Part 5

Was it the creation of my bow? Now for the first time was the demon-compelling power of Paganini mine? Through contemplation of that crystal surface had I purged my soul of impeding impurities, as if, denuded of clothes, I had swept through space and bathed in its crystal ozone? Had not the tones of my violin changed too? I listened critically. Yes; they had a certain heart quality which had been lacking, a luscious, singing richness, colorful and sweet. The single tone, divorced from melody, filled me with delight. Ambition leaped to giant height. Fear vanished. I could subdue the world--I--I, Lopez Manrico! I bent to my playing. Each time it was the Saraband that evoked the image. No other melody whatsoever had the power to do it. And there were certain phrases and turns of this that had especial effect upon it. Once I thought that I could discern the features of the figure, and I did glimpse it firmly enough to know that it was the figure of a woman.

How I tried to prolong the notes that were creating beneath my eyes that evanescent being! How, by trained trickery, did I try to prolong the instrument’s power of tone extension! It was useless. Strength failed. My arm grew weak and fell of its own accord, and the vision paled and faded.

The old Counts of Quederos had been scientists, I meditated. One had devoted himself to the relation of sound to the human body. Perhaps he had left a record of his discoveries. I would go to the library and see. At least the books that he had studied would be there. Excepting only the Imperial Library, the Castillo de Quederos contained the finest collection of rare books and manuscripts in Spain.

I ran to the room and lighted all the lights. Ardor of investigation filled me. If the problem could be solved, I would do it. Was it not a duty, too, since in a way the power lay with me? “_Le génie s’oblige._”

Here were the books of the old glass-maker, probably arranged just as he had left them: John Pechon’s treatise on optics, dating from the thirteenth century; Biringuccio’s receipts for glass-making; Garzoni’s chemistry of glass; the three books of Eraclius, who, in the early thirteenth century, got together all that was then known of the art. I took down the third volume. It opened at the seventh chapter, where begin the receipts for compounding the substance. This was not what I wanted. Nor did I care more for the poets--Lopez Mendoza, Ha Levi, nor the private letters of Cib-dareal, precious as they are.

As I replaced the latter, I felt something behind it. Inserting my hand, I pulled out a gilded cylinder. Within it lay a manuscript in an unknown tongue, and with it a translation made by a Spanish Jew. The manuscript proved to be _The Resurrecting Powers of Science_ by Abu Hamid Algazali of Bagdad. Something told me that my search was rewarded. I pulled a chair beneath the nearest light and there, until day, perused the parchment. It had suffered many a midnight perusal. Finger marks were upon it, and it was frayed and soiled. I read:

“Each body is responsive to a tone or a combination of tones.

“Each body is, in a sense, a musical instrument whose vibrating strings are taut nerves and muscles.

“The circulating blood sings a song.

“Heart-beats describe a melody.

“One of the energies wrapped up in the life principle is a musical chord.

“It is possible for music, if the right tone be discovered, to arrest ebbing life force, or to call back those who have passed beyond.”

“To call back those who have passed beyond!” Here it was! Now I understood. I had unwittingly hit upon the chord that vibrated in unison with the mirror vision. What a possibility lay before me! I could read no more. Dizzy with the discovery, I went to bed. I did not even pause to view the wonder of the dawn that was bleaching the night pale.

When again night came, I hastened to the drawing-room. I lighted every light. I locked and bolted the door. I would not permit an interruption.

Then I took the melody of the Saraband and transposed it from key to key. In this way the tone I sought could not elude me. The first notes of the dance evoked the figure, but it was so far away, so dim, it was scarcely more than a breath’s shadow. It was only with the key of F minor that a change came. Then the figure grew more distinct. Features were visible. It took on color, firm form. It came floating on, on, on, toward me, until within the glass just a few feet away stood a lithe, brown, Moorish girl. My heart choked me with its beating. It was all that I could do to command strength with which to continue the music.

Very gracefully she swayed to the melody of the Saraband, but she danced it in a way that was new to me. On her head rested a tiny cap fringed with vari-colored gems. She wore white muslin trousers, very full, gathered at the ankle with bells of gold, whose tongues were little stones that looked like flame. The upper part of her body was covered with a tight-fitting vest of pale blue, picked out in silver, and a tight-fitting coat of yellow satin, both of which were open to the waist, disclosing the brown skin. From under the cap her hair fell in long braids, intertwined with coral. Her little bare feet were encased in slippers with gem-studded heels. She was evidently a Moorish dancing-girl, but of an age long, long gone by.

She had the small head and the broad low brow of ancient races; eyes long, dark, and somber, accented by brows as “delicately arched as those of the pictured Cenci;” a mouth whose warm red undercurve contradicted the saddened eyes.

She was a frail and febrile copy of Da Vinci’s St. Marguerite, who, despite her saintship, is a Spanish dancing-girl in a moment of repose. There was something about her that stimulated the powers of life, that created a passionate and imperious music which flooded the soul with desire.

But it was the eyes that held my attention longest. They clung to mine with an unwavering glance. In them lay a mute appeal. They looked at me piteously, longingly. They implored help of me. They were like eyes that look from the other side of the grave with the hope that by not losing sight of mine they could draw themselves back and up again to the light. They begged for life. At that moment I would have lain down my own life to give momentary reality to hers.

Nor did she dance continuously like the puppet of my bow. She possessed independent life. She paused and waved and beckoned with her little hands. She tried to make me understand her dumb sign language, but always in her eyes there was that look of piteous questioning.

She was so frail and bright! She was like a butterfly made of gauze. A breath could crush her. Yet she danced bravely to please me, to win my applause. Poor little lonely dancer! Who could be more unsuited to the shadow world? Never had I so realized the cruelty of death. Never had I so rebelled against it. What had her crisp muslins, her satins, and her frivolous graces to do with death! I longed to clasp her in my arms, to breathe my own life breath into her, to shield her from that awful fear.

Her eyes looked into mine. Her soul spoke to mine and was understood, but her body I could not reach. It was, perhaps, ages away. It was not space that separated us; it was something crueler far. It was time!

Suddenly a tremor passed over her. What was it! Ah! yes, my weary arm had faltered in its playing. The little face quivered with fear. She held out her arms in mute appeal. I was helpless. The exhausted muscles refused to obey. My arm fell to my side. She floated away, away down the dim, gray, mirror vista, her little hands fluttering a sad farewell.

When I put out the lights and leaned from the window for a moment for a whiff of fresh air, I found that the night had gone and that the dawn was streaking faintly the fields and hills.

That day I slept only until noon. Nervous tension prevented rest. The remainder of the day I lounged in the library or idled on the verandas, living over again in thought the incidents of the night. For months this was my life. Not once did I leave the _castillo_, although invitations from the neighboring gentry and my uncle’s friends poured in upon me. Nor indeed, during this time, did I see any one but the servants. I denied myself to visitors. I thought only of my Moorish love. I dreamed only of her in the few day hours devoted to sleep. Several times I saw the servants touch their foreheads significantly when they passed me, and I heard them whisper, “The madness of the De Quederos!”

My life now took on an excessive value. Did not another depend upon it? Without me my Moorish love was dead. With me she enjoyed a semi-being. At times I suffered the most torturing fear lest accident to me condemn her forever to oblivion. The thought shook my soul.

Each night when my playing evoked her, she begged more piteously for life, and I, who so gladly would have granted it, was powerless. Each night her sign language was more comprehensible, more eloquent of longing and of love. Each night my love for her grew greater. When the hour for parting came, I felt grief such as they who bury those they love. How could I know where she went, what horrors encompassed her! How could I know what difficulties she had conquered to come to me! How could I know that she would ever come again!

By day the burden of my mind was to know where, only to know where, she was! Not even the feverish imaginings of my heart could frame an answer.

At night, when lights began to twinkle in the little houses of the village and the stars to show one by one, I looked out and cursed them, because I knew that in not one of them all was she. In all the broad firmament she was not. She alone, my Moorish love, had no share in the sweetness of the spring. I grew to hate the world that had cast her off. I became a solitary. How could I be expected to mingle with people, to leave the _castillo_! Would it not be murder to do so even for the space of a night? Not all crimes are amenable to law. Her life depended upon me. Absence meant death. Could I condemn her I loved to one unnecessary hour within the grave? Did I not always see, sleeping or waking, the piteous eyes that begged for life? Did I not always see the mouth that tried to smile, to coquette, despite the death-fear that drooped it?

But how could I explain this to the Conde’s friends? Had I done so, they would not have understood. I really believe they would have called me mad. I persisted in silent refusals.

What a fate was mine! I loved a woman who was separated from me by the centuries. I loved a phantom, a vision, a self-created mirage. I, alone, knew that this vision possessed life. Night after night we conversed by signs. Eyes looked into eyes, soul into soul, yet might we never join hands or lips. We saw each other plainly, yet might our voices never bridge the chasm of the ages. Within arm’s reach of me she stood, and smiled and beckoned, yet I had not the power to touch her. Her red lips voiced messages to me, but the wind of ages rushed between and swept them away to bury within soundless silence. What torture was this! What inexplainable suffering! In subtle punishment the curse of Tantalus was not its kin.

Only to the violin could I confide my sorrow. I threw away my music. My heart alone dictated. Thus I poured forth my longing, my unsatisfied passion, and my grief. Thus I voiced my anger, my hatred of men, of life, my rage against that silent and invisible God who mocked me with his might, and reduced my endeavor to puny impotence.

Sometimes, when cruel notes shivered the air, and sharp discords all but snapped the strings, I caught sight of the frightened faces of the servants coming one by one, a-tiptoe, to peer at me. Or below I saw teamsters turn sharply to avoid the _castillo_ and the Roman bridge beneath my window. Too, there were fewer travelers on the road of late. Less often sounded the friendly mule bell. The simple peasants were terrified by the sounds of hate and rage. The servants, too, feared me. They believed me to be “_possessed_.” The old steward, alone, had a different opinion. He attributed my peculiarities to drink or infatuation for a woman. The more so since of late no one had been admitted to my rooms. One day the kind old fellow touched my arm in a fatherly manner and whispered, “_Mi hijo, niños y vinos son mal a guardar!_”

It was too late for the kindly offices of friends. I was hopelessly given over to an infatuation. I had lost regard for appearances. I did not care.

Swiftly the days slipped by. I paid as little heed as do they who live under emotional strain. Spring deepened into summer; autumn came. In time its color faded beneath the mists of November. Before I knew it, _la nôche de los difuntos_ (the night when the dead come back) was at hand.

It pleased me to think that then I could celebrate my wedding with the dead. For the occasion I had the great drawing-room filled with flowers. At the last moment the caprice seized me to don the state costume of a courtier of Philip the Second. Then I drew a gilt couch of old brocade in front of the mirror and with closed eyes began to improvise upon the dance.

Suddenly a little hand touched my shoulder and a voice whispered: “Will you not look at me, now that I have come?”

There she was beside me, and more lovely by half when freed from the mirror’s grayness.

“But you--will you not tell me who you are?” I whispered back in an ecstasy of love.

“Zarabanda.”

“_Zarabanda!_”

“Yes, why not?”

“The Moorish love of Philip the Second?”

Passion and its artistic embodiment, music, had made my love outlast the empire that gave her birth. She had survived Spain and its splendor.

I was perched upon a dizzy height indeed. Below me the gray centuries unfolded.

At the word “Philip” grief contracted her face.

“Oh, Philip! Philip! Will you not call him? Will you not let me see him? I will never ask it of you again. You need not be afraid because he is a great king. Give him this,” taking a bracelet of peculiar workmanship from her arm and handing it toward me. “He will understand. He will come anywhere for me.”

Grief filled my heart. It was not I she loved--I, who had recreated her, who had brought her back from the grave. It was not I she thought of, but that cruel and long-dead king.

“Believe me, my little love, I would do anything for you but this--which is impossible.”

“Just once, please, just once! He was so handsome, Philip, and he loved me so. Before he married Mary of England he took me to Granada, to the town of the wall of a thousand towers. There he would have married me, had it not been for Perez, the Great Minister!”

At mention of that name a shiver passed over her, the memory of an ancient fear, setting crisply a-jingle the gems upon her cap and the gold bells on her trousers.

“There I invented the Saraband. It was the dance he loved, and he named it for me. All Spain danced it then.

“One day he was called away by a court messenger from Madrid. When he left, he swore to marry me. On a certain day I was to meet him, having sent word three days before. Then he was to marry me and make me queen!

“But as soon as he went, I was seized and imprisoned. I could not send him word. I never saw him again. Oh, please let me tell him why. He thinks I failed him. Let me tell him why!”

“I would do it if I could. I would do anything for you, but how can I?”

“Why? Philip is not--” Her dark face blanched, fear leaped into her eyes. “Philip--is not--dead?”

I nodded. Not a word did she say, but tears came to her eyes and fell slowly, one by one, upon her little hands. Never before had I realized the word’s leaden weight. It was a plummet line that found the heart of grief.

“Then there is nothing more to live for!”

The words pierced me like a dagger. I knew how complete was her indifference to me.

“How long ago did he die?” she asked, with a sigh that shook her body as a ground swell shakes the sea.

Could I tell her? That would mean another grief.

“Tell me when he died; how long ago.”

“In 1598.”

“And now what year is it?”

“1898. Three hundred years.”

“Three hundred years he has slept and dreamed me false! And now I can never tell him!”

My heart forgot its suffering in sympathy for her.

“Now I can never tell him!”

Silence fell between us. She forgot my presence, so complete was her absorption in the past.

The breath of the late autumn came through the ancient windows, slanting for an instant the flames of chandeliers and sconces until they looked like an army’s bloody spears upraised in flight. Opposite the mute mirror oppressed me with its suggestion of nothingness and of space. The flowers, too, became restless and shivered, as if some foreign element had disturbed them.

As I thought thus gloomily, the little brown hand fell on mine, and the voice whose sound was like the veiled tone-sweetness of a harp was saying:

“Then, if it was so long ago, you did not know Tiziano, who painted me, did you?”

How pitiful was this effort to be gay!

“Tiziano-was-a-noble-man-from-Venezia.”

The words were hyphenated with sighs.

“Oh, he was a very great painter! He said I was the loveliest woman in Europe. The court ladies were wild with envy. But he would have none of them. It was I he wanted--I--I! He painted me lying beside an open window, a Cupid holding a crown above my head. At my feet sat Philip--Philip, the king, at my feet! There is a little cap upon his head, and he is playing the Saraband upon his lute. In the background I made him paint the highland country of Madrid, which I should look out upon when I was queen--”

“Yes!” I interrupted excitedly, unable to stand more. “Philip might have given you a crown; I have given you life. Which is greater? Whom do you owe the most? Have you no thought of me? My love has brought you back from the grave, and now you think only of him!”

The little hand on mine fluttered sensitively. I grasped it. Its delicate touch made me recall what I had read of the fine skin texture of women of the dark races. I pressed my lips to it with delight. From it came a peculiar odor, as from some unknown exotic, which took the senses captive.

Until now I had never loved a woman. I had loved pictures, I had loved marbles, but a living woman never. Acquaintance with the most exquisite and exacting of arts had perhaps made my senses superfine. The slightest physical imperfection was sufficient to spoil my pleasure. Old age--that physical memory of many wearinesses--filled me with disgust. Of love I did not ask a return, but the near presence of something faultless, something which might never pall upon my senses, something which I might love unrestrainedly.

During the years of concert giving I had been attracted by beautiful faces, but acquaintance seldom failed to dispel the glamour. Their possessors were self-seeking, vain, frivolous. Disgust took the place of admiration. It was a disagreeable sensation which I did not like to endure for the second time, to find a woman of delicate and sensitive beauty possessed of the grasping nature of a miser, or caring only for detail of practical things. Nothing in womankind had made me so dislike the race as this union of external beauty and prosaic practicability.

Here, for the first time, was a woman whom I could love. She had none of the traits of the modern woman. She could not prate of things that disgusted and bored me. In her eyes there was no consciousness of the life I detested. She was mine in a very real sense because I had created her. I measured the greatness of my love by the knowledge that I could love on while knowing that her heart was another’s. If one loves, it is not necessary to be loved in return. Love is its own reward. Already I felt its ennobling influence.

Ah! how she enchanted my soul leaning there against the high gilt sofa’s end! Her black braids swept the floor. Her brown feet from which the slippers had fallen were folded childishly, showing little pink nails a-shine.

Every gem of color on her costume was like the dropping of a note of liquid melody into my soul. She was an exquisite toy of flesh fashioned for love. She was a fine-wrought gem of palest bronze, from which the swinging lights struck cream and amber gleams.

“Zarabanda, my Moorish love! You shall learn to care for me and forget him. I swear it! What a life we will lead together, you and I! He could have brought Spain to your feet. I will bring the world. You shall see! You shall see! I will bring the world. I will show this modern age which loves ugliness--I will show it the noble type of antique beauty!” Thus I raved in my infatuated dream.

My fervor moved her. She sat up erect. The jewels on her cap danced brightly. She leaned toward me. I saw that my suit was not to be in vain. The look of piteous fear within her eyes which had so haunted me for months was gone. In its place there was a look which, had she possessed no other charm, would have bound me to her forever. How shall I describe it?

It was the essence of that which I missed in modern pictures which represent antique life. It was just that which I missed in the women of Tadema. It was just that which their eyes had not. It was a look made up of the accumulated days of living a life totally dissimilar to our own, a life made up of dissimilar thoughts, pleasures, needs. In short, I saw within the eyes of Zarabanda the soul of a vanished age. My mind was filled with a thousand fancies.

Looking at her, I sensed vividly the imperial love-hours of Moorish beauties who had wantoned by the wall of a thousand towers. Their purple and palpitant past engulfed me. The penetrating color-joy of pagan pageants swept my senses, leaving a myriad burnished points of thought. The voluptuous phantoms of past pleasures intoxicated me. The life that pagan Spain had lived in ancient days, before Christianity had come to make bitter upon its lips the wine of joy, was distilled within my soul. Love, thought, creative fire, lifted life to divinest height, intensifying all its powers.

Before my feverish and exalted fancy there rose a vision of the East, the personified East, the seductive East, the glorious and sensuous East, swathed in a robe of mist which palpitated like the voluptuous veins of women when the tide of love is high. This vision inundated my senses in a shimmering wave, which rolled its long, foaming coils of pleasure over me.

Bending down, I folded her in my arms. I felt her little brown arm slip round my neck, its softness rivaling the down beneath a sea-gull’s wing. The penetrating Eastern perfumes struck my face, the blended sweetness of aloes and ambergris. Her brown breasts became two moons of gold beneath the shadowy twilight of her throat. The thick hair with its trailing braids was an Eden of dim and amorous ways, where a promise dwelled. As I drew her nearer, her eyes became black lakes. Exquisitely pale her face was, like warm ivory. Nearer and nearer to me the red mouth came; I knew that upon it dwelled all the sweetness and all the savors of the South. My lips just brushed it, when, with a reverberant crash, the great mirror fell and shivered in a thousand pieces. My arms encircled the empty air. She was gone--gone, and forever.

Thick dust of powdered chemicals, with which the glass was coated, filled the air. I hastened to gain the window. Something fell at my feet. It was her bracelet.

I reached the window just as the sun, its red rays throbbing like a crown of blood, dipped above the horizon line. By its angry glare I read upon the golden band, which was all that remained to me now of my one night of joy, “Philip, To His Moorish Love.”

FOOTNOTES:

[8] From “Diego Velázquez y su Siglo,” by Carlos Justi.

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