"Oh, I see, sir; but you are deceived, you know, if you judge me by
appearances. You cannot imagine what a pleasure it is when an Italian
comes here. What you will? Weakness it may be.... I know not, ... but
I should like to see him every day at table, and I believe that if my
wife did not laugh at me I should send him a dozen dishes on my own
account, as a foretaste."
"At what hour do you dine to-morrow?"
"At five. But, after all, ... one eats little here, ... hot country,
... everybody lives lightly, ... whatever their nationality may be....
That is the rule.... But you have not seen the other Italian who is
here?"
So saying, he turned around, and a man came forward from a corner of
the court where he had been watching us. The proprietor, after a few
words, left us alone. The stranger was a man of about forty, miserably
dressed, who spoke through closed teeth, and kept continually clenching
his hands with a convulsive motion as if he was making an effort to
keep from using his fists. He told me he was a chorus-singer from
Lombardy, and that he had arrived the day before at Granada with other
artists booked to sing at the opera for the summer season.
"A beastly country!" he exclaimed without any preamble, looking around
as if he wished to make a speech.
"Then you do not remain in Spain voluntarily?" I asked.
"In Spain? I? Excuse me: it is just as if you had asked me whether I
was staying voluntarily in a galley."
"But why?"
"Why? But can't you see what sort of people the Spaniards
are--ignorant, superstitious, proud, bloodthirsty, impostors, thieves,
charlatans, villains?"
And he stood a moment motionless in a questioning attitude, with the
veins of his neck so swollen that they seemed ready to burst.
"Pardon me," I replied; "your judgment does not seem favorable enough
to admit of my agreeing with you. When it comes to ignorance, excuse
me, it will not do for us Italians, for us who still have cities where
the schoolmasters are stoned and the professors are stabbed if they
give a zero to their scholars,--it will not do for us, I say, to pick
flaws in others. As for superstition, alas for us again! since we may
still see in that city of Italy in which popular instruction is most
widely diffused an unspeakable uproar over a miraculous image of the
Madonna found by a poor ignorant woman in the middle of a street!
As for crime, I frankly declare that if I were obliged to draw a
comparison between the two countries before an audience of Spaniards,
with the statistics now in hand, without first proving my data and
conclusions, I should be very much alarmed.... I do not wish to say
by this that we are not, on the whole, sailing in smoother water than
is Spain. I wish to say that an Italian in judging the Spanish, if he
would be just, must be indulgent."
"Excuse me: I don't think so. A country without political direction!
a country a prey to anarchy! a country--Come, now, cite me one great
Spaniard of the present day."
"I cannot, ... there are so few great men anywhere."
"Cite me a Galileo."
"Oh, there are no Galileos."
"Cite me a Ratazzi."
"Well, they have none."
"Cite me ... But, really, they have nothing. And then, does the country
seem beautiful to you?"
"Ah! excuse me; that point I will not yield: Andalusia, to cite a
single province, is a paradise; Seville, Cadiz, and Granada are
splendid cities."
"How? Do you like the houses of Seville and Cadiz, with walls that
whiten a poor devil from head to foot whenever he happens to touch
them? Do you like those streets along which one can hardly pass after
a good dinner? And do you find the Andalusian women beautiful with
their devilish eyes? Come, now, you are too indulgent. They are not a
_serious_ people. They have summoned Don Amadeus, and now they don't
want him. They are not worthy of being governed by a _civilized man_."
(These were his actual words.)
"Then you don't find any good in Spain?"
"Not the least."
"But why do you stay?"
"I stay ... because I make my living here."
"Well, that is something."
"But what a living! It is a dog's life! Everybody knows what Spanish
cooking is."
"Excuse me: instead of living like a dog in Spain, why not go and live
like a man in Italy?"
Here the poor artist seemed somewhat disconcerted, and I, to relieve
his annoyance, offered him a cigar, which he took and lighted without
a word. And he was not the only Italian in Spain who had spoken to me
in those terms of the country and its inhabitants, denying even the
clearness of the sky and the grace of the Andalusian women. I do not
know what enjoyment there can be in travelling after this fashion, with
the heart closed to every kindly sentiment, and continually on the
lookout to censure and despise, as if everything good and beautiful
which one finds in a foreign country has been stolen from our own,
and as if we are of no account unless we run down everybody else. The
people who travel in such a mental attitude make me pity rather than
condemn them, because they voluntarily deprive themselves of many
pleasures and comforts. So it appears to me, at least, to judge others
by myself, for wherever I go the first sentiment which the sights and
the people inspire in me is a feeling of sympathy; a desire not to find
anything which I shall be obliged to censure; an inclination to imagine
every beautiful thing more beautiful; to conceal the unpleasant things,
to excuse the defects, to be able to say candidly to myself and others
that I am content with everything and everybody. And to arrive at this
end I do not have to make any effort: everything presents itself
almost spontaneously in its most pleasing aspect, and my imagination
benignly paints the other aspects a delicate rose-color. I know well
that one cannot study a country in this way, nor write sage essays, nor
acquire fame as a profound thinker; but I know that one travels with a
peaceful mind, and that such travels are of unspeakable benefit.
The next day I went to see the Generalife, which was a sort of villa
of the Moorish kings, and whose name is linked to that of the Alhambra
as is that of the Alhambra to Granada; but now only a few arches and
arabesques remain of the ancient Generalife. It is a small palace,
simple and white, with few windows, and an arched gallery surrounded
with a terrace, and half hidden in the midst of a grove of laurel and
myrtles, standing on the summit of a mountain covered with flowers,
rising upon the right bank of the Darro opposite the hill of the
Alhambra. In front of the façade of the palace extends a little garden,
and other gardens rise one above another almost in the form of a
vast staircase to the very top of the mountain, where there extends
a very high terrace that encloses the Generalife. The avenues of the
gardens and the wide staircases that lead from one to another of the
flower-beds are flanked by high espaliers surmounted by arches and
divided by arbors of myrtle, curved and intertwined with graceful
designs, and at every landing-place rise white summer-houses shaded by
trellises and picturesque groups of orange trees and cypresses. Water
is still as abundant as in Moorish times, and gives the place a grace,
freshness, and luxuriance impossible to describe. From every part one
hears the murmur of rivulets and fountains; one turns down an avenue
and finds a jet of water; one approaches a window and sees a stream
reaching almost to the window-sill; one enters a group of trees and
the spray of a little waterfall strikes one's face; one turns and sees
water leaping, running, and trickling through the grass and shrubbery.
From the height of the terrace one commands a view of all those gardens
as they slope downward in platforms and terraces; one peers down
into the abyss of vegetation which separates the two mountains; one
overlooks the whole enclosure of the Alhambra, with the cupolas of its
little temples, its distant towers, and the paths winding among its
ruins; the view extends over the city of Granada with its plain and
its hills, and runs with a single glance along all the summits of the
Sierra Nevada, that appear so near that one imagines they are not an
hour's walk distant. And while you contemplate that spectacle your ear
is soothed by the murmur of a hundred fountains and the faint sound of
the bells of the city, which comes in waves scarcely audible, bearing
with it the mysterious fragrance of this earthly paradise which makes
you tremble and grow pale with delight.
[Illustration: _Court of the Generalife, Granada_]
Beyond the Generalife, on the summit of a higher mountain, now bleak
and bare, there rose in Moorish times other royal palaces, with gardens
connected with each other by great avenues lined with myrtle hedges.
Now all these marvels of architecture encircled by groves, fountains,
and flowers, those fabulous castles in the air, those magnificent and
fragrant nests of love and delight, have disappeared, and scarcely
a heap of rubbish or a short stretch of wall remains to tell their
story to the passer-by. But these ruins, that elsewhere would arouse a
feeling of melancholy, do not have such an influence in the presence
of that glorious nature whose enchantment not even the most marvellous
works of man have ever been able to equal.
On re-entering the city I stopped at one end of the _Carrera
del Darro_, in front of a house richly adorned with bas-reliefs
representing heraldic shields, armor, cherubs, and lions, with a little
balcony, over one corner of which, partly on one wall and partly on
another, I read the following mysterious inscription stamped in great
letters:
"ESPERANDO LA DEL CIELO,"
which, literally translated, signifies "_Awaiting her in Heaven_."
Curious to learn the hidden meaning of those words, I made a note of
them, so that I might ask the learned father of my friend about them.
He gave me two interpretations, the one almost certainly correct, but
not at all romantic; the other romantic, but very doubtful. I give the
last: The house belonged to Don Fernando de Zafra, the secretary of
the Catholic kings. He had a very beautiful daughter. A young hidalgo,
of a family hostile or inferior in rank to the house of Zafra, became
enamored of the daughter, and, as his love was returned, he asked
for her hand in marriage, but was refused. The refusal of her father
stirred the love of the two young hearts to flame: the windows of the
house were low; the lover one night succeeded in making the ascent
and entered the maiden's room. Whether he upset a chair on entering,
or coughed, or uttered a low cry of joy on seeing his beautiful love
welcoming him with open arms, the tradition does not tell, and no one
knows; but certain it is that Don Fernando de Zafra heard a noise, ran
in, saw, and, blind with fury, rushed upon the ill-fated young man
to put him to death. But he succeeded in making his escape, and Don
Fernando in following him ran into one of his own pages, a partisan
of the lovers, who had helped the hidalgo to enter the house: in his
haste his master mistook him for the betrayer, and, without hearing his
protests and prayers, he had him bound and hanged from the balcony. The
tradition runs that while the poor victim kept crying, "Pity! pity!"
the outraged father responded as he pointed toward the balcony, "Thou
shalt stay there _esperando la del Cielo_!" (awaiting her in heaven)--a
reply which he afterward had cut in the stone walls as a perpetual
warning to evil-doers.