"Is this a joke?" I demanded. "Have you brought me here to see a Moorish castle, for me to find the way closed by a modern palace? Whose abominable idea was it to run up this building in the gardens of the caliphs?"
"Charles V.'s."
"He was a vandal. I have not yet forgiven him for the Gothic church he planted in the middle of the mosque of Cordova, and now these barracks fill me with utter loathing of his crown and his glory. But, in the name of Heaven, where is the Alhambra?"
"There it is."
"Where?"
"Among those huts."
"Oh, fudge!"
"I pledge you my word of honor."
I folded my arms and looked at him, and he laughed."
"Well, then," I exclaimed, "this great name of the Alhambra is only another of those usual false exaggerations of the poets. I, Europe, and the world have been shamefully deceived. Was it worth while to dream of the Alhambra for three hundred and sixty-five nights in succession, and then to come to see a group of ruins with some broken columns and smoky inscriptions?"