THE
TRAIN WAS HALF-EMPTY when it left Seville, but,
as it came up through the open fields, each hamlet
added to its load, and, gradually, as it approached
Cordoba, it became ominously crowded. The Spanish
peasants seemed bent on having a holiday, judged
by their numbers. Their costumes were drab, and
were unrelieved by any high colour, and there
was no excitement, and no volubility, but the
holiday quest was evident. It was late in May,
and, filling all the sky, was the ringing bell-note
of Spanish sunlight. One could not escape from
its vibration, mild, but penetrating, that went
through the landscape, though the people and your
own being with a quiet persistence. It seemed
a medium in which life was floated, like a silent
music under the main complexity of an audible
music. The humanity that was rolling along to
Cordoba seemed absorbed and dull, with a festive
intention surely, but without joyousness. To the
traveller who had no accommodation secured in
the strange city, the crowd was a menace. Where
was Cordoba to house all these visitors? But the
thought that they were peasants was reassuring,
they would not demand the high luxuries of hotels
warmly recommended by the guide-books. The thought
was delusive. I had come up with the peasants,
but the señors had preceded them and had
taken all the rooms in all the hotels, even in
those too inferior to be mentioned in guide-books.
A hurried examination of the town, in the company
of a local courier, with polyglot pretensions,
self-introduced, and burdened with the name Miguel
de Molina, proved that I was unexpected, unprovided,
shut out. The dolorous occasion to persons who
had come to see the famous mosque was some sort
of annual fair, complicated with a bull fight.
The
air was filled with hot dust; even the gold-brown
light under the awnings in the Conde Gondomar
was thick with it.
The
courier disappeared on a final, desperate quest;
if he were unsuccessful, all that remained was
the hope of a vacant chair in the hall of the
hotel and a night of vigil. While he was searching
the obscure lodging-houses or unheard-of pensions
of Cordoba, I wandered about the streets, hidden
in the crowd. In the throng there was an absence
of rhythm, not even a distant sound of guitars,
only the shuffling of feet and rolling of Spanish.
The one dumb Canadian in the crowd suddenly felt
the pressure of this people as a sort of menace,
so indifferent were they, not only to him and
his small miseries, but even to themselves and
their own pleasures. Just as he resolved to escape,
and take asylum in the hotel, the courier broke
through with a happy face, gesticulating, and
made plain in four languages that he had found
a nook of refuge, a poor place, but absolutely
the last, highly expensive, but reduced by parley
and expert bargaining to the ultimate peseta,
if the “gentlemen” would deign to
accept it! Evidently he wished me to become as
excited as he appeared to be, and I followed him
down a narrow lane off the Pasco del Gran Capitan,
as he dashed through an arched gateway into a
wide yard, took a sharp turn, rushed up a flight
of steps, and stood agitated and breathless in
a bare ill-lighted room.
“This?”
“Not
at all, the room before—beyond!”
The
“beyond” room was a large, vaulted
chamber, forty feet square, lighted by one window
in an alcove, a huge fireplace, great blue flagstones
on the floor, bare, grey-washed walls. In the
center of this desolation was a doubtful-looking
brown bedstead, and an antiquated washstand, with
a basin and ewer. The alcove was curtained by
two ill-assorted draperies, one of rough drugget,
in horizontal stripes of red and blue, the other
a piece of crimson brocade, magnificent enough
for a cardinal’s audience chamber. Delicate
reference was made to the bed. The bed was an
honorable bed, time-worn, but immaculate; as easy
to capture a goldfish in the Sahara desert as
to find one! No more to be said.
“The
rate?”
“A
mere nothing,— 30 pesetas for the night.”
“A
monstrous charge.”
“Consider
the pain I suffered to find this nook—30
pesetas for the night and 10 pesetas for the day.”
“Scandalous!”
The
courier, Miguel de Molina, leaned against the
huge chimney-brace, hid his face, and showed signs
of deep grief.
“Consider
the traditions!”
“The
traditions, what traditions?”
“In
the old years this was a palace, part of one great
palace-house,—rich life here in the old
years.”
“Well,
I suppose one should pay for lodging in a palace;
bring the luggage.”
The
ponderous key of the outer door was delivered
over,—turn it in the huge oak lock, and
I would be safely immured as in a fortress, for
it was the only entrance. The window was covered
by a grating, morticed into the outer wall. On
the other side of the lane, I saw, seated on a
low, iron balcony, an old woman, and a young woman,
one in white, one in black. The young one had
an oval, ivory-pale face, and wore a red rose
in her night-black hair.
If this
apartment had ever been swept and garnished, it
was after the expulsion of the Moors. The dust spread
over the whitewashed walls in a grey film. Some
ancient amateur had sketched a human profile in
the plaster of the fireplace, and the dust had outlined
it in grey-silver. The foot of the bed was toward
the fireplace; to the right of the bed, in the corner,
there were traces in the wall of what had once been
an arched portal, which led to some distant magnificence,
but it had been built up solidly long ago. The necessary,
obvious furniture stood nakedly there in the midst
of this stony chamber, and the group was presided
over by one candle in a high, pewter candlestick.
Just at dusk I escaped from the dregs of dinner,
and went down the lane to the chamber. Temptation
had disappeared from the balcony, and I looked at
the window-grating with a feeling of safety. By
the extinguishment of the candle, I was engulfed
in the cavern; there was a moment of terrifying
gloom before the eyelids closed, and made the familiar
darkness.
After an interval of
how many moments or hours of deep slumber, induced
by fatigue, I found myself quietly contemplating
a scene that was suspended before my eyes in the
glow of a mild, but radiant light. I was looking
directly at the huge fireplace, in which a fire
was burning without vigour, and without sound.
No shadows were thrown by the pervasive light
that welled up in the room from some hidden source.
I was a musing spectator, curious, not at all
apprehensive. Before the fireplace was an oblong
table; moving about the table was a dwarf, a woman.
She had a mare’s face, long and bony. Her
dress was made of coarse drugget, woven in broad
stripes of dull blue and red. As if by magic,
a cloth appeared in her hands,—heavy with
glistening silver thread on a crimson ground.
She spread it ceremoniously on the table; it hung
stiffly like the covering of an altar. Hardly
had she smoothed and adjusted it when she stepped
close to the fireplace, her eyes fixed on the
wall to the right of the bed. A procession came
through the wall, as through a free and ample
entrance, pacing gravely and with import. The
leader was a tall figure in black, with a clear
white ruff around his neck, his face was severe,
narrow and pallid. He bore a long, silver-headed
staff in his hand. He was followed by a page,
who carried a black velvet bag, which he held
by a silver cord extended before him. Next came
a man whose arms were bound to the staff of a
short spear thrust between his elbows behind his
back. His sensitive face was agitated, and ghostly
white. He was followed by several determined-looking
men, whose garb was soldierly, one whom carried
a large portfolio. The march was soundless, but
rhythmical, as if timed by vanished music. When
they reached the fireplace, the soldiers unbound
the prisoner, and seated him at the table. The
portfolio was slanted before him like a drawing-board,
and he took a crayon in his hand. The page gave
the bag to the dwarf, who held it while he extracted
something from it. He turned and faced the prisoner,
holding up a human head, the head of a youth.
The profile was of ethereal beauty, the whole
form of an ideal contour, blanched and delicate.
The clustering black hair was chiseled in crisp
waves over the forehead, the lashes on the arched
eyelids lay densely on the youthful cheek. The
page held the head high, and well in front of
his breast, his fingers hidden in the hair between
the ears. The prisoner began at once to draw,
glancing at the head fearsomely from time to time.
On his left hand, which clutched the drawing-board,
there was a deep, red stain. He worked skilfully,
swiftly, and, as he worked, a change came over
the scene. I realized that at first it had been
tremulous, with a sort of inward emotion, but
it began to steady, and took a beautiful clarity.
The expression of the faces changed,—severity
passed. The artist grew less and less agitated,
and his expression became tranquil, the stain
on his hand faded and disappeared. When he had
finished, there was a moment of intense and critical
examination of the work, although the group behind
him was moveless. Then the procession reformed,
and, pacing with a satisfied motion, as if returning
from an expiatory rite, they disappeared through
the portal of the solid wall. The page and the
dwarf had vanished. Then a sharp, black shadow,
stiff as a steel shield, rose from the floor in
front of the fireplace, gathering the firelight
as it went, until it cut off the reflection sharp
against the ceiling. The dark was intense.
Settlement was made with
Miguel de Molina in broad daylight.
“I hope the gentlemen
had a good night?”
“Excellent.”
“The bed?”
“Impeccable!”
“The charge you
think now altogether not too, too scandalous?”
A peculiar shadow came into his eyes.
“No, after all,
Don Miguel de Molina, it was not too, too scandalous.”
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