"He has an egg stuck in his throat," some stranger answered for me.
All the travellers burst into a laugh, the egg went down; I laughed
too, overtook the diligence, which had already started, and, regaining
my breath, gave my companions an account of my troubles, and they were
much interested, and pitied me even more than I had dared to hope after
that cruel laugh at my suffocation.
But my troubles were not ended. One of those irresistible attacks
of sleepiness which used to come upon me treacherously in the long
night-marches among the soldiers seized me all at once, and tormented
me as far as the railway-station without my being able to get a moment
of sleep. I believe that a cannon-ball suspended by a cord from the
roof of the diligence would have given less annoyance to my unfortunate
companions than my poor nodding head gave as it bobbed on all sides as
if it was attached to my neck by a single tendon. On one side of me sat
a nun, on the other a boy, and opposite a peasant-woman, and throughout
the entire journey I did nothing but strike my head against these three
victims with the monotonous motion of a bell-clapper. The nun, poor
creature! endured the strokes in silence, perhaps in expiation for her
sins of thought; but the boy and peasant-woman muttered from time to
time, "He is a barbarian!"--"This must stop!"--"His head is like lead!"
Finally, a witticism from one of the passengers released all four of us
from this suffering. The peasant-woman was lamenting a little louder
than usual, and a voice from the end of the diligence exclaimed, "Be
consoled; if your head is not yet broken, you may be sure it will
not be, for it must certainly be proof against the hammer." They
all laughed; I awakened, excused myself, and the three victims were
so happy to find themselves released from that cruel thumping that,
instead of taking revenge with bitter words, they said, "Poor fellow!
you have slept badly. How you must have hurt your head!"
We finally arrived at the railway, and behold what a perverse fate!
Although I was alone in the railway-carriage, where I might have slept
like a nabob, I could not close my eyes. A pang went through my heart
at the thought of having made the journey by night when I could not see
anything nor enjoy the distant view of Granada. And I remembered the
lovely verses of Martinez de la Rosa:
"O my dear fatherland! At last I see thee again! I see thy fair soil,
thy joyful teeming fields, thy glorious sun, thy serene sky!
"Yes! I see the fabled Granada stretching along the plain from hill to
hill, her towers rising among her gardens of eternal green, the crystal
streams kissing her walls, the noble mountains enclosing her valleys,
and the Sierra Nevada crowning the distant horizon.
"Oh, thy memory haunted me wherever I went, Granada! It destroyed my
pleasures, my peace, and my glory, and oppressed my heart and soul! By
the icy banks of the Seine and the Thames I remembered with a sigh the
happy waters of the Darro and the Genil, and many times, as I carolled
a gay ballad, my bitter grief overcame me, and weeping, not to be
repressed, choked my voice.
"In vain the delightful Arno displayed her flower-strewn banks, sweet
seats of love and peace! 'The plain watered by the gentle Genil,' said
I, 'is more flowery, the life of the lovely Granada is more dear.' And
I murmured these words as one disconsolate, and, remembering the house
of my fathers, I raised my sad eyes to heaven.
"What is thy magic, what thy unspeakable spell, O fatherland! O sweet
name! that thou art so dear? The swarthy African, far from his native
desert, looks with sad disdain on fields of green; the rude Laplander,
stolen from his mother-earth, sighs for perpetual night and snow; and
I--I, to whom a kindly fate granted birth and nurture in thy bosom
blest by so many gifts of God--though far from thee, could I forget
thee, Granada?"
When I reached Granada it was quite dark, and I could not see so much
as the outlines of a house. A diligence drawn by two horses,
"... anzi due cavallette
Di quella de Mosé lá dell' Egitto,"
landed me at a hotel, where I was kept waiting an hour while my bed was
being made, and finally, just before three o'clock in the morning, I
was at last able to lay my head on the pillow. But my troubles were not
over: just as I was falling into a doze I heard an indistinct murmur in
the next room, and then a masculine voice which said distinctly, "Oh,
what a little foot!" You who have bowels of compassion, pity me. The
pillow was torn a little; I pulled out two tufts of wool, stuffed them
in my ears; and, rehearsing in thought the misfortunes of my journey, I
slept the sleep of the just.
In the morning I went out betimes and walked about through the streets
of Granada until it was a decent hour to go and drag from his home
a young gentleman of Granada whom I had met at Madrid at the house
of Fernandez Guerra, Gongora by name, the son of a distinguished
archeologist and a descendant of the famous Cordovan poet Luigi
Gongora, of whom I spoke in passing. That part of the city which I
saw in those few hours did not fulfil my expectation. I had expected
to find narrow mysterious streets and white cottages like those of
Cordova and Seville, but I found instead spacious squares and some
handsome straight streets, and others tortuous and narrow enough, it is
true, but flanked by high houses, for the most part painted in false
bas-reliefs with cupids and garlands and flourishes and draperies, and
hangings of a thousand colors, without the Oriental appearance of the
other Andalusian cities.
The lowest part of Granada is almost all laid out with the regularity
of a modern city. As I passed along those streets I was filled with
contempt, and should certainly have carried a gloomy face to Señor
Gongora if by chance as I walked at random I had not come out into
the famous _Alameda_, which enjoys the reputation of being the most
beautiful promenade in the world, and it repaid me a thousand times for
the detestable regularity of the streets which lead to it.
Imagine a long avenue of unusual width, along which fifty carriages
might pass abreast, flanked by other smaller avenues, along which run
rows of measureless trees, which at a noble height form an immense
green arch, so dense that not a sunbeam can penetrate it, and at the
two ends of the central avenue two monumental fountains throwing up
the water in two great streams which fall again in the finest vaporous
spray, and between the many avenues crystal streams, and in the middle
a garden all roses and myrtle and jessamine and delicate fountains; and
on one side the river Genil, which flows between banks covered with
laurel-groves, and in the distance the snowclad mountains, upon whose
sides distant palms raise their fantastic fronds; and everywhere a
brilliant green, dense and luxuriant, through which one sees here and
there an enchanting strip of azure sky.
As I turned off of the Alameda I met a great number of peasants
going out of the city, two by two and in groups, with their wives and
children, singing and jesting. Their dress did not seem to me different
from that of the peasants in the neighborhood of Cordova and Seville.
They wore velvet hats, some with very broad brims, others with high
brims curved back; a little jacket made with bands of many-colored
cloth; a scarf of red or blue; closely-fitting trousers buttoned along
the hip; and a pair of leathern gaiters open at the side, so as to show
the leg. The women were dressed like those in the other provinces, and
even in their faces there was no noticeable difference.
I reached my friend's house and found him buried in his archæological
studies, sitting in front of a heap of old medals and historic stones.
He received me with delight, with a charming Andalusian courtesy, and,
after exchanging the first greetings, we both pronounced with one voice
that magic word that in every part of the world stirs a tumult of great
recollections in every heart and arouses a sense of secret longing;
that gives a final spur toward Spain to one who has the desire to
travel thither and has not yet finally resolved to start; that name at
which hearts of poets and painters beat faster and the eyes of women
flash--"The Alhambra!"
We rushed out of the house.
* * * * *
The Alhambra is situated upon a high hill which overlooks the city,
and from a distance presents the appearance of a fortress, like almost
all Oriental palaces. But when, with Gongora, I climbed the street of
_Los Gomeles_ on our way toward the famous edifice, I had not yet seen
the least trace of a distant wall, and I did not know in what part of
the city we should find it. The street of _Los Gomeles_ slopes upward
and describes a slight curve, so that for a good way one sees only
houses ahead, and supposes the Alhambra to be far away. Gongora did not
speak, but I read in his face that in his heart he was greatly enjoying
the thought of the surprise and delight that I should experience. He
looked at the ground with a smile, answering all my questions with a
sign which seemed to say, "Wait a minute!" and now and then raised
his eyes almost furtively to measure the remaining distance. And I so
enjoyed his pleasure that I could have thrown my arms around his neck
in gratitude.
We arrived before a great gate that closed the street. "Here we are!"
said Gongora. I entered.
I found myself in a great grove of enormously high trees, leaning one
toward another, on this side and on that, along a great avenue which
climbs the hill and is lost in the shade: so close are the trees that
a man could scarcely pass among them, and wherever one looks one sees
only their trunks, which close the way like a continuous wall. The
branches meet above the avenues; not a sunbeam penetrates the wood; the
shade is very dense; on every side glide murmuring streams, and the
birds sing, and one feels a vernal freshness in the air.
"We are now in the Alhambra," said Gongora: "turn around, and you will
see the towers and the embattled barrier-wall."
"But where is the palace?" I demanded.
"That is a mystery," he answered; "let us go forward at random."
We climbed an avenue running along beside the great central avenue that
winds up toward the summit. The trees form overhead a green pavilion
through which not a particle of sky is visible, and the grass, the
shrubbery, and the flowers make on either side a lovely border, bright
and fragrant, sloping slightly toward each other, as if they are trying
to unite, mutually attracted by the beauty of their colors and the
fragrance of their perfume.
"Let us rest a moment," I said: "I want to take a great breath of this
air; it seems to contain some secret germs that if infused into the
blood must prolong one's life; it is air redolent of youth and health."
"Behold the door!" exclaimed Gongora.
I turned as if I had been struck in the back, and saw a few steps ahead
a great square tower, of a deep-red color, crowned with battlements,
with an arched door, above which one sees a key and a hand cut in the
stone.
I questioned my guide, and he told me that this was the principal
entrance of the Alhambra, and that it was called the Gate of Justice,
because the Moorish kings used to pronounce sentence beneath that arch.
The key signifies that this door is the key to the fortress, and the
hand symbolizes the five cardinal virtues of Islam--Prayer, Fasting,
Beneficence, Holy War, and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. The Arabian
inscription attests that the edifice was erected four centuries ago
by the Sultan Abul Hagag Yusuf, and another inscription, which one
sees everywhere on the columns, says, "There is no God but Allah, and
Mohammed is his Prophet! and there is no power, no strength, apart from
Allah!"
We passed under the arch and continued the ascent along an enclosed
street until we found ourselves at the top of the hill, in the middle
of an esplanade surrounded by a parapet and dotted with shrubs and
flowers. I turned at once toward the valley to enjoy the view,
but Gongora seized me by the arm and made me look in the opposite
direction. I was standing in front of the great palace of the
Renaissance, partly in ruins and flanked by some wretched little houses.
"Is this a joke?" I demanded. "Have you brought me here to see a
Moorish castle, for me to find the way closed by a modern palace?
Whose abominable idea was it to run up this building in the gardens of
the caliphs?"
"Charles V.'s."
"He was a vandal. I have not yet forgiven him for the Gothic church he
planted in the middle of the mosque of Cordova, and now these barracks
fill me with utter loathing of his crown and his glory. But, in the
name of Heaven, where is the Alhambra?"
"There it is."
"Where?"
"Among those huts."
"Oh, fudge!"
"I pledge you my word of honor."