CHAPTER V NOBLE AND ANCIENT ANCESTRAL HOMES!

A WEEK later, on a rainy day which recalled that of his first visit, Quentin approached the palace. In spite of his Epicureanism and his B?otianism, he dared not enter; he passed by without stopping until he reached the Campo de la Madre de Dios.

He leaned over the railing on the river bank. The Guadalquivir was muddy, clay-coloured: some fishermen in black boats were casting their nets near the Martos dam and mill: others, with poles, perched upon the rocks of the Murallón, were patiently waiting for the shad to bite.

Quentin returned to the Calle del Sol disgusted with his weakness, but as soon as he reached the house, his energy again disappeared. Fortunately for him, the man who had opened the gate for him a few days before was seated on a stone bench in the vestibule.

“Good-afternoon,” said Quentin.

“Good-afternoon, Se?or. Did you come to see the Marquis?”

“No; I was just out for a walk.”

“Won’t you come in?”

“Very well, I’ll come in for a while.”

The old man opened the gate, shut it again, and they[55] went down the long gallery. At the end of it, after climbing two steps, they came into the garden. It was large and beautiful: the walls were hidden by the fan-shaped foliage of the orange and lemon trees. Close-trimmed myrtles lined the walks, and underfoot, yellow and green moss carpeted the stones.

“I have taken care of this garden for fifty years,” said the man.

“Caramba!”

“Yes; I began to work here when I was eight or ten years old. It is rather neglected now, for I can’t do much any more.”

“Why are those orange trees in the centre so tall?”

“Orange trees grow taller when they are shut in like that than they do in the country,” answered the gardener.

“And what do you do with so many oranges?”

“The master gives them away.”

At one end of the garden was a rectangular pool. On one of its long sides rose a granite pedestal adorned with large, unpolished urns which were reflected in the greenish and motionless water.

Quentin was contemplating the tranquil water of the pool, when he heard the halting notes of a Czerny étude on the piano.

“Who is playing?” he asked.

“Se?orita Rafaela, who is giving her sister a lesson. Why don’t you go up?”

“Why, I think I shall.”

And with throbbing heart, Quentin left the garden and climbed the stairs. He rang, and a tall, dried-up maid led him through several rooms until he reached one in which Remedios was playing the piano while[56] Rafaela, just behind her, was beating time upon an open book of music.

An old woman servant was sewing by the balcony window.

Quentin greeted the two sisters, and Rafaela said to him:

“You haven’t been here for several days! Grandfather has asked for you again and again.”

“Really?” asked Quentin idiotically.

“Yes, many times.”

“I couldn’t come; and besides, I was afraid I would be an annoyance, that I would bother you.”

“For goodness’ sake!”

“Well, you see you have already stopped the lesson on my account.”

“No; we were just about to finish anyway,” said Remedios. “Go on,” she added, turning to Rafaela, “why don’t you play for us?”

“Oh! Some other day.”

“No. Do play,” urged Quentin.

“What would you like me to play?”

“Anything you like.”

Rafaela took a book, placed it on the rack, and opened it.

Quentin could read the word Mozart upon the cover. He listened to the sonata in silence: he did not know very much about classical music, and while the girl played, he was thinking about the most appropriate exclamation to make when she had finished.

“Oh! Fine! Fine!” he exclaimed. “Whose is that delicious music?”

“It is Mozart’s,” replied Rafaela.

“It’s admirable! Admirable![57]”

“Don’t you play the piano, Quentin?”

“Oh, very little. Just enough to accompany myself when I sing.”

“Ah! Then you sing?”

“I used to sing a little in school; but I have a poor voice, and I use it badly.”

“Very well, sing for us; if you do it badly, we’ll tell you,” said Rafaela.

“Yes, sing—do sing!” exclaimed Remedios.

Quentin sat down at the piano and played the introductory chords of Count di Luna’s aria in Il Trovatore:
Il balen del suo sorriso
d’una stella vince al raggio.

Then he began to sing in a rich, baritone voice, and as he reached the end of the romanza, he imparted an expression of profound melancholy to it:
Ah l’amor, l’amore ond’ ardo
le favelli in mio favor
sperda il sole d’un suo sguardo
la tempesta, ah!... la tempesta del mio cor.

And he repeated the phrase with an accent that was more and more expressive. Any one listening to him would have said that truly, la tempesta was playing havoc with his heart.

“Very good! Very good!” cried Rafaela. Remedios applauded gleefully.

“It’s going to rain,” announced the old woman servant as she glanced at the sky.

“That’s because I did so badly,” said Quentin with a smile.

They went to the window. The sky was darkening; it was beginning to rain. The heavy drops fell in ob[58]lique lines and glistened on the green leaves of the orange trees, and on the moss-covered tiles; the continuous splashing of the drops in the pool, made it look as if it were boiling....

The rain soon ceased, the sun came out, and the whole garden glowed like a red-hot coal; the oranges shone among the damp foliage; the green hedge-mustard spotted the glittering grey roof tiles with its gay note; water poured from the dark, ancient belfry of a near-by tower; and several white gardens smiled upon the mountain side.

“That is a regular gipsy sun,” lisped Remedios, who at times had an exaggerated Andalusian pronunciation.

Quentin laughed; the little girl’s manner of speech amused him immensely.

“Don’t laugh,” said Rafaela to Quentin with mock gravity; “my little girl is very sensitive.”

“What did you say to him?” demanded Remedios of her sister.

“Oh, you rascal! He’s heard it, now,” Rafaela exclaimed humorously; and seizing the child about the waist, she kissed the back of her neck.

It was beginning to clear up; the dark clouds were moving off, leaving the sky clear; a ray of sunshine struck a tower formed by three arches set one above the other. In the three spaces, they could see the motionless bells; a figure of San Rafael spread its wings from the peak of the roof.

“What is that figure?” asked Quentin.

“It belongs to the church of San Pedro,” replied the servant.

“Is it hollow like a weather-vane?”

“No; I think it is solid.[59]”

“It’s stopped raining now,” said Remedios. “Have you seen the house yet,” she added, turning to Quentin, and using the familiar second person.

“No,” he replied.

“She uses ‘thou’ to everybody,” explained Rafaela.

They left the music-room, and in the next room, they showed Quentin various mirrors with bevelled edges, a glass cabinet full of miniatures with carved frames and antique necklaces, two escritoires inlaid with mother-of-pearl, bright-coloured majolica ware, and pier-glasses with thick plates.

“It is my mother’s room,” said Rafaela; “we’ve kept it exactly as it was when she was alive.”

“Did she die very long ago?”

“Six years ago.”

“Come on,” said Remedios, seizing him by the hand, and looking into her sister’s face with her great, restless eyes.

The three descended the stairs and traversed the gallery that connected the vestibule with the garden. On either side of them were an infinite number of rooms; some large and dark, with wardrobes and furniture pushed against the walls; others were small, with steps leading up to them. At the end of the gallery were the stables, extremely large, with barred windows. They entered.

“Now you’ll see what kind of a horse we have here,” said Rafaela. “Pajarito! Pajarito!” she called, and a little donkey which was eating hay in a corner came running up.

In the same stable was an enormous coach, painted yellow, very ornate, with several very small windows, and the family coat-of-arms on the doors.[60]

“Grandfather used to ride in this coach,” said Rafaela.

“It must have taken more than two horses to draw it.”

“Yes; they used eight.”

“These girls are admirably stoical,” thought Quentin.

After the stables, they saw the corrals, and the cellar, which was huge, with enormous rain-water jars that looked like giants buried in the ground.

“We can’t go in there,” said Rafaela ironically.

“Why not?”

“Because this little idiot,” and she seized her sister, “is afraid of the jars.”

Remedios made no reply; they went on; through crooked passages that were full of hiding-places, and labyrinthic corridors, until they came to a large, abandoned garden.

“Would you like to go in?” Rafaela asked Remedios.

“Yes.”

“Aren’t you afraid of the genet any more?”

“No.”

“What is it?” inquired Quentin.

“The gardener keeps a caged animal in here, and it frightens us because it looks like such a monster.”

“You’re a naughty girl,” said Remedios to her sister. “What will you bet that I won’t go to the genet, take it out of the cage, and hold it in my hand?”

“No, no; he might bite you.”

“Where is this monster?” asked Quentin.

“You’ll soon see.”

It was a specie of weasel with a long tail and a fierce eye.

“The animal certainly has an evil look,” said Quentin.[61]

They walked about the abandoned garden: a thick carpet of burdock and henbane and foxglove and nettles covered the soil. In the middle of the garden, surrounded by a circle of myrtles, was a summer-house with a decayed door; inside of it they could see remnants of paint and gilt. On the old wall, was a tangled growth of ivy. Enveloped in its foliage, and close to the wall, they could make out a fountain with a Medusa head, through a dirty pipe in whose mouth flowed a crystalline thread which fell sonorously into a square basin brimful of water. There were two broad, moss-covered steps leading up to the fountain, and the weeds and wild figs, growing in the cracks, were lifting up the stones. From among the weeds there rose a marble pedestal; and a wild-orange tree near by, with its little red fruit, seemed spotted with blood.

“There are all sorts of animals here in the summer,” said Rafaela. “Lizards come to drink at the fountain. Some of them are very beautiful with their iridescent heads.”

“They are woman’s enemies,” warned Remedios.

Quentin laughed.

“Some of the foolishness the servant girls tell her,” explained Rafaela. “I’ve forbidden them to tell her anything now.”

The three returned to the corridor.

“What about the roof? We haven’t showed him the roof,” said the little girl.

“Juan must have the key; I’ll go and ask him for it.”

Remedios ran out in search of the gardener, and returned immediately.[62]

They climbed the main stairs until they reached a door near the roof.

“What panels!” exclaimed Quentin.

“They are full of bats,” said Rafaela.

“And thalamanderth,” lisped Remedios.

Quentin suppressed a smile.

“How funny! How very funny!” murmured the child somewhat piqued.

“I am not laughing at what you said,” replied Quentin, “I was just remembering that that is the way we boys used to talk.”

“She talks like the rowdies in the streets,” said Rafaela.

“Well, I don’t want anything more from you,” cried Remedios. “You’re always saying things to me.”

“Come, girlie, come; the genet isn’t coming here to eat you.”

“He couldn’t.”

From the door, and through a corridor, they came out upon a broad, tiled terrace with an iron railing.

“Let’s go up higher,” said Remedios.

They climbed a winding staircase inside a tower until they came out upon a small azotea, whence they could command a view of nearly the entire city.

The wind was blowing strongly. From that height, they could see Cordova, a great pile of grey roofs and white walls, between which they could make out the alleys, which looked like crooked lines inundated with light. Sierra Morena appeared in the background like a dark wave, and its round peaks were outlined in a gentle undulation against the sky, which was cloudless. The gardens stood out very white against the skirts of[63] the mountain, and upon a sharp-pointed hill at the foot of the dark mountain wall, stood a rocky castle.

Toward Cordova la Vieja, pastures glistened, a luminous green; in the country, the sown ground stretched out until it was lost in the distance, interrupted here and there by some brown little hill covered with olive trees.

“I’m going to fetch the telescope,” announced Remedios suddenly.

“Don’t fall,” warned her sister.

“Ca!”

Rafaela and Quentin were left alone.

“How charming your sister is,” said he.

“Yes; she’s as clever as a squirrel, but more sensitive than any one I know. The slightest thing offends her.”

“Perhaps you have petted her too much?”

“Of course. I am years older than she. She is like a daughter to me.”

“You must be very fond of her.”

“Yes; I put her to bed and to sleep even yet. Sometimes she has fits of temper over nothing at all! But she has a heart of gold.”

At this point the little girl returned, carrying a telescope bigger than she was.

“What a tiny girl!” exclaimed Rafaela, taking the telescope from Remedios.

They rested the instrument on the wall of the azotea and took turns looking through it.

 

The afternoon was steadily advancing; yellow towers and pink belfries rose above the wet roofs, their glass windows brilliant in the last rays of the setting sun; a broad, slate-covered cupola outlined its bulk against the[64] horizon; here and there a cypress rose like a black pyramid between great, white walls, and the thousands of grey tiled roofs; and the iron weather-vanes, some in the shape of a peaceable San Rafael, others in the form of a rampant dragon with fierce claws and pointed tongue, surmounted the gables and sheds, and decorated the ancient belfries, covered with a greenish rust by the sun of centuries....

Toward the west, the sky was touched with rose; flaming clouds sailed over the mountain. The sun had set; the fire of the clouds changed to scarlet, to mother-of-pearl, to cold ashes. Black night already lurked in the city and in the fields. The wind commenced to murmur in the trees, shaking the window blinds and curtains, and rapidly drying the roofs. A bell clanged, and its solemn sound filled the silent atmosphere.

Slowly the sky was invaded by a deep blue, dark purple in some places; Jupiter shone from his great height with a silver light, and night took possession of the land; a clear, starry night, that seemed the pale continuation of the twilight.

From the house garden arose a fresh perfume of myrtles and oranges; of the exhalations of plants and damp earth.

“We must go now,” said Rafaela. “It’s getting cold.”

They descended the stairs. Quentin took leave of the two girls and stepped into the street.