Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Suddenly my hand was empty: I opened my eyes, saw the girl all disturbed, and looked behind me. Gracious Heavens! There was a handsome young fellow, with a stylish little jacket, tight breeches, and a velvet cap. Oh terrors! a _torero_! I gave a start as if I had felt two _banderillas de fuego_ planted in my neck.

"I see it at a glance," said I to myself, like the man at the comedy; and one could not fail to understand. The girl, slightly embarrassed, made the introduction: "An Italian passing through Cordova," and she hastened to add, "who wants to know when the train leaves for Seville."

The _torero_, who had frowned at first sight of me, was reassured, told me the hour of departure, sat down, and entered into a friendly conversation. I asked for the news of the last bull-fight at Cordova: he was a _banderillero_, and he gave me a minute description of the day's sport. The girl in the mean time was gathering flowers from the vases in the _patio_. I finished my meal, offered a glass of Malaga to the _torero_, drank to the fortunate planting of all his _banderillas_, paid my bill (three _pesetas_, which included the beautiful eyes, you understand), and then, putting on a bold front, so as to dispel the least shadow of suspicion from the mind of my formidable rival, I said to the girl, "_Señorita!_ one can refuse nothing to those who are taking leave. To you I am like a dying man; you will never see me again; you will never hear my name spoken: then let me take some memento; give me that bunch of flowers."

"Take it," said the girl; "I picked it for you."

She glanced at the _torero_, who gave a nod of approval.

"I thank you with all my heart," I replied as I turned to leave. They both accompanied me to the door.

"Have you bull-fights in Italy?" asked the young man.

"Oh heavens! no, not yet!"

"Too bad! Try to make them popular in Italy also, and I will come to _banderillar_ at Rome."

"I will do all in my power.--_Señorita_, have the goodness to tell me your name, so that I may bid you good-bye."

"Consuelo."

"God be with you, Consuelo!"

"God be with you, _Señor Italiano_!"

And I went out into the lonely little street.

There are no remarkable Arabian monuments to be seen in the neighborhood of Cordova, although at one time the whole valley was covered with magnificent buildings. Three miles to the south of the city, on the side of the mountain, rose the Medina Az-Zahra, the city of flowers, one of the most marvellous architectural works of the caliph Abdurrahman, begun by the caliph himself in honor of his favorite Az-Zahra. The foundations were laid in the year 936, and ten thousand workmen labored on the edifice for twenty-five years. The Arabian poets celebrated Medina Az-Zahra as the most splendid of royal palaces and the most delightfullyl garden in the world. It was not an edifice, but a vast chain of palaces, gardens, courts, colonnades, and towers. There were rare plants from Syria--the fantastic playing of lofty fountains, streams of water flowing in the shade of palm trees, and great basins overflowing with quicksilver, which reflected the rays of the sun like lakes of fire; doors of ebony and ivory studded with gems; thousands of columns of the most precious marbles; great airy balconies; and between the innumerable multitudes of statues twelve images of animals of massy gold, gleaming with pearls, sprinkling sweetened water from their mouths and noses. In this vast palace swarmed thousands of servants, slaves, and women, and hither from every part of the world came poets and musicians. And yet this same Abdurrahman III., who lived among all these delights, who reigned for fifty years, who was powerful, glorious, and fortunate in every circumstance and enterprise, wrote before his death that during his long reign he had been happy only fourteen days, and his fabulous city of flowers seventy-four years after the laying of its first stone was invaded, sacked, and burned by a barbarian horde, and to-day there remain only a few stones which hardly recall its name.

Of another splendid city, called Zahira, which rose to the east of Cordova, built by the powerful Almansur, governor of the kingdom, not even the ruins remain: a handful of rebels laid it in ashes a little while after the death of its founder.

"All returns to the great ancient mother."

Instead of taking a drive around Cordova, I simply wandered here and there, weaving fancies from the names of the streets, which to me is one of the greatest pleasures in which a traveller may indulge in a foreign city. Cordova, _alma ingeniorum parens_, could write at every street-corner the name of an artist or an illustrious author born within her walls; to give her due honor, she has remembered them all with maternal gratitude. You find the little square of Seneca and the house where he may have been born; the street of Ambrosio Morales, the historian of Charles V., who continued the _Chronicle General of Spain_ commenced by Florian d'Ocampo; the street of Pablo de Cespedes, painter, architect, sculptor, antiquary, and the author of a didactic poem, "The Art of Painting," unfortunately not finished, though adorned with splendid passages. He was an ardent enthusiast of Michelangelo, whose works he had admired in Italy, and in his poem he addressed a hymn of praise to him which is one of the most beautiful passages in Spanish poetry, and, in spite of myself, the last verses have slipped from my pen, which every Italian, even if he does not know the sister language, can appreciate and understand. He believes, he tells the reader, that one cannot find the perfection of painting anywhere except

"Que en aquela escelente obra espantosa
Mayor de cuantas se han jamas pintado,
Que hizo el Buonarrota de su mano
Divina, en el etrusco Vaticano!

"Cual nuevo Prometeo en alto vuelo
Alzándose, estendiò los alas tanto,
Que puesto encima el estrellado cielo
Una parte alcanzò del fuego santo;
Con que tornando enriquecido al suelo
Con nueva maravilla y nuevo espanto,
Diò vida con eternos resplandores
À marmoles, à bronces, à colores.
¡O mas que mortal hombre! ¿Angel divino
O cual te nomaré? No humano cierto
Es tu ser, que del cerco empireo vino
Al estilo y pincel vida y concierto:
Tu monstraste à los hombres el camino
Por mil edades escondido, incierto
De la reina virtud; a ti se debe
Honra que en cierto dia el sol renueve."

"In that excellent marvellous work, greater than all that has ever been painted, which Buonarroti made with his divine hand in the Etruscan Vatican!

"Look how the new Prometheus, rising in lofty flight, extends his wings so wide that above the starry sky he has obtained a part of the celestial fire; with it, returning, he enriched the earth with new marvels and new surprises, giving life, with eternal splendors, to marble, bronze, and colors. More than mortal man! angel divine! or what shall I call thee? Surely thou art not human, who from the empyrean circle came, bringing life and harmony to chisel and brush! Thou hast shown men the road hidden for a thousand ages, uncertain of the sovereign virtue; to thee belongs honor which one day the sun will bestow."

Murmuring these lines, I came out into the street of Juan de Mena, the Ennius of Spain, as his compatriots call him, the author of a phantasmagorial poem called "The Labyrinth," an imitation of _The Divina Commedia_ very famous in its day, and in truth not without some pages of inspired and noble poetry, but, on the whole, cold and overloaded with pedantic mysticism. John II., king of Castile, went mad over this "Labyrinth," kept it beside the missal in his cabinet, and carried it with him to the hunt; but witness the caprice of a king! The poem had only three hundred stanzas, and to John II. this number seemed too small, and do you know the reason? It was this: the year contains three hundred and sixty-five days, and it seemed to him that there ought to be as many stanzas in the poem as there are days in the year, and so he besought the poet to compose sixty-five other stanzas, and the poet complied with his request--most cheerfully, the flatterer!--to gain an occasion for flattering still more, although he had already flattered his sovereign to the extent of asking him to correct the poem.

From the street of Juan de Mena I passed into the street of Gongora, the Marini of Spain, and no less a genius than he, but perhaps one who corrupted the literature of his country even more than Marini corrupted that of Italy, for he spoiled, abused, and corrupted the language in a thousand ways: for this reason Lope de Vega wittily makes a poet of the Gongorist school ask one of his hearers, "Do you understand me?"--"Yes," he replies; and the poet retorts, "You lie! for I do not even understand myself." But Lope himself is not entirely free from Gongorism, for he has the courage to write that Tasso was only the rising of Marini's sun; nor is Calderon entirely free of it, nor some other great men. But enough of poetry: I must not digress.

After the siesta I hunted up my two companions, who took me through the suburbs of the city, and here, for the first time, I saw men and women of the true Andalusian type as I had imagined them, with eyes, coloring, and attitudes like the Arabians, and here too, for the first time, I heard the real speech of the Andalusian people, softer and more musical than in the Castiles, and also gayer and more imaginative, and accompanied by livelier gestures. I asked my companions whether that report about Andalusia is true, affirming that with their early physical development vice is more common, manners more voluptuous, and passion less restrained. "Too true," they replied, giving explanations, descriptions, and citing cases which I forbear to repeat. On returning to the city they took me to a splendid casino, with gardens and magnificent rooms, in one of which, the largest and richest, adorned with paintings of all the illustrious men of Cordova, rises a sort of stage where the poets stand to read their works on evenings appointed for public contests of genius; and the victors receive a laurel crown from the hands of the most beautiful and cultured girls in the city, who, crowned with roses, look on from a semi-circle of seats. That evening I had the pleasure of meeting several young Cordovese ardently attached, as they say in Spain, to the cultivation of the Muses--frank, courteous, and vivacious, with a medley of verses in their heads, and a smattering of Italian literature; and so imagine how from dusk to midnight, through those mysterious streets, which from the first evening had made my head whirl, there was a constant, noisy interchange of sonnets, hymns, and ballads in the two languages, from Petrarch to Prati, from Cervantes to Zorilla; and a delightful conversation closed and sealed by many cordial hand-clasps and eager promises to write, to send books, to come to Italy, to visit Spain again, etc. etc.--merely words, as is always the case, but words not less dear on that account.

In the morning I left for Seville. At the station I saw Frascuelo, Lagartijo, Cuco, and the whole band of _toreros_ from Madrid, who saluted me with a benevolent look of protection. I hurried into a dusty carriage, and as the train moved off and my eyes rested on Cordova for the last time, I bade the city adieu in the lines of the Arabian poet--a little too tropical, if you will, for the taste of a European, but, after all, admirable for the occasion:

"Adieu, Cordova! Would that my life were as long as Noah's, that I might live for ever within thy walls! Would that I had the treasures of Pharaoh, to spend them upon wine and the beautiful women of Cordova with the gentle eyes which invite kisses!"

SEVILLE.

The journey from Cordova to Seville does not awaken a sense of astonishment, as does that from Toledo to Cordova, but it is even more beautiful: there are continuous orange-orchards, boundless olive-groves, hills clothed with vineyards, and meadows carpeted with flowers. A few miles from Cordova one sees the ruined towers of the frowning castle of Almodovar standing on a very high rock-platform, which overlooks a vast extent of the surrounding country; at Hornachuelos another old castle on the summit of a hill, in the midst of a lonely, melancholy landscape; and then, beyond, the white city of Palma, hidden in a dense orange-grove, which is surrounded in its turn by a circle of truck-farms and flower-gardens. As the train runs on one is carried through the midst of golden fields of grain, bordered by long hedges of Indian fig trees and rows of dwarf palms, and dotted with groves of pine and frequent orchards of fruit-bearing trees; and at short intervals there are hills and castles, roaring streams, the slender village belfries hidden among the trees, and the purple peaks of distant mountains.

Most beautiful of all are the little country-houses scattered along the road. I do not remember to have seen a single one of them that was not as white as snow. The house was white, the neighboring well-curb was white, the little wall around the kitchen-garden was white, as were also the two posts of the garden-gate: everything seemed as if it had been whitewashed the day before. Some of these houses have one or two mullioned windows of Moorish design; others have arabesques over the door; and still others roofs covered with variegated tiles like Arabian houses. Here and there through the fields one sees the red-and-white capes of the peasants, velvet hats against the green grass, and sashes of all colors. The peasants whom one sees in the furrows and those who run to see the train pass are dressed in the costumes of forty years ago as they are represented in paintings: they wear velvet hats with very broad brims which roll slightly back, with little crowns like a sugar-loaf; short jackets, open waistcoats, breeches gathered in at the knee like those of the priests, gaiters which almost meet the breeches, and sashes around the waist. This style of dress, picturesque but inconvenient, is exceedingly becoming to the slender figures of these men, who prefer discomfort, if it be attended by beauty, to comfort without it, and who spend half an hour every morning adorning themselves, besides the time required to get into a pair of tight breeches which will display a shapely thigh and a well-turned leg. They have nothing in common with our Northern peasant of the hard face and dull eye. Their great black eyes meet your own with a smile, as if they would say, "Don't you remember me?" They cast daring glances at the ladies who put their heads out of the windows, run to fetch a match before you have so much as asked for it, sometimes answer your questions in rhyme, and are even capable of laughing to show their white teeth.

At Rinconado the campanile of the cathedral of Seville comes into view in a line with the railroad, and to the right, beyond the Guadalquivir, one sees the beautiful low hills, covered with olive-groves, at the foot of which lie the ruins of Italica. The train rolled on, and I said to myself, under my breath, speaking faster and faster as the houses became thicker, with that suspense, full of longing and delight, which one feels on approaching the doorway of one's love, "Seville! this is Seville! The queen of Andalusia is at hand, the Athens of Spain, the mother of Murillo, the city of poets and lovers, the storied Seville, whose name I have pronounced from a child with a sentiment of loving sympathy! What should I have given a few years since to have seen it? No, it is not a dream! Those are really the houses of Seville; those peasants yonder are Sevillians; that campanile which I see is the Giralda! I am at Seville! How strange! It makes me laugh! What is my mother doing at this moment? Would that she were here! Would that this friend and that were here! It is a sin to be alone! See the white houses, the gardens, the streets.... We are in the city.... It is time to get out.... Ah! how beautiful is life!"

I went to a hotel, threw down my valise in the _patio_, and began to stroll about the city. It seemed like seeing Cordova over again, on a large scale, embellished and enriched; the streets are wider, the houses higher, the _patios_ more spacious, but the general appearance of the city is the same: there is the same spotless white, the same intricate network of streets, everywhere the fragrance of orange-blossoms, that subtile air of mystery, that Oriental atmosphere, filling one's heart with a delicious sense of amorous melancholy, and calling to mind a thousand fancies, desires, and visions of a distant world, a new life, an unknown people, and an earthly paradise of love, pleasure, and content. In those streets one reads the history of the city: every balcony, every fragment of sculpture, every lonely crossway, recalls some nocturnal adventure of a king, the inspiration of a poet, the romance of a beauty, an amour, a duel, an abduction, a story, or a festival. Here a memento of Maria de Padilla, there one of Don Pedro; yonder of Cervantes, Columbus, Saint Theresa, Velasquez, or Murillo. A column tells of the Roman dominion; a tower, the splendor of Charles V.'s monarchy; and an alcazar, the magnificence of the Arabian court. Beside the modest white cottages rise sumptuous marble palaces; the little tortuous streets open into vast squares full of orange trees; from silent, deserted corners one enters with a short turn a street filled with a noisy crowd: and wherever one passes one sees on the opposite side the graceful lattices of the _patios_, flowers, statues, fountains, flights of stairs, walls covered with arabesques, small Moorish windows, and slender columns of costly marble; and at every window and in every garden little women clothed in white, half hidden, like timid nymphs, among the leaves of grapevines and rosebushes.

Passing from street to street, I came at length to the bank of the Guadalquivir, close to the avenues of the Christina promenade, which is to Seville what the Lung d'arno is to Florence. Here one enjoys a charming spectacle.

I first approached the famous Torre del Oro. This famous tower was called the Golden, either because it received the gold which the Spanish ships brought from America or because King Don Pedro hid his treasures there. It is an octagonal structure of three stories, growing smaller as they ascend, crowned with battlements and washed by the river. The story runs that this tower was built in Roman times, and that for a long period the king's most beautiful favorite dwelt there after it had been joined to the Alcazar by an edifice which was torn away to make room for the Christina promenade.

This promenade extends from the ducal palace of Montpensier to the Torre del Oro. It is entirely shaded with Oriental plane trees, oaks, cypresses, willows, poplars, and other trees of northern latitudes, which the Andalusians admire, as we admire the palms and aloes of the plains of Piedmont and Lombardy. A great bridge spans the river and leads to the suburb of Triana, from which one sees the first houses on the opposite bank. A long line of ships, coasting vessels, and barges extends along the river, and from the Torre del Oro to the ducal palace there is a coming and going of rowboats. The sun was setting. A crowd of ladies filled the avenues, groups of workmen were crossing the bridge, the workmen on the ships labored more busily, a band of music was playing among the trees, the river was rose-colored, the air was fragrant with the perfume of flowers, the sky seemed all on fire.

I returned to the city and enjoyed the marvellous spectacle of Seville by night. All the _patios_ were illuminated--those of the humble houses with a half light, which gave them an air of mysterious beauty, those of the palaces, full of little flames which were reflected in the mirrors and flashed like jets of quicksilver in the spray of the fountains, and shone with a thousand colors on the marbles of the vestibules, the mosaics of the walls, the glass of the doors, and the crystal of the candlesticks. Inside one saw a crowd of ladies, everywhere one heard the sound of laughter, low voices, and music; one seemed to be passing through so many ball-rooms; from every door flowed a stream of light, fragrance, and harmony; the streets were crowded; among the trees of the squares, in the avenues, at the end of the narrow streets, and on the balconies,--everywhere were seen white skirts fluttering, vanishing, and reappearing in the darkness, and little heads ornamented with flowers peeped coquettishly from the windows; groups of young men broke through the crowd with merry shouts; people called to each other and talked from window to street, and everywhere were rapid motion, shouting, laughter, and festal gaiety. Seville was simply an immense garden in which revelled a people intoxicated with youth and love.

Such moments are very sad ones for a stranger. I remember that I could have struck my head against the wall. I wandered here and there almost abashed, with hanging head and sad heart, as if all that crowd was amusing itself for the sole purpose of insulting my loneliness and melancholy. It was too late to present my letters of introduction, too early to go to bed: I was the slave of that crowd and that gaiety, and was obliged to endure it for many hours. I found a solace in resolving not to look at the faces of the women, but I could not always keep my resolve, and when my eyes inadvertently met two black pupils the wound, because so unexpected, was more grievous than if I had encountered the danger more boldly. Yes, I was in the midst of those wonderfully famous women of Seville! I saw them pass on the arms of their husbands and lovers; I touched their dresses, breathed their perfume, heard the sound of their soft speech, and the blood leaped to my head like a flame of fire. Fortunately, I remembered to have heard from a Sevillian at Madrid that the Italian consul was in the habit of spending the evening at the shop of his son, a merchant; I sought out the shop, entered, and found the consul, and as I handed him a letter from a friend I said, with a dramatic air which made him laugh, "Dear sir, protect me; Seville has terrified me."

At midnight the appearance of the city was unchanged: the crowd and light had not disappeared; I returned to the hotel and locked my door with the intention of going to bed. Worse and worse! The windows of my room opened on a square where crowds of people were swarming around an orchestra that played without interruption, when the music finally ended the guitars commenced, together with the cries of the water-carriers and snatches of song and laughter; the whole night through there was noise enough to wake the dead. I had a dream at once delightful and tantalizing, but rather more tantalizing than delightful. I seemed to be tied to the bed by a very long tress of dark hair twisted into a thousand knots, and felt on my lips a mouth of burning coals which sucked my breath, and around my neck two vigorous little hands which were crushing my head against the handle of a guitar.

The following morning I went at once to see the cathedral.

To adequately describe this measureless edifice one should have at hand a collection of the most superlative adjectives and all the most extravagant similes which have come from the pens of the grand writers of every country whenever they have described something of prodigious height, enormous size, appalling depth, and incredible grandeur. When I talk to my friends about it, I too, like the Mirabeau of Victor Hugo, involuntarily make _un colossal mouvement d'epaules_, puff out my throat, and gradually raise my voice, like Tommaso Salvini in the tragedy of _Samson_ when, in tones which make the parquet tremble, he says that he feels his strength returning to his limbs. To talk of the cathedral of Seville tires one like playing a great wind instrument or carrying on a conversation across a roaring torrent.

The cathedral of Seville stands alone in the centre of a vast square, and consequently one can measure its vastness at a single glance. At the first moment I thought of the famous motto which the chapter of the primitive church adopted on the eighth of July, 1401, when they decreed the erection of the new cathedral: "Let us build a monument which will make posterity declare that we were mad." Those reverend canons did not fail in their intention. But one must enter to be sure of this.

The exterior of the cathedral is grand and magnificent, but not to be compared with the interior. The façade is lacking: a high wall surrounds the entire building like a fortress. However much one walks around and looks at it, one cannot succeed in fixing in one's mind a single outline which, like the preface of a book, will give a clear conception of the design of the work; one admires and occasionally breaks out in the exclamation, "It is stupendous!" but it does not please, and one hurries into the church, hoping to feel a sentiment of deeper admiration.

On first entering one is amazed, and feels as if one were lost in an abyss, and for some moments the eye can only describe immense curves through that vast space, as if to assure you that the sight is real and that fancy is not deceiving you. Then you approach one of the pilasters, measure it, and look at the others in the distance: they are as massive as towers, and yet they look so slender that one trembles to think the edifice is resting on them. You run from one to another with a rapid glance, follow their lines from pavement to vaulted arch, and seem to be able to count the moments which it would take for the eye to climb them. There are five naves, each of which would form a great church, and in the central nave one could build another high cathedral with its cupola and belfry. Altogether they form sixty light, noble vaults which seem to be slowly expanding and rising as one looks at them. Everything in this cathedral is enormous. The great chapel in the middle of the principal nave, so high that it almost touches the roof, seems like a chapel built for giant priests, to whose knees the common altars would scarcely reach; the Easter candle seems like the mast of a ship, the bronze candlestick which supports it, like the pilaster of a church; the organs are like houses; the choir is a museum of sculpture and carving which alone deserves a day's study. The chapels are worthy of the church: in them are scattered the masterpieces of sixty-seven sculptors and thirty-eight painters. Montegna, Zurbaran, Murillo, Valdes, Herrera, Boldan, Roelas, and Campana have left a thousand immortal traces of their handiwork. The chapel of Saint Ferdinand, which contains the tombs of this king, his wife Beatrice, Alfonso the Wise, the celebrated minister Florida Blanca, and other illustrious personages, is one of the richest and most beautiful. The body of King Ferdinand, who rescued Seville from the dominion of the Arabs, clothed in his coat-of-mail with crown and royal robe, rests in a crystal casket covered with a pall; on one side lies the sword which he wore on the day of his entrance into Seville; on the other, the staff, an emblem of authority. In this same chapel is preserved a little ivory Virgin which the sainted king carried with him to war, and other relics of great value. In the other chapels there are great marble altars, Gothic tombs, statues of stone, wood, and silver enclosed in large glass cases, with the breast and hands covered with diamonds and rubies; there are also magnificent paintings, but, unfortunately, the dim light which falls from the high windows does not make them clear enough to be enjoyed in all their beauty.

From the examination of the chapels, paintings, and sculptures one returns unwearied to admire the cathedral in its grand and, if one may say, its formidable aspect. After climbing to those dizzy heights one's glance and thoughts, as if exhausted by the effort, fall back to the earth to gather new strength for another ascent. And the images which multiply in one's head correspond to the vastness of the basilica--measureless angels, heads of enormous cherubim, great wings like the sails of a ship, and the fluttering of immense white robes. The impression produced by this cathedral is wholly religious, but it is not depressing: it is that sentiment which bears the thought into interminable spaces and the awful silences where the thoughts of Leopardi lost themselves; it is a sentiment full of yearning and holy boldness, that delightful shudder which one feels on the brink of a precipice, the turbulence and confusion of great thoughts, the divine fear of the infinite.

As the cathedral is the most various of Spain (since the Gothic, Germanic, Græco-Roman, Moorish, and, as it is vulgarly called, the plateresque styles of architecture, have each left their individual impress upon it), it is also the richest and has the greatest privileges. In the times of greater clerical power they burned in it every year twenty thousand pounds of wax; in it every day were celebrated five hundred masses on eighty altars; the wine consumed in the sacrifice amounted to the incredible quantity of eighteen thousand seven hundred and fifty litres. The canons had trains of male attendants like monarchs, came to church in splendid carriages drawn by superb horses, and while they were celebrating mass had priests to fan them with enormous fans adorned with feathers and pearls--a direct concession from the Pope of which some avail themselves even in this day. One need not speak of the festivals of Holy Week, which are still famous the world over, and to which people gather from all parts of Europe.

But the most curious privilege of the cathedral of Seville is the so-called dance _de los seises_, which takes place every evening at dusk for eight consecutive days after the festival of _Corpus Domini_. I was in Seville during those days, and went to see it, and it seems to me worth describing. From what had been told me I expected to see a scandalous piece of buffoonery, and entered the church with my mind prepared for a feeling of indignation at the desecration of the sanctuary. The church was dark; only the great chapel was lighted; a crowd of kneeling women filled the space between the chapel and the choir. Some priests were sitting to the right and left of the altar; in front of the altar-steps was spread a great carpet; two lines of boys from eight to thirteen years of age, dressed like Spanish cavaliers of the Middle Ages, with plumed hats and white stockings, were drawn up, one before the other, facing the altar. At a signal from a priest a soft strain from violins broke the profound silence of the church, and the two rows of boys advanced with the step of a contra-dance, and began to divide, intermingle, separate, and come together again with a thousand graceful movements, and then all together they broke into a harmonious musical chant, which echoed through the gloom of the vast cathedral like the singing of an angelic choir; and a moment later they began to accompany the dance and the chant with tamborines. No religious ceremony has ever moved me like this. It is impossible to express the effect produced by those young voices under those immense domes, those little creatures at the foot of the towering altars, that dance, solemn and almost humble, the ancient costume, the kneeling crowd, and the surrounding gloom. I left the church with my soul calmed as if I had been praying.

A very curious anecdote is related in connection with this ceremony. Two centuries ago an archbishop of Seville, who regarded the dance and tamborines as unworthy instruments of praising God, wished to prohibit the ceremony. Everything was thrown into confusion: the people protested; the canons made themselves heard; the archbishop was obliged to appeal to the Pope. The Pope, whose curiosity was aroused, wished to see this silly dance with his own eyes, that he might decide intelligently in the matter. The boys in their cavalier dress were taken to Rome, received at the Vatican, and made to dance and sing before His Holiness. His Holiness laughed, did not disapprove, and, wishing to give one knock on the hoop and another on the barrel, and so to satisfy the canons without offending the archbishop, decreed that the boys should continue to dance so long as the clothes which they then wore lasted; after that time the ceremony was to be abolished. The archbishop laughed in his beard, if he had one; the canons laughed too, as if they had already found the way to outwit both the Pope and the archbishop. And, in fact, they renew some part of the boys' dress every year, so that the whole garment can never be said to have worn out, and the archbishop, as a scrupulous man, who observed the commands of the Pope to the letter, could not oppose the repetition of the ceremony. So they continued to dance, and they dance and will dance so long as it pleases the canons and the Lord.

As I was leaving the church a sacristan made me a sign, led me behind the choir, and pointed out a tablet in the pavement, upon which I read an inscription which stirred my heart. Under that stone lay the bones of Ferdinand Columbus, the son of Christopher, who was born at Cordova, and died at Seville on the twelfth of July, 1536, in the fiftieth year of his age. Under the inscription run some Latin verses with the following significance:

"Of what avail is it that I have bathed the entire universe with my sweat, that I have three times passed through the New World discovered by my father, that I have adorned the banks of the gentle Beti, and preferred my simple taste to riches, that I might again draw around thee the divinities of the Castalian spring, and offer thee the treasures already gathered by Ptolemy,--if thou, passing this stone in silence, returnest no salute to my father and givest no thought to me?"

The sacristan, who knew more about the inscription than I did, explained it to me. Ferdinand Columbus was in his early youth a page of Isabella the Catholic and of the prince Don Juan; he travelled to the Indies with his father and his brother the admiral Don Diego, followed the emperor Charles V. in his wars, made other voyages to Asia, Africa, and America, and everywhere collected with infinite care and at great expense the most precious books, from which he composed a library which passed after his death into the hands of the chapter of the cathedral, and remains intact under the famous name of the Columbian Library. Before his death he wrote these same Latin verses which are inscribed on the tablet of his tomb, and expressed a desire to be buried in the cathedral. In the last moments of his life he had a vessel full of ashes brought to him and sprinkled his face with them, pronouncing as he did so the words of Holy Writ, _Memento homo quia pulvis es_, chanted the _Te Deum_, smiled, and expired with the serenity of a saint. I was at once seized with a desire to visit the library and left the church.

A guide stopped me on the threshold to ask me if I had seen the _Patio de los Naranjos_--the Court of Oranges--and, as I had not done so, he conducted me thither. The Court of Oranges lies to the north of the cathedral, surrounded by a great embattled wall. In the centre rises a fountain encircled by an orange-grove, and on one side along the wall is a marble pulpit, from which, according to the tradition, Vincenzo Ferrer is said to have preached. In the area of this court, which is very large, rose the ancient mosque, which is thought to have been built toward the end of the twelfth century. There is not the least trace of it now. In the shade of the orange trees around the margins of the basin the good Sevillians come to take the air in the burning noons of summer, and only the delightful verdure and the perfumed air remain as memorials of the voluptuous paradise of Mohammed, while now and then a beautiful girl with great dark eyes darts between the distant trees.

The famous Giralda of the cathedral of Seville is an ancient Moorish tower, built, it is affirmed, in the year one thousand after the design of the architect Geber, the inventor of algebra. The upper part has been changed since Spain was reconquered, and has been rebuilt like a Christian bell-tower, but it will always retain its Moorish appearance, and, after all, is prouder of the banished standards of the vanquished than of the cross recently planted upon it by the victors. It is a monument which produces a strange sensation: it makes one smile; it is measureless and imposing as an Egyptian pyramid, and at the same time light and graceful as a summer-house. It is a square brick tower of a mellow rose-color, unadorned to a certain height, and from that point up ornamented with mullioned Moorish windows, which appear here and there like the windows of a house provided with balconies, and give it a very beautiful appearance. From the platform, which was formerly covered by a variegated roof surmounted by an iron pole which supported four enormous golden balls, now rises the Christian bell-tower in three stories, the first of which is taken up by the bells, the second is encircled by a balcony, and the third consists of a sort of cupola upon which, like a weather-vane, turns a colossal gilded statue which represents Faith, with a palm in one hand and a banner in the other. This statue is visible a long distance from Seville, and flashes when the sun strikes it like an enormous ruby in the crown of a gigantic king, who sweeps with his glance the entire valley of Andalusia.

I climbed all the way to the top, and was there amply rewarded for the fatigue of the ascent. Seville, all white like a city of marble, encircled by a diadem of gardens, groves, and avenues, surrounded by a landscape dotted with villas, lay open to the view in all the wealth of its Oriental beauty. The Guadalquivir, freighted with ships, divides and embraces it in a majestic curve. Here the Torre del Oro casts its graceful shadow on the azure waters of the river; there the Alcazar rears its frowning towers; yonder the gardens of Montpensier raise above the roofs of the building an enormous mass of verdure: one's glance penetrates the bull-ring, the public gardens, the _patios_ of the homes, the cloisters of the churches, and all the streets which converge toward the cathedral; in the distance appear the villages of Santi Ponce, Algaba, and others which whiten the slopes of the hills; to the right of the Guadalquivir the great suburb of Triana; on one side along the horizon the broken peaks of the Sierra Morena; and in the opposite direction other mountains enlivened by infinite azure tints; and over all this marvellous panorama the clearest, most transparent, and entrancing sky which has ever smiled upon the face of man.

I descended from the Giralda and went to see the Columbian Library, located in an old building beside the Court of Oranges. After I had seen a collection of missals, Bibles, and ancient manuscripts, one of which is attributed to Alfonso the Wise, entitled "The Book of the Treasure," written with the most scrupulous care in the ancient Spanish language, I saw--let me repeat it, I saw--I, with my own moist eyes, as I pressed my hand on my beating heart--I saw a book, a treatise on cosmography and astronomy in Latin, with the margins covered with notes written in the hand of Christopher Columbus! He had studied that book while he revolved his great design in his mind, had pored over its pages in the night-watches, had touched it perhaps with his divine forehead in those exhausting vigils when sometimes he bent over the parchments with utter weariness and bathed them with his sweat. It is a tremendous thought! But there is something better. I saw a writing in the hand of Columbus in which are collected all the prophecies of the ancient writers, sacred and profane, in regard to the discovery of the New World, written, it is said, to induce the sovereigns of Spain to provide the means to carry out his enterprise. There is, among others, a passage from the _Medea_ of Seneca, which runs: _Venient annis saecula seris, quibus oceanus vincula rerum laxet et ingens pateat tellus_. And in the volume of Seneca, which may also be found in the Columbian Library, alongside of this passage there is a note by Ferdinand Columbus, which says: "This prophecy was fulfilled by my father, the admiral Christopher Columbus, in the year 1492." My eyes filled with tears; I wished I were alone, that I might have kissed those books, have tired myself out turning and re-turning their leaves between my hands, have detached a tiny fragment, and carried it with me as a sacred thing. Christopher Columbus! I have seen his characters! I have touched the leaves which he has touched! I have felt him very near me! On leaving the library, I know not why--I could have leaped into the midst of the flames to rescue a child, I could have stripped myself to clothe a beggar, I could joyfully have made any sacrifice--I was so rich!

After the library the Alcazar, but before reaching it, although it is in the same square as the cathedral, I felt for the first time what the Andalusian sun is like. Seville is the hottest city of Spain, it was the hottest hour of the day, and I found myself in the hottest part of the city; there was a flood of light; not a door, not a window, was open, not a soul astir; if I had been told that Seville was uninhabited, I should have believed it. I crossed the square slowly with half-shut eyes and wrinkled face, with the sweat coursing in great drops down my cheeks and breast, while my hands seemed to have been dipped in a bucket of water. On nearing the Alcazar I saw a sort of booth belonging to a water-carrier, and dashed under it headlong, like a man fleeing from a shower of stones. I took a little breathing-spell, and went on toward the Alcazar.

The Alcazar, the ancient palace of the Moorish kings, is one of the best-preserved monuments in Spain. From the outside it looks like a fortress: it is entirely surrounded by high walls, embattled towers, and old houses, which form two spacious courtyards in front of the façade. The façade is bare and severe, like the rest of the exterior; the gate is adorned with gilded and painted arabesques, between which one sees a Gothic inscription which refers to the time when the Alcazar was restored by order of King Don Pedro. The Alcazar, in fact, although a Moorish palace, is the work of Christian rather than of Moorish kings. It is not known exactly in what year it was built: it was reconstructed by King Abdelasio toward the end of the twelfth century, conquered by King Ferdinand toward the middle of the thirteenth century; altered a second time, in the following century, by King Don Pedro; and then occupied for longer or shorter periods by nearly all the kings of Castile; and finally selected by Charles V. as the place for the celebration of his marriage with the infanta of Portugal. The Alcazar has witnessed the loves and crimes of three generations of kings; every stone awakens a memory and guards a secret.

You enter, cross two or three rooms in which there remains little of the Moorish excepting the vaulted ceiling and the mosaics around the walls, and come out into a court where you stand speechless with wonder. A portico of very delicate arches extends along the four sides, supported by slender marble columns, joined two by two, and arches and walls and windows and doors are covered with carvings, mosaics, and arabesques most intricate and exquisite, here perforated like lace, there closely woven and elaborate like embroidered tapestry, yonder clinging and projecting like masses and garlands of flowers; and, except the mosaics, which are of a thousand colors, everything is white, clean, and smooth as ivory. On the four sides are four great doors, through which you enter the royal apartments. Here wonder becomes enchantment: whatever is richest, most various, and most splendid, whatever the most ardent fancy sees in its most ardent dreams, is to be found in these rooms. From pavement to the vaulted ceiling, around the doors, along the window-frames, in the most hidden corners, wherever one's glance falls, one sees such a luxuriance of ornaments in gold and precious stones, such a close network of arabesques and inscriptions, such a marvellous profusion of designs and colors, that one has scarcely taken twenty steps before one is amazed and confused, and the wearied eye wanders here and there searching for a hand's breadth of bare wall where it may flee and rest. In one of these rooms the guide pointed out a red spot which covered a good part of the marble pavement, and said in a solemn voice, "These are the blood-stains of Don Fadrique, grand master of the order of Santiago, who was killed on this very spot, in the year 1358, by order of his brother, King Don Pedro."

I remember that when I heard these words I looked in the face of the custodian, as if to say, "Come, let us be going," and that good man answered in a dry tone,

"_Caballero_, if I had told you to believe this thing on my word, you would have had every reason to doubt; but when you can see the thing with your very eyes, I may be wrong, but--it seems to me...."

"Yes," I hastened to say--"yes, it is blood: I believe it, I see it; let's say no more about it."

But if one can be playful over the blood-spots, one cannot be so over the story of the crime; the sight of the place revives in the mind all the most horrible details. Through the great gilded halls one seems to hear the echo of Don Fadrique's footsteps, followed by those of the bowmen armed with bludgeons; the palace is immersed in gloom; one hears no other sound save that of the executioners and their victim; Don Fadrique tries to enter the courtyard; Lopez de Padilla catches him; Fadrique throws him off and is in the court; he grasps his sword; curses on it! the cross of the hilt is held fast in the mantle of the order of Santiago; the bowmen gain upon him; he has not time to unsheath the sword; he flees here and there, groping his way; Fernandez de Roa overtakes him and fells him with a blow of his club; the others run up and set upon him, and Fadrique dies in a pool of blood....

But this sad recollection is lost among the thousand images of the sensuous Moorish kings. Those graceful little windows, where it seems as if you ought to see every other moment the languid face of an odalisque; those secret doors, at which you pause in spite of yourself, as if you heard the rustle of garments; those sleeping chambers of the sultans, shrouded in mysterious gloom, where you seem to hear only the confused amorous lament of all the maidens who there lost the flower of their virgin purity; that prodigal variety of color and line, which like a tumultuous and ever-changing harmony arouses the senses to such fantastic flights that you doubt whether you are waking or sleeping; that delicate and lovely architecture, all of slender columns, that seem like the arms of women; capricious arches, little rooms, arched ceilings crowded with ornaments hanging in the form of stalactites, icicles, and clusters of grapes, of as many colors as a flower-garden;--all this stirs your desire to sit down in the middle of one of those rooms and to press to your heart a lovely brown Andalusian head which will make you forget the world and time, and, with one long kiss that drinks away your life, give you eternal sleep.

On the ground floor the most beautiful room is the Hall of the Ambassadors, formed by four great arches which support a gallery with forty-four smaller arches, and above a beautiful cupola carved, painted, gilded, and chased with inimitable grace and fabulous splendor.

On the upper floor, where were the winter apartments, there remain only an oratory of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic, and a little room in which the king Don Pedro is said to have slept. From it one descends by a narrow mysterious staircase to the rooms where dwelt the famous Maria de Padilla, the favorite of Don Pedro, whom popular tradition accuses of instigating the king to kill his brother.

The gardens of the Alcazar are neither very large nor particularly beautiful, but the memories which they recall are of greater value than extent or beauty. In the shade of those orange trees and cypresses, to the murmur of those fountains, when the great white moon was shining in that limpid Andalusian sky, and the many groups of courtiers and slaves rested there, how many long sighs of ardent sultanas! how many lowly words from proud kings! what passionate loves and embraces! "Itimad, my love!" I murmured, thinking of the famous mistress of King Al-Motamid as I wandered from path to path as if following her phantom,--"Itimad," I repeated, "do not leave me alone in this silent paradise! Dost thou remember how thou camest to me? Thy wealth of hair fell over my shoulder, and dearer than the sword to the warrior wert thou to me! How beautiful thou art! Thy neck is soft and white as the swan's, and like berries are thy red, red lips! How marvellous is the perfection of thy beauty! How dear thou art, Itimad, my love! Thy kisses are like wine, and thy eyes, like wine, steal away my reason!"

While I was thus making my declarations of love with phrases and images stolen from the Arabian poets, at the very moment when I turned into a bypath all bordered with flowers, suddenly I felt a stream of water first on one leg and then on the other. I jumped aside, and received a spray in my face; I turned to the right, and felt another stream against my neck; to the left, another jet between my shoulders. I began to run: there was water under me and around me in every direction, in jets, streams, and spray; in a moment I was as wet as if I had been dipped in the bath-tub. Just as I opened my mouth to call for help it all subsided, and I heard a ringing laugh at the end of the garden. I turned and saw a young fellow leaning against a low wall looking at me as if he were saying, "How did you like it?" When I came out he showed me the spring he had touched to play this little joke, and comforted me with the assurance that the sun of Seville would not leave me long in that dripping condition, into which I had passed so rudely, alas! from the lovely arms of my sultana.