Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

I descended from the tower and went to see the cathedral, a vast marble edifice of the sixteenth century, not to be compared to the cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo, but nevertheless dignified and bold in architecture and enriched by every sort of treasure, like all the other Spanish churches. I went to see the convent where Murillo was painting a picture over a high altar when he fell from the scaffold and received the wound which caused his death. I passed through the picture-gallery, which contains some fine paintings of Zurbaran; entered the bull-ring, built entirely of wood, which was created in a few days to provide a spectacle for Queen Isabella. Toward evening I took a turn in the delightful promenade along the sea-shore, in the midst of orange trees and palms, where the most beautiful and elegant ladies of the city were pointed out to me, one by one. Whatever may be the judgment of the Spaniards, to me the feminine type of Cadiz did not seem at all inferior to the celebrated type of Seville. The women are a little taller, a little heavier, and are somewhat darker. Some observer has ventured to say that they closely resemble the Grecian type, but I do not know in what respect. I saw no difference from the Andalusian type except in stature, and that was enough to make me heave sighs which might have propelled a ship, and constrained me to return as soon as possible to the vessel as a place of refuge and peace.

When I arrived on board it was night; the sky was all twinkling with stars, and the breeze bore faintly to my ears the music of a band playing on the promenade of Cadiz. The singers were asleep; I was alone, and the sight of the city lights and the recollection of the lovely faces filled me with melancholy. I did not know what to do with myself, so I went down to the cabin, took out my note-book, and commenced the description of Cadiz. But I only succeeded in writing ten times the words, "White, blue, snow, brightness, colors," after which I made a little sketch of a woman and then closed my eyes and dreamed of Italy.

MALAGA.

The next day, at sunset, the vessel was passing through the Straits of Gibraltar.

Now, as I look at that point on the map, it seems so near home that when I am in the humor and my domestic finances permit I ought not to hesitate a moment to pack my valise and run down to Genoa on my way to enjoy a second time the most beautiful sight of two continents. But then it seemed to be so far away that when I had written a letter to my mother on the rail of the ship, intending to give it to one of the passengers for Gibraltar to post, as I was writing the address I laughed at my confidence, as if it were impossible for a letter to travel all the way to Turin. "From here!" I thought--"from the Pillars of Hercules!" and I pronounced the Pillars of Hercules as if I had said the Cape of Good Hope or Japan.

"... I am on the ship Guadaira: behind me is the ocean, and in front the Mediterranean, on the left Europe and on the right Africa. On this side I see the cape of Tarifa, and on that the mountains of the African coast, which look indistinct like a gray cloud; I see Ceuta, and a little beyond it Tangiers like a white spot, and in a direct line with the ship rises the Rock of Gibraltar. The sea is as placid as a lake, and the sky is red and gold; all is serene, beautiful, and magnificent, and I feel in my mind an inexpressible and delightful stirring of great thoughts, which, if I could put them into words, would become a joyful prayer beginning and ending with thy name...."

The vessel stopped in the Gulf of Algeciras: the entire company of singers got into a large boat from Gibraltar, and went off, waving fans and handkerchiefs as a parting salute. It was growing dark when the boat started again. Then I was able to measure the enormous mass of the Rock of Gibraltar at every turn. At first I thought we should leave it behind in a few moments, but the moments became hours. Gradually, as we approached, it towered above us, and presented a new appearance every instant--now the silhouette of some measureless monster, now the image of an immense staircase, now the outline of a fantastic castle, now a shapeless mass like a monstrous aërolite fallen from a world shivered in a battle of the spheres. Then, on nearer view, behind a high rock like an Egyptian pyramid, there came into sight a great projection as large as a mountain, with fissures and broken boulders and vast curves which lost themselves in the plain. It was night; the rock stood outlined against the moonlit sky as clear and sharp as a sheet of black paper on a pane of glass. One saw the lighted windows of the English barracks, the sentry-boxes on the summit of the dizzy crags, and a dim outline of trees which seemed little larger than a tuft of grass among the nearest rocks. For a long time the boat seemed motionless or else the rock was receding, so close and threatening did it always appear; then, little by little, it began to diminish, but our eyes were weary of gazing before the rock grew weary of threatening us with its fantastic transformations. At midnight I gave a final salute to that formidable, lifeless sentinel of Europe, and went to wrap myself up in my little corner.

At break of day I awoke a few miles from the port of Malaga.

The city of Malaga, seen from the port, presents a pleasing appearance not wholly without grandeur. On the right is a high rocky mountain, upon the top of which and down one side, even to the plain, are the enormous blackened ruins of the castle of Gibralfaro, and on the lower slopes stands the cathedral towering majestically above all the surrounding buildings, lifting toward heaven, as an inspired poet might say, two beautiful towers and a very high belfry. Between the castle and the church and on the face and sides of the mountain there is a mass--a _canaille_, as Victor Hugo would say--of smoky little houses, placed confusedly one above the other, as if they had been thrown down from above like stones. To the left of the cathedral, along the shore, is a row of houses, gray, violet, or pale yellow in color, with white window-and door-frames, that suggest the villages along the Ligurian Riviera. Beyond rises a circle of green and reddish hills enclosing the city like the walls of an amphitheatre, and to the right and left along the sea-shore extend other mountains, hills, and rocks as far as the eye can see. The port was almost deserted, the shore silent, and the sky very blue.

Before landing I took my leave of the captain, who was going on to Marseilles, said good-bye to the boatswain and passengers, telling them all that I should arrive at Valencia a day ahead of the boat, and I should certainly join them again and go on to Barcelona and Marseilles, and the captain replied, "We shall look for you," and the steward promised that my place should be saved for me. How often since then have I remembered the last words of those poor people!

I stopped at Malaga with the intention of leaving that same evening for Granada. The city itself offers nothing worthy of note, excepting the new part, which occupies a tract of land formerly covered by the sea. This is built up in the modern style, with wide, straight streets and large, bare houses. The rest of the city is a labyrinth of narrow, winding streets and a mass of houses without color, without _patios_, and without grace. There are some spacious squares with gardens and fountains; columns and arches of Moorish buildings, no modern monuments; a great deal of dirt, and not a great many people. The environs are very beautiful, and the climate is milder than that of Seville.

I had a friend at Malaga, and after finding him we passed the day together. He told me a curious fact: At Malaga there is a literary academy of more than eight hundred members, where they celebrate the birthdays of all the great writers, and hold twice a week a public lecture on some subject connected with literature or science. That same evening they were to celebrate a solemn function. Some months earlier the academy had offered a prize of three golden flowers, enamelled in different colors, to the three poets who should compose the best ode on "Progress," the best ballad on the "Recovery of Malaga," and the best satire on one of the most prevalent vices of modern society. The invitation had been extended to all the poets of Spain; poems had poured in in abundance; a board of judges had secretly considered them; and that very evening the choice was to be announced. The ceremony was to be conducted with great pomp. The bishop, the governor, the admiral, the most conspicuous personages of the city, with dress-coats, orders, and shoulder-scarfs, and a great number of ladies in evening dress, were to be present. The three most beautiful Muses of the city were to present themselves on a sort of stage adorned with garlands and flags, each of whom was to open the roll containing the prize poem and to proclaim three times the name of its author: if the author were present, he was to be invited to read his verses and receive his flower; if he were not present, his verses were to be read for him. Throughout the whole city they talked of nothing but the academy, guessed the names of the victors, predicted the wonders of the three poems, and extolled the decorations of the hall. This festival of poetry, called the _juegos floreales_, had not been celebrated for ten years. Others may judge whether such contests and displays benefit or injure poets and poetry. As for me, whatever may be the dubious and fleeting literary glory which is bestowed by the sentence of the jury and the homage of a bishop and a governor, I believe that to receive the gift of a golden flower from the hand of a most beautiful woman under the eyes of five hundred fair Andalusians, to the sound of soft music and amid the perfume of jessamine and roses, that would be a delight even truer and more lively than any which comes from real and enduring glory. No? Ah! we are sincere.

One of my first thoughts was to taste a little of the genuine Malaga wine, for no other reason than to repay myself for the many headaches and stomachaches caused by the miserable concoctions sold in many Italian cities under the false recommendation of its name. But either I did not know how to ask or they did not wish to understand: the fact remains that the wine they gave me at the hotel burned my throat and made my head spin. I was not able to walk straight even to the cathedral, or from the cathedral to the castle of Gibralfaro, or to the other places, nor could I form an idea of the beauties of Malaga without seeing them double and unsteadily, as some spiteful person might suppose.

On our walk my friend talked to me about the famous Republican people of Malaga, who are every moment doing something on their own account. They are a very fiery people, but fickle and yet tractable, like all people who feel much and think little; and they act upon the impulse of passion rather than the strength of conviction. The least trifle calls together an immense crowd and stirs up a tumult that turns the city topsy-turvy; but on most occasions a resolute act of a man in authority, an exhibition of courage, or a burst of eloquence is sufficient to quiet the tumult and disperse the crowd. The nature of the people is good on the whole, but superstition and passion have perverted them. And, above all, superstition is perhaps more firmly entrenched in Malaga than in any other city of Andalusia, by reason of the greater popular ignorance. Altogether, Malaga was the least Andalusian of the cities I had seen: even the very language has been corrupted, and they speak worse Spanish than at Cadiz, where, forsooth! they speak badly enough.

I was still at Malaga, but my imagination was far away among the streets of Granada and in the gardens of the Alhambra and the Generalife. Shortly after the noon hour I took my leave from the only city in Spain, to tell the truth, that I left without a sigh of regret. When the train started, instead of turning for a last look, as I had done in all of its sister towns, I murmured the verses sung by Giovanni Prati at Granada when the duke d'Aosta was leaving for Spain:

"Non più Granata è sola
Sulle sur mute pietre;
L'inno in Alhambra vola
Sulle Moresche cetre."

(_No more does Granada stand alone on her silent stones: the hymn flies to the Alhambra on Moorish lyres._)

* * * * *

And now, as I write them again, it seems to me that the music of the band of the National Guard of Turin inspires peace and gladness more even surely than Moorish lyres, and that the pavement of the porticoes of the Po, although it be ever so silent, is better laid and smoother than the stones of Granada.

GRANADA.

GRANADA.

The journey from Malaga to Granada was the most adventurous and unfortunate that I made in Spain.

In order that my compassionate readers may pity me as much as I desire, they must know (I am ashamed to occupy people with these little details) that at Malaga I had eaten only the lightest sort of an Andalusian repast, of which at the moment of departure I retained a very vague recollection. But I started, feeling sure that I could alight at some railway-station where there would be one of those rooms or public choking-places where one enters at a gallop, eats until one is out of breath, pays as one scampers out to rush into a crowded carriage, suffocated and robbed, to curse the schedule, travel, and the minister of public works who deceives the country. I departed, and for the first hours it was delightful. The country was all gently sloping hills and green fields, dotted with villages crowned with palms and cypresses, and in the carriage, between two old men who rode with their eyes shut, there was a little Andalusian who kept looking around with a roguish smile which seemed to say, "Go on; your lovelorn glances do not offend me." But the train crept along as slowly as a worn-out diligence, and we stopped only a few moments at the stations. By sunset my stomach began to cry for help, and, to render the pangs of hunger even more severe, I was obliged to make a good part of the journey on foot. The train stopped at an unsafe bridge, and all the passengers got out and filed around, two by two, to meet the train on the other side of the river. We were surrounded by the rocks of the Sierra Nevada, in a wild, desert place, which made it seem as if we were a company of hostages led by a band of brigands. When we had clambered into the carriage the train crawled along no faster than before, and my stomach began to complain more desperately than at first. After a long time we arrived at a station all crowded with trains, where a large part of the travellers hurried out before I could reach the step.

"Where are you going?" asked a railroad official, who had seen me alight.

"To dine," I replied.

"But aren't you going to Granada?"

"Yes."

"Then you won't have time; the train starts immediately."

"But the others have gone."

"You will see them come back on the run in a minute."

The freight-trains in front prevented me from seeing the station; I thought it was a great way off, and so stayed where I was. Two minutes passed, five, eight; the tourists did not return and the train did not start. I jumped out, ran to the station, saw a café, and entered a large room. Great heavens! Fifty starving people were standing around a refreshment-table with their noses in their plates, elbows in the air, and their eyes on the clock, devouring and shouting; another fifty were crowding around a counter seizing and pocketing bread, fruit, and candies, while the proprietor and the waiters, panting like horses and streaming with sweat, ran about, tucked up their sleeves, howled, tumbled over the seats and upset the customers, and scattered here and there streams of soup and drops of sauce; and one poor woman, who must have been the mistress of the café, imprisoned in a little niche behind the besieged counter, ran her hands through her hair in desperation. At this sight my arms hung down helplessly. But suddenly I roused myself and made an onslaught. Driven back by a feminine elbow in my chest, I rushed in again; repulsed by a jab in the stomach, I gathered all my strength to make a third attack. At this point the bell rang. There was a burst of imprecations and then a falling of seats, a scattering of plates, a hurry-scurry, and a perfect pandemonium. One man, choking in the fury of his last mouthfuls, became livid and his eyes seemed bursting from his head as though he were being hanged; another in stretching out his hand to seize an orange, struck by some one rushing past, plunged it into a bowl of cream; another was running through the room in search of his valise with a great smear of sauce on his cheeks; another, who had tried to drink his wine at one gulp, had strangled and coughed as if he would tear open his stomach; the officials at the door cried, "Hurry!" and the travellers called back from the room, "Ahogate!" (choked), and the waiters ran after those who had not paid, and those who wanted to pay could not find the waiters; and the ladies swooned, and the children cried, and everything was upside down.

By good fortune I was able to get into my carriage before the train started.

But there a new punishment awaited me. The two old men and the little Andalusian, who must have been the daughter of the one and niece of the other, had been successful in securing a little booty in the midst of that accursed crowd at the counter, and they were eating right and left. I began to watch them with sorrowful eyes like a dog beside his master's table, counting the mouthfuls and the number of times they chewed. The little Andalusian noticed it, and, pointing to something which looked like a croquet, made a gracious bow as if to ask if I would take it.

"Oh no, thank you," I replied with the smile of a dying man; "I have eaten."

My angel, I continued to myself, if you only knew that at this moment I would prefer those two croquets to the bitter apples--as Sir Niccolo Machiavelli would generously say--even those bitter apples from the famous garden of the Hesperides!

"Try a drop of liquor at least," said the old uncle.

I do not know what childish pique against myself or against those good people took possession of me, but it was a feeling which other men experience on similar occasions; however, I replied this time too, "No, thank you; it would be bad for me."

The good old man looked me over from head to foot as if to say that I did not appear like a man to be the worse for a drop of liquor, and the Andalusian smiled, and I blushed for shame.

Night settled down, and the train went on at the pace of Sancho Panza's steed for I knew not how many hours. That night I felt for the first time in my life the pangs of hunger, which I thought I had felt already on the famous day of the twenty-fourth of June, 1866. To relieve these torments I obstinately thought of all the dishes which filled me with repugnance--raw tomatoes, snails in soup, roasted crabs, and snails in salad. Alas! a voice of derision told me, deep down in my vitals, that if I had any of them I should eat them and lick my fingers. Then I began to make imaginary messes of different dishes, as cream and fish, with a dash of wine, with a coat of pepper, and a layer of juniper preserves, to see if I could thus hold my stomach in check. Oh misery! my cowardly stomach did not repel even those. Then I made a final effort and imagined that I was at table in a Parisian hotel at the time of the siege, and that I gently lifted a mouse by the tail out of some pungent sauce, and the mouse, unexpectedly regaining life, bit my thumb and transfixed me with two wicked little eyes, and I, with raised fork, hesitated whether to let it go or to spit it without pity. But, thank Heaven! before I had settled this horrible question, to perform such an act as has never been recorded in the history of any siege, the train stopped and a ray of hope revived my drooping spirits.

We had reached some nameless village, and while I was putting my head out of the window a voice cried, "All out for Granada!" I rushed headlong from the carriage and found myself face to face with a huge bearded fellow, who took my valise, telling me that he was going to put it in the diligence, for from that village to I know not how many miles from _imperial Granada_ there is no railway.

"One moment!" I cried to the unknown man in a supplicating voice: "how long before you start?"

"Two minutes," he replied.

"Is there an inn here?"

"There it is." I flew to the inn, bolted a hard-boiled egg, and rushed back to the diligence, crying, "How much time now?"

"Two minutes more," answered the same voice.

I flew back to the hotel, seized another egg, and ran again to the diligence with the question, "Are you off?"

"In a minute."

Back again to the inn, and a third egg, and then to the diligence: "Are we going?"

"In half a minute."

This time I heaved a mighty sigh, ran to the inn, swallowed a fourth egg and a glass of wine, and rushed toward the diligence. But before I had taken ten steps my breath gave out, and I stopped with the egg halfway down my throat. At this point the whip cracked.--"Wait!" I cried in a hoarse voice, waving my hands like a drowning man.

"_Que hay?_" (What's the matter?) demanded the driver.

I could not reply.

"He has an egg stuck in his throat," some stranger answered for me.

All the travellers burst into a laugh, the egg went down; I laughed too, overtook the diligence, which had already started, and, regaining my breath, gave my companions an account of my troubles, and they were much interested, and pitied me even more than I had dared to hope after that cruel laugh at my suffocation.

But my troubles were not ended. One of those irresistible attacks of sleepiness which used to come upon me treacherously in the long night-marches among the soldiers seized me all at once, and tormented me as far as the railway-station without my being able to get a moment of sleep. I believe that a cannon-ball suspended by a cord from the roof of the diligence would have given less annoyance to my unfortunate companions than my poor nodding head gave as it bobbed on all sides as if it was attached to my neck by a single tendon. On one side of me sat a nun, on the other a boy, and opposite a peasant-woman, and throughout the entire journey I did nothing but strike my head against these three victims with the monotonous motion of a bell-clapper. The nun, poor creature! endured the strokes in silence, perhaps in expiation for her sins of thought; but the boy and peasant-woman muttered from time to time, "He is a barbarian!"--"This must stop!"--"His head is like lead!" Finally, a witticism from one of the passengers released all four of us from this suffering. The peasant-woman was lamenting a little louder than usual, and a voice from the end of the diligence exclaimed, "Be consoled; if your head is not yet broken, you may be sure it will not be, for it must certainly be proof against the hammer." They all laughed; I awakened, excused myself, and the three victims were so happy to find themselves released from that cruel thumping that, instead of taking revenge with bitter words, they said, "Poor fellow! you have slept badly. How you must have hurt your head!"

We finally arrived at the railway, and behold what a perverse fate! Although I was alone in the railway-carriage, where I might have slept like a nabob, I could not close my eyes. A pang went through my heart at the thought of having made the journey by night when I could not see anything nor enjoy the distant view of Granada. And I remembered the lovely verses of Martinez de la Rosa:

"O my dear fatherland! At last I see thee again! I see thy fair soil, thy joyful teeming fields, thy glorious sun, thy serene sky!

"Yes! I see the fabled Granada stretching along the plain from hill to hill, her towers rising among her gardens of eternal green, the crystal streams kissing her walls, the noble mountains enclosing her valleys, and the Sierra Nevada crowning the distant horizon.

"Oh, thy memory haunted me wherever I went, Granada! It destroyed my pleasures, my peace, and my glory, and oppressed my heart and soul! By the icy banks of the Seine and the Thames I remembered with a sigh the happy waters of the Darro and the Genil, and many times, as I carolled a gay ballad, my bitter grief overcame me, and weeping, not to be repressed, choked my voice.

"In vain the delightful Arno displayed her flower-strewn banks, sweet seats of love and peace! 'The plain watered by the gentle Genil,' said I, 'is more flowery, the life of the lovely Granada is more dear.' And I murmured these words as one disconsolate, and, remembering the house of my fathers, I raised my sad eyes to heaven.

"What is thy magic, what thy unspeakable spell, O fatherland! O sweet name! that thou art so dear? The swarthy African, far from his native desert, looks with sad disdain on fields of green; the rude Laplander, stolen from his mother-earth, sighs for perpetual night and snow; and I--I, to whom a kindly fate granted birth and nurture in thy bosom blest by so many gifts of God--though far from thee, could I forget thee, Granada?"

When I reached Granada it was quite dark, and I could not see so much as the outlines of a house. A diligence drawn by two horses,

"... anzi due cavallette
Di quella de Mosé lá dell' Egitto,"

landed me at a hotel, where I was kept waiting an hour while my bed was being made, and finally, just before three o'clock in the morning, I was at last able to lay my head on the pillow. But my troubles were not over: just as I was falling into a doze I heard an indistinct murmur in the next room, and then a masculine voice which said distinctly, "Oh, what a little foot!" You who have bowels of compassion, pity me. The pillow was torn a little; I pulled out two tufts of wool, stuffed them in my ears; and, rehearsing in thought the misfortunes of my journey, I slept the sleep of the just.

In the morning I went out betimes and walked about through the streets of Granada until it was a decent hour to go and drag from his home a young gentleman of Granada whom I had met at Madrid at the house of Fernandez Guerra, Gongora by name, the son of a distinguished archeologist and a descendant of the famous Cordovan poet Luigi Gongora, of whom I spoke in passing. That part of the city which I saw in those few hours did not fulfil my expectation. I had expected to find narrow mysterious streets and white cottages like those of Cordova and Seville, but I found instead spacious squares and some handsome straight streets, and others tortuous and narrow enough, it is true, but flanked by high houses, for the most part painted in false bas-reliefs with cupids and garlands and flourishes and draperies, and hangings of a thousand colors, without the Oriental appearance of the other Andalusian cities.

The lowest part of Granada is almost all laid out with the regularity of a modern city. As I passed along those streets I was filled with contempt, and should certainly have carried a gloomy face to Señor Gongora if by chance as I walked at random I had not come out into the famous _Alameda_, which enjoys the reputation of being the most beautiful promenade in the world, and it repaid me a thousand times for the detestable regularity of the streets which lead to it.

Imagine a long avenue of unusual width, along which fifty carriages might pass abreast, flanked by other smaller avenues, along which run rows of measureless trees, which at a noble height form an immense green arch, so dense that not a sunbeam can penetrate it, and at the two ends of the central avenue two monumental fountains throwing up the water in two great streams which fall again in the finest vaporous spray, and between the many avenues crystal streams, and in the middle a garden all roses and myrtle and jessamine and delicate fountains; and on one side the river Genil, which flows between banks covered with laurel-groves, and in the distance the snowclad mountains, upon whose sides distant palms raise their fantastic fronds; and everywhere a brilliant green, dense and luxuriant, through which one sees here and there an enchanting strip of azure sky.

As I turned off of the Alameda I met a great number of peasants going out of the city, two by two and in groups, with their wives and children, singing and jesting. Their dress did not seem to me different from that of the peasants in the neighborhood of Cordova and Seville. They wore velvet hats, some with very broad brims, others with high brims curved back; a little jacket made with bands of many-colored cloth; a scarf of red or blue; closely-fitting trousers buttoned along the hip; and a pair of leathern gaiters open at the side, so as to show the leg. The women were dressed like those in the other provinces, and even in their faces there was no noticeable difference.

I reached my friend's house and found him buried in his archæological studies, sitting in front of a heap of old medals and historic stones. He received me with delight, with a charming Andalusian courtesy, and, after exchanging the first greetings, we both pronounced with one voice that magic word that in every part of the world stirs a tumult of great recollections in every heart and arouses a sense of secret longing; that gives a final spur toward Spain to one who has the desire to travel thither and has not yet finally resolved to start; that name at which hearts of poets and painters beat faster and the eyes of women flash--"The Alhambra!"

We rushed out of the house.

* * * * *

The Alhambra is situated upon a high hill which overlooks the city, and from a distance presents the appearance of a fortress, like almost all Oriental palaces. But when, with Gongora, I climbed the street of _Los Gomeles_ on our way toward the famous edifice, I had not yet seen the least trace of a distant wall, and I did not know in what part of the city we should find it. The street of _Los Gomeles_ slopes upward and describes a slight curve, so that for a good way one sees only houses ahead, and supposes the Alhambra to be far away. Gongora did not speak, but I read in his face that in his heart he was greatly enjoying the thought of the surprise and delight that I should experience. He looked at the ground with a smile, answering all my questions with a sign which seemed to say, "Wait a minute!" and now and then raised his eyes almost furtively to measure the remaining distance. And I so enjoyed his pleasure that I could have thrown my arms around his neck in gratitude.

We arrived before a great gate that closed the street. "Here we are!" said Gongora. I entered.

I found myself in a great grove of enormously high trees, leaning one toward another, on this side and on that, along a great avenue which climbs the hill and is lost in the shade: so close are the trees that a man could scarcely pass among them, and wherever one looks one sees only their trunks, which close the way like a continuous wall. The branches meet above the avenues; not a sunbeam penetrates the wood; the shade is very dense; on every side glide murmuring streams, and the birds sing, and one feels a vernal freshness in the air.

"We are now in the Alhambra," said Gongora: "turn around, and you will see the towers and the embattled barrier-wall."

"But where is the palace?" I demanded.

"That is a mystery," he answered; "let us go forward at random."

We climbed an avenue running along beside the great central avenue that winds up toward the summit. The trees form overhead a green pavilion through which not a particle of sky is visible, and the grass, the shrubbery, and the flowers make on either side a lovely border, bright and fragrant, sloping slightly toward each other, as if they are trying to unite, mutually attracted by the beauty of their colors and the fragrance of their perfume.

"Let us rest a moment," I said: "I want to take a great breath of this air; it seems to contain some secret germs that if infused into the blood must prolong one's life; it is air redolent of youth and health."

"Behold the door!" exclaimed Gongora.

I turned as if I had been struck in the back, and saw a few steps ahead a great square tower, of a deep-red color, crowned with battlements, with an arched door, above which one sees a key and a hand cut in the stone.

I questioned my guide, and he told me that this was the principal entrance of the Alhambra, and that it was called the Gate of Justice, because the Moorish kings used to pronounce sentence beneath that arch. The key signifies that this door is the key to the fortress, and the hand symbolizes the five cardinal virtues of Islam--Prayer, Fasting, Beneficence, Holy War, and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. The Arabian inscription attests that the edifice was erected four centuries ago by the Sultan Abul Hagag Yusuf, and another inscription, which one sees everywhere on the columns, says, "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet! and there is no power, no strength, apart from Allah!"

We passed under the arch and continued the ascent along an enclosed street until we found ourselves at the top of the hill, in the middle of an esplanade surrounded by a parapet and dotted with shrubs and flowers. I turned at once toward the valley to enjoy the view, but Gongora seized me by the arm and made me look in the opposite direction. I was standing in front of the great palace of the Renaissance, partly in ruins and flanked by some wretched little houses.

"Is this a joke?" I demanded. "Have you brought me here to see a Moorish castle, for me to find the way closed by a modern palace? Whose abominable idea was it to run up this building in the gardens of the caliphs?"

"Charles V.'s."

"He was a vandal. I have not yet forgiven him for the Gothic church he planted in the middle of the mosque of Cordova, and now these barracks fill me with utter loathing of his crown and his glory. But, in the name of Heaven, where is the Alhambra?"

"There it is."

"Where?"

"Among those huts."

"Oh, fudge!"

"I pledge you my word of honor."

I folded my arms and looked at him, and he laughed."

"Well, then," I exclaimed, "this great name of the Alhambra is only another of those usual false exaggerations of the poets. I, Europe, and the world have been shamefully deceived. Was it worth while to dream of the Alhambra for three hundred and sixty-five nights in succession, and then to come to see a group of ruins with some broken columns and smoky inscriptions?"

"How I enjoy this!" answered Gongora with a peal of laughter. "Cheer up now; come and be persuaded that the world has not been deceived: let us enter this rubbish-pile."

We entered by a little door, crossed a corridor, and found ourselves in a court. With a sudden cry I seized Gongora's hand, and he asked with a tone of triumph,

"Are you persuaded?"

I did not answer, I did not see him: I was already far away; the Alhambra had already begun to exercise upon me that mysterious and powerful fascination which no one can avoid nor any one express.

We were in the _Patio de los Arrayanes_, the Court of the Myrtles, which is the largest in the edifice, and presents at once the appearance of a room, a courtyard, and a garden. A great rectangular basin full of water, surrounded by a myrtle hedge, extends from one side of the _patio_ to the other, and like a mirror reflects the arches, arabesques, and the mural inscriptions.

To the right of the entrance there extend two orders of Moorish arches, one above the other, supported by slender columns, and on the opposite side of the court rises a tower with a door through which one sees the inner rooms in semi-darkness and the mullioned windows, and through the windows the blue sky and the summits of the distant mountains. The walls are ornamented to a certain height from the pavement with brilliant mosaics, and above the mosaics with arabesques of very intricate design that seem to tremble and change at every step, and here and there among the arabesques and along the arches they stretch and creep and intertwine, like garlands, Moorish inscriptions containing greetings, proverbs, and legends.

Beside the door of entrance is written in Cufic characters: Eternal Happiness!--Blessing!--Prosperity!--Felicity!--Praised be God for the blessing of Islam!

In another place it is written: I seek my refuge in the Lord of the Morning.

In another place: O God! to thee belong eternal thanksgiving and undying praise.

Elsewhere there are verses from the Koran and entire poems in praise of the caliphs.

We stood some minutes in silent admiration; not the buzz of a fly was heard; now and then Gongora started toward the tower, but I clutched him by the arm and felt that he was trembling with impatience.

"But we must make haste," said he, finally, "or else we shall not get back to Granada before evening."

"What do I know of Granada?" I answered; "what do I know of morning or evening or of myself? I am in the Orient!"

"But this is only the antechamber of the Alhambra, my dear Arabian," said Gongora, urging me forward. "Come, come with me where it will really seem like being in the Orient."

And he led me, reluctant though I was, to the very threshold of the tower-door. There I turned to look once more at the Court of Myrtles and gave a cry of surprise. Between two slender columns of the arched gallery which faces the tower, on the opposite side of the courtyard, stood a girl, a beautiful dark Andalusian face, with a white mantle wound around her head and falling over her shoulder: she stood leaning upon the railing in a languid attitude, with her eyes fixed upon us. I cannot tell the fantastic effect produced by that figure at that moment--the grace imparted by the arch which curved above the girl's head and the two columns which formed a frame around her, and the beautiful harmony which she gave to the whole court, as if she were an ornament necessary to its architecture conceived in the mind of the architect at the moment he imagined the whole design. She seemed like a sultana awaiting her lord, thinking of another sky and another love. She continued looking at us, and my heart began to beat faster. I questioned my friend with my eyes, as if to be assured that I was not deceived. Suddenly the sultana laughed, dropped her white mantle, and disappeared.

"She is a servant," said Gongora.

Still I remained in the mist.

She was, in fact, a servant of the custodian of the Alhambra who was in the habit of practising that joke upon strangers.

We entered the tower called the Tower of Comares, or, vulgarly, the Tower of the Ambassadors. The interior forms two halls, the first of which is called the Hall of the Barca, and takes its name either from the fact that it is shaped like a boat or because it was called by the Moors the Hall of _Baraka_, or Blessing, a word which might have been contracted by the people into _barca_ (a boat.) This hall hardly seems the work of human hands: it is all a vast network of tracery in the form of garlands, rosettes, boughs of trees, and leaves, covering the vaulted ceiling, the arches, and the walls in every part and in every way--closely twining, checkered, climbing higher and higher, and yet marvellously distinct and combined in such a manner that the parts are presented to the eye altogether at a single glance, affording a spectacle of dazzling magnificence and enchanting grace. I approached one of the walls, fixed my eyes upon the extreme point of an arabesque, and tried to follow its windings and turnings: it was impossible; my eye was lost, my mind confused, and all the arabesques from pavement to ceiling seemed to be moving and blending, as if to conceal the thread of their inextricable network. You may make an effort not to look around, to centre your whole attention upon a single spot of the wall, to scan it closely and follow the thread with your finger: it is futile; in a moment the tracery is a tangled skein, a veil steals between you and the wall, and your arm falls. The wall seems woven like a web, wrought like brocade, netted like lace, and veined like a leaf; one cannot look at it closely nor fix its design in one's mind: it would be like trying to count the ants in an anthill: one must be content to look at the walls with a wandering glance, then to rest and look again later, and then to think of something else and talk. After I had looked around a little with the air of a man overcome with vertigo rather than admiration, I turned toward Gongora, so that he might read in my face what I would have spoken.

"Let us enter the other pile of ruins," he answered with a smile as he drew me into the great Hall of the Ambassadors, which fills all the interior of the tower, for, really, the Hall of the _Barca_ belongs to a little building which does not form a part of the tower, although it is joined to it. The tower is square in form, spacious, and lighted with nine great arched windows in the form of doors, which present almost the appearance of so many alcoves, so great is the thickness of the wall; each one is divided down the middle toward the outside by a little marble column that supports two beautiful arches surmounted in their turn by two little arched windows. The walls are covered with mosaics and arabesques indescribably delicate and multiform, and with innumerable inscriptions extending like wide embroidered ribbons over the arches of the windows, up the massive cornices, along the friezes, and around the niches where once stood vases full of flowers and perfumed water. The ceiling, which rises to a great height, is inlaid with cedar-wood, white, gold, and azure, joined together in circles, stars, and crowns, and forming many little arches, cells, and vaulted windows, through which falls a wavering light, and from the cornice which joins the ceiling to the walls hang tablets of stucco-work cut in facets chiselled and moulded like stalactites and bunches of flowers. The throne stood at the central window on the side opposite the door of entrance. From the windows on that side one enjoys a stupendous view of the valley of the Darro, deep and silent, as if it too felt the fascination of the Alhambra's grandeur; from the windows on the other two sides one sees the boundary-wall and the towers of the fortress; and through the entrance the light arches of the Court of the Myrtles in the distance and the water of the basin, which reflects the blue of the sky.

"Well!" Gongora demanded; "was it worth dreaming of the Alhambra for three hundred and sixty-five nights?"

"There is a strange thought passing through my brain at this moment," I replied. "That court as it looks from here, that hall, those windows, those colors, everything that surrounds me, seems familiar; it seems to correspond with a picture which I have carried in my head I know not how long and I know not in what manner, confused with a thousand other things, perhaps born of a dream--how should I know? When I was sixteen years old I was a lover, and the young girl and I alone in a garden in the shade of a summer-house, as we gazed in each other's eyes, uttered unconsciously a cry of joy that stirred our blood as if it had come from the mouth of a third person who had discovered our secret. Well, since that time I have often longed to be a king and to have a palace; but in giving form to that desire my imagination did not rest merely in the grand gilded palaces of our country; it flew to distant lands, and there on the summit of a lofty mountain reared a castle of its own in which everything was small and graceful and illumined by a mysterious light; and there were long suites of rooms adorned with a thousand fanciful and delicate ornaments, with windows through which we two alone might look, and little columns behind which my little one might almost hide her face playfully as she listened to my step approaching from hall to hall, or heard my voice mingled with the murmur of the fountains in the garden. All unconsciously, in building that castle in fantasy, I was building the Alhambra; in those moments I imagined something like these halls, these windows, and this court that we see before us--so similar, indeed, that the more I look around the better I remember and seem to recognize the place just as I have seen it a thousand times. All lovers dream a little of the Alhambra, and if they were able to reproduce all their dreams in line and color, they would make pictures that would amaze us by their likeness to all one sees here. This architecture does not express power, glory, and grandeur; it expresses love and passion--love with its mysteries, its caprices, its fervor, its bursts of God-given gratitude; passion with its melancholy and its silences. There is, then, a close connection, a harmony, between the beauty of this Alhambra and the souls of those who have loved at sixteen, when longings are but dreams and visions. And hence arises the indescribable fascination exercised by this beauty, and hence the Alhambra, although deserted and ruined as it is, is still the most enchanting castle in the world, and to the end of time visitors will leave it with a tear. For in parting with the Alhambra we bid a last adieu to the most beautiful dreams of youth revived among these walls for the last time. We bid adieu to faces unspeakably dear that have broken the oblivion of many years to stand beside us a last time by the little columns of these windows. We bid adieu to all the fancies of youth. We bid adieu to that love which will never live again."

"It is true," answered my friend, "but what will you say when you have seen the Court of the Lions? Come, let us hurry."

We left the tower with hasty steps, crossed the Court of Myrtles, and came to a little door opposite the door of entrance.

"Stop!" cried Gongora.

I stopped.

"Do me a favor?"

"A hundred."

"Only one: shut your eyes and don't open them until I tell you."

"Well, they are shut."

"See that you keep them so; I sha'n't like it if you open them."

"Never fear."

Gongora took me by the hand and led me forward: I trembled like a leaf.

We took about fifteen steps and stopped.

"Look!" said Gongora in an agitated voice.

I looked, and I swear by the head of my reader I felt two tears trickling down my cheeks.

We were in the Court of the Lions.

If at that moment I had been obliged to go out as I had come in, I could not have told what I had seen. A forest of columns, a vision of arches and tracery, an indefinable elegance, an unimaginable delicacy, prodigious wealth; an irrepressible sense of airiness, transparency, and wavy motion like a great pavilion of lace; an appearance as of an edifice which must dissolve at a breath; a variety of lights and mysterious shadows; a confusion, a capricious disorder, of little things; the grandeur of a castle, the gayety of a summer-house; an harmonious grace, an extravagance, a delight; the fancy of an enamored girl, the dream of an angel; a madness, a nameless something,--such is the first effect of the Court of the Lions.