"Well, then," I exclaimed, "this great name of the Alhambra is only
another of those usual false exaggerations of the poets. I, Europe, and
the world have been shamefully deceived. Was it worth while to dream of
the Alhambra for three hundred and sixty-five nights in succession, and
then to come to see a group of ruins with some broken columns and smoky
inscriptions?"
"How I enjoy this!" answered Gongora with a peal of laughter. "Cheer up
now; come and be persuaded that the world has not been deceived: let us
enter this rubbish-pile."
We entered by a little door, crossed a corridor, and found ourselves
in a court. With a sudden cry I seized Gongora's hand, and he asked
with a tone of triumph,
"Are you persuaded?"
I did not answer, I did not see him: I was already far away; the
Alhambra had already begun to exercise upon me that mysterious and
powerful fascination which no one can avoid nor any one express.
We were in the _Patio de los Arrayanes_, the Court of the Myrtles,
which is the largest in the edifice, and presents at once the
appearance of a room, a courtyard, and a garden. A great rectangular
basin full of water, surrounded by a myrtle hedge, extends from one
side of the _patio_ to the other, and like a mirror reflects the
arches, arabesques, and the mural inscriptions.
To the right of the entrance there extend two orders of Moorish
arches, one above the other, supported by slender columns, and on the
opposite side of the court rises a tower with a door through which
one sees the inner rooms in semi-darkness and the mullioned windows,
and through the windows the blue sky and the summits of the distant
mountains. The walls are ornamented to a certain height from the
pavement with brilliant mosaics, and above the mosaics with arabesques
of very intricate design that seem to tremble and change at every step,
and here and there among the arabesques and along the arches they
stretch and creep and intertwine, like garlands, Moorish inscriptions
containing greetings, proverbs, and legends.
[Illustration: _Court of Myrtles, Alhambra_]
Beside the door of entrance is written in Cufic characters: Eternal
Happiness!--Blessing!--Prosperity!--Felicity!--Praised be God for the
blessing of Islam!
In another place it is written: I seek my refuge in the Lord of the
Morning.
In another place: O God! to thee belong eternal thanksgiving and
undying praise.
Elsewhere there are verses from the Koran and entire poems in praise of
the caliphs.
We stood some minutes in silent admiration; not the buzz of a fly was
heard; now and then Gongora started toward the tower, but I clutched
him by the arm and felt that he was trembling with impatience.
"But we must make haste," said he, finally, "or else we shall not get
back to Granada before evening."
"What do I know of Granada?" I answered; "what do I know of morning or
evening or of myself? I am in the Orient!"
"But this is only the antechamber of the Alhambra, my dear Arabian,"
said Gongora, urging me forward. "Come, come with me where it will
really seem like being in the Orient."
And he led me, reluctant though I was, to the very threshold of the
tower-door. There I turned to look once more at the Court of Myrtles
and gave a cry of surprise. Between two slender columns of the arched
gallery which faces the tower, on the opposite side of the courtyard,
stood a girl, a beautiful dark Andalusian face, with a white mantle
wound around her head and falling over her shoulder: she stood leaning
upon the railing in a languid attitude, with her eyes fixed upon us.
I cannot tell the fantastic effect produced by that figure at that
moment--the grace imparted by the arch which curved above the girl's
head and the two columns which formed a frame around her, and the
beautiful harmony which she gave to the whole court, as if she were
an ornament necessary to its architecture conceived in the mind of
the architect at the moment he imagined the whole design. She seemed
like a sultana awaiting her lord, thinking of another sky and another
love. She continued looking at us, and my heart began to beat faster. I
questioned my friend with my eyes, as if to be assured that I was not
deceived. Suddenly the sultana laughed, dropped her white mantle, and
disappeared.
"She is a servant," said Gongora.
Still I remained in the mist.
She was, in fact, a servant of the custodian of the Alhambra who was in
the habit of practising that joke upon strangers.
We entered the tower called the Tower of Comares, or, vulgarly, the
Tower of the Ambassadors. The interior forms two halls, the first of
which is called the Hall of the Barca, and takes its name either from
the fact that it is shaped like a boat or because it was called by the
Moors the Hall of _Baraka_, or Blessing, a word which might have been
contracted by the people into _barca_ (a boat.) This hall hardly seems
the work of human hands: it is all a vast network of tracery in the
form of garlands, rosettes, boughs of trees, and leaves, covering the
vaulted ceiling, the arches, and the walls in every part and in every
way--closely twining, checkered, climbing higher and higher, and yet
marvellously distinct and combined in such a manner that the parts
are presented to the eye altogether at a single glance, affording a
spectacle of dazzling magnificence and enchanting grace. I approached
one of the walls, fixed my eyes upon the extreme point of an arabesque,
and tried to follow its windings and turnings: it was impossible; my
eye was lost, my mind confused, and all the arabesques from pavement
to ceiling seemed to be moving and blending, as if to conceal the
thread of their inextricable network. You may make an effort not to
look around, to centre your whole attention upon a single spot of the
wall, to scan it closely and follow the thread with your finger: it
is futile; in a moment the tracery is a tangled skein, a veil steals
between you and the wall, and your arm falls. The wall seems woven
like a web, wrought like brocade, netted like lace, and veined like a
leaf; one cannot look at it closely nor fix its design in one's mind:
it would be like trying to count the ants in an anthill: one must be
content to look at the walls with a wandering glance, then to rest and
look again later, and then to think of something else and talk. After I
had looked around a little with the air of a man overcome with vertigo
rather than admiration, I turned toward Gongora, so that he might read
in my face what I would have spoken.
"Let us enter the other pile of ruins," he answered with a smile as he
drew me into the great Hall of the Ambassadors, which fills all the
interior of the tower, for, really, the Hall of the _Barca_ belongs to
a little building which does not form a part of the tower, although it
is joined to it. The tower is square in form, spacious, and lighted
with nine great arched windows in the form of doors, which present
almost the appearance of so many alcoves, so great is the thickness of
the wall; each one is divided down the middle toward the outside by a
little marble column that supports two beautiful arches surmounted in
their turn by two little arched windows. The walls are covered with
mosaics and arabesques indescribably delicate and multiform, and with
innumerable inscriptions extending like wide embroidered ribbons over
the arches of the windows, up the massive cornices, along the friezes,
and around the niches where once stood vases full of flowers and
perfumed water. The ceiling, which rises to a great height, is inlaid
with cedar-wood, white, gold, and azure, joined together in circles,
stars, and crowns, and forming many little arches, cells, and vaulted
windows, through which falls a wavering light, and from the cornice
which joins the ceiling to the walls hang tablets of stucco-work cut in
facets chiselled and moulded like stalactites and bunches of flowers.
The throne stood at the central window on the side opposite the door of
entrance. From the windows on that side one enjoys a stupendous view
of the valley of the Darro, deep and silent, as if it too felt the
fascination of the Alhambra's grandeur; from the windows on the other
two sides one sees the boundary-wall and the towers of the fortress;
and through the entrance the light arches of the Court of the Myrtles
in the distance and the water of the basin, which reflects the blue of
the sky.
"Well!" Gongora demanded; "was it worth dreaming of the Alhambra for
three hundred and sixty-five nights?"
"There is a strange thought passing through my brain at this moment," I
replied. "That court as it looks from here, that hall, those windows,
those colors, everything that surrounds me, seems familiar; it seems to
correspond with a picture which I have carried in my head I know not
how long and I know not in what manner, confused with a thousand other
things, perhaps born of a dream--how should I know? When I was sixteen
years old I was a lover, and the young girl and I alone in a garden in
the shade of a summer-house, as we gazed in each other's eyes, uttered
unconsciously a cry of joy that stirred our blood as if it had come
from the mouth of a third person who had discovered our secret. Well,
since that time I have often longed to be a king and to have a palace;
but in giving form to that desire my imagination did not rest merely in
the grand gilded palaces of our country; it flew to distant lands, and
there on the summit of a lofty mountain reared a castle of its own in
which everything was small and graceful and illumined by a mysterious
light; and there were long suites of rooms adorned with a thousand
fanciful and delicate ornaments, with windows through which we two
alone might look, and little columns behind which my little one might
almost hide her face playfully as she listened to my step approaching
from hall to hall, or heard my voice mingled with the murmur of the
fountains in the garden. All unconsciously, in building that castle
in fantasy, I was building the Alhambra; in those moments I imagined
something like these halls, these windows, and this court that we see
before us--so similar, indeed, that the more I look around the better
I remember and seem to recognize the place just as I have seen it a
thousand times. All lovers dream a little of the Alhambra, and
if they were able to reproduce all their dreams in line and color,
they would make pictures that would amaze us by their likeness to all
one sees here. This architecture does not express power, glory, and
grandeur; it expresses love and passion--love with its mysteries, its
caprices, its fervor, its bursts of God-given gratitude; passion with
its melancholy and its silences. There is, then, a close connection, a
harmony, between the beauty of this Alhambra and the souls of those who
have loved at sixteen, when longings are but dreams and visions. And
hence arises the indescribable fascination exercised by this beauty,
and hence the Alhambra, although deserted and ruined as it is, is
still the most enchanting castle in the world, and to the end of time
visitors will leave it with a tear. For in parting with the Alhambra
we bid a last adieu to the most beautiful dreams of youth revived
among these walls for the last time. We bid adieu to faces unspeakably
dear that have broken the oblivion of many years to stand beside us a
last time by the little columns of these windows. We bid adieu to all
the fancies of youth. We bid adieu to that love which will never live
again."
[Illustration: _Fountain in the Court of Lions, Alhambra_]
"It is true," answered my friend, "but what will you say when you have
seen the Court of the Lions? Come, let us hurry."
We left the tower with hasty steps, crossed the Court of Myrtles, and
came to a little door opposite the door of entrance.
"Stop!" cried Gongora.