The Alhambra 49

The Alhambra 49

But how, and which way had the fugitives escaped? An old peasant who

lived in a cottage by the road-side leading up into the Sierra, declared

that he had heard the tramp of a powerful steed just before daybreak,

passing up into the mountains. He had looked out at his casement, and

could just distinguish a horseman, with a female seated before him.

 

“Search the stables!” cried Governor Manco. The stables were searched;

all the horses were in their stalls, excepting the Arabian steed. In his

place was a stout cudgel, tied to the manger, and on it a label bearing

these words, “A gift to Governor Manco, from an Old Soldier.”

 

 

 

 

A FÊTE IN THE ALHAMBRA

 

 

The Saint’s day of my neighbor and rival potentate, the count, took

place during his sojourn in the Alhambra, on which occasion he gave a

domestic fête; assembling round him the members of his family and

household, while the stewards and old servants from his distant

possessions came to pay him reverence and partake of the good cheer

which was sure to be provided. It presented a type, though doubtless a

faint one, of the establishment of a Spanish noble in the olden time.

 

The Spaniards were always grandiose in their notions of style. Huge

palaces; lumbering equipages, laden with footmen and lackeys; pompous

retinues, and useless dependents of all kinds; the dignity of a noble

seemed commensurate with the legions who loitered about his halls, fed

at his expense, and seemed ready to devour him alive. This, doubtless,

originated in the necessity of keeping up hosts of armed retainers

during the wars with the Moors; wars of inroads and surprises; when a

noble was liable to be suddenly assailed in his castle by a foray of the

enemy, or summoned to the field by his sovereign.

 

The custom remained after the wars were at an end; and what originated

in necessity was kept up through ostentation. The wealth which flowed

into the country from conquests and discoveries fostered the passion for

princely establishments. According to magnificent old Spanish usage, in

which pride and generosity bore equal parts, a superannuated servant was

never turned off, but became a charge for the rest of his days; nay, his

children, and his children’s children, and often their relatives to the

right and left, became gradually entailed upon the family. Hence the

huge palaces of the Spanish nobility, which have such an air of empty

ostentation from the greatness of their size compared with the

mediocrity and scantiness of their furniture, were absolutely required,

in the golden days of Spain, by the patriarchal habits of their

possessors. They were little better than vast barracks for their

hereditary generations of hangers-on that battened at the expense of a

Spanish noble.

 

These patriarchal habits of the Spanish nobility have declined with

their revenues; though the spirit which prompted them remains, and wars

sadly with their altered fortunes. The poorest among them have always

some hereditary hangers-on, who live at their expense, and make them

poorer. Some who, like my neighbor the count, retain a modicum of their

once princely possessions, keep up a shadow of the ancient system, and

their estates are overrun and the produce consumed by generations of

idle retainers.

 

The count held estates in various parts of the kingdom, some including

whole villages; yet the revenues collected from them were comparatively

small; some of them, he assured me, barely fed the hordes of dependents

nestled upon them, who seemed to consider themselves entitled to live

rent-free and be maintained into the bargain, because their forefathers

had been so since time immemorial.

 

The Saint’s day of the old count gave me a glimpse into a Spanish

interior. For two or three days previous preparations were made for the

fête. Viands of all kinds were brought up from town, greeting the

olfactory nerves of the old invalid guards, as they were borne past them

through the Gate of Justice. Servants hurried officiously about the

courts; the ancient kitchen of the palace was again alive with the tread

of cooks and scullions, and blazed with unwonted fires.

 

When the day arrived I beheld the old count in patriarchal state, his

family and household around him, with functionaries who mismanaged his

estates at a distance and consumed the proceeds; while numerous old

worn-out servants and pensioners were loitering about the courts and

keeping within smell of the kitchen.

 

It was a joyous day in the Alhambra. The guests dispersed themselves

about the palace before the hour of dinner, enjoying the luxuries of its

courts and fountains, and embosomed gardens, and music and laughter

resounded through its late silent halls.

 

The feast, for a set dinner in Spain is literally a feast, was served in

the beautiful Morisco Hall of “Las dos Hermanas.” The table was loaded

with all the luxuries of the season: there was an almost interminable

succession of dishes; showing how truly the feast at the rich Camachos’

wedding in “Don Quixote” was a picture of a Spanish banquet. A joyous

conviviality prevailed round the board; for though Spaniards are

generally abstemious, they are complete revellers on occasions like the

present, and none more so than the Andalusians. For my part, there was

something peculiarly exciting in thus sitting at a feast in the royal

halls of the Alhambra, given by one who might claim remote affinity with

its Moorish kings, and who was a lineal representative of Gonsalvo of

Cordova, one of the most distinguished of the Christian conquerors.

 

The banquet ended, the company adjourned to the Hall of Ambassadors.

Here every one endeavored to contribute to the general amusement,

singing, improvising, telling wonderful tales, or dancing popular dances

to that all-pervading talisman of Spanish pleasure, the guitar.

 

The count’s gifted little daughter was as usual the life and delight of

the assemblage, and I was more than ever struck with her aptness and

wonderful versatility. She took a part in two or three scenes of elegant

comedy with some of her companions, and performed them with exquisite

point and finished grace; she gave imitations of the popular Italian

singers, some serious, some comic, with a rare quality of voice, and, I

was assured, with singular fidelity; she imitated the dialects, dances,

ballads, and movements and manners of the gypsies and the peasants of

the Vega with equal felicity; but everything was done with an

all-pervading grace and a ladylike tact perfectly fascinating.

 

The great charm of everything she did was its freedom from pretension or

ambitious display, its happy spontaneity. Everything sprang from the

impulse of the moment; or was in prompt compliance with a request. She

seemed unconscious of the rarity and extent of her own talent, and was

like a child at home revelling in the buoyancy of its own gay and

innocent spirits. Indeed, I was told she had never exerted her talents

in general society, but only, as at present, in the domestic circle.

 

Her faculty of observation and her perception of character must have

been remarkably quick, for she could have had only casual and transient

glances at the scenes, manners, and customs depicted with such truth and

spirit. “Indeed it is a continual wonder to us,” said the countess,

“where the child [la Niña] has picked up these things, her life being

passed almost entirely at home, in the bosom of the family.”

 

Evening approached; twilight began to throw its shadows about the halls,

and the bats to steal forth from their lurking-place and flit about. A

notion seized the little damsel and some of her youthful companions, to

set out, under the guidance of Dolores, and explore the less frequented

parts of the palace in quest of mysteries and enchantments. Thus

conducted, they peeped fearfully into the gloomy old mosque, but quick

drew back on being told that a Moorish king had been murdered there;

they ventured into the mysterious regions of the bath, frightening

themselves with the sounds and murmurs of hidden aqueducts, and flying

with mock panic at the alarm of phantom Moors. They then undertook the

adventure of the Iron Gate, a place of baleful note in the Alhambra. It

is a postern gate, opening into a dark ravine; a narrow covered way

leads down to it, which used to be the terror of Dolores and her

playmates in childhood, as it was said a hand without a body would

sometimes be stretched out from the wall and seize hold of the

passers-by.

 

The little party of enchantment-hunters ventured to the entrance of the

covered way, but nothing would tempt them to enter, in this hour of

gathering gloom; they dreaded the grasp of the phantom arm.

 

At length they came running back into the Hall of Ambassadors in a mock

paroxysm of terror: they had positively seen two spectral figures all in

white. They had not stopped to examine them; but could not be mistaken,

for they glared distinctly through the surrounding gloom. Dolores soon

arrived and explained the mystery. The spectres proved to be two statues

of nymphs in white marble, placed at the entrance of a vaulted passage.

Upon this a grave, but, as I thought, somewhat sly old gentleman

present, who, I believe, was the count’s advocate or legal adviser,

assured them that these statues were connected with one of the greatest

mysteries of the Alhambra; that there was a curious history concerning

them, and, moreover, that they stood a living monument in marble of

female secrecy and discretion. All present entreated him to tell the

history of the statues. He took a little time to recollect the details,

and then gave them in substance the following legend:

 

 

 

 

LEGEND OF THE TWO DISCREET STATUES

 

 

There lived once in a waste apartment of the Alhambra a merry little

fellow, named Lope Sanchez, who worked in the gardens, and was as brisk

and blithe as a grasshopper, singing all day long. He was the life and

soul of the fortress; when his work was over, he would sit on one of the

stone benches of the esplanade, strum his guitar, and sing long ditties

about the Cid, and Bernardo del Carpio, and Fernando del Pulgar, and

other Spanish heroes, for the amusement of the old soldiers of the

fortress; or would strike up a merrier tune, and set the girls dancing boleros and fandangos.