These patriarchal habits of the Spanish nobility have declined with their revenues; though the spirit which prompted them remains, and wars sadly with their altered fortunes. The poorest among them have always some hereditary hangers-on, who live at their expense, and make them poorer. Some who, like my neighbor the count, retain a modicum of their once princely possessions, keep up a shadow of the ancient system, and their estates are overrun and the produce consumed by generations of idle retainers.
The count held estates in various parts of the kingdom, some including whole villages; yet the revenues collected from them were comparatively small; some of them, he assured me, barely fed the hordes of dependents nestled upon them, who seemed to consider themselves entitled to live rent-free and be maintained into the bargain, because their forefathers had been so since time immemorial.
The Saint’s day of the old count gave me a glimpse into a Spanish interior. For two or three days previous preparations were made for the fête. Viands of all kinds were brought up from town, greeting the olfactory nerves of the old invalid guards, as they were borne past them through the Gate of Justice. Servants hurried officiously about the courts; the ancient kitchen of the palace was again alive with the tread of cooks and scullions, and blazed with unwonted fires.
When the day arrived I beheld the old count in patriarchal state, his family and household around him, with functionaries who mismanaged his estates at a distance and consumed the proceeds; while numerous old worn-out servants and pensioners were loitering about the courts and keeping within smell of the kitchen.
It was a joyous day in the Alhambra. The guests dispersed themselves about the palace before the hour of dinner, enjoying the luxuries of its courts and fountains, and embosomed gardens, and music and laughter resounded through its late silent halls.
The feast, for a set dinner in Spain is literally a feast, was served in the beautiful Morisco Hall of “Las dos Hermanas.” The table was loaded with all the luxuries of the season: there was an almost interminable succession of dishes; showing how truly the feast at the rich Camachos’ wedding in “Don Quixote” was a picture of a Spanish banquet. A joyous conviviality prevailed round the board; for though Spaniards are generally abstemious, they are complete revellers on occasions like the present, and none more so than the Andalusians. For my part, there was something peculiarly exciting in thus sitting at a feast in the royal halls of the Alhambra, given by one who might claim remote affinity with its Moorish kings, and who was a lineal representative of Gonsalvo of Cordova, one of the most distinguished of the Christian conquerors.
The banquet ended, the company adjourned to the Hall of Ambassadors. Here every one endeavored to contribute to the general amusement, singing, improvising, telling wonderful tales, or dancing popular dances to that all-pervading talisman of Spanish pleasure, the guitar.
The count’s gifted little daughter was as usual the life and delight of the assemblage, and I was more than ever struck with her aptness and wonderful versatility. She took a part in two or three scenes of elegant comedy with some of her companions, and performed them with exquisite point and finished grace; she gave imitations of the popular Italian singers, some serious, some comic, with a rare quality of voice, and, I was assured, with singular fidelity; she imitated the dialects, dances, ballads, and movements and manners of the gypsies and the peasants of the Vega with equal felicity; but everything was done with an all-pervading grace and a ladylike tact perfectly fascinating.
The great charm of everything she did was its freedom from pretension or ambitious display, its happy spontaneity. Everything sprang from the impulse of the moment; or was in prompt compliance with a request. She seemed unconscious of the rarity and extent of her own talent, and was like a child at home revelling in the buoyancy of its own gay and innocent spirits. Indeed, I was told she had never exerted her talents in general society, but only, as at present, in the domestic circle.
Her faculty of observation and her perception of character must have been remarkably quick, for she could have had only casual and transient glances at the scenes, manners, and customs depicted with such truth and spirit. “Indeed it is a continual wonder to us,” said the countess, “where the child [la Niña] has picked up these things, her life being passed almost entirely at home, in the bosom of the family.”