"No," he said, "I did not stay long in Havana. I should think it would
be a terrible place to live in. Somehow, in spite of all the tropical
brightness, the city gave me the idea of a huge sepulchre at times.
One feels in those narrow streets as though entombed. Pretty women?--I
suppose so, yes; but I saw only one. It was in one of the quaint
streets which make you think that the Spaniards learned to build their
cities from the Moors--a chasm between lofty buildings, and balconies
jutting out above to break the view of the narrow strip of blue sky.
Nobody was in the street except myself; and the murmur of the city's
life seemed to come from afar, like a ghostly whisper. The silence was
so strange that I felt as if walking on the pavement of a church, and
disturbing the religious quiet with my footsteps. I stopped before a
great window--no glass, but iron bars only;--and behind the iron bars
lay the only beautiful woman I saw in Havana by daylight. She could not
have been more than eighteen--a real Spanish beauty--dark, bewitching,
an oval face with noble features, and long eyelashes resting on the
cheek. She was dead! All in white--like the phantom bride of the German
tradition--white robes, white satin shoes, and one white tropical
flower in her black hair, shining like a star. I do not know what it
was; but its perfume came to me through the window, sweet and strange.
The young woman, sleeping there all in white, against the darkness of
the silent chamber within, fascinated me. I felt as if it was not right
to look at her so long; yet I could not help it. Candles were burning
at her head and feet; and in the stillness of the hot air their yellow
flames did not even tremble. Suddenly I heard a heavy tramping at the
end of the street. A battalion of Spanish soldiers were coming towards
me. There was no means of proceeding; and I had no time to retreat. The
street was so narrow that I was obliged to put my back to the wall in
order to let them pass. They passed in dead silence--I only heard the
tread of the men, mechanically regular and heavily echoing. They were
all in white. Every man looked at me as he passed by; and every look
was dark, sinister, suspicious. I was anxious to escape those thousands
of Spanish eyes; but I could not have done it without turning my face
to the wall. I do not think one of them looked at the dead girl at
all; but each one looked at me, and forced me to look at him. I dared
not smile,--not one of the swarthy faces smiled. The situation became
really unpleasant. It was like one of those nightmares in which you
are obliged to witness an endless procession of phantoms, each one of
whom compels you to look at it. If I had even heard a single "Carajo
Americano," I should have felt relieved; but all passed me in dead
silence. I was transpierced by the black steel of at least two thousand
Spanish eyes, and every eye looked at me as if I had been detected in
some awful crime. Yet why they did not look at that window instead
of looking at me, I cannot tell. After they had passed, I looked an
instant at the dead girl again; and it seemed to me that I saw the
ghost of a smile--a cynical, mocking smile about her lips. She was
well avenged--if her consecrated rest had been disturbed by my heretic
eyes. I can still smell the white flower; and I can see even the silk
stitches in the white satin shoes--the motionless yellow tongues of
the candles--the thin dead face that seemed to smile, and the thousand
sinister faces that smiled not, and dared me to smile."