in necessity was kept up through ostentation. The wealth which flowed
into the country from conquests and discoveries fostered the passion for
princely establishments. According to magnificent old Spanish usage, in
which pride and generosity bore equal parts, a superannuated servant was
never turned off, but became a charge for the rest of his days; nay, his
children, and his children’s children, and often their relatives to the
right and left, became gradually entailed upon the family. Hence the
huge palaces of the Spanish nobility, which have such an air of empty
ostentation from the greatness of their size compared with the
mediocrity and scantiness of their furniture, were absolutely required,
in the golden days of Spain, by the patriarchal habits of their
possessors. They were little better than vast barracks for their
hereditary generations of hangers-on that battened at the expense of a
Spanish noble.
These patriarchal habits of the Spanish nobility have declined with
their revenues; though the spirit which prompted them remains, and wars
sadly with their altered fortunes. The poorest among them have always
some hereditary hangers-on, who live at their expense, and make them
poorer. Some who, like my neighbor the count, retain a modicum of their
once princely possessions, keep up a shadow of the ancient system, and
their estates are overrun and the produce consumed by generations of
idle retainers.
The count held estates in various parts of the kingdom, some including
whole villages; yet the revenues collected from them were comparatively
small; some of them, he assured me, barely fed the hordes of dependents
nestled upon them, who seemed to consider themselves entitled to live
rent-free and be maintained into the bargain, because their forefathers
had been so since time immemorial.
The Saint’s day of the old count gave me a glimpse into a Spanish
interior. For two or three days previous preparations were made for the
fête. Viands of all kinds were brought up from town, greeting the
olfactory nerves of the old invalid guards, as they were borne past them
through the Gate of Justice. Servants hurried officiously about the
courts; the ancient kitchen of the palace was again alive with the tread
of cooks and scullions, and blazed with unwonted fires.
When the day arrived I beheld the old count in patriarchal state, his
family and household around him, with functionaries who mismanaged his
estates at a distance and consumed the proceeds; while numerous old
worn-out servants and pensioners were loitering about the courts and
keeping within smell of the kitchen.
It was a joyous day in the Alhambra. The guests dispersed themselves
about the palace before the hour of dinner, enjoying the luxuries of its
courts and fountains, and embosomed gardens, and music and laughter
resounded through its late silent halls.
The feast, for a set dinner in Spain is literally a feast, was served in
the beautiful Morisco Hall of “Las dos Hermanas.” The table was loaded
with all the luxuries of the season: there was an almost interminable
succession of dishes; showing how truly the feast at the rich Camachos’
wedding in “Don Quixote” was a picture of a Spanish banquet. A joyous
conviviality prevailed round the board; for though Spaniards are
generally abstemious, they are complete revellers on occasions like the
present, and none more so than the Andalusians. For my part, there was
something peculiarly exciting in thus sitting at a feast in the royal
halls of the Alhambra, given by one who might claim remote affinity with
its Moorish kings, and who was a lineal representative of Gonsalvo of
Cordova, one of the most distinguished of the Christian conquerors.
The banquet ended, the company adjourned to the Hall of Ambassadors.
Here every one endeavored to contribute to the general amusement,
singing, improvising, telling wonderful tales, or dancing popular dances
to that all-pervading talisman of Spanish pleasure, the guitar.
The count’s gifted little daughter was as usual the life and delight of
the assemblage, and I was more than ever struck with her aptness and
wonderful versatility. She took a part in two or three scenes of elegant
comedy with some of her companions, and performed them with exquisite
point and finished grace; she gave imitations of the popular Italian
singers, some serious, some comic, with a rare quality of voice, and, I
was assured, with singular fidelity; she imitated the dialects, dances,
ballads, and movements and manners of the gypsies and the peasants of
the Vega with equal felicity; but everything was done with an
all-pervading grace and a ladylike tact perfectly fascinating.
The great charm of everything she did was its freedom from pretension or
ambitious display, its happy spontaneity. Everything sprang from the
impulse of the moment; or was in prompt compliance with a request. She
seemed unconscious of the rarity and extent of her own talent, and was
like a child at home revelling in the buoyancy of its own gay and
innocent spirits. Indeed, I was told she had never exerted her talents
in general society, but only, as at present, in the domestic circle.
Her faculty of observation and her perception of character must have
been remarkably quick, for she could have had only casual and transient
glances at the scenes, manners, and customs depicted with such truth and
spirit. “Indeed it is a continual wonder to us,” said the countess,
“where the child [la Niña] has picked up these things, her life being
passed almost entirely at home, in the bosom of the family.”
Evening approached; twilight began to throw its shadows about the halls,
and the bats to steal forth from their lurking-place and flit about. A
notion seized the little damsel and some of her youthful companions, to
set out, under the guidance of Dolores, and explore the less frequented
parts of the palace in quest of mysteries and enchantments. Thus
conducted, they peeped fearfully into the gloomy old mosque, but quick
drew back on being told that a Moorish king had been murdered there;
they ventured into the mysterious regions of the bath, frightening
themselves with the sounds and murmurs of hidden aqueducts, and flying
with mock panic at the alarm of phantom Moors. They then undertook the
adventure of the Iron Gate, a place of baleful note in the Alhambra. It
is a postern gate, opening into a dark ravine; a narrow covered way
leads down to it, which used to be the terror of Dolores and her
playmates in childhood, as it was said a hand without a body would
sometimes be stretched out from the wall and seize hold of the
passers-by.
The little party of enchantment-hunters ventured to the entrance of the
covered way, but nothing would tempt them to enter, in this hour of
gathering gloom; they dreaded the grasp of the phantom arm.
At length they came running back into the Hall of Ambassadors in a mock
paroxysm of terror: they had positively seen two spectral figures all in
white. They had not stopped to examine them; but could not be mistaken,
for they glared distinctly through the surrounding gloom. Dolores soon
arrived and explained the mystery. The spectres proved to be two statues
of nymphs in white marble, placed at the entrance of a vaulted passage.
Upon this a grave, but, as I thought, somewhat sly old gentleman
present, who, I believe, was the count’s advocate or legal adviser,
assured them that these statues were connected with one of the greatest
mysteries of the Alhambra; that there was a curious history concerning
them, and, moreover, that they stood a living monument in marble of
female secrecy and discretion. All present entreated him to tell the
history of the statues. He took a little time to recollect the details,
and then gave them in substance the following legend:
LEGEND OF THE TWO DISCREET STATUES
There lived once in a waste apartment of the Alhambra a merry little
fellow, named Lope Sanchez, who worked in the gardens, and was as brisk
and blithe as a grasshopper, singing all day long. He was the life and
soul of the fortress; when his work was over, he would sit on one of the
stone benches of the esplanade, strum his guitar, and sing long ditties
about the Cid, and Bernardo del Carpio, and Fernando del Pulgar, and
other Spanish heroes, for the amusement of the old soldiers of the
fortress; or would strike up a merrier tune, and set the girls dancing
boleros and fandangos.
Like most little men, Lope Sanchez had a strapping buxom dame for a
wife, who could almost have put him in her pocket; but he lacked the
usual poor man’s lot--instead of ten children he had but one. This was
a little black-eyed girl about twelve years of age, named Sanchica, who
was as merry as himself, and the delight of his heart. She played about
him as he worked in the gardens, danced to his guitar as he sat in the
shade, and ran as wild as a young fawn about the groves and alleys and
ruined halls of the Alhambra.
It was now the eve of the blessed St. John, and the holiday-loving
gossips of the Alhambra, men, women, and children, went up at night to
the Mountain of the Sun, which rises above the Generalife, to keep their
midsummer vigil on its level summit. It was a bright moonlight night,
and all the mountains were gray and silvery, and the city, with its
domes and spires, lay in shadows below, and the Vega was like a fairy
land, with haunted streams gleaming among its dusky groves. On the
highest part of the mountain they lit up a bonfire, according to an old
custom of the country handed down from the Moors. The inhabitants of the
surrounding country were keeping a similar vigil, and bonfires, here and
there in the Vega, and along the folds of the mountains, blazed up
palely in the moonlight.
The evening was gayly passed in dancing to the guitar of Lope Sanchez,
who was never so joyous as when on a holiday revel of the kind. While
the dance was going on, the little Sanchica with some of her playmates
sported among the ruins of an old Moorish fort that crowns the mountain,
when, in gathering pebbles in the fosse, she found a small hand
curiously carved of jet, the fingers closed, and the thumb firmly
clasped upon them. Overjoyed with her good fortune, she ran to her
mother with her prize. It immediately became a subject of sage
speculation, and was eyed by some with superstitious distrust. “Throw it
away,” said one; “it’s Moorish,--depend upon it, there’s mischief and
witchcraft in it.” “By no means,” said another; “you may sell it for
something to the jewellers of the Zacatin.” In the midst of this
discussion an old tawny soldier drew near, who had served in Africa, and
was as swarthy as a Moor. He examined the hand with a knowing look. “I
have seen things of this kind,” said he, “among the Moors of Barbary. It
is a great virtue to guard against the evil eye, and all kinds of spells
and enchantments. I give you joy, friend Lope, this bodes good luck to
your child.”
Upon hearing this, the wife of Lope Sanchez tied the little hand of jet
to a ribbon, and hung it round the neck of her daughter.
The sight of this talisman called up all the favorite superstitions
about the Moors. The dance was neglected, and they sat in groups on the
ground, telling old legendary tales handed down from their ancestors.
Some of their stories turned upon the wonders of the very mountain upon
which they were seated, which is a famous hobgoblin region. One ancient
crone gave a long account of the subterranean palace in the bowels of
that mountain where Boabdil and all his Moslem court are said to remain
enchanted. “Among yonder ruins,” said she, pointing to some crumbling
walls and mounds of earth on a distant part of the mountain, “there is a
deep black pit that goes down, down into the very heart of the mountain.
For all the money in Granada I would not look down into it. Once upon a
time a poor man of the Alhambra, who tended goats upon this mountain,
scrambled down into that pit after a kid that had fallen in. He came out
again all wild and staring, and told such things of what he had seen,
that every one thought his brain was turned. He raved for a day or two
about the hobgoblin Moors that had pursued him in the cavern, and could
hardly be persuaded to drive his goats up again to the mountain. He did
so at last, but, poor man, he never came down again. The neighbors found
his goats browsing about the Moorish ruins, and his hat and mantle
lying near the mouth of the pit, but he was never more heard of.”
The little Sanchica listened with breathless attention to this story.
She was of a curious nature, and felt immediately a great hankering to
peep into this dangerous pit. Stealing away from her companions, she
sought the distant ruins, and, after groping for some time among them,
came to a small hollow, or basin, near the brow of the mountain, where
it swept steeply down into the valley of the Darro. In the centre of
this basin yawned the mouth of the pit. Sanchica ventured to the verge,
and peeped in. All was as black as pitch, and gave an idea of
immeasurable depth. Her blood ran cold; she drew back, then peeped in
again, then would have run away, then took another peep,--the very
horror of the thing was delightful to her. At length she rolled a large
stone, and pushed it over the brink. For some time it fell in silence;
then struck some rocky projection with a violent crash; then rebounded
from side to side, rumbling and tumbling, with a noise like thunder;
then made a final splash into water, far, far below,--and all was again
silent.
The silence, however, did not long continue. It seemed as if something
had been awakened within this dreary abyss. A murmuring sound gradually
rose out of the pit like the hum and buzz of a beehive. It grew louder
and louder; there was the confusion of voices as of a distant multitude,
together with the faint din of arms, clash of cymbals and clangor of
trumpets, as if some army were marshalling for battle in the very bowels
of the mountain.
The child drew off with silent awe, and hastened back to the place where
she had left her parents and their companions. All were gone. The
bonfire was expiring, and its last wreath of smoke curling up in the
moonshine. The distant fires that had blazed along the mountains and in
the Vega were all extinguished, and everything seemed to have sunk to
repose. Sanchica called her parents and some of her companions by name,
but received no reply. She ran down the side of the mountain, and by the
gardens of the Generalife, until she arrived in the alley of trees
leading to the Alhambra, when she seated herself on a bench of a woody
recess, to recover breath. The bell from the watch-tower of the Alhambra
tolled midnight. There was a deep tranquillity as if all nature slept;
excepting the low tinkling sound of an unseen stream that ran under the
covert of the bushes. The breathing sweetness of the atmosphere was
lulling her to sleep, when her eye was caught by something glittering at
a distance, and to her surprise she beheld a long cavalcade of Moorish
warriors pouring down the mountain-side and along the leafy avenues.
Some were armed with lances and shields; others, with cimeters and
battle-axes, and with polished cuirasses that flashed in the moonbeams.
Their horses pranced proudly and champed upon their bits, but their
tramp caused no more sound than if they had been shod with felt, and the
riders were all as pale as death. Among them rode a beautiful lady, with
a crowned head and long golden locks entwined with pearls. The housings
of her palfrey were of crimson velvet embroidered with gold, and swept
the earth; but she rode all disconsolate, with eyes ever fixed upon the
ground.
Then succeeded a train of courtiers magnificently arrayed in robes and
turbans of divers colors, and amidst them, on a cream-colored charger,
rode King Boabdil el Chico, in a royal mantle covered with jewels, and a
crown sparkling with diamonds. The little Sanchica knew him by his
yellow beard, and his resemblance to his portrait, which she had often
seen in the picture-gallery of the Generalife. She gazed in wonder and
admiration at this royal pageant, as it passed glistening among the
trees; but though she knew these monarchs and courtiers and warriors, so
pale and silent, were out of the common course of nature, and things of
magic and enchantment, yet she looked on with a bold heart, such courage
did she derive from the mystic talisman of the hand, which was suspended
about her neck.
The cavalcade having passed by, she rose and followed. It continued on
to the great Gate of Justice, which stood wide open; the old invalid
sentinels on duty lay on the stone benches of the barbican, buried in
profound and apparently charmed sleep, and the phantom pageant swept
noiselessly by them with flaunting banner and triumphant state. Sanchica
would have followed; but to her surprise she beheld an opening in the
earth, within the barbican, leading down beneath the foundations of the
tower. She entered for a little distance, and was encouraged to proceed
by finding steps rudely hewn in the rock, and a vaulted passage here and
there lit up by a silver lamp, which, while it gave light, diffused
likewise a grateful fragrance. Venturing on, she came at last to a great
hall, wrought out of the heart of the mountain, magnificently furnished
in the Moorish style, and lighted up by silver and crystal lamps. Here,
on an ottoman, sat an old man in Moorish dress, with a long white beard,
nodding and dozing, with a staff in his hand, which seemed ever to be
slipping from his grasp; while at a little distance sat a beautiful
lady, in ancient Spanish dress, with a coronet all sparkling with
diamonds, and her hair entwined with pearls, who was softly playing on a
silver lyre. The little Sanchica now recollected a story she had heard
among the old people of the Alhambra, concerning a Gothic princess
confined in the centre of the mountain by an old Arabian magician, whom
she kept bound up in magic sleep by the power of music.
The lady paused with surprise at seeing a mortal in that enchanted hall.
“Is it the eve of the blessed St. John?” said she.
“It is,” replied Sanchica.
“Then for one night the magic charm is suspended. Come hither, child,
and fear not. I am a Christian like thyself, though bound here by
enchantment. Touch my fetters with the talisman that hangs about thy
neck, and for this night I shall be free.”
So saying, she opened her robes and displayed a broad golden band round
her waist, and a golden chain that fastened her to the ground. The child
hesitated not to apply the little hand of jet to the golden band, and
immediately the chain fell to the earth. At the sound the old man woke
and began to rub his eyes; but the lady ran her fingers over the chords
of the lyre, and again he fell into a slumber and began to nod, and his
staff to falter in his hand. “Now,” said the lady, “touch his staff with
the talismanic hand of jet.” The child did so, and it fell from his
grasp, and he sank in a deep sleep on the ottoman. The lady gently laid
the silver lyre on the ottoman, leaning it against the head of the
sleeping magician; then touching the chords until they vibrated in his
ear,--“O potent spirit of harmony,” said she, “continue thus to hold his
senses in thraldom till the return of day. Now follow me, my child,”
continued she, “and thou shalt behold the Alhambra as it was in the days
of its glory, for thou hast a magic talisman that reveals all
enchantments.” Sanchica followed the lady in silence. They passed up
through the entrance of the cavern into the barbican of the Gate of
Justice, and thence to the Plaza de los Algibes, or esplanade within the
fortress.
This was all filled with Moorish soldiery, horse and foot, marshalled in
squadrons, with banners displayed. There were royal guards also at the
portal, and rows of African blacks with drawn cimeters. No one spoke a
word, and Sanchica passed on fearlessly after her conductor. Her
astonishment increased on entering the royal palace, in which she had
been reared. The broad moonshine lit up all the halls and courts and
gardens almost as brightly as if it were day, but revealed a far
different scene from that to which she was accustomed. The walls of the
apartments were no longer stained and rent by time. Instead of cobwebs,
they were now hung with rich silks of Damascus, and the gildings and
arabesque paintings were restored to their original brilliancy and
freshness. The halls, no longer naked and unfurnished, were set out with
divans and ottomans of the rarest stuffs, embroidered with pearls and
studded with precious gems, and all the fountains in the courts and
gardens were playing.
The kitchens were again in full operation; cooks were busy preparing
shadowy dishes, and roasting and boiling the phantoms of pullets and
partridges; servants were hurrying to and fro with silver dishes heaped
up with dainties, and arranging a delicious banquet. The Court of Lions
was thronged with guards, and courtiers, and alfaquis, as in the old
times of the Moors; and at the upper end, in the saloon of judgment, sat
Boabdil on his throne, surrounded by his court, and swaying a shadowy
sceptre for the night. Notwithstanding all this throng and seeming
bustle, not a voice nor a footstep was to be heard; nothing interrupted
the midnight silence but the splashing of the fountains. The little
Sanchica followed her conductress in mute amazement about the palace,
until they came to a portal opening to the vaulted passages beneath the
great Tower of Comares. On each side of the portal sat the figure of a
nymph, wrought out of alabaster. Their heads were turned aside, and
their regards fixed upon the same spot within the vault. The enchanted
lady paused, and beckoned the child to her. “Here,” said she, “is a
great secret, which I will reveal to thee in reward for thy faith and
courage. These discreet statues watch over a treasure hidden in old
times by a Moorish king. Tell thy father to search the spot on which
their eyes are fixed, and he will find what will make him richer than
any man in Granada. Thy innocent hands alone, however, gifted as thou
art also with the talisman, can remove the treasure. Bid thy father use
it discreetly, and devote a part of it to the performance of daily
masses for my deliverance from this unholy enchantment.”
When the lady had spoken these words, she led the child onward to the
little garden of Lindaraxa, which is hard by the vault of the statues.
The moon trembled upon the waters of the solitary fountain in the centre
of the garden, and shed a tender light upon the orange and citron trees.
The beautiful lady plucked a branch of myrtle and wreathed it round the
head of the child. “Let this be a memento,” said she, “of what I have
revealed to thee, and a testimonial of its truth. My hour is come; I
must return to the enchanted hall; follow me not, lest evil befall
thee;--farewell. Remember what I have said, and have masses performed
for my deliverance.” So saying, the lady entered a dark passage leading
beneath the Tower of Comares, and was no longer seen.
The faint crowing of a cock was now heard from the cottages below the
Alhambra, in the valley of the Darro, and a pale streak of light began
to appear above the eastern mountains. A slight wind arose, there was a
sound like the rustling of dry leaves through the courts and corridors,
and door after door shut to with a jarring sound.
Sanchica returned to the scenes she had so lately beheld thronged with
the shadowy multitude, but Boabdil and his phantom court were gone. The
moon shone into empty halls and galleries stripped of their transient
splendor, stained and dilapidated by time, and hung with cobwebs. The
bat flitted about in the uncertain light, and the frog croaked from the
fishpond.
Sanchica now made the best of her way to a remote staircase that led up
to the humble apartment occupied by her family. The door as usual was
open, for Lope Sanchez was too poor to need bolt or bar; she crept
quietly to her pallet, and, putting the myrtle wreath beneath her
pillow, soon fell asleep.
In the morning she related all that had befallen her to her father. Lope
Sanchez, however, treated the whole as a mere dream, and laughed at the
child for her credulity. He went forth to his customary labors in the
garden, but had not been there long when his little daughter came
running to him almost breathless. “Father! father!” cried she, “behold
the myrtle wreath which the Moorish lady bound round my head.”