"What is this written here?" he demanded.
I approached and uttered a cry: "Chateaubriand!"
"And here?"
"Byron!"
"And here?"
"Victor Hugo!"
After descending from the Mirador de la Reina I thought I had seen the Alhambra, and was so imprudent as to tell my friend so. If he had had a stick in his hand, I verily believe he would have struck me; but, as he had not, he contented himself by regarding me with the air of one demanding whether or not I had lost my senses.
We returned to the Court of the Myrtles and visited the rooms situated on the other side of the Tower of Comares, the greater part in ruins, the rest altered, some absolutely bare, without either pavement or roof, but all worth seeing, both in remembrance of what they had been and for the sake of understanding the plan of the edifice. The ancient mosque was converted into a chapel by Charles V., and a great Moorish hall was changed into an oratory; here and there one still sees the fragments of arabesques and carved ceilings of cedar-wood; the galleries, the courts, and the vestibules remind one of a palace dismantled by fire.
After seeing that part of the Alhambra I really thought there was nothing else left to see, and a second time was imprudent enough to say so to Gongora: this time he could no longer contain himself, and, leading me into a vestibule of the Court of Myrtles and pointing to a map of the building hanging on the wall, he said, "Look, and you will see that all the rooms of the courts and the towers that we have so far visited do not occupy one-twentieth part of the space embraced within the walls of the Alhambra; you will see that we have not yet visited the remains of the three other mosques, the ruins of the House of Cadi, the water-tower, the tower of the Infantas, the tower of the Prisoner, the tower of Candil, the tower of the Picos, the tower of the Daggers, the tower of the Siete Suelos, the tower of the Captain, the tower of the Witch, the tower of the Heads, the tower of Arms, the tower of the Hidalgos, the tower of the Cocks, the tower of the Cube, the tower of Homage, the tower of Vela, the Powder Tower, the remains of the House of Mondejar, the military quarters, the iron gate, the inner walls, the cisterns, the promenades; for I would have you know that the Alhambra is not a palace: it is a city, and one could spend his life in studying its arabesques, reading its inscriptions, and every day discovering a new view of the hills and mountains, and going into ecstasies regularly once every twenty-four hours."
And I thought I had seen the Alhambra!