IT was the birthday of the Infanta. She was just twelve years of age, and the sun
was shining brightly in the gardens of the palace.
Although she was a real Princess and the Infanta of Spain, she had only one
birthday every year, just like the children of quite poor people, so it was
naturally a matter of great importance to the whole country that she should have
a really fine day for the occasion. And a really fine day it certainly was. The tall
striped tulips stood straight up upon their stalks, like long rows of soldiers, and
looked defiantly across the grass at the roses, and said: "We are quite as splendid
as you are now." The purple butterflies fluttered about with gold dust on their
wings, visiting each flower in turn; the little lizards crept out of the crevices of
the wall and lay basking in the white glare; and the pomegranates split and
cracked with the heat and showed their bleeding red hearts. Even the pale yellow
lemons, that hung in such profusion from the mouldering trellis and along the
dim arcades, seemed to have caught a richer colour from the wonderful sunlight,
and the magnolia trees opened their great globelike blossoms of folded ivory and
filled the air with a sweet heavy perfume.
The little Princess herself walked up and down the terrace with her companions
and played at hide-and-seek round the stone vases and the old moss-grown
statues. On ordinary days she was only allowed to play with children of her own
rank, so she had always to play alone, but her birthday was an exception, and the
King had given orders that she was to invite any of her young friends whom she
liked to come and amuse themselves with her. There was a stately grace about
these slim Spanish children as they glided about, the boys with their largeļæ¾plumed hats and short fluttering cloaks, the girls holding up the trains of their
long brocaded gowns and shielding the sun from their eyes with huge fans of
black and silver. But the Infanta was the most graceful of all, and the most tastefully attired, after the somewhat cumbrous fashion of the day. Her robe was
of grey satin, the skirt and the wide puffed sleeves heavily embroidered with
silver, and the stiff corset studded with rows of fine pearls. Two tiny slippers
with big pink rosettes peeped out beneath her dress as she walked. Pink and
pearl was her great gauze fan, and in her hair, which, like an aureole of faded
gold, stood out stiffly round her pale little face, she had a beautiful white rose.
From a window in the palace the sad melancholy King watched them. Behind
him stood his brother, Don Pedro of Aragon, whom he hated, and his confessor,
the Grand Inquisitor of Granada, sat by his side. Sadder even than usual was the
King, for as he looked at the Infanta bowing with childish gravity to the
assembling courtiers, or laughing behind her fan at the grim Duchess of
Albuquerque who always accompanied her, he thought of the young Queen, her
mother, who but a short time before -- so it seemed to him -- had come from the
gay country of France and had withered away in the sombre splendour of the
Spanish court, dying just six months after the birth of her child, and before she
had seen the almonds blossom twice in the orchard or plucked the second year's
fruit from the old gnarled fig-tree that stood in the centre of the now grass-grown
court-yard. So great had been his love for her that he had not suffered even the
grave to hide her from him. She had been embalmed by a Moorish physician,
who in return for this service had been granted his life which for heresy and
suspicion of magical practices had been already forfeited, men said, to the Holy
Office, and her body was still lying on its tapestried bier in the black marble
chapel of the palace, just as the monks had borne her in on that windy March day
nearly twelve years before. Once every month the King, wrapped in a dark cloak
and with a muffled lantern in his hand, went in and knelt by her side, calling out,
"Mi reina! Mi reina!" and sometimes breaking through the formal etiquette that
in Spain governs every separate action of life and sets limits even to the sorrow
of a King, he would clutch at the pale jeweled hands in a wild agony of grief and
try to wake by his mad kisses the cold painted face.
To-day he seemed to see her again, as he had seen her first at the Castle of
Fontainebleau, when he was but fifteen years of age, and she still younger. They
had been formally betrothed on that occasion by the papal nuncio in the presence
of the French King and all the Court, and he had returned to the Escurial bearing
with him a little ringlet of yellow hair and the memory of two childish lips
bending down to kiss his hand as he stepped into his carriage. Later on had
followed the marriage, hastily performed at Burgos, a small town on the frontier
between the two countries, and the grand public entry into Madrid with the customary celebration of high mass at the Church of La Atocha, and a more than
usually solemn auto-da- fe, in which nearly three hundred heretics, amongst
whom were many Englishmen, had been delivered over to the secular arm to be
burned.
Certainly he had loved her madly, and to the ruin, many thought, of his country,
then at war with England for the possession of the empire of the New World. He
had hardly ever permitted her to be out of his sight; for her, he had forgotten, or
seemed to have forgotten, all grave affairs of State; and, with that terrible
blindness that passion brings upon its servants, he had failed to notice that the
elaborate ceremonies by which he sought to please her did but aggravate the
strange malady from which she suffered. When she died he was, for a time, like
one bereft of reason. Indeed, there is no doubt but that he would have formally
abdicated and retired to the great Trappist monastery at Granada, of which he
was already titular Prior, had he not been afraid to leave the little Infanta at the
mercy of his brother, whose cruelty, even in Spain, was notorious, and who was
suspected by many of having caused the Queen's death by means of a pair of
poisoned gloves that he had presented to her on the occasion of her visiting his
castle in Aragon. Even after the expiration of the three years of public mourning
that he had ordained throughout his whole dominions by royal edict, he would
never suffer his ministers to speak about any new alliance and when the Emperor
himself sent to him and offered him the hand of the lovely Archduchess of
Bohemia, his niece, in marriage, he bade the ambassadors tell their master that
the King of Spain was already wedded to sorrow, and that though she was but a
barren bride, he loved her better than beauty -- an answer that cost his crown the
rich provinces of the Netherlands, which soon after, at the Emperor's instigation,
revolted against him under the leadership of some fanatics of the reformed
church.
His whole married life, with its fierce, fiery-coloured joys and the terrible agony
of its sudden ending, seemed to come back to him to-day as he watched the
Infanta playing on the terrace. She had all the Queen's pretty petulance of
manner, the same wilful way of tossing her head, the same proud, curved,
beautiful mouth, the same wonderful smile -- vrai sourire de France indeed -- as
she glanced up now and then at the window, or stretched out her little hand for
the stately Spanish gentlemen to kiss. But the shrill laughter of the children
grated on his ears, and the bright pitiless sunlight mocked his sorrow, and a dull
odour of strange spices, spices such as embalmers use, seemed to taint -- or was
it fancy? -- the clear morning air. He buried his face in his hands, and when the Infanta looked up again, the curtains had been drawn and the King had retired.
She made a little moue of disappointment and shrugged her shoulders. Surely he
might have stayed with her on her birthday. What did the stupid State-affairs
matter? Or had he gone to that gloomy chapel, where the candles were always
burning and where she was never allowed to enter? How silly of him, when the
sun was shining so brightly and everybody was so happy! Besides, he would
miss the sham bull-fight, for which the trumpet was already sounding, to say
nothing of the puppet-show and the other wonderful things. Her uncle and the
Grand Inquisitor were much more sensible. They had come out on the terrace
and paid her nice compliments. So she tossed her pretty head, and taking Don
Pedro by the hand, she walked slowly down the steps towards a long pavilion of
purple silk that had been erected at the end of the garden, the other children
following in strict order of precedence, those who had the longest names going
first.
A PROCESSION of noble boys, fantastically dressed as toreadors, came out to
meet her, and the young Count of Tierra-Nueva, a wonderfully handsome lad of
about fourteen years of age, uncovering his head with all the grace of a born
hidalgo and grandee of Spain, led her solemnly into a little gilt-and-ivory chair
that was placed on a raised dais above the arena. The children grouped
themselves all round, fluttering their big fans and whispering to each other, and
Don Pedro and the Grand Inquisitor stood laughing at the entrance. Even the
duchess -- the Camerera-Mayor as she was called -- a thin, hard-featured woman
with a yellow ruff, did not look quite so bad-tempered as usual, and something
like a chill smile flitted across her wrinkled face and twitched her thin bloodless
lips.
It certainly was a marvellous bull-fight, and much nicer, the Infanta thought,
than the real bull-fight that she had been brought to see at Seville, on the
occasion of the visit of the Duke of Parma to her father. Some of the boys
pranced about on richly caparisoned hobby-horses brandishing long javelins
with gay streamers of bright ribands attached to them; others went on foot,
waving their scarlet cloaks before the bull and vaulting lightly over the barrier
when he charged them; and as for the bull himself, he was just like a live bull,
though he was only made of wicker-work and stretched hide, and sometimes
insisted on running round the arena on his hind legs, which no live bull ever
dreams of doing. He made a splendid fight of it, too, and the children got so
excited that they stood up upon the benches, and waved their lace handkerchiefs, and cried out: Bravo toro! Bravo toro! just as sensibly as if they had been grownļæ¾up people. At last, however, after a prolonged combat, during which several of
the hobby-horses were gored through and through, and their riders dismounted,
the young Count of Tierra-Nueva brought the bull to his knees, and having
obtained permission from the Infanta to give the coup de grace, he plunged his
wooden sword into the neck of the animal with such violence that the head came
right off and disclosed the laughing face of little Monsieur de Lorraine, the son
of the French Ambassador at Madrid.
The arena was then cleared amidst much applause, and the dead hobby-horses
dragged solemnly away by two Moorish pages in yellow-and-black liveries, and
after a short interlude, during which a French posture-master performed upon the
tight rope, some Italian puppets appeared in the semi-classical tragedy of
Sophonisba on the stage of a small theatre that had been built up for the purpose.
They acted so well, and their gestures were so extremely natural, that at the close
of the play the eyes of the Infanta were quite dim with tears. Indeed, some of the
children really cried, and had to be comforted with sweetmeats, and the Grand
Inquisitor himself was so affected that he could not help saying to Don Pedro
that it seemed to him intolerable that things made simply out of wood and
coloured wax, and worked mechanically by wires, should be so unhappy and
meet with such terrible misfortunes.
An African juggler followed, who brought in a large flat basket covered with a
red cloth, and having placed it in the centre of the arena, he took from his turban
a curious reed pipe and blew through it. In a few moments the cloth began to
move, and as the pipe grew shriller and shriller, two green and gold snakes put
out their strange, wedge-shaped heads and rose slowly up, swaying to and fro
with the music as a plant sways in the water. The children, however, were rather
frightened at their spotted hoods and quick darting tongues, and were much more
pleased when the juggler made a tiny orange- tree grow out of the sand and bear
pretty white blossoms and clusters of real fruit; and when he took the fan of the
little daughter of the Marquess de Las-Torres and changed it into a blue bird that
flew all round the pavilion and sang, their delight and amazement knew no
bounds. The solemn minuet, too, performed by the dancing boys from the church
of Nuestra Senora Del Pilar, was charming. The Infanta had never before seen
this wonderful ceremony which takes place every year at May- time in front of
the high altar of the Virgin, and in her honour; and, indeed, none of the royal
family of Spain had entered the great cathedral of Saragossa since a mad priest,
supposed by many to have been in the pay of Elizabeth of England, had tried toĀ administer a poisoned wafer to the Prince of the Asturias. So she had known
only by hearsay of "Our Lady's Dance," as it was called, and it certainly was a
beautiful sight. The boys wore old- fashioned court dresses of white velvet, and
their curious three-cornered hats were fringed with silver and surmounted with
huge plumes of ostrich feathers, the dazzling whiteness of their costumes, as
they moved about in the sunlight, being still more accentuated by their swarthy
faces and long black hair. Everybody was fascinated by the grave dignity with
which they moved through the intricate figures of the dance, and by the elaborate
grace of their slow gestures and stately bows, and when they had finished their
performance and doffed their great plumed hats to the Infanta, she acknowledged
their reverence with much courtesy and made a vow that she would send a large
wax candle to the shrine of Our Lady of Pilar in return for the pleasure that she
had given her.
A troop of handsome Egyptians -- as the gipsies were termed in those days --
then advanced into the arena, and sitting down cross-legs, in a circle, began to
play softly upon their zithers, moving their bodies to the tune and humming,
almost below their breath, a low dreamy air. When they caught sight of Don
Pedro, they scowled at him, and some of them looked terrified, for only a few
weeks before he had had two of their tribe hanged for sorcery in the marketļæ¾place at Seville, but the pretty Infanta charmed them as she leaned back, peeping
over her fan with her great blue eyes, and they felt sure that one so lovely as she
was could never be cruel to anybody. So they played on very gently and just
touching the cords of the zithers with their long pointed nails, and their heads
began to nod as though they were falling asleep. Suddenly, with a cry so shrill
that all the children were startled and Don Pedro's hand clutched at the agate
pommel of his dagger, they leaped to their feet and whirled madly round the
enclosure, beating their tambourines and chaunting some wild love-song in their
strange guttural language. Then at another signal they all flung themselves again
to the ground and lay there quite still, the dull strumming of the zithers being the
only sound that broke the silence. After they had done this several times, they
disappeared for a moment and came back leading a brown shaggy bear by a
chain and carrying on their shoulders some little Barbary apes. The bear stood
upon his head with the utmost gravity, and the wizened apes played all kinds of
amusing tricks with two gipsy boys who seemed to be their masters, and fought
with tiny swords, and fired off guns, and went through a regular soldier's drill
just like the King's own bodyguard. In fact, the gipsies were a great success.
But the funniest part of the whole morning's entertainment was undoubtedly the dancing of the little dwarf. When he stumbled into the arena, waddling on his
crooked legs and wagging his huge misshapen head from side to side, the
children went off into a loud shout of delight, and the Infanta herself laughed so
much that the Camerera was obliged to remind her that although there were
many precedents in Spain for a King's daughter weeping before her equals, there
were none for a Princess of the blood royal making so merry before those who
were her inferiors in birth. The dwarf, however, was really quite irresistible, and
even at the Spanish Court, always noted for its cultivated passion for the
horrible, so fantastic a little monster had never been seen. It was his first
appearance, too. He had been discovered only the day before, running wild
through the forest, by two of the nobles who happened to have been hunting in a
remote part of the great cork-wood that surrounded the town, and had been
carried off by them to the palace as a surprise for the Infanta -- his father, who
was a poor charcoal-burner, being but too well pleased to get rid of so ugly and
useless a child. Perhaps the most amusing thing about him was his complete
unconsciousness of his own grotesque appearance. Indeed, he seemed quite
happy and full of the highest spirits. When the children laughed, he laughed as
freely and as joyously as any of them, and at the close of each dance he made
them each the funniest of bows, smiling and nodding at them just as if he were
really one of themselves, and not a little misshapen thing that Nature, in some
humourous mood, had fashioned for others to mock at. As for the Infanta, she
absolutely fascinated him. He could not keep his eyes off her, and seemed to
dance for her alone, and when at the close of the performance, remembering how
she had seen the great ladies of the Court throw bouquets to Caffarelli the
famous Italian treble, whom the Pope had sent from his own chapel to Madrid
that he might cure the King's melancholy by the sweetness of his voice, she took
out of her hair the beautiful white rose, and partly for a jest and partly to tease
the Camerera, threw it to him across the arena with her sweetest smile, he took
the whole matter quite seriously, and pressing the flower to his rough coarse lips,
he put his hand upon his heart and sank on one knee before her, grinning from
ear to ear and with his little bright eyes sparkling with pleasure.
This so upset the gravity of the Infanta that she kept on laughing long after the
little dwarf had run out of the arena, and expressed a desire to her uncle that the
dance should be immediately repeated. The Camerera, however, on the plea that
the sun was too hot, decided that it would be better that her Highness should
return without delay to the palace, where a wonderful feast had been already
prepared for her, including a real birthday cake with her own initials worked all
over it in painted sugar and a lovely silver flag waving from the top. The Infanta accordingly rose up with much dignity, and having given orders that the little
dwarf was to dance again for her after the hour of siesta, and conveyed her
thanks to the young Count of Tierra-Nueva for his charming reception, she went
back to her apartments, the children following in the same order in which they
had entered.
NOW when the little dwarf heard that he was to dance a second time before the
Infanta, and by her own express command, he was so proud that he ran out into
the garden, kissing the white rose in an absurd ecstasy of pleasure and making
the most uncouth and clumsy gestures of delight.
The flowers were quite indignant at his daring to intrude into their beautiful
home, and when they saw him capering up and down the walks and waving his
arms above his head in such a ridiculous manner, they could not restrain their
feelings any longer.
"He is really far too ugly to be allowed to play in any place where we are," cried
the tulips.
"He should drink poppy-juice and go to sleep for a thousand years," said the
great scarlet lilies, and they grew quite hot and angry.
"He is a perfect horror!" screamed the cactus. "Why, he is twisted and stumpy,
and his head is completely out of proportion with his legs. Really, he makes me
feel prickly all over, and if he comes near me, I will sting him with my thorns."
"And he has actually got one of my best blooms," exclaimed the white rose-tree.
"I gave it to the Infanta this morning myself, as a birthday present, and he has
stolen it from her." And she called out "Thief, thief, thief!" at the top of her
voice.
Even the red geraniums, who did not usually give themselves airs, and were
known to have a great many poor relations themselves, curled up in disgust
when they saw him, and when the violets meekly remarked that though he was
certainly extremely plain, still he could not help it, they retorted with a good deal
of justice that that was his chief defect, and that there was no reason why one
should admire a person because he was incurable; and, indeed, some of the
violets themselves felt that the ugliness of the little dwarf was almost
ostentatious, and that he would have shown much better taste if he had looked
sad, or at least pensive, instead of jumping about merrily and throwing himself into such grotesque and silly attitudes.
As for the old sun-dial, who was an extremely remarkable individual, and had
once told the time of day to no less a person than the Emperor Charles V
himself, he was so taken aback by the little dwarf's appearance that he almost
forgot to mark two whole minutes with his long shadowy finger, and could not
help saying to the great milk-white peacock, who was sunning herself on the
balustrade, that everyone knew that the children of kings were kings, and that the
children of charcoal-burners were charcoal-burners, and that it was absurd to
pretend that it wasn't so; a statement with which the peacock entirely agreed, and
indeed screamed out, "Certainly, certainly," in such a loud, harsh voice, that the
gold-fish who lived in the basin of the cool splashing fountain put their heads out
of the water and asked the huge stone tritons what on earth was the matter.
But somehow the birds liked him. They had seen him often in the forest, dancing
about like an elf after the eddying leaves, or crouched up in the hollow of some
old oak-tree, sharing his nuts with the squirrels. They did not mind his being
ugly, a bit. Why, even the nightingale herself, who sang so sweetly in the orange
groves at night that sometimes the moon leaned down to listen, was not much to
look at after all; and besides, he had been kind to them, and during that terribly
bitter winter, when there were no berries on the trees, and the ground was as hard
as iron, and the wolves had come down to the very gates of the city to look for
food, he had never once forgotten them, but had always given them crumbs out
of his little hunch of black bread and divided with them whatever poor breakfast
he had.
So they flew round and round him, just touching his cheek with their wings as
they passed, and chattered to each other, and the little dwarf was so pleased that
he could not help showing them the beautiful white rose and telling them that the
Infanta herself had given it to him because she loved him.
They did not understand a single word of what he was saying, but that made no
matter, for they put their heads on one side and looked wise, which is quite as
good as understanding a thing and very much easier.
The lizards also took an immense fancy to him, and when he grew tired of
running about and flung himself down on the grass to rest, they played and
romped all over him, and tried to amuse him in the best way they could. "Every
one cannot be as beautiful as a lizard," they cried; "that would be too much to expect. And, though it sounds absurd to say so, he is really not so ugly after all --
provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes and does not look at him." The
lizards were extremely philosophical by nature, and often sat thinking for hours
and hours together, when there was nothing else to do, or when the weather was
too rainy for them to go out.
The flowers, however, were excessively annoyed at their behaviour and at the
behaviour of the birds. "It only shows," they said, "what a vulgarizing effect this
incessant rushing and flying about has. Well-bred people always stay exactly in
the same place, as we do. No one ever saw us hopping up and down the walks,
or galloping madly through the grass after dragon-flies. When we do want
change of air, we send for the gardener, and he carries us to another bed. This is
dignified, and as it should be. But birds and lizards have no sense of repose; and,
indeed, birds have not even a permanent address. They are mere vagrants like
the gipsies, and should be treated in exactly the same manner." So they put their
noses in the air, and looked very haughty, and were quite delighted when after
some time they saw the little dwarf scramble up from the grass and make his
way across the terrace to the palace.
"He should certainly be kept indoors for the rest of his natural life," they said.
"Look at his hunched back and his crooked legs," and they began to titter.
But the little dwarf knew nothing of all this. He liked the birds and the lizards
immensely, and thought that the flowers were the most marvellous things in the
whole world, except of course the Infanta, but then she had given him the
beautiful white rose, and she loved him, and that made a great difference. How
he wished that he had gone back with her! She would have put him on her right
hand, and smiled at him, and he would have never left her side, but would have
made her his playmate, and taught her all kinds of delightful tricks. For though
he had never been in a palace before, he knew a great many wonderful things.
He could make little cages out of rushes for the grasshoppers to sing in, and
fashion the long- jointed bamboo into the pipe that Pan loves to hear. He knew
the cry of every bird, and could call the starlings from the tree-top, or the heron
from the mere. He knew the trail of every animal, and could track the hare by its
delicate footprints and the boar by the trampled leaves. All the wind-dances he
knew, the mad dance in red raiment with the autumn, the light dance in blue
sandals over the corn, the dance with white snow-wreaths in winter, and the
blossom-dance through the orchards in spring. He knew where the wood-pigeons
built their nests, and once when a fowler had snared the parent birds, he had brought up the young ones himself and had built a little dove-cot for them in the
cleft of a pollard elm. They were quite tame, and used to feed out of his hands
every morning. She would like them, and the rabbits that scurried about in the
long fern, and the jays with their steely feathers and black bills, and the
hedgehogs that could curl themselves up into prickly balls, and the great wise
tortoises that crawled slowly about, shaking their heads and nibbling at the
young leaves. Yes, she must certainly come to the forest and play with him. He
would give her his own little bed, and would watch outside the window till
dawn, to see that the wild horned cattle did not harm her, nor the gaunt wolves
creep too near the hut. And at dawn he would tap at the shutters and wake her,
and they would go out and dance together all the day long. It was really not a bit
lonely in the forest. Sometimes a bishop rode through on his white mule, reading
out of a painted book. Sometimes in their green velvet caps and their jerkins of
tanned deerskin, the falconers passed by, with hooded hawks on their wrists. At
vintage time came the grape-treaders, with purple hands and feet, wreathed with
glossy ivy and carrying dripping skins of wine; and the charcoal-burners sat
round their huge braziers at night, watching the dry logs charring slowly in the
fire and roasting chestnuts in the ashes, and the robbers came out of their caves
and made merry with them. Once, too, he had seen a beautiful procession
winding up the long dusty road to Toledo. The monks went in front, singing
sweetly and carrying bright banners and crosses of gold, and then, in silver
armour, with matchlocks and pikes, came the soldiers, and in their midst walked
three barefoot men, in strange yellow dresses painted all over with wonderful
figures, and carrying lighted candles in their hands. Certainly, there was a great
deal to look at in the forest, and when she was tired he would find a soft bank of
moss for her, or carry her in his arms, for he was very strong, though he knew
that he was not tall. He would make her a necklace of red bryony berries that
would be quite as pretty as the white berries that she wore on her dress, and
when she was tired of them, she could throw them away, and he would find her
others. He would bring her acorn-cups, and dew-drenched anemones, and tiny
glow-worms to be stars in the pale gold of her hair.
BUT where was she? He asked the white rose, and it made him no answer. The
whole palace seemed asleep, and even where the shutters had not been closed,
heavy curtains had been drawn across the windows to keep out the glare. He
wandered all round looking for some place through which he might gain an
entrance, and at last he caught sight of a little private door that was lying open.
He slipped through and found himself in a splendid hall, far more splendid, he
feared, than the forest, there was so much more gilding everywhere, and even the (to be continued)