(From _The Century Magazine_)
Every Spaniard will tell you that Spain has the most beautiful women
in the world. Every man from Andalusia, richly colored, sun-tinted,
green-mountained Andalusia, will tell you that Andalusian women are
the most beautiful of Spain; for have they not the smoothness and the
hue of olive fruit and hair like black silk? And the men of Seville,
the capital of Andalusia, old Seville with its crooked streets upon
which abut blind walls, whitewashed and high-windowed--Seville, towered
and domed by a thousand old churches and cathedrals and palaces built
of huge stone mellowed and softened by biting time, Seville with its
leisurely coursing river, the Guadalquivir, the great river, named so
by the Moors in olden times, but which can be waded across at some
times of the year; every Sevillan, prouder of the women of his town
than of all the other marvels it contains, will tell you that the women
of Seville are the most beautiful of the Province of Andalusia.
And Maria del Alcazar was the most beautiful woman of Seville.
She was the daughter of Don Hermanos, the head keeper of the Alcazar,
the old palace of the Moors, planned and executed at the time when the
Saracens had glided above the peak of virility and had become softened
and fattened from tribute paid by vanquished nations, and effeminate
from a long period of peace and the affluence come from plunder.
Maria’s father, Don Hermanos, had obtained the post of keeper in lieu
of compensation for injuries he had sustained while fighting the wild
tribes of the Spanish possessions in Africa. She was only ten years
old when the family moved into one of the little whitewashed huts
within the inclosure of the palace destined for the keeper. Black-eyed,
with lustrous black hair, fine and silky like ebony filaments falling
over her ivory-white neck, full-lipped, with a delicate chin, she was
the pride of the family. Her mother, who came from Granada, instilled
into her daughter that love for beautiful things and soft colors which
had come to her with the blood of Moors that flowed in her veins. And
with that she had also given to Maria that sinuous, graceful gait
which holds both of the tiger and the angel--an imperceptible glide
with slightly bent knees, while the arms sway softly like movements of
invisible wings.
The Hermanos family had come to live at the Alcazar from one of the
houses in the Triana, the crowded, squalid section across the river,
where the poor of Seville live. The hut in which they had lived
there was one in an immense yard in which fifty more little houses,
leaning one on another, formed an open square; a _Casa Vesinante_ of
the neighborhood. There was not much difference between the hut they
were occupying in the Alcazar and it, and the mother and the father
were frequently complaining about the uncomfortable and dilapidated
condition of their new home. But not so Maria. She was not complaining,
for she had the Alcazar all to herself. Daily, before the arrival
of visitors from all over the world who came to see the old Moorish
palace, and in the evenings after they had left, the big palace, with
its jewel-studded, mosaic-wrought wings, with its stalactite ceilings,
like frozen skies of crystal tears, and the ceramic walls, with the
lemon alleys in the gardens and the intoxicating flowers and shrubs,
with roses bigger than the full moon and redder than the reddest blood,
with cypresses in pools of water and rose-veined marble colonnades
and alleys, the whole palace belonged to her. It was hers to roam
wherever she pleased, sit wherever she wanted, and dream her dreams.
The very greatest treasure of the world was hers. For nowhere, nowhere
she knew, was any other palace the like of that to be found in the
universe. Roaming daily, she discovered for herself new treasures
which were unknown to others. The beautiful marble columns that stuck
out underneath the overlaid brick near the bathing-pool of the sultana,
the paintings on the walls, which had stupidly been smeared over by
careless repairers after the Moors had been driven out of Spain,
the carved oak beams inlaid with mother-of-pearl mosaic in what was
formerly the dressing room of the harem, and which had lain covered
with cement. And panels of wood sawed so finely they were transparent
when the light shone through them, and others cut so finely they
were like spiderwebs, and which had lain there perhaps for centuries
unobserved by any one, were hers to look at, hers alone, undefiled by
other eyes, hers to bathe in their lacy softness of color and line.
True, she had to come into the hut late in the night and lie down on
the bed within the squalid hut. But long before sunrise she would take
her blanket and run out into the palace to sleep on the marble couch of
the sultana, which faced the fountain of the Room of the Ambassadors;
where once the sultan of the Saracens received the representatives of
other nations, dressed in glittering silken garments, while black,
nude, oiled slaves piled soft cushions under the guests and offered
them refreshments in golden trays and from long silver vases.
The family had not been there long before all the keepers and the
people in the neighborhood loved Maria. Shortly after their instalment,
their daughter became known as “Maria del Alcazar.” Not because people
felt that she belonged to the Alcazar, but that the Alcazar belonged to
her. She could tell such beautiful stories of the things she saw. She
kept them all entranced when she spoke of the palace and its beauties.
No one referred to her as the daughter of Hermanos the keeper. She was
Maria del Alcazar to the neighbors, Maria del Alcazar to the priest, as
well as to the working-men continually busy restoring and fixing what
should better be left as it was.
And after a few years the reputation of Maria’s beauty spread far
and wide, as spreads a river after it has gone out from its bed. And
many were the young men who, dressed in their best velvet, pale blue
and dark brown, costumes, with wide-brimmed _flamenco_ hats in their
hands, now came to visit the Alcazar after their afternoon siesta,
paying their good _pesetas_ for the hope of catching a glimpse of
Maria. They loitered and looked interested in the walls and gardens
and trees and pools and fountains, but their long-lashed eyes were
continually watching for an apparition. And many of them carried their
guitars under their coats to begin their courting then and there
should occasion present itself. The whole young malehood of Triana,
remembering her as a child, would come to bid _buenos dias_ to her
father, with the hope of catching a glimpse of his daughter.
But during the day Maria was busy helping her mother. She had no
interest in the Alcazar during that time. It belonged to strangers who
came from all the corners of the world, to tread with unsympathetic
feet the ground she considered holy and defile with their eyes and
harsh voices, whispering, and pointing to one another the walls and the
gardens she loved so much. It was only after they had gone that the
Alcazar belonged to Maria, and after they had gone, all had to go. And
so, reluctantly, the young men of Triana turned their backs and slowly
shuffled out of the palace after the keeper had called out the evening
hour. They would then remain outside the gate, waiting yet, pining
for a glimpse before sighing deeply and departing slowly to their
homes. And the young women of Triana bitterly clamored that because of
Maria they were themselves unsung and unwooed by the young men of the
neighborhood.
All this was happening unknown to Maria, for she lived not in this
world. And after the late autumn had shaken the leaves of the crooked,
brown-trunked olive trees in the garden and made the ceramic walls
colder than they had ever been, she was the undisputed owner, the only
one to enjoy the marvels of the Alcazar all to herself. While the
winter rains were beating down upon the town of Seville, thus keeping
away the visitors, Maria was happy. She grew and developed very fast,
looking more and more like one of the Moorish sultanas who had for
centuries queened over the palace. She imagined herself to be one
of them, never thinking of sultans; as if the place had never been
peopled by any others but women. For there seemed to be no trace of
any male residence there. The delicate tracery of the rooms and the
alcoves, every nook and corner, seemed to her to have been erected by
delicate and whimsical hands of angels who had first dreamed about all
this on some huge canvas which they had embroidered upon.
And yet work was going on continually, repairing here and there, and
reconstructing. It seemed to her outrageous that the hands of men
should have any right to touch such divinely delicate dreams in wood
and stone. More than once she spoke angrily to the architect who was
directing the work, telling him again and again the old Moorish legend
current to this day all through Andalusia, that the Alcazar was never
built, but appeared one day, called thither by the magic wand of some
great magician in the employ of the sultan.