French dressing-table sat a woman whose bronze hair swept the floor. On
either side peacocks stood with outspread tails. Their backs served as
a rest for a variety of jeweled hair-pins, one of which she was in the
act of picking up.
“That is the Contessa Fabriani. She is not dead yet. She hears every
word we say, but she is unable to speak. I am painting her now. You can
see the unfinished picture against the wall.”
In an adjoining room a dark-skinned woman of the Orient, whose black
and unbound hair showed purplish tints, was reclining upon the back of
a Bengal tiger. Other Eastern women lay upon couches and divans.
“See, even in death, what enticing languor! See the arrested dreams in
their dark eyes, deep as an Oriental night! These women I have loved
very greatly. Sometimes I have a fancy that death cannot touch them.
In them there is an electric energy, the stored-up indestructible ardor
of the sun, which, I like to fancy, death cannot dissipate.”
“Now here,” said the Count, opening another door, “I will show you an
effect I have tried for years to reproduce. This has been the desire of
my life.”
He flung back a row of folding windows, making the room on one side
open to the sea.
“It is the effect of the blended radiance flung from the water here and
the moon, upon dull silver, upon crystal, and the flesh of blond women.”
He turned out the lights. The moon sent an eerie, shivering luster
across the crystal and silver decorations, and touched three women in
robes of white, who were standing in attitudes of dreaming indolence.
“This thin, ethereal, surface light, this _puissance de lumière_, is
what I have tried in vain to prison. I have always been greedy of the
difficult and the unattainable. If I could do this, I should be the
prince of painters! It is a fact, a real thing, and yet it possesses
the magic of dreams, the enchantment of the fleeting and the illusory.
“I wish to be the wizard of light. I wish to be the only one to prison
its bright, defiant insubstantiality.
“Can you not see how wonderful it is? It is the dust of light.
Reflected upon silver and clear crystal it is what shadow is to sound.
Sometimes it seems to me like a thin, clear acid; then like some blue,
sweet-smelling volatile liquid, eager again to join the air.
“Have you noticed how it penetrates blond flesh? It reveals, yet
transfigures it. I wish you could watch its effect often. Sometimes
the wind churns the sea-light into transparent foam. Then I love its
curd-like, piled-up whiteness. Sometimes when there is no moon, and
only a wan, tremulous luster from the water, the light of a far star
is focused on their satins, on their diamonds, struggles eerily among
their laces, or flickers mournfully from a pearl. The room then is
filled with a regretful, metallic radiance. The stars caress them. They
have become impersonal, you see, and the eternal things love them.
“When the autumn moons are high, the light that fills the room is
resonant and yellow. It tingles like a crystal. It gives their cold
white satins the yellow richness of the peach’s heart, and to the women
the enticing languor of life. On such nights the moonlight is musical
and makes the crystal vibrate.
“Now, to-night, the light is more like the vanishing ripple of the sea.
Is it not wonderful? Look! It is the twin of silence, the ghost of
light!”
In his excitement and exhilaration, his eyes shone like the moon-swept
sea. I knew that in them, too, slept terrors inconceivable.
“This is the room I have in mind for you. You will queen it by a head
over the other women. The color of your dress is right. Your gems, too,
are white. Here, sometime, I promise to join you, and together we will
be immortal.
“Excuse me just a moment. Wait here. Let me get the liquid and show it
to you. You will be fascinated by it, just as other women have been. I
never saw one who could resist it.”
As he left, I heard the key turn in the lock. When we entered the other
rooms, I remembered that he bolted the doors on the inside. This door,
then, was the only one by which he could gain entrance. Swiftly I
slipped the bolt. Now I was safe--for a time, unless there was a secret
entrance.
It was not far from the window to the water. I laughed with delight.
I had dived that distance many a time for pleasure. I was one of the
best swimmers in England, and I had always longed for a plunge in
this sapphire sea. Now was my chance and life as the goal to gain.
I took off my satin gown as gayly as I had put it on. Like the Count
of Ponteleone, I, too, admired the play of light on its piled-up
whiteness. How merrily the sea-wind came! How it counseled courage!
I took the plunge. Down, down, down I went, cleaving the clear water.
The distance up seemed interminable. It was like being born again when
at last I saw the white foam feather my arms and felt my lungs expand
with air. I swam in the direction of Naples. I could not reach the
city, but I could easily reach some fisher’s hut and there gain shelter.
Oh, the delight of that warm, bright water under the moon! I felt that
the strength of my arms and my legs was inexhaustible. I exulted in the
water as a bird exults in its natural element, the air.
After I had covered what I thought to be a safe distance, I turned on
my back and floated. Then I caught sight of the window from which I
had leaped. It was brilliantly lighted. Count Ponteleone was leaning
from it, his white hair shining like a malevolent flame.
Despite the distance, I could feel the power of his wild blue eyes,
which sparkled like the sea. Again I dived, lest they should reassert
their power over me and draw me back.
I came up under the shadow of the shore, and made my way along until I
reached a boat where Neapolitan fisherwomen were spreading their nets
to dry.
They took me in, and for the doubled price of a good month’s fishing
brought me that night to Naples.
“Ah, Luigi,” I sobbed, as he folded me in his arms, “little did I
think, when you spoke of the dance this morning, that I should spend
the night with the dead dancing women of Ponteleone.”
“Nor I that you would solve Naples’ mystery of crime.”
THE MIRROR OF LA GRANJA
_¿Que es el hombre? Un misterio. ¿Que es la vida? ¡Un misterio tambien!_
ESPRONCEDA.
“Sólo en tiempo de Felipe II, cuando el espíritu del Renacimiento
se hacía sentir allí, fueron pintadas muchas hermosas damas para su
galería de retratos del Prado.”--CARLOS JUSTI.[8]
(In the time of Philip the Second, when the spirit of the Renaissance
was being felt, he had many beautiful women painted for his gallery of
the Prado.--CARLOS JUSTI.)
I arrived in Toulouse on my homeward way to Spain in the midspring of
1898.
For three years I had toured the world with my violin, giving concerts
in its principal cities. I had been flatteringly received. Men had
showered their gold upon me; women their flowers and favors. I was
acclaimed the Spanish Paganini, the greatest of violinists, the
premier artist upon this difficult instrument. I had been surfeited
with applause. I had been fêted until I was weary. Now I was looking
forward to a well-merited rest in which to gratify my love of art,
and, perhaps, try my hand at composing. In addition, I longed for
the dignified ease, the cultivated leisure of the life of a Spanish
gentleman. During the years of concert giving, I had earned enough
to give myself this pleasure. I felt, too, that there is something
ignoble in prostituting art to gold and the indiscriminate applause of
the multitude. Art should be superior to traffic, accessible only to
intelligent understanding and to love.
As I mused, a messenger entered and handed me a telegram. It announced
the death of my maternal great-uncle, the Conde de Quederos. The
telegram said that before the burial every effort had been made to
reach me, and that since there were no direct heirs, I, as nearest in
blood, inherited the estate.
I could not grieve over my uncle’s death. I could not be expected to.
I had never seen him but once, and that was when I was a child. In
addition, I knew that he was old, almost if not quite a centenarian,
and that long ago life must have lost its charm. My heart warmed with
gratitude toward that kindly Fate which was bestowing favors upon me.
Only that morning I had meditated as to what place in Spain, now that
my parents were no more, I should choose for a residence. Here was the
problem solved without effort on my part and in a most pleasing manner.
I went directly to Cuenca, to the dead Conde’s _castillo_, to the heart
of that old Castile which the greedy Romans coveted. As I entered, I
read upon the fluted shield above the door, “_Adelante_” (Go on). A
brave race truly, whose motto was never to turn back.
In the hall the lined-up servants met me, and each addressed me gravely
as Conde de Quederos. That night I had a conference with the steward as
to the rooms which I was to occupy.
“The finest suite in the _castillo, Señor mio_, is the one the late
Conde occupied. It is called ‘The Suite of the Mirrors.’”
“Mirrors!” The word stirred responsive memory. “Is not there a magic
mirror, so called, here in the castle? It seems to me I remember having
heard something of the kind.”
“_Si, Señor mio._ It is in the drawing-room from which the suite takes
its name. They were all made by the late Conde’s great-grandfather at
La Granja. Mirror-making was his hobby.”
Yes, yes; now I recalled the stories my mother had told. Aloud I said:
“That is the suite which shall be mine. Show me up.”
“Shall I light the drawing-room?”
“No; open the blinds and leave me while you have my bags unpacked and
my chamber made ready.”
The suite consisted of a bed-chamber with dressing-room attached, and
a sitting-room, which from its size and adornment was called “The
Drawing-Room of the Mirrors.”
Here I sat down to rest and smoke my after-dinner cigar. The dim summer
night filled the ancient room with frail shadows, making the mirrors,
which reached from floor to ceiling, look like pale plates of tarnished
steel.
I remembered it all now! It came back in a vivifying flash of thought.
The male members of my mother’s family, excepting the late Conde,
had been scientists _enragés_. They had preferred, too, the delusive
by-ways, the dangerous and insecure footings, where fact borders
upon fancy, where the will-o’-the-wisp of unrealized possibility
lures on. They had wasted life and impaired their fortunes in
following unattainable fancies and in trying to wrest from nature
secrets forbidden to man. They had been men of strange vagaries and
inexplainable passions, who found the pleasure of existence in ways not
understood by others.
The great-grandfather of the late Conde had been devoted to
mirror-making. It was his effort and his wealth that had brought to La
Granja the first Venetian _specchiai_, and those who made _verres de
cristal_ and wrested from them their secret. He sent to England to Lord
Buckingham and to France to Colbert to purchase the knowledge of their
workmen in this fascinating art. And it was he who made the sixteen
mirrors in the room in which I sat.
Indeed, the age in which he lived had been mad over glass-making. The
Council of Ten of the Venetian Republic went so far as to pass a law
that its nobles might wed with the glass-makers of Murano without loss
of caste. It was the only work which did not detract from a great
noble’s dignity.
France imitated Venice and made a similar law. Spain, thanks to the
effort of Conde de Quederos, was not behind in the art. Nor did the
Conde lose standing among the ancient nobility of Castile for the
hours spent at the furnace. With its introduction from Italy had come
likewise its patent of nobility.
After the old Conde had gratified his love of mirror-making for years
and had made fifteen of the sixteen mirrors which hung in the room in
which I sat, his mind was teased with the desire to make a magic mirror.
With this object in view, he devoted himself to the chemistry of
glass. He bought all the books and ancient manuscripts procurable
upon the subject. He thought of nothing else. He talked of nothing
else, until it was commonly reported that he was mad. He insisted that
it was possible to make a mirror of such exquisite purity, of such
lustrous depth, that, like that Borgian glass which snapped in twain
at the touch of poison, it should refuse to reflect material bodies
and earthly substances and reproduce only the impassioned dreams of
the mind, or the frail and insubstantial spirit forms which, having
once been on earth, hover near in attempt to commune again with the
creatures of the flesh. What wonder they called him mad!
A few days before his death, however, the sixteenth mirror was brought
from La Granja and hung in the place reserved for it. Just what this
mirror was like I could not remember having heard. The next night,
when I was less weary, I determined to have a look at the old Conde’s
productions. In the magic mirror I had no interest. The idea was too
absurd. It was a madman’s dream.
The next evening I ordered the chandeliers to be lighted in the great
drawing-room, and with my violin tucked under my arm hastened thither.
It was a noble room that lay revealed beneath the glitter of the
swinging crystals. I was glad that I had not spoiled the first effect
by seeing it by day. It was lofty, and long by some forty feet. The
floor was worked out in a curiously dim-bright design made of marble
and ancient glass bricks, in whose depth glowed _mille fiori_. The
ceiling was a richly resplendent canvas, whereon were depicted giant
figures representing the loves of Hercules and Omphale. The walls were
made up of alternate panels of mirrors, mural paintings continuing
the stories of classic lovers, and spaces of mysteriously colored and
strangely wrought glass, evidently rare and priceless specimens of the
ancient workmen of La Granja.
At a glance the mirrors seemed as much alike as peas in a pod. They
reached from floor to ceiling. They were framed uniformly in the
heavily ornate frames with which fifteenth-century Italy supplied the
world.
Yet the effect was most lovely. Between the feverish panels wherein the
passion of flame had prisoned restless colors and the perfervid scenes
of classic love, the mirrors interposed spaces of pale neutrality and
mysterious calm. They afforded the relief that water affords in the
out-of-door landscape. Their unsoundable depths of silence were like
a telescopic glimpse into the night of space. They were the mute and
motionless keepers of secrets of another world. Their pale passivity
was more pleasant than silence. Yet at times they seemed to tell of the
possibilities of a spirit life which was centered in colossal calm.
What artistry had been expended upon the decoration of these walls!
That dead uncle could have been no ordinary man. My heart thrilled with
pride. It was worth being called mad so to have understood the values
of light.
Drawing an easy-chair before the central mirror, I took up my violin
preparatory to playing. Then I noticed that the frame of the central
mirror was unlike the others. I looked about to make sure. Yes, it was
the only odd one. And odd enough it was, made of closed flower buds,
tiny eggs, and folded leaves. It must mean something, that strange
frame. It was not chosen with an eye single to decorative ends. It was
an hieroglyph, a symbol. But what one? Each detail represented the
sleeping germ of a life principle. In the egg, in the bud, life is
folded. They pointed to the mirror edge. Did they mean that there too
life was folded?
I leaned forward. The cold face of the mirror confronted me. I started
with fear. I was not reflected in it! Nothing was reflected in it! Not
an article of furniture, not a picture, not a bead of light from the
great chandelier above. I looked about, This was the only odd mirror. I
made sure of that. All the others were a-quiver with light and color.
I held my hand in front of it. I waved my violin to and fro. In vain!
They left not a trace upon its surface. Prickly fear crept over me. I
shivered as if from touch of the dead or sweep of their icy breath.
The mirror’s pallid passivity added to the horror. It was the silent
mockery of the dead. And this horror was born, not of midnight noises
and visions, but of silence and the splendor of light.
Only last night in this very room I had called my uncle a madman, a
dreamer. How ashamed did I feel of my vain conceit of the evening,
confronted with this production of his skill! It was as if some
towering ghost smiled down scornful pity upon me, who stood there
dancing about like a maniac in the effort to wrest a responsive
reflection from that mute surface. Never had anything so undone me, so
set me a-tremor with discomfort. I was in touch with something of which
I knew nothing, with an unknown force whose extent and power I could
not measure.
Controlling my nervousness, I sat down to contemplate the glass. It
was like looking into the depths of a pellucid lake, whose surface
had never been rumpled by wind or blurred with light. It was like a
glance down infinitudes of space, clearly gray and sweetly translucent,
but beyond the farthest rim of the worlds where not even star dust
floated. It was a place where, defiant of natural law, light existed
without object. It was a void over which nature had no power. It was a
pale inanity, the antithesis of the life principle which is motion. It
was a powerful and repellent nothing. A sickening dizziness assailed
me. I felt as if I were perched upon the edge of an abyss wherein
material substances were lost. I was conscious of a peculiar revulsion,
a sort of mental nausea such as is experienced when watching a serpent
move, throwing off electric vibrations at variance with the human
organism.
This, then, was the mirror of the dead! It was a place for spectres
to disport themselves! It was the gray shadow world where phantoms
dwelled! Who could guess what slept within its depths! Who could guess
what was looking out upon me now which my physical self could not
discern!
I closed my eyes to shut out the sight and lifted the violin. The bow,
as if moved by an impulse of its own, struck the slow, prolonged, high
notes which announce the Saraband. An inspiration! Why should not I
popularize the dance music of Spain as Chopin had that of Poland?
For a time I played on, repeating old airs and improvising new ones,
but ever recurring to the Saraband. Nervousness vanished. Others had
put up with this non-committal mirror, why should not I? Courage
returned. Music exercised its old magic. Again I cared for nothing save
my art.
I do not know how long this musical reverie had lasted when, opening my
eyes, I saw in the depths of the mirror, but far, far away, a dim white
figure. I was playing the Saraband. I noticed that when certain notes
were struck the figure could be seen more plainly, that it grew in
distinctness and came nearer, while others made it recede and fade away.
Was it the creation of my bow? Now for the first time was the
demon-compelling power of Paganini mine? Through contemplation of
that crystal surface had I purged my soul of impeding impurities, as
if, denuded of clothes, I had swept through space and bathed in its
crystal ozone? Had not the tones of my violin changed too? I listened
critically. Yes; they had a certain heart quality which had been
lacking, a luscious, singing richness, colorful and sweet. The single
tone, divorced from melody, filled me with delight. Ambition leaped
to giant height. Fear vanished. I could subdue the world--I--I, Lopez
Manrico! I bent to my playing. Each time it was the Saraband that
evoked the image. No other melody whatsoever had the power to do it.
And there were certain phrases and turns of this that had especial
effect upon it. Once I thought that I could discern the features of
the figure, and I did glimpse it firmly enough to know that it was the
figure of a woman.
How I tried to prolong the notes that were creating beneath my eyes
that evanescent being! How, by trained trickery, did I try to prolong
the instrument’s power of tone extension! It was useless. Strength
failed. My arm grew weak and fell of its own accord, and the vision
paled and faded.
The old Counts of Quederos had been scientists, I meditated. One had
devoted himself to the relation of sound to the human body. Perhaps he
had left a record of his discoveries. I would go to the library and
see. At least the books that he had studied would be there. Excepting
only the Imperial Library, the Castillo de Quederos contained the
finest collection of rare books and manuscripts in Spain.
I ran to the room and lighted all the lights. Ardor of investigation
filled me. If the problem could be solved, I would do it. Was it not a
duty, too, since in a way the power lay with me? “_Le génie s’oblige._”
Here were the books of the old glass-maker, probably arranged just as
he had left them: John Pechon’s treatise on optics, dating from the
thirteenth century; Biringuccio’s receipts for glass-making; Garzoni’s
chemistry of glass; the three books of Eraclius, who, in the early
thirteenth century, got together all that was then known of the art.
I took down the third volume. It opened at the seventh chapter, where
begin the receipts for compounding the substance. This was not what I
wanted. Nor did I care more for the poets--Lopez Mendoza, Ha Levi, nor
the private letters of Cib-dareal, precious as they are.
As I replaced the latter, I felt something behind it. Inserting my
hand, I pulled out a gilded cylinder. Within it lay a manuscript in
an unknown tongue, and with it a translation made by a Spanish Jew.
The manuscript proved to be _The Resurrecting Powers of Science_ by
Abu Hamid Algazali of Bagdad. Something told me that my search was
rewarded. I pulled a chair beneath the nearest light and there, until
day, perused the parchment. It had suffered many a midnight perusal.
Finger marks were upon it, and it was frayed and soiled. I read:
“Each body is responsive to a tone or a combination of tones.
“Each body is, in a sense, a musical instrument whose vibrating strings
are taut nerves and muscles.
“The circulating blood sings a song.
“Heart-beats describe a melody.
“One of the energies wrapped up in the life principle is a musical
chord.
“It is possible for music, if the right tone be discovered, to arrest
ebbing life force, or to call back those who have passed beyond.”
“To call back those who have passed beyond!” Here it was! Now I
understood. I had unwittingly hit upon the chord that vibrated in
unison with the mirror vision. What a possibility lay before me! I
could read no more. Dizzy with the discovery, I went to bed. I did not
even pause to view the wonder of the dawn that was bleaching the night
pale.
When again night came, I hastened to the drawing-room. I lighted every
light. I locked and bolted the door. I would not permit an interruption.
Then I took the melody of the Saraband and transposed it from key to
key. In this way the tone I sought could not elude me. The first notes
of the dance evoked the figure, but it was so far away, so dim, it was
scarcely more than a breath’s shadow. It was only with the key of F
minor that a change came. Then the figure grew more distinct. Features
were visible. It took on color, firm form. It came floating on, on, on,
toward me, until within the glass just a few feet away stood a lithe,
brown, Moorish girl. My heart choked me with its beating. It was all
that I could do to command strength with which to continue the music.
Very gracefully she swayed to the melody of the Saraband, but she
danced it in a way that was new to me. On her head rested a tiny cap
fringed with vari-colored gems. She wore white muslin trousers, very
full, gathered at the ankle with bells of gold, whose tongues were
little stones that looked like flame. The upper part of her body was
covered with a tight-fitting vest of pale blue, picked out in silver,
and a tight-fitting coat of yellow satin, both of which were open to
the waist, disclosing the brown skin. From under the cap her hair fell
in long braids, intertwined with coral. Her little bare feet were
encased in slippers with gem-studded heels. She was evidently a Moorish
dancing-girl, but of an age long, long gone by.