Because It Was Unspeakable We Could Not Speak, But I May Say
Now That This Was Our Supreme Moment Of Granada.
There were other fine
moments, but none unmixed with the reservations which truth obliges
honest travel to own.
Now, when from some secret spot there rose the
wild cry of a sentinel, and prolonged itself to another who caught it
dying up and breathed new life into it and sent it echoing on till it
had made the round of the whole fairy city, the heart shut with a pang
of pure ecstasy. One could bear no more; we stepped within, and closed
the window behind us. That is, we tried to close it, but it would not
latch, and we were obliged to ring for a _camerero_ to come and see what
ailed it.
The infirmity of the door-latch was emblematic of a temperamental
infirmity in the whole hotel. The promises were those of Madrid, but the
performances were those of Segovia. There was a glitter, almost a glare,
of Ritz-like splendor, and the rates were Ritz-like, but there the
resemblance ceased. The porter followed us to our rooms on our arrival
and told us in excellent English (which excelled less and less
throughout our stay) that he was the hall porter and that we could
confidently refer all our wants to him; but their reference seemed
always to close the incident. There was a secretary who assured us that
our rooms were not dear, and who could not out of regard to our honor
and comfort consider cheaper ones; and then ceased to be until he
receipted our bill when we went away. There was a splendid dining-room
with waiters of such beauty and dignity, and so purple from clean
shaving, that we scarcely dared face them, and there were luncheons and
dinners of rich and delicate superabundance in the menu, but of an
exquisite insipidity on the palate, and of a swiftly vanishing Barmecide
insubstantiality, as if they were banquets from the _Arabian Nights_
imagined under the rule of the Moors. Everywhere shone silver-bright
radiators, such as we had not seen since we left their like freezing in
Burgos; but though the weather presently changed from an Andalusian
softness to a Castilian severity after a snowfall in the Sierra, the
radiators remained insensible to the difference and the air nipped the
nose and fingers wherever one went in the hotel. The hall porter, who
knew everything, said the boilers were out of order, and a traveler who
had been there the winter before confirmed him with the testimony that
they were out of order even in January. There may not have been any fire
under them then, as there was none now; but if they needed repairing now
it was clearly because they needed repairing then. In the corner of one
of our rooms the frescoed plastering had scaled off, and we knew that if
we came back a year later the same spot would offer us a familiar
welcome.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 165 of 197
Words from 86101 to 86609
of 103320