We arrived before a great gateway that shut in the street; Gongora said
to me, “Here we are!” I entered.
I found myself in a great grove of trees of immeasurable height
inclining towards each other on both sides of a wide avenue that
ascends the hill and is lost in the shade; they are so close together
that a man can pass between them with difficulty and wherever you look,
you can see nothing but trunks so thickly set that they seem to shut
in the road like a continuous wall. The trees interlace their branches
above the avenue; not a ray of sunlight can penetrate the wood; the
shade is dense, and from every side the rivulets murmur and the
nightingales sing. You breathe here the freshness of spring.
“We are already in the Alhambra,” Gongora said to me, “turn around and
you will see the towers and the embattled walls of the enclosure.”
“But where is the palace?” I asked.
“That is a secret,” he answered, “let us walk on at random.”
We advanced by an avenue parallel to the great central road, and one
that wound towards the summit of the hill. The trees above our heads
formed a roof of verdure that hid the sky; and the grass, the
brushwood and the flowers made on both sides two charming espaliers of
brightness.
“Here is the gateway!” cried Gongora.
I turned around as if I had been pushed, and I saw a few steps before
me a large square tower, of a sombre red, crowned with embattlements,
and its door surmounted by a horseshoe arch upon which you saw
sculptured a key and a hand.
[Illustration: THE ALHAMBRA, SPAIN.]
My guide told me that it was the principal entrance to the Alhambra,
and that it was called the Gate of Justice, because the Arab Kings
were accustomed to pronounce their sentences beneath that arch. The
key means that this door is the key to the fortress, and the hand is
the symbol of the five principal precepts of Islam: Prayer, Fasting,
Benevolence, Holy War, and Pilgrimage to Mecca.
We passed under the gate, and continued to ascend by an embanked road:
finally we came to the top of the hill, in the middle of an esplanade
surrounded by a parapet and set with bushes and flowers. I was standing
before a great palace in the style of the Renaissance, half in ruins
and flanked by some small and miserable-looking houses.
We entered through a little doorway, crossed a corridor, and found
ourselves in a court.
We were in the _patio de los Arraynes_ (Court of the Myrtles),
which is the largest in the building, and which presents at once the
appearance of a court, a hall, and a garden. A large rectangular
basin, full of water, surrounded by a hedge of myrtle, extends from
one side to the other of the _patio_, and mirrors the arches,
the arabesques, and inscriptions of the walls. To the right of the
entrance are two rows of Moorish arches, placed one upon the other, and
upheld by light columns; and on the opposite side of the court rises
a tower with a door, through which may be seen the half-dark interior
halls and the tiny twin-windows, and beyond the windows the blue sky
and the peaks of the distant mountains. The walls are ornamented up to
a certain height with splendid mosaics, and from the mosaics upward to
the ceiling with arabesques of the most delicate design, which seem
to scintillate and change at every step; and here and there between
the arabesques and along the arches, Arabic inscriptions comprising
salutations, sentences, and proverbs wind about and interlace like
garlands.
Near the entrance one reads in Kufic characters: “Salvation
eternal!--Benediction!--Prosperity!--Felicity!--Praise be to God for
the welfare of Islam!”
In another place you see written: “I seek my refuge in the God of the
Dawn.” Elsewhere: “O God, to Thee we owe eternal thanks and undying
praise!”
In other places there are verses from the Koran, and entire poems in
praise of the caliphs.
We entered the tower called the Tower of Comares, or vulgarly, of the
Ambassadors.
The interior of the tower forms two halls; the first is called the
Hall of the Boat: some persons say because it is shaped like a boat;
others, because it was called by the Arabs Hall of the Baraka, or
benediction, a word which the ignorant have corrupted into that of
boat (_barca_). This hall does not seem of human workmanship; it
is nothing but a stupendous interlacing of embroideries in the form of
garlands, rose-work, branches, and leaves that cover the ceiling, the
arches, the walls, on all sides, and in every way, crowded together,
twisted, in net-work, one upon another, and combined in such a manner
that they are all seen in a single glance and present an astonishing
magnificence and an enchanting grace. I went up to one of the walls, I
fastened my gaze at the beginning of an arabesque and tried to follow
its twistings and windings: impossible! the eye loses itself, the mind
becomes confused, and all the arabesques from the pavement to the
ceiling seem to move and commingle to make you lose the thread of their
inextricable net-work. You may make an effort not to look around you,
concentrate your attention upon one little place of the wall, put your
very nose in it, and trace the design with your finger: it is useless;
in one minute the patterns become involved, a veil spreads between the
wall and yourself, and your arm falls. The wall seems to you to be
woven like a textile, crinkled like brocade, of open-work like lace,
and veined like a leaf; you cannot look at it closely, you cannot fix
the design in your mind,--that would be like counting the ants in an
ant-hill.
After having looked around me a little, Gongora pushed me into the
great Hall of the Ambassadors, which occupies the entire interior of
the tower, for the Hall of the Barca in reality belongs to a little
building, which although joined to the tower, is not a part of it.
The Hall is square, very spacious, and lighted by nine large arched
windows, in the form of doors, which present almost the aspect of
alcoves, so thick are the walls; and each one of them is divided in two
by a little column of marble that supports two elegant little arches,
surmounted in their turn by two little arched windows. The walls are
covered with mosaics and arabesques of an indescribable delicacy and
variety of form, and innumerable inscriptions that are spread out like
broad, embroidered ribbons over the arches of the windows, in the
corners, upon the friezes, and around the niches where they placed
vases filled with flowers and perfumed waters. The ceiling, which is
very high, is composed of pieces of cedar wood, white, gilt, and blue,
united in the form of circles, stars, and crowns; it forms a number of
little domes, cells, and tiny arched windows from which a soft light
falls; and from the cornice that joins the ceiling to the walls hang
bits of stucco cut in facets and worked like stalactites and bunches of
flowers. The throne stood in the centre before the window and opposite
the door of entrance. From the windows on this side, you enjoy a
magnificent view of the valley of the Darro; so deep and silent that it
seems as if it must be fascinated by the majestic Alhambra; from the
windows of the two other sides you see the walls of the enclosure and
the towers of the fortress; and from the side of the entrance, in the
distance, the light arches of the Court of Myrtles, and the waters of
the basin reflecting the azure of the sky.
We left the tower with rapid steps, crossed the Court of Myrtles,
and came in front of a little door opposite the entrance. We went
about fifteen steps and stopped. We were in the Court of the Lions.
If at this moment I had been forced to leave just as I had entered,
I do not know if I could have described what I had seen. A forest
of columns, a labyrinth of arches and embroideries, an indefinable
elegance, an unimaginable delicacy, a prodigious richness, and I don’t
know what that was aërial, transparent, and undulating, it was like a
great pavilion of lace; the appearance of a building that would fall
by a breath, a variety of lights, perspectives, mysterious shadows,
confusion, a capricious disorder of little things, the majesty
of a little palace, the gaiety of a kiosk, an amorous grace, an
extravagance, a delight, a phantasy of a young and passionate maiden,
an angel’s dream, a madness, a thing without a name; such is the first
effect of the Court of Lions.
This is a court larger than a great ball-room, rectangular in form,
with walls as high as one of the little Andalusian houses of one story.
A light portico runs around it supported by graceful little columns
of white marble, grouped in symmetrical disorder, by twos and threes
almost without a base so that they seem to be starting from the earth
like the trunks of trees, and adorned with varied capitals, tall and
delicate, in the form of little pillars upon which curve tiny arches
of the most graceful form. These arches seem not leaning upon, but
suspended over the columns: one might call them curtains arranged upon
the columns like ribbons or floating garlands. From the centre of the
shortest sides, there advance two groups of columns that form two
kinds of little square temples, each of nine arches, surmounted by a
little cupola of many colours. The walls of these little temples and
the outside wall of the portico are a veritable lace-work in stucco;
they are ornamented, embroidered, bordered, cut and perforated from
one side to the other, transparent as a web, and changing in design at
your approach; here, flowers are nestling in the arabesques; there,
stars; and farther away, bucklers, squares, and polygonal figures
covered with ornaments of an infinite delicacy. All this ends in
jagged points, in festoons, in ribbons fluttering around the arches,
in species of stalactites, fringes, pear-shaped drops and acorns, that
seem to undulate with the least breath of air. Long Arabic inscriptions
run the entire length of the four walls, above the arches, upon the
capitals, and upon the walls of the little temples. In the centre of
the court there rises a great marble basin, upheld by twelve lions,
and surrounded by a paved canal, from which gush four other small
canals, that, describing a cross between the four sides of the court,
cross the portico, dart into the neighbouring halls and unite with
the other conduits cutting through the entire edifice. Behind the two
little temples, and in the middle of the two other sides, there open
suites of halls with immense open doorways, that allow you to see the
dark background upon which the little white columns gleam as if they
stood before the mouth of a grotto. At every step one takes into the
court, this forest of columns seems to move and disarrange itself to
arrange itself in a new way; behind a column that seems to stand
alone, two, three, or sometimes a file of them, will show themselves;
others will disappear, others will approach each other, and others
will separate; in looking into the depths of one of these halls, you
see everything change: the arches on the opposite side seem to be far
away; the columns seem out of place, the little temples assume another
form; you see through the very walls, you discover new arches and new
columns, here in the bright sunlight, there in the shadow, elsewhere
half illuminated by the soft light that passes through the perforations
of the carving, and farther away they are lost in the darkness. Here is
a continual changing of perspectives, distances, deceptions, mysteries,
and optical illusions made by the architecture and the sunlight and
your own over-excited and burning imagination.
“What must this _patio_ have been,” said Gongora, “when the
interior walls of the portico were glistening with mosaics, the
capitals of the columns gleaming with gold, the ceilings and vaults
painted in a thousand colours, the doorways closed by hangings of silk,
and the niches filled with flowers; and when beneath the temples and
in the halls perfumed waters flowed, and when from the nostrils of the
lions dashed forth twelve jets of water that fell back into the basin,
and when the air was impregnated with the most delicious perfumes of
Arabia! You should come here at sunrise; you should also come here at
sunset and at moonlight to see the marvels of colour, light and shade!
It would turn your head!”
We went to see the halls. On the eastern side there is one called the
Hall of Justice, which you reach by passing under three large arches,
each one taking the place of a door opening into the court. It is a
long and narrow hall, of rich and bold architecture, the walls of
which are covered with very intricate arabesques and precious mosaics,
with points, bunches, and protuberances of stucco hanging from the
arches, which crowd together, drop, spring from, press upon, and are
superimposed upon each other, as if they disputed the very space, and
showing even now traces of ancient colours which must have given to
this ceiling the semblance of suspended fruits and flowers.
On the northern side of the court there is another hall called _de
las Hermanas_ (the Two Sisters) from two large slabs of marble
that are found in the pavement. It is the most gracious hall of the
Alhambra. It is small, square, and domed with one of those vaults in
the form of a cupola which the Spaniards call half-oranges, sustained
by little columns and arches arranged in a circle, all cut to resemble
a grotto of stalactites with an infinity of points and holes, coloured
and gilded and so light that they seem to the eye as if hanging in
the air: you would think that they would tremble like a curtain, at a
touch, or evaporate like a cloud, or vanish like a lot of soap-bubbles.
The walls of stucco, like those of the other halls, and covered with
arabesques, of an incredible delicacy, are among the most astonishing
productions of human fancy and patience.
We returned to the Court of the Myrtles, and visited the halls on the
other side of the Tower of Comares, most of them half ruined, others
transformed, some of them half bare, without either pavement or roof,
but all worthy of being seen because of the memories they awaken, and
also in order to understand the construction of the building. The old
mosque was converted into a chapel by Charles V. and a large Arabian
hall into an oratory; here and there you noticed the _débris_ of
arabesques and ceilings of carved cedar; the galleries, the courts, and
the vestibules seemed the remains of a palace devoured by fire.
At this point I truly thought that there was nothing more to be seen,
and I committed the fresh imprudence of saying so to Gongora. At this
blow he could no longer contain himself, and, leading me into the
vestibule of the Court of Myrtles, before a plan of the building that
hung upon the wall, he said:
“Look around you, and you will see that all the halls, all the courts,
and all the towers that we have visited up to now, only occupy the
twentieth part of the space enclosed by the walls of the Alhambra; you
see that we have not yet visited the remains of three other mosques,
the ruins of the Hall of the Cadi, the Water-Tower, the Tower of the
Infantas, the Tower of the Prisoner, the Tower of Candil, the Tower
of the Pico, the Tower of the Poignards, the Tower of the _Siete
Melos_, the Tower of the Captain, the Tower of the Sorcerer,
the Tower of the Heads, the Tower of the Weapons, the Tower of the
Hidalgos, the Tower of the Chickens, the Tower of the Dice, the Tower
of Homage, the Tower of the Vela, the Tower of the Powder, the ruins
of the house of Mondejar, the military quarters, the Iron Gate, the
interior walls, the cisterns, and the promenades; for you must know
that the Alhambra is not solely a palace, but a town, and that it would
take a lifetime to search for arabesques, to read inscriptions and to
discover each day some new view of the hills and mountains, falling
into an ecstasy once at least during the twenty-four hours!”
And I thought I had seen the Alhambra.