Romantic legends of Spain

by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

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.