Romantic legends of Spain

The multitude ran to press for places on the sloping banks beside the road in order to see their fill of the brilliant armor and sumptuous trappings of the following of the Count of Gômara, famed through all the countryside for his splendor and his lavish pomp.

The march was opened by the heralds who, halting at fixed intervals, proclaimed in loud voice, to the beat of the drum, the commands of the King, summoning his feudatories to the Moorish war and requiring the villages and free towns to give passage and aid to his armies.

After the heralds followed the kings-at-arms, proud of their silken vestments, their shields bordered with gold and bright colors, and their caps decked with graceful plumes.

Then came the chief retainer of the castle armed cap-à-pie, a knight mounted on a young black horse, bearing in his hands the pennon of a grandee with his motto and device; at his left hand rode the executioner of the seigniory, clad in black and red.

The seneschal was preceded by fully a score of those famous trumpeters of Castile celebrated in the chronicles of our kings for the incredible power of their lungs.

When the shrill clamor of their mighty trumpeting ceased to wound the wind, a dull sound, steady and monotonous, began to reach the ear, – the tramp of the foot-soldiers, armed with long pikes and provided with a leather shield apiece. Behind these soon came in view the soldiers who managed the engines of war, with their crude machines and their wooden towers, the bands of wall-scalers and the rabble of stable-boys in charge of the mules.

Then, enveloped in the cloud of dust raised by the hoofs of their horses, flashing sparks from their iron breastplates, passed the men-at-arms of the castle, formed in thick platoons, looking from a distance like a forest of spears.

Last of all, preceded by the drummers who were mounted on strong mules tricked out in housings and plumes, surrounded by pages in rich raiment of silk and gold and followed by the squires of the castle, appeared the Count.

As the multitude caught sight of him, a great shout of greeting went up and in the tumult of acclamation was stifled the cry of a woman, who at that moment, as if struck by a thunderbolt, fell fainting into the arms of those who sprang to her aid. It was Margarita, Margarita who had recognized her mysterious lover in that great and dreadful lord, the Count of Gômara, one of the most exalted and powerful feudatories of the Crown of Castile.

III

The host of Don Fernando, after going forth from Cordova, had marched to Seville, not without having to fight its way at Écija, Carmona, and Alcalá del Rio del Guadaira, whose famous castle, once taken by storm, put the army in sight of the stronghold of the Infidels.

The Count of Gômara was in his tent seated on a bench of larchwood, motionless, pale, terrible, his hands crossed upon the hilt of his broadsword, his eyes fixed on space with that vague regard which appears to behold a definite object and yet takes cognizance of naught in the encompassing scene.

Standing by his side, the squire who had been longest in the castle, the only one who in those moods of black despondency could have ventured to intrude without drawing down upon his head an explosion of wrath, was speaking to him. “What is your ail, my lord?” he was saying. “What trouble wears and wastes you? Sad you go to battle, and sad return, even though returning victorious. When all the warriors sleep, surrendered to the weariness of the day, I hear your anguished sighs; and if I run to your bed, I see you struggling there against some invisible torment. You open your eyes, but your terror does not vanish. What is it, my lord? Tell me. If it be a secret, I will guard it in the depths of my memory as in a grave.”

The Count seemed not to hear his squire, but after a long pause, as if the words had taken all that time to make slow way from his ears to his understanding, he emerged little by little from his trance and, drawing the squire affectionately toward him, said to him with grave and quiet tone:

“I have suffered much in silence. Believing myself the sport of a vain fantasy, I have until now held my peace for shame, – but nay, what is happening to me is no illusion.

“It must be that I am under the power of some awful curse. Heaven or hell must wish something of me, and tell me so by supernatural events. Recallest thou the day of our encounter with the Moors of Nebriza in the Aljarafe de Triana? We were few, the combat was stern, and I was face to face with death. Thou sawest, in the most critical moment of the fight, my horse, wounded and blind with rage, dash toward the main body of the Moorish host. I strove in vain to check him; the reins had escaped from my hands, and the fiery animal galloped on, bearing me to certain death.

“Already the Moors, closing up their ranks, were grounding their long pikes to receive me on the points; a cloud of arrows hissed about my ears; the horse was but a few bounds from the serried spears on which we were about to fling ourselves, when – believe me, it was not an illusion – I saw a hand that, grasping the bridle, stopped him with an unearthly force and, turning him in the direction of my own troops, saved me by a miracle.

“In vain I asked of one and another who my deliverer was; no one knew him, no one had seen him.

“ ‘When you were rushing to throw yourself upon the wall of pikes,’ they said, ‘you went alone, absolutely alone; this is why we marvelled to see you turn, knowing that the steed no longer obeyed his rider.’

“That night I entered my tent distraught; I strove in vain to extirpate from my imagination the memory of the strange adventure; but on advancing toward my bed, again I saw the same hand, a beautiful hand, white to the point of pallor, which drew the curtains, vanishing after it had drawn them. Ever since, at all hours, in all places, I see that mysterious hand which anticipates my desires and forestalls my actions. I saw it, when we were storming the castle of Triana, catch between its fingers and break in the air an arrow which was about to strike me; I have seen it at banquets where I was trying to drown my trouble in the tumultuous revelry, pour the wine into my cup; and always it flickers before my eyes, and wherever I go it follows me; in the tent, in the battle, by day, by night, – even now, see it, see it here, resting gently on my shoulder!”

On speaking these last words, the Count sprang to his feet, striding back and forth as if beside himself, overwhelmed by utter terror.

The squire dashed away a tear. Believing his lord mad, he did not try to combat his ideas, but confined himself to saying in a voice of deep emotion:

“Come; let us go out from the tent a moment; perhaps the evening air will cool your temples, calming this incomprehensible grief, for which I find no words of consolation.”

IV

The camp of the Christians extended over all the plain of Guadaira, even to the left bank of the Guadalquivir. In front of the camp and clearly defined against the bright horizon, rose the walls of Seville flanked by massive, menacing towers. Above the crown of battlements showed in its rich profusion the green leafage of the thousand gardens enclosed in the Moorish stronghold, and amid the dim clusters of foliage gleamed the observation turrets, white as snow, the minarets of the mosques, and the gigantic watch-tower, over whose aerial parapet the four great balls of gold, which from the Christian camp looked like four flames, threw out, when smitten by the sun, sparks of living light.

The enterprise of Don Fernando, one of the most heroic and intrepid of that epoch, had drawn to his banners the greatest warriors of the various kingdoms in the Peninsula, with others who, called by fame, had come from foreign, far-off lands to add their forces to those of the Royal Saint. Stretching along the plain might be seen, therefore, army-tents of all forms and colors, above whose peaks waved in the wind the various ensigns with their quartered escutcheons, – stars, griffins, lions, chains, bars and caldrons, with hundreds of other heraldic figures or symbols which proclaimed the name and quality of their owners. Through the streets of that improvised city were circulating in all directions a multitude of soldiers who, speaking diverse dialects, dressed each in the fashion of his own locality and armed according to his fancy, formed a scene of strange and picturesque contrasts.

Here a group of nobles were resting from the fatigues of combat, seated on benches of larchwood at the door of their tents and playing at chess, while their pages poured them wine in metal cups; there some foot-soldiers were taking advantage of a moment of leisure to clean and mend their armor, the worse for their last skirmish; further on, the most expert archers of the army were covering the mark with arrows, amidst the applause of the crowd marvelling at their dexterity; and the beating of the drums, the shrilling of the trumpets, the cries of pedlars hawking their wares, the clang of iron striking on iron, the ballad-singing of the minstrels who entertained their hearers with the relation of prodigious exploits, and the shouts of the heralds who published the orders of the camp-masters, all these, filling the air with thousands of discordant noises, contributed to that picture of soldier life a vivacity and animation impossible to portray in words.

The Count of Gômara, attended by his faithful squire, passed among the lively groups without raising his eyes from the ground, silent, sad, as if not a sight disturbed his gaze nor the least sound reached his hearing. He moved mechanically, as a sleepwalker, whose spirit is busy in the world of dreams, steps and takes his course without consciousness of his actions, as if impelled by a will not his own.

Close by the royal tent and in the middle of a ring of soldiers, little pages and camp-servants, who were listening to him open-mouthed, making haste to buy some of the tawdry knickknacks which he was enumerating in a loud voice, with extravagant praises, was an odd personage, half pilgrim, half minstrel, who, at one moment reciting a kind of litany in barbarous Latin, and the next giving vent to some buffoonery or scurrility, was mingling in his interminable tale devout prayers with jests broad enough to make a common soldier blush, romances of illicit love with legends of saints. In the huge pack that hung from his shoulders were a thousand different objects all tossed and tumbled together, – ribbons touched to the sepulchre of Santiago, scrolls with words which he averred were Hebrew, the very same that King Solomon spoke when he founded the temple, and the only words able to keep you free of every contagious disease; marvellous balsams capable of sticking together men who were cut in two; secret charms to make all women in love with you; Gospels sewed into little silk bags; relics of the patron saints of all the towns in Spain; tinsel jewels, chains, sword-belts, medals and many other gewgaws of brass, glass and lead.

When the Count approached the group formed by the pilgrim and his admirers, the fellow began to tune a kind of mandolin or Arab guitar with which he accompanied himself in the singsong recital of his romances. When he had thoroughly tested the strings, one after another, very coolly, while his companion made the round of the circle coaxing out the last coppers from the flaccid pouches of the audience, the pilgrim began to sing in nasal voice, to a monotonous and plaintive air, a ballad whose stanzas always ended in the same refrain.

The Count drew near the group and gave attention. By an apparently strange coincidence, the title of this tale was entirely at one with the melancholy thoughts that burdened his mind. As the singer had announced before beginning, the lay was called the Ballad of the Dead Hand.

The squire, on hearing so strange an announcement, had striven to draw his lord away; but the Count, with his eyes fixed on the minstrel, remained motionless, listening to this song.

IA maiden had a lover gayWho said he was a squire;The war-drums called him far away;Not tears could quench his fire.“Thou goest to return no more.”“Nay, by all oaths that bind” —But even while the lover swore,A voice was on the wind:Ill fares the soul that sets its trustOn faith of dust.IIForth from his castle rode the lordWith all his glittering train,But never will his battle-swordInflict so keen a pain.“His soldier-honor well he keeps;Mine honor – blind! oh, blind!”While the forsaken woman weeps,A voice is on the wind:Ill fares the soul that sets its trustOn faith of dust.IIIHer brother’s eye her secret reads;His fatal angers burn.“Thou hast us shamed.” Her terror pleads, —“He swore he would return.”“But not to find thee, if he tries,Where he was wont to find.”Beneath her brother’s blow she dies;A voice is on the wind:Ill fares the soul that sets its trustOn faith of dust.IVIn the trysting-wood, where love made mirth,They have buried her deep, – but lo!However high they heap the earth,A hand as white as snowComes stealing up, a hand whose ringA noble’s troth doth bind.Above her grave no maidens sing,But a voice is on the wind:Ill fares the soul that sets its trustOn faith of dust.

Hardly had the singer finished the last stanza, when, breaking through the wall of eager listeners who respectfully gave way on recognizing him, the Count fronted the pilgrim and, clutching his arm, demanded in a low, convulsive voice:

“From what part of Spain art thou?”

“From Soria,” was the unmoved response.

“And where hast thou learned this ballad? Who is that maiden of whom the story tells?” again exclaimed the Count, with ever more profound emotion.

“My lord,” said the pilgrim, fixing his eyes upon the Count with imperturbable steadiness, “this ballad is passed from mouth to mouth among the peasants in the fief of Gômara, and it refers to an unhappy village-girl cruelly wronged by a great lord. The high justice of God has permitted that, in her burial, there shall still remain above the earth the hand on which her lover placed a ring in plighting her his troth. Perchance you know whom it behooves to keep that pledge.”

V

In a wretched village which may be found at one side of the highway leading to Gômara, I saw not long since the spot where the strange ceremony of the Count’s marriage is said to have taken place.

After he, kneeling upon the humble grave, had pressed the hand of Margarita in his own, and a priest, authorized by the Pope, had blessed the mournful union, the story goes that the miracle ceased, and the dead hand buried itself forever.

At the foot of some great old trees there is a bit of meadow which, every spring, covers itself spontaneously with flowers.

The country-folk say that this is the burial place of Margarita.

THE KISS

I

WHEN a division of the French army, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, took possession of historic Toledo, the officers in command, not unaware of the danger to which French soldiers were exposed in Spanish towns by being quartered in separate lodgings, commenced to fit up as barracks the largest and best edifices of the city.

After occupying the magnificent palace of Carlos V. they appropriated the City Hall, and when this could hold no more, they began to invade the pious shade of monasteries, at last making over into stables even the churches sacred to worship. Such was the state of affairs in the famous old town, scene of the event which I am about to recount, when one night, already late, there entered the city, muffled in their dark army-cloaks and deafening the narrow, lonely streets, from the Gate of the Sun to the Zocodover, with the clang of weapons and the resounding beat of the hoofs that struck sparks from the flinty way, one hundred or so of these tall dragoons, dashing, mettlesome fellows, whom our grandmothers still tell about with admiration.

The force was commanded by a youthful officer, riding about thirty paces in advance of his troop and talking in low tones with a man on foot, who, so far as might be inferred from his dress, was also a soldier. Walking in front of his interlocutor, with a small lantern in hand, he seemed to be serving as guide through that labyrinth of obscure, twisted and intertangled streets.

“In sooth,” said the trooper to his companion, “if the lodging prepared for us is even such as you picture it, perhaps it would be better to camp out in the country or in one of the public squares.”

“But what would you, my captain?” answered the guide, who was, in fact, a sergeant sent on before to make ready for their reception. “In the palace there is not room for another grain of wheat, much less for a man; of San Juan de los Reyes there is no use in talking, for there it has reached such a point that in one of the friars’ cells are sleeping fifteen hussars. The monastery to which I am taking you was not so bad, but some three or four days ago there fell upon us, as if out of the clouds, one of the flying columns that scour the province, and we are lucky to have prevailed on them to heap themselves up along the cloisters and leave the church free for us.”

“Ah, well!” exclaimed the officer, after a brief silence, with an air of resigning himself to the strange quarters which chance had apportioned him, “an ill lodging is better than none. At all events, in case of rain, – not unlikely, judging from the massing of the clouds, – we shall be under cover, and that is something.”

With this the conversation was broken off, and the troopers, preceded by the guide, took the onward way in silence until they came to one of the smaller squares, on the further side of which stood out the black silhouette of the monastery with its Moorish minaret, spired bell-tower, ogive cupola and dark, uneven roof.

“Here is your lodging!” exclaimed the sergeant at sight of it, addressing the captain, who, after commanding his troop to halt, dismounted, caught the lantern from the hands of the guide, and took his way toward the building designated.

Since the church of the monastery was thoroughly dismantled, the soldiers who occupied the other parts of the building had thought that the doors were now a trifle less than useless and, piece by piece, had wrenched off one to-day, another to-morrow, to make bonfires for warming themselves by night.

Our young officer, therefore, did not have to delay for turning of keys or drawing of bolts before penetrating into the heart of the sanctuary.

By the light of the lantern, whose doubtful ray, lost in the heavy glooms of nave and aisles, threw in giant proportions upon the wall the fantastic shadow of the sergeant going on before, he traversed the length and breadth of the church and peered into the deserted chapels, one by one, until he had made himself thoroughly acquainted with the place, when he ordered his troop to dismount, and set about the bestowing of that confused crowd of men and horses as best he could.

As we have said, the church was completely dismantled; before the High Altar were still hanging from the lofty cornices torn shreds of the veil with which the monks had covered it on abandoning that holy place; at intervals along the aisles might be seen shrines fastened against the wall, their niches bereft of images; in the choir a line of light traced the strange contour of the shadowy larchwood stalls; upon the pavement, destroyed at various points, might still be distinguished broad burial slabs filled with heraldic devices, shields and long Gothic inscriptions; and far away, in the depths of the silent chapels and along the transepts, were vaguely visible in the dimness, like motionless white spectres, marble statues which, some extended at full length and others kneeling on their stony tombs, appeared to be the only tenants of that ruined structure.

For anyone less spent than the captain of dragoons, who carried in his body the fatigues of a ride of fourteen leagues, or less accustomed to seeing these sacrileges as the most natural thing in the world, two drams of imagination would have sufficed to keep eyes from closing the whole night long in that dusky, awesome haunt, where the oaths of the soldiers, who were loudly complaining of their improvised barracks, the metallic clink of their spurs striking rudely against the once sepulchral slabs of the pavement, the clatter of the horses as they pawed impatiently, tossing their heads and rattling the chains which bound them to the pillars, formed a strange and fearful confusion of sounds that reverberated through the reaches of the church and was repeated, ever more weirdly, from echo to echo among the lofty vaults.

But our hero, young though he was, had already become so familiar with those shiftings of the scene in a soldier’s life, that scarcely had he assigned places to his men than he ordered a sack of fodder flung down at the foot of the chancel steps, and rolling himself as snugly as possible into his cloak, resting his head upon the lowest stair, in five minutes was snoring with more tranquillity than King Joseph himself in his palace at Madrid.

The soldiers, making pillows of the saddles, followed his example, and little by little the murmur of their voices died away.

Half an hour later, nothing was to be heard save the stifled groans of the wind which entered by the broken ogive windows of the church, the skurrying flights of night-birds whose nests were built in the stone canopies above the sculptured figures of the walls, and the tramp, now near, now far, of the sentry who was pacing up and down the portico, wound in the wide folds of his military cloak.

II

In the epoch to which the account of this incident, no less true than strange, reverts, the city of Toledo, for those who knew not how to value the treasures of art which its walls enclose, was, even as now, no more than a great huddle of houses, old-fashioned, ruinous, insufferable.

The officers of the French army who, to judge from the acts of vandalism by which they left in Toledo a sad and enduring memory of their occupation, counted few artists and archæologists in their number, found themselves, as goes without the saying, supremely bored in the ancient city of the Cæsars.

In this frame of mind, the most trifling event which came to break the monotonous calm of those eternal, unvarying days was eagerly caught up among the idlers, so that the promotion of one of their comrades to the next grade, a report of the strategic movement of a flying column, the departure of an official post or the arrival at the city of any military force whatsoever, became a fertile theme of conversation and object of every sort of comment, until something else occurred to take its place and serve as foundation for new grumblings, criticisms and conjectures.

As was to be expected, among those officers who, according to their custom, gathered on the following day to take the air and chat a little in the Zocodover, the dish of gossip was supplied by nothing else than the arrival of the dragoons, whose leader was left in the former chapter stretched out at his ease, sleeping off the fatigues of the march. For upwards of an hour the conversation had been beating about this event, and already various explanations had been put forward to account for the non-appearance of the new-comer, whom an officer present, a former schoolmate, had invited to the Zocodover, when at last, in one of the side-streets that radiate from the square, appeared our gallant captain, no longer obscured by his voluminous army-cloak, but sporting a great shining helmet with a plume of white feathers, a turquoise-blue coat with scarlet facings, and a magnificent two-handed sword in a steel scabbard which clanked as it struck the ground in time to his martial stride and to the keener, sharper clink of his golden spurs.

As soon as his former chum caught sight of him, off he went to meet him and bid him welcome, followed by almost all the officers who chanced to be in the group that morning and who had been stirred to curiosity and a desire to know him by what they had already heard of his original, extraordinary traits of character.

After the customary close embraces, and the exclamations, compliments and questions enjoined by etiquette in meetings like this; after discussing at length and in detail the latest news from Madrid, the changing fortune of the war, and old friends dead or far away, the conversation, flitting from one subject to another, came to roost at last on the inevitable theme, to wit, the hardships of the service, the dearth of amusements in the city, and the inconveniences of their lodgings.