Part 8
When I was first at Toledo, while I was busying myself in making a few sketch-book notes of _San Juan de los Reyes_, I had to go through this street every afternoon in order to reach the convent from the little inn, with hotel pretensions, where I lodged.
Almost always I would traverse the street from one end to the other without meeting a single person, without any further
sound than my own footfalls disturbing the deep silence, without even catching a chance glimpse, behind balcony-blind, door-screen or casement-lattice, of the wrinkled face of a peering old woman, or the great black eyes of a Toledan girl. Sometimes I seemed to myself to be walking through the midst of a deserted city, abandoned by its inhabitants since ages far remote.
Yet one afternoon, on passing in front of a very ancient, gloomy mansion, in whose lofty, massive walls might be seen three or four windows of dissimilar form, placed without order or symmetry, I happened to fix my attention on one of these. It was formed by a great ogee arch surrounded by a wreath of sharply pointed leaves. The arch was closed in by a light wall, recently built and white as snow. In the middle of this, as if contained in the original window, might be seen a little casement with frame and gratings painted green, with a flower-pot of blue morning-glories whose sprays were clambering up over the granite-work, and with panes of leaded glass curtained by white cloth thin and translucent.
The window of itself, peculiar as it was, would have been enough to arrest the gaze, but the circumstance most effective in fixing my attention upon it was that, just as I turned my head to look at it, the curtain had been lifted for a moment only to fall again, concealing from my eyes the person who undoubtedly was at that same instant looking after me.
I pursued my way preoccupied with the idea of the window, or, rather, the curtain, or, to put it still more clearly, the woman who had raised it, for beyond all doubt only a woman could be peeping out from that window so poetic, so white, so green, so full of flowers, and when I say a woman, be it understood that she is imaged as young and beautiful.
The next afternoon I passed the house,--passed with the same close scrutiny; I rapped down my heels sharply, astonishing the silent street with the clatter of my steps, a clatter that repeated itself in responsive echoes, one after another; I looked at the window and the curtain was raised again.
The plain truth is that behind the curtain I saw nothing at all; but by aid of the imagination I seemed to discern a figure,--the figure, in fact, of a woman.
That day twice or thrice I fell into a muse over my drawing. And on other days I passed the house, and always when I was passing the curtain would be raised again, remaining so till the sound of my steps was lost in the distance and I from afar had looked back at it for the last time.
My sketches were making but little progress. In that cloister of _San Juan de los Reyes_, in that cloister so mysterious and bathed in so profound a melancholy,--seated on the broken capital of a column, my portfolio on my knees, my elbows on my portfolio, and my head between my hands,--to the music of water which flows there with an incessant murmur, to the rustling of leaves under the evening wind in the wild, forsaken garden, what dreams did I not dream of that window and that woman! I knew her; I knew her name and even the color of her eyes.
I would see her crossing the wide and lonely courts of that most ancient house, rejoicing them with her presence as a sunbeam gilds a pile of ruins. Again I would seem to see her in a garden of very lofty, very shadowy walls, among colossal, venerable trees, such as there ought to be at the back of that sort of Gothic palace where she lived, gathering flowers and seating herself alone on a stone bench and there sighing while she plucked them leaf from leaf thinking on--who knows? Perchance on me. Why say perchance? Assuredly on me. Oh, what dreams, what follies, what poetry did that window awaken in my soul while I abode at Toledo!
But my allotted time for sojourning in that city went by. One day, heavy of heart and pensive of mood, I shut up all my drawings in the portfolio, bade farewell to the world of fancy, and took a seat in the coach for Madrid.
Before the highest of the Toledo towers had faded on the horizon, I thrust my head from the carriage window to see it once more, and remembered the street.
I still held the portfolio under my arm, and on taking my seat again, while we rounded the hill which suddenly hid the city from my eyes, I drew out my pencil and set down a date. It is the first of the three, and the one which I call the Date of the Window.
II.
At the end of several months, I again had an opportunity to leave the Capital for three or four days. I dusted my portfolio, tucked it under my arm, provided myself with a quire of paper, a half-dozen pencils and a few napoleons and, deploring the fact that the railroad was not yet finished, crowded myself into a public stage that I might journey in reverse order through the scenes of Tirso’s famous comedy _From Toledo to Madrid_.
Once installed in the historic city, I devoted myself to visiting again the spots which had most excited my interest on my former trip, and certain others which as yet I knew only by name.
Thus I let slip by, in long, solitary rambles among the most ancient quarters of the town, the greater part of the time which I could spare for my little artistic expedition, finding a veritable pleasure in losing myself in that confused labyrinth of blind lanes, narrow streets, dark passages and steep, impracticable heights.
One afternoon, the last that I might at that time remain in Toledo, after one of these long wanderings in unknown ways, I arrived--by what streets I can scarcely tell--at a great deserted square, apparently forgotten by the very inhabitants of the city and hidden away, as it were, in one of its most remote nooks.
The filth and the rubbish cast out in this square from time immemorial had identified themselves, if I may say so, with the earth in such a manner as to present the broken and mountainous aspect of a miniature Switzerland. On the hillocks and in the valleys formed by these irregularities were growing at their own will wild mallows of colossal proportions, circles of giant nettles, creeping tangles of white morning-glories, stretches of that nameless, common herb, small, fine and of a darkish green, and among these, swaying gently in the light breath of the air, overtopping like kings all the other parasitic plants, the no less poetic than vulgar yellow mustard, true flower of wastes and ruins.
Scattered along the ground, some half buried, others almost hidden by the tall weeds, might be seen an infinite number of fragments of thousands on thousands of diverse articles, broken and thrown out on that spot in different epochs, where they were in process of forming strata in which it would be easy to follow out a course of genealogical history.
Moorish tiles enamelled in various colors, sections of marble and of jasper columns, fragments of brick of a hundred varying kinds, great blocks covered with verdure and moss, pieces of wood already nearly turned to dust, remains of antique panelling, rags of cloth, strips of leather, and countless other objects, formless, nameless, were what at first sight appeared on the surface, even while the attention was caught and the eyes dazzled by glancing sparks of light sprinkled over the green like a handful of diamonds flung broadcast and which, on closer survey, proved to be nothing else than tiny bits of glass and of glazed earthenware,--pots, plates, pitchers,--that, flashing back the sunlight, counterfeited a very heaven of microscopic, glittering stars.
Such was the flooring of that square, though actually paved in some places with small pebbles of various colors arranged in patterns, and in others covered with great slabs of slate, but in the main, as we have just said, like a garden of parasitic plants or a waste and weedy field.
Nor were the buildings which outlined its irregular form less strange and worthy of study. On one side it was bounded by a line of dingy little houses, the roofs twinkling with chimneys, weathercocks and overhangs, the marble guardposts fastened to the corners with iron rings, the balconies low or narrow, the small windows set with flower-pots, and the hanging lantern surrounded by a wire network to protect its smoky glass from the missiles of the street urchins.
Another boundary was constituted by a great, time-blackened wall full of chinks and crevices, from which, amid patches of moss, peeped out, with little bright eyes, the heads of various reptiles,--a wall exceedingly high, formed of bulky blocks sprinkled over with hollows for doors and balconies that had been closed up with stone and mortar, and on one of whose extremities joined, forming an angle with it, a wall of brick stripped of its plaster and full of rough holes, daubed at intervals with streaks of red, green and yellow and crowned with a thatch of hay, in and out of which ran sprays of climbing plants.
This was no more, so to speak, than the side scenery of the strange stage-setting which, as I made my way into the square, suddenly presented itself to view, captivating my mind and holding it spell-bound for a space, for the true culminating point of the panorama, the edifice which gave it its general tone, rose at the rear of the square, more whimsical, more original, infinitely more beautiful in its artistic disorder than all the buildings about.
“Here is what I have been wanting to find,” I exclaimed on seeing it, and seating myself on a rough piece of marble, placing my portfolio on my knees and sharpening a pencil, I made ready to sketch, though only in outline, its irregular and eccentric form that I might ever keep it in memory.
If I could fasten on here with wafers the very slight and ill-drawn sketch of this building that I still keep, imperfect and impressionistic though it is, it would save me a mountain of words, giving to my readers a truer idea of it than all the descriptions imaginable.
But since this may not be, I will try to depict it as best I can, so that the readers of these lines may form a remote conception if not of its infinite details, at least of its effect as a whole.
Imagine an Arab palace with horse-shoe portals, its walls adorned by long rows of arches with hundreds of intercrossings, running over a stripe of brilliant tiles; here is seen the recess of an arched window, cut in two by a group of slender colonnettes and enclosed in a frame of exquisite, fanciful ornament; there rises a watch-tower with its light and airy turret, roofed with glazed tiles of green and yellow, its keen golden arrow losing itself in the void; further on is descried the cupola that covers a chamber painted in gold and blue, or lofty galleries closed with green Venetian blinds which on opening reveal gardens with walks of myrtle, groves of laurel, and high-jetting fountains. All is unique, all harmonious, though unsymmetrical; all gives one a glimpse of the luxury and the marvels of its interior; all lets one divine the character and the customs of its inmates.
The wealthy Arab who owned this edifice finally abandons it; the process of the years begins to disintegrate the walls, dim their colors and even corrode their marbles. A king of Castile then chooses for his residence that already crumbling palace, and at this point he breaks the front, opening an ogee and adorning it with a border of escutcheons through whose midst is curled a garland of thistles and clover; yonder he raises a massive fortress-tower of hewn stone with narrow loopholes and pointed battlements; further along he builds on a wing of lofty, gloomy rooms, where may be seen, in curious fellowship, stretches of shining tiles, dusky vaulting, or a solitary Arab window, or a horse-shoe arch, light and elegant, giving entrance to a Gothic hall, austere and grand.
But there comes a day when the king, too, abandons this dwelling, passing it over to a community of nuns, and these in their turn remodel it, adding new features to the already strange physiognomy of the Moorish palace. They lattice the windows; between two Arab arches they set the symbol of their faith, carved in granite; where tamarinds and laurels used to grow they plant sad and gloomy cypresses; and making use of some remnants of the old edifice, and building on top of others, they form the most picturesque and incongruous combinations conceivable.
Above the main portal of the church, where may be dimly seen, as if enveloped in the mystic twilight made by the shadows of their canopies, a broadside of saints, angels and virgins at whose feet are twisted--among acanthus leaves--stone serpents, monsters and dragons, rises a slender minaret filagreed over with Moorish work; close below the loopholes of the battlemented walls, whose merlons are now broken, they place a shrine with a sacred fresco; and they close up the great slits with thin partitions decorated with little squares like a chess-board; they put crosses on all the pinnacles, and finally they rear a spire full of bells which peal mournfully night and day calling to prayer,--bells which swing at the impulsion of an unseen hand, bells whose far-off sound sometimes draws from the listener tears of involuntary grief.
Still the years are passing and are bathing in a dull, mellow, nondescript hue the whole edifice, harmonizing its colors and sowing ivy in its crevices.
White storks hang their nests on the tower-vane, martins build under the eaves, swallows in the granite canopies, and the owls choose for their haunt lofty holes left by fallen stones, whence on cloudy nights they affright superstitious old women and timid children with the phosphoric gleam of their round eyes and their shrill, uncanny hoots.
Only all these changes of fortune, only all these special circumstances could have resulted in a building so individual, so full of contrasts, of poetry and of memories as the one which on that afternoon presented itself to my view and which to-day I have essayed, albeit in vain, to describe by words.
I had drawn it in part on one of the leaves of my sketch-book. The sun was scarcely gilding the highest spires of the city, the evening breeze was beginning to caress my brow, when rapt in the ideas that suddenly had assailed me on contemplating the silent remains of other eras more poetic than the material age in which we live, suffocating in its utter prose, I let my pencil slip from my fingers and gave over the drawing, leaning against the wall at my back and yielding myself up completely to the visions of imagination. Of what was I thinking? I do not know that I can tell. I clearly saw epoch succeeding epoch, walls falling and other walls rising in their stead. I saw men or, rather, women giving place to other women, and the first and those who came after changing into dust and flying like dust upon the air, a puff of wind bearing away beauty,--beauty which had been wont to call forth secret sighs, to engender passions, to be the source of ecstasies; then--what know I?--all confused of thought, I saw many things jumbled together,--boudoirs of cunning work, with clouds of perfume and beds of flowers, strait and dreary cells with prayer-stool and crucifix, at the foot of the crucifix an open book, and upon the book a skull; stern and stately halls, hung with tapestries and adorned with trophies of war; and many women passing and still repassing before my gaze, tall nuns pale and thin, brown concubines with reddest lips and blackest eyes; great dames of faultless profile, high bearing and majestic gait.
All these things I saw; and many more of those which, though visioned, cannot be remembered; of those so immaterial that it is impossible to confine them in the narrow compass of a word,--when suddenly I gave a bound upon my seat and, passing my hand over my eyes to convince myself that I was not still dreaming, leaping up as if moved by a nerve-spring, I fastened my gaze on one of the lofty turrets of the convent. I had seen--there is no room for doubt--perfectly had I seen a hand of transcendent whiteness, which, reaching out from one of the apertures of those turrets mortared like chess-boards, had waved several times as if greeting me with a mute and loving sign. And it was I whom it greeted; there was no possibility of a mistake; I was alone, utterly alone in the square.
In vain I waited till night, nailed to that spot and without removing my eyes for an instant from the turret; fruitlessly I often returned to take up my watch again on the dark stone which had served me for seat that afternoon when I saw appear the mysterious hand, already the object of my dreams by night and wildest fantasies by day. I beheld it nevermore.
And finally came the hour when I must depart from Toledo, leaving there, as a useless and ridiculous burden, all the illusions which in its bosom had been raised in my mind. I turned with a sigh to put my papers together in my portfolio; but before securing them there, I wrote another date, the second, the one which I know as the Date of the Hand. As I wrote it, I noticed for a moment the earlier, that of the Window, and could not but smile at my own folly.
III.
From the time of the strange occurrence which I have just related until my return to Toledo, there elapsed about a year, during which the memory of that afternoon was still present to my imagination, at first constantly and in full detail, then less often, and at last so vaguely that I even came to believe sometimes that I had been the sport of an illusive dream.
Nevertheless, scarcely had I arrived at the city which some with good reason call the Spanish Rome than this recollection beset me anew and under its spell I set forth in absent-minded fashion to roam the streets, without determined direction, with no preconceived purpose of making my way to any special point.
The day was gloomy with that gloom which invades all that one hears and sees and feels. The sky was the color of lead, and under its melancholy shadow the houses seemed older, quainter and duskier than ever. The wind moaned along the tortuous, narrow streets, bearing upon its gusts, like the lost notes of a mysterious symphony, unintelligible words, the peal of bells, and echoes of heavy, far-off blows. The damp, chill air froze the soul with its icy breath.
I wandered for several hours through the most remote and deserted parts of the city, rapt in a thousand confused imaginings; and, contrary to my custom, with a gaze all vague and lost in space, nor could my attention be aroused by any playful detail of architecture, by any monument of an unknown style, by any marvellous and hidden work of sculpture, by any one, in short, of those rare features for whose minute examination I had been wont to pause at every step, at times when only artistic and antiquarian interests held sway in my mind.
The sky was continually growing darker; the wind was blowing more strongly and more boisterously; and a fine sleet had begun to fall, very keen and penetrating, when unwittingly,--for I was still ignorant of the way--and as if borne thither by an impulse which I could not resist, an impulse whose occult force had brought me to the spot whither my thoughts were tending, I found myself in the lonely square which my readers already know.
On finding myself in that place I sprang to clear consciousness from out the depths of that lethargy in which I had been sunken, as if awakened from profound slumber by a violent shock.
I looked about me. All was as I described it--nay, it was more dreary. I know not whether this gloom was due to the darkness of the sky, the lack of verdure, or the state of my own spirit, but the truth is that between the feeling with which I first contemplated that spot and this later impression there was all the distance which lies between poetic melancholy and personal bitterness.
For some moments I stood gazing at the sombre convent, now more sombre than ever to my eyes, and I was already on the point of withdrawing when my ears were wounded by the sound of a bell, a bell of broken, husky voice, which was tolling slowly, while in vivid contrast it was accompanied by something like a little clapper-bell which suddenly began to revolve with the rapidity of a ringing so sharp and so incessant that it seemed to have been seized by an attack of vertigo.
Nothing was ever stranger than that edifice, whose black silhouette was outlined against the sky like that of a cliff bristling with thousands of freakish points, speaking with tongues of bronze through bells that seemed moved by the touch of invisible powers, the one weeping with smothered sobs, the other laughing with shrill, wild outcry, like the laughter of a madwoman.
At intervals and confused with the bewildering clamor of the bells, I seemed to hear, too, something like the indistinct notes of an organ and the words of a sacred, solemn chant.
I changed my intention; and instead of departing I approached the door of the church and asked one of the ragged beggars squatted on the stone steps:
“What is going on here?”
“A taking of the veil,” the mendicant answered, interrupting the prayer which he was muttering between his teeth to resume it later, although not until he had kissed the bit of copper that I dropped into his hand as I put my question.
I had never been present at that ceremony, nor had I ever seen the interior of the convent church. Both considerations impelled me to enter.
The church was high and dark; its aisles were defined by two rows of pillars made up of slender columns gathered into sheaves and resting on broad octagonal bases, while from their rich crowning of capitals sprang the vaulting of the strong ogee arches. The High Altar was placed at the further end under a cupola of Renaissance style decorated with great shield-bearing angels, griffins, a profusion of foliage on the finials, cornices with gilded moldings and rosettes, and odd, elaborate frescoes. Bordering the aisles might be seen a countless number of dusky chapels, in whose recesses were burning a few lamps like stars lost in a cloudy sky. Chapels there were of Arab architecture, Gothic, rococo; some enclosed by magnificent iron gratings; some by humble wooden rails; some submerged in shadow with an ancient marble tomb before the altar; some brightly lighted, with an image clad in tinsel and surrounded by votive offerings of silver and wax, together with little bows of gay-colored ribbon.