“I shall come and look at this in every light,” said Catalina, “so if I disappear you will know where to find me.”
They entered the palace through the little door in the non-committal wall, and, after bribing the guide to let them alone, lingered for a time in the Court of Myrtles, where the orange-trees no longer grow beside the pool, but where the arcades and overhanging gallery are as graceful as when the court was the centre of life of the Comares Palace, first in this group of palaces. Then, through an arcade that abutted into a fairy-like pavilion, they entered the Court of Lions.
Probably the Alhambra is the one ruin in the world where the most ardent expectations are gratified. From a reasonable distance the restored arabesque patterns on the walls, like Oriental carpets of many colors, and raised in stucco, present the illusion of originals; and all else, except the tiles gaudy in the primal colors, on the many roofs which project over the arcades into the courts, and the marble floors, are as the Africans left it. The twelve hideous lions upholding the double fountain in the famous court must have been designed by artists that had never penetrated the African jungle nor visited a menagerie, and, as the only ugly objects amid so much light and graceful beauty, serve as an accent rather than a blot. Upholding the arches of the arcades that surround the court are 128 pillars so light and slender, so mellowed by time, that they look far more like old ivory than marble. Above the arches the multicellular carving again looks like old ivory, and through them are seen the gay convolutions of the arabesques on the walls of the corridor. Above the cluster of shafts at the eastern end, which forms one of the two pavilions, the florid roofs multiply and rise to a dome of all the colors. Overhanging the north side of the court—in the second story—is a long line of low windows. They once gave light and glimpses of history to the captives of the king’s harem.
“You must half close your eyes and imagine silken curtains waving between those slender pillars, which were meant to simulate tent-poles,” said Catalina. “And Oriental rugs and divans in those arcades, and the lounging gentlemen of the court, and turbaned soldiers keeping guard, and women eternally peeping through the jalousies above. They must have seen this court red a thousand times: Muley Aben Hassan had two of his sons beheaded by this very fountain to please a new sultana; and when they weren’t beheading under orders they were flying into passions and killing one another. And the women could look straight into that room over there where Boabdil had the Abencerrages killed because one of them, as I told you, fell in love with his sultana. Do you see it all?”