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.