To the left and midway up the long side of the gallery, you come to the Hall of the Two Sisters, the pendant to the Hall of the Abencerrages. The name of las Dos Hermanas is given to it on account of two immense flag-stones of white Macael marble of equal size and exactly alike which you notice at once in the pavement. The vaulted roof, or cupola, which the Spanish very expressively call media naranja (half an orange), is a miracle of work and patience. It is something like a honey-comb, or the stalactites of a grotto, or the soapy grape-bubbles which children blow through a pipe. These myriads of little vaults, or domes, three or four feet high, which grow out of one another, intersecting and constantly breaking their corners, seem rather the product of fortuitous crystallization than the work of human hands; the blue, the red, and the green still shine in the hollows of the mouldings as brilliantly as if they had just been laid on. The walls, like those in the Hall of the Ambassadors, are covered from the frieze to the height of a man with the most delicate embroideries in stucco and of an incredible intricacy. The lower part of the walls is faced with square blocks of glazed clay, whose black, green and yellow angles form a mosaic upon the white background. The centre of the room, according to the invariable custom of the Arabs, whose habitations seem to be nothing but great ornamental fountains, is occupied by a basin and a jet of water. There are four fountains under the Gate of Justice, as many under the entrance-gate, and another in the Hall of the Abencerrages, without counting the Taza de los Leones, which, not content with vomiting water through the mouths of its twelve monsters, tosses a jet towards the sky through the mushroom-cap which surmounts it. All this water flows through small trenches in the floors of the hall and pavements of the court to the foot of the Fountain of Lions, where it is swallowed up in a subterranean conduit. Certainly this is a species of dwelling which would never be incommoded with dust, but you ask how could these halls have been tenanted during the winter. Doubtless the large cedar doors were then shut and the marble floors were covered with thick carpets, while the inhabitants lighted fires of fruit-stones and odoriferous woods in the braseros, and waited for the return of the fine season, which soon comes in Grenada.
We will not describe the Hall of the Abencerrages, which is precisely like that of the Two Sisters and contains nothing in particular except its antique door of wood, arranged in lozenges, which dates from the time of the Moors. In the Alcazar of Seville you can find another one of exactly the same style.
The Taza de los Leones enjoys a wonderful reputation in Arabian poetry: no eulogy is considered too extravagant for these superb animals. I must confess, however, that it would be hard to find anything which less resembles lions than these productions of Arabian fantasy; the paws are simple stakes like those shapeless pieces of wood which one thrusts into the bellies of pasteboard dogs to make them keep their equilibrium; their muzzles streaked with transverse lines, very likely intended for whiskers, are exactly like the snout of a hippopotamus, and the eyes are so primitive in design that they recall the crude attempts of children. However, if you consider these twelve monsters as chimeræ and not lions, and as a fine caprice in ornamentation, producing in combination with the basin they support a picturesque and elegant effect, you will then understand their reputation and the praises contained in this Arabian inscription of twenty-four verses and twenty-four syllables engraved on the sides of the lower basin into which the waters fall from the upper basin. I ask the reader’s pardon for the rather barbarous fidelity of the translation:
“O thou, who lookest upon the lions fixed in their place! remark that they only lack life to be perfect. And you to whom will fall the inheritance of this Alcazar and Kingdom, take them from the noble hands of those who have governed them without displeasure and resistance. May God preserve you for the work, which you will accomplish, and protect you forever from the vengeance of your enemy! Honour and glory be thine, O Mohammed! our King, endowed with the high virtues, with whose aid thou hast conquered everything. May God never permit this beautiful garden, the image of thy virtues, to be surpassed by any rival. The material which covers the substance of this basin is like mother-of-pearl beneath the shimmering waters; this sheet of water is like melted silver, for the limpidity of the water and the whiteness of the stone are unequalled; it might be called a drop of transparent essence upon a face of alabaster. It would be difficult to follow its course. Look at the water and look at the basin, and you will not be able to tell if it is the water that is motionless, or the marble which ripples. Like the prisoner of love whose face is full of trouble and fear when under the gaze of the envious, so the jealous water is indignant at the marble and the marble is envious of the water. To this inexhaustible stream we may compare the hand of our King which is as liberal and generous as the lion is strong and valiant.”
Into the basin of the Fountain of Lions fell the heads of the thirty-six Abencerrages, drawn there by the stratagem of the Zegris. The other Abencerrages would have shared the same fate if it had not been for the devotion of a little page who, at the risk of his own life, ran to warn the survivors from entering the fatal court. Your attention will be attracted by some large red spots at the bottom of the basin—an indelible accusation left by the victims against the cruelty of their murderers. Unfortunately, the learned declare that neither the Abencerrages nor the Zegris existed. Regarding this fact, I am entirely guided by romances, popular traditions, and Chateaubriand’s novel, and I solemnly believe that these crimson stains are blood and not rust.
We established our headquarters in the Court of the Lions; our furniture consisted of two mattresses which were rolled up in a corner during the day, a copper lamp, an earthenware jar, and a few bottles of sherry which we placed in the fountain to cool. Sometimes we slept in the Hall of the Two Sisters, and sometimes in that of the Abencerrages, and it was not without some slight fear that I, stretched out upon my cloak, looked at the white rays of the moon which fell through the openings of the roof into the water of the basin quite astonished to mingle with the yellow, trembling flame of a lamp.
The popular traditions collected by Washington Irving in his Tales of the Alhambra came into my memory; the story of the Headless Horse and of the Hairy Phantom solemnly related by Father Echeverria seemed very probable to me, especially when the light was out. The truth of legends always appears much greater at night when these dark places are filled with weird reflections which give a fantastic appearance to all objects of a vague outline: Doubt is the son of day, Faith is the daughter of the night, and it astonishes me to think that St. Thomas believed in Christ after having thrust his finger into his wounds. I am not sure that I did not see the Abencerrages walking through the moonlit galleries carrying their heads under their arms: anyhow the shadows of the columns always assumed forms that were diabolically suspicious, and the breeze as it passed through the arches made me wonder if it was not a human breath.
Voyage en Espagne (Paris, new ed., 1865).
FOOTNOTES
[1] The outside of Notre-Dame has been restored since Victor Hugo wrote his famous romance.—E. S.