University of Virginia Library

THE AUTHOR'S CHAMBER.

On taking up my abode in the Alhambra, one
end of a suite of empty chambers of modern architecture,
intended for the residence of the governor,
was fitted up for my reception. It was in
front of the palace, looking forth upon the esplanade.
The farther end communicated with a cluster of
little chambers, partly Moorish, partly modern, inhabited
by Tia Antonia and her family. These
terminated in a large room which serves the good
old dame for parlour, kitchen and hall of audience.
It had boasted of some splendour in time of the
Moors, but a fire-place had been built in one corner,
the smoke from which had discoloured the
walls; nearly obliterated the ornaments, and spread
a sombre tint over the whole. From these gloomy
apartments, a narrow blind corridor and a dark
winding stair-case led down an angle of the tower

of Comares; groping down which, and opening a
small door at the bottom, you are suddenly dazzled
by emerging into the brilliant antechamber of the
hall of ambassadors, with the fountain of the court
of the Alberca sparkling before you.

I was dissatisfied with being lodged in a modern
and frontier apartment of the palace, and longed
to ensconce myself in the very heart of the building.

As I was rambling one day about the Moorish
halls, I found, in a remote gallery, a door which I
had not before noticed, communicating apparently
with an extensive apartment, locked up from the
public. Here then was a mystery. Here was
the haunted wing of the castle. I procured the
key, however, without difficulty. The door opened
to a range of vacant chambers of European architecture;
though built over a Moorish arcade, along
the little garden of Lindaraxa. There were two
lofty rooms, the ceilings of which were of deep
panel work of cedar, richly and skilfully carved
with fruits and flowers, intermingled with grotesque
masks or faces; but broken in many places. The
walls had evidently, in ancient times, been hung
with damask, but were now naked, and scrawled
over with the insignificant names of aspiring travellers;

the windows, which were dismantled and
open to wind and weather, looked into the garden
of Lindaraxa, and the orange and citron trees flung
their branches into the chambers. Beyond these
rooms were two saloons, less lofty, looking also into
the garden. In the compartments of the panelled
ceiling were baskets of fruit and garlands of flowers,
painted by no mean hand, and in tolerable preservation.
The walls had also been painted in
fresco in the Italian style, but the paintings were
nearly obliterated. The windows were in the same
shattered state as in the other chambers.

This fanciful suite of rooms terminated in an
open gallery with balustrades, which ran at right
angles along another side of the garden. The
whole apartment had a delicacy and elegance in
its decorations, and there was something so choice
and sequestered in its situation, along this retired
little garden, that awakened an interest in its history.
I found, on inquiry, that it was an apartment
fitted up by Italian artists, in the early part of the
last century, at the time when Philip V. and the
beautiful Elizabetta of Parma were expected at
the Alhambra; and was destined for the queen and
the ladies of her train. One of the loftiest chambers
had been her sleeping room, and a narrow

staircase leading from it, though now walled up,
opened to the delightful belvedere, originally a
mirador of the Moorish sultanas, but fitted up as
a boudoir for the fair Elizabetta, and which still
retains the name of the Tocador, or toilette of the
queen. The sleeping room I have mentioned,
commanded from one window a prospect of the
Generaliffe, and its imbowered terraces; under another
window played the alabaster fountain of the
garden of Lindaraxa. That garden carried my
thoughts still farther back, to the period of another
reign of beauty; to the days of the Moorish sultanas.
“How beauteous is this garden!” says an
Arabic inscription, “where the flowers of the earth
vie with the stars of heaven! what can compare
with the vase of yon alabaster fountain filled with
crystal water? Nothing but the moon in her
fulness, shining in the midst of an unclouded sky!”

Centuries had elapsed, yet how much of this
scene of apparently fragile beauty remained! The
garden of Lindaraxa was still adorned with flowers;
the fountain still presented its crystal mirror:
it is true, the alabaster had lost its whiteness, and
the basin beneath, overrun with weeds, had become
the nestling place of the lizard; but there
was something in the very decay that enhanced

the interest of the scene, speaking, as it did, of
that mutability which is the irrevocable lot of man
and all his works. The desolation, too, of these
chambers, once the abode of the proud and elegant
Elizabetta, had a more touching charm for me
than if I had beheld them in their pristine splendour,
glittering with the pageantry of a court.—I
determined at once to take up my quarters in this
apartment.

My determination excited great surprise in the
family; who could not imagine any rational inducement
for the choice of so solitary, remote and
forlorn an apartment. The good Tia Antonia
considered it highly dangerous. The neighbourhood,
she said, was infested by vagrants; the caverns
of the adjacent hills swarmed with gipsies;
the palace was ruinous and easy to be entered in
many parts; and the rumour of a stranger quartered
alone in one of the ruined apartments, out
of the hearing of the rest of the inhabitants, might
tempt unwelcome visiters in the night, especially
as foreigners are always supposed to be well
stocked with money. Dolores represented the
frightful loneliness of the place; nothing but bats
and owls flitting about; then there were a fox and

a wild cat that kept about the vaults and roamed
about at night.

I was not to be diverted from my humour, so
calling in the assistance of a carpenter, and the
ever officious Mateo Ximenes, the doors and windows
were soon placed in a state of tolerable security.

With all these precautions, I must confess the
first night I passed in these quarters was inexpressibly
dreary. I was escorted by the whole family
to my chamber, and there taking leave of me, and
retiring along the waste antechamber and echoing
galleries, reminded me of those hobgoblin stories,
where the hero is left to accomplish the adventure
of a haunted house.

Soon the thoughts of the fair Elizabetta and
the beauties of her court, who had once graced
these chambers, now by a perversion of fancy added
to the gloom. Here was the scene of their
transient gaiety and loveliness; here were the very
traces of their elegance and enjoyment; but what
and where were they?—Dust and ashes! tenants of
the tomb! phantoms of the memory!

A vague and indescribable awe was creeping
over me. I would fain have ascribed it to the

thoughts of robbers, awakened by the evening's
conversation, but I felt that it was something more
unusual and absurd. In a word, the long buried
impressions of the nursery were reviving and asserting
their power over my imagination. Every
thing began to be affected by the workings of my
mind. The whispering of the wind among the citron
trees beneath my window had something sinister.
I cast my eyes into the garden of Lindaraxa;
the groves presented a gulf of shadows;
the thickets had indistinct and ghastly shapes. I
was glad to close the window; but my chamber
itself became infected. A bat had found its way
in, and flitted about my head and athwart my
solitary lamp; the grotesque faces carved in the
cedar ceiling seemed to mope and mow at me.

Rousing myself, and half smiling at this temporary
weakness, I resolved to brave it, and, taking
lamp in hand, sallied forth to make a tour of the
ancient palace. Notwithstanding every mental
exertion, the task was a severe one. The rays of
my lamp extended to but a limited distance around
me; I walked as it were in a mere halo of light,
and all beyond was thick darkness. The vaulted
corridors were as caverns; the vaults of the halls

were lost in gloom; what unseen foe might not be
lurking before or behind me; my own shadow
playing about the walls, and the echoes of my
own footsteps disturbed me.

In this excited state, as I was traversing the
great Hall of Ambassadors, there were added
real sounds to these conjectural fancies. Low
moans and indistinct ejaculations seemed to rise
as it were from beneath my feet; I paused and
listened. They then appeared to resound from
without the tower. Sometimes they resembled
the howlings of an animal, at others they were
stifled shrieks, mingled with articulate ravings.
The thrilling effect of these sounds in that still
hour and singular place, destroyed all inclination
to continue my lonely perambulation. I returned
to my chamber with more alacrity than I had sallied
forth, and drew my breath more freely when
once more within its walls, and the door bolted behind
me.

When I awoke in the morning, with the sun
shining in at my window, and lighting up every
part of the building with its cheerful and truth-telling
beams, I could scarcely recal the shadows
and fancies conjured up by the gloom of the preceding

night; or believe that the scenes around me,
so naked and apparent, could have been clothed
with such imaginary horrors.

Still the dismal howlings and ejaculations I had
heard, were not ideal; but they were soon accounted
for, by my handmaid Dolores; being the
ravings of a poor maniac, a brother of her aunt,
who was subject to violent paroxysms, during
which he was confined in a vaulted room beneath
the Hall of Ambassadors.