NOBLE AND ANCIENT ANCESTRAL HOMES!
A week later, on a rainy day which recalled that of his first visit,
Quentin approached the palace. In spite of his Epicureanism and his
Bœotianism, he dared not enter; he passed by without stopping until he
reached the Campo de la Madre de Dios.
He leaned over the railing on the river bank. The Guadalquivir was
muddy, clay-coloured: some fishermen in black boats were casting their
nets near the Martos dam and mill: others, with poles, perched upon the
rocks of the Murallón, were patiently waiting for the shad to bite.
Quentin returned to the Calle del Sol disgusted with his weakness, but
as soon as he reached the house, his energy again disappeared.
Fortunately for him, the man who had opened the gate for him a few days
before was seated on a stone bench in the vestibule.
“Good-afternoon,” said Quentin.
“Good-afternoon, Señor. Did you come to see the Marquis?”
“No; I was just out for a walk.”
“Won’t you come in?”
“Very well, I’ll come in for a while.”
The old man opened the gate, shut it again, and they went down the long
gallery. At the end of it, after climbing two steps, they came into the
garden. It was large and beautiful: the walls were hidden by the
fan-shaped foliage of the orange and lemon trees. Close-trimmed myrtles
lined the walks, and underfoot, yellow and green moss carpeted the
stones.
“I have taken care of this garden for fifty years,” said the man.
“_Caramba!_”
“Yes; I began to work here when I was eight or ten years old. It is
rather neglected now, for I can’t do much any more.”
“Why are those orange trees in the centre so tall?”
“Orange trees grow taller when they are shut in like that than they do
in the country,” answered the gardener.
“And what do you do with so many oranges?”
“The master gives them away.”
At one end of the garden was a rectangular pool. On one of its long
sides rose a granite pedestal adorned with large, unpolished urns which
were reflected in the greenish and motionless water.
Quentin was contemplating the tranquil water of the pool, when he heard
the halting notes of a Czerny étude on the piano.
“Who is playing?” he asked.
“Señorita Rafaela, who is giving her sister a lesson. Why don’t you go
up?”
“Why, I think I shall.”
And with throbbing heart, Quentin left the garden and climbed the
stairs. He rang, and a tall, dried-up maid led him through several rooms
until he reached one in which Remedios was playing the piano while
Rafaela, just behind her, was beating time upon an open book of music.
An old woman servant was sewing by the balcony window.
Quentin greeted the two sisters, and Rafaela said to him:
“You haven’t been here for several days! Grandfather has asked for you
again and again.”
“Really?” asked Quentin idiotically.
“Yes, many times.”
“I couldn’t come; and besides, I was afraid I would be an annoyance,
that I would bother you.”
“For goodness’ sake!”
“Well, you see you have already stopped the lesson on my account.”
“No; we were just about to finish anyway,” said Remedios. “Go on,” she
added, turning to Rafaela, “why don’t you play for us?”
“Oh! Some other day.”
“No. Do play,” urged Quentin.
“What would you like me to play?”
“Anything you like.”
Rafaela took a book, placed it on the rack, and opened it.
Quentin could read the word _Mozart_ upon the cover. He listened to the
sonata in silence: he did not know very much about classical music, and
while the girl played, he was thinking about the most appropriate
exclamation to make when she had finished.
“Oh! Fine! Fine!” he exclaimed. “Whose is that delicious music?”
“It is Mozart’s,” replied Rafaela.
“It’s admirable! Admirable!”
“Don’t you play the piano, Quentin?”
“Oh, very little. Just enough to accompany myself when I sing.”
“Ah! Then you sing?”
“I used to sing a little in school; but I have a poor voice, and I use
it badly.”
“Very well, sing for us; if you do it badly, we’ll tell you,” said
Rafaela.
“Yes, sing--do sing!” exclaimed Remedios.
Quentin sat down at the piano and played the introductory chords of
Count di Luna’s aria in _Il Trovatore_:
_Il balen del suo sorriso
d’una stella vince al raggio._
Then he began to sing in a rich, baritone voice, and as he reached the
end of the _romanza_, he imparted an expression of profound melancholy
to it:
_Ah l’amor, l’amore ond’ ardo
le favelli in mio favor
sperda il sole d’un suo sguardo
la tempesta, ah!... la tempesta del mio cor._
And he repeated the phrase with an accent that was more and more
expressive. Any one listening to him would have said that truly, _la
tempesta_ was playing havoc with his heart.
“Very good! Very good!” cried Rafaela. Remedios applauded gleefully.
“It’s going to rain,” announced the old woman servant as she glanced at
the sky.
“That’s because I did so badly,” said Quentin with a smile.
They went to the window. The sky was darkening; it was beginning to
rain. The heavy drops fell in oblique lines and glistened on the green
leaves of the orange trees, and on the moss-covered tiles; the
continuous splashing of the drops in the pool, made it look as if it
were boiling....
The rain soon ceased, the sun came out, and the whole garden glowed like
a red-hot coal; the oranges shone among the damp foliage; the green
hedge-mustard spotted the glittering grey roof tiles with its gay note;
water poured from the dark, ancient belfry of a near-by tower; and
several white gardens smiled upon the mountain side.
“That is a regular gipsy sun,” lisped Remedios, who at times had an
exaggerated Andalusian pronunciation.
Quentin laughed; the little girl’s manner of speech amused him
immensely.
“Don’t laugh,” said Rafaela to Quentin with mock gravity; “my little
girl is very sensitive.”
“What did you say to him?” demanded Remedios of her sister.
“Oh, you rascal! He’s heard it, now,” Rafaela exclaimed humorously; and
seizing the child about the waist, she kissed the back of her neck.
It was beginning to clear up; the dark clouds were moving off, leaving
the sky clear; a ray of sunshine struck a tower formed by three arches
set one above the other. In the three spaces, they could see the
motionless bells; a figure of San Rafael spread its wings from the peak
of the roof.
“What is that figure?” asked Quentin.
“It belongs to the church of San Pedro,” replied the servant.
“Is it hollow like a weather-vane?”
“No; I think it is solid.”
“It’s stopped raining now,” said Remedios. “Have you seen the house
yet,” she added, turning to Quentin, and using the familiar second
person.
“No,” he replied.
“She uses ‘thou’ to everybody,” explained Rafaela.
They left the music-room, and in the next room, they showed Quentin
various mirrors with bevelled edges, a glass cabinet full of miniatures
with carved frames and antique necklaces, two escritoires inlaid with
mother-of-pearl, bright-coloured majolica ware, and pier-glasses with
thick plates.
“It is my mother’s room,” said Rafaela; “we’ve kept it exactly as it was
when she was alive.”
“Did she die very long ago?”
“Six years ago.”
“Come on,” said Remedios, seizing him by the hand, and looking into her
sister’s face with her great, restless eyes.
The three descended the stairs and traversed the gallery that connected
the vestibule with the garden. On either side of them were an infinite
number of rooms; some large and dark, with wardrobes and furniture
pushed against the walls; others were small, with steps leading up to
them. At the end of the gallery were the stables, extremely large, with
barred windows. They entered.
“Now you’ll see what kind of a horse we have here,” said Rafaela.
“Pajarito! Pajarito!” she called, and a little donkey which was eating
hay in a corner came running up.
In the same stable was an enormous coach, painted yellow, very ornate,
with several very small windows, and the family coat-of-arms on the
doors.
“Grandfather used to ride in this coach,” said Rafaela.
“It must have taken more than two horses to draw it.”
“Yes; they used eight.”
“These girls are admirably stoical,” thought Quentin.
After the stables, they saw the corrals, and the cellar, which was huge,
with enormous rain-water jars that looked like giants buried in the
ground.
“We can’t go in there,” said Rafaela ironically.
“Why not?”
“Because this little idiot,” and she seized her sister, “is afraid of
the jars.”
Remedios made no reply; they went on; through crooked passages that were
full of hiding-places, and labyrinthic corridors, until they came to a
large, abandoned garden.
“Would you like to go in?” Rafaela asked Remedios.
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you afraid of the genet any more?”
“No.”
“What is it?” inquired Quentin.
“The gardener keeps a caged animal in here, and it frightens us because
it looks like such a monster.”
“You’re a naughty girl,” said Remedios to her sister. “What will you bet
that I won’t go to the genet, take it out of the cage, and hold it in my
hand?”
“No, no; he might bite you.”
“Where is this monster?” asked Quentin.
“You’ll soon see.”
It was a specie of weasel with a long tail and a fierce eye.
“The animal certainly has an evil look,” said Quentin.
They walked about the abandoned garden: a thick carpet of burdock and
henbane and foxglove and nettles covered the soil. In the middle of the
garden, surrounded by a circle of myrtles, was a summer-house with a
decayed door; inside of it they could see remnants of paint and gilt. On
the old wall, was a tangled growth of ivy. Enveloped in its foliage, and
close to the wall, they could make out a fountain with a Medusa head,
through a dirty pipe in whose mouth flowed a crystalline thread which
fell sonorously into a square basin brimful of water. There were two
broad, moss-covered steps leading up to the fountain, and the weeds and
wild figs, growing in the cracks, were lifting up the stones. From among
the weeds there rose a marble pedestal; and a wild-orange tree near by,
with its little red fruit, seemed spotted with blood.
“There are all sorts of animals here in the summer,” said Rafaela.
“Lizards come to drink at the fountain. Some of them are very beautiful
with their iridescent heads.”
“They are woman’s enemies,” warned Remedios.
Quentin laughed.
“Some of the foolishness the servant girls tell her,” explained Rafaela.
“I’ve forbidden them to tell her anything now.”
The three returned to the corridor.
“What about the roof? We haven’t showed him the roof,” said the little
girl.
“Juan must have the key; I’ll go and ask him for it.”
Remedios ran out in search of the gardener, and returned immediately.
They climbed the main stairs until they reached a door near the roof.
“What panels!” exclaimed Quentin.
“They are full of bats,” said Rafaela.
“And thalamanderth,” lisped Remedios.
Quentin suppressed a smile.
“How funny! How very funny!” murmured the child somewhat piqued.
“I am not laughing at what you said,” replied Quentin, “I was just
remembering that that is the way we boys used to talk.”
“She talks like the rowdies in the streets,” said Rafaela.
“Well, I don’t want anything more from you,” cried Remedios. “You’re
always saying things to me.”
“Come, girlie, come; the genet isn’t coming here to eat you.”
“He couldn’t.”
From the door, and through a corridor, they came out upon a broad, tiled
terrace with an iron railing.
“Let’s go up higher,” said Remedios.
They climbed a winding staircase inside a tower until they came out upon
a small azotea, whence they could command a view of nearly the entire
city.
The wind was blowing strongly. From that height, they could see Cordova,
a great pile of grey roofs and white walls, between which they could
make out the alleys, which looked like crooked lines inundated with
light. Sierra Morena appeared in the background like a dark wave, and
its round peaks were outlined in a gentle undulation against the sky,
which was cloudless. The gardens stood out very white against the skirts
of the mountain, and upon a sharp-pointed hill at the foot of the dark
mountain wall, stood a rocky castle.
Toward Cordova la Vieja, pastures glistened, a luminous green; in the
country, the sown ground stretched out until it was lost in the
distance, interrupted here and there by some brown little hill covered
with olive trees.
“I’m going to fetch the telescope,” announced Remedios suddenly.
“Don’t fall,” warned her sister.
“_Ca!_”
Rafaela and Quentin were left alone.
“How charming your sister is,” said he.
“Yes; she’s as clever as a squirrel, but more sensitive than any one I
know. The slightest thing offends her.”
“Perhaps you have petted her too much?”
“Of course. I am years older than she. She is like a daughter to me.”
“You must be very fond of her.”
“Yes; I put her to bed and to sleep even yet. Sometimes she has fits of
temper over nothing at all! But she has a heart of gold.”
At this point the little girl returned, carrying a telescope bigger than
she was.
“What a tiny girl!” exclaimed Rafaela, taking the telescope from
Remedios.
They rested the instrument on the wall of the azotea and took turns
looking through it.
* * * * *
The afternoon was steadily advancing; yellow towers and pink belfries
rose above the wet roofs, their glass windows brilliant in the last rays
of the setting sun; a broad, slate-covered cupola outlined its bulk
against the horizon; here and there a cypress rose like a black pyramid
between great, white walls, and the thousands of grey tiled roofs; and
the iron weather-vanes, some in the shape of a peaceable San Rafael,
others in the form of a rampant dragon with fierce claws and pointed
tongue, surmounted the gables and sheds, and decorated the ancient
belfries, covered with a greenish rust by the sun of centuries....
Toward the west, the sky was touched with rose; flaming clouds sailed
over the mountain. The sun had set; the fire of the clouds changed to
scarlet, to mother-of-pearl, to cold ashes. Black night already lurked
in the city and in the fields. The wind commenced to murmur in the
trees, shaking the window blinds and curtains, and rapidly drying the
roofs. A bell clanged, and its solemn sound filled the silent
atmosphere.
Slowly the sky was invaded by a deep blue, dark purple in some places;
Jupiter shone from his great height with a silver light, and night took
possession of the land; a clear, starry night, that seemed the pale
continuation of the twilight.
From the house garden arose a fresh perfume of myrtles and oranges; of
the exhalations of plants and damp earth.
“We must go now,” said Rafaela. “It’s getting cold.”
They descended the stairs. Quentin took leave of the two girls and
stepped into the street.