Part 5

The next evening I ordered the chandeliers to be lighted in the great drawing-room, and with my violin tucked under my arm hastened thither. It was a noble room that lay revealed beneath the glitter of the swinging crystals. I was glad that I had not spoiled the first effect by seeing it by day. It was lofty, and long by some forty feet. The floor was worked out in a curiously dim-bright design made of marble and ancient glass bricks, in whose depth glowed _mille fiori_. The ceiling was a richly resplendent canvas, whereon were depicted giant figures representing the loves of Hercules and Omphale. The walls were made up of alternate panels of mirrors, mural paintings continuing the stories of classic lovers, and spaces of mysteriously colored and strangely wrought glass, evidently rare and priceless specimens of the ancient workmen of La Granja.

At a glance the mirrors seemed as much alike as peas in a pod. They reached from floor to ceiling. They were framed uniformly in the heavily ornate frames with which fifteenth-century Italy supplied the world.

Yet the effect was most lovely. Between the feverish panels wherein the passion of flame had prisoned restless colors and the perfervid scenes of classic love, the mirrors interposed spaces of pale neutrality and mysterious calm. They afforded the relief that water affords in the out-of-door landscape. Their unsoundable depths of silence were like a telescopic glimpse into the night of space. They were the mute and motionless keepers of secrets of another world. Their pale passivity was more pleasant than silence. Yet at times they seemed to tell of the possibilities of a spirit life which was centered in colossal calm.

What artistry had been expended upon the decoration of these walls! That dead uncle could have been no ordinary man. My heart thrilled with pride. It was worth being called mad so to have understood the values of light.

Drawing an easy-chair before the central mirror, I took up my violin preparatory to playing. Then I noticed that the frame of the central mirror was unlike the others. I looked about to make sure. Yes, it was the only odd one. And odd enough it was, made of closed flower buds, tiny eggs, and folded leaves. It must mean something, that strange frame. It was not chosen with an eye single to decorative ends. It was an hieroglyph, a symbol. But what one? Each detail represented the sleeping germ of a life principle. In the egg, in the bud, life is folded. They pointed to the mirror edge. Did they mean that there too life was folded?

I leaned forward. The cold face of the mirror confronted me. I started with fear. I was not reflected in it! Nothing was reflected in it! Not an article of furniture, not a picture, not a bead of light from the great chandelier above. I looked about, This was the only odd mirror. I made sure of that. All the others were a-quiver with light and color. I held my hand in front of it. I waved my violin to and fro. In vain! They left not a trace upon its surface. Prickly fear crept over me. I shivered as if from touch of the dead or sweep of their icy breath. The mirror’s pallid passivity added to the horror. It was the silent mockery of the dead. And this horror was born, not of midnight noises and visions, but of silence and the splendor of light.

Only last night in this very room I had called my uncle a madman, a dreamer. How ashamed did I feel of my vain conceit of the evening, confronted with this production of his skill! It was as if some towering ghost smiled down scornful pity upon me, who stood there dancing about like a maniac in the effort to wrest a responsive reflection from that mute surface. Never had anything so undone me, so set me a-tremor with discomfort. I was in touch with something of which I knew nothing, with an unknown force whose extent and power I could not measure.

Controlling my nervousness, I sat down to contemplate the glass. It was like looking into the depths of a pellucid lake, whose surface had never been rumpled by wind or blurred with light. It was like a glance down infinitudes of space, clearly gray and sweetly translucent, but beyond the farthest rim of the worlds where not even star dust floated. It was a place where, defiant of natural law, light existed without object. It was a void over which nature had no power. It was a pale inanity, the antithesis of the life principle which is motion. It was a powerful and repellent nothing. A sickening dizziness assailed me. I felt as if I were perched upon the edge of an abyss wherein material substances were lost. I was conscious of a peculiar revulsion, a sort of mental nausea such as is experienced when watching a serpent move, throwing off electric vibrations at variance with the human organism.

This, then, was the mirror of the dead! It was a place for spectres to disport themselves! It was the gray shadow world where phantoms dwelled! Who could guess what slept within its depths! Who could guess what was looking out upon me now which my physical self could not discern!

I closed my eyes to shut out the sight and lifted the violin. The bow, as if moved by an impulse of its own, struck the slow, prolonged, high notes which announce the Saraband. An inspiration! Why should not I popularize the dance music of Spain as Chopin had that of Poland?

For a time I played on, repeating old airs and improvising new ones, but ever recurring to the Saraband. Nervousness vanished. Others had put up with this non-committal mirror, why should not I? Courage returned. Music exercised its old magic. Again I cared for nothing save my art.

I do not know how long this musical reverie had lasted when, opening my eyes, I saw in the depths of the mirror, but far, far away, a dim white figure. I was playing the Saraband. I noticed that when certain notes were struck the figure could be seen more plainly, that it grew in distinctness and came nearer, while others made it recede and fade away.

Was it the creation of my bow? Now for the first time was the demon-compelling power of Paganini mine? Through contemplation of that crystal surface had I purged my soul of impeding impurities, as if, denuded of clothes, I had swept through space and bathed in its crystal ozone? Had not the tones of my violin changed too? I listened critically. Yes; they had a certain heart quality which had been lacking, a luscious, singing richness, colorful and sweet. The single tone, divorced from melody, filled me with delight. Ambition leaped to giant height. Fear vanished. I could subdue the world--I--I, Lopez Manrico! I bent to my playing. Each time it was the Saraband that evoked the image. No other melody whatsoever had the power to do it. And there were certain phrases and turns of this that had especial effect upon it. Once I thought that I could discern the features of the figure, and I did glimpse it firmly enough to know that it was the figure of a woman.

How I tried to prolong the notes that were creating beneath my eyes that evanescent being! How, by trained trickery, did I try to prolong the instrument’s power of tone extension! It was useless. Strength failed. My arm grew weak and fell of its own accord, and the vision paled and faded.

The old Counts of Quederos had been scientists, I meditated. One had devoted himself to the relation of sound to the human body. Perhaps he had left a record of his discoveries. I would go to the library and see. At least the books that he had studied would be there. Excepting only the Imperial Library, the Castillo de Quederos contained the finest collection of rare books and manuscripts in Spain.

I ran to the room and lighted all the lights. Ardor of investigation filled me. If the problem could be solved, I would do it. Was it not a duty, too, since in a way the power lay with me? “_Le génie s’oblige._”

Here were the books of the old glass-maker, probably arranged just as he had left them: John Pechon’s treatise on optics, dating from the thirteenth century; Biringuccio’s receipts for glass-making; Garzoni’s chemistry of glass; the three books of Eraclius, who, in the early thirteenth century, got together all that was then known of the art. I took down the third volume. It opened at the seventh chapter, where begin the receipts for compounding the substance. This was not what I wanted. Nor did I care more for the poets--Lopez Mendoza, Ha Levi, nor the private letters of Cib-dareal, precious as they are.

As I replaced the latter, I felt something behind it. Inserting my hand, I pulled out a gilded cylinder. Within it lay a manuscript in an unknown tongue, and with it a translation made by a Spanish Jew. The manuscript proved to be _The Resurrecting Powers of Science_ by Abu Hamid Algazali of Bagdad. Something told me that my search was rewarded. I pulled a chair beneath the nearest light and there, until day, perused the parchment. It had suffered many a midnight perusal. Finger marks were upon it, and it was frayed and soiled. I read:

“Each body is responsive to a tone or a combination of tones.

“Each body is, in a sense, a musical instrument whose vibrating strings are taut nerves and muscles.

“The circulating blood sings a song.

“Heart-beats describe a melody.

“One of the energies wrapped up in the life principle is a musical chord.

“It is possible for music, if the right tone be discovered, to arrest ebbing life force, or to call back those who have passed beyond.”

“To call back those who have passed beyond!” Here it was! Now I understood. I had unwittingly hit upon the chord that vibrated in unison with the mirror vision. What a possibility lay before me! I could read no more. Dizzy with the discovery, I went to bed. I did not even pause to view the wonder of the dawn that was bleaching the night pale.

When again night came, I hastened to the drawing-room. I lighted every light. I locked and bolted the door. I would not permit an interruption.

Then I took the melody of the Saraband and transposed it from key to key. In this way the tone I sought could not elude me. The first notes of the dance evoked the figure, but it was so far away, so dim, it was scarcely more than a breath’s shadow. It was only with the key of F minor that a change came. Then the figure grew more distinct. Features were visible. It took on color, firm form. It came floating on, on, on, toward me, until within the glass just a few feet away stood a lithe, brown, Moorish girl. My heart choked me with its beating. It was all that I could do to command strength with which to continue the music.

Very gracefully she swayed to the melody of the Saraband, but she danced it in a way that was new to me. On her head rested a tiny cap fringed with vari-colored gems. She wore white muslin trousers, very full, gathered at the ankle with bells of gold, whose tongues were little stones that looked like flame. The upper part of her body was covered with a tight-fitting vest of pale blue, picked out in silver, and a tight-fitting coat of yellow satin, both of which were open to the waist, disclosing the brown skin. From under the cap her hair fell in long braids, intertwined with coral. Her little bare feet were encased in slippers with gem-studded heels. She was evidently a Moorish dancing-girl, but of an age long, long gone by.

She had the small head and the broad low brow of ancient races; eyes long, dark, and somber, accented by brows as “delicately arched as those of the pictured Cenci;” a mouth whose warm red undercurve contradicted the saddened eyes.

She was a frail and febrile copy of Da Vinci’s St. Marguerite, who, despite her saintship, is a Spanish dancing-girl in a moment of repose. There was something about her that stimulated the powers of life, that created a passionate and imperious music which flooded the soul with desire.

But it was the eyes that held my attention longest. They clung to mine with an unwavering glance. In them lay a mute appeal. They looked at me piteously, longingly. They implored help of me. They were like eyes that look from the other side of the grave with the hope that by not losing sight of mine they could draw themselves back and up again to the light. They begged for life. At that moment I would have lain down my own life to give momentary reality to hers.

Nor did she dance continuously like the puppet of my bow. She possessed independent life. She paused and waved and beckoned with her little hands. She tried to make me understand her dumb sign language, but always in her eyes there was that look of piteous questioning.

She was so frail and bright! She was like a butterfly made of gauze. A breath could crush her. Yet she danced bravely to please me, to win my applause. Poor little lonely dancer! Who could be more unsuited to the shadow world? Never had I so realized the cruelty of death. Never had I so rebelled against it. What had her crisp muslins, her satins, and her frivolous graces to do with death! I longed to clasp her in my arms, to breathe my own life breath into her, to shield her from that awful fear.

Her eyes looked into mine. Her soul spoke to mine and was understood, but her body I could not reach. It was, perhaps, ages away. It was not space that separated us; it was something crueler far. It was time!

Suddenly a tremor passed over her. What was it! Ah! yes, my weary arm had faltered in its playing. The little face quivered with fear. She held out her arms in mute appeal. I was helpless. The exhausted muscles refused to obey. My arm fell to my side. She floated away, away down the dim, gray, mirror vista, her little hands fluttering a sad farewell.

When I put out the lights and leaned from the window for a moment for a whiff of fresh air, I found that the night had gone and that the dawn was streaking faintly the fields and hills.

That day I slept only until noon. Nervous tension prevented rest. The remainder of the day I lounged in the library or idled on the verandas, living over again in thought the incidents of the night. For months this was my life. Not once did I leave the _castillo_, although invitations from the neighboring gentry and my uncle’s friends poured in upon me. Nor indeed, during this time, did I see any one but the servants. I denied myself to visitors. I thought only of my Moorish love. I dreamed only of her in the few day hours devoted to sleep. Several times I saw the servants touch their foreheads significantly when they passed me, and I heard them whisper, “The madness of the De Quederos!”

My life now took on an excessive value. Did not another depend upon it? Without me my Moorish love was dead. With me she enjoyed a semi-being. At times I suffered the most torturing fear lest accident to me condemn her forever to oblivion. The thought shook my soul.

Each night when my playing evoked her, she begged more piteously for life, and I, who so gladly would have granted it, was powerless. Each night her sign language was more comprehensible, more eloquent of longing and of love. Each night my love for her grew greater. When the hour for parting came, I felt grief such as they who bury those they love. How could I know where she went, what horrors encompassed her! How could I know what difficulties she had conquered to come to me! How could I know that she would ever come again!

By day the burden of my mind was to know where, only to know where, she was! Not even the feverish imaginings of my heart could frame an answer.

At night, when lights began to twinkle in the little houses of the village and the stars to show one by one, I looked out and cursed them, because I knew that in not one of them all was she. In all the broad firmament she was not. She alone, my Moorish love, had no share in the sweetness of the spring. I grew to hate the world that had cast her off. I became a solitary. How could I be expected to mingle with people, to leave the _castillo_! Would it not be murder to do so even for the space of a night? Not all crimes are amenable to law. Her life depended upon me. Absence meant death. Could I condemn her I loved to one unnecessary hour within the grave? Did I not always see, sleeping or waking, the piteous eyes that begged for life? Did I not always see the mouth that tried to smile, to coquette, despite the death-fear that drooped it?

But how could I explain this to the Conde’s friends? Had I done so, they would not have understood. I really believe they would have called me mad. I persisted in silent refusals.

What a fate was mine! I loved a woman who was separated from me by the centuries. I loved a phantom, a vision, a self-created mirage. I, alone, knew that this vision possessed life. Night after night we conversed by signs. Eyes looked into eyes, soul into soul, yet might we never join hands or lips. We saw each other plainly, yet might our voices never bridge the chasm of the ages. Within arm’s reach of me she stood, and smiled and beckoned, yet I had not the power to touch her. Her red lips voiced messages to me, but the wind of ages rushed between and swept them away to bury within soundless silence. What torture was this! What inexplainable suffering! In subtle punishment the curse of Tantalus was not its kin.

Only to the violin could I confide my sorrow. I threw away my music. My heart alone dictated. Thus I poured forth my longing, my unsatisfied passion, and my grief. Thus I voiced my anger, my hatred of men, of life, my rage against that silent and invisible God who mocked me with his might, and reduced my endeavor to puny impotence.

Sometimes, when cruel notes shivered the air, and sharp discords all but snapped the strings, I caught sight of the frightened faces of the servants coming one by one, a-tiptoe, to peer at me. Or below I saw teamsters turn sharply to avoid the _castillo_ and the Roman bridge beneath my window. Too, there were fewer travelers on the road of late. Less often sounded the friendly mule bell. The simple peasants were terrified by the sounds of hate and rage. The servants, too, feared me. They believed me to be “_possessed_.” The old steward, alone, had a different opinion. He attributed my peculiarities to drink or infatuation for a woman. The more so since of late no one had been admitted to my rooms. One day the kind old fellow touched my arm in a fatherly manner and whispered, “_Mi hijo, niños y vinos son mal a guardar!_”

It was too late for the kindly offices of friends. I was hopelessly given over to an infatuation. I had lost regard for appearances. I did not care.

Swiftly the days slipped by. I paid as little heed as do they who live under emotional strain. Spring deepened into summer; autumn came. In time its color faded beneath the mists of November. Before I knew it, _la nôche de los difuntos_ (the night when the dead come back) was at hand.

It pleased me to think that then I could celebrate my wedding with the dead. For the occasion I had the great drawing-room filled with flowers. At the last moment the caprice seized me to don the state costume of a courtier of Philip the Second. Then I drew a gilt couch of old brocade in front of the mirror and with closed eyes began to improvise upon the dance.

Suddenly a little hand touched my shoulder and a voice whispered: “Will you not look at me, now that I have come?”

There she was beside me, and more lovely by half when freed from the mirror’s grayness.

“But you--will you not tell me who you are?” I whispered back in an ecstasy of love.

“Zarabanda.”

“_Zarabanda!_”

“Yes, why not?”

“The Moorish love of Philip the Second?”

Passion and its artistic embodiment, music, had made my love outlast the empire that gave her birth. She had survived Spain and its splendor.

I was perched upon a dizzy height indeed. Below me the gray centuries unfolded.

At the word “Philip” grief contracted her face.

“Oh, Philip! Philip! Will you not call him? Will you not let me see him? I will never ask it of you again. You need not be afraid because he is a great king. Give him this,” taking a bracelet of peculiar workmanship from her arm and handing it toward me. “He will understand. He will come anywhere for me.”

Grief filled my heart. It was not I she loved--I, who had recreated her, who had brought her back from the grave. It was not I she thought of, but that cruel and long-dead king.

“Believe me, my little love, I would do anything for you but this--which is impossible.”

“Just once, please, just once! He was so handsome, Philip, and he loved me so. Before he married Mary of England he took me to Granada, to the town of the wall of a thousand towers. There he would have married me, had it not been for Perez, the Great Minister!”

At mention of that name a shiver passed over her, the memory of an ancient fear, setting crisply a-jingle the gems upon her cap and the gold bells on her trousers.

“There I invented the Saraband. It was the dance he loved, and he named it for me. All Spain danced it then.

“One day he was called away by a court messenger from Madrid. When he left, he swore to marry me. On a certain day I was to meet him, having sent word three days before. Then he was to marry me and make me queen!

“But as soon as he went, I was seized and imprisoned. I could not send him word. I never saw him again. Oh, please let me tell him why. He thinks I failed him. Let me tell him why!”

“I would do it if I could. I would do anything for you, but how can I?”

“Why? Philip is not--” Her dark face blanched, fear leaped into her eyes. “Philip--is not--dead?”

I nodded. Not a word did she say, but tears came to her eyes and fell slowly, one by one, upon her little hands. Never before had I realized the word’s leaden weight. It was a plummet line that found the heart of grief.

“Then there is nothing more to live for!”