Books: A House of Pomegranates

O >> Oscar Wilde >> A House of Pomegranates

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'Sayest thou that in this house?' said the young King, and he
strode past the Bishop, and climbed up the steps of the altar, and
stood before the image of Christ.

He stood before the image of Christ, and on his right hand and on
his left were the marvellous vessels of gold, the chalice with the
yellow wine, and the vial with the holy oil. He knelt before the
image of Christ, and the great candles burned brightly by the
jewelled shrine, and the smoke of the incense curled in thin blue
wreaths through the dome. He bowed his head in prayer, and the
priests in their stiff copes crept away from the altar.

And suddenly a wild tumult came from the street outside, and in
entered the nobles with drawn swords and nodding plumes, and
shields of polished steel. 'Where is this dreamer of dreams?' they
cried. 'Where is this King who is apparelled like a beggar--this
boy who brings shame upon our state? Surely we will slay him, for
he is unworthy to rule over us.'

And the young King bowed his head again, and prayed, and when he
had finished his prayer he rose up, and turning round he looked at
them sadly.

And lo! through the painted windows came the sunlight streaming
upon him, and the sun-beams wove round him a tissued robe that was
fairer than the robe that had been fashioned for his pleasure. The
dead staff blossomed, and bare lilies that were whiter than pearls.
The dry thorn blossomed, and bare roses that were redder than
rubies. Whiter than fine pearls were the lilies, and their stems
were of bright silver. Redder than male rubies were the roses, and
their leaves were of beaten gold.

He stood there in the raiment of a king, and the gates of the
jewelled shrine flew open, and from the crystal of the many-rayed
monstrance shone a marvellous and mystical light. He stood there
in a king's raiment, and the Glory of God filled the place, and the
saints in their carven niches seemed to move. In the fair raiment
of a king he stood before them, and the organ pealed out its music,
and the trumpeters blew upon their trumpets, and the singing boys
sang.

And the people fell upon their knees in awe, and the nobles
sheathed their swords and did homage, and the Bishop's face grew
pale, and his hands trembled. 'A greater than I hath crowned
thee,' he cried, and he knelt before him.

And the young King came down from the high altar, and passed home
through the midst of the people. But no man dared look upon his
face, for it was like the face of an angel.

THE BIRTHDAY OF THE INFANTA

[TO MRS. WILLIAM H. GRENFELL OF TAPLOW COURT--LADY DESBOROUGH]

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 globe-like
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 large-plumed 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 counters, 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 courtyard. 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 jewelled 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 in to 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 grown-up 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
hobbyhorses 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 tightrope, 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 Maytime 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 to 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 market-
place 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 leapt 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 that 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 was 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 ran 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 Sundial, 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 every one 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.

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