The Alhambra 9

The Alhambra 9

All, however, went smoothly. The good Tia Antonia had a little furniture

to put in the rooms, but it was of the commonest kind. We assured her we

could bivouac on the floor. She could supply our table, but only in her

own simple way;--we wanted nothing better. Her niece, Dolores, would

wait upon us; and at the word we threw up our hats and the bargain was

complete.

 

The very next day we took up our abode in the palace, and never did

sovereigns share a divided throne with more perfect harmony. Several

days passed by like a dream, when my worthy associate, being summoned to

Madrid on diplomatic duties, was compelled to abdicate, leaving me sole

monarch of this shadowy realm. For myself, being in a manner a

hap-hazard loiterer about the world, and prone to linger in its pleasant

places, here have I been suffering day by day to steal away unheeded,

spell-bound, for aught I know, in this old enchanted pile. Having always

a companionable feeling for my reader, and being prone to live with him

on confidential terms, I shall make it a point to communicate to him my

reveries and researches during this state of delicious thraldom. If they

have the power of imparting to his imagination any of the witching

charms of the place, he will not repine at lingering with me for a

season in the legendary halls of the Alhambra.

 

And first it is proper to give him some idea of my domestic

arrangements: they are rather of a simple kind for the occupant of a

regal palace; but I trust they will be less liable to disastrous

reverses than those of my royal predecessors.

 

My quarters are at one end of the Governor’s apartment, a suite of empty

chambers, in front of the palace, looking out upon the great esplanade

called _la plaza de los algibes_ (the place of the cisterns); the

apartment is modern, but the end opposite to my sleeping-room

communicates with a cluster of little chambers, partly Moorish, partly

Spanish, allotted to the _châtelaine_ Doña Antonia and her family. In

consideration of keeping the palace in order, the good dame is allowed

all the perquisites received from visitors, and all the produce of the

gardens; excepting that she is expected to pay an occasional tribute of

fruits and flowers to the Governor. Her family consists of a nephew and

niece, the children of two different brothers. The nephew, Manuel

Molina, is a young man of sterling worth and Spanish gravity. He had

served in the army, both in Spain and the West Indies, but is now

studying medicine in the hope of one day or other becoming physician to

the fortress, a post worth at least one hundred and forty dollars a

year. The niece is the plump little black-eyed Dolores already

mentioned; and who, it is said, will one day inherit all her aunt’s

possessions, consisting of certain petty tenements in the fortress, in a

somewhat ruinous condition it is true, but which, I am privately

assured by Mateo Ximenes, yield a revenue of nearly one hundred and

fifty dollars; so that she is quite an heiress in the eyes of the ragged

son of the Alhambra. I am also informed by the same observant and

authentic personage, that a quiet courtship is going on between the

discreet Manuel and his bright-eyed cousin, and that nothing is wanting

to enable them to join their hands and expectations but his doctor’s

diploma, and a dispensation from the Pope on account of their

consanguinity.

 

The good Dame Antonia fulfils faithfully her contract in regard to my

board and lodging; and as I am easily pleased, I find my fare excellent;

while the merry-hearted little Dolores keeps my apartment in order, and

officiates as handmaid at meal-times. I have also at my command a tall,

stuttering, yellow-haired lad, named Pépe, who works in the gardens, and

would fain have acted as valet; but in this he was forestalled by Mateo

Ximenes, “the son of the Alhambra.” This alert and officious wight has

managed, somehow or other, to stick by me ever since I first encountered

him at the outer gate of the fortress, and to weave himself into all my

plans, until he has fairly appointed and installed himself my valet,

cicerone, guide, guard, and historiographic squire; and I have been

obliged to improve the state of his wardrobe, that he may not disgrace

his various functions; so that he has cast his old brown mantle, as a

snake does his skin, and now appears about the fortress with a smart

Andalusian hat and jacket, to his infinite satisfaction, and the great

astonishment of his comrades. The chief fault of honest Mateo is an

over-anxiety to be useful. Conscious of having foisted himself into my

employ, and that my simple and quiet habits render his situation a

sinecure, he is at his wit’s ends to devise modes of making himself

important to my welfare. I am in a manner the victim of his

officiousness; I cannot put my foot over the threshold of the palace,

to stroll about the fortress, but he is at my elbow, to explain

everything I see; and if I venture to ramble among the surrounding

hills, he insists upon attending me as a guard, though I vehemently

suspect he would be more apt to trust to the length of his legs than the

strength of his arms, in case of attack. After all, however, the poor

fellow is at times an amusing companion; he is simple-minded and of

infinite good-humor, with the loquacity and gossip of a village barber,

and knows all the small-talk of the place and its environs; but what he

chiefly values himself on, is his stock of local information, having the

most marvellous stories to relate of every tower, and vault, and gateway

of the fortress, in all of which he places the most implicit faith.

 

Most of these he has derived, according to his own account, from his

grandfather, a little legendary tailor, who lived to the age of nearly a

hundred years, during which he made but two migrations beyond the

precincts of the fortress. His sloop, for the greater part of a century,

was the resort of a knot of venerable gossips, where they would pass

half the night talking about old times, and the wonderful events and

hidden secrets of the place. The whole living, moving, thinking, and

acting of this historical little tailor had thus been bounded by the

walls of the Alhambra; within them he had been born, within them he

lived, breathed, and had his being, within them he died and was buried.

Fortunately for posterity his traditionary lore died not with him. The

authentic Mateo, when an urchin, used to be an attentive listener to the

narratives of his grandfather, and of the gossiping group assembled

round the shopboard, and is thus possessed of a stock of valuable

knowledge concerning the Alhambra, not to be found in books, and well

worthy the attention of every curious traveller.

 

Such are the personages that constitute my regal household; and I

question whether any of the potentates, Moslem or Christian, who have

preceded me in the palace, have been waited upon with greater fidelity,

or enjoyed a serener sway.

 

When I rise in the morning, Pépe, the stuttering lad from the gardens,

brings me a tribute of fresh-culled flowers, which are afterwards

arranged in vases by the skilful hand of Dolores, who takes a feminine

pride in the decoration of my chambers. My meals are made wherever

caprice dictates; sometimes in one of the Moorish halls, sometimes under

the arcades of the Court of Lions, surrounded by flowers and fountains:

and when I walk out, I am conducted by the assiduous Mateo to the most

romantic retreats of the mountains, and delicious haunts of the adjacent

valleys, not one of which but is the scene of some wonderful tale.

 

Though fond of passing the greater part of my day alone, yet I

occasionally repair in the evenings to the little domestic circle of

Doña Antonia. This is generally held in an old Moorish chamber, which

serves the good dame for parlor, kitchen, and hall of audience, and

which must have boasted of some splendor in the time of the Moors, if we

may judge from the traces yet remaining; but a rude fireplace has been

made in modern times in one corner, the smoke from which has discolored

the walls, and almost obliterated the ancient arabesques. A window, with

a balcony overhanging the valley of the Darro, lets in the cool evening

breeze; and here I take my frugal supper of fruit and milk, and mingle

with the conversation of the family. There is a natural talent or

mother-wit, as it is called, about the Spaniards, which renders them

intellectual and agreeable companions, whatever may be their condition

in life, or however imperfect may have been their education: add to

this, they are never vulgar; nature has endowed them with an inherent

dignity of spirit. The good Tia Antonia is a woman of strong and

intelligent, though uncultivated mind; and the bright-eyed Dolores,

though she has read but three or four books in the whole course of her

life, has an engaging mixture of naïveté and good sense, and often

surprises me by the pungency of her artless sallies. Sometimes the

nephew entertains us by reading some old comedy of Calderon or Lope de

Vega, to which he is evidently prompted by a desire to improve as well

as amuse his cousin Dolores; though, to his great mortification, the

little damsel generally falls asleep before the first act is completed.

Sometimes Tia Antonia has a little levee of humble friends and

dependants, the inhabitants of the adjacent hamlet, or the wives of the

invalid soldiers. These look up to her with great deference, as the

custodian of the palace, and pay their court to her by bringing the news

of the place, or the rumors that may have straggled up from Granada. In

listening to these evening gossipings I have picked up many curious

facts illustrative of the manners of the people and the peculiarities of

the neighborhood.

 

These are simple details of simple pleasures; it is the nature of the

place alone that gives them interest and importance. I tread haunted

ground, and am surrounded by romantic associations. From earliest

boyhood, when, on the banks of the Hudson, I first pored over the pages

of old Gines Perez de Hytas’s apocryphal but chivalresque history of the

civil wars of Granada, and the feuds of its gallant cavaliers, the

Zegries and Abencerrages, that city has ever been a subject of my waking

dreams; and often have I trod in fancy the romantic halls of the

Alhambra. Behold for once a day-dream realized; yet I can scarce credit

my senses, or believe that I do indeed inhabit the palace of Boabdil,

and look down from its balconies upon chivalric Granada. As I loiter

through these Oriental chambers, and hear the murmur of fountains and

the song of the nightingale; as I inhale the odor of the rose, and feel

the influence of the balmy climate, I am almost tempted to fancy myself

in the paradise of Mahomet, and that the plump little Dolores is one of

the bright-eyed houris, destined to administer to the happiness of true

believers.

 

 

 

 

INHABITANTS OF THE ALHAMBRA

 

 

I have often observed that the more proudly a mansion has been tenanted

in the day of its prosperity, the humbler are its inhabitants in the day

of its decline, and that the palace of a king commonly ends in being the

nestling-place of the beggar.

 

The Alhambra is in a rapid state of similar transition. Whenever a tower

falls to decay, it is seized upon by some tatterdemalion family, who

become joint-tenants, with the bats and owls, of its gilded halls; and