"And here?"
"Byron!"
"And here?"
"Victor Hugo!"
After descending from the _Mirador de la Reina_ I thought I had seen
the Alhambra, and was so imprudent as to tell my friend so. If he had
had a stick in his hand, I verily believe he would have struck me; but,
as he had not, he contented himself by regarding me with the air of one
demanding whether or not I had lost my senses.
We returned to the Court of the Myrtles and visited the rooms situated
on the other side of the Tower of Comares, the greater part in ruins,
the rest altered, some absolutely bare, without either pavement or
roof, but all worth seeing, both in remembrance of what they had
been and for the sake of understanding the plan of the edifice. The
ancient mosque was converted into a chapel by Charles V., and a great
Moorish hall was changed into an oratory; here and there one still
sees the fragments of arabesques and carved ceilings of cedar-wood;
the galleries, the courts, and the vestibules remind one of a palace
dismantled by fire.
After seeing that part of the Alhambra I really thought there was
nothing else left to see, and a second time was imprudent enough to
say so to Gongora: this time he could no longer contain himself, and,
leading me into a vestibule of the Court of Myrtles and pointing to a
map of the building hanging on the wall, he said, "Look, and you will
see that all the rooms of the courts and the towers that we have so far
visited do not occupy one-twentieth part of the space embraced within
the walls of the Alhambra; you will see that we have not yet visited
the remains of the three other mosques, the ruins of the House of Cadi,
the water-tower, the tower of the Infantas, the tower of the Prisoner,
the tower of Candil, the tower of the Picos, the tower of the Daggers,
the tower of the _Siete Suelos_, the tower of the Captain, the tower of
the Witch, the tower of the Heads, the tower of Arms, the tower of the
Hidalgos, the tower of the Cocks, the tower of the Cube, the tower of
Homage, the tower of Vela, the Powder Tower, the remains of the House
of Mondejar, the military quarters, the iron gate, the inner walls, the
cisterns, the promenades; for I would have you know that the Alhambra
is not a palace: it is a city, and one could spend his life in studying
its arabesques, reading its inscriptions, and every day discovering
a new view of the hills and mountains, and going into ecstasies
regularly once every twenty-four hours."
And I thought I had seen the Alhambra!
On that day I did not wish to learn anything more, and the dear
knows how my head ached when I returned to the hotel. The day after,
at the peep of dawn, I was back at the Alhambra, and again in the
evening, and I continued to go there every day so long as I remained
at Granada, with Gongora, with other friends, with guides, or alone;
and the Alhambra always seemed vaster and more beautiful as I wandered
through the courts and halls, and passed hour after hour sitting among
the columns or gazing out of the windows with an ever-heightening
pleasure, every time discovering new beauties, and ever abandoning
myself to those vague and delightful fancies among which my mind had
strayed on the first day. I cannot tell through which entrances my
friends led me into the Alhambra, but I remember that every day on
going there I saw walls and towers and deserted streets that I had not
seen before, and the Alhambra seemed to me to have changed its site,
to have been transformed, and surrounded as if by enchantment with new
buildings that changed its original appearance. Who could describe
the beauty of those sunset views; those fantastic groves flooded with
moonlight; the immense plain and the snow-covered mountains on clear,
serene nights; the imposing outlines of those enormous walls, superb
towers, and those measureless trees under a starry sky; the prolonged
rustling of those vast masses of verdure overflowing the valleys and
climbing the hillsides? It was a spectacle before which my companions
remained speechless, although they were born in Granada and accustomed
from infancy to look upon these scenes. So we would walk along in
silence, each buried in his own thoughts, with hearts oppressed by mild
melancholy, and sometimes our eyes were wet with tears, and we raised
our faces to heaven with a burst of gratitude and love.
On the day of my arrival at Granada, when I entered the hotel at
midnight, instead of finding silence and quiet, I found the _patio_
illuminated like a ball-room, people sipping sherbet at the tables,
coming and going along the galleries, laughing and talking, and I was
obliged to wait an hour before going to sleep. But I passed that hour
very pleasantly. While I stood looking at a map of Spain on the wall a
great burly fellow, with a face as red as a beet and a great stomach
extending nearly to his knees, approached me and, touching his cap,
asked if I was an Italian. I replied that I was, and he continued with
a smile, "And so am I; I am the proprietor of the hotel."
"I am delighted to hear it, the more so because I see you are making
money."
"Great Heavens!" he replied in a tone which he wished to seem
melancholy. "Yes, ... I cannot complain; but, ... believe me, my dear
sir, however well things may go, when one is far from his native land
one always feels a void here;" and he put his hand upon his enormous
chest.