CHAPTER V.FAIRY SCENES AND FATAL PASSIONS.
My mother paused. She had talked herself out of breath; but her eyes, her mouth, the very position of her person were eloquent still. She had spoken rapidly and in broken sentences. Her language was graphic, and more like an inspiration than I can give it in cold English. Her very ignorance gave picturesque effect to her fancies. I have done her injustice, because my set phrases have tamed her vigorous wildness with conventionalisms. The pictures that she placed before the wondering Englishman in her own wild fashion were vivid as stars.
She was silent awhile, and he could see the bright inspiration fading from her features. Her eyes drooped; the reserve, half shame, half exhaustion which follows the inspired moments of genius, crept over her. She dared not turn her eyes upon the young man, he was so still, and she thought that he must be smiling derisively—strange sensitiveness for one of her class—but genius is of no class. And though my mother was wild and untamed, leaving neither poem, painting, or statue behind, her entire life was a poem unwritten save in her gentleness and her agony.
“Ah, if these dreams did not fade so soon,” she said, at last, in a timid voice, apologizing for her late abandonment, “but they last scarcely longer than the sunset which brings them. Do these sweet thoughts ever haunt you?” she continued, still with downcast eyes.
“They have!—yes, they have!” replied the young man, in a voice so stirred with feeling that the gipsy started, and the blood left her cheeks.
“And did they die thus?” she questioned.
“Briefer, shorter—my dreams—but why talk of them? We are in Spain, alone—here in the Alhambra—the Alhambra! the very realm of fancies! Why talk of dreams that I may have had in other times, other lands? Indulge in yours, poor child, this is the place, the time. Oh, if you could only dream on forever; I have lost the power!”
“Dream on forever!” cried the gipsy girl, lifting her eyes and her voice. “What, here, and with that in view?—my dreams here! my life there. Here all is life, grace, beauty, love! There, burrowed in the earth, stifled, struggling, the miserable Gitanilla—there is no waking from that!”
Her lithe form was drawn to its height. She pointed with one hand toward the gloomy Barranco, and with the other dashed away the tears that sprang, like great diamonds, to her eyes; then flinging both hands into the air, she sunk upon the floor, buried her face in the crimson folds of her saya, and broke into a passion of sobs.
The young man looked down upon her, almost calmly, quite in silence. Those who have suffered much naturally shrink from any exhibition of strong passions; besides, it was the first evidence of the fierce spirit of her race that he had witnessed. This new phase in her character astonished and repulsed him. It was the first time that she had seemed to him absolutely a Gitana. So, as she wept out her bitter passion, he stood over her, if not irritated, at least painfully thoughtful.
“Aurora,” he said at last, stooping toward her with gentle coldness, “get up; cease weeping thus. It annoys me; I do not love you so well!”
She started up, choked back the sobs that were swelling in her throat, and stood before him with downcast eyes, like a culprit.
This self-power, the gentle submission that followed, reassured her lover. He smiled cordially again, took her hand, and drew her gently from the colonnade, moving downward partially in darkness, till they reached the Court of Lions.
The Gitanilla and her companion entered the Court of Lionsthrough one of those incomparable pavilions that enrich each end of that marvellous spot. No dream could be more heavenly than the beauty that surrounded them. The gorgeousness, that time and siege had swept away, was more than replaced by the luminous grace shed over what remained by the moonlight.
On either hand stood a line of shaft-like columns, delicate beyond all our ideas of usefulness, yet with a superb filagree peristyle resting lightly, as so much snow upon their exquisite capitals—these capitals, so full of varied art, each fragment of marble a marvel of itself—each faded leaf the richest fancy of an artist. The arches rising between these graceful pillars were half choked up with shadows, leaving all the gorgeous apartments to which they led in misty doubt. It seemed as if with a single wave of the hand you might sweep away those curtain-like shadows, with a step enter the saloons, and find the moon sleeping upon their silken cushions.
It chanced that the Englishman had never visited the Court of Lions before, when the moon was at its full. He stood within the portico spell-bound, those noble masses of filagree work, rising up from the supporting pillars, seemed a marvel of fairy work, like ocean foam frozen into shapes of beauty—the pavement glittering with azulejos, broad golden tints, rich blue and red prevailing—the noble Fountain of Lions, rushing in floods of crystal over its great alabaster basin, which gleamed through the falling torrent like a solid mass of ice raining itself away, but never diminishing, all filled him with wonder and delight. How those shining water-drops idealized the twelve marble lions, upon whose backs the alabaster basin rested, flooding them with sheets of crystal, wreathing their huge legs with pearly froth, sending a shower of bubbles into their scaly manes, eddying, leaping, whirling around them, a fantastic storm of light, through which no deformity could be discovered!
Nothing but the rush of these falling waters could be heard in the Alhambra. Everything else was still as death. Oh, it was happiness to breathe in this wilderness of beauty! Afterall, there is such a thing as being intoxicated with mere physical harmony. With me great joy always rains itself away in tears. To my fancy, no person ever experienced perfect happiness, who has not felt the blissful dew leave his heart in tears.
But to know this, the bitter feelings of our nature must not have been recently disturbed. Neither the Gitanilla nor her lover were sufficiently tranquil for a thorough appreciation of the scene. Their thoughts were too much occupied with each other. Still, it was impossible to look upon this wonderful spot and not yield themselves up to it for a time, and this had a softening influence upon him. She, poor thing, required nothing to subdue her, for there is not a being on earth so gentle as a high-spirited woman when her strong passion is once surrendered—I will not say subdued—to the influence of the man she loves.