Spanish Omelet

Into Caracas' tiny Hogar Americano lecture hall one night last week filed 150 smartly dressed Venezuelans. The evening's attraction: recitations from their own works by a four-man road company of Spanish poets. It was one of several "cultural" sideshows currently touring Latin America to illumine the beauties of Francisco Franco's Hispanidad. The mistress of ceremonies, a local poetess named Alicia Larralde de Ferrero, did not observe that more than a dozen uninvited guests had joined the audience.

After a few words of introduction from Dona Alicia, Poet Antonio Zubiaurre launched into his Death of Manolete, a lyrical tribute to one of Spain's great bullfighters. He had scarcely got the bull into the ring when his lisping Castilian was interrupted by the splat of a tomato against his coat lapel.

The lights went out; eggs and tomatoes flew. The dark hall rang with women's screams, the thud of chairs wielded in combat, and the scuffle and bump of poetry lovers colliding in midflight. As if to prove that there was more at issue than the quality of the verse, there were cries of "Down with Franco!" Dona Alicia, opening her mouth to call for police, caught a slap squarely in the face.

Policemen, stationed in the rear of the hall against just such an emergency, finally located the light switch, then nabbed 13 suspects as they headed for the door. When the intruders had been hauled off to jail, the shaken poets resumed their readings. "This," declared one, pointing to an egg stain on his coat, "is a decoration from the international brigades in Stalin's service."

Next morning the poets took off for what they hoped would be a more amiable reception in Bogota. The 13 critics were still in jail and there was no telling, said the chief of Venezuela's National Security Police, how long they would be there.

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