At First The Tree, Of What Name Or Nature I Cannot
Tell, Stood Full And Perfect, A Mass Of Foliage
All yellow as if made up
of "patines of bright gold." Then day by day, almost hour by hour, it
Darkened and the tree shrank as if huddling its leaves closer about it
in the cold that fell from the ever-snowier Sierra. On the last morning
we left its boughs shaking in the rain against the cold,
Bare, ruined choir where late the sweet birds sang.
IV
But we anticipate, as I should say if I were still a romantic novelist.
Many other trees in and about Granada were yellower than that one, and
the air hung dim with a thin haze as of Indian summer when we left our
hotel in eager haste to see the Alhambra such as travelers use when they
do not want some wonder of the world to escape them. Of course there was
really no need of haste, and we had to wait till our guide could borrow
a match to light the first of the cigarettes which he never ceased to
smoke. He was commended to us by the hall porter, who said he could
speak French, and so he could, to the extreme of constantly saying, with
a wave of his cigarette, "_N'est ce pas?"_ For the rest he helped
himself out willingly with my small Spanish. At the end he would have
delivered us over to a dealer in antiquities hard by the gate of the
palace if I had not prevented him, as it were, by main force; he did not
repine, but we were not sorry that he should be engaged for the next
day.
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