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Page 55
"I now felt the poetic merit of the Arabic inscription on the
walls: 'How beauteous is this garden; where the flowers of the
earth vie with the stars of heaven. What can compare with the vase
of yon alabaster fountain filled with crystal water? nothing but
the moon in her fullness, shining in the midst of an unclouded
sky!'
"On such heavenly nights I would sit for hours at my window
inhaling the sweetness of the garden, and musing on the checkered
fortunes of those whose history was dimly shadowed out in the
elegant memorials around. Sometimes, when all was quiet, and the
clock from the distant cathedral of Granada struck the midnight
hour, I have sallied out on another tour and wandered over the
whole building; but how different from my first tour! No longer
dark and mysterious; no longer peopled with shadowy foes; no longer
recalling scenes of violence and murder; all was open, spacious,
beautiful; everything called up pleasing and romantic fancies;
Lindaraxa once more walked in her garden; the gay chivalry of
Moslem Granada once more glittered about the Court of Lions! Who
can do justice to a moonlight night in such a climate and such a
place? The temperature of a summer midnight in Andalusia is
perfectly ethereal. We seem lifted up into a purer atmosphere; we
feel a serenity of soul, a buoyancy of spirits, an elasticity of
frame, which render mere existence happiness. But when moonlight is
added to all this, the effect is like enchantment. Under its
plastic sway the Alhambra seems to regain its pristine glories.
Every rent and chasm of time, every mouldering tint and
weather-stain, is gone; the marble resumes its original whiteness;
the long colonnades brighten in the moonbeams; the halls are
illuminated with a softened radiance,--we tread the enchanted
palace of an Arabian tale!
"What a delight, at such a time, to ascend to the little airy
pavilion of the queen's toilet (el tocador de la reyna), which,
like a bird-cage, overhangs the valley of the Darro, and gaze from
its light arcades upon the moonlight prospect! To the right, the
swelling mountains of the Sierra Nevada, robbed of their
ruggedness and softened into a fairy land, with their snowy summits
gleaming like silver clouds against the deep blue sky. And then to
lean over the parapet of the Tocador and gaze down upon Granada and
the Albaycin spread out like a map below; all buried in deep
repose; the white palaces and convents sleeping in the moonshine,
and beyond all these the vapory vega fading away like a dreamland
in the distance.
"Sometimes the faint click of castanets rise from the Alameda,
where some gay Andalusians are dancing away the summer night.
Sometimes the dubious tones of a guitar and the notes of an amorous
voice, tell perchance the whereabout of some moonstruck lover
serenading his lady's window.
"Such is a faint picture of the moonlight nights I have passed
loitering about the courts and halls and balconies of this most
suggestive pile; 'feeding my fancy with sugared suppositions,' and
enjoying that mixture of reverie and sensation which steal away
existence in a southern climate; so that it has been almost morning
before I have retired to bed, and been lulled to sleep by the
falling waters of the fountain of Lindaraxa."
One of the writer's vantage points of observation was a balcony of the
central window of the Hall of Ambassadors, from which he had a
magnificent prospect of mountain, valley, and vega, and could look down
upon a busy scene of human life in an alameda, or public walk, at the
foot of the hill, and the suburb of the city, filling the narrow gorge
below. Here the author used to sit for hours, weaving histories out of
the casual incidents passing under his eye, and the occupations of the
busy mortals below. The following passage exhibits his power in
transmuting the commonplace life of the present into material perfectly
in keeping with the romantic associations of the place:--
"There was scarce a pretty face or a striking figure that I daily
saw, about which I had not thus gradually framed a dramatic story,
though some of my characters would occasionally act in direct
opposition to the part assigned them, and disconcert the whole
drama. Reconnoitring one day with my glass the streets of the
Albaycin, I beheld the procession of a novice about to take the
veil; and remarked several circumstances which excited the
strongest sympathy in the fate of the youthful being thus about to
be consigned to a living tomb. I ascertained to my satisfaction
that she was beautiful, and, from the paleness of her cheek, that
she was a victim rather than a votary. She was arrayed in bridal
garments, and decked with a chaplet of white flowers, but her heart
evidently revolted at this mockery of a spiritual union, and
yearned after its earthly loves. A tall stern-looking man walked
near her in the procession: it was, of course, the tyrannical
father, who, from some bigoted or sordid motive, had compelled this
sacrifice. Amid the crowd was a dark handsome youth, in Andalusian
garb, who seemed to fix on her an eye of agony. It was doubtless
the secret lover from whom she was forever to be separated. My
indignation rose as I noted the malignant expression painted on the
countenances of the attendant monks and friars. The procession
arrived at the chapel of the convent; the sun gleamed for the last
time upon the chaplet of the poor novice, as she crossed the fatal
threshold and disappeared within the building. The throng poured in
with cowl, and cross, and minstrelsy; the lover paused for a moment
at the door. I could divine the tumult of his feelings; but he
mastered them, and entered. There was a long interval. I pictured
to myself the scene passing within: the poor novice despoiled of
her transient finery, and clothed in the conventual garb; the
bridal chaplet taken from her brow, and her beautiful head shorn of
its long silken tresses. I heard her murmur the irrevocable vow. I
saw her extended on a bier; the death-pall spread over her; the
funeral service performed that proclaimed her dead to the world;
her sighs were drowned in the deep tones of the organ, and the
plaintive requiem of the nuns; the father looked on, unmoved,
without a tear; the lover--no--my imagination refused to portray
the anguish of the lover--there the picture remained a blank.
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