At Burgos it could never have
been a great comfort, but in this House of Miranda it must have been a
great glory. The spaces between many of the columns have long been
bricked in, but there is fine carving on the front and the vaulting of
the staircase that climbs up from it in neglected grandeur. So many feet
have trodden its steps that they are worn hollow in the middle, and to
keep from falling you must go up next the wall. The object in going up
at all is to join in the gallery an old melancholy custodian in looking
down into the _patio,_ with his cat making her toilet beside him, and to
give them a fee which they receive with equal calm. Then, when you have
come down the age-worn steps without breaking your neck, you have done
the House of Miranda, and may lend yourself with what emotion you choose
to the fact that this ancient seat of hidalgos has now fallen to the low
industry of preparing pigskins to be wine-skins.
I do not think that a company of hidalgos in complete medieval armor
could have moved me more strongly than that first sight of these
wine-skins, distended with wine, which we had caught in approaching the
House of Miranda.
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