The
nothings were so tender that you could not hear them drop, and, besides,
they were Spanish nothings, and it would not have served any purpose for
the stranger to listen for them. Once afterward we saw the national
courtship going on at another casement, but that was at night, and here
the precious first sight of it was offered at ten o'clock in the
morning. Nobody seemed to mind the lover stationed outside the shutter
with which the iron bars forbade him the closest contact; and it is
only fair to say that he minded nobody; he was there when we went in and
there when we came out, and it appears that when it is a question of
love-making time is no more an object in Spain than in the United
States. The scene would have been better by moonlight, but you cannot
always have it moonlight, and the sun did very well; at least, the lover
did not seem to miss the moon.
He was only an incident, and I hope the most romantic reader will let me
revert from him to the Alcazar gardens. We were always reverting to them
on any pretext or occasion, and we mostly had them to ourselves in the
gentle afternoons when we strayed or sat about at will in them.
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