
my visa was in order. He would look, I would say: "Adiós,"
and walk on.

Madrid was a city of small automobiles and countless one-
wheeled pushcarts, a city where you were proffered lottery
tickets by a dozen men and women in every block, and where
dark, ill-dressed women with shawls over their heads and ba-
bies in their arms asked for pennies every few steps. It was a
city where the wealthy feasted on the best foods, steaks, salads,
and wines, in the leading restaurants and hotels, while the
poor starved. It was a city where beating drums were continu-
ally heralding the approach of the Franco guards, a stern, trim
body of men who swung their arms stiffly from the shoulder
with each step; where one was always seeing members of the
proud civil guards, special hereditary police, in their varnished
hats and flowing capes; where a hiss or the cry of "Oiga" sum-
moned a waiter, and where a whistle was the sign of disap-
proval. I learned about the whistle at a bullfight, where the
Spanish reacted with as much enthusiasm as an American
bleacher section at a baseball game. According to the poster,
the bullfight I attended, like so much else in Spain, was under
the special protection of the Blessed Virgin.

Spain was a country where the handles were in the centre of
the doors, where the tiny elevators, holding only three persons,

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