Well, this is about the way it was. We threw ourselves bravely into
the interminable corridor, a veritable street, or alley at least,
paved with red tiles, feebly lighted with gas jets, and full of
doublings and twistings. Now and then it spread out into broad
openings like little plazas, inundated with sunlight which entered
through large openings from the main court-yard. This illumination
penetrated lengthwise along the white walls of the narrow passageways,
alleys, or tunnels, or whatever they may be called, growing ever
feebler and more uncertain as it went, till finally it fainted away
entirely at sight of the fan-shaped yellow gas flames, smoking little
circlets upon their protecting metal disks. There were uncounted
paneled doors with numbers on them, some newly painted and others
moldering and weather-stained, but not one displaying the figure we
were seeking. At this one you would see a rich silken bell cord, some
happy find in the royal upholstery shop, while the next had nothing
more than a poor frayed rope's-end; and these were an indication of
what was likely to be found within, as to order and neatness or
disarray and squalor. So, too, the mats or bits of carpet laid before
the doors threw a useful light upon the character of the lodgings. We
came upon vacant apartments with cobwebs spun across the openings, and
the door gratings thick with dust, and through broken transoms, drew
chill drafts that conveyed the breath of silence and desolation. Even
whole precincts were abandoned, and the vaultings, of unequal height,
returned the sound of our footsteps hollowly to our ears. We passed up
one stairway, then down another, and then, as likely as not, we would
ascend again.... The labyrinthine maze led us on and ever onward....
"It is useless to come here," at length said Pez, decidedly losing
patience, "without charts and a mariner's compass. I suppose we are
now in the south wing of the palace. The roofs down there must be
those of the Hall of Columns and the outer stairway, are they not?
What a huge mass of a place!" The roofs of which he spoke were great
pyramidal shapes protected with lead, and they covered in the ceilings
on which Bayeu's frescoed cherubs cut their lively pigeon-wings and
pirouettes.
Still going on and on and onward without pause, we found ourselves
shut up in a place without exit, a considerable inclosure lighted from
the top, and we had to turn round and beat a retreat by the way we had
entered. Any one who knows the palace and its symmetrical grandeur
only from without could never divine all these irregularities that
constitute a veritable small town in its upper regions. In truth, for
an entire century there has been but one continual modifying of the
original plan, a stopping up here and an opening there, a condemning
of staircases, a widening of some rooms at the expense of others, a
changing of corridors into living-rooms and of living-rooms into
corridors, and a cutting through of partitions and a shutting up of
windows. You fall in with stairways that begin but never arrive
anywhere, and with balconies that are but the made-over roof coverings
of dwelling-places below. These dove-cotes were once stately
drawing-rooms, and on the other hand, these fine salons have been made
out of the inclosing space of a grand staircase. Then again winding
stairs are frequent; but if you should take them, Heaven knows what
would become of you; and frequent, too, are glazed doors permanently
closed, with naught behind them but silence, dust, and darkness....
"We are looking for the apartment of Don Francisco Bringas."
"Bringas? yes, yes," said an old woman; "you're close to it. All you
have got to do is, go down the first circular stairway you come to,
and then make a half-turn. Bringas? yes to be sure; he's sacristan of
the chapel."
"Sacristan,--he? What is the matter with you? He is head clerk of the
Administrative Department."
"Oh, then he must be lower down, just off the terrace. I suppose you
know your way to the fountain?"
"No, not we."
"You know the stairs called the Caceres Staircase?"
"No, not that either."
"At any rate, you know where the Oratory is?"
"We know nothing about it."
"But the choir of the Oratory? but the dove-cotes?"--
Sum total, we had not the slightest acquaintance with any of that
congeries of winding turns, sudden tricks, and baffling surprises. The
architectural arrangement was a mad caprice, a mocking jest at all
plan and symmetry. Nevertheless, despite our notable lack of
experience we stuck to our quest, and even carried our infatuation so
far as to reject the services of a boy who offered himself as our
guide.
"We are now in the wing facing on the Plaza de Oriente," said Pez;
"that is to say, at exactly the opposite extreme from the wing in
which our friend resides." His geographical notions were delivered
with the gravity and conviction of some character in Jules Verne.
"Hence, the problem now demanding our attention is by what route to
get from here to the western wing. In the first place, the cupola of
the chapel and the grand stairway roof-covering furnish us with a
certain basis; we should take our bearings from them. I assume that,
having once arrived in the western wing, we shall be numskulls indeed
if we do not strike Bringas's abode. All the same, I for one will
never return to these outlandish regions without a pocket compass, and
what is more, without a good supply of provender too, against such
emergencies as this."
Before striking out on the new stage of our explorations, as thus
projected, we paused to look down from the window. The Plaza de
Oriente lay below us in a beautiful panorama, and beyond it a portion
of Madrid crested with at least fifty cupolas, steeples, and bell
towers. The equestrian Philip IV. appeared a mere toy, and the Royal
Theatre a paltry shed.... The doves had their nests far below where we
stood, and we saw them, by pairs or larger groups, plunge headlong
downward into the dizzy abyss, and then presently come whirling upward
again, with swift and graceful motion, and settle on the carved
capitals and moldings. It is credibly stated that all the political
revolutions do not matter a jot to these doves, and there is nothing
either in the ancient pile they inhabit or in the free realms of air
around it, to limit their sway. They remain undisputed masters of the
place.
Away we go once more. Pez begins to put the geographical notions he
has acquired from the books of Jules Verne yet further into practice.
At every step he stops to say to me, "Now we are making our way
northward.--We shall undoubtedly soon find a road or trail on our
right, leading to the west.--There is no cause to be alarmed in
descending this winding stairway to the second story.--Good, it is
done! Well, bless me! where are we now? I don't see the main dome any
longer, not so much as a lightning-rod of it.--We are in the realms of
the feebly flickering gas once more.--Suppose we ascend again by this
other stairway luckily just at hand. What now? Well, here we are back
again in the eastward wing and nothing else, just where we were
before. Are we? no, yes; see, down there in the court the big dome is
still on our right. There's a regular grove of chimney stacks. You may
believe it or not, but this sort of thing begins to make my head swim;
it seems as if the whole place gave a lurch now and then, like a ship
at sea.--The fountain must be over that way, do you see? for the maids
are coming and going from there with their pitchers.--Oh well, I for
one give the whole thing up. We want a guide, and an expert, or we'll
never get out of this. I can't take another step; we've walked miles
and I can't stand on my legs.--Hey, there, halloo! send us a
guide!--Oh for a guide! Get me out of this infernal tangle
quickly!"...
We came at last to Bringas's apartment. When we got there, we
understood how we must have passed it, earlier, without knowing it,
for its number was quite rubbed out and invisible.
Translation of William Henry Bishop.