FAIRY SCENES AND FATAL PASSIONS.
My mother paused. She had talked herself out of breath; but her eyes,
her mouth, the very position of her person were eloquent still. She had
spoken rapidly and in broken sentences. Her language was graphic, and
more like an inspiration than I can give it in cold English. Her very
ignorance gave picturesque effect to her fancies. I have done her
injustice, because my set phrases have tamed her vigorous wildness with
conventionalisms. The pictures that she placed before the wondering
Englishman in her own wild fashion were vivid as stars.
She was silent awhile, and he could see the bright inspiration fading
from her features. Her eyes drooped; the reserve, half shame, half
exhaustion which follows the inspired moments of genius, crept over her.
She dared not turn her eyes upon the young man, he was so still, and she
thought that he must be smiling derisively—strange sensitiveness for one
of her class—but genius is of no class. And though my mother was wild
and untamed, leaving neither poem, painting, or statue behind, her
entire life was a poem unwritten save in her gentleness and her agony.
“Ah, if these dreams did not fade so soon,” she said, at last, in a
timid voice, apologizing for her late abandonment, “but they last
scarcely longer than the sunset which brings them. Do these sweet
thoughts ever haunt you?” she continued, still with downcast eyes.
“They have!—yes, they have!” replied the young man, in a voice so
stirred with feeling that the gipsy started, and the blood left her
cheeks.
“And did they die thus?” she questioned.
“Briefer, shorter—my dreams—but why talk of them? We are in Spain,
alone—here in the Alhambra—the Alhambra! the very realm of fancies! Why
talk of dreams that I may have had in other times, other lands? Indulge
in yours, poor child, this is the place, the time. Oh, if you could only
dream on forever; I have lost the power!”
“Dream on forever!” cried the gipsy girl, lifting her eyes and her
voice. “What, here, and with that in view?—my dreams here! my life
there. Here all is life, grace, beauty, love! There, burrowed in the
earth, stifled, struggling, the miserable Gitanilla—there is no waking
from that!”
Her lithe form was drawn to its height. She pointed with one hand toward
the gloomy Barranco, and with the other dashed away the tears that
sprang, like great diamonds, to her eyes; then flinging both hands into
the air, she sunk upon the floor, buried her face in the crimson folds
of her saya, and broke into a passion of sobs.
The young man looked down upon her, almost calmly, quite in silence.
Those who have suffered much naturally shrink from any exhibition of
strong passions; besides, it was the first evidence of the fierce spirit
of her race that he had witnessed. This new phase in her character
astonished and repulsed him. It was the first time that she had seemed
to him absolutely a Gitana. So, as she wept out her bitter passion, he
stood over her, if not irritated, at least painfully thoughtful.
“Aurora,” he said at last, stooping toward her with gentle coldness,
“get up; cease weeping thus. It annoys me; I do not love you so well!”
She started up, choked back the sobs that were swelling in her throat,
and stood before him with downcast eyes, like a culprit.
This self-power, the gentle submission that followed, reassured her
lover. He smiled cordially again, took her hand, and drew her gently
from the colonnade, moving downward partially in darkness, till they
reached the Court of Lions.
The Gitanilla and her companion entered the Court of Lions through one
of those incomparable pavilions that enrich each end of that marvellous
spot. No dream could be more heavenly than the beauty that surrounded
them. The gorgeousness, that time and siege had swept away, was more
than replaced by the luminous grace shed over what remained by the
moonlight.
On either hand stood a line of shaft-like columns, delicate beyond all
our ideas of usefulness, yet with a superb filagree peristyle resting
lightly, as so much snow upon their exquisite capitals—these capitals,
so full of varied art, each fragment of marble a marvel of itself—each
faded leaf the richest fancy of an artist. The arches rising between
these graceful pillars were half choked up with shadows, leaving all the
gorgeous apartments to which they led in misty doubt. It seemed as if
with a single wave of the hand you might sweep away those curtain-like
shadows, with a step enter the saloons, and find the moon sleeping upon
their silken cushions.
It chanced that the Englishman had never visited the Court of Lions
before, when the moon was at its full. He stood within the portico
spell-bound, those noble masses of filagree work, rising up from the
supporting pillars, seemed a marvel of fairy work, like ocean foam
frozen into shapes of beauty—the pavement glittering with azulejos,
broad golden tints, rich blue and red prevailing—the noble Fountain of
Lions, rushing in floods of crystal over its great alabaster basin,
which gleamed through the falling torrent like a solid mass of ice
raining itself away, but never diminishing, all filled him with wonder
and delight. How those shining water-drops idealized the twelve marble
lions, upon whose backs the alabaster basin rested, flooding them with
sheets of crystal, wreathing their huge legs with pearly froth, sending
a shower of bubbles into their scaly manes, eddying, leaping, whirling
around them, a fantastic storm of light, through which no deformity
could be discovered!
Nothing but the rush of these falling waters could be heard in the
Alhambra. Everything else was still as death. Oh, it was happiness to
breathe in this wilderness of beauty! After all, there is such a thing
as being intoxicated with mere physical harmony. With me great joy
always rains itself away in tears. To my fancy, no person ever
experienced perfect happiness, who has not felt the blissful dew leave
his heart in tears.
But to know this, the bitter feelings of our nature must not have been
recently disturbed. Neither the Gitanilla nor her lover were
sufficiently tranquil for a thorough appreciation of the scene. Their
thoughts were too much occupied with each other. Still, it was
impossible to look upon this wonderful spot and not yield themselves up
to it for a time, and this had a softening influence upon him. She, poor
thing, required nothing to subdue her, for there is not a being on earth
so gentle as a high-spirited woman when her strong passion is once
surrendered—I will not say subdued—to the influence of the man she
loves.