No More Learning

A man was standing at my side.

He was one of our guides, a native of the region, who, with an
indescribable expression of terror depicted on his face, strove to drag
me away with him and to cover my head with the hat which I still held in
my hands.

My first glance, half astonishment, half anger, was equivalent to a
sharp, though silent, interrogation.

The poor fellow, without ceasing his efforts to withdraw me from that
place, replied to it with these words which then I could not comprehend
but which had in them an accent of sincerity that impressed me:--"By the
memory of your mother! by that which you hold most sacred in the world,
_senorito_, cover your head and flee faster than flight itself from
that cross. Are you so desperate that, the help of God not being enough,
you call on that of the Devil? "

I stood a moment looking at him in silence. Frankly, I thought he was a
madman; but he went on with equal vehemence:

"You seek the frontier; well, then, if before this cross you ask that
heaven will give you aid, the tops of the neighboring mountains will
rise, in a single night, to the invisible stars, so that we shall not
find the boundary in all our life. "

I could not help smiling.

"You take it in jest? --You think perhaps that this is a holy cross like
the one in the porch of our church? "

"Who doubts it? "

"Then you are mistaken out and out, for this cross--saving its divine
association--is accursed; this cross belongs to a demon and for that
reason is called The Devil's Cross. "

"The Devil's Cross! " I repeated, yielding to his insistence without
accounting to myself for the involuntary fear which began to oppress my
spirit, and which repelled me as an unknown force from that place. "The
Devil's Cross! Never has my imagination been wounded with a more
inconsistent union of two ideas so absolutely at variance. A cross!
and--the Devil's! Come, come! When we reach the town you must explain to
me this monstrous incongruity. "

During this short dialogue our comrades, who had spurred their sorry
nags, joined us at the foot of the cross. I told them briefly what had
taken place: I remounted my hack, and the bells of the parish were
slowly calling to prayer when we alighted at the most out-of-the-way and
obscure of the inns of Bellver.


II.

Rosy and azure flames were curling and crackling all along the huge oak
log which burned in the wide fire-place; our shadows, thrown in
wavering grotesques on the blackened walls, dwindled or grew gigantic
according as the blaze emitted more or less brilliancy; the alderwood
cup, now empty, now full (and not with water), like the buckets of an
irrigating wheel, had been thrice passed round the circle that we formed
about the fire, and all were awaiting impatiently the story of The
Devil's Cross, promised us by way of dessert after the frugal supper
which we had just eaten, when our guide coughed twice, tossed down a
last draught of wine, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and began
thus:

"It was a long, long time ago, how long I cannot say, but the Moors were
occupying yet the greater part of Spain, our kings were called counts,
and the towns and villages were held in fief by certain lords, who in
turn rendered homage to others more powerful, when that event which I am
about to relate took place. "

After this brief historical introduction, the hero of the occasion
remained silent some few moments, as if to arrange his thoughts, and
proceeded thus:

"Well! the story goes that in that remote time this town and some others
formed part of the patrimony of a noble baron whose seigniorial castle
stood for many centuries upon the crest of a crag bathed by the Segre,
from which it takes its name.

"Some shapeless ruins that, overgrown with wild mustard and moss, may
still be seen upon the summit from the road which leads to this town,
testify to the truth of my story.

"I do not know whether by chance or through some deed of shame it came
to pass that this lord, who was detested by his vassals for his cruelty,
and for his evil disposition refused admission to court by the king and
to their homes by his neighbors, grew weary of living alone with his bad
temper and his cross-bowmen on the top of the rock where his
forefathers had hung their nest of stone.

"Night and day he taxed his wits to find some amusement consonant with
his character, which was no easy matter, since he had grown tired of
making war on his neighbors, beating his servants and hanging his
subjects.

"At this time, the chronicles relate, there occurred to him, though
without precedent, a happy idea.

"Knowing that the Christians of other nations were preparing to go
forth, united in a formidable fleet, to a marvellous country in order to
reconquer the sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ which was in possession
of the Moors, he determined to join their following.

"Whether he entertained this idea with intent of atoning for his sins,
which were not few, by shedding blood in so righteous a cause; or
whether his object was to remove to a place where his vicious deeds were
not known, cannot be said; but it is true that to the great satisfaction
of old and young, of vassals and equals, he gathered together what money
he could, released his towns, at a heavy price, from their allegiance,
and reserving of his estates no more than the crag of the Segre and the
four towers of the castle, his ancestral seat, disappeared between the
night and the morning.

"The whole district drew a long breath, as if awakened from a nightmare.

"Now no longer clusters of men, instead of fruits, hung from the trees
of their orchards; the young peasant girls no longer feared to go, their
jars upon their heads, to draw water from the wells by the wayside; nor
did the shepherds lead their flocks to the Segre by the roughest secret
paths, fearing at every turn of the steep track to encounter the
cross-bowmen of their dearly beloved lord.

"Thus three years elapsed. The story of the Wicked Count, for by that
name only was he known, had come to be the exclusive possession of the
old women, who in the long, long winter evenings would relate his
atrocities with hollow and fearful voice to the terrified children,
while mothers would affright their naughty toddlers and crying babies by
saying: '_Here comes the Count of the Segre! _' When behold! I know not
whether by day or by night, whether fallen from heaven or cast forth by
hell, the dreaded Count appeared indeed, and, as we say, in flesh and
bone, in the midst of his former vassals.

"I forbear to describe the effect of this agreeable surprise. You can
imagine it better than I can depict it, merely from my telling you that
he returned claiming his forfeited rights; that if he went away evil, he
came back worse; and that if he was poor and without credit before going
to the war, now he could count on no other resources than his
desperation, his lance and a half dozen adventurers as profligate and
impious as their chieftain.

"As was natural, the towns refused to pay tribute, from which at so
great cost they had bought exemption, but the Count fired their
orchards, their farm-houses and their crops.

"Then they appealed to the royal justice of the realm, but the Count
ridiculed the letters mandatory of his sovereign lords; he nailed them
over the sally-port of his castle and hung the bearers from an oak.

"Exasperated, and seeing no other way of salvation, at last they made a
league with one another, commended themselves to Providence and took up
arms; but the Count gathered his followers, called the Devil to his aid,
mounted his rock and made ready for the struggle.

"It began, terrible and bloody. There was fighting with all sorts of
weapons, in all places and at all hours, with sword and fire, on the
mountain and in the plain, by day and by night.

"This was not fighting to live; it was living to fight.

"In the end the cause of justice triumphed. You shall hear how.

"One dark, intensely dark night, when no sound was heard on earth nor a
single star shone in heaven, the lords of the fortress, elated by a
recent victory, divided the booty and, drunk with the fume of the
liquors, in the midst of their mad and boisterous revel intoned
sacrilegious songs in praise of their infernal patron.

"As I have said, nothing was heard around the castle save the echo of
the blasphemies which throbbed out into the black bosom of the night
like the throbbing of lost souls wrapped in the hurricane folds of hell.

"Now the careless sentinels had several times fixed their eyes on the
hamlet which rested in silence and, without fear of a surprise, had
fallen asleep leaning on the thick staves of their lances, when, lo and
behold! a few villagers, resolved to die and protected by the darkness,
began to scale the crag of the Segre whose crest they reached at the
very moment of midnight.

"Once on the summit, that which remained for them to do required little
time. The sentinels passed with a single bound the barrier which
separates sleep from death. Fire, applied with resinous torches to
drawbridge and portcullis, leaped with lightning rapidity to the walls,
and the scaling-party, favored by the confusion and making their way
through the flames, put an end to the occupants of that fortress in the
twinkling of an eye.

"All perished.

"When the next day began to whiten the lofty tops of the junipers, the
charred remains of the fallen towers were still smoking, and through
their gaping breaches it was easy to discern, glittering as the light
struck it, where it hung suspended from one of the blackened pillars of
the banquet hall, the armor of the dreaded chieftain whose dead body,
covered with blood and dust, lay between the torn tapestries and the hot
ashes, confounded with the corpses of his obscure companions.

"Time passed. Briers began to creep through the deserted courts, ivy to
climb the dark heaps of masonry, and the blue morning-glory to sway and
swing from the very turrets. The changeful sighs of the breeze, the
croaking of the birds of night, and the soft stir of reptiles gliding
through the tall weeds alone disturbed from time to time the deathly
silence of that accursed place. The unburied bones of its former
inhabitants lay white in the moonlight and still there could be seen the
bundled armor of the Count of the Segre hanging from the blackened
pillar of the banquet hall.

"No one dared touch it, but a thousand fables were current concerning
it. It was a constant source of foolish reports and terrors among those
who saw it flashing in the sunlight by day, or thought they heard in the
depths of the night the metallic sound of its pieces as they struck one
another when the wind moved them, with a prolonged and doleful groan.

"Notwithstanding all the stories which were set afloat concerning the
armor and which the people of the surrounding region repeated in hushed
tones one to another, they were no more than stories, and the only
positive result was a constant state of fear that every one tried for
his own part to dissimulate, putting, as we say, a brave face on it.

"If the matter had gone no further, no harm would have been done. But
the Devil, who apparently was not satisfied with his work, began, no
doubt with the permission of God, that so the country might expiate its
sins, to take a hand in the game.

"From that moment the tales, which until then had been nothing more than
vague rumors without any show of truth, began to assume consistency and
to grow from day to day more probable.

"Finally there came nights in which all the village-folk were able to
see a strange phenomenon.

"Amid the shadows in the distance, now climbing the steep, twisting
paths of the crag of the Segre, now wandering among the ruins of the
castle, now seeming to oscillate in the air, mysterious and fantastic
lights were seen gliding, crossing, vanishing and reappearing to recede
in different directions,--lights whose source no one could explain.

"This was repeated for three or four nights during the space of a month
and the perplexed villagers looked in disquietude for the result of
those conventicles, for which certainly they were not kept waiting long.
Soon three or four homesteads in flames, a number of missing cattle, and
the dead bodies of a few travellers, thrown from precipices, alarmed all
the region for ten leagues about.

"Now no doubt remained. A band of evildoers were harboring in the
dungeons of the castle.

"These desperadoes, who showed themselves at first only very rarely and
at definite points of the forest which even to this day extends along
the river, finally came to hold almost all the passes of the mountains,
to lie in ambush by the roads, to plunder the valleys and to descend
like a torrent on the plain where, slaughtering indiscriminately, they
did not leave a doll with its head on.

"Assassinations multiplied; young girls disappeared and children were
snatched from their cradles despite the lamentations of their mothers to
furnish those diabolical feasts at which, it was generally believed, the
sacramental vessels stolen from the profaned churches were used as
goblets.

"Terror took such possession of men's souls that, when the bell rang for
the Angelus, nobody dared to leave his house, though even there was no
certain security against the banditti of the crag.

"But who were they? Whence had they come? What was the name of their
mysterious chief? This was the enigma which all sought to explain, but
which thus far no one could solve, although it was noticed that from
this time on the armor of the feudal lord had disappeared from the place
it had previously occupied, and afterwards various peasants had affirmed
that the captain of this inhuman crew marched at its head clad in a suit
of mail which, if not the same, was its exact counterpart.

"But in the essential fact, when stripped of that fantastic quality with
which fear augments and embellishes its cherished creations, there was
nothing necessarily supernatural nor strange.

"What was more common in outlaws than the barbarities for which this
band was distinguished or more natural than that their chief should
avail himself of the abandoned armor of the Count of the Segre?

"But the dying revelations of one of his followers, taken prisoner in
the latest affray, heaped up the measure of evidence, convincing the
most incredulous. Less or more in words, the substance of his confession
was this:

"'I belong,' he said, 'to a noble family. My youthful irregularities, my
mad extravagances, and finally my crimes drew upon my head the wrath of
my kindred and the curse of my father, who, at his death, disinherited
me. Finding myself alone and without any resources whatever, it was the
Devil, without doubt, who must needs suggest to me the idea of gathering
together some youths in a situation similar to my own. These, seduced by
the promise of a future of dissipation, liberty and abundance, did not
hesitate an instant to subscribe to my designs.

"'These designs consisted in forming a band of young men of gay temper,
unscrupulous and reckless, who thenceforward would live joyously on the
product of their valor and at the cost of the country, until God should
please to dispose of each according to His will, as happens to me this
day.

"'With this object we chose this district as the theatre of our future
expeditions, and selected as the point most suitable for our gatherings
the abandoned castle of the Segre, a place peculiarly secure, not only
because of its strong and advantageous position, but as defended against
the peasantry by their superstitions and dread.

"'Gathered one night under its ruined arcades, around a bonfire that
illumined with its ruddy glow the deserted galleries, a heated dispute
arose as to which of us should be chosen chief.

"'Each one alleged his merits; I advanced my claims; already some were
muttering together with threatening looks, and others, whose voices were
loud in drunken quarrel, had their hands on the hilts of their poniards
to settle the question, when we suddenly heard a strange rattling of
armor, accompanied by hollow, resounding footsteps which became more and
more distinct. We all cast around uneasy, suspicious glances. We rose
and bared our blades, determined to sell our lives dear, but we could
only stand motionless on seeing advance, with firm and even tread, a man
of lofty stature, completely armed from head to foot, his face covered
with the visor of his helmet. Drawing his broad-sword, which two men
could scarcely wield, and placing it upon one of the charred fragments
of the fallen arcades, he exclaimed in a voice hollow and deep like the
murmurous fall of subterranean waters:

"'_If any one of you dare to be first, while I dwell in the castle of
the Segre, let him take up this sword, emblem of power. _

"'All were silent until, the first moment of astonishment passed, with
loud voices we proclaimed him our captain, offering him a glass of our
wine. This he declined by signs, perchance that he need not reveal his
face, which in vain we strove to distinguish across the iron bars hiding
it from our eyes.

"'Nevertheless we swore that night the most terrible oaths, and on the
following began our nocturnal raids. In these, our mysterious chief went
always at our head. Fire does not stop him, nor dangers intimidate him,
nor tears move him. He never speaks, but when blood smokes on our hands,
when churches fall devoured by the flames, when women flee affrighted
amid the ruins, and children utter screams of pain, and the old men
perish under our blows, he answers the groans, the imprecations and the
lamentations with a loud laugh of savage joy.

"'Never does he lay aside his arms nor lift the visor of his helmet
after victory nor take part in the feast nor yield himself to slumber.
The swords that strike him pierce his armor without causing death or
drawing blood; fire reddens his coat of mail and yet he pushes on
undaunted amid the flames, seeking new victims; he scorns gold, despises
beauty, and is not moved by ambition.

"'Among ourselves, some think him a madman, others a ruined noble who
from a remnant of shame conceals his face, and there are not wanting
those who are persuaded that it is the very Devil in person. '

"The author of these revelations died with a mocking smile on his lips
and without repenting of his sins; divers of his comrades followed him
at different times to meet their punishment, but the dreaded chief, to
whom continually gathered new proselytes, did not cease his ravages.

"The unhappy inhabitants of the region, more and more harassed and
desperate, had not yet achieved that pitch of resolution necessary to
put an end, once for all, to this order of things, every day more
insupportable and grievous.

"Adjoining the hamlet and hidden in the depths of a dense forest, there
dwelt at this time, in a little hermitage dedicated to Saint
Bartholomew, a holy man of godly and exemplary life, whom the peasants
always held in an odor of sanctity, thanks to his wholesome counsels and
sure predictions.

"This venerable hermit, to whose prudence and proverbial wisdom the
people of Bellver committed the solution of their difficult problem,
after seeking divine aid through his patron saint, who, as you know, is
well acquainted with the Devil, and on more than one occasion has put
him in a tight place, advised that they should lie in ambush during the
night at the foot of the stony road which winds up to the rock on whose
summit stands the castle. He charged them at the same time that, once
there, they should use no other weapons to apprehend the Enemy than a
wonderful prayer which he had them commit to memory, and with which the
chronicles assert that Saint Bartholomew had made the Devil his
prisoner.

"The plan was put into immediate execution, and its success exceeded all
hopes, for the morrow's sun had not lit the high tower of Bellver when
its inhabitants gathered in groups in the central square, telling one
another with an air of mystery how, that night, the famous captain of
the banditti of the Segre had come into the town bound hand and foot and
securely tied to the back of a strong mule.

"By what art the actors in this enterprise had brought it to such
fortunate issue no one succeeded in finding out nor were they themselves
able to tell; but the fact remained that, thanks to the prayer of the
Saint or to the daring of his devotees, the attempt had resulted as
narrated.

"As soon as the news began to spread from mouth to mouth and from house
to house, throngs rushed into the streets with loud huzzas and were soon
massed before the doors of the prison. The parish bell called together
the civic body, the most substantial citizens met in council, and all
awaited in suspense the hour when the criminal should appear before his
improvised judges.

"These judges, who were authorized by the sovereign power of Urgel to
administer themselves justice prompt and stern to those malefactors,
deliberated but a moment, after which they commanded that the culprit be
brought before them to receive his sentence.

"As I have said, as in the central square, so in the streets through
which the prisoner must pass to the place where he should meet his
judges, the impatient multitude thronged like a clustered swarm of bees.
Especially at the gateway of the prison the popular excitement mounted
from moment to moment, and already animated dialogues, sullen mutterings
and threatening shouts had begun to give the warders anxiety, when
fortunately the order came to bring forth the criminal.

"As he appeared below the massive arch of the prison portal, in complete
armor, his face covered with the visor, a low, prolonged murmur of
admiration and surprise rose from the compact multitude which with
difficulty opened to let him pass.

"All had recognized in that coat of mail the well-known armor of the
Count of the Segre, that armor which had been the object of the most
gloomy traditions while it had been hanging from the ruined walls of the
accursed stronghold.

"This was that armor; there was left no room for doubt. All had seen the
black plume waving from his helmet's crest in the battles which formerly
they had fought against their lord; all had seen it, blowing in the
morning breeze, like the ivy of the flame-gnawed pillar on which the
armor had hung since the death of its owner. But who could be the
unknown personage who was wearing it now? Soon it would be known; at
least, so they thought. Events will show how this expectation, like many
another, was frustrated and how out of this solemn act of justice, from
which might have been expected a complete revelation of the truth, there
resulted new and more inexplicable confusions.

"The mysterious bandit arrived finally at the Council Hall and a
profound silence followed the murmurs which had arisen among the
bystanders on hearing resound beneath the lofty arches of that chamber
the click of his golden spurs. One of the members of the tribunal in a
slow and uncertain voice asked his name, and all anxiously listened that
they might not lose one word of his response, but the warrior only
shrugged his shoulders lightly with an air of contempt and insult, which
could but irritate his judges, who exchanged glances of surprise.

"Three times the question was repeated, and as often received the same
or a similar reply.

"'Have him lift his visor! Have him show his face! Have him show his
face! ' the citizens present at the trial began to shout. 'Have him show
his face! We will see if then he dare insult us with his contempt, as he
does now hidden in his mail. '

"'Show your face,' demanded the same member of the tribunal who had
before addressed him.

"The warrior remained motionless.

"'I command you by the authority of this council. '

"The same answer.

"'By the authority of this realm. '

"Nor for that.

"Indignation rose to its height, even to the point where one of the
guards, throwing himself upon the criminal, whose pertinacious silence
was enough to exhaust the patience of a saint, violently opened his
visor. A general cry of surprise escaped from those within the hall, who
remained for an instant smitten with an inconceivable amazement.

"The cause was adequate.

"The helmet, whose iron visor, as all could see, was partly lifted
toward the forehead, partly fallen over the shining steel gorget, was
empty,--entirely empty.

"When, the first moment of terror passed, they would have touched it,
the armor shivered slightly and, breaking asunder into its various
pieces, fell to the floor with a dull, strange clang.

"The greater part of the spectators, at the sight of the new prodigy,
forsook the room tumultuously and rushed in terror to the square.

"The news spread with the speed of thought among the multitude who were
awaiting impatiently the result of the trial; and such was the alarm,
the excitement and the clamor, that no one longer doubted what the
popular voice had asserted from the first--that the Devil, on the death
of the Count of the Segre, had inherited the fiefs of Bellver.

"At last the tumult subsided, and it was decided to return the
miraculous armor to the dungeon.

"When this was so bestowed, they despatched four envoys, who, as
representing the perplexed town, should present the case to the royal
Count of Urgel and the archbishop. In a few days these envoys returned
with the decision of those dignitaries, a decision brief and
comprehensive.

"'Let the armor be hanged,' they said, 'in the central square of the
town; if the Devil occupies it, he will find it necessary to abandon it
or to be strangled with it. '

"The people of Bellver, enchanted with so ingenious a solution, again
assembled in council, ordered a very high gallows to be erected in the
square, and when once more the multitude filled the approaches to the
prison, went thither for the armor in a body with all the civic dignity
which the importance of the case demanded.

"When this honorable delegation arrived at the massive arch giving
entrance to the building, a pallid and distracted man threw himself to
the ground in the presence of the astonished bystanders, exclaiming with
tears in his eyes:

"'Pardon, _senores_, pardon! '

"'Pardon! For whom? ' said some, 'for the Devil, who dwells in the armor
of the Count of the Segre? '

"'For me,' continued with shaking voice the unhappy man in whom all
recognized the chief warden of the prison, 'for me--because the
armor--has disappeared. '

"On hearing these words, amazement was painted on the faces of as many
as were in the portico; silent and motionless, so they would have
remained God knows how long if the following narrative of the terrified
keeper had not caused them to gather in groups around him, greedy for
every word.

"'Pardon me, _senores_,' said the poor warden, 'and I will conceal
nothing from you, however much it may be against me. '

"All maintained silence and he went on as follows:

"'I shall never succeed in giving the reason, but the fact is that the
story of the empty armor always seemed to me a fable manufactured in
favor of some noble personage whom perhaps grave reasons of public
policy did not permit the judges to make known or to punish.

"'I was ever of this belief--a belief in which I could not but be
confirmed by the immobility in which the armor remained from the hour
when, by the order of the tribunal, it was brought a second time to the
prison. In vain, night after night, desiring to surprise its secret, if
secret there were, I crept up little by little and listened at the
cracks of the iron door of its dungeon. Not a sound was perceptible.

"'In vain I managed to observe it through a small hole made in the wall;
thrown upon a little straw in one of the darkest corners, it remained
day after day disordered and motionless.

"'One night, at last, pricked by curiosity and wishing to convince
myself that this object of terror had nothing mysterious about it, I
lighted a lantern, went down to the dungeons, drew their double bolts
and, not taking the precaution to shut the doors behind me, so firm was
my belief that all this was no more than an old wives' tale, entered the
cell. Would I had never done it! Scarcely had I taken a few steps when
the light of my lantern went out of itself and my teeth began to chatter
and my hair to rise. Breaking the profound silence that encompassed me,
I had heard something like a sound of metal pieces which stirred and
clanked in fitting themselves together in the gloom.

"'My first movement was to throw myself toward the door to bar the
passage, but on grasping its panels I felt upon my shoulders a
formidable hand, gauntleted, which, after jerking me violently aside,
flung me upon the threshold. There I remained until the next morning
when my subordinates found me unconscious and, on reviving, only able to
recollect that after my fall I had seemed to hear, confusedly, a
sounding tread accompanied by the clatter of spurs, which little by
little grew more distant until it died away. '

"When the warden had finished, profound silence reigned, on which there
followed an infernal outbreak of lamentations, shouts and threats.

"It was with difficulty that the more temperate could control the
populace, who, infuriated at this last turn of affairs, demanded with
fierce outcry the death of the inquisitive author of their new
disappointment.

"At last the tumult was quieted and the people began to lay plans for a
fresh capture. This attempt, too, had a satisfactory outcome.

"At the end of a few days, the armor was again in the power of its foes.
Now that the formula was known and the help of Saint Bartholomew
secured, the thing was no longer very difficult.

"But yet something remained to be done; in vain, after conquering it,
they hanged it from a gallows; in vain they exercised the utmost
vigilance for the purpose of giving it no opportunity to escape by way
of the upper world. But as soon as two fingers' breadth of light fell on
the scattered pieces of armor, they fitted themselves together and,
clinkity clank, made off again to resume their raids over mountain and
plain, which was a blessing indeed.

"This was a story without an end.

"In so critical a state of affairs, the people divided among themselves
the pieces of the armor that, perchance for the hundredth time, had come
into their possession, and prayed the pious hermit, who had once before
enlightened them with his counsel, to decide what they should do with
it.

"The holy man ordained a general fast. He buried himself for three days
in the depths of a cavern that served him as a retreat and at their end
bade them melt the diabolical armor and with this and some hewn stones
from the castle of the Segre, erect a cross.

"The work was carried through, although not without new and fearful
prodigies which filled with terror the souls of the dismayed inhabitants
of Bellver.

"As soon as the pieces thrown into the flames began to redden, long and
deep groans seemed to come out of the great blaze, within whose circle
of fuel the armor leapt as if it were alive and felt the action of the
fire. A whirl of sparks red, green and blue danced on the points of the
spiring flames and twisted about hissing, as if a legion of devils,
mounted on these, would fight to free their lord from that torment.

"Strange, horrible, was the process by which the incandescent armor lost
its form to take that of a cross.

"The hammers fell clanging with a frightful uproar upon the anvil, where
twenty sturdy smiths beat into shape the bars of boiling metal that
quivered and groaned beneath the blows.

"Already the arms of the sign of our redemption were outspread, already
the upper end was beginning to take form, when the fiendish, glowing
mass writhed anew, as if in frightful convulsion, and enfolding the
unfortunate workmen, who struggled to free themselves from its deadly
embrace, glittered in rings like a serpent or contracted itself in
zigzag like lightning.

"Incessant labor, faith, prayers and holy water succeeded, at last, in
overcoming the infernal spirit, and the armor was converted into a
cross.

"This cross it is you have seen to-day, the cross in which the Devil who
gives it its name is bound. Before it the young people in the month of
May place no clusters of lilies, nor do the shepherds uncover as they
pass by, nor the old folk kneel; the strict admonitions of the priest
scarcely prevent the boys from stoning it.

"God has closed His ears to all supplications offered Him in its
presence. In the winter, packs of wolves gather about the juniper which
overshadows it to rush upon the herds; banditti wait in its shade for
travellers whose slain bodies they bury at its foot, and when the
tempest rages, the lightnings deviate from their course to meet,
hissing, at the head of this cross and to rend the stones of its
pedestal. "




THREE DATES


In a portfolio which I still treasure, full of idle drawings made during
some of my semi-artistic excursions to the city of Toledo, are written
three dates.

The events whose memory these figures keep are up to a certain point
insignificant.

Nevertheless, by recollecting them I have entertained myself on certain
wakeful nights in shaping a novel more or less sentimental or sombre, in
proportion as my imagination found itself more or less exalted, and
disposed toward the humorous or tragic view of life.

If on the morning following one of these darkling, delirious reveries, I
had tried to write out the extraordinary episodes of the impossible
fictions which I invented before my eyelids utterly closed, these
romances, whose dim denouement finally floats undetermined on that sea
between waking and sleep, would assuredly form a book of preposterous
inconsistencies but original and peradventure interesting.

This is not what I am attempting now. These light--one might almost say
impalpable--fantasies are in a sense like butterflies which cannot be
caught in the hands without there being left between the fingers the
golden dust of their wings.

I am going to confine myself, then, to the brief narration of three
events which are wont to serve as headings for the chapters of my
dream-novels; the three isolated points which I am accustomed to connect
in my mind by a series of ideas like a shining thread; the three themes,
in short, upon which I play thousands on thousands of variations,
amounting to what might be called absurd symphonies of the imagination.


I.

There is in Toledo a narrow street, crooked and dim, which guards so
faithfully the traces of the hundred generations that have dwelt in it,
which speaks so eloquently to the eyes of the artist and reveals to him
so many secret points of affinity between the ideas and customs of each
century, and the form and special character impressed upon even its most
insignificant works, that I would close the entrances with a barrier and
place above the barrier a shield with this device:

"In the name of poets and artists, in the name of those who dream and of
those who study, civilization is forbidden to touch the least of these
bricks with its destructive and prosaic hand.
"

At one of the ends of this street, entrance is afforded by a massive
arch, flat and dark, which provides a covered passage.

In its keystone is an escutcheon, battered now and corroded by the
action of the years; in it grows ivy which, blown by the air, floats
above the helmet, that crowns it, like a plumy crest.

Below the vaulting and nailed to the wall is seen a shrine with a sacred
picture of blackened canvas and undecipherable design, in frame of gilt
rococo, with its lantern hanging by a cord and with its waxen votive
offerings.

Leading away from this arch, which enfolds the whole place in its
shadow, giving to it an undescribable tint of mystery and sadness,
extend on the two sides of the street lines of dusky, dissimilar,
odd-looking houses, each having its individual form, size and color.
Some are built of rough, uneven stones, without other adornment than a
few armorial bearings rudely carved above the portal; others are of
brick, with an Arab arch for entrance, two or three Moorish windows
opening at caprice in a thick, fissured wall, and a glassed observation
turret topped by a lofty weather-vane. Some have a general aspect which
does not belong to any order of architecture and yet is a patchwork of
all; some are finished models of a distinct and recognized style, some
curious examples of the extravagances of an artistic period.

Here are some that boast a wooden balcony with incongruous roof; there
are others with a Gothic window freshly whitened and adorned with pots
of flowers; and yonder is one with crudely colored tiles set into its
door-frame, huge spikes in its panels, and the shafts of two columns,
perhaps taken from a Moorish castle, mortised into the wall.

The palace of a grandee converted into a tenement-house; the home of a
pundit occupied by a prebendary; a Jewish synagogue transformed into a
Christian church; a convent erected on the ruins of an Arab mosque whose
minaret is still standing; a thousand strange and picturesque contrasts;
thousands on thousands of curious traces left by distinct races,
civilizations and epochs epitomized, so to speak, on one hundred yards
of ground. All the past is in this one street,--a street built up
through many centuries, a narrow, dim, disfigured street with an
infinite number of twists where each man in building his house had
jutted out or left a corner or made an angle to suit his own taste,
regardless of level, height or regularity,--a street rich in
uncalculated combinations of lines, with a veritable wealth of whimsical
details, with so many, many chance effects that on every visit it offers
to the student something new.

When I was first at Toledo, while I was busying myself in making a few
sketch-book notes of _San Juan de los Reyes_, I had to go through this
street every afternoon in order to reach the convent from the little
inn, with hotel pretensions, where I lodged.

Almost always I would traverse the street from one end to the other
without meeting a single person, without any further

[Illustration: CLOISTER OF SAN JUAN DE LOS REYES]

sound than my own footfalls disturbing the deep silence, without even
catching a chance glimpse, behind balcony-blind, door-screen or
casement-lattice, of the wrinkled face of a peering old woman, or the
great black eyes of a Toledan girl. Sometimes I seemed to myself to be
walking through the midst of a deserted city, abandoned by its
inhabitants since ages far remote.

Yet one afternoon, on passing in front of a very ancient, gloomy
mansion, in whose lofty, massive walls might be seen three or four
windows of dissimilar form, placed without order or symmetry, I happened
to fix my attention on one of these. It was formed by a great ogee arch
surrounded by a wreath of sharply pointed leaves. The arch was closed in
by a light wall, recently built and white as snow. In the middle of
this, as if contained in the original window, might be seen a little
casement with frame and gratings painted green, with a flower-pot of
blue morning-glories whose sprays were clambering up over the
granite-work, and with panes of leaded glass curtained by white cloth
thin and translucent.

The window of itself, peculiar as it was, would have been enough to
arrest the gaze, but the circumstance most effective in fixing my
attention upon it was that, just as I turned my head to look at it, the
curtain had been lifted for a moment only to fall again, concealing from
my eyes the person who undoubtedly was at that same instant looking
after me.

I pursued my way preoccupied with the idea of the window, or, rather,
the curtain, or, to put it still more clearly, the woman who had raised
it, for beyond all doubt only a woman could be peeping out from that
window so poetic, so white, so green, so full of flowers, and when I say
a woman, be it understood that she is imaged as young and beautiful.

The next afternoon I passed the house,--passed with the same close
scrutiny; I rapped down my heels sharply, astonishing the silent street
with the clatter of my steps, a clatter that repeated itself in
responsive echoes, one after another; I looked at the window and the
curtain was raised again.

The plain truth is that behind the curtain I saw nothing at all; but by
aid of the imagination I seemed to discern a figure,--the figure, in
fact, of a woman.

That day twice or thrice I fell into a muse over my drawing. And on
other days I passed the house, and always when I was passing the curtain
would be raised again, remaining so till the sound of my steps was lost
in the distance and I from afar had looked back at it for the last time.

My sketches were making but little progress. In that cloister of _San
Juan de los Reyes_, in that cloister so mysterious and bathed in so
profound a melancholy,--seated on the broken capital of a column, my
portfolio on my knees, my elbows on my portfolio, and my head between my
hands,--to the music of water which flows there with an incessant
murmur, to the rustling of leaves under the evening wind in the wild,
forsaken garden, what dreams did I not dream of that window and that
woman! I knew her; I knew her name and even the color of her eyes.

I would see her crossing the wide and lonely courts of that most ancient
house, rejoicing them with her presence as a sunbeam gilds a pile of
ruins. Again I would seem to see her in a garden of very lofty, very
shadowy walls, among colossal, venerable trees, such as there ought to
be at the back of that sort of Gothic palace where she lived, gathering
flowers and seating herself alone on a stone bench and there sighing
while she plucked them leaf from leaf thinking on--who knows? Perchance
on me. Why say perchance? Assuredly on me. Oh, what dreams, what
follies, what poetry did that window awaken in my soul while I abode at
Toledo!

But my allotted time for sojourning in that city went by. One day, heavy
of heart and pensive of mood, I shut up all my drawings in the
portfolio, bade farewell to the world of fancy, and took a seat in the
coach for Madrid.

Before the highest of the Toledo towers had faded on the horizon, I
thrust my head from the carriage window to see it once more, and
remembered the street.

I still held the portfolio under my arm, and on taking my seat again,
while we rounded the hill which suddenly hid the city from my eyes, I
drew out my pencil and set down a date. It is the first of the three,
and the one which I call the Date of the Window.


II.

At the end of several months, I again had an opportunity to leave the
Capital for three or four days. I dusted my portfolio, tucked it under
my arm, provided myself with a quire of paper, a half-dozen pencils and
a few napoleons and, deploring the fact that the railroad was not yet
finished, crowded myself into a public stage that I might journey in
reverse order through the scenes of Tirso's famous comedy _From Toledo
to Madrid_.

Once installed in the historic city, I devoted myself to visiting again
the spots which had most excited my interest on my former trip, and
certain others which as yet I knew only by name.

Thus I let slip by, in long, solitary rambles among the most ancient
quarters of the town, the greater part of the time which I could spare
for my little artistic expedition, finding a veritable pleasure in
losing myself in that confused labyrinth of blind lanes, narrow streets,
dark passages and steep, impracticable heights.

One afternoon, the last that I might at that time remain in Toledo,
after one of these long wanderings in unknown ways, I arrived--by what
streets I can scarcely tell--at a great deserted square, apparently
forgotten by the very inhabitants of the city and hidden away, as it
were, in one of its most remote nooks.

The filth and the rubbish cast out in this square from time immemorial
had identified themselves, if I may say so, with the earth in such a
manner as to present the broken and mountainous aspect of a miniature
Switzerland. On the hillocks and in the valleys formed by these
irregularities were growing at their own will wild mallows of colossal
proportions, circles of giant nettles, creeping tangles of white
morning-glories, stretches of that nameless, common herb, small, fine
and of a darkish green, and among these, swaying gently in the light
breath of the air, overtopping like kings all the other parasitic
plants, the no less poetic than vulgar yellow mustard, true flower of
wastes and ruins.

Scattered along the ground, some half buried, others almost hidden by
the tall weeds, might be seen an infinite number of fragments of
thousands on thousands of diverse articles, broken and thrown out on
that spot in different epochs, where they were in process of forming
strata in which it would be easy to follow out a course of genealogical
history.

Moorish tiles enamelled in various colors, sections of marble and of
jasper columns, fragments of brick of a hundred varying kinds, great
blocks covered with verdure and moss, pieces of wood already nearly
turned to dust, remains of antique panelling, rags of cloth, strips of
leather, and countless other objects, formless, nameless, were what at
first sight appeared on the surface, even while the attention was caught
and the eyes dazzled by glancing sparks of light sprinkled over the
green like a handful of diamonds flung broadcast and which, on closer
survey, proved to be nothing else than tiny bits of glass and of glazed
earthenware,--pots, plates, pitchers,--that, flashing back the sunlight,
counterfeited a very heaven of microscopic, glittering stars.

Such was the flooring of that square, though actually paved in some
places with small pebbles of various colors arranged in patterns, and in
others covered with great slabs of slate, but in the main, as we have
just said, like a garden of parasitic plants or a waste and weedy field.

Nor were the buildings which outlined its irregular form less strange
and worthy of study. On one side it was bounded by a line of dingy
little houses, the roofs twinkling with chimneys, weathercocks and
overhangs, the marble guardposts fastened to the corners with iron
rings, the balconies low or narrow, the small windows set with
flower-pots, and the hanging lantern surrounded by a wire network to
protect its smoky glass from the missiles of the street urchins.

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.

White storks hang their nests on the tower-vane, martins build under the
eaves, swallows in the granite canopies, and the owls choose for their
haunt lofty holes left by fallen stones, whence on cloudy nights they
affright superstitious old women and timid children with the phosphoric
gleam of their round eyes and their shrill, uncanny hoots.

Only all these changes of fortune, only all these special circumstances
could have resulted in a building so individual, so full of contrasts,
of poetry and of memories as the one which on that afternoon presented
itself to my view and which to-day I have essayed, albeit in vain, to
describe by words.

I had drawn it in part on one of the leaves of my sketch-book. The sun
was scarcely gilding the highest spires of the city, the evening breeze
was beginning to caress my brow, when rapt in the ideas that suddenly
had assailed me on contemplating the silent remains of other eras more
poetic than the material age in which we live, suffocating in its utter
prose, I let my pencil slip from my fingers and gave over the drawing,
leaning against the wall at my back and yielding myself up completely to
the visions of imagination. Of what was I thinking? I do not know that I
can tell. I clearly saw epoch succeeding epoch, walls falling and other
walls rising in their stead. I saw men or, rather, women giving place to
other women, and the first and those who came after changing into dust
and flying like dust upon the air, a puff of wind bearing away
beauty,--beauty which had been wont to call forth secret sighs,
to engender passions, to be the source of ecstasies; then--what
know I? --all confused of thought, I saw many things jumbled
together,--boudoirs of cunning work, with clouds of perfume and beds of
flowers, strait and dreary cells with prayer-stool and crucifix, at the
foot of the crucifix an open book, and upon the book a skull; stern and
stately halls, hung with tapestries and adorned with trophies of war;
and many women passing and still repassing before my gaze, tall nuns
pale and thin, brown concubines with reddest lips and blackest eyes;
great dames of faultless profile, high bearing and majestic gait.

All these things I saw; and many more of those which, though visioned,
cannot be remembered; of those so immaterial that it is impossible to
confine them in the narrow compass of a word,--when suddenly I gave a
bound upon my seat and, passing my hand over my eyes to convince myself
that I was not still dreaming, leaping up as if moved by a nerve-spring,
I fastened my gaze on one of the lofty turrets of the convent. I had
seen--there is no room for doubt--perfectly had I seen a hand of
transcendent whiteness, which, reaching out from one of the apertures of
those turrets mortared like chess-boards, had waved several times as if
greeting me with a mute and loving sign. And it was I whom it greeted;
there was no possibility of a mistake; I was alone, utterly alone in the
square.

In vain I waited till night, nailed to that spot and without removing my
eyes for an instant from the turret; fruitlessly I often returned to
take up my watch again on the dark stone which had served me for seat
that afternoon when I saw appear the mysterious hand, already the object
of my dreams by night and wildest fantasies by day. I beheld it
nevermore.

And finally came the hour when I must depart from Toledo, leaving there,
as a useless and ridiculous burden, all the illusions which in its bosom
had been raised in my mind. I turned with a sigh to put my papers
together in my portfolio; but before securing them there, I wrote
another date, the second, the one which I know as the Date of the Hand.
As I wrote it, I noticed for a moment the earlier, that of the Window,
and could not but smile at my own folly.


III.

From the time of the strange occurrence which I have just related until
my return to Toledo, there elapsed about a year, during which the memory
of that afternoon was still present to my imagination, at first
constantly and in full detail, then less often, and at last so vaguely
that I even came to believe sometimes that I had been the sport of an
illusive dream.

Nevertheless, scarcely had I arrived at the city which some with good
reason call the Spanish Rome than this recollection beset me anew and
under its spell I set forth in absent-minded fashion to roam the
streets, without determined direction, with no preconceived purpose of
making my way to any special point.

The day was gloomy with that gloom which invades all that one hears and
sees and feels. The sky was the color of lead, and under its melancholy
shadow the houses seemed older, quainter and duskier than ever. The wind
moaned along the tortuous, narrow streets, bearing upon its gusts, like
the lost notes of a mysterious symphony, unintelligible words, the peal
of bells, and echoes of heavy, far-off blows. The damp, chill air froze
the soul with its icy breath.

I wandered for several hours through the most remote and deserted parts
of the city, rapt in a thousand confused imaginings; and, contrary to my
custom, with a gaze all vague and lost in space, nor could my attention
be aroused by any playful detail of architecture, by any monument of an
unknown style, by any marvellous and hidden work of sculpture, by any
one, in short, of those rare features for whose minute examination I had
been wont to pause at every step, at times when only artistic and
antiquarian interests held sway in my mind.

The sky was continually growing darker; the wind was blowing more
strongly and more boisterously; and a fine sleet had begun to fall,
very keen and penetrating, when unwittingly,--for I was still ignorant
of the way--and as if borne thither by an impulse which I could not
resist, an impulse whose occult force had brought me to the spot whither
my thoughts were tending, I found myself in the lonely square which my
readers already know.

On finding myself in that place I sprang to clear consciousness from out
the depths of that lethargy in which I had been sunken, as if awakened
from profound slumber by a violent shock.

I looked about me. All was as I described it--nay, it was more dreary. I
know not whether this gloom was due to the darkness of the sky, the lack
of verdure, or the state of my own spirit, but the truth is that between
the feeling with which I first contemplated that spot and this later
impression there was all the distance which lies between poetic
melancholy and personal bitterness.

For some moments I stood gazing at the sombre convent, now more sombre
than ever to my eyes, and I was already on the point of withdrawing when
my ears were wounded by the sound of a bell, a bell of broken, husky
voice, which was tolling slowly, while in vivid contrast it was
accompanied by something like a little clapper-bell which suddenly began
to revolve with the rapidity of a ringing so sharp and so incessant that
it seemed to have been seized by an attack of vertigo.

Nothing was ever stranger than that edifice, whose black silhouette was
outlined against the sky like that of a cliff bristling with thousands
of freakish points, speaking with tongues of bronze through bells that
seemed moved by the touch of invisible powers, the one weeping with
smothered sobs, the other laughing with shrill, wild outcry, like the
laughter of a madwoman.

At intervals and confused with the bewildering clamor of the bells, I
seemed to hear, too, something like the indistinct notes of an organ and
the words of a sacred, solemn chant.

I changed my intention; and instead of departing I approached the door
of the church and asked one of the ragged beggars squatted on the stone
steps:

"What is going on here? "

"A taking of the veil," the mendicant answered, interrupting the prayer
which he was muttering between his teeth to resume it later, although
not until he had kissed the bit of copper that I dropped into his hand
as I put my question.

I had never been present at that ceremony, nor had I ever seen the
interior of the convent church. Both considerations impelled me to
enter.

The church was high and dark; its aisles were defined by two rows of
pillars made up of slender columns gathered into sheaves and resting on
broad octagonal bases, while from their rich crowning of capitals sprang
the vaulting of the strong ogee arches. The High Altar was placed at the
further end under a cupola of Renaissance style decorated with great
shield-bearing angels, griffins, a profusion of foliage on the finials,
cornices with gilded moldings and rosettes, and odd, elaborate frescoes.
Bordering the aisles might be seen a countless number of dusky chapels,
in whose recesses were burning a few lamps like stars lost in a cloudy
sky. Chapels there were of Arab architecture, Gothic, rococo; some
enclosed by magnificent iron gratings; some by humble wooden rails; some
submerged in shadow with an ancient marble tomb before the altar; some
brightly lighted, with an image clad in tinsel and surrounded by votive
offerings of silver and wax, together with little bows of gay-colored
ribbon.

The fantastic light which illuminated all the church, whose structural
confusion and artistic disorder were entirely in keeping with the rest
of the convent, tended to enhance its effect of mystery. From the lamps
of silver and copper, suspended from the vaulting, from the
altar-candles, from the narrow ogive windows and Moorish casements of
the walls, were shed rays of a thousand diverse hues,--white, stealing
in from the street by little skylights in the cupola; red, spreading
their glow from the great wax-candles before the shrines; green, blue,
and a hundred other diverse tints making their way through the stained
glass of the rose-windows. All these lustres, insufficient to flood that
sacred place with adequate light, seemed at certain points to blend in
strife, while others stood out, clear patches of brightness, over
against the veiled, dim depths of the chapels. Despite the solemnity of
the rite which was there taking place, but few of the faithful were in
attendance. The ceremony had commenced some time ago and was now nearing
its close. The priests who officiated at the High Altar were, at that
moment, enveloped in a cloud of azure incense which swayed slowly
through the air, as they descended the carpeted steps to take their way
to the choir where the nuns were heard intoning a psalm.

I, too, moved toward that spot with the intent of peering through the
double gratings which isolated the choir from the rest of the church. It
seemed borne in upon me that I must know the face of that woman of whom
I had seen only--and for one instant--the hand; and opening my eyes to
their widest extent and dilating the pupils in the effort to give them
greater power and penetration, I strained my gaze on to the deepest
recesses of the choir. Fruitless attempt; across the interwoven irons,
little or nothing could be seen. Some white and black phantoms moving
amidst a gloom against which fought in vain the inadequate radiance of a
few tall wax candles; a long line of lofty, crocketed sedilia, crowned
with canopies, beneath which might be divined, veiled by the dusk, the
indistinct figures of nuns clad in long flowing robes; a crucifix
illuminated by four candles and standing out against the dark
background of the picture as those points of high light which, on the
canvases of Rembrandt, make the shadows more palpable; this was the
utmost that could be discerned from the place where I stood.

The priests, covered with their gold-bordered copes, preceded by
acolytes who bore a silver cross and two great candles, and followed by
others who swung censers that shed perfume all about, advancing through
the throng of the faithful who kissed their hands and the hems of their
vestments, finally reached the choir-screen.

Up to this moment I had not been able to distinguish, amid the other
vague phantoms, that of the maiden who was about to consecrate herself
to Christ.

Have you never seen, in those last instants of twilight, a shred of mist
rise from the waters of a river, the surface of a fen, the waves of the
sea, or the deep heart of a mountain tarn,--a shred of mist that floats
slowly in the void, and now looks like a woman moving, walking, trailing
her gown behind her, now like a white veil fastening the tresses of an
invisible sylph, now a ghost which rises in the air hiding its yellow
bones beneath a winding-sheet against which is still seen outlined its
angular shape? Such was the hallucination I experienced in beholding
draw near the screen, as if detaching herself from the sombre depth of
the choir, that white, tall, most lightly moving form.

The face I could not see. She had placed herself exactly in front of the
candles which lit up the crucifix; and their gleam, making a halo about
her head, had left the rest obscure, bathing her in a wavering shadow.

Profound silence reigned; all eyes were fixed on her, and the final act
of the ceremony began.

The abbess, murmuring some unintelligible words, words which in their
turn the priests repeated with deep and hollow voice, caught from the
virgin's brow the enwreathing crown of blossoms and flung it far
away. --Poor flowers! They were the last she was to wear, that woman,
sister of the flowers even as all women are.

Then the abbess despoiled her of her veil, and her fair tresses poured
in a golden cascade down her back and shoulders, which they were
suffered to cover but an instant, for at once there began to be heard,
in the midst of that profound silence reigning among the faithful, a
sharp, metallic clickity-click which set the nerves twitching, and first
the magnificent waves of hair fell from the forehead they had shaded,
and then those flowing locks that the fragrant air must have kissed so
many times slipped over her bosom and dropped upon the floor.

Again the abbess fell to murmuring the unintelligible words; the priest
repeated them; and once more all was silence in the church. Only from
time to time were heard, afar off, sounds like long-drawn, dreadful
moans. It was the wind complaining as it broke upon the edges of the
battlements and towers, and shuddering as it passed the colored panes of
the ogive windows.

She was motionless, motionless and pallid as a maiden of stone wrenched
from the niche of a Gothic cloister.

And they despoiled her of the jewels which covered her arms and throat,
and finally they divested her of her wedding robe, that raiment which
seemed to have been wrought that a lover might break its clasps with a
hand trembling for bliss and passion.

The mystic Bridegroom was awaiting the bride. Where? Beyond the doors of
death; lifting, undoubtedly, the stone of the sepulchre and calling her
to enter, even as the timid bride crosses the threshold of the sanctuary
of nuptial love, for she fell to the floor prostrate as a corpse. As if
she were clay, the nuns strewed her body with flowers, intoning a most
mournful psalm; a murmur went up from amid the multitude, and the
priests with their deep and hollow voices commenced the service for the
dead, accompanied by those instruments that seem to weep, augmenting the
unfathomable fear which the terrible words they pronounce inspire of
themselves.

_De profundis clamavi a te! _ chanted the nuns from the depths of the
choir with plaintive, lamenting voices.

_Dies irae, dies illa! _ responded the priests in thunderous, awful echo,
and therewith the bells pealed slowly, tolling for the dead, and between
the peals the metal was heard to vibrate with a strange and dolorous
drone.

I was touched; no, not touched--terrified. I believed that I was in
presence of the supernatural, that I felt the heart of my own life torn
from me, and that vacancy was closing in upon me; I felt that I had just
lost something precious, as a father, a mother, or a cherished wife, and
I suffered that immeasurable desolation which death leaves behind
wheresoever it passes, a desolation nameless, indescribable, to be
comprehended only by those who have had it to bear.

I was still rooted to that spot with wildly staring eyes, quaking from
head to foot and half beside myself, when the new nun rose from the
ground. The abbess robed her in the habit of the order, the sisters took
lighted candles in their hands and, forming two long lines, led her in
procession back to the further side of the choir.

There, amid the shadows, I saw the sudden glint of a ray of light; the
door of the cloister was opened. As she stepped beneath the lintel, the
nun turned for the last time toward the altar. The brightness of all the
lights suddenly shone upon her, and I could see her face. As I saw it, I
had to choke back a cry.

I knew that woman; not that I had ever seen her, but I knew her from the
visions of my dreams; she was one of those beings whom the soul
foretells or perchance remembers from another better world which, in
our descent to this, some of us do not altogether forget.

I took two steps forward; I longed to call to her--to cry out--I know
not what--giddiness assailed me; but at that instant the cloister door
shut--forever. The silver bells rang blithely, the priests raised a
_Hosanna_, clouds of incense swept through the air, the organ poured
forth from a hundred metal mouths a torrent of thunderous harmony, and
the bells of the tower began to chime, swinging with a frightful
ecstasy.

That mad and clamorous glee made my hair rise on my head. I looked about
searching for the parents, family, motherless children of that woman. I
found none.

"Perhaps she was alone in the world," I said, and could not repress a
tear.

"God grant thee in the cloister the happiness which He denied thee in
the world! " simultaneously exclaimed an old woman by my side, and she
sobbed and groaned, clutching the grating.

"Do you know her? " I asked.

"The poor dear! Indeed I knew her. I saw her born and I have nursed her
in my arms. "

"And why does she take the veil? "

"Because she found herself alone in the world. Her father and mother
died of the cholera on one and the same day, a little more than a year
ago. Seeing her an orphan and unprotected, the dean gave her a dowry so
that she might enter the sisterhood; and now you see--what else was
there to do? "

"And who was she? "

"Daughter of the steward of the Count of C----, whom I served until his
death. "

"Where did he live? "

When I heard the name of the street, I could not repress an exclamation
of surprise.

A line of light, that line of light which is as swift as thought,
running brightly through the obscurity and confusion of the mind,
uniting experiences far removed from one another and marvellously
binding them together, connected my vague memories and I understood--or
believed that I understood--all.

* * * * *

This date, which has no name, I have not written anywhere,--nay; I bear
it written there where only I may read it and whence it shall never be
erased.

Occasionally in recalling these events, even now in relating them here,
I have asked myself:--

Some day in the mysterious hour of twilight, when the breath of the
spring zephyr, warm and laden with perfumes, penetrates even into the
recesses of the most retired dwellings, bearing there an airy touch of
memory, of the world, must not a woman, alone, lost in the dim shades of
a Gothic cloister, her cheek upon her hand, her elbow resting on the
embrasure of an ogive window, have exhaled a sigh as the recollection of
these dates crossed her imagination?

Who knows?

Oh! if she sighed, where might that sigh be?




THE CHRIST OF THE SKULL


The King of Castile was going to the Moorish war and, in order to
contend with the enemies of the faith, he had sent a martial summons to
all the flower of his nobility. The silent streets of Toledo now
resounded night and day with the stirring sound of kettle-drums and
trumpets; and in the Moorish gateway of Visagra, or in that of Cambron,
or in the narrow entrance to the ancient bridge of St. Martin, not an
hour passed without one's hearing the hoarse cry of the sentinels
proclaiming the arrival of some knight who, preceded by his seigniorial
banner and followed by horsemen and foot-soldiers, had come to join the
main body of the Castilian army.

The time which remained before taking the road to the frontier and
completing the order of the royal hosts was spent in public
entertainments, lavish feasts and brilliant tournaments, until at last,
on the evening before the day appointed by His Highness for the setting
out of the army, a grand ball closed the festivities.

On the night of the ball, the royal palace presented a singular
appearance. In the spacious courts might be seen, promiscuously mingled
around huge bonfires, a motley multitude of pages, soldiers, crossbowmen
and hangers-on, who, some grooming their chargers and polishing their
arms preparatory to combat, others bewailing with outcries and
blasphemies the unforeseen turns of Fortune, personified for them in the
cast of the dice, and others chorusing the refrain of a martial ballad
which a minstrel was chanting to the accompaniment of a rude violin;
others still buying of a palmer cockle-shells, crosses and girdles
hallowed by the touch of the sepulchre of Santiago, or greeting with
wild outbursts of laughter the jokes of a clown, or practising on the
trumpets the battle-airs of the several seigniories, or telling old
stories of chivalry and love adventures, or of miracles recently
performed,--all contributed their quota to an infernal,
undistinguishable uproar impossible to describe in words.

Above that tumultuous ocean of war songs, noise of hammers smiting
anvils, creaking of files that bit the steel, stamping of horses,
insolent voices, irrepressible laughter, disorderly shouts and
intemperate reproaches, oaths and all manner of strange, discordant
sounds, there floated at intervals like a breath of harmony the distant
music of the ball.

This, which was taking place in the salons of the second story of the
palace, offered in its turn a picture, if not so fantastic and
capricious, more dazzling and magnificent.

Through galleries of far extent which formed an intricate labyrinth of
slender columns and ogees of fretted stone delicate as lace; through
great halls hung with tapestries on which silk and gold had pictured
with a thousand diverse colors scenes of love, of the chase and of
war,--halls adorned with trophies of arms and escutcheons over which was
shed a sea of sparkling light from innumerable lamps, suspended from the
loftiest vaults, and from candelabras of bronze, silver and gold,
fastened into the massive blocks of the walls; on all sides, wherever
the eyes turned, might be seen floating and drifting hither and thither
a cloud of beautiful ladies in rich, gold-embroidered garments, nets of
pearls imprisoning their tresses, necklaces of rubies blazing upon their
breasts, feather fans with ivory handles hanging from their wrists,
veils of white laces caressing their cheeks; and joyous throngs of
gallants with velvet sword-belts, brocaded jackets and silken trousers,
morocco buskins, full-sleeved mantelets with pointed

[Illustration: THE VISAGRA GATE]

hoods, poniards with ornamental hilts, and rapiers polished, thin and
light.

But in that bright and shining assemblage of youthful cavaliers and
ladies, whom their elders, seated in the high larch chairs which
encircled the royal dais, with smiles of joy saw defiling by, there was
one woman who attracted attention for her incomparable loveliness, one
who had been hailed Queen of Beauty in all the tournaments and courts of
love of the period, one whose colors the most valiant knights had
adopted as their emblem, one whose charms were the theme of the songs of
the troubadours most proficient in the _gay science_, one toward whom
all eyes turned with wonder, for whom all hearts sighed in secret,
around whom might be seen gathering with eagerness, like humble vassals
in the train of their mistress, the most illustrious scions of the
Toledan nobility assembled at the ball that night.

Those presumptive gallants who were continually in the retinue of the
Dona Ines de Tordesillas, for such was the name of this celebrated
beauty, were never discouraged in their suit despite her haughty and
disdainful character. One was emboldened by a smile which he thought he
detected on her lips; another, by a gracious look which he deemed he had
surprised in her eyes; another, by a flattering word, the slightest sign
of preference, or a vague promise. Each in silence cherished the hope
that he would be her choice. Yet among them all there were two
particularly prominent for their assiduity and devotion, two who to all
appearance, if not the acknowledged favorites of the beauty, might claim
to be the farthest advanced upon the path to her heart. These two
knights, equals in birth, valor and chivalric accomplishments, subjects
of the same king and aspirants for the same lady, were Alonso de
Carrillo and Lope de Sandoval.

Both were natives of Toledo; together they had first borne arms; and on
one and the same day, their eyes meeting those of Dona Ines, both had
conceived a hidden and ardent love for her, a love that for some time
grew in secrecy and silence, but at length came to an involuntary
betrayal of itself in their actions and conversation.

At the tournaments in the Zocodover, at the floral games of the court,
whenever opportunity was presented for rivalry in gallantry or wit, both
knights had availed themselves of it with eagerness, desirous to win
distinction under the eyes of their lady; and that night, impelled
doubtless by the same passion, changing their helmets for plumes and
their mail for brocade and silk, standing together by the seat where she
rested a moment after a turn through the salons, they began to engage in
a brilliant contest of exquisite and ingenious phrases or keen and
covert epigrams.

The lesser stars of that sparkling constellation, forming a gilded
semicircle around the two gallants, laughed and cheered on the delicate
strife; and the fair lady, the prize of that word-tournament, approved
with a scarcely perceptible smile the flashes of wit, elegantly phrased
or full of hidden meaning, whether they fell from the lips of her
adorers like a light wave of perfume flattering to her vanity, or leapt
forth like a sharp arrow seeking to pierce the opponent in his most
vulnerable point, his self-love.

Already with each sally the courtly combat of wit and gallantry was
growing fiercer; the phrases were still civil in form, but terse and
dry, and in the speaking, accompanied though it was by a slight curving
of the lips in semblance of a smile, unconcealable lightnings of the
eyes betrayed that repressed anger which raged in the breasts of the
rivals.

It was a situation that could not be sustained. The lady, so perceiving,
had risen to make another tour of the salons, when an incident occurred
that broke down the barrier of formal courtesy which had hitherto
restrained the two enamoured youths. Perchance intentionally, perchance
through carelessness, Dona Ines had let fall upon her lap one of her
perfumed gloves whose golden buttons she had amused herself in pulling
off one by one during the conversation. As she rose, the glove slipped
between the wide silken plaits of her dress and fell upon the carpet.
Seeing it drop, all the knights who formed her brilliant retinue bent
eagerly to recover it, disputing with one another the honor of a slight
inclination of her head as a reward of their gallantry.

Noting the precipitation with which all stooped to pick up her glove, a
half smile of satisfied vanity appeared on the lips of the haughty Dona
Ines. With a gesture of general acknowledgment to the cavaliers who had
shown such eagerness to serve her, the lady, with a lofty, arrogant mien
and scarcely glancing in that direction, reached out her hand for the
glove toward Lope and Alonso, the first to reach it. In fact, both
youths had seen the glove fall close to their feet, both had stooped
with equal haste to pick it up and, on rising, each held it seized by
one end. On seeing them immovable, looking silent defiance each upon the
other, and both determined not to give up the glove which they had just
raised from the floor, the lady uttered a light, involuntary cry,
stifled by the murmur of the astonished spectators.