Still forward, from street to street, at random. Gradually, as I walk on, my curiosity increases and I hasten my steps. It seems impossible that the whole city can be like this: I am afraid of coming upon a house or finding a street which will remind me of other cities and rouse me from my pleasant dream.
But, no: the dream is unbroken. Everything is small, graceful, mysterious. Every hundred paces a deserted little square, in which I stop breathless; now and then a crossway, and not a living soul; and everything always white—closed windows and silence. At every door there is a new spectacle: arches, columns, flowers, fountains, palms; a marvellous variety of design, color, light, perfume, here of roses, there of oranges, yonder of violets; and with the perfume a breath of fresh air, and borne on the air the subdued sound of women's voices, the rustling of leaves, and the singing of birds—a sweet and various harmony, which, without disturbing the silence of the street, soothes the ear like the echo of distant music. Ah! it is not a dream! Madrid, Italy, Europe, surely they are far, far away. Here one lives another life, here one breathes the air of another world; I am in the Orient.
I remember that at a certain point I stopped in the middle of the street and suddenly discovered, I know not how, that I was sad and restless, and that in my heart there was a void which neither admiration nor enjoyment could fill. I felt an irrepressible necessity of entering those houses and those gardens, of tearing asunder, so to speak, the mysterious veil which concealed the life of the unknown people within; of sharing in that life; of grasping some hand and gazing into two pitying eyes, and saying, "I am a stranger, I am alone; I too want to be happy; let me linger among your flowers, let me enjoy all the secrets of your paradise, teach me who you are and how you live; smile on me and calm me, for my head is burning!"
And this sadness grew upon me until I said to myself, "I cannot stay in this city; I am suffering here; I will leave it!"
And I believe I should have left if at a happy moment I had not remembered that I carried in my pocket a letter of introduction to two young men of Cordova, brothers of a friend of mine in Florence. I dismissed the idea of leaving, and started at once to find them.
How they laughed when I told them of the impression Cordova had made upon me! They proposed that we go at once to see the cathedral; so we turned down a narrow white street and were off.
The mosque of Cordova, which was converted into a cathedral after the overthrow of the Moors, but which must always remain a mosque, was built on the ruins of the original cathedral, a little way back from the bank of the Guadalquivir. Abdurrahman commenced its construction in the year 785 or 786 A. D. "Let us rear a mosque," said he, "which shall surpass that of Bagdad, of Damascus, and of Jerusalem—a mosque which shall be the greatest temple of Islam, one which shall become the Mecca of the West." They undertook the work with great ardor. Christian slaves carried the stone for its foundations from their ruined churches; Abdurrahman himself worked an hour every day; in a few years the mosque was built, the caliphs who succeeded Abdurrahman embellished it, and after a century of almost continuous labor it was finished.
"Here we are!" said one of my friends, stopping suddenly in front of a vast edifice.
I thought it was a fortress, but it was the wall which surrounds the mosque—an old embattled wall in which there were at one time twenty great bronze doors ornamented with the most beautiful arabesques, and arched windows supported by graceful columns, now covered by a triple coat of plaster. A turn around this wall is a nice little walk to take after dinner: one may judge, therefore, of the vast size of the building.