Part 5 (2/2)

And their breath goes silently upward, Far up to the white burning stars, With a message of sweetness, half sorrow, Unknown but to souls that bear scars.

Here, midway between stars and flowers, I know not which draw me the most: Shall my years yield earthly sweetness?

Shall I s.h.i.+ne from the sky like a ghost?

A spirit I cannot quiet Bids me bow to the unseen rod; I dream of a lily transplanted, To bloom in the garden of G.o.d.

Yet the footsteps come nearer and nearer; Still moans the soft-troubled strain Of the strings in the dusk. Well I know it: 'Twas called for me ”Flower of Spain.”

Ah, yes! my lover he made it, And called it by my pet name: I hear it, and--I'm but a woman-- It sweeps through my heart like a flame.

The night's heart and mine flow together; The music is beating for each.

The moon's gone, the nightingale silent; Light and song are both in his speech.

As the musky shadows that mingle, As star-s.h.i.+ne and flower-scent made one, Our spirits in gladness and anguish Have met: their waiting is done.

But over the leaves and the waters What echoes the strange clanging bells Send afloat from the dim-arched Mezquita!

How mournful the cadence that swells

From the lonely roof of the convent Where pale nuns rest! On the hill, Far off, the hermits in vigil Are bowed at the crucifix still;

And the brown plain slumbers around us....

O land of remembrance and grief, If I am truly the flower, How withered are you, the leaf!

[Ill.u.s.tration: DIFFICULT FOR FOREIGNERS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE JASMINE GIRL.]

There was a good deal of discussion among our group of pilgrims as to the propriety of a foundation like the Hermitage of the Sierra continuing to exist in an age like the present one. Whetstone, who had declined to visit it, was of opinion that men who led such idle lives should be suppressed by law, and even went so far as to talk about hanging them. So singular a theory, emanating from a citizen of a free republic, met with some opposition; but this was not pushed too far, because we understood that Whetstone kept a hotel at home, and dreaded lest some day we should be at his mercy. As for the rest of us, it was not easy to p.r.o.nounce that we were of much more value than the hermits; and a.s.suredly those earnest ascetics compared favorably with our mule-driver, who was remarkable only for an expression of incipient humor that was never able to attain the height of actual expression. I was sure that, as he sighed out his final ”Arre” in this world, he would pa.s.s into the next with that vacant smile on his face, and the joke which he might have perpetrated under fortunate circ.u.mstances still unuttered. Nor did the average life of Cordova strike us as signally indispensable to the world's progress. It was doubtless a very pleasant, lazy life so far as it went, and we did not decide to hang the inhabitants! They have a charming fas.h.i.+on there of building houses with pleasant interior courts, in which the _sclinda_, a vine with pale lavender cl.u.s.ters of blossoms suggesting the wistaria, droops amid matted foliage, and lends its grace alike to crumbling architecture or modern masonry. In these courts, separated from the street by gates of iron grating beautifully designed, you will see pleasant little domestic groups, and possibly a whole dinner-party going on in the fresh air. It was likewise agreeable to repair to a certain restaurant--restored in the Moorish manner--and there, while clapping hands echoed through the light arcades, drink iced beer and lemon--a refres.h.i.+ng beverage, which might reasonably take the place of fiery punches (in America) for hot weather. ”Neither will I deny,” said Velveteen, ”that it is a wonderful sensation to stray into the Plaza de Geron Paez and come up suddenly against that glorious old Roman gate--growing up as naturally as the trees in front of it, but so much more wonderful than they--with its fine crumbling yellow traceries. How nicely it would tell in a sketch, eh, with some of the royal grooms--the _remontistas_--walking through the foreground in their quaint costumes!”

The men to whom he referred wear, in the best sense, a thoroughly theatrical garb of scarlet and black, finished off by boots of Cordovan leather in the style of sixteenth-century Spain, turned down at the top, laced, ta.s.selled, and slashed open by a curve that runs from the side down to the back of the heel. This shows the white stocking under short trousers, giving to the masculine calf and ankle a grace for which they are usually denied all credit.

For the rest, dwellers in modern Cordova attend ma.s.s and vespers, stroll around to the confectioners' of an afternoon to eat sweetmeats, especially sugared _higochumbos_ (the unripe p.r.i.c.kly-pear boiled in syrup), or the famed and fragrant preserve of budding orange-blossoms known as _dulces de alzahar_; and the remainder of the time they while away pleasantly in loitering on the Street of the Great Captain, or in peering from their windows at whatever pa.s.ses beneath. Throughout the kingdom, it should be said, a most extraordinary persistence will be observed in dawdling, strolling, and general contemplation. The Spaniard appears to be born with his legs in a walking position, and with loaded eyes that compel him to look out of the window whether he wants to or not.

One of the more remarkable observations, finally, that I collected in Cordova came from Manuel. It was his reflection as he gazed down from the Desierta into the plain: ”Ah, that was where John Dove (Juan Palom) did such splendid things!” he sighed. ”You don't know about John Dove?

Well, he was one of the _very greatest_ men Spain ever had; he was a robber--and oh, what a beautiful robber!”

_ANDALUSIA AND THE ALHAMBRA._

I.

[Ill.u.s.tration: S]

Seville--why should we not keep the proper and more euphonious form, Sevilla?--the home of that Don Juan on whom Byron and Mozart have shed a l.u.s.tre more enviable than his reputation, has been made familiar to every one by melodious Figaro as well; and more lately Merimee's Carmen, veiled in the music of Bizet, has brought it into the foreign consciousness again.

To me it is memorable as the place where I saw the jars in which the Forty Thieves were smothered. Worried by a painfully profuse odor that filled the whole street, one day I sought the cause, and found it in an olive-oil merchant's _tienda_, where there were some terra-cotta jars of the exact form given in the story-books, and afflicted with elephantiasis to such a degree that one or two men could easily have hidden in each. I am sure they were the same into which Morgiana poured the boiling oil, though why it should have been heated is inexplicable: the smell alone ought to have been fatal.

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