Lérida

“ LERIDA Lerida is another of those Catalan cities that remind one of the saying about new wine in old bottles. Seen from afar it is clearly one of those old human hives that have existed on the same spot ever since man felt the need of a permanent abode—you have the hill-site, the walls, the towers, the flowing river, the mediæval aspect. You observe with delight a humpbacked bridge, such as (with a total disregard for beasts of burden) our pious ancestors loved to build. And over all rises the cathedral—or, as we shall soon learn, what was the cathedral. ”

“ One by one the outlines faded and died out, and when we entered the fonda the stars were beginning to shine.
The night porter was standing in the doorway, though his reign had not yet begun. He made us a low bow.
"Señor, allow me to thank you for not complaining of me this morning to the padrone. I am still full of remorse for having locked you out last night, but it is seldom any of our visitors trouble the dark streets of Lerida at midnight. Most of our guests are commercial travellers, who have no eye for the ancient and picturesque, and are generally glad to get early to bed." ”

“ Lérida (q.v.) is the capital (pop. 21,432) , and the only town with more than 5000 inhabitants. Séo de Urgel, near the headwaters of the Segre, is a fortified city which has been an episcopal see since 840, and has had a close historical connexion with Andorra (q.v.) . Solsona, on a small tributary of the Cardoner, which flows through Barcelona to the Mediterranean, is the Setelix of the Romans, and contains in its parish church an image of the Virgin said to possess miraculous powers, and visited every year by many hundreds of pilgrims. ”

“ In the Christian camp, daughter, there was one who burned for tidings of thee,—whom thine image haunted—who, stern as thou wert to him, loved thee with a love he knew not of, till thou wert lost to him. Why dost thou tremble, daughter? listen, yet! To that lover, for he was one of high birth, came the monk; to that lover the monk sold his mission. The monk will have a ready tale, that he was waylaid amidst the mountains by armed men, and robbed of his letters to the abbess. The lover took his garb, and he took the letters; and he hastened hither. Leila! beloved Leila! ”

“ By degrees, as her new faith grew confirmed, Leila now inclined herself earnestly to those pictures of the sanctity and calm of the conventual life which Inez delighted to draw. In the reaction of her thoughts, and her despondency of all worldly happiness, there seemed, to the young maiden, an inexpressible charm in a solitude which was to release her for ever from human love, and render her entirely up to sacred visions and imperishable hopes. ”

“ I bless Thee—he is safe!”
“And yet (she added, as a painful thought crossed her) , how may I pray for him? we kneel not to the same Divinity; and I have been taught to loathe and shudder at his creed! Alas! how will this end? Fatal was the hour when he first beheld me in yonder gardens; more fatal still the hour in which he crossed the barrier, and told Leila that she was beloved by the hero whose arm was the shelter, whose name is the blessing, of Granada. Ah, me! Ah, me!”
The young maiden covered her face with her hands, and sank into a passionate reverie, broken only by her sobs. ”

“ The queen, surprised and moved at an action which, had witnesses been present, would only perhaps (for such is human nature) have offended her Castilian prejudices, left her hand in Leila's grateful clasp; and laying the other upon the parted and luxuriant ringlets of the kneeling maiden, said, gently,—"And thy prayers shall avail thee and me when thy God and mine are the same. Bless thee, maiden! I am a mother; thou art motherless—bless thee!" ”

“ Under any other circumstances, the strangeness of all she saw, and the frowning gloom of the chamber to which she was consigned, would have damped the spirits of one whose destiny had so suddenly passed from the deepest quiet into the sternest excitement. But any change was a relief to the roar of the camp, the addresses of the prince, and the ominous voice and countenance of Torquemada; and Leila looked around her, with the feeling that the queen's promise was fulfilled, and that she was already amidst the blessings of shelter and repose. ”

“ Come to my arms!"
"Alas!" said Leila, obeying the instinct, and casting herself upon that rugged bosom. "I will dare, at least, not to disavow my God. Father! by that dread anathema which is on our race, which has made us homeless and powerless—outcasts and strangers in the land; by the persecution and anguish we have known, teach thy lordly heart that we are rightly punished for the persecution and the anguish we doomed to Him, whose footstep hallowed our native earth! ”

“ Enough of these thoughts, which thou, a woman and a child, art not formed to witness. Leila, thou hast been nurtured with tenderness, and schooled with care. Harsh and unloving may I have seemed to thee, but I would have shed the best drops of my heart to have saved thy young years from a single pang. Nay, listen to me silently. That thou mightest one day be worthy of thy race, and that thine hours might not pass in indolent and weary lassitude, thou hast been taught lessons of a knowledge rarely to thy sex. Not thine the lascivious arts of the Moorish maidens ”

“ Let us fly for ever from these hated lands; let us leave to these miserable infidels their bloody contest, careless which shall fall. To a soil on which the iron heel does not clang, to an air where man's orisons rise, in solitude, to the Great Jehovah, let us hasten our weary steps. Come! while the castle yet sleeps, let us forth unseen—the father and the child. We will hold sweet commune by the way. And hark ye, Leila," he added, in a low and abrupt whisper, "talk not to me of yonder symbol; for thy God is a jealous God, and hath no likeness in the graven image." ”

“ Her frank style is tainted with none of the faults of the day. Lélia, though painful to read and offering none of the delicious scenes of Indiana and Valentine, is nevertheless a master-piece of its kind: of the nature of an orgy, it is without passion, but perturbing like passion; it lacks soul, and yet it weighs upon the heart; the depravity of its maxims, its insults thrown at rectitude of life could go no further than they do; but over that abyss the author sends down her talent In the Valley of Gomorrah, the dew falls at night upon the Dead Sea. ”

“ Think you, beautiful Leila, that Granada holds a rouse lofty enough to disdain the alliance with Muza Ben Abil Gazan? and oh!” he added (sinking the haughty tones of his voice into accents of the softest tenderness) , “if not too high to scorn me, what should war against our loves and our bridals? For worn equally on my heart were the flower of thy sweet self, whether the mountain top or the valley gave birth to the odour and the bloom.”
“Alas!” answered Leila, weeping, “the mystery thou complainest of is as dark to myself as thee. ”

“ Matilda, hush! do not say it,” Leila hastily answered. “God does love me, I feel He does, for He gives me sweet, peaceful feelings now, and makes me happy; but His ways are different. He does what is best for me, and I am making up my mind, for I feel as if I were to be always blind. Selina knows it, for I have told her; and now that I have told you, I shall be happier. I wish I could speak about it to papa too, but I can’t just yet. Don’t cry, Matilda, don’t, my own dear Matilda.” ”

“ The monk raised his cowl; and, dropping on his knee beside her, presented to her gaze the features of the Prince of Spain.
"You!" said Leila, averting her countenance, and vainly endeavouring to extricate the hand which he had seized. "This is indeed cruel. You, the author of so many sufferings—such calumny—such reproach!"
"I will repair all," said Don Juan, fervently. "I alone, I repeat it, have the power to set you free. You are no longer a Jewess; you are one of our faith; there is now no bar upon our loves. ”

“ He gazed in silence, upon the kneeling maiden; nor was it until she rose that he made his presence audible.
"Ah, fairest!" said he, then, as he attempted to take her hand, "thou wilt not answer my letters—see me, then, at thy feet. It is thou who teachest me to kneel."
"You, prince." said Leila, agitated, and in great and evident fear. "Why harass and insult me thus? Am I not sacred as a hostage and a charge? and are name, honour, peace, and all that woman is taught to hold most dear, to be thus robbed from me under the pretext of a love dishonouring to thee and an insult to myself?" ”

“ And thus she grew up, with all the beautiful faculties of the soul cherished and unfolded, without thought, without more than dim and shadowy conjectures, of the Eternal Bourne to which the sorrowing pilgrim of the earth is bound. It was on this point that the quick eye of Donna Inez discovered her faith was vulnerable: who would not, if belief were voluntary, believe in the world to come? Leila’s curiosity and interest were aroused: she willingly listened to her new guide—she willingly inclined to conclusions pressed upon her, not with menace, but persuasion. ”

“ The note of despair struck in Lélia, the depth of bitter feeling, the capacity for mental and moral speculation and suffering it seemed to disclose, astounded many of her familiar acquaintance. "Lélia is a fancy-type," so writes to the author her friend and neighbor in Berry, Jules Néraud, an ardent naturalist, whose botanical and entomological pursuits she had often shared: "it is not like you—you who are merry, dance the bourrée, appreciate lepidoptera, do not despise puns, who are not a bad needlewoman, and make very good preserves. ”

“ Tell me now how many times hast thou been here since then. Ah! thou knowest not; lovest me not, I doubt, as I love thee. Eighteen times, Gerardo. And each time dearer to me. The day thou comest not 'tis night not day, to Clælia. Alas! I speak for both. Cruel boy, am I not worth a word? Hast every day a princess at thy feet? Nay, prithee, prithee, speak to me, Gerar-do."
"Signora," faltered Gerard, "what can I say, that were not better left unsaid? Oh evil day that ever I came here."
"Ah! say not so. 'Twas the brightest day ever shone on me; or indeed on thee. ”

“ In these we see the author of Lélia, either in the guise of a mediæval page, her cropped hair falling in close curls on her neck, a silk handkerchief tied negligently over a bodice cut like a spencer, or in masculine garb, in a fashionable riding-coat, which vainly essays to give her the air of a Brummell. ”

“ For Maria-Teresa is there, leaning out as she used to, turning her sweet face as she used to.... How pale she is, how diaphanous; her well-remembered gestures are no more than the ghosts of those gestures!... He hardly dared breathe, fearing that the vision would vanish at the sound of his voice.... He advanced cautiously, stealthily, like a child stalking a butterfly.
"Dick!"
"Maria-Teresa!"
They are in each other's arms. The cry which has come from those pale lips is a living one. ”

“ To gain fair Lelia's love, although by loss of life.
NURSE. 'Faith, mistress, he speaks like a gentleman. Let me persuade you; be not hard-hearted. Sophos? Why, what's he? If he had loved you but half so well, he would ha' come through stone walls, but he would have come to you ere this.
LELIA.
I must confess, I once lov'd Sophos well;
But now I cannot love him, whom
All the world knows to be a dissembler. ”

“ But the darkness outside—still impenetrable except when the lightning played—prevented observation; and she only knew by the sound of their horses’ hooves, that they had passed under her window towards the rear of the mansion, and entered the courtyard—whose heavy gate she could hear closing behind them.
Then, and not till then, did she consent to surrender herself to that god, puissant as love itself; and, gently extending her white limbs alongside those of Lora, she entered upon the enjoyment of a slumber—perhaps not so innocent, as that of her unconscious cousin—but equally profound. ”

“ Take comfort, poor child—weep not: all have their cares; our duty is to bear in this life, reserving hope only for the next."
The queen, destined herself to those domestic afflictions which pomp cannot soothe, nor power allay, spoke with a prophetic sadness which yet more touched a heart that her kindness of look and tone had already softened; and, in the impulse of a nature never tutored in the rigid ceremonials of that stately court, Leila suddenly came forward, and falling on one knee, seized the hand of her protectress, and kissed it warmly through her tears. ”

“ The stranger seated himself on the cushions, and motioned Leila to his side.
"These tears are fresh upon thy cheek," said he, gravely; "they are the witness of thy race! our daughters are born to weep, and our sons to groan! ashes are on the head of the mighty, and the Fountains of the Beautiful run with gall! Oh that we could but struggle—that we could but dare—that we could raise up, our heads, and unite against the bondage of the evil doer! It may not be—but one man shall avenge a nation!" ”

“ Leila stood within this chamber, pale and breathless, with her lips apart, her hands clasped, her very soul in her ears; nor was it possible to conceive a more perfect ideal of some delicate and brilliant Peri, captured in the palace of a hostile and gloomy Genius. Her form was of the lightest shape consistent with the roundness of womanly beauty; and there was something in it of that elastic and fawnlike grace which a sculptor seeks to embody in his dreams of a being more aerial than those of earth. ”