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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2181-0.txt b/2181-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9aee07 --- /dev/null +++ b/2181-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6982 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s The Marble Faun, Volume I., by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Marble Faun, Volume I. + The Romance of Monte Beni + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: February 25, 2006 [EBook #2181] +Last Updated: December 15, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARBLE FAUN, VOLUME I. *** + + + + +Produced by Michael Pullen and David Widger + + + + + +THE MARBLE FAUN + +or The Romance of Monte Beni + + +By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + +In Two Volumes + +This is Volume One + + + + +Contents + + Volume I + + I MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO + II THE FAUN + III SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES + IV THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB + V MIRIAM’S STUDIO + VI THE VIRGIN’S SHRINE + VII BEATRICE + VIII THE SUBURBAN VILLA + IX THE FAUN AND NYMPH + X THE SYLVAN DANCE + XI FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES + XII A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN + XIII A SCULPTOR’S STUDIO + XIV CLEOPATRA + XV AN AESTHETIC COMPANY + XVI A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE + XVII MIRIAM’S TROUBLE + XVIII ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE + XIX THE FAUN’S TRANSFORMATION + XX THE BURIAL CHANT + XXI THE DEAD CAPUCHIN + XXII THE MEDICI GARDENS + XXIII MIRIAM AND HILDA + + + Volume II + + XXIV THE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES + XXV SUNSHINE + XXVI THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI + XXVII MYTHS + XXVIII THE OWL TOWER + XXIX ON THE BATTLEMENTS + XXX DONATELLO’S BUST + XXXI THE MARBLE SALOON + XXXII SCENES BY THE WAY + XXXIII PICTURED WINDOWS + XXXIV MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA + XXXV THE BRONZE PONTIFF’S BENEDICTION + XXXVI HILDA’S TOWER + XXXVII THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE GALLERIES + XXXVIII ALTARS AND INCENSE + XXXIX THE WORLD’S CATHEDRAL + XL HILDA AND A FRIEND + XLI SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS + XLII REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM + XLIII THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP + XLIV THE DESERTED SHRINE + XLV THE FLIGHT OF HILDA’S DOVES + XLVI A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA + XLVII THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA + XLVIII A SCENE IN THE CORSO + XLIX A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL + L MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO + + + + +THE MARBLE FAUN + +Volume I + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO + + +Four individuals, in whose fortunes we should be glad to interest +the reader, happened to be standing in one of the saloons of the +sculpture-gallery in the Capitol at Rome. It was that room (the first, +after ascending the staircase) in the centre of which reclines the noble +and most pathetic figure of the Dying Gladiator, just sinking into his +death-swoon. Around the walls stand the Antinous, the Amazon, the Lycian +Apollo, the Juno; all famous productions of antique sculpture, and still +shining in the undiminished majesty and beauty of their ideal life, +although the marble that embodies them is yellow with time, and perhaps +corroded by the damp earth in which they lay buried for centuries. Here, +likewise, is seen a symbol (as apt at this moment as it was two thousand +years ago) of the Human Soul, with its choice of Innocence or Evil close +at hand, in the pretty figure of a child, clasping a dove to her bosom, +but assaulted by a snake. + +From one of the windows of this saloon, we may see a flight of broad +stone steps, descending alongside the antique and massive foundation of +the Capitol, towards the battered triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, +right below. Farther on, the eye skirts along the edge of the desolate +Forum (where Roman washerwomen hang out their linen to the sun), passing +over a shapeless confusion of modern edifices, piled rudely up with +ancient brick and stone, and over the domes of Christian churches, +built on the old pavements of heathen temples, and supported by the very +pillars that once upheld them. At a distance beyond--yet but a little +way, considering how much history is heaped into the intervening +space--rises the great sweep of the Coliseum, with the blue sky +brightening through its upper tier of arches. Far off, the view is shut +in by the Alban Mountains, looking just the same, amid all this decay +and change, as when Romulus gazed thitherward over his half finished +wall. + +We glance hastily at these things,--at this bright sky, and those +blue distant mountains, and at the ruins, Etruscan, Roman, Christian, +venerable with a threefold antiquity, and at the company of world-famous +statues in the saloon,--in the hope of putting the reader into that +state of feeling which is experienced oftenest at Rome. It is a vague +sense of ponderous remembrances; a perception of such weight and density +in a bygone life, of which this spot was the centre, that the present +moment is pressed down or crowded out, and our individual affairs and +interests are but half as real here as elsewhere. Viewed through this +medium, our narrative--into which are woven some airy and unsubstantial +threads, intermixed with others, twisted out of the commonest stuff of +human existence--may seem not widely different from the texture of all +our lives. + +Side by side with the massiveness of the Roman Past, all matters that we +handle or dream of nowadays look evanescent and visionary alike. + +It might be that the four persons whom we are seeking to introduce were +conscious of this dreamy character of the present, as compared with the +square blocks of granite wherewith the Romans built their lives. Perhaps +it even contributed to the fanciful merriment which was just now their +mood. When we find ourselves fading into shadows and unrealities, it +seems hardly worth while to be sad, but rather to laugh as gayly as we +may, and ask little reason wherefore. + +Of these four friends of ours, three were artists, or connected with +art; and, at this moment, they had been simultaneously struck by a +resemblance between one of the antique statues, a well-known masterpiece +of Grecian sculpture, and a young Italian, the fourth member of their +party. + +“You must needs confess, Kenyon,” said a dark-eyed young woman, whom +her friends called Miriam, “that you never chiselled out of marble, nor +wrought in clay, a more vivid likeness than this, cunning a bust-maker +as you think yourself. The portraiture is perfect in character, +sentiment, and feature. If it were a picture, the resemblance might be +half illusive and imaginary; but here, in this Pentelic marble, it is a +substantial fact, and may be tested by absolute touch and measurement. +Our friend Donatello is the very Faun of Praxiteles. Is it not true, +Hilda?” + +“Not quite--almost--yes, I really think so,” replied Hilda, a slender, +brown-haired, New England girl, whose perceptions of form and expression +were wonderfully clear and delicate. “If there is any difference between +the two faces, the reason may be, I suppose, that the Faun dwelt in +woods and fields, and consorted with his like; whereas Donatello has +known cities a little, and such people as ourselves. But the resemblance +is very close, and very strange.” + +“Not so strange,” whispered Miriam mischievously; “for no Faun in +Arcadia was ever a greater simpleton than Donatello. He has hardly a +man’s share of wit, small as that may be. It is a pity there are no +longer any of this congenial race of rustic creatures for our friend to +consort with!” + +“Hush, naughty one!” returned Hilda. “You are very ungrateful, for you +well know he has wit enough to worship you, at all events.” + +“Then the greater fool he!” said Miriam so bitterly that Hilda’s quiet +eyes were somewhat startled. + +“Donatello, my dear friend,” said Kenyon, in Italian, “pray gratify us +all by taking the exact attitude of this statue.” + +The young man laughed, and threw himself into the position in which +the statue has been standing for two or three thousand years. In truth, +allowing for the difference of costume, and if a lion’s skin could have +been substituted for his modern talma, and a rustic pipe for his stick, +Donatello might have figured perfectly as the marble Faun, miraculously +softened into flesh and blood. + +“Yes; the resemblance is wonderful,” observed Kenyon, after examining +the marble and the man with the accuracy of a sculptor’s eye. “There +is one point, however, or, rather, two points, in respect to which our +friend Donatello’s abundant curls will not permit us to say whether the +likeness is carried into minute detail.” + +And the sculptor directed the attention of the party to the ears of the +beautiful statue which they were contemplating. + +But we must do more than merely refer to this exquisite work of art; it +must be described, however inadequate may be the effort to express its +magic peculiarity in words. + +The Faun is the marble image of a young man, leaning his right arm on +the trunk or stump of a tree; one hand hangs carelessly by his side; +in the other he holds the fragment of a pipe, or some such sylvan +instrument of music. His only garment--a lion’s skin, with the claws +upon his shoulder--falls halfway down his back, leaving the limbs +and entire front of the figure nude. The form, thus displayed, is +marvellously graceful, but has a fuller and more rounded outline, more +flesh, and less of heroic muscle, than the old sculptors were wont to +assign to their types of masculine beauty. The character of the face +corresponds with the figure; it is most agreeable in outline and +feature, but rounded and somewhat voluptuously developed, especially +about the throat and chin; the nose is almost straight, but very +slightly curves inward, thereby acquiring an indescribable charm of +geniality and humor. The mouth, with its full yet delicate lips, seems +so nearly to smile outright, that it calls forth a responsive smile. The +whole statue--unlike anything else that ever was wrought in that severe +material of marble--conveys the idea of an amiable and sensual creature, +easy, mirthful, apt for jollity, yet not incapable of being touched +by pathos. It is impossible to gaze long at this stone image without +conceiving a kindly sentiment towards it, as if its substance were warm +to the touch, and imbued with actual life. It comes very close to some +of our pleasantest sympathies. + +Perhaps it is the very lack of moral severity, of any high and heroic +ingredient in the character of the Faun, that makes it so delightful an +object to the human eye and to the frailty of the human heart. The being +here represented is endowed with no principle of virtue, and would be +incapable of comprehending such; but he would be true and honest by dint +of his simplicity. We should expect from him no sacrifice or effort for +an abstract cause; there is not an atom of martyr’s stuff in all that +softened marble; but he has a capacity for strong and warm attachment, +and might act devotedly through its impulse, and even die for it at +need. It is possible, too, that the Faun might be educated through the +medium of his emotions, so that the coarser animal portion of his nature +might eventually be thrown into the background, though never utterly +expelled. + +The animal nature, indeed, is a most essential part of the Faun’s +composition; for the characteristics of the brute creation meet and +combine with those of humanity in this strange yet true and natural +conception of antique poetry and art. Praxiteles has subtly diffused +throughout his work that mute mystery, which so hopelessly perplexes us +whenever we attempt to gain an intellectual or sympathetic knowledge of +the lower orders of creation. The riddle is indicated, however, only by +two definite signs: these are the two ears of the Faun, which are leaf +shaped, terminating in little peaks, like those of some species of +animals. Though not so seen in the marble, they are probably to be +considered as clothed in fine, downy fur. In the coarser representations +of this class of mythological creatures, there is another token of brute +kindred,--a certain caudal appendage; which, if the Faun of Praxiteles +must be supposed to possess it at all, is hidden by the lion’s skin that +forms his garment. The pointed and furry ears, therefore, are the sole +indications of his wild, forest nature. + +Only a sculptor of the finest imagination, the most delicate taste, the +sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic skill--in a word, a sculptor +and a poet too--could have first dreamed of a Faun in this guise, and +then have succeeded in imprisoning the sportive and frisky thing in +marble. Neither man nor animal, and yet no monster, but a being in whom +both races meet on friendly ground. The idea grows coarse as we handle +it, and hardens in our grasp. But, if the spectator broods long over +the statue, he will be conscious of its spell; all the pleasantness of +sylvan life, all the genial and happy characteristics of creatures that +dwell in woods and fields, will seem to be mingled and kneaded into one +substance, along with the kindred qualities in the human soul. Trees, +grass, flowers, woodland streamlets, cattle, deer, and unsophisticated +man. The essence of all these was compressed long ago, and still exists, +within that discolored marble surface of the Faun of Praxiteles. + +And, after all, the idea may have been no dream, but rather a poet’s +reminiscence of a period when man’s affinity with nature was more +strict, and his fellowship with every living thing more intimate and +dear. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE FAUN + + +“Donatello,” playfully cried Miriam, “do not leave us in this perplexity! +Shake aside those brown curls, my friend, and let us see whether this +marvellous resemblance extends to the very tips of the ears. If so, we +shall like you all the better!” + +“No, no, dearest signorina,” answered Donatello, laughing, but with +a certain earnestness. “I entreat you to take the tips of my ears for +granted.” As he spoke, the young Italian made a skip and jump, light +enough for a veritable faun; so as to place himself quite beyond the +reach of the fair hand that was outstretched, as if to settle the matter +by actual examination. “I shall be like a wolf of the Apennines,” he +continued, taking his stand on the other side of the Dying Gladiator, +“if you touch my ears ever so softly. None of my race could endure it. +It has always been a tender point with my forefathers and me.” + +He spoke in Italian, with the Tuscan rusticity of accent, and an +unshaped sort of utterance, betokening that he must heretofore have been +chiefly conversant with rural people. + +“Well, well,” said Miriam, “your tender point--your two tender points, +if you have them--shall be safe, so far as I am concerned. But how +strange this likeness is, after all! and how delightful, if it really +includes the pointed ears! O, it is impossible, of course,” she +continued, in English, “with a real and commonplace young man like +Donatello; but you see how this peculiarity defines the position of +the Faun; and, while putting him where he cannot exactly assert his +brotherhood, still disposes us kindly towards the kindred creature. He +is not supernatural, but just on the verge of nature, and yet within +it. What is the nameless charm of this idea, Hilda? You can feel it more +delicately than I.” + +“It perplexes me,” said Hilda thoughtfully, and shrinking a little; +“neither do I quite like to think about it.” + +“But, surely,” said Kenyon, “you agree with Miriam and me that there is +something very touching and impressive in this statue of the Faun. In +some long-past age, he must really have existed. Nature needed, and +still needs, this beautiful creature; standing betwixt man and animal, +sympathizing with each, comprehending the speech of either race, and +interpreting the whole existence of one to the other. What a pity that +he has forever vanished from the hard and dusty paths of life,--unless,” + added the sculptor, in a sportive whisper, “Donatello be actually he!” + +“You cannot conceive how this fantasy takes hold of me,” responded +Miriam, between jest and earnest. “Imagine, now, a real being, similar +to this mythic Faun; how happy, how genial, how satisfactory would be +his life, enjoying the warm, sensuous, earthy side of nature; revelling +in the merriment of woods and streams; living as our four-footed kindred +do,--as mankind did in its innocent childhood; before sin, sorrow or +morality itself had ever been thought of! Ah! Kenyon, if Hilda and you +and I--if I, at least--had pointed ears! For I suppose the Faun had +no conscience, no remorse, no burden on the heart, no troublesome +recollections of any sort; no dark future either.” + +“What a tragic tone was that last, Miriam!” said the sculptor; +and, looking into her face, he was startled to behold it pale and +tear-stained. “How suddenly this mood has come over you!” + +“Let it go as it came,” said Miriam, “like a thunder-shower in this +Roman sky. All is sunshine again, you see!” + +Donatello’s refractoriness as regarded his ears had evidently cost him +something, and he now came close to Miriam’s side, gazing at her with an +appealing air, as if to solicit forgiveness. His mute, helpless gesture +of entreaty had something pathetic in it, and yet might well enough +excite a laugh, so like it was to what you may see in the aspect of a +hound when he thinks himself in fault or disgrace. It was difficult to +make out the character of this young man. So full of animal life as +he was, so joyous in his deportment, so handsome, so physically +well-developed, he made no impression of incompleteness, of maimed or +stinted nature. And yet, in social intercourse, these familiar friends +of his habitually and instinctively allowed for him, as for a child or +some other lawless thing, exacting no strict obedience to conventional +rules, and hardly noticing his eccentricities enough to pardon them. +There was an indefinable characteristic about Donatello that set him +outside of rules. + +He caught Miriam’s hand, kissed it, and gazed into her eyes without +saying a word. She smiled, and bestowed on him a little careless caress, +singularly like what one would give to a pet dog when he puts himself in +the way to receive it. Not that it was so decided a caress either, but +only the merest touch, somewhere between a pat and a tap of the finger; +it might be a mark of fondness, or perhaps a playful pretence of +punishment. At all events, it appeared to afford Donatello exquisite +pleasure; insomuch that he danced quite round the wooden railing that +fences in the Dying Gladiator. + +“It is the very step of the Dancing Faun,” said Miriam, apart, to Hilda. +“What a child, or what a simpleton, he is! I continually find myself +treating Donatello as if he were the merest unfledged chicken; and yet +he can claim no such privileges in the right of his tender age, for he +is at least--how old should you think him, Hilda?” + +“Twenty years, perhaps,” replied Hilda, glancing at Donatello; “but, +indeed, I cannot tell; hardly so old, on second thoughts, or possibly +older. He has nothing to do with time, but has a look of eternal youth +in his face.” + +“All underwitted people have that look,” said Miriam scornfully. + +“Donatello has certainly the gift of eternal youth, as Hilda suggests,” + observed Kenyon, laughing; “for, judging by the date of this statue, +which, I am more and more convinced, Praxiteles carved on purpose for +him, he must be at least twenty-five centuries old, and he still looks +as young as ever.” + +“What age have you, Donatello?” asked Miriam. + +“Signorina, I do not know,” he answered; “no great age, however; for I +have only lived since I met you.” + +“Now, what old man of society could have turned a silly compliment more +smartly than that!” exclaimed Miriam. “Nature and art are just at one +sometimes. But what a happy ignorance is this of our friend Donatello! +Not to know his own age! It is equivalent to being immortal on earth. If +I could only forget mine!” + +“It is too soon to wish that,” observed the sculptor; “you are scarcely +older than Donatello looks.” + +“I shall be content, then,” rejoined Miriam, “if I could only forget +one day of all my life.” Then she seemed to repent of this allusion, and +hastily added, “A woman’s days are so tedious that it is a boon to leave +even one of them out of the account.” + +The foregoing conversation had been carried on in a mood in which all +imaginative people, whether artists or poets, love to indulge. In this +frame of mind, they sometimes find their profoundest truths side by side +with the idlest jest, and utter one or the other, apparently without +distinguishing which is the most valuable, or assigning any considerable +value to either. The resemblance between the marble Faun and their +living companion had made a deep, half-serious, half-mirthful impression +on these three friends, and had taken them into a certain airy region, +lifting up, as it is so pleasant to feel them lifted, their heavy +earthly feet from the actual soil of life. The world had been set +afloat, as it were, for a moment, and relieved them, for just so long, +of all customary responsibility for what they thought and said. + +It might be under this influence--or, perhaps, because sculptors always +abuse one another’s works--that Kenyon threw in a criticism upon the +Dying Gladiator. + +“I used to admire this statue exceedingly,” he remarked, “but, latterly, +I find myself getting weary and annoyed that the man should be such a +length of time leaning on his arm in the very act of death. If he is so +terribly hurt, why does he not sink down and die without further ado? +Flitting moments, imminent emergencies, imperceptible intervals between +two breaths, ought not to be incrusted with the eternal repose of +marble; in any sculptural subject, there should be a moral standstill, +since there must of necessity be a physical one. Otherwise, it is +like flinging a block of marble up into the air, and, by some trick of +enchantment, causing it to stick there. You feel that it ought to come +down, and are dissatisfied that it does not obey the natural law.” + +“I see,” said Miriam mischievously, “you think that sculpture should +be a sort of fossilizing process. But, in truth, your frozen art has +nothing like the scope and freedom of Hilda’s and mine. In painting +there is no similar objection to the representation of brief snatches +of time,--perhaps because a story can be so much more fully told in +picture, and buttressed about with circumstances that give it an epoch. +For instance, a painter never would have sent down yonder Faun out of +his far antiquity, lonely and desolate, with no companion to keep his +simple heart warm.” + +“Ah, the Faun!” cried Hilda, with a little gesture of impatience; “I +have been looking at him too long; and now, instead of a beautiful +statue, immortally young, I see only a corroded and discolored stone. +This change is very apt to occur in statues.” + +“And a similar one in pictures, surely,” retorted the sculptor. “It is +the spectator’s mood that transfigures the Transfiguration itself. +I defy any painter to move and elevate me without my own consent and +assistance.” + +“Then you are deficient of a sense,” said Miriam. + +The party now strayed onward from hall to hall of that rich gallery, +pausing here and there, to look at the multitude of noble and lovely +shapes, which have been dug up out of the deep grave in which old Rome +lies buried. And still, the realization of the antique Faun, in the +person of Donatello, gave a more vivid character to all these marble +ghosts. Why should not each statue grow warm with life! Antinous might +lift his brow, and tell us why he is forever sad. The Lycian Apollo +might strike his lyre; and, at the first vibration, that other Faun in +red marble, who keeps up a motionless dance, should frisk gayly forth, +leading yonder Satyrs, with shaggy goat-shanks, to clatter their little +hoofs upon the floor, and all join hands with Donatello! Bacchus, too, +a rosy flush diffusing itself over his time-stained surface, could +come down from his pedestal, and offer a cluster of purple grapes to +Donatello’s lips; because the god recognizes him as the woodland elf +who so often shared his revels. And here, in this sarcophagus, the +exquisitely carved figures might assume life, and chase one another +round its verge with that wild merriment which is so strangely +represented on those old burial coffers: though still with some subtile +allusion to death, carefully veiled, but forever peeping forth amid +emblems of mirth and riot. + +As the four friends descended the stairs, however, their play of fancy +subsided into a much more sombre mood; a result apt to follow upon such +exhilaration as that which had so recently taken possession of them. + +“Do you know,” said Miriam confidentially to Hilda, “I doubt the reality +of this likeness of Donatello to the Faun, which we have been talking so +much about? To say the truth, it never struck me so forcibly as it did +Kenyon and yourself, though I gave in to whatever you were pleased to +fancy, for the sake of a moment’s mirth and wonder.” “I was certainly +in earnest, and you seemed equally so,” replied Hilda, glancing back +at Donatello, as if to reassure herself of the resemblance. “But faces +change so much, from hour to hour, that the same set of features has +often no keeping with itself; to an eye, at least, which looks at +expression more than outline. How sad and sombre he has grown all of a +sudden!” “Angry too, methinks! nay, it is anger much more than sadness,” + said Miriam. “I have seen Donatello in this mood once or twice before. +If you consider him well, you will observe an odd mixture of +the bulldog, or some other equally fierce brute, in our friend’s +composition; a trait of savageness hardly to be expected in such a +gentle creature as he usually is. Donatello is a very strange young man. +I wish he would not haunt my footsteps so continually.” + +“You have bewitched the poor lad,” said the sculptor, laughing. “You +have a faculty of bewitching people, and it is providing you with a +singular train of followers. I see another of them behind yonder pillar; +and it is his presence that has aroused Donatello’s wrath.” + +They had now emerged from the gateway of the palace; and partly +concealed by one of the pillars of the portico stood a figure such as +may often be encountered in the streets and piazzas of Rome, and nowhere +else. He looked as if he might just have stepped out of a picture, and, +in truth, was likely enough to find his way into a dozen pictures; being +no other than one of those living models, dark, bushy bearded, wild +of aspect and attire, whom artists convert into saints or assassins, +according as their pictorial purposes demand. + +“Miriam,” whispered Hilda, a little startled, “it is your model!” + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES + + +Miriam’s model has so important a connection with our story, that it is +essential to describe the singular mode of his first appearance, and +how he subsequently became a self-appointed follower of the young female +artist. In the first place, however, we must devote a page or two to +certain peculiarities in the position of Miriam herself. + +There was an ambiguity about this young lady, which, though it did not +necessarily imply anything wrong, would have operated unfavorably as +regarded her reception in society, anywhere but in Rome. The truth was, +that nobody knew anything about Miriam, either for good or evil. She had +made her appearance without introduction, had taken a studio, put her +card upon the door, and showed very considerable talent as a painter in +oils. Her fellow professors of the brush, it is true, showered abundant +criticisms upon her pictures, allowing them to be well enough for the +idle half-efforts of an amateur, but lacking both the trained skill and +the practice that distinguish the works of a true artist. + +Nevertheless, be their faults what they might, Miriam’s pictures met +with good acceptance among the patrons of modern art. Whatever technical +merit they lacked, its absence was more than supplied by a warmth +and passionateness, which she had the faculty of putting into her +productions, and which all the world could feel. Her nature had a great +deal of color, and, in accordance with it, so likewise had her pictures. + +Miriam had great apparent freedom of intercourse; her manners were so +far from evincing shyness, that it seemed easy to become acquainted with +her, and not difficult to develop a casual acquaintance into intimacy. +Such, at least, was the impression which she made, upon brief contact, +but not such the ultimate conclusion of those who really sought to know +her. So airy, free, and affable was Miriam’s deportment towards all who +came within her sphere, that possibly they might never be conscious of +the fact, but so it was, that they did not get on, and were seldom any +further advanced into her good graces to-day than yesterday. By some +subtile quality, she kept people at a distance, without so much as +letting them know that they were excluded from her inner circle. She +resembled one of those images of light, which conjurers evoke and cause +to shine before us, in apparent tangibility, only an arm’s length beyond +our grasp: we make a step in advance, expecting to seize the illusion, +but find it still precisely so far out of our reach. Finally, society +began to recognize the impossibility of getting nearer to Miriam, and +gruffly acquiesced. + +There were two persons, however, whom she appeared to acknowledge as +friends in the closer and truer sense of the word; and both of these +more favored individuals did credit to Miriam’s selection. One was +a young American sculptor, of high promise and rapidly increasing +celebrity; the other, a girl of the same country, a painter like Miriam +herself, but in a widely different sphere of art. Her heart flowed out +towards these two; she requited herself by their society and friendship +(and especially by Hilda’s) for all the loneliness with which, as +regarded the rest of the world, she chose to be surrounded. Her two +friends were conscious of the strong, yearning grasp which Miriam laid +upon them, and gave her their affection in full measure; Hilda, indeed, +responding with the fervency of a girl’s first friendship, and Kenyon +with a manly regard, in which there was nothing akin to what is +distinctively called love. + +A sort of intimacy subsequently grew up between these three friends +and a fourth individual; it was a young Italian, who, casually visiting +Rome, had been attracted by the beauty which Miriam possessed in a +remarkable degree. He had sought her, followed her, and insisted, with +simple perseverance, upon being admitted at least to her acquaintance; a +boon which had been granted, when a more artful character, seeking it by +a more subtle mode of pursuit, would probably have failed to obtain it. +This young man, though anything but intellectually brilliant, had many +agreeable characteristics which won him the kindly and half-contemptuous +regard of Miriam and her two friends. It was he whom they called +Donatello, and whose wonderful resemblance to the Faun of Praxiteles +forms the keynote of our narrative. + +Such was the position in which we find Miriam some few months after her +establishment at Rome. It must be added, however, that the world did not +permit her to hide her antecedents without making her the subject of +a good deal of conjecture; as was natural enough, considering the +abundance of her personal charms, and the degree of notice that she +attracted as an artist. There were many stories about Miriam’s origin +and previous life, some of which had a very probable air, while others +were evidently wild and romantic fables. We cite a few, leaving the +reader to designate them either under the probable or the romantic head. + +It was said, for example, that Miriam was the daughter and heiress of +a great Jewish banker (an idea perhaps suggested by a certain rich +Oriental character in her face), and had fled from her paternal home +to escape a union with a cousin, the heir of another of that golden +brotherhood; the object being to retain their vast accumulation of +wealth within the family. Another story hinted that she was a German +princess, whom, for reasons of state, it was proposed to give in +marriage either to a decrepit sovereign, or a prince still in his +cradle. According to a third statement, she was the off-spring of a +Southern American planter, who had given her an elaborate education and +endowed her with his wealth; but the one burning drop of African +blood in her veins so affected her with a sense of ignominy, that she +relinquished all and fled her country. By still another account she was +the lady of an English nobleman; and, out of mere love and honor of +art, had thrown aside the splendor of her rank, and come to seek a +subsistence by her pencil in a Roman studio. + +In all the above cases, the fable seemed to be instigated by the large +and bounteous impression which Miriam invariably made, as if necessity +and she could have nothing to do with one another. Whatever deprivations +she underwent must needs be voluntary. But there were other surmises, +taking such a commonplace view as that Miriam was the daughter of a +merchant or financier, who had been ruined in a great commercial crisis; +and, possessing a taste for art, she had attempted to support herself by +the pencil, in preference to the alternative of going out as governess. + +Be these things how they might, Miriam, fair as she looked, was plucked +up out of a mystery, and had its roots still clinging to her. She was a +beautiful and attractive woman, but based, as it were, upon a cloud, and +all surrounded with misty substance; so that the result was to render +her sprite-like in her most ordinary manifestations. This was the case +even in respect to Kenyon and Hilda, her especial friends. But such was +the effect of Miriam’s natural language, her generosity, kindliness, and +native truth of character, that these two received her as a dear friend +into their hearts, taking her good qualities as evident and genuine, and +never imagining that what was hidden must be therefore evil. + +We now proceed with our narrative. + +The same party of friends, whom we have seen at the sculpture-gallery of +the Capitol, chanced to have gone together, some months before, to the +catacomb of St. Calixtus. They went joyously down into that vast +tomb, and wandered by torchlight through a sort of dream, in which +reminiscences of church aisles and grimy cellars--and chiefly the +latter--seemed to be broken into fragments, and hopelessly intermingled. +The intricate passages along which they followed their guide had been +hewn, in some forgotten age, out of a dark-red, crumbly stone. On either +side were horizontal niches, where, if they held their torches closely, +the shape of a human body was discernible in white ashes, into which the +entire mortality of a man or woman had resolved itself. Among all this +extinct dust, there might perchance be a thigh-bone, which crumbled at +a touch; or possibly a skull, grinning at its own wretched plight, as is +the ugly and empty habit of the thing. + +Sometimes their gloomy pathway tended upward, so that, through a +crevice, a little daylight glimmered down upon them, or even a streak of +sunshine peeped into a burial niche; then again, they went downward by +gradual descent, or by abrupt, rudely hewn steps, into deeper and deeper +recesses of the earth. Here and there the narrow and tortuous passages +widened somewhat, developing themselves into small chapels;--which +once, no doubt, had been adorned with marble-work and lighted with +ever-burning lamps and tapers. All such illumination and ornament, +however, had long since been extinguished and stript away; except, +indeed, that the low roofs of a few of these ancient sites of worship +were covered with dingy stucco, and frescoed with scriptural scenes and +subjects, in the dreariest stage of ruin. + +In one such chapel, the guide showed them a low arch, beneath which the +body of St. Cecilia had been buried after her martyrdom, and where it +lay till a sculptor saw it, and rendered it forever beautiful in marble. + +In a similar spot they found two sarcophagi, one containing a skeleton, +and the other a shrivelled body, which still wore the garments of its +former lifetime. + +“How dismal all this is!” said Hilda, shuddering. “I do not know why we +came here, nor why we should stay a moment longer.” + +“I hate it all!” cried Donatello with peculiar energy. “Dear friends, +let us hasten back into the blessed daylight!” + +From the first, Donatello had shown little fancy for the expedition; +for, like most Italians, and in especial accordance with the law of his +own simple and physically happy nature, this young man had an infinite +repugnance to graves and skulls, and to all that ghastliness which the +Gothic mind loves to associate with the idea of death. He shuddered, +and looked fearfully round, drawing nearer to Miriam, whose attractive +influence alone had enticed him into that gloomy region. + +“What a child you are, poor Donatello!” she observed, with the freedom +which she always used towards him. “You are afraid of ghosts!” + +“Yes, signorina; terribly afraid!” said the truthful Donatello. + +“I also believe in ghosts,” answered Miriam, “and could tremble at them, +in a suitable place. But these sepulchres are so old, and these skulls +and white ashes so very dry, that methinks they have ceased to be +haunted. The most awful idea connected with the catacombs is their +interminable extent, and the possibility of going astray into this +labyrinth of darkness, which broods around the little glimmer of our +tapers.” + +“Has any one ever been lost here?” asked Kenyon of the guide. + +“Surely, signor; one, no longer ago than my father’s time,” said the +guide; and he added, with the air of a man who believed what he was +telling, “but the first that went astray here was a pagan of old Rome, +who hid himself in order to spy out and betray the blessed saints, who +then dwelt and worshipped in these dismal places. You have heard the +story, signor? A miracle was wrought upon the accursed one; and, ever +since (for fifteen centuries at least), he has been groping in the +darkness, seeking his way out of the catacomb.” + +“Has he ever been seen?” asked Hilda, who had great and tremulous faith +in marvels of this kind. + +“These eyes of mine never beheld him, signorina; the saints forbid!” + answered the guide. “But it is well known that he watches near parties +that come into the catacomb, especially if they be heretics, hoping to +lead some straggler astray. What this lost wretch pines for, almost as +much as for the blessed sunshine, is a companion to be miserable with +him.” + +“Such an intense desire for sympathy indicates something amiable in the +poor fellow, at all events,” observed Kenyon. + +They had now reached a larger chapel than those heretofore seen; it +was of a circular shape, and, though hewn out of the solid mass of red +sandstone, had pillars, and a carved roof, and other tokens of a regular +architectural design. Nevertheless, considered as a church, it was +exceedingly minute, being scarcely twice a man’s stature in height, and +only two or three paces from wall to wall; and while their collected +torches illuminated this one small, consecrated spot, the great darkness +spread all round it, like that immenser mystery which envelops our +little life, and into which friends vanish from us, one by one. “Why, +where is Miriam?” cried Hilda. The party gazed hurriedly from face to +face, and became aware that one of their party had vanished into +the great darkness, even while they were shuddering at the remote +possibility of such a misfortune. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB + + +“Surely, she cannot be lost!” exclaimed Kenyon. “It is but a moment since +she was speaking.” + +“No, no!” said Hilda, in great alarm. “She was behind us all; and it is +a long while since we have heard her voice!” + +“Torches! torches!” cried Donatello desperately. “I will seek her, be +the darkness ever so dismal!” + +But the guide held him back, and assured them all that there was no +possibility of assisting their lost companion, unless by shouting at +the very top of their voices. As the sound would go very far along these +close and narrow passages, there was a fair probability that Miriam +might hear the call, and be able to retrace her steps. + +Accordingly, they all--Kenyon with his bass voice; Donatello with his +tenor; the guide with that high and hard Italian cry, which makes the +streets of Rome so resonant; and Hilda with her slender scream, piercing +farther than the united uproar of the rest--began to shriek, halloo, and +bellow, with the utmost force of their lungs. And, not to prolong the +reader’s suspense (for we do not particularly seek to interest him +in this scene, telling it only on account of the trouble and strange +entanglement which followed), they soon heard a responsive call, in a +female voice. + +“It was the signorina!” cried Donatello joyfully. + +“Yes; it was certainly dear Miriam’s voice,” said Hilda. “And here she +comes! Thank Heaven! Thank Heaven!” + +The figure of their friend was now discernible by her own torchlight, +approaching out of one of the cavernous passages. Miriam came forward, +but not with the eagerness and tremulous joy of a fearful girl, just +rescued from a labyrinth of gloomy mystery. She made no immediate +response to their inquiries and tumultuous congratulations; and, as they +afterwards remembered, there was something absorbed, thoughtful, and +self-concentrated in her deportment. She looked pale, as well she might, +and held her torch with a nervous grasp, the tremor of which was seen +in the irregular twinkling of the flame. This last was the chief +perceptible sign of any recent agitation or alarm. + +“Dearest, dearest Miriam,” exclaimed Hilda, throwing her arms about her +friend, “where have you been straying from us? Blessed be Providence, +which has rescued you out of that miserable darkness!” + +“Hush, dear Hilda!” whispered Miriam, with a strange little laugh. “Are +you quite sure that it was Heaven’s guidance which brought me back? +If so, it was by an odd messenger, as you will confess. See; there he +stands.” + +Startled at Miriam’s words and manner, Hilda gazed into the duskiness +whither she pointed, and there beheld a figure standing just on the +doubtful limit of obscurity, at the threshold of the small, illuminated +chapel. Kenyon discerned him at the same instant, and drew nearer with +his torch; although the guide attempted to dissuade him, averring that, +once beyond the consecrated precincts of the chapel, the apparition +would have power to tear him limb from limb. It struck the sculptor, +however, when he afterwards recurred to these circumstances, that the +guide manifested no such apprehension on his own account as he professed +on behalf of others; for he kept pace with Kenyon as the latter +approached the figure, though still endeavoring to restrain ‘him. + +In fine, they both drew near enough to get as good a view of the spectre +as the smoky light of their torches, struggling with the massive gloom, +could supply. + +The stranger was of exceedingly picturesque, and even melodramatic +aspect. He was clad in a voluminous cloak, that seemed to be made of a +buffalo’s hide, and a pair of those goat-skin breeches, with the hair +outward, which are still commonly worn by the peasants of the Roman +Campagna. In this garb, they look like antique Satyrs; and, in truth, +the Spectre of the Catacomb might have represented the last survivor +of that vanished race, hiding himself in sepulchral gloom, and mourning +over his lost life of woods and streams. + +Furthermore, he had on a broad-brimmed, conical hat, beneath the shadow +of which a wild visage was indistinctly seen, floating away, as it were, +into a dusky wilderness of mustache and beard. His eyes winked, and +turned uneasily from the torches, like a creature to whom midnight would +be more congenial than noonday. + +On the whole, the spectre might have made a considerable impression +on the sculptor’s nerves, only that he was in the habit of observing +similar figures, almost every day, reclining on the Spanish steps, +and waiting for some artist to invite them within the magic realm of +picture. Nor, even thus familiarized with the stranger’s peculiarities +of appearance, could Kenyon help wondering to see such a personage, +shaping himself so suddenly out of the void darkness of the catacomb. + +“What are you?” said the sculptor, advancing his torch nearer. “And how +long have you been wandering here?” + +“A thousand and five hundred years!” muttered the guide, loud enough to +be heard by all the party. “It is the old pagan phantom that I told you +of, who sought to betray the blessed saints!” + +“Yes; it is a phantom!” cried Donatello, with a shudder. “Ah, dearest +signorina, what a fearful thing has beset you in those dark corridors!” + +“Nonsense, Donatello,” said the sculptor. “The man is no more a phantom +than yourself. The only marvel is, how he comes to be hiding himself in +the catacomb. Possibly our guide might solve the riddle.” + +The spectre himself here settled the point of his tangibility, at all +events, and physical substance, by approaching a step nearer, and laying +his hand on Kenyon’s arm. + +“Inquire not what I am, nor wherefore I abide in the darkness,” said he, +in a hoarse, harsh voice, as if a great deal of damp were clustering in +his throat. “Henceforth, I am nothing but a shadow behind her footsteps. +She came to me when I sought her not. She has called me forth, and must +abide the consequences of my reappearance in the world.” + +“Holy Virgin! I wish the signorina joy of her prize,” said the guide, +half to himself. “And in any case, the catacomb is well rid of him.” + +We need follow the scene no further. So much is essential to the +subsequent narrative, that, during the short period while astray in +those tortuous passages, Miriam had encountered an unknown man, and +led him forth with her, or was guided back by him, first into the +torchlight, thence into the sunshine. + +It was the further singularity of this affair, that the connection, thus +briefly and casually formed, did not terminate with the incident +that gave it birth. As if her service to him, or his service to her, +whichever it might be, had given him an indefeasible claim on Miriam’s +regard and protection, the Spectre of the Catacomb never long allowed +her to lose sight of him, from that day forward. He haunted her +footsteps with more than the customary persistency of Italian +mendicants, when once they have recognized a benefactor. For days +together, it is true, he occasionally vanished, but always reappeared, +gliding after her through the narrow streets, or climbing the hundred +steps of her staircase and sitting at her threshold. + +Being often admitted to her studio, he left his features, or some shadow +or reminiscence of them, in many of her sketches and pictures. The moral +atmosphere of these productions was thereby so influenced, that rival +painters pronounced it a case of hopeless mannerism, which would destroy +all Miriam’s prospects of true excellence in art. + +The story of this adventure spread abroad, and made its way beyond +the usual gossip of the Forestieri, even into Italian circles, where, +enhanced by a still potent spirit of superstition, it grew far more +wonderful than as above recounted. Thence, it came back among the +Anglo-Saxons, and was communicated to the German artists, who so richly +supplied it with romantic ornaments and excrescences, after their +fashion, that it became a fantasy worthy of Tieck or Hoffmann. For +nobody has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities of a +marvellous tale. + +The most reasonable version of the incident, that could anywise be +rendered acceptable to the auditors, was substantially the one suggested +by the guide of the catacomb, in his allusion to the legend of Memmius. +This man, or demon, or man-demon, was a spy during the persecutions +of the early Christians, probably under the Emperor Diocletian, and +penetrated into the catacomb of St. Calixtus, with the malignant purpose +of tracing out the hiding-places of the refugees. But, while he stole +craftily through those dark corridors, he chanced to come upon a little +chapel, where tapers were burning before an altar and a crucifix, and +a priest was in the performance of his sacred office. By divine +indulgence, there was a single moment’s grace allowed to Memmius, during +which, had he been capable of Christian faith and love, he might have +knelt before the cross, and received the holy light into his soul, and +so have been blest forever. But he resisted the sacred impulse. As +soon, therefore, as that one moment had glided by, the light of the +consecrated tapers, which represent all truth, bewildered the wretched +man with everlasting error, and the blessed cross itself was stamped +as a seal upon his heart, so that it should never open to receive +conviction. + +Thenceforth, this heathen Memmius has haunted the wide and dreary +precincts of the catacomb, seeking, as some say, to beguile new victims +into his own misery; but, according to other statements, endeavoring to +prevail on any unwary visitor to take him by the hand, and guide him out +into the daylight. Should his wiles and entreaties take effect, however, +the man-demon would remain only a little while above ground. He would +gratify his fiendish malignity by perpetrating signal mischief on his +benefactor, and perhaps bringing some old pestilence or other forgotten +and long-buried evil on society; or, possibly, teaching the modern +world some decayed and dusty kind of crime, which the antique Romans +knew,--and then would hasten back to the catacomb, which, after so long +haunting it, has grown his most congenial home. + +Miriam herself, with her chosen friends, the sculptor and the gentle +Hilda, often laughed at the monstrous fictions that had gone abroad in +reference to her adventure. Her two confidants (for such they were, +on all ordinary subjects) had not failed to ask an explanation of the +mystery, since undeniably a mystery there was, and one sufficiently +perplexing in itself, without any help from the imaginative faculty. +And, sometimes responding to their inquiries with a melancholy sort of +playfulness, Miriam let her fancy run off into wilder fables than any +which German ingenuity or Italian superstition had contrived. + +For example, with a strange air of seriousness over all her face, only +belied by a laughing gleam in her dark eyes, she would aver that the +spectre (who had been an artist in his mortal lifetime) had promised +to teach her a long-lost, but invaluable secret of old Roman fresco +painting. The knowledge of this process would place Miriam at the head +of modern art; the sole condition being agreed upon, that she should +return with him into his sightless gloom, after enriching a certain +extent of stuccoed wall with the most brilliant and lovely designs. And +what true votary of art would not purchase unrivalled excellence, even +at so vast a sacrifice! + +Or, if her friends still solicited a soberer account, Miriam replied, +that, meeting the old infidel in one of the dismal passages of the +catacomb, she had entered into controversy with him, hoping to achieve +the glory and satisfaction of converting him to the Christian faith. For +the sake of so excellent a result; she had even staked her own salvation +against his, binding herself to accompany him back into his penal gloom, +if, within a twelvemonth’s space, she should not have convinced him of +the errors through which he had so long groped and stumbled. But, alas! +up to the present time, the controversy had gone direfully in favor of +the man-demon; and Miriam (as she whispered in Hilda’s ear) had awful +forebodings, that, in a few more months, she must take an eternal +farewell of the sun! + +It was somewhat remarkable that all her romantic fantasies arrived at +this self-same dreary termination,--it appeared impossible for her even +to imagine any other than a disastrous result from her connection with +her ill-omened attendant. + +This singularity might have meant nothing, however, had it not suggested +a despondent state of mind, which was likewise indicated by many other +tokens. Miriam’s friends had no difficulty in perceiving that, in +one way or another, her happiness was very seriously compromised. Her +spirits were often depressed into deep melancholy. If ever she was gay, +it was seldom with a healthy cheerfulness. She grew moody, moreover, and +subject to fits of passionate ill temper; which usually wreaked itself +on the heads of those who loved her best. Not that Miriam’s indifferent +acquaintances were safe from similar outbreaks of her displeasure, +especially if they ventured upon any allusion to the model. In such +cases, they were left with little disposition to renew the subject, but +inclined, on the other hand, to interpret the whole matter as much to +her discredit as the least favorable coloring of the facts would allow. + +It may occur to the reader, that there was really no demand for so much +rumor and speculation in regard to an incident, Which might well enough +have been explained without going many steps beyond the limits of +probability. The spectre might have been merely a Roman beggar, whose +fraternity often harbor in stranger shelters than the catacombs; or one +of those pilgrims, who still journey from remote countries to kneel +and worship at the holy sites, among which these haunts of the early +Christians are esteemed especially sacred. Or, as was perhaps a more +plausible theory, he might be a thief of the city, a robber of the +Campagna, a political offender, or an assassin, with blood upon his +hand; whom the negligence or connivance of the police allowed to take +refuge in those subterranean fastnesses, where such outlaws have been +accustomed to hide themselves from a far antiquity downward. Or he might +have been a lunatic, fleeing instinctively from man, and making it his +dark pleasure to dwell among the tombs, like him whose awful cry echoes +afar to us from Scripture times. + +And, as for the stranger’s attaching himself so devotedly to Miriam, her +personal magnetism might be allowed a certain weight in the explanation. +For what remains, his pertinacity need not seem so very singular to +those who consider how slight a link serves to connect these vagabonds +of idle Italy with any person that may have the ill-hap to bestow +charity, or be otherwise serviceable to them, or betray the slightest +interest in their fortunes. + +Thus little would remain to be accounted for, except the deportment of +Miriam herself; her reserve, her brooding melancholy, her petulance, +and moody passion. If generously interpreted, even these morbid symptoms +might have sufficient cause in the stimulating and exhaustive influences +of imaginative art, exercised by a delicate young woman, in the nervous +and unwholesome atmosphere of Rome. Such, at least, was the view of the +case which Hilda and Kenyon endeavored to impress on their own minds, +and impart to those whom their opinions might influence. + +One of Miriam’s friends took the matter sadly to heart. This was the +young Italian. Donatello, as we have seen, had been an eyewitness of +the stranger’s first appearance, and had ever since nourished a singular +prejudice against the mysterious, dusky, death-scented apparition. +It resembled not so much a human dislike or hatred, as one of those +instinctive, unreasoning antipathies which the lower animals sometimes +display, and which generally prove more trustworthy than the acutest +insight into character. The shadow of the model, always flung into the +light which Miriam diffused around her, caused no slight trouble to +Donatello. Yet he was of a nature so remarkably genial and joyous, so +simply happy, that he might well afford to have something subtracted +from his comfort, and make tolerable shift to live upon what remained. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +MIRIAM’S STUDIO + + +The courtyard and staircase of a palace built three hundred years ago +are a peculiar feature of modern Rome, and interest the stranger more +than many things of which he has heard loftier descriptions. You pass +through the grand breadth and height of a squalid entrance-way, and +perhaps see a range of dusky pillars, forming a sort of cloister round +the court, and in the intervals, from pillar to pillar, are strewn +fragments of antique statues, headless and legless torsos, and busts +that have invariably lost what it might be well if living men could lay +aside in that unfragrant atmosphere--the nose. Bas-reliefs, the spoil of +some far older palace, are set in the surrounding walls, every stone of +which has been ravished from the Coliseum, or any other imperial ruin +which earlier barbarism had not already levelled with the earth. Between +two of the pillars, moreover, stands an old sarcophagus without its +lid, and with all its more prominently projecting sculptures broken +off; perhaps it once held famous dust, and the bony framework of some +historic man, although now only a receptacle for the rubbish of the +courtyard, and a half-worn broom. + +In the centre of the court, under the blue Italian sky, and with the +hundred windows of the vast palace gazing down upon it from four sides, +appears a fountain. It brims over from one stone basin to another, +or gushes from a Naiad’s urn, or spurts its many little jets from the +mouths of nameless monsters, which were merely grotesque and artificial +when Bernini, or whoever was their unnatural father, first produced +them; but now the patches of moss, the tufts of grass, the trailing +maiden-hair, and all sorts of verdant weeds that thrive in the cracks +and crevices of moist marble, tell us that Nature takes the fountain +back into her great heart, and cherishes it as kindly as if it were a +woodland spring. And hark, the pleasant murmur, the gurgle, the plash! +You might hear just those tinkling sounds from any tiny waterfall in the +forest, though here they gain a delicious pathos from the stately +echoes that reverberate their natural language. So the fountain is not +altogether glad, after all its three centuries at play! + +In one of the angles of the courtyard, a pillared doorway gives access +to the staircase, with its spacious breadth of low marble steps, up +which, in former times, have gone the princes and cardinals of the great +Roman family who built this palace. Or they have come down, with still +grander and loftier mien, on their way to the Vatican or the Quirinal, +there to put off their scarlet hats in exchange for the triple crown. +But, in fine, all these illustrious personages have gone down +their hereditary staircase for the last time, leaving it to be the +thoroughfare of ambassadors, English noblemen, American millionnaires, +artists, tradesmen, washerwomen, and people of every degree,--all of +whom find such gilded and marble-panelled saloons as their pomp and +luxury demand, or such homely garrets as their necessity can pay for, +within this one multifarious abode. Only, in not a single nook of the +palace (built for splendor, and the accommodation of a vast retinue, but +with no vision of a happy fireside or any mode of domestic enjoyment) +does the humblest or the haughtiest occupant find comfort. + +Up such a staircase, on the morning after the scene at the sculpture +gallery, sprang the light foot of Donatello. He ascended from story +to story, passing lofty doorways, set within rich frames of sculptured +marble, and climbing unweariedly upward, until the glories of the first +piano and the elegance of the middle height were exchanged for a sort of +Alpine region, cold and naked in its aspect. Steps of rough stone, rude +wooden balustrades, a brick pavement in the passages, a dingy whitewash +on the walls; these were here the palatial features. Finally, he paused +before an oaken door, on which was pinned a card, bearing the name of +Miriam Schaefer, artist in oils. Here Donatello knocked, and the door +immediately fell somewhat ajar; its latch having been pulled up by means +of a string on the inside. Passing through a little anteroom, he found +himself in Miriam’s presence. + +“Come in, wild Faun,” she said, “and tell me the latest news from +Arcady!” + +The artist was not just then at her easel, but was busied with the +feminine task of mending a pair of gloves. + +There is something extremely pleasant, and even touching,--at least, +of very sweet, soft, and winning effect,--in this peculiarity of +needlework, distinguishing women from men. Our own sex is incapable of +any such by-play aside from the main business of life; but women--be +they of what earthly rank they may, however gifted with intellect or +genius, or endowed with awful beauty--have always some little handiwork +ready to fill the tiny gap of every vacant moment. A needle is familiar +to the fingers of them all. A queen, no doubt, plies it on occasion; the +woman poet can use it as adroitly as her pen; the woman’s eye, that has +discovered a new star, turns from its glory to send the polished little +instrument gleaming along the hem of her kerchief, or to darn a casual +fray in her dress. And they have greatly the advantage of us in this +respect. The slender thread of silk or cotton keeps them united with +the small, familiar, gentle interests of life, the continually operating +influences of which do so much for the health of the character, and +carry off what would otherwise be a dangerous accumulation of morbid +sensibility. A vast deal of human sympathy runs along this electric +line, stretching from the throne to the wicker chair of the humblest +seamstress, and keeping high and low in a species of communion with +their kindred beings. Methinks it is a token of healthy and gentle +characteristics, when women of high thoughts and accomplishments love +to sew; especially as they are never more at home with their own hearts +than while so occupied. + +And when the work falls in a woman’s lap, of its own accord, and the +needle involuntarily ceases to fly, it is a sign of trouble, quite as +trustworthy as the throb of the heart itself. This was what happened +to Miriam. Even while Donatello stood gazing at her, she seemed to have +forgotten his presence, allowing him to drop out of her thoughts, and +the torn glove to fall from her idle fingers. Simple as he was, the +young man knew by his sympathies that something was amiss. + +“Dear lady, you are sad,” said he, drawing close to her. + +“It is nothing, Donatello,” she replied, resuming her work; “yes; +a little sad, perhaps; but that is not strange for us people of the +ordinary world, especially for women. You are of a cheerfuller race, my +friend, and know nothing of this disease of sadness. But why do you come +into this shadowy room of mine?” + +“Why do you make it so shadowy?” asked he. + +“We artists purposely exclude sunshine, and all but a partial light,” + said Miriam, “because we think it necessary to put ourselves at +odds with Nature before trying to imitate her. That strikes you very +strangely, does it not? But we make very pretty pictures sometimes with +our artfully arranged lights and shadows. Amuse yourself with some +of mine, Donatello, and by and by I shall be in the mood to begin the +portrait we were talking about.” + +The room had the customary aspect of a painter’s studio; one of those +delightful spots that hardly seem to belong to the actual world, but +rather to be the outward type of a poet’s haunted imagination, where +there are glimpses, sketches, and half-developed hints of beings and +objects grander and more beautiful than we can anywhere find in reality. +The windows were closed with shutters, or deeply curtained, except one, +which was partly open to a sunless portion of the sky, admitting only +from high upward that partial light which, with its strongly marked +contrast of shadow, is the first requisite towards seeing objects +pictorially. Pencil-drawings were pinned against the wall or scattered +on the tables. Unframed canvases turned their backs on the spectator, +presenting only a blank to the eye, and churlishly concealing whatever +riches of scenery or human beauty Miriam’s skill had depicted on the +other side. + +In the obscurest part of the room Donatello was half startled at +perceiving duskily a woman with long dark hair, who threw up her arms +with a wild gesture of tragic despair, and appeared to beckon him into +the darkness along with her. + +“Do not be afraid, Donatello,” said Miriam, smiling to see him peering +doubtfully into the mysterious dusk. “She means you no mischief, nor +could perpetrate any if she wished it ever so much. It is a lady of +exceedingly pliable disposition; now a heroine of romance, and now a +rustic maid; yet all for show; being created, indeed, on purpose to wear +rich shawls and other garments in a becoming fashion. This is the true +end of her being, although she pretends to assume the most varied duties +and perform many parts in life, while really the poor puppet has nothing +on earth to do. Upon my word, I am satirical unawares, and seem to be +describing nine women out of ten in the person of my lay-figure. For +most purposes she has the advantage of the sisterhood. Would I were like +her!” + +“How it changes her aspect,” exclaimed Donatello, “to know that she is +but a jointed figure! When my eyes first fell upon her, I thought her +arms moved, as if beckoning me to help her in some direful peril.” + +“Are you often troubled with such sinister freaks of fancy?” asked +Miriam. “I should not have supposed it.” + +“To tell you the truth, dearest signorina,” answered the young Italian, +“I am apt to be fearful in old, gloomy houses, and in the dark. I love +no dark or dusky corners, except it be in a grotto, or among the thick +green leaves of an arbor, or in some nook of the woods, such as I know +many in the neighborhood of my home. Even there, if a stray sunbeam +steal in, the shadow is all the better for its cheerful glimmer.” + +“Yes; you are a Faun, you know,” said the fair artist, laughing at the +remembrance of the scene of the day before. “But the world is sadly +changed nowadays; grievously changed, poor Donatello, since those happy +times when your race used to dwell in the Arcadian woods, playing hide +and seek with the nymphs in grottoes and nooks of shrubbery. You have +reappeared on earth some centuries too late.” + +“I do not understand you now,” answered Donatello, looking perplexed; +“only, signorina, I am glad to have my lifetime while you live; and +where you are, be it in cities or fields, I would fain be there too.” + +“I wonder whether I ought to allow you to speak in this way,” said +Miriam, looking thoughtfully at him. “Many young women would think it +behooved them to be offended. Hilda would never let you speak so, I dare +say. But he is a mere boy,” she added, aside, “a simple boy, putting his +boyish heart to the proof on the first woman whom he chances to meet. +If yonder lay-figure had had the luck to meet him first, she would have +smitten him as deeply as I.” + +“Are you angry with me?” asked Donatello dolorously. + +“Not in the least,” answered Miriam, frankly giving him her hand. “Pray +look over some of these sketches till I have leisure to chat with you +a little. I hardly think I am in spirits enough to begin your portrait +to-day.” + +Donatello was as gentle and docile as a pet spaniel; as playful, too, in +his general disposition, or saddening with his mistress’s variable mood +like that or any other kindly animal which has the faculty of +bestowing its sympathies more completely than men or women can ever do. +Accordingly, as Miriam bade him, he tried to turn his attention to a +great pile and confusion of pen and ink sketches and pencil drawings +which lay tossed together on a table. As it chanced, however, they gave +the poor youth little delight. + +The first that he took up was a very impressive sketch, in which the +artist had jotted down her rough ideas for a picture of Jael driving the +nail through the temples of Sisera. It was dashed off with remarkable +power, and showed a touch or two that were actually lifelike and +deathlike, as if Miriam had been standing by when Jael gave the first +stroke of her murderous hammer, or as if she herself were Jael, and felt +irresistibly impelled to make her bloody confession in this guise. + +Her first conception of the stern Jewess had evidently been that of +perfect womanhood, a lovely form, and a high, heroic face of lofty +beauty; but, dissatisfied either with her own work or the terrible story +itself, Miriam had added a certain wayward quirk of her pencil, which at +once converted the heroine into a vulgar murderess. It was evident that +a Jael like this would be sure to search Sisera’s pockets as soon as the +breath was out of his body. + +In another sketch she had attempted the story of Judith, which we see +represented by the old masters so often, and in such various styles. +Here, too, beginning with a passionate and fiery conception of the +subject in all earnestness, she had given the last touches in utter +scorn, as it were, of the feelings which at first took such powerful +possession of her hand. The head of Holofernes (which, by the bye, had a +pair of twisted mustaches, like those of a certain potentate of the +day) being fairly cut off, was screwing its eyes upward and twirling +its features into a diabolical grin of triumphant malice, which it flung +right in Judith’s face. On her part, she had the startled aspect that +might be conceived of a cook if a calf’s head should sneer at her when +about to be popped into the dinner-pot. + +Over and over again, there was the idea of woman, acting the part of a +revengeful mischief towards man. It was, indeed, very singular to +see how the artist’s imagination seemed to run on these stories of +bloodshed, in which woman’s hand was crimsoned by the stain; and how, +too,--in one form or another, grotesque or sternly sad,--she failed not +to bring out the moral, that woman must strike through her own heart to +reach a human life, whatever were the motive that impelled her. + +One of the sketches represented the daughter of Herodias receiving the +head of John the Baptist in a charger. The general conception appeared +to be taken from Bernardo Luini’s picture, in the Uffizzi Gallery at +Florence; but Miriam had imparted to the saint’s face a look of gentle +and heavenly reproach, with sad and blessed eyes fixed upward at the +maiden; by the force of which miraculous glance, her whole womanhood was +at once awakened to love and endless remorse. + +These sketches had a most disagreeable effect on Donatello’s peculiar +temperament. He gave a shudder; his face assumed a look of trouble, +fear, and disgust; he snatched up one sketch after another, as if about +to tear it in pieces. Finally, shoving away the pile of drawings, he +shrank back from the table and clasped his hands over his eyes. + +“What is the matter, Donatello?” asked Miriam, looking up from a +letter which she was now writing. “Ah! I did not mean you to see those +drawings. They are ugly phantoms that stole out of my mind; not things +that I created, but things that haunt me. See! here are some trifles +that perhaps will please you better.” + +She gave him a portfolio, the sketches in which indicated a happier mood +of mind, and one, it is to be hoped, more truly characteristic of the +artist. Supposing neither of these classes of subject to show anything +of her own individuality, Miriam had evidently a great scope of fancy, +and a singular faculty of putting what looked like heart into her +productions. The latter sketches were domestic and common scenes, so +finely and subtilely idealized that they seemed such as we may see +at any moment, and eye, where; while still there was the indefinable +something added, or taken away, which makes all the difference between +sordid life and an earthly paradise. The feeling and sympathy in all of +them were deep and true. There was the scene, that comes once in every +life, of the lover winning the soft and pure avowal of bashful affection +from the maiden whose slender form half leans towards his arm, half +shrinks from it, we know not which. There was wedded affection in its +successive stages, represented in a series of delicately conceived +designs, touched with a holy fire, that burned from youth to age in +those two hearts, and gave one identical beauty to the faces throughout +all the changes of feature. + +There was a drawing of an infant’s shoe, half worn out, with the airy +print of the blessed foot within; a thing that would make a mother smile +or weep out of the very depths of her heart; and yet an actual mother +would not have been likely to appreciate the poetry of the little shoe, +until Miriam revealed it to her. It was wonderful, the depth and force +with which the above, and other kindred subjects, were depicted, and the +profound significance which they often acquired. The artist, still in +her fresh youth, could not probably have drawn any of these dear and +rich experiences from her own life; unless, perchance, that first sketch +of all, the avowal of maiden affection, were a remembered incident, and +not a prophecy. But it is more delightful to believe that, from first to +last, they were the productions of a beautiful imagination, dealing with +the warm and pure suggestions of a woman’s heart, and thus idealizing +a truer and lovelier picture of the life that belongs to woman, than +an actual acquaintance with some of its hard and dusty facts could have +inspired. So considered, the sketches intimated such a force and variety +of imaginative sympathies as would enable Miriam to fill her life richly +with the bliss and suffering of womanhood, however barren it might +individually be. + +There was one observable point, indeed, betokening that the artist +relinquished, for her personal self, the happiness which she could so +profoundly appreciate for others. In all those sketches of common life, +and the affections that spiritualize it, a figure was portrayed apart, +now it peeped between the branches of a shrubbery, amid which two lovers +sat; now it was looking through a frosted window, from the outside, +while a young wedded pair sat at their new fireside within; and once it +leaned from a chariot, which six horses were whirling onward in pomp +and pride, and gazed at a scene of humble enjoyment by a cottage door. +Always it was the same figure, and always depicted with an expression of +deep sadness; and in every instance, slightly as they were brought out, +the face and form had the traits of Miriam’s own. + +“Do you like these sketches better, Donatello?” asked Miriam. “Yes,” + said Donatello rather doubtfully. “Not much, I fear,” responded she, +laughing. “And what should a boy like you--a Faun too,--know about the +joys and sorrows, the intertwining light and shadow, of human life? I +forgot that you were a Faun. You cannot suffer deeply; therefore you +can but half enjoy. Here, now, is a subject which you can better +appreciate.” + +The sketch represented merely a rustic dance, but with such extravagance +of fun as was delightful to behold; and here there was no drawback, +except that strange sigh and sadness which always come when we are +merriest. + +“I am going to paint the picture in oils,” said the artist; “and I want +you, Donatello, for the wildest dancer of them all. Will you sit for me, +some day?--or, rather, dance for me?” + +“O, most gladly, signorina!” exclaimed Donatello. “See; it shall be like +this.” + +And forthwith he began to dance, and flit about the studio, like an +incarnate sprite of jollity, pausing at last on the extremity of one +toe, as if that were the only portion of himself whereby his frisky +nature could come in contact with the earth. The effect in that shadowy +chamber, whence the artist had so carefully excluded the sunshine, was +as enlivening as if one bright ray had contrived to shimmer in and +frolic around the walls, and finally rest just in the centre of the +floor. + +“That was admirable!” said Miriam, with an approving smile. “If I can +catch you on my canvas, it will be a glorious picture; only I am afraid +you will dance out of it, by the very truth of the representation, just +when I shall have given it the last touch. We will try it one of these +days. And now, to reward you for that jolly exhibition, you shall see +what has been shown to no one else.” + +She went to her easel, on which was placed a picture with its back +turned towards the spectator. Reversing the position, there appeared the +portrait of a beautiful woman, such as one sees only two or three, if +even so many times, in all a lifetime; so beautiful, that she seemed to +get into your consciousness and memory, and could never afterwards be +shut out, but haunted your dreams, for pleasure or for pain; holding +your inner realm as a conquered territory, though without deigning to +make herself at home there. + +She was very youthful, and had what was usually thought to be a Jewish +aspect; a complexion in which there was no roseate bloom, yet neither +was it pale; dark eyes, into which you might look as deeply as your +glance would go, and still be conscious of a depth that you had not +sounded, though it lay open to the day. She had black, abundant hair, +with none of the vulgar glossiness of other women’s sable locks; if she +were really of Jewish blood, then this was Jewish hair, and a dark glory +such as crowns no Christian maiden’s head. Gazing at this portrait, you +saw what Rachel might have been, when Jacob deemed her worth the wooing +seven years, and seven more; or perchance she might ripen to be what +Judith was, when she vanquished Holofernes with her beauty, and slew him +for too much adoring it. + +Miriam watched Donatello’s contemplation of the picture, and seeing his +simple rapture, a smile of pleasure brightened on her face, mixed with a +little scorn; at least, her lips curled, and her eyes gleamed, as if she +disdained either his admiration or her own enjoyment of it. + +“Then you like the picture, Donatello?” she asked. + +“O, beyond what I can tell!” he answered. “So beautiful!--so beautiful!” + +“And do you recognize the likeness?” + +“Signorina,” exclaimed Donatello, turning from the picture to the +artist, in astonishment that she should ask the question, “the +resemblance is as little to be mistaken as if you had bent over the +smooth surface of a fountain, and possessed the witchcraft to call forth +the image that you made there! It is yourself!” + +Donatello said the truth; and we forebore to speak descriptively of +Miriam’s beauty earlier in our narrative, because we foresaw this +occasion to bring it perhaps more forcibly before the reader. + +We know not whether the portrait were a flattered likeness; probably +not, regarding it merely as the delineation of a lovely face; although +Miriam, like all self-painters, may have endowed herself with certain +graces which Other eyes might not discern. Artists are fond of painting +their own portraits; and, in Florence, there is a gallery of hundreds +of them, including the most illustrious, in all of which there are +autobiographical characteristics, so to speak,--traits, expressions, +loftinesses, and amenities, which would have been invisible, had they +not been painted from within. Yet their reality and truth are none +the less. Miriam, in like manner, had doubtless conveyed some of the +intimate results of her heart knowledge into her own portrait, and +perhaps wished to try whether they would be perceptible to so simple and +natural an observer as Donatello. + +“Does the expression please you?” she asked. + +“Yes,” said Donatello hesitatingly; “if it would only smile so like the +sunshine as you sometimes do. No, it is sadder than I thought at first. +Cannot you make yourself smile a little, signorina?” + +“A forced smile is uglier than a frown,” said Miriam, a bright, natural +smile breaking out over her face even as she spoke. + +“O, catch it now!” cried Donatello, clapping his hands. “Let it shine +upon the picture! There! it has vanished already! And you are sad again, +very sad; and the picture gazes sadly forth at me, as if some evil had +befallen it in the little time since I looked last.” + +“How perplexed you seem, my friend!” answered Miriam. “I really half +believe you are a Faun, there is such a mystery and terror for you in +these dark moods, which are just as natural as daylight to us people of +ordinary mould. I advise you, at all events, to look at other faces with +those innocent and happy eyes, and never more to gaze at mine!” + +“You speak in vain,” replied the young man, with a deeper emphasis than +she had ever before heard in his voice; “shroud yourself in what gloom +you will, I must needs follow you.” + +“Well, well, well,” said Miriam impatiently; “but leave me now; for to +speak plainly, my good friend, you grow a little wearisome. I walk +this afternoon in the Borghese grounds. Meet me there, if it suits your +pleasure.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE VIRGIN’S SHRINE + + +After Donatello had left the studio, Miriam herself came forth, and +taking her way through some of the intricacies of the city, entered what +might be called either a widening of a street, or a small piazza. The +neighborhood comprised a baker’s oven, emitting the usual fragrance of +sour bread; a shoe shop; a linen-draper’s shop; a pipe and cigar shop; a +lottery office; a station for French soldiers, with a sentinel pacing in +front; and a fruit-stand, at which a Roman matron was selling the +dried kernels of chestnuts, wretched little figs, and some bouquets of +yesterday. A church, of course, was near at hand, the facade of which +ascended into lofty pinnacles, whereon were perched two or three winged +figures of stone, either angelic or allegorical, blowing stone trumpets +in close vicinity to the upper windows of an old and shabby palace. +This palace was distinguished by a feature not very common in the +architecture of Roman edifices; that is to say, a mediaeval tower, +square, massive, lofty, and battlemented and machicolated at the summit. + +At one of the angles of the battlements stood a shrine of the Virgin, +such as we see everywhere at the street corners of Rome, but seldom or +never, except in this solitary, instance, at a height above the ordinary +level of men’s views and aspirations. Connected with this old tower and +its lofty shrine, there is a legend which we cannot here pause to tell; +but for centuries a lamp has been burning before the Virgin’s image, at +noon, at midnight, and at all hours of the twenty-four, and must be kept +burning forever, as long as the tower shall stand; or else the tower +itself, the palace, and whatever estate belongs to it, shall pass from +its hereditary possessor, in accordance with an ancient vow, and become +the property of the Church. + +As Miriam approached, she looked upward, and saw,--not, indeed, the +flame of the never-dying lamp, which was swallowed up in the broad +sunlight that brightened the shrine, but a flock of white doves, +skimming, fluttering, and wheeling about the topmost height of the +tower, their silver wings flashing in the pure transparency of the +air. Several of them sat on the ledge of the upper window, pushing one +another off by their eager struggle for this favorite station, and all +tapping their beaks and flapping their wings tumultuously against the +panes; some had alighted in the street, far below, but flew hastily +upward, at the sound of the window being thrust ajar, and opening in the +middle, on rusty hinges, as Roman windows do. + +A fair young girl, dressed in white, showed herself at the aperture for +a single instant, and threw forth as much as her two small hands could +hold of some kind of food, for the flock of eleemosynary doves. It +seemed greatly to the taste of the feathered people; for they tried to +snatch beakfuls of it from her grasp, caught it in the air, and rushed +downward after it upon the pavement. + +“What a pretty scene this is,” thought Miriam, with a kindly smile, “and +how like a dove she is herself, the fair, pure creature! The other doves +know her for a sister, I am sure.” + +Miriam passed beneath the deep portal of the palace, and turning to the +left, began to mount flight after flight of a staircase, which, for the +loftiness of its aspiration, was worthy to be Jacob’s ladder, or, at all +events, the staircase of the Tower of Babel. The city bustle, which +is heard even in Rome, the rumble of wheels over the uncomfortable +paving-stones, the hard harsh cries reechoing in the high and narrow +streets, grew faint and died away; as the turmoil of the world will +always die, if we set our faces to climb heavenward. Higher, and higher +still; and now, glancing through the successive windows that threw in +their narrow light upon the stairs, her view stretched across the roofs +of the city, unimpeded even by the stateliest palaces. Only the domes of +churches ascend into this airy region, and hold up their golden crosses +on a level with her eye; except that, out of the very heart of Rome, +the column of Antoninus thrusts itself upward, with St. Paul upon its +summit, the sole human form that seems to have kept her company. + +Finally, the staircase came to an end; save that, on one side of the +little entry where it terminated, a flight of a dozen steps gave access +to the roof of the tower and the legendary shrine. On the other side was +a door, at which Miriam knocked, but rather as a friendly announcement +of her presence than with any doubt of hospitable welcome; for, awaiting +no response, she lifted the latch and entered. + +“What a hermitage you have found for yourself, dear Hilda!” she, +exclaimed. “You breathe sweet air, above all the evil scents of Rome; +and even so, in your maiden elevation, you dwell above our vanities and +passions, our moral dust and mud, with the doves and the angels for your +nearest neighbors. I should not wonder if the Catholics were to make a +saint of you, like your namesake of old; especially as you have almost +avowed yourself of their religion, by undertaking to keep the lamp +alight before the Virgin’s shrine.” + +“No, no, Miriam!” said Hilda, who had come joyfully forward to greet +her friend. “You must not call me a Catholic. A Christian girl--even +a daughter of the Puritans--may surely pay honor to the idea of divine +Womanhood, without giving up the faith of her forefathers. But how kind +you are to climb into my dove-cote!” + +“It is no trifling proof of friendship, indeed,” answered Miriam; “I +should think there were three hundred stairs at least.” + +“But it will do you good,” continued Hilda. “A height of some fifty feet +above the roofs of Rome gives me all the advantages that I could get +from fifty miles of distance. The air so exhilarates my spirits, that +sometimes I feel half inclined to attempt a flight from the top of my +tower, in the faith that I should float upward.” + +“O, pray don’t try it!” said Miriam, laughing; “If it should turn out +that you are less than an angel, you would find the stones of the Roman +pavement very hard; and if an angel, indeed, I am afraid you would never +come down among us again.” + +This young American girl was an example of the freedom of life which +it is possible for a female artist to enjoy at Rome. She dwelt in her +tower, as free to descend into the corrupted atmosphere of the city +beneath, as one of her companion doves to fly downward into the +street;--all alone, perfectly independent, under her own sole +guardianship, unless watched over by the Virgin, whose shrine she +tended; doing what she liked without a suspicion or a shadow upon the +snowy whiteness of her fame. The customs of artist life bestow such +liberty upon the sex, which is elsewhere restricted within so much +narrower limits; and it is perhaps an indication that, whenever we admit +women to a wider scope of pursuits and professions, we must also remove +the shackles of our present conventional rules, which would then become +an insufferable restraint on either maid or wife. The system seems to +work unexceptionably in Rome; and in many other cases, as in Hilda’s, +purity of heart and life are allowed to assert themselves, and to be +their own proof and security, to a degree unknown in the society of +other cities. + +Hilda, in her native land, had early shown what was pronounced by +connoisseurs a decided genius for the pictorial art. Even in her +schooldays--still not so very distant--she had produced sketches that +were seized upon by men of taste, and hoarded as among the choicest +treasures of their portfolios; scenes delicately imagined, lacking, +perhaps, the reality which comes only from a close acquaintance with +life, but so softly touched with feeling and fancy that you seemed to +be looking at humanity with angels’ eyes. With years and experience +she might be expected to attain a darker and more forcible touch, which +would impart to her designs the relief they needed. Had Hilda remained +in her own country, it is not improbable that she might have produced +original works worthy to hang in that gallery of native art which, +we hope, is destined to extend its rich length through many future +centuries. An orphan, however, without near relatives, and possessed of +a little property, she had found it within her possibilities to come +to Italy; that central clime, whither the eyes and the heart of every +artist turn, as if pictures could not be made to glow in any other +atmosphere, as if statues could not assume grace and expression, save in +that land of whitest marble. + +Hilda’s gentle courage had brought her safely over land and sea; her +mild, unflagging perseverance had made a place for her in the famous +city, even like a flower that finds a chink for itself, and a little +earth to grow in, on whatever ancient wall its slender roots may fasten. +Here she dwelt, in her tower, possessing a friend or two in Rome, but +no home companion except the flock of doves, whose cote was in a ruinous +chamber contiguous to her own. They soon became as familiar with the +fair-haired Saxon girl as if she were a born sister of their brood; and +her customary white robe bore such an analogy to their snowy plumage +that the confraternity of artists called Hilda the Dove, and recognized +her aerial apartment as the Dovecote. And while the other doves flew far +and wide in quest of what was good for them, Hilda likewise spread +her wings, and sought such ethereal and imaginative sustenance as God +ordains for creatures of her kind. + +We know not whether the result of her Italian studies, so far as it +could yet be seen, will be accepted as a good or desirable one. Certain +it is, that since her arrival in the pictorial land, Hilda seemed to +have entirely lost the impulse of original design, which brought her +thither. No doubt the girl’s early dreams had been of sending forms and +hues of beauty into the visible world out of her own mind; of compelling +scenes of poetry and history to live before men’s eyes, through +conceptions and by methods individual to herself. But more and more, as +she grew familiar with the miracles of art that enrich so many galleries +in Rome, Hilda had ceased to consider herself as an original artist. No, +wonder that this change should have befallen her. She was endowed with +a deep and sensitive faculty of appreciation; she had the gift of +discerning and worshipping excellence in a most unusual measure. No +other person, it is probable, recognized so adequately, and enjoyed with +such deep delight, the pictorial wonders that were here displayed. She +saw no, not saw, but felt through and through a picture; she bestowed +upon it all the warmth and richness of a woman’s sympathy; not by any +intellectual effort, but by this strength of heart, and this guiding +light of sympathy, she went straight to the central point, in which the +master had conceived his work. Thus she viewed it, as it were, with his +own eyes, and hence her comprehension of any picture that interested her +was perfect. + +This power and depth of appreciation depended partly upon Hilda’s +physical organization, which was at once healthful and exquisitely +delicate; and, connected with this advantage, she had a command of +hand, a nicety and force of touch, which is an endowment separate from +pictorial genius, though indispensable to its exercise. + +It has probably happened in many other instances, as it did in Hilda’s +case, that she ceased to aim at original achievement in consequence of +the very gifts which so exquisitely fitted her to profit by familiarity +with the works of the mighty old masters. Reverencing these wonderful +men so deeply, she was too grateful for all they bestowed upon her, +too loyal, too humble, in their awful presence, to think of enrolling +herself in their society. Beholding the miracles of beauty which they +had achieved, the world seemed already rich enough in original designs, +and nothing more was so desirable as to diffuse those self-same beauties +more widely among mankind. All the youthful hopes and ambitions, the +fanciful ideas which she had brought from home, of great pictures to be +conceived in her feminine mind, were flung aside, and, so far as those +most intimate with her could discern, relinquished without a sigh. All +that she would henceforth attempt and that most reverently, not to say +religiously was to catch and reflect some of the glory which had been +shed upon canvas from the immortal pencils of old. + +So Hilda became a copyist: in the Pinacotheca of the Vatican, in the +galleries of the Pam-fili-Doria palace, the Borghese, the Corsini, the +Sciarra, her easel was set up before many a famous picture by Guido, +Domenichino, Raphael, and the devout painters of earlier schools than +these. Other artists and visitors from foreign lands beheld the slender, +girlish figure in front of some world-known work, absorbed, unconscious +of everything around her, seeming to live only in what she sought to do. +They smiled, no doubt, at the audacity which led her to dream of +copying those mighty achievements. But, if they paused to look over her +shoulder, and had sensibility enough to understand what was before their +eyes, they soon felt inclined to believe that the spirits of the old +masters were hovering over Hilda, and guiding her delicate white hand. +In truth, from whatever realm of bliss and many colored beauty those +spirits might descend, it would have been no unworthy errand to help so +gentle and pure a worshipper of their genius in giving the last divine +touch to her repetitions of their works. + +Her copies were indeed marvellous. Accuracy was not the phrase for them; +a Chinese copy is accurate. Hilda’s had that evanescent and ethereal +life--that flitting fragrance, as it were, of the originals--which it +is as difficult to catch and retain as it would be for a sculptor to +get the very movement and varying color of a living man into his marble +bust. Only by watching the efforts of the most skilful copyists--men who +spend a lifetime, as some of them do, in multiplying copies of a +single picture--and observing how invariably they leave out just the +indefinable charm that involves the last, inestimable value, can we +understand the difficulties of the task which they undertake. + +It was not Hilda’s general practice to attempt reproducing the whole of +a great picture, but to select some high, noble, and delicate portion +of it, in which the spirit and essence of the picture culminated: the +Virgin’s celestial sorrow, for example, or a hovering angel, imbued +with immortal light, or a saint with the glow of heaven in his dying +face,--and these would be rendered with her whole soul. If a picture had +darkened into an indistinct shadow through time and neglect, or had been +injured by cleaning, or retouched by some profane hand, she seemed to +possess the faculty of seeing it in its pristine glory. The copy would +come from her hands with what the beholder felt must be the light which +the old master had left upon the original in bestowing his final and +most ethereal touch. In some instances even (at least, so those believed +who best appreciated Hilda’s power and sensibility) she had been enabled +to execute what the great master had conceived in his imagination, but +had not so perfectly succeeded in putting upon canvas; a result surely +not impossible when such depth of sympathy as she possessed was assisted +by the delicate skill and accuracy of her slender hand. In such cases +the girl was but a finer instrument, a more exquisitely effective piece +of mechanism, by the help of which the spirit of some great departed +painter now first achieved his ideal, centuries after his own earthly +hand, that other tool, had turned to dust. + +Not to describe her as too much a wonder, however, Hilda, or the Dove, +as her well-wishers half laughingly delighted to call her, had been +pronounced by good judges incomparably the best copyist in Rome. After +minute examination of her works, the most skilful artists declared that +she had been led to her results by following precisely the same process +step by step through which the original painter had trodden to the +development of his idea. Other copyists--if such they are worthy to be +called--attempt only a superficial imitation. Copies of the old masters +in this sense are produced by thousands; there are artists, as we have +said, who spend their lives in painting the works, or perhaps one single +work, of one illustrious painter over and over again: thus they +convert themselves into Guido machines, or Raphaelic machines. Their +performances, it is true, are often wonderfully deceptive to a careless +eye; but working entirely from the outside, and seeking only to +reproduce the surface, these men are sure to leave out that indefinable +nothing, that inestimable something, that constitutes the life and +soul through which the picture gets its immortality. Hilda was no +such machine as this; she wrought religiously, and therefore wrought a +miracle. + +It strikes us that there is something far higher and nobler in all this, +in her thus sacrificing herself to the devout recognition of the highest +excellence in art, than there would have been in cultivating her not +inconsiderable share of talent for the production of works from her own +ideas. She might have set up for herself, and won no ignoble name; she +might have helped to fill the already crowded and cumbered world with +pictures, not destitute of merit, but falling short, if by ever so +little, of the best that has been done; she might thus have gratified +some tastes that were incapable of appreciating Raphael. But this could +be done only by lowering the standard of art to the comprehension of +the spectator. She chose the better and loftier and more unselfish +part, laying her individual hopes, her fame, her prospects of enduring +remembrance, at the feet of those great departed ones whom she so loved +and venerated; and therefore the world was the richer for this feeble +girl. + +Since the beauty and glory of a great picture are confined within +itself, she won out that glory by patient faith and self-devotion, +and multiplied it for mankind. From the dark, chill corner of a +gallery,--from some curtained chapel in a church, where the light came +seldom and aslant,--from the prince’s carefully guarded cabinet, where +not one eye in thousands was permitted to behold it, she brought the +wondrous picture into daylight, and gave all its magic splendor for the +enjoyment of the world. Hilda’s faculty of genuine admiration is one of +the rarest to be found in human nature; and let us try to recompense her +in kind by admiring her generous self-surrender, and her brave, humble +magnanimity in choosing to be the handmaid of those old magicians, +instead of a minor enchantress within a circle of her own. + +The handmaid of Raphael, whom she loved with a virgin’s love! Would it +have been worth Hilda’s while to relinquish this office for the sake of +giving the world a picture or two which it would call original; pretty +fancies of snow and moonlight; the counterpart in picture of so many +feminine achievements in literature! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +BEATRICE + + +Miriam was glad to find the Dove in her turret-home; for being endowed +with an infinite activity, and taking exquisite delight in the sweet +labor of which her life was full, it was Hilda’s practice to flee abroad +betimes, and haunt the galleries till dusk. Happy were those (but they +were very few) whom she ever chose to be the companions of her day; they +saw the art treasures of Rome, under her guidance, as they had never +seen them before. Not that Hilda could dissertate, or talk learnedly +about pictures; she would probably have been puzzled by the technical +terms of her own art. Not that she had much to say about what she most +profoundly admired; but even her silent sympathy was so powerful that +it drew your own along with it, endowing you with a second-sight that +enabled you to see excellences with almost the depth and delicacy of her +own perceptions. + +All the Anglo-Saxon denizens of Rome, by this time, knew Hilda by sight. +Unconsciously, the poor child had become one of the spectacles of the +Eternal City, and was often pointed out to strangers, sitting at her +easel among the wild-bearded young men, the white-haired old ones, and +the shabbily dressed, painfully plain women, who make up the throng of +copyists. The old custodes knew her well, and watched over her as their +own child. Sometimes a young artist, instead of going on with a copy +of the picture before which he had placed his easel, would enrich +his canvas with an original portrait of Hilda at her work. A lovelier +subject could not have been selected, nor one which required nicer skill +and insight in doing it anything like justice. She was pretty at all +times, in our native New England style, with her light-brown ringlets, +her delicately tinged, but healthful cheek, her sensitive, intelligent, +yet most feminine and kindly face. But, every few moments, this pretty +and girlish face grew beautiful and striking, as some inward thought and +feeling brightened, rose to the surface, and then, as it were, passed +out of sight again; so that, taking into view this constantly recurring +change, it really seemed as if Hilda were only visible by the sunshine +of her soul. + +In other respects, she was a good subject for a portrait, being +distinguished by a gentle picturesqueness, which was perhaps +unconsciously bestowed by some minute peculiarity of dress, such as +artists seldom fail to assume. The effect was to make her appear like an +inhabitant of pictureland, a partly ideal creature, not to be handled, +nor even approached too closely. In her feminine self, Hilda was +natural, and of pleasant deportment, endowed with a mild cheerfulness of +temper, not overflowing with animal spirits, but never long despondent. +There was a certain simplicity that made every one her friend, but it +was combined with a subtile attribute of reserve, that insensibly kept +those at a distance who were not suited to her sphere. + +Miriam was the dearest friend whom she had ever known. Being a year or +two the elder, of longer acquaintance with Italy, and better fitted to +deal with its crafty and selfish inhabitants, she had helped Hilda to +arrange her way of life, and had encouraged her through those first +weeks, when Rome is so dreary to every newcomer. + +“But how lucky that you are at home today,” said Miriam, continuing the +conversation which was begun, many pages back. “I hardly hoped to find +you, though I had a favor to ask,--a commission to put into your charge. +But what picture is this?” + +“See!” said Hilda, taking her friend’s hand, and leading her in front of +the easel. “I wanted your opinion of it.” + +“If you have really succeeded,” observed Miriam, recognizing the picture +at the first glance, “it will be the greatest miracle you have yet +achieved.” + +The picture represented simply a female head; a very youthful, girlish, +perfectly beautiful face, enveloped in white drapery, from beneath which +strayed a lock or two of what seemed a rich, though hidden luxuriance +of auburn hair. The eyes were large and brown, and met those of the +spectator, but evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape. +There was a little redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so +that you would question whether or no the girl had been weeping. The +whole face was quiet; there was no distortion or disturbance of any +single feature; nor was it easy to see why the expression was not +cheerful, or why a single touch of the artist’s pencil should not +brighten it into joyousness. But, in fact, it was the very saddest +picture ever painted or conceived; it involved an unfathomable depth of +sorrow, the sense of which came to the observer by a sort of intuition. +It was a sorrow that removed this beautiful girl out of the sphere +of humanity, and set her in a far-off region, the remoteness of +which--while yet her face is so close before us--makes us shiver as at a +spectre. + +“Yes, Hilda,” said her friend, after closely examining the picture, +“you have done nothing else so wonderful as this. But by what unheard-of +solicitations or secret interest have you obtained leave to copy Guido’s +Beatrice Cenci? It is an unexampled favor; and the impossibility +of getting a genuine copy has filled the Roman picture shops with +Beatrices, gay, grievous, or coquettish, but never a true one among +them.” + +“There has been one exquisite copy, I have heard,” said Hilda, “by +an artist capable of appreciating the spirit of the picture. It was +Thompson, who brought it away piecemeal, being forbidden (like the +rest of us) to set up his easel before it. As for me, I knew the Prince +Barberini would be deaf to all entreaties; so I had no resource but +to sit down before the picture, day after day, and let it sink into my +heart. I do believe it is now photographed there. It is a sad face to +keep so close to one’s heart; only what is so very beautiful can never +be quite a pain. Well; after studying it in this way, I know not how +many times, I came home, and have done my best to transfer the image to +canvas.” + +“Here it is, then,” said Miriam, contemplating Hilda’s work with great +interest and delight, mixed with the painful sympathy that the picture +excited. “Everywhere we see oil-paintings, crayon sketches, cameos, +engravings, lithographs, pretending to be Beatrice, and representing the +poor girl with blubbered eyes, a leer of coquetry, a merry look as if +she were dancing, a piteous look as if she were beaten, and twenty other +modes of fantastic mistake. But here is Guido’s very Beatrice; she that +slept in the dungeon, and awoke, betimes, to ascend the scaffold, And +now that you have done it, Hilda, can you interpret what the feeling +is, that gives this picture such a mysterious force? For my part, though +deeply sensible of its influence, I cannot seize it.” + +“Nor can I, in words,” replied her friend. “But while I was painting +her, I felt all the time as if she were trying to escape from my gaze. +She knows that her sorrow is so strange and so immense, that she ought +to be solitary forever, both for the world’s sake and her own; and this +is the reason we feel such a distance between Beatrice and ourselves, +even when our eyes meet hers. It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet +her glance, and to feel that nothing can be done to help or comfort her; +neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing the hopelessness of her +case better than we do. She is a fallen angel,--fallen, and yet sinless; +and it is only this depth of sorrow, with its weight and darkness, that +keeps her down upon earth, and brings her within our view even while it +sets her beyond our reach.” + +“You deem her sinless?” asked Miriam; “that is not so plain to me. If +I can pretend to see at all into that dim region, whence she gazes so +strangely and sadly at us, Beatrice’s own conscience does not acquit her +of something evil, and never to be forgiven!” + +“Sorrow so black as hers oppresses her very nearly as sin would,” said +Hilda. + +“Then,” inquired Miriam, “do you think that there was no sin in the deed +for which she suffered?” + +“Ah!” replied Hilda, shuddering, “I really had quite forgotten +Beatrice’s history, and was thinking of her only as the picture seems +to reveal her character. Yes, yes; it was terrible guilt, an inexpiable +crime, and she feels it to be so. Therefore it is that the forlorn +creature so longs to elude our eyes, and forever vanish away into +nothingness! Her doom is just!” + +“O Hilda, your innocence is like a sharp steel sword!” exclaimed her +friend. “Your judgments are often terribly severe, though you seem all +made up of gentleness and mercy. Beatrice’s sin may not have been so +great: perhaps it was no sin at all, but the best virtue possible in the +circumstances. If she viewed it as a sin, it may have been because her +nature was too feeble for the fate imposed upon her. Ah!” continued +Miriam passionately, “if I could only get within her consciousness!--if +I could but clasp Beatrice Cenci’s ghost, and draw it into myself! I +would give my life to know whether she thought herself innocent, or the +one great criminal since time began.” + +As Miriam gave utterance to these words, Hilda looked from the picture +into her face, and was startled to observe that her friend’s expression +had become almost exactly that of the portrait; as if her passionate +wish and struggle to penetrate poor Beatrice’s mystery had been +successful. + +“O, for Heaven’s sake, Miriam, do not look so!” she cried. “What an +actress you are! And I never guessed it before. Ah! now you are yourself +again!” she added, kissing her. “Leave Beatrice to me in future.” + +“Cover up your magical picture, then,” replied her friend, “else I +never can look away from it. It is strange, dear Hilda, how an innocent, +delicate, white soul like yours has been able to seize the subtle +mystery of this portrait; as you surely must, in order to reproduce it +so perfectly. Well; we will not talk of it any more. Do you know, I +have come to you this morning on a small matter of business. Will you +undertake it for me?” + +“O, certainly,” said Hilda, laughing; “if you choose to trust me with +business.” + +“Nay, it is not a matter of any difficulty,” answered Miriam; “merely to +take charge of this packet, and keep it for me awhile.” + +“But why not keep it yourself?” asked Hilda. + +“Partly because it will be safer in your charge,” said her friend. “I +am a careless sort of person in ordinary things; while you, for all you +dwell so high above the world, have certain little housewifely ways of +accuracy and order. The packet is of some slight importance; and yet, it +may be, I shall not ask you for it again. In a week or two, you know, +I am leaving Rome. You, setting at defiance the malarial fever, mean to +stay here and haunt your beloved galleries through the summer. Now, four +months hence, unless you hear more from me, I would have you deliver the +packet according to its address.” + +Hilda read the direction; it was to Signore Luca Barboni, at the Plazzo +Cenci, third piano. + +“I will deliver it with my own hand,” said she, “precisely four months +from to-day, unless you bid me to the contrary. Perhaps I shall meet the +ghost of Beatrice in that grim old palace of her forefathers.” + +“In that case,” rejoined Miriam, “do not fail to speak to her, and +try to win her confidence. Poor thing! she would be all the better for +pouring her heart out freely, and would be glad to do it, if she were +sure of sympathy. It irks my brain and heart to think of her, all shut +up within herself.” She withdrew the cloth that Hilda had drawn over the +picture, and took another long look at it. “Poor sister Beatrice! for +she was still a woman, Hilda, still a sister, be her sin or sorrow what +they might. How well you have done it, Hilda! I knot not whether Guido +will thank you, or be jealous of your rivalship.” + +“Jealous, indeed!” exclaimed Hilda. “If Guido had not wrought through +me, my pains would have been thrown away.” + +“After all,” resumed Miriam, “if a woman had painted the original +picture, there might have been something in it which we miss now. I +have a great mind to undertake a copy myself; and try to give it what +it lacks. Well; goodby. But, stay! I am going for a little airing to +the grounds of the Villa Borghese this afternoon. You will think it very +foolish, but I always feel the safer in your company, Hilda, slender +little maiden as you are. Will you come?” + +“Ah, not to-day, dearest Miriam,” she replied; “I have set my heart on +giving another touch or two to this picture, and shall not stir abroad +till nearly sunset.” + +“Farewell, then,” said her visitor. “I leave you in your dove-cote. What +a sweet, strange life you lead here; conversing with the souls of the +old masters, feeding and fondling your sister doves, and trimming the +Virgin’s lamp! Hilda, do you ever pray to the Virgin while you tend her +shrine?” + +“Sometimes I have been moved to do so,” replied the Dove, blushing, +and lowering her eyes; “she was a woman once. Do you think it would be +wrong?” + +“Nay, that is for you to judge,” said Miriam; “but when you pray next, +dear friend, remember me!” + +She went down the long descent of the lower staircase, and just as she +reached the street the flock of doves again took their hurried flight +from the pavement to the topmost window. She threw her eyes upward +and beheld them hovering about Hilda’s head; for, after her friend’s +departure, the girl had been more impressed than before by something +very sad and troubled in her manner. She was, therefore, leaning forth +from her airy abode, and flinging down a kind, maidenly kiss, and a +gesture of farewell, in the hope that these might alight upon Miriam’s +heart, and comfort its unknown sorrow a little. Kenyon the sculptor, who +chanced to be passing the head of the street, took note of that ethereal +kiss, and wished that he could have caught it in the air and got Hilda’s +leave to keep it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE SUBURBAN VILLA + + +Donatello, while it was still a doubtful question betwixt afternoon and +morning, set forth to keep the appointment which Miriam had carelessly +tendered him in the grounds of the Villa Borghese. The entrance to these +grounds (as all my readers know, for everybody nowadays has been in +Rome) is just outside of the Porta del Popolo. Passing beneath that not +very impressive specimen of Michael Angelo’s architecture, a minute’s +walk will transport the visitor from the small, uneasy, lava stones +of the Roman pavement into broad, gravelled carriage-drives, whence +a little farther stroll brings him to the soft turf of a beautiful +seclusion. A seclusion, but seldom a solitude; for priest, noble, and +populace, stranger and native, all who breathe Roman air, find free +admission, and come hither to taste the languid enjoyment of the +day-dream that they call life. + +But Donatello’s enjoyment was of a livelier kind. He soon began to draw +long and delightful breaths among those shadowy walks. Judging by the +pleasure which the sylvan character of the scene excited in him, it +might be no merely fanciful theory to set him down as the kinsman, not +far remote, of that wild, sweet, playful, rustic creature, to whose +marble image he bore so striking a resemblance. How mirthful a discovery +would it be (and yet with a touch of pathos in it), if the breeze which +sported fondly with his clustering locks were to waft them suddenly +aside, and show a pair of leaf-shaped, furry ears! What an honest strain +of wildness would it indicate! and into what regions of rich mystery +would it extend Donatello’s sympathies, to be thus linked (and by no +monstrous chain) with what we call the inferior trioes of being, whose +simplicity, mingled with his human intelligence, might partly restore +what man has lost of the divine! + +The scenery amid which the youth now strayed was such as arrays itself +in the imagination when we read the beautiful old myths, and fancy a +brighter sky, a softer turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable +trees, than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the Western +world. The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-honored were they, seemed to +have lived for ages undisturbed, and to feel no dread of profanation by +the axe any more than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It had already +passed out of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago they +were grievously imperilled by the Gaul’s last assault upon the walls of +Rome. As if confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they assumed +attitudes of indolent repose. They leaned over the green turf in +ponderous grace, throwing abroad their great branches without danger +of interfering with other trees, though other majestic trees grew near +enough for dignified society, but too distant for constraint. Never +was there a more venerable quietude than that which slept among their +sheltering boughs; never a sweeter sunshine than that now gladdening +the gentle gloom which these leafy patriarchs strove to diffuse over the +swelling and subsiding lawns. + +In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lifted their dense +clump of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high that they +looked like green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow upon the +turf so far off that you hardly knew which tree had made it. Again, +there were avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge funeral +candles, which spread dusk and twilight round about them instead of +cheerful radiance. The more open spots were all abloom, even so early in +the season, with anemones of wondrous size, both white and rose-colored, +and violets that betrayed themselves by their rich fragrance, even if +their blue eyes failed to meet your own. Daisies, too, were abundant, +but larger than the modest little English flower, and therefore of small +account. + +These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful than the finest +of English park scenery, more touching, more impressive, through the +neglect that leaves Nature so much to her own ways and methods. Since +man seldom interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet way +and makes herself at home. There is enough of human care, it is true, +bestowed, long ago and still bestowed, to prevent wildness from growing +into deformity; and the result is an ideal landscape, a woodland scene +that seems to have been projected out of the poet’s mind. If the ancient +Faun were other than a mere creation of old poetry, and could have +reappeared anywhere, it must have been in such a scene as this. + +In the openings of the wood there are fountains plashing into marble +basins, the depths of which are shaggy with water-weeds; or they tumble +like natural cascades from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to +make the quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here and there +with careless artifice, stand old altars bearing Roman inscriptions. +Statues, gray with the long corrosion of even that soft atmosphere, half +hide and half reveal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen +and broken on the turf. Terminal figures, columns of marble or granite +porticos, arches, are seen in the vistas of the wood-paths, either +veritable relics of antiquity, or with so exquisite a touch of artful +ruin on them that they are better than if really antique. At all events, +grass grows on the tops of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers +root themselves in the chinks of the massive arches and fronts of +temples, and clamber at large over their pediments, as if this were the +thousandth summer since their winged seeds alighted there. + +What a strange idea--what a needless labor--to construct artificial +ruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin! But even these sportive +imitations, wrought by man in emulation of what time has done to temples +and palaces, are perhaps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions, +have grown to be venerable in sober earnest. The result of all is a +scene, pensive, lovely, dreamlike, enjoyable and sad, such as is to +be found nowhere save in these princely villa-residences in the +neighborhood of Rome; a scene that must have required generations and +ages, during which growth, decay, and man’s intelligence wrought kindly +together, to render it so gently wild as we behold it now. + +The final charm is bestowed by the malaria. There is a piercing, +thrilling, delicious kind of regret in the idea of so much beauty thrown +away, or only enjoyable at its half-development, in winter and early +spring, and never to be dwelt amongst, as the home scenery of any human +being. For if you come hither in summer, and stray through these glades +in the golden sunset, fever walks arm in arm with you, and death awaits +you at the end of the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its +loveliness; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it beyond +the scope of man’s actual possessions. But Donatello felt nothing of +this dream-like melancholy that haunts the spot. As he passed among the +sunny shadows, his spirit seemed to acquire new elasticity. The flicker +of the sunshine, the sparkle of the fountain’s gush, the dance of the +leaf upon the bough, the woodland fragrance, the green freshness, +the old sylvan peace and freedom, were all intermingled in those long +breaths which he drew. + +The ancient dust, the mouldiness of Rome, the dead atmosphere in which +he had wasted so many months, the hard pavements, the smell of ruin and +decaying generations, the chill palaces, the convent bells, the heavy +incense of altars, the life that he had led in those dark, narrow +streets, among priests, soldiers, nobles, artists, and women,--all the +sense of these things rose from the young man’s consciousness like a +cloud which had darkened over him without his knowing how densely. + +He drank in the natural influences of the scene, and was intoxicated as +by an exhilarating wine. He ran races with himself along the gleam and +shadow of the wood-paths. He leapt up to catch the overhanging bough of +an ilex, and swinging himself by it alighted far onward, as if he had +flown thither through the air. In a sudden rapture he embraced the +trunk of a sturdy tree, and seemed to imagine it a creature worthy of +affection and capable of a tender response; he clasped it closely in his +arms, as a Faun might have clasped the warm feminine grace of the nymph, +whom antiquity supposed to dwell within that rough, encircling rind. +Then, in order to bring himself closer to the genial earth, with which +his kindred instincts linked him so strongly, he threw himself at full +length on the turf, and pressed down his lips, kissing the violets and +daisies, which kissed him back again, though shyly, in their maiden +fashion. + +While he lay there, it was pleasant to see how the green and blue +lizards, who had beta basking on some rock or on a fallen pillar that +absorbed the warmth of the sun, scrupled not to scramble over him with +their small feet; and how the birds alighted on the nearest twigs and +sang their little roundelays unbroken by any chirrup of alarm; they +recognized him, it may be, as something akin to themselves, or else they +fancied that he was rooted and grew there; for these wild pets of nature +dreaded him no more in his buoyant life than if a mound of soil and +grass and flowers had long since covered his dead body, converting it +back to the sympathies from which human existence had estranged it. + +All of us, after a long abode in cities, have felt the blood gush more +joyously through our veins with the first breath of rural air; few could +feel it so much as Donatello, a creature of simple elements, bred in +the sweet sylvan life of Tuscany, and for months back dwelling amid the +mouldy gloom and dim splendor of old Rome. Nature has been shut out for +numberless centuries from those stony-hearted streets, to which he had +latterly grown accustomed; there is no trace of her, except for what +blades of grass spring out of the pavements of the less trodden piazzas, +or what weeds cluster and tuft themselves on the cornices of ruins. +Therefore his joy was like that of a child that had gone astray from +home, and finds him suddenly in his mother’s arms again. + +At last, deeming it full time for Miriam to keep her tryst, he climbed +to the tiptop of the tallest tree, and thence looked about him, swaying +to and fro in the gentle breeze, which was like the respiration of that +great leafy, living thing. Donatello saw beneath him the whole circuit +of the enchanted ground; the statues and columns pointing upward from +among the shrubbery, the fountains flashing in the sunlight, the paths +winding hither and thither, and continually finding out some nook of new +and ancient pleasantness. He saw the villa, too, with its marble front +incrusted all over with basreliefs, and statues in its many niches. It +was as beautiful as a fairy palace, and seemed an abode in which the +lord and lady of this fair domain might fitly dwell, and come forth each +morning to enjoy as sweet a life as their happiest dreams of the past +night could have depicted. All this he saw, but his first glance had +taken in too wide a sweep, and it was not till his eyes fell almost +directly beneath him, that Donatello beheld Miriam just turning into the +path that led across the roots of his very tree. + +He descended among the foliage, waiting for her to come close to the +trunk, and then suddenly dropped from an impending bough, and alighted +at her side. It was as if the swaying of the branches had let a ray +of sunlight through. The same ray likewise glimmered among the gloomy +meditations that encompassed Miriam, and lit up the pale, dark beauty of +her face, while it responded pleasantly to Donatello’s glance. + +“I hardly know,” said she, smiling, “whether you have sprouted out of +the earth, or fallen from the clouds. In either case you are welcome.” + +And they walked onward together. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE FAUN AND NYMPH + + +Miriam’s sadder mood, it might be, had at first an effect on Donatello’s +spirits. It checked the joyous ebullition into which they would +otherwise have effervesced when he found himself in her society, not, as +heretofore, in the old gloom of Rome, but under that bright soft sky and +in those Arcadian woods. He was silent for a while; it being, indeed, +seldom Donatello’s impulse to express himself copiously in words. His +usual modes of demonstration were by the natural language of gesture, +the instinctive movement of his agile frame, and the unconscious play +of his features, which, within a limited range of thought and emotion, +would speak volumes in a moment. + +By and by, his own mood seemed to brighten Miriam’s, and was reflected +back upon himself. He began inevitably, as it were, to dance along +the wood-path; flinging himself into attitudes of strange comic grace. +Often, too, he ran a little way in advance of his companion, and then +stood to watch her as she approached along the shadowy and sun-fleckered +path. With every step she took, he expressed his joy at her nearer +and nearer presence by what might be thought an extravagance of +gesticulation, but which doubtless was the language of the natural man, +though laid aside and forgotten by other men, now that words have been +feebly substituted in the place of signs and symbols. He gave Miriam the +idea of a being not precisely man, nor yet a child, but, in a high and +beautiful sense, an animal, a creature in a state of development less +than what mankind has attained, yet the more perfect within itself +for that very deficiency. This idea filled her mobile imagination with +agreeable fantasies, which, after smiling at them herself, she tried to +convey to the young man. + +“What are you, my friend?” she exclaimed, always keeping in mind his +singular resemblance to the Faun of the Capitol. “If you are, in good +truth, that wild and pleasant creature whose face you wear, pray make me +known to your kindred. They will be found hereabouts, if anywhere. Knock +at the rough rind of this ilex-tree, and summon forth the Dryad! Ask the +water-nymph to rise dripping from yonder fountain, and exchange a moist +pressure of the hand with me! Do not fear that I shall shrink; even if +one of your rough cousins, a hairy Satyr, should come capering on his +goat-legs out of the haunts of far antiquity, and propose to dance with +me among these lawns! And will not Bacchus,--with whom you consorted so +familiarly of old, and who loved you so well,--will he not meet us here, +and squeeze rich grapes into his cup for you and me?” + +Donatello smiled; he laughed heartily, indeed, in sympathy with the +mirth that gleamed out of Miriam’s deep, dark eyes. But he did not seem +quite to understand her mirthful talk, nor to be disposed to explain +what kind of creature he was, or to inquire with what divine or poetic +kindred his companion feigned to link him. He appeared only to know that +Miriam was beautiful, and that she smiled graciously upon him; that +the present moment was very sweet, and himself most happy, with the +sunshine, the sylvan scenery, and woman’s kindly charm, which it +enclosed within its small circumference. It was delightful to see the +trust which he reposed in Miriam, and his pure joy in her propinquity; +he asked nothing, sought nothing, save to be near the beloved object, +and brimmed over with ecstasy at that simple boon. A creature of the +happy tribes below us sometimes shows the capacity of this enjoyment; a +man, seldom or never. + +“Donatello,” said Miriam, looking at him thoughtfully, but amused, yet +not without a shade of sorrow, “you seem very happy; what makes you so?” + +“Because I love you!” answered Donatello. + +He made this momentous confession as if it were the most natural +thing in the world; and on her part,--such was the contagion of his +simplicity,--Miriam heard it without anger or disturbance, though with +no responding emotion. It was as if they had strayed across the limits +of Arcadia; and come under a civil polity where young men might avow +their passion with as little restraint as a bird pipes its note to a +similar purpose. + +“Why should you love me, foolish boy?” said she. “We have no points of +sympathy at all. There are not two creatures more unlike, in this wide +world, than you and I!” + +“You are yourself, and I am Donatello,” replied he. “Therefore I love +you! There needs no other reason.” + +Certainly, there was no better or more explicable reason. It might +have been imagined that Donatello’s unsophisticated heart would be more +readily attracted to a feminine nature of clear simplicity like his own, +than to one already turbid with grief or wrong, as Miriam’s seemed to +be. Perhaps, On the other hand, his character needed the dark element, +which it found in her. The force and energy of will, that sometimes +flashed through her eyes, may have taken him captive; or, not +improbably, the varying lights and shadows of her temper, now so +mirthful, and anon so sad with mysterious gloom, had bewitched the +youth. Analyze the matter as we may, the reason assigned by Donatello +himself was as satisfactory as we are likely to attain. + +Miriam could not think seriously of the avowal that had passed. He held +out his love so freely, in his open palm, that she felt it could be +nothing but a toy, which she might play with for an instant, and give +back again. And yet Donatello’s heart was so fresh a fountain, that, +had Miriam been more world-worn than she was, she might have found +it exquisite to slake her thirst with the feelings that welled up and +brimmed over from it. She was far, very far, from the dusty mediaeval +epoch, when some women have a taste for such refreshment. Even for +her, however, there was an inexpressible charm in the simplicity that +prompted Donatello’s words and deeds; though, unless she caught them +in precisely the true light, they seemed but folly, the offspring of +a maimed or imperfectly developed intellect. Alternately, she almost +admired, or wholly scorned him, and knew not which estimate resulted +from the deeper appreciation. But it could not, she decided for herself, +be other than an innocent pastime, if they two--sure to be separated by +their different paths in life, to-morrow--were to gather up some of the +little pleasures that chanced to grow about their feet, like the violets +and wood-anemones, to-day. + +Yet an impulse of rectitude impelled Miriam to give him what she still +held to be a needless warning against an imaginary peril. + +“If you were wiser, Donatello, you would think me a dangerous person,” + said she, “If you follow my footsteps, they will lead you to no good. +You ought to be afraid of me.” + +“I would as soon think of fearing the air we breathe,” he replied. + +“And well you may, for it is full of malaria,” said Miriam; she went on, +hinting at an intangible confession, such as persons with overburdened +hearts often make to children or dumb animals, or to holes in the earth, +where they think their secrets may be at once revealed and buried. +“Those who come too near me are in danger of great mischiefs, I do +assure you. Take warning, therefore! It is a sad fatality that has +brought you from your home among the Apennines,--some rusty old castle, +I suppose, with a village at its foot, and an Arcadian environment of +vineyards, fig-trees, and olive orchards,--a sad mischance, I say, that +has transported you to my side. You have had a happy life hitherto, have +you not, Donatello?” + +“O, yes,” answered the young man; and, though not of a retrospective +turn, he made the best effort he could to send his mind back into the +past. “I remember thinking it happiness to dance with the contadinas at +a village feast; to taste the new, sweet wine at vintage-time, and the +old, ripened wine, which our podere is famous for, in the cold winter +evenings; and to devour great, luscious figs, and apricots, peaches, +cherries, and melons. I was often happy in the woods, too, with hounds +and horses, and very happy in watching all sorts, of creatures and birds +that haunt the leafy solitudes. But never half so happy as now!” + +“In these delightful groves?” she asked. + +“Here, and with you,” answered Donatello. “Just as we are now.” + +“What a fulness of content in him! How silly, and how delightful!” said +Miriam to herself. Then addressing him again: “But, Donatello, how long +will this happiness last?” + +“How long!” he exclaimed; for it perplexed him even more to think of the +future than to remember the past. “Why should it have any end? How long! +Forever! forever! forever!” + +“The child! the simpleton!” said Miriam, with sudden laughter, and +checking it as suddenly. “But is he a simpleton indeed? Here, in those +few natural words, he has expressed that deep sense, that profound +conviction of its own immortality, which genuine love never fails to +bring. He perplexes me,--yes, and bewitches me,--wild, gentle, beautiful +creature that he is! It is like playing with a young greyhound!” + +Her eyes filled with tears, at the same time that a smile shone out of +them. Then first she became sensible of a delight and grief at once, in +feeling this zephyr of a new affection, with its untainted freshness, +blow over her weary, stifled heart, which had no right to be revived by +it. The very exquisiteness of the enjoyment made her know that it ought +to be a forbidden one. + +“Donatello,” she hastily exclaimed, “for your own sake, leave me! It is +not such a happy thing as you imagine it, to wander in these woods with +me, a girl from another land, burdened with a doom that she tells to +none. I might make you dread me,--perhaps hate me,--if I chose; and I +must choose, if I find you loving me too well!” + +“I fear nothing!” said Donatello, looking into her unfathomable eyes +with perfect trust. “I love always!” + +“I speak in vain,” thought Miriam within herself. + +“Well, then, for this one hour, let me be such as he imagines me. +To-morrow will be time enough to come back to my reality. My reality! +what is it? Is the past so indestructible? the future so immitigable? +Is the dark dream, in which I walk, of such solid, stony substance, that +there can be no escape out of its dungeon? Be it so! There is, at +least, that ethereal quality in my spirit, that it can make me as gay as +Donatello himself,--for this one hour!” + +And immediately she brightened up, as if an inward flame, heretofore +stifled, were now permitted to fill her with its happy lustre, glowing +through her cheeks and dancing in her eye-beams. + +Donatello, brisk and cheerful as he seemed before, showed a sensibility +to Miriam’s gladdened mood by breaking into still wilder and +ever-varying activity. He frisked around her, bubbling over with joy, +which clothed itself in words that had little individual meaning, and +in snatches of song that seemed as natural as bird notes. Then they both +laughed together, and heard their own laughter returning in the echoes, +and laughed again at the response, so that the ancient and solemn grove +became full of merriment for these two blithe spirits. A bird happening +to sing cheerily, Donatello gave a peculiar call, and the little +feathered creature came fluttering about his head, as if it had known +him through many summers. + +“How close he stands to nature!” said Miriam, observing this pleasant +familiarity between her companion and the bird. “He shall make me as +natural as himself for this one hour.” + +As they strayed through that sweet wilderness, she felt more and more +the influence of his elastic temperament. Miriam was an impressible +and impulsive creature, as unlike herself, in different moods, as if a +melancholy maiden and a glad one were both bound within the girdle about +her waist, and kept in magic thraldom by the brooch that clasped it. +Naturally, it is true, she was the more inclined to melancholy, +yet fully capable of that high frolic of the spirits which richly +compensates for many gloomy hours; if her soul was apt to lurk in the +darkness of a cavern, she could sport madly in the sunshine before +the cavern’s mouth. Except the freshest mirth of animal spirits, like +Donatello’s, there is no merriment, no wild exhilaration, comparable to +that of melancholy people escaping from the dark region in which it is +their custom to keep themselves imprisoned. + +So the shadowy Miriam almost outdid Donatello on his own ground. They +ran races with each other, side by side, with shouts and laughter; they +pelted one another with early flowers, and gathering them up twined +them with green leaves into garlands for both their heads. They played +together like children, or creatures of immortal youth. So much had they +flung aside the sombre habitudes of daily life, that they seemed born +to be sportive forever, and endowed with eternal mirthfulness instead +of any deeper joy. It was a glimpse far backward into Arcadian life, or, +further still, into the Golden Age, before mankind was burdened with +sin and sorrow, and before pleasure had been darkened with those shadows +that bring it into high relief, and make it happiness. + +“Hark!” cried Donatello, stopping short, as he was about to bind +Miriam’s fair hands with flowers, and lead her along in triumph, “there +is music somewhere in the grove!” + +“It is your kinsman, Pan, most likely,” said Miriam, “playing on his +pipe. Let us go seek him, and make him puff out his rough cheeks and +pipe his merriest air! Come; the strain of music will guide us onward +like a gayly colored thread of silk.” + +“Or like a chain of flowers,” responded Donatello, drawing her along by +that which he had twined. “This way!--Come!” + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE SYLVAN DANCE + + +As the music came fresher on their ears, they danced to its cadence, +extemporizing new steps and attitudes. Each varying movement had a grace +which might have been worth putting into marble, for the long delight of +days to come, but vanished with the movement that gave it birth, and was +effaced from memory by another. In Miriam’s motion, freely as she flung +herself into the frolic of the hour, there was still an artful beauty; +in Donatello’s, there was a charm of indescribable grotesqueness hand +in hand with grace; sweet, bewitching, most provocative of laughter, +and yet akin to pathos, so deeply did it touch the heart. This was the +ultimate peculiarity, the final touch, distinguishing between the sylvan +creature and the beautiful companion at his side. Setting apart only +this, Miriam resembled a Nymph, as much as Donatello did a Faun. + +There were flitting moments, indeed, when she played the sylvan +character as perfectly as he. Catching glimpses of her, then, you would +have fancied that an oak had sundered its rough bark to let her dance +freely forth, endowed with the same spirit in her human form as that +which rustles in the leaves; or that she had emerged through the +pebbly bottom of a fountain, a water-nymph, to play and sparkle in +the sunshine, flinging a quivering light around her, and suddenly +disappearing in a shower of rainbow drops. + +As the fountain sometimes subsides into its basin, so in Miriam there +were symptoms that the frolic of her spirits would at last tire itself +out. + +“Ah! Donatello,” cried she, laughing, as she stopped to take a breath; +“you have an unfair advantage over me! I am no true creature of the +woods; while you are a real Faun, I do believe. When your curls shook +just now, methought I had a peep at the pointed ears.” + +Donatello snapped his fingers above his head, as fauns and satyrs taught +us first to do, and seemed to radiate jollity out of his whole nimble +person. Nevertheless, there was a kind of dim apprehension in his face, +as if he dreaded that a moment’s pause might break the spell, and snatch +away the sportive companion whom he had waited for through so many +dreary months. + +“Dance! dance!” cried he joyously. “If we take breath, we shall be as +we were yesterday. There, now, is the music, just beyond this clump of +trees. Dance, Miriam, dance!” + +They had now reached an open, grassy glade (of which there are many in +that artfully constructed wilderness), set round with stone seats, +on which the aged moss had kindly essayed to spread itself instead of +cushions. On one of the stone benches sat the musicians, whose strains +had enticed our wild couple thitherward. They proved to be a vagrant +band, such as Rome, and all Italy, abounds with; comprising a harp, +a flute, and a violin, which, though greatly the worse for wear, +the performers had skill enough to provoke and modulate into tolerable +harmony. It chanced to be a feast-day; and, instead of playing in +the sun-scorched piazzas of the city, or beneath the windows of some +unresponsive palace, they had bethought themselves to try the echoes +of these woods; for, on the festas of the Church, Rome scatters its +merrymakers all abroad, ripe for the dance or any other pastime. + +As Miriam and Donatello emerged from among the trees, the musicians +scraped, tinkled, or blew, each according to his various kind of +instrument, more inspiringly than ever. A darkchecked little girl, +with bright black eyes, stood by, shaking a tambourine set round +with tinkling bells, and thumping it on its parchment head. Without +interrupting his brisk, though measured movement, Donatello snatched +away this unmelodious contrivance, and, flourishing it above his head, +produced music of indescribable potency, still dancing with frisky step, +and striking the tambourine, and ringing its little bells, all in one +jovial act. + +It might be that there was magic in the sound, or contagion, at least, +in the spirit which had got possession of Miriam and himself, for very +soon a number of festal people were drawn to the spot, and struck +into the dance, singly or in pairs, as if they were all gone mad with +jollity. Among them were some of the plebeian damsels whom we meet +bareheaded in the Roman streets, with silver stilettos thrust through +their glossy hair; the contadinas, too, from the Campagna and the +villages, with their rich and picturesque costumes of scarlet and all +bright hues, such as fairer maidens might not venture to put on. Then +came the modern Roman from Trastevere, perchance, with his old cloak +drawn about him like a toga, which anon, as his active motion heated +him, he flung aside. Three French soldiers capered freely into the +throng, in wide scarlet trousers, their short swords dangling at their +sides; and three German artists in gray flaccid hats and flaunting +beards; and one of the Pope’s Swiss guardsmen in the strange motley garb +which Michael Angelo contrived for them. Two young English tourists (one +of them a lord) took contadine partners and dashed in, as did also a +shaggy man in goat-skin breeches, who looked like rustic Pan in person, +and footed it as merrily as he. Besides the above there was a herdsman +or two from the Campagna, and a few peasants in sky-blue jackets, and +small-clothes tied with ribbons at the knees; haggard and sallow were +these last, poor serfs, having little to eat and nothing but the malaria +to breathe; but still they plucked up a momentary spirit and joined +hands in Donatello’s dance. + +Here, as it seemed, had the Golden Age come back again within the +Precincts of this sunny glade, thawing mankind out of their cold +formalities, releasing them from irksome restraint, mingling them +together in such childlike gayety that new flowers (of which the old +bosom of the earth is full) sprang up beneath their footsteps. The sole +exception to the geniality of the moment, as we have understood, was +seen in a countryman of our own, who sneered at the spectacle, and +declined to compromise his dignity by making part of it. + +The harper thrummed with rapid fingers; the violin player flashed his +bow back and forth across the strings; the flautist poured his breath in +quick puffs of jollity, while Donatello shook the tambourine above his +head, and led the merry throng with unweariable steps. As they followed +one another in a wild ring of mirth, it seemed the realization of one +of those bas-reliefs where a dance of nymphs, satyrs, or bacchanals +is twined around the circle of an antique vase; or it was like the +sculptured scene on the front and sides of a sarcophagus, where, as +often as any other device, a festive procession mocks the ashes and +white bones that are treasured up within. You might take it for a +marriage pageant; but after a while, if you look at these merry-makers, +following them from end to end of the marble coffin, you doubt whether +their gay movement is leading them to a happy close. A youth has +suddenly fallen in the dance; a chariot is overturned and broken, +flinging the charioteer headlong to the ground; a maiden seems to have +grown faint or weary, and is drooping on the bosom of a friend. Always +some tragic incident is shadowed forth or thrust sidelong into the +spectacle; and when once it has caught your eye you can look no more +at the festal portions of the scene, except with reference to this one +slightly suggested doom and sorrow. + +As in its mirth, so in the darker characteristic here alluded to, there +was an analogy between the sculptured scene on the sarcophagus and the +wild dance which we have been describing. In the midst of its madness +and riot Miriam found herself suddenly confronted by a strange figure +that shook its fantastic garments in the air, and pranced before her on +its tiptoes, almost vying with the agility of Donatello himself. It was +the model. + +A moment afterwards Donatello was aware that she had retired from the +dance. He hastened towards her, and flung himself on the grass beside +the stone bench on which Miriam was sitting. But a strange distance and +unapproachableness had all at once enveloped her; and though he saw her +within reach of his arm, yet the light of her eyes seemed as far off as +that of a star, nor was there any warmth in the melancholy smile with +which she regarded him. + +“Come back!” cried he. “Why should this happy hour end so soon?” + +“It must end here, Donatello,” said she, in answer to his words and +outstretched hand; “and such hours, I believe, do not often repeat +themselves in a lifetime. Let me go, my friend; let me vanish from you +quietly among the shadows of these trees. See, the companions of our +pastime are vanishing already!” + +Whether it was that the harp-strings were broken, the violin out of +tune, or the flautist out of breath, so it chanced that the music had +ceased, and the dancers come abruptly to a pause. All that motley throng +of rioters was dissolved as suddenly as it had been drawn together. In +Miriam’s remembrance the scene had a character of fantasy. It was as if +a company of satyrs, fauns, and nymphs, with Pan in the midst of them, +had been disporting themselves in these venerable woods only a moment +ago; and now in another moment, because some profane eye had looked at +them too closely, or some intruder had cast a shadow on their mirth, +the sylvan pageant had utterly disappeared. If a few of the merry-makers +lingered among the trees, they had hidden their racy peculiarities under +the garb and aspect of ordinary people, and sheltered themselves in the +weary commonplace of daily life. Just an instant before it was Arcadia +and the Golden Age. The spell being broken, it was now only that old +tract of pleasure ground, close by the people’s gate of Rome,--a +tract where the crimes and calamities of ages, the many battles, blood +recklessly poured out, and deaths of myriads, have corrupted all the +soil, creating an influence that makes the air deadly to human lungs. + +“You must leave me,” said Miriam to Donatello more imperatively than +before; “have I not said it? Go; and look not behind you.” + +“Miriam,” whispered Donatello, grasping her hand forcibly, “who is it +that stands in the shadow yonder, beckoning you to follow him?” + +“Hush; leave me!” repeated Miriam. “Your hour is past; his hour has +come.” + +Donatello still gazed in the direction which he had indicated, and +the expression of his face was fearfully changed, being so disordered, +perhaps with terror,--at all events with anger and invincible +repugnance,--that Miriam hardly knew him. His lips were drawn apart so +as to disclose his set teeth, thus giving him a look of animal rage, +which we seldom see except in persons of the simplest and rudest +natures. A shudder seemed to pass through his very bones. + +“I hate him!” muttered he. + +“Be satisfied; I hate him too!” said Miriam. + +She had no thought of making this avowal, but was irresistibly drawn to +it by the sympathy of the dark emotion in her own breast with that so +strongly expressed by Donatello. Two drops of water or of blood do not +more naturally flow into each other than did her hatred into his. + +“Shall I clutch him by the throat?” whispered Donatello, with a savage +scowl. “Bid me do so, and we are rid of him forever.” + +“In Heaven’s name, no violence!” exclaimed Miriam, affrighted out of the +scornful control which she had hitherto held over her companion, by +the fierceness that he so suddenly developed. “O, have pity on +me, Donatello, if for nothing else, yet because in the midst of my +wretchedness I let myself be your playmate for this one wild +hour! Follow me no farther. Henceforth leave me to my doom. Dear +friend,--kind, simple, loving friend,--make me not more wretched by the +remembrance of having thrown fierce hates or loves into the wellspring +of your happy life!” + +“Not follow you!” repeated Donatello, soothed from anger into sorrow, +less by the purport of what she said, than by the melancholy sweetness +of her voice,--“not follow you! What other path have I?” + +“We will talk of it once again,” said Miriam still soothingly; +“soon--to-morrow when you will; only leave me now.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES + + +In the Borghese Grove, so recently uproarious with merriment and music, +there remained only Miriam and her strange follower. + +A solitude had suddenly spread itself around them. It perhaps symbolized +a peculiar character in the relation of these two, insulating them, and +building up an insuperable barrier between their life-streams and other +currents, which might seem to flow in close vicinity. For it is one of +the chief earthly incommodities of some species of misfortune, or of a +great crime, that it makes the actor in the one, or the sufferer of +the other, an alien in the world, by interposing a wholly unsympathetic +medium betwixt himself and those whom he yearns to meet. + +Owing, it may be, to this moral estrangement,--this chill remoteness of +their position,--there have come to us but a few vague whisperings +of what passed in Miriam’s interview that afternoon with the sinister +personage who had dogged her footsteps ever since the visit to the +catacomb. In weaving these mystic utterances into a continuous scene, we +undertake a task resembling in its perplexity that of gathering up +and piecing together the fragments ora letter which has been torn and +scattered to the winds. Many words of deep significance, many entire +sentences, and those possibly the most important ones, have flown +too far on the winged breeze to be recovered. If we insert our own +conjectural amendments, we perhaps give a purport utterly at variance +with the true one. Yet unless we attempt something in this way, +there must remain an unsightly gap, and a lack of continuousness +and dependence in our narrative; so that it would arrive at certain +inevitable catastrophes without due warning of their imminence. + +Of so much we are sure, that there seemed to be a sadly mysterious +fascination in the influence of this ill-omened person over Miriam; +it was such as beasts and reptiles of subtle and evil nature sometimes +exercise upon their victims. Marvellous it was to see the hopelessness +with which being naturally of so courageous a spirit she resigned +herself to the thraldom in which he held her. That iron chain, of which +some of the massive links were round her feminine waist, and the others +in his ruthless hand,--or which, perhaps, bound the pair together by +a bond equally torturing to each,--must have been forged in some such +unhallowed furnace as is only kindled by evil passions, and fed by evil +deeds. + +Yet, let us trust, there may have been no crime in Miriam, but only +one of those fatalities which are among the most insoluble riddles +propounded to mortal comprehension; the fatal decree by which every +crime is made to be the agony of many innocent persons, as well as of +the single guilty one. + +It was, at any rate, but a feeble and despairing kind of remonstrance +which she had now the energy to oppose against his persecution. + +“You follow me too closely,” she said, in low, faltering accents; “you +allow me too scanty room to draw my breath. Do you know what will be the +end of this?” “I know well what must be the end,” he replied. + +“Tell me, then,” said Miriam, “that I may compare your foreboding with +my own. Mine is a very dark one.” + +“There can be but one result, and that soon,” answered the model. “You +must throw off your present mask and assume another. You must vanish out +of the scene: quit Rome with me, and leave no trace whereby to follow +you. It is in my power, as you well know, to compel your acquiescence in +my bidding. You are aware of the penalty of a refusal.” + +“Not that penalty with which you would terrify me,” said Miriam; +“another there may be, but not so grievous.” “What is that other?” + he inquired. “Death! simply death!” she answered. “Death,” said her +persecutor, “is not so simple and opportune a thing as you imagine. You +are strong and warm with life. Sensitive and irritable as your spirit +is, these many months of trouble, this latter thraldom in which I hold +you, have scarcely made your cheek paler than I saw it in your girlhood. +Miriam,--for I forbear to speak another name, at which these leaves +would shiver above our heads,--Miriam, you cannot die!” + +“Might not a dagger find my heart?” said she, for the first time meeting +his eyes. “Would not poison make an end of me? Will not the Tiber drown +me?” + +“It might,” he answered; “for I allow that you are mortal. But, Miriam, +believe me, it is not your fate to die while there remains so much to be +sinned and suffered in the world. We have a destiny which we must needs +fulfil together. I, too, have struggled to escape it. I was as anxious +as yourself to break the tie between us,--to bury the past in a +fathomless grave,--to make it impossible that we should ever meet, until +you confront me at the bar of Judgment! You little can imagine what +steps I took to render all this secure; and what was the result? +Our strange interview in the bowels of the earth convinced me of the +futility of my design.” + +“Ah, fatal chance!” cried Miriam, covering her face with her hands. + +“Yes, your heart trembled with horror when you recognized me,” rejoined +he; “but you did not guess that there was an equal horror in my own!” + +“Why would not the weight of earth above our heads have crumbled down +upon us both, forcing us apart, but burying us equally?” cried Miriam, +in a burst of vehement passion. “O, that we could have wandered in those +dismal passages till we both perished, taking opposite paths in the +darkness, so that when we lay down to die, our last breaths might not +mingle!” + +“It were vain to wish it,” said the model. “In all that labyrinth of +midnight paths, we should have found one another out to live or die +together. Our fates cross and are entangled. The threads are twisted +into a strong cord, which is dragging us to an evil doom. Could the +knots be severed, we might escape. But neither can your slender fingers +untie these knots, nor my masculine force break them. We must submit!” + +“Pray for rescue, as I have,” exclaimed Miriam. “Pray for deliverance +from me, since I am your evil genius, as you mine. Dark as your life has +been, I have known you to pray in times past!” + +At these words of Miriam, a tremor and horror appeared to seize upon her +persecutor, insomuch that he shook and grew ashy pale before her eyes. +In this man’s memory there was something that made it awful for him to +think of prayer; nor would any torture be more intolerable than to be +reminded of such divine comfort and succor as await pious souls +merely for the asking; This torment was perhaps the token of a native +temperament deeply susceptible of religious impressions, but which had +been wronged, violated, and debased, until, at length, it was capable +only of terror from the sources that were intended for our purest and +loftiest consolation. He looked so fearfully at her, and with such +intense pain struggling in his eyes, that Miriam felt pity. + +And now, all at once, it struck her that he might be mad. It was an idea +that had never before seriously occurred to her mind, although, as soon +as suggested, it fitted marvellously into many circumstances that +lay within her knowledge. But, alas! such was her evil fortune, that, +whether mad or no, his power over her remained the same, and was likely +to be used only the more tyrannously, if exercised by a lunatic. + +“I would not give you pain,” she said, soothingly; “your faith allows you +the consolations of penance and absolution. Try what help there may be +in these, and leave me to myself.” + +“Do not think it, Miriam,” said he; “we are bound together, and can +never part again.” “Why should it seem so impossible?” she rejoined. +“Think how I had escaped from all the past! I had made for myself a +new sphere, and found new friends, new occupations, new hopes and +enjoyments. My heart, methinks, was almost as unburdened as if there had +been no miserable life behind me. The human spirit does not perish of a +single wound, nor exhaust itself in a single trial of life. Let us +but keep asunder, and all may go well for both.” “We fancied ourselves +forever sundered,” he replied. “Yet we met once, in the bowels of the +earth; and, were we to part now, our fates would fling us together again +in a desert, on a mountain-top, or in whatever spot seemed safest. You +speak in vain, therefore.” + +“You mistake your own will for an iron necessity,” said Miriam; +“otherwise, you might have suffered me to glide past you like a ghost, +when we met among those ghosts of ancient days. Even now you might bid +me pass as freely.” + +“Never!” said he, with unmitigable will; “your reappearance has +destroyed the work of years. You know the power that I have over you. +Obey my bidding; or, within a short time, it shall be exercised: nor +will I cease to haunt you till the moment comes.” + +“Then,” said Miriam more calmly, “I foresee the end, and have already +warned you of it. It will be death!” + +“Your own death, Miriam,--or mine?” he asked, looking fixedly at her. + +“Do you imagine me a murderess?” said she, shuddering; “you, at least, +have no right to think me so!” + +“Yet,” rejoined he, with a glance of dark meaning, “men have said that +this white hand had once a crimson stain.” He took her hand as he spoke, +and held it in his own, in spite of the repugnance, amounting to nothing +short of agony, with which she struggled to regain it. Holding it up +to the fading light (for there was already dimness among the trees), +he appeared to examine it closely, as if to discover the imaginary +blood-stain with which he taunted her. He smiled as he let it go. “It +looks very white,” said he; “but I have known hands as white, which all +the water in the ocean would not have washed clean.” + +“It had no stain,” retorted Miriam bitterly, “until you grasped it in +your own.” + +The wind has blown away whatever else they may have spoken. + +They went together towards the town, and, on their way, continued to +make reference, no doubt, to some strange and dreadful history of their +former life, belonging equally to this dark man and to the fair and +youthful woman whom he persecuted. In their words, or in the breath that +uttered them, there seemed to be an odor of guilt, and a scent of blood. +Yet, how can we imagine that a stain of ensanguined crime should attach +to Miriam! Or how, on the other hand, should spotless innocence be +subjected to a thraldom like that which she endured from the spectre, +whom she herself had evoked out of the darkness! Be this as it might, +Miriam, we have reason to believe, still continued to beseech him, +humbly, passionately, wildly, only to go his way, and leave her free to +follow her own sad path. + +Thus they strayed onward through the green wilderness of the Borghese +grounds, and soon came near the city wall, where, had Miriam raised her +eyes, she might have seen Hilda and the sculptor leaning on the parapet. +But she walked in a mist of trouble, and could distinguish little beyond +its limits. As they came within public observation, her persecutor fell +behind, throwing off the imperious manner which he had assumed during +their solitary interview. The Porta del Popolo swarmed with life. The +merry-makers, who had spent the feast-day outside the walls, were now +thronging in; a party of horsemen were entering beneath the arch; a +travelling carriage had been drawn up just within the verge, and was +passing through the villainous ordeal of the papal custom-house. In the +broad piazza, too, there was a motley crowd. + +But the stream of Miriam’s trouble kept its way through this flood of +human life, and neither mingled with it nor was turned aside. With a sad +kind of feminine ingenuity, she found a way to kneel before her tyrant +undetected, though in full sight of all the people, still beseeching him +for freedom, and in vain. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN + + +Hilda, after giving the last touches to the picture of Beatrice Cenci, +had flown down from her dove-cote, late in the afternoon, and gone to +the Pincian Hill, in the hope of hearing a strain or two of exhilarating +music. There, as it happened, she met the sculptor, for, to say the +truth, Kenyon had well noted the fair artist’s ordinary way of life, +and was accustomed to shape his own movements so as to bring him often +within her sphere. + +The Pincian Hill is the favorite promenade of the Roman aristocracy. At +the present day, however, like most other Roman possessions, it belongs +less to the native inhabitants than to the barbarians from Gaul, Great +Britain, anti beyond the sea, who have established a peaceful usurpation +over whatever is enjoyable or memorable in the Eternal City. These +foreign guests are indeed ungrateful, if they do not breathe a prayer +for Pope Clement, or whatever Holy Father it may have been, who levelled +the summit of the mount so skilfully, and bounded it with the parapet of +the city wall; who laid out those broad walks and drives, and overhung +them with the deepening shade of many kinds of tree; who scattered the +flowers, of all seasons and of every clime, abundantly over those green, +central lawns; who scooped out hollows in fit places, and, setting great +basins of marble in them, caused ever-gushing fountains to fill them to +the brim; who reared up the immemorial obelisk out of the soil that had +long hidden it; who placed pedestals along the borders of the avenues, +and crowned them with busts of that multitude of worthies--statesmen, +heroes, artists, men of letters and of song--whom the whole world claims +as its chief ornaments, though Italy produced them all. In a word, the +Pincian garden is one of the things that reconcile the stranger (since +he fully appreciates the enjoyment, and feels nothing of the cost) to +the rule of an irresponsible dynasty of Holy Fathers, who seem to have +aimed at making life as agreeable an affair as it can well be. + +In this pleasant spot, the red-trousered French soldiers are always to +be seen; bearded and grizzled veterans, perhaps with medals of Algiers +or the Crimea on their breasts. To them is assigned the peaceful duty of +seeing that children do not trample on the flower beds, nor any youthful +lover rifle them of their fragrant blossoms to stick in the beloved +one’s hair. Here sits (drooping upon some marble bench, in the +treacherous sunshine) the consumptive girl, whose friends have brought +her, for cure, to a climate that instils poison into its very purest +breath. Here, all day, come nursery-maids, burdened with rosy English +babies, or guiding the footsteps of little travellers from the far +Western world. Here, in the sunny afternoons, roll and rumble all kinds +of equipages, from the cardinal’s old-fashioned and gorgeous purple +carriage to the gay barouche of modern date. Here horsemen gallop on +thoroughbred steeds. Here, in short, all the transitory population of +Rome, the world’s great watering-place, rides, drives, or promenades! +Here are beautiful sunsets; and here, whichever way you turn your eyes, +are scenes as well worth gazing at, both in themselves and for their +historic interest, as any that the sun ever rose and set upon. Here, +too, on certain afternoons of the week, a French military band flings +out rich music over the poor old city, floating her with strains as loud +as those of her own echoless triumphs. + +Hilda and the sculptor (by the contrivance of the latter, who loved best +to be alone with his young countrywoman) had wandered beyond the throng +of promenaders, whom they left in a dense cluster around the music. They +strayed, indeed, to the farthest point of the Pincian Hill, and leaned +over the parapet, looking down upon the Muro Torto, a massive fragment +of the oldest Roman wall, which juts over, as if ready to tumble down +by its own weight, yet seems still the most indestructible piece of work +that men’s hands ever piled together. In the blue distance rose Soracte, +and other heights, which have gleamed afar, to our imaginations, but +look scarcely real to our bodily eyes, because, being dreamed about so +much, they have taken the aerial tints which belong only to a dream. +These, nevertheless, are the solid framework of hills that shut in Rome, +and its wide surrounding Campagna,--no land of dreams, but the broadest +page of history, crowded so full with memorable events that one +obliterates another; as if Time had crossed and recrossed his own +records till they grew illegible. + +But, not to meddle with history,--with which our narrative is no +otherwise concerned, than that the very dust of Rome is historic, and +inevitably settles on our page and mingles with our ink,--we will return +to our two friends, who were still leaning over the wall. Beneath them +lay the broad sweep of the Borghese grounds, covered with trees, amid +which appeared the white gleam of pillars and statues, and the flash of +an upspringing fountain, all to be overshadowed at a later period of the +year by the thicker growth of foliage. + +The advance of vegetation, in this softer climate, is less abrupt than +the inhabitant of the cold North is accustomed to observe. Beginning +earlier,--even in February,--Spring is not compelled to burst into +Summer with such headlong haste; there is time to dwell upon each +opening beauty, and to enjoy the budding leaf, the tender green, the +sweet youth and freshness of the year; it gives us its maiden charm, +before, settling into the married Summer, which, again, does not so soon +sober itself into matronly Autumn. In our own country, the virgin Spring +hastens to its bridal too abruptly. But here, after a month or two of +kindly growth, the leaves of the young trees, which cover that portion +of the Borghese grounds nearest the city wall, were still in their +tender half-development. + +In the remoter depths, among the old groves of ilex-trees, Hilda and +Kenyon heard the faint sound of music, laughter, and mingling voices. It +was probably the uproar--spreading even so far as the walls of Rome, +and growing faded and melancholy in its passage--of that wild sylvan +merriment, which we have already attempted to describe. By and by it +ceased--although the two listeners still tried to distinguish it between +the bursts of nearer music from the military band. But there was no +renewal of that distant mirth. Soon afterwards they saw a solitary +figure advancing along one of the paths that lead from the obscurer part +of the ground towards the gateway. + +“Look! is it not Donatello?” said Hilda. + +“He it is, beyond a doubt,” replied the sculptor. “But how gravely he +walks, and with what long looks behind him! He seems either very weary, +or very sad. I should not hesitate to call it sadness, if Donatello were +a creature capable of the sin and folly of low spirits. In all these +hundred paces, while we have been watching him, he has not made one +of those little caprioles in the air which are characteristic of his +natural gait. I begin to doubt whether he is a veritable Faun.” + +“Then,” said Hilda, with perfect simplicity, “you have thought him--and +do think him--one of that strange, wild, happy race of creatures, that +used to laugh and sport in the woods, in the old, old times? So do +I, indeed! But I never quite believed, till now, that fauns existed +anywhere but in poetry.” + +The sculptor at first merely smiled. Then, as the idea took further +possession of his mind, he laughed outright, and wished from the bottom +of his heart (being in love with Hilda, though he had never told her +so) that he could have rewarded or punished her for its pretty absurdity +with a kiss. + +“O Hilda, what a treasure of sweet faith and pure imagination you hide +under that little straw hat!” cried he, at length. “A Faun! a Faun! +Great Pan is not dead, then, after all! The whole tribe of mythical +creatures yet live in the moonlit seclusion of a young girl’s fancy, +and find it a lovelier abode and play-place, I doubt not, than their +Arcadian haunts of yore. What bliss, if a man of marble, like myself, +could stray thither, too!” + +“Why do you laugh so?” asked Hilda, reddening; for she was a little +disturbed at Kenyon’s ridicule, however kindly expressed. “What can I +have said, that you think so very foolish?” + +“Well, not foolish, then,” rejoined the sculptor, “but wiser, it may +be, than I can fathom. Really, however, the idea does strike one as +delightfully fresh, when we consider Donatello’s position and external +environment. Why, my dear Hilda, he is a Tuscan born, of an old noble +race in that part of Italy; and he has a moss-grown tower among the +Apennines, where he and his forefathers have dwelt, under their own +vines and fig-trees, from an unknown antiquity. His boyish passion +for Miriam has introduced him familiarly to our little circle; and our +republican and artistic simplicity of intercourse has included this +young Italian, on the same terms as one of ourselves. But, if we +paid due respect to rank and title, we should bend reverentially to +Donatello, and salute him as his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni.” + +“That is a droll idea, much droller than his being a Faun!” said +Hilda, laughing in her turn. “This does not quite satisfy me, however, +especially as you yourself recognized and acknowledged his wonderful +resemblance to the statue.” + +“Except as regards the pointed ears,” said Kenyon; adding, aside, “and +one other little peculiarity, generally observable in the statues of +fauns.” + +“As for his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni’s ears,” replied Hilda, +smiling again at the dignity with which this title invested their +playful friend, “you know we could never see their shape, on account of +his clustering curls. Nay, I remember, he once started back, as shyly as +a wild deer, when Miriam made a pretence of examining them. How do you +explain that?” + +“O, I certainly shall not contend against such a weight of evidence, +the fact of his faunship being otherwise so probable,” answered the +sculptor, still hardly retaining his gravity. “Faun or not, Donatello or +the Count di Monte Beni--is a singularly wild creature, and, as I have +remarked on other occasions, though very gentle, does not love to be +touched. Speaking in no harsh sense, there is a great deal of animal +nature in him, as if he had been born in the woods, and had run wild all +his childhood, and were as yet but imperfectly domesticated. Life, even +in our day, is very simple and unsophisticated in some of the shaggy +nooks of the Apennines.” + +“It annoys me very much,” said Hilda, “this inclination, which +most people have, to explain away the wonder and the mystery out +of everything. Why could not you allow me--and yourself, too--the +satisfaction of thinking him a Faun?” + +“Pray keep your belief, dear Hilda, if it makes you any happier,” said +the sculptor; “and I shall do my best to become a convert. Donatello has +asked me to spend the summer with him, in his ancestral tower, where +I purpose investigating the pedigree of these sylvan counts, his +forefathers; and if their shadows beckon me into dreamland, I shall +willingly follow. By the bye, speaking of Donatello, there is a point on +which I should like to be enlightened.” + +“Can I help you, then?” said Hilda, in answer to his look. + +“Is there the slightest chance of his winning Miriam’s affections?” + suggested Kenyon. + +“Miriam! she, so accomplished and gifted!” exclaimed Hilda; “and he, a +rude, uncultivated boy! No, no, no!” + +“It would seem impossible,” said the sculptor. “But, on the other hand, +a gifted woman flings away her affections so unaccountably, sometimes! +Miriam of late has been very morbid and miserable, as we both know. +Young as she is, the morning light seems already to have faded out of +her life; and now comes Donatello, with natural sunshine enough for +himself and her, and offers her the opportunity of making her heart and +life all new and cheery again. People of high intellectual endowments do +not require similar ones in those they love. They are just the persons +to appreciate the wholesome gush of natural feeling, the honest +affection, the simple joy, the fulness of contentment with what +he loves, which Miriam sees in Donatello. True; she may call him a +simpleton. It is a necessity of the case; for a man loses the capacity +for this kind of affection, in proportion as he cultivates and refines +himself.” + +“Dear me!” said Hilda, drawing imperceptibly away from her companion. +“Is this the penalty of refinement? Pardon me; I do not believe it. +It is because you are a sculptor, that you think nothing can be finely +wrought except it be cold and hard, like the marble in which your ideas +take shape. I am a painter, and know that the most delicate beauty may +be softened and warmed throughout.” + +“I said a foolish thing, indeed,” answered the sculptor. “It surprises +me, for I might have drawn a wiser knowledge out of my own experience. +It is the surest test of genuine love, that it brings back our early +simplicity to the worldliest of us.” + +Thus talking, they loitered slowly along beside the parapet which +borders the level summit of the Pincian with its irregular sweep. At +intervals they looked through the lattice-work of their thoughts at the +varied prospects that lay before and beneath them. + +From the terrace where they now stood there is an abrupt descent towards +the Piazza del Popolo; and looking down into its broad space they +beheld the tall palatial edifices, the church domes, and the ornamented +gateway, which grew and were consolidated out of the thought of Michael +Angelo. They saw, too, the red granite obelisk, oldest of things, +even in Rome, which rises in the centre of the piazza, with a fourfold +fountain at its base. All Roman works and ruins (whether of the +empire, the far-off republic, or the still more distant kings) assume a +transient, visionary, and impalpable character when we think that this +indestructible monument supplied one of the recollections which Moses +and the Israelites bore from Egypt into the desert. Perchance, on +beholding the cloudy pillar and the fiery column, they whispered +awestricken to one another, “In its shape it is like that old obelisk +which we and our fathers have so often seen on the borders of the Nile.” + And now that very obelisk, with hardly a trace of decay upon it, is the +first thing that the modern traveller sees after entering the Flaminian +Gate! + +Lifting their eyes, Hilda and her companion gazed westward, and saw +beyond the invisible Tiber the Castle of St. Angelo; that immense tomb +of a pagan emperor, with the archangel at its summit. + +Still farther off appeared a mighty pile of buildings, surmounted by the +vast dome, which all of us have shaped and swelled outward, like a huge +bubble, to the utmost Scope of our imaginations, long before we see it +floating over the worship of the city. It may be most worthily seen +from precisely the point where our two friends were now standing. At +any nearer view the grandeur of St. Peter’s hides itself behind the +immensity of its separate parts,--so that we see only the front, only +the sides, only the pillared length and loftiness of the portico, and +not the mighty whole. But at this distance the entire outline of the +world’s cathedral, as well as that of the palace of the world’s +chief priest, is taken in at once. In such remoteness, moreover, the +imagination is not debarred from lending its assistance, even while +we have the reality before our eyes, and helping the weakness of human +sense to do justice to so grand an object. It requires both faith and +fancy to enable us to feel, what is nevertheless so true, that yonder, +in front of the purple outline of hills, is the grandest edifice ever +built by man, painted against God’s loveliest sky. + +After contemplating a little while a scene which their long residence in +Rome had made familiar to them, Kenyon and Hilda again let their glances +fall into the piazza at their feet. They there beheld Miriam, who had +just entered the Porta del Popolo, and was standing by the obelisk and +fountain. With a gesture that impressed Kenyon as at once suppliant and +imperious, she seemed to intimate to a figure which had attended her +thus far, that it was now her desire to be left alone. The pertinacious +model, however, remained immovable. + +And the sculptor here noted a circumstance, which, according to the +interpretation he might put upon it, was either too trivial to be +mentioned, or else so mysteriously significant that he found it +difficult to believe his eyes. Miriam knelt down on the steps of the +fountain; so far there could be no question of the fact. To other +observers, if any there were, she probably appeared to take this +attitude merely for the convenience of dipping her fingers into the gush +of water from the mouth of one of the stone lions. But as she clasped +her hands together after thus bathing them, and glanced upward at the +model, an idea took strong possession of Kenyon’s mind that Miriam was +kneeling to this dark follower there in the world’s face! + +“Do you see it?” he said to Hilda. + +“See what?” asked she, surprised at the emotion of his tone. “I see +Miriam, who has just bathed her hands in that delightfully cool water. I +often dip my fingers into a Roman fountain, and think of the brook that +used to be one of my playmates in my New England village.” + +“I fancied I saw something else,” said Kenyon; “but it was doubtless a +mistake.” + +But, allowing that he had caught a true glimpse into the hidden +significance of Miriam’s gesture, what a terrible thraldom did it +suggest! Free as she seemed to be,--beggar as he looked,--the nameless +vagrant must then be dragging the beautiful Miriam through the streets +of Rome, fettered and shackled more cruelly than any captive queen of +yore following in an emperor’s triumph. And was it conceivable that +she would have been thus enthralled unless some great error--how great +Kenyon dared not think--or some fatal weakness had given this dark +adversary a vantage ground? + +“Hilda,” said he abruptly, “who and what is Miriam? Pardon me; but are +you sure of her?” + +“Sure of her!” repeated Hilda, with an angry blush, for her friend’s +sake. “I am sure that she is kind, good, and generous; a true and +faithful friend, whom I love dearly, and who loves me as well! What more +than this need I be sure of?” + +“And your delicate instincts say all this in her favor?--nothing against +her?” continued the sculptor, without heeding the irritation of Hilda’s +tone. “These are my own impressions, too. But she is such a mystery! +We do not even know whether she is a countrywoman of ours, or an +Englishwoman, or a German. There is Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins, one +would say, and a right English accent on her tongue, but much that is +not English breeding, nor American. Nowhere else but in Rome, and as an +artist, could she hold a place in society without giving some clew to +her past life.” + +“I love her dearly,” said Hilda, still with displeasure in her tone, +“and trust her most entirely.” + +“My heart trusts her at least, whatever my head may do,” replied Kenyon; +“and Rome is not like one of our New England villages, where we need the +permission of each individual neighbor for every act that we do, every +word that we utter, and every friend that we make or keep. In these +particulars the papal despotism allows us freer breath than our native +air; and if we like to take generous views of our associates, we can do +so, to a reasonable extent, without ruining ourselves.” + +“The music has ceased,” said Hilda; “I am going now.” + +There are three streets that, beginning close beside each other, diverge +from the Piazza del Popolo towards the heart of Rome: on the left, the +Via del Babuino; on the right, the Via della Ripetta; and between these +two that world-famous avenue, the Corso. It appeared that Miriam and her +strange companion were passing up the first mentioned of these three, +and were soon hidden from Hilda and the sculptor. + +The two latter left the Pincian by the broad and stately walk that +skirts along its brow. Beneath them, from the base of the abrupt +descent, the city spread wide away in a close contiguity of red-earthen +roofs, above which rose eminent the domes of a hundred churches, beside +here and there a tower, and the upper windows of some taller or higher +situated palace, looking down on a multitude of palatial abodes. At a +distance, ascending out of the central mass of edifices, they could see +the top of the Antonine column, and near it the circular roof of the +Pantheon looking heavenward with its ever-open eye. + +Except these two objects, almost everything that they beheld was +mediaeval, though built, indeed, of the massive old stones and +indestructible bricks of imperial Rome; for the ruins of the Coliseum, +the Golden House, and innumerable temples of Roman gods, and mansions of +Caesars and senators, had supplied the material for all those gigantic +hovels, and their walls were cemented with mortar of inestimable cost, +being made of precious antique statues, burnt long ago for this petty +purpose. + +Rome, as it now exists, has grown up under the Popes, and seems like +nothing but a heap of broken rubbish, thrown into the great chasm +between our own days and the Empire, merely to fill it up; and, for the +better part of two thousand years, its annals of obscure policies, +and wars, and continually recurring misfortunes, seem also but broken +rubbish, as compared with its classic history. + +If we consider the present city as at all connected with the famous one +of old, it is only because we find it built over its grave. A depth of +thirty feet of soil has covered up the Rome of ancient days, so that it +lies like the dead corpse of a giant, decaying for centuries, with no +survivor mighty enough even to bury it, until the dust of all those +years has gathered slowly over its recumbent form and made a casual +sepulchre. + +We know not how to characterize, in any accordant and compatible +terms, the Rome that lies before us; its sunless alleys, and streets +of palaces; its churches, lined with the gorgeous marbles that were +originally polished for the adornment of pagan temples; its thousands of +evil smells, mixed up with fragrance of rich incense, diffused from as +many censers; its little life, deriving feeble nutriment from what +has long been dead. Everywhere, some fragment of ruin suggesting the +magnificence of a former epoch; everywhere, moreover, a Cross,--and +nastiness at the foot of it. As the sum of all, there are recollections +that kindle the soul, and a gloom and languor that depress it beyond any +depth of melancholic sentiment that can be elsewhere known. + +Yet how is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential word of Rome? +The city of all time, and of all the world! The spot for which man’s +great life and deeds have done so much, and for which decay has done +whatever glory and dominion could not do! At this moment, the evening +sunshine is flinging its golden mantle over it, making all that we +thought mean magnificent; the bells of all the churches suddenly ring +out, as if it were a peal of triumph because Rome is still imperial. + +“I sometimes fancy,” said Hilda, on whose susceptibility the scene +always made a strong impression, “that Rome--mere Rome--will crowd +everything else out of my heart.” + +“Heaven forbid!” ejaculated the sculptor. They had now reached the grand +stairs that ascend from the Piazza di Spagna to the hither brow of the +Pincian Hill. Old Beppo, the millionnaire of his ragged fraternity, +it is a wonder that no artist paints him as the cripple whom St. Peter +heals at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,--was just mounting his donkey +to depart, laden with the rich spoil of the day’s beggary. + +Up the stairs, drawing his tattered cloak about his face, came the +model, at whom Beppo looked askance, jealous of an encroacher on his +rightful domain. The figure passed away, however, up the Via Sistina. In +the piazza below, near the foot of the magnificent steps, stood Miriam, +with her eyes bent on the ground, as if she were counting those +little, square, uncomfortable paving-stones, that make it a penitential +pilgrimage to walk in Rome. She kept this attitude for several minutes, +and when, at last, the importunities of a beggar disturbed her from it, +she seemed bewildered and pressed her hand upon her brow. + +“She has been in some sad dream or other, poor thing!” said Kenyon +sympathizingly; “and even now she is imprisoned there in a kind of cage, +the iron bars of which are made of her own thoughts.” + +“I fear she is not well,” said Hilda. “I am going down the stairs, and +will join Miriam.” + +“Farewell, then,” said the sculptor. “Dear Hilda, this is a perplexed +and troubled world! It soothes me inexpressibly to think of you in your +tower, with white doves and white thoughts for your companions, so high +above us all, and With the Virgin for your household friend. You know +not how far it throws its light, that lamp which you keep burning at her +shrine! I passed beneath the tower last night, and the ray cheered me, +because you lighted it.” + +“It has for me a religious significance,” replied Hilda quietly, “and +yet I am no Catholic.” + +They parted, and Kenyon made haste along the Via Sistina, in the hope +of overtaking the model, whose haunts and character he was anxious to +investigate, for Miriam’s sake. He fancied that he saw him a long way +in advance, but before he reached the Fountain of the Triton the dusky +figure had vanished. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +A SCULPTOR’S STUDIO + + +About this period, Miriam seems to have been goaded by a weary +restlessness that drove her abroad on any errand or none. She went one +morning to visit Kenyon in his studio, whither he had invited her to +see a new statue, on which he had staked many hopes, and which was now +almost completed in the clay. Next to Hilda, the person for whom +Miriam felt most affection and confidence was Kenyon; and in all the +difficulties that beset her life, it was her impulse to draw near Hilda +for feminine sympathy, and the sculptor for brotherly counsel. + +Yet it was to little purpose that she approached the edge of the +voiceless gulf between herself and them. Standing on the utmost verge of +that dark chasm, she might stretch out her hand, and never clasp a hand +of theirs; she might strive to call out, “Help, friends! help!” but, as +with dreamers when they shout, her voice would perish inaudibly in +the remoteness that seemed such a little way. This perception of an +infinite, shivering solitude, amid which we cannot come close enough to +human beings to be warmed by them, and where they turn to cold, chilly +shapes of mist, is one of the most forlorn results of any accident, +misfortune, crime, or peculiarity of character, that puts an individual +ajar with the world. Very often, as in Miriam’s case, there is an +insatiable instinct that demands friendship, love, and intimate +communion, but is forced to pine in empty forms; a hunger of the heart, +which finds only shadows to feed upon. + +Kenyon’s studio was in a cross-street, or, rather, an ugly and dirty +little lane, between the Corso and the Via della Ripetta; and though +chill, narrow, gloomy, and bordered with tall and shabby structures, +the lane was not a whit more disagreeable than nine tenths of the Roman +streets. Over the door of one of the houses was a marble tablet, bearing +an inscription, to the purport that the sculpture-rooms within had +formerly been occupied by the illustrious artist Canova. In these +precincts (which Canova’s genius was not quite of a character to render +sacred, though it certainly made them interesting) the young American +sculptor had now established himself. + +The studio of a sculptor is generally but a rough and dreary-looking +place, with a good deal the aspect, indeed, of a stone-mason’s workshop. +Bare floors of brick or plank, and plastered walls,--an old chair +or two, or perhaps only a block of marble (containing, however, the +possibility of ideal grace within it) to sit down upon; some hastily +scrawled sketches of nude figures on the whitewash of the wall. These +last are probably the sculptor’s earliest glimpses of ideas that may +hereafter be solidified into imperishable stone, or perhaps may remain +as impalpable as a dream. Next there are a few very roughly modelled +little figures in clay or plaster, exhibiting the second stage of the +idea as it advances towards a marble immortality; and then is seen the +exquisitely designed shape of clay, more interesting than even the +final marble, as being the intimate production of the sculptor himself, +moulded throughout with his loving hands, and nearest to his imagination +and heart. In the plaster-cast, from this clay model, the beauty of +the statue strangely disappears, to shine forth again with pure white +radiance, in the precious marble of Carrara. Works in all these stages +of advancement, and some with the final touch upon them, might be found +in Kenyon’s studio. + +Here might be witnessed the process of actually chiselling the marble, +with which (as it is not quite satisfactory to think) a sculptor in +these days has very little to do. In Italy, there is a class of men +whose merely mechanical skill is perhaps more exquisite than was +possessed by the ancient artificers, who wrought out the designs of +Praxiteles; or, very possibly, by Praxiteles himself. Whatever of +illusive representation can be effected in marble, they are capable of +achieving, if the object be before their eyes. The sculptor has but to +present these men with a plaster-cast of his design, and a sufficient +block of marble, and tell them that the figure is imbedded in the stone, +and must be freed from its encumbering superfluities; and, in due time, +without the necessity of his touching the work with his own finger, +he will see before him the statue that is to make him renowned. His +creative power has wrought it with a word. + +In no other art, surely, does genius find such effective instruments, +and so happily relieve itself of the drudgery, of actual performance; +doing wonderfully nice things by the hands of other people, when it may +be suspected they could not always be done by the sculptor’s own. And +how much of the admiration which our artists get for their buttons +and buttonholes, their shoe-ties, their neckcloths,--and these, at our +present epoch of taste, make a large share of the renown,--would be +abated, if we were generally aware that the sculptor can claim no credit +for such pretty performances, as immortalized in marble! They are not +his work, but that of some nameless machine in human shape. + +Miriam stopped an instant in an antechamber, to look at a half-finished +bust, the features of which seemed to be struggling out of the stone; +and, as it were, scattering and dissolving its hard substance by the +glow of feeling and intelligence. As the skilful workman gave stroke +after stroke of the chisel with apparent carelessness, but sure effect, +it was impossible not to think that the outer marble was merely an +extraneous environment; the human countenance within its embrace must +have existed there since the limestone ledges of Carrara were first +made. Another bust was nearly completed, though still one of Kenyon’s +most trustworthy assistants was at work, giving delicate touches, +shaving off an impalpable something, and leaving little heaps of marble +dust to attest it. + +“As these busts in the block of marble,” thought Miriam, “so does our +individual fate exist in the limestone of time. We fancy that we carve +it out; but its ultimate shape is prior to all our action.” + +Kenyon was in the inner room, but, hearing a step in the antechamber, he +threw a veil over what he was at work upon, and came out to receive his +visitor. He was dressed in a gray blouse, with a little cap on the top +of his head; a costume which became him better than the formal garments +which he wore whenever he passed out of his own domains. The sculptor +had a face which, when time had done a little more for it, would offer a +worthy subject for as good an artist as himself: features finely cut, as +if already marble; an ideal forehead, deeply set eyes, and a mouth much +hidden in a light-brown beard, but apparently sensitive and delicate. + +“I will not offer you my hand,” said he; “it is grimy with Cleopatra’s +clay.” + +“No; I will not touch clay; it is earthy and human,” answered Miriam. +“I have come to try whether there is any calm and coolness among +your marbles. My own art is too nervous, too passionate, too full of +agitation, for me to work at it whole days together, without intervals +of repose. So, what have you to show me?” + +“Pray look at everything here,” said Kenyon. “I love to have painters +see my work. Their judgment is unprejudiced, and more valuable than that +of the world generally, from the light which their own art throws on +mine. More valuable, too, than that of my brother sculptors, who never +judge me fairly,--nor I them, perhaps.” + +To gratify him, Miriam looked round at the specimens in marble or +plaster, of which there were several in the room, comprising originals +or casts of most of the designs that Kenyon had thus far produced. He +was still too young to have accumulated a large gallery of such things. +What he had to show were chiefly the attempts and experiments, in +various directions, of a beginner in art, acting as a stern tutor to +himself, and profiting more by his failures than by any successes of +which he was yet capable. Some of them, however, had great merit; and +in the pure, fine glow of the new marble, it may be, they dazzled the +judgment into awarding them higher praise than they deserved. Miriam +admired the statue of a beautiful youth, a pearlfisher; who had got +entangled in the weeds at the bottom of the sea, and lay dead among the +pearl-oysters, the rich shells, and the seaweeds, all of like value to +him now. + +“The poor young man has perished among the prizes that he sought,” + remarked she. “But what a strange efficacy there is in death! If we +cannot all win pearls, it causes an empty shell to satisfy us just as +well. I like this statue, though it is too cold and stern in its moral +lesson; and, physically, the form has not settled itself into sufficient +repose.” + +In another style, there was a grand, calm head of Milton, not copied +from any one bust or picture, yet more authentic than any of them, +because all known representations of the poet had been profoundly +studied, and solved in the artist’s mind. The bust over the tomb in +Grey Friars Church, the original miniatures and pictures, wherever to +be found, had mingled each its special truth in this one work; wherein, +likewise, by long perusal and deep love of the Paradise Lost, the Comus, +the Lycidas, and L’Allegro, the sculptor had succeeded, even better than +he knew, in spiritualizing his marble with the poet’s mighty genius. And +this was a great thing to have achieved, such a length of time after the +dry bones and dust of Milton were like those of any other dead man. + +There were also several portrait-busts, comprising those of two or three +of the illustrious men of our own country, whom Kenyon, before he left +America, had asked permission to model. He had done so, because he +sincerely believed that, whether he wrought the busts in marble or +bronze, the one would corrode and the other crumble in the long lapse +of time, beneath these great men’s immortality. Possibly, however, the +young artist may have underestimated the durability of his material. +Other faces there were, too, of men who (if the brevity of their +remembrance, after death, can be augured from their little value in +life) should have been represented in snow rather than marble. Posterity +will be puzzled what to do with busts like these, the concretions and +petrifactions of a vain self-estimate; but will find, no doubt, that they +serve to build into stone walls, or burn into quicklime, as well as if +the marble had never been blocked into the guise of human heads. + +But it is an awful thing, indeed, this endless endurance, this almost +indestructibility, of a marble bust! Whether in our own case, or that of +other men, it bids us sadly measure the little, little time during which +our lineaments are likely to be of interest to any human being. It +is especially singular that Americans should care about perpetuating +themselves in this mode. The brief duration of our families, as +a hereditary household, renders it next to a certainty that the +great-grandchildren will not know their father’s grandfather, and that +half a century hence at furthest, the hammer of the auctioneer will +thump its knock-down blow against his blockhead, sold at so much for the +pound of stone! And it ought to make us shiver, the idea of leaving +our features to be a dusty-white ghost among strangers of another +generation, who will take our nose between their thumb and fingers (as +we have seen men do by Caesar’s), and infallibly break it off if they +can do so without detection! + +“Yes,” said Miriam, who had been revolving some such thoughts as the +above, “it is a good state of mind for mortal man, when he is content to +leave no more definite memorial than the grass, which will sprout kindly +and speedily over his grave, if we do not make the spot barren with +marble. Methinks, too, it will be a fresher and better world, when it +flings off this great burden of stony memories, which the ages have +deemed it a piety to heap upon its back.” + +“What you say,” remarked Kenyon, “goes against my whole art. Sculpture, +and the delight which men naturally take in it, appear to me a proof +that it is good to work with all time before our view.” + +“Well, well,” answered Miriam, “I must not quarrel with you for flinging +your heavy stones at poor Posterity; and, to say the truth, I think you +are as likely to hit the mark as anybody. These busts, now, much as I +seem to scorn them, make me feel as if you were a magician.. You turn +feverish men into cool, quiet marble. What a blessed change for them! +Would you could do as much for me!” + +“O, gladly!” cried Kenyon, who had long wished to model that beautiful +and most expressive face. “When will you begin to sit?” + +“Poh! that was not what I meant,” said Miriam. “Come, show me something +else.” + +“Do you recognize this?” asked the sculptor. + +He took out of his desk a little old-fashioned ivory coffer, yellow +with age; it was richly carved with antique figures and foliage; and had +Kenyon thought fit to say that Benvenuto Cellini wrought this precious +box, the skill and elaborate fancy of the work would by no means have +discredited his word, nor the old artist’s fame. At least, it was +evidently a production of Benvenuto’s school and century, and might +once have been the jewel-case of some grand lady at the court of the De’ +Medici. + +Lifting the lid, however, no blaze of diamonds was disclosed, but +only, lapped in fleecy cotton, a small, beautifully shaped hand, most +delicately sculptured in marble. Such loving care and nicest art had +been lavished here, that the palm really seemed to have a tenderness +in its very substance. Touching those lovely fingers,--had the jealous +sculptor allowed you to touch,--you could hardly believe that a virgin +warmth would not steal from them into your heart. + +“Ah, this is very beautiful!” exclaimed Miriam, with a genial smile. +“It is as good in its way as Loulie’s hand with its baby-dimples, which +Powers showed me at Florence, evidently valuing it as much as if he +had wrought it out of a piece of his great heart. As good as Harriet +Hosmer’s clasped hands of Browning and his wife, symbolizing the +individuality and heroic union of two high, poetic lives! Nay, I do not +question that it is better than either of those, because you must +have wrought it passionately, in spite of its maiden palm and dainty +fingertips.” + +“Then you do recognize it?” asked Kenyon. + +“There is but one right hand on earth that could have supplied +the model,” answered Miriam; “so small and slender, so perfectly +symmetrical, and yet with a character of delicate energy. I have watched +it a hundred times at its work; but I did not dream that you had won +Hilda so far! How have you persuaded that shy maiden to let you take her +hand in marble?” + +“Never! She never knew it!” hastily replied Kenyon, anxious to vindicate +his mistress’s maidenly reserve. “I stole it from her. The hand is a +reminiscence. After gazing at it so often, and even holding it once for +an instant, when Hilda was not thinking of me, I should be a bungler +indeed, if I could not now reproduce it to something like the life.” + +“May you win the original one day!” said Miriam kindly. + +“I have little ground to hope it,” answered the sculptor despondingly; +“Hilda does not dwell in our mortal atmosphere; and gentle and soft as +she appears, it will be as difficult to win her heart as to entice down +a white bird from its sunny freedom in the sky. It is strange, with all +her delicacy and fragility, the impression she makes of being utterly +sufficient to herself. No; I shall never win her. She is abundantly +capable of sympathy, and delights to receive it, but she has no need of +love.” + +“I partly agree with you,” said Miriam. “It is a mistaken idea, which +men generally entertain, that nature has made women especially prone to +throw their whole being into what is technically called love. We have, +to say the least, no more necessity for it than yourselves; only we have +nothing else to do with our hearts. When women have other objects +in life, they are not apt to fall in love. I can think of many women +distinguished in art, literature, and science,--and multitudes whose +hearts and minds find good employment in less ostentatious ways,--who +lead high, lonely lives, and are conscious of no sacrifice so far as +your sex is concerned.” + +“And Hilda will be one of these!” said Kenyon sadly; “the thought makes +me shiver for myself, and and for her, too.” + +“Well,” said Miriam, smiling, “perhaps she may sprain the delicate wrist +which you have sculptured to such perfection. In that case you may hope. +These old masters to whom she has vowed herself, and whom her slender +hand and woman’s heart serve so faithfully, are your only rivals.” + +The sculptor sighed as he put away the treasure of Hilda’s marble hand +into the ivory coffer, and thought how slight was the possibility +that he should ever feel responsive to his own the tender clasp of the +original. He dared not even kiss the image that he himself had made: it +had assumed its share of Hilda’s remote and shy divinity. + +“And now,” said Miriam, “show me the new statue which you asked me +hither to see.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +CLEOPATRA + + +“My new statue!” said Kenyon, who had positively forgotten it in the +thought of Hilda; “here it is, under this veil.” “Not a nude figure, +I hope,” observed Miriam. “Every young sculptor seems to think that he +must give the world some specimen of indecorous womanhood, and call it +Eve, Venus, a Nymph, or any name that may apologize for a lack of +decent clothing. I am weary, even more than I am ashamed, of seeing such +things. Nowadays people are as good as born in their clothes, and +there is practically not a nude human being in existence. An artist, +therefore, as you must candidly confess, cannot sculpture nudity with a +pure heart, if only because he is compelled to steal guilty glimpses +at hired models. The marble inevitably loses its chastity under such +circumstances. An old Greek sculptor, no doubt, found his models in the +open sunshine, and among pure and princely maidens, and thus the nude +statues of antiquity are as modest as violets, and sufficiently draped +in their own beauty. But as for Mr. Gibson’s colored Venuses (stained, I +believe, with tobacco juice), and all other nudities of to-day, I really +do not understand what they have to say to this generation, and would be +glad to see as many heaps of quicklime in their stead.” + +“You are severe upon the professors of my art,” said Kenyon, half +smiling, half seriously; “not that you are wholly wrong, either. We are +bound to accept drapery of some kind, and make the best of it. But +what are we to do? Must we adopt the costume of to-day, and carve, for +example, a Venus in a hoop-petticoat?” + +“That would be a boulder, indeed!” rejoined Miriam, laughing. “But +the difficulty goes to confirm me in my belief that, except for +portrait-busts, sculpture has no longer a right to claim any place among +living arts. It has wrought itself out, and come fairly to an end. There +is never a new group nowadays; never even so much as a new attitude. +Greenough (I take my examples among men of merit) imagined nothing new; +nor Crawford either, except in the tailoring line. There are not, as you +will own, more than half a dozen positively original statues or groups +in the world, and these few are of immemorial antiquity. A person +familiar with the Vatican, the Uffizzi Gallery, the Naples Gallery, +and the Louvre, will at once refer any modern production to its antique +prototype; which, moreover, had begun to get out of fashion, even in old +Roman days.” + +“Pray stop, Miriam,” cried Kenyon, “or I shall fling away the chisel +forever!” + +“Fairly own to me, then, my friend,” rejoined Miriam, whose disturbed +mind found a certain relief in this declamation, “that you sculptors +are, of necessity, the greatest plagiarists in the world.” + +“I do not own it,” said Kenyon, “yet cannot utterly contradict you, as +regards the actual state of the art. But as long as the Carrara quarries +still yield pure blocks, and while my own country has marble mountains, +probably as fine in quality, I shall steadfastly believe that future +sculptors will revive this noblest of the beautiful arts, and people the +world with new shapes of delicate grace and massive grandeur. Perhaps,” + he added, smiling, “mankind will consent to wear a more manageable +costume; or, at worst, we sculptors shall get the skill to make +broadcloth transparent, and render a majestic human character visible +through the coats and trousers of the present day.” + +“Be it so!” said Miriam; “you are past my counsel. Show me the veiled +figure, which, I am afraid, I have criticised beforehand. To make +amends, I am in the mood to praise it now.” + +But, as Kenyon was about to take the cloth off the clay model, she laid +her hand on his arm. + +“Tell me first what is the subject,” said she, “for I have sometimes +incurred great displeasure from members of your brotherhood by being +too obtuse to puzzle out the purport of their productions. It is so +difficult, you know, to compress and define a character or story, +and make it patent at a glance, within the narrow scope attainable +by sculpture! Indeed, I fancy it is still the ordinary habit with +sculptors, first to finish their group of statuary,--in such development +as the particular block of marble will allow,--and then to choose the +subject; as John of Bologna did with his Rape of the Sabines. Have you +followed that good example?” + +“No; my statue is intended for Cleopatra,” replied Kenyon, a little +disturbed by Miriam’s raillery. “The special epoch of her history you +must make out for yourself.” + +He drew away the cloth that had served to keep the moisture of the clay +model from being exhaled. The sitting figure of a woman was seen. She +was draped from head to foot in a costume minutely and scrupulously +studied from that of ancient Egypt, as revealed by the strange sculpture +of that country, its coins, drawings, painted mummy-cases, and whatever +other tokens have been dug out of its pyramids, graves, and catacombs. +Even the stiff Egyptian head-dress was adhered to, but had been softened +into a rich feminine adornment, without losing a particle of its +truth. Difficulties that might well have seemed insurmountable had been +courageously encountered and made flexible to purposes of grace and +dignity; so that Cleopatra sat attired in a garb proper to her historic +and queenly state, as a daughter of the Ptolemies, and yet such as +the beautiful woman would have put on as best adapted to heighten the +magnificence of her charms, and kindle a tropic fire in the cold eyes of +Octavius. + +A marvellous repose--that rare merit in statuary, except it be the +lumpish repose native to the block of stone--was diffused throughout the +figure. The spectator felt that Cleopatra had sunk down out of the fever +and turmoil of her life, and for one instant--as it were, between two +pulse throbs--had relinquished all activity, and was resting throughout +every vein and muscle. It was the repose of despair, indeed; for +Octavius had seen her, and remained insensible to her enchantments. But +still there was a great smouldering furnace deep down in the woman’s +heart. The repose, no doubt, was as complete as if she were never to +stir hand or foot again; and yet, such was the creature’s latent energy +and fierceness, she might spring upon you like a tigress, and stop the +very breath that you were now drawing midway in your throat. + +The face was a miraculous success. The sculptor had not shunned to +give the full Nubian lips, and other characteristics of the Egyptian +physiognomy. His courage and integrity had been abundantly rewarded; for +Cleopatra’s beauty shone out richer, warmer, more triumphantly beyond +comparison, than if, shrinking timidly from the truth, he had chosen +the tame Grecian type. The expression was of profound, gloomy, heavily +revolving thought; a glance into her past life and present emergencies, +while her spirit gathered itself up for some new struggle, or was +getting sternly reconciled to impending doom. In one view, there was a +certain softness and tenderness,--how breathed into the statue, among so +many strong and passionate elements, it is impossible to say. Catching +another glimpse, you beheld her as implacable as a stone and cruel as +fire. + +In a word, all Cleopatra--fierce, voluptuous, passionate, tender, +wicked, terrible, and full of poisonous and rapturous enchantment--was +kneaded into what, only a week or two before, had been a lump of wet +clay from the Tiber. Soon, apotheosized in an indestructible material, +she would be one of the images that men keep forever, finding a heat in +them which does not cool down, throughout the centuries? + +“What a woman is this!” exclaimed Miriam, after a long pause. “Tell me, +did she ever try, even while you were creating her, to overcome you with +her fury or her love? Were you not afraid to touch her, as she grew more +and more towards hot life beneath your hand? My dear friend, it is a +great work! How have you learned to do it?” + +“It is the concretion of a good deal of thought, emotion, and toil of +brain and hand,” said Kenyon, not without a perception that his work was +good; “but I know not how it came about at last. I kindled a great fire +within my mind, and threw in the material,--as Aaron threw the gold +of the Israelites into the furnace,--and in the midmost heat uprose +Cleopatra, as you see her.” + +“What I most marvel at,” said Miriam, “is the womanhood that you have so +thoroughly mixed up with all those seemingly discordant elements. Where +did you get that secret? You never found it in your gentle Hilda, yet I +recognize its truth.” + +“No, surely, it was not in Hilda,” said Kenyon. “Her womanhood is of the +ethereal type, and incompatible with any shadow of darkness or evil.” + +“You are right,” rejoined Miriam; “there are women of that ethereal +type, as you term it, and Hilda is one of them. She would die of her +first wrong-doing,--supposing for a moment that she could be capable of +doing wrong. Of sorrow, slender as she seems, Hilda might bear a great +burden; of sin, not a feather’s weight. Methinks now, were it my doom, I +could bear either, or both at once; but my conscience is still as white +as Hilda’s. Do you question it?” + +“Heaven forbid, Miriam!” exclaimed the sculptor. + +He was startled at the strange turn which she had so suddenly given to +the conversation. Her voice, too,--so much emotion was stifled rather +than expressed in it, sounded unnatural. + +“O, my friend,” cried she, with sudden passion, “will you be my friend +indeed? I am lonely, lonely, lonely! There is a secret in my heart that +burns me,--that tortures me! Sometimes I fear to go mad of it; sometimes +I hope to die of it; but neither of the two happens. Ah, if I could but +whisper it to only one human soul! And you--you see far into womanhood; +you receive it widely into your large view. Perhaps--perhaps, but Heaven +only knows, you might understand me! O, let me speak!” + +“Miriam, dear friend,” replied the sculptor, “if I can help you, speak +freely, as to a brother.” + +“Help me? No!” said Miriam. + +Kenyon’s response had been perfectly frank and kind; and yet the +subtlety of Miriam’s emotion detected a certain reserve and alarm in his +warmly expressed readiness to hear her story. In his secret soul, to +say the truth, the sculptor doubted whether it were well for this +poor, suffering girl to speak what she so yearned to say, or for him +to listen. If there were any active duty of friendship to be performed, +then, indeed, he would joyfully have come forward to do his best. But if +it were only a pent-up heart that sought an outlet? in that case it was +by no means so certain that a confession would do good. The more her +secret struggled and fought to be told, the more certain would it be to +change all former relations that had subsisted between herself and the +friend to whom she might reveal it. Unless he could give her all the +sympathy, and just the kind of sympathy that the occasion required, +Miriam would hate him by and by, and herself still more, if he let her +speak. + +This was what Kenyon said to himself; but his reluctance, after all, and +whether he were conscious of it or no, resulted from a suspicion that +had crept into his heart and lay there in a dark corner. Obscure as it +was, when Miriam looked into his eyes, she detected it at once. + +“Ah, I shall hate you!” cried she, echoing the thought which he had +not spoken; she was half choked with the gush of passion that was thus +turned back upon her. “You are as cold and pitiless as your own marble.” + +“No; but full of sympathy, God knows!” replied he. + +In truth, his suspicions, however warranted by the mystery in which +Miriam was enveloped, had vanished in the earnestness of his kindly and +sorrowful emotion. He was now ready to receive her trust. + +“Keep your sympathy, then, for sorrows that admit of such solace,” said +she, making a strong effort to compose herself. “As for my griefs, I +know how to manage them. It was all a mistake: you can do nothing for +me, unless you petrify me into a marble companion for your Cleopatra +there; and I am not of her sisterhood, I do assure you. Forget this +foolish scene, my friend, and never let me see a reference to it in your +eyes when they meet mine hereafter.” + +“Since you desire it, all shall be forgotten,” answered the sculptor, +pressing her hand as she departed; “or, if ever I can serve you, let my +readiness to do so be remembered. Meanwhile, dear Miriam, let us meet in +the same clear, friendly light as heretofore.” + +“You are less sincere than I thought you,” said Miriam, “if you try to +make me think that there will be no change.” + +As he attended her through the antechamber, she pointed to the statue of +the pearl-diver. + +“My secret is not a pearl,” said she; “yet a man might drown himself in +plunging after it.” + +After Kenyon had closed the door, she went wearily down the staircase, +but paused midway, as if debating with herself whether to return. + +“The mischief was done,” thought she; “and I might as well have had the +solace that ought to come with it. I have lost,--by staggering a little +way beyond the mark, in the blindness of my distress, I have lost, as +we shall hereafter find, the genuine friendship of this clear-minded, +honorable, true-hearted young man, and all for nothing. What if I should +go back this moment and compel him to listen?” + +She ascended two or three of the stairs, but again paused, murmured to +herself, and shook her head. + +“No, no, no,” she thought; “and I wonder how I ever came to dream of +it. Unless I had his heart for my own,--and that is Hilda’s, nor would I +steal it from her,--it should never be the treasure Place of my secret. +It is no precious pearl, as I just now told him; but my dark-red +carbuncle--red as blood--is too rich a gem to put into a stranger’s +casket.” + +She went down the stairs, and found her shadow waiting for her in the +street. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +AN AESTHETIC COMPANY + + +On the evening after Miriam’s visit to Kenyon’s studio, there was an +assemblage composed almost entirely of Anglo-Saxons, and chiefly of +American artists, with a sprinkling of their English brethren; and some +few of the tourists who still lingered in Rome, now that Holy Week was +past. Miriam, Hilda, and the sculptor were all three present, and with +them Donatello, whose life was so far turned from fits natural bent +that, like a pet spaniel, he followed his beloved mistress wherever he +could gain admittance. + +The place of meeting was in the palatial, but somewhat faded and gloomy +apartment of an eminent member of the aesthetic body. It was no more +formal an occasion than one of those weekly receptions, common among +the foreign residents of Rome, at which pleasant people--or disagreeable +ones, as the case may be--encounter one another with little ceremony. + +If anywise interested in art, a man must be difficult to please who +cannot find fit companionship among a crowd of persons, whose ideas and +pursuits all tend towards the general purpose of enlarging the world’s +stock of beautiful productions. + +One of the chief causes that make Rome the favorite residence of +artists--their ideal home which they sigh for in advance, and are so +loath to migrate from, after once breathing its enchanted air--is, +doubtless, that they there find themselves in force, and are numerous +enough to create a congenial atmosphere. In every other clime they are +isolated strangers; in this land of art, they are free citizens. + +Not that, individually, or in the mass, there appears to be any large +stock of mutual affection among the brethren of the chisel and the +pencil. On the contrary, it will impress the shrewd observer that the +jealousies and petty animosities, which the poets of our day have flung +aside, still irritate and gnaw into the hearts of this kindred class of +imaginative men. It is not difficult to suggest reasons why this should +be the fact. The public, in whose good graces lie the sculptor’s or the +painter’s prospects of success, is infinitely smaller than the public to +which literary men make their appeal. It is composed of a very limited +body of wealthy patrons; and these, as the artist well knows, are but +blind judges in matters that require the utmost delicacy of perception. +Thus, success in art is apt to become partly an affair of intrigue; and +it is almost inevitable that even a gifted artist should look askance at +his gifted brother’s fame, and be chary of the good word that might help +him to sell still another statue or picture. You seldom hear a painter +heap generous praise on anything in his special line of art; a sculptor +never has a favorable eye for any marble but his own. + +Nevertheless, in spite of all these professional grudges, artists are +conscious of a social warmth from each other’s presence and contiguity. +They shiver at the remembrance of their lonely studios in the +unsympathizing cities of their native land. For the sake of such +brotherhood as they can find, more than for any good that they get from +galleries, they linger year after year in Italy, while their originality +dies out of them, or is polished away as a barbarism. + +The company this evening included several men and women whom the world +has heard of, and many others, beyond all question, whom it ought to +know. It would be a pleasure to introduce them upon our humble pages, +name by name, and had we confidence enough in our own taste--to crown +each well-deserving brow according to its deserts. The opportunity +is tempting, but not easily manageable, and far too perilous, both in +respect to those individuals whom we might bring forward, and the far +greater number that must needs be left in the shade. Ink, moreover, is +apt to have a corrosive quality, and might chance to raise a blister, +instead of any more agreeable titillation, on skins so sensitive as +those of artists. We must therefore forego the delight of illuminating +this chapter with personal allusions to men whose renown glows richly on +canvas, or gleams in the white moonlight of marble. + +Otherwise we might point to an artist who has studied Nature with +such tender love that she takes him to her intimacy, enabling him to +reproduce her in landscapes that seem the reality of a better earth, +and yet are but the truth of the very scenes around us, observed by the +painter’s insight and interpreted for us by his skill. By his magic, +the moon throws her light far out of the picture, and the crimson of +the summer night absolutely glimmers on the beholder’s face. Or we might +indicate a poet-painter, whose song has the vividness of picture, and +whose canvas is peopled with angels, fairies, and water sprites, done to +the ethereal life, because he saw them face to face in his poetic mood. +Or we might bow before an artist, who has wrought too sincerely, too +religiously, with too earnest a feeling, and too delicate a touch, for +the world at once to recognize how much toil and thought are compressed +into the stately brow of Prospero, and Miranda’s maiden loveliness; or +from what a depth within this painter’s heart the Angel is leading forth +St. Peter. + +Thus it would be easy to go on, perpetrating a score of little +epigrammatical allusions, like the above, all kindly meant, but none +of them quite hitting the mark, and often striking where they were not +aimed. It may be allowable to say, however, that American art is much +better represented at Rome in the pictorial than in the sculpturesque +department. Yet the men of marble appear to have more weight with the +public than the men of canvas; perhaps on account of the greater density +and solid substance of the material in which they work, and the sort +of physical advantage which their labors thus acquire over the illusive +unreality of color. To be a sculptor seems a distinction in itself; +whereas a painter is nothing, unless individually eminent. + +One sculptor there was, an Englishman, endowed with a beautiful fancy, +and possessing at his fingers’ ends the capability of doing beautiful +things. He was a quiet, simple, elderly personage, with eyes brown and +bright, under a slightly impending brow, and a Grecian profile, such as +he might have cut with his own chisel. He had spent his life, for forty +years, in making Venuses, Cupids, Bacchuses, and a vast deal of other +marble progeny of dreamwork, or rather frostwork: it was all a vapory +exhalation out of the Grecian mythology, crystallizing on the dull +window-panes of to-day. Gifted with a more delicate power than any other +man alive, he had foregone to be a Christian reality, and perverted +himself into a Pagan idealist, whose business or efficacy, in our +present world, it would be exceedingly difficult to define. And, loving +and reverencing the pure material in which he wrought, as surely this +admirable sculptor did, he had nevertheless robbed the marble of its +chastity, by giving it an artificial warmth of hue. Thus it became a sin +and shame to look at his nude goddesses. They had revealed themselves +to his imagination, no doubt, with all their deity about them; but, +bedaubed with buff color, they stood forth to the eyes of the profane in +the guise of naked women. But, whatever criticism may be ventured on +his style, it was good to meet a man so modest and yet imbued with such +thorough and simple conviction of his own right principles and practice, +and so quietly satisfied that his kind of antique achievement was all +that sculpture could effect for modern life. + + +This eminent person’s weight and authority among his artistic brethren +were very evident; for beginning unobtrusively to utter himself on +a topic of art, he was soon the centre of a little crowd of younger +sculptors. They drank in his wisdom, as if it would serve all the +purposes of original inspiration; he, meanwhile, discoursing with +gentle calmness, as if there could possibly be no other side, and often +ratifying, as it were, his own conclusions by a mildly emphatic “Yes.” + +The veteran Sculptor’s unsought audience was composed mostly of our own +countrymen. It is fair to say, that they were a body of very dexterous +and capable artists, each of whom had probably given the delighted +public a nude statue, or had won credit for even higher skill by the +nice carving of buttonholes, shoe-ties, coat-seams, shirt-bosoms, and +other such graceful peculiarities of modern costume. Smart, practical +men they doubtless were, and some of them far more than this, but still +not precisely what an uninitiated person looks for in a sculptor. A +sculptor, indeed, to meet the demands which our preconceptions make upon +him, should be even more indispensably a poet than those who deal in +measured verse and rhyme. His material, or instrument, which serves +him in the stead of shifting and transitory language, is a pure, white, +undecaying substance. It insures immortality to whatever is wrought in +it, and therefore makes it a religious obligation to commit no idea +to its mighty guardianship, save such as may repay the marble for +its faithful care, its incorruptible fidelity, by warming it with an +ethereal life. Under this aspect, marble assumes a sacred character; and +no man should dare to touch it unless he feels within himself a certain +consecration and a priesthood, the only evidence of which, for the +public eye, will be the high treatment of heroic subjects, or the +delicate evolution of spiritual, through material beauty. + +No ideas such as the foregoing--no misgivings suggested by them +probably, troubled the self-complacency of most of these clever +sculptors. Marble, in their view, had no such sanctity as we impute +to it. It was merely a sort of white limestone from Carrara, cut into +convenient blocks, and worth, in that state, about two or three dollars +per pound; and it was susceptible of being wrought into certain shapes +(by their own mechanical ingenuity, or that of artisans in their +employment) which would enable them to sell it again at a much higher +figure. Such men, on the strength of some small knack in handling clay, +which might have been fitly employed in making wax-work, are bold to +call themselves sculptors. How terrible should be the thought that the +nude woman whom the modern artist patches together, bit by bit, from a +dozen heterogeneous models, meaning nothing by her, shall last as long +as the Venus of the Capitol!--that his group of--no matter what, since +it has no moral or intellectual existence will not physically crumble +any sooner than the immortal agony of the Laocoon! + +Yet we love the artists, in every kind; even these, whose merits we are +not quite able to appreciate. Sculptors, painters, crayon sketchers, or +whatever branch of aesthetics they adopted, were certainly pleasanter +people, as we saw them that evening, than the average whom we meet +in ordinary society. They were not wholly confined within the sordid +compass of practical life; they had a pursuit which, if followed +faithfully out, would lead them to the beautiful, and always had a +tendency thitherward, even if they lingered to gather up golden dross +by the wayside. Their actual business (though they talked about it very +much as other men talk of cotton, politics, flour barrels, and sugar) +necessarily illuminated their conversation with something akin to the +ideal. So, when the guests collected themselves in little groups, here +and there, in the wide saloon, a cheerful and airy gossip began to be +heard. The atmosphere ceased to be precisely that of common life; a +hint, mellow tinge, such as we see in pictures, mingled itself with the +lamplight. + +This good effect was assisted by many curious little treasures of +art, which the host had taken care to strew upon his tables. They +were principally such bits of antiquity as the soil of Rome and its +neighborhood are still rich in; seals, gems, small figures of bronze, +mediaeval carvings in ivory; things which had been obtained at little +cost, yet might have borne no inconsiderable value in the museum of a +virtuoso. + +As interesting as any of these relics was a large portfolio of old +drawings, some of which, in the opinion of their possessor, bore +evidence on their faces of the touch of master-hands. Very ragged and +ill conditioned they mostly were, yellow with time, and tattered with +rough usage; and, in their best estate, the designs had been scratched +rudely with pen and ink, on coarse paper, or, if drawn with charcoal or +a pencil, were now half rubbed out. You would not anywhere see rougher +and homelier things than these. But this hasty rudeness made the +sketches only the more valuable; because the artist seemed to have +bestirred himself at the pinch of the moment, snatching up whatever +material was nearest, so as to seize the first glimpse of an idea +that might vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Thus, by the spell of +a creased, soiled, and discolored scrap of paper, you were enabled to +steal close to an old master, and watch him in the very effervescence of +his genius. + +According to the judgment of several connoisseurs, Raphael’s own +hand had communicated its magnetism to one of these sketches; and, if +genuine, it was evidently his first conception of a favorite Madonna, +now hanging in the private apartment of the Grand Duke, at Florence. +Another drawing was attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and appeared to be +a somewhat varied design for his picture of Modesty and Vanity, in the +Sciarra Palace. There were at least half a dozen others, to which the +owner assigned as high an origin. It was delightful to believe in their +authenticity, at all events; for these things make the spectator more +vividly sensible of a great painter’s power, than the final glow +and perfected art of the most consummate picture that may have been +elaborated from them. There is an effluence of divinity in the first +sketch; and there, if anywhere, you find the pure light of inspiration, +which the subsequent toil of the artist serves to bring out in stronger +lustre, indeed, but likewise adulterates it with what belongs to an +inferior mood. The aroma and fragrance of new thoughts were perceptible +in these designs, after three centuries of wear and tear. The charm lay +partly in their very imperfection; for this is suggestive, and sets +the imagination at work; whereas, the finished picture, if a good one, +leaves the spectator nothing to do, and, if bad, confuses, stupefies, +disenchants, and disheartens him. + +Hilda was greatly interested in this rich portfolio. She lingered so +long over one particular sketch, that Miriam asked her what discovery +she had made. + +“Look at it carefully,” replied Hilda, putting the sketch into her +hands. “If you take pains to disentangle the design from those +pencil-marks that seem to have been scrawled over it, I think you will +see something very curious.” + +“It is a hopeless affair, I am afraid,” said Miriam. “I have neither +your faith, dear Hilda, nor your perceptive faculty. Fie! what a blurred +scrawl it is indeed!” + +The drawing had originally been very slight, and had suffered more +from time and hard usage than almost any other in the collection; it +appeared, too, that there had been an attempt (perhaps by the very hand +that drew it) to obliterate the design. By Hilda’s help, however, Miriam +pretty distinctly made out a winged figure with a drawn sword, and a +dragon, or a demon, prostrate at his feet. + +“I am convinced,” said Hilda in a low, reverential tone, “that Guido’s +own touches are on that ancient scrap of paper! If so, it must be his +original sketch for the picture of the Archangel Michael setting his +foot upon the demon, in the Church of the Cappuccini. The composition +and general arrangement of the sketch are the same with those of the +picture; the only difference being, that the demon has a more upturned +face, and scowls vindictively at the Archangel, who turns away his eyes +in painful disgust.” + +“No wonder!” responded Miriam. “The expression suits the daintiness of +Michael’s character, as Guido represents him. He never could have looked +the demon in the face!” + +“Miriam!” exclaimed her friend reproachfully, “you grieve me, and you +know it, by pretending to speak contemptuously of the most beautiful and +the divinest figure that mortal painter ever drew.” + +“Forgive me, Hilda!” said Miriam. “You take these matters more +religiously than I can, for my life. Guido’s Archangel is a fine +picture, of course, but it never impressed me as it does _you_.” + +“Well; we will not talk of that,” answered Hilda. “What I wanted you to +notice, in this sketch, is the face of the demon. It is entirely unlike +the demon of the finished picture. Guido, you know, always affirmed that +the resemblance to Cardinal Pamfili was either casual or imaginary. Now, +here is the face as he first conceived it.” + +“And a more energetic demon, altogether, than that of the finished +picture,” said Kenyon, taking the sketch into his hand. “What a spirit +is conveyed into the ugliness of this strong, writhing, squirming +dragon, under the Archangel’s foot! Neither is the face an impossible +one. Upon my word, I have seen it somewhere, and on the shoulders of a +living man!” + +“And so have I,” said Hilda. “It was what struck me from the first.” + +“Donatello, look at this face!” cried Kenyon. + +The young Italian, as may be supposed, took little interest in matters +of art, and seldom or never ventured an opinion respecting them. After +holding the sketch a single instant in his hand, he flung it from him +with a shudder of disgust and repugnance, and a frown that had all the +bitterness of hatred. + +“I know the face well!” whispered he. “It is Miriam’s model!” + +It was acknowledged both by Kenyon and Hilda that they had detected, or +fancied, the resemblance which Donatello so strongly affirmed; and it +added not a little to the grotesque and weird character which, half +playfully, half seriously, they assigned to Miriam’s attendant, to think +of him as personating the demon’s part in a picture of more than two +centuries ago. Had Guido, in his effort to imagine the utmost of sin +and misery, which his pencil could represent, hit ideally upon just this +face? Or was it an actual portrait of somebody, that haunted the old +master, as Miriam was haunted now? Did the ominous shadow follow him +through all the sunshine of his earlier career, and into the gloom that +gathered about its close? And when Guido died, did the spectre betake +himself to those ancient sepulchres, there awaiting a new victim, till +it was Miriam’s ill-hap to encounter him? + +“I do not acknowledge the resemblance at all,” said Miriam, looking +narrowly at the sketch; “and, as I have drawn the face twenty times, I +think you will own that I am the best judge.” + +A discussion here arose, in reference to Guido’s Archangel, and it was +agreed that these four friends should visit the Church of the Cappuccini +the next morning, and critically examine the picture in question; +the similarity between it and the sketch being, at all events, a very +curious circumstance. + +It was now a little past ten o’clock, when some of the company, who had +been standing in a balcony, declared the moonlight to be resplendent. +They proposed a ramble through the streets, taking in their way some +of those scenes of ruin which produced their best effects under the +splendor of the Italian moon. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE + + +The proposal for a moonlight ramble was received with acclamation by +all the younger portion of the company. They immediately set forth and +descended from story to story, dimly lighting their way by waxen tapers, +which are a necessary equipment to those whose thoroughfare, in the +night-time, lies up and down a Roman staircase. Emerging from the +courtyard of the edifice, they looked upward and saw the sky full of +light, which seemed to have a delicate purple or crimson lustre, or, at +least some richer tinge than the cold, white moonshine of other +skies. It gleamed over the front of the opposite palace, showing the +architectural ornaments of its cornice and pillared portal, as well as +the iron-barred basement windows, that gave such a prison-like aspect to +the structure, and the shabbiness and Squalor that lay along its base. +A cobbler was just shutting up his little shop, in the basement of the +palace; a cigar vender’s lantern flared in the blast that came through +the archway; a French sentinel paced to and fro before the portal; a +homeless dog, that haunted thereabouts, barked as obstreperously at the +party as if he were the domestic guardian of the precincts. + +The air was quietly full of the noise of falling water, the cause +of which was nowhere visible, though apparently near at hand. This +pleasant, natural sound, not unlike that of a distant cascade in the +forest, may be heard in many of the Roman streets and piazzas, when +the tumult of the city is hushed; for consuls, emperors, and popes, the +great men of every age, have found no better way of immortalizing their +memories than by the shifting, indestructible, ever new, yet unchanging, +upgush and downfall of water. They have written their names in that +unstable element, and proved it a more durable record than brass or +marble. + +“Donatello, you had better take one of those gay, boyish artists for +your companion,” said Miriam, when she found the Italian youth at +her side. “I am not now in a merry mood, as when we set all the world +a-dancing the other afternoon, in the Borghese grounds.” + +“I never wish to dance any more,” answered Donatello. + +“What a melancholy was in that tone!” exclaimed Miriam. “You are getting +spoilt in this dreary Rome, and will be as wise and as wretched as all +the rest of mankind, unless you go back soon to your Tuscan vineyards. +Well; give me your arm, then! But take care that no friskiness comes +over you. We must walk evenly and heavily to-night!” + +The party arranged itself according to its natural affinities or casual +likings; a sculptor generally choosing a painter, and a painter a +sculp--tor, for his companion, in preference to brethren of their own +art. Kenyon would gladly have taken Hilda to himself, and have drawn +her a little aside from the throng of merry wayfarers. But she kept near +Miriam, and seemed, in her gentle and quiet way, to decline a separate +alliance either with him or any other of her acquaintances. + +So they set forth, and had gone but a little way, when the narrow street +emerged into a piazza, on one side of which, glistening and dimpling in +the moonlight, was the most famous fountain in Rome. Its murmur--not +to say its uproar--had been in the ears of the company, ever since they +came into the open air. It was the Fountain of Trevi, which draws its +precious water from a source far beyond the walls, whence it flows +hitherward through old subterranean aqueducts, and sparkles forth as +pure as the virgin who first led Agrippa to its well-spring, by her +father’s door. + +“I shall sip as much of this water as the hollow of my hand will hold,” + said Miriam. + +“I am leaving Rome in a few days; and the tradition goes, that a +parting draught at the Fountain of Trevi insures the traveller’s return, +whatever obstacles and improbabilities may seem to beset him. Will you +drink, Donatello?” + +“Signorina, what you drink, I drink,” said the youth. + +They and the rest of the party descended some steps to the water’s +brim, and, after a sip or two, stood gazing at the absurd design of the +fountain, where some sculptor of Bernini’s school had gone absolutely +mad in marble. It was a great palace front, with niches and many +bas-reliefs, out of which looked Agrippa’s legendary virgin, and several +of the allegoric sisterhood; while, at the base, appeared Neptune, with +his floundering steeds, and Tritons blowing their horns about him, and +twenty other artificial fantasies, which the calm moonlight soothed into +better taste than was native to them. + +And, after all, it was as magnificent a piece of work as ever human +skill contrived. At the foot of the palatial facade was strewn, with +careful art and ordered irregularity, a broad and broken heap of massive +rock, looking is if it might have lain there since the deluge. Over a +central precipice fell the water, in a semicircular cascade; and from +a hundred crevices, on all sides, snowy jets gushed up, and streams +spouted out of the mouths and nostrils of stone monsters, and fell in +glistening drops; while other rivulets, that had run wild, came leaping +from one rude step to another, over stones that were mossy, slimy, and +green with sedge, because, in a Century of their wild play, Nature had +adopted the Fountain of Trevi, with all its elaborate devices, for her +own. Finally, the water, tumbling, sparkling, and dashing, with +joyous haste and never-ceasing murmur, poured itself into a great +marble-brimmed reservoir, and filled it with a quivering tide; on which +was seen, continually, a snowy semicircle of momentary foam from the +principal cascade, as well as a multitude of snow points from smaller +jets. The basin occupied the whole breadth of the piazza, whence flights +of steps descended to its border. A boat might float, and make voyages +from one shore to another in this mimic lake. + + +In the daytime, there is hardly a livelier scene in Rome than the +neighborhood of the Fountain of Trevi; for the piazza is then filled +with the stalls of vegetable and fruit dealers, chestnut roasters, +cigar venders, and other people, whose petty and wandering traffic +is transacted in the open air. It is likewise thronged with idlers, +lounging over the iron railing, and with Forestieri, who came hither to +see the famous fountain. Here, also, are seen men with buckets, urchins +with cans, and maidens (a picture as old as the patriarchal times) +bearing their pitchers upon their heads. For the water of Trevi is in +request, far and wide, as the most refreshing draught for feverish lips, +the pleasantest to mingle with wine, and the wholesomest to drink, +in its native purity, that can anywhere be found. But now, at early +midnight, the piazza was a solitude; and it was a delight to behold this +untamable water, sporting by itself in the moonshine, and compelling +all the elaborate trivialities of art to assume a natural aspect, in +accordance with its own powerful simplicity. + +“What would be done with this water power,” suggested an artist, “if we +had it in one of our American cities? Would they employ it to turn the +machinery of a cotton mill, I wonder?” + +“The good people would pull down those rampant marble deities,” said +Kenyon, “and, possibly, they would give me a commission to carve the +one-and-thirty (is that the number?) sister States, each pouring a +silver stream from a separate can into one vast basin, which should +represent the grand reservoir of national prosperity.” + +“Or, if they wanted a bit of satire,” remarked an English artist, “you +could set those same one-and-thirty States to cleansing the national +flag of any stains that it may have incurred. The Roman washerwomen at +the lavatory yonder, plying their labor in the open air, would serve +admirably as models.” + +“I have often intended to visit this fountain by moonlight,”, said +Miriam, “because it was here that the interview took place between +Corinne and Lord Neville, after their separation and temporary +estrangement. Pray come behind me, one of you, and let me try whether +the face can be recognized in the water.” + +Leaning over the stone brim of the basin, she heard footsteps stealing +behind her, and knew that somebody was looking over her shoulder. The +moonshine fell directly behind Miriam, illuminating the palace front and +the whole scene of statues and rocks, and filling the basin, as it were, +with tremulous and palpable light. Corinne, it will be remembered, knew +Lord Neville by the reflection of his face in the water. In Miriam’s +case, however (owing to the agitation of the water, its transparency, +and the angle at which she was compelled to lean over), no reflected +image appeared; nor, from the same causes, would it have been possible +for the recognition between Corinne and her lover to take place. The +moon, indeed, flung Miriam’s shadow at the bottom of the basin, as well +as two more shadows of persons who had followed her, on either side. + +“Three shadows!” exclaimed Miriam--“three separate shadows, all so black +and heavy that they sink in the water! There they lie on the bottom, +as if all three were drowned together. This shadow on my right is +Donatello; I know him by his curls, and the turn of his head. My +left-hand companion puzzles me; a shapeless mass, as indistinct as the +premonition of calamity! Which of you can it be? Ah!” + +She had turned round, while speaking, and saw beside her the strange +creature whose attendance on her was already familiar, as a marvel and +a jest; to the whole company of artists. A general burst of laughter +followed the recognition; while the model leaned towards Miriam, as she +shrank from him, and muttered something that was inaudible to those who +witnessed the scene. By his gestures, however, they concluded that he +was inviting her to bathe her hands. + +“He cannot be an Italian; at least not a Roman,” observed an artist. “I +never knew one of them to care about ablution. See him now! It is as +if he were trying to wash off’ the time-stains and earthly soil of a +thousand years!” + +Dipping his hands into the capacious washbowl before him, the model +rubbed them together with the utmost vehemence. Ever and anon, too, +he peeped into the water, as if expecting to see the whole Fountain of +Trevi turbid with the results of his ablution. Miriam looked at him, +some little time, with an aspect of real terror, and even imitated him +by leaning over to peep into the basin. Recovering herself, she took up +some of the water in the hollow of her hand, and practised an old form +of exorcism by flinging it in her persecutor’s face. + +“In the name of all the Saints,” cried she, “vanish, Demon, and let me +be free of you now and forever!” + +“It will not suffice,” said some of the mirthful party, “unless the +Fountain of Trevi gushes with holy water.” + +In fact, the exorcism was quite ineffectual upon the pertinacious demon, +or whatever the apparition might be. Still he washed his brown, bony +talons; still he peered into the vast basin, as if all the water of that +great drinking-cup of Rome must needs be stained black or sanguine; and +still he gesticulated to Miriam to follow his example. The spectators +laughed loudly, but yet with a kind of constraint; for the creature’s +aspect was strangely repulsive and hideous. + +Miriam felt her arm seized violently by Donatello. She looked at him, +and beheld a tigerlike fury gleaming from his wild eyes. + +“Bid me drown him!” whispered he, shuddering between rage and horrible +disgust. “You shall hear his death gurgle in another instant!” + +“Peace, peace, Donatello!” said Miriam soothingly, for this naturally +gentle and sportive being seemed all aflame with animal rage. “Do him no +mischief! He is mad; and we are as mad as he, if we suffer ourselves to +be disquieted by his antics. Let us leave him to bathe his hands till +the fountain run dry, if he find solace and pastime in it. What is it to +you or me, Donatello? There, there! Be quiet, foolish boy!” + +Her tone and gesture were such as she might have used in taming down the +wrath of a faithful hound, that had taken upon himself to avenge some +supposed affront to his mistress. She smoothed the young man’s curls +(for his fierce and sudden fury seemed to bristle among his hair), and +touched his cheek with her soft palm, till his angry mood was a little +assuaged. + +“Signorina, do I look as when you first knew me?” asked he, with a +heavy, tremulous sigh, as they went onward, somewhat apart from their +companions. “Methinks there has been a change upon me, these many +months; and more and more, these last few days. The joy is gone out of +my life; all gone! all gone! Feel my hand! Is it not very hot? Ah; and +my heart burns hotter still!” + +“My poor Donatello, you are ill!” said Miriam, with deep sympathy and +pity. “This melancholy and sickly Rome is stealing away the rich, joyous +life that belongs to you. Go back, my dear friend, to your home among +the hills, where (as I gather from what you have told me) your days were +filled with simple and blameless delights. Have you found aught in the +world that is worth’ what you there enjoyed? Tell me truly, Donatello!” + +“Yes!” replied the young man. + +“And what, in Heaven’s name?” asked she. + +“This burning pain in my heart,” said Donatello; “for you are in the +midst of it.” + +By this time, they had left the Fountain of Trevi considerably behind +them. Little further allusion was made to the scene at its margin; for +the party regarded Miriam’s persecutor as diseased in his wits, and were +hardly to be surprised by any eccentricity in his deportment. + +Threading several narrow streets, they passed through the Piazza of the +Holy Apostles, and soon came to Trajan’s Forum. All over the surface +of what once was Rome, it seems to be the effort of Time to bury up the +ancient city, as if it were a corpse, and he the sexton; so that, in +eighteen centuries, the soil over its grave has grown very deep, by the +slow scattering of dust, and the accumulation of more modern decay upon +older ruin. + +This was the fate, also, of Trajan’s Forum, until some papal antiquary, +a few hundred years ago, began to hollow it out again, and disclosed the +full height of the gigantic column wreathed round with bas-reliefs of +the old emperor’s warlike deeds. In the area before it stands a grove of +stone, consisting of the broken and unequal shafts of a vanished temple, +still keeping a majestic order, and apparently incapable of further +demolition. The modern edifices of the piazza (wholly built, no doubt, +out of the spoil of its old magnificence) look down into the hollow +space whence these pillars rise. + +One of the immense gray granite shafts lay in the piazza, on the verge +of the area. It was a great, solid fact of the Past, making old Rome +actually sensible to the touch and eye; and no study of history, nor +force of thought, nor magic of song, could so vitally assure us that +Rome once existed, as this sturdy specimen of what its rulers and people +wrought. + +“And see!” said Kenyon, laying his hand upon it, “there is still a +polish remaining on the hard substance of the pillar; and even now, late +as it is, I can feel very sensibly the warmth of the noonday sun, which +did its best to heat it through. This shaft will endure forever. The +polish of eighteen centuries ago, as yet but half rubbed off, and the +heat of to-day’s sunshine, lingering into the night, seem almost equally +ephemeral in relation to it.” + +“There is comfort to be found in the pillar,” remarked Miriam, “hard +and heavy as it is. Lying here forever, as it will, it makes all human +trouble appear but a momentary annoyance.” + +“And human happiness as evanescent too,” observed Hilda, sighing; “and +beautiful art hardly less so! I do not love to think that this dull +stone, merely by its massiveness, will last infinitely longer than +any picture, in spite of the spiritual life that ought to give it +immortality!” + +“My poor little Hilda,” said Miriam, kissing her compassionately, “would +you sacrifice this greatest mortal consolation, which we derive from +the transitoriness of all things, from the right of saying, in every +conjecture, ‘This, too, will pass away,’ would you give up this +unspeakable boon, for the sake of making a picture eternal?” + +Their moralizing strain was interrupted by a demonstration from the rest +of the party, who, after talking and laughing together, suddenly joined +their voices, and shouted at full pitch, + +“Trajan! Trajan!” + +“Why do you deafen us with such an uproar?” inquired Miriam. + +In truth, the whole piazza had been filled with their idle vociferation; +the echoes from the surrounding houses reverberating the cry of +“Trajan,” on all sides; as if there was a great search for that imperial +personage, and not so much as a handful of his ashes to be found. + +“Why, it was a good opportunity to air our voices in this resounding +piazza,” replied one of the artists. “Besides, we had really some hopes +of summoning Trajan to look at his column, which, you know, he never +saw in his lifetime. Here is your model (who, they say, lived and sinned +before Trajan’s death) still wandering about Rome; and why not the +Emperor Trajan?” + +“Dead emperors have very little delight in their columns, I am afraid,” + observed Kenyon. “All that rich sculpture of Trajan’s bloody warfare, +twining from the base of the pillar to its capital, may be but an ugly +spectacle for his ghostly eyes, if he considers that this huge, storied +shaft must be laid before the judgment-seat, as a piece of the evidence +of what he did in the flesh. If ever I am employed to sculpture a hero’s +monument, I shall think of this, as I put in the bas-reliefs of the +pedestal!” + +“There are sermons in stones,” said Hilda thoughtfully, smiling at +Kenyon’s morality; “and especially in the stones of Rome.” + +The party moved on, but deviated a little from the straight way, in +order to glance at the ponderous remains of the temple of Mars Ultot, +within which a convent of nuns is now established,--a dove-cote, in the +war-god’s mansion. At only a little distance, they passed the portico +of a Temple of Minerva, most rich and beautiful in architecture, but +woefully gnawed by time and shattered by violence, besides being buried +midway in the accumulation of soil, that rises over dead Rome like a +flood tide. Within this edifice of antique sanctity, a baker’s shop +was now established, with an entrance on one side; for, everywhere, the +remnants of old grandeur and divinity have been made available for the +meanest necessities of today. + +“The baker is just drawing his loaves out of the oven,” remarked Kenyon. +“Do you smell how sour they are? I should fancy that Minerva (in revenge +for the desecration of her temple) had slyly poured vinegar into the +batch, if I did not know that the modern Romans prefer their bread in +the acetous fermentation.” + +They turned into the Via Alessandria, and thus gained the rear of the +Temple of Peace, and, passing beneath its great arches, pursued their +way along a hedge-bordered lane. In all probability, a stately Roman +street lay buried beneath that rustic-looking pathway; for they had now +emerged from the close and narrow avenues of the modern city, and were +treading on a soil where the seeds of antique grandeur had not yet +produced the squalid crop that elsewhere sprouts from them. Grassy as +the lane was, it skirted along heaps of shapeless ruin, and the bare +site of the vast temple that Hadrian planned and built. It terminated +on the edge of a somewhat abrupt descent, at the foot of which, with a +muddy ditch between, rose, in the bright moonlight, the great curving +wall and multitudinous arches of the Coliseum. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +MIRIAM’S TROUBLE + + +As usual of a moonlight evening, several carriages stood at the entrance +of this famous ruin, and the precincts and interior were anything but a +solitude. The French sentinel on duty beneath the principal archway eyed +our party curiously, but offered no obstacle to their admission. Within, +the moonlight filled and flooded the great empty space; it glowed upon +tier above tier of ruined, grass-grown arches, and made them even +too distinctly visible. The splendor of the revelation took away that +inestimable effect of dimness and mystery by which the imagination +might be assisted to build a grander structure than the Coliseum, and to +shatter it with a more picturesque decay. Byron’s celebrated description +is better than the reality. He beheld the scene in his mind’s eye, +through the witchery of many intervening years, and faintly illuminated +it as if with starlight instead of this broad glow of moonshine. + +The party of our friends sat down, three or four of them on a prostrate +column, another on a shapeless lump of marble, once a Roman altar; +others on the steps of one of the Christian shrines. Goths and +barbarians though they were, they chatted as gayly together as if they +belonged to the gentle and pleasant race of people who now inhabit +Italy. There was much pastime and gayety just then in the area of the +Coliseum, where so many gladiators and Wild beasts had fought and died, +and where so much blood of Christian martyrs had been lapped up by that +fiercest of wild beasts, the Roman populace of yore. Some youths and +maidens were running merry races across the open space, and playing at +hide and seek a little way within the duskiness of the ground tier of +arches, whence now and then you could hear the half-shriek, halflaugh of +a frolicsome girl, whom the shadow had betrayed into a young man’s +arms. Elder groups were seated on the fragments of pillars and blocks +of marble that lay round the verge of the arena, talking in the quick, +short ripple of the Italian tongue. On the steps of the great black +cross in the centre of the Coliseum sat a party singing scraps of songs, +with much laughter and merriment between the stanzas. + +It was a strange place for song and mirth. That black cross marks one of +the special blood-spots of the earth where, thousands of times over, the +dying gladiator fell, and more of human agony has been endured for the +mere pastime of the multitude than on the breadth of many battlefields. +From all this crime and suffering, however, the spot has derived a more +than common sanctity. An inscription promises seven years’ indulgence, +seven years of remission from the pains of purgatory, and earlier +enjoyment of heavenly bliss, for each separate kiss imprinted on the +black cross. What better use could be made of life, after middle age, +when the accumulated sins are many and the remaining temptations few, +than to spend it all in kissing the black cross of the Coliseum! + +Besides its central consecration, the whole area has been made sacred +by a range of shrines, which are erected round the circle, each +commemorating some scene or circumstance of the Saviour’s passion and +suffering. In accordance with an ordinary custom, a pilgrim was +making his progress from shrine to shrine upon his knees, and saying a +penitential prayer at each. Light-footed girls ran across the path along +which he crept, or sported with their friends close by the shrines +where he was kneeling. The pilgrim took no heed, and the girls meant +no irreverence; for in Italy religion jostles along side by side +with business and sport, after a fashion of its own, and people are +accustomed to kneel down and pray, or see others praying, between two +fits of merriment, or between two sins. + +To make an end of our description, a red twinkle of light was visible +amid the breadth of shadow that fell across the upper part of the +Coliseum. Now it glimmered through a line of arches, or threw a broader +gleam as it rose out of some profound abyss of ruin; now it was muffled +by a heap of shrubbery which had adventurously clambered to that dizzy +height; and so the red light kept ascending to loftier and loftier +ranges of the structure, until it stood like a star where the blue sky +rested against the Coliseum’s topmost wall. It indicated a party of +English or Americans paying the inevitable visit by moonlight, and +exalting themselves with raptures that were Byron’s, not their own. + +Our company of artists sat on the fallen column, the pagan altar, and +the steps of the Christian shrine, enjoying the moonlight and shadow, +the present gayety and the gloomy reminiscences of the scene, in almost +equal share. Artists, indeed, are lifted by the ideality of their +pursuits a little way off the earth, and are therefore able to catch +the evanescent fragrance that floats in the atmosphere of life above +the heads of the ordinary crowd. Even if they seem endowed with little +imagination individually, yet there is a property, a gift, a talisman, +common to their class, entitling them to partake somewhat more +bountifully than other people in the thin delights of moonshine and +romance. + +“How delightful this is!” said Hilda; and she sighed for very pleasure. + +“Yes,” said Kenyon, who sat on the column, at her side. “The Coliseum +is far more delightful, as we enjoy it now, than when eighty thousand +persons sat squeezed together, row above row, to see their fellow +creatures torn by lions and tigers limb from limb. What a strange +thought that the Coliseum was really built for us, and has not come to +its best uses till almost two thousand years after it was finished!” + +“The Emperor Vespasian scarcely had us in his mind,” said Hilda, +smiling; “but I thank him none the less for building it.” + +“He gets small thanks, I fear, from the people whose bloody instincts +he pampered,” rejoined Kenyon. “Fancy a nightly assemblage of eighty +thousand melancholy and remorseful ghosts, looking down from those tiers +of broken arches, striving to repent of the savage pleasures which they +once enjoyed, but still longing to enjoy them over again.” + +“You bring a Gothic horror into this peaceful moonlight scene,” said +Hilda. + + +“Nay, I have good authority for peopling the Coliseum with phantoms,” + replied the sculptor. “Do you remember that veritable scene in Benvenuto +Cellini’s autobiography, in which a necromancer of his acquaintance +draws a magic circle--just where the black cross stands now, I +suppose--and raises myriads of demons? Benvenuto saw them with his +own eyes,--giants, pygmies, and other creatures of frightful aspect, +capering and dancing on yonder walls. Those spectres must have been +Romans, in their lifetime, and frequenters of this bloody amphitheatre.” + +“I see a spectre, now!” said Hilda, with a little thrill of uneasiness. +“Have you watched that pilgrim, who is going round the whole circle of +shrines, on his knees, and praying with such fervency at every one? Now +that he has revolved so far in his orbit, and has the moonshine on his +face as he turns towards us, methinks I recognize him!” + +“And so do I,” said Kenyon. “Poor Miriam! Do you think she sees him?” + +They looked round, and perceived that Miriam had risen from the steps of +the shrine and disappeared. She had shrunk back, in fact, into the deep +obscurity of an arch that opened just behind them. + +Donatello, whose faithful watch was no more to be eluded than that of +a hound, had stolen after her, and became the innocent witness of a +spectacle that had its own kind of horror. Unaware of his presence, +and fancying herself wholly unseen, the beautiful Miriam began to +gesticulate extravagantly, gnashing her teeth, flinging her arms wildly +abroad, stamping with her foot. + +It was as if she had stepped aside for an instant, solely to snatch the +relief of a brief fit of madness. Persons in acute trouble, or laboring +under strong excitement, with a necessity for concealing it, are prone +to relieve their nerves in this wild way; although, when practicable, +they find a more effectual solace in shrieking aloud. + +Thus, as soon as she threw off her self-control, under the dusky arches +of the Coliseum, we may consider Miriam as a mad woman, concentrating +the elements of a long insanity into that instant. + +“Signorina! signorina! have pity on me!” cried Donatello, approaching +her; “this is too terrible!” + +“How dare you look, at me!” exclaimed Miriam, with a start; then, +whispering below her breath, “men have been struck dead for a less +offence!” + +“If you desire it, or need it,” said Donatello humbly, “I shall not be +loath to die.” + +“Donatello,” said Miriam, coming close to the young man, and speaking +low, but still the almost insanity of the moment vibrating in her voice, +“if you love yourself; if you desire those earthly blessings, such as +you, of all men, were made for; if you would come to a good old age +among your olive orchards and your Tuscan vines, as your forefathers +did; if you would leave children to enjoy the same peaceful, happy, +innocent life, then flee from me. Look not behind you! Get you gone +without another word.” He gazed sadly at her, but did not stir. “I tell +you,” Miriam went on, “there is a great evil hanging over me! I know +it; I see it in the sky; I feel it in the air! It will overwhelm me +as utterly as if this arch should crumble down upon our heads! It will +crush you, too, if you stand at my side! Depart, then; and make the sign +of the cross, as your faith bids you, when an evil spirit is nigh. Cast +me off, or you are lost forever.” + +A higher sentiment brightened upon Donatello’s face than had hitherto +seemed to belong to its simple expression and sensuous beauty. + +“I will never quit you,” he said; “you cannot drive me from you.” + +“Poor Donatello!” said Miriam in a changed tone, and rather to herself +than him. “Is there no other that seeks me out, follows me,--is +obstinate to share my affliction and my doom,--but only you! They call +me beautiful; and I used to fancy that, at my need, I could bring the +whole world to my feet. And lo! here is my utmost need; and my beauty +and my gifts have brought me only this poor, simple boy. Half-witted, +they call him; and surely fit for nothing but to be happy. And I accept +his aid! To-morrow, to-morrow, I will tell him all! Ah! what a sin to +stain his joyous nature with the blackness of a woe like mine!” + +She held out her hand to him, and smiled sadly as Donatello pressed it +to his lips. They were now about to emerge from the depth of the arch; +but just then the kneeling pilgrim, in his revolution round the orbit of +the shrines, had reached the one on the steps of which Miriam had been +sitting. There, as at the other shrines, he prayed, or seemed to +pray. It struck Kenyon, however,--who sat close by, and saw his face +distinctly, that the suppliant was merely performing an enjoined +penance, and without the penitence that ought to have given it effectual +life. Even as he knelt, his eyes wandered, and Miriam soon felt that +he had detected her, half hidden as she was within the obscurity of the +arch. + +“He is evidently a good Catholic, however,” whispered one of the party. +“After all, I fear we cannot identify him with the ancient pagan who +haunts the catacombs.” + +“The doctors of the Propaganda may have converted him,” said another; +“they have had fifteen hundred years to perform the task.” + +The company now deemed it time to continue their ramble. Emerging from +a side entrance of the Coliseum, they had on their left the Arch of +Constantine, and above it the shapeless ruins of the Palace of the +Caesars; portions of which have taken shape anew, in mediaeval convents +and modern villas. They turned their faces cityward, and, treading over +the broad flagstones of the old Roman pavement, passed through the +Arch of Titus. The moon shone brightly enough within it to show the +seven-branched Jewish candlestick, cut in the marble of the interior. +The original of that awful trophy lies buried, at this moment, in the +yellow mud of the Tiber; and, could its gold of Ophir again be brought +to light, it would be the most precious relic of past ages, in the +estimation of both Jew and Gentile. + +Standing amid so much ancient dust, it is difficult to spare the reader +the commonplaces of enthusiasm, on which hundreds of tourists have +already insisted. Over this half-worn pavement, and beneath this Arch +of Titus, the Roman armies had trodden in their outward march, to fight +battles a world’s width away. Returning victorious, with royal captives +and inestimable spoil, a Roman triumph, that most gorgeous pageant of +earthly pride, had streamed and flaunted in hundred-fold succession +over these same flagstones, and through this yet stalwart archway. It is +politic, however, to make few allusions to such a past; nor, if we would +create an interest in the characters of our story, is it wise to suggest +how Cicero’s foot may have stepped on yonder stone, or how Horace was +wont to stroll near by, making his footsteps chime with the measure of +the ode that was ringing in his mind. The very ghosts of that massive +and stately epoch have so much density that the actual people of to-day +seem the thinner of the two, and stand more ghost-like by the arches +and columns, letting the rich sculpture be discerned through their +ill-compacted substance. + +The party kept onward, often meeting pairs and groups of midnight +strollers like themselves. On such a moonlight night as this, Rome keeps +itself awake and stirring, and is full of song and pastime, the noise of +which mingles with your dreams, if you have gone betimes to bed. But it +is better to be abroad, and take our own share of the enjoyable time; +for the languor that weighs so heavily in the Roman atmosphere by day is +lightened beneath the moon and stars. + +They had now reached the precincts of the Forum. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE + + +“Let us settle it,” said Kenyon, stamping his foot firmly down, “that +this is precisely the spot where the chasm opened, into which Curtius +precipitated his good steed and himself. Imagine the great, dusky gap, +impenetrably deep, and with half-shaped monsters and hideous faces +looming upward out of it, to the vast affright of the good citizens who +peeped over the brim! There, now, is a subject, hitherto unthought of, +for a grim and ghastly story, and, methinks, with a moral as deep as +the gulf itself. Within it, beyond a question, there were prophetic +visions,--intimations of all the future calamities of Rome,--shades of +Goths, and Gauls, and even of the French soldiers of to-day. It was a +pity to close it up so soon! I would give much for a peep into such a +chasm.” + +“I fancy,” remarked Miriam, “that every person takes a peep into it +in moments of gloom and despondency; that is to say, in his moments of +deepest insight.” + +“Where is it, then?” asked Hilda. “I never peeped into it.” + +“Wait, and it will open for you,” replied her friend. “The chasm was +merely one of the orifices of that pit of blackness that lies beneath +us, everywhere. The firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin +crust spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive +stage scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the +chasm. A footstep, a little heavier than ordinary, will serve; and we +must step very daintily, not to break through the crust at any moment. +By and by, we inevitably sink! It was a foolish piece of heroism in +Curtius to precipitate himself there, in advance; for all Rome, you see, +has been swallowed up in that gulf, in spite of him. The Palace of the +Caesars has gone down thither, with a hollow, rumbling sound of its +fragments! All the temples have tumbled into it; and thousands of +statues have been thrown after! All the armies and the triumphs have +marched into the great chasm, with their martial music playing, as they +stepped over the brink. All the heroes, the statesmen, and the poets! +All piled upon poor Curtius, who thought to have saved them all! I am +loath to smile at the self-conceit of that gallant horseman, but cannot +well avoid it.” + +“It grieves me to hear you speak thus, Miriam,” said Hilda, whose +natural and cheerful piety was shocked by her friend’s gloomy view of +human destinies. “It seems to me that there is no chasm, nor any hideous +emptiness under our feet, except what the evil within us digs. If there +be such a chasm, let us bridge it over with good thoughts and deeds, and +we shall tread safely to the other side. It was the guilt of Rome, no +doubt, that caused this gulf to open; and Curtius filled it up with his +heroic self-sacrifice and patriotism, which was the best virtue that the +old Romans knew. Every wrong thing makes the gulf deeper; every right +one helps to fill it up. As the evil of Rome was far more than its good, +the whole commonwealth finally sank into it, indeed, but of no original +necessity.” + +“Well, Hilda, it came to the same thing at last,” answered Miriam +despondingly. + +“Doubtless, too,” resumed the sculptor (for his imagination was greatly +excited by the idea of this wondrous chasm), “all the blood that the +Romans shed, whether on battlefields, or in the Coliseum, or on the +cross,--in whatever public or private murder,--ran into this fatal gulf, +and formed a mighty subterranean lake of gore, right beneath our feet. +The blood from the thirty wounds in Caesar’s breast flowed hitherward, +and that pure little rivulet from Virginia’s bosom, too! Virginia, +beyond all question, was stabbed by her father, precisely where we are +standing.” + +“Then the spot is hallowed forever!” said Hilda. + +“Is there such blessed potency in bloodshed?” asked Miriam. “Nay, Hilda, +do not protest! I take your meaning rightly.” + +They again moved forward. And still, from the Forum and the Via Sacra, +from beneath the arches of the Temple of Peace on one side, and the +acclivity of the Palace of the Caesars on the other, there arose singing +voices of parties that were strolling through the moonlight. Thus, +the air was full of kindred melodies that encountered one another, and +twined themselves into a broad, vague music, out of which no single +strain could be disentangled. These good examples, as well as the +harmonious influences of the hour, incited our artist friends to make +proof of their own vocal powers. With what skill and breath they had, +they set up a choral strain,--“Hail, Columbia!” we believe, which +those old Roman echoes must have found it exceeding difficult to repeat +aright. Even Hilda poured the slender sweetness of her note into her +country’s song. Miriam was at first silent, being perhaps unfamiliar +with the air and burden. But suddenly she threw out such a swell and +gush of sound, that it seemed to pervade the whole choir of other +voices, and then to rise above them all, and become audible in what +would else have been thee silence of an upper region. That volume of +melodious voice was one of the tokens of a great trouble. There had long +been an impulse upon her--amounting, at last, to a necessity to shriek +aloud; but she had struggled against it, till the thunderous anthem gave +her an opportunity to relieve her heart by a great cry. + +They passed the solitary Column of Phocas, and looked down into the +excavated space, where a confusion of pillars, arches, pavements, and +shattered blocks and shafts--the crumbs of various ruin dropped from the +devouring maw of Time stand, or lie, at the base of the Capitoline Hill. +That renowned hillock (for it is little more) now arose abruptly above +them. The ponderous masonry, with which the hillside is built up, is as +old as Rome itself, and looks likely to endure while the world retains +any substance or permanence. It once sustained the Capitol, and now +bears up the great pile which the mediaeval builders raised on the +antique foundation, and that still loftier tower, which looks abroad +upon a larger page of deeper historic interest than any other scene +can show. On the same pedestal of Roman masonry, other structures will +doubtless rise, and vanish like ephemeral things. + +To a spectator on the spot, it is remarkable that the events of Roman +history, and Roman life itself, appear not so distant as the Gothic ages +which succeeded them. We stand in the Forum, or on the height of the +Capitol, and seem to see the Roman epoch close at hand. We forget that +a chasm extends between it and ourselves, in which lie all those dark, +rude, unlettered centuries, around the birth-time of Christianity, as +well as the age of chivalry and romance, the feudal system, and the +infancy of a better civilization than that of Rome. Or, if we remember +these mediaeval times, they look further off than the Augustan age. The +reason may be, that the old Roman literature survives, and creates for +us an intimacy with the classic ages, which we have no means of forming +with the subsequent ones. + +The Italian climate, moreover, robs age of its reverence and makes it +look newer than it is. Not the Coliseum, nor the tombs of the Appian +Way, nor the oldest pillar in the Forum, nor any other Roman ruin, be +it as dilapidated as it may, ever give the impression of venerable +antiquity which we gather, along with the ivy, from the gray walls of an +English abbey or castle. And yet every brick or stone, which we pick up +among the former, had fallen ages before the foundation of the latter +was begun. This is owing to the kindliness with which Natures takes an +English ruin to her heart, covering it with ivy, as tenderly as Robin +Redbreast covered the dead babes with forest leaves. She strives to make +it a part of herself, gradually obliterating the handiwork of man, and +supplanting it with her own mosses and trailing verdure, till she has +won the whole structure back. But, in Italy, whenever man has once hewn +a stone, Nature forthwith relinquishes her right to it, and never lays +her finger on it again. Age after age finds it bare and naked, in the +barren sunshine, and leaves it so. Besides this natural disadvantage, +too, each succeeding century, in Rome, has done its best to ruin the +very ruins, so far as their picturesque effect is concerned, by stealing +away the marble and hewn stone, and leaving only yellow bricks, which +never can look venerable. + + +The party ascended the winding way that leads from the Forum to the +Piazza of the Campidoglio on the summit of the Capitoline Hill. They +stood awhile to contemplate the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus +Aurelius. The moonlight glistened upon traces of the gilding which +had once covered both rider and steed; these were almost gone, but the +aspect of dignity was still perfect, clothing the figure as it were with +an imperial robe of light. It is the most majestic representation of +the kingly character that ever the world has seen. A sight of the old +heathen emperor is enough to create an evanescent sentiment of loyalty +even in a democratic bosom, so august does he look, so fit to rule, +so worthy of man’s profoundest homage and obedience, so inevitably +attractive of his love. He stretches forth his hand with an air of grand +beneficence and unlimited authority, as if uttering a decree from which +no appeal was permissible, but in which the obedient subject would +find his highest interests consulted; a command that was in itself a +benediction. + +“The sculptor of this statue knew what a king should be,” observed +Kenyon, “and knew, likewise, the heart of mankind, and how it craves a +true ruler, under whatever title, as a child its father.” + +“O, if there were but one such man as this?” exclaimed Miriam. “One such +man in an age, and one in all the world; then how speedily would the +strife, wickedness, and sorrow of us poor creatures be relieved. We +would come to him with our griefs, whatever they might be,--even a poor, +frail woman burdened with her heavy heart,--and lay them at his feet, +and never need to take them up again. The rightful king would see to +all.” + +“What an idea of the regal office and duty!” said Kenyon, with a smile. +“It is a woman’s idea of the whole matter to perfection. It is Hilda’s, +too, no doubt?” + +“No,” answered the quiet Hilda; “I should never look for such assistance +from an earthly king.” + +“Hilda, my religious Hilda,” whispered Miriam, suddenly drawing the girl +close to her, “do you know how it is with me? I would give all I have or +hope--my life, O how freely--for one instant of your trust in God! You +little guess my need of it. You really think, then, that He sees and +cares for us?” + +“Miriam, you frighten me.” + +“Hush, hush? do not let them hear yet!” whispered Miriam. “I frighten +you, you say; for Heaven’s sake, how? Am I strange? Is there anything +wild in my behavior?” + +“Only for that moment,” replied Hilda, “because you seemed to doubt +God’s providence.” + +“We will talk of that another time,” said her friend. “Just now it is +very dark to me.” + +On the left of the Piazza of the Campidoglio, as you face cityward, and +at the head of the long and stately flight of steps descending from the +Capitoline Hill to the level of lower Rome, there is a narrow lane +or passage. Into this the party of our friends now turned. The path +ascended a little, and ran along under the walls of a palace, but soon +passed through a gateway, and terminated in a small paved courtyard. It +was bordered by a low parapet. + +The spot, for some reason or other, impressed them as exceedingly +lonely. On one side was the great height of the palace, with the +moonshine falling over it, and showing all the windows barred and +shuttered. Not a human eye could look down into the little courtyard, +even if the seemingly deserted palace had a tenant. On all other sides +of its narrow compass there was nothing but the parapet, which as it now +appeared was built right on the edge of a steep precipice. Gazing +from its imminent brow, the party beheld a crowded confusion of roofs +spreading over the whole space between them and the line of hills that +lay beyond the Tiber. A long, misty wreath, just dense enough to catch +a little of the moonshine, floated above the houses, midway towards the +hilly line, and showed the course of the unseen river. Far away on the +right, the moon gleamed on the dome of St. Peter’s as well as on many +lesser and nearer domes. + +“What a beautiful view of the city!” exclaimed Hilda; “and I never saw +Rome from this point before.” + +“It ought to afford a good prospect,” said the sculptor; “for it +was from this point--at least we are at liberty to think so, if we +choose--that many a famous Roman caught his last glimpse of his native +city, and of all other earthly things. This is one of the sides of the +Tarpeian Rock. Look over the parapet, and see what a sheer tumble there +might still be for a traitor, in spite of the thirty feet of soil that +have accumulated at the foot of the precipice.” + +They all bent over, and saw that the cliff fell perpendicularly downward +to about the depth, or rather more, at which the tall palace rose in +height above their heads. Not that it was still the natural, shaggy +front of the original precipice; for it appeared to be cased in ancient +stonework, through which the primeval rock showed its face here and +there grimly and doubtfully. Mosses grew on the slight projections, and +little shrubs sprouted out of the crevices, but could not much soften +the stern aspect of the cliff. Brightly as the Italian moonlight fell +adown the height, it scarcely showed what portion of it was man’s work +and what was nature’s, but left it all in very much the same kind of +ambiguity and half-knowledge in which antiquarians generally leave the +identity of Roman remains. + +The roofs of some poor-looking houses, which had been built against the +base and sides of the cliff, rose nearly midway to the top; but from an +angle of the parapet there was a precipitous plunge straight downward +into a stonepaved court. + +“I prefer this to any other site as having been veritably the Traitor’s +Leap,” said Kenyon, “because it was so convenient to the Capitol. It was +an admirable idea of those stern old fellows to fling their political +criminals down from the very summit on which stood the Senate House and +Jove’s Temple, emblems of the institutions which they sought to violate. +It symbolizes how sudden was the fall in those days from the utmost +height of ambition to its profoundest ruin.” + +“Come, come; it is midnight,” cried another artist, “too late to be +moralizing here. We are literally dreaming on the edge of a precipice. +Let us go home.” + +“It is time, indeed,” said Hilda. + +The sculptor was not without hopes that he might be favored with the +sweet charge of escorting Hilda to the foot of her tower. Accordingly, +when the party prepared to turn back, he offered her his arm. Hilda at +first accepted it; but when they had partly threaded the passage between +the little courtyard and the Piazza del Campidoglio, she discovered that +Miriam had remained behind. + +“I must go back,” said she, withdrawing her arm from Kenyon’s; “but pray +do not come with me. Several times this evening I have had a fancy that +Miriam had something on her mind, some sorrow or perplexity, which, +perhaps, it would relieve her to tell me about. No, no; do not turn +back! Donatello will be a sufficient guardian for Miriam and me.” + +The sculptor was a good deal mortified, and perhaps a little angry: but +he knew Hilda’s mood of gentle decision and independence too well not to +obey her. He therefore suffered the fearless maiden to return alone. + +Meanwhile Miriam had not noticed the departure of the rest of the +company; she remained on the edge of the precipice and Donatello along +with her. + +“It would be a fatal fall, still,” she said to herself, looking over the +parapet, and shuddering as her eye measured the depth. “Yes; surely yes! +Even without the weight of an overburdened heart, a human body would +fall heavily enough upon those stones to shake all its joints asunder. +How soon it would be over!” + +Donatello, of whose presence she was possibly not aware, now pressed +closer to her side; and he, too, like Miriam, bent over the low parapet +and trembled violently. Yet he seemed to feel that perilous fascination +which haunts the brow of precipices, tempting the unwary one to fling +himself over for the very horror of the thing; for, after drawing +hastily back, he again looked down, thrusting himself out farther than +before. He then stood silent a brief space, struggling, perhaps, to make +himself conscious of the historic associations of the scene. + +“What are you thinking of, Donatello?” asked Miriam. + +“Who are they,” said he, looking earnestly in her face, “who have been +flung over here in days gone by?” + +“Men that cumbered the world,” she replied. “Men whose lives were the +bane of their fellow creatures. Men who poisoned the air, which is the +common breath of all, for their own selfish purposes. There was short +work with such men in old Roman times. Just in the moment of their +triumph, a hand, as of an avenging giant, clutched them, and dashed the +wretches down this precipice.” + +“Was it well done?” asked the young man. + +“It was well done,” answered Miriam; “innocent persons were saved by the +destruction of a guilty one, who deserved his doom.” + +While this brief conversation passed, Donatello had once or twice +glanced aside with a watchful air, just as a hound may often be seen to +take sidelong note of some suspicious object, while he gives his more +direct attention to something nearer at, hand. Miriam seemed now first +to become aware of the silence that had followed upon the cheerful talk +and laughter of a few moments before. + +Looking round, she perceived that all her company of merry friends had +retired, and Hilda, too, in whose soft and quiet presence she had always +an indescribable feeling of security. All gone; and only herself and +Donatello left hanging over the brow of the ominous precipice. + +Not so, however; not entirely alone! In the basement wall of the palace, +shaded from the moon, there was a deep, empty niche, that had probably +once contained a statue; not empty, either; for a figure now came forth +from it and approached Miriam. She must have had cause to dread some +unspeakable evil from this strange persecutor, and to know that this was +the very crisis of her calamity; for as he drew near, such a cold, sick +despair crept over her that it impeded her breath, and benumbed her +natural promptitude of thought. Miriam seemed dreamily to remember +falling on her knees; but, in her whole recollection of that wild +moment, she beheld herself as in a dim show, and could not well +distinguish what was done and suffered; no, not even whether she were +really an actor and sufferer in the scene. + +Hilda, meanwhile, had separated herself from the sculptor, and turned +back to rejoin her friend. At a distance, she still heard the mirth of +her late companions, who were going down the cityward descent of the +Capitoline Hill; they had set up a new stave of melody, in which her +own soft voice, as well as the powerful sweetness of Miriam’s, was sadly +missed. + +The door of the little courtyard had swung upon its hinges, and +partly closed itself. Hilda (whose native gentleness pervaded all her +movements) was quietly opening it, when she was startled, midway, by the +noise of a struggle within, beginning and ending all in one breathless +instant. Along with it, or closely succeeding it, was a loud, fearful +cry, which quivered upward through the air, and sank quivering +downward to the earth. Then, a silence! Poor Hilda had looked into the +court-yard, and saw the whole quick passage of a deed, which took but +that little time to grave itself in the eternal adamant. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +THE FAUN’S TRANSFORMATION + + +The door of the courtyard swung slowly, and closed itself of its own +accord. Miriam and Donatello were now alone there. She clasped her +hands, and looked wildly at the young man, whose form seemed to have +dilated, and whose eyes blazed with the fierce energy that had suddenly +inspired him. It had kindled him into a man; it had developed within him +an intelligence which was no native characteristic of the Donatello whom +we have heretofore known. But that simple and joyous creature was gone +forever. + +“What have you done?” said Miriam, in a horror-stricken whisper. + +The glow of rage was still lurid on Donatello’s face, and now flashed +out again from his eyes. + +“I did what ought to be done to a traitor!” he replied. “I did what your +eyes bade me do, when I asked them with mine, as I held the wretch over +the precipice!” + +These last words struck Miriam like a bullet. Could it be so? Had her +eyes provoked or assented to this deed? She had not known it. But, alas! +looking back into the frenzy and turmoil of the scene just acted, she +could not deny--she was not sure whether it might be so, or no--that a +wild joy had flamed up in her heart, when she beheld her persecutor in +his mortal peril. Was it horror?--or ecstasy? or both in one? Be the +emotion what it might, it had blazed up more madly, when Donatello +flung his victim off the cliff, and more and more, while his shriek went +quivering downward. With the dead thump upon the stones below had come +an unutterable horror. + +“And my eyes bade you do it!” repeated she. + +They both leaned over the parapet, and gazed downward as earnestly as if +some inestimable treasure had fallen over, and were yet recoverable. +On the pavement below was a dark mass, lying in a heap, with little or +nothing human in its appearance, except that the hands were stretched +out, as if they might have clutched for a moment at the small square +stones. But there was no motion in them now. Miriam watched the heap of +mortality while she could count a hundred, which she took pains to do. +No stir; not a finger moved! + +“You have killed him, Donatello! He is quite dead!” said she. “Stone +dead! Would I were so, too!” + +“Did you not mean that he should die?” sternly asked Donatello, still in +the glow of that intelligence which passion had developed in him. “There +was short time to weigh the matter; but he had his trial in that breath +or two while I held him over the cliff, and his sentence in that one +glance, when your eyes responded to mine! Say that I have slain him +against your will,--say that he died without your whole consent,--and, +in another breath, you shall see me lying beside him.” + +“O, never!” cried Miriam. “My one, own friend! Never, never, never!” + +She turned to him,--the guilty, bloodstained, lonely woman,--she turned +to her fellow criminal, the youth, so lately innocent, whom she had +drawn into her doom. She pressed him close, close to her bosom, with a +clinging embrace that brought their two hearts together, till the horror +and agony of each was combined into one emotion, and that a kind of +rapture. + +“Yes, Donatello, you speak the truth!” said she; “my heart consented to +what you did. We two slew yonder wretch. The deed knots us together, for +time and eternity, like the coil of a serpent!” + +They threw one other glance at the heap of death below, to assure +themselves that it was there; so like a dream was the whole thing. Then +they turned from that fatal precipice, and came out of the courtyard, +arm in arm, heart in heart. Instinctively, they were heedful not to +sever themselves so much as a pace or two from one another, for fear +of the terror and deadly chill that would thenceforth wait for them +in solitude. Their deed--the crime which Donatello wrought, and Miriam +accepted on the instant--had wreathed itself, as she said, like a +serpent, in inextricable links about both their souls, and drew them +into one, by its terrible contractile power. It was closer than a +marriage bond. So intimate, in those first moments, was the union, that +it seemed as if their new sympathy annihilated all other ties, and that +they were released from the chain of humanity; a new sphere, a special +law, had been created for them alone. The world could not come near +them; they were safe! + +When they reached the flight of steps leading downward from the Capitol, +there was a faroff noise of singing and laughter. Swift, indeed, had +been the rush of the crisis that was come and gone! This was still the +merriment of the party that had so recently been their companions. They +recognized the voices which, a little while ago, had accorded and sung +in cadence with their own. But they were familiar voices no more; they +sounded strangely, and, as it were, out of the depths of space; so +remote was all that pertained to the past life of these guilty ones, in +the moral seclusion that had suddenly extended itself around them. But +how close, and ever closer, did the breath of the immeasurable waste, +that lay between them and all brotherhood or sisterhood, now press them +one within the other! + +“O friend!” cried Miriam, so putting her soul into the word that it +took a heavy richness of meaning, and seemed never to have been spoken +before, “O friend, are you conscious, as I am, of this companionship +that knits our heart-strings together?” + +“I feel it, Miriam,” said Donatello. “We draw one breath; we live one +life!” + +“Only yesterday,” continued Miriam; “nay, only a short half-hour ago, +I shivered in an icy solitude. No friendship, no sisterhood, could come +near enough to keep the warmth within my heart. In an instant all is +changed! There can be no more loneliness!” + +“None, Miriam!” said Donatello. + +“None, my beautiful one!” responded Miriam, gazing in his face, which +had taken a higher, almost an heroic aspect, from the strength of +passion. “None, my innocent one! Surely, it is no crime that we have +committed. One wretched and worthless life has been sacrificed to cement +two other lives for evermore.” + +“For evermore, Miriam!” said Donatello; “cemented with his blood!” + +The young man started at the word which he had himself spoken; it may be +that it brought home, to the simplicity of his imagination, what he had +not before dreamed of,--the ever-increasing loathsomeness of a union +that consists in guilt. Cemented with blood, which would corrupt and +grow more noisome forever and forever, but bind them none the less +strictly for that. + + +“Forget it! Cast it all behind you!” said Miriam, detecting, by her +sympathy, the pang that was in his heart. “The deed has done its office, +and has no existence any more.” + +They flung the past behind them, as she counselled, or else distilled +from it a fiery, intoxication, which sufficed to carry them triumphantly +through those first moments of their doom. For guilt has its moment of +rapture too. The foremost result of a broken law is ever an ecstatic +sense of freedom. And thus there exhaled upward (out of their dark +sympathy, at the base of which lay a human corpse) a bliss, or an +insanity, which the unhappy pair imagined to be well worth the sleepy +innocence that was forever lost to them. + +As their spirits rose to the solemn madness of the occasion, they went +onward, not stealthily, not fearfully, but with a stately gait and +aspect. Passion lent them (as it does to meaner shapes) its brief +nobility of carriage. They trod through the streets of Rome, as if they, +too, were among the majestic and guilty shadows, that, from ages +long gone by, have haunted the blood-stained city. And, at Miriam’s +suggestion, they turned aside, for the sake of treading loftily past the +old site of Pompey’s Forum. + +“For there was a great deed done here!” she said,--“a deed of blood +like ours! Who knows but we may meet the high and ever-sad fraternity of +Caesar’s murderers, and exchange a salutation?” + +“Are they our brethren, now?” asked Donatello. + +“Yes; all of them,” said Miriam,--“and many another, whom the world +little dreams of, has been made our brother or our sister, by what we +have done within this hour!” + +And at the thought she shivered. Where then was the seclusion, the +remoteness, the strange, lonesome Paradise, into which she and her one +companion had been transported by their crime? Was there, indeed, no +such refuge, but only a crowded thoroughfare and jostling throng of +criminals? And was it true, that whatever hand had a blood-stain on +it,--or had poured out poison,--or strangled a babe at its birth,--or +clutched a grandsire’s throat, he sleeping, and robbed him of his few +last breaths,--had now the right to offer itself in fellowship with +their two hands? Too certainly, that right existed. It is a terrible +thought, that an individual wrong-doing melts into the great mass of +human crime, and makes us, who dreamed only of our own little separate +sin,--makes us guilty of the whole. And thus Miriam and her lover were +not an insulated pair, but members of an innumerable confraternity of +guilty ones, all shuddering at each other. + +“But not now; not yet,” she murmured to herself. “To-night, at least, +there shall be no remorse!” + +Wandering without a purpose, it so chanced that they turned into a +street, at one extremity of which stood Hilda’s tower. There was a +light in her high chamber; a light, too, at the Virgin’s shrine; and the +glimmer of these two was the loftiest light beneath the stars. Miriam +drew Donatello’s arm, to make him stop, and while they stood at some +distance looking at Hilda’s window, they beheld her approach and throw +it open. She leaned far forth, and extended her clasped hands towards +the sky. + +“The good, pure child! She is praying, Donatello,” said Miriam, with a +kind of simple joy at witnessing the devoutness of her friend. Then her +own sin rushed upon her, and she shouted, with the rich strength of her +voice, “Pray for us, Hilda; we need it!” + +Whether Hilda heard and recognized the voice we cannot tell. The window +was immediately closed, and her form disappeared from behind the snowy +curtain. Miriam felt this to be a token that the cry of her condemned +spirit was shut out of heaven. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +THE BURIAL CHANT + + +The Church of the Capuchins (where, as the reader may remember, some of +our acquaintances had made an engagement to meet) stands a little aside +from the Piazza Barberini. Thither, at the hour agreed upon, on the +morning after the scenes last described, Miriam and Donatello directed +their steps. At no time are people so sedulously careful to keep their +trifling appointments, attend to their ordinary occupations, and thus +put a commonplace aspect on life, as when conscious of some secret that +if suspected would make them look monstrous in the general eye. + +Yet how tame and wearisome is the impression of all ordinary things in +the contrast with such a fact! How sick and tremulous, the next morning, +is the spirit that has dared so much only the night before! How icy cold +is the heart, when the fervor, the wild ecstasy of passion has faded +away, and sunk down among the dead ashes of the fire that blazed so +fiercely, and was fed by the very substance of its life! How faintly +does the criminal stagger onward, lacking the impulse of that strong +madness that hurried him into guilt, and treacherously deserts him in +the midst of it! + +When Miriam and Donatello drew near the church, they found only Kenyon +awaiting them on the steps. Hilda had likewise promised to be of the +party, but had not yet appeared. Meeting the sculptor, Miriam put a +force upon herself and succeeded in creating an artificial flow +of spirits, which, to any but the nicest observation, was quite as +effective as a natural one. She spoke sympathizingly to the sculptor on +the subject of Hilda’s absence, and somewhat annoyed him by alluding in +Donatello’s hearing to an attachment which had never been openly avowed, +though perhaps plainly enough betrayed. He fancied that Miriam did not +quite recognize the limits of the strictest delicacy; he even went so +far as to generalize, and conclude within himself, that this deficiency +is a more general failing in woman than in man, the highest refinement +being a masculine attribute. + +But the idea was unjust to the sex at large, and especially so to this +poor Miriam, who was hardly responsible for her frantic efforts to be +gay. Possibly, moreover, the nice action of the mind is set ajar by any +violent shock, as of great misfortune or great crime, so that the finer +perceptions may be blurred thenceforth, and the effect be traceable in +all the minutest conduct of life. + +“Did you see anything of the dear child after you left us?” asked +Miriam, still keeping Hilda as her topic of conversation. “I missed her +sadly on my way homeward; for nothing insures me such delightful and +innocent dreams (I have experienced it twenty times) as a talk late in +the evening with Hilda.” + +“So I should imagine,” said the sculptor gravely; “but it is an +advantage that I have little or no opportunity of enjoying. I know not +what became of Hilda after my parting from you. She was not especially +my companion in any part of our walk. The last I saw of her she +was hastening back to rejoin you in the courtyard of the Palazzo +Caffarelli.” + +“Impossible!” cried Miriam, starting. + +“Then did you not see her again?” inquired Kenyon, in some alarm. + +“Not there,” answered Miriam quietly; “indeed, I followed pretty closely +on the heels of the rest of the party. But do not be alarmed on Hilda’s +account; the Virgin is bound to watch over the good child, for the sake +of the piety with which she keeps the lamp alight at her shrine. And +besides, I have always felt that Hilda is just as safe in these evil +streets of Rome as her white doves when they fly downwards from the +tower top, and run to and fro among the horses’ feet. There is certainly +a providence on purpose for Hilda, if for no other human creature.” + +“I religiously believe it,” rejoined the sculptor; “and yet my mind +would be the easier, if I knew that she had returned safely to her +tower.” + +“Then make yourself quite easy,” answered Miriam. “I saw her (and it +is the last sweet sight that I remember) leaning from her window midway +between earth and sky!” + +Kenyon now looked at Donatello. + +“You seem out of spirits, my dear friend,” he observed. “This languid +Roman atmosphere is not the airy wine that you were accustomed to +breathe at home. I have not forgotten your hospitable invitation to +meet you this summer at your castle among the Apennines. It is my fixed +purpose to come, I assure you. We shall both be the better for some deep +draughts of the mountain breezes.” + +“It may he,” said Donatello, with unwonted sombreness; “the old house +seemed joyous when I was a child. But as I remember it now it was a grim +place, too.” + +The sculptor looked more attentively at the young man, and was surprised +and alarmed to observe how entirely the fine, fresh glow of animal +spirits had departed out of his face. Hitherto, moreover, even while he +was standing perfectly still, there had been a kind of possible gambol +indicated in his aspect. It was quite gone now. All his youthful gayety, +and with it his simplicity of manner, was eclipsed, if not utterly +extinct. + + +“You are surely ill, my dear fellow,” exclaimed Kenyon. + +“Am I? Perhaps so,” said Donatello indifferently; “I never have been +ill, and know not what it may be.” + +“Do not make the poor lad fancy-sink,” whispered Miriam, pulling the +sculptor’s sleeve. “He is of a nature to lie down and die at once, if he +finds himself drawing such melancholy breaths as we ordinary people are +enforced to burden our lungs withal. But we must get him away from this +old, dreamy and dreary Rome, where nobody but himself ever thought of +being gay. Its influences are too heavy to sustain the life of such a +creature.” + +The above conversation had passed chiefly on the steps of the +Cappuccini; and, having said so much, Miriam lifted the leathern curtain +that hangs before all church-doors in italy. “Hilda has forgotten her +appointment,” she observed, “or else her maiden slumbers are very sound +this morning. We will wait for her no longer.” + +They entered the nave. The interior of the church was of moderate +compass, but of good architecture, with a vaulted roof over the nave, +and a row of dusky chapels on either side of it instead of the customary +side-aisles. Each chapel had its saintly shrine, hung round with +offerings; its picture above the altar, although closely veiled, if by +any painter of renown; and its hallowed tapers, burning continually, to +set alight the devotion of the worshippers. The pavement of the nave was +chiefly of marble, and looked old and broken, and was shabbily patched +here and there with tiles of brick; it was inlaid, moreover, with +tombstones of the mediaeval taste, on which were quaintly sculptured +borders, figures, and portraits in bas-relief, and Latin epitaphs, +now grown illegible by the tread of footsteps over them. The church +appertains to a convent of Capuchin monks; and, as usually happens when +a reverend brotherhood have such an edifice in charge, the floor seemed +never to have been scrubbed or swept, and had as little the aspect of +sanctity as a kennel; whereas, in all churches of nunneries, the maiden +sisterhood invariably show the purity of their own hearts by the virgin +cleanliness and visible consecration of the walls and pavement. + +As our friends entered the church, their eyes rested at once on a +remarkable object in the centre of the nave. It was either the actual +body, or, as might rather have been supposed at first glance, the +cunningly wrought waxen face and suitably draped figure of a dead monk. +This image of wax or clay-cold reality, whichever it might be, lay on +a slightly elevated bier, with three tall candles burning on each side, +another tall candle at the head, and another at the foot. There was +music, too; in harmony with so funereal a spectacle. From beneath +the pavement of the church came the deep, lugubrious strain of a De +Profundis, which sounded like an utterance of the tomb itself; so +dismally did it rumble through the burial vaults, and ooze up among the +flat gravestones and sad epitaphs, filling the church as with a gloomy +mist. + +“I must look more closely at that dead monk before we leave the church,” + remarked the sculptor. “In the study of my art, I have gained many a +hint from the dead which the living could never have given me.” + +“I can well imagine it,” answered Miriam. “One clay image is readily +copied from another. But let us first see Guido’s picture. The light is +favorable now.” + +Accordingly, they turned into the first chapel on the right hand, as you +enter the nave; and there they beheld,--not the picture, indeed,--but +a closely drawn curtain. The churchmen of Italy make no scruple of +sacrificing the very purpose for which a work of sacred art has been +created; that of opening the way; for religious sentiment through the +quick medium of sight, by bringing angels, saints, and martyrs down +visibly upon earth; of sacrificing this high purpose, and, for aught +they know, the welfare of many souls along with it, to the hope of a +paltry fee. Every work by an artist of celebrity is hidden behind a +veil, and seldom revealed, except to Protestants, who scorn it as an +object of devotion, and value it only for its artistic merit. + +The sacristan was quickly found, however, and lost no time in disclosing +the youthful Archangel, setting his divine foot on the head of his +fallen adversary. It was an image of that greatest of future events, +which we hope for so ardently, at least, while we are young,--but find +so very long in coming, the triumph of goodness over the evil principle. + +“Where can Hilda be?” exclaimed Kenyon. “It is not her custom ever to +fail in an engagement; and the present one was made entirely on +her account. Except herself, you know, we were all agreed in our +recollection of the picture.” + +“But we were wrong, and Hilda right, as you perceive,” said Miriam, +directing his attention to the point on which their dispute of the night +before had arisen. “It is not easy to detect her astray as regards any +picture on which those clear, soft eyes of hers have ever rested.” + +“And she has studied and admired few pictures so much as this,” observed +the sculptor. “No wonder; for there is hardly another so beautiful in +the world. What an expression of heavenly severity in the Archangel’s +face! There is a degree of pain, trouble, and disgust at being brought +in contact with sin, even for the purpose of quelling and punishing it; +and yet a celestial tranquillity pervades his whole being.” + +“I have never been able,” said Miriam, “to admire this picture nearly so +much as Hilda does, in its moral and intellectual aspect. If it cost her +more trouble to be good, if her soul were less white and pure, she would +be a more competent critic of this picture, and would estimate it not +half so high. I see its defects today more clearly than ever before.” + +“What are some of them?” asked Kenyon. + +“That Archangel, now,” Miriam continued; “how fair he looks, with his +unruffled wings, with his unhacked sword, and clad in his bright +armor, and that exquisitely fitting sky-blue tunic, cut in the latest +Paradisiacal mode! What a dainty air of the first celestial society! +With what half-scornful delicacy he sets his prettily sandalled foot +on the head of his prostrate foe! But, is it thus that virtue looks the +moment after its death struggle with evil? No, no; I could have told +Guido better. A full third of the Archangel’s feathers should have been +torn from his wings; the rest all ruffled, till they looked like Satan’s +own! His sword should be streaming with blood, and perhaps broken +halfway to the hilt; his armor crushed, his robes rent, his breast gory; +a bleeding gash on his brow, cutting right across the stern scowl of +battle! He should press his foot hard down upon the old serpent, as +if his very soul depended upon it, feeling him squirm mightily, and +doubting whether the fight were half over yet, and how the victory might +turn! And, with all this fierceness, this grimness, this unutterable +horror, there should still be something high, tender, and holy in +Michael’s eyes, and around his mouth. But the battle never was such a +child’s play as Guido’s dapper Archangel seems to have found it.” + +“For Heaven’s sake, Miriam,” cried Kenyon, astonished at the wild energy +of her talk; “paint the picture of man’s struggle against sin according +to your own idea! I think it will be a masterpiece.” + +“The picture would have its share of truth, I assure you,” she answered; +“but I am sadly afraid the victory would fail on the wrong side. Just +fancy a smoke-blackened, fiery-eyed demon bestriding that nice young +angel, clutching his white throat with one of his hinder claws; and +giving a triumphant whisk of his scaly tail, with a poisonous dart at +the end of it! That is what they risk, poor souls, who do battle with +Michael’s enemy.” + +It now, perhaps, struck Miriam that her mental disquietude was impelling +her to an undue vivacity; for she paused, and turned away from the +picture, without saying a word more about it. All this while, moreover, +Donatello had been very ill at ease, casting awe-stricken and inquiring +glances at the dead monk; as if he could look nowhere but at that +ghastly object, merely because it shocked him. Death has probably a +peculiar horror and ugliness, when forced upon the contemplation of a +person so naturally joyous as Donatello, who lived with completeness in +the present moment, and was able to form but vague images of the future. + +“What is the matter, Donatello?” whispered Miriam soothingly. “You are +quite in a tremble, my poor friend! What is it?” + +“This awful chant from beneath the church,” answered Donatello; “it +oppresses me; the air is so heavy with it that I can scarcely draw my +breath. And yonder dead monk! I feel as if he were lying right across my +heart.” + +“Take courage!” whispered she again “come, we will approach close to +the dead monk. The only way, in such cases, is to stare the ugly horror +right in the face; never a sidelong glance, nor half-look, for those are +what show a frightfull thing in its frightfullest aspect. Lean on me, +dearest friend! My heart is very strong for both of us. Be brave; and +all is well.” + +Donatello hung back for a moment, but then pressed close to Miriam’s +side, and suffered her to lead him up to the bier. The sculptor +followed. A number of persons, chiefly women, with several children +among them, were standing about the corpse; and as our three friends +drew nigh, a mother knelt down, and caused her little boy to kneel, +both kissing the beads and crucifix that hung from the monk’s girdle. +Possibly he had died in the odor of sanctity; or, at all events, death +and his brown frock and cowl made a sacred image of this reverend +father. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +THE DEAD CAPUCHIN + + +The dead monk was clad, as when alive, in the brown woollen frock of +the Capuchins, with the hood drawn over his head, but so as to leave the +features and a portion of the beard uncovered. His rosary and cross hung +at his side; his hands were folded over his breast; his feet (he was of +a barefooted order in his lifetime, and continued so in death) protruded +from beneath his habit, stiff and stark, with a more waxen look than +even his face. They were tied together at the ankles with a black +ribbon. + +The countenance, as we have already said, was fully displayed. It had a +purplish hue upon it, unlike the paleness of an ordinary corpse, but +as little resembling the flush of natural life. The eyelids were +but partially drawn down, and showed the eyeballs beneath; as if the +deceased friar were stealing a glimpse at the bystanders, to watch +whether they were duly impressed with the solemnity of his obsequies. +The shaggy eyebrows gave sternness to the look. Miriam passed between +two of the lighted candles, and stood close beside the bier. + +“My God!” murmured she. “What is this?” + +She grasped Donatello’s hand, and, at the same instant, felt him give a +convulsive shudder, which she knew to have been caused by a sudden +and terrible throb of the heart. His hand, by an instantaneous change, +became like ice within hers, which likewise grew so icy that their +insensible fingers might have rattled, one against the other. No wonder +that their blood curdled; no wonder that their hearts leaped and paused! +The dead face of the monk, gazing at them beneath its half-closed +eyelids, was the same visage that had glared upon their naked souls, the +past midnight, as Donatello flung him over the precipice. + +The sculptor was standing at the foot of the bier, and had not yet seen +the monk’s features. + +“Those naked feet!” said he. “I know not why, but they affect me +strangely. They have walked to and fro over the hard pavements of Rome, +and through a hundred other rough ways of this life, where the monk went +begging for his brotherhood; along the cloisters and dreary corridors +of his convent, too, from his youth upward! It is a suggestive idea, to +track those worn feet backward through all the paths they have trodden, +ever since they were the tender and rosy little feet of a baby, and +(cold as they now are) were kept warm in his mother’s hand.” + +As his companions, whom the sculptor supposed to be close by him, made +no response to his fanciful musing, he looked up, and saw them at the +head of the bier. He advanced thither himself. + +“Ha!” exclaimed he. + +He cast a horror-stricken and bewildered glance at Miriam, but withdrew +it immediately. Not that he had any definite suspicion, or, it may be, +even a remote idea, that she could be held responsible in the least +degree for this man’s sudden death. In truth, it seemed too wild a +thought to connect, in reality, Miriam’s persecutor of many past months +and the vagabond of the preceding night, with the dead Capuchin +of to-day. It resembled one of those unaccountable changes and +interminglings of identity, which so often occur among the personages +of a dream. But Kenyon, as befitted the professor of an imaginative art, +was endowed with an exceedingly quick sensibility, which was apt to give +him intimations of the true state of matters that lay beyond his actual +vision. There was a whisper in his ear; it said, “Hush!” Without asking +himself wherefore, he resolved to be silent as regarded the mysterious +discovery which he had made, and to leave any remark or exclamation +to be voluntarily offered by Miriam. If she never spoke, then let the +riddle be unsolved. + +And now occurred a circumstance that would seem too fantastic to be +told, if it had not actually happened, precisely as we set it down. As +the three friends stood by the bier, they saw that a little stream of +blood had begun to ooze from the dead monk’s nostrils; it crept slowly +towards the thicket of his beard, where, in the course of a moment or +two, it hid itself. + +“How strange!” ejaculated Kenyon. “The monk died of apoplexy, I suppose, +or by some sudden accident, and the blood has not yet congealed.” + +“Do you consider that a sufficient explanation?” asked Miriam, with a +smile from which the sculptor involuntarily turned away his eyes. “Does +it satisfy you?” + +“And why not?” he inquired. + +“Of course, you know the old superstition about this phenomenon of blood +flowing from a dead body,” she rejoined. “How can we tell but that the +murderer of this monk (or, possibly, it may be only that privileged +murderer, his physician) may have just entered the church?” + +“I cannot jest about it,” said Kenyon. “It is an ugly sight!” + +“True, true; horrible to see, or dream of!” she replied, with one of +those long, tremulous sighs, which so often betray a sick heart by +escaping unexpectedly. “We will not look at it any more. Come away, +Donatello. Let us escape from this dismal church. The sunshine will do +you good.” + +When had ever a woman such a trial to sustain as this! By no possible +supposition could Miriam explain the identity of the dead Capuchin, +quietly and decorously laid out in the nave of his convent church, with +that of her murdered persecutor, flung heedlessly at the foot of the +precipice. The effect upon her imagination was as if a strange and +unknown corpse had miraculously, while she was gazing at it, assumed the +likeness of that face, so terrible henceforth in her remembrance. It was +a symbol, perhaps, of the deadly iteration with which she was doomed +to behold the image of her crime reflected back upon her in a thousand +ways, and converting the great, calm face of Nature, in the whole, and +in its innumerable details, into a manifold reminiscence of that one +dead visage. + +No sooner had Miriam turned away from the bier, and gone a few steps, +than she fancied the likeness altogether an illusion, which would vanish +at a closer and colder view. She must look at it again, therefore, and +at once; or else the grave would close over the face, and leave the +awful fantasy that had connected itself therewith fixed ineffaceably in +her brain. + +“Wait for me, one moment!” she said to her companions. “Only a moment!” + +So she went back, and gazed once more at the corpse. Yes; these were +the features that Miriam had known so well; this was the visage that she +remembered from a far longer date than the most intimate of her friends +suspected; this form of clay had held the evil spirit which blasted her +sweet youth, and compelled her, as it were, to stain her womanhood +with crime. But, whether it were the majesty of death, or something +originally noble and lofty in the character of the dead, which the soul +had stamped upon the features, as it left them; so it was that Miriam +now quailed and shook, not for the vulgar horror of the spectacle, but +for the severe, reproachful glance that seemed to come from between +those half-closed lids. True, there had been nothing, in his lifetime, +viler than this man. She knew it; there was no other fact within her +consciousness that she felt to be so certain; and yet, because her +persecutor found himself safe and irrefutable in death, he frowned upon +his victim, and threw back the blame on her! + +“Is it thou, indeed?” she murmured, under her breath. “Then thou hast +no right to scowl upon me so! But art thou real, or a vision?” She bent +down over the dead monk, till one of her rich curls brushed against his +forehead. She touched one of his folded hands with her finger. + +“It is he,” said Miriam. “There is the scar, that I know so well, on his +brow. And it is no vision; he is palpable to my touch! I will question +the fact no longer, but deal with it as I best can.” + +It was wonderful to see how the crisis developed in Miriam its own +proper strength, and the faculty of sustaining the demands which it made +upon her fortitude. She ceased to tremble; the beautiful woman gazed +sternly at her dead enemy, endeavoring to meet and quell the look of +accusation that he threw from between his half-closed eyelids. + +“No; thou shalt not scowl me down!” said she. “Neither now, nor when +we stand together at the judgment-seat. I fear not to meet thee there. +Farewell, till that next encounter!” + +Haughtily waving her hand, Miriam rejoined her friends, who were +awaiting her at the door of the church. As they went out, the sacristan +stopped them, and proposed to show the cemetery of the convent, where +the deceased members of the fraternity are laid to rest in sacred earth, +brought long ago from Jerusalem. + +“And will yonder monk be buried there?” she asked. + +“Brother Antonio?” exclaimed the sacristan. + +“Surely, our good brother will be put to bed there! His grave is already +dug, and the last occupant has made room for him. Will you look at it, +signorina?” + +“I will!” said Miriam. + +“Then excuse me,” observed Kenyon; “for I shall leave you. One dead monk +has more than sufficed me; and I am not bold enough to face the whole +mortality of the convent.” + +It was easy to see, by Donatello’s looks, that he, as well as the +sculptor, would gladly have escaped a visit to the famous cemetery of +the Cappuccini. But Miriam’s nerves were strained to such a pitch, that +she anticipated a certain solace and absolute relief in passing from +one ghastly spectacle to another of long-accumulated ugliness; and there +was, besides, a singular sense of duty which impelled her to look at +the final resting-place of the being whose fate had been so disastrously +involved with her own. She therefore followed the sacristan’s guidance, +and drew her companion along with her, whispering encouragement as they +went. + +The cemetery is beneath the church, but entirely above ground, and +lighted by a row of iron-grated windows without glass. A corridor runs +along beside these windows, and gives access to three or four vaulted +recesses, or chapels, of considerable breadth and height, the floor of +which consists of the consecrated earth of Jerusalem. It is smoothed +decorously over the deceased brethren of the convent, and is kept +quite free from grass or weeds, such as would grow even in these gloomy +recesses, if pains were not bestowed to root them up. But, as the +cemetery is small, and it is a precious privilege to sleep in holy +ground, the brotherhood are immemorially accustomed, when one of their +number dies, to take the longest buried skeleton out of the oldest +grave, and lay the new slumberer there instead. Thus, each of the good +friars, in his turn, enjoys the luxury of a consecrated bed, attended +with the slight drawback of being forced to get up long before daybreak, +as it were, and make room for another lodger. + +The arrangement of the unearthed skeletons is what makes the special +interest of the cemetery. The arched and vaulted walls of the burial +recesses are supported by massive pillars and pilasters made of +thigh-bones and skulls; the whole material of the structure appears +to be of a similar kind; and the knobs and embossed ornaments of this +strange architecture are represented by the joints of the spine, and +the more delicate tracery by the Smaller bones of the human frame. The +summits of the arches are adorned with entire skeletons, looking as if +they were wrought most skilfully in bas-relief. There is no possibility +of describing how ugly and grotesque is the effect, combined with a +certain artistic merit, nor how much perverted ingenuity has been shown +in this queer way, nor what a multitude of dead monks, through how many +hundred years, must have contributed their bony framework to build +up these great arches of mortality. On some of the skulls there are +inscriptions, purporting that such a monk, who formerly made use of +that particular headpiece, died on such a day and year; but vastly the +greater number are piled up indistinguishably into the architectural +design, like the many deaths that make up the one glory of a victory. + +In the side walls of the vaults are niches where skeleton monks sit or +stand, clad in the brown habits that they wore in life, and labelled +with their names and the dates of their decease. Their skulls (some +quite bare, and others still covered with yellow skin, and hair that +has known the earth-damps) look out from beneath their hoods, grinning +hideously repulsive. One reverend father has his mouth wide open, as if +he had died in the midst of a howl of terror and remorse, which perhaps +is even now screeching through eternity. As a general thing, however, +these frocked and hooded skeletons seem to take a more cheerful view of +their position, and try with ghastly smiles to turn it into a jest. But +the cemetery of the Capuchins is no place to nourish celestial hopes: +the soul sinks forlorn and wretched under all this burden of dusty +death; the holy earth from Jerusalem, so imbued is it with mortality, +has grown as barren of the flowers of Paradise as it is of earthly weeds +and grass. Thank Heaven for its blue sky; it needs a long, upward gaze +to give us back our faith. Not here can we feel ourselves immortal, +where the very altars in these chapels of horrible consecration are +heaps of human bones. + +Yet let us give the cemetery the praise that it deserves. There is no +disagreeable scent, such as might have been expected from the decay of +so many holy persons, in whatever odor of sanctity they may have taken +their departure. The same number of living monks would not smell half so +unexceptionably. + +Miriam went gloomily along the corridor, from one vaulted Golgotha to +another, until in the farthest recess she beheld an open grave. + +“Is that for him who lies yonder in the nave?” she asked. + +“Yes, signorina, this is to be the resting-place of Brother Antonio, who +came to his death last night,” answered the sacristan; “and in yonder +niche, you see, sits a brother who was buried thirty years ago, and has +risen to give him place.” + +“It is not a satisfactory idea,” observed Miriam, “that you poor friars +cannot call even your graves permanently your own. You must lie down +in them, methinks, with a nervous anticipation of being disturbed, like +weary men who know that they shall be summoned out of bed at midnight. +Is it not possible (if money were to be paid for the privilege) to leave +Brother Antonio--if that be his name--in the occupancy of that narrow +grave till the last trumpet sounds?” + +“By no means, signorina; neither is it needful or desirable,” answered +the sacristan. “A quarter of a century’s sleep in the sweet earth +of Jerusalem is better than a thousand years in any other soil. Our +brethren find good rest there. No ghost was ever known to steal out of +this blessed cemetery.” + +“That is well,” responded Miriam; “may he whom you now lay to sleep +prove no exception to the rule!” + +As they left the cemetery she put money into the sacristan’s hand to an +amount that made his eyes open wide and glisten, and requested that it +might be expended in masses for the repose of Father Antonio’s soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +THE MEDICI GARDENS + + +“Donatello,” said Miriam anxiously, as they came through the Piazza +Barberini, “what can I do for you, my beloved friend? You are shaking as +with the cold fit of the Roman fever.” “Yes,” said Donatello; “my heart +shivers.” As soon as she could collect her thoughts, Miriam led the +young man to the gardens of the Villa Medici, hoping that the quiet +shade and sunshine of that delightful retreat would a little revive his +spirits. The grounds are there laid out in the old fashion of straight +paths, with borders of box, which form hedges of great height and +density, and are shorn and trimmed to the evenness of a wall of +stone, at the top and sides. There are green alleys, with long vistas +overshadowed by ilex-trees; and at each intersection of the paths, the +visitor finds seats of lichen-covered stone to repose upon, and marble +statues that look forlornly at him, regretful of their lost noses. In +the more open portions of the garden, before the sculptured front of +the villa, you see fountains and flower-beds, and in their season +a profusion of roses, from which the genial sun of Italy distils a +fragrance, to be scattered abroad by the no less genial breeze. + +But Donatello drew no delight from these things. He walked onward in +silent apathy, and looked at Miriam with strangely half-awakened and +bewildered eyes, when she sought to bring his mind into sympathy with +hers, and so relieve his heart of the burden that lay lumpishly upon it. + +She made him sit down on a stone bench, where two embowered alleys +crossed each other; so that they could discern the approach of any +casual intruder a long way down the path. + +“My sweet friend,” she said, taking one of his passive hands in both of +hers, “what can I say to comfort you?” + +“Nothing!” replied Donatello, with sombre reserve. “Nothing will ever +comfort me.” + +“I accept my own misery,” continued Miriam, “my own guilt, if guilt it +be; and, whether guilt or misery, I shall know how to deal with it. But +you, dearest friend, that were the rarest creature in all this world, +and seemed a being to whom sorrow could not cling,--you, whom I +half fancied to belong to a race that had vanished forever, you only +surviving, to show mankind how genial and how joyous life used to be, in +some long-gone age,--what had you to do with grief or crime?” + +“They came to me as to other men,” said Donatello broodingly. “Doubtless +I was born to them.” + +“No, no; they came with me,” replied Miriam. “Mine is the +responsibility! Alas! wherefore was I born? Why did we ever meet? Why +did I not drive you from me, knowing for my heart foreboded it--that the +cloud in which I walked would likewise envelop you!” + +Donatello stirred uneasily, with the irritable impatience that is often +combined With a mood of leaden despondency. A brown lizard with two +tails--a monster often engendered by the Roman sunshine--ran across his +foot, and made him start. Then he sat silent awhile, and so did Miriam, +trying to dissolve her whole heart into sympathy, and lavish it all upon +him, were it only for a moment’s cordial. + +The young man lifted his hand to his breast, and, unintentionally, as +Miriam’s hand was within his, he lifted that along with it. “I have a +great weight here!” said he. The fancy struck Miriam (but she drove it +resolutely down) that Donatello almost imperceptibly shuddered, while, +in pressing his own hand against his heart, he pressed hers there too. + +“Rest your heart on me, dearest one!” she resumed. “Let me bear all its +weight; I am well able to bear it; for I am a woman, and I love you! I +love you, Donatello! Is there no comfort for you in this avowal? Look +at me! Heretofore you have found me pleasant to your sight. Gaze into my +eyes! Gaze into my soul! Search as deeply as you may, you can never see +half the tenderness and devotion that I henceforth cherish for you. All +that I ask is your acceptance of the utter self-sacrifice (but it shall +be no sacrifice, to my great love) with which I seek to remedy the evil +you have incurred for my sake!” + +All this fervor on Miriam’s part; on Donatello’s, a heavy silence. + +“O, speak to me!” she exclaimed. “Only promise me to be, by and by, a +little happy!” + +“Happy?” murmured Donatello. “Ah, never again! never again!” + +“Never? Ah, that is a terrible word to say to me!” answered Miriam. “A +terrible word to let fall upon a woman’s heart, when she loves you, and +is conscious of having caused your misery! If you love me, Donatello, +speak it not again. And surely you did love me?” + +“I did,” replied Donatello gloomily and absently. + +Miriam released the young man’s hand, but suffered one of her own to +lie close to his, and waited a moment to see whether he would make +any effort to retain it. There was much depending upon that simple +experiment. + +With a deep sigh--as when, sometimes, a slumberer turns over in a +troubled dream Donatello changed his position, and clasped both his +hands over his forehead. The genial warmth of a Roman April kindling +into May was in the atmosphere around them; but when Miriam saw +that involuntary movement and heard that sigh of relief (for so she +interpreted it), a shiver ran through her frame, as if the iciest wind +of the Apennines were blowing over her. + +“He has done himself a greater wrong than I dreamed of,” thought she, +with unutterable compassion. “Alas! it was a sad mistake! He might +have had a kind of bliss in the consequences of this deed, had he been +impelled to it by a love vital enough to survive the frenzy of that +terrible moment, mighty enough to make its own law, and justify itself +against the natural remorse. But to have perpetrated a dreadful murder +(and such was his crime, unless love, annihilating moral distinctions, +made it otherwise) on no better warrant than a boy’s idle fantasy! I +pity him from the very depths of my soul! As for myself, I am past my +own or other’s pity.” + +She arose from the young man’s side, and stood before him with a sad, +commiserating aspect; it was the look of a ruined soul, bewailing, +in him, a grief less than what her profounder sympathies imposed upon +herself. + +“Donatello, we must part,” she said, with melancholy firmness. “Yes; +leave me! Go back to your old tower, which overlooks the green valley +you have told me of among the Apennines. Then, all that has passed will +be recognized as but an ugly dream. For in dreams the conscience sleeps, +and we often stain ourselves with guilt of which we should be incapable +in our waking moments. The deed you seemed to do, last night, was +no more than such a dream; there was as little substance in what you +fancied yourself doing. Go; and forget it all!” + +“Ah, that terrible face!” said Donatello, pressing his hands over his +eyes. “Do you call that unreal?” + +“Yes; for you beheld it with dreaming eyes,” replied Miriam. “It was +unreal; and, that you may feel it so, it is requisite that you see this +face of mine no more. Once, you may have thought it beautiful; now, it +has lost its charm. Yet it would still retain a miserable potency’ to +bring back the past illusion, and, in its train, the remorse and anguish +that would darken all your life. Leave me, therefore, and forget me.” + +“Forget you, Miriam!” said Donatello, roused somewhat from his apathy of +despair. + +“If I could remember you, and behold you, apart from that frightful +visage which stares at me over your shoulder, that were a consolation, +at least, if not a joy.” + +“But since that visage haunts you along with mine,” rejoined Miriam, +glancing behind her, “we needs must part. Farewell, then! But if +ever--in distress, peril, shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is most +poignant, whatever burden heaviest--you should require a life to be +given wholly, only to make your own a little easier, then summon me! As +the case now stands between us, you have bought me dear, and find me of +little worth. Fling me away, therefore! May you never need me more! But, +if otherwise, a wish--almost an unuttered wish will bring me to you!” + +She stood a moment, expecting a reply. But Donatello’s eyes had again +fallen on the ground, and he had not, in his bewildered mind and +overburdened heart, a word to respond. + +“That hour I speak of may never come,” said Miriam. “So +farewell--farewell forever.” + +“Farewell,” said Donatello. + +His voice hardly made its way through the environment of unaccustomed +thoughts and emotions which had settled over him like a dense and dark +cloud. Not improbably, he beheld Miriam through so dim a medium that she +looked visionary; heard her speak only in a thin, faint echo. + +She turned from the young man, and, much as her heart yearned towards +him, she would not profane that heavy parting by an embrace, or even a +pressure of the hand. So soon after the semblance of such mighty love, +and after it had been the impulse to so terrible a deed, they parted, +in all outward show, as coldly as people part whose whole mutual +intercourse has been encircled within a single hour. + +And Donatello, when Miriam had departed, stretched himself at full +length on the stone bench, and drew his hat over his eyes, as the idle +and light-hearted youths of dreamy Italy are accustomed to do, when they +lie down in the first convenient shade, and snatch a noonday slumber. +A stupor was upon him, which he mistook for such drowsiness as he had +known in his innocent past life. But, by and by, he raised himself +slowly and left the garden. Sometimes poor Donatello started, as if +he heard a shriek; sometimes he shrank back, as if a face, fearful to +behold, were thrust close to his own. In this dismal mood, bewildered +with the novelty of sin and grief, he had little left of that singular +resemblance, on account of which, and for their sport, his three friends +had fantastically recognized him as the veritable Faun of Praxiteles. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +MIRIAM AND HILDA + + +On leaving the Medici Gardens Miriam felt herself astray in the world; +and having no special reason to seek one place more than another, she +suffered chance to direct her steps as it would. Thus it happened, that, +involving herself in the crookedness of Rome, she saw Hilda’s tower +rising before her, and was put in mind to climb to the young girl’s +eyry, and ask why she had broken her engagement at the church of the +Capuchins. People often do the idlest acts of their lifetime in their +heaviest and most anxious moments; so that it would have been no wonder +had Miriam been impelled only by so slight a motive of curiosity as we +have indicated. But she remembered, too, and with a quaking heart, what +the sculptor had mentioned of Hilda’s retracing her steps towards the +courtyard of the Palazzo Caffarelli in quest of Miriam herself. Had she +been compelled to choose between infamy in the eyes of the whole world, +or in Hilda’s eyes alone, she would unhesitatingly have accepted the +former, on condition of remaining spotless in the estimation of her +white-souled friend. This possibility, therefore, that Hilda had +witnessed the scene of the past night, was unquestionably the cause +that drew Miriam to the tower, and made her linger and falter as she +approached it. + +As she drew near, there were tokens to which her disturbed mind gave a +sinister interpretation. Some of her friend’s airy family, the doves, +with their heads imbedded disconsolately in their bosoms, were huddled +in a corner of the piazza; others had alighted on the heads, wings, +shoulders, and trumpets of the marble angels which adorned the facade +of the neighboring church; two or three had betaken themselves to the +Virgin’s shrine; and as many as could find room were sitting on Hilda’s +window-sill. But all of them, so Miriam fancied, had a look of weary +expectation and disappointment, no flights, no flutterings, no cooing +murmur; something that ought to have made their day glad and bright +was evidently left out of this day’s history. And, furthermore, Hilda’s +white window-curtain was closely drawn, with only that one little +aperture at the side, which Miriam remembered noticing the night before. + +“Be quiet,” said Miriam to her own heart, pressing her hand hard upon +it. “Why shouldst thou throb now? Hast thou not endured more terrible +things than this?” + +Whatever were her apprehensions, she would not turn back. It might +be--and the solace would be worth a world--that Hilda, knowing nothing +of the past night’s calamity, would greet her friend with a sunny smile, +and so restore a portion of the vital warmth, for lack of which her soul +was frozen. But could Miriam, guilty as she was, permit Hilda to kiss +her cheek, to clasp her hand, and thus be no longer so unspotted from +the world as heretofore. + +“I will never permit her sweet touch again,” said Miriam, toiling up +the staircase, “if I can find strength of heart to forbid it. But, O! it +would be so soothing in this wintry fever-fit of my heart. There can be +no harm to my white Hilda in one parting kiss. That shall be all!” + +But, on reaching the upper landing-place, Miriam paused, and stirred not +again till she had brought herself to an immovable resolve. + +“My lips, my hand, shall never meet Hilda’s more,” said she. + +Meanwhile, Hilda sat listlessly in her painting-room. Had you looked +into the little adjoining chamber, you might have seen the slight +imprint of her figure on the bed, but would also have detected at once +that the white counterpane had not been turned down. The pillow was more +disturbed; she had turned her face upon it, the poor child, and bedewed +it with some of those tears (among the most chill and forlorn that gush +from human sorrow) which the innocent heart pours forth at its first +actual discovery that sin is in the world. The young and pure are not +apt to find out that miserable truth until it is brought home to them by +the guiltiness of some trusted friend. They may have heard much of +the evil of the world, and seem to know it, but only as an impalpable +theory. In due time, some mortal, whom they reverence too highly, +is commissioned by Providence to teach them this direful lesson; he +perpetrates a sin; and Adam falls anew, and Paradise, heretofore in +unfaded bloom, is lost again, and dosed forever, with the fiery swords +gleaming at its gates. + +The chair in which Hilda sat was near the portrait of Beatrice Cenci, +which had not yet been taken from the easel. It is a peculiarity of +this picture, that its profoundest expression eludes a straightforward +glance, and can only be caught by side glimpses, or when the eye +falls casually upon it; even as if the painted face had a life and +consciousness of its own, and, resolving not to betray its secret of +grief or guilt, permitted the true tokens to come forth only when it +imagined itself unseen. No other such magical effect has ever been +wrought by pencil. + +Now, opposite the easel hung a looking-glass, in which Beatrice’s face +and Hilda’s were both reflected. In one of her weary, nerveless changes +of position, Hilda happened to throw her eyes on the glass, and took in +both these images at one unpremeditated glance. She fancied--nor was it +without horror--that Beatrice’s expression, seen aside and vanishing in +a moment, had been depicted in her own face likewise, and flitted from +it as timorously. + +“Am I, too, stained with guilt?” thought the poor girl, hiding her face +in her hands. + +Not so, thank Heaven! But, as regards Beatrice’s picture, the incident +suggests a theory which may account for its unutterable grief and +mysterious shadow of guilt, without detracting from the purity which we +love to attribute to that ill-fated girl. Who, indeed, can look at that +mouth,--with its lips half apart, as innocent as a babe’s that has +been crying, and not pronounce Beatrice sinless? It was the intimate +consciousness of her father’s sin that threw its shadow over her, and +frightened her into a remote and inaccessible region, where no sympathy +could come. It was the knowledge of Miriam’s guilt that lent the same +expression to Hilda’s face. + +But Hilda nervously moved her chair, so that the images in the glass +should be no longer Visible. She now watched a speck of sunshine that +came through a shuttered window, and crept from object to object, +indicating each with a touch of its bright finger, and then letting them +all vanish successively. In like manner her mind, so like sunlight +in its natural cheerfulness, went from thought to thought, but found +nothing that it could dwell upon for comfort. Never before had this +young, energetic, active spirit known what it is to be despondent. It +was the unreality of the world that made her so. Her dearest friend, +whose heart seemed the most solid and richest of Hilda’s possessions, +had no existence for her any more; and in that dreary void, out of which +Miriam had disappeared, the substance, the truth, the integrity of life, +the motives of effort, the joy of success, had departed along with her. + +It was long past noon, when a step came up the staircase. It had passed +beyond the limits where there was communication with the lower regions +of the palace, and was mounting the successive flights which led only to +Hilda’s precincts. Faint as the tread was, she heard and recognized it. +It startled her into sudden life. Her first impulse was to spring to +the door of the studio, and fasten it with lock and bolt. But a second +thought made her feel that this would be an unworthy cowardice, on her +own part, and also that Miriam--only yesterday her closest friend had +a right to be told, face to face, that thenceforth they must be forever +strangers. + +She heard Miriam pause, outside of the door. We have already seen what +was the latter’s resolve with respect to any kiss or pressure of +the hand between Hilda and herself. We know not what became of the +resolution. As Miriam was of a highly impulsive character, it may have +vanished at the first sight of Hilda; but, at all events, she appeared +to have dressed herself up in a garb of sunshine, and was disclosed, as +the door swung open, in all the glow of her remarkable beauty. The truth +was, her heart leaped conclusively towards the only refuge that it had, +or hoped. She forgot, just one instant, all cause for holding herself +aloof. Ordinarily there was a certain reserve in Miriam’s demonstrations +of affection, in consonance with the delicacy of her friend. To-day, she +opened her arms to take Hilda in. + +“Dearest, darling Hilda!” she exclaimed. “It gives me new life to see +you!” + +Hilda was standing in the middle of the room. When her friend made a +step or two from the door, she put forth her hands with an involuntary +repellent gesture, so expressive that Miriam at once felt a great chasm +opening itself between them two. They might gaze at one another from the +opposite side, but without the possibility of ever meeting more; or, at +least, since the chasm could never be bridged over, they must tread +the whole round of Eternity to meet on the other side. There was even +a terror in the thought of their meeting again. It was as if Hilda or +Miriam were dead, and could no longer hold intercourse without violating +a spiritual law. + +Yet, in the wantonness of her despair, Miriam made one more step towards +the friend whom she had lost. “Do not come nearer, Miriam!” said +Hilda. Her look and tone were those of sorrowful entreaty, and yet +they expressed a kind of confidence, as if the girl were conscious of a +safeguard that could not be violated. + +“What has happened between us, Hilda?” asked Miriam. “Are we not +friends?” + +“No, no!” said Hilda, shuddering. + +“At least we have been friends,” continued Miriam. “I loved you dearly! +I love you still! You were to me as a younger sister; yes, dearer than +sisters of the same blood; for you and I were so lonely, Hilda, that the +whole world pressed us together by its solitude and strangeness. Then, +will you not touch my hand? Am I not the same as yesterday?” + +“Alas! no, Miriam!” said Hilda. + +“Yes, the same, the same for you, Hilda,” rejoined her lost friend. +“Were you to touch my hand, you would find it as warm to your grasp as +ever. If you were sick or suffering, I would watch night and day for +you. It is in such simple offices that true affection shows itself; +and so I speak of them. Yet now, Hilda, your very look seems to put me +beyond the limits of human kind!” + +“It is not I, Miriam,” said Hilda; “not I that have done this.” + +“You, and you only, Hilda,” replied Miriam, stirred up to make her own +cause good by the repellent force which her friend opposed to her. “I am +a woman, as I was yesterday; endowed with the same truth of nature, the +same warmth of heart, the same genuine and earnest love, which you +have always known in me. In any regard that concerns yourself, I am not +changed. And believe me, Hilda, when a human being has chosen a friend +out of all the world, it is only some faithlessness between themselves, +rendering true intercourse impossible, that can justify either friend in +severing the bond. Have I deceived you? Then cast me off! Have I wronged +you personally? Then forgive me, if you can. But, have I sinned against +God and man, and deeply sinned? Then be more my friend than ever, for I +need you more.” + +“Do not bewilder me thus, Miriam!” exclaimed Hilda, who had not forborne +to express, by look and gesture, the anguish which this interview +inflicted on her. “If I were one of God’s angels, with a nature +incapable of stain, and garments that never could be spotted, I would +keep ever at your side, and try to lead you upward. But I am a poor, +lonely girl, whom God has set here in an evil world, and given her only +a white robe, and bid her wear it back to Him, as white as when she put +it on. Your powerful magnetism would be too much for me. The pure, white +atmosphere, in which I try to discern what things are good and true, +would be discolored. And therefore, Miriam, before it is too late, I +mean to put faith in this awful heartquake which warns me henceforth to +avoid you.” + +“Ah, this is hard! Ah, this is terrible!” murmured Miriam, dropping her +forehead in her hands. In a moment or two she looked up again, as pale +as death, but with a composed countenance: “I always said, Hilda, that +you were merciless; for I had a perception of it, even while you +loved me best. You have no sin, nor any conception of what it is; and +therefore you are so terribly severe! As an angel, you are not amiss; +but, as a human creature, and a woman among earthly men and women, you +need a sin to soften you.” + +“God forgive me,” said Hilda, “if I have said a needlessly cruel word!” + +“Let it pass,” answered Miriam; “I, whose heart it has smitten upon, +forgive you. And tell me, before we part forever, what have you seen or +known of me, since we last met?” + +“A terrible thing, Miriam,” said Hilda, growing paler than before. + +“Do you see it written in my face, or painted in my eyes?” inquired +Miriam, her trouble seeking relief in a half-frenzied raillery. “I would +fain know how it is that Providence, or fate, brings eye-witnesses to +watch us, when we fancy ourselves acting in the remotest privacy. Did +all Rome see it, then? Or, at least, our merry company of artists? Or is +it some blood-stain on me, or death-scent in my garments? They say that +monstrous deformities sprout out of fiends, who once were lovely angels. +Do you perceive such in me already? Tell me, by our past friendship, +Hilda, all you know.” + +Thus adjured, and frightened by the wild emotion which Miriam could not +suppress, Hilda strove to tell what she had witnessed. + +“After the rest of the party had passed on, I went back to speak to +you,” she said; “for there seemed to be a trouble on your mind, and I +wished to share it with you, if you could permit me. The door of the +little courtyard was partly shut; but I pushed it open, and saw you +within, and Donatello, and a third person, whom I had before noticed in +the shadow of a niche. He approached you, Miriam. You knelt to him! I +saw Donatello spring upon him! I would have shrieked, but my throat +was dry. I would have rushed forward, but my limbs seemed rooted to the +earth. It was like a flash of lightning. A look passed from your eyes to +Donatello’s--a look.”--“Yes, Hilda, yes!” exclaimed Miriam, with intense +eagerness. “Do not pause now! That look?” + +“It revealed all your heart, Miriam,” continued Hilda, covering her +eyes as if to shut out the recollection; “a look of hatred, triumph, +vengeance, and, as it were, joy at some unhoped-for relief.” + +“Ah! Donatello was right, then,” murmured Miriam, who shook throughout +all her frame. “My eyes bade him do it! Go on, Hilda.” + +“It all passed so quickly, all like a glare of lightning,” said Hilda, +“and yet it seemed to me that Donatello had paused, while one might draw +a breath. But that look! Ah, Miriam, spare me. Need I tell more?” + +“No more; there needs no more, Hilda,” replied Miriam, bowing her head, +as if listening to a sentence of condemnation from a supreme tribunal. +“It is enough! You have satisfied my mind on a point where it was +greatly disturbed. Henceforward I shall be quiet. Thank you, Hilda.” + +She was on the point of departing, but turned back again from the +threshold. + +“This is a terrible secret to be kept in a young girl’s bosom,” she +observed; “what will you do with it, my poor child?” + +“Heaven help and guide me,” answered Hilda, bursting into tears; “for +the burden of it crushes me to the earth! It seems a crime to know +of such a thing, and to keep it to myself. It knocks within my heart +continually, threatening, imploring, insisting to be let out! O my +mother!--my mother! Were she yet living, I would travel over land and +sea to tell her this dark secret, as I told all the little troubles of +my infancy. But I am alone--alone! Miriam, you were my dearest, only +friend. Advise me what to do.” + +This was a singular appeal, no doubt, from the stainless maiden to the +guilty woman, whom she had just banished from her heart forever. But +it bore striking testimony to the impression which Miriam’s natural +uprightness and impulsive generosity had made on the friend who knew her +best; and it deeply comforted the poor criminal, by proving to her that +the bond between Hilda and herself was vital yet. + +As far as she was able, Miriam at once responded to the girl’s cry for +help. + +“If I deemed it good for your peace of mind,” she said, “to bear +testimony against me for this deed in the face of all the world, no +consideration of myself should weigh with me an instant. But I believe +that you would find no relief in such a course. What men call justice +lies chiefly in outward formalities, and has never the close application +and fitness that would be satisfactory to a soul like yours. I cannot be +fairly tried and judged before an earthly tribunal; and of this, Hilda, +you would perhaps become fatally conscious when it was too late. Roman +justice, above all things, is a byword. What have you to do with it? +Leave all such thoughts aside! Yet, Hilda, I would not have you keep my +secret imprisoned in your heart if it tries to leap out, and stings you, +like a wild, venomous thing, when you thrust it back again. Have you no +other friend, now that you have been forced to give me up?” + +“No other,” answered Hilda sadly. + +“Yes; Kenyon!” rejoined Miriam. + +“He cannot be my friend,” said Hilda, “because--because--I have fancied +that he sought to be something more.” + +“Fear nothing!” replied Miriam, shaking her head, with a strange smile. +“This story will frighten his new-born love out of its little life, if +that be what you wish. Tell him the secret, then, and take his wise and +honorable counsel as to what should next be done. I know not what else +to say.” + +“I never dreamed,” said Hilda,--“how could you think it?--of betraying +you to justice. But I see how it is, Miriam. I must keep your secret, +and die of it, unless God sends me some relief by methods which are now +beyond my power to imagine. It is very dreadful. Ah! now I understand +how the sins of generations past have created an atmosphere of sin +for those that follow. While there is a single guilty person in the +universe, each innocent one must feel his innocence tortured by that +guilt. Your deed, Miriam, has darkened the whole sky!” + +Poor Hilda turned from her unhappy friend, and, sinking on her knees in +a corner of the chamber, could not be prevailed upon to utter another +word. And Miriam, with a long regard from the threshold, bade farewell +to this doves’ nest, this one little nook of pure thoughts and innocent +enthusiasms, into which she had brought such trouble. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Marble Faun, Volume I. + The Romance of Monte Beni + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: February 25, 2006 [EBook #2181] +Last Updated: December 15, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARBLE FAUN, VOLUME I. *** + + + + +Produced by Michael Pullen and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE MARBLE FAUN + </h1> + <h2> + or The Romance of Monte Beni + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Nathaniel Hawthorne + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> In Two Volumes <br /> <br /> This is Volume One <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <p> + <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <big><b>THE MARBLE FAUN</b></big> </a> <br /> + </p> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> + CHAPTER II </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> + CHAPTER V </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> + CHAPTER VIII </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a><br /> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> + CHAPTER XI </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> + CHAPTER XIV </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> + CHAPTER XVII </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a><br /> + <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> + CHAPTER XX </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> + CHAPTER XXIII </a> <br /> + </td> + <td> + MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO <br /> THE FAUN <br /> SUBTERRANEAN + REMINISCENCES <br /> THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB <br /> MIRIAM’S STUDIO + <br /> THE VIRGIN’S SHRINE <br /> BEATRICE <br /> THE SUBURBAN VILLA + <br /> THE FAUN AND NYMPH <br /> THE SYLVAN DANCE <br /> FRAGMENTARY + SENTENCES <br /> A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN <br /> A SCULPTOR’S STUDIO + <br /> CLEOPATRA <br /> AN AESTHETIC COMPANY <br /> A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE + <br /> MIRIAM’S TROUBLE <br /> ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE <br /> THE + FAUN’S TRANSFORMATION <br /> THE BURIAL CHANT <br /> THE DEAD CAPUCHIN + <br /> THE MEDICI GARDENS <br /> MIRIAM AND HILDA + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + THE MARBLE FAUN + </h2> + <h3> + Volume I + </h3> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I + </h2> + <p> + MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO + </p> + <p> + Four individuals, in whose fortunes we should be glad to interest the + reader, happened to be standing in one of the saloons of the + sculpture-gallery in the Capitol at Rome. It was that room (the first, + after ascending the staircase) in the centre of which reclines the noble + and most pathetic figure of the Dying Gladiator, just sinking into his + death-swoon. Around the walls stand the Antinous, the Amazon, the Lycian + Apollo, the Juno; all famous productions of antique sculpture, and still + shining in the undiminished majesty and beauty of their ideal life, + although the marble that embodies them is yellow with time, and perhaps + corroded by the damp earth in which they lay buried for centuries. Here, + likewise, is seen a symbol (as apt at this moment as it was two thousand + years ago) of the Human Soul, with its choice of Innocence or Evil close + at hand, in the pretty figure of a child, clasping a dove to her bosom, + but assaulted by a snake. + </p> + <p> + From one of the windows of this saloon, we may see a flight of broad stone + steps, descending alongside the antique and massive foundation of the + Capitol, towards the battered triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, right + below. Farther on, the eye skirts along the edge of the desolate Forum + (where Roman washerwomen hang out their linen to the sun), passing over a + shapeless confusion of modern edifices, piled rudely up with ancient brick + and stone, and over the domes of Christian churches, built on the old + pavements of heathen temples, and supported by the very pillars that once + upheld them. At a distance beyond—yet but a little way, considering + how much history is heaped into the intervening space—rises the + great sweep of the Coliseum, with the blue sky brightening through its + upper tier of arches. Far off, the view is shut in by the Alban Mountains, + looking just the same, amid all this decay and change, as when Romulus + gazed thitherward over his half finished wall. + </p> + <p> + We glance hastily at these things,—at this bright sky, and those + blue distant mountains, and at the ruins, Etruscan, Roman, Christian, + venerable with a threefold antiquity, and at the company of world-famous + statues in the saloon,—in the hope of putting the reader into that + state of feeling which is experienced oftenest at Rome. It is a vague + sense of ponderous remembrances; a perception of such weight and density + in a bygone life, of which this spot was the centre, that the present + moment is pressed down or crowded out, and our individual affairs and + interests are but half as real here as elsewhere. Viewed through this + medium, our narrative—into which are woven some airy and + unsubstantial threads, intermixed with others, twisted out of the + commonest stuff of human existence—may seem not widely different + from the texture of all our lives. + </p> + <p> + Side by side with the massiveness of the Roman Past, all matters that we + handle or dream of nowadays look evanescent and visionary alike. + </p> + <p> + It might be that the four persons whom we are seeking to introduce were + conscious of this dreamy character of the present, as compared with the + square blocks of granite wherewith the Romans built their lives. Perhaps + it even contributed to the fanciful merriment which was just now their + mood. When we find ourselves fading into shadows and unrealities, it seems + hardly worth while to be sad, but rather to laugh as gayly as we may, and + ask little reason wherefore. + </p> + <p> + Of these four friends of ours, three were artists, or connected with art; + and, at this moment, they had been simultaneously struck by a resemblance + between one of the antique statues, a well-known masterpiece of Grecian + sculpture, and a young Italian, the fourth member of their party. + </p> + <p> + “You must needs confess, Kenyon,” said a dark-eyed young woman, whom her + friends called Miriam, “that you never chiselled out of marble, nor + wrought in clay, a more vivid likeness than this, cunning a bust-maker as + you think yourself. The portraiture is perfect in character, sentiment, + and feature. If it were a picture, the resemblance might be half illusive + and imaginary; but here, in this Pentelic marble, it is a substantial + fact, and may be tested by absolute touch and measurement. Our friend + Donatello is the very Faun of Praxiteles. Is it not true, Hilda?” + </p> + <p> + “Not quite—almost—yes, I really think so,” replied Hilda, a + slender, brown-haired, New England girl, whose perceptions of form and + expression were wonderfully clear and delicate. “If there is any + difference between the two faces, the reason may be, I suppose, that the + Faun dwelt in woods and fields, and consorted with his like; whereas + Donatello has known cities a little, and such people as ourselves. But the + resemblance is very close, and very strange.” + </p> + <p> + “Not so strange,” whispered Miriam mischievously; “for no Faun in Arcadia + was ever a greater simpleton than Donatello. He has hardly a man’s share + of wit, small as that may be. It is a pity there are no longer any of this + congenial race of rustic creatures for our friend to consort with!” + </p> + <p> + “Hush, naughty one!” returned Hilda. “You are very ungrateful, for you + well know he has wit enough to worship you, at all events.” + </p> + <p> + “Then the greater fool he!” said Miriam so bitterly that Hilda’s quiet + eyes were somewhat startled. + </p> + <p> + “Donatello, my dear friend,” said Kenyon, in Italian, “pray gratify us all + by taking the exact attitude of this statue.” + </p> + <p> + The young man laughed, and threw himself into the position in which the + statue has been standing for two or three thousand years. In truth, + allowing for the difference of costume, and if a lion’s skin could have + been substituted for his modern talma, and a rustic pipe for his stick, + Donatello might have figured perfectly as the marble Faun, miraculously + softened into flesh and blood. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; the resemblance is wonderful,” observed Kenyon, after examining the + marble and the man with the accuracy of a sculptor’s eye. “There is one + point, however, or, rather, two points, in respect to which our friend + Donatello’s abundant curls will not permit us to say whether the likeness + is carried into minute detail.” + </p> + <p> + And the sculptor directed the attention of the party to the ears of the + beautiful statue which they were contemplating. + </p> + <p> + But we must do more than merely refer to this exquisite work of art; it + must be described, however inadequate may be the effort to express its + magic peculiarity in words. + </p> + <p> + The Faun is the marble image of a young man, leaning his right arm on the + trunk or stump of a tree; one hand hangs carelessly by his side; in the + other he holds the fragment of a pipe, or some such sylvan instrument of + music. His only garment—a lion’s skin, with the claws upon his + shoulder—falls halfway down his back, leaving the limbs and entire + front of the figure nude. The form, thus displayed, is marvellously + graceful, but has a fuller and more rounded outline, more flesh, and less + of heroic muscle, than the old sculptors were wont to assign to their + types of masculine beauty. The character of the face corresponds with the + figure; it is most agreeable in outline and feature, but rounded and + somewhat voluptuously developed, especially about the throat and chin; the + nose is almost straight, but very slightly curves inward, thereby + acquiring an indescribable charm of geniality and humor. The mouth, with + its full yet delicate lips, seems so nearly to smile outright, that it + calls forth a responsive smile. The whole statue—unlike anything + else that ever was wrought in that severe material of marble—conveys + the idea of an amiable and sensual creature, easy, mirthful, apt for + jollity, yet not incapable of being touched by pathos. It is impossible to + gaze long at this stone image without conceiving a kindly sentiment + towards it, as if its substance were warm to the touch, and imbued with + actual life. It comes very close to some of our pleasantest sympathies. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps it is the very lack of moral severity, of any high and heroic + ingredient in the character of the Faun, that makes it so delightful an + object to the human eye and to the frailty of the human heart. The being + here represented is endowed with no principle of virtue, and would be + incapable of comprehending such; but he would be true and honest by dint + of his simplicity. We should expect from him no sacrifice or effort for an + abstract cause; there is not an atom of martyr’s stuff in all that + softened marble; but he has a capacity for strong and warm attachment, and + might act devotedly through its impulse, and even die for it at need. It + is possible, too, that the Faun might be educated through the medium of + his emotions, so that the coarser animal portion of his nature might + eventually be thrown into the background, though never utterly expelled. + </p> + <p> + The animal nature, indeed, is a most essential part of the Faun’s + composition; for the characteristics of the brute creation meet and + combine with those of humanity in this strange yet true and natural + conception of antique poetry and art. Praxiteles has subtly diffused + throughout his work that mute mystery, which so hopelessly perplexes us + whenever we attempt to gain an intellectual or sympathetic knowledge of + the lower orders of creation. The riddle is indicated, however, only by + two definite signs: these are the two ears of the Faun, which are leaf + shaped, terminating in little peaks, like those of some species of + animals. Though not so seen in the marble, they are probably to be + considered as clothed in fine, downy fur. In the coarser representations + of this class of mythological creatures, there is another token of brute + kindred,—a certain caudal appendage; which, if the Faun of + Praxiteles must be supposed to possess it at all, is hidden by the lion’s + skin that forms his garment. The pointed and furry ears, therefore, are + the sole indications of his wild, forest nature. + </p> + <p> + Only a sculptor of the finest imagination, the most delicate taste, the + sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic skill—in a word, a + sculptor and a poet too—could have first dreamed of a Faun in this + guise, and then have succeeded in imprisoning the sportive and frisky + thing in marble. Neither man nor animal, and yet no monster, but a being + in whom both races meet on friendly ground. The idea grows coarse as we + handle it, and hardens in our grasp. But, if the spectator broods long + over the statue, he will be conscious of its spell; all the pleasantness + of sylvan life, all the genial and happy characteristics of creatures that + dwell in woods and fields, will seem to be mingled and kneaded into one + substance, along with the kindred qualities in the human soul. Trees, + grass, flowers, woodland streamlets, cattle, deer, and unsophisticated + man. The essence of all these was compressed long ago, and still exists, + within that discolored marble surface of the Faun of Praxiteles. + </p> + <p> + And, after all, the idea may have been no dream, but rather a poet’s + reminiscence of a period when man’s affinity with nature was more strict, + and his fellowship with every living thing more intimate and dear. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II + </h2> + <p> + THE FAUN + </p> + <p> + “Donatello,” playfully cried Miriam, “do not leave us in this perplexity! + Shake aside those brown curls, my friend, and let us see whether this + marvellous resemblance extends to the very tips of the ears. If so, we + shall like you all the better!” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, dearest signorina,” answered Donatello, laughing, but with a + certain earnestness. “I entreat you to take the tips of my ears for + granted.” As he spoke, the young Italian made a skip and jump, light + enough for a veritable faun; so as to place himself quite beyond the reach + of the fair hand that was outstretched, as if to settle the matter by + actual examination. “I shall be like a wolf of the Apennines,” he + continued, taking his stand on the other side of the Dying Gladiator, “if + you touch my ears ever so softly. None of my race could endure it. It has + always been a tender point with my forefathers and me.” + </p> + <p> + He spoke in Italian, with the Tuscan rusticity of accent, and an unshaped + sort of utterance, betokening that he must heretofore have been chiefly + conversant with rural people. + </p> + <p> + “Well, well,” said Miriam, “your tender point—your two tender + points, if you have them—shall be safe, so far as I am concerned. + But how strange this likeness is, after all! and how delightful, if it + really includes the pointed ears! O, it is impossible, of course,” she + continued, in English, “with a real and commonplace young man like + Donatello; but you see how this peculiarity defines the position of the + Faun; and, while putting him where he cannot exactly assert his + brotherhood, still disposes us kindly towards the kindred creature. He is + not supernatural, but just on the verge of nature, and yet within it. What + is the nameless charm of this idea, Hilda? You can feel it more delicately + than I.” + </p> + <p> + “It perplexes me,” said Hilda thoughtfully, and shrinking a little; + “neither do I quite like to think about it.” + </p> + <p> + “But, surely,” said Kenyon, “you agree with Miriam and me that there is + something very touching and impressive in this statue of the Faun. In some + long-past age, he must really have existed. Nature needed, and still + needs, this beautiful creature; standing betwixt man and animal, + sympathizing with each, comprehending the speech of either race, and + interpreting the whole existence of one to the other. What a pity that he + has forever vanished from the hard and dusty paths of life,—unless,” + added the sculptor, in a sportive whisper, “Donatello be actually he!” + </p> + <p> + “You cannot conceive how this fantasy takes hold of me,” responded Miriam, + between jest and earnest. “Imagine, now, a real being, similar to this + mythic Faun; how happy, how genial, how satisfactory would be his life, + enjoying the warm, sensuous, earthy side of nature; revelling in the + merriment of woods and streams; living as our four-footed kindred do,—as + mankind did in its innocent childhood; before sin, sorrow or morality + itself had ever been thought of! Ah! Kenyon, if Hilda and you and I—if + I, at least—had pointed ears! For I suppose the Faun had no + conscience, no remorse, no burden on the heart, no troublesome + recollections of any sort; no dark future either.” + </p> + <p> + “What a tragic tone was that last, Miriam!” said the sculptor; and, + looking into her face, he was startled to behold it pale and tear-stained. + “How suddenly this mood has come over you!” + </p> + <p> + “Let it go as it came,” said Miriam, “like a thunder-shower in this Roman + sky. All is sunshine again, you see!” + </p> + <p> + Donatello’s refractoriness as regarded his ears had evidently cost him + something, and he now came close to Miriam’s side, gazing at her with an + appealing air, as if to solicit forgiveness. His mute, helpless gesture of + entreaty had something pathetic in it, and yet might well enough excite a + laugh, so like it was to what you may see in the aspect of a hound when he + thinks himself in fault or disgrace. It was difficult to make out the + character of this young man. So full of animal life as he was, so joyous + in his deportment, so handsome, so physically well-developed, he made no + impression of incompleteness, of maimed or stinted nature. And yet, in + social intercourse, these familiar friends of his habitually and + instinctively allowed for him, as for a child or some other lawless thing, + exacting no strict obedience to conventional rules, and hardly noticing + his eccentricities enough to pardon them. There was an indefinable + characteristic about Donatello that set him outside of rules. + </p> + <p> + He caught Miriam’s hand, kissed it, and gazed into her eyes without saying + a word. She smiled, and bestowed on him a little careless caress, + singularly like what one would give to a pet dog when he puts himself in + the way to receive it. Not that it was so decided a caress either, but + only the merest touch, somewhere between a pat and a tap of the finger; it + might be a mark of fondness, or perhaps a playful pretence of punishment. + At all events, it appeared to afford Donatello exquisite pleasure; + insomuch that he danced quite round the wooden railing that fences in the + Dying Gladiator. + </p> + <p> + “It is the very step of the Dancing Faun,” said Miriam, apart, to Hilda. + “What a child, or what a simpleton, he is! I continually find myself + treating Donatello as if he were the merest unfledged chicken; and yet he + can claim no such privileges in the right of his tender age, for he is at + least—how old should you think him, Hilda?” + </p> + <p> + “Twenty years, perhaps,” replied Hilda, glancing at Donatello; “but, + indeed, I cannot tell; hardly so old, on second thoughts, or possibly + older. He has nothing to do with time, but has a look of eternal youth in + his face.” + </p> + <p> + “All underwitted people have that look,” said Miriam scornfully. + </p> + <p> + “Donatello has certainly the gift of eternal youth, as Hilda suggests,” + observed Kenyon, laughing; “for, judging by the date of this statue, + which, I am more and more convinced, Praxiteles carved on purpose for him, + he must be at least twenty-five centuries old, and he still looks as young + as ever.” + </p> + <p> + “What age have you, Donatello?” asked Miriam. + </p> + <p> + “Signorina, I do not know,” he answered; “no great age, however; for I + have only lived since I met you.” + </p> + <p> + “Now, what old man of society could have turned a silly compliment more + smartly than that!” exclaimed Miriam. “Nature and art are just at one + sometimes. But what a happy ignorance is this of our friend Donatello! Not + to know his own age! It is equivalent to being immortal on earth. If I + could only forget mine!” + </p> + <p> + “It is too soon to wish that,” observed the sculptor; “you are scarcely + older than Donatello looks.” + </p> + <p> + “I shall be content, then,” rejoined Miriam, “if I could only forget one + day of all my life.” Then she seemed to repent of this allusion, and + hastily added, “A woman’s days are so tedious that it is a boon to leave + even one of them out of the account.” + </p> + <p> + The foregoing conversation had been carried on in a mood in which all + imaginative people, whether artists or poets, love to indulge. In this + frame of mind, they sometimes find their profoundest truths side by side + with the idlest jest, and utter one or the other, apparently without + distinguishing which is the most valuable, or assigning any considerable + value to either. The resemblance between the marble Faun and their living + companion had made a deep, half-serious, half-mirthful impression on these + three friends, and had taken them into a certain airy region, lifting up, + as it is so pleasant to feel them lifted, their heavy earthly feet from + the actual soil of life. The world had been set afloat, as it were, for a + moment, and relieved them, for just so long, of all customary + responsibility for what they thought and said. + </p> + <p> + It might be under this influence—or, perhaps, because sculptors + always abuse one another’s works—that Kenyon threw in a criticism + upon the Dying Gladiator. + </p> + <p> + “I used to admire this statue exceedingly,” he remarked, “but, latterly, I + find myself getting weary and annoyed that the man should be such a length + of time leaning on his arm in the very act of death. If he is so terribly + hurt, why does he not sink down and die without further ado? Flitting + moments, imminent emergencies, imperceptible intervals between two + breaths, ought not to be incrusted with the eternal repose of marble; in + any sculptural subject, there should be a moral standstill, since there + must of necessity be a physical one. Otherwise, it is like flinging a + block of marble up into the air, and, by some trick of enchantment, + causing it to stick there. You feel that it ought to come down, and are + dissatisfied that it does not obey the natural law.” + </p> + <p> + “I see,” said Miriam mischievously, “you think that sculpture should be a + sort of fossilizing process. But, in truth, your frozen art has nothing + like the scope and freedom of Hilda’s and mine. In painting there is no + similar objection to the representation of brief snatches of time,—perhaps + because a story can be so much more fully told in picture, and buttressed + about with circumstances that give it an epoch. For instance, a painter + never would have sent down yonder Faun out of his far antiquity, lonely + and desolate, with no companion to keep his simple heart warm.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, the Faun!” cried Hilda, with a little gesture of impatience; “I have + been looking at him too long; and now, instead of a beautiful statue, + immortally young, I see only a corroded and discolored stone. This change + is very apt to occur in statues.” + </p> + <p> + “And a similar one in pictures, surely,” retorted the sculptor. “It is the + spectator’s mood that transfigures the Transfiguration itself. I defy any + painter to move and elevate me without my own consent and assistance.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you are deficient of a sense,” said Miriam. + </p> + <p> + The party now strayed onward from hall to hall of that rich gallery, + pausing here and there, to look at the multitude of noble and lovely + shapes, which have been dug up out of the deep grave in which old Rome + lies buried. And still, the realization of the antique Faun, in the person + of Donatello, gave a more vivid character to all these marble ghosts. Why + should not each statue grow warm with life! Antinous might lift his brow, + and tell us why he is forever sad. The Lycian Apollo might strike his + lyre; and, at the first vibration, that other Faun in red marble, who + keeps up a motionless dance, should frisk gayly forth, leading yonder + Satyrs, with shaggy goat-shanks, to clatter their little hoofs upon the + floor, and all join hands with Donatello! Bacchus, too, a rosy flush + diffusing itself over his time-stained surface, could come down from his + pedestal, and offer a cluster of purple grapes to Donatello’s lips; + because the god recognizes him as the woodland elf who so often shared his + revels. And here, in this sarcophagus, the exquisitely carved figures + might assume life, and chase one another round its verge with that wild + merriment which is so strangely represented on those old burial coffers: + though still with some subtile allusion to death, carefully veiled, but + forever peeping forth amid emblems of mirth and riot. + </p> + <p> + As the four friends descended the stairs, however, their play of fancy + subsided into a much more sombre mood; a result apt to follow upon such + exhilaration as that which had so recently taken possession of them. + </p> + <p> + “Do you know,” said Miriam confidentially to Hilda, “I doubt the reality + of this likeness of Donatello to the Faun, which we have been talking so + much about? To say the truth, it never struck me so forcibly as it did + Kenyon and yourself, though I gave in to whatever you were pleased to + fancy, for the sake of a moment’s mirth and wonder.” “I was certainly in + earnest, and you seemed equally so,” replied Hilda, glancing back at + Donatello, as if to reassure herself of the resemblance. “But faces change + so much, from hour to hour, that the same set of features has often no + keeping with itself; to an eye, at least, which looks at expression more + than outline. How sad and sombre he has grown all of a sudden!” “Angry + too, methinks! nay, it is anger much more than sadness,” said Miriam. “I + have seen Donatello in this mood once or twice before. If you consider him + well, you will observe an odd mixture of the bulldog, or some other + equally fierce brute, in our friend’s composition; a trait of savageness + hardly to be expected in such a gentle creature as he usually is. + Donatello is a very strange young man. I wish he would not haunt my + footsteps so continually.” + </p> + <p> + “You have bewitched the poor lad,” said the sculptor, laughing. “You have + a faculty of bewitching people, and it is providing you with a singular + train of followers. I see another of them behind yonder pillar; and it is + his presence that has aroused Donatello’s wrath.” + </p> + <p> + They had now emerged from the gateway of the palace; and partly concealed + by one of the pillars of the portico stood a figure such as may often be + encountered in the streets and piazzas of Rome, and nowhere else. He + looked as if he might just have stepped out of a picture, and, in truth, + was likely enough to find his way into a dozen pictures; being no other + than one of those living models, dark, bushy bearded, wild of aspect and + attire, whom artists convert into saints or assassins, according as their + pictorial purposes demand. + </p> + <p> + “Miriam,” whispered Hilda, a little startled, “it is your model!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III + </h2> + <p> + SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES + </p> + <p> + Miriam’s model has so important a connection with our story, that it is + essential to describe the singular mode of his first appearance, and how + he subsequently became a self-appointed follower of the young female + artist. In the first place, however, we must devote a page or two to + certain peculiarities in the position of Miriam herself. + </p> + <p> + There was an ambiguity about this young lady, which, though it did not + necessarily imply anything wrong, would have operated unfavorably as + regarded her reception in society, anywhere but in Rome. The truth was, + that nobody knew anything about Miriam, either for good or evil. She had + made her appearance without introduction, had taken a studio, put her card + upon the door, and showed very considerable talent as a painter in oils. + Her fellow professors of the brush, it is true, showered abundant + criticisms upon her pictures, allowing them to be well enough for the idle + half-efforts of an amateur, but lacking both the trained skill and the + practice that distinguish the works of a true artist. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, be their faults what they might, Miriam’s pictures met with + good acceptance among the patrons of modern art. Whatever technical merit + they lacked, its absence was more than supplied by a warmth and + passionateness, which she had the faculty of putting into her productions, + and which all the world could feel. Her nature had a great deal of color, + and, in accordance with it, so likewise had her pictures. + </p> + <p> + Miriam had great apparent freedom of intercourse; her manners were so far + from evincing shyness, that it seemed easy to become acquainted with her, + and not difficult to develop a casual acquaintance into intimacy. Such, at + least, was the impression which she made, upon brief contact, but not such + the ultimate conclusion of those who really sought to know her. So airy, + free, and affable was Miriam’s deportment towards all who came within her + sphere, that possibly they might never be conscious of the fact, but so it + was, that they did not get on, and were seldom any further advanced into + her good graces to-day than yesterday. By some subtile quality, she kept + people at a distance, without so much as letting them know that they were + excluded from her inner circle. She resembled one of those images of + light, which conjurers evoke and cause to shine before us, in apparent + tangibility, only an arm’s length beyond our grasp: we make a step in + advance, expecting to seize the illusion, but find it still precisely so + far out of our reach. Finally, society began to recognize the + impossibility of getting nearer to Miriam, and gruffly acquiesced. + </p> + <p> + There were two persons, however, whom she appeared to acknowledge as + friends in the closer and truer sense of the word; and both of these more + favored individuals did credit to Miriam’s selection. One was a young + American sculptor, of high promise and rapidly increasing celebrity; the + other, a girl of the same country, a painter like Miriam herself, but in a + widely different sphere of art. Her heart flowed out towards these two; + she requited herself by their society and friendship (and especially by + Hilda’s) for all the loneliness with which, as regarded the rest of the + world, she chose to be surrounded. Her two friends were conscious of the + strong, yearning grasp which Miriam laid upon them, and gave her their + affection in full measure; Hilda, indeed, responding with the fervency of + a girl’s first friendship, and Kenyon with a manly regard, in which there + was nothing akin to what is distinctively called love. + </p> + <p> + A sort of intimacy subsequently grew up between these three friends and a + fourth individual; it was a young Italian, who, casually visiting Rome, + had been attracted by the beauty which Miriam possessed in a remarkable + degree. He had sought her, followed her, and insisted, with simple + perseverance, upon being admitted at least to her acquaintance; a boon + which had been granted, when a more artful character, seeking it by a more + subtle mode of pursuit, would probably have failed to obtain it. This + young man, though anything but intellectually brilliant, had many + agreeable characteristics which won him the kindly and half-contemptuous + regard of Miriam and her two friends. It was he whom they called + Donatello, and whose wonderful resemblance to the Faun of Praxiteles forms + the keynote of our narrative. + </p> + <p> + Such was the position in which we find Miriam some few months after her + establishment at Rome. It must be added, however, that the world did not + permit her to hide her antecedents without making her the subject of a + good deal of conjecture; as was natural enough, considering the abundance + of her personal charms, and the degree of notice that she attracted as an + artist. There were many stories about Miriam’s origin and previous life, + some of which had a very probable air, while others were evidently wild + and romantic fables. We cite a few, leaving the reader to designate them + either under the probable or the romantic head. + </p> + <p> + It was said, for example, that Miriam was the daughter and heiress of a + great Jewish banker (an idea perhaps suggested by a certain rich Oriental + character in her face), and had fled from her paternal home to escape a + union with a cousin, the heir of another of that golden brotherhood; the + object being to retain their vast accumulation of wealth within the + family. Another story hinted that she was a German princess, whom, for + reasons of state, it was proposed to give in marriage either to a decrepit + sovereign, or a prince still in his cradle. According to a third + statement, she was the off-spring of a Southern American planter, who had + given her an elaborate education and endowed her with his wealth; but the + one burning drop of African blood in her veins so affected her with a + sense of ignominy, that she relinquished all and fled her country. By + still another account she was the lady of an English nobleman; and, out of + mere love and honor of art, had thrown aside the splendor of her rank, and + come to seek a subsistence by her pencil in a Roman studio. + </p> + <p> + In all the above cases, the fable seemed to be instigated by the large and + bounteous impression which Miriam invariably made, as if necessity and she + could have nothing to do with one another. Whatever deprivations she + underwent must needs be voluntary. But there were other surmises, taking + such a commonplace view as that Miriam was the daughter of a merchant or + financier, who had been ruined in a great commercial crisis; and, + possessing a taste for art, she had attempted to support herself by the + pencil, in preference to the alternative of going out as governess. + </p> + <p> + Be these things how they might, Miriam, fair as she looked, was plucked up + out of a mystery, and had its roots still clinging to her. She was a + beautiful and attractive woman, but based, as it were, upon a cloud, and + all surrounded with misty substance; so that the result was to render her + sprite-like in her most ordinary manifestations. This was the case even in + respect to Kenyon and Hilda, her especial friends. But such was the effect + of Miriam’s natural language, her generosity, kindliness, and native truth + of character, that these two received her as a dear friend into their + hearts, taking her good qualities as evident and genuine, and never + imagining that what was hidden must be therefore evil. + </p> + <p> + We now proceed with our narrative. + </p> + <p> + The same party of friends, whom we have seen at the sculpture-gallery of + the Capitol, chanced to have gone together, some months before, to the + catacomb of St. Calixtus. They went joyously down into that vast tomb, and + wandered by torchlight through a sort of dream, in which reminiscences of + church aisles and grimy cellars—and chiefly the latter—seemed + to be broken into fragments, and hopelessly intermingled. The intricate + passages along which they followed their guide had been hewn, in some + forgotten age, out of a dark-red, crumbly stone. On either side were + horizontal niches, where, if they held their torches closely, the shape of + a human body was discernible in white ashes, into which the entire + mortality of a man or woman had resolved itself. Among all this extinct + dust, there might perchance be a thigh-bone, which crumbled at a touch; or + possibly a skull, grinning at its own wretched plight, as is the ugly and + empty habit of the thing. + </p> + <p> + Sometimes their gloomy pathway tended upward, so that, through a crevice, + a little daylight glimmered down upon them, or even a streak of sunshine + peeped into a burial niche; then again, they went downward by gradual + descent, or by abrupt, rudely hewn steps, into deeper and deeper recesses + of the earth. Here and there the narrow and tortuous passages widened + somewhat, developing themselves into small chapels;—which once, no + doubt, had been adorned with marble-work and lighted with ever-burning + lamps and tapers. All such illumination and ornament, however, had long + since been extinguished and stript away; except, indeed, that the low + roofs of a few of these ancient sites of worship were covered with dingy + stucco, and frescoed with scriptural scenes and subjects, in the dreariest + stage of ruin. + </p> + <p> + In one such chapel, the guide showed them a low arch, beneath which the + body of St. Cecilia had been buried after her martyrdom, and where it lay + till a sculptor saw it, and rendered it forever beautiful in marble. + </p> + <p> + In a similar spot they found two sarcophagi, one containing a skeleton, + and the other a shrivelled body, which still wore the garments of its + former lifetime. + </p> + <p> + “How dismal all this is!” said Hilda, shuddering. “I do not know why we + came here, nor why we should stay a moment longer.” + </p> + <p> + “I hate it all!” cried Donatello with peculiar energy. “Dear friends, let + us hasten back into the blessed daylight!” + </p> + <p> + From the first, Donatello had shown little fancy for the expedition; for, + like most Italians, and in especial accordance with the law of his own + simple and physically happy nature, this young man had an infinite + repugnance to graves and skulls, and to all that ghastliness which the + Gothic mind loves to associate with the idea of death. He shuddered, and + looked fearfully round, drawing nearer to Miriam, whose attractive + influence alone had enticed him into that gloomy region. + </p> + <p> + “What a child you are, poor Donatello!” she observed, with the freedom + which she always used towards him. “You are afraid of ghosts!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, signorina; terribly afraid!” said the truthful Donatello. + </p> + <p> + “I also believe in ghosts,” answered Miriam, “and could tremble at them, + in a suitable place. But these sepulchres are so old, and these skulls and + white ashes so very dry, that methinks they have ceased to be haunted. The + most awful idea connected with the catacombs is their interminable extent, + and the possibility of going astray into this labyrinth of darkness, which + broods around the little glimmer of our tapers.” + </p> + <p> + “Has any one ever been lost here?” asked Kenyon of the guide. + </p> + <p> + “Surely, signor; one, no longer ago than my father’s time,” said the + guide; and he added, with the air of a man who believed what he was + telling, “but the first that went astray here was a pagan of old Rome, who + hid himself in order to spy out and betray the blessed saints, who then + dwelt and worshipped in these dismal places. You have heard the story, + signor? A miracle was wrought upon the accursed one; and, ever since (for + fifteen centuries at least), he has been groping in the darkness, seeking + his way out of the catacomb.” + </p> + <p> + “Has he ever been seen?” asked Hilda, who had great and tremulous faith in + marvels of this kind. + </p> + <p> + “These eyes of mine never beheld him, signorina; the saints forbid!” + answered the guide. “But it is well known that he watches near parties + that come into the catacomb, especially if they be heretics, hoping to + lead some straggler astray. What this lost wretch pines for, almost as + much as for the blessed sunshine, is a companion to be miserable with + him.” + </p> + <p> + “Such an intense desire for sympathy indicates something amiable in the + poor fellow, at all events,” observed Kenyon. + </p> + <p> + They had now reached a larger chapel than those heretofore seen; it was of + a circular shape, and, though hewn out of the solid mass of red sandstone, + had pillars, and a carved roof, and other tokens of a regular + architectural design. Nevertheless, considered as a church, it was + exceedingly minute, being scarcely twice a man’s stature in height, and + only two or three paces from wall to wall; and while their collected + torches illuminated this one small, consecrated spot, the great darkness + spread all round it, like that immenser mystery which envelops our little + life, and into which friends vanish from us, one by one. “Why, where is + Miriam?” cried Hilda. The party gazed hurriedly from face to face, and + became aware that one of their party had vanished into the great darkness, + even while they were shuddering at the remote possibility of such a + misfortune. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV + </h2> + <p> + THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB + </p> + <p> + “Surely, she cannot be lost!” exclaimed Kenyon. “It is but a moment since + she was speaking.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no!” said Hilda, in great alarm. “She was behind us all; and it is a + long while since we have heard her voice!” + </p> + <p> + “Torches! torches!” cried Donatello desperately. “I will seek her, be the + darkness ever so dismal!” + </p> + <p> + But the guide held him back, and assured them all that there was no + possibility of assisting their lost companion, unless by shouting at the + very top of their voices. As the sound would go very far along these close + and narrow passages, there was a fair probability that Miriam might hear + the call, and be able to retrace her steps. + </p> + <p> + Accordingly, they all—Kenyon with his bass voice; Donatello with his + tenor; the guide with that high and hard Italian cry, which makes the + streets of Rome so resonant; and Hilda with her slender scream, piercing + farther than the united uproar of the rest—began to shriek, halloo, + and bellow, with the utmost force of their lungs. And, not to prolong the + reader’s suspense (for we do not particularly seek to interest him in this + scene, telling it only on account of the trouble and strange entanglement + which followed), they soon heard a responsive call, in a female voice. + </p> + <p> + “It was the signorina!” cried Donatello joyfully. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; it was certainly dear Miriam’s voice,” said Hilda. “And here she + comes! Thank Heaven! Thank Heaven!” + </p> + <p> + The figure of their friend was now discernible by her own torchlight, + approaching out of one of the cavernous passages. Miriam came forward, but + not with the eagerness and tremulous joy of a fearful girl, just rescued + from a labyrinth of gloomy mystery. She made no immediate response to + their inquiries and tumultuous congratulations; and, as they afterwards + remembered, there was something absorbed, thoughtful, and + self-concentrated in her deportment. She looked pale, as well she might, + and held her torch with a nervous grasp, the tremor of which was seen in + the irregular twinkling of the flame. This last was the chief perceptible + sign of any recent agitation or alarm. + </p> + <p> + “Dearest, dearest Miriam,” exclaimed Hilda, throwing her arms about her + friend, “where have you been straying from us? Blessed be Providence, + which has rescued you out of that miserable darkness!” + </p> + <p> + “Hush, dear Hilda!” whispered Miriam, with a strange little laugh. “Are + you quite sure that it was Heaven’s guidance which brought me back? If so, + it was by an odd messenger, as you will confess. See; there he stands.” + </p> + <p> + Startled at Miriam’s words and manner, Hilda gazed into the duskiness + whither she pointed, and there beheld a figure standing just on the + doubtful limit of obscurity, at the threshold of the small, illuminated + chapel. Kenyon discerned him at the same instant, and drew nearer with his + torch; although the guide attempted to dissuade him, averring that, once + beyond the consecrated precincts of the chapel, the apparition would have + power to tear him limb from limb. It struck the sculptor, however, when he + afterwards recurred to these circumstances, that the guide manifested no + such apprehension on his own account as he professed on behalf of others; + for he kept pace with Kenyon as the latter approached the figure, though + still endeavoring to restrain ‘him. + </p> + <p> + In fine, they both drew near enough to get as good a view of the spectre + as the smoky light of their torches, struggling with the massive gloom, + could supply. + </p> + <p> + The stranger was of exceedingly picturesque, and even melodramatic aspect. + He was clad in a voluminous cloak, that seemed to be made of a buffalo’s + hide, and a pair of those goat-skin breeches, with the hair outward, which + are still commonly worn by the peasants of the Roman Campagna. In this + garb, they look like antique Satyrs; and, in truth, the Spectre of the + Catacomb might have represented the last survivor of that vanished race, + hiding himself in sepulchral gloom, and mourning over his lost life of + woods and streams. + </p> + <p> + Furthermore, he had on a broad-brimmed, conical hat, beneath the shadow of + which a wild visage was indistinctly seen, floating away, as it were, into + a dusky wilderness of mustache and beard. His eyes winked, and turned + uneasily from the torches, like a creature to whom midnight would be more + congenial than noonday. + </p> + <p> + On the whole, the spectre might have made a considerable impression on the + sculptor’s nerves, only that he was in the habit of observing similar + figures, almost every day, reclining on the Spanish steps, and waiting for + some artist to invite them within the magic realm of picture. Nor, even + thus familiarized with the stranger’s peculiarities of appearance, could + Kenyon help wondering to see such a personage, shaping himself so suddenly + out of the void darkness of the catacomb. + </p> + <p> + “What are you?” said the sculptor, advancing his torch nearer. “And how + long have you been wandering here?” + </p> + <p> + “A thousand and five hundred years!” muttered the guide, loud enough to be + heard by all the party. “It is the old pagan phantom that I told you of, + who sought to betray the blessed saints!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; it is a phantom!” cried Donatello, with a shudder. “Ah, dearest + signorina, what a fearful thing has beset you in those dark corridors!” + </p> + <p> + “Nonsense, Donatello,” said the sculptor. “The man is no more a phantom + than yourself. The only marvel is, how he comes to be hiding himself in + the catacomb. Possibly our guide might solve the riddle.” + </p> + <p> + The spectre himself here settled the point of his tangibility, at all + events, and physical substance, by approaching a step nearer, and laying + his hand on Kenyon’s arm. + </p> + <p> + “Inquire not what I am, nor wherefore I abide in the darkness,” said he, + in a hoarse, harsh voice, as if a great deal of damp were clustering in + his throat. “Henceforth, I am nothing but a shadow behind her footsteps. + She came to me when I sought her not. She has called me forth, and must + abide the consequences of my reappearance in the world.” + </p> + <p> + “Holy Virgin! I wish the signorina joy of her prize,” said the guide, half + to himself. “And in any case, the catacomb is well rid of him.” + </p> + <p> + We need follow the scene no further. So much is essential to the + subsequent narrative, that, during the short period while astray in those + tortuous passages, Miriam had encountered an unknown man, and led him + forth with her, or was guided back by him, first into the torchlight, + thence into the sunshine. + </p> + <p> + It was the further singularity of this affair, that the connection, thus + briefly and casually formed, did not terminate with the incident that gave + it birth. As if her service to him, or his service to her, whichever it + might be, had given him an indefeasible claim on Miriam’s regard and + protection, the Spectre of the Catacomb never long allowed her to lose + sight of him, from that day forward. He haunted her footsteps with more + than the customary persistency of Italian mendicants, when once they have + recognized a benefactor. For days together, it is true, he occasionally + vanished, but always reappeared, gliding after her through the narrow + streets, or climbing the hundred steps of her staircase and sitting at her + threshold. + </p> + <p> + Being often admitted to her studio, he left his features, or some shadow + or reminiscence of them, in many of her sketches and pictures. The moral + atmosphere of these productions was thereby so influenced, that rival + painters pronounced it a case of hopeless mannerism, which would destroy + all Miriam’s prospects of true excellence in art. + </p> + <p> + The story of this adventure spread abroad, and made its way beyond the + usual gossip of the Forestieri, even into Italian circles, where, enhanced + by a still potent spirit of superstition, it grew far more wonderful than + as above recounted. Thence, it came back among the Anglo-Saxons, and was + communicated to the German artists, who so richly supplied it with + romantic ornaments and excrescences, after their fashion, that it became a + fantasy worthy of Tieck or Hoffmann. For nobody has any conscience about + adding to the improbabilities of a marvellous tale. + </p> + <p> + The most reasonable version of the incident, that could anywise be + rendered acceptable to the auditors, was substantially the one suggested + by the guide of the catacomb, in his allusion to the legend of Memmius. + This man, or demon, or man-demon, was a spy during the persecutions of the + early Christians, probably under the Emperor Diocletian, and penetrated + into the catacomb of St. Calixtus, with the malignant purpose of tracing + out the hiding-places of the refugees. But, while he stole craftily + through those dark corridors, he chanced to come upon a little chapel, + where tapers were burning before an altar and a crucifix, and a priest was + in the performance of his sacred office. By divine indulgence, there was a + single moment’s grace allowed to Memmius, during which, had he been + capable of Christian faith and love, he might have knelt before the cross, + and received the holy light into his soul, and so have been blest forever. + But he resisted the sacred impulse. As soon, therefore, as that one moment + had glided by, the light of the consecrated tapers, which represent all + truth, bewildered the wretched man with everlasting error, and the blessed + cross itself was stamped as a seal upon his heart, so that it should never + open to receive conviction. + </p> + <p> + Thenceforth, this heathen Memmius has haunted the wide and dreary + precincts of the catacomb, seeking, as some say, to beguile new victims + into his own misery; but, according to other statements, endeavoring to + prevail on any unwary visitor to take him by the hand, and guide him out + into the daylight. Should his wiles and entreaties take effect, however, + the man-demon would remain only a little while above ground. He would + gratify his fiendish malignity by perpetrating signal mischief on his + benefactor, and perhaps bringing some old pestilence or other forgotten + and long-buried evil on society; or, possibly, teaching the modern world + some decayed and dusty kind of crime, which the antique Romans knew,—and + then would hasten back to the catacomb, which, after so long haunting it, + has grown his most congenial home. + </p> + <p> + Miriam herself, with her chosen friends, the sculptor and the gentle + Hilda, often laughed at the monstrous fictions that had gone abroad in + reference to her adventure. Her two confidants (for such they were, on all + ordinary subjects) had not failed to ask an explanation of the mystery, + since undeniably a mystery there was, and one sufficiently perplexing in + itself, without any help from the imaginative faculty. And, sometimes + responding to their inquiries with a melancholy sort of playfulness, + Miriam let her fancy run off into wilder fables than any which German + ingenuity or Italian superstition had contrived. + </p> + <p> + For example, with a strange air of seriousness over all her face, only + belied by a laughing gleam in her dark eyes, she would aver that the + spectre (who had been an artist in his mortal lifetime) had promised to + teach her a long-lost, but invaluable secret of old Roman fresco painting. + The knowledge of this process would place Miriam at the head of modern + art; the sole condition being agreed upon, that she should return with him + into his sightless gloom, after enriching a certain extent of stuccoed + wall with the most brilliant and lovely designs. And what true votary of + art would not purchase unrivalled excellence, even at so vast a sacrifice! + </p> + <p> + Or, if her friends still solicited a soberer account, Miriam replied, + that, meeting the old infidel in one of the dismal passages of the + catacomb, she had entered into controversy with him, hoping to achieve the + glory and satisfaction of converting him to the Christian faith. For the + sake of so excellent a result; she had even staked her own salvation + against his, binding herself to accompany him back into his penal gloom, + if, within a twelvemonth’s space, she should not have convinced him of the + errors through which he had so long groped and stumbled. But, alas! up to + the present time, the controversy had gone direfully in favor of the + man-demon; and Miriam (as she whispered in Hilda’s ear) had awful + forebodings, that, in a few more months, she must take an eternal farewell + of the sun! + </p> + <p> + It was somewhat remarkable that all her romantic fantasies arrived at this + self-same dreary termination,—it appeared impossible for her even to + imagine any other than a disastrous result from her connection with her + ill-omened attendant. + </p> + <p> + This singularity might have meant nothing, however, had it not suggested a + despondent state of mind, which was likewise indicated by many other + tokens. Miriam’s friends had no difficulty in perceiving that, in one way + or another, her happiness was very seriously compromised. Her spirits were + often depressed into deep melancholy. If ever she was gay, it was seldom + with a healthy cheerfulness. She grew moody, moreover, and subject to fits + of passionate ill temper; which usually wreaked itself on the heads of + those who loved her best. Not that Miriam’s indifferent acquaintances were + safe from similar outbreaks of her displeasure, especially if they + ventured upon any allusion to the model. In such cases, they were left + with little disposition to renew the subject, but inclined, on the other + hand, to interpret the whole matter as much to her discredit as the least + favorable coloring of the facts would allow. + </p> + <p> + It may occur to the reader, that there was really no demand for so much + rumor and speculation in regard to an incident, Which might well enough + have been explained without going many steps beyond the limits of + probability. The spectre might have been merely a Roman beggar, whose + fraternity often harbor in stranger shelters than the catacombs; or one of + those pilgrims, who still journey from remote countries to kneel and + worship at the holy sites, among which these haunts of the early + Christians are esteemed especially sacred. Or, as was perhaps a more + plausible theory, he might be a thief of the city, a robber of the + Campagna, a political offender, or an assassin, with blood upon his hand; + whom the negligence or connivance of the police allowed to take refuge in + those subterranean fastnesses, where such outlaws have been accustomed to + hide themselves from a far antiquity downward. Or he might have been a + lunatic, fleeing instinctively from man, and making it his dark pleasure + to dwell among the tombs, like him whose awful cry echoes afar to us from + Scripture times. + </p> + <p> + And, as for the stranger’s attaching himself so devotedly to Miriam, her + personal magnetism might be allowed a certain weight in the explanation. + For what remains, his pertinacity need not seem so very singular to those + who consider how slight a link serves to connect these vagabonds of idle + Italy with any person that may have the ill-hap to bestow charity, or be + otherwise serviceable to them, or betray the slightest interest in their + fortunes. + </p> + <p> + Thus little would remain to be accounted for, except the deportment of + Miriam herself; her reserve, her brooding melancholy, her petulance, and + moody passion. If generously interpreted, even these morbid symptoms might + have sufficient cause in the stimulating and exhaustive influences of + imaginative art, exercised by a delicate young woman, in the nervous and + unwholesome atmosphere of Rome. Such, at least, was the view of the case + which Hilda and Kenyon endeavored to impress on their own minds, and + impart to those whom their opinions might influence. + </p> + <p> + One of Miriam’s friends took the matter sadly to heart. This was the young + Italian. Donatello, as we have seen, had been an eyewitness of the + stranger’s first appearance, and had ever since nourished a singular + prejudice against the mysterious, dusky, death-scented apparition. It + resembled not so much a human dislike or hatred, as one of those + instinctive, unreasoning antipathies which the lower animals sometimes + display, and which generally prove more trustworthy than the acutest + insight into character. The shadow of the model, always flung into the + light which Miriam diffused around her, caused no slight trouble to + Donatello. Yet he was of a nature so remarkably genial and joyous, so + simply happy, that he might well afford to have something subtracted from + his comfort, and make tolerable shift to live upon what remained. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V + </h2> + <p> + MIRIAM’S STUDIO + </p> + <p> + The courtyard and staircase of a palace built three hundred years ago are + a peculiar feature of modern Rome, and interest the stranger more than + many things of which he has heard loftier descriptions. You pass through + the grand breadth and height of a squalid entrance-way, and perhaps see a + range of dusky pillars, forming a sort of cloister round the court, and in + the intervals, from pillar to pillar, are strewn fragments of antique + statues, headless and legless torsos, and busts that have invariably lost + what it might be well if living men could lay aside in that unfragrant + atmosphere—the nose. Bas-reliefs, the spoil of some far older + palace, are set in the surrounding walls, every stone of which has been + ravished from the Coliseum, or any other imperial ruin which earlier + barbarism had not already levelled with the earth. Between two of the + pillars, moreover, stands an old sarcophagus without its lid, and with all + its more prominently projecting sculptures broken off; perhaps it once + held famous dust, and the bony framework of some historic man, although + now only a receptacle for the rubbish of the courtyard, and a half-worn + broom. + </p> + <p> + In the centre of the court, under the blue Italian sky, and with the + hundred windows of the vast palace gazing down upon it from four sides, + appears a fountain. It brims over from one stone basin to another, or + gushes from a Naiad’s urn, or spurts its many little jets from the mouths + of nameless monsters, which were merely grotesque and artificial when + Bernini, or whoever was their unnatural father, first produced them; but + now the patches of moss, the tufts of grass, the trailing maiden-hair, and + all sorts of verdant weeds that thrive in the cracks and crevices of moist + marble, tell us that Nature takes the fountain back into her great heart, + and cherishes it as kindly as if it were a woodland spring. And hark, the + pleasant murmur, the gurgle, the plash! You might hear just those tinkling + sounds from any tiny waterfall in the forest, though here they gain a + delicious pathos from the stately echoes that reverberate their natural + language. So the fountain is not altogether glad, after all its three + centuries at play! + </p> + <p> + In one of the angles of the courtyard, a pillared doorway gives access to + the staircase, with its spacious breadth of low marble steps, up which, in + former times, have gone the princes and cardinals of the great Roman + family who built this palace. Or they have come down, with still grander + and loftier mien, on their way to the Vatican or the Quirinal, there to + put off their scarlet hats in exchange for the triple crown. But, in fine, + all these illustrious personages have gone down their hereditary staircase + for the last time, leaving it to be the thoroughfare of ambassadors, + English noblemen, American millionnaires, artists, tradesmen, washerwomen, + and people of every degree,—all of whom find such gilded and + marble-panelled saloons as their pomp and luxury demand, or such homely + garrets as their necessity can pay for, within this one multifarious + abode. Only, in not a single nook of the palace (built for splendor, and + the accommodation of a vast retinue, but with no vision of a happy + fireside or any mode of domestic enjoyment) does the humblest or the + haughtiest occupant find comfort. + </p> + <p> + Up such a staircase, on the morning after the scene at the sculpture + gallery, sprang the light foot of Donatello. He ascended from story to + story, passing lofty doorways, set within rich frames of sculptured + marble, and climbing unweariedly upward, until the glories of the first + piano and the elegance of the middle height were exchanged for a sort of + Alpine region, cold and naked in its aspect. Steps of rough stone, rude + wooden balustrades, a brick pavement in the passages, a dingy whitewash on + the walls; these were here the palatial features. Finally, he paused + before an oaken door, on which was pinned a card, bearing the name of + Miriam Schaefer, artist in oils. Here Donatello knocked, and the door + immediately fell somewhat ajar; its latch having been pulled up by means + of a string on the inside. Passing through a little anteroom, he found + himself in Miriam’s presence. + </p> + <p> + “Come in, wild Faun,” she said, “and tell me the latest news from Arcady!” + </p> + <p> + The artist was not just then at her easel, but was busied with the + feminine task of mending a pair of gloves. + </p> + <p> + There is something extremely pleasant, and even touching,—at least, + of very sweet, soft, and winning effect,—in this peculiarity of + needlework, distinguishing women from men. Our own sex is incapable of any + such by-play aside from the main business of life; but women—be they + of what earthly rank they may, however gifted with intellect or genius, or + endowed with awful beauty—have always some little handiwork ready to + fill the tiny gap of every vacant moment. A needle is familiar to the + fingers of them all. A queen, no doubt, plies it on occasion; the woman + poet can use it as adroitly as her pen; the woman’s eye, that has + discovered a new star, turns from its glory to send the polished little + instrument gleaming along the hem of her kerchief, or to darn a casual + fray in her dress. And they have greatly the advantage of us in this + respect. The slender thread of silk or cotton keeps them united with the + small, familiar, gentle interests of life, the continually operating + influences of which do so much for the health of the character, and carry + off what would otherwise be a dangerous accumulation of morbid + sensibility. A vast deal of human sympathy runs along this electric line, + stretching from the throne to the wicker chair of the humblest seamstress, + and keeping high and low in a species of communion with their kindred + beings. Methinks it is a token of healthy and gentle characteristics, when + women of high thoughts and accomplishments love to sew; especially as they + are never more at home with their own hearts than while so occupied. + </p> + <p> + And when the work falls in a woman’s lap, of its own accord, and the + needle involuntarily ceases to fly, it is a sign of trouble, quite as + trustworthy as the throb of the heart itself. This was what happened to + Miriam. Even while Donatello stood gazing at her, she seemed to have + forgotten his presence, allowing him to drop out of her thoughts, and the + torn glove to fall from her idle fingers. Simple as he was, the young man + knew by his sympathies that something was amiss. + </p> + <p> + “Dear lady, you are sad,” said he, drawing close to her. + </p> + <p> + “It is nothing, Donatello,” she replied, resuming her work; “yes; a little + sad, perhaps; but that is not strange for us people of the ordinary world, + especially for women. You are of a cheerfuller race, my friend, and know + nothing of this disease of sadness. But why do you come into this shadowy + room of mine?” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you make it so shadowy?” asked he. + </p> + <p> + “We artists purposely exclude sunshine, and all but a partial light,” said + Miriam, “because we think it necessary to put ourselves at odds with + Nature before trying to imitate her. That strikes you very strangely, does + it not? But we make very pretty pictures sometimes with our artfully + arranged lights and shadows. Amuse yourself with some of mine, Donatello, + and by and by I shall be in the mood to begin the portrait we were talking + about.” + </p> + <p> + The room had the customary aspect of a painter’s studio; one of those + delightful spots that hardly seem to belong to the actual world, but + rather to be the outward type of a poet’s haunted imagination, where there + are glimpses, sketches, and half-developed hints of beings and objects + grander and more beautiful than we can anywhere find in reality. The + windows were closed with shutters, or deeply curtained, except one, which + was partly open to a sunless portion of the sky, admitting only from high + upward that partial light which, with its strongly marked contrast of + shadow, is the first requisite towards seeing objects pictorially. + Pencil-drawings were pinned against the wall or scattered on the tables. + Unframed canvases turned their backs on the spectator, presenting only a + blank to the eye, and churlishly concealing whatever riches of scenery or + human beauty Miriam’s skill had depicted on the other side. + </p> + <p> + In the obscurest part of the room Donatello was half startled at + perceiving duskily a woman with long dark hair, who threw up her arms with + a wild gesture of tragic despair, and appeared to beckon him into the + darkness along with her. + </p> + <p> + “Do not be afraid, Donatello,” said Miriam, smiling to see him peering + doubtfully into the mysterious dusk. “She means you no mischief, nor could + perpetrate any if she wished it ever so much. It is a lady of exceedingly + pliable disposition; now a heroine of romance, and now a rustic maid; yet + all for show; being created, indeed, on purpose to wear rich shawls and + other garments in a becoming fashion. This is the true end of her being, + although she pretends to assume the most varied duties and perform many + parts in life, while really the poor puppet has nothing on earth to do. + Upon my word, I am satirical unawares, and seem to be describing nine + women out of ten in the person of my lay-figure. For most purposes she has + the advantage of the sisterhood. Would I were like her!” + </p> + <p> + “How it changes her aspect,” exclaimed Donatello, “to know that she is but + a jointed figure! When my eyes first fell upon her, I thought her arms + moved, as if beckoning me to help her in some direful peril.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you often troubled with such sinister freaks of fancy?” asked Miriam. + “I should not have supposed it.” + </p> + <p> + “To tell you the truth, dearest signorina,” answered the young Italian, “I + am apt to be fearful in old, gloomy houses, and in the dark. I love no + dark or dusky corners, except it be in a grotto, or among the thick green + leaves of an arbor, or in some nook of the woods, such as I know many in + the neighborhood of my home. Even there, if a stray sunbeam steal in, the + shadow is all the better for its cheerful glimmer.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; you are a Faun, you know,” said the fair artist, laughing at the + remembrance of the scene of the day before. “But the world is sadly + changed nowadays; grievously changed, poor Donatello, since those happy + times when your race used to dwell in the Arcadian woods, playing hide and + seek with the nymphs in grottoes and nooks of shrubbery. You have + reappeared on earth some centuries too late.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not understand you now,” answered Donatello, looking perplexed; + “only, signorina, I am glad to have my lifetime while you live; and where + you are, be it in cities or fields, I would fain be there too.” + </p> + <p> + “I wonder whether I ought to allow you to speak in this way,” said Miriam, + looking thoughtfully at him. “Many young women would think it behooved + them to be offended. Hilda would never let you speak so, I dare say. But + he is a mere boy,” she added, aside, “a simple boy, putting his boyish + heart to the proof on the first woman whom he chances to meet. If yonder + lay-figure had had the luck to meet him first, she would have smitten him + as deeply as I.” + </p> + <p> + “Are you angry with me?” asked Donatello dolorously. + </p> + <p> + “Not in the least,” answered Miriam, frankly giving him her hand. “Pray + look over some of these sketches till I have leisure to chat with you a + little. I hardly think I am in spirits enough to begin your portrait + to-day.” + </p> + <p> + Donatello was as gentle and docile as a pet spaniel; as playful, too, in + his general disposition, or saddening with his mistress’s variable mood + like that or any other kindly animal which has the faculty of bestowing + its sympathies more completely than men or women can ever do. Accordingly, + as Miriam bade him, he tried to turn his attention to a great pile and + confusion of pen and ink sketches and pencil drawings which lay tossed + together on a table. As it chanced, however, they gave the poor youth + little delight. + </p> + <p> + The first that he took up was a very impressive sketch, in which the + artist had jotted down her rough ideas for a picture of Jael driving the + nail through the temples of Sisera. It was dashed off with remarkable + power, and showed a touch or two that were actually lifelike and + deathlike, as if Miriam had been standing by when Jael gave the first + stroke of her murderous hammer, or as if she herself were Jael, and felt + irresistibly impelled to make her bloody confession in this guise. + </p> + <p> + Her first conception of the stern Jewess had evidently been that of + perfect womanhood, a lovely form, and a high, heroic face of lofty beauty; + but, dissatisfied either with her own work or the terrible story itself, + Miriam had added a certain wayward quirk of her pencil, which at once + converted the heroine into a vulgar murderess. It was evident that a Jael + like this would be sure to search Sisera’s pockets as soon as the breath + was out of his body. + </p> + <p> + In another sketch she had attempted the story of Judith, which we see + represented by the old masters so often, and in such various styles. Here, + too, beginning with a passionate and fiery conception of the subject in + all earnestness, she had given the last touches in utter scorn, as it + were, of the feelings which at first took such powerful possession of her + hand. The head of Holofernes (which, by the bye, had a pair of twisted + mustaches, like those of a certain potentate of the day) being fairly cut + off, was screwing its eyes upward and twirling its features into a + diabolical grin of triumphant malice, which it flung right in Judith’s + face. On her part, she had the startled aspect that might be conceived of + a cook if a calf’s head should sneer at her when about to be popped into + the dinner-pot. + </p> + <p> + Over and over again, there was the idea of woman, acting the part of a + revengeful mischief towards man. It was, indeed, very singular to see how + the artist’s imagination seemed to run on these stories of bloodshed, in + which woman’s hand was crimsoned by the stain; and how, too,—in one + form or another, grotesque or sternly sad,—she failed not to bring + out the moral, that woman must strike through her own heart to reach a + human life, whatever were the motive that impelled her. + </p> + <p> + One of the sketches represented the daughter of Herodias receiving the + head of John the Baptist in a charger. The general conception appeared to + be taken from Bernardo Luini’s picture, in the Uffizzi Gallery at + Florence; but Miriam had imparted to the saint’s face a look of gentle and + heavenly reproach, with sad and blessed eyes fixed upward at the maiden; + by the force of which miraculous glance, her whole womanhood was at once + awakened to love and endless remorse. + </p> + <p> + These sketches had a most disagreeable effect on Donatello’s peculiar + temperament. He gave a shudder; his face assumed a look of trouble, fear, + and disgust; he snatched up one sketch after another, as if about to tear + it in pieces. Finally, shoving away the pile of drawings, he shrank back + from the table and clasped his hands over his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter, Donatello?” asked Miriam, looking up from a letter + which she was now writing. “Ah! I did not mean you to see those drawings. + They are ugly phantoms that stole out of my mind; not things that I + created, but things that haunt me. See! here are some trifles that perhaps + will please you better.” + </p> + <p> + She gave him a portfolio, the sketches in which indicated a happier mood + of mind, and one, it is to be hoped, more truly characteristic of the + artist. Supposing neither of these classes of subject to show anything of + her own individuality, Miriam had evidently a great scope of fancy, and a + singular faculty of putting what looked like heart into her productions. + The latter sketches were domestic and common scenes, so finely and + subtilely idealized that they seemed such as we may see at any moment, and + eye, where; while still there was the indefinable something added, or + taken away, which makes all the difference between sordid life and an + earthly paradise. The feeling and sympathy in all of them were deep and + true. There was the scene, that comes once in every life, of the lover + winning the soft and pure avowal of bashful affection from the maiden + whose slender form half leans towards his arm, half shrinks from it, we + know not which. There was wedded affection in its successive stages, + represented in a series of delicately conceived designs, touched with a + holy fire, that burned from youth to age in those two hearts, and gave one + identical beauty to the faces throughout all the changes of feature. + </p> + <p> + There was a drawing of an infant’s shoe, half worn out, with the airy + print of the blessed foot within; a thing that would make a mother smile + or weep out of the very depths of her heart; and yet an actual mother + would not have been likely to appreciate the poetry of the little shoe, + until Miriam revealed it to her. It was wonderful, the depth and force + with which the above, and other kindred subjects, were depicted, and the + profound significance which they often acquired. The artist, still in her + fresh youth, could not probably have drawn any of these dear and rich + experiences from her own life; unless, perchance, that first sketch of + all, the avowal of maiden affection, were a remembered incident, and not a + prophecy. But it is more delightful to believe that, from first to last, + they were the productions of a beautiful imagination, dealing with the + warm and pure suggestions of a woman’s heart, and thus idealizing a truer + and lovelier picture of the life that belongs to woman, than an actual + acquaintance with some of its hard and dusty facts could have inspired. So + considered, the sketches intimated such a force and variety of imaginative + sympathies as would enable Miriam to fill her life richly with the bliss + and suffering of womanhood, however barren it might individually be. + </p> + <p> + There was one observable point, indeed, betokening that the artist + relinquished, for her personal self, the happiness which she could so + profoundly appreciate for others. In all those sketches of common life, + and the affections that spiritualize it, a figure was portrayed apart, now + it peeped between the branches of a shrubbery, amid which two lovers sat; + now it was looking through a frosted window, from the outside, while a + young wedded pair sat at their new fireside within; and once it leaned + from a chariot, which six horses were whirling onward in pomp and pride, + and gazed at a scene of humble enjoyment by a cottage door. Always it was + the same figure, and always depicted with an expression of deep sadness; + and in every instance, slightly as they were brought out, the face and + form had the traits of Miriam’s own. + </p> + <p> + “Do you like these sketches better, Donatello?” asked Miriam. “Yes,” said + Donatello rather doubtfully. “Not much, I fear,” responded she, laughing. + “And what should a boy like you—a Faun too,—know about the + joys and sorrows, the intertwining light and shadow, of human life? I + forgot that you were a Faun. You cannot suffer deeply; therefore you can + but half enjoy. Here, now, is a subject which you can better appreciate.” + </p> + <p> + The sketch represented merely a rustic dance, but with such extravagance + of fun as was delightful to behold; and here there was no drawback, except + that strange sigh and sadness which always come when we are merriest. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to paint the picture in oils,” said the artist; “and I want + you, Donatello, for the wildest dancer of them all. Will you sit for me, + some day?—or, rather, dance for me?” + </p> + <p> + “O, most gladly, signorina!” exclaimed Donatello. “See; it shall be like + this.” + </p> + <p> + And forthwith he began to dance, and flit about the studio, like an + incarnate sprite of jollity, pausing at last on the extremity of one toe, + as if that were the only portion of himself whereby his frisky nature + could come in contact with the earth. The effect in that shadowy chamber, + whence the artist had so carefully excluded the sunshine, was as + enlivening as if one bright ray had contrived to shimmer in and frolic + around the walls, and finally rest just in the centre of the floor. + </p> + <p> + “That was admirable!” said Miriam, with an approving smile. “If I can + catch you on my canvas, it will be a glorious picture; only I am afraid + you will dance out of it, by the very truth of the representation, just + when I shall have given it the last touch. We will try it one of these + days. And now, to reward you for that jolly exhibition, you shall see what + has been shown to no one else.” + </p> + <p> + She went to her easel, on which was placed a picture with its back turned + towards the spectator. Reversing the position, there appeared the portrait + of a beautiful woman, such as one sees only two or three, if even so many + times, in all a lifetime; so beautiful, that she seemed to get into your + consciousness and memory, and could never afterwards be shut out, but + haunted your dreams, for pleasure or for pain; holding your inner realm as + a conquered territory, though without deigning to make herself at home + there. + </p> + <p> + She was very youthful, and had what was usually thought to be a Jewish + aspect; a complexion in which there was no roseate bloom, yet neither was + it pale; dark eyes, into which you might look as deeply as your glance + would go, and still be conscious of a depth that you had not sounded, + though it lay open to the day. She had black, abundant hair, with none of + the vulgar glossiness of other women’s sable locks; if she were really of + Jewish blood, then this was Jewish hair, and a dark glory such as crowns + no Christian maiden’s head. Gazing at this portrait, you saw what Rachel + might have been, when Jacob deemed her worth the wooing seven years, and + seven more; or perchance she might ripen to be what Judith was, when she + vanquished Holofernes with her beauty, and slew him for too much adoring + it. + </p> + <p> + Miriam watched Donatello’s contemplation of the picture, and seeing his + simple rapture, a smile of pleasure brightened on her face, mixed with a + little scorn; at least, her lips curled, and her eyes gleamed, as if she + disdained either his admiration or her own enjoyment of it. + </p> + <p> + “Then you like the picture, Donatello?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “O, beyond what I can tell!” he answered. “So beautiful!—so + beautiful!” + </p> + <p> + “And do you recognize the likeness?” + </p> + <p> + “Signorina,” exclaimed Donatello, turning from the picture to the artist, + in astonishment that she should ask the question, “the resemblance is as + little to be mistaken as if you had bent over the smooth surface of a + fountain, and possessed the witchcraft to call forth the image that you + made there! It is yourself!” + </p> + <p> + Donatello said the truth; and we forebore to speak descriptively of + Miriam’s beauty earlier in our narrative, because we foresaw this occasion + to bring it perhaps more forcibly before the reader. + </p> + <p> + We know not whether the portrait were a flattered likeness; probably not, + regarding it merely as the delineation of a lovely face; although Miriam, + like all self-painters, may have endowed herself with certain graces which + Other eyes might not discern. Artists are fond of painting their own + portraits; and, in Florence, there is a gallery of hundreds of them, + including the most illustrious, in all of which there are autobiographical + characteristics, so to speak,—traits, expressions, loftinesses, and + amenities, which would have been invisible, had they not been painted from + within. Yet their reality and truth are none the less. Miriam, in like + manner, had doubtless conveyed some of the intimate results of her heart + knowledge into her own portrait, and perhaps wished to try whether they + would be perceptible to so simple and natural an observer as Donatello. + </p> + <p> + “Does the expression please you?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Donatello hesitatingly; “if it would only smile so like the + sunshine as you sometimes do. No, it is sadder than I thought at first. + Cannot you make yourself smile a little, signorina?” + </p> + <p> + “A forced smile is uglier than a frown,” said Miriam, a bright, natural + smile breaking out over her face even as she spoke. + </p> + <p> + “O, catch it now!” cried Donatello, clapping his hands. “Let it shine upon + the picture! There! it has vanished already! And you are sad again, very + sad; and the picture gazes sadly forth at me, as if some evil had befallen + it in the little time since I looked last.” + </p> + <p> + “How perplexed you seem, my friend!” answered Miriam. “I really half + believe you are a Faun, there is such a mystery and terror for you in + these dark moods, which are just as natural as daylight to us people of + ordinary mould. I advise you, at all events, to look at other faces with + those innocent and happy eyes, and never more to gaze at mine!” + </p> + <p> + “You speak in vain,” replied the young man, with a deeper emphasis than + she had ever before heard in his voice; “shroud yourself in what gloom you + will, I must needs follow you.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, well, well,” said Miriam impatiently; “but leave me now; for to + speak plainly, my good friend, you grow a little wearisome. I walk this + afternoon in the Borghese grounds. Meet me there, if it suits your + pleasure.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI + </h2> + <p> + THE VIRGIN’S SHRINE + </p> + <p> + After Donatello had left the studio, Miriam herself came forth, and taking + her way through some of the intricacies of the city, entered what might be + called either a widening of a street, or a small piazza. The neighborhood + comprised a baker’s oven, emitting the usual fragrance of sour bread; a + shoe shop; a linen-draper’s shop; a pipe and cigar shop; a lottery office; + a station for French soldiers, with a sentinel pacing in front; and a + fruit-stand, at which a Roman matron was selling the dried kernels of + chestnuts, wretched little figs, and some bouquets of yesterday. A church, + of course, was near at hand, the facade of which ascended into lofty + pinnacles, whereon were perched two or three winged figures of stone, + either angelic or allegorical, blowing stone trumpets in close vicinity to + the upper windows of an old and shabby palace. This palace was + distinguished by a feature not very common in the architecture of Roman + edifices; that is to say, a mediaeval tower, square, massive, lofty, and + battlemented and machicolated at the summit. + </p> + <p> + At one of the angles of the battlements stood a shrine of the Virgin, such + as we see everywhere at the street corners of Rome, but seldom or never, + except in this solitary, instance, at a height above the ordinary level of + men’s views and aspirations. Connected with this old tower and its lofty + shrine, there is a legend which we cannot here pause to tell; but for + centuries a lamp has been burning before the Virgin’s image, at noon, at + midnight, and at all hours of the twenty-four, and must be kept burning + forever, as long as the tower shall stand; or else the tower itself, the + palace, and whatever estate belongs to it, shall pass from its hereditary + possessor, in accordance with an ancient vow, and become the property of + the Church. + </p> + <p> + As Miriam approached, she looked upward, and saw,—not, indeed, the + flame of the never-dying lamp, which was swallowed up in the broad + sunlight that brightened the shrine, but a flock of white doves, skimming, + fluttering, and wheeling about the topmost height of the tower, their + silver wings flashing in the pure transparency of the air. Several of them + sat on the ledge of the upper window, pushing one another off by their + eager struggle for this favorite station, and all tapping their beaks and + flapping their wings tumultuously against the panes; some had alighted in + the street, far below, but flew hastily upward, at the sound of the window + being thrust ajar, and opening in the middle, on rusty hinges, as Roman + windows do. + </p> + <p> + A fair young girl, dressed in white, showed herself at the aperture for a + single instant, and threw forth as much as her two small hands could hold + of some kind of food, for the flock of eleemosynary doves. It seemed + greatly to the taste of the feathered people; for they tried to snatch + beakfuls of it from her grasp, caught it in the air, and rushed downward + after it upon the pavement. + </p> + <p> + “What a pretty scene this is,” thought Miriam, with a kindly smile, “and + how like a dove she is herself, the fair, pure creature! The other doves + know her for a sister, I am sure.” + </p> + <p> + Miriam passed beneath the deep portal of the palace, and turning to the + left, began to mount flight after flight of a staircase, which, for the + loftiness of its aspiration, was worthy to be Jacob’s ladder, or, at all + events, the staircase of the Tower of Babel. The city bustle, which is + heard even in Rome, the rumble of wheels over the uncomfortable + paving-stones, the hard harsh cries reechoing in the high and narrow + streets, grew faint and died away; as the turmoil of the world will always + die, if we set our faces to climb heavenward. Higher, and higher still; + and now, glancing through the successive windows that threw in their + narrow light upon the stairs, her view stretched across the roofs of the + city, unimpeded even by the stateliest palaces. Only the domes of churches + ascend into this airy region, and hold up their golden crosses on a level + with her eye; except that, out of the very heart of Rome, the column of + Antoninus thrusts itself upward, with St. Paul upon its summit, the sole + human form that seems to have kept her company. + </p> + <p> + Finally, the staircase came to an end; save that, on one side of the + little entry where it terminated, a flight of a dozen steps gave access to + the roof of the tower and the legendary shrine. On the other side was a + door, at which Miriam knocked, but rather as a friendly announcement of + her presence than with any doubt of hospitable welcome; for, awaiting no + response, she lifted the latch and entered. + </p> + <p> + “What a hermitage you have found for yourself, dear Hilda!” she, + exclaimed. “You breathe sweet air, above all the evil scents of Rome; and + even so, in your maiden elevation, you dwell above our vanities and + passions, our moral dust and mud, with the doves and the angels for your + nearest neighbors. I should not wonder if the Catholics were to make a + saint of you, like your namesake of old; especially as you have almost + avowed yourself of their religion, by undertaking to keep the lamp alight + before the Virgin’s shrine.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, Miriam!” said Hilda, who had come joyfully forward to greet her + friend. “You must not call me a Catholic. A Christian girl—even a + daughter of the Puritans—may surely pay honor to the idea of divine + Womanhood, without giving up the faith of her forefathers. But how kind + you are to climb into my dove-cote!” + </p> + <p> + “It is no trifling proof of friendship, indeed,” answered Miriam; “I + should think there were three hundred stairs at least.” + </p> + <p> + “But it will do you good,” continued Hilda. “A height of some fifty feet + above the roofs of Rome gives me all the advantages that I could get from + fifty miles of distance. The air so exhilarates my spirits, that sometimes + I feel half inclined to attempt a flight from the top of my tower, in the + faith that I should float upward.” + </p> + <p> + “O, pray don’t try it!” said Miriam, laughing; “If it should turn out that + you are less than an angel, you would find the stones of the Roman + pavement very hard; and if an angel, indeed, I am afraid you would never + come down among us again.” + </p> + <p> + This young American girl was an example of the freedom of life which it is + possible for a female artist to enjoy at Rome. She dwelt in her tower, as + free to descend into the corrupted atmosphere of the city beneath, as one + of her companion doves to fly downward into the street;—all alone, + perfectly independent, under her own sole guardianship, unless watched + over by the Virgin, whose shrine she tended; doing what she liked without + a suspicion or a shadow upon the snowy whiteness of her fame. The customs + of artist life bestow such liberty upon the sex, which is elsewhere + restricted within so much narrower limits; and it is perhaps an indication + that, whenever we admit women to a wider scope of pursuits and + professions, we must also remove the shackles of our present conventional + rules, which would then become an insufferable restraint on either maid or + wife. The system seems to work unexceptionably in Rome; and in many other + cases, as in Hilda’s, purity of heart and life are allowed to assert + themselves, and to be their own proof and security, to a degree unknown in + the society of other cities. + </p> + <p> + Hilda, in her native land, had early shown what was pronounced by + connoisseurs a decided genius for the pictorial art. Even in her + schooldays—still not so very distant—she had produced sketches + that were seized upon by men of taste, and hoarded as among the choicest + treasures of their portfolios; scenes delicately imagined, lacking, + perhaps, the reality which comes only from a close acquaintance with life, + but so softly touched with feeling and fancy that you seemed to be looking + at humanity with angels’ eyes. With years and experience she might be + expected to attain a darker and more forcible touch, which would impart to + her designs the relief they needed. Had Hilda remained in her own country, + it is not improbable that she might have produced original works worthy to + hang in that gallery of native art which, we hope, is destined to extend + its rich length through many future centuries. An orphan, however, without + near relatives, and possessed of a little property, she had found it + within her possibilities to come to Italy; that central clime, whither the + eyes and the heart of every artist turn, as if pictures could not be made + to glow in any other atmosphere, as if statues could not assume grace and + expression, save in that land of whitest marble. + </p> + <p> + Hilda’s gentle courage had brought her safely over land and sea; her mild, + unflagging perseverance had made a place for her in the famous city, even + like a flower that finds a chink for itself, and a little earth to grow + in, on whatever ancient wall its slender roots may fasten. Here she dwelt, + in her tower, possessing a friend or two in Rome, but no home companion + except the flock of doves, whose cote was in a ruinous chamber contiguous + to her own. They soon became as familiar with the fair-haired Saxon girl + as if she were a born sister of their brood; and her customary white robe + bore such an analogy to their snowy plumage that the confraternity of + artists called Hilda the Dove, and recognized her aerial apartment as the + Dovecote. And while the other doves flew far and wide in quest of what was + good for them, Hilda likewise spread her wings, and sought such ethereal + and imaginative sustenance as God ordains for creatures of her kind. + </p> + <p> + We know not whether the result of her Italian studies, so far as it could + yet be seen, will be accepted as a good or desirable one. Certain it is, + that since her arrival in the pictorial land, Hilda seemed to have + entirely lost the impulse of original design, which brought her thither. + No doubt the girl’s early dreams had been of sending forms and hues of + beauty into the visible world out of her own mind; of compelling scenes of + poetry and history to live before men’s eyes, through conceptions and by + methods individual to herself. But more and more, as she grew familiar + with the miracles of art that enrich so many galleries in Rome, Hilda had + ceased to consider herself as an original artist. No, wonder that this + change should have befallen her. She was endowed with a deep and sensitive + faculty of appreciation; she had the gift of discerning and worshipping + excellence in a most unusual measure. No other person, it is probable, + recognized so adequately, and enjoyed with such deep delight, the + pictorial wonders that were here displayed. She saw no, not saw, but felt + through and through a picture; she bestowed upon it all the warmth and + richness of a woman’s sympathy; not by any intellectual effort, but by + this strength of heart, and this guiding light of sympathy, she went + straight to the central point, in which the master had conceived his work. + Thus she viewed it, as it were, with his own eyes, and hence her + comprehension of any picture that interested her was perfect. + </p> + <p> + This power and depth of appreciation depended partly upon Hilda’s physical + organization, which was at once healthful and exquisitely delicate; and, + connected with this advantage, she had a command of hand, a nicety and + force of touch, which is an endowment separate from pictorial genius, + though indispensable to its exercise. + </p> + <p> + It has probably happened in many other instances, as it did in Hilda’s + case, that she ceased to aim at original achievement in consequence of the + very gifts which so exquisitely fitted her to profit by familiarity with + the works of the mighty old masters. Reverencing these wonderful men so + deeply, she was too grateful for all they bestowed upon her, too loyal, + too humble, in their awful presence, to think of enrolling herself in + their society. Beholding the miracles of beauty which they had achieved, + the world seemed already rich enough in original designs, and nothing more + was so desirable as to diffuse those self-same beauties more widely among + mankind. All the youthful hopes and ambitions, the fanciful ideas which + she had brought from home, of great pictures to be conceived in her + feminine mind, were flung aside, and, so far as those most intimate with + her could discern, relinquished without a sigh. All that she would + henceforth attempt and that most reverently, not to say religiously was to + catch and reflect some of the glory which had been shed upon canvas from + the immortal pencils of old. + </p> + <p> + So Hilda became a copyist: in the Pinacotheca of the Vatican, in the + galleries of the Pam-fili-Doria palace, the Borghese, the Corsini, the + Sciarra, her easel was set up before many a famous picture by Guido, + Domenichino, Raphael, and the devout painters of earlier schools than + these. Other artists and visitors from foreign lands beheld the slender, + girlish figure in front of some world-known work, absorbed, unconscious of + everything around her, seeming to live only in what she sought to do. They + smiled, no doubt, at the audacity which led her to dream of copying those + mighty achievements. But, if they paused to look over her shoulder, and + had sensibility enough to understand what was before their eyes, they soon + felt inclined to believe that the spirits of the old masters were hovering + over Hilda, and guiding her delicate white hand. In truth, from whatever + realm of bliss and many colored beauty those spirits might descend, it + would have been no unworthy errand to help so gentle and pure a worshipper + of their genius in giving the last divine touch to her repetitions of + their works. + </p> + <p> + Her copies were indeed marvellous. Accuracy was not the phrase for them; a + Chinese copy is accurate. Hilda’s had that evanescent and ethereal life—that + flitting fragrance, as it were, of the originals—which it is as + difficult to catch and retain as it would be for a sculptor to get the + very movement and varying color of a living man into his marble bust. Only + by watching the efforts of the most skilful copyists—men who spend a + lifetime, as some of them do, in multiplying copies of a single picture—and + observing how invariably they leave out just the indefinable charm that + involves the last, inestimable value, can we understand the difficulties + of the task which they undertake. + </p> + <p> + It was not Hilda’s general practice to attempt reproducing the whole of a + great picture, but to select some high, noble, and delicate portion of it, + in which the spirit and essence of the picture culminated: the Virgin’s + celestial sorrow, for example, or a hovering angel, imbued with immortal + light, or a saint with the glow of heaven in his dying face,—and + these would be rendered with her whole soul. If a picture had darkened + into an indistinct shadow through time and neglect, or had been injured by + cleaning, or retouched by some profane hand, she seemed to possess the + faculty of seeing it in its pristine glory. The copy would come from her + hands with what the beholder felt must be the light which the old master + had left upon the original in bestowing his final and most ethereal touch. + In some instances even (at least, so those believed who best appreciated + Hilda’s power and sensibility) she had been enabled to execute what the + great master had conceived in his imagination, but had not so perfectly + succeeded in putting upon canvas; a result surely not impossible when such + depth of sympathy as she possessed was assisted by the delicate skill and + accuracy of her slender hand. In such cases the girl was but a finer + instrument, a more exquisitely effective piece of mechanism, by the help + of which the spirit of some great departed painter now first achieved his + ideal, centuries after his own earthly hand, that other tool, had turned + to dust. + </p> + <p> + Not to describe her as too much a wonder, however, Hilda, or the Dove, as + her well-wishers half laughingly delighted to call her, had been + pronounced by good judges incomparably the best copyist in Rome. After + minute examination of her works, the most skilful artists declared that + she had been led to her results by following precisely the same process + step by step through which the original painter had trodden to the + development of his idea. Other copyists—if such they are worthy to + be called—attempt only a superficial imitation. Copies of the old + masters in this sense are produced by thousands; there are artists, as we + have said, who spend their lives in painting the works, or perhaps one + single work, of one illustrious painter over and over again: thus they + convert themselves into Guido machines, or Raphaelic machines. Their + performances, it is true, are often wonderfully deceptive to a careless + eye; but working entirely from the outside, and seeking only to reproduce + the surface, these men are sure to leave out that indefinable nothing, + that inestimable something, that constitutes the life and soul through + which the picture gets its immortality. Hilda was no such machine as this; + she wrought religiously, and therefore wrought a miracle. + </p> + <p> + It strikes us that there is something far higher and nobler in all this, + in her thus sacrificing herself to the devout recognition of the highest + excellence in art, than there would have been in cultivating her not + inconsiderable share of talent for the production of works from her own + ideas. She might have set up for herself, and won no ignoble name; she + might have helped to fill the already crowded and cumbered world with + pictures, not destitute of merit, but falling short, if by ever so little, + of the best that has been done; she might thus have gratified some tastes + that were incapable of appreciating Raphael. But this could be done only + by lowering the standard of art to the comprehension of the spectator. She + chose the better and loftier and more unselfish part, laying her + individual hopes, her fame, her prospects of enduring remembrance, at the + feet of those great departed ones whom she so loved and venerated; and + therefore the world was the richer for this feeble girl. + </p> + <p> + Since the beauty and glory of a great picture are confined within itself, + she won out that glory by patient faith and self-devotion, and multiplied + it for mankind. From the dark, chill corner of a gallery,—from some + curtained chapel in a church, where the light came seldom and aslant,—from + the prince’s carefully guarded cabinet, where not one eye in thousands was + permitted to behold it, she brought the wondrous picture into daylight, + and gave all its magic splendor for the enjoyment of the world. Hilda’s + faculty of genuine admiration is one of the rarest to be found in human + nature; and let us try to recompense her in kind by admiring her generous + self-surrender, and her brave, humble magnanimity in choosing to be the + handmaid of those old magicians, instead of a minor enchantress within a + circle of her own. + </p> + <p> + The handmaid of Raphael, whom she loved with a virgin’s love! Would it + have been worth Hilda’s while to relinquish this office for the sake of + giving the world a picture or two which it would call original; pretty + fancies of snow and moonlight; the counterpart in picture of so many + feminine achievements in literature! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII + </h2> + <p> + BEATRICE + </p> + <p> + Miriam was glad to find the Dove in her turret-home; for being endowed + with an infinite activity, and taking exquisite delight in the sweet labor + of which her life was full, it was Hilda’s practice to flee abroad + betimes, and haunt the galleries till dusk. Happy were those (but they + were very few) whom she ever chose to be the companions of her day; they + saw the art treasures of Rome, under her guidance, as they had never seen + them before. Not that Hilda could dissertate, or talk learnedly about + pictures; she would probably have been puzzled by the technical terms of + her own art. Not that she had much to say about what she most profoundly + admired; but even her silent sympathy was so powerful that it drew your + own along with it, endowing you with a second-sight that enabled you to + see excellences with almost the depth and delicacy of her own perceptions. + </p> + <p> + All the Anglo-Saxon denizens of Rome, by this time, knew Hilda by sight. + Unconsciously, the poor child had become one of the spectacles of the + Eternal City, and was often pointed out to strangers, sitting at her easel + among the wild-bearded young men, the white-haired old ones, and the + shabbily dressed, painfully plain women, who make up the throng of + copyists. The old custodes knew her well, and watched over her as their + own child. Sometimes a young artist, instead of going on with a copy of + the picture before which he had placed his easel, would enrich his canvas + with an original portrait of Hilda at her work. A lovelier subject could + not have been selected, nor one which required nicer skill and insight in + doing it anything like justice. She was pretty at all times, in our native + New England style, with her light-brown ringlets, her delicately tinged, + but healthful cheek, her sensitive, intelligent, yet most feminine and + kindly face. But, every few moments, this pretty and girlish face grew + beautiful and striking, as some inward thought and feeling brightened, + rose to the surface, and then, as it were, passed out of sight again; so + that, taking into view this constantly recurring change, it really seemed + as if Hilda were only visible by the sunshine of her soul. + </p> + <p> + In other respects, she was a good subject for a portrait, being + distinguished by a gentle picturesqueness, which was perhaps unconsciously + bestowed by some minute peculiarity of dress, such as artists seldom fail + to assume. The effect was to make her appear like an inhabitant of + pictureland, a partly ideal creature, not to be handled, nor even + approached too closely. In her feminine self, Hilda was natural, and of + pleasant deportment, endowed with a mild cheerfulness of temper, not + overflowing with animal spirits, but never long despondent. There was a + certain simplicity that made every one her friend, but it was combined + with a subtile attribute of reserve, that insensibly kept those at a + distance who were not suited to her sphere. + </p> + <p> + Miriam was the dearest friend whom she had ever known. Being a year or two + the elder, of longer acquaintance with Italy, and better fitted to deal + with its crafty and selfish inhabitants, she had helped Hilda to arrange + her way of life, and had encouraged her through those first weeks, when + Rome is so dreary to every newcomer. + </p> + <p> + “But how lucky that you are at home today,” said Miriam, continuing the + conversation which was begun, many pages back. “I hardly hoped to find + you, though I had a favor to ask,—a commission to put into your + charge. But what picture is this?” + </p> + <p> + “See!” said Hilda, taking her friend’s hand, and leading her in front of + the easel. “I wanted your opinion of it.” + </p> + <p> + “If you have really succeeded,” observed Miriam, recognizing the picture + at the first glance, “it will be the greatest miracle you have yet + achieved.” + </p> + <p> + The picture represented simply a female head; a very youthful, girlish, + perfectly beautiful face, enveloped in white drapery, from beneath which + strayed a lock or two of what seemed a rich, though hidden luxuriance of + auburn hair. The eyes were large and brown, and met those of the + spectator, but evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape. + There was a little redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so + that you would question whether or no the girl had been weeping. The whole + face was quiet; there was no distortion or disturbance of any single + feature; nor was it easy to see why the expression was not cheerful, or + why a single touch of the artist’s pencil should not brighten it into + joyousness. But, in fact, it was the very saddest picture ever painted or + conceived; it involved an unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of which + came to the observer by a sort of intuition. It was a sorrow that removed + this beautiful girl out of the sphere of humanity, and set her in a + far-off region, the remoteness of which—while yet her face is so + close before us—makes us shiver as at a spectre. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Hilda,” said her friend, after closely examining the picture, “you + have done nothing else so wonderful as this. But by what unheard-of + solicitations or secret interest have you obtained leave to copy Guido’s + Beatrice Cenci? It is an unexampled favor; and the impossibility of + getting a genuine copy has filled the Roman picture shops with Beatrices, + gay, grievous, or coquettish, but never a true one among them.” + </p> + <p> + “There has been one exquisite copy, I have heard,” said Hilda, “by an + artist capable of appreciating the spirit of the picture. It was Thompson, + who brought it away piecemeal, being forbidden (like the rest of us) to + set up his easel before it. As for me, I knew the Prince Barberini would + be deaf to all entreaties; so I had no resource but to sit down before the + picture, day after day, and let it sink into my heart. I do believe it is + now photographed there. It is a sad face to keep so close to one’s heart; + only what is so very beautiful can never be quite a pain. Well; after + studying it in this way, I know not how many times, I came home, and have + done my best to transfer the image to canvas.” + </p> + <p> + “Here it is, then,” said Miriam, contemplating Hilda’s work with great + interest and delight, mixed with the painful sympathy that the picture + excited. “Everywhere we see oil-paintings, crayon sketches, cameos, + engravings, lithographs, pretending to be Beatrice, and representing the + poor girl with blubbered eyes, a leer of coquetry, a merry look as if she + were dancing, a piteous look as if she were beaten, and twenty other modes + of fantastic mistake. But here is Guido’s very Beatrice; she that slept in + the dungeon, and awoke, betimes, to ascend the scaffold, And now that you + have done it, Hilda, can you interpret what the feeling is, that gives + this picture such a mysterious force? For my part, though deeply sensible + of its influence, I cannot seize it.” + </p> + <p> + “Nor can I, in words,” replied her friend. “But while I was painting her, + I felt all the time as if she were trying to escape from my gaze. She + knows that her sorrow is so strange and so immense, that she ought to be + solitary forever, both for the world’s sake and her own; and this is the + reason we feel such a distance between Beatrice and ourselves, even when + our eyes meet hers. It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet her glance, + and to feel that nothing can be done to help or comfort her; neither does + she ask help or comfort, knowing the hopelessness of her case better than + we do. She is a fallen angel,—fallen, and yet sinless; and it is + only this depth of sorrow, with its weight and darkness, that keeps her + down upon earth, and brings her within our view even while it sets her + beyond our reach.” + </p> + <p> + “You deem her sinless?” asked Miriam; “that is not so plain to me. If I + can pretend to see at all into that dim region, whence she gazes so + strangely and sadly at us, Beatrice’s own conscience does not acquit her + of something evil, and never to be forgiven!” + </p> + <p> + “Sorrow so black as hers oppresses her very nearly as sin would,” said + Hilda. + </p> + <p> + “Then,” inquired Miriam, “do you think that there was no sin in the deed + for which she suffered?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” replied Hilda, shuddering, “I really had quite forgotten Beatrice’s + history, and was thinking of her only as the picture seems to reveal her + character. Yes, yes; it was terrible guilt, an inexpiable crime, and she + feels it to be so. Therefore it is that the forlorn creature so longs to + elude our eyes, and forever vanish away into nothingness! Her doom is + just!” + </p> + <p> + “O Hilda, your innocence is like a sharp steel sword!” exclaimed her + friend. “Your judgments are often terribly severe, though you seem all + made up of gentleness and mercy. Beatrice’s sin may not have been so + great: perhaps it was no sin at all, but the best virtue possible in the + circumstances. If she viewed it as a sin, it may have been because her + nature was too feeble for the fate imposed upon her. Ah!” continued Miriam + passionately, “if I could only get within her consciousness!—if I + could but clasp Beatrice Cenci’s ghost, and draw it into myself! I would + give my life to know whether she thought herself innocent, or the one + great criminal since time began.” + </p> + <p> + As Miriam gave utterance to these words, Hilda looked from the picture + into her face, and was startled to observe that her friend’s expression + had become almost exactly that of the portrait; as if her passionate wish + and struggle to penetrate poor Beatrice’s mystery had been successful. + </p> + <p> + “O, for Heaven’s sake, Miriam, do not look so!” she cried. “What an + actress you are! And I never guessed it before. Ah! now you are yourself + again!” she added, kissing her. “Leave Beatrice to me in future.” + </p> + <p> + “Cover up your magical picture, then,” replied her friend, “else I never + can look away from it. It is strange, dear Hilda, how an innocent, + delicate, white soul like yours has been able to seize the subtle mystery + of this portrait; as you surely must, in order to reproduce it so + perfectly. Well; we will not talk of it any more. Do you know, I have come + to you this morning on a small matter of business. Will you undertake it + for me?” + </p> + <p> + “O, certainly,” said Hilda, laughing; “if you choose to trust me with + business.” + </p> + <p> + “Nay, it is not a matter of any difficulty,” answered Miriam; “merely to + take charge of this packet, and keep it for me awhile.” + </p> + <p> + “But why not keep it yourself?” asked Hilda. + </p> + <p> + “Partly because it will be safer in your charge,” said her friend. “I am a + careless sort of person in ordinary things; while you, for all you dwell + so high above the world, have certain little housewifely ways of accuracy + and order. The packet is of some slight importance; and yet, it may be, I + shall not ask you for it again. In a week or two, you know, I am leaving + Rome. You, setting at defiance the malarial fever, mean to stay here and + haunt your beloved galleries through the summer. Now, four months hence, + unless you hear more from me, I would have you deliver the packet + according to its address.” + </p> + <p> + Hilda read the direction; it was to Signore Luca Barboni, at the Plazzo + Cenci, third piano. + </p> + <p> + “I will deliver it with my own hand,” said she, “precisely four months + from to-day, unless you bid me to the contrary. Perhaps I shall meet the + ghost of Beatrice in that grim old palace of her forefathers.” + </p> + <p> + “In that case,” rejoined Miriam, “do not fail to speak to her, and try to + win her confidence. Poor thing! she would be all the better for pouring + her heart out freely, and would be glad to do it, if she were sure of + sympathy. It irks my brain and heart to think of her, all shut up within + herself.” She withdrew the cloth that Hilda had drawn over the picture, + and took another long look at it. “Poor sister Beatrice! for she was still + a woman, Hilda, still a sister, be her sin or sorrow what they might. How + well you have done it, Hilda! I knot not whether Guido will thank you, or + be jealous of your rivalship.” + </p> + <p> + “Jealous, indeed!” exclaimed Hilda. “If Guido had not wrought through me, + my pains would have been thrown away.” + </p> + <p> + “After all,” resumed Miriam, “if a woman had painted the original picture, + there might have been something in it which we miss now. I have a great + mind to undertake a copy myself; and try to give it what it lacks. Well; + goodby. But, stay! I am going for a little airing to the grounds of the + Villa Borghese this afternoon. You will think it very foolish, but I + always feel the safer in your company, Hilda, slender little maiden as you + are. Will you come?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, not to-day, dearest Miriam,” she replied; “I have set my heart on + giving another touch or two to this picture, and shall not stir abroad + till nearly sunset.” + </p> + <p> + “Farewell, then,” said her visitor. “I leave you in your dove-cote. What a + sweet, strange life you lead here; conversing with the souls of the old + masters, feeding and fondling your sister doves, and trimming the Virgin’s + lamp! Hilda, do you ever pray to the Virgin while you tend her shrine?” + </p> + <p> + “Sometimes I have been moved to do so,” replied the Dove, blushing, and + lowering her eyes; “she was a woman once. Do you think it would be wrong?” + </p> + <p> + “Nay, that is for you to judge,” said Miriam; “but when you pray next, + dear friend, remember me!” + </p> + <p> + She went down the long descent of the lower staircase, and just as she + reached the street the flock of doves again took their hurried flight from + the pavement to the topmost window. She threw her eyes upward and beheld + them hovering about Hilda’s head; for, after her friend’s departure, the + girl had been more impressed than before by something very sad and + troubled in her manner. She was, therefore, leaning forth from her airy + abode, and flinging down a kind, maidenly kiss, and a gesture of farewell, + in the hope that these might alight upon Miriam’s heart, and comfort its + unknown sorrow a little. Kenyon the sculptor, who chanced to be passing + the head of the street, took note of that ethereal kiss, and wished that + he could have caught it in the air and got Hilda’s leave to keep it. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII + </h2> + <p> + THE SUBURBAN VILLA + </p> + <p> + Donatello, while it was still a doubtful question betwixt afternoon and + morning, set forth to keep the appointment which Miriam had carelessly + tendered him in the grounds of the Villa Borghese. The entrance to these + grounds (as all my readers know, for everybody nowadays has been in Rome) + is just outside of the Porta del Popolo. Passing beneath that not very + impressive specimen of Michael Angelo’s architecture, a minute’s walk will + transport the visitor from the small, uneasy, lava stones of the Roman + pavement into broad, gravelled carriage-drives, whence a little farther + stroll brings him to the soft turf of a beautiful seclusion. A seclusion, + but seldom a solitude; for priest, noble, and populace, stranger and + native, all who breathe Roman air, find free admission, and come hither to + taste the languid enjoyment of the day-dream that they call life. + </p> + <p> + But Donatello’s enjoyment was of a livelier kind. He soon began to draw + long and delightful breaths among those shadowy walks. Judging by the + pleasure which the sylvan character of the scene excited in him, it might + be no merely fanciful theory to set him down as the kinsman, not far + remote, of that wild, sweet, playful, rustic creature, to whose marble + image he bore so striking a resemblance. How mirthful a discovery would it + be (and yet with a touch of pathos in it), if the breeze which sported + fondly with his clustering locks were to waft them suddenly aside, and + show a pair of leaf-shaped, furry ears! What an honest strain of wildness + would it indicate! and into what regions of rich mystery would it extend + Donatello’s sympathies, to be thus linked (and by no monstrous chain) with + what we call the inferior trioes of being, whose simplicity, mingled with + his human intelligence, might partly restore what man has lost of the + divine! + </p> + <p> + The scenery amid which the youth now strayed was such as arrays itself in + the imagination when we read the beautiful old myths, and fancy a brighter + sky, a softer turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable trees, + than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the Western world. + The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-honored were they, seemed to have + lived for ages undisturbed, and to feel no dread of profanation by the axe + any more than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It had already passed out + of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago they were + grievously imperilled by the Gaul’s last assault upon the walls of Rome. + As if confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they assumed + attitudes of indolent repose. They leaned over the green turf in ponderous + grace, throwing abroad their great branches without danger of interfering + with other trees, though other majestic trees grew near enough for + dignified society, but too distant for constraint. Never was there a more + venerable quietude than that which slept among their sheltering boughs; + never a sweeter sunshine than that now gladdening the gentle gloom which + these leafy patriarchs strove to diffuse over the swelling and subsiding + lawns. + </p> + <p> + In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lifted their dense clump + of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high that they looked like + green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow upon the turf so far off + that you hardly knew which tree had made it. Again, there were avenues of + cypress, resembling dark flames of huge funeral candles, which spread dusk + and twilight round about them instead of cheerful radiance. The more open + spots were all abloom, even so early in the season, with anemones of + wondrous size, both white and rose-colored, and violets that betrayed + themselves by their rich fragrance, even if their blue eyes failed to meet + your own. Daisies, too, were abundant, but larger than the modest little + English flower, and therefore of small account. + </p> + <p> + These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful than the finest of + English park scenery, more touching, more impressive, through the neglect + that leaves Nature so much to her own ways and methods. Since man seldom + interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet way and makes herself + at home. There is enough of human care, it is true, bestowed, long ago and + still bestowed, to prevent wildness from growing into deformity; and the + result is an ideal landscape, a woodland scene that seems to have been + projected out of the poet’s mind. If the ancient Faun were other than a + mere creation of old poetry, and could have reappeared anywhere, it must + have been in such a scene as this. + </p> + <p> + In the openings of the wood there are fountains plashing into marble + basins, the depths of which are shaggy with water-weeds; or they tumble + like natural cascades from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to + make the quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here and there with + careless artifice, stand old altars bearing Roman inscriptions. Statues, + gray with the long corrosion of even that soft atmosphere, half hide and + half reveal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen and broken on + the turf. Terminal figures, columns of marble or granite porticos, arches, + are seen in the vistas of the wood-paths, either veritable relics of + antiquity, or with so exquisite a touch of artful ruin on them that they + are better than if really antique. At all events, grass grows on the tops + of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers root themselves in the + chinks of the massive arches and fronts of temples, and clamber at large + over their pediments, as if this were the thousandth summer since their + winged seeds alighted there. + </p> + <p> + What a strange idea—what a needless labor—to construct + artificial ruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin! But even these sportive + imitations, wrought by man in emulation of what time has done to temples + and palaces, are perhaps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions, have + grown to be venerable in sober earnest. The result of all is a scene, + pensive, lovely, dreamlike, enjoyable and sad, such as is to be found + nowhere save in these princely villa-residences in the neighborhood of + Rome; a scene that must have required generations and ages, during which + growth, decay, and man’s intelligence wrought kindly together, to render + it so gently wild as we behold it now. + </p> + <p> + The final charm is bestowed by the malaria. There is a piercing, + thrilling, delicious kind of regret in the idea of so much beauty thrown + away, or only enjoyable at its half-development, in winter and early + spring, and never to be dwelt amongst, as the home scenery of any human + being. For if you come hither in summer, and stray through these glades in + the golden sunset, fever walks arm in arm with you, and death awaits you + at the end of the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its + loveliness; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it beyond the + scope of man’s actual possessions. But Donatello felt nothing of this + dream-like melancholy that haunts the spot. As he passed among the sunny + shadows, his spirit seemed to acquire new elasticity. The flicker of the + sunshine, the sparkle of the fountain’s gush, the dance of the leaf upon + the bough, the woodland fragrance, the green freshness, the old sylvan + peace and freedom, were all intermingled in those long breaths which he + drew. + </p> + <p> + The ancient dust, the mouldiness of Rome, the dead atmosphere in which he + had wasted so many months, the hard pavements, the smell of ruin and + decaying generations, the chill palaces, the convent bells, the heavy + incense of altars, the life that he had led in those dark, narrow streets, + among priests, soldiers, nobles, artists, and women,—all the sense + of these things rose from the young man’s consciousness like a cloud which + had darkened over him without his knowing how densely. + </p> + <p> + He drank in the natural influences of the scene, and was intoxicated as by + an exhilarating wine. He ran races with himself along the gleam and shadow + of the wood-paths. He leapt up to catch the overhanging bough of an ilex, + and swinging himself by it alighted far onward, as if he had flown thither + through the air. In a sudden rapture he embraced the trunk of a sturdy + tree, and seemed to imagine it a creature worthy of affection and capable + of a tender response; he clasped it closely in his arms, as a Faun might + have clasped the warm feminine grace of the nymph, whom antiquity supposed + to dwell within that rough, encircling rind. Then, in order to bring + himself closer to the genial earth, with which his kindred instincts + linked him so strongly, he threw himself at full length on the turf, and + pressed down his lips, kissing the violets and daisies, which kissed him + back again, though shyly, in their maiden fashion. + </p> + <p> + While he lay there, it was pleasant to see how the green and blue lizards, + who had beta basking on some rock or on a fallen pillar that absorbed the + warmth of the sun, scrupled not to scramble over him with their small + feet; and how the birds alighted on the nearest twigs and sang their + little roundelays unbroken by any chirrup of alarm; they recognized him, + it may be, as something akin to themselves, or else they fancied that he + was rooted and grew there; for these wild pets of nature dreaded him no + more in his buoyant life than if a mound of soil and grass and flowers had + long since covered his dead body, converting it back to the sympathies + from which human existence had estranged it. + </p> + <p> + All of us, after a long abode in cities, have felt the blood gush more + joyously through our veins with the first breath of rural air; few could + feel it so much as Donatello, a creature of simple elements, bred in the + sweet sylvan life of Tuscany, and for months back dwelling amid the mouldy + gloom and dim splendor of old Rome. Nature has been shut out for + numberless centuries from those stony-hearted streets, to which he had + latterly grown accustomed; there is no trace of her, except for what + blades of grass spring out of the pavements of the less trodden piazzas, + or what weeds cluster and tuft themselves on the cornices of ruins. + Therefore his joy was like that of a child that had gone astray from home, + and finds him suddenly in his mother’s arms again. + </p> + <p> + At last, deeming it full time for Miriam to keep her tryst, he climbed to + the tiptop of the tallest tree, and thence looked about him, swaying to + and fro in the gentle breeze, which was like the respiration of that great + leafy, living thing. Donatello saw beneath him the whole circuit of the + enchanted ground; the statues and columns pointing upward from among the + shrubbery, the fountains flashing in the sunlight, the paths winding + hither and thither, and continually finding out some nook of new and + ancient pleasantness. He saw the villa, too, with its marble front + incrusted all over with basreliefs, and statues in its many niches. It was + as beautiful as a fairy palace, and seemed an abode in which the lord and + lady of this fair domain might fitly dwell, and come forth each morning to + enjoy as sweet a life as their happiest dreams of the past night could + have depicted. All this he saw, but his first glance had taken in too wide + a sweep, and it was not till his eyes fell almost directly beneath him, + that Donatello beheld Miriam just turning into the path that led across + the roots of his very tree. + </p> + <p> + He descended among the foliage, waiting for her to come close to the + trunk, and then suddenly dropped from an impending bough, and alighted at + her side. It was as if the swaying of the branches had let a ray of + sunlight through. The same ray likewise glimmered among the gloomy + meditations that encompassed Miriam, and lit up the pale, dark beauty of + her face, while it responded pleasantly to Donatello’s glance. + </p> + <p> + “I hardly know,” said she, smiling, “whether you have sprouted out of the + earth, or fallen from the clouds. In either case you are welcome.” + </p> + <p> + And they walked onward together. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX + </h2> + <p> + THE FAUN AND NYMPH + </p> + <p> + Miriam’s sadder mood, it might be, had at first an effect on Donatello’s + spirits. It checked the joyous ebullition into which they would otherwise + have effervesced when he found himself in her society, not, as heretofore, + in the old gloom of Rome, but under that bright soft sky and in those + Arcadian woods. He was silent for a while; it being, indeed, seldom + Donatello’s impulse to express himself copiously in words. His usual modes + of demonstration were by the natural language of gesture, the instinctive + movement of his agile frame, and the unconscious play of his features, + which, within a limited range of thought and emotion, would speak volumes + in a moment. + </p> + <p> + By and by, his own mood seemed to brighten Miriam’s, and was reflected + back upon himself. He began inevitably, as it were, to dance along the + wood-path; flinging himself into attitudes of strange comic grace. Often, + too, he ran a little way in advance of his companion, and then stood to + watch her as she approached along the shadowy and sun-fleckered path. With + every step she took, he expressed his joy at her nearer and nearer + presence by what might be thought an extravagance of gesticulation, but + which doubtless was the language of the natural man, though laid aside and + forgotten by other men, now that words have been feebly substituted in the + place of signs and symbols. He gave Miriam the idea of a being not + precisely man, nor yet a child, but, in a high and beautiful sense, an + animal, a creature in a state of development less than what mankind has + attained, yet the more perfect within itself for that very deficiency. + This idea filled her mobile imagination with agreeable fantasies, which, + after smiling at them herself, she tried to convey to the young man. + </p> + <p> + “What are you, my friend?” she exclaimed, always keeping in mind his + singular resemblance to the Faun of the Capitol. “If you are, in good + truth, that wild and pleasant creature whose face you wear, pray make me + known to your kindred. They will be found hereabouts, if anywhere. Knock + at the rough rind of this ilex-tree, and summon forth the Dryad! Ask the + water-nymph to rise dripping from yonder fountain, and exchange a moist + pressure of the hand with me! Do not fear that I shall shrink; even if one + of your rough cousins, a hairy Satyr, should come capering on his + goat-legs out of the haunts of far antiquity, and propose to dance with me + among these lawns! And will not Bacchus,—with whom you consorted so + familiarly of old, and who loved you so well,—will he not meet us + here, and squeeze rich grapes into his cup for you and me?” + </p> + <p> + Donatello smiled; he laughed heartily, indeed, in sympathy with the mirth + that gleamed out of Miriam’s deep, dark eyes. But he did not seem quite to + understand her mirthful talk, nor to be disposed to explain what kind of + creature he was, or to inquire with what divine or poetic kindred his + companion feigned to link him. He appeared only to know that Miriam was + beautiful, and that she smiled graciously upon him; that the present + moment was very sweet, and himself most happy, with the sunshine, the + sylvan scenery, and woman’s kindly charm, which it enclosed within its + small circumference. It was delightful to see the trust which he reposed + in Miriam, and his pure joy in her propinquity; he asked nothing, sought + nothing, save to be near the beloved object, and brimmed over with ecstasy + at that simple boon. A creature of the happy tribes below us sometimes + shows the capacity of this enjoyment; a man, seldom or never. + </p> + <p> + “Donatello,” said Miriam, looking at him thoughtfully, but amused, yet not + without a shade of sorrow, “you seem very happy; what makes you so?” + </p> + <p> + “Because I love you!” answered Donatello. + </p> + <p> + He made this momentous confession as if it were the most natural thing in + the world; and on her part,—such was the contagion of his + simplicity,—Miriam heard it without anger or disturbance, though + with no responding emotion. It was as if they had strayed across the + limits of Arcadia; and come under a civil polity where young men might + avow their passion with as little restraint as a bird pipes its note to a + similar purpose. + </p> + <p> + “Why should you love me, foolish boy?” said she. “We have no points of + sympathy at all. There are not two creatures more unlike, in this wide + world, than you and I!” + </p> + <p> + “You are yourself, and I am Donatello,” replied he. “Therefore I love you! + There needs no other reason.” + </p> + <p> + Certainly, there was no better or more explicable reason. It might have + been imagined that Donatello’s unsophisticated heart would be more readily + attracted to a feminine nature of clear simplicity like his own, than to + one already turbid with grief or wrong, as Miriam’s seemed to be. Perhaps, + On the other hand, his character needed the dark element, which it found + in her. The force and energy of will, that sometimes flashed through her + eyes, may have taken him captive; or, not improbably, the varying lights + and shadows of her temper, now so mirthful, and anon so sad with + mysterious gloom, had bewitched the youth. Analyze the matter as we may, + the reason assigned by Donatello himself was as satisfactory as we are + likely to attain. + </p> + <p> + Miriam could not think seriously of the avowal that had passed. He held + out his love so freely, in his open palm, that she felt it could be + nothing but a toy, which she might play with for an instant, and give back + again. And yet Donatello’s heart was so fresh a fountain, that, had Miriam + been more world-worn than she was, she might have found it exquisite to + slake her thirst with the feelings that welled up and brimmed over from + it. She was far, very far, from the dusty mediaeval epoch, when some women + have a taste for such refreshment. Even for her, however, there was an + inexpressible charm in the simplicity that prompted Donatello’s words and + deeds; though, unless she caught them in precisely the true light, they + seemed but folly, the offspring of a maimed or imperfectly developed + intellect. Alternately, she almost admired, or wholly scorned him, and + knew not which estimate resulted from the deeper appreciation. But it + could not, she decided for herself, be other than an innocent pastime, if + they two—sure to be separated by their different paths in life, + to-morrow—were to gather up some of the little pleasures that + chanced to grow about their feet, like the violets and wood-anemones, + to-day. + </p> + <p> + Yet an impulse of rectitude impelled Miriam to give him what she still + held to be a needless warning against an imaginary peril. + </p> + <p> + “If you were wiser, Donatello, you would think me a dangerous person,” + said she, “If you follow my footsteps, they will lead you to no good. You + ought to be afraid of me.” + </p> + <p> + “I would as soon think of fearing the air we breathe,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “And well you may, for it is full of malaria,” said Miriam; she went on, + hinting at an intangible confession, such as persons with overburdened + hearts often make to children or dumb animals, or to holes in the earth, + where they think their secrets may be at once revealed and buried. “Those + who come too near me are in danger of great mischiefs, I do assure you. + Take warning, therefore! It is a sad fatality that has brought you from + your home among the Apennines,—some rusty old castle, I suppose, + with a village at its foot, and an Arcadian environment of vineyards, + fig-trees, and olive orchards,—a sad mischance, I say, that has + transported you to my side. You have had a happy life hitherto, have you + not, Donatello?” + </p> + <p> + “O, yes,” answered the young man; and, though not of a retrospective turn, + he made the best effort he could to send his mind back into the past. “I + remember thinking it happiness to dance with the contadinas at a village + feast; to taste the new, sweet wine at vintage-time, and the old, ripened + wine, which our podere is famous for, in the cold winter evenings; and to + devour great, luscious figs, and apricots, peaches, cherries, and melons. + I was often happy in the woods, too, with hounds and horses, and very + happy in watching all sorts, of creatures and birds that haunt the leafy + solitudes. But never half so happy as now!” + </p> + <p> + “In these delightful groves?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Here, and with you,” answered Donatello. “Just as we are now.” + </p> + <p> + “What a fulness of content in him! How silly, and how delightful!” said + Miriam to herself. Then addressing him again: “But, Donatello, how long + will this happiness last?” + </p> + <p> + “How long!” he exclaimed; for it perplexed him even more to think of the + future than to remember the past. “Why should it have any end? How long! + Forever! forever! forever!” + </p> + <p> + “The child! the simpleton!” said Miriam, with sudden laughter, and + checking it as suddenly. “But is he a simpleton indeed? Here, in those few + natural words, he has expressed that deep sense, that profound conviction + of its own immortality, which genuine love never fails to bring. He + perplexes me,—yes, and bewitches me,—wild, gentle, beautiful + creature that he is! It is like playing with a young greyhound!” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes filled with tears, at the same time that a smile shone out of + them. Then first she became sensible of a delight and grief at once, in + feeling this zephyr of a new affection, with its untainted freshness, blow + over her weary, stifled heart, which had no right to be revived by it. The + very exquisiteness of the enjoyment made her know that it ought to be a + forbidden one. + </p> + <p> + “Donatello,” she hastily exclaimed, “for your own sake, leave me! It is + not such a happy thing as you imagine it, to wander in these woods with + me, a girl from another land, burdened with a doom that she tells to none. + I might make you dread me,—perhaps hate me,—if I chose; and I + must choose, if I find you loving me too well!” + </p> + <p> + “I fear nothing!” said Donatello, looking into her unfathomable eyes with + perfect trust. “I love always!” + </p> + <p> + “I speak in vain,” thought Miriam within herself. + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, for this one hour, let me be such as he imagines me. + To-morrow will be time enough to come back to my reality. My reality! what + is it? Is the past so indestructible? the future so immitigable? Is the + dark dream, in which I walk, of such solid, stony substance, that there + can be no escape out of its dungeon? Be it so! There is, at least, that + ethereal quality in my spirit, that it can make me as gay as Donatello + himself,—for this one hour!” + </p> + <p> + And immediately she brightened up, as if an inward flame, heretofore + stifled, were now permitted to fill her with its happy lustre, glowing + through her cheeks and dancing in her eye-beams. + </p> + <p> + Donatello, brisk and cheerful as he seemed before, showed a sensibility to + Miriam’s gladdened mood by breaking into still wilder and ever-varying + activity. He frisked around her, bubbling over with joy, which clothed + itself in words that had little individual meaning, and in snatches of + song that seemed as natural as bird notes. Then they both laughed + together, and heard their own laughter returning in the echoes, and + laughed again at the response, so that the ancient and solemn grove became + full of merriment for these two blithe spirits. A bird happening to sing + cheerily, Donatello gave a peculiar call, and the little feathered + creature came fluttering about his head, as if it had known him through + many summers. + </p> + <p> + “How close he stands to nature!” said Miriam, observing this pleasant + familiarity between her companion and the bird. “He shall make me as + natural as himself for this one hour.” + </p> + <p> + As they strayed through that sweet wilderness, she felt more and more the + influence of his elastic temperament. Miriam was an impressible and + impulsive creature, as unlike herself, in different moods, as if a + melancholy maiden and a glad one were both bound within the girdle about + her waist, and kept in magic thraldom by the brooch that clasped it. + Naturally, it is true, she was the more inclined to melancholy, yet fully + capable of that high frolic of the spirits which richly compensates for + many gloomy hours; if her soul was apt to lurk in the darkness of a + cavern, she could sport madly in the sunshine before the cavern’s mouth. + Except the freshest mirth of animal spirits, like Donatello’s, there is no + merriment, no wild exhilaration, comparable to that of melancholy people + escaping from the dark region in which it is their custom to keep + themselves imprisoned. + </p> + <p> + So the shadowy Miriam almost outdid Donatello on his own ground. They ran + races with each other, side by side, with shouts and laughter; they pelted + one another with early flowers, and gathering them up twined them with + green leaves into garlands for both their heads. They played together like + children, or creatures of immortal youth. So much had they flung aside the + sombre habitudes of daily life, that they seemed born to be sportive + forever, and endowed with eternal mirthfulness instead of any deeper joy. + It was a glimpse far backward into Arcadian life, or, further still, into + the Golden Age, before mankind was burdened with sin and sorrow, and + before pleasure had been darkened with those shadows that bring it into + high relief, and make it happiness. + </p> + <p> + “Hark!” cried Donatello, stopping short, as he was about to bind Miriam’s + fair hands with flowers, and lead her along in triumph, “there is music + somewhere in the grove!” + </p> + <p> + “It is your kinsman, Pan, most likely,” said Miriam, “playing on his pipe. + Let us go seek him, and make him puff out his rough cheeks and pipe his + merriest air! Come; the strain of music will guide us onward like a gayly + colored thread of silk.” + </p> + <p> + “Or like a chain of flowers,” responded Donatello, drawing her along by + that which he had twined. “This way!—Come!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X + </h2> + <p> + THE SYLVAN DANCE + </p> + <p> + As the music came fresher on their ears, they danced to its cadence, + extemporizing new steps and attitudes. Each varying movement had a grace + which might have been worth putting into marble, for the long delight of + days to come, but vanished with the movement that gave it birth, and was + effaced from memory by another. In Miriam’s motion, freely as she flung + herself into the frolic of the hour, there was still an artful beauty; in + Donatello’s, there was a charm of indescribable grotesqueness hand in hand + with grace; sweet, bewitching, most provocative of laughter, and yet akin + to pathos, so deeply did it touch the heart. This was the ultimate + peculiarity, the final touch, distinguishing between the sylvan creature + and the beautiful companion at his side. Setting apart only this, Miriam + resembled a Nymph, as much as Donatello did a Faun. + </p> + <p> + There were flitting moments, indeed, when she played the sylvan character + as perfectly as he. Catching glimpses of her, then, you would have fancied + that an oak had sundered its rough bark to let her dance freely forth, + endowed with the same spirit in her human form as that which rustles in + the leaves; or that she had emerged through the pebbly bottom of a + fountain, a water-nymph, to play and sparkle in the sunshine, flinging a + quivering light around her, and suddenly disappearing in a shower of + rainbow drops. + </p> + <p> + As the fountain sometimes subsides into its basin, so in Miriam there were + symptoms that the frolic of her spirits would at last tire itself out. + </p> + <p> + “Ah! Donatello,” cried she, laughing, as she stopped to take a breath; + “you have an unfair advantage over me! I am no true creature of the woods; + while you are a real Faun, I do believe. When your curls shook just now, + methought I had a peep at the pointed ears.” + </p> + <p> + Donatello snapped his fingers above his head, as fauns and satyrs taught + us first to do, and seemed to radiate jollity out of his whole nimble + person. Nevertheless, there was a kind of dim apprehension in his face, as + if he dreaded that a moment’s pause might break the spell, and snatch away + the sportive companion whom he had waited for through so many dreary + months. + </p> + <p> + “Dance! dance!” cried he joyously. “If we take breath, we shall be as we + were yesterday. There, now, is the music, just beyond this clump of trees. + Dance, Miriam, dance!” + </p> + <p> + They had now reached an open, grassy glade (of which there are many in + that artfully constructed wilderness), set round with stone seats, on + which the aged moss had kindly essayed to spread itself instead of + cushions. On one of the stone benches sat the musicians, whose strains had + enticed our wild couple thitherward. They proved to be a vagrant band, + such as Rome, and all Italy, abounds with; comprising a harp, a flute, and + a violin, which, though greatly the worse for wear, the performers had + skill enough to provoke and modulate into tolerable harmony. It chanced to + be a feast-day; and, instead of playing in the sun-scorched piazzas of the + city, or beneath the windows of some unresponsive palace, they had + bethought themselves to try the echoes of these woods; for, on the festas + of the Church, Rome scatters its merrymakers all abroad, ripe for the + dance or any other pastime. + </p> + <p> + As Miriam and Donatello emerged from among the trees, the musicians + scraped, tinkled, or blew, each according to his various kind of + instrument, more inspiringly than ever. A darkchecked little girl, with + bright black eyes, stood by, shaking a tambourine set round with tinkling + bells, and thumping it on its parchment head. Without interrupting his + brisk, though measured movement, Donatello snatched away this unmelodious + contrivance, and, flourishing it above his head, produced music of + indescribable potency, still dancing with frisky step, and striking the + tambourine, and ringing its little bells, all in one jovial act. + </p> + <p> + It might be that there was magic in the sound, or contagion, at least, in + the spirit which had got possession of Miriam and himself, for very soon a + number of festal people were drawn to the spot, and struck into the dance, + singly or in pairs, as if they were all gone mad with jollity. Among them + were some of the plebeian damsels whom we meet bareheaded in the Roman + streets, with silver stilettos thrust through their glossy hair; the + contadinas, too, from the Campagna and the villages, with their rich and + picturesque costumes of scarlet and all bright hues, such as fairer + maidens might not venture to put on. Then came the modern Roman from + Trastevere, perchance, with his old cloak drawn about him like a toga, + which anon, as his active motion heated him, he flung aside. Three French + soldiers capered freely into the throng, in wide scarlet trousers, their + short swords dangling at their sides; and three German artists in gray + flaccid hats and flaunting beards; and one of the Pope’s Swiss guardsmen + in the strange motley garb which Michael Angelo contrived for them. Two + young English tourists (one of them a lord) took contadine partners and + dashed in, as did also a shaggy man in goat-skin breeches, who looked like + rustic Pan in person, and footed it as merrily as he. Besides the above + there was a herdsman or two from the Campagna, and a few peasants in + sky-blue jackets, and small-clothes tied with ribbons at the knees; + haggard and sallow were these last, poor serfs, having little to eat and + nothing but the malaria to breathe; but still they plucked up a momentary + spirit and joined hands in Donatello’s dance. + </p> + <p> + Here, as it seemed, had the Golden Age come back again within the + Precincts of this sunny glade, thawing mankind out of their cold + formalities, releasing them from irksome restraint, mingling them together + in such childlike gayety that new flowers (of which the old bosom of the + earth is full) sprang up beneath their footsteps. The sole exception to + the geniality of the moment, as we have understood, was seen in a + countryman of our own, who sneered at the spectacle, and declined to + compromise his dignity by making part of it. + </p> + <p> + The harper thrummed with rapid fingers; the violin player flashed his bow + back and forth across the strings; the flautist poured his breath in quick + puffs of jollity, while Donatello shook the tambourine above his head, and + led the merry throng with unweariable steps. As they followed one another + in a wild ring of mirth, it seemed the realization of one of those + bas-reliefs where a dance of nymphs, satyrs, or bacchanals is twined + around the circle of an antique vase; or it was like the sculptured scene + on the front and sides of a sarcophagus, where, as often as any other + device, a festive procession mocks the ashes and white bones that are + treasured up within. You might take it for a marriage pageant; but after a + while, if you look at these merry-makers, following them from end to end + of the marble coffin, you doubt whether their gay movement is leading them + to a happy close. A youth has suddenly fallen in the dance; a chariot is + overturned and broken, flinging the charioteer headlong to the ground; a + maiden seems to have grown faint or weary, and is drooping on the bosom of + a friend. Always some tragic incident is shadowed forth or thrust sidelong + into the spectacle; and when once it has caught your eye you can look no + more at the festal portions of the scene, except with reference to this + one slightly suggested doom and sorrow. + </p> + <p> + As in its mirth, so in the darker characteristic here alluded to, there + was an analogy between the sculptured scene on the sarcophagus and the + wild dance which we have been describing. In the midst of its madness and + riot Miriam found herself suddenly confronted by a strange figure that + shook its fantastic garments in the air, and pranced before her on its + tiptoes, almost vying with the agility of Donatello himself. It was the + model. + </p> + <p> + A moment afterwards Donatello was aware that she had retired from the + dance. He hastened towards her, and flung himself on the grass beside the + stone bench on which Miriam was sitting. But a strange distance and + unapproachableness had all at once enveloped her; and though he saw her + within reach of his arm, yet the light of her eyes seemed as far off as + that of a star, nor was there any warmth in the melancholy smile with + which she regarded him. + </p> + <p> + “Come back!” cried he. “Why should this happy hour end so soon?” + </p> + <p> + “It must end here, Donatello,” said she, in answer to his words and + outstretched hand; “and such hours, I believe, do not often repeat + themselves in a lifetime. Let me go, my friend; let me vanish from you + quietly among the shadows of these trees. See, the companions of our + pastime are vanishing already!” + </p> + <p> + Whether it was that the harp-strings were broken, the violin out of tune, + or the flautist out of breath, so it chanced that the music had ceased, + and the dancers come abruptly to a pause. All that motley throng of + rioters was dissolved as suddenly as it had been drawn together. In + Miriam’s remembrance the scene had a character of fantasy. It was as if a + company of satyrs, fauns, and nymphs, with Pan in the midst of them, had + been disporting themselves in these venerable woods only a moment ago; and + now in another moment, because some profane eye had looked at them too + closely, or some intruder had cast a shadow on their mirth, the sylvan + pageant had utterly disappeared. If a few of the merry-makers lingered + among the trees, they had hidden their racy peculiarities under the garb + and aspect of ordinary people, and sheltered themselves in the weary + commonplace of daily life. Just an instant before it was Arcadia and the + Golden Age. The spell being broken, it was now only that old tract of + pleasure ground, close by the people’s gate of Rome,—a tract where + the crimes and calamities of ages, the many battles, blood recklessly + poured out, and deaths of myriads, have corrupted all the soil, creating + an influence that makes the air deadly to human lungs. + </p> + <p> + “You must leave me,” said Miriam to Donatello more imperatively than + before; “have I not said it? Go; and look not behind you.” + </p> + <p> + “Miriam,” whispered Donatello, grasping her hand forcibly, “who is it that + stands in the shadow yonder, beckoning you to follow him?” + </p> + <p> + “Hush; leave me!” repeated Miriam. “Your hour is past; his hour has come.” + </p> + <p> + Donatello still gazed in the direction which he had indicated, and the + expression of his face was fearfully changed, being so disordered, perhaps + with terror,—at all events with anger and invincible repugnance,—that + Miriam hardly knew him. His lips were drawn apart so as to disclose his + set teeth, thus giving him a look of animal rage, which we seldom see + except in persons of the simplest and rudest natures. A shudder seemed to + pass through his very bones. + </p> + <p> + “I hate him!” muttered he. + </p> + <p> + “Be satisfied; I hate him too!” said Miriam. + </p> + <p> + She had no thought of making this avowal, but was irresistibly drawn to it + by the sympathy of the dark emotion in her own breast with that so + strongly expressed by Donatello. Two drops of water or of blood do not + more naturally flow into each other than did her hatred into his. + </p> + <p> + “Shall I clutch him by the throat?” whispered Donatello, with a savage + scowl. “Bid me do so, and we are rid of him forever.” + </p> + <p> + “In Heaven’s name, no violence!” exclaimed Miriam, affrighted out of the + scornful control which she had hitherto held over her companion, by the + fierceness that he so suddenly developed. “O, have pity on me, Donatello, + if for nothing else, yet because in the midst of my wretchedness I let + myself be your playmate for this one wild hour! Follow me no farther. + Henceforth leave me to my doom. Dear friend,—kind, simple, loving + friend,—make me not more wretched by the remembrance of having + thrown fierce hates or loves into the wellspring of your happy life!” + </p> + <p> + “Not follow you!” repeated Donatello, soothed from anger into sorrow, less + by the purport of what she said, than by the melancholy sweetness of her + voice,—“not follow you! What other path have I?” + </p> + <p> + “We will talk of it once again,” said Miriam still soothingly; “soon—to-morrow + when you will; only leave me now.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI + </h2> + <p> + FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES + </p> + <p> + In the Borghese Grove, so recently uproarious with merriment and music, + there remained only Miriam and her strange follower. + </p> + <p> + A solitude had suddenly spread itself around them. It perhaps symbolized a + peculiar character in the relation of these two, insulating them, and + building up an insuperable barrier between their life-streams and other + currents, which might seem to flow in close vicinity. For it is one of the + chief earthly incommodities of some species of misfortune, or of a great + crime, that it makes the actor in the one, or the sufferer of the other, + an alien in the world, by interposing a wholly unsympathetic medium + betwixt himself and those whom he yearns to meet. + </p> + <p> + Owing, it may be, to this moral estrangement,—this chill remoteness + of their position,—there have come to us but a few vague whisperings + of what passed in Miriam’s interview that afternoon with the sinister + personage who had dogged her footsteps ever since the visit to the + catacomb. In weaving these mystic utterances into a continuous scene, we + undertake a task resembling in its perplexity that of gathering up and + piecing together the fragments ora letter which has been torn and + scattered to the winds. Many words of deep significance, many entire + sentences, and those possibly the most important ones, have flown too far + on the winged breeze to be recovered. If we insert our own conjectural + amendments, we perhaps give a purport utterly at variance with the true + one. Yet unless we attempt something in this way, there must remain an + unsightly gap, and a lack of continuousness and dependence in our + narrative; so that it would arrive at certain inevitable catastrophes + without due warning of their imminence. + </p> + <p> + Of so much we are sure, that there seemed to be a sadly mysterious + fascination in the influence of this ill-omened person over Miriam; it was + such as beasts and reptiles of subtle and evil nature sometimes exercise + upon their victims. Marvellous it was to see the hopelessness with which + being naturally of so courageous a spirit she resigned herself to the + thraldom in which he held her. That iron chain, of which some of the + massive links were round her feminine waist, and the others in his + ruthless hand,—or which, perhaps, bound the pair together by a bond + equally torturing to each,—must have been forged in some such + unhallowed furnace as is only kindled by evil passions, and fed by evil + deeds. + </p> + <p> + Yet, let us trust, there may have been no crime in Miriam, but only one of + those fatalities which are among the most insoluble riddles propounded to + mortal comprehension; the fatal decree by which every crime is made to be + the agony of many innocent persons, as well as of the single guilty one. + </p> + <p> + It was, at any rate, but a feeble and despairing kind of remonstrance + which she had now the energy to oppose against his persecution. + </p> + <p> + “You follow me too closely,” she said, in low, faltering accents; “you + allow me too scanty room to draw my breath. Do you know what will be the + end of this?” “I know well what must be the end,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, then,” said Miriam, “that I may compare your foreboding with my + own. Mine is a very dark one.” + </p> + <p> + “There can be but one result, and that soon,” answered the model. “You + must throw off your present mask and assume another. You must vanish out + of the scene: quit Rome with me, and leave no trace whereby to follow you. + It is in my power, as you well know, to compel your acquiescence in my + bidding. You are aware of the penalty of a refusal.” + </p> + <p> + “Not that penalty with which you would terrify me,” said Miriam; “another + there may be, but not so grievous.” “What is that other?” he inquired. + “Death! simply death!” she answered. “Death,” said her persecutor, “is not + so simple and opportune a thing as you imagine. You are strong and warm + with life. Sensitive and irritable as your spirit is, these many months of + trouble, this latter thraldom in which I hold you, have scarcely made your + cheek paler than I saw it in your girlhood. Miriam,—for I forbear to + speak another name, at which these leaves would shiver above our heads,—Miriam, + you cannot die!” + </p> + <p> + “Might not a dagger find my heart?” said she, for the first time meeting + his eyes. “Would not poison make an end of me? Will not the Tiber drown + me?” + </p> + <p> + “It might,” he answered; “for I allow that you are mortal. But, Miriam, + believe me, it is not your fate to die while there remains so much to be + sinned and suffered in the world. We have a destiny which we must needs + fulfil together. I, too, have struggled to escape it. I was as anxious as + yourself to break the tie between us,—to bury the past in a + fathomless grave,—to make it impossible that we should ever meet, + until you confront me at the bar of Judgment! You little can imagine what + steps I took to render all this secure; and what was the result? Our + strange interview in the bowels of the earth convinced me of the futility + of my design.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, fatal chance!” cried Miriam, covering her face with her hands. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, your heart trembled with horror when you recognized me,” rejoined + he; “but you did not guess that there was an equal horror in my own!” + </p> + <p> + “Why would not the weight of earth above our heads have crumbled down upon + us both, forcing us apart, but burying us equally?” cried Miriam, in a + burst of vehement passion. “O, that we could have wandered in those dismal + passages till we both perished, taking opposite paths in the darkness, so + that when we lay down to die, our last breaths might not mingle!” + </p> + <p> + “It were vain to wish it,” said the model. “In all that labyrinth of + midnight paths, we should have found one another out to live or die + together. Our fates cross and are entangled. The threads are twisted into + a strong cord, which is dragging us to an evil doom. Could the knots be + severed, we might escape. But neither can your slender fingers untie these + knots, nor my masculine force break them. We must submit!” + </p> + <p> + “Pray for rescue, as I have,” exclaimed Miriam. “Pray for deliverance from + me, since I am your evil genius, as you mine. Dark as your life has been, + I have known you to pray in times past!” + </p> + <p> + At these words of Miriam, a tremor and horror appeared to seize upon her + persecutor, insomuch that he shook and grew ashy pale before her eyes. In + this man’s memory there was something that made it awful for him to think + of prayer; nor would any torture be more intolerable than to be reminded + of such divine comfort and succor as await pious souls merely for the + asking; This torment was perhaps the token of a native temperament deeply + susceptible of religious impressions, but which had been wronged, + violated, and debased, until, at length, it was capable only of terror + from the sources that were intended for our purest and loftiest + consolation. He looked so fearfully at her, and with such intense pain + struggling in his eyes, that Miriam felt pity. + </p> + <p> + And now, all at once, it struck her that he might be mad. It was an idea + that had never before seriously occurred to her mind, although, as soon as + suggested, it fitted marvellously into many circumstances that lay within + her knowledge. But, alas! such was her evil fortune, that, whether mad or + no, his power over her remained the same, and was likely to be used only + the more tyrannously, if exercised by a lunatic. + </p> + <p> + “I would not give you pain,” she said, soothingly; “your faith allows you + the consolations of penance and absolution. Try what help there may be in + these, and leave me to myself.” + </p> + <p> + “Do not think it, Miriam,” said he; “we are bound together, and can never + part again.” “Why should it seem so impossible?” she rejoined. “Think how + I had escaped from all the past! I had made for myself a new sphere, and + found new friends, new occupations, new hopes and enjoyments. My heart, + methinks, was almost as unburdened as if there had been no miserable life + behind me. The human spirit does not perish of a single wound, nor exhaust + itself in a single trial of life. Let us but keep asunder, and all may go + well for both.” “We fancied ourselves forever sundered,” he replied. “Yet + we met once, in the bowels of the earth; and, were we to part now, our + fates would fling us together again in a desert, on a mountain-top, or in + whatever spot seemed safest. You speak in vain, therefore.” + </p> + <p> + “You mistake your own will for an iron necessity,” said Miriam; + “otherwise, you might have suffered me to glide past you like a ghost, + when we met among those ghosts of ancient days. Even now you might bid me + pass as freely.” + </p> + <p> + “Never!” said he, with unmitigable will; “your reappearance has destroyed + the work of years. You know the power that I have over you. Obey my + bidding; or, within a short time, it shall be exercised: nor will I cease + to haunt you till the moment comes.” + </p> + <p> + “Then,” said Miriam more calmly, “I foresee the end, and have already + warned you of it. It will be death!” + </p> + <p> + “Your own death, Miriam,—or mine?” he asked, looking fixedly at her. + </p> + <p> + “Do you imagine me a murderess?” said she, shuddering; “you, at least, + have no right to think me so!” + </p> + <p> + “Yet,” rejoined he, with a glance of dark meaning, “men have said that + this white hand had once a crimson stain.” He took her hand as he spoke, + and held it in his own, in spite of the repugnance, amounting to nothing + short of agony, with which she struggled to regain it. Holding it up to + the fading light (for there was already dimness among the trees), he + appeared to examine it closely, as if to discover the imaginary + blood-stain with which he taunted her. He smiled as he let it go. “It + looks very white,” said he; “but I have known hands as white, which all + the water in the ocean would not have washed clean.” + </p> + <p> + “It had no stain,” retorted Miriam bitterly, “until you grasped it in your + own.” + </p> + <p> + The wind has blown away whatever else they may have spoken. + </p> + <p> + They went together towards the town, and, on their way, continued to make + reference, no doubt, to some strange and dreadful history of their former + life, belonging equally to this dark man and to the fair and youthful + woman whom he persecuted. In their words, or in the breath that uttered + them, there seemed to be an odor of guilt, and a scent of blood. Yet, how + can we imagine that a stain of ensanguined crime should attach to Miriam! + Or how, on the other hand, should spotless innocence be subjected to a + thraldom like that which she endured from the spectre, whom she herself + had evoked out of the darkness! Be this as it might, Miriam, we have + reason to believe, still continued to beseech him, humbly, passionately, + wildly, only to go his way, and leave her free to follow her own sad path. + </p> + <p> + Thus they strayed onward through the green wilderness of the Borghese + grounds, and soon came near the city wall, where, had Miriam raised her + eyes, she might have seen Hilda and the sculptor leaning on the parapet. + But she walked in a mist of trouble, and could distinguish little beyond + its limits. As they came within public observation, her persecutor fell + behind, throwing off the imperious manner which he had assumed during + their solitary interview. The Porta del Popolo swarmed with life. The + merry-makers, who had spent the feast-day outside the walls, were now + thronging in; a party of horsemen were entering beneath the arch; a + travelling carriage had been drawn up just within the verge, and was + passing through the villainous ordeal of the papal custom-house. In the + broad piazza, too, there was a motley crowd. + </p> + <p> + But the stream of Miriam’s trouble kept its way through this flood of + human life, and neither mingled with it nor was turned aside. With a sad + kind of feminine ingenuity, she found a way to kneel before her tyrant + undetected, though in full sight of all the people, still beseeching him + for freedom, and in vain. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII + </h2> + <p> + A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN + </p> + <p> + Hilda, after giving the last touches to the picture of Beatrice Cenci, had + flown down from her dove-cote, late in the afternoon, and gone to the + Pincian Hill, in the hope of hearing a strain or two of exhilarating + music. There, as it happened, she met the sculptor, for, to say the truth, + Kenyon had well noted the fair artist’s ordinary way of life, and was + accustomed to shape his own movements so as to bring him often within her + sphere. + </p> + <p> + The Pincian Hill is the favorite promenade of the Roman aristocracy. At + the present day, however, like most other Roman possessions, it belongs + less to the native inhabitants than to the barbarians from Gaul, Great + Britain, anti beyond the sea, who have established a peaceful usurpation + over whatever is enjoyable or memorable in the Eternal City. These foreign + guests are indeed ungrateful, if they do not breathe a prayer for Pope + Clement, or whatever Holy Father it may have been, who levelled the summit + of the mount so skilfully, and bounded it with the parapet of the city + wall; who laid out those broad walks and drives, and overhung them with + the deepening shade of many kinds of tree; who scattered the flowers, of + all seasons and of every clime, abundantly over those green, central + lawns; who scooped out hollows in fit places, and, setting great basins of + marble in them, caused ever-gushing fountains to fill them to the brim; + who reared up the immemorial obelisk out of the soil that had long hidden + it; who placed pedestals along the borders of the avenues, and crowned + them with busts of that multitude of worthies—statesmen, heroes, + artists, men of letters and of song—whom the whole world claims as + its chief ornaments, though Italy produced them all. In a word, the + Pincian garden is one of the things that reconcile the stranger (since he + fully appreciates the enjoyment, and feels nothing of the cost) to the + rule of an irresponsible dynasty of Holy Fathers, who seem to have aimed + at making life as agreeable an affair as it can well be. + </p> + <p> + In this pleasant spot, the red-trousered French soldiers are always to be + seen; bearded and grizzled veterans, perhaps with medals of Algiers or the + Crimea on their breasts. To them is assigned the peaceful duty of seeing + that children do not trample on the flower beds, nor any youthful lover + rifle them of their fragrant blossoms to stick in the beloved one’s hair. + Here sits (drooping upon some marble bench, in the treacherous sunshine) + the consumptive girl, whose friends have brought her, for cure, to a + climate that instils poison into its very purest breath. Here, all day, + come nursery-maids, burdened with rosy English babies, or guiding the + footsteps of little travellers from the far Western world. Here, in the + sunny afternoons, roll and rumble all kinds of equipages, from the + cardinal’s old-fashioned and gorgeous purple carriage to the gay barouche + of modern date. Here horsemen gallop on thoroughbred steeds. Here, in + short, all the transitory population of Rome, the world’s great + watering-place, rides, drives, or promenades! Here are beautiful sunsets; + and here, whichever way you turn your eyes, are scenes as well worth + gazing at, both in themselves and for their historic interest, as any that + the sun ever rose and set upon. Here, too, on certain afternoons of the + week, a French military band flings out rich music over the poor old city, + floating her with strains as loud as those of her own echoless triumphs. + </p> + <p> + Hilda and the sculptor (by the contrivance of the latter, who loved best + to be alone with his young countrywoman) had wandered beyond the throng of + promenaders, whom they left in a dense cluster around the music. They + strayed, indeed, to the farthest point of the Pincian Hill, and leaned + over the parapet, looking down upon the Muro Torto, a massive fragment of + the oldest Roman wall, which juts over, as if ready to tumble down by its + own weight, yet seems still the most indestructible piece of work that + men’s hands ever piled together. In the blue distance rose Soracte, and + other heights, which have gleamed afar, to our imaginations, but look + scarcely real to our bodily eyes, because, being dreamed about so much, + they have taken the aerial tints which belong only to a dream. These, + nevertheless, are the solid framework of hills that shut in Rome, and its + wide surrounding Campagna,—no land of dreams, but the broadest page + of history, crowded so full with memorable events that one obliterates + another; as if Time had crossed and recrossed his own records till they + grew illegible. + </p> + <p> + But, not to meddle with history,—with which our narrative is no + otherwise concerned, than that the very dust of Rome is historic, and + inevitably settles on our page and mingles with our ink,—we will + return to our two friends, who were still leaning over the wall. Beneath + them lay the broad sweep of the Borghese grounds, covered with trees, amid + which appeared the white gleam of pillars and statues, and the flash of an + upspringing fountain, all to be overshadowed at a later period of the year + by the thicker growth of foliage. + </p> + <p> + The advance of vegetation, in this softer climate, is less abrupt than the + inhabitant of the cold North is accustomed to observe. Beginning earlier,—even + in February,—Spring is not compelled to burst into Summer with such + headlong haste; there is time to dwell upon each opening beauty, and to + enjoy the budding leaf, the tender green, the sweet youth and freshness of + the year; it gives us its maiden charm, before, settling into the married + Summer, which, again, does not so soon sober itself into matronly Autumn. + In our own country, the virgin Spring hastens to its bridal too abruptly. + But here, after a month or two of kindly growth, the leaves of the young + trees, which cover that portion of the Borghese grounds nearest the city + wall, were still in their tender half-development. + </p> + <p> + In the remoter depths, among the old groves of ilex-trees, Hilda and + Kenyon heard the faint sound of music, laughter, and mingling voices. It + was probably the uproar—spreading even so far as the walls of Rome, + and growing faded and melancholy in its passage—of that wild sylvan + merriment, which we have already attempted to describe. By and by it + ceased—although the two listeners still tried to distinguish it + between the bursts of nearer music from the military band. But there was + no renewal of that distant mirth. Soon afterwards they saw a solitary + figure advancing along one of the paths that lead from the obscurer part + of the ground towards the gateway. + </p> + <p> + “Look! is it not Donatello?” said Hilda. + </p> + <p> + “He it is, beyond a doubt,” replied the sculptor. “But how gravely he + walks, and with what long looks behind him! He seems either very weary, or + very sad. I should not hesitate to call it sadness, if Donatello were a + creature capable of the sin and folly of low spirits. In all these hundred + paces, while we have been watching him, he has not made one of those + little caprioles in the air which are characteristic of his natural gait. + I begin to doubt whether he is a veritable Faun.” + </p> + <p> + “Then,” said Hilda, with perfect simplicity, “you have thought him—and + do think him—one of that strange, wild, happy race of creatures, + that used to laugh and sport in the woods, in the old, old times? So do I, + indeed! But I never quite believed, till now, that fauns existed anywhere + but in poetry.” + </p> + <p> + The sculptor at first merely smiled. Then, as the idea took further + possession of his mind, he laughed outright, and wished from the bottom of + his heart (being in love with Hilda, though he had never told her so) that + he could have rewarded or punished her for its pretty absurdity with a + kiss. + </p> + <p> + “O Hilda, what a treasure of sweet faith and pure imagination you hide + under that little straw hat!” cried he, at length. “A Faun! a Faun! Great + Pan is not dead, then, after all! The whole tribe of mythical creatures + yet live in the moonlit seclusion of a young girl’s fancy, and find it a + lovelier abode and play-place, I doubt not, than their Arcadian haunts of + yore. What bliss, if a man of marble, like myself, could stray thither, + too!” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you laugh so?” asked Hilda, reddening; for she was a little + disturbed at Kenyon’s ridicule, however kindly expressed. “What can I have + said, that you think so very foolish?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, not foolish, then,” rejoined the sculptor, “but wiser, it may be, + than I can fathom. Really, however, the idea does strike one as + delightfully fresh, when we consider Donatello’s position and external + environment. Why, my dear Hilda, he is a Tuscan born, of an old noble race + in that part of Italy; and he has a moss-grown tower among the Apennines, + where he and his forefathers have dwelt, under their own vines and + fig-trees, from an unknown antiquity. His boyish passion for Miriam has + introduced him familiarly to our little circle; and our republican and + artistic simplicity of intercourse has included this young Italian, on the + same terms as one of ourselves. But, if we paid due respect to rank and + title, we should bend reverentially to Donatello, and salute him as his + Excellency the Count di Monte Beni.” + </p> + <p> + “That is a droll idea, much droller than his being a Faun!” said Hilda, + laughing in her turn. “This does not quite satisfy me, however, especially + as you yourself recognized and acknowledged his wonderful resemblance to + the statue.” + </p> + <p> + “Except as regards the pointed ears,” said Kenyon; adding, aside, “and one + other little peculiarity, generally observable in the statues of fauns.” + </p> + <p> + “As for his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni’s ears,” replied Hilda, + smiling again at the dignity with which this title invested their playful + friend, “you know we could never see their shape, on account of his + clustering curls. Nay, I remember, he once started back, as shyly as a + wild deer, when Miriam made a pretence of examining them. How do you + explain that?” + </p> + <p> + “O, I certainly shall not contend against such a weight of evidence, the + fact of his faunship being otherwise so probable,” answered the sculptor, + still hardly retaining his gravity. “Faun or not, Donatello or the Count + di Monte Beni—is a singularly wild creature, and, as I have remarked + on other occasions, though very gentle, does not love to be touched. + Speaking in no harsh sense, there is a great deal of animal nature in him, + as if he had been born in the woods, and had run wild all his childhood, + and were as yet but imperfectly domesticated. Life, even in our day, is + very simple and unsophisticated in some of the shaggy nooks of the + Apennines.” + </p> + <p> + “It annoys me very much,” said Hilda, “this inclination, which most people + have, to explain away the wonder and the mystery out of everything. Why + could not you allow me—and yourself, too—the satisfaction of + thinking him a Faun?” + </p> + <p> + “Pray keep your belief, dear Hilda, if it makes you any happier,” said the + sculptor; “and I shall do my best to become a convert. Donatello has asked + me to spend the summer with him, in his ancestral tower, where I purpose + investigating the pedigree of these sylvan counts, his forefathers; and if + their shadows beckon me into dreamland, I shall willingly follow. By the + bye, speaking of Donatello, there is a point on which I should like to be + enlightened.” + </p> + <p> + “Can I help you, then?” said Hilda, in answer to his look. + </p> + <p> + “Is there the slightest chance of his winning Miriam’s affections?” + suggested Kenyon. + </p> + <p> + “Miriam! she, so accomplished and gifted!” exclaimed Hilda; “and he, a + rude, uncultivated boy! No, no, no!” + </p> + <p> + “It would seem impossible,” said the sculptor. “But, on the other hand, a + gifted woman flings away her affections so unaccountably, sometimes! + Miriam of late has been very morbid and miserable, as we both know. Young + as she is, the morning light seems already to have faded out of her life; + and now comes Donatello, with natural sunshine enough for himself and her, + and offers her the opportunity of making her heart and life all new and + cheery again. People of high intellectual endowments do not require + similar ones in those they love. They are just the persons to appreciate + the wholesome gush of natural feeling, the honest affection, the simple + joy, the fulness of contentment with what he loves, which Miriam sees in + Donatello. True; she may call him a simpleton. It is a necessity of the + case; for a man loses the capacity for this kind of affection, in + proportion as he cultivates and refines himself.” + </p> + <p> + “Dear me!” said Hilda, drawing imperceptibly away from her companion. “Is + this the penalty of refinement? Pardon me; I do not believe it. It is + because you are a sculptor, that you think nothing can be finely wrought + except it be cold and hard, like the marble in which your ideas take + shape. I am a painter, and know that the most delicate beauty may be + softened and warmed throughout.” + </p> + <p> + “I said a foolish thing, indeed,” answered the sculptor. “It surprises me, + for I might have drawn a wiser knowledge out of my own experience. It is + the surest test of genuine love, that it brings back our early simplicity + to the worldliest of us.” + </p> + <p> + Thus talking, they loitered slowly along beside the parapet which borders + the level summit of the Pincian with its irregular sweep. At intervals + they looked through the lattice-work of their thoughts at the varied + prospects that lay before and beneath them. + </p> + <p> + From the terrace where they now stood there is an abrupt descent towards + the Piazza del Popolo; and looking down into its broad space they beheld + the tall palatial edifices, the church domes, and the ornamented gateway, + which grew and were consolidated out of the thought of Michael Angelo. + They saw, too, the red granite obelisk, oldest of things, even in Rome, + which rises in the centre of the piazza, with a fourfold fountain at its + base. All Roman works and ruins (whether of the empire, the far-off + republic, or the still more distant kings) assume a transient, visionary, + and impalpable character when we think that this indestructible monument + supplied one of the recollections which Moses and the Israelites bore from + Egypt into the desert. Perchance, on beholding the cloudy pillar and the + fiery column, they whispered awestricken to one another, “In its shape it + is like that old obelisk which we and our fathers have so often seen on + the borders of the Nile.” And now that very obelisk, with hardly a trace + of decay upon it, is the first thing that the modern traveller sees after + entering the Flaminian Gate! + </p> + <p> + Lifting their eyes, Hilda and her companion gazed westward, and saw beyond + the invisible Tiber the Castle of St. Angelo; that immense tomb of a pagan + emperor, with the archangel at its summit. + </p> + <p> + Still farther off appeared a mighty pile of buildings, surmounted by the + vast dome, which all of us have shaped and swelled outward, like a huge + bubble, to the utmost Scope of our imaginations, long before we see it + floating over the worship of the city. It may be most worthily seen from + precisely the point where our two friends were now standing. At any nearer + view the grandeur of St. Peter’s hides itself behind the immensity of its + separate parts,—so that we see only the front, only the sides, only + the pillared length and loftiness of the portico, and not the mighty + whole. But at this distance the entire outline of the world’s cathedral, + as well as that of the palace of the world’s chief priest, is taken in at + once. In such remoteness, moreover, the imagination is not debarred from + lending its assistance, even while we have the reality before our eyes, + and helping the weakness of human sense to do justice to so grand an + object. It requires both faith and fancy to enable us to feel, what is + nevertheless so true, that yonder, in front of the purple outline of + hills, is the grandest edifice ever built by man, painted against God’s + loveliest sky. + </p> + <p> + After contemplating a little while a scene which their long residence in + Rome had made familiar to them, Kenyon and Hilda again let their glances + fall into the piazza at their feet. They there beheld Miriam, who had just + entered the Porta del Popolo, and was standing by the obelisk and + fountain. With a gesture that impressed Kenyon as at once suppliant and + imperious, she seemed to intimate to a figure which had attended her thus + far, that it was now her desire to be left alone. The pertinacious model, + however, remained immovable. + </p> + <p> + And the sculptor here noted a circumstance, which, according to the + interpretation he might put upon it, was either too trivial to be + mentioned, or else so mysteriously significant that he found it difficult + to believe his eyes. Miriam knelt down on the steps of the fountain; so + far there could be no question of the fact. To other observers, if any + there were, she probably appeared to take this attitude merely for the + convenience of dipping her fingers into the gush of water from the mouth + of one of the stone lions. But as she clasped her hands together after + thus bathing them, and glanced upward at the model, an idea took strong + possession of Kenyon’s mind that Miriam was kneeling to this dark follower + there in the world’s face! + </p> + <p> + “Do you see it?” he said to Hilda. + </p> + <p> + “See what?” asked she, surprised at the emotion of his tone. “I see + Miriam, who has just bathed her hands in that delightfully cool water. I + often dip my fingers into a Roman fountain, and think of the brook that + used to be one of my playmates in my New England village.” + </p> + <p> + “I fancied I saw something else,” said Kenyon; “but it was doubtless a + mistake.” + </p> + <p> + But, allowing that he had caught a true glimpse into the hidden + significance of Miriam’s gesture, what a terrible thraldom did it suggest! + Free as she seemed to be,—beggar as he looked,—the nameless + vagrant must then be dragging the beautiful Miriam through the streets of + Rome, fettered and shackled more cruelly than any captive queen of yore + following in an emperor’s triumph. And was it conceivable that she would + have been thus enthralled unless some great error—how great Kenyon + dared not think—or some fatal weakness had given this dark adversary + a vantage ground? + </p> + <p> + “Hilda,” said he abruptly, “who and what is Miriam? Pardon me; but are you + sure of her?” + </p> + <p> + “Sure of her!” repeated Hilda, with an angry blush, for her friend’s sake. + “I am sure that she is kind, good, and generous; a true and faithful + friend, whom I love dearly, and who loves me as well! What more than this + need I be sure of?” + </p> + <p> + “And your delicate instincts say all this in her favor?—nothing + against her?” continued the sculptor, without heeding the irritation of + Hilda’s tone. “These are my own impressions, too. But she is such a + mystery! We do not even know whether she is a countrywoman of ours, or an + Englishwoman, or a German. There is Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins, one + would say, and a right English accent on her tongue, but much that is not + English breeding, nor American. Nowhere else but in Rome, and as an + artist, could she hold a place in society without giving some clew to her + past life.” + </p> + <p> + “I love her dearly,” said Hilda, still with displeasure in her tone, “and + trust her most entirely.” + </p> + <p> + “My heart trusts her at least, whatever my head may do,” replied Kenyon; + “and Rome is not like one of our New England villages, where we need the + permission of each individual neighbor for every act that we do, every + word that we utter, and every friend that we make or keep. In these + particulars the papal despotism allows us freer breath than our native + air; and if we like to take generous views of our associates, we can do + so, to a reasonable extent, without ruining ourselves.” + </p> + <p> + “The music has ceased,” said Hilda; “I am going now.” + </p> + <p> + There are three streets that, beginning close beside each other, diverge + from the Piazza del Popolo towards the heart of Rome: on the left, the Via + del Babuino; on the right, the Via della Ripetta; and between these two + that world-famous avenue, the Corso. It appeared that Miriam and her + strange companion were passing up the first mentioned of these three, and + were soon hidden from Hilda and the sculptor. + </p> + <p> + The two latter left the Pincian by the broad and stately walk that skirts + along its brow. Beneath them, from the base of the abrupt descent, the + city spread wide away in a close contiguity of red-earthen roofs, above + which rose eminent the domes of a hundred churches, beside here and there + a tower, and the upper windows of some taller or higher situated palace, + looking down on a multitude of palatial abodes. At a distance, ascending + out of the central mass of edifices, they could see the top of the + Antonine column, and near it the circular roof of the Pantheon looking + heavenward with its ever-open eye. + </p> + <p> + Except these two objects, almost everything that they beheld was + mediaeval, though built, indeed, of the massive old stones and + indestructible bricks of imperial Rome; for the ruins of the Coliseum, the + Golden House, and innumerable temples of Roman gods, and mansions of + Caesars and senators, had supplied the material for all those gigantic + hovels, and their walls were cemented with mortar of inestimable cost, + being made of precious antique statues, burnt long ago for this petty + purpose. + </p> + <p> + Rome, as it now exists, has grown up under the Popes, and seems like + nothing but a heap of broken rubbish, thrown into the great chasm between + our own days and the Empire, merely to fill it up; and, for the better + part of two thousand years, its annals of obscure policies, and wars, and + continually recurring misfortunes, seem also but broken rubbish, as + compared with its classic history. + </p> + <p> + If we consider the present city as at all connected with the famous one of + old, it is only because we find it built over its grave. A depth of thirty + feet of soil has covered up the Rome of ancient days, so that it lies like + the dead corpse of a giant, decaying for centuries, with no survivor + mighty enough even to bury it, until the dust of all those years has + gathered slowly over its recumbent form and made a casual sepulchre. + </p> + <p> + We know not how to characterize, in any accordant and compatible terms, + the Rome that lies before us; its sunless alleys, and streets of palaces; + its churches, lined with the gorgeous marbles that were originally + polished for the adornment of pagan temples; its thousands of evil smells, + mixed up with fragrance of rich incense, diffused from as many censers; + its little life, deriving feeble nutriment from what has long been dead. + Everywhere, some fragment of ruin suggesting the magnificence of a former + epoch; everywhere, moreover, a Cross,—and nastiness at the foot of + it. As the sum of all, there are recollections that kindle the soul, and a + gloom and languor that depress it beyond any depth of melancholic + sentiment that can be elsewhere known. + </p> + <p> + Yet how is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential word of Rome? The + city of all time, and of all the world! The spot for which man’s great + life and deeds have done so much, and for which decay has done whatever + glory and dominion could not do! At this moment, the evening sunshine is + flinging its golden mantle over it, making all that we thought mean + magnificent; the bells of all the churches suddenly ring out, as if it + were a peal of triumph because Rome is still imperial. + </p> + <p> + “I sometimes fancy,” said Hilda, on whose susceptibility the scene always + made a strong impression, “that Rome—mere Rome—will crowd + everything else out of my heart.” + </p> + <p> + “Heaven forbid!” ejaculated the sculptor. They had now reached the grand + stairs that ascend from the Piazza di Spagna to the hither brow of the + Pincian Hill. Old Beppo, the millionnaire of his ragged fraternity, it is + a wonder that no artist paints him as the cripple whom St. Peter heals at + the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,—was just mounting his donkey to + depart, laden with the rich spoil of the day’s beggary. + </p> + <p> + Up the stairs, drawing his tattered cloak about his face, came the model, + at whom Beppo looked askance, jealous of an encroacher on his rightful + domain. The figure passed away, however, up the Via Sistina. In the piazza + below, near the foot of the magnificent steps, stood Miriam, with her eyes + bent on the ground, as if she were counting those little, square, + uncomfortable paving-stones, that make it a penitential pilgrimage to walk + in Rome. She kept this attitude for several minutes, and when, at last, + the importunities of a beggar disturbed her from it, she seemed bewildered + and pressed her hand upon her brow. + </p> + <p> + “She has been in some sad dream or other, poor thing!” said Kenyon + sympathizingly; “and even now she is imprisoned there in a kind of cage, + the iron bars of which are made of her own thoughts.” + </p> + <p> + “I fear she is not well,” said Hilda. “I am going down the stairs, and + will join Miriam.” + </p> + <p> + “Farewell, then,” said the sculptor. “Dear Hilda, this is a perplexed and + troubled world! It soothes me inexpressibly to think of you in your tower, + with white doves and white thoughts for your companions, so high above us + all, and With the Virgin for your household friend. You know not how far + it throws its light, that lamp which you keep burning at her shrine! I + passed beneath the tower last night, and the ray cheered me, because you + lighted it.” + </p> + <p> + “It has for me a religious significance,” replied Hilda quietly, “and yet + I am no Catholic.” + </p> + <p> + They parted, and Kenyon made haste along the Via Sistina, in the hope of + overtaking the model, whose haunts and character he was anxious to + investigate, for Miriam’s sake. He fancied that he saw him a long way in + advance, but before he reached the Fountain of the Triton the dusky figure + had vanished. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII + </h2> + <p> + A SCULPTOR’S STUDIO + </p> + <p> + About this period, Miriam seems to have been goaded by a weary + restlessness that drove her abroad on any errand or none. She went one + morning to visit Kenyon in his studio, whither he had invited her to see a + new statue, on which he had staked many hopes, and which was now almost + completed in the clay. Next to Hilda, the person for whom Miriam felt most + affection and confidence was Kenyon; and in all the difficulties that + beset her life, it was her impulse to draw near Hilda for feminine + sympathy, and the sculptor for brotherly counsel. + </p> + <p> + Yet it was to little purpose that she approached the edge of the voiceless + gulf between herself and them. Standing on the utmost verge of that dark + chasm, she might stretch out her hand, and never clasp a hand of theirs; + she might strive to call out, “Help, friends! help!” but, as with dreamers + when they shout, her voice would perish inaudibly in the remoteness that + seemed such a little way. This perception of an infinite, shivering + solitude, amid which we cannot come close enough to human beings to be + warmed by them, and where they turn to cold, chilly shapes of mist, is one + of the most forlorn results of any accident, misfortune, crime, or + peculiarity of character, that puts an individual ajar with the world. + Very often, as in Miriam’s case, there is an insatiable instinct that + demands friendship, love, and intimate communion, but is forced to pine in + empty forms; a hunger of the heart, which finds only shadows to feed upon. + </p> + <p> + Kenyon’s studio was in a cross-street, or, rather, an ugly and dirty + little lane, between the Corso and the Via della Ripetta; and though + chill, narrow, gloomy, and bordered with tall and shabby structures, the + lane was not a whit more disagreeable than nine tenths of the Roman + streets. Over the door of one of the houses was a marble tablet, bearing + an inscription, to the purport that the sculpture-rooms within had + formerly been occupied by the illustrious artist Canova. In these + precincts (which Canova’s genius was not quite of a character to render + sacred, though it certainly made them interesting) the young American + sculptor had now established himself. + </p> + <p> + The studio of a sculptor is generally but a rough and dreary-looking + place, with a good deal the aspect, indeed, of a stone-mason’s workshop. + Bare floors of brick or plank, and plastered walls,—an old chair or + two, or perhaps only a block of marble (containing, however, the + possibility of ideal grace within it) to sit down upon; some hastily + scrawled sketches of nude figures on the whitewash of the wall. These last + are probably the sculptor’s earliest glimpses of ideas that may hereafter + be solidified into imperishable stone, or perhaps may remain as impalpable + as a dream. Next there are a few very roughly modelled little figures in + clay or plaster, exhibiting the second stage of the idea as it advances + towards a marble immortality; and then is seen the exquisitely designed + shape of clay, more interesting than even the final marble, as being the + intimate production of the sculptor himself, moulded throughout with his + loving hands, and nearest to his imagination and heart. In the + plaster-cast, from this clay model, the beauty of the statue strangely + disappears, to shine forth again with pure white radiance, in the precious + marble of Carrara. Works in all these stages of advancement, and some with + the final touch upon them, might be found in Kenyon’s studio. + </p> + <p> + Here might be witnessed the process of actually chiselling the marble, + with which (as it is not quite satisfactory to think) a sculptor in these + days has very little to do. In Italy, there is a class of men whose merely + mechanical skill is perhaps more exquisite than was possessed by the + ancient artificers, who wrought out the designs of Praxiteles; or, very + possibly, by Praxiteles himself. Whatever of illusive representation can + be effected in marble, they are capable of achieving, if the object be + before their eyes. The sculptor has but to present these men with a + plaster-cast of his design, and a sufficient block of marble, and tell + them that the figure is imbedded in the stone, and must be freed from its + encumbering superfluities; and, in due time, without the necessity of his + touching the work with his own finger, he will see before him the statue + that is to make him renowned. His creative power has wrought it with a + word. + </p> + <p> + In no other art, surely, does genius find such effective instruments, and + so happily relieve itself of the drudgery, of actual performance; doing + wonderfully nice things by the hands of other people, when it may be + suspected they could not always be done by the sculptor’s own. And how + much of the admiration which our artists get for their buttons and + buttonholes, their shoe-ties, their neckcloths,—and these, at our + present epoch of taste, make a large share of the renown,—would be + abated, if we were generally aware that the sculptor can claim no credit + for such pretty performances, as immortalized in marble! They are not his + work, but that of some nameless machine in human shape. + </p> + <p> + Miriam stopped an instant in an antechamber, to look at a half-finished + bust, the features of which seemed to be struggling out of the stone; and, + as it were, scattering and dissolving its hard substance by the glow of + feeling and intelligence. As the skilful workman gave stroke after stroke + of the chisel with apparent carelessness, but sure effect, it was + impossible not to think that the outer marble was merely an extraneous + environment; the human countenance within its embrace must have existed + there since the limestone ledges of Carrara were first made. Another bust + was nearly completed, though still one of Kenyon’s most trustworthy + assistants was at work, giving delicate touches, shaving off an impalpable + something, and leaving little heaps of marble dust to attest it. + </p> + <p> + “As these busts in the block of marble,” thought Miriam, “so does our + individual fate exist in the limestone of time. We fancy that we carve it + out; but its ultimate shape is prior to all our action.” + </p> + <p> + Kenyon was in the inner room, but, hearing a step in the antechamber, he + threw a veil over what he was at work upon, and came out to receive his + visitor. He was dressed in a gray blouse, with a little cap on the top of + his head; a costume which became him better than the formal garments which + he wore whenever he passed out of his own domains. The sculptor had a face + which, when time had done a little more for it, would offer a worthy + subject for as good an artist as himself: features finely cut, as if + already marble; an ideal forehead, deeply set eyes, and a mouth much + hidden in a light-brown beard, but apparently sensitive and delicate. + </p> + <p> + “I will not offer you my hand,” said he; “it is grimy with Cleopatra’s + clay.” + </p> + <p> + “No; I will not touch clay; it is earthy and human,” answered Miriam. “I + have come to try whether there is any calm and coolness among your + marbles. My own art is too nervous, too passionate, too full of agitation, + for me to work at it whole days together, without intervals of repose. So, + what have you to show me?” + </p> + <p> + “Pray look at everything here,” said Kenyon. “I love to have painters see + my work. Their judgment is unprejudiced, and more valuable than that of + the world generally, from the light which their own art throws on mine. + More valuable, too, than that of my brother sculptors, who never judge me + fairly,—nor I them, perhaps.” + </p> + <p> + To gratify him, Miriam looked round at the specimens in marble or plaster, + of which there were several in the room, comprising originals or casts of + most of the designs that Kenyon had thus far produced. He was still too + young to have accumulated a large gallery of such things. What he had to + show were chiefly the attempts and experiments, in various directions, of + a beginner in art, acting as a stern tutor to himself, and profiting more + by his failures than by any successes of which he was yet capable. Some of + them, however, had great merit; and in the pure, fine glow of the new + marble, it may be, they dazzled the judgment into awarding them higher + praise than they deserved. Miriam admired the statue of a beautiful youth, + a pearlfisher; who had got entangled in the weeds at the bottom of the + sea, and lay dead among the pearl-oysters, the rich shells, and the + seaweeds, all of like value to him now. + </p> + <p> + “The poor young man has perished among the prizes that he sought,” + remarked she. “But what a strange efficacy there is in death! If we cannot + all win pearls, it causes an empty shell to satisfy us just as well. I + like this statue, though it is too cold and stern in its moral lesson; + and, physically, the form has not settled itself into sufficient repose.” + </p> + <p> + In another style, there was a grand, calm head of Milton, not copied from + any one bust or picture, yet more authentic than any of them, because all + known representations of the poet had been profoundly studied, and solved + in the artist’s mind. The bust over the tomb in Grey Friars Church, the + original miniatures and pictures, wherever to be found, had mingled each + its special truth in this one work; wherein, likewise, by long perusal and + deep love of the Paradise Lost, the Comus, the Lycidas, and L’Allegro, the + sculptor had succeeded, even better than he knew, in spiritualizing his + marble with the poet’s mighty genius. And this was a great thing to have + achieved, such a length of time after the dry bones and dust of Milton + were like those of any other dead man. + </p> + <p> + There were also several portrait-busts, comprising those of two or three + of the illustrious men of our own country, whom Kenyon, before he left + America, had asked permission to model. He had done so, because he + sincerely believed that, whether he wrought the busts in marble or bronze, + the one would corrode and the other crumble in the long lapse of time, + beneath these great men’s immortality. Possibly, however, the young artist + may have underestimated the durability of his material. Other faces there + were, too, of men who (if the brevity of their remembrance, after death, + can be augured from their little value in life) should have been + represented in snow rather than marble. Posterity will be puzzled what to + do with busts like these, the concretions and petrifactions of a vain + self-estimate; but will find, no doubt, that they serve to build into + stone walls, or burn into quicklime, as well as if the marble had never + been blocked into the guise of human heads. + </p> + <p> + But it is an awful thing, indeed, this endless endurance, this almost + indestructibility, of a marble bust! Whether in our own case, or that of + other men, it bids us sadly measure the little, little time during which + our lineaments are likely to be of interest to any human being. It is + especially singular that Americans should care about perpetuating + themselves in this mode. The brief duration of our families, as a + hereditary household, renders it next to a certainty that the + great-grandchildren will not know their father’s grandfather, and that + half a century hence at furthest, the hammer of the auctioneer will thump + its knock-down blow against his blockhead, sold at so much for the pound + of stone! And it ought to make us shiver, the idea of leaving our features + to be a dusty-white ghost among strangers of another generation, who will + take our nose between their thumb and fingers (as we have seen men do by + Caesar’s), and infallibly break it off if they can do so without + detection! + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Miriam, who had been revolving some such thoughts as the + above, “it is a good state of mind for mortal man, when he is content to + leave no more definite memorial than the grass, which will sprout kindly + and speedily over his grave, if we do not make the spot barren with + marble. Methinks, too, it will be a fresher and better world, when it + flings off this great burden of stony memories, which the ages have deemed + it a piety to heap upon its back.” + </p> + <p> + “What you say,” remarked Kenyon, “goes against my whole art. Sculpture, + and the delight which men naturally take in it, appear to me a proof that + it is good to work with all time before our view.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, well,” answered Miriam, “I must not quarrel with you for flinging + your heavy stones at poor Posterity; and, to say the truth, I think you + are as likely to hit the mark as anybody. These busts, now, much as I seem + to scorn them, make me feel as if you were a magician.. You turn feverish + men into cool, quiet marble. What a blessed change for them! Would you + could do as much for me!” + </p> + <p> + “O, gladly!” cried Kenyon, who had long wished to model that beautiful and + most expressive face. “When will you begin to sit?” + </p> + <p> + “Poh! that was not what I meant,” said Miriam. “Come, show me something + else.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you recognize this?” asked the sculptor. + </p> + <p> + He took out of his desk a little old-fashioned ivory coffer, yellow with + age; it was richly carved with antique figures and foliage; and had Kenyon + thought fit to say that Benvenuto Cellini wrought this precious box, the + skill and elaborate fancy of the work would by no means have discredited + his word, nor the old artist’s fame. At least, it was evidently a + production of Benvenuto’s school and century, and might once have been the + jewel-case of some grand lady at the court of the De’ Medici. + </p> + <p> + Lifting the lid, however, no blaze of diamonds was disclosed, but only, + lapped in fleecy cotton, a small, beautifully shaped hand, most delicately + sculptured in marble. Such loving care and nicest art had been lavished + here, that the palm really seemed to have a tenderness in its very + substance. Touching those lovely fingers,—had the jealous sculptor + allowed you to touch,—you could hardly believe that a virgin warmth + would not steal from them into your heart. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, this is very beautiful!” exclaimed Miriam, with a genial smile. “It + is as good in its way as Loulie’s hand with its baby-dimples, which Powers + showed me at Florence, evidently valuing it as much as if he had wrought + it out of a piece of his great heart. As good as Harriet Hosmer’s clasped + hands of Browning and his wife, symbolizing the individuality and heroic + union of two high, poetic lives! Nay, I do not question that it is better + than either of those, because you must have wrought it passionately, in + spite of its maiden palm and dainty fingertips.” + </p> + <p> + “Then you do recognize it?” asked Kenyon. + </p> + <p> + “There is but one right hand on earth that could have supplied the model,” + answered Miriam; “so small and slender, so perfectly symmetrical, and yet + with a character of delicate energy. I have watched it a hundred times at + its work; but I did not dream that you had won Hilda so far! How have you + persuaded that shy maiden to let you take her hand in marble?” + </p> + <p> + “Never! She never knew it!” hastily replied Kenyon, anxious to vindicate + his mistress’s maidenly reserve. “I stole it from her. The hand is a + reminiscence. After gazing at it so often, and even holding it once for an + instant, when Hilda was not thinking of me, I should be a bungler indeed, + if I could not now reproduce it to something like the life.” + </p> + <p> + “May you win the original one day!” said Miriam kindly. + </p> + <p> + “I have little ground to hope it,” answered the sculptor despondingly; + “Hilda does not dwell in our mortal atmosphere; and gentle and soft as she + appears, it will be as difficult to win her heart as to entice down a + white bird from its sunny freedom in the sky. It is strange, with all her + delicacy and fragility, the impression she makes of being utterly + sufficient to herself. No; I shall never win her. She is abundantly + capable of sympathy, and delights to receive it, but she has no need of + love.” + </p> + <p> + “I partly agree with you,” said Miriam. “It is a mistaken idea, which men + generally entertain, that nature has made women especially prone to throw + their whole being into what is technically called love. We have, to say + the least, no more necessity for it than yourselves; only we have nothing + else to do with our hearts. When women have other objects in life, they + are not apt to fall in love. I can think of many women distinguished in + art, literature, and science,—and multitudes whose hearts and minds + find good employment in less ostentatious ways,—who lead high, + lonely lives, and are conscious of no sacrifice so far as your sex is + concerned.” + </p> + <p> + “And Hilda will be one of these!” said Kenyon sadly; “the thought makes me + shiver for myself, and and for her, too.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said Miriam, smiling, “perhaps she may sprain the delicate wrist + which you have sculptured to such perfection. In that case you may hope. + These old masters to whom she has vowed herself, and whom her slender hand + and woman’s heart serve so faithfully, are your only rivals.” + </p> + <p> + The sculptor sighed as he put away the treasure of Hilda’s marble hand + into the ivory coffer, and thought how slight was the possibility that he + should ever feel responsive to his own the tender clasp of the original. + He dared not even kiss the image that he himself had made: it had assumed + its share of Hilda’s remote and shy divinity. + </p> + <p> + “And now,” said Miriam, “show me the new statue which you asked me hither + to see.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV + </h2> + <p> + CLEOPATRA + </p> + <p> + “My new statue!” said Kenyon, who had positively forgotten it in the + thought of Hilda; “here it is, under this veil.” “Not a nude figure, I + hope,” observed Miriam. “Every young sculptor seems to think that he must + give the world some specimen of indecorous womanhood, and call it Eve, + Venus, a Nymph, or any name that may apologize for a lack of decent + clothing. I am weary, even more than I am ashamed, of seeing such things. + Nowadays people are as good as born in their clothes, and there is + practically not a nude human being in existence. An artist, therefore, as + you must candidly confess, cannot sculpture nudity with a pure heart, if + only because he is compelled to steal guilty glimpses at hired models. The + marble inevitably loses its chastity under such circumstances. An old + Greek sculptor, no doubt, found his models in the open sunshine, and among + pure and princely maidens, and thus the nude statues of antiquity are as + modest as violets, and sufficiently draped in their own beauty. But as for + Mr. Gibson’s colored Venuses (stained, I believe, with tobacco juice), and + all other nudities of to-day, I really do not understand what they have to + say to this generation, and would be glad to see as many heaps of + quicklime in their stead.” + </p> + <p> + “You are severe upon the professors of my art,” said Kenyon, half smiling, + half seriously; “not that you are wholly wrong, either. We are bound to + accept drapery of some kind, and make the best of it. But what are we to + do? Must we adopt the costume of to-day, and carve, for example, a Venus + in a hoop-petticoat?” + </p> + <p> + “That would be a boulder, indeed!” rejoined Miriam, laughing. “But the + difficulty goes to confirm me in my belief that, except for + portrait-busts, sculpture has no longer a right to claim any place among + living arts. It has wrought itself out, and come fairly to an end. There + is never a new group nowadays; never even so much as a new attitude. + Greenough (I take my examples among men of merit) imagined nothing new; + nor Crawford either, except in the tailoring line. There are not, as you + will own, more than half a dozen positively original statues or groups in + the world, and these few are of immemorial antiquity. A person familiar + with the Vatican, the Uffizzi Gallery, the Naples Gallery, and the Louvre, + will at once refer any modern production to its antique prototype; which, + moreover, had begun to get out of fashion, even in old Roman days.” + </p> + <p> + “Pray stop, Miriam,” cried Kenyon, “or I shall fling away the chisel + forever!” + </p> + <p> + “Fairly own to me, then, my friend,” rejoined Miriam, whose disturbed mind + found a certain relief in this declamation, “that you sculptors are, of + necessity, the greatest plagiarists in the world.” + </p> + <p> + “I do not own it,” said Kenyon, “yet cannot utterly contradict you, as + regards the actual state of the art. But as long as the Carrara quarries + still yield pure blocks, and while my own country has marble mountains, + probably as fine in quality, I shall steadfastly believe that future + sculptors will revive this noblest of the beautiful arts, and people the + world with new shapes of delicate grace and massive grandeur. Perhaps,” he + added, smiling, “mankind will consent to wear a more manageable costume; + or, at worst, we sculptors shall get the skill to make broadcloth + transparent, and render a majestic human character visible through the + coats and trousers of the present day.” + </p> + <p> + “Be it so!” said Miriam; “you are past my counsel. Show me the veiled + figure, which, I am afraid, I have criticised beforehand. To make amends, + I am in the mood to praise it now.” + </p> + <p> + But, as Kenyon was about to take the cloth off the clay model, she laid + her hand on his arm. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me first what is the subject,” said she, “for I have sometimes + incurred great displeasure from members of your brotherhood by being too + obtuse to puzzle out the purport of their productions. It is so difficult, + you know, to compress and define a character or story, and make it patent + at a glance, within the narrow scope attainable by sculpture! Indeed, I + fancy it is still the ordinary habit with sculptors, first to finish their + group of statuary,—in such development as the particular block of + marble will allow,—and then to choose the subject; as John of + Bologna did with his Rape of the Sabines. Have you followed that good + example?” + </p> + <p> + “No; my statue is intended for Cleopatra,” replied Kenyon, a little + disturbed by Miriam’s raillery. “The special epoch of her history you must + make out for yourself.” + </p> + <p> + He drew away the cloth that had served to keep the moisture of the clay + model from being exhaled. The sitting figure of a woman was seen. She was + draped from head to foot in a costume minutely and scrupulously studied + from that of ancient Egypt, as revealed by the strange sculpture of that + country, its coins, drawings, painted mummy-cases, and whatever other + tokens have been dug out of its pyramids, graves, and catacombs. Even the + stiff Egyptian head-dress was adhered to, but had been softened into a + rich feminine adornment, without losing a particle of its truth. + Difficulties that might well have seemed insurmountable had been + courageously encountered and made flexible to purposes of grace and + dignity; so that Cleopatra sat attired in a garb proper to her historic + and queenly state, as a daughter of the Ptolemies, and yet such as the + beautiful woman would have put on as best adapted to heighten the + magnificence of her charms, and kindle a tropic fire in the cold eyes of + Octavius. + </p> + <p> + A marvellous repose—that rare merit in statuary, except it be the + lumpish repose native to the block of stone—was diffused throughout + the figure. The spectator felt that Cleopatra had sunk down out of the + fever and turmoil of her life, and for one instant—as it were, + between two pulse throbs—had relinquished all activity, and was + resting throughout every vein and muscle. It was the repose of despair, + indeed; for Octavius had seen her, and remained insensible to her + enchantments. But still there was a great smouldering furnace deep down in + the woman’s heart. The repose, no doubt, was as complete as if she were + never to stir hand or foot again; and yet, such was the creature’s latent + energy and fierceness, she might spring upon you like a tigress, and stop + the very breath that you were now drawing midway in your throat. + </p> + <p> + The face was a miraculous success. The sculptor had not shunned to give + the full Nubian lips, and other characteristics of the Egyptian + physiognomy. His courage and integrity had been abundantly rewarded; for + Cleopatra’s beauty shone out richer, warmer, more triumphantly beyond + comparison, than if, shrinking timidly from the truth, he had chosen the + tame Grecian type. The expression was of profound, gloomy, heavily + revolving thought; a glance into her past life and present emergencies, + while her spirit gathered itself up for some new struggle, or was getting + sternly reconciled to impending doom. In one view, there was a certain + softness and tenderness,—how breathed into the statue, among so many + strong and passionate elements, it is impossible to say. Catching another + glimpse, you beheld her as implacable as a stone and cruel as fire. + </p> + <p> + In a word, all Cleopatra—fierce, voluptuous, passionate, tender, + wicked, terrible, and full of poisonous and rapturous enchantment—was + kneaded into what, only a week or two before, had been a lump of wet clay + from the Tiber. Soon, apotheosized in an indestructible material, she + would be one of the images that men keep forever, finding a heat in them + which does not cool down, throughout the centuries? + </p> + <p> + “What a woman is this!” exclaimed Miriam, after a long pause. “Tell me, + did she ever try, even while you were creating her, to overcome you with + her fury or her love? Were you not afraid to touch her, as she grew more + and more towards hot life beneath your hand? My dear friend, it is a great + work! How have you learned to do it?” + </p> + <p> + “It is the concretion of a good deal of thought, emotion, and toil of + brain and hand,” said Kenyon, not without a perception that his work was + good; “but I know not how it came about at last. I kindled a great fire + within my mind, and threw in the material,—as Aaron threw the gold + of the Israelites into the furnace,—and in the midmost heat uprose + Cleopatra, as you see her.” + </p> + <p> + “What I most marvel at,” said Miriam, “is the womanhood that you have so + thoroughly mixed up with all those seemingly discordant elements. Where + did you get that secret? You never found it in your gentle Hilda, yet I + recognize its truth.” + </p> + <p> + “No, surely, it was not in Hilda,” said Kenyon. “Her womanhood is of the + ethereal type, and incompatible with any shadow of darkness or evil.” + </p> + <p> + “You are right,” rejoined Miriam; “there are women of that ethereal type, + as you term it, and Hilda is one of them. She would die of her first + wrong-doing,—supposing for a moment that she could be capable of + doing wrong. Of sorrow, slender as she seems, Hilda might bear a great + burden; of sin, not a feather’s weight. Methinks now, were it my doom, I + could bear either, or both at once; but my conscience is still as white as + Hilda’s. Do you question it?” + </p> + <p> + “Heaven forbid, Miriam!” exclaimed the sculptor. + </p> + <p> + He was startled at the strange turn which she had so suddenly given to the + conversation. Her voice, too,—so much emotion was stifled rather + than expressed in it, sounded unnatural. + </p> + <p> + “O, my friend,” cried she, with sudden passion, “will you be my friend + indeed? I am lonely, lonely, lonely! There is a secret in my heart that + burns me,—that tortures me! Sometimes I fear to go mad of it; + sometimes I hope to die of it; but neither of the two happens. Ah, if I + could but whisper it to only one human soul! And you—you see far + into womanhood; you receive it widely into your large view. Perhaps—perhaps, + but Heaven only knows, you might understand me! O, let me speak!” + </p> + <p> + “Miriam, dear friend,” replied the sculptor, “if I can help you, speak + freely, as to a brother.” + </p> + <p> + “Help me? No!” said Miriam. + </p> + <p> + Kenyon’s response had been perfectly frank and kind; and yet the subtlety + of Miriam’s emotion detected a certain reserve and alarm in his warmly + expressed readiness to hear her story. In his secret soul, to say the + truth, the sculptor doubted whether it were well for this poor, suffering + girl to speak what she so yearned to say, or for him to listen. If there + were any active duty of friendship to be performed, then, indeed, he would + joyfully have come forward to do his best. But if it were only a pent-up + heart that sought an outlet? in that case it was by no means so certain + that a confession would do good. The more her secret struggled and fought + to be told, the more certain would it be to change all former relations + that had subsisted between herself and the friend to whom she might reveal + it. Unless he could give her all the sympathy, and just the kind of + sympathy that the occasion required, Miriam would hate him by and by, and + herself still more, if he let her speak. + </p> + <p> + This was what Kenyon said to himself; but his reluctance, after all, and + whether he were conscious of it or no, resulted from a suspicion that had + crept into his heart and lay there in a dark corner. Obscure as it was, + when Miriam looked into his eyes, she detected it at once. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, I shall hate you!” cried she, echoing the thought which he had not + spoken; she was half choked with the gush of passion that was thus turned + back upon her. “You are as cold and pitiless as your own marble.” + </p> + <p> + “No; but full of sympathy, God knows!” replied he. + </p> + <p> + In truth, his suspicions, however warranted by the mystery in which Miriam + was enveloped, had vanished in the earnestness of his kindly and sorrowful + emotion. He was now ready to receive her trust. + </p> + <p> + “Keep your sympathy, then, for sorrows that admit of such solace,” said + she, making a strong effort to compose herself. “As for my griefs, I know + how to manage them. It was all a mistake: you can do nothing for me, + unless you petrify me into a marble companion for your Cleopatra there; + and I am not of her sisterhood, I do assure you. Forget this foolish + scene, my friend, and never let me see a reference to it in your eyes when + they meet mine hereafter.” + </p> + <p> + “Since you desire it, all shall be forgotten,” answered the sculptor, + pressing her hand as she departed; “or, if ever I can serve you, let my + readiness to do so be remembered. Meanwhile, dear Miriam, let us meet in + the same clear, friendly light as heretofore.” + </p> + <p> + “You are less sincere than I thought you,” said Miriam, “if you try to + make me think that there will be no change.” + </p> + <p> + As he attended her through the antechamber, she pointed to the statue of + the pearl-diver. + </p> + <p> + “My secret is not a pearl,” said she; “yet a man might drown himself in + plunging after it.” + </p> + <p> + After Kenyon had closed the door, she went wearily down the staircase, but + paused midway, as if debating with herself whether to return. + </p> + <p> + “The mischief was done,” thought she; “and I might as well have had the + solace that ought to come with it. I have lost,—by staggering a + little way beyond the mark, in the blindness of my distress, I have lost, + as we shall hereafter find, the genuine friendship of this clear-minded, + honorable, true-hearted young man, and all for nothing. What if I should + go back this moment and compel him to listen?” + </p> + <p> + She ascended two or three of the stairs, but again paused, murmured to + herself, and shook her head. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no,” she thought; “and I wonder how I ever came to dream of it. + Unless I had his heart for my own,—and that is Hilda’s, nor would I + steal it from her,—it should never be the treasure Place of my + secret. It is no precious pearl, as I just now told him; but my dark-red + carbuncle—red as blood—is too rich a gem to put into a + stranger’s casket.” + </p> + <p> + She went down the stairs, and found her shadow waiting for her in the + street. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV + </h2> + <p> + AN AESTHETIC COMPANY + </p> + <p> + On the evening after Miriam’s visit to Kenyon’s studio, there was an + assemblage composed almost entirely of Anglo-Saxons, and chiefly of + American artists, with a sprinkling of their English brethren; and some + few of the tourists who still lingered in Rome, now that Holy Week was + past. Miriam, Hilda, and the sculptor were all three present, and with + them Donatello, whose life was so far turned from fits natural bent that, + like a pet spaniel, he followed his beloved mistress wherever he could + gain admittance. + </p> + <p> + The place of meeting was in the palatial, but somewhat faded and gloomy + apartment of an eminent member of the aesthetic body. It was no more + formal an occasion than one of those weekly receptions, common among the + foreign residents of Rome, at which pleasant people—or disagreeable + ones, as the case may be—encounter one another with little ceremony. + </p> + <p> + If anywise interested in art, a man must be difficult to please who cannot + find fit companionship among a crowd of persons, whose ideas and pursuits + all tend towards the general purpose of enlarging the world’s stock of + beautiful productions. + </p> + <p> + One of the chief causes that make Rome the favorite residence of artists—their + ideal home which they sigh for in advance, and are so loath to migrate + from, after once breathing its enchanted air—is, doubtless, that + they there find themselves in force, and are numerous enough to create a + congenial atmosphere. In every other clime they are isolated strangers; in + this land of art, they are free citizens. + </p> + <p> + Not that, individually, or in the mass, there appears to be any large + stock of mutual affection among the brethren of the chisel and the pencil. + On the contrary, it will impress the shrewd observer that the jealousies + and petty animosities, which the poets of our day have flung aside, still + irritate and gnaw into the hearts of this kindred class of imaginative + men. It is not difficult to suggest reasons why this should be the fact. + The public, in whose good graces lie the sculptor’s or the painter’s + prospects of success, is infinitely smaller than the public to which + literary men make their appeal. It is composed of a very limited body of + wealthy patrons; and these, as the artist well knows, are but blind judges + in matters that require the utmost delicacy of perception. Thus, success + in art is apt to become partly an affair of intrigue; and it is almost + inevitable that even a gifted artist should look askance at his gifted + brother’s fame, and be chary of the good word that might help him to sell + still another statue or picture. You seldom hear a painter heap generous + praise on anything in his special line of art; a sculptor never has a + favorable eye for any marble but his own. + </p> + <p> + Nevertheless, in spite of all these professional grudges, artists are + conscious of a social warmth from each other’s presence and contiguity. + They shiver at the remembrance of their lonely studios in the + unsympathizing cities of their native land. For the sake of such + brotherhood as they can find, more than for any good that they get from + galleries, they linger year after year in Italy, while their originality + dies out of them, or is polished away as a barbarism. + </p> + <p> + The company this evening included several men and women whom the world has + heard of, and many others, beyond all question, whom it ought to know. It + would be a pleasure to introduce them upon our humble pages, name by name, + and had we confidence enough in our own taste—to crown each + well-deserving brow according to its deserts. The opportunity is tempting, + but not easily manageable, and far too perilous, both in respect to those + individuals whom we might bring forward, and the far greater number that + must needs be left in the shade. Ink, moreover, is apt to have a corrosive + quality, and might chance to raise a blister, instead of any more + agreeable titillation, on skins so sensitive as those of artists. We must + therefore forego the delight of illuminating this chapter with personal + allusions to men whose renown glows richly on canvas, or gleams in the + white moonlight of marble. + </p> + <p> + Otherwise we might point to an artist who has studied Nature with such + tender love that she takes him to her intimacy, enabling him to reproduce + her in landscapes that seem the reality of a better earth, and yet are but + the truth of the very scenes around us, observed by the painter’s insight + and interpreted for us by his skill. By his magic, the moon throws her + light far out of the picture, and the crimson of the summer night + absolutely glimmers on the beholder’s face. Or we might indicate a + poet-painter, whose song has the vividness of picture, and whose canvas is + peopled with angels, fairies, and water sprites, done to the ethereal + life, because he saw them face to face in his poetic mood. Or we might bow + before an artist, who has wrought too sincerely, too religiously, with too + earnest a feeling, and too delicate a touch, for the world at once to + recognize how much toil and thought are compressed into the stately brow + of Prospero, and Miranda’s maiden loveliness; or from what a depth within + this painter’s heart the Angel is leading forth St. Peter. + </p> + <p> + Thus it would be easy to go on, perpetrating a score of little + epigrammatical allusions, like the above, all kindly meant, but none of + them quite hitting the mark, and often striking where they were not aimed. + It may be allowable to say, however, that American art is much better + represented at Rome in the pictorial than in the sculpturesque department. + Yet the men of marble appear to have more weight with the public than the + men of canvas; perhaps on account of the greater density and solid + substance of the material in which they work, and the sort of physical + advantage which their labors thus acquire over the illusive unreality of + color. To be a sculptor seems a distinction in itself; whereas a painter + is nothing, unless individually eminent. + </p> + <p> + One sculptor there was, an Englishman, endowed with a beautiful fancy, and + possessing at his fingers’ ends the capability of doing beautiful things. + He was a quiet, simple, elderly personage, with eyes brown and bright, + under a slightly impending brow, and a Grecian profile, such as he might + have cut with his own chisel. He had spent his life, for forty years, in + making Venuses, Cupids, Bacchuses, and a vast deal of other marble progeny + of dreamwork, or rather frostwork: it was all a vapory exhalation out of + the Grecian mythology, crystallizing on the dull window-panes of to-day. + Gifted with a more delicate power than any other man alive, he had + foregone to be a Christian reality, and perverted himself into a Pagan + idealist, whose business or efficacy, in our present world, it would be + exceedingly difficult to define. And, loving and reverencing the pure + material in which he wrought, as surely this admirable sculptor did, he + had nevertheless robbed the marble of its chastity, by giving it an + artificial warmth of hue. Thus it became a sin and shame to look at his + nude goddesses. They had revealed themselves to his imagination, no doubt, + with all their deity about them; but, bedaubed with buff color, they stood + forth to the eyes of the profane in the guise of naked women. But, + whatever criticism may be ventured on his style, it was good to meet a man + so modest and yet imbued with such thorough and simple conviction of his + own right principles and practice, and so quietly satisfied that his kind + of antique achievement was all that sculpture could effect for modern + life. + </p> + <p> + This eminent person’s weight and authority among his artistic brethren + were very evident; for beginning unobtrusively to utter himself on a topic + of art, he was soon the centre of a little crowd of younger sculptors. + They drank in his wisdom, as if it would serve all the purposes of + original inspiration; he, meanwhile, discoursing with gentle calmness, as + if there could possibly be no other side, and often ratifying, as it were, + his own conclusions by a mildly emphatic “Yes.” + </p> + <p> + The veteran Sculptor’s unsought audience was composed mostly of our own + countrymen. It is fair to say, that they were a body of very dexterous and + capable artists, each of whom had probably given the delighted public a + nude statue, or had won credit for even higher skill by the nice carving + of buttonholes, shoe-ties, coat-seams, shirt-bosoms, and other such + graceful peculiarities of modern costume. Smart, practical men they + doubtless were, and some of them far more than this, but still not + precisely what an uninitiated person looks for in a sculptor. A sculptor, + indeed, to meet the demands which our preconceptions make upon him, should + be even more indispensably a poet than those who deal in measured verse + and rhyme. His material, or instrument, which serves him in the stead of + shifting and transitory language, is a pure, white, undecaying substance. + It insures immortality to whatever is wrought in it, and therefore makes + it a religious obligation to commit no idea to its mighty guardianship, + save such as may repay the marble for its faithful care, its incorruptible + fidelity, by warming it with an ethereal life. Under this aspect, marble + assumes a sacred character; and no man should dare to touch it unless he + feels within himself a certain consecration and a priesthood, the only + evidence of which, for the public eye, will be the high treatment of + heroic subjects, or the delicate evolution of spiritual, through material + beauty. + </p> + <p> + No ideas such as the foregoing—no misgivings suggested by them + probably, troubled the self-complacency of most of these clever sculptors. + Marble, in their view, had no such sanctity as we impute to it. It was + merely a sort of white limestone from Carrara, cut into convenient blocks, + and worth, in that state, about two or three dollars per pound; and it was + susceptible of being wrought into certain shapes (by their own mechanical + ingenuity, or that of artisans in their employment) which would enable + them to sell it again at a much higher figure. Such men, on the strength + of some small knack in handling clay, which might have been fitly employed + in making wax-work, are bold to call themselves sculptors. How terrible + should be the thought that the nude woman whom the modern artist patches + together, bit by bit, from a dozen heterogeneous models, meaning nothing + by her, shall last as long as the Venus of the Capitol!—that his + group of—no matter what, since it has no moral or intellectual + existence will not physically crumble any sooner than the immortal agony + of the Laocoon! + </p> + <p> + Yet we love the artists, in every kind; even these, whose merits we are + not quite able to appreciate. Sculptors, painters, crayon sketchers, or + whatever branch of aesthetics they adopted, were certainly pleasanter + people, as we saw them that evening, than the average whom we meet in + ordinary society. They were not wholly confined within the sordid compass + of practical life; they had a pursuit which, if followed faithfully out, + would lead them to the beautiful, and always had a tendency thitherward, + even if they lingered to gather up golden dross by the wayside. Their + actual business (though they talked about it very much as other men talk + of cotton, politics, flour barrels, and sugar) necessarily illuminated + their conversation with something akin to the ideal. So, when the guests + collected themselves in little groups, here and there, in the wide saloon, + a cheerful and airy gossip began to be heard. The atmosphere ceased to be + precisely that of common life; a hint, mellow tinge, such as we see in + pictures, mingled itself with the lamplight. + </p> + <p> + This good effect was assisted by many curious little treasures of art, + which the host had taken care to strew upon his tables. They were + principally such bits of antiquity as the soil of Rome and its + neighborhood are still rich in; seals, gems, small figures of bronze, + mediaeval carvings in ivory; things which had been obtained at little + cost, yet might have borne no inconsiderable value in the museum of a + virtuoso. + </p> + <p> + As interesting as any of these relics was a large portfolio of old + drawings, some of which, in the opinion of their possessor, bore evidence + on their faces of the touch of master-hands. Very ragged and ill + conditioned they mostly were, yellow with time, and tattered with rough + usage; and, in their best estate, the designs had been scratched rudely + with pen and ink, on coarse paper, or, if drawn with charcoal or a pencil, + were now half rubbed out. You would not anywhere see rougher and homelier + things than these. But this hasty rudeness made the sketches only the more + valuable; because the artist seemed to have bestirred himself at the pinch + of the moment, snatching up whatever material was nearest, so as to seize + the first glimpse of an idea that might vanish in the twinkling of an eye. + Thus, by the spell of a creased, soiled, and discolored scrap of paper, + you were enabled to steal close to an old master, and watch him in the + very effervescence of his genius. + </p> + <p> + According to the judgment of several connoisseurs, Raphael’s own hand had + communicated its magnetism to one of these sketches; and, if genuine, it + was evidently his first conception of a favorite Madonna, now hanging in + the private apartment of the Grand Duke, at Florence. Another drawing was + attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and appeared to be a somewhat varied + design for his picture of Modesty and Vanity, in the Sciarra Palace. There + were at least half a dozen others, to which the owner assigned as high an + origin. It was delightful to believe in their authenticity, at all events; + for these things make the spectator more vividly sensible of a great + painter’s power, than the final glow and perfected art of the most + consummate picture that may have been elaborated from them. There is an + effluence of divinity in the first sketch; and there, if anywhere, you + find the pure light of inspiration, which the subsequent toil of the + artist serves to bring out in stronger lustre, indeed, but likewise + adulterates it with what belongs to an inferior mood. The aroma and + fragrance of new thoughts were perceptible in these designs, after three + centuries of wear and tear. The charm lay partly in their very + imperfection; for this is suggestive, and sets the imagination at work; + whereas, the finished picture, if a good one, leaves the spectator nothing + to do, and, if bad, confuses, stupefies, disenchants, and disheartens him. + </p> + <p> + Hilda was greatly interested in this rich portfolio. She lingered so long + over one particular sketch, that Miriam asked her what discovery she had + made. + </p> + <p> + “Look at it carefully,” replied Hilda, putting the sketch into her hands. + “If you take pains to disentangle the design from those pencil-marks that + seem to have been scrawled over it, I think you will see something very + curious.” + </p> + <p> + “It is a hopeless affair, I am afraid,” said Miriam. “I have neither your + faith, dear Hilda, nor your perceptive faculty. Fie! what a blurred scrawl + it is indeed!” + </p> + <p> + The drawing had originally been very slight, and had suffered more from + time and hard usage than almost any other in the collection; it appeared, + too, that there had been an attempt (perhaps by the very hand that drew + it) to obliterate the design. By Hilda’s help, however, Miriam pretty + distinctly made out a winged figure with a drawn sword, and a dragon, or a + demon, prostrate at his feet. + </p> + <p> + “I am convinced,” said Hilda in a low, reverential tone, “that Guido’s own + touches are on that ancient scrap of paper! If so, it must be his original + sketch for the picture of the Archangel Michael setting his foot upon the + demon, in the Church of the Cappuccini. The composition and general + arrangement of the sketch are the same with those of the picture; the only + difference being, that the demon has a more upturned face, and scowls + vindictively at the Archangel, who turns away his eyes in painful + disgust.” + </p> + <p> + “No wonder!” responded Miriam. “The expression suits the daintiness of + Michael’s character, as Guido represents him. He never could have looked + the demon in the face!” + </p> + <p> + “Miriam!” exclaimed her friend reproachfully, “you grieve me, and you know + it, by pretending to speak contemptuously of the most beautiful and the + divinest figure that mortal painter ever drew.” + </p> + <p> + “Forgive me, Hilda!” said Miriam. “You take these matters more religiously + than I can, for my life. Guido’s Archangel is a fine picture, of course, + but it never impressed me as it does <i>you</i>.” + </p> + <p> + “Well; we will not talk of that,” answered Hilda. “What I wanted you to + notice, in this sketch, is the face of the demon. It is entirely unlike + the demon of the finished picture. Guido, you know, always affirmed that + the resemblance to Cardinal Pamfili was either casual or imaginary. Now, + here is the face as he first conceived it.” + </p> + <p> + “And a more energetic demon, altogether, than that of the finished + picture,” said Kenyon, taking the sketch into his hand. “What a spirit is + conveyed into the ugliness of this strong, writhing, squirming dragon, + under the Archangel’s foot! Neither is the face an impossible one. Upon my + word, I have seen it somewhere, and on the shoulders of a living man!” + </p> + <p> + “And so have I,” said Hilda. “It was what struck me from the first.” + </p> + <p> + “Donatello, look at this face!” cried Kenyon. + </p> + <p> + The young Italian, as may be supposed, took little interest in matters of + art, and seldom or never ventured an opinion respecting them. After + holding the sketch a single instant in his hand, he flung it from him with + a shudder of disgust and repugnance, and a frown that had all the + bitterness of hatred. + </p> + <p> + “I know the face well!” whispered he. “It is Miriam’s model!” + </p> + <p> + It was acknowledged both by Kenyon and Hilda that they had detected, or + fancied, the resemblance which Donatello so strongly affirmed; and it + added not a little to the grotesque and weird character which, half + playfully, half seriously, they assigned to Miriam’s attendant, to think + of him as personating the demon’s part in a picture of more than two + centuries ago. Had Guido, in his effort to imagine the utmost of sin and + misery, which his pencil could represent, hit ideally upon just this face? + Or was it an actual portrait of somebody, that haunted the old master, as + Miriam was haunted now? Did the ominous shadow follow him through all the + sunshine of his earlier career, and into the gloom that gathered about its + close? And when Guido died, did the spectre betake himself to those + ancient sepulchres, there awaiting a new victim, till it was Miriam’s + ill-hap to encounter him? + </p> + <p> + “I do not acknowledge the resemblance at all,” said Miriam, looking + narrowly at the sketch; “and, as I have drawn the face twenty times, I + think you will own that I am the best judge.” + </p> + <p> + A discussion here arose, in reference to Guido’s Archangel, and it was + agreed that these four friends should visit the Church of the Cappuccini + the next morning, and critically examine the picture in question; the + similarity between it and the sketch being, at all events, a very curious + circumstance. + </p> + <p> + It was now a little past ten o’clock, when some of the company, who had + been standing in a balcony, declared the moonlight to be resplendent. They + proposed a ramble through the streets, taking in their way some of those + scenes of ruin which produced their best effects under the splendor of the + Italian moon. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI + </h2> + <p> + A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE + </p> + <p> + The proposal for a moonlight ramble was received with acclamation by all + the younger portion of the company. They immediately set forth and + descended from story to story, dimly lighting their way by waxen tapers, + which are a necessary equipment to those whose thoroughfare, in the + night-time, lies up and down a Roman staircase. Emerging from the + courtyard of the edifice, they looked upward and saw the sky full of + light, which seemed to have a delicate purple or crimson lustre, or, at + least some richer tinge than the cold, white moonshine of other skies. It + gleamed over the front of the opposite palace, showing the architectural + ornaments of its cornice and pillared portal, as well as the iron-barred + basement windows, that gave such a prison-like aspect to the structure, + and the shabbiness and Squalor that lay along its base. A cobbler was just + shutting up his little shop, in the basement of the palace; a cigar + vender’s lantern flared in the blast that came through the archway; a + French sentinel paced to and fro before the portal; a homeless dog, that + haunted thereabouts, barked as obstreperously at the party as if he were + the domestic guardian of the precincts. + </p> + <p> + The air was quietly full of the noise of falling water, the cause of which + was nowhere visible, though apparently near at hand. This pleasant, + natural sound, not unlike that of a distant cascade in the forest, may be + heard in many of the Roman streets and piazzas, when the tumult of the + city is hushed; for consuls, emperors, and popes, the great men of every + age, have found no better way of immortalizing their memories than by the + shifting, indestructible, ever new, yet unchanging, upgush and downfall of + water. They have written their names in that unstable element, and proved + it a more durable record than brass or marble. + </p> + <p> + “Donatello, you had better take one of those gay, boyish artists for your + companion,” said Miriam, when she found the Italian youth at her side. “I + am not now in a merry mood, as when we set all the world a-dancing the + other afternoon, in the Borghese grounds.” + </p> + <p> + “I never wish to dance any more,” answered Donatello. + </p> + <p> + “What a melancholy was in that tone!” exclaimed Miriam. “You are getting + spoilt in this dreary Rome, and will be as wise and as wretched as all the + rest of mankind, unless you go back soon to your Tuscan vineyards. Well; + give me your arm, then! But take care that no friskiness comes over you. + We must walk evenly and heavily to-night!” + </p> + <p> + The party arranged itself according to its natural affinities or casual + likings; a sculptor generally choosing a painter, and a painter a sculp—tor, + for his companion, in preference to brethren of their own art. Kenyon + would gladly have taken Hilda to himself, and have drawn her a little + aside from the throng of merry wayfarers. But she kept near Miriam, and + seemed, in her gentle and quiet way, to decline a separate alliance either + with him or any other of her acquaintances. + </p> + <p> + So they set forth, and had gone but a little way, when the narrow street + emerged into a piazza, on one side of which, glistening and dimpling in + the moonlight, was the most famous fountain in Rome. Its murmur—not + to say its uproar—had been in the ears of the company, ever since + they came into the open air. It was the Fountain of Trevi, which draws its + precious water from a source far beyond the walls, whence it flows + hitherward through old subterranean aqueducts, and sparkles forth as pure + as the virgin who first led Agrippa to its well-spring, by her father’s + door. + </p> + <p> + “I shall sip as much of this water as the hollow of my hand will hold,” + said Miriam. + </p> + <p> + “I am leaving Rome in a few days; and the tradition goes, that a parting + draught at the Fountain of Trevi insures the traveller’s return, whatever + obstacles and improbabilities may seem to beset him. Will you drink, + Donatello?” + </p> + <p> + “Signorina, what you drink, I drink,” said the youth. + </p> + <p> + They and the rest of the party descended some steps to the water’s brim, + and, after a sip or two, stood gazing at the absurd design of the + fountain, where some sculptor of Bernini’s school had gone absolutely mad + in marble. It was a great palace front, with niches and many bas-reliefs, + out of which looked Agrippa’s legendary virgin, and several of the + allegoric sisterhood; while, at the base, appeared Neptune, with his + floundering steeds, and Tritons blowing their horns about him, and twenty + other artificial fantasies, which the calm moonlight soothed into better + taste than was native to them. + </p> + <p> + And, after all, it was as magnificent a piece of work as ever human skill + contrived. At the foot of the palatial facade was strewn, with careful art + and ordered irregularity, a broad and broken heap of massive rock, looking + is if it might have lain there since the deluge. Over a central precipice + fell the water, in a semicircular cascade; and from a hundred crevices, on + all sides, snowy jets gushed up, and streams spouted out of the mouths and + nostrils of stone monsters, and fell in glistening drops; while other + rivulets, that had run wild, came leaping from one rude step to another, + over stones that were mossy, slimy, and green with sedge, because, in a + Century of their wild play, Nature had adopted the Fountain of Trevi, with + all its elaborate devices, for her own. Finally, the water, tumbling, + sparkling, and dashing, with joyous haste and never-ceasing murmur, poured + itself into a great marble-brimmed reservoir, and filled it with a + quivering tide; on which was seen, continually, a snowy semicircle of + momentary foam from the principal cascade, as well as a multitude of snow + points from smaller jets. The basin occupied the whole breadth of the + piazza, whence flights of steps descended to its border. A boat might + float, and make voyages from one shore to another in this mimic lake. + </p> + <p> + In the daytime, there is hardly a livelier scene in Rome than the + neighborhood of the Fountain of Trevi; for the piazza is then filled with + the stalls of vegetable and fruit dealers, chestnut roasters, cigar + venders, and other people, whose petty and wandering traffic is transacted + in the open air. It is likewise thronged with idlers, lounging over the + iron railing, and with Forestieri, who came hither to see the famous + fountain. Here, also, are seen men with buckets, urchins with cans, and + maidens (a picture as old as the patriarchal times) bearing their pitchers + upon their heads. For the water of Trevi is in request, far and wide, as + the most refreshing draught for feverish lips, the pleasantest to mingle + with wine, and the wholesomest to drink, in its native purity, that can + anywhere be found. But now, at early midnight, the piazza was a solitude; + and it was a delight to behold this untamable water, sporting by itself in + the moonshine, and compelling all the elaborate trivialities of art to + assume a natural aspect, in accordance with its own powerful simplicity. + </p> + <p> + “What would be done with this water power,” suggested an artist, “if we + had it in one of our American cities? Would they employ it to turn the + machinery of a cotton mill, I wonder?” + </p> + <p> + “The good people would pull down those rampant marble deities,” said + Kenyon, “and, possibly, they would give me a commission to carve the + one-and-thirty (is that the number?) sister States, each pouring a silver + stream from a separate can into one vast basin, which should represent the + grand reservoir of national prosperity.” + </p> + <p> + “Or, if they wanted a bit of satire,” remarked an English artist, “you + could set those same one-and-thirty States to cleansing the national flag + of any stains that it may have incurred. The Roman washerwomen at the + lavatory yonder, plying their labor in the open air, would serve admirably + as models.” + </p> + <p> + “I have often intended to visit this fountain by moonlight,”, said Miriam, + “because it was here that the interview took place between Corinne and + Lord Neville, after their separation and temporary estrangement. Pray come + behind me, one of you, and let me try whether the face can be recognized + in the water.” + </p> + <p> + Leaning over the stone brim of the basin, she heard footsteps stealing + behind her, and knew that somebody was looking over her shoulder. The + moonshine fell directly behind Miriam, illuminating the palace front and + the whole scene of statues and rocks, and filling the basin, as it were, + with tremulous and palpable light. Corinne, it will be remembered, knew + Lord Neville by the reflection of his face in the water. In Miriam’s case, + however (owing to the agitation of the water, its transparency, and the + angle at which she was compelled to lean over), no reflected image + appeared; nor, from the same causes, would it have been possible for the + recognition between Corinne and her lover to take place. The moon, indeed, + flung Miriam’s shadow at the bottom of the basin, as well as two more + shadows of persons who had followed her, on either side. + </p> + <p> + “Three shadows!” exclaimed Miriam—“three separate shadows, all so + black and heavy that they sink in the water! There they lie on the bottom, + as if all three were drowned together. This shadow on my right is + Donatello; I know him by his curls, and the turn of his head. My left-hand + companion puzzles me; a shapeless mass, as indistinct as the premonition + of calamity! Which of you can it be? Ah!” + </p> + <p> + She had turned round, while speaking, and saw beside her the strange + creature whose attendance on her was already familiar, as a marvel and a + jest; to the whole company of artists. A general burst of laughter + followed the recognition; while the model leaned towards Miriam, as she + shrank from him, and muttered something that was inaudible to those who + witnessed the scene. By his gestures, however, they concluded that he was + inviting her to bathe her hands. + </p> + <p> + “He cannot be an Italian; at least not a Roman,” observed an artist. “I + never knew one of them to care about ablution. See him now! It is as if he + were trying to wash off’ the time-stains and earthly soil of a thousand + years!” + </p> + <p> + Dipping his hands into the capacious washbowl before him, the model rubbed + them together with the utmost vehemence. Ever and anon, too, he peeped + into the water, as if expecting to see the whole Fountain of Trevi turbid + with the results of his ablution. Miriam looked at him, some little time, + with an aspect of real terror, and even imitated him by leaning over to + peep into the basin. Recovering herself, she took up some of the water in + the hollow of her hand, and practised an old form of exorcism by flinging + it in her persecutor’s face. + </p> + <p> + “In the name of all the Saints,” cried she, “vanish, Demon, and let me be + free of you now and forever!” + </p> + <p> + “It will not suffice,” said some of the mirthful party, “unless the + Fountain of Trevi gushes with holy water.” + </p> + <p> + In fact, the exorcism was quite ineffectual upon the pertinacious demon, + or whatever the apparition might be. Still he washed his brown, bony + talons; still he peered into the vast basin, as if all the water of that + great drinking-cup of Rome must needs be stained black or sanguine; and + still he gesticulated to Miriam to follow his example. The spectators + laughed loudly, but yet with a kind of constraint; for the creature’s + aspect was strangely repulsive and hideous. + </p> + <p> + Miriam felt her arm seized violently by Donatello. She looked at him, and + beheld a tigerlike fury gleaming from his wild eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Bid me drown him!” whispered he, shuddering between rage and horrible + disgust. “You shall hear his death gurgle in another instant!” + </p> + <p> + “Peace, peace, Donatello!” said Miriam soothingly, for this naturally + gentle and sportive being seemed all aflame with animal rage. “Do him no + mischief! He is mad; and we are as mad as he, if we suffer ourselves to be + disquieted by his antics. Let us leave him to bathe his hands till the + fountain run dry, if he find solace and pastime in it. What is it to you + or me, Donatello? There, there! Be quiet, foolish boy!” + </p> + <p> + Her tone and gesture were such as she might have used in taming down the + wrath of a faithful hound, that had taken upon himself to avenge some + supposed affront to his mistress. She smoothed the young man’s curls (for + his fierce and sudden fury seemed to bristle among his hair), and touched + his cheek with her soft palm, till his angry mood was a little assuaged. + </p> + <p> + “Signorina, do I look as when you first knew me?” asked he, with a heavy, + tremulous sigh, as they went onward, somewhat apart from their companions. + “Methinks there has been a change upon me, these many months; and more and + more, these last few days. The joy is gone out of my life; all gone! all + gone! Feel my hand! Is it not very hot? Ah; and my heart burns hotter + still!” + </p> + <p> + “My poor Donatello, you are ill!” said Miriam, with deep sympathy and + pity. “This melancholy and sickly Rome is stealing away the rich, joyous + life that belongs to you. Go back, my dear friend, to your home among the + hills, where (as I gather from what you have told me) your days were + filled with simple and blameless delights. Have you found aught in the + world that is worth’ what you there enjoyed? Tell me truly, Donatello!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes!” replied the young man. + </p> + <p> + “And what, in Heaven’s name?” asked she. + </p> + <p> + “This burning pain in my heart,” said Donatello; “for you are in the midst + of it.” + </p> + <p> + By this time, they had left the Fountain of Trevi considerably behind + them. Little further allusion was made to the scene at its margin; for the + party regarded Miriam’s persecutor as diseased in his wits, and were + hardly to be surprised by any eccentricity in his deportment. + </p> + <p> + Threading several narrow streets, they passed through the Piazza of the + Holy Apostles, and soon came to Trajan’s Forum. All over the surface of + what once was Rome, it seems to be the effort of Time to bury up the + ancient city, as if it were a corpse, and he the sexton; so that, in + eighteen centuries, the soil over its grave has grown very deep, by the + slow scattering of dust, and the accumulation of more modern decay upon + older ruin. + </p> + <p> + This was the fate, also, of Trajan’s Forum, until some papal antiquary, a + few hundred years ago, began to hollow it out again, and disclosed the + full height of the gigantic column wreathed round with bas-reliefs of the + old emperor’s warlike deeds. In the area before it stands a grove of + stone, consisting of the broken and unequal shafts of a vanished temple, + still keeping a majestic order, and apparently incapable of further + demolition. The modern edifices of the piazza (wholly built, no doubt, out + of the spoil of its old magnificence) look down into the hollow space + whence these pillars rise. + </p> + <p> + One of the immense gray granite shafts lay in the piazza, on the verge of + the area. It was a great, solid fact of the Past, making old Rome actually + sensible to the touch and eye; and no study of history, nor force of + thought, nor magic of song, could so vitally assure us that Rome once + existed, as this sturdy specimen of what its rulers and people wrought. + </p> + <p> + “And see!” said Kenyon, laying his hand upon it, “there is still a polish + remaining on the hard substance of the pillar; and even now, late as it + is, I can feel very sensibly the warmth of the noonday sun, which did its + best to heat it through. This shaft will endure forever. The polish of + eighteen centuries ago, as yet but half rubbed off, and the heat of + to-day’s sunshine, lingering into the night, seem almost equally ephemeral + in relation to it.” + </p> + <p> + “There is comfort to be found in the pillar,” remarked Miriam, “hard and + heavy as it is. Lying here forever, as it will, it makes all human trouble + appear but a momentary annoyance.” + </p> + <p> + “And human happiness as evanescent too,” observed Hilda, sighing; “and + beautiful art hardly less so! I do not love to think that this dull stone, + merely by its massiveness, will last infinitely longer than any picture, + in spite of the spiritual life that ought to give it immortality!” + </p> + <p> + “My poor little Hilda,” said Miriam, kissing her compassionately, “would + you sacrifice this greatest mortal consolation, which we derive from the + transitoriness of all things, from the right of saying, in every + conjecture, ‘This, too, will pass away,’ would you give up this + unspeakable boon, for the sake of making a picture eternal?” + </p> + <p> + Their moralizing strain was interrupted by a demonstration from the rest + of the party, who, after talking and laughing together, suddenly joined + their voices, and shouted at full pitch, + </p> + <p> + “Trajan! Trajan!” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you deafen us with such an uproar?” inquired Miriam. + </p> + <p> + In truth, the whole piazza had been filled with their idle vociferation; + the echoes from the surrounding houses reverberating the cry of “Trajan,” + on all sides; as if there was a great search for that imperial personage, + and not so much as a handful of his ashes to be found. + </p> + <p> + “Why, it was a good opportunity to air our voices in this resounding + piazza,” replied one of the artists. “Besides, we had really some hopes of + summoning Trajan to look at his column, which, you know, he never saw in + his lifetime. Here is your model (who, they say, lived and sinned before + Trajan’s death) still wandering about Rome; and why not the Emperor + Trajan?” + </p> + <p> + “Dead emperors have very little delight in their columns, I am afraid,” + observed Kenyon. “All that rich sculpture of Trajan’s bloody warfare, + twining from the base of the pillar to its capital, may be but an ugly + spectacle for his ghostly eyes, if he considers that this huge, storied + shaft must be laid before the judgment-seat, as a piece of the evidence of + what he did in the flesh. If ever I am employed to sculpture a hero’s + monument, I shall think of this, as I put in the bas-reliefs of the + pedestal!” + </p> + <p> + “There are sermons in stones,” said Hilda thoughtfully, smiling at + Kenyon’s morality; “and especially in the stones of Rome.” + </p> + <p> + The party moved on, but deviated a little from the straight way, in order + to glance at the ponderous remains of the temple of Mars Ultot, within + which a convent of nuns is now established,—a dove-cote, in the + war-god’s mansion. At only a little distance, they passed the portico of a + Temple of Minerva, most rich and beautiful in architecture, but woefully + gnawed by time and shattered by violence, besides being buried midway in + the accumulation of soil, that rises over dead Rome like a flood tide. + Within this edifice of antique sanctity, a baker’s shop was now + established, with an entrance on one side; for, everywhere, the remnants + of old grandeur and divinity have been made available for the meanest + necessities of today. + </p> + <p> + “The baker is just drawing his loaves out of the oven,” remarked Kenyon. + “Do you smell how sour they are? I should fancy that Minerva (in revenge + for the desecration of her temple) had slyly poured vinegar into the + batch, if I did not know that the modern Romans prefer their bread in the + acetous fermentation.” + </p> + <p> + They turned into the Via Alessandria, and thus gained the rear of the + Temple of Peace, and, passing beneath its great arches, pursued their way + along a hedge-bordered lane. In all probability, a stately Roman street + lay buried beneath that rustic-looking pathway; for they had now emerged + from the close and narrow avenues of the modern city, and were treading on + a soil where the seeds of antique grandeur had not yet produced the + squalid crop that elsewhere sprouts from them. Grassy as the lane was, it + skirted along heaps of shapeless ruin, and the bare site of the vast + temple that Hadrian planned and built. It terminated on the edge of a + somewhat abrupt descent, at the foot of which, with a muddy ditch between, + rose, in the bright moonlight, the great curving wall and multitudinous + arches of the Coliseum. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII + </h2> + <p> + MIRIAM’S TROUBLE + </p> + <p> + As usual of a moonlight evening, several carriages stood at the entrance + of this famous ruin, and the precincts and interior were anything but a + solitude. The French sentinel on duty beneath the principal archway eyed + our party curiously, but offered no obstacle to their admission. Within, + the moonlight filled and flooded the great empty space; it glowed upon + tier above tier of ruined, grass-grown arches, and made them even too + distinctly visible. The splendor of the revelation took away that + inestimable effect of dimness and mystery by which the imagination might + be assisted to build a grander structure than the Coliseum, and to shatter + it with a more picturesque decay. Byron’s celebrated description is better + than the reality. He beheld the scene in his mind’s eye, through the + witchery of many intervening years, and faintly illuminated it as if with + starlight instead of this broad glow of moonshine. + </p> + <p> + The party of our friends sat down, three or four of them on a prostrate + column, another on a shapeless lump of marble, once a Roman altar; others + on the steps of one of the Christian shrines. Goths and barbarians though + they were, they chatted as gayly together as if they belonged to the + gentle and pleasant race of people who now inhabit Italy. There was much + pastime and gayety just then in the area of the Coliseum, where so many + gladiators and Wild beasts had fought and died, and where so much blood of + Christian martyrs had been lapped up by that fiercest of wild beasts, the + Roman populace of yore. Some youths and maidens were running merry races + across the open space, and playing at hide and seek a little way within + the duskiness of the ground tier of arches, whence now and then you could + hear the half-shriek, halflaugh of a frolicsome girl, whom the shadow had + betrayed into a young man’s arms. Elder groups were seated on the + fragments of pillars and blocks of marble that lay round the verge of the + arena, talking in the quick, short ripple of the Italian tongue. On the + steps of the great black cross in the centre of the Coliseum sat a party + singing scraps of songs, with much laughter and merriment between the + stanzas. + </p> + <p> + It was a strange place for song and mirth. That black cross marks one of + the special blood-spots of the earth where, thousands of times over, the + dying gladiator fell, and more of human agony has been endured for the + mere pastime of the multitude than on the breadth of many battlefields. + From all this crime and suffering, however, the spot has derived a more + than common sanctity. An inscription promises seven years’ indulgence, + seven years of remission from the pains of purgatory, and earlier + enjoyment of heavenly bliss, for each separate kiss imprinted on the black + cross. What better use could be made of life, after middle age, when the + accumulated sins are many and the remaining temptations few, than to spend + it all in kissing the black cross of the Coliseum! + </p> + <p> + Besides its central consecration, the whole area has been made sacred by a + range of shrines, which are erected round the circle, each commemorating + some scene or circumstance of the Saviour’s passion and suffering. In + accordance with an ordinary custom, a pilgrim was making his progress from + shrine to shrine upon his knees, and saying a penitential prayer at each. + Light-footed girls ran across the path along which he crept, or sported + with their friends close by the shrines where he was kneeling. The pilgrim + took no heed, and the girls meant no irreverence; for in Italy religion + jostles along side by side with business and sport, after a fashion of its + own, and people are accustomed to kneel down and pray, or see others + praying, between two fits of merriment, or between two sins. + </p> + <p> + To make an end of our description, a red twinkle of light was visible amid + the breadth of shadow that fell across the upper part of the Coliseum. Now + it glimmered through a line of arches, or threw a broader gleam as it rose + out of some profound abyss of ruin; now it was muffled by a heap of + shrubbery which had adventurously clambered to that dizzy height; and so + the red light kept ascending to loftier and loftier ranges of the + structure, until it stood like a star where the blue sky rested against + the Coliseum’s topmost wall. It indicated a party of English or Americans + paying the inevitable visit by moonlight, and exalting themselves with + raptures that were Byron’s, not their own. + </p> + <p> + Our company of artists sat on the fallen column, the pagan altar, and the + steps of the Christian shrine, enjoying the moonlight and shadow, the + present gayety and the gloomy reminiscences of the scene, in almost equal + share. Artists, indeed, are lifted by the ideality of their pursuits a + little way off the earth, and are therefore able to catch the evanescent + fragrance that floats in the atmosphere of life above the heads of the + ordinary crowd. Even if they seem endowed with little imagination + individually, yet there is a property, a gift, a talisman, common to their + class, entitling them to partake somewhat more bountifully than other + people in the thin delights of moonshine and romance. + </p> + <p> + “How delightful this is!” said Hilda; and she sighed for very pleasure. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said Kenyon, who sat on the column, at her side. “The Coliseum is + far more delightful, as we enjoy it now, than when eighty thousand persons + sat squeezed together, row above row, to see their fellow creatures torn + by lions and tigers limb from limb. What a strange thought that the + Coliseum was really built for us, and has not come to its best uses till + almost two thousand years after it was finished!” + </p> + <p> + “The Emperor Vespasian scarcely had us in his mind,” said Hilda, smiling; + “but I thank him none the less for building it.” + </p> + <p> + “He gets small thanks, I fear, from the people whose bloody instincts he + pampered,” rejoined Kenyon. “Fancy a nightly assemblage of eighty thousand + melancholy and remorseful ghosts, looking down from those tiers of broken + arches, striving to repent of the savage pleasures which they once + enjoyed, but still longing to enjoy them over again.” + </p> + <p> + “You bring a Gothic horror into this peaceful moonlight scene,” said + Hilda. + </p> + <p> + “Nay, I have good authority for peopling the Coliseum with phantoms,” + replied the sculptor. “Do you remember that veritable scene in Benvenuto + Cellini’s autobiography, in which a necromancer of his acquaintance draws + a magic circle—just where the black cross stands now, I suppose—and + raises myriads of demons? Benvenuto saw them with his own eyes,—giants, + pygmies, and other creatures of frightful aspect, capering and dancing on + yonder walls. Those spectres must have been Romans, in their lifetime, and + frequenters of this bloody amphitheatre.” + </p> + <p> + “I see a spectre, now!” said Hilda, with a little thrill of uneasiness. + “Have you watched that pilgrim, who is going round the whole circle of + shrines, on his knees, and praying with such fervency at every one? Now + that he has revolved so far in his orbit, and has the moonshine on his + face as he turns towards us, methinks I recognize him!” + </p> + <p> + “And so do I,” said Kenyon. “Poor Miriam! Do you think she sees him?” + </p> + <p> + They looked round, and perceived that Miriam had risen from the steps of + the shrine and disappeared. She had shrunk back, in fact, into the deep + obscurity of an arch that opened just behind them. + </p> + <p> + Donatello, whose faithful watch was no more to be eluded than that of a + hound, had stolen after her, and became the innocent witness of a + spectacle that had its own kind of horror. Unaware of his presence, and + fancying herself wholly unseen, the beautiful Miriam began to gesticulate + extravagantly, gnashing her teeth, flinging her arms wildly abroad, + stamping with her foot. + </p> + <p> + It was as if she had stepped aside for an instant, solely to snatch the + relief of a brief fit of madness. Persons in acute trouble, or laboring + under strong excitement, with a necessity for concealing it, are prone to + relieve their nerves in this wild way; although, when practicable, they + find a more effectual solace in shrieking aloud. + </p> + <p> + Thus, as soon as she threw off her self-control, under the dusky arches of + the Coliseum, we may consider Miriam as a mad woman, concentrating the + elements of a long insanity into that instant. + </p> + <p> + “Signorina! signorina! have pity on me!” cried Donatello, approaching her; + “this is too terrible!” + </p> + <p> + “How dare you look, at me!” exclaimed Miriam, with a start; then, + whispering below her breath, “men have been struck dead for a less + offence!” + </p> + <p> + “If you desire it, or need it,” said Donatello humbly, “I shall not be + loath to die.” + </p> + <p> + “Donatello,” said Miriam, coming close to the young man, and speaking low, + but still the almost insanity of the moment vibrating in her voice, “if + you love yourself; if you desire those earthly blessings, such as you, of + all men, were made for; if you would come to a good old age among your + olive orchards and your Tuscan vines, as your forefathers did; if you + would leave children to enjoy the same peaceful, happy, innocent life, + then flee from me. Look not behind you! Get you gone without another + word.” He gazed sadly at her, but did not stir. “I tell you,” Miriam went + on, “there is a great evil hanging over me! I know it; I see it in the + sky; I feel it in the air! It will overwhelm me as utterly as if this arch + should crumble down upon our heads! It will crush you, too, if you stand + at my side! Depart, then; and make the sign of the cross, as your faith + bids you, when an evil spirit is nigh. Cast me off, or you are lost + forever.” + </p> + <p> + A higher sentiment brightened upon Donatello’s face than had hitherto + seemed to belong to its simple expression and sensuous beauty. + </p> + <p> + “I will never quit you,” he said; “you cannot drive me from you.” + </p> + <p> + “Poor Donatello!” said Miriam in a changed tone, and rather to herself + than him. “Is there no other that seeks me out, follows me,—is + obstinate to share my affliction and my doom,—but only you! They + call me beautiful; and I used to fancy that, at my need, I could bring the + whole world to my feet. And lo! here is my utmost need; and my beauty and + my gifts have brought me only this poor, simple boy. Half-witted, they + call him; and surely fit for nothing but to be happy. And I accept his + aid! To-morrow, to-morrow, I will tell him all! Ah! what a sin to stain + his joyous nature with the blackness of a woe like mine!” + </p> + <p> + She held out her hand to him, and smiled sadly as Donatello pressed it to + his lips. They were now about to emerge from the depth of the arch; but + just then the kneeling pilgrim, in his revolution round the orbit of the + shrines, had reached the one on the steps of which Miriam had been + sitting. There, as at the other shrines, he prayed, or seemed to pray. It + struck Kenyon, however,—who sat close by, and saw his face + distinctly, that the suppliant was merely performing an enjoined penance, + and without the penitence that ought to have given it effectual life. Even + as he knelt, his eyes wandered, and Miriam soon felt that he had detected + her, half hidden as she was within the obscurity of the arch. + </p> + <p> + “He is evidently a good Catholic, however,” whispered one of the party. + “After all, I fear we cannot identify him with the ancient pagan who + haunts the catacombs.” + </p> + <p> + “The doctors of the Propaganda may have converted him,” said another; + “they have had fifteen hundred years to perform the task.” + </p> + <p> + The company now deemed it time to continue their ramble. Emerging from a + side entrance of the Coliseum, they had on their left the Arch of + Constantine, and above it the shapeless ruins of the Palace of the + Caesars; portions of which have taken shape anew, in mediaeval convents + and modern villas. They turned their faces cityward, and, treading over + the broad flagstones of the old Roman pavement, passed through the Arch of + Titus. The moon shone brightly enough within it to show the seven-branched + Jewish candlestick, cut in the marble of the interior. The original of + that awful trophy lies buried, at this moment, in the yellow mud of the + Tiber; and, could its gold of Ophir again be brought to light, it would be + the most precious relic of past ages, in the estimation of both Jew and + Gentile. + </p> + <p> + Standing amid so much ancient dust, it is difficult to spare the reader + the commonplaces of enthusiasm, on which hundreds of tourists have already + insisted. Over this half-worn pavement, and beneath this Arch of Titus, + the Roman armies had trodden in their outward march, to fight battles a + world’s width away. Returning victorious, with royal captives and + inestimable spoil, a Roman triumph, that most gorgeous pageant of earthly + pride, had streamed and flaunted in hundred-fold succession over these + same flagstones, and through this yet stalwart archway. It is politic, + however, to make few allusions to such a past; nor, if we would create an + interest in the characters of our story, is it wise to suggest how + Cicero’s foot may have stepped on yonder stone, or how Horace was wont to + stroll near by, making his footsteps chime with the measure of the ode + that was ringing in his mind. The very ghosts of that massive and stately + epoch have so much density that the actual people of to-day seem the + thinner of the two, and stand more ghost-like by the arches and columns, + letting the rich sculpture be discerned through their ill-compacted + substance. + </p> + <p> + The party kept onward, often meeting pairs and groups of midnight + strollers like themselves. On such a moonlight night as this, Rome keeps + itself awake and stirring, and is full of song and pastime, the noise of + which mingles with your dreams, if you have gone betimes to bed. But it is + better to be abroad, and take our own share of the enjoyable time; for the + languor that weighs so heavily in the Roman atmosphere by day is lightened + beneath the moon and stars. + </p> + <p> + They had now reached the precincts of the Forum. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII + </h2> + <p> + ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE + </p> + <p> + “Let us settle it,” said Kenyon, stamping his foot firmly down, “that this + is precisely the spot where the chasm opened, into which Curtius + precipitated his good steed and himself. Imagine the great, dusky gap, + impenetrably deep, and with half-shaped monsters and hideous faces looming + upward out of it, to the vast affright of the good citizens who peeped + over the brim! There, now, is a subject, hitherto unthought of, for a grim + and ghastly story, and, methinks, with a moral as deep as the gulf itself. + Within it, beyond a question, there were prophetic visions,—intimations + of all the future calamities of Rome,—shades of Goths, and Gauls, + and even of the French soldiers of to-day. It was a pity to close it up so + soon! I would give much for a peep into such a chasm.” + </p> + <p> + “I fancy,” remarked Miriam, “that every person takes a peep into it in + moments of gloom and despondency; that is to say, in his moments of + deepest insight.” + </p> + <p> + “Where is it, then?” asked Hilda. “I never peeped into it.” + </p> + <p> + “Wait, and it will open for you,” replied her friend. “The chasm was + merely one of the orifices of that pit of blackness that lies beneath us, + everywhere. The firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin crust + spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive stage + scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the chasm. A + footstep, a little heavier than ordinary, will serve; and we must step + very daintily, not to break through the crust at any moment. By and by, we + inevitably sink! It was a foolish piece of heroism in Curtius to + precipitate himself there, in advance; for all Rome, you see, has been + swallowed up in that gulf, in spite of him. The Palace of the Caesars has + gone down thither, with a hollow, rumbling sound of its fragments! All the + temples have tumbled into it; and thousands of statues have been thrown + after! All the armies and the triumphs have marched into the great chasm, + with their martial music playing, as they stepped over the brink. All the + heroes, the statesmen, and the poets! All piled upon poor Curtius, who + thought to have saved them all! I am loath to smile at the self-conceit of + that gallant horseman, but cannot well avoid it.” + </p> + <p> + “It grieves me to hear you speak thus, Miriam,” said Hilda, whose natural + and cheerful piety was shocked by her friend’s gloomy view of human + destinies. “It seems to me that there is no chasm, nor any hideous + emptiness under our feet, except what the evil within us digs. If there be + such a chasm, let us bridge it over with good thoughts and deeds, and we + shall tread safely to the other side. It was the guilt of Rome, no doubt, + that caused this gulf to open; and Curtius filled it up with his heroic + self-sacrifice and patriotism, which was the best virtue that the old + Romans knew. Every wrong thing makes the gulf deeper; every right one + helps to fill it up. As the evil of Rome was far more than its good, the + whole commonwealth finally sank into it, indeed, but of no original + necessity.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, Hilda, it came to the same thing at last,” answered Miriam + despondingly. + </p> + <p> + “Doubtless, too,” resumed the sculptor (for his imagination was greatly + excited by the idea of this wondrous chasm), “all the blood that the + Romans shed, whether on battlefields, or in the Coliseum, or on the cross,—in + whatever public or private murder,—ran into this fatal gulf, and + formed a mighty subterranean lake of gore, right beneath our feet. The + blood from the thirty wounds in Caesar’s breast flowed hitherward, and + that pure little rivulet from Virginia’s bosom, too! Virginia, beyond all + question, was stabbed by her father, precisely where we are standing.” + </p> + <p> + “Then the spot is hallowed forever!” said Hilda. + </p> + <p> + “Is there such blessed potency in bloodshed?” asked Miriam. “Nay, Hilda, + do not protest! I take your meaning rightly.” + </p> + <p> + They again moved forward. And still, from the Forum and the Via Sacra, + from beneath the arches of the Temple of Peace on one side, and the + acclivity of the Palace of the Caesars on the other, there arose singing + voices of parties that were strolling through the moonlight. Thus, the air + was full of kindred melodies that encountered one another, and twined + themselves into a broad, vague music, out of which no single strain could + be disentangled. These good examples, as well as the harmonious influences + of the hour, incited our artist friends to make proof of their own vocal + powers. With what skill and breath they had, they set up a choral strain,—“Hail, + Columbia!” we believe, which those old Roman echoes must have found it + exceeding difficult to repeat aright. Even Hilda poured the slender + sweetness of her note into her country’s song. Miriam was at first silent, + being perhaps unfamiliar with the air and burden. But suddenly she threw + out such a swell and gush of sound, that it seemed to pervade the whole + choir of other voices, and then to rise above them all, and become audible + in what would else have been thee silence of an upper region. That volume + of melodious voice was one of the tokens of a great trouble. There had + long been an impulse upon her—amounting, at last, to a necessity to + shriek aloud; but she had struggled against it, till the thunderous anthem + gave her an opportunity to relieve her heart by a great cry. + </p> + <p> + They passed the solitary Column of Phocas, and looked down into the + excavated space, where a confusion of pillars, arches, pavements, and + shattered blocks and shafts—the crumbs of various ruin dropped from + the devouring maw of Time stand, or lie, at the base of the Capitoline + Hill. That renowned hillock (for it is little more) now arose abruptly + above them. The ponderous masonry, with which the hillside is built up, is + as old as Rome itself, and looks likely to endure while the world retains + any substance or permanence. It once sustained the Capitol, and now bears + up the great pile which the mediaeval builders raised on the antique + foundation, and that still loftier tower, which looks abroad upon a larger + page of deeper historic interest than any other scene can show. On the + same pedestal of Roman masonry, other structures will doubtless rise, and + vanish like ephemeral things. + </p> + <p> + To a spectator on the spot, it is remarkable that the events of Roman + history, and Roman life itself, appear not so distant as the Gothic ages + which succeeded them. We stand in the Forum, or on the height of the + Capitol, and seem to see the Roman epoch close at hand. We forget that a + chasm extends between it and ourselves, in which lie all those dark, rude, + unlettered centuries, around the birth-time of Christianity, as well as + the age of chivalry and romance, the feudal system, and the infancy of a + better civilization than that of Rome. Or, if we remember these mediaeval + times, they look further off than the Augustan age. The reason may be, + that the old Roman literature survives, and creates for us an intimacy + with the classic ages, which we have no means of forming with the + subsequent ones. + </p> + <p> + The Italian climate, moreover, robs age of its reverence and makes it look + newer than it is. Not the Coliseum, nor the tombs of the Appian Way, nor + the oldest pillar in the Forum, nor any other Roman ruin, be it as + dilapidated as it may, ever give the impression of venerable antiquity + which we gather, along with the ivy, from the gray walls of an English + abbey or castle. And yet every brick or stone, which we pick up among the + former, had fallen ages before the foundation of the latter was begun. + This is owing to the kindliness with which Natures takes an English ruin + to her heart, covering it with ivy, as tenderly as Robin Redbreast covered + the dead babes with forest leaves. She strives to make it a part of + herself, gradually obliterating the handiwork of man, and supplanting it + with her own mosses and trailing verdure, till she has won the whole + structure back. But, in Italy, whenever man has once hewn a stone, Nature + forthwith relinquishes her right to it, and never lays her finger on it + again. Age after age finds it bare and naked, in the barren sunshine, and + leaves it so. Besides this natural disadvantage, too, each succeeding + century, in Rome, has done its best to ruin the very ruins, so far as + their picturesque effect is concerned, by stealing away the marble and + hewn stone, and leaving only yellow bricks, which never can look + venerable. + </p> + <p> + The party ascended the winding way that leads from the Forum to the Piazza + of the Campidoglio on the summit of the Capitoline Hill. They stood awhile + to contemplate the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius. The + moonlight glistened upon traces of the gilding which had once covered both + rider and steed; these were almost gone, but the aspect of dignity was + still perfect, clothing the figure as it were with an imperial robe of + light. It is the most majestic representation of the kingly character that + ever the world has seen. A sight of the old heathen emperor is enough to + create an evanescent sentiment of loyalty even in a democratic bosom, so + august does he look, so fit to rule, so worthy of man’s profoundest homage + and obedience, so inevitably attractive of his love. He stretches forth + his hand with an air of grand beneficence and unlimited authority, as if + uttering a decree from which no appeal was permissible, but in which the + obedient subject would find his highest interests consulted; a command + that was in itself a benediction. + </p> + <p> + “The sculptor of this statue knew what a king should be,” observed Kenyon, + “and knew, likewise, the heart of mankind, and how it craves a true ruler, + under whatever title, as a child its father.” + </p> + <p> + “O, if there were but one such man as this?” exclaimed Miriam. “One such + man in an age, and one in all the world; then how speedily would the + strife, wickedness, and sorrow of us poor creatures be relieved. We would + come to him with our griefs, whatever they might be,—even a poor, + frail woman burdened with her heavy heart,—and lay them at his feet, + and never need to take them up again. The rightful king would see to all.” + </p> + <p> + “What an idea of the regal office and duty!” said Kenyon, with a smile. + “It is a woman’s idea of the whole matter to perfection. It is Hilda’s, + too, no doubt?” + </p> + <p> + “No,” answered the quiet Hilda; “I should never look for such assistance + from an earthly king.” + </p> + <p> + “Hilda, my religious Hilda,” whispered Miriam, suddenly drawing the girl + close to her, “do you know how it is with me? I would give all I have or + hope—my life, O how freely—for one instant of your trust in + God! You little guess my need of it. You really think, then, that He sees + and cares for us?” + </p> + <p> + “Miriam, you frighten me.” + </p> + <p> + “Hush, hush? do not let them hear yet!” whispered Miriam. “I frighten you, + you say; for Heaven’s sake, how? Am I strange? Is there anything wild in + my behavior?” + </p> + <p> + “Only for that moment,” replied Hilda, “because you seemed to doubt God’s + providence.” + </p> + <p> + “We will talk of that another time,” said her friend. “Just now it is very + dark to me.” + </p> + <p> + On the left of the Piazza of the Campidoglio, as you face cityward, and at + the head of the long and stately flight of steps descending from the + Capitoline Hill to the level of lower Rome, there is a narrow lane or + passage. Into this the party of our friends now turned. The path ascended + a little, and ran along under the walls of a palace, but soon passed + through a gateway, and terminated in a small paved courtyard. It was + bordered by a low parapet. + </p> + <p> + The spot, for some reason or other, impressed them as exceedingly lonely. + On one side was the great height of the palace, with the moonshine falling + over it, and showing all the windows barred and shuttered. Not a human eye + could look down into the little courtyard, even if the seemingly deserted + palace had a tenant. On all other sides of its narrow compass there was + nothing but the parapet, which as it now appeared was built right on the + edge of a steep precipice. Gazing from its imminent brow, the party beheld + a crowded confusion of roofs spreading over the whole space between them + and the line of hills that lay beyond the Tiber. A long, misty wreath, + just dense enough to catch a little of the moonshine, floated above the + houses, midway towards the hilly line, and showed the course of the unseen + river. Far away on the right, the moon gleamed on the dome of St. Peter’s + as well as on many lesser and nearer domes. + </p> + <p> + “What a beautiful view of the city!” exclaimed Hilda; “and I never saw + Rome from this point before.” + </p> + <p> + “It ought to afford a good prospect,” said the sculptor; “for it was from + this point—at least we are at liberty to think so, if we choose—that + many a famous Roman caught his last glimpse of his native city, and of all + other earthly things. This is one of the sides of the Tarpeian Rock. Look + over the parapet, and see what a sheer tumble there might still be for a + traitor, in spite of the thirty feet of soil that have accumulated at the + foot of the precipice.” + </p> + <p> + They all bent over, and saw that the cliff fell perpendicularly downward + to about the depth, or rather more, at which the tall palace rose in + height above their heads. Not that it was still the natural, shaggy front + of the original precipice; for it appeared to be cased in ancient + stonework, through which the primeval rock showed its face here and there + grimly and doubtfully. Mosses grew on the slight projections, and little + shrubs sprouted out of the crevices, but could not much soften the stern + aspect of the cliff. Brightly as the Italian moonlight fell adown the + height, it scarcely showed what portion of it was man’s work and what was + nature’s, but left it all in very much the same kind of ambiguity and + half-knowledge in which antiquarians generally leave the identity of Roman + remains. + </p> + <p> + The roofs of some poor-looking houses, which had been built against the + base and sides of the cliff, rose nearly midway to the top; but from an + angle of the parapet there was a precipitous plunge straight downward into + a stonepaved court. + </p> + <p> + “I prefer this to any other site as having been veritably the Traitor’s + Leap,” said Kenyon, “because it was so convenient to the Capitol. It was + an admirable idea of those stern old fellows to fling their political + criminals down from the very summit on which stood the Senate House and + Jove’s Temple, emblems of the institutions which they sought to violate. + It symbolizes how sudden was the fall in those days from the utmost height + of ambition to its profoundest ruin.” + </p> + <p> + “Come, come; it is midnight,” cried another artist, “too late to be + moralizing here. We are literally dreaming on the edge of a precipice. Let + us go home.” + </p> + <p> + “It is time, indeed,” said Hilda. + </p> + <p> + The sculptor was not without hopes that he might be favored with the sweet + charge of escorting Hilda to the foot of her tower. Accordingly, when the + party prepared to turn back, he offered her his arm. Hilda at first + accepted it; but when they had partly threaded the passage between the + little courtyard and the Piazza del Campidoglio, she discovered that + Miriam had remained behind. + </p> + <p> + “I must go back,” said she, withdrawing her arm from Kenyon’s; “but pray + do not come with me. Several times this evening I have had a fancy that + Miriam had something on her mind, some sorrow or perplexity, which, + perhaps, it would relieve her to tell me about. No, no; do not turn back! + Donatello will be a sufficient guardian for Miriam and me.” + </p> + <p> + The sculptor was a good deal mortified, and perhaps a little angry: but he + knew Hilda’s mood of gentle decision and independence too well not to obey + her. He therefore suffered the fearless maiden to return alone. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile Miriam had not noticed the departure of the rest of the company; + she remained on the edge of the precipice and Donatello along with her. + </p> + <p> + “It would be a fatal fall, still,” she said to herself, looking over the + parapet, and shuddering as her eye measured the depth. “Yes; surely yes! + Even without the weight of an overburdened heart, a human body would fall + heavily enough upon those stones to shake all its joints asunder. How soon + it would be over!” + </p> + <p> + Donatello, of whose presence she was possibly not aware, now pressed + closer to her side; and he, too, like Miriam, bent over the low parapet + and trembled violently. Yet he seemed to feel that perilous fascination + which haunts the brow of precipices, tempting the unwary one to fling + himself over for the very horror of the thing; for, after drawing hastily + back, he again looked down, thrusting himself out farther than before. He + then stood silent a brief space, struggling, perhaps, to make himself + conscious of the historic associations of the scene. + </p> + <p> + “What are you thinking of, Donatello?” asked Miriam. + </p> + <p> + “Who are they,” said he, looking earnestly in her face, “who have been + flung over here in days gone by?” + </p> + <p> + “Men that cumbered the world,” she replied. “Men whose lives were the bane + of their fellow creatures. Men who poisoned the air, which is the common + breath of all, for their own selfish purposes. There was short work with + such men in old Roman times. Just in the moment of their triumph, a hand, + as of an avenging giant, clutched them, and dashed the wretches down this + precipice.” + </p> + <p> + “Was it well done?” asked the young man. + </p> + <p> + “It was well done,” answered Miriam; “innocent persons were saved by the + destruction of a guilty one, who deserved his doom.” + </p> + <p> + While this brief conversation passed, Donatello had once or twice glanced + aside with a watchful air, just as a hound may often be seen to take + sidelong note of some suspicious object, while he gives his more direct + attention to something nearer at, hand. Miriam seemed now first to become + aware of the silence that had followed upon the cheerful talk and laughter + of a few moments before. + </p> + <p> + Looking round, she perceived that all her company of merry friends had + retired, and Hilda, too, in whose soft and quiet presence she had always + an indescribable feeling of security. All gone; and only herself and + Donatello left hanging over the brow of the ominous precipice. + </p> + <p> + Not so, however; not entirely alone! In the basement wall of the palace, + shaded from the moon, there was a deep, empty niche, that had probably + once contained a statue; not empty, either; for a figure now came forth + from it and approached Miriam. She must have had cause to dread some + unspeakable evil from this strange persecutor, and to know that this was + the very crisis of her calamity; for as he drew near, such a cold, sick + despair crept over her that it impeded her breath, and benumbed her + natural promptitude of thought. Miriam seemed dreamily to remember falling + on her knees; but, in her whole recollection of that wild moment, she + beheld herself as in a dim show, and could not well distinguish what was + done and suffered; no, not even whether she were really an actor and + sufferer in the scene. + </p> + <p> + Hilda, meanwhile, had separated herself from the sculptor, and turned back + to rejoin her friend. At a distance, she still heard the mirth of her late + companions, who were going down the cityward descent of the Capitoline + Hill; they had set up a new stave of melody, in which her own soft voice, + as well as the powerful sweetness of Miriam’s, was sadly missed. + </p> + <p> + The door of the little courtyard had swung upon its hinges, and partly + closed itself. Hilda (whose native gentleness pervaded all her movements) + was quietly opening it, when she was startled, midway, by the noise of a + struggle within, beginning and ending all in one breathless instant. Along + with it, or closely succeeding it, was a loud, fearful cry, which quivered + upward through the air, and sank quivering downward to the earth. Then, a + silence! Poor Hilda had looked into the court-yard, and saw the whole + quick passage of a deed, which took but that little time to grave itself + in the eternal adamant. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX + </h2> + <p> + THE FAUN’S TRANSFORMATION + </p> + <p> + The door of the courtyard swung slowly, and closed itself of its own + accord. Miriam and Donatello were now alone there. She clasped her hands, + and looked wildly at the young man, whose form seemed to have dilated, and + whose eyes blazed with the fierce energy that had suddenly inspired him. + It had kindled him into a man; it had developed within him an intelligence + which was no native characteristic of the Donatello whom we have + heretofore known. But that simple and joyous creature was gone forever. + </p> + <p> + “What have you done?” said Miriam, in a horror-stricken whisper. + </p> + <p> + The glow of rage was still lurid on Donatello’s face, and now flashed out + again from his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I did what ought to be done to a traitor!” he replied. “I did what your + eyes bade me do, when I asked them with mine, as I held the wretch over + the precipice!” + </p> + <p> + These last words struck Miriam like a bullet. Could it be so? Had her eyes + provoked or assented to this deed? She had not known it. But, alas! + looking back into the frenzy and turmoil of the scene just acted, she + could not deny—she was not sure whether it might be so, or no—that + a wild joy had flamed up in her heart, when she beheld her persecutor in + his mortal peril. Was it horror?—or ecstasy? or both in one? Be the + emotion what it might, it had blazed up more madly, when Donatello flung + his victim off the cliff, and more and more, while his shriek went + quivering downward. With the dead thump upon the stones below had come an + unutterable horror. + </p> + <p> + “And my eyes bade you do it!” repeated she. + </p> + <p> + They both leaned over the parapet, and gazed downward as earnestly as if + some inestimable treasure had fallen over, and were yet recoverable. On + the pavement below was a dark mass, lying in a heap, with little or + nothing human in its appearance, except that the hands were stretched out, + as if they might have clutched for a moment at the small square stones. + But there was no motion in them now. Miriam watched the heap of mortality + while she could count a hundred, which she took pains to do. No stir; not + a finger moved! + </p> + <p> + “You have killed him, Donatello! He is quite dead!” said she. “Stone dead! + Would I were so, too!” + </p> + <p> + “Did you not mean that he should die?” sternly asked Donatello, still in + the glow of that intelligence which passion had developed in him. “There + was short time to weigh the matter; but he had his trial in that breath or + two while I held him over the cliff, and his sentence in that one glance, + when your eyes responded to mine! Say that I have slain him against your + will,—say that he died without your whole consent,—and, in + another breath, you shall see me lying beside him.” + </p> + <p> + “O, never!” cried Miriam. “My one, own friend! Never, never, never!” + </p> + <p> + She turned to him,—the guilty, bloodstained, lonely woman,—she + turned to her fellow criminal, the youth, so lately innocent, whom she had + drawn into her doom. She pressed him close, close to her bosom, with a + clinging embrace that brought their two hearts together, till the horror + and agony of each was combined into one emotion, and that a kind of + rapture. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, Donatello, you speak the truth!” said she; “my heart consented to + what you did. We two slew yonder wretch. The deed knots us together, for + time and eternity, like the coil of a serpent!” + </p> + <p> + They threw one other glance at the heap of death below, to assure + themselves that it was there; so like a dream was the whole thing. Then + they turned from that fatal precipice, and came out of the courtyard, arm + in arm, heart in heart. Instinctively, they were heedful not to sever + themselves so much as a pace or two from one another, for fear of the + terror and deadly chill that would thenceforth wait for them in solitude. + Their deed—the crime which Donatello wrought, and Miriam accepted on + the instant—had wreathed itself, as she said, like a serpent, in + inextricable links about both their souls, and drew them into one, by its + terrible contractile power. It was closer than a marriage bond. So + intimate, in those first moments, was the union, that it seemed as if + their new sympathy annihilated all other ties, and that they were released + from the chain of humanity; a new sphere, a special law, had been created + for them alone. The world could not come near them; they were safe! + </p> + <p> + When they reached the flight of steps leading downward from the Capitol, + there was a faroff noise of singing and laughter. Swift, indeed, had been + the rush of the crisis that was come and gone! This was still the + merriment of the party that had so recently been their companions. They + recognized the voices which, a little while ago, had accorded and sung in + cadence with their own. But they were familiar voices no more; they + sounded strangely, and, as it were, out of the depths of space; so remote + was all that pertained to the past life of these guilty ones, in the moral + seclusion that had suddenly extended itself around them. But how close, + and ever closer, did the breath of the immeasurable waste, that lay + between them and all brotherhood or sisterhood, now press them one within + the other! + </p> + <p> + “O friend!” cried Miriam, so putting her soul into the word that it took a + heavy richness of meaning, and seemed never to have been spoken before, “O + friend, are you conscious, as I am, of this companionship that knits our + heart-strings together?” + </p> + <p> + “I feel it, Miriam,” said Donatello. “We draw one breath; we live one + life!” + </p> + <p> + “Only yesterday,” continued Miriam; “nay, only a short half-hour ago, I + shivered in an icy solitude. No friendship, no sisterhood, could come near + enough to keep the warmth within my heart. In an instant all is changed! + There can be no more loneliness!” + </p> + <p> + “None, Miriam!” said Donatello. + </p> + <p> + “None, my beautiful one!” responded Miriam, gazing in his face, which had + taken a higher, almost an heroic aspect, from the strength of passion. + “None, my innocent one! Surely, it is no crime that we have committed. One + wretched and worthless life has been sacrificed to cement two other lives + for evermore.” + </p> + <p> + “For evermore, Miriam!” said Donatello; “cemented with his blood!” + </p> + <p> + The young man started at the word which he had himself spoken; it may be + that it brought home, to the simplicity of his imagination, what he had + not before dreamed of,—the ever-increasing loathsomeness of a union + that consists in guilt. Cemented with blood, which would corrupt and grow + more noisome forever and forever, but bind them none the less strictly for + that. + </p> + <p> + “Forget it! Cast it all behind you!” said Miriam, detecting, by her + sympathy, the pang that was in his heart. “The deed has done its office, + and has no existence any more.” + </p> + <p> + They flung the past behind them, as she counselled, or else distilled from + it a fiery, intoxication, which sufficed to carry them triumphantly + through those first moments of their doom. For guilt has its moment of + rapture too. The foremost result of a broken law is ever an ecstatic sense + of freedom. And thus there exhaled upward (out of their dark sympathy, at + the base of which lay a human corpse) a bliss, or an insanity, which the + unhappy pair imagined to be well worth the sleepy innocence that was + forever lost to them. + </p> + <p> + As their spirits rose to the solemn madness of the occasion, they went + onward, not stealthily, not fearfully, but with a stately gait and aspect. + Passion lent them (as it does to meaner shapes) its brief nobility of + carriage. They trod through the streets of Rome, as if they, too, were + among the majestic and guilty shadows, that, from ages long gone by, have + haunted the blood-stained city. And, at Miriam’s suggestion, they turned + aside, for the sake of treading loftily past the old site of Pompey’s + Forum. + </p> + <p> + “For there was a great deed done here!” she said,—“a deed of blood + like ours! Who knows but we may meet the high and ever-sad fraternity of + Caesar’s murderers, and exchange a salutation?” + </p> + <p> + “Are they our brethren, now?” asked Donatello. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; all of them,” said Miriam,—“and many another, whom the world + little dreams of, has been made our brother or our sister, by what we have + done within this hour!” + </p> + <p> + And at the thought she shivered. Where then was the seclusion, the + remoteness, the strange, lonesome Paradise, into which she and her one + companion had been transported by their crime? Was there, indeed, no such + refuge, but only a crowded thoroughfare and jostling throng of criminals? + And was it true, that whatever hand had a blood-stain on it,—or had + poured out poison,—or strangled a babe at its birth,—or + clutched a grandsire’s throat, he sleeping, and robbed him of his few last + breaths,—had now the right to offer itself in fellowship with their + two hands? Too certainly, that right existed. It is a terrible thought, + that an individual wrong-doing melts into the great mass of human crime, + and makes us, who dreamed only of our own little separate sin,—makes + us guilty of the whole. And thus Miriam and her lover were not an + insulated pair, but members of an innumerable confraternity of guilty + ones, all shuddering at each other. + </p> + <p> + “But not now; not yet,” she murmured to herself. “To-night, at least, + there shall be no remorse!” + </p> + <p> + Wandering without a purpose, it so chanced that they turned into a street, + at one extremity of which stood Hilda’s tower. There was a light in her + high chamber; a light, too, at the Virgin’s shrine; and the glimmer of + these two was the loftiest light beneath the stars. Miriam drew + Donatello’s arm, to make him stop, and while they stood at some distance + looking at Hilda’s window, they beheld her approach and throw it open. She + leaned far forth, and extended her clasped hands towards the sky. + </p> + <p> + “The good, pure child! She is praying, Donatello,” said Miriam, with a + kind of simple joy at witnessing the devoutness of her friend. Then her + own sin rushed upon her, and she shouted, with the rich strength of her + voice, “Pray for us, Hilda; we need it!” + </p> + <p> + Whether Hilda heard and recognized the voice we cannot tell. The window + was immediately closed, and her form disappeared from behind the snowy + curtain. Miriam felt this to be a token that the cry of her condemned + spirit was shut out of heaven. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX + </h2> + <p> + THE BURIAL CHANT + </p> + <p> + The Church of the Capuchins (where, as the reader may remember, some of + our acquaintances had made an engagement to meet) stands a little aside + from the Piazza Barberini. Thither, at the hour agreed upon, on the + morning after the scenes last described, Miriam and Donatello directed + their steps. At no time are people so sedulously careful to keep their + trifling appointments, attend to their ordinary occupations, and thus put + a commonplace aspect on life, as when conscious of some secret that if + suspected would make them look monstrous in the general eye. + </p> + <p> + Yet how tame and wearisome is the impression of all ordinary things in the + contrast with such a fact! How sick and tremulous, the next morning, is + the spirit that has dared so much only the night before! How icy cold is + the heart, when the fervor, the wild ecstasy of passion has faded away, + and sunk down among the dead ashes of the fire that blazed so fiercely, + and was fed by the very substance of its life! How faintly does the + criminal stagger onward, lacking the impulse of that strong madness that + hurried him into guilt, and treacherously deserts him in the midst of it! + </p> + <p> + When Miriam and Donatello drew near the church, they found only Kenyon + awaiting them on the steps. Hilda had likewise promised to be of the + party, but had not yet appeared. Meeting the sculptor, Miriam put a force + upon herself and succeeded in creating an artificial flow of spirits, + which, to any but the nicest observation, was quite as effective as a + natural one. She spoke sympathizingly to the sculptor on the subject of + Hilda’s absence, and somewhat annoyed him by alluding in Donatello’s + hearing to an attachment which had never been openly avowed, though + perhaps plainly enough betrayed. He fancied that Miriam did not quite + recognize the limits of the strictest delicacy; he even went so far as to + generalize, and conclude within himself, that this deficiency is a more + general failing in woman than in man, the highest refinement being a + masculine attribute. + </p> + <p> + But the idea was unjust to the sex at large, and especially so to this + poor Miriam, who was hardly responsible for her frantic efforts to be gay. + Possibly, moreover, the nice action of the mind is set ajar by any violent + shock, as of great misfortune or great crime, so that the finer + perceptions may be blurred thenceforth, and the effect be traceable in all + the minutest conduct of life. + </p> + <p> + “Did you see anything of the dear child after you left us?” asked Miriam, + still keeping Hilda as her topic of conversation. “I missed her sadly on + my way homeward; for nothing insures me such delightful and innocent + dreams (I have experienced it twenty times) as a talk late in the evening + with Hilda.” + </p> + <p> + “So I should imagine,” said the sculptor gravely; “but it is an advantage + that I have little or no opportunity of enjoying. I know not what became + of Hilda after my parting from you. She was not especially my companion in + any part of our walk. The last I saw of her she was hastening back to + rejoin you in the courtyard of the Palazzo Caffarelli.” + </p> + <p> + “Impossible!” cried Miriam, starting. + </p> + <p> + “Then did you not see her again?” inquired Kenyon, in some alarm. + </p> + <p> + “Not there,” answered Miriam quietly; “indeed, I followed pretty closely + on the heels of the rest of the party. But do not be alarmed on Hilda’s + account; the Virgin is bound to watch over the good child, for the sake of + the piety with which she keeps the lamp alight at her shrine. And besides, + I have always felt that Hilda is just as safe in these evil streets of + Rome as her white doves when they fly downwards from the tower top, and + run to and fro among the horses’ feet. There is certainly a providence on + purpose for Hilda, if for no other human creature.” + </p> + <p> + “I religiously believe it,” rejoined the sculptor; “and yet my mind would + be the easier, if I knew that she had returned safely to her tower.” + </p> + <p> + “Then make yourself quite easy,” answered Miriam. “I saw her (and it is + the last sweet sight that I remember) leaning from her window midway + between earth and sky!” + </p> + <p> + Kenyon now looked at Donatello. + </p> + <p> + “You seem out of spirits, my dear friend,” he observed. “This languid + Roman atmosphere is not the airy wine that you were accustomed to breathe + at home. I have not forgotten your hospitable invitation to meet you this + summer at your castle among the Apennines. It is my fixed purpose to come, + I assure you. We shall both be the better for some deep draughts of the + mountain breezes.” + </p> + <p> + “It may he,” said Donatello, with unwonted sombreness; “the old house + seemed joyous when I was a child. But as I remember it now it was a grim + place, too.” + </p> + <p> + The sculptor looked more attentively at the young man, and was surprised + and alarmed to observe how entirely the fine, fresh glow of animal spirits + had departed out of his face. Hitherto, moreover, even while he was + standing perfectly still, there had been a kind of possible gambol + indicated in his aspect. It was quite gone now. All his youthful gayety, + and with it his simplicity of manner, was eclipsed, if not utterly + extinct. + </p> + <p> + “You are surely ill, my dear fellow,” exclaimed Kenyon. + </p> + <p> + “Am I? Perhaps so,” said Donatello indifferently; “I never have been ill, + and know not what it may be.” + </p> + <p> + “Do not make the poor lad fancy-sink,” whispered Miriam, pulling the + sculptor’s sleeve. “He is of a nature to lie down and die at once, if he + finds himself drawing such melancholy breaths as we ordinary people are + enforced to burden our lungs withal. But we must get him away from this + old, dreamy and dreary Rome, where nobody but himself ever thought of + being gay. Its influences are too heavy to sustain the life of such a + creature.” + </p> + <p> + The above conversation had passed chiefly on the steps of the Cappuccini; + and, having said so much, Miriam lifted the leathern curtain that hangs + before all church-doors in italy. “Hilda has forgotten her appointment,” + she observed, “or else her maiden slumbers are very sound this morning. We + will wait for her no longer.” + </p> + <p> + They entered the nave. The interior of the church was of moderate compass, + but of good architecture, with a vaulted roof over the nave, and a row of + dusky chapels on either side of it instead of the customary side-aisles. + Each chapel had its saintly shrine, hung round with offerings; its picture + above the altar, although closely veiled, if by any painter of renown; and + its hallowed tapers, burning continually, to set alight the devotion of + the worshippers. The pavement of the nave was chiefly of marble, and + looked old and broken, and was shabbily patched here and there with tiles + of brick; it was inlaid, moreover, with tombstones of the mediaeval taste, + on which were quaintly sculptured borders, figures, and portraits in + bas-relief, and Latin epitaphs, now grown illegible by the tread of + footsteps over them. The church appertains to a convent of Capuchin monks; + and, as usually happens when a reverend brotherhood have such an edifice + in charge, the floor seemed never to have been scrubbed or swept, and had + as little the aspect of sanctity as a kennel; whereas, in all churches of + nunneries, the maiden sisterhood invariably show the purity of their own + hearts by the virgin cleanliness and visible consecration of the walls and + pavement. + </p> + <p> + As our friends entered the church, their eyes rested at once on a + remarkable object in the centre of the nave. It was either the actual + body, or, as might rather have been supposed at first glance, the + cunningly wrought waxen face and suitably draped figure of a dead monk. + This image of wax or clay-cold reality, whichever it might be, lay on a + slightly elevated bier, with three tall candles burning on each side, + another tall candle at the head, and another at the foot. There was music, + too; in harmony with so funereal a spectacle. From beneath the pavement of + the church came the deep, lugubrious strain of a De Profundis, which + sounded like an utterance of the tomb itself; so dismally did it rumble + through the burial vaults, and ooze up among the flat gravestones and sad + epitaphs, filling the church as with a gloomy mist. + </p> + <p> + “I must look more closely at that dead monk before we leave the church,” + remarked the sculptor. “In the study of my art, I have gained many a hint + from the dead which the living could never have given me.” + </p> + <p> + “I can well imagine it,” answered Miriam. “One clay image is readily + copied from another. But let us first see Guido’s picture. The light is + favorable now.” + </p> + <p> + Accordingly, they turned into the first chapel on the right hand, as you + enter the nave; and there they beheld,—not the picture, indeed,—but + a closely drawn curtain. The churchmen of Italy make no scruple of + sacrificing the very purpose for which a work of sacred art has been + created; that of opening the way; for religious sentiment through the + quick medium of sight, by bringing angels, saints, and martyrs down + visibly upon earth; of sacrificing this high purpose, and, for aught they + know, the welfare of many souls along with it, to the hope of a paltry + fee. Every work by an artist of celebrity is hidden behind a veil, and + seldom revealed, except to Protestants, who scorn it as an object of + devotion, and value it only for its artistic merit. + </p> + <p> + The sacristan was quickly found, however, and lost no time in disclosing + the youthful Archangel, setting his divine foot on the head of his fallen + adversary. It was an image of that greatest of future events, which we + hope for so ardently, at least, while we are young,—but find so very + long in coming, the triumph of goodness over the evil principle. + </p> + <p> + “Where can Hilda be?” exclaimed Kenyon. “It is not her custom ever to fail + in an engagement; and the present one was made entirely on her account. + Except herself, you know, we were all agreed in our recollection of the + picture.” + </p> + <p> + “But we were wrong, and Hilda right, as you perceive,” said Miriam, + directing his attention to the point on which their dispute of the night + before had arisen. “It is not easy to detect her astray as regards any + picture on which those clear, soft eyes of hers have ever rested.” + </p> + <p> + “And she has studied and admired few pictures so much as this,” observed + the sculptor. “No wonder; for there is hardly another so beautiful in the + world. What an expression of heavenly severity in the Archangel’s face! + There is a degree of pain, trouble, and disgust at being brought in + contact with sin, even for the purpose of quelling and punishing it; and + yet a celestial tranquillity pervades his whole being.” + </p> + <p> + “I have never been able,” said Miriam, “to admire this picture nearly so + much as Hilda does, in its moral and intellectual aspect. If it cost her + more trouble to be good, if her soul were less white and pure, she would + be a more competent critic of this picture, and would estimate it not half + so high. I see its defects today more clearly than ever before.” + </p> + <p> + “What are some of them?” asked Kenyon. + </p> + <p> + “That Archangel, now,” Miriam continued; “how fair he looks, with his + unruffled wings, with his unhacked sword, and clad in his bright armor, + and that exquisitely fitting sky-blue tunic, cut in the latest + Paradisiacal mode! What a dainty air of the first celestial society! With + what half-scornful delicacy he sets his prettily sandalled foot on the + head of his prostrate foe! But, is it thus that virtue looks the moment + after its death struggle with evil? No, no; I could have told Guido + better. A full third of the Archangel’s feathers should have been torn + from his wings; the rest all ruffled, till they looked like Satan’s own! + His sword should be streaming with blood, and perhaps broken halfway to + the hilt; his armor crushed, his robes rent, his breast gory; a bleeding + gash on his brow, cutting right across the stern scowl of battle! He + should press his foot hard down upon the old serpent, as if his very soul + depended upon it, feeling him squirm mightily, and doubting whether the + fight were half over yet, and how the victory might turn! And, with all + this fierceness, this grimness, this unutterable horror, there should + still be something high, tender, and holy in Michael’s eyes, and around + his mouth. But the battle never was such a child’s play as Guido’s dapper + Archangel seems to have found it.” + </p> + <p> + “For Heaven’s sake, Miriam,” cried Kenyon, astonished at the wild energy + of her talk; “paint the picture of man’s struggle against sin according to + your own idea! I think it will be a masterpiece.” + </p> + <p> + “The picture would have its share of truth, I assure you,” she answered; + “but I am sadly afraid the victory would fail on the wrong side. Just + fancy a smoke-blackened, fiery-eyed demon bestriding that nice young + angel, clutching his white throat with one of his hinder claws; and giving + a triumphant whisk of his scaly tail, with a poisonous dart at the end of + it! That is what they risk, poor souls, who do battle with Michael’s + enemy.” + </p> + <p> + It now, perhaps, struck Miriam that her mental disquietude was impelling + her to an undue vivacity; for she paused, and turned away from the + picture, without saying a word more about it. All this while, moreover, + Donatello had been very ill at ease, casting awe-stricken and inquiring + glances at the dead monk; as if he could look nowhere but at that ghastly + object, merely because it shocked him. Death has probably a peculiar + horror and ugliness, when forced upon the contemplation of a person so + naturally joyous as Donatello, who lived with completeness in the present + moment, and was able to form but vague images of the future. + </p> + <p> + “What is the matter, Donatello?” whispered Miriam soothingly. “You are + quite in a tremble, my poor friend! What is it?” + </p> + <p> + “This awful chant from beneath the church,” answered Donatello; “it + oppresses me; the air is so heavy with it that I can scarcely draw my + breath. And yonder dead monk! I feel as if he were lying right across my + heart.” + </p> + <p> + “Take courage!” whispered she again “come, we will approach close to the + dead monk. The only way, in such cases, is to stare the ugly horror right + in the face; never a sidelong glance, nor half-look, for those are what + show a frightfull thing in its frightfullest aspect. Lean on me, dearest + friend! My heart is very strong for both of us. Be brave; and all is + well.” + </p> + <p> + Donatello hung back for a moment, but then pressed close to Miriam’s side, + and suffered her to lead him up to the bier. The sculptor followed. A + number of persons, chiefly women, with several children among them, were + standing about the corpse; and as our three friends drew nigh, a mother + knelt down, and caused her little boy to kneel, both kissing the beads and + crucifix that hung from the monk’s girdle. Possibly he had died in the + odor of sanctity; or, at all events, death and his brown frock and cowl + made a sacred image of this reverend father. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI + </h2> + <p> + THE DEAD CAPUCHIN + </p> + <p> + The dead monk was clad, as when alive, in the brown woollen frock of the + Capuchins, with the hood drawn over his head, but so as to leave the + features and a portion of the beard uncovered. His rosary and cross hung + at his side; his hands were folded over his breast; his feet (he was of a + barefooted order in his lifetime, and continued so in death) protruded + from beneath his habit, stiff and stark, with a more waxen look than even + his face. They were tied together at the ankles with a black ribbon. + </p> + <p> + The countenance, as we have already said, was fully displayed. It had a + purplish hue upon it, unlike the paleness of an ordinary corpse, but as + little resembling the flush of natural life. The eyelids were but + partially drawn down, and showed the eyeballs beneath; as if the deceased + friar were stealing a glimpse at the bystanders, to watch whether they + were duly impressed with the solemnity of his obsequies. The shaggy + eyebrows gave sternness to the look. Miriam passed between two of the + lighted candles, and stood close beside the bier. + </p> + <p> + “My God!” murmured she. “What is this?” + </p> + <p> + She grasped Donatello’s hand, and, at the same instant, felt him give a + convulsive shudder, which she knew to have been caused by a sudden and + terrible throb of the heart. His hand, by an instantaneous change, became + like ice within hers, which likewise grew so icy that their insensible + fingers might have rattled, one against the other. No wonder that their + blood curdled; no wonder that their hearts leaped and paused! The dead + face of the monk, gazing at them beneath its half-closed eyelids, was the + same visage that had glared upon their naked souls, the past midnight, as + Donatello flung him over the precipice. + </p> + <p> + The sculptor was standing at the foot of the bier, and had not yet seen + the monk’s features. + </p> + <p> + “Those naked feet!” said he. “I know not why, but they affect me + strangely. They have walked to and fro over the hard pavements of Rome, + and through a hundred other rough ways of this life, where the monk went + begging for his brotherhood; along the cloisters and dreary corridors of + his convent, too, from his youth upward! It is a suggestive idea, to track + those worn feet backward through all the paths they have trodden, ever + since they were the tender and rosy little feet of a baby, and (cold as + they now are) were kept warm in his mother’s hand.” + </p> + <p> + As his companions, whom the sculptor supposed to be close by him, made no + response to his fanciful musing, he looked up, and saw them at the head of + the bier. He advanced thither himself. + </p> + <p> + “Ha!” exclaimed he. + </p> + <p> + He cast a horror-stricken and bewildered glance at Miriam, but withdrew it + immediately. Not that he had any definite suspicion, or, it may be, even a + remote idea, that she could be held responsible in the least degree for + this man’s sudden death. In truth, it seemed too wild a thought to + connect, in reality, Miriam’s persecutor of many past months and the + vagabond of the preceding night, with the dead Capuchin of to-day. It + resembled one of those unaccountable changes and interminglings of + identity, which so often occur among the personages of a dream. But + Kenyon, as befitted the professor of an imaginative art, was endowed with + an exceedingly quick sensibility, which was apt to give him intimations of + the true state of matters that lay beyond his actual vision. There was a + whisper in his ear; it said, “Hush!” Without asking himself wherefore, he + resolved to be silent as regarded the mysterious discovery which he had + made, and to leave any remark or exclamation to be voluntarily offered by + Miriam. If she never spoke, then let the riddle be unsolved. + </p> + <p> + And now occurred a circumstance that would seem too fantastic to be told, + if it had not actually happened, precisely as we set it down. As the three + friends stood by the bier, they saw that a little stream of blood had + begun to ooze from the dead monk’s nostrils; it crept slowly towards the + thicket of his beard, where, in the course of a moment or two, it hid + itself. + </p> + <p> + “How strange!” ejaculated Kenyon. “The monk died of apoplexy, I suppose, + or by some sudden accident, and the blood has not yet congealed.” + </p> + <p> + “Do you consider that a sufficient explanation?” asked Miriam, with a + smile from which the sculptor involuntarily turned away his eyes. “Does it + satisfy you?” + </p> + <p> + “And why not?” he inquired. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, you know the old superstition about this phenomenon of blood + flowing from a dead body,” she rejoined. “How can we tell but that the + murderer of this monk (or, possibly, it may be only that privileged + murderer, his physician) may have just entered the church?” + </p> + <p> + “I cannot jest about it,” said Kenyon. “It is an ugly sight!” + </p> + <p> + “True, true; horrible to see, or dream of!” she replied, with one of those + long, tremulous sighs, which so often betray a sick heart by escaping + unexpectedly. “We will not look at it any more. Come away, Donatello. Let + us escape from this dismal church. The sunshine will do you good.” + </p> + <p> + When had ever a woman such a trial to sustain as this! By no possible + supposition could Miriam explain the identity of the dead Capuchin, + quietly and decorously laid out in the nave of his convent church, with + that of her murdered persecutor, flung heedlessly at the foot of the + precipice. The effect upon her imagination was as if a strange and unknown + corpse had miraculously, while she was gazing at it, assumed the likeness + of that face, so terrible henceforth in her remembrance. It was a symbol, + perhaps, of the deadly iteration with which she was doomed to behold the + image of her crime reflected back upon her in a thousand ways, and + converting the great, calm face of Nature, in the whole, and in its + innumerable details, into a manifold reminiscence of that one dead visage. + </p> + <p> + No sooner had Miriam turned away from the bier, and gone a few steps, than + she fancied the likeness altogether an illusion, which would vanish at a + closer and colder view. She must look at it again, therefore, and at once; + or else the grave would close over the face, and leave the awful fantasy + that had connected itself therewith fixed ineffaceably in her brain. + </p> + <p> + “Wait for me, one moment!” she said to her companions. “Only a moment!” + </p> + <p> + So she went back, and gazed once more at the corpse. Yes; these were the + features that Miriam had known so well; this was the visage that she + remembered from a far longer date than the most intimate of her friends + suspected; this form of clay had held the evil spirit which blasted her + sweet youth, and compelled her, as it were, to stain her womanhood with + crime. But, whether it were the majesty of death, or something originally + noble and lofty in the character of the dead, which the soul had stamped + upon the features, as it left them; so it was that Miriam now quailed and + shook, not for the vulgar horror of the spectacle, but for the severe, + reproachful glance that seemed to come from between those half-closed + lids. True, there had been nothing, in his lifetime, viler than this man. + She knew it; there was no other fact within her consciousness that she + felt to be so certain; and yet, because her persecutor found himself safe + and irrefutable in death, he frowned upon his victim, and threw back the + blame on her! + </p> + <p> + “Is it thou, indeed?” she murmured, under her breath. “Then thou hast no + right to scowl upon me so! But art thou real, or a vision?” She bent down + over the dead monk, till one of her rich curls brushed against his + forehead. She touched one of his folded hands with her finger. + </p> + <p> + “It is he,” said Miriam. “There is the scar, that I know so well, on his + brow. And it is no vision; he is palpable to my touch! I will question the + fact no longer, but deal with it as I best can.” + </p> + <p> + It was wonderful to see how the crisis developed in Miriam its own proper + strength, and the faculty of sustaining the demands which it made upon her + fortitude. She ceased to tremble; the beautiful woman gazed sternly at her + dead enemy, endeavoring to meet and quell the look of accusation that he + threw from between his half-closed eyelids. + </p> + <p> + “No; thou shalt not scowl me down!” said she. “Neither now, nor when we + stand together at the judgment-seat. I fear not to meet thee there. + Farewell, till that next encounter!” + </p> + <p> + Haughtily waving her hand, Miriam rejoined her friends, who were awaiting + her at the door of the church. As they went out, the sacristan stopped + them, and proposed to show the cemetery of the convent, where the deceased + members of the fraternity are laid to rest in sacred earth, brought long + ago from Jerusalem. + </p> + <p> + “And will yonder monk be buried there?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Brother Antonio?” exclaimed the sacristan. + </p> + <p> + “Surely, our good brother will be put to bed there! His grave is already + dug, and the last occupant has made room for him. Will you look at it, + signorina?” + </p> + <p> + “I will!” said Miriam. + </p> + <p> + “Then excuse me,” observed Kenyon; “for I shall leave you. One dead monk + has more than sufficed me; and I am not bold enough to face the whole + mortality of the convent.” + </p> + <p> + It was easy to see, by Donatello’s looks, that he, as well as the + sculptor, would gladly have escaped a visit to the famous cemetery of the + Cappuccini. But Miriam’s nerves were strained to such a pitch, that she + anticipated a certain solace and absolute relief in passing from one + ghastly spectacle to another of long-accumulated ugliness; and there was, + besides, a singular sense of duty which impelled her to look at the final + resting-place of the being whose fate had been so disastrously involved + with her own. She therefore followed the sacristan’s guidance, and drew + her companion along with her, whispering encouragement as they went. + </p> + <p> + The cemetery is beneath the church, but entirely above ground, and lighted + by a row of iron-grated windows without glass. A corridor runs along + beside these windows, and gives access to three or four vaulted recesses, + or chapels, of considerable breadth and height, the floor of which + consists of the consecrated earth of Jerusalem. It is smoothed decorously + over the deceased brethren of the convent, and is kept quite free from + grass or weeds, such as would grow even in these gloomy recesses, if pains + were not bestowed to root them up. But, as the cemetery is small, and it + is a precious privilege to sleep in holy ground, the brotherhood are + immemorially accustomed, when one of their number dies, to take the + longest buried skeleton out of the oldest grave, and lay the new slumberer + there instead. Thus, each of the good friars, in his turn, enjoys the + luxury of a consecrated bed, attended with the slight drawback of being + forced to get up long before daybreak, as it were, and make room for + another lodger. + </p> + <p> + The arrangement of the unearthed skeletons is what makes the special + interest of the cemetery. The arched and vaulted walls of the burial + recesses are supported by massive pillars and pilasters made of + thigh-bones and skulls; the whole material of the structure appears to be + of a similar kind; and the knobs and embossed ornaments of this strange + architecture are represented by the joints of the spine, and the more + delicate tracery by the Smaller bones of the human frame. The summits of + the arches are adorned with entire skeletons, looking as if they were + wrought most skilfully in bas-relief. There is no possibility of + describing how ugly and grotesque is the effect, combined with a certain + artistic merit, nor how much perverted ingenuity has been shown in this + queer way, nor what a multitude of dead monks, through how many hundred + years, must have contributed their bony framework to build up these great + arches of mortality. On some of the skulls there are inscriptions, + purporting that such a monk, who formerly made use of that particular + headpiece, died on such a day and year; but vastly the greater number are + piled up indistinguishably into the architectural design, like the many + deaths that make up the one glory of a victory. + </p> + <p> + In the side walls of the vaults are niches where skeleton monks sit or + stand, clad in the brown habits that they wore in life, and labelled with + their names and the dates of their decease. Their skulls (some quite bare, + and others still covered with yellow skin, and hair that has known the + earth-damps) look out from beneath their hoods, grinning hideously + repulsive. One reverend father has his mouth wide open, as if he had died + in the midst of a howl of terror and remorse, which perhaps is even now + screeching through eternity. As a general thing, however, these frocked + and hooded skeletons seem to take a more cheerful view of their position, + and try with ghastly smiles to turn it into a jest. But the cemetery of + the Capuchins is no place to nourish celestial hopes: the soul sinks + forlorn and wretched under all this burden of dusty death; the holy earth + from Jerusalem, so imbued is it with mortality, has grown as barren of the + flowers of Paradise as it is of earthly weeds and grass. Thank Heaven for + its blue sky; it needs a long, upward gaze to give us back our faith. Not + here can we feel ourselves immortal, where the very altars in these + chapels of horrible consecration are heaps of human bones. + </p> + <p> + Yet let us give the cemetery the praise that it deserves. There is no + disagreeable scent, such as might have been expected from the decay of so + many holy persons, in whatever odor of sanctity they may have taken their + departure. The same number of living monks would not smell half so + unexceptionably. + </p> + <p> + Miriam went gloomily along the corridor, from one vaulted Golgotha to + another, until in the farthest recess she beheld an open grave. + </p> + <p> + “Is that for him who lies yonder in the nave?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, signorina, this is to be the resting-place of Brother Antonio, who + came to his death last night,” answered the sacristan; “and in yonder + niche, you see, sits a brother who was buried thirty years ago, and has + risen to give him place.” + </p> + <p> + “It is not a satisfactory idea,” observed Miriam, “that you poor friars + cannot call even your graves permanently your own. You must lie down in + them, methinks, with a nervous anticipation of being disturbed, like weary + men who know that they shall be summoned out of bed at midnight. Is it not + possible (if money were to be paid for the privilege) to leave Brother + Antonio—if that be his name—in the occupancy of that narrow + grave till the last trumpet sounds?” + </p> + <p> + “By no means, signorina; neither is it needful or desirable,” answered the + sacristan. “A quarter of a century’s sleep in the sweet earth of Jerusalem + is better than a thousand years in any other soil. Our brethren find good + rest there. No ghost was ever known to steal out of this blessed + cemetery.” + </p> + <p> + “That is well,” responded Miriam; “may he whom you now lay to sleep prove + no exception to the rule!” + </p> + <p> + As they left the cemetery she put money into the sacristan’s hand to an + amount that made his eyes open wide and glisten, and requested that it + might be expended in masses for the repose of Father Antonio’s soul. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXII + </h2> + <p> + THE MEDICI GARDENS + </p> + <p> + “Donatello,” said Miriam anxiously, as they came through the Piazza + Barberini, “what can I do for you, my beloved friend? You are shaking as + with the cold fit of the Roman fever.” “Yes,” said Donatello; “my heart + shivers.” As soon as she could collect her thoughts, Miriam led the young + man to the gardens of the Villa Medici, hoping that the quiet shade and + sunshine of that delightful retreat would a little revive his spirits. The + grounds are there laid out in the old fashion of straight paths, with + borders of box, which form hedges of great height and density, and are + shorn and trimmed to the evenness of a wall of stone, at the top and + sides. There are green alleys, with long vistas overshadowed by + ilex-trees; and at each intersection of the paths, the visitor finds seats + of lichen-covered stone to repose upon, and marble statues that look + forlornly at him, regretful of their lost noses. In the more open portions + of the garden, before the sculptured front of the villa, you see fountains + and flower-beds, and in their season a profusion of roses, from which the + genial sun of Italy distils a fragrance, to be scattered abroad by the no + less genial breeze. + </p> + <p> + But Donatello drew no delight from these things. He walked onward in + silent apathy, and looked at Miriam with strangely half-awakened and + bewildered eyes, when she sought to bring his mind into sympathy with + hers, and so relieve his heart of the burden that lay lumpishly upon it. + </p> + <p> + She made him sit down on a stone bench, where two embowered alleys crossed + each other; so that they could discern the approach of any casual intruder + a long way down the path. + </p> + <p> + “My sweet friend,” she said, taking one of his passive hands in both of + hers, “what can I say to comfort you?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing!” replied Donatello, with sombre reserve. “Nothing will ever + comfort me.” + </p> + <p> + “I accept my own misery,” continued Miriam, “my own guilt, if guilt it be; + and, whether guilt or misery, I shall know how to deal with it. But you, + dearest friend, that were the rarest creature in all this world, and + seemed a being to whom sorrow could not cling,—you, whom I half + fancied to belong to a race that had vanished forever, you only surviving, + to show mankind how genial and how joyous life used to be, in some + long-gone age,—what had you to do with grief or crime?” + </p> + <p> + “They came to me as to other men,” said Donatello broodingly. “Doubtless I + was born to them.” + </p> + <p> + “No, no; they came with me,” replied Miriam. “Mine is the responsibility! + Alas! wherefore was I born? Why did we ever meet? Why did I not drive you + from me, knowing for my heart foreboded it—that the cloud in which I + walked would likewise envelop you!” + </p> + <p> + Donatello stirred uneasily, with the irritable impatience that is often + combined With a mood of leaden despondency. A brown lizard with two tails—a + monster often engendered by the Roman sunshine—ran across his foot, + and made him start. Then he sat silent awhile, and so did Miriam, trying + to dissolve her whole heart into sympathy, and lavish it all upon him, + were it only for a moment’s cordial. + </p> + <p> + The young man lifted his hand to his breast, and, unintentionally, as + Miriam’s hand was within his, he lifted that along with it. “I have a + great weight here!” said he. The fancy struck Miriam (but she drove it + resolutely down) that Donatello almost imperceptibly shuddered, while, in + pressing his own hand against his heart, he pressed hers there too. + </p> + <p> + “Rest your heart on me, dearest one!” she resumed. “Let me bear all its + weight; I am well able to bear it; for I am a woman, and I love you! I + love you, Donatello! Is there no comfort for you in this avowal? Look at + me! Heretofore you have found me pleasant to your sight. Gaze into my + eyes! Gaze into my soul! Search as deeply as you may, you can never see + half the tenderness and devotion that I henceforth cherish for you. All + that I ask is your acceptance of the utter self-sacrifice (but it shall be + no sacrifice, to my great love) with which I seek to remedy the evil you + have incurred for my sake!” + </p> + <p> + All this fervor on Miriam’s part; on Donatello’s, a heavy silence. + </p> + <p> + “O, speak to me!” she exclaimed. “Only promise me to be, by and by, a + little happy!” + </p> + <p> + “Happy?” murmured Donatello. “Ah, never again! never again!” + </p> + <p> + “Never? Ah, that is a terrible word to say to me!” answered Miriam. “A + terrible word to let fall upon a woman’s heart, when she loves you, and is + conscious of having caused your misery! If you love me, Donatello, speak + it not again. And surely you did love me?” + </p> + <p> + “I did,” replied Donatello gloomily and absently. + </p> + <p> + Miriam released the young man’s hand, but suffered one of her own to lie + close to his, and waited a moment to see whether he would make any effort + to retain it. There was much depending upon that simple experiment. + </p> + <p> + With a deep sigh—as when, sometimes, a slumberer turns over in a + troubled dream Donatello changed his position, and clasped both his hands + over his forehead. The genial warmth of a Roman April kindling into May + was in the atmosphere around them; but when Miriam saw that involuntary + movement and heard that sigh of relief (for so she interpreted it), a + shiver ran through her frame, as if the iciest wind of the Apennines were + blowing over her. + </p> + <p> + “He has done himself a greater wrong than I dreamed of,” thought she, with + unutterable compassion. “Alas! it was a sad mistake! He might have had a + kind of bliss in the consequences of this deed, had he been impelled to it + by a love vital enough to survive the frenzy of that terrible moment, + mighty enough to make its own law, and justify itself against the natural + remorse. But to have perpetrated a dreadful murder (and such was his + crime, unless love, annihilating moral distinctions, made it otherwise) on + no better warrant than a boy’s idle fantasy! I pity him from the very + depths of my soul! As for myself, I am past my own or other’s pity.” + </p> + <p> + She arose from the young man’s side, and stood before him with a sad, + commiserating aspect; it was the look of a ruined soul, bewailing, in him, + a grief less than what her profounder sympathies imposed upon herself. + </p> + <p> + “Donatello, we must part,” she said, with melancholy firmness. “Yes; leave + me! Go back to your old tower, which overlooks the green valley you have + told me of among the Apennines. Then, all that has passed will be + recognized as but an ugly dream. For in dreams the conscience sleeps, and + we often stain ourselves with guilt of which we should be incapable in our + waking moments. The deed you seemed to do, last night, was no more than + such a dream; there was as little substance in what you fancied yourself + doing. Go; and forget it all!” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that terrible face!” said Donatello, pressing his hands over his + eyes. “Do you call that unreal?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes; for you beheld it with dreaming eyes,” replied Miriam. “It was + unreal; and, that you may feel it so, it is requisite that you see this + face of mine no more. Once, you may have thought it beautiful; now, it has + lost its charm. Yet it would still retain a miserable potency’ to bring + back the past illusion, and, in its train, the remorse and anguish that + would darken all your life. Leave me, therefore, and forget me.” + </p> + <p> + “Forget you, Miriam!” said Donatello, roused somewhat from his apathy of + despair. + </p> + <p> + “If I could remember you, and behold you, apart from that frightful visage + which stares at me over your shoulder, that were a consolation, at least, + if not a joy.” + </p> + <p> + “But since that visage haunts you along with mine,” rejoined Miriam, + glancing behind her, “we needs must part. Farewell, then! But if ever—in + distress, peril, shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is most poignant, + whatever burden heaviest—you should require a life to be given + wholly, only to make your own a little easier, then summon me! As the case + now stands between us, you have bought me dear, and find me of little + worth. Fling me away, therefore! May you never need me more! But, if + otherwise, a wish—almost an unuttered wish will bring me to you!” + </p> + <p> + She stood a moment, expecting a reply. But Donatello’s eyes had again + fallen on the ground, and he had not, in his bewildered mind and + overburdened heart, a word to respond. + </p> + <p> + “That hour I speak of may never come,” said Miriam. “So farewell—farewell + forever.” + </p> + <p> + “Farewell,” said Donatello. + </p> + <p> + His voice hardly made its way through the environment of unaccustomed + thoughts and emotions which had settled over him like a dense and dark + cloud. Not improbably, he beheld Miriam through so dim a medium that she + looked visionary; heard her speak only in a thin, faint echo. + </p> + <p> + She turned from the young man, and, much as her heart yearned towards him, + she would not profane that heavy parting by an embrace, or even a pressure + of the hand. So soon after the semblance of such mighty love, and after it + had been the impulse to so terrible a deed, they parted, in all outward + show, as coldly as people part whose whole mutual intercourse has been + encircled within a single hour. + </p> + <p> + And Donatello, when Miriam had departed, stretched himself at full length + on the stone bench, and drew his hat over his eyes, as the idle and + light-hearted youths of dreamy Italy are accustomed to do, when they lie + down in the first convenient shade, and snatch a noonday slumber. A stupor + was upon him, which he mistook for such drowsiness as he had known in his + innocent past life. But, by and by, he raised himself slowly and left the + garden. Sometimes poor Donatello started, as if he heard a shriek; + sometimes he shrank back, as if a face, fearful to behold, were thrust + close to his own. In this dismal mood, bewildered with the novelty of sin + and grief, he had little left of that singular resemblance, on account of + which, and for their sport, his three friends had fantastically recognized + him as the veritable Faun of Praxiteles. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIII + </h2> + <p> + MIRIAM AND HILDA + </p> + <p> + On leaving the Medici Gardens Miriam felt herself astray in the world; and + having no special reason to seek one place more than another, she suffered + chance to direct her steps as it would. Thus it happened, that, involving + herself in the crookedness of Rome, she saw Hilda’s tower rising before + her, and was put in mind to climb to the young girl’s eyry, and ask why + she had broken her engagement at the church of the Capuchins. People often + do the idlest acts of their lifetime in their heaviest and most anxious + moments; so that it would have been no wonder had Miriam been impelled + only by so slight a motive of curiosity as we have indicated. But she + remembered, too, and with a quaking heart, what the sculptor had mentioned + of Hilda’s retracing her steps towards the courtyard of the Palazzo + Caffarelli in quest of Miriam herself. Had she been compelled to choose + between infamy in the eyes of the whole world, or in Hilda’s eyes alone, + she would unhesitatingly have accepted the former, on condition of + remaining spotless in the estimation of her white-souled friend. This + possibility, therefore, that Hilda had witnessed the scene of the past + night, was unquestionably the cause that drew Miriam to the tower, and + made her linger and falter as she approached it. + </p> + <p> + As she drew near, there were tokens to which her disturbed mind gave a + sinister interpretation. Some of her friend’s airy family, the doves, with + their heads imbedded disconsolately in their bosoms, were huddled in a + corner of the piazza; others had alighted on the heads, wings, shoulders, + and trumpets of the marble angels which adorned the facade of the + neighboring church; two or three had betaken themselves to the Virgin’s + shrine; and as many as could find room were sitting on Hilda’s + window-sill. But all of them, so Miriam fancied, had a look of weary + expectation and disappointment, no flights, no flutterings, no cooing + murmur; something that ought to have made their day glad and bright was + evidently left out of this day’s history. And, furthermore, Hilda’s white + window-curtain was closely drawn, with only that one little aperture at + the side, which Miriam remembered noticing the night before. + </p> + <p> + “Be quiet,” said Miriam to her own heart, pressing her hand hard upon it. + “Why shouldst thou throb now? Hast thou not endured more terrible things + than this?” + </p> + <p> + Whatever were her apprehensions, she would not turn back. It might be—and + the solace would be worth a world—that Hilda, knowing nothing of the + past night’s calamity, would greet her friend with a sunny smile, and so + restore a portion of the vital warmth, for lack of which her soul was + frozen. But could Miriam, guilty as she was, permit Hilda to kiss her + cheek, to clasp her hand, and thus be no longer so unspotted from the + world as heretofore. + </p> + <p> + “I will never permit her sweet touch again,” said Miriam, toiling up the + staircase, “if I can find strength of heart to forbid it. But, O! it would + be so soothing in this wintry fever-fit of my heart. There can be no harm + to my white Hilda in one parting kiss. That shall be all!” + </p> + <p> + But, on reaching the upper landing-place, Miriam paused, and stirred not + again till she had brought herself to an immovable resolve. + </p> + <p> + “My lips, my hand, shall never meet Hilda’s more,” said she. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, Hilda sat listlessly in her painting-room. Had you looked into + the little adjoining chamber, you might have seen the slight imprint of + her figure on the bed, but would also have detected at once that the white + counterpane had not been turned down. The pillow was more disturbed; she + had turned her face upon it, the poor child, and bedewed it with some of + those tears (among the most chill and forlorn that gush from human sorrow) + which the innocent heart pours forth at its first actual discovery that + sin is in the world. The young and pure are not apt to find out that + miserable truth until it is brought home to them by the guiltiness of some + trusted friend. They may have heard much of the evil of the world, and + seem to know it, but only as an impalpable theory. In due time, some + mortal, whom they reverence too highly, is commissioned by Providence to + teach them this direful lesson; he perpetrates a sin; and Adam falls anew, + and Paradise, heretofore in unfaded bloom, is lost again, and dosed + forever, with the fiery swords gleaming at its gates. + </p> + <p> + The chair in which Hilda sat was near the portrait of Beatrice Cenci, + which had not yet been taken from the easel. It is a peculiarity of this + picture, that its profoundest expression eludes a straightforward glance, + and can only be caught by side glimpses, or when the eye falls casually + upon it; even as if the painted face had a life and consciousness of its + own, and, resolving not to betray its secret of grief or guilt, permitted + the true tokens to come forth only when it imagined itself unseen. No + other such magical effect has ever been wrought by pencil. + </p> + <p> + Now, opposite the easel hung a looking-glass, in which Beatrice’s face and + Hilda’s were both reflected. In one of her weary, nerveless changes of + position, Hilda happened to throw her eyes on the glass, and took in both + these images at one unpremeditated glance. She fancied—nor was it + without horror—that Beatrice’s expression, seen aside and vanishing + in a moment, had been depicted in her own face likewise, and flitted from + it as timorously. + </p> + <p> + “Am I, too, stained with guilt?” thought the poor girl, hiding her face in + her hands. + </p> + <p> + Not so, thank Heaven! But, as regards Beatrice’s picture, the incident + suggests a theory which may account for its unutterable grief and + mysterious shadow of guilt, without detracting from the purity which we + love to attribute to that ill-fated girl. Who, indeed, can look at that + mouth,—with its lips half apart, as innocent as a babe’s that has + been crying, and not pronounce Beatrice sinless? It was the intimate + consciousness of her father’s sin that threw its shadow over her, and + frightened her into a remote and inaccessible region, where no sympathy + could come. It was the knowledge of Miriam’s guilt that lent the same + expression to Hilda’s face. + </p> + <p> + But Hilda nervously moved her chair, so that the images in the glass + should be no longer Visible. She now watched a speck of sunshine that came + through a shuttered window, and crept from object to object, indicating + each with a touch of its bright finger, and then letting them all vanish + successively. In like manner her mind, so like sunlight in its natural + cheerfulness, went from thought to thought, but found nothing that it + could dwell upon for comfort. Never before had this young, energetic, + active spirit known what it is to be despondent. It was the unreality of + the world that made her so. Her dearest friend, whose heart seemed the + most solid and richest of Hilda’s possessions, had no existence for her + any more; and in that dreary void, out of which Miriam had disappeared, + the substance, the truth, the integrity of life, the motives of effort, + the joy of success, had departed along with her. + </p> + <p> + It was long past noon, when a step came up the staircase. It had passed + beyond the limits where there was communication with the lower regions of + the palace, and was mounting the successive flights which led only to + Hilda’s precincts. Faint as the tread was, she heard and recognized it. It + startled her into sudden life. Her first impulse was to spring to the door + of the studio, and fasten it with lock and bolt. But a second thought made + her feel that this would be an unworthy cowardice, on her own part, and + also that Miriam—only yesterday her closest friend had a right to be + told, face to face, that thenceforth they must be forever strangers. + </p> + <p> + She heard Miriam pause, outside of the door. We have already seen what was + the latter’s resolve with respect to any kiss or pressure of the hand + between Hilda and herself. We know not what became of the resolution. As + Miriam was of a highly impulsive character, it may have vanished at the + first sight of Hilda; but, at all events, she appeared to have dressed + herself up in a garb of sunshine, and was disclosed, as the door swung + open, in all the glow of her remarkable beauty. The truth was, her heart + leaped conclusively towards the only refuge that it had, or hoped. She + forgot, just one instant, all cause for holding herself aloof. Ordinarily + there was a certain reserve in Miriam’s demonstrations of affection, in + consonance with the delicacy of her friend. To-day, she opened her arms to + take Hilda in. + </p> + <p> + “Dearest, darling Hilda!” she exclaimed. “It gives me new life to see + you!” + </p> + <p> + Hilda was standing in the middle of the room. When her friend made a step + or two from the door, she put forth her hands with an involuntary + repellent gesture, so expressive that Miriam at once felt a great chasm + opening itself between them two. They might gaze at one another from the + opposite side, but without the possibility of ever meeting more; or, at + least, since the chasm could never be bridged over, they must tread the + whole round of Eternity to meet on the other side. There was even a terror + in the thought of their meeting again. It was as if Hilda or Miriam were + dead, and could no longer hold intercourse without violating a spiritual + law. + </p> + <p> + Yet, in the wantonness of her despair, Miriam made one more step towards + the friend whom she had lost. “Do not come nearer, Miriam!” said Hilda. + Her look and tone were those of sorrowful entreaty, and yet they expressed + a kind of confidence, as if the girl were conscious of a safeguard that + could not be violated. + </p> + <p> + “What has happened between us, Hilda?” asked Miriam. “Are we not friends?” + </p> + <p> + “No, no!” said Hilda, shuddering. + </p> + <p> + “At least we have been friends,” continued Miriam. “I loved you dearly! I + love you still! You were to me as a younger sister; yes, dearer than + sisters of the same blood; for you and I were so lonely, Hilda, that the + whole world pressed us together by its solitude and strangeness. Then, + will you not touch my hand? Am I not the same as yesterday?” + </p> + <p> + “Alas! no, Miriam!” said Hilda. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, the same, the same for you, Hilda,” rejoined her lost friend. “Were + you to touch my hand, you would find it as warm to your grasp as ever. If + you were sick or suffering, I would watch night and day for you. It is in + such simple offices that true affection shows itself; and so I speak of + them. Yet now, Hilda, your very look seems to put me beyond the limits of + human kind!” + </p> + <p> + “It is not I, Miriam,” said Hilda; “not I that have done this.” + </p> + <p> + “You, and you only, Hilda,” replied Miriam, stirred up to make her own + cause good by the repellent force which her friend opposed to her. “I am a + woman, as I was yesterday; endowed with the same truth of nature, the same + warmth of heart, the same genuine and earnest love, which you have always + known in me. In any regard that concerns yourself, I am not changed. And + believe me, Hilda, when a human being has chosen a friend out of all the + world, it is only some faithlessness between themselves, rendering true + intercourse impossible, that can justify either friend in severing the + bond. Have I deceived you? Then cast me off! Have I wronged you + personally? Then forgive me, if you can. But, have I sinned against God + and man, and deeply sinned? Then be more my friend than ever, for I need + you more.” + </p> + <p> + “Do not bewilder me thus, Miriam!” exclaimed Hilda, who had not forborne + to express, by look and gesture, the anguish which this interview + inflicted on her. “If I were one of God’s angels, with a nature incapable + of stain, and garments that never could be spotted, I would keep ever at + your side, and try to lead you upward. But I am a poor, lonely girl, whom + God has set here in an evil world, and given her only a white robe, and + bid her wear it back to Him, as white as when she put it on. Your powerful + magnetism would be too much for me. The pure, white atmosphere, in which I + try to discern what things are good and true, would be discolored. And + therefore, Miriam, before it is too late, I mean to put faith in this + awful heartquake which warns me henceforth to avoid you.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, this is hard! Ah, this is terrible!” murmured Miriam, dropping her + forehead in her hands. In a moment or two she looked up again, as pale as + death, but with a composed countenance: “I always said, Hilda, that you + were merciless; for I had a perception of it, even while you loved me + best. You have no sin, nor any conception of what it is; and therefore you + are so terribly severe! As an angel, you are not amiss; but, as a human + creature, and a woman among earthly men and women, you need a sin to + soften you.” + </p> + <p> + “God forgive me,” said Hilda, “if I have said a needlessly cruel word!” + </p> + <p> + “Let it pass,” answered Miriam; “I, whose heart it has smitten upon, + forgive you. And tell me, before we part forever, what have you seen or + known of me, since we last met?” + </p> + <p> + “A terrible thing, Miriam,” said Hilda, growing paler than before. + </p> + <p> + “Do you see it written in my face, or painted in my eyes?” inquired + Miriam, her trouble seeking relief in a half-frenzied raillery. “I would + fain know how it is that Providence, or fate, brings eye-witnesses to + watch us, when we fancy ourselves acting in the remotest privacy. Did all + Rome see it, then? Or, at least, our merry company of artists? Or is it + some blood-stain on me, or death-scent in my garments? They say that + monstrous deformities sprout out of fiends, who once were lovely angels. + Do you perceive such in me already? Tell me, by our past friendship, + Hilda, all you know.” + </p> + <p> + Thus adjured, and frightened by the wild emotion which Miriam could not + suppress, Hilda strove to tell what she had witnessed. + </p> + <p> + “After the rest of the party had passed on, I went back to speak to you,” + she said; “for there seemed to be a trouble on your mind, and I wished to + share it with you, if you could permit me. The door of the little + courtyard was partly shut; but I pushed it open, and saw you within, and + Donatello, and a third person, whom I had before noticed in the shadow of + a niche. He approached you, Miriam. You knelt to him! I saw Donatello + spring upon him! I would have shrieked, but my throat was dry. I would + have rushed forward, but my limbs seemed rooted to the earth. It was like + a flash of lightning. A look passed from your eyes to Donatello’s—a + look.”—“Yes, Hilda, yes!” exclaimed Miriam, with intense eagerness. + “Do not pause now! That look?” + </p> + <p> + “It revealed all your heart, Miriam,” continued Hilda, covering her eyes + as if to shut out the recollection; “a look of hatred, triumph, vengeance, + and, as it were, joy at some unhoped-for relief.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! Donatello was right, then,” murmured Miriam, who shook throughout all + her frame. “My eyes bade him do it! Go on, Hilda.” + </p> + <p> + “It all passed so quickly, all like a glare of lightning,” said Hilda, + “and yet it seemed to me that Donatello had paused, while one might draw a + breath. But that look! Ah, Miriam, spare me. Need I tell more?” + </p> + <p> + “No more; there needs no more, Hilda,” replied Miriam, bowing her head, as + if listening to a sentence of condemnation from a supreme tribunal. “It is + enough! You have satisfied my mind on a point where it was greatly + disturbed. Henceforward I shall be quiet. Thank you, Hilda.” + </p> + <p> + She was on the point of departing, but turned back again from the + threshold. + </p> + <p> + “This is a terrible secret to be kept in a young girl’s bosom,” she + observed; “what will you do with it, my poor child?” + </p> + <p> + “Heaven help and guide me,” answered Hilda, bursting into tears; “for the + burden of it crushes me to the earth! It seems a crime to know of such a + thing, and to keep it to myself. It knocks within my heart continually, + threatening, imploring, insisting to be let out! O my mother!—my + mother! Were she yet living, I would travel over land and sea to tell her + this dark secret, as I told all the little troubles of my infancy. But I + am alone—alone! Miriam, you were my dearest, only friend. Advise me + what to do.” + </p> + <p> + This was a singular appeal, no doubt, from the stainless maiden to the + guilty woman, whom she had just banished from her heart forever. But it + bore striking testimony to the impression which Miriam’s natural + uprightness and impulsive generosity had made on the friend who knew her + best; and it deeply comforted the poor criminal, by proving to her that + the bond between Hilda and herself was vital yet. + </p> + <p> + As far as she was able, Miriam at once responded to the girl’s cry for + help. + </p> + <p> + “If I deemed it good for your peace of mind,” she said, “to bear testimony + against me for this deed in the face of all the world, no consideration of + myself should weigh with me an instant. But I believe that you would find + no relief in such a course. What men call justice lies chiefly in outward + formalities, and has never the close application and fitness that would be + satisfactory to a soul like yours. I cannot be fairly tried and judged + before an earthly tribunal; and of this, Hilda, you would perhaps become + fatally conscious when it was too late. Roman justice, above all things, + is a byword. What have you to do with it? Leave all such thoughts aside! + Yet, Hilda, I would not have you keep my secret imprisoned in your heart + if it tries to leap out, and stings you, like a wild, venomous thing, when + you thrust it back again. Have you no other friend, now that you have been + forced to give me up?” + </p> + <p> + “No other,” answered Hilda sadly. + </p> + <p> + “Yes; Kenyon!” rejoined Miriam. + </p> + <p> + “He cannot be my friend,” said Hilda, “because—because—I have + fancied that he sought to be something more.” + </p> + <p> + “Fear nothing!” replied Miriam, shaking her head, with a strange smile. + “This story will frighten his new-born love out of its little life, if + that be what you wish. Tell him the secret, then, and take his wise and + honorable counsel as to what should next be done. I know not what else to + say.” + </p> + <p> + “I never dreamed,” said Hilda,—“how could you think it?—of + betraying you to justice. But I see how it is, Miriam. I must keep your + secret, and die of it, unless God sends me some relief by methods which + are now beyond my power to imagine. It is very dreadful. Ah! now I + understand how the sins of generations past have created an atmosphere of + sin for those that follow. While there is a single guilty person in the + universe, each innocent one must feel his innocence tortured by that + guilt. Your deed, Miriam, has darkened the whole sky!” + </p> + <p> + Poor Hilda turned from her unhappy friend, and, sinking on her knees in a + corner of the chamber, could not be prevailed upon to utter another word. + And Miriam, with a long regard from the threshold, bade farewell to this + doves’ nest, this one little nook of pure thoughts and innocent + enthusiasms, into which she had brought such trouble. Every crime destroys + more Edens than our own! + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Marble Faun, Volume I., by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARBLE FAUN, VOLUME I. *** + +***** This file should be named 2181-h.htm or 2181-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/8/2181/ + +Produced by Michael Pullen and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Marble Faun, Volume I. + The Romance of Monte Beni + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: February 25, 2006 [EBook #2181] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARBLE FAUN, VOLUME I. *** + + + + +Produced by Michael Pullen and David Widger + + + + + +THE MARBLE FAUN + +or The Romance of Monte Beni + + +By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + +In Two Volumes + +This is Volume One + + + + +Contents + + Volume I + + I MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO + II THE FAUN + III SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES + IV THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB + V MIRIAM'S STUDIO + VI THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE + VII BEATRICE + VIII THE SUBURBAN VILLA + IX THE FAUN AND NYMPH + X THE SYLVAN DANCE + XI FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES + XII A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN + XIII A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO + XIV CLEOPATRA + XV AN AESTHETIC COMPANY + XVI A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE + XVII MIRIAM'S TROUBLE + XVIII ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE + XIX THE FAUN'S TRANSFORMATION + XX THE BURIAL CHANT + XXI THE DEAD CAPUCHIN + XXII THE MEDICI GARDENS + XXIII MIRIAM AND HILDA + + + Volume II + + XXIV THE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES + XXV SUNSHINE + XXVI THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI + XXVII MYTHS + XXVIII THE OWL TOWER + XXIX ON THE BATTLEMENTS + XXX DONATELLO'S BUST + XXXI THE MARBLE SALOON + XXXII SCENES BY THE WAY + XXXIII PICTURED WINDOWS + XXXIV MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA + XXXV THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION + XXXVI HILDA'S TOWER + XXXVII THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE GALLERIES + XXXVIII ALTARS AND INCENSE + XXXIX THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL + XL HILDA AND A FRIEND + XLI SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS + XLII REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM + XLIII THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP + XLIV THE DESERTED SHRINE + XLV THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES + XLVI A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA + XLVII THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA + XLVIII A SCENE IN THE CORSO + XLIX A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL + L MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO + + + + +THE MARBLE FAUN + +Volume I + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO + + +Four individuals, in whose fortunes we should be glad to interest +the reader, happened to be standing in one of the saloons of the +sculpture-gallery in the Capitol at Rome. It was that room (the first, +after ascending the staircase) in the centre of which reclines the noble +and most pathetic figure of the Dying Gladiator, just sinking into his +death-swoon. Around the walls stand the Antinous, the Amazon, the Lycian +Apollo, the Juno; all famous productions of antique sculpture, and still +shining in the undiminished majesty and beauty of their ideal life, +although the marble that embodies them is yellow with time, and perhaps +corroded by the damp earth in which they lay buried for centuries. Here, +likewise, is seen a symbol (as apt at this moment as it was two thousand +years ago) of the Human Soul, with its choice of Innocence or Evil close +at hand, in the pretty figure of a child, clasping a dove to her bosom, +but assaulted by a snake. + +From one of the windows of this saloon, we may see a flight of broad +stone steps, descending alongside the antique and massive foundation of +the Capitol, towards the battered triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, +right below. Farther on, the eye skirts along the edge of the desolate +Forum (where Roman washerwomen hang out their linen to the sun), passing +over a shapeless confusion of modern edifices, piled rudely up with +ancient brick and stone, and over the domes of Christian churches, +built on the old pavements of heathen temples, and supported by the very +pillars that once upheld them. At a distance beyond--yet but a little +way, considering how much history is heaped into the intervening +space--rises the great sweep of the Coliseum, with the blue sky +brightening through its upper tier of arches. Far off, the view is shut +in by the Alban Mountains, looking just the same, amid all this decay +and change, as when Romulus gazed thitherward over his half finished +wall. + +We glance hastily at these things,--at this bright sky, and those +blue distant mountains, and at the ruins, Etruscan, Roman, Christian, +venerable with a threefold antiquity, and at the company of world-famous +statues in the saloon,--in the hope of putting the reader into that +state of feeling which is experienced oftenest at Rome. It is a vague +sense of ponderous remembrances; a perception of such weight and density +in a bygone life, of which this spot was the centre, that the present +moment is pressed down or crowded out, and our individual affairs and +interests are but half as real here as elsewhere. Viewed through this +medium, our narrative--into which are woven some airy and unsubstantial +threads, intermixed with others, twisted out of the commonest stuff of +human existence--may seem not widely different from the texture of all +our lives. + +Side by side with the massiveness of the Roman Past, all matters that we +handle or dream of nowadays look evanescent and visionary alike. + +It might be that the four persons whom we are seeking to introduce were +conscious of this dreamy character of the present, as compared with the +square blocks of granite wherewith the Romans built their lives. Perhaps +it even contributed to the fanciful merriment which was just now their +mood. When we find ourselves fading into shadows and unrealities, it +seems hardly worth while to be sad, but rather to laugh as gayly as we +may, and ask little reason wherefore. + +Of these four friends of ours, three were artists, or connected with +art; and, at this moment, they had been simultaneously struck by a +resemblance between one of the antique statues, a well-known masterpiece +of Grecian sculpture, and a young Italian, the fourth member of their +party. + +"You must needs confess, Kenyon," said a dark-eyed young woman, whom +her friends called Miriam, "that you never chiselled out of marble, nor +wrought in clay, a more vivid likeness than this, cunning a bust-maker +as you think yourself. The portraiture is perfect in character, +sentiment, and feature. If it were a picture, the resemblance might be +half illusive and imaginary; but here, in this Pentelic marble, it is a +substantial fact, and may be tested by absolute touch and measurement. +Our friend Donatello is the very Faun of Praxiteles. Is it not true, +Hilda?" + +"Not quite--almost--yes, I really think so," replied Hilda, a slender, +brown-haired, New England girl, whose perceptions of form and expression +were wonderfully clear and delicate. "If there is any difference between +the two faces, the reason may be, I suppose, that the Faun dwelt in +woods and fields, and consorted with his like; whereas Donatello has +known cities a little, and such people as ourselves. But the resemblance +is very close, and very strange." + +"Not so strange," whispered Miriam mischievously; "for no Faun in +Arcadia was ever a greater simpleton than Donatello. He has hardly a +man's share of wit, small as that may be. It is a pity there are no +longer any of this congenial race of rustic creatures for our friend to +consort with!" + +"Hush, naughty one!" returned Hilda. "You are very ungrateful, for you +well know he has wit enough to worship you, at all events." + +"Then the greater fool he!" said Miriam so bitterly that Hilda's quiet +eyes were somewhat startled. + +"Donatello, my dear friend," said Kenyon, in Italian, "pray gratify us +all by taking the exact attitude of this statue." + +The young man laughed, and threw himself into the position in which +the statue has been standing for two or three thousand years. In truth, +allowing for the difference of costume, and if a lion's skin could have +been substituted for his modern talma, and a rustic pipe for his stick, +Donatello might have figured perfectly as the marble Faun, miraculously +softened into flesh and blood. + +"Yes; the resemblance is wonderful," observed Kenyon, after examining +the marble and the man with the accuracy of a sculptor's eye. "There +is one point, however, or, rather, two points, in respect to which our +friend Donatello's abundant curls will not permit us to say whether the +likeness is carried into minute detail." + +And the sculptor directed the attention of the party to the ears of the +beautiful statue which they were contemplating. + +But we must do more than merely refer to this exquisite work of art; it +must be described, however inadequate may be the effort to express its +magic peculiarity in words. + +The Faun is the marble image of a young man, leaning his right arm on +the trunk or stump of a tree; one hand hangs carelessly by his side; +in the other he holds the fragment of a pipe, or some such sylvan +instrument of music. His only garment--a lion's skin, with the claws +upon his shoulder--falls halfway down his back, leaving the limbs +and entire front of the figure nude. The form, thus displayed, is +marvellously graceful, but has a fuller and more rounded outline, more +flesh, and less of heroic muscle, than the old sculptors were wont to +assign to their types of masculine beauty. The character of the face +corresponds with the figure; it is most agreeable in outline and +feature, but rounded and somewhat voluptuously developed, especially +about the throat and chin; the nose is almost straight, but very +slightly curves inward, thereby acquiring an indescribable charm of +geniality and humor. The mouth, with its full yet delicate lips, seems +so nearly to smile outright, that it calls forth a responsive smile. The +whole statue--unlike anything else that ever was wrought in that severe +material of marble--conveys the idea of an amiable and sensual creature, +easy, mirthful, apt for jollity, yet not incapable of being touched +by pathos. It is impossible to gaze long at this stone image without +conceiving a kindly sentiment towards it, as if its substance were warm +to the touch, and imbued with actual life. It comes very close to some +of our pleasantest sympathies. + +Perhaps it is the very lack of moral severity, of any high and heroic +ingredient in the character of the Faun, that makes it so delightful an +object to the human eye and to the frailty of the human heart. The being +here represented is endowed with no principle of virtue, and would be +incapable of comprehending such; but he would be true and honest by dint +of his simplicity. We should expect from him no sacrifice or effort for +an abstract cause; there is not an atom of martyr's stuff in all that +softened marble; but he has a capacity for strong and warm attachment, +and might act devotedly through its impulse, and even die for it at +need. It is possible, too, that the Faun might be educated through the +medium of his emotions, so that the coarser animal portion of his nature +might eventually be thrown into the background, though never utterly +expelled. + +The animal nature, indeed, is a most essential part of the Faun's +composition; for the characteristics of the brute creation meet and +combine with those of humanity in this strange yet true and natural +conception of antique poetry and art. Praxiteles has subtly diffused +throughout his work that mute mystery, which so hopelessly perplexes us +whenever we attempt to gain an intellectual or sympathetic knowledge of +the lower orders of creation. The riddle is indicated, however, only by +two definite signs: these are the two ears of the Faun, which are leaf +shaped, terminating in little peaks, like those of some species of +animals. Though not so seen in the marble, they are probably to be +considered as clothed in fine, downy fur. In the coarser representations +of this class of mythological creatures, there is another token of brute +kindred,--a certain caudal appendage; which, if the Faun of Praxiteles +must be supposed to possess it at all, is hidden by the lion's skin that +forms his garment. The pointed and furry ears, therefore, are the sole +indications of his wild, forest nature. + +Only a sculptor of the finest imagination, the most delicate taste, the +sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic skill--in a word, a sculptor +and a poet too--could have first dreamed of a Faun in this guise, and +then have succeeded in imprisoning the sportive and frisky thing in +marble. Neither man nor animal, and yet no monster, but a being in whom +both races meet on friendly ground. The idea grows coarse as we handle +it, and hardens in our grasp. But, if the spectator broods long over +the statue, he will be conscious of its spell; all the pleasantness of +sylvan life, all the genial and happy characteristics of creatures that +dwell in woods and fields, will seem to be mingled and kneaded into one +substance, along with the kindred qualities in the human soul. Trees, +grass, flowers, woodland streamlets, cattle, deer, and unsophisticated +man. The essence of all these was compressed long ago, and still exists, +within that discolored marble surface of the Faun of Praxiteles. + +And, after all, the idea may have been no dream, but rather a poet's +reminiscence of a period when man's affinity with nature was more +strict, and his fellowship with every living thing more intimate and +dear. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE FAUN + + +"Donatello," playfully cried Miriam, "do not leave us in this perplexity! +Shake aside those brown curls, my friend, and let us see whether this +marvellous resemblance extends to the very tips of the ears. If so, we +shall like you all the better!" + +"No, no, dearest signorina," answered Donatello, laughing, but with +a certain earnestness. "I entreat you to take the tips of my ears for +granted." As he spoke, the young Italian made a skip and jump, light +enough for a veritable faun; so as to place himself quite beyond the +reach of the fair hand that was outstretched, as if to settle the matter +by actual examination. "I shall be like a wolf of the Apennines," he +continued, taking his stand on the other side of the Dying Gladiator, +"if you touch my ears ever so softly. None of my race could endure it. +It has always been a tender point with my forefathers and me." + +He spoke in Italian, with the Tuscan rusticity of accent, and an +unshaped sort of utterance, betokening that he must heretofore have been +chiefly conversant with rural people. + +"Well, well," said Miriam, "your tender point--your two tender points, +if you have them--shall be safe, so far as I am concerned. But how +strange this likeness is, after all! and how delightful, if it really +includes the pointed ears! O, it is impossible, of course," she +continued, in English, "with a real and commonplace young man like +Donatello; but you see how this peculiarity defines the position of +the Faun; and, while putting him where he cannot exactly assert his +brotherhood, still disposes us kindly towards the kindred creature. He +is not supernatural, but just on the verge of nature, and yet within +it. What is the nameless charm of this idea, Hilda? You can feel it more +delicately than I." + +"It perplexes me," said Hilda thoughtfully, and shrinking a little; +"neither do I quite like to think about it." + +"But, surely," said Kenyon, "you agree with Miriam and me that there is +something very touching and impressive in this statue of the Faun. In +some long-past age, he must really have existed. Nature needed, and +still needs, this beautiful creature; standing betwixt man and animal, +sympathizing with each, comprehending the speech of either race, and +interpreting the whole existence of one to the other. What a pity that +he has forever vanished from the hard and dusty paths of life,--unless," +added the sculptor, in a sportive whisper, "Donatello be actually he!" + +"You cannot conceive how this fantasy takes hold of me," responded +Miriam, between jest and earnest. "Imagine, now, a real being, similar +to this mythic Faun; how happy, how genial, how satisfactory would be +his life, enjoying the warm, sensuous, earthy side of nature; revelling +in the merriment of woods and streams; living as our four-footed kindred +do,--as mankind did in its innocent childhood; before sin, sorrow or +morality itself had ever been thought of! Ah! Kenyon, if Hilda and you +and I--if I, at least--had pointed ears! For I suppose the Faun had +no conscience, no remorse, no burden on the heart, no troublesome +recollections of any sort; no dark future either." + +"What a tragic tone was that last, Miriam!" said the sculptor; +and, looking into her face, he was startled to behold it pale and +tear-stained. "How suddenly this mood has come over you!" + +"Let it go as it came," said Miriam, "like a thunder-shower in this +Roman sky. All is sunshine again, you see!" + +Donatello's refractoriness as regarded his ears had evidently cost him +something, and he now came close to Miriam's side, gazing at her with an +appealing air, as if to solicit forgiveness. His mute, helpless gesture +of entreaty had something pathetic in it, and yet might well enough +excite a laugh, so like it was to what you may see in the aspect of a +hound when he thinks himself in fault or disgrace. It was difficult to +make out the character of this young man. So full of animal life as +he was, so joyous in his deportment, so handsome, so physically +well-developed, he made no impression of incompleteness, of maimed or +stinted nature. And yet, in social intercourse, these familiar friends +of his habitually and instinctively allowed for him, as for a child or +some other lawless thing, exacting no strict obedience to conventional +rules, and hardly noticing his eccentricities enough to pardon them. +There was an indefinable characteristic about Donatello that set him +outside of rules. + +He caught Miriam's hand, kissed it, and gazed into her eyes without +saying a word. She smiled, and bestowed on him a little careless caress, +singularly like what one would give to a pet dog when he puts himself in +the way to receive it. Not that it was so decided a caress either, but +only the merest touch, somewhere between a pat and a tap of the finger; +it might be a mark of fondness, or perhaps a playful pretence of +punishment. At all events, it appeared to afford Donatello exquisite +pleasure; insomuch that he danced quite round the wooden railing that +fences in the Dying Gladiator. + +"It is the very step of the Dancing Faun," said Miriam, apart, to Hilda. +"What a child, or what a simpleton, he is! I continually find myself +treating Donatello as if he were the merest unfledged chicken; and yet +he can claim no such privileges in the right of his tender age, for he +is at least--how old should you think him, Hilda?" + +"Twenty years, perhaps," replied Hilda, glancing at Donatello; "but, +indeed, I cannot tell; hardly so old, on second thoughts, or possibly +older. He has nothing to do with time, but has a look of eternal youth +in his face." + +"All underwitted people have that look," said Miriam scornfully. + +"Donatello has certainly the gift of eternal youth, as Hilda suggests," +observed Kenyon, laughing; "for, judging by the date of this statue, +which, I am more and more convinced, Praxiteles carved on purpose for +him, he must be at least twenty-five centuries old, and he still looks +as young as ever." + +"What age have you, Donatello?" asked Miriam. + +"Signorina, I do not know," he answered; "no great age, however; for I +have only lived since I met you." + +"Now, what old man of society could have turned a silly compliment more +smartly than that!" exclaimed Miriam. "Nature and art are just at one +sometimes. But what a happy ignorance is this of our friend Donatello! +Not to know his own age! It is equivalent to being immortal on earth. If +I could only forget mine!" + +"It is too soon to wish that," observed the sculptor; "you are scarcely +older than Donatello looks." + +"I shall be content, then," rejoined Miriam, "if I could only forget +one day of all my life." Then she seemed to repent of this allusion, and +hastily added, "A woman's days are so tedious that it is a boon to leave +even one of them out of the account." + +The foregoing conversation had been carried on in a mood in which all +imaginative people, whether artists or poets, love to indulge. In this +frame of mind, they sometimes find their profoundest truths side by side +with the idlest jest, and utter one or the other, apparently without +distinguishing which is the most valuable, or assigning any considerable +value to either. The resemblance between the marble Faun and their +living companion had made a deep, half-serious, half-mirthful impression +on these three friends, and had taken them into a certain airy region, +lifting up, as it is so pleasant to feel them lifted, their heavy +earthly feet from the actual soil of life. The world had been set +afloat, as it were, for a moment, and relieved them, for just so long, +of all customary responsibility for what they thought and said. + +It might be under this influence--or, perhaps, because sculptors always +abuse one another's works--that Kenyon threw in a criticism upon the +Dying Gladiator. + +"I used to admire this statue exceedingly," he remarked, "but, latterly, +I find myself getting weary and annoyed that the man should be such a +length of time leaning on his arm in the very act of death. If he is so +terribly hurt, why does he not sink down and die without further ado? +Flitting moments, imminent emergencies, imperceptible intervals between +two breaths, ought not to be incrusted with the eternal repose of +marble; in any sculptural subject, there should be a moral standstill, +since there must of necessity be a physical one. Otherwise, it is +like flinging a block of marble up into the air, and, by some trick of +enchantment, causing it to stick there. You feel that it ought to come +down, and are dissatisfied that it does not obey the natural law." + +"I see," said Miriam mischievously, "you think that sculpture should +be a sort of fossilizing process. But, in truth, your frozen art has +nothing like the scope and freedom of Hilda's and mine. In painting +there is no similar objection to the representation of brief snatches +of time,--perhaps because a story can be so much more fully told in +picture, and buttressed about with circumstances that give it an epoch. +For instance, a painter never would have sent down yonder Faun out of +his far antiquity, lonely and desolate, with no companion to keep his +simple heart warm." + +"Ah, the Faun!" cried Hilda, with a little gesture of impatience; "I +have been looking at him too long; and now, instead of a beautiful +statue, immortally young, I see only a corroded and discolored stone. +This change is very apt to occur in statues." + +"And a similar one in pictures, surely," retorted the sculptor. "It is +the spectator's mood that transfigures the Transfiguration itself. +I defy any painter to move and elevate me without my own consent and +assistance." + +"Then you are deficient of a sense," said Miriam. + +The party now strayed onward from hall to hall of that rich gallery, +pausing here and there, to look at the multitude of noble and lovely +shapes, which have been dug up out of the deep grave in which old Rome +lies buried. And still, the realization of the antique Faun, in the +person of Donatello, gave a more vivid character to all these marble +ghosts. Why should not each statue grow warm with life! Antinous might +lift his brow, and tell us why he is forever sad. The Lycian Apollo +might strike his lyre; and, at the first vibration, that other Faun in +red marble, who keeps up a motionless dance, should frisk gayly forth, +leading yonder Satyrs, with shaggy goat-shanks, to clatter their little +hoofs upon the floor, and all join hands with Donatello! Bacchus, too, +a rosy flush diffusing itself over his time-stained surface, could +come down from his pedestal, and offer a cluster of purple grapes to +Donatello's lips; because the god recognizes him as the woodland elf +who so often shared his revels. And here, in this sarcophagus, the +exquisitely carved figures might assume life, and chase one another +round its verge with that wild merriment which is so strangely +represented on those old burial coffers: though still with some subtile +allusion to death, carefully veiled, but forever peeping forth amid +emblems of mirth and riot. + +As the four friends descended the stairs, however, their play of fancy +subsided into a much more sombre mood; a result apt to follow upon such +exhilaration as that which had so recently taken possession of them. + +"Do you know," said Miriam confidentially to Hilda, "I doubt the reality +of this likeness of Donatello to the Faun, which we have been talking so +much about? To say the truth, it never struck me so forcibly as it did +Kenyon and yourself, though I gave in to whatever you were pleased to +fancy, for the sake of a moment's mirth and wonder." "I was certainly +in earnest, and you seemed equally so," replied Hilda, glancing back +at Donatello, as if to reassure herself of the resemblance. "But faces +change so much, from hour to hour, that the same set of features has +often no keeping with itself; to an eye, at least, which looks at +expression more than outline. How sad and sombre he has grown all of a +sudden!" "Angry too, methinks! nay, it is anger much more than sadness," +said Miriam. "I have seen Donatello in this mood once or twice before. +If you consider him well, you will observe an odd mixture of +the bulldog, or some other equally fierce brute, in our friend's +composition; a trait of savageness hardly to be expected in such a +gentle creature as he usually is. Donatello is a very strange young man. +I wish he would not haunt my footsteps so continually." + +"You have bewitched the poor lad," said the sculptor, laughing. "You +have a faculty of bewitching people, and it is providing you with a +singular train of followers. I see another of them behind yonder pillar; +and it is his presence that has aroused Donatello's wrath." + +They had now emerged from the gateway of the palace; and partly +concealed by one of the pillars of the portico stood a figure such as +may often be encountered in the streets and piazzas of Rome, and nowhere +else. He looked as if he might just have stepped out of a picture, and, +in truth, was likely enough to find his way into a dozen pictures; being +no other than one of those living models, dark, bushy bearded, wild +of aspect and attire, whom artists convert into saints or assassins, +according as their pictorial purposes demand. + +"Miriam," whispered Hilda, a little startled, "it is your model!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES + + +Miriam's model has so important a connection with our story, that it is +essential to describe the singular mode of his first appearance, and +how he subsequently became a self-appointed follower of the young female +artist. In the first place, however, we must devote a page or two to +certain peculiarities in the position of Miriam herself. + +There was an ambiguity about this young lady, which, though it did not +necessarily imply anything wrong, would have operated unfavorably as +regarded her reception in society, anywhere but in Rome. The truth was, +that nobody knew anything about Miriam, either for good or evil. She had +made her appearance without introduction, had taken a studio, put her +card upon the door, and showed very considerable talent as a painter in +oils. Her fellow professors of the brush, it is true, showered abundant +criticisms upon her pictures, allowing them to be well enough for the +idle half-efforts of an amateur, but lacking both the trained skill and +the practice that distinguish the works of a true artist. + +Nevertheless, be their faults what they might, Miriam's pictures met +with good acceptance among the patrons of modern art. Whatever technical +merit they lacked, its absence was more than supplied by a warmth +and passionateness, which she had the faculty of putting into her +productions, and which all the world could feel. Her nature had a great +deal of color, and, in accordance with it, so likewise had her pictures. + +Miriam had great apparent freedom of intercourse; her manners were so +far from evincing shyness, that it seemed easy to become acquainted with +her, and not difficult to develop a casual acquaintance into intimacy. +Such, at least, was the impression which she made, upon brief contact, +but not such the ultimate conclusion of those who really sought to know +her. So airy, free, and affable was Miriam's deportment towards all who +came within her sphere, that possibly they might never be conscious of +the fact, but so it was, that they did not get on, and were seldom any +further advanced into her good graces to-day than yesterday. By some +subtile quality, she kept people at a distance, without so much as +letting them know that they were excluded from her inner circle. She +resembled one of those images of light, which conjurers evoke and cause +to shine before us, in apparent tangibility, only an arm's length beyond +our grasp: we make a step in advance, expecting to seize the illusion, +but find it still precisely so far out of our reach. Finally, society +began to recognize the impossibility of getting nearer to Miriam, and +gruffly acquiesced. + +There were two persons, however, whom she appeared to acknowledge as +friends in the closer and truer sense of the word; and both of these +more favored individuals did credit to Miriam's selection. One was +a young American sculptor, of high promise and rapidly increasing +celebrity; the other, a girl of the same country, a painter like Miriam +herself, but in a widely different sphere of art. Her heart flowed out +towards these two; she requited herself by their society and friendship +(and especially by Hilda's) for all the loneliness with which, as +regarded the rest of the world, she chose to be surrounded. Her two +friends were conscious of the strong, yearning grasp which Miriam laid +upon them, and gave her their affection in full measure; Hilda, indeed, +responding with the fervency of a girl's first friendship, and Kenyon +with a manly regard, in which there was nothing akin to what is +distinctively called love. + +A sort of intimacy subsequently grew up between these three friends +and a fourth individual; it was a young Italian, who, casually visiting +Rome, had been attracted by the beauty which Miriam possessed in a +remarkable degree. He had sought her, followed her, and insisted, with +simple perseverance, upon being admitted at least to her acquaintance; a +boon which had been granted, when a more artful character, seeking it by +a more subtle mode of pursuit, would probably have failed to obtain it. +This young man, though anything but intellectually brilliant, had many +agreeable characteristics which won him the kindly and half-contemptuous +regard of Miriam and her two friends. It was he whom they called +Donatello, and whose wonderful resemblance to the Faun of Praxiteles +forms the keynote of our narrative. + +Such was the position in which we find Miriam some few months after her +establishment at Rome. It must be added, however, that the world did not +permit her to hide her antecedents without making her the subject of +a good deal of conjecture; as was natural enough, considering the +abundance of her personal charms, and the degree of notice that she +attracted as an artist. There were many stories about Miriam's origin +and previous life, some of which had a very probable air, while others +were evidently wild and romantic fables. We cite a few, leaving the +reader to designate them either under the probable or the romantic head. + +It was said, for example, that Miriam was the daughter and heiress of +a great Jewish banker (an idea perhaps suggested by a certain rich +Oriental character in her face), and had fled from her paternal home +to escape a union with a cousin, the heir of another of that golden +brotherhood; the object being to retain their vast accumulation of +wealth within the family. Another story hinted that she was a German +princess, whom, for reasons of state, it was proposed to give in +marriage either to a decrepit sovereign, or a prince still in his +cradle. According to a third statement, she was the off-spring of a +Southern American planter, who had given her an elaborate education and +endowed her with his wealth; but the one burning drop of African +blood in her veins so affected her with a sense of ignominy, that she +relinquished all and fled her country. By still another account she was +the lady of an English nobleman; and, out of mere love and honor of +art, had thrown aside the splendor of her rank, and come to seek a +subsistence by her pencil in a Roman studio. + +In all the above cases, the fable seemed to be instigated by the large +and bounteous impression which Miriam invariably made, as if necessity +and she could have nothing to do with one another. Whatever deprivations +she underwent must needs be voluntary. But there were other surmises, +taking such a commonplace view as that Miriam was the daughter of a +merchant or financier, who had been ruined in a great commercial crisis; +and, possessing a taste for art, she had attempted to support herself by +the pencil, in preference to the alternative of going out as governess. + +Be these things how they might, Miriam, fair as she looked, was plucked +up out of a mystery, and had its roots still clinging to her. She was a +beautiful and attractive woman, but based, as it were, upon a cloud, and +all surrounded with misty substance; so that the result was to render +her sprite-like in her most ordinary manifestations. This was the case +even in respect to Kenyon and Hilda, her especial friends. But such was +the effect of Miriam's natural language, her generosity, kindliness, and +native truth of character, that these two received her as a dear friend +into their hearts, taking her good qualities as evident and genuine, and +never imagining that what was hidden must be therefore evil. + +We now proceed with our narrative. + +The same party of friends, whom we have seen at the sculpture-gallery of +the Capitol, chanced to have gone together, some months before, to the +catacomb of St. Calixtus. They went joyously down into that vast +tomb, and wandered by torchlight through a sort of dream, in which +reminiscences of church aisles and grimy cellars--and chiefly the +latter--seemed to be broken into fragments, and hopelessly intermingled. +The intricate passages along which they followed their guide had been +hewn, in some forgotten age, out of a dark-red, crumbly stone. On either +side were horizontal niches, where, if they held their torches closely, +the shape of a human body was discernible in white ashes, into which the +entire mortality of a man or woman had resolved itself. Among all this +extinct dust, there might perchance be a thigh-bone, which crumbled at +a touch; or possibly a skull, grinning at its own wretched plight, as is +the ugly and empty habit of the thing. + +Sometimes their gloomy pathway tended upward, so that, through a +crevice, a little daylight glimmered down upon them, or even a streak of +sunshine peeped into a burial niche; then again, they went downward by +gradual descent, or by abrupt, rudely hewn steps, into deeper and deeper +recesses of the earth. Here and there the narrow and tortuous passages +widened somewhat, developing themselves into small chapels;--which +once, no doubt, had been adorned with marble-work and lighted with +ever-burning lamps and tapers. All such illumination and ornament, +however, had long since been extinguished and stript away; except, +indeed, that the low roofs of a few of these ancient sites of worship +were covered with dingy stucco, and frescoed with scriptural scenes and +subjects, in the dreariest stage of ruin. + +In one such chapel, the guide showed them a low arch, beneath which the +body of St. Cecilia had been buried after her martyrdom, and where it +lay till a sculptor saw it, and rendered it forever beautiful in marble. + +In a similar spot they found two sarcophagi, one containing a skeleton, +and the other a shrivelled body, which still wore the garments of its +former lifetime. + +"How dismal all this is!" said Hilda, shuddering. "I do not know why we +came here, nor why we should stay a moment longer." + +"I hate it all!" cried Donatello with peculiar energy. "Dear friends, +let us hasten back into the blessed daylight!" + +From the first, Donatello had shown little fancy for the expedition; +for, like most Italians, and in especial accordance with the law of his +own simple and physically happy nature, this young man had an infinite +repugnance to graves and skulls, and to all that ghastliness which the +Gothic mind loves to associate with the idea of death. He shuddered, +and looked fearfully round, drawing nearer to Miriam, whose attractive +influence alone had enticed him into that gloomy region. + +"What a child you are, poor Donatello!" she observed, with the freedom +which she always used towards him. "You are afraid of ghosts!" + +"Yes, signorina; terribly afraid!" said the truthful Donatello. + +"I also believe in ghosts," answered Miriam, "and could tremble at them, +in a suitable place. But these sepulchres are so old, and these skulls +and white ashes so very dry, that methinks they have ceased to be +haunted. The most awful idea connected with the catacombs is their +interminable extent, and the possibility of going astray into this +labyrinth of darkness, which broods around the little glimmer of our +tapers." + +"Has any one ever been lost here?" asked Kenyon of the guide. + +"Surely, signor; one, no longer ago than my father's time," said the +guide; and he added, with the air of a man who believed what he was +telling, "but the first that went astray here was a pagan of old Rome, +who hid himself in order to spy out and betray the blessed saints, who +then dwelt and worshipped in these dismal places. You have heard the +story, signor? A miracle was wrought upon the accursed one; and, ever +since (for fifteen centuries at least), he has been groping in the +darkness, seeking his way out of the catacomb." + +"Has he ever been seen?" asked Hilda, who had great and tremulous faith +in marvels of this kind. + +"These eyes of mine never beheld him, signorina; the saints forbid!" +answered the guide. "But it is well known that he watches near parties +that come into the catacomb, especially if they be heretics, hoping to +lead some straggler astray. What this lost wretch pines for, almost as +much as for the blessed sunshine, is a companion to be miserable with +him." + +"Such an intense desire for sympathy indicates something amiable in the +poor fellow, at all events," observed Kenyon. + +They had now reached a larger chapel than those heretofore seen; it +was of a circular shape, and, though hewn out of the solid mass of red +sandstone, had pillars, and a carved roof, and other tokens of a regular +architectural design. Nevertheless, considered as a church, it was +exceedingly minute, being scarcely twice a man's stature in height, and +only two or three paces from wall to wall; and while their collected +torches illuminated this one small, consecrated spot, the great darkness +spread all round it, like that immenser mystery which envelops our +little life, and into which friends vanish from us, one by one. "Why, +where is Miriam?" cried Hilda. The party gazed hurriedly from face to +face, and became aware that one of their party had vanished into +the great darkness, even while they were shuddering at the remote +possibility of such a misfortune. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB + + +"Surely, she cannot be lost!" exclaimed Kenyon. "It is but a moment since +she was speaking." + +"No, no!" said Hilda, in great alarm. "She was behind us all; and it is +a long while since we have heard her voice!" + +"Torches! torches!" cried Donatello desperately. "I will seek her, be +the darkness ever so dismal!" + +But the guide held him back, and assured them all that there was no +possibility of assisting their lost companion, unless by shouting at +the very top of their voices. As the sound would go very far along these +close and narrow passages, there was a fair probability that Miriam +might hear the call, and be able to retrace her steps. + +Accordingly, they all--Kenyon with his bass voice; Donatello with his +tenor; the guide with that high and hard Italian cry, which makes the +streets of Rome so resonant; and Hilda with her slender scream, piercing +farther than the united uproar of the rest--began to shriek, halloo, and +bellow, with the utmost force of their lungs. And, not to prolong the +reader's suspense (for we do not particularly seek to interest him +in this scene, telling it only on account of the trouble and strange +entanglement which followed), they soon heard a responsive call, in a +female voice. + +"It was the signorina!" cried Donatello joyfully. + +"Yes; it was certainly dear Miriam's voice," said Hilda. "And here she +comes! Thank Heaven! Thank Heaven!" + +The figure of their friend was now discernible by her own torchlight, +approaching out of one of the cavernous passages. Miriam came forward, +but not with the eagerness and tremulous joy of a fearful girl, just +rescued from a labyrinth of gloomy mystery. She made no immediate +response to their inquiries and tumultuous congratulations; and, as they +afterwards remembered, there was something absorbed, thoughtful, and +self-concentrated in her deportment. She looked pale, as well she might, +and held her torch with a nervous grasp, the tremor of which was seen +in the irregular twinkling of the flame. This last was the chief +perceptible sign of any recent agitation or alarm. + +"Dearest, dearest Miriam," exclaimed Hilda, throwing her arms about her +friend, "where have you been straying from us? Blessed be Providence, +which has rescued you out of that miserable darkness!" + +"Hush, dear Hilda!" whispered Miriam, with a strange little laugh. "Are +you quite sure that it was Heaven's guidance which brought me back? +If so, it was by an odd messenger, as you will confess. See; there he +stands." + +Startled at Miriam's words and manner, Hilda gazed into the duskiness +whither she pointed, and there beheld a figure standing just on the +doubtful limit of obscurity, at the threshold of the small, illuminated +chapel. Kenyon discerned him at the same instant, and drew nearer with +his torch; although the guide attempted to dissuade him, averring that, +once beyond the consecrated precincts of the chapel, the apparition +would have power to tear him limb from limb. It struck the sculptor, +however, when he afterwards recurred to these circumstances, that the +guide manifested no such apprehension on his own account as he professed +on behalf of others; for he kept pace with Kenyon as the latter +approached the figure, though still endeavoring to restrain 'him. + +In fine, they both drew near enough to get as good a view of the spectre +as the smoky light of their torches, struggling with the massive gloom, +could supply. + +The stranger was of exceedingly picturesque, and even melodramatic +aspect. He was clad in a voluminous cloak, that seemed to be made of a +buffalo's hide, and a pair of those goat-skin breeches, with the hair +outward, which are still commonly worn by the peasants of the Roman +Campagna. In this garb, they look like antique Satyrs; and, in truth, +the Spectre of the Catacomb might have represented the last survivor +of that vanished race, hiding himself in sepulchral gloom, and mourning +over his lost life of woods and streams. + +Furthermore, he had on a broad-brimmed, conical hat, beneath the shadow +of which a wild visage was indistinctly seen, floating away, as it were, +into a dusky wilderness of mustache and beard. His eyes winked, and +turned uneasily from the torches, like a creature to whom midnight would +be more congenial than noonday. + +On the whole, the spectre might have made a considerable impression +on the sculptor's nerves, only that he was in the habit of observing +similar figures, almost every day, reclining on the Spanish steps, +and waiting for some artist to invite them within the magic realm of +picture. Nor, even thus familiarized with the stranger's peculiarities +of appearance, could Kenyon help wondering to see such a personage, +shaping himself so suddenly out of the void darkness of the catacomb. + +"What are you?" said the sculptor, advancing his torch nearer. "And how +long have you been wandering here?" + +"A thousand and five hundred years!" muttered the guide, loud enough to +be heard by all the party. "It is the old pagan phantom that I told you +of, who sought to betray the blessed saints!" + +"Yes; it is a phantom!" cried Donatello, with a shudder. "Ah, dearest +signorina, what a fearful thing has beset you in those dark corridors!" + +"Nonsense, Donatello," said the sculptor. "The man is no more a phantom +than yourself. The only marvel is, how he comes to be hiding himself in +the catacomb. Possibly our guide might solve the riddle." + +The spectre himself here settled the point of his tangibility, at all +events, and physical substance, by approaching a step nearer, and laying +his hand on Kenyon's arm. + +"Inquire not what I am, nor wherefore I abide in the darkness," said he, +in a hoarse, harsh voice, as if a great deal of damp were clustering in +his throat. "Henceforth, I am nothing but a shadow behind her footsteps. +She came to me when I sought her not. She has called me forth, and must +abide the consequences of my reappearance in the world." + +"Holy Virgin! I wish the signorina joy of her prize," said the guide, +half to himself. "And in any case, the catacomb is well rid of him." + +We need follow the scene no further. So much is essential to the +subsequent narrative, that, during the short period while astray in +those tortuous passages, Miriam had encountered an unknown man, and +led him forth with her, or was guided back by him, first into the +torchlight, thence into the sunshine. + +It was the further singularity of this affair, that the connection, thus +briefly and casually formed, did not terminate with the incident +that gave it birth. As if her service to him, or his service to her, +whichever it might be, had given him an indefeasible claim on Miriam's +regard and protection, the Spectre of the Catacomb never long allowed +her to lose sight of him, from that day forward. He haunted her +footsteps with more than the customary persistency of Italian +mendicants, when once they have recognized a benefactor. For days +together, it is true, he occasionally vanished, but always reappeared, +gliding after her through the narrow streets, or climbing the hundred +steps of her staircase and sitting at her threshold. + +Being often admitted to her studio, he left his features, or some shadow +or reminiscence of them, in many of her sketches and pictures. The moral +atmosphere of these productions was thereby so influenced, that rival +painters pronounced it a case of hopeless mannerism, which would destroy +all Miriam's prospects of true excellence in art. + +The story of this adventure spread abroad, and made its way beyond +the usual gossip of the Forestieri, even into Italian circles, where, +enhanced by a still potent spirit of superstition, it grew far more +wonderful than as above recounted. Thence, it came back among the +Anglo-Saxons, and was communicated to the German artists, who so richly +supplied it with romantic ornaments and excrescences, after their +fashion, that it became a fantasy worthy of Tieck or Hoffmann. For +nobody has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities of a +marvellous tale. + +The most reasonable version of the incident, that could anywise be +rendered acceptable to the auditors, was substantially the one suggested +by the guide of the catacomb, in his allusion to the legend of Memmius. +This man, or demon, or man-demon, was a spy during the persecutions +of the early Christians, probably under the Emperor Diocletian, and +penetrated into the catacomb of St. Calixtus, with the malignant purpose +of tracing out the hiding-places of the refugees. But, while he stole +craftily through those dark corridors, he chanced to come upon a little +chapel, where tapers were burning before an altar and a crucifix, and +a priest was in the performance of his sacred office. By divine +indulgence, there was a single moment's grace allowed to Memmius, during +which, had he been capable of Christian faith and love, he might have +knelt before the cross, and received the holy light into his soul, and +so have been blest forever. But he resisted the sacred impulse. As +soon, therefore, as that one moment had glided by, the light of the +consecrated tapers, which represent all truth, bewildered the wretched +man with everlasting error, and the blessed cross itself was stamped +as a seal upon his heart, so that it should never open to receive +conviction. + +Thenceforth, this heathen Memmius has haunted the wide and dreary +precincts of the catacomb, seeking, as some say, to beguile new victims +into his own misery; but, according to other statements, endeavoring to +prevail on any unwary visitor to take him by the hand, and guide him out +into the daylight. Should his wiles and entreaties take effect, however, +the man-demon would remain only a little while above ground. He would +gratify his fiendish malignity by perpetrating signal mischief on his +benefactor, and perhaps bringing some old pestilence or other forgotten +and long-buried evil on society; or, possibly, teaching the modern +world some decayed and dusty kind of crime, which the antique Romans +knew,--and then would hasten back to the catacomb, which, after so long +haunting it, has grown his most congenial home. + +Miriam herself, with her chosen friends, the sculptor and the gentle +Hilda, often laughed at the monstrous fictions that had gone abroad in +reference to her adventure. Her two confidants (for such they were, +on all ordinary subjects) had not failed to ask an explanation of the +mystery, since undeniably a mystery there was, and one sufficiently +perplexing in itself, without any help from the imaginative faculty. +And, sometimes responding to their inquiries with a melancholy sort of +playfulness, Miriam let her fancy run off into wilder fables than any +which German ingenuity or Italian superstition had contrived. + +For example, with a strange air of seriousness over all her face, only +belied by a laughing gleam in her dark eyes, she would aver that the +spectre (who had been an artist in his mortal lifetime) had promised +to teach her a long-lost, but invaluable secret of old Roman fresco +painting. The knowledge of this process would place Miriam at the head +of modern art; the sole condition being agreed upon, that she should +return with him into his sightless gloom, after enriching a certain +extent of stuccoed wall with the most brilliant and lovely designs. And +what true votary of art would not purchase unrivalled excellence, even +at so vast a sacrifice! + +Or, if her friends still solicited a soberer account, Miriam replied, +that, meeting the old infidel in one of the dismal passages of the +catacomb, she had entered into controversy with him, hoping to achieve +the glory and satisfaction of converting him to the Christian faith. For +the sake of so excellent a result; she had even staked her own salvation +against his, binding herself to accompany him back into his penal gloom, +if, within a twelvemonth's space, she should not have convinced him of +the errors through which he had so long groped and stumbled. But, alas! +up to the present time, the controversy had gone direfully in favor of +the man-demon; and Miriam (as she whispered in Hilda's ear) had awful +forebodings, that, in a few more months, she must take an eternal +farewell of the sun! + +It was somewhat remarkable that all her romantic fantasies arrived at +this self-same dreary termination,--it appeared impossible for her even +to imagine any other than a disastrous result from her connection with +her ill-omened attendant. + +This singularity might have meant nothing, however, had it not suggested +a despondent state of mind, which was likewise indicated by many other +tokens. Miriam's friends had no difficulty in perceiving that, in +one way or another, her happiness was very seriously compromised. Her +spirits were often depressed into deep melancholy. If ever she was gay, +it was seldom with a healthy cheerfulness. She grew moody, moreover, and +subject to fits of passionate ill temper; which usually wreaked itself +on the heads of those who loved her best. Not that Miriam's indifferent +acquaintances were safe from similar outbreaks of her displeasure, +especially if they ventured upon any allusion to the model. In such +cases, they were left with little disposition to renew the subject, but +inclined, on the other hand, to interpret the whole matter as much to +her discredit as the least favorable coloring of the facts would allow. + +It may occur to the reader, that there was really no demand for so much +rumor and speculation in regard to an incident, Which might well enough +have been explained without going many steps beyond the limits of +probability. The spectre might have been merely a Roman beggar, whose +fraternity often harbor in stranger shelters than the catacombs; or one +of those pilgrims, who still journey from remote countries to kneel +and worship at the holy sites, among which these haunts of the early +Christians are esteemed especially sacred. Or, as was perhaps a more +plausible theory, he might be a thief of the city, a robber of the +Campagna, a political offender, or an assassin, with blood upon his +hand; whom the negligence or connivance of the police allowed to take +refuge in those subterranean fastnesses, where such outlaws have been +accustomed to hide themselves from a far antiquity downward. Or he might +have been a lunatic, fleeing instinctively from man, and making it his +dark pleasure to dwell among the tombs, like him whose awful cry echoes +afar to us from Scripture times. + +And, as for the stranger's attaching himself so devotedly to Miriam, her +personal magnetism might be allowed a certain weight in the explanation. +For what remains, his pertinacity need not seem so very singular to +those who consider how slight a link serves to connect these vagabonds +of idle Italy with any person that may have the ill-hap to bestow +charity, or be otherwise serviceable to them, or betray the slightest +interest in their fortunes. + +Thus little would remain to be accounted for, except the deportment of +Miriam herself; her reserve, her brooding melancholy, her petulance, +and moody passion. If generously interpreted, even these morbid symptoms +might have sufficient cause in the stimulating and exhaustive influences +of imaginative art, exercised by a delicate young woman, in the nervous +and unwholesome atmosphere of Rome. Such, at least, was the view of the +case which Hilda and Kenyon endeavored to impress on their own minds, +and impart to those whom their opinions might influence. + +One of Miriam's friends took the matter sadly to heart. This was the +young Italian. Donatello, as we have seen, had been an eyewitness of +the stranger's first appearance, and had ever since nourished a singular +prejudice against the mysterious, dusky, death-scented apparition. +It resembled not so much a human dislike or hatred, as one of those +instinctive, unreasoning antipathies which the lower animals sometimes +display, and which generally prove more trustworthy than the acutest +insight into character. The shadow of the model, always flung into the +light which Miriam diffused around her, caused no slight trouble to +Donatello. Yet he was of a nature so remarkably genial and joyous, so +simply happy, that he might well afford to have something subtracted +from his comfort, and make tolerable shift to live upon what remained. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +MIRIAM'S STUDIO + + +The courtyard and staircase of a palace built three hundred years ago +are a peculiar feature of modern Rome, and interest the stranger more +than many things of which he has heard loftier descriptions. You pass +through the grand breadth and height of a squalid entrance-way, and +perhaps see a range of dusky pillars, forming a sort of cloister round +the court, and in the intervals, from pillar to pillar, are strewn +fragments of antique statues, headless and legless torsos, and busts +that have invariably lost what it might be well if living men could lay +aside in that unfragrant atmosphere--the nose. Bas-reliefs, the spoil of +some far older palace, are set in the surrounding walls, every stone of +which has been ravished from the Coliseum, or any other imperial ruin +which earlier barbarism had not already levelled with the earth. Between +two of the pillars, moreover, stands an old sarcophagus without its +lid, and with all its more prominently projecting sculptures broken +off; perhaps it once held famous dust, and the bony framework of some +historic man, although now only a receptacle for the rubbish of the +courtyard, and a half-worn broom. + +In the centre of the court, under the blue Italian sky, and with the +hundred windows of the vast palace gazing down upon it from four sides, +appears a fountain. It brims over from one stone basin to another, +or gushes from a Naiad's urn, or spurts its many little jets from the +mouths of nameless monsters, which were merely grotesque and artificial +when Bernini, or whoever was their unnatural father, first produced +them; but now the patches of moss, the tufts of grass, the trailing +maiden-hair, and all sorts of verdant weeds that thrive in the cracks +and crevices of moist marble, tell us that Nature takes the fountain +back into her great heart, and cherishes it as kindly as if it were a +woodland spring. And hark, the pleasant murmur, the gurgle, the plash! +You might hear just those tinkling sounds from any tiny waterfall in the +forest, though here they gain a delicious pathos from the stately +echoes that reverberate their natural language. So the fountain is not +altogether glad, after all its three centuries at play! + +In one of the angles of the courtyard, a pillared doorway gives access +to the staircase, with its spacious breadth of low marble steps, up +which, in former times, have gone the princes and cardinals of the great +Roman family who built this palace. Or they have come down, with still +grander and loftier mien, on their way to the Vatican or the Quirinal, +there to put off their scarlet hats in exchange for the triple crown. +But, in fine, all these illustrious personages have gone down +their hereditary staircase for the last time, leaving it to be the +thoroughfare of ambassadors, English noblemen, American millionnaires, +artists, tradesmen, washerwomen, and people of every degree,--all of +whom find such gilded and marble-panelled saloons as their pomp and +luxury demand, or such homely garrets as their necessity can pay for, +within this one multifarious abode. Only, in not a single nook of the +palace (built for splendor, and the accommodation of a vast retinue, but +with no vision of a happy fireside or any mode of domestic enjoyment) +does the humblest or the haughtiest occupant find comfort. + +Up such a staircase, on the morning after the scene at the sculpture +gallery, sprang the light foot of Donatello. He ascended from story +to story, passing lofty doorways, set within rich frames of sculptured +marble, and climbing unweariedly upward, until the glories of the first +piano and the elegance of the middle height were exchanged for a sort of +Alpine region, cold and naked in its aspect. Steps of rough stone, rude +wooden balustrades, a brick pavement in the passages, a dingy whitewash +on the walls; these were here the palatial features. Finally, he paused +before an oaken door, on which was pinned a card, bearing the name of +Miriam Schaefer, artist in oils. Here Donatello knocked, and the door +immediately fell somewhat ajar; its latch having been pulled up by means +of a string on the inside. Passing through a little anteroom, he found +himself in Miriam's presence. + +"Come in, wild Faun," she said, "and tell me the latest news from +Arcady!" + +The artist was not just then at her easel, but was busied with the +feminine task of mending a pair of gloves. + +There is something extremely pleasant, and even touching,--at least, +of very sweet, soft, and winning effect,--in this peculiarity of +needlework, distinguishing women from men. Our own sex is incapable of +any such by-play aside from the main business of life; but women--be +they of what earthly rank they may, however gifted with intellect or +genius, or endowed with awful beauty--have always some little handiwork +ready to fill the tiny gap of every vacant moment. A needle is familiar +to the fingers of them all. A queen, no doubt, plies it on occasion; the +woman poet can use it as adroitly as her pen; the woman's eye, that has +discovered a new star, turns from its glory to send the polished little +instrument gleaming along the hem of her kerchief, or to darn a casual +fray in her dress. And they have greatly the advantage of us in this +respect. The slender thread of silk or cotton keeps them united with +the small, familiar, gentle interests of life, the continually operating +influences of which do so much for the health of the character, and +carry off what would otherwise be a dangerous accumulation of morbid +sensibility. A vast deal of human sympathy runs along this electric +line, stretching from the throne to the wicker chair of the humblest +seamstress, and keeping high and low in a species of communion with +their kindred beings. Methinks it is a token of healthy and gentle +characteristics, when women of high thoughts and accomplishments love +to sew; especially as they are never more at home with their own hearts +than while so occupied. + +And when the work falls in a woman's lap, of its own accord, and the +needle involuntarily ceases to fly, it is a sign of trouble, quite as +trustworthy as the throb of the heart itself. This was what happened +to Miriam. Even while Donatello stood gazing at her, she seemed to have +forgotten his presence, allowing him to drop out of her thoughts, and +the torn glove to fall from her idle fingers. Simple as he was, the +young man knew by his sympathies that something was amiss. + +"Dear lady, you are sad," said he, drawing close to her. + +"It is nothing, Donatello," she replied, resuming her work; "yes; +a little sad, perhaps; but that is not strange for us people of the +ordinary world, especially for women. You are of a cheerfuller race, my +friend, and know nothing of this disease of sadness. But why do you come +into this shadowy room of mine?" + +"Why do you make it so shadowy?" asked he. + +"We artists purposely exclude sunshine, and all but a partial light," +said Miriam, "because we think it necessary to put ourselves at +odds with Nature before trying to imitate her. That strikes you very +strangely, does it not? But we make very pretty pictures sometimes with +our artfully arranged lights and shadows. Amuse yourself with some +of mine, Donatello, and by and by I shall be in the mood to begin the +portrait we were talking about." + +The room had the customary aspect of a painter's studio; one of those +delightful spots that hardly seem to belong to the actual world, but +rather to be the outward type of a poet's haunted imagination, where +there are glimpses, sketches, and half-developed hints of beings and +objects grander and more beautiful than we can anywhere find in reality. +The windows were closed with shutters, or deeply curtained, except one, +which was partly open to a sunless portion of the sky, admitting only +from high upward that partial light which, with its strongly marked +contrast of shadow, is the first requisite towards seeing objects +pictorially. Pencil-drawings were pinned against the wall or scattered +on the tables. Unframed canvases turned their backs on the spectator, +presenting only a blank to the eye, and churlishly concealing whatever +riches of scenery or human beauty Miriam's skill had depicted on the +other side. + +In the obscurest part of the room Donatello was half startled at +perceiving duskily a woman with long dark hair, who threw up her arms +with a wild gesture of tragic despair, and appeared to beckon him into +the darkness along with her. + +"Do not be afraid, Donatello," said Miriam, smiling to see him peering +doubtfully into the mysterious dusk. "She means you no mischief, nor +could perpetrate any if she wished it ever so much. It is a lady of +exceedingly pliable disposition; now a heroine of romance, and now a +rustic maid; yet all for show; being created, indeed, on purpose to wear +rich shawls and other garments in a becoming fashion. This is the true +end of her being, although she pretends to assume the most varied duties +and perform many parts in life, while really the poor puppet has nothing +on earth to do. Upon my word, I am satirical unawares, and seem to be +describing nine women out of ten in the person of my lay-figure. For +most purposes she has the advantage of the sisterhood. Would I were like +her!" + +"How it changes her aspect," exclaimed Donatello, "to know that she is +but a jointed figure! When my eyes first fell upon her, I thought her +arms moved, as if beckoning me to help her in some direful peril." + +"Are you often troubled with such sinister freaks of fancy?" asked +Miriam. "I should not have supposed it." + +"To tell you the truth, dearest signorina," answered the young Italian, +"I am apt to be fearful in old, gloomy houses, and in the dark. I love +no dark or dusky corners, except it be in a grotto, or among the thick +green leaves of an arbor, or in some nook of the woods, such as I know +many in the neighborhood of my home. Even there, if a stray sunbeam +steal in, the shadow is all the better for its cheerful glimmer." + +"Yes; you are a Faun, you know," said the fair artist, laughing at the +remembrance of the scene of the day before. "But the world is sadly +changed nowadays; grievously changed, poor Donatello, since those happy +times when your race used to dwell in the Arcadian woods, playing hide +and seek with the nymphs in grottoes and nooks of shrubbery. You have +reappeared on earth some centuries too late." + +"I do not understand you now," answered Donatello, looking perplexed; +"only, signorina, I am glad to have my lifetime while you live; and +where you are, be it in cities or fields, I would fain be there too." + +"I wonder whether I ought to allow you to speak in this way," said +Miriam, looking thoughtfully at him. "Many young women would think it +behooved them to be offended. Hilda would never let you speak so, I dare +say. But he is a mere boy," she added, aside, "a simple boy, putting his +boyish heart to the proof on the first woman whom he chances to meet. +If yonder lay-figure had had the luck to meet him first, she would have +smitten him as deeply as I." + +"Are you angry with me?" asked Donatello dolorously. + +"Not in the least," answered Miriam, frankly giving him her hand. "Pray +look over some of these sketches till I have leisure to chat with you +a little. I hardly think I am in spirits enough to begin your portrait +to-day." + +Donatello was as gentle and docile as a pet spaniel; as playful, too, in +his general disposition, or saddening with his mistress's variable mood +like that or any other kindly animal which has the faculty of +bestowing its sympathies more completely than men or women can ever do. +Accordingly, as Miriam bade him, he tried to turn his attention to a +great pile and confusion of pen and ink sketches and pencil drawings +which lay tossed together on a table. As it chanced, however, they gave +the poor youth little delight. + +The first that he took up was a very impressive sketch, in which the +artist had jotted down her rough ideas for a picture of Jael driving the +nail through the temples of Sisera. It was dashed off with remarkable +power, and showed a touch or two that were actually lifelike and +deathlike, as if Miriam had been standing by when Jael gave the first +stroke of her murderous hammer, or as if she herself were Jael, and felt +irresistibly impelled to make her bloody confession in this guise. + +Her first conception of the stern Jewess had evidently been that of +perfect womanhood, a lovely form, and a high, heroic face of lofty +beauty; but, dissatisfied either with her own work or the terrible story +itself, Miriam had added a certain wayward quirk of her pencil, which at +once converted the heroine into a vulgar murderess. It was evident that +a Jael like this would be sure to search Sisera's pockets as soon as the +breath was out of his body. + +In another sketch she had attempted the story of Judith, which we see +represented by the old masters so often, and in such various styles. +Here, too, beginning with a passionate and fiery conception of the +subject in all earnestness, she had given the last touches in utter +scorn, as it were, of the feelings which at first took such powerful +possession of her hand. The head of Holofernes (which, by the bye, had a +pair of twisted mustaches, like those of a certain potentate of the +day) being fairly cut off, was screwing its eyes upward and twirling +its features into a diabolical grin of triumphant malice, which it flung +right in Judith's face. On her part, she had the startled aspect that +might be conceived of a cook if a calf's head should sneer at her when +about to be popped into the dinner-pot. + +Over and over again, there was the idea of woman, acting the part of a +revengeful mischief towards man. It was, indeed, very singular to +see how the artist's imagination seemed to run on these stories of +bloodshed, in which woman's hand was crimsoned by the stain; and how, +too,--in one form or another, grotesque or sternly sad,--she failed not +to bring out the moral, that woman must strike through her own heart to +reach a human life, whatever were the motive that impelled her. + +One of the sketches represented the daughter of Herodias receiving the +head of John the Baptist in a charger. The general conception appeared +to be taken from Bernardo Luini's picture, in the Uffizzi Gallery at +Florence; but Miriam had imparted to the saint's face a look of gentle +and heavenly reproach, with sad and blessed eyes fixed upward at the +maiden; by the force of which miraculous glance, her whole womanhood was +at once awakened to love and endless remorse. + +These sketches had a most disagreeable effect on Donatello's peculiar +temperament. He gave a shudder; his face assumed a look of trouble, +fear, and disgust; he snatched up one sketch after another, as if about +to tear it in pieces. Finally, shoving away the pile of drawings, he +shrank back from the table and clasped his hands over his eyes. + +"What is the matter, Donatello?" asked Miriam, looking up from a +letter which she was now writing. "Ah! I did not mean you to see those +drawings. They are ugly phantoms that stole out of my mind; not things +that I created, but things that haunt me. See! here are some trifles +that perhaps will please you better." + +She gave him a portfolio, the sketches in which indicated a happier mood +of mind, and one, it is to be hoped, more truly characteristic of the +artist. Supposing neither of these classes of subject to show anything +of her own individuality, Miriam had evidently a great scope of fancy, +and a singular faculty of putting what looked like heart into her +productions. The latter sketches were domestic and common scenes, so +finely and subtilely idealized that they seemed such as we may see +at any moment, and eye, where; while still there was the indefinable +something added, or taken away, which makes all the difference between +sordid life and an earthly paradise. The feeling and sympathy in all of +them were deep and true. There was the scene, that comes once in every +life, of the lover winning the soft and pure avowal of bashful affection +from the maiden whose slender form half leans towards his arm, half +shrinks from it, we know not which. There was wedded affection in its +successive stages, represented in a series of delicately conceived +designs, touched with a holy fire, that burned from youth to age in +those two hearts, and gave one identical beauty to the faces throughout +all the changes of feature. + +There was a drawing of an infant's shoe, half worn out, with the airy +print of the blessed foot within; a thing that would make a mother smile +or weep out of the very depths of her heart; and yet an actual mother +would not have been likely to appreciate the poetry of the little shoe, +until Miriam revealed it to her. It was wonderful, the depth and force +with which the above, and other kindred subjects, were depicted, and the +profound significance which they often acquired. The artist, still in +her fresh youth, could not probably have drawn any of these dear and +rich experiences from her own life; unless, perchance, that first sketch +of all, the avowal of maiden affection, were a remembered incident, and +not a prophecy. But it is more delightful to believe that, from first to +last, they were the productions of a beautiful imagination, dealing with +the warm and pure suggestions of a woman's heart, and thus idealizing +a truer and lovelier picture of the life that belongs to woman, than +an actual acquaintance with some of its hard and dusty facts could have +inspired. So considered, the sketches intimated such a force and variety +of imaginative sympathies as would enable Miriam to fill her life richly +with the bliss and suffering of womanhood, however barren it might +individually be. + +There was one observable point, indeed, betokening that the artist +relinquished, for her personal self, the happiness which she could so +profoundly appreciate for others. In all those sketches of common life, +and the affections that spiritualize it, a figure was portrayed apart, +now it peeped between the branches of a shrubbery, amid which two lovers +sat; now it was looking through a frosted window, from the outside, +while a young wedded pair sat at their new fireside within; and once it +leaned from a chariot, which six horses were whirling onward in pomp +and pride, and gazed at a scene of humble enjoyment by a cottage door. +Always it was the same figure, and always depicted with an expression of +deep sadness; and in every instance, slightly as they were brought out, +the face and form had the traits of Miriam's own. + +"Do you like these sketches better, Donatello?" asked Miriam. "Yes," +said Donatello rather doubtfully. "Not much, I fear," responded she, +laughing. "And what should a boy like you--a Faun too,--know about the +joys and sorrows, the intertwining light and shadow, of human life? I +forgot that you were a Faun. You cannot suffer deeply; therefore you +can but half enjoy. Here, now, is a subject which you can better +appreciate." + +The sketch represented merely a rustic dance, but with such extravagance +of fun as was delightful to behold; and here there was no drawback, +except that strange sigh and sadness which always come when we are +merriest. + +"I am going to paint the picture in oils," said the artist; "and I want +you, Donatello, for the wildest dancer of them all. Will you sit for me, +some day?--or, rather, dance for me?" + +"O, most gladly, signorina!" exclaimed Donatello. "See; it shall be like +this." + +And forthwith he began to dance, and flit about the studio, like an +incarnate sprite of jollity, pausing at last on the extremity of one +toe, as if that were the only portion of himself whereby his frisky +nature could come in contact with the earth. The effect in that shadowy +chamber, whence the artist had so carefully excluded the sunshine, was +as enlivening as if one bright ray had contrived to shimmer in and +frolic around the walls, and finally rest just in the centre of the +floor. + +"That was admirable!" said Miriam, with an approving smile. "If I can +catch you on my canvas, it will be a glorious picture; only I am afraid +you will dance out of it, by the very truth of the representation, just +when I shall have given it the last touch. We will try it one of these +days. And now, to reward you for that jolly exhibition, you shall see +what has been shown to no one else." + +She went to her easel, on which was placed a picture with its back +turned towards the spectator. Reversing the position, there appeared the +portrait of a beautiful woman, such as one sees only two or three, if +even so many times, in all a lifetime; so beautiful, that she seemed to +get into your consciousness and memory, and could never afterwards be +shut out, but haunted your dreams, for pleasure or for pain; holding +your inner realm as a conquered territory, though without deigning to +make herself at home there. + +She was very youthful, and had what was usually thought to be a Jewish +aspect; a complexion in which there was no roseate bloom, yet neither +was it pale; dark eyes, into which you might look as deeply as your +glance would go, and still be conscious of a depth that you had not +sounded, though it lay open to the day. She had black, abundant hair, +with none of the vulgar glossiness of other women's sable locks; if she +were really of Jewish blood, then this was Jewish hair, and a dark glory +such as crowns no Christian maiden's head. Gazing at this portrait, you +saw what Rachel might have been, when Jacob deemed her worth the wooing +seven years, and seven more; or perchance she might ripen to be what +Judith was, when she vanquished Holofernes with her beauty, and slew him +for too much adoring it. + +Miriam watched Donatello's contemplation of the picture, and seeing his +simple rapture, a smile of pleasure brightened on her face, mixed with a +little scorn; at least, her lips curled, and her eyes gleamed, as if she +disdained either his admiration or her own enjoyment of it. + +"Then you like the picture, Donatello?" she asked. + +"O, beyond what I can tell!" he answered. "So beautiful!--so beautiful!" + +"And do you recognize the likeness?" + +"Signorina," exclaimed Donatello, turning from the picture to the +artist, in astonishment that she should ask the question, "the +resemblance is as little to be mistaken as if you had bent over the +smooth surface of a fountain, and possessed the witchcraft to call forth +the image that you made there! It is yourself!" + +Donatello said the truth; and we forebore to speak descriptively of +Miriam's beauty earlier in our narrative, because we foresaw this +occasion to bring it perhaps more forcibly before the reader. + +We know not whether the portrait were a flattered likeness; probably +not, regarding it merely as the delineation of a lovely face; although +Miriam, like all self-painters, may have endowed herself with certain +graces which Other eyes might not discern. Artists are fond of painting +their own portraits; and, in Florence, there is a gallery of hundreds +of them, including the most illustrious, in all of which there are +autobiographical characteristics, so to speak,--traits, expressions, +loftinesses, and amenities, which would have been invisible, had they +not been painted from within. Yet their reality and truth are none +the less. Miriam, in like manner, had doubtless conveyed some of the +intimate results of her heart knowledge into her own portrait, and +perhaps wished to try whether they would be perceptible to so simple and +natural an observer as Donatello. + +"Does the expression please you?" she asked. + +"Yes," said Donatello hesitatingly; "if it would only smile so like the +sunshine as you sometimes do. No, it is sadder than I thought at first. +Cannot you make yourself smile a little, signorina?" + +"A forced smile is uglier than a frown," said Miriam, a bright, natural +smile breaking out over her face even as she spoke. + +"O, catch it now!" cried Donatello, clapping his hands. "Let it shine +upon the picture! There! it has vanished already! And you are sad again, +very sad; and the picture gazes sadly forth at me, as if some evil had +befallen it in the little time since I looked last." + +"How perplexed you seem, my friend!" answered Miriam. "I really half +believe you are a Faun, there is such a mystery and terror for you in +these dark moods, which are just as natural as daylight to us people of +ordinary mould. I advise you, at all events, to look at other faces with +those innocent and happy eyes, and never more to gaze at mine!" + +"You speak in vain," replied the young man, with a deeper emphasis than +she had ever before heard in his voice; "shroud yourself in what gloom +you will, I must needs follow you." + +"Well, well, well," said Miriam impatiently; "but leave me now; for to +speak plainly, my good friend, you grow a little wearisome. I walk +this afternoon in the Borghese grounds. Meet me there, if it suits your +pleasure." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE + + +After Donatello had left the studio, Miriam herself came forth, and +taking her way through some of the intricacies of the city, entered what +might be called either a widening of a street, or a small piazza. The +neighborhood comprised a baker's oven, emitting the usual fragrance of +sour bread; a shoe shop; a linen-draper's shop; a pipe and cigar shop; a +lottery office; a station for French soldiers, with a sentinel pacing in +front; and a fruit-stand, at which a Roman matron was selling the +dried kernels of chestnuts, wretched little figs, and some bouquets of +yesterday. A church, of course, was near at hand, the facade of which +ascended into lofty pinnacles, whereon were perched two or three winged +figures of stone, either angelic or allegorical, blowing stone trumpets +in close vicinity to the upper windows of an old and shabby palace. +This palace was distinguished by a feature not very common in the +architecture of Roman edifices; that is to say, a mediaeval tower, +square, massive, lofty, and battlemented and machicolated at the summit. + +At one of the angles of the battlements stood a shrine of the Virgin, +such as we see everywhere at the street corners of Rome, but seldom or +never, except in this solitary, instance, at a height above the ordinary +level of men's views and aspirations. Connected with this old tower and +its lofty shrine, there is a legend which we cannot here pause to tell; +but for centuries a lamp has been burning before the Virgin's image, at +noon, at midnight, and at all hours of the twenty-four, and must be kept +burning forever, as long as the tower shall stand; or else the tower +itself, the palace, and whatever estate belongs to it, shall pass from +its hereditary possessor, in accordance with an ancient vow, and become +the property of the Church. + +As Miriam approached, she looked upward, and saw,--not, indeed, the +flame of the never-dying lamp, which was swallowed up in the broad +sunlight that brightened the shrine, but a flock of white doves, +skimming, fluttering, and wheeling about the topmost height of the +tower, their silver wings flashing in the pure transparency of the +air. Several of them sat on the ledge of the upper window, pushing one +another off by their eager struggle for this favorite station, and all +tapping their beaks and flapping their wings tumultuously against the +panes; some had alighted in the street, far below, but flew hastily +upward, at the sound of the window being thrust ajar, and opening in the +middle, on rusty hinges, as Roman windows do. + +A fair young girl, dressed in white, showed herself at the aperture for +a single instant, and threw forth as much as her two small hands could +hold of some kind of food, for the flock of eleemosynary doves. It +seemed greatly to the taste of the feathered people; for they tried to +snatch beakfuls of it from her grasp, caught it in the air, and rushed +downward after it upon the pavement. + +"What a pretty scene this is," thought Miriam, with a kindly smile, "and +how like a dove she is herself, the fair, pure creature! The other doves +know her for a sister, I am sure." + +Miriam passed beneath the deep portal of the palace, and turning to the +left, began to mount flight after flight of a staircase, which, for the +loftiness of its aspiration, was worthy to be Jacob's ladder, or, at all +events, the staircase of the Tower of Babel. The city bustle, which +is heard even in Rome, the rumble of wheels over the uncomfortable +paving-stones, the hard harsh cries reechoing in the high and narrow +streets, grew faint and died away; as the turmoil of the world will +always die, if we set our faces to climb heavenward. Higher, and higher +still; and now, glancing through the successive windows that threw in +their narrow light upon the stairs, her view stretched across the roofs +of the city, unimpeded even by the stateliest palaces. Only the domes of +churches ascend into this airy region, and hold up their golden crosses +on a level with her eye; except that, out of the very heart of Rome, +the column of Antoninus thrusts itself upward, with St. Paul upon its +summit, the sole human form that seems to have kept her company. + +Finally, the staircase came to an end; save that, on one side of the +little entry where it terminated, a flight of a dozen steps gave access +to the roof of the tower and the legendary shrine. On the other side was +a door, at which Miriam knocked, but rather as a friendly announcement +of her presence than with any doubt of hospitable welcome; for, awaiting +no response, she lifted the latch and entered. + +"What a hermitage you have found for yourself, dear Hilda!" she, +exclaimed. "You breathe sweet air, above all the evil scents of Rome; +and even so, in your maiden elevation, you dwell above our vanities and +passions, our moral dust and mud, with the doves and the angels for your +nearest neighbors. I should not wonder if the Catholics were to make a +saint of you, like your namesake of old; especially as you have almost +avowed yourself of their religion, by undertaking to keep the lamp +alight before the Virgin's shrine." + +"No, no, Miriam!" said Hilda, who had come joyfully forward to greet +her friend. "You must not call me a Catholic. A Christian girl--even +a daughter of the Puritans--may surely pay honor to the idea of divine +Womanhood, without giving up the faith of her forefathers. But how kind +you are to climb into my dove-cote!" + +"It is no trifling proof of friendship, indeed," answered Miriam; "I +should think there were three hundred stairs at least." + +"But it will do you good," continued Hilda. "A height of some fifty feet +above the roofs of Rome gives me all the advantages that I could get +from fifty miles of distance. The air so exhilarates my spirits, that +sometimes I feel half inclined to attempt a flight from the top of my +tower, in the faith that I should float upward." + +"O, pray don't try it!" said Miriam, laughing; "If it should turn out +that you are less than an angel, you would find the stones of the Roman +pavement very hard; and if an angel, indeed, I am afraid you would never +come down among us again." + +This young American girl was an example of the freedom of life which +it is possible for a female artist to enjoy at Rome. She dwelt in her +tower, as free to descend into the corrupted atmosphere of the city +beneath, as one of her companion doves to fly downward into the +street;--all alone, perfectly independent, under her own sole +guardianship, unless watched over by the Virgin, whose shrine she +tended; doing what she liked without a suspicion or a shadow upon the +snowy whiteness of her fame. The customs of artist life bestow such +liberty upon the sex, which is elsewhere restricted within so much +narrower limits; and it is perhaps an indication that, whenever we admit +women to a wider scope of pursuits and professions, we must also remove +the shackles of our present conventional rules, which would then become +an insufferable restraint on either maid or wife. The system seems to +work unexceptionably in Rome; and in many other cases, as in Hilda's, +purity of heart and life are allowed to assert themselves, and to be +their own proof and security, to a degree unknown in the society of +other cities. + +Hilda, in her native land, had early shown what was pronounced by +connoisseurs a decided genius for the pictorial art. Even in her +schooldays--still not so very distant--she had produced sketches that +were seized upon by men of taste, and hoarded as among the choicest +treasures of their portfolios; scenes delicately imagined, lacking, +perhaps, the reality which comes only from a close acquaintance with +life, but so softly touched with feeling and fancy that you seemed to +be looking at humanity with angels' eyes. With years and experience +she might be expected to attain a darker and more forcible touch, which +would impart to her designs the relief they needed. Had Hilda remained +in her own country, it is not improbable that she might have produced +original works worthy to hang in that gallery of native art which, +we hope, is destined to extend its rich length through many future +centuries. An orphan, however, without near relatives, and possessed of +a little property, she had found it within her possibilities to come +to Italy; that central clime, whither the eyes and the heart of every +artist turn, as if pictures could not be made to glow in any other +atmosphere, as if statues could not assume grace and expression, save in +that land of whitest marble. + +Hilda's gentle courage had brought her safely over land and sea; her +mild, unflagging perseverance had made a place for her in the famous +city, even like a flower that finds a chink for itself, and a little +earth to grow in, on whatever ancient wall its slender roots may fasten. +Here she dwelt, in her tower, possessing a friend or two in Rome, but +no home companion except the flock of doves, whose cote was in a ruinous +chamber contiguous to her own. They soon became as familiar with the +fair-haired Saxon girl as if she were a born sister of their brood; and +her customary white robe bore such an analogy to their snowy plumage +that the confraternity of artists called Hilda the Dove, and recognized +her aerial apartment as the Dovecote. And while the other doves flew far +and wide in quest of what was good for them, Hilda likewise spread +her wings, and sought such ethereal and imaginative sustenance as God +ordains for creatures of her kind. + +We know not whether the result of her Italian studies, so far as it +could yet be seen, will be accepted as a good or desirable one. Certain +it is, that since her arrival in the pictorial land, Hilda seemed to +have entirely lost the impulse of original design, which brought her +thither. No doubt the girl's early dreams had been of sending forms and +hues of beauty into the visible world out of her own mind; of compelling +scenes of poetry and history to live before men's eyes, through +conceptions and by methods individual to herself. But more and more, as +she grew familiar with the miracles of art that enrich so many galleries +in Rome, Hilda had ceased to consider herself as an original artist. No, +wonder that this change should have befallen her. She was endowed with +a deep and sensitive faculty of appreciation; she had the gift of +discerning and worshipping excellence in a most unusual measure. No +other person, it is probable, recognized so adequately, and enjoyed with +such deep delight, the pictorial wonders that were here displayed. She +saw no, not saw, but felt through and through a picture; she bestowed +upon it all the warmth and richness of a woman's sympathy; not by any +intellectual effort, but by this strength of heart, and this guiding +light of sympathy, she went straight to the central point, in which the +master had conceived his work. Thus she viewed it, as it were, with his +own eyes, and hence her comprehension of any picture that interested her +was perfect. + +This power and depth of appreciation depended partly upon Hilda's +physical organization, which was at once healthful and exquisitely +delicate; and, connected with this advantage, she had a command of +hand, a nicety and force of touch, which is an endowment separate from +pictorial genius, though indispensable to its exercise. + +It has probably happened in many other instances, as it did in Hilda's +case, that she ceased to aim at original achievement in consequence of +the very gifts which so exquisitely fitted her to profit by familiarity +with the works of the mighty old masters. Reverencing these wonderful +men so deeply, she was too grateful for all they bestowed upon her, +too loyal, too humble, in their awful presence, to think of enrolling +herself in their society. Beholding the miracles of beauty which they +had achieved, the world seemed already rich enough in original designs, +and nothing more was so desirable as to diffuse those self-same beauties +more widely among mankind. All the youthful hopes and ambitions, the +fanciful ideas which she had brought from home, of great pictures to be +conceived in her feminine mind, were flung aside, and, so far as those +most intimate with her could discern, relinquished without a sigh. All +that she would henceforth attempt and that most reverently, not to say +religiously was to catch and reflect some of the glory which had been +shed upon canvas from the immortal pencils of old. + +So Hilda became a copyist: in the Pinacotheca of the Vatican, in the +galleries of the Pam-fili-Doria palace, the Borghese, the Corsini, the +Sciarra, her easel was set up before many a famous picture by Guido, +Domenichino, Raphael, and the devout painters of earlier schools than +these. Other artists and visitors from foreign lands beheld the slender, +girlish figure in front of some world-known work, absorbed, unconscious +of everything around her, seeming to live only in what she sought to do. +They smiled, no doubt, at the audacity which led her to dream of +copying those mighty achievements. But, if they paused to look over her +shoulder, and had sensibility enough to understand what was before their +eyes, they soon felt inclined to believe that the spirits of the old +masters were hovering over Hilda, and guiding her delicate white hand. +In truth, from whatever realm of bliss and many colored beauty those +spirits might descend, it would have been no unworthy errand to help so +gentle and pure a worshipper of their genius in giving the last divine +touch to her repetitions of their works. + +Her copies were indeed marvellous. Accuracy was not the phrase for them; +a Chinese copy is accurate. Hilda's had that evanescent and ethereal +life--that flitting fragrance, as it were, of the originals--which it +is as difficult to catch and retain as it would be for a sculptor to +get the very movement and varying color of a living man into his marble +bust. Only by watching the efforts of the most skilful copyists--men who +spend a lifetime, as some of them do, in multiplying copies of a +single picture--and observing how invariably they leave out just the +indefinable charm that involves the last, inestimable value, can we +understand the difficulties of the task which they undertake. + +It was not Hilda's general practice to attempt reproducing the whole of +a great picture, but to select some high, noble, and delicate portion +of it, in which the spirit and essence of the picture culminated: the +Virgin's celestial sorrow, for example, or a hovering angel, imbued +with immortal light, or a saint with the glow of heaven in his dying +face,--and these would be rendered with her whole soul. If a picture had +darkened into an indistinct shadow through time and neglect, or had been +injured by cleaning, or retouched by some profane hand, she seemed to +possess the faculty of seeing it in its pristine glory. The copy would +come from her hands with what the beholder felt must be the light which +the old master had left upon the original in bestowing his final and +most ethereal touch. In some instances even (at least, so those believed +who best appreciated Hilda's power and sensibility) she had been enabled +to execute what the great master had conceived in his imagination, but +had not so perfectly succeeded in putting upon canvas; a result surely +not impossible when such depth of sympathy as she possessed was assisted +by the delicate skill and accuracy of her slender hand. In such cases +the girl was but a finer instrument, a more exquisitely effective piece +of mechanism, by the help of which the spirit of some great departed +painter now first achieved his ideal, centuries after his own earthly +hand, that other tool, had turned to dust. + +Not to describe her as too much a wonder, however, Hilda, or the Dove, +as her well-wishers half laughingly delighted to call her, had been +pronounced by good judges incomparably the best copyist in Rome. After +minute examination of her works, the most skilful artists declared that +she had been led to her results by following precisely the same process +step by step through which the original painter had trodden to the +development of his idea. Other copyists--if such they are worthy to be +called--attempt only a superficial imitation. Copies of the old masters +in this sense are produced by thousands; there are artists, as we have +said, who spend their lives in painting the works, or perhaps one single +work, of one illustrious painter over and over again: thus they +convert themselves into Guido machines, or Raphaelic machines. Their +performances, it is true, are often wonderfully deceptive to a careless +eye; but working entirely from the outside, and seeking only to +reproduce the surface, these men are sure to leave out that indefinable +nothing, that inestimable something, that constitutes the life and +soul through which the picture gets its immortality. Hilda was no +such machine as this; she wrought religiously, and therefore wrought a +miracle. + +It strikes us that there is something far higher and nobler in all this, +in her thus sacrificing herself to the devout recognition of the highest +excellence in art, than there would have been in cultivating her not +inconsiderable share of talent for the production of works from her own +ideas. She might have set up for herself, and won no ignoble name; she +might have helped to fill the already crowded and cumbered world with +pictures, not destitute of merit, but falling short, if by ever so +little, of the best that has been done; she might thus have gratified +some tastes that were incapable of appreciating Raphael. But this could +be done only by lowering the standard of art to the comprehension of +the spectator. She chose the better and loftier and more unselfish +part, laying her individual hopes, her fame, her prospects of enduring +remembrance, at the feet of those great departed ones whom she so loved +and venerated; and therefore the world was the richer for this feeble +girl. + +Since the beauty and glory of a great picture are confined within +itself, she won out that glory by patient faith and self-devotion, +and multiplied it for mankind. From the dark, chill corner of a +gallery,--from some curtained chapel in a church, where the light came +seldom and aslant,--from the prince's carefully guarded cabinet, where +not one eye in thousands was permitted to behold it, she brought the +wondrous picture into daylight, and gave all its magic splendor for the +enjoyment of the world. Hilda's faculty of genuine admiration is one of +the rarest to be found in human nature; and let us try to recompense her +in kind by admiring her generous self-surrender, and her brave, humble +magnanimity in choosing to be the handmaid of those old magicians, +instead of a minor enchantress within a circle of her own. + +The handmaid of Raphael, whom she loved with a virgin's love! Would it +have been worth Hilda's while to relinquish this office for the sake of +giving the world a picture or two which it would call original; pretty +fancies of snow and moonlight; the counterpart in picture of so many +feminine achievements in literature! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +BEATRICE + + +Miriam was glad to find the Dove in her turret-home; for being endowed +with an infinite activity, and taking exquisite delight in the sweet +labor of which her life was full, it was Hilda's practice to flee abroad +betimes, and haunt the galleries till dusk. Happy were those (but they +were very few) whom she ever chose to be the companions of her day; they +saw the art treasures of Rome, under her guidance, as they had never +seen them before. Not that Hilda could dissertate, or talk learnedly +about pictures; she would probably have been puzzled by the technical +terms of her own art. Not that she had much to say about what she most +profoundly admired; but even her silent sympathy was so powerful that +it drew your own along with it, endowing you with a second-sight that +enabled you to see excellences with almost the depth and delicacy of her +own perceptions. + +All the Anglo-Saxon denizens of Rome, by this time, knew Hilda by sight. +Unconsciously, the poor child had become one of the spectacles of the +Eternal City, and was often pointed out to strangers, sitting at her +easel among the wild-bearded young men, the white-haired old ones, and +the shabbily dressed, painfully plain women, who make up the throng of +copyists. The old custodes knew her well, and watched over her as their +own child. Sometimes a young artist, instead of going on with a copy +of the picture before which he had placed his easel, would enrich +his canvas with an original portrait of Hilda at her work. A lovelier +subject could not have been selected, nor one which required nicer skill +and insight in doing it anything like justice. She was pretty at all +times, in our native New England style, with her light-brown ringlets, +her delicately tinged, but healthful cheek, her sensitive, intelligent, +yet most feminine and kindly face. But, every few moments, this pretty +and girlish face grew beautiful and striking, as some inward thought and +feeling brightened, rose to the surface, and then, as it were, passed +out of sight again; so that, taking into view this constantly recurring +change, it really seemed as if Hilda were only visible by the sunshine +of her soul. + +In other respects, she was a good subject for a portrait, being +distinguished by a gentle picturesqueness, which was perhaps +unconsciously bestowed by some minute peculiarity of dress, such as +artists seldom fail to assume. The effect was to make her appear like an +inhabitant of pictureland, a partly ideal creature, not to be handled, +nor even approached too closely. In her feminine self, Hilda was +natural, and of pleasant deportment, endowed with a mild cheerfulness of +temper, not overflowing with animal spirits, but never long despondent. +There was a certain simplicity that made every one her friend, but it +was combined with a subtile attribute of reserve, that insensibly kept +those at a distance who were not suited to her sphere. + +Miriam was the dearest friend whom she had ever known. Being a year or +two the elder, of longer acquaintance with Italy, and better fitted to +deal with its crafty and selfish inhabitants, she had helped Hilda to +arrange her way of life, and had encouraged her through those first +weeks, when Rome is so dreary to every newcomer. + +"But how lucky that you are at home today," said Miriam, continuing the +conversation which was begun, many pages back. "I hardly hoped to find +you, though I had a favor to ask,--a commission to put into your charge. +But what picture is this?" + +"See!" said Hilda, taking her friend's hand, and leading her in front of +the easel. "I wanted your opinion of it." + +"If you have really succeeded," observed Miriam, recognizing the picture +at the first glance, "it will be the greatest miracle you have yet +achieved." + +The picture represented simply a female head; a very youthful, girlish, +perfectly beautiful face, enveloped in white drapery, from beneath which +strayed a lock or two of what seemed a rich, though hidden luxuriance +of auburn hair. The eyes were large and brown, and met those of the +spectator, but evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape. +There was a little redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so +that you would question whether or no the girl had been weeping. The +whole face was quiet; there was no distortion or disturbance of any +single feature; nor was it easy to see why the expression was not +cheerful, or why a single touch of the artist's pencil should not +brighten it into joyousness. But, in fact, it was the very saddest +picture ever painted or conceived; it involved an unfathomable depth of +sorrow, the sense of which came to the observer by a sort of intuition. +It was a sorrow that removed this beautiful girl out of the sphere +of humanity, and set her in a far-off region, the remoteness of +which--while yet her face is so close before us--makes us shiver as at a +spectre. + +"Yes, Hilda," said her friend, after closely examining the picture, +"you have done nothing else so wonderful as this. But by what unheard-of +solicitations or secret interest have you obtained leave to copy Guido's +Beatrice Cenci? It is an unexampled favor; and the impossibility +of getting a genuine copy has filled the Roman picture shops with +Beatrices, gay, grievous, or coquettish, but never a true one among +them." + +"There has been one exquisite copy, I have heard," said Hilda, "by +an artist capable of appreciating the spirit of the picture. It was +Thompson, who brought it away piecemeal, being forbidden (like the +rest of us) to set up his easel before it. As for me, I knew the Prince +Barberini would be deaf to all entreaties; so I had no resource but +to sit down before the picture, day after day, and let it sink into my +heart. I do believe it is now photographed there. It is a sad face to +keep so close to one's heart; only what is so very beautiful can never +be quite a pain. Well; after studying it in this way, I know not how +many times, I came home, and have done my best to transfer the image to +canvas." + +"Here it is, then," said Miriam, contemplating Hilda's work with great +interest and delight, mixed with the painful sympathy that the picture +excited. "Everywhere we see oil-paintings, crayon sketches, cameos, +engravings, lithographs, pretending to be Beatrice, and representing the +poor girl with blubbered eyes, a leer of coquetry, a merry look as if +she were dancing, a piteous look as if she were beaten, and twenty other +modes of fantastic mistake. But here is Guido's very Beatrice; she that +slept in the dungeon, and awoke, betimes, to ascend the scaffold, And +now that you have done it, Hilda, can you interpret what the feeling +is, that gives this picture such a mysterious force? For my part, though +deeply sensible of its influence, I cannot seize it." + +"Nor can I, in words," replied her friend. "But while I was painting +her, I felt all the time as if she were trying to escape from my gaze. +She knows that her sorrow is so strange and so immense, that she ought +to be solitary forever, both for the world's sake and her own; and this +is the reason we feel such a distance between Beatrice and ourselves, +even when our eyes meet hers. It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet +her glance, and to feel that nothing can be done to help or comfort her; +neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing the hopelessness of her +case better than we do. She is a fallen angel,--fallen, and yet sinless; +and it is only this depth of sorrow, with its weight and darkness, that +keeps her down upon earth, and brings her within our view even while it +sets her beyond our reach." + +"You deem her sinless?" asked Miriam; "that is not so plain to me. If +I can pretend to see at all into that dim region, whence she gazes so +strangely and sadly at us, Beatrice's own conscience does not acquit her +of something evil, and never to be forgiven!" + +"Sorrow so black as hers oppresses her very nearly as sin would," said +Hilda. + +"Then," inquired Miriam, "do you think that there was no sin in the deed +for which she suffered?" + +"Ah!" replied Hilda, shuddering, "I really had quite forgotten +Beatrice's history, and was thinking of her only as the picture seems +to reveal her character. Yes, yes; it was terrible guilt, an inexpiable +crime, and she feels it to be so. Therefore it is that the forlorn +creature so longs to elude our eyes, and forever vanish away into +nothingness! Her doom is just!" + +"O Hilda, your innocence is like a sharp steel sword!" exclaimed her +friend. "Your judgments are often terribly severe, though you seem all +made up of gentleness and mercy. Beatrice's sin may not have been so +great: perhaps it was no sin at all, but the best virtue possible in the +circumstances. If she viewed it as a sin, it may have been because her +nature was too feeble for the fate imposed upon her. Ah!" continued +Miriam passionately, "if I could only get within her consciousness!--if +I could but clasp Beatrice Cenci's ghost, and draw it into myself! I +would give my life to know whether she thought herself innocent, or the +one great criminal since time began." + +As Miriam gave utterance to these words, Hilda looked from the picture +into her face, and was startled to observe that her friend's expression +had become almost exactly that of the portrait; as if her passionate +wish and struggle to penetrate poor Beatrice's mystery had been +successful. + +"O, for Heaven's sake, Miriam, do not look so!" she cried. "What an +actress you are! And I never guessed it before. Ah! now you are yourself +again!" she added, kissing her. "Leave Beatrice to me in future." + +"Cover up your magical picture, then," replied her friend, "else I +never can look away from it. It is strange, dear Hilda, how an innocent, +delicate, white soul like yours has been able to seize the subtle +mystery of this portrait; as you surely must, in order to reproduce it +so perfectly. Well; we will not talk of it any more. Do you know, I +have come to you this morning on a small matter of business. Will you +undertake it for me?" + +"O, certainly," said Hilda, laughing; "if you choose to trust me with +business." + +"Nay, it is not a matter of any difficulty," answered Miriam; "merely to +take charge of this packet, and keep it for me awhile." + +"But why not keep it yourself?" asked Hilda. + +"Partly because it will be safer in your charge," said her friend. "I +am a careless sort of person in ordinary things; while you, for all you +dwell so high above the world, have certain little housewifely ways of +accuracy and order. The packet is of some slight importance; and yet, it +may be, I shall not ask you for it again. In a week or two, you know, +I am leaving Rome. You, setting at defiance the malarial fever, mean to +stay here and haunt your beloved galleries through the summer. Now, four +months hence, unless you hear more from me, I would have you deliver the +packet according to its address." + +Hilda read the direction; it was to Signore Luca Barboni, at the Plazzo +Cenci, third piano. + +"I will deliver it with my own hand," said she, "precisely four months +from to-day, unless you bid me to the contrary. Perhaps I shall meet the +ghost of Beatrice in that grim old palace of her forefathers." + +"In that case," rejoined Miriam, "do not fail to speak to her, and +try to win her confidence. Poor thing! she would be all the better for +pouring her heart out freely, and would be glad to do it, if she were +sure of sympathy. It irks my brain and heart to think of her, all shut +up within herself." She withdrew the cloth that Hilda had drawn over the +picture, and took another long look at it. "Poor sister Beatrice! for +she was still a woman, Hilda, still a sister, be her sin or sorrow what +they might. How well you have done it, Hilda! I knot not whether Guido +will thank you, or be jealous of your rivalship." + +"Jealous, indeed!" exclaimed Hilda. "If Guido had not wrought through +me, my pains would have been thrown away." + +"After all," resumed Miriam, "if a woman had painted the original +picture, there might have been something in it which we miss now. I +have a great mind to undertake a copy myself; and try to give it what +it lacks. Well; goodby. But, stay! I am going for a little airing to +the grounds of the Villa Borghese this afternoon. You will think it very +foolish, but I always feel the safer in your company, Hilda, slender +little maiden as you are. Will you come?" + +"Ah, not to-day, dearest Miriam," she replied; "I have set my heart on +giving another touch or two to this picture, and shall not stir abroad +till nearly sunset." + +"Farewell, then," said her visitor. "I leave you in your dove-cote. What +a sweet, strange life you lead here; conversing with the souls of the +old masters, feeding and fondling your sister doves, and trimming the +Virgin's lamp! Hilda, do you ever pray to the Virgin while you tend her +shrine?" + +"Sometimes I have been moved to do so," replied the Dove, blushing, +and lowering her eyes; "she was a woman once. Do you think it would be +wrong?" + +"Nay, that is for you to judge," said Miriam; "but when you pray next, +dear friend, remember me!" + +She went down the long descent of the lower staircase, and just as she +reached the street the flock of doves again took their hurried flight +from the pavement to the topmost window. She threw her eyes upward +and beheld them hovering about Hilda's head; for, after her friend's +departure, the girl had been more impressed than before by something +very sad and troubled in her manner. She was, therefore, leaning forth +from her airy abode, and flinging down a kind, maidenly kiss, and a +gesture of farewell, in the hope that these might alight upon Miriam's +heart, and comfort its unknown sorrow a little. Kenyon the sculptor, who +chanced to be passing the head of the street, took note of that ethereal +kiss, and wished that he could have caught it in the air and got Hilda's +leave to keep it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE SUBURBAN VILLA + + +Donatello, while it was still a doubtful question betwixt afternoon and +morning, set forth to keep the appointment which Miriam had carelessly +tendered him in the grounds of the Villa Borghese. The entrance to these +grounds (as all my readers know, for everybody nowadays has been in +Rome) is just outside of the Porta del Popolo. Passing beneath that not +very impressive specimen of Michael Angelo's architecture, a minute's +walk will transport the visitor from the small, uneasy, lava stones +of the Roman pavement into broad, gravelled carriage-drives, whence +a little farther stroll brings him to the soft turf of a beautiful +seclusion. A seclusion, but seldom a solitude; for priest, noble, and +populace, stranger and native, all who breathe Roman air, find free +admission, and come hither to taste the languid enjoyment of the +day-dream that they call life. + +But Donatello's enjoyment was of a livelier kind. He soon began to draw +long and delightful breaths among those shadowy walks. Judging by the +pleasure which the sylvan character of the scene excited in him, it +might be no merely fanciful theory to set him down as the kinsman, not +far remote, of that wild, sweet, playful, rustic creature, to whose +marble image he bore so striking a resemblance. How mirthful a discovery +would it be (and yet with a touch of pathos in it), if the breeze which +sported fondly with his clustering locks were to waft them suddenly +aside, and show a pair of leaf-shaped, furry ears! What an honest strain +of wildness would it indicate! and into what regions of rich mystery +would it extend Donatello's sympathies, to be thus linked (and by no +monstrous chain) with what we call the inferior trioes of being, whose +simplicity, mingled with his human intelligence, might partly restore +what man has lost of the divine! + +The scenery amid which the youth now strayed was such as arrays itself +in the imagination when we read the beautiful old myths, and fancy a +brighter sky, a softer turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable +trees, than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the Western +world. The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-honored were they, seemed to +have lived for ages undisturbed, and to feel no dread of profanation by +the axe any more than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It had already +passed out of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago they +were grievously imperilled by the Gaul's last assault upon the walls of +Rome. As if confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they assumed +attitudes of indolent repose. They leaned over the green turf in +ponderous grace, throwing abroad their great branches without danger +of interfering with other trees, though other majestic trees grew near +enough for dignified society, but too distant for constraint. Never +was there a more venerable quietude than that which slept among their +sheltering boughs; never a sweeter sunshine than that now gladdening +the gentle gloom which these leafy patriarchs strove to diffuse over the +swelling and subsiding lawns. + +In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lifted their dense +clump of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high that they +looked like green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow upon the +turf so far off that you hardly knew which tree had made it. Again, +there were avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge funeral +candles, which spread dusk and twilight round about them instead of +cheerful radiance. The more open spots were all abloom, even so early in +the season, with anemones of wondrous size, both white and rose-colored, +and violets that betrayed themselves by their rich fragrance, even if +their blue eyes failed to meet your own. Daisies, too, were abundant, +but larger than the modest little English flower, and therefore of small +account. + +These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful than the finest +of English park scenery, more touching, more impressive, through the +neglect that leaves Nature so much to her own ways and methods. Since +man seldom interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet way +and makes herself at home. There is enough of human care, it is true, +bestowed, long ago and still bestowed, to prevent wildness from growing +into deformity; and the result is an ideal landscape, a woodland scene +that seems to have been projected out of the poet's mind. If the ancient +Faun were other than a mere creation of old poetry, and could have +reappeared anywhere, it must have been in such a scene as this. + +In the openings of the wood there are fountains plashing into marble +basins, the depths of which are shaggy with water-weeds; or they tumble +like natural cascades from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to +make the quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here and there +with careless artifice, stand old altars bearing Roman inscriptions. +Statues, gray with the long corrosion of even that soft atmosphere, half +hide and half reveal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen +and broken on the turf. Terminal figures, columns of marble or granite +porticos, arches, are seen in the vistas of the wood-paths, either +veritable relics of antiquity, or with so exquisite a touch of artful +ruin on them that they are better than if really antique. At all events, +grass grows on the tops of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers +root themselves in the chinks of the massive arches and fronts of +temples, and clamber at large over their pediments, as if this were the +thousandth summer since their winged seeds alighted there. + +What a strange idea--what a needless labor--to construct artificial +ruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin! But even these sportive +imitations, wrought by man in emulation of what time has done to temples +and palaces, are perhaps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions, +have grown to be venerable in sober earnest. The result of all is a +scene, pensive, lovely, dreamlike, enjoyable and sad, such as is to +be found nowhere save in these princely villa-residences in the +neighborhood of Rome; a scene that must have required generations and +ages, during which growth, decay, and man's intelligence wrought kindly +together, to render it so gently wild as we behold it now. + +The final charm is bestowed by the malaria. There is a piercing, +thrilling, delicious kind of regret in the idea of so much beauty thrown +away, or only enjoyable at its half-development, in winter and early +spring, and never to be dwelt amongst, as the home scenery of any human +being. For if you come hither in summer, and stray through these glades +in the golden sunset, fever walks arm in arm with you, and death awaits +you at the end of the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its +loveliness; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it beyond +the scope of man's actual possessions. But Donatello felt nothing of +this dream-like melancholy that haunts the spot. As he passed among the +sunny shadows, his spirit seemed to acquire new elasticity. The flicker +of the sunshine, the sparkle of the fountain's gush, the dance of the +leaf upon the bough, the woodland fragrance, the green freshness, +the old sylvan peace and freedom, were all intermingled in those long +breaths which he drew. + +The ancient dust, the mouldiness of Rome, the dead atmosphere in which +he had wasted so many months, the hard pavements, the smell of ruin and +decaying generations, the chill palaces, the convent bells, the heavy +incense of altars, the life that he had led in those dark, narrow +streets, among priests, soldiers, nobles, artists, and women,--all the +sense of these things rose from the young man's consciousness like a +cloud which had darkened over him without his knowing how densely. + +He drank in the natural influences of the scene, and was intoxicated as +by an exhilarating wine. He ran races with himself along the gleam and +shadow of the wood-paths. He leapt up to catch the overhanging bough of +an ilex, and swinging himself by it alighted far onward, as if he had +flown thither through the air. In a sudden rapture he embraced the +trunk of a sturdy tree, and seemed to imagine it a creature worthy of +affection and capable of a tender response; he clasped it closely in his +arms, as a Faun might have clasped the warm feminine grace of the nymph, +whom antiquity supposed to dwell within that rough, encircling rind. +Then, in order to bring himself closer to the genial earth, with which +his kindred instincts linked him so strongly, he threw himself at full +length on the turf, and pressed down his lips, kissing the violets and +daisies, which kissed him back again, though shyly, in their maiden +fashion. + +While he lay there, it was pleasant to see how the green and blue +lizards, who had beta basking on some rock or on a fallen pillar that +absorbed the warmth of the sun, scrupled not to scramble over him with +their small feet; and how the birds alighted on the nearest twigs and +sang their little roundelays unbroken by any chirrup of alarm; they +recognized him, it may be, as something akin to themselves, or else they +fancied that he was rooted and grew there; for these wild pets of nature +dreaded him no more in his buoyant life than if a mound of soil and +grass and flowers had long since covered his dead body, converting it +back to the sympathies from which human existence had estranged it. + +All of us, after a long abode in cities, have felt the blood gush more +joyously through our veins with the first breath of rural air; few could +feel it so much as Donatello, a creature of simple elements, bred in +the sweet sylvan life of Tuscany, and for months back dwelling amid the +mouldy gloom and dim splendor of old Rome. Nature has been shut out for +numberless centuries from those stony-hearted streets, to which he had +latterly grown accustomed; there is no trace of her, except for what +blades of grass spring out of the pavements of the less trodden piazzas, +or what weeds cluster and tuft themselves on the cornices of ruins. +Therefore his joy was like that of a child that had gone astray from +home, and finds him suddenly in his mother's arms again. + +At last, deeming it full time for Miriam to keep her tryst, he climbed +to the tiptop of the tallest tree, and thence looked about him, swaying +to and fro in the gentle breeze, which was like the respiration of that +great leafy, living thing. Donatello saw beneath him the whole circuit +of the enchanted ground; the statues and columns pointing upward from +among the shrubbery, the fountains flashing in the sunlight, the paths +winding hither and thither, and continually finding out some nook of new +and ancient pleasantness. He saw the villa, too, with its marble front +incrusted all over with basreliefs, and statues in its many niches. It +was as beautiful as a fairy palace, and seemed an abode in which the +lord and lady of this fair domain might fitly dwell, and come forth each +morning to enjoy as sweet a life as their happiest dreams of the past +night could have depicted. All this he saw, but his first glance had +taken in too wide a sweep, and it was not till his eyes fell almost +directly beneath him, that Donatello beheld Miriam just turning into the +path that led across the roots of his very tree. + +He descended among the foliage, waiting for her to come close to the +trunk, and then suddenly dropped from an impending bough, and alighted +at her side. It was as if the swaying of the branches had let a ray +of sunlight through. The same ray likewise glimmered among the gloomy +meditations that encompassed Miriam, and lit up the pale, dark beauty of +her face, while it responded pleasantly to Donatello's glance. + +"I hardly know," said she, smiling, "whether you have sprouted out of +the earth, or fallen from the clouds. In either case you are welcome." + +And they walked onward together. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE FAUN AND NYMPH + + +Miriam's sadder mood, it might be, had at first an effect on Donatello's +spirits. It checked the joyous ebullition into which they would +otherwise have effervesced when he found himself in her society, not, as +heretofore, in the old gloom of Rome, but under that bright soft sky and +in those Arcadian woods. He was silent for a while; it being, indeed, +seldom Donatello's impulse to express himself copiously in words. His +usual modes of demonstration were by the natural language of gesture, +the instinctive movement of his agile frame, and the unconscious play +of his features, which, within a limited range of thought and emotion, +would speak volumes in a moment. + +By and by, his own mood seemed to brighten Miriam's, and was reflected +back upon himself. He began inevitably, as it were, to dance along +the wood-path; flinging himself into attitudes of strange comic grace. +Often, too, he ran a little way in advance of his companion, and then +stood to watch her as she approached along the shadowy and sun-fleckered +path. With every step she took, he expressed his joy at her nearer +and nearer presence by what might be thought an extravagance of +gesticulation, but which doubtless was the language of the natural man, +though laid aside and forgotten by other men, now that words have been +feebly substituted in the place of signs and symbols. He gave Miriam the +idea of a being not precisely man, nor yet a child, but, in a high and +beautiful sense, an animal, a creature in a state of development less +than what mankind has attained, yet the more perfect within itself +for that very deficiency. This idea filled her mobile imagination with +agreeable fantasies, which, after smiling at them herself, she tried to +convey to the young man. + +"What are you, my friend?" she exclaimed, always keeping in mind his +singular resemblance to the Faun of the Capitol. "If you are, in good +truth, that wild and pleasant creature whose face you wear, pray make me +known to your kindred. They will be found hereabouts, if anywhere. Knock +at the rough rind of this ilex-tree, and summon forth the Dryad! Ask the +water-nymph to rise dripping from yonder fountain, and exchange a moist +pressure of the hand with me! Do not fear that I shall shrink; even if +one of your rough cousins, a hairy Satyr, should come capering on his +goat-legs out of the haunts of far antiquity, and propose to dance with +me among these lawns! And will not Bacchus,--with whom you consorted so +familiarly of old, and who loved you so well,--will he not meet us here, +and squeeze rich grapes into his cup for you and me?" + +Donatello smiled; he laughed heartily, indeed, in sympathy with the +mirth that gleamed out of Miriam's deep, dark eyes. But he did not seem +quite to understand her mirthful talk, nor to be disposed to explain +what kind of creature he was, or to inquire with what divine or poetic +kindred his companion feigned to link him. He appeared only to know that +Miriam was beautiful, and that she smiled graciously upon him; that +the present moment was very sweet, and himself most happy, with the +sunshine, the sylvan scenery, and woman's kindly charm, which it +enclosed within its small circumference. It was delightful to see the +trust which he reposed in Miriam, and his pure joy in her propinquity; +he asked nothing, sought nothing, save to be near the beloved object, +and brimmed over with ecstasy at that simple boon. A creature of the +happy tribes below us sometimes shows the capacity of this enjoyment; a +man, seldom or never. + +"Donatello," said Miriam, looking at him thoughtfully, but amused, yet +not without a shade of sorrow, "you seem very happy; what makes you so?" + +"Because I love you!" answered Donatello. + +He made this momentous confession as if it were the most natural +thing in the world; and on her part,--such was the contagion of his +simplicity,--Miriam heard it without anger or disturbance, though with +no responding emotion. It was as if they had strayed across the limits +of Arcadia; and come under a civil polity where young men might avow +their passion with as little restraint as a bird pipes its note to a +similar purpose. + +"Why should you love me, foolish boy?" said she. "We have no points of +sympathy at all. There are not two creatures more unlike, in this wide +world, than you and I!" + +"You are yourself, and I am Donatello," replied he. "Therefore I love +you! There needs no other reason." + +Certainly, there was no better or more explicable reason. It might +have been imagined that Donatello's unsophisticated heart would be more +readily attracted to a feminine nature of clear simplicity like his own, +than to one already turbid with grief or wrong, as Miriam's seemed to +be. Perhaps, On the other hand, his character needed the dark element, +which it found in her. The force and energy of will, that sometimes +flashed through her eyes, may have taken him captive; or, not +improbably, the varying lights and shadows of her temper, now so +mirthful, and anon so sad with mysterious gloom, had bewitched the +youth. Analyze the matter as we may, the reason assigned by Donatello +himself was as satisfactory as we are likely to attain. + +Miriam could not think seriously of the avowal that had passed. He held +out his love so freely, in his open palm, that she felt it could be +nothing but a toy, which she might play with for an instant, and give +back again. And yet Donatello's heart was so fresh a fountain, that, +had Miriam been more world-worn than she was, she might have found +it exquisite to slake her thirst with the feelings that welled up and +brimmed over from it. She was far, very far, from the dusty mediaeval +epoch, when some women have a taste for such refreshment. Even for +her, however, there was an inexpressible charm in the simplicity that +prompted Donatello's words and deeds; though, unless she caught them +in precisely the true light, they seemed but folly, the offspring of +a maimed or imperfectly developed intellect. Alternately, she almost +admired, or wholly scorned him, and knew not which estimate resulted +from the deeper appreciation. But it could not, she decided for herself, +be other than an innocent pastime, if they two--sure to be separated by +their different paths in life, to-morrow--were to gather up some of the +little pleasures that chanced to grow about their feet, like the violets +and wood-anemones, to-day. + +Yet an impulse of rectitude impelled Miriam to give him what she still +held to be a needless warning against an imaginary peril. + +"If you were wiser, Donatello, you would think me a dangerous person," +said she, "If you follow my footsteps, they will lead you to no good. +You ought to be afraid of me." + +"I would as soon think of fearing the air we breathe," he replied. + +"And well you may, for it is full of malaria," said Miriam; she went on, +hinting at an intangible confession, such as persons with overburdened +hearts often make to children or dumb animals, or to holes in the earth, +where they think their secrets may be at once revealed and buried. +"Those who come too near me are in danger of great mischiefs, I do +assure you. Take warning, therefore! It is a sad fatality that has +brought you from your home among the Apennines,--some rusty old castle, +I suppose, with a village at its foot, and an Arcadian environment of +vineyards, fig-trees, and olive orchards,--a sad mischance, I say, that +has transported you to my side. You have had a happy life hitherto, have +you not, Donatello?" + +"O, yes," answered the young man; and, though not of a retrospective +turn, he made the best effort he could to send his mind back into the +past. "I remember thinking it happiness to dance with the contadinas at +a village feast; to taste the new, sweet wine at vintage-time, and the +old, ripened wine, which our podere is famous for, in the cold winter +evenings; and to devour great, luscious figs, and apricots, peaches, +cherries, and melons. I was often happy in the woods, too, with hounds +and horses, and very happy in watching all sorts, of creatures and birds +that haunt the leafy solitudes. But never half so happy as now!" + +"In these delightful groves?" she asked. + +"Here, and with you," answered Donatello. "Just as we are now." + +"What a fulness of content in him! How silly, and how delightful!" said +Miriam to herself. Then addressing him again: "But, Donatello, how long +will this happiness last?" + +"How long!" he exclaimed; for it perplexed him even more to think of the +future than to remember the past. "Why should it have any end? How long! +Forever! forever! forever!" + +"The child! the simpleton!" said Miriam, with sudden laughter, and +checking it as suddenly. "But is he a simpleton indeed? Here, in those +few natural words, he has expressed that deep sense, that profound +conviction of its own immortality, which genuine love never fails to +bring. He perplexes me,--yes, and bewitches me,--wild, gentle, beautiful +creature that he is! It is like playing with a young greyhound!" + +Her eyes filled with tears, at the same time that a smile shone out of +them. Then first she became sensible of a delight and grief at once, in +feeling this zephyr of a new affection, with its untainted freshness, +blow over her weary, stifled heart, which had no right to be revived by +it. The very exquisiteness of the enjoyment made her know that it ought +to be a forbidden one. + +"Donatello," she hastily exclaimed, "for your own sake, leave me! It is +not such a happy thing as you imagine it, to wander in these woods with +me, a girl from another land, burdened with a doom that she tells to +none. I might make you dread me,--perhaps hate me,--if I chose; and I +must choose, if I find you loving me too well!" + +"I fear nothing!" said Donatello, looking into her unfathomable eyes +with perfect trust. "I love always!" + +"I speak in vain," thought Miriam within herself. + +"Well, then, for this one hour, let me be such as he imagines me. +To-morrow will be time enough to come back to my reality. My reality! +what is it? Is the past so indestructible? the future so immitigable? +Is the dark dream, in which I walk, of such solid, stony substance, that +there can be no escape out of its dungeon? Be it so! There is, at +least, that ethereal quality in my spirit, that it can make me as gay as +Donatello himself,--for this one hour!" + +And immediately she brightened up, as if an inward flame, heretofore +stifled, were now permitted to fill her with its happy lustre, glowing +through her cheeks and dancing in her eye-beams. + +Donatello, brisk and cheerful as he seemed before, showed a sensibility +to Miriam's gladdened mood by breaking into still wilder and +ever-varying activity. He frisked around her, bubbling over with joy, +which clothed itself in words that had little individual meaning, and +in snatches of song that seemed as natural as bird notes. Then they both +laughed together, and heard their own laughter returning in the echoes, +and laughed again at the response, so that the ancient and solemn grove +became full of merriment for these two blithe spirits. A bird happening +to sing cheerily, Donatello gave a peculiar call, and the little +feathered creature came fluttering about his head, as if it had known +him through many summers. + +"How close he stands to nature!" said Miriam, observing this pleasant +familiarity between her companion and the bird. "He shall make me as +natural as himself for this one hour." + +As they strayed through that sweet wilderness, she felt more and more +the influence of his elastic temperament. Miriam was an impressible +and impulsive creature, as unlike herself, in different moods, as if a +melancholy maiden and a glad one were both bound within the girdle about +her waist, and kept in magic thraldom by the brooch that clasped it. +Naturally, it is true, she was the more inclined to melancholy, +yet fully capable of that high frolic of the spirits which richly +compensates for many gloomy hours; if her soul was apt to lurk in the +darkness of a cavern, she could sport madly in the sunshine before +the cavern's mouth. Except the freshest mirth of animal spirits, like +Donatello's, there is no merriment, no wild exhilaration, comparable to +that of melancholy people escaping from the dark region in which it is +their custom to keep themselves imprisoned. + +So the shadowy Miriam almost outdid Donatello on his own ground. They +ran races with each other, side by side, with shouts and laughter; they +pelted one another with early flowers, and gathering them up twined +them with green leaves into garlands for both their heads. They played +together like children, or creatures of immortal youth. So much had they +flung aside the sombre habitudes of daily life, that they seemed born +to be sportive forever, and endowed with eternal mirthfulness instead +of any deeper joy. It was a glimpse far backward into Arcadian life, or, +further still, into the Golden Age, before mankind was burdened with +sin and sorrow, and before pleasure had been darkened with those shadows +that bring it into high relief, and make it happiness. + +"Hark!" cried Donatello, stopping short, as he was about to bind +Miriam's fair hands with flowers, and lead her along in triumph, "there +is music somewhere in the grove!" + +"It is your kinsman, Pan, most likely," said Miriam, "playing on his +pipe. Let us go seek him, and make him puff out his rough cheeks and +pipe his merriest air! Come; the strain of music will guide us onward +like a gayly colored thread of silk." + +"Or like a chain of flowers," responded Donatello, drawing her along by +that which he had twined. "This way!--Come!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE SYLVAN DANCE + + +As the music came fresher on their ears, they danced to its cadence, +extemporizing new steps and attitudes. Each varying movement had a grace +which might have been worth putting into marble, for the long delight of +days to come, but vanished with the movement that gave it birth, and was +effaced from memory by another. In Miriam's motion, freely as she flung +herself into the frolic of the hour, there was still an artful beauty; +in Donatello's, there was a charm of indescribable grotesqueness hand +in hand with grace; sweet, bewitching, most provocative of laughter, +and yet akin to pathos, so deeply did it touch the heart. This was the +ultimate peculiarity, the final touch, distinguishing between the sylvan +creature and the beautiful companion at his side. Setting apart only +this, Miriam resembled a Nymph, as much as Donatello did a Faun. + +There were flitting moments, indeed, when she played the sylvan +character as perfectly as he. Catching glimpses of her, then, you would +have fancied that an oak had sundered its rough bark to let her dance +freely forth, endowed with the same spirit in her human form as that +which rustles in the leaves; or that she had emerged through the +pebbly bottom of a fountain, a water-nymph, to play and sparkle in +the sunshine, flinging a quivering light around her, and suddenly +disappearing in a shower of rainbow drops. + +As the fountain sometimes subsides into its basin, so in Miriam there +were symptoms that the frolic of her spirits would at last tire itself +out. + +"Ah! Donatello," cried she, laughing, as she stopped to take a breath; +"you have an unfair advantage over me! I am no true creature of the +woods; while you are a real Faun, I do believe. When your curls shook +just now, methought I had a peep at the pointed ears." + +Donatello snapped his fingers above his head, as fauns and satyrs taught +us first to do, and seemed to radiate jollity out of his whole nimble +person. Nevertheless, there was a kind of dim apprehension in his face, +as if he dreaded that a moment's pause might break the spell, and snatch +away the sportive companion whom he had waited for through so many +dreary months. + +"Dance! dance!" cried he joyously. "If we take breath, we shall be as +we were yesterday. There, now, is the music, just beyond this clump of +trees. Dance, Miriam, dance!" + +They had now reached an open, grassy glade (of which there are many in +that artfully constructed wilderness), set round with stone seats, +on which the aged moss had kindly essayed to spread itself instead of +cushions. On one of the stone benches sat the musicians, whose strains +had enticed our wild couple thitherward. They proved to be a vagrant +band, such as Rome, and all Italy, abounds with; comprising a harp, +a flute, and a violin, which, though greatly the worse for wear, +the performers had skill enough to provoke and modulate into tolerable +harmony. It chanced to be a feast-day; and, instead of playing in +the sun-scorched piazzas of the city, or beneath the windows of some +unresponsive palace, they had bethought themselves to try the echoes +of these woods; for, on the festas of the Church, Rome scatters its +merrymakers all abroad, ripe for the dance or any other pastime. + +As Miriam and Donatello emerged from among the trees, the musicians +scraped, tinkled, or blew, each according to his various kind of +instrument, more inspiringly than ever. A darkchecked little girl, +with bright black eyes, stood by, shaking a tambourine set round +with tinkling bells, and thumping it on its parchment head. Without +interrupting his brisk, though measured movement, Donatello snatched +away this unmelodious contrivance, and, flourishing it above his head, +produced music of indescribable potency, still dancing with frisky step, +and striking the tambourine, and ringing its little bells, all in one +jovial act. + +It might be that there was magic in the sound, or contagion, at least, +in the spirit which had got possession of Miriam and himself, for very +soon a number of festal people were drawn to the spot, and struck +into the dance, singly or in pairs, as if they were all gone mad with +jollity. Among them were some of the plebeian damsels whom we meet +bareheaded in the Roman streets, with silver stilettos thrust through +their glossy hair; the contadinas, too, from the Campagna and the +villages, with their rich and picturesque costumes of scarlet and all +bright hues, such as fairer maidens might not venture to put on. Then +came the modern Roman from Trastevere, perchance, with his old cloak +drawn about him like a toga, which anon, as his active motion heated +him, he flung aside. Three French soldiers capered freely into the +throng, in wide scarlet trousers, their short swords dangling at their +sides; and three German artists in gray flaccid hats and flaunting +beards; and one of the Pope's Swiss guardsmen in the strange motley garb +which Michael Angelo contrived for them. Two young English tourists (one +of them a lord) took contadine partners and dashed in, as did also a +shaggy man in goat-skin breeches, who looked like rustic Pan in person, +and footed it as merrily as he. Besides the above there was a herdsman +or two from the Campagna, and a few peasants in sky-blue jackets, and +small-clothes tied with ribbons at the knees; haggard and sallow were +these last, poor serfs, having little to eat and nothing but the malaria +to breathe; but still they plucked up a momentary spirit and joined +hands in Donatello's dance. + +Here, as it seemed, had the Golden Age come back again within the +Precincts of this sunny glade, thawing mankind out of their cold +formalities, releasing them from irksome restraint, mingling them +together in such childlike gayety that new flowers (of which the old +bosom of the earth is full) sprang up beneath their footsteps. The sole +exception to the geniality of the moment, as we have understood, was +seen in a countryman of our own, who sneered at the spectacle, and +declined to compromise his dignity by making part of it. + +The harper thrummed with rapid fingers; the violin player flashed his +bow back and forth across the strings; the flautist poured his breath in +quick puffs of jollity, while Donatello shook the tambourine above his +head, and led the merry throng with unweariable steps. As they followed +one another in a wild ring of mirth, it seemed the realization of one +of those bas-reliefs where a dance of nymphs, satyrs, or bacchanals +is twined around the circle of an antique vase; or it was like the +sculptured scene on the front and sides of a sarcophagus, where, as +often as any other device, a festive procession mocks the ashes and +white bones that are treasured up within. You might take it for a +marriage pageant; but after a while, if you look at these merry-makers, +following them from end to end of the marble coffin, you doubt whether +their gay movement is leading them to a happy close. A youth has +suddenly fallen in the dance; a chariot is overturned and broken, +flinging the charioteer headlong to the ground; a maiden seems to have +grown faint or weary, and is drooping on the bosom of a friend. Always +some tragic incident is shadowed forth or thrust sidelong into the +spectacle; and when once it has caught your eye you can look no more +at the festal portions of the scene, except with reference to this one +slightly suggested doom and sorrow. + +As in its mirth, so in the darker characteristic here alluded to, there +was an analogy between the sculptured scene on the sarcophagus and the +wild dance which we have been describing. In the midst of its madness +and riot Miriam found herself suddenly confronted by a strange figure +that shook its fantastic garments in the air, and pranced before her on +its tiptoes, almost vying with the agility of Donatello himself. It was +the model. + +A moment afterwards Donatello was aware that she had retired from the +dance. He hastened towards her, and flung himself on the grass beside +the stone bench on which Miriam was sitting. But a strange distance and +unapproachableness had all at once enveloped her; and though he saw her +within reach of his arm, yet the light of her eyes seemed as far off as +that of a star, nor was there any warmth in the melancholy smile with +which she regarded him. + +"Come back!" cried he. "Why should this happy hour end so soon?" + +"It must end here, Donatello," said she, in answer to his words and +outstretched hand; "and such hours, I believe, do not often repeat +themselves in a lifetime. Let me go, my friend; let me vanish from you +quietly among the shadows of these trees. See, the companions of our +pastime are vanishing already!" + +Whether it was that the harp-strings were broken, the violin out of +tune, or the flautist out of breath, so it chanced that the music had +ceased, and the dancers come abruptly to a pause. All that motley throng +of rioters was dissolved as suddenly as it had been drawn together. In +Miriam's remembrance the scene had a character of fantasy. It was as if +a company of satyrs, fauns, and nymphs, with Pan in the midst of them, +had been disporting themselves in these venerable woods only a moment +ago; and now in another moment, because some profane eye had looked at +them too closely, or some intruder had cast a shadow on their mirth, +the sylvan pageant had utterly disappeared. If a few of the merry-makers +lingered among the trees, they had hidden their racy peculiarities under +the garb and aspect of ordinary people, and sheltered themselves in the +weary commonplace of daily life. Just an instant before it was Arcadia +and the Golden Age. The spell being broken, it was now only that old +tract of pleasure ground, close by the people's gate of Rome,--a +tract where the crimes and calamities of ages, the many battles, blood +recklessly poured out, and deaths of myriads, have corrupted all the +soil, creating an influence that makes the air deadly to human lungs. + +"You must leave me," said Miriam to Donatello more imperatively than +before; "have I not said it? Go; and look not behind you." + +"Miriam," whispered Donatello, grasping her hand forcibly, "who is it +that stands in the shadow yonder, beckoning you to follow him?" + +"Hush; leave me!" repeated Miriam. "Your hour is past; his hour has +come." + +Donatello still gazed in the direction which he had indicated, and +the expression of his face was fearfully changed, being so disordered, +perhaps with terror,--at all events with anger and invincible +repugnance,--that Miriam hardly knew him. His lips were drawn apart so +as to disclose his set teeth, thus giving him a look of animal rage, +which we seldom see except in persons of the simplest and rudest +natures. A shudder seemed to pass through his very bones. + +"I hate him!" muttered he. + +"Be satisfied; I hate him too!" said Miriam. + +She had no thought of making this avowal, but was irresistibly drawn to +it by the sympathy of the dark emotion in her own breast with that so +strongly expressed by Donatello. Two drops of water or of blood do not +more naturally flow into each other than did her hatred into his. + +"Shall I clutch him by the throat?" whispered Donatello, with a savage +scowl. "Bid me do so, and we are rid of him forever." + +"In Heaven's name, no violence!" exclaimed Miriam, affrighted out of the +scornful control which she had hitherto held over her companion, by +the fierceness that he so suddenly developed. "O, have pity on +me, Donatello, if for nothing else, yet because in the midst of my +wretchedness I let myself be your playmate for this one wild +hour! Follow me no farther. Henceforth leave me to my doom. Dear +friend,--kind, simple, loving friend,--make me not more wretched by the +remembrance of having thrown fierce hates or loves into the wellspring +of your happy life!" + +"Not follow you!" repeated Donatello, soothed from anger into sorrow, +less by the purport of what she said, than by the melancholy sweetness +of her voice,--"not follow you! What other path have I?" + +"We will talk of it once again," said Miriam still soothingly; +"soon--to-morrow when you will; only leave me now." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES + + +In the Borghese Grove, so recently uproarious with merriment and music, +there remained only Miriam and her strange follower. + +A solitude had suddenly spread itself around them. It perhaps symbolized +a peculiar character in the relation of these two, insulating them, and +building up an insuperable barrier between their life-streams and other +currents, which might seem to flow in close vicinity. For it is one of +the chief earthly incommodities of some species of misfortune, or of a +great crime, that it makes the actor in the one, or the sufferer of +the other, an alien in the world, by interposing a wholly unsympathetic +medium betwixt himself and those whom he yearns to meet. + +Owing, it may be, to this moral estrangement,--this chill remoteness of +their position,--there have come to us but a few vague whisperings +of what passed in Miriam's interview that afternoon with the sinister +personage who had dogged her footsteps ever since the visit to the +catacomb. In weaving these mystic utterances into a continuous scene, we +undertake a task resembling in its perplexity that of gathering up +and piecing together the fragments ora letter which has been torn and +scattered to the winds. Many words of deep significance, many entire +sentences, and those possibly the most important ones, have flown +too far on the winged breeze to be recovered. If we insert our own +conjectural amendments, we perhaps give a purport utterly at variance +with the true one. Yet unless we attempt something in this way, +there must remain an unsightly gap, and a lack of continuousness +and dependence in our narrative; so that it would arrive at certain +inevitable catastrophes without due warning of their imminence. + +Of so much we are sure, that there seemed to be a sadly mysterious +fascination in the influence of this ill-omened person over Miriam; +it was such as beasts and reptiles of subtle and evil nature sometimes +exercise upon their victims. Marvellous it was to see the hopelessness +with which being naturally of so courageous a spirit she resigned +herself to the thraldom in which he held her. That iron chain, of which +some of the massive links were round her feminine waist, and the others +in his ruthless hand,--or which, perhaps, bound the pair together by +a bond equally torturing to each,--must have been forged in some such +unhallowed furnace as is only kindled by evil passions, and fed by evil +deeds. + +Yet, let us trust, there may have been no crime in Miriam, but only +one of those fatalities which are among the most insoluble riddles +propounded to mortal comprehension; the fatal decree by which every +crime is made to be the agony of many innocent persons, as well as of +the single guilty one. + +It was, at any rate, but a feeble and despairing kind of remonstrance +which she had now the energy to oppose against his persecution. + +"You follow me too closely," she said, in low, faltering accents; "you +allow me too scanty room to draw my breath. Do you know what will be the +end of this?" "I know well what must be the end," he replied. + +"Tell me, then," said Miriam, "that I may compare your foreboding with +my own. Mine is a very dark one." + +"There can be but one result, and that soon," answered the model. "You +must throw off your present mask and assume another. You must vanish out +of the scene: quit Rome with me, and leave no trace whereby to follow +you. It is in my power, as you well know, to compel your acquiescence in +my bidding. You are aware of the penalty of a refusal." + +"Not that penalty with which you would terrify me," said Miriam; +"another there may be, but not so grievous." "What is that other?" +he inquired. "Death! simply death!" she answered. "Death," said her +persecutor, "is not so simple and opportune a thing as you imagine. You +are strong and warm with life. Sensitive and irritable as your spirit +is, these many months of trouble, this latter thraldom in which I hold +you, have scarcely made your cheek paler than I saw it in your girlhood. +Miriam,--for I forbear to speak another name, at which these leaves +would shiver above our heads,--Miriam, you cannot die!" + +"Might not a dagger find my heart?" said she, for the first time meeting +his eyes. "Would not poison make an end of me? Will not the Tiber drown +me?" + +"It might," he answered; "for I allow that you are mortal. But, Miriam, +believe me, it is not your fate to die while there remains so much to be +sinned and suffered in the world. We have a destiny which we must needs +fulfil together. I, too, have struggled to escape it. I was as anxious +as yourself to break the tie between us,--to bury the past in a +fathomless grave,--to make it impossible that we should ever meet, until +you confront me at the bar of Judgment! You little can imagine what +steps I took to render all this secure; and what was the result? +Our strange interview in the bowels of the earth convinced me of the +futility of my design." + +"Ah, fatal chance!" cried Miriam, covering her face with her hands. + +"Yes, your heart trembled with horror when you recognized me," rejoined +he; "but you did not guess that there was an equal horror in my own!" + +"Why would not the weight of earth above our heads have crumbled down +upon us both, forcing us apart, but burying us equally?" cried Miriam, +in a burst of vehement passion. "O, that we could have wandered in those +dismal passages till we both perished, taking opposite paths in the +darkness, so that when we lay down to die, our last breaths might not +mingle!" + +"It were vain to wish it," said the model. "In all that labyrinth of +midnight paths, we should have found one another out to live or die +together. Our fates cross and are entangled. The threads are twisted +into a strong cord, which is dragging us to an evil doom. Could the +knots be severed, we might escape. But neither can your slender fingers +untie these knots, nor my masculine force break them. We must submit!" + +"Pray for rescue, as I have," exclaimed Miriam. "Pray for deliverance +from me, since I am your evil genius, as you mine. Dark as your life has +been, I have known you to pray in times past!" + +At these words of Miriam, a tremor and horror appeared to seize upon her +persecutor, insomuch that he shook and grew ashy pale before her eyes. +In this man's memory there was something that made it awful for him to +think of prayer; nor would any torture be more intolerable than to be +reminded of such divine comfort and succor as await pious souls +merely for the asking; This torment was perhaps the token of a native +temperament deeply susceptible of religious impressions, but which had +been wronged, violated, and debased, until, at length, it was capable +only of terror from the sources that were intended for our purest and +loftiest consolation. He looked so fearfully at her, and with such +intense pain struggling in his eyes, that Miriam felt pity. + +And now, all at once, it struck her that he might be mad. It was an idea +that had never before seriously occurred to her mind, although, as soon +as suggested, it fitted marvellously into many circumstances that +lay within her knowledge. But, alas! such was her evil fortune, that, +whether mad or no, his power over her remained the same, and was likely +to be used only the more tyrannously, if exercised by a lunatic. + +"I would not give you pain," she said, soothingly; "your faith allows you +the consolations of penance and absolution. Try what help there may be +in these, and leave me to myself." + +"Do not think it, Miriam," said he; "we are bound together, and can +never part again." "Why should it seem so impossible?" she rejoined. +"Think how I had escaped from all the past! I had made for myself a +new sphere, and found new friends, new occupations, new hopes and +enjoyments. My heart, methinks, was almost as unburdened as if there had +been no miserable life behind me. The human spirit does not perish of a +single wound, nor exhaust itself in a single trial of life. Let us +but keep asunder, and all may go well for both." "We fancied ourselves +forever sundered," he replied. "Yet we met once, in the bowels of the +earth; and, were we to part now, our fates would fling us together again +in a desert, on a mountain-top, or in whatever spot seemed safest. You +speak in vain, therefore." + +"You mistake your own will for an iron necessity," said Miriam; +"otherwise, you might have suffered me to glide past you like a ghost, +when we met among those ghosts of ancient days. Even now you might bid +me pass as freely." + +"Never!" said he, with unmitigable will; "your reappearance has +destroyed the work of years. You know the power that I have over you. +Obey my bidding; or, within a short time, it shall be exercised: nor +will I cease to haunt you till the moment comes." + +"Then," said Miriam more calmly, "I foresee the end, and have already +warned you of it. It will be death!" + +"Your own death, Miriam,--or mine?" he asked, looking fixedly at her. + +"Do you imagine me a murderess?" said she, shuddering; "you, at least, +have no right to think me so!" + +"Yet," rejoined he, with a glance of dark meaning, "men have said that +this white hand had once a crimson stain." He took her hand as he spoke, +and held it in his own, in spite of the repugnance, amounting to nothing +short of agony, with which she struggled to regain it. Holding it up +to the fading light (for there was already dimness among the trees), +he appeared to examine it closely, as if to discover the imaginary +blood-stain with which he taunted her. He smiled as he let it go. "It +looks very white," said he; "but I have known hands as white, which all +the water in the ocean would not have washed clean." + +"It had no stain," retorted Miriam bitterly, "until you grasped it in +your own." + +The wind has blown away whatever else they may have spoken. + +They went together towards the town, and, on their way, continued to +make reference, no doubt, to some strange and dreadful history of their +former life, belonging equally to this dark man and to the fair and +youthful woman whom he persecuted. In their words, or in the breath that +uttered them, there seemed to be an odor of guilt, and a scent of blood. +Yet, how can we imagine that a stain of ensanguined crime should attach +to Miriam! Or how, on the other hand, should spotless innocence be +subjected to a thraldom like that which she endured from the spectre, +whom she herself had evoked out of the darkness! Be this as it might, +Miriam, we have reason to believe, still continued to beseech him, +humbly, passionately, wildly, only to go his way, and leave her free to +follow her own sad path. + +Thus they strayed onward through the green wilderness of the Borghese +grounds, and soon came near the city wall, where, had Miriam raised her +eyes, she might have seen Hilda and the sculptor leaning on the parapet. +But she walked in a mist of trouble, and could distinguish little beyond +its limits. As they came within public observation, her persecutor fell +behind, throwing off the imperious manner which he had assumed during +their solitary interview. The Porta del Popolo swarmed with life. The +merry-makers, who had spent the feast-day outside the walls, were now +thronging in; a party of horsemen were entering beneath the arch; a +travelling carriage had been drawn up just within the verge, and was +passing through the villainous ordeal of the papal custom-house. In the +broad piazza, too, there was a motley crowd. + +But the stream of Miriam's trouble kept its way through this flood of +human life, and neither mingled with it nor was turned aside. With a sad +kind of feminine ingenuity, she found a way to kneel before her tyrant +undetected, though in full sight of all the people, still beseeching him +for freedom, and in vain. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN + + +Hilda, after giving the last touches to the picture of Beatrice Cenci, +had flown down from her dove-cote, late in the afternoon, and gone to +the Pincian Hill, in the hope of hearing a strain or two of exhilarating +music. There, as it happened, she met the sculptor, for, to say the +truth, Kenyon had well noted the fair artist's ordinary way of life, +and was accustomed to shape his own movements so as to bring him often +within her sphere. + +The Pincian Hill is the favorite promenade of the Roman aristocracy. At +the present day, however, like most other Roman possessions, it belongs +less to the native inhabitants than to the barbarians from Gaul, Great +Britain, anti beyond the sea, who have established a peaceful usurpation +over whatever is enjoyable or memorable in the Eternal City. These +foreign guests are indeed ungrateful, if they do not breathe a prayer +for Pope Clement, or whatever Holy Father it may have been, who levelled +the summit of the mount so skilfully, and bounded it with the parapet of +the city wall; who laid out those broad walks and drives, and overhung +them with the deepening shade of many kinds of tree; who scattered the +flowers, of all seasons and of every clime, abundantly over those green, +central lawns; who scooped out hollows in fit places, and, setting great +basins of marble in them, caused ever-gushing fountains to fill them to +the brim; who reared up the immemorial obelisk out of the soil that had +long hidden it; who placed pedestals along the borders of the avenues, +and crowned them with busts of that multitude of worthies--statesmen, +heroes, artists, men of letters and of song--whom the whole world claims +as its chief ornaments, though Italy produced them all. In a word, the +Pincian garden is one of the things that reconcile the stranger (since +he fully appreciates the enjoyment, and feels nothing of the cost) to +the rule of an irresponsible dynasty of Holy Fathers, who seem to have +aimed at making life as agreeable an affair as it can well be. + +In this pleasant spot, the red-trousered French soldiers are always to +be seen; bearded and grizzled veterans, perhaps with medals of Algiers +or the Crimea on their breasts. To them is assigned the peaceful duty of +seeing that children do not trample on the flower beds, nor any youthful +lover rifle them of their fragrant blossoms to stick in the beloved +one's hair. Here sits (drooping upon some marble bench, in the +treacherous sunshine) the consumptive girl, whose friends have brought +her, for cure, to a climate that instils poison into its very purest +breath. Here, all day, come nursery-maids, burdened with rosy English +babies, or guiding the footsteps of little travellers from the far +Western world. Here, in the sunny afternoons, roll and rumble all kinds +of equipages, from the cardinal's old-fashioned and gorgeous purple +carriage to the gay barouche of modern date. Here horsemen gallop on +thoroughbred steeds. Here, in short, all the transitory population of +Rome, the world's great watering-place, rides, drives, or promenades! +Here are beautiful sunsets; and here, whichever way you turn your eyes, +are scenes as well worth gazing at, both in themselves and for their +historic interest, as any that the sun ever rose and set upon. Here, +too, on certain afternoons of the week, a French military band flings +out rich music over the poor old city, floating her with strains as loud +as those of her own echoless triumphs. + +Hilda and the sculptor (by the contrivance of the latter, who loved best +to be alone with his young countrywoman) had wandered beyond the throng +of promenaders, whom they left in a dense cluster around the music. They +strayed, indeed, to the farthest point of the Pincian Hill, and leaned +over the parapet, looking down upon the Muro Torto, a massive fragment +of the oldest Roman wall, which juts over, as if ready to tumble down +by its own weight, yet seems still the most indestructible piece of work +that men's hands ever piled together. In the blue distance rose Soracte, +and other heights, which have gleamed afar, to our imaginations, but +look scarcely real to our bodily eyes, because, being dreamed about so +much, they have taken the aerial tints which belong only to a dream. +These, nevertheless, are the solid framework of hills that shut in Rome, +and its wide surrounding Campagna,--no land of dreams, but the broadest +page of history, crowded so full with memorable events that one +obliterates another; as if Time had crossed and recrossed his own +records till they grew illegible. + +But, not to meddle with history,--with which our narrative is no +otherwise concerned, than that the very dust of Rome is historic, and +inevitably settles on our page and mingles with our ink,--we will return +to our two friends, who were still leaning over the wall. Beneath them +lay the broad sweep of the Borghese grounds, covered with trees, amid +which appeared the white gleam of pillars and statues, and the flash of +an upspringing fountain, all to be overshadowed at a later period of the +year by the thicker growth of foliage. + +The advance of vegetation, in this softer climate, is less abrupt than +the inhabitant of the cold North is accustomed to observe. Beginning +earlier,--even in February,--Spring is not compelled to burst into +Summer with such headlong haste; there is time to dwell upon each +opening beauty, and to enjoy the budding leaf, the tender green, the +sweet youth and freshness of the year; it gives us its maiden charm, +before, settling into the married Summer, which, again, does not so soon +sober itself into matronly Autumn. In our own country, the virgin Spring +hastens to its bridal too abruptly. But here, after a month or two of +kindly growth, the leaves of the young trees, which cover that portion +of the Borghese grounds nearest the city wall, were still in their +tender half-development. + +In the remoter depths, among the old groves of ilex-trees, Hilda and +Kenyon heard the faint sound of music, laughter, and mingling voices. It +was probably the uproar--spreading even so far as the walls of Rome, +and growing faded and melancholy in its passage--of that wild sylvan +merriment, which we have already attempted to describe. By and by it +ceased--although the two listeners still tried to distinguish it between +the bursts of nearer music from the military band. But there was no +renewal of that distant mirth. Soon afterwards they saw a solitary +figure advancing along one of the paths that lead from the obscurer part +of the ground towards the gateway. + +"Look! is it not Donatello?" said Hilda. + +"He it is, beyond a doubt," replied the sculptor. "But how gravely he +walks, and with what long looks behind him! He seems either very weary, +or very sad. I should not hesitate to call it sadness, if Donatello were +a creature capable of the sin and folly of low spirits. In all these +hundred paces, while we have been watching him, he has not made one +of those little caprioles in the air which are characteristic of his +natural gait. I begin to doubt whether he is a veritable Faun." + +"Then," said Hilda, with perfect simplicity, "you have thought him--and +do think him--one of that strange, wild, happy race of creatures, that +used to laugh and sport in the woods, in the old, old times? So do +I, indeed! But I never quite believed, till now, that fauns existed +anywhere but in poetry." + +The sculptor at first merely smiled. Then, as the idea took further +possession of his mind, he laughed outright, and wished from the bottom +of his heart (being in love with Hilda, though he had never told her +so) that he could have rewarded or punished her for its pretty absurdity +with a kiss. + +"O Hilda, what a treasure of sweet faith and pure imagination you hide +under that little straw hat!" cried he, at length. "A Faun! a Faun! +Great Pan is not dead, then, after all! The whole tribe of mythical +creatures yet live in the moonlit seclusion of a young girl's fancy, +and find it a lovelier abode and play-place, I doubt not, than their +Arcadian haunts of yore. What bliss, if a man of marble, like myself, +could stray thither, too!" + +"Why do you laugh so?" asked Hilda, reddening; for she was a little +disturbed at Kenyon's ridicule, however kindly expressed. "What can I +have said, that you think so very foolish?" + +"Well, not foolish, then," rejoined the sculptor, "but wiser, it may +be, than I can fathom. Really, however, the idea does strike one as +delightfully fresh, when we consider Donatello's position and external +environment. Why, my dear Hilda, he is a Tuscan born, of an old noble +race in that part of Italy; and he has a moss-grown tower among the +Apennines, where he and his forefathers have dwelt, under their own +vines and fig-trees, from an unknown antiquity. His boyish passion +for Miriam has introduced him familiarly to our little circle; and our +republican and artistic simplicity of intercourse has included this +young Italian, on the same terms as one of ourselves. But, if we +paid due respect to rank and title, we should bend reverentially to +Donatello, and salute him as his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni." + +"That is a droll idea, much droller than his being a Faun!" said +Hilda, laughing in her turn. "This does not quite satisfy me, however, +especially as you yourself recognized and acknowledged his wonderful +resemblance to the statue." + +"Except as regards the pointed ears," said Kenyon; adding, aside, "and +one other little peculiarity, generally observable in the statues of +fauns." + +"As for his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni's ears," replied Hilda, +smiling again at the dignity with which this title invested their +playful friend, "you know we could never see their shape, on account of +his clustering curls. Nay, I remember, he once started back, as shyly as +a wild deer, when Miriam made a pretence of examining them. How do you +explain that?" + +"O, I certainly shall not contend against such a weight of evidence, +the fact of his faunship being otherwise so probable," answered the +sculptor, still hardly retaining his gravity. "Faun or not, Donatello or +the Count di Monte Beni--is a singularly wild creature, and, as I have +remarked on other occasions, though very gentle, does not love to be +touched. Speaking in no harsh sense, there is a great deal of animal +nature in him, as if he had been born in the woods, and had run wild all +his childhood, and were as yet but imperfectly domesticated. Life, even +in our day, is very simple and unsophisticated in some of the shaggy +nooks of the Apennines." + +"It annoys me very much," said Hilda, "this inclination, which +most people have, to explain away the wonder and the mystery out +of everything. Why could not you allow me--and yourself, too--the +satisfaction of thinking him a Faun?" + +"Pray keep your belief, dear Hilda, if it makes you any happier," said +the sculptor; "and I shall do my best to become a convert. Donatello has +asked me to spend the summer with him, in his ancestral tower, where +I purpose investigating the pedigree of these sylvan counts, his +forefathers; and if their shadows beckon me into dreamland, I shall +willingly follow. By the bye, speaking of Donatello, there is a point on +which I should like to be enlightened." + +"Can I help you, then?" said Hilda, in answer to his look. + +"Is there the slightest chance of his winning Miriam's affections?" +suggested Kenyon. + +"Miriam! she, so accomplished and gifted!" exclaimed Hilda; "and he, a +rude, uncultivated boy! No, no, no!" + +"It would seem impossible," said the sculptor. "But, on the other hand, +a gifted woman flings away her affections so unaccountably, sometimes! +Miriam of late has been very morbid and miserable, as we both know. +Young as she is, the morning light seems already to have faded out of +her life; and now comes Donatello, with natural sunshine enough for +himself and her, and offers her the opportunity of making her heart and +life all new and cheery again. People of high intellectual endowments do +not require similar ones in those they love. They are just the persons +to appreciate the wholesome gush of natural feeling, the honest +affection, the simple joy, the fulness of contentment with what +he loves, which Miriam sees in Donatello. True; she may call him a +simpleton. It is a necessity of the case; for a man loses the capacity +for this kind of affection, in proportion as he cultivates and refines +himself." + +"Dear me!" said Hilda, drawing imperceptibly away from her companion. +"Is this the penalty of refinement? Pardon me; I do not believe it. +It is because you are a sculptor, that you think nothing can be finely +wrought except it be cold and hard, like the marble in which your ideas +take shape. I am a painter, and know that the most delicate beauty may +be softened and warmed throughout." + +"I said a foolish thing, indeed," answered the sculptor. "It surprises +me, for I might have drawn a wiser knowledge out of my own experience. +It is the surest test of genuine love, that it brings back our early +simplicity to the worldliest of us." + +Thus talking, they loitered slowly along beside the parapet which +borders the level summit of the Pincian with its irregular sweep. At +intervals they looked through the lattice-work of their thoughts at the +varied prospects that lay before and beneath them. + +From the terrace where they now stood there is an abrupt descent towards +the Piazza del Popolo; and looking down into its broad space they +beheld the tall palatial edifices, the church domes, and the ornamented +gateway, which grew and were consolidated out of the thought of Michael +Angelo. They saw, too, the red granite obelisk, oldest of things, +even in Rome, which rises in the centre of the piazza, with a fourfold +fountain at its base. All Roman works and ruins (whether of the +empire, the far-off republic, or the still more distant kings) assume a +transient, visionary, and impalpable character when we think that this +indestructible monument supplied one of the recollections which Moses +and the Israelites bore from Egypt into the desert. Perchance, on +beholding the cloudy pillar and the fiery column, they whispered +awestricken to one another, "In its shape it is like that old obelisk +which we and our fathers have so often seen on the borders of the Nile." +And now that very obelisk, with hardly a trace of decay upon it, is the +first thing that the modern traveller sees after entering the Flaminian +Gate! + +Lifting their eyes, Hilda and her companion gazed westward, and saw +beyond the invisible Tiber the Castle of St. Angelo; that immense tomb +of a pagan emperor, with the archangel at its summit. + +Still farther off appeared a mighty pile of buildings, surmounted by the +vast dome, which all of us have shaped and swelled outward, like a huge +bubble, to the utmost Scope of our imaginations, long before we see it +floating over the worship of the city. It may be most worthily seen +from precisely the point where our two friends were now standing. At +any nearer view the grandeur of St. Peter's hides itself behind the +immensity of its separate parts,--so that we see only the front, only +the sides, only the pillared length and loftiness of the portico, and +not the mighty whole. But at this distance the entire outline of the +world's cathedral, as well as that of the palace of the world's +chief priest, is taken in at once. In such remoteness, moreover, the +imagination is not debarred from lending its assistance, even while +we have the reality before our eyes, and helping the weakness of human +sense to do justice to so grand an object. It requires both faith and +fancy to enable us to feel, what is nevertheless so true, that yonder, +in front of the purple outline of hills, is the grandest edifice ever +built by man, painted against God's loveliest sky. + +After contemplating a little while a scene which their long residence in +Rome had made familiar to them, Kenyon and Hilda again let their glances +fall into the piazza at their feet. They there beheld Miriam, who had +just entered the Porta del Popolo, and was standing by the obelisk and +fountain. With a gesture that impressed Kenyon as at once suppliant and +imperious, she seemed to intimate to a figure which had attended her +thus far, that it was now her desire to be left alone. The pertinacious +model, however, remained immovable. + +And the sculptor here noted a circumstance, which, according to the +interpretation he might put upon it, was either too trivial to be +mentioned, or else so mysteriously significant that he found it +difficult to believe his eyes. Miriam knelt down on the steps of the +fountain; so far there could be no question of the fact. To other +observers, if any there were, she probably appeared to take this +attitude merely for the convenience of dipping her fingers into the gush +of water from the mouth of one of the stone lions. But as she clasped +her hands together after thus bathing them, and glanced upward at the +model, an idea took strong possession of Kenyon's mind that Miriam was +kneeling to this dark follower there in the world's face! + +"Do you see it?" he said to Hilda. + +"See what?" asked she, surprised at the emotion of his tone. "I see +Miriam, who has just bathed her hands in that delightfully cool water. I +often dip my fingers into a Roman fountain, and think of the brook that +used to be one of my playmates in my New England village." + +"I fancied I saw something else," said Kenyon; "but it was doubtless a +mistake." + +But, allowing that he had caught a true glimpse into the hidden +significance of Miriam's gesture, what a terrible thraldom did it +suggest! Free as she seemed to be,--beggar as he looked,--the nameless +vagrant must then be dragging the beautiful Miriam through the streets +of Rome, fettered and shackled more cruelly than any captive queen of +yore following in an emperor's triumph. And was it conceivable that +she would have been thus enthralled unless some great error--how great +Kenyon dared not think--or some fatal weakness had given this dark +adversary a vantage ground? + +"Hilda," said he abruptly, "who and what is Miriam? Pardon me; but are +you sure of her?" + +"Sure of her!" repeated Hilda, with an angry blush, for her friend's +sake. "I am sure that she is kind, good, and generous; a true and +faithful friend, whom I love dearly, and who loves me as well! What more +than this need I be sure of?" + +"And your delicate instincts say all this in her favor?--nothing against +her?" continued the sculptor, without heeding the irritation of Hilda's +tone. "These are my own impressions, too. But she is such a mystery! +We do not even know whether she is a countrywoman of ours, or an +Englishwoman, or a German. There is Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins, one +would say, and a right English accent on her tongue, but much that is +not English breeding, nor American. Nowhere else but in Rome, and as an +artist, could she hold a place in society without giving some clew to +her past life." + +"I love her dearly," said Hilda, still with displeasure in her tone, +"and trust her most entirely." + +"My heart trusts her at least, whatever my head may do," replied Kenyon; +"and Rome is not like one of our New England villages, where we need the +permission of each individual neighbor for every act that we do, every +word that we utter, and every friend that we make or keep. In these +particulars the papal despotism allows us freer breath than our native +air; and if we like to take generous views of our associates, we can do +so, to a reasonable extent, without ruining ourselves." + +"The music has ceased," said Hilda; "I am going now." + +There are three streets that, beginning close beside each other, diverge +from the Piazza del Popolo towards the heart of Rome: on the left, the +Via del Babuino; on the right, the Via della Ripetta; and between these +two that world-famous avenue, the Corso. It appeared that Miriam and her +strange companion were passing up the first mentioned of these three, +and were soon hidden from Hilda and the sculptor. + +The two latter left the Pincian by the broad and stately walk that +skirts along its brow. Beneath them, from the base of the abrupt +descent, the city spread wide away in a close contiguity of red-earthen +roofs, above which rose eminent the domes of a hundred churches, beside +here and there a tower, and the upper windows of some taller or higher +situated palace, looking down on a multitude of palatial abodes. At a +distance, ascending out of the central mass of edifices, they could see +the top of the Antonine column, and near it the circular roof of the +Pantheon looking heavenward with its ever-open eye. + +Except these two objects, almost everything that they beheld was +mediaeval, though built, indeed, of the massive old stones and +indestructible bricks of imperial Rome; for the ruins of the Coliseum, +the Golden House, and innumerable temples of Roman gods, and mansions of +Caesars and senators, had supplied the material for all those gigantic +hovels, and their walls were cemented with mortar of inestimable cost, +being made of precious antique statues, burnt long ago for this petty +purpose. + +Rome, as it now exists, has grown up under the Popes, and seems like +nothing but a heap of broken rubbish, thrown into the great chasm +between our own days and the Empire, merely to fill it up; and, for the +better part of two thousand years, its annals of obscure policies, +and wars, and continually recurring misfortunes, seem also but broken +rubbish, as compared with its classic history. + +If we consider the present city as at all connected with the famous one +of old, it is only because we find it built over its grave. A depth of +thirty feet of soil has covered up the Rome of ancient days, so that it +lies like the dead corpse of a giant, decaying for centuries, with no +survivor mighty enough even to bury it, until the dust of all those +years has gathered slowly over its recumbent form and made a casual +sepulchre. + +We know not how to characterize, in any accordant and compatible +terms, the Rome that lies before us; its sunless alleys, and streets +of palaces; its churches, lined with the gorgeous marbles that were +originally polished for the adornment of pagan temples; its thousands of +evil smells, mixed up with fragrance of rich incense, diffused from as +many censers; its little life, deriving feeble nutriment from what +has long been dead. Everywhere, some fragment of ruin suggesting the +magnificence of a former epoch; everywhere, moreover, a Cross,--and +nastiness at the foot of it. As the sum of all, there are recollections +that kindle the soul, and a gloom and languor that depress it beyond any +depth of melancholic sentiment that can be elsewhere known. + +Yet how is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential word of Rome? +The city of all time, and of all the world! The spot for which man's +great life and deeds have done so much, and for which decay has done +whatever glory and dominion could not do! At this moment, the evening +sunshine is flinging its golden mantle over it, making all that we +thought mean magnificent; the bells of all the churches suddenly ring +out, as if it were a peal of triumph because Rome is still imperial. + +"I sometimes fancy," said Hilda, on whose susceptibility the scene +always made a strong impression, "that Rome--mere Rome--will crowd +everything else out of my heart." + +"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated the sculptor. They had now reached the grand +stairs that ascend from the Piazza di Spagna to the hither brow of the +Pincian Hill. Old Beppo, the millionnaire of his ragged fraternity, +it is a wonder that no artist paints him as the cripple whom St. Peter +heals at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,--was just mounting his donkey +to depart, laden with the rich spoil of the day's beggary. + +Up the stairs, drawing his tattered cloak about his face, came the +model, at whom Beppo looked askance, jealous of an encroacher on his +rightful domain. The figure passed away, however, up the Via Sistina. In +the piazza below, near the foot of the magnificent steps, stood Miriam, +with her eyes bent on the ground, as if she were counting those +little, square, uncomfortable paving-stones, that make it a penitential +pilgrimage to walk in Rome. She kept this attitude for several minutes, +and when, at last, the importunities of a beggar disturbed her from it, +she seemed bewildered and pressed her hand upon her brow. + +"She has been in some sad dream or other, poor thing!" said Kenyon +sympathizingly; "and even now she is imprisoned there in a kind of cage, +the iron bars of which are made of her own thoughts." + +"I fear she is not well," said Hilda. "I am going down the stairs, and +will join Miriam." + +"Farewell, then," said the sculptor. "Dear Hilda, this is a perplexed +and troubled world! It soothes me inexpressibly to think of you in your +tower, with white doves and white thoughts for your companions, so high +above us all, and With the Virgin for your household friend. You know +not how far it throws its light, that lamp which you keep burning at her +shrine! I passed beneath the tower last night, and the ray cheered me, +because you lighted it." + +"It has for me a religious significance," replied Hilda quietly, "and +yet I am no Catholic." + +They parted, and Kenyon made haste along the Via Sistina, in the hope +of overtaking the model, whose haunts and character he was anxious to +investigate, for Miriam's sake. He fancied that he saw him a long way +in advance, but before he reached the Fountain of the Triton the dusky +figure had vanished. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO + + +About this period, Miriam seems to have been goaded by a weary +restlessness that drove her abroad on any errand or none. She went one +morning to visit Kenyon in his studio, whither he had invited her to +see a new statue, on which he had staked many hopes, and which was now +almost completed in the clay. Next to Hilda, the person for whom +Miriam felt most affection and confidence was Kenyon; and in all the +difficulties that beset her life, it was her impulse to draw near Hilda +for feminine sympathy, and the sculptor for brotherly counsel. + +Yet it was to little purpose that she approached the edge of the +voiceless gulf between herself and them. Standing on the utmost verge of +that dark chasm, she might stretch out her hand, and never clasp a hand +of theirs; she might strive to call out, "Help, friends! help!" but, as +with dreamers when they shout, her voice would perish inaudibly in +the remoteness that seemed such a little way. This perception of an +infinite, shivering solitude, amid which we cannot come close enough to +human beings to be warmed by them, and where they turn to cold, chilly +shapes of mist, is one of the most forlorn results of any accident, +misfortune, crime, or peculiarity of character, that puts an individual +ajar with the world. Very often, as in Miriam's case, there is an +insatiable instinct that demands friendship, love, and intimate +communion, but is forced to pine in empty forms; a hunger of the heart, +which finds only shadows to feed upon. + +Kenyon's studio was in a cross-street, or, rather, an ugly and dirty +little lane, between the Corso and the Via della Ripetta; and though +chill, narrow, gloomy, and bordered with tall and shabby structures, +the lane was not a whit more disagreeable than nine tenths of the Roman +streets. Over the door of one of the houses was a marble tablet, bearing +an inscription, to the purport that the sculpture-rooms within had +formerly been occupied by the illustrious artist Canova. In these +precincts (which Canova's genius was not quite of a character to render +sacred, though it certainly made them interesting) the young American +sculptor had now established himself. + +The studio of a sculptor is generally but a rough and dreary-looking +place, with a good deal the aspect, indeed, of a stone-mason's workshop. +Bare floors of brick or plank, and plastered walls,--an old chair +or two, or perhaps only a block of marble (containing, however, the +possibility of ideal grace within it) to sit down upon; some hastily +scrawled sketches of nude figures on the whitewash of the wall. These +last are probably the sculptor's earliest glimpses of ideas that may +hereafter be solidified into imperishable stone, or perhaps may remain +as impalpable as a dream. Next there are a few very roughly modelled +little figures in clay or plaster, exhibiting the second stage of the +idea as it advances towards a marble immortality; and then is seen the +exquisitely designed shape of clay, more interesting than even the +final marble, as being the intimate production of the sculptor himself, +moulded throughout with his loving hands, and nearest to his imagination +and heart. In the plaster-cast, from this clay model, the beauty of +the statue strangely disappears, to shine forth again with pure white +radiance, in the precious marble of Carrara. Works in all these stages +of advancement, and some with the final touch upon them, might be found +in Kenyon's studio. + +Here might be witnessed the process of actually chiselling the marble, +with which (as it is not quite satisfactory to think) a sculptor in +these days has very little to do. In Italy, there is a class of men +whose merely mechanical skill is perhaps more exquisite than was +possessed by the ancient artificers, who wrought out the designs of +Praxiteles; or, very possibly, by Praxiteles himself. Whatever of +illusive representation can be effected in marble, they are capable of +achieving, if the object be before their eyes. The sculptor has but to +present these men with a plaster-cast of his design, and a sufficient +block of marble, and tell them that the figure is imbedded in the stone, +and must be freed from its encumbering superfluities; and, in due time, +without the necessity of his touching the work with his own finger, +he will see before him the statue that is to make him renowned. His +creative power has wrought it with a word. + +In no other art, surely, does genius find such effective instruments, +and so happily relieve itself of the drudgery, of actual performance; +doing wonderfully nice things by the hands of other people, when it may +be suspected they could not always be done by the sculptor's own. And +how much of the admiration which our artists get for their buttons +and buttonholes, their shoe-ties, their neckcloths,--and these, at our +present epoch of taste, make a large share of the renown,--would be +abated, if we were generally aware that the sculptor can claim no credit +for such pretty performances, as immortalized in marble! They are not +his work, but that of some nameless machine in human shape. + +Miriam stopped an instant in an antechamber, to look at a half-finished +bust, the features of which seemed to be struggling out of the stone; +and, as it were, scattering and dissolving its hard substance by the +glow of feeling and intelligence. As the skilful workman gave stroke +after stroke of the chisel with apparent carelessness, but sure effect, +it was impossible not to think that the outer marble was merely an +extraneous environment; the human countenance within its embrace must +have existed there since the limestone ledges of Carrara were first +made. Another bust was nearly completed, though still one of Kenyon's +most trustworthy assistants was at work, giving delicate touches, +shaving off an impalpable something, and leaving little heaps of marble +dust to attest it. + +"As these busts in the block of marble," thought Miriam, "so does our +individual fate exist in the limestone of time. We fancy that we carve +it out; but its ultimate shape is prior to all our action." + +Kenyon was in the inner room, but, hearing a step in the antechamber, he +threw a veil over what he was at work upon, and came out to receive his +visitor. He was dressed in a gray blouse, with a little cap on the top +of his head; a costume which became him better than the formal garments +which he wore whenever he passed out of his own domains. The sculptor +had a face which, when time had done a little more for it, would offer a +worthy subject for as good an artist as himself: features finely cut, as +if already marble; an ideal forehead, deeply set eyes, and a mouth much +hidden in a light-brown beard, but apparently sensitive and delicate. + +"I will not offer you my hand," said he; "it is grimy with Cleopatra's +clay." + +"No; I will not touch clay; it is earthy and human," answered Miriam. +"I have come to try whether there is any calm and coolness among +your marbles. My own art is too nervous, too passionate, too full of +agitation, for me to work at it whole days together, without intervals +of repose. So, what have you to show me?" + +"Pray look at everything here," said Kenyon. "I love to have painters +see my work. Their judgment is unprejudiced, and more valuable than that +of the world generally, from the light which their own art throws on +mine. More valuable, too, than that of my brother sculptors, who never +judge me fairly,--nor I them, perhaps." + +To gratify him, Miriam looked round at the specimens in marble or +plaster, of which there were several in the room, comprising originals +or casts of most of the designs that Kenyon had thus far produced. He +was still too young to have accumulated a large gallery of such things. +What he had to show were chiefly the attempts and experiments, in +various directions, of a beginner in art, acting as a stern tutor to +himself, and profiting more by his failures than by any successes of +which he was yet capable. Some of them, however, had great merit; and +in the pure, fine glow of the new marble, it may be, they dazzled the +judgment into awarding them higher praise than they deserved. Miriam +admired the statue of a beautiful youth, a pearlfisher; who had got +entangled in the weeds at the bottom of the sea, and lay dead among the +pearl-oysters, the rich shells, and the seaweeds, all of like value to +him now. + +"The poor young man has perished among the prizes that he sought," +remarked she. "But what a strange efficacy there is in death! If we +cannot all win pearls, it causes an empty shell to satisfy us just as +well. I like this statue, though it is too cold and stern in its moral +lesson; and, physically, the form has not settled itself into sufficient +repose." + +In another style, there was a grand, calm head of Milton, not copied +from any one bust or picture, yet more authentic than any of them, +because all known representations of the poet had been profoundly +studied, and solved in the artist's mind. The bust over the tomb in +Grey Friars Church, the original miniatures and pictures, wherever to +be found, had mingled each its special truth in this one work; wherein, +likewise, by long perusal and deep love of the Paradise Lost, the Comus, +the Lycidas, and L'Allegro, the sculptor had succeeded, even better than +he knew, in spiritualizing his marble with the poet's mighty genius. And +this was a great thing to have achieved, such a length of time after the +dry bones and dust of Milton were like those of any other dead man. + +There were also several portrait-busts, comprising those of two or three +of the illustrious men of our own country, whom Kenyon, before he left +America, had asked permission to model. He had done so, because he +sincerely believed that, whether he wrought the busts in marble or +bronze, the one would corrode and the other crumble in the long lapse +of time, beneath these great men's immortality. Possibly, however, the +young artist may have underestimated the durability of his material. +Other faces there were, too, of men who (if the brevity of their +remembrance, after death, can be augured from their little value in +life) should have been represented in snow rather than marble. Posterity +will be puzzled what to do with busts like these, the concretions and +petrifactions of a vain self-estimate; but will find, no doubt, that they +serve to build into stone walls, or burn into quicklime, as well as if +the marble had never been blocked into the guise of human heads. + +But it is an awful thing, indeed, this endless endurance, this almost +indestructibility, of a marble bust! Whether in our own case, or that of +other men, it bids us sadly measure the little, little time during which +our lineaments are likely to be of interest to any human being. It +is especially singular that Americans should care about perpetuating +themselves in this mode. The brief duration of our families, as +a hereditary household, renders it next to a certainty that the +great-grandchildren will not know their father's grandfather, and that +half a century hence at furthest, the hammer of the auctioneer will +thump its knock-down blow against his blockhead, sold at so much for the +pound of stone! And it ought to make us shiver, the idea of leaving +our features to be a dusty-white ghost among strangers of another +generation, who will take our nose between their thumb and fingers (as +we have seen men do by Caesar's), and infallibly break it off if they +can do so without detection! + +"Yes," said Miriam, who had been revolving some such thoughts as the +above, "it is a good state of mind for mortal man, when he is content to +leave no more definite memorial than the grass, which will sprout kindly +and speedily over his grave, if we do not make the spot barren with +marble. Methinks, too, it will be a fresher and better world, when it +flings off this great burden of stony memories, which the ages have +deemed it a piety to heap upon its back." + +"What you say," remarked Kenyon, "goes against my whole art. Sculpture, +and the delight which men naturally take in it, appear to me a proof +that it is good to work with all time before our view." + +"Well, well," answered Miriam, "I must not quarrel with you for flinging +your heavy stones at poor Posterity; and, to say the truth, I think you +are as likely to hit the mark as anybody. These busts, now, much as I +seem to scorn them, make me feel as if you were a magician.. You turn +feverish men into cool, quiet marble. What a blessed change for them! +Would you could do as much for me!" + +"O, gladly!" cried Kenyon, who had long wished to model that beautiful +and most expressive face. "When will you begin to sit?" + +"Poh! that was not what I meant," said Miriam. "Come, show me something +else." + +"Do you recognize this?" asked the sculptor. + +He took out of his desk a little old-fashioned ivory coffer, yellow +with age; it was richly carved with antique figures and foliage; and had +Kenyon thought fit to say that Benvenuto Cellini wrought this precious +box, the skill and elaborate fancy of the work would by no means have +discredited his word, nor the old artist's fame. At least, it was +evidently a production of Benvenuto's school and century, and might +once have been the jewel-case of some grand lady at the court of the De' +Medici. + +Lifting the lid, however, no blaze of diamonds was disclosed, but +only, lapped in fleecy cotton, a small, beautifully shaped hand, most +delicately sculptured in marble. Such loving care and nicest art had +been lavished here, that the palm really seemed to have a tenderness +in its very substance. Touching those lovely fingers,--had the jealous +sculptor allowed you to touch,--you could hardly believe that a virgin +warmth would not steal from them into your heart. + +"Ah, this is very beautiful!" exclaimed Miriam, with a genial smile. +"It is as good in its way as Loulie's hand with its baby-dimples, which +Powers showed me at Florence, evidently valuing it as much as if he +had wrought it out of a piece of his great heart. As good as Harriet +Hosmer's clasped hands of Browning and his wife, symbolizing the +individuality and heroic union of two high, poetic lives! Nay, I do not +question that it is better than either of those, because you must +have wrought it passionately, in spite of its maiden palm and dainty +fingertips." + +"Then you do recognize it?" asked Kenyon. + +"There is but one right hand on earth that could have supplied +the model," answered Miriam; "so small and slender, so perfectly +symmetrical, and yet with a character of delicate energy. I have watched +it a hundred times at its work; but I did not dream that you had won +Hilda so far! How have you persuaded that shy maiden to let you take her +hand in marble?" + +"Never! She never knew it!" hastily replied Kenyon, anxious to vindicate +his mistress's maidenly reserve. "I stole it from her. The hand is a +reminiscence. After gazing at it so often, and even holding it once for +an instant, when Hilda was not thinking of me, I should be a bungler +indeed, if I could not now reproduce it to something like the life." + +"May you win the original one day!" said Miriam kindly. + +"I have little ground to hope it," answered the sculptor despondingly; +"Hilda does not dwell in our mortal atmosphere; and gentle and soft as +she appears, it will be as difficult to win her heart as to entice down +a white bird from its sunny freedom in the sky. It is strange, with all +her delicacy and fragility, the impression she makes of being utterly +sufficient to herself. No; I shall never win her. She is abundantly +capable of sympathy, and delights to receive it, but she has no need of +love." + +"I partly agree with you," said Miriam. "It is a mistaken idea, which +men generally entertain, that nature has made women especially prone to +throw their whole being into what is technically called love. We have, +to say the least, no more necessity for it than yourselves; only we have +nothing else to do with our hearts. When women have other objects +in life, they are not apt to fall in love. I can think of many women +distinguished in art, literature, and science,--and multitudes whose +hearts and minds find good employment in less ostentatious ways,--who +lead high, lonely lives, and are conscious of no sacrifice so far as +your sex is concerned." + +"And Hilda will be one of these!" said Kenyon sadly; "the thought makes +me shiver for myself, and and for her, too." + +"Well," said Miriam, smiling, "perhaps she may sprain the delicate wrist +which you have sculptured to such perfection. In that case you may hope. +These old masters to whom she has vowed herself, and whom her slender +hand and woman's heart serve so faithfully, are your only rivals." + +The sculptor sighed as he put away the treasure of Hilda's marble hand +into the ivory coffer, and thought how slight was the possibility +that he should ever feel responsive to his own the tender clasp of the +original. He dared not even kiss the image that he himself had made: it +had assumed its share of Hilda's remote and shy divinity. + +"And now," said Miriam, "show me the new statue which you asked me +hither to see." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +CLEOPATRA + + +"My new statue!" said Kenyon, who had positively forgotten it in the +thought of Hilda; "here it is, under this veil." "Not a nude figure, +I hope," observed Miriam. "Every young sculptor seems to think that he +must give the world some specimen of indecorous womanhood, and call it +Eve, Venus, a Nymph, or any name that may apologize for a lack of +decent clothing. I am weary, even more than I am ashamed, of seeing such +things. Nowadays people are as good as born in their clothes, and +there is practically not a nude human being in existence. An artist, +therefore, as you must candidly confess, cannot sculpture nudity with a +pure heart, if only because he is compelled to steal guilty glimpses +at hired models. The marble inevitably loses its chastity under such +circumstances. An old Greek sculptor, no doubt, found his models in the +open sunshine, and among pure and princely maidens, and thus the nude +statues of antiquity are as modest as violets, and sufficiently draped +in their own beauty. But as for Mr. Gibson's colored Venuses (stained, I +believe, with tobacco juice), and all other nudities of to-day, I really +do not understand what they have to say to this generation, and would be +glad to see as many heaps of quicklime in their stead." + +"You are severe upon the professors of my art," said Kenyon, half +smiling, half seriously; "not that you are wholly wrong, either. We are +bound to accept drapery of some kind, and make the best of it. But +what are we to do? Must we adopt the costume of to-day, and carve, for +example, a Venus in a hoop-petticoat?" + +"That would be a boulder, indeed!" rejoined Miriam, laughing. "But +the difficulty goes to confirm me in my belief that, except for +portrait-busts, sculpture has no longer a right to claim any place among +living arts. It has wrought itself out, and come fairly to an end. There +is never a new group nowadays; never even so much as a new attitude. +Greenough (I take my examples among men of merit) imagined nothing new; +nor Crawford either, except in the tailoring line. There are not, as you +will own, more than half a dozen positively original statues or groups +in the world, and these few are of immemorial antiquity. A person +familiar with the Vatican, the Uffizzi Gallery, the Naples Gallery, +and the Louvre, will at once refer any modern production to its antique +prototype; which, moreover, had begun to get out of fashion, even in old +Roman days." + +"Pray stop, Miriam," cried Kenyon, "or I shall fling away the chisel +forever!" + +"Fairly own to me, then, my friend," rejoined Miriam, whose disturbed +mind found a certain relief in this declamation, "that you sculptors +are, of necessity, the greatest plagiarists in the world." + +"I do not own it," said Kenyon, "yet cannot utterly contradict you, as +regards the actual state of the art. But as long as the Carrara quarries +still yield pure blocks, and while my own country has marble mountains, +probably as fine in quality, I shall steadfastly believe that future +sculptors will revive this noblest of the beautiful arts, and people the +world with new shapes of delicate grace and massive grandeur. Perhaps," +he added, smiling, "mankind will consent to wear a more manageable +costume; or, at worst, we sculptors shall get the skill to make +broadcloth transparent, and render a majestic human character visible +through the coats and trousers of the present day." + +"Be it so!" said Miriam; "you are past my counsel. Show me the veiled +figure, which, I am afraid, I have criticised beforehand. To make +amends, I am in the mood to praise it now." + +But, as Kenyon was about to take the cloth off the clay model, she laid +her hand on his arm. + +"Tell me first what is the subject," said she, "for I have sometimes +incurred great displeasure from members of your brotherhood by being +too obtuse to puzzle out the purport of their productions. It is so +difficult, you know, to compress and define a character or story, +and make it patent at a glance, within the narrow scope attainable +by sculpture! Indeed, I fancy it is still the ordinary habit with +sculptors, first to finish their group of statuary,--in such development +as the particular block of marble will allow,--and then to choose the +subject; as John of Bologna did with his Rape of the Sabines. Have you +followed that good example?" + +"No; my statue is intended for Cleopatra," replied Kenyon, a little +disturbed by Miriam's raillery. "The special epoch of her history you +must make out for yourself." + +He drew away the cloth that had served to keep the moisture of the clay +model from being exhaled. The sitting figure of a woman was seen. She +was draped from head to foot in a costume minutely and scrupulously +studied from that of ancient Egypt, as revealed by the strange sculpture +of that country, its coins, drawings, painted mummy-cases, and whatever +other tokens have been dug out of its pyramids, graves, and catacombs. +Even the stiff Egyptian head-dress was adhered to, but had been softened +into a rich feminine adornment, without losing a particle of its +truth. Difficulties that might well have seemed insurmountable had been +courageously encountered and made flexible to purposes of grace and +dignity; so that Cleopatra sat attired in a garb proper to her historic +and queenly state, as a daughter of the Ptolemies, and yet such as +the beautiful woman would have put on as best adapted to heighten the +magnificence of her charms, and kindle a tropic fire in the cold eyes of +Octavius. + +A marvellous repose--that rare merit in statuary, except it be the +lumpish repose native to the block of stone--was diffused throughout the +figure. The spectator felt that Cleopatra had sunk down out of the fever +and turmoil of her life, and for one instant--as it were, between two +pulse throbs--had relinquished all activity, and was resting throughout +every vein and muscle. It was the repose of despair, indeed; for +Octavius had seen her, and remained insensible to her enchantments. But +still there was a great smouldering furnace deep down in the woman's +heart. The repose, no doubt, was as complete as if she were never to +stir hand or foot again; and yet, such was the creature's latent energy +and fierceness, she might spring upon you like a tigress, and stop the +very breath that you were now drawing midway in your throat. + +The face was a miraculous success. The sculptor had not shunned to +give the full Nubian lips, and other characteristics of the Egyptian +physiognomy. His courage and integrity had been abundantly rewarded; for +Cleopatra's beauty shone out richer, warmer, more triumphantly beyond +comparison, than if, shrinking timidly from the truth, he had chosen +the tame Grecian type. The expression was of profound, gloomy, heavily +revolving thought; a glance into her past life and present emergencies, +while her spirit gathered itself up for some new struggle, or was +getting sternly reconciled to impending doom. In one view, there was a +certain softness and tenderness,--how breathed into the statue, among so +many strong and passionate elements, it is impossible to say. Catching +another glimpse, you beheld her as implacable as a stone and cruel as +fire. + +In a word, all Cleopatra--fierce, voluptuous, passionate, tender, +wicked, terrible, and full of poisonous and rapturous enchantment--was +kneaded into what, only a week or two before, had been a lump of wet +clay from the Tiber. Soon, apotheosized in an indestructible material, +she would be one of the images that men keep forever, finding a heat in +them which does not cool down, throughout the centuries? + +"What a woman is this!" exclaimed Miriam, after a long pause. "Tell me, +did she ever try, even while you were creating her, to overcome you with +her fury or her love? Were you not afraid to touch her, as she grew more +and more towards hot life beneath your hand? My dear friend, it is a +great work! How have you learned to do it?" + +"It is the concretion of a good deal of thought, emotion, and toil of +brain and hand," said Kenyon, not without a perception that his work was +good; "but I know not how it came about at last. I kindled a great fire +within my mind, and threw in the material,--as Aaron threw the gold +of the Israelites into the furnace,--and in the midmost heat uprose +Cleopatra, as you see her." + +"What I most marvel at," said Miriam, "is the womanhood that you have so +thoroughly mixed up with all those seemingly discordant elements. Where +did you get that secret? You never found it in your gentle Hilda, yet I +recognize its truth." + +"No, surely, it was not in Hilda," said Kenyon. "Her womanhood is of the +ethereal type, and incompatible with any shadow of darkness or evil." + +"You are right," rejoined Miriam; "there are women of that ethereal +type, as you term it, and Hilda is one of them. She would die of her +first wrong-doing,--supposing for a moment that she could be capable of +doing wrong. Of sorrow, slender as she seems, Hilda might bear a great +burden; of sin, not a feather's weight. Methinks now, were it my doom, I +could bear either, or both at once; but my conscience is still as white +as Hilda's. Do you question it?" + +"Heaven forbid, Miriam!" exclaimed the sculptor. + +He was startled at the strange turn which she had so suddenly given to +the conversation. Her voice, too,--so much emotion was stifled rather +than expressed in it, sounded unnatural. + +"O, my friend," cried she, with sudden passion, "will you be my friend +indeed? I am lonely, lonely, lonely! There is a secret in my heart that +burns me,--that tortures me! Sometimes I fear to go mad of it; sometimes +I hope to die of it; but neither of the two happens. Ah, if I could but +whisper it to only one human soul! And you--you see far into womanhood; +you receive it widely into your large view. Perhaps--perhaps, but Heaven +only knows, you might understand me! O, let me speak!" + +"Miriam, dear friend," replied the sculptor, "if I can help you, speak +freely, as to a brother." + +"Help me? No!" said Miriam. + +Kenyon's response had been perfectly frank and kind; and yet the +subtlety of Miriam's emotion detected a certain reserve and alarm in his +warmly expressed readiness to hear her story. In his secret soul, to +say the truth, the sculptor doubted whether it were well for this +poor, suffering girl to speak what she so yearned to say, or for him +to listen. If there were any active duty of friendship to be performed, +then, indeed, he would joyfully have come forward to do his best. But if +it were only a pent-up heart that sought an outlet? in that case it was +by no means so certain that a confession would do good. The more her +secret struggled and fought to be told, the more certain would it be to +change all former relations that had subsisted between herself and the +friend to whom she might reveal it. Unless he could give her all the +sympathy, and just the kind of sympathy that the occasion required, +Miriam would hate him by and by, and herself still more, if he let her +speak. + +This was what Kenyon said to himself; but his reluctance, after all, and +whether he were conscious of it or no, resulted from a suspicion that +had crept into his heart and lay there in a dark corner. Obscure as it +was, when Miriam looked into his eyes, she detected it at once. + +"Ah, I shall hate you!" cried she, echoing the thought which he had +not spoken; she was half choked with the gush of passion that was thus +turned back upon her. "You are as cold and pitiless as your own marble." + +"No; but full of sympathy, God knows!" replied he. + +In truth, his suspicions, however warranted by the mystery in which +Miriam was enveloped, had vanished in the earnestness of his kindly and +sorrowful emotion. He was now ready to receive her trust. + +"Keep your sympathy, then, for sorrows that admit of such solace," said +she, making a strong effort to compose herself. "As for my griefs, I +know how to manage them. It was all a mistake: you can do nothing for +me, unless you petrify me into a marble companion for your Cleopatra +there; and I am not of her sisterhood, I do assure you. Forget this +foolish scene, my friend, and never let me see a reference to it in your +eyes when they meet mine hereafter." + +"Since you desire it, all shall be forgotten," answered the sculptor, +pressing her hand as she departed; "or, if ever I can serve you, let my +readiness to do so be remembered. Meanwhile, dear Miriam, let us meet in +the same clear, friendly light as heretofore." + +"You are less sincere than I thought you," said Miriam, "if you try to +make me think that there will be no change." + +As he attended her through the antechamber, she pointed to the statue of +the pearl-diver. + +"My secret is not a pearl," said she; "yet a man might drown himself in +plunging after it." + +After Kenyon had closed the door, she went wearily down the staircase, +but paused midway, as if debating with herself whether to return. + +"The mischief was done," thought she; "and I might as well have had the +solace that ought to come with it. I have lost,--by staggering a little +way beyond the mark, in the blindness of my distress, I have lost, as +we shall hereafter find, the genuine friendship of this clear-minded, +honorable, true-hearted young man, and all for nothing. What if I should +go back this moment and compel him to listen?" + +She ascended two or three of the stairs, but again paused, murmured to +herself, and shook her head. + +"No, no, no," she thought; "and I wonder how I ever came to dream of +it. Unless I had his heart for my own,--and that is Hilda's, nor would I +steal it from her,--it should never be the treasure Place of my secret. +It is no precious pearl, as I just now told him; but my dark-red +carbuncle--red as blood--is too rich a gem to put into a stranger's +casket." + +She went down the stairs, and found her shadow waiting for her in the +street. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +AN AESTHETIC COMPANY + + +On the evening after Miriam's visit to Kenyon's studio, there was an +assemblage composed almost entirely of Anglo-Saxons, and chiefly of +American artists, with a sprinkling of their English brethren; and some +few of the tourists who still lingered in Rome, now that Holy Week was +past. Miriam, Hilda, and the sculptor were all three present, and with +them Donatello, whose life was so far turned from fits natural bent +that, like a pet spaniel, he followed his beloved mistress wherever he +could gain admittance. + +The place of meeting was in the palatial, but somewhat faded and gloomy +apartment of an eminent member of the aesthetic body. It was no more +formal an occasion than one of those weekly receptions, common among +the foreign residents of Rome, at which pleasant people--or disagreeable +ones, as the case may be--encounter one another with little ceremony. + +If anywise interested in art, a man must be difficult to please who +cannot find fit companionship among a crowd of persons, whose ideas and +pursuits all tend towards the general purpose of enlarging the world's +stock of beautiful productions. + +One of the chief causes that make Rome the favorite residence of +artists--their ideal home which they sigh for in advance, and are so +loath to migrate from, after once breathing its enchanted air--is, +doubtless, that they there find themselves in force, and are numerous +enough to create a congenial atmosphere. In every other clime they are +isolated strangers; in this land of art, they are free citizens. + +Not that, individually, or in the mass, there appears to be any large +stock of mutual affection among the brethren of the chisel and the +pencil. On the contrary, it will impress the shrewd observer that the +jealousies and petty animosities, which the poets of our day have flung +aside, still irritate and gnaw into the hearts of this kindred class of +imaginative men. It is not difficult to suggest reasons why this should +be the fact. The public, in whose good graces lie the sculptor's or the +painter's prospects of success, is infinitely smaller than the public to +which literary men make their appeal. It is composed of a very limited +body of wealthy patrons; and these, as the artist well knows, are but +blind judges in matters that require the utmost delicacy of perception. +Thus, success in art is apt to become partly an affair of intrigue; and +it is almost inevitable that even a gifted artist should look askance at +his gifted brother's fame, and be chary of the good word that might help +him to sell still another statue or picture. You seldom hear a painter +heap generous praise on anything in his special line of art; a sculptor +never has a favorable eye for any marble but his own. + +Nevertheless, in spite of all these professional grudges, artists are +conscious of a social warmth from each other's presence and contiguity. +They shiver at the remembrance of their lonely studios in the +unsympathizing cities of their native land. For the sake of such +brotherhood as they can find, more than for any good that they get from +galleries, they linger year after year in Italy, while their originality +dies out of them, or is polished away as a barbarism. + +The company this evening included several men and women whom the world +has heard of, and many others, beyond all question, whom it ought to +know. It would be a pleasure to introduce them upon our humble pages, +name by name, and had we confidence enough in our own taste--to crown +each well-deserving brow according to its deserts. The opportunity +is tempting, but not easily manageable, and far too perilous, both in +respect to those individuals whom we might bring forward, and the far +greater number that must needs be left in the shade. Ink, moreover, is +apt to have a corrosive quality, and might chance to raise a blister, +instead of any more agreeable titillation, on skins so sensitive as +those of artists. We must therefore forego the delight of illuminating +this chapter with personal allusions to men whose renown glows richly on +canvas, or gleams in the white moonlight of marble. + +Otherwise we might point to an artist who has studied Nature with +such tender love that she takes him to her intimacy, enabling him to +reproduce her in landscapes that seem the reality of a better earth, +and yet are but the truth of the very scenes around us, observed by the +painter's insight and interpreted for us by his skill. By his magic, +the moon throws her light far out of the picture, and the crimson of +the summer night absolutely glimmers on the beholder's face. Or we might +indicate a poet-painter, whose song has the vividness of picture, and +whose canvas is peopled with angels, fairies, and water sprites, done to +the ethereal life, because he saw them face to face in his poetic mood. +Or we might bow before an artist, who has wrought too sincerely, too +religiously, with too earnest a feeling, and too delicate a touch, for +the world at once to recognize how much toil and thought are compressed +into the stately brow of Prospero, and Miranda's maiden loveliness; or +from what a depth within this painter's heart the Angel is leading forth +St. Peter. + +Thus it would be easy to go on, perpetrating a score of little +epigrammatical allusions, like the above, all kindly meant, but none +of them quite hitting the mark, and often striking where they were not +aimed. It may be allowable to say, however, that American art is much +better represented at Rome in the pictorial than in the sculpturesque +department. Yet the men of marble appear to have more weight with the +public than the men of canvas; perhaps on account of the greater density +and solid substance of the material in which they work, and the sort +of physical advantage which their labors thus acquire over the illusive +unreality of color. To be a sculptor seems a distinction in itself; +whereas a painter is nothing, unless individually eminent. + +One sculptor there was, an Englishman, endowed with a beautiful fancy, +and possessing at his fingers' ends the capability of doing beautiful +things. He was a quiet, simple, elderly personage, with eyes brown and +bright, under a slightly impending brow, and a Grecian profile, such as +he might have cut with his own chisel. He had spent his life, for forty +years, in making Venuses, Cupids, Bacchuses, and a vast deal of other +marble progeny of dreamwork, or rather frostwork: it was all a vapory +exhalation out of the Grecian mythology, crystallizing on the dull +window-panes of to-day. Gifted with a more delicate power than any other +man alive, he had foregone to be a Christian reality, and perverted +himself into a Pagan idealist, whose business or efficacy, in our +present world, it would be exceedingly difficult to define. And, loving +and reverencing the pure material in which he wrought, as surely this +admirable sculptor did, he had nevertheless robbed the marble of its +chastity, by giving it an artificial warmth of hue. Thus it became a sin +and shame to look at his nude goddesses. They had revealed themselves +to his imagination, no doubt, with all their deity about them; but, +bedaubed with buff color, they stood forth to the eyes of the profane in +the guise of naked women. But, whatever criticism may be ventured on +his style, it was good to meet a man so modest and yet imbued with such +thorough and simple conviction of his own right principles and practice, +and so quietly satisfied that his kind of antique achievement was all +that sculpture could effect for modern life. + + +This eminent person's weight and authority among his artistic brethren +were very evident; for beginning unobtrusively to utter himself on +a topic of art, he was soon the centre of a little crowd of younger +sculptors. They drank in his wisdom, as if it would serve all the +purposes of original inspiration; he, meanwhile, discoursing with +gentle calmness, as if there could possibly be no other side, and often +ratifying, as it were, his own conclusions by a mildly emphatic "Yes." + +The veteran Sculptor's unsought audience was composed mostly of our own +countrymen. It is fair to say, that they were a body of very dexterous +and capable artists, each of whom had probably given the delighted +public a nude statue, or had won credit for even higher skill by the +nice carving of buttonholes, shoe-ties, coat-seams, shirt-bosoms, and +other such graceful peculiarities of modern costume. Smart, practical +men they doubtless were, and some of them far more than this, but still +not precisely what an uninitiated person looks for in a sculptor. A +sculptor, indeed, to meet the demands which our preconceptions make upon +him, should be even more indispensably a poet than those who deal in +measured verse and rhyme. His material, or instrument, which serves +him in the stead of shifting and transitory language, is a pure, white, +undecaying substance. It insures immortality to whatever is wrought in +it, and therefore makes it a religious obligation to commit no idea +to its mighty guardianship, save such as may repay the marble for +its faithful care, its incorruptible fidelity, by warming it with an +ethereal life. Under this aspect, marble assumes a sacred character; and +no man should dare to touch it unless he feels within himself a certain +consecration and a priesthood, the only evidence of which, for the +public eye, will be the high treatment of heroic subjects, or the +delicate evolution of spiritual, through material beauty. + +No ideas such as the foregoing--no misgivings suggested by them +probably, troubled the self-complacency of most of these clever +sculptors. Marble, in their view, had no such sanctity as we impute +to it. It was merely a sort of white limestone from Carrara, cut into +convenient blocks, and worth, in that state, about two or three dollars +per pound; and it was susceptible of being wrought into certain shapes +(by their own mechanical ingenuity, or that of artisans in their +employment) which would enable them to sell it again at a much higher +figure. Such men, on the strength of some small knack in handling clay, +which might have been fitly employed in making wax-work, are bold to +call themselves sculptors. How terrible should be the thought that the +nude woman whom the modern artist patches together, bit by bit, from a +dozen heterogeneous models, meaning nothing by her, shall last as long +as the Venus of the Capitol!--that his group of--no matter what, since +it has no moral or intellectual existence will not physically crumble +any sooner than the immortal agony of the Laocoon! + +Yet we love the artists, in every kind; even these, whose merits we are +not quite able to appreciate. Sculptors, painters, crayon sketchers, or +whatever branch of aesthetics they adopted, were certainly pleasanter +people, as we saw them that evening, than the average whom we meet +in ordinary society. They were not wholly confined within the sordid +compass of practical life; they had a pursuit which, if followed +faithfully out, would lead them to the beautiful, and always had a +tendency thitherward, even if they lingered to gather up golden dross +by the wayside. Their actual business (though they talked about it very +much as other men talk of cotton, politics, flour barrels, and sugar) +necessarily illuminated their conversation with something akin to the +ideal. So, when the guests collected themselves in little groups, here +and there, in the wide saloon, a cheerful and airy gossip began to be +heard. The atmosphere ceased to be precisely that of common life; a +hint, mellow tinge, such as we see in pictures, mingled itself with the +lamplight. + +This good effect was assisted by many curious little treasures of +art, which the host had taken care to strew upon his tables. They +were principally such bits of antiquity as the soil of Rome and its +neighborhood are still rich in; seals, gems, small figures of bronze, +mediaeval carvings in ivory; things which had been obtained at little +cost, yet might have borne no inconsiderable value in the museum of a +virtuoso. + +As interesting as any of these relics was a large portfolio of old +drawings, some of which, in the opinion of their possessor, bore +evidence on their faces of the touch of master-hands. Very ragged and +ill conditioned they mostly were, yellow with time, and tattered with +rough usage; and, in their best estate, the designs had been scratched +rudely with pen and ink, on coarse paper, or, if drawn with charcoal or +a pencil, were now half rubbed out. You would not anywhere see rougher +and homelier things than these. But this hasty rudeness made the +sketches only the more valuable; because the artist seemed to have +bestirred himself at the pinch of the moment, snatching up whatever +material was nearest, so as to seize the first glimpse of an idea +that might vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Thus, by the spell of +a creased, soiled, and discolored scrap of paper, you were enabled to +steal close to an old master, and watch him in the very effervescence of +his genius. + +According to the judgment of several connoisseurs, Raphael's own +hand had communicated its magnetism to one of these sketches; and, if +genuine, it was evidently his first conception of a favorite Madonna, +now hanging in the private apartment of the Grand Duke, at Florence. +Another drawing was attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and appeared to be +a somewhat varied design for his picture of Modesty and Vanity, in the +Sciarra Palace. There were at least half a dozen others, to which the +owner assigned as high an origin. It was delightful to believe in their +authenticity, at all events; for these things make the spectator more +vividly sensible of a great painter's power, than the final glow +and perfected art of the most consummate picture that may have been +elaborated from them. There is an effluence of divinity in the first +sketch; and there, if anywhere, you find the pure light of inspiration, +which the subsequent toil of the artist serves to bring out in stronger +lustre, indeed, but likewise adulterates it with what belongs to an +inferior mood. The aroma and fragrance of new thoughts were perceptible +in these designs, after three centuries of wear and tear. The charm lay +partly in their very imperfection; for this is suggestive, and sets +the imagination at work; whereas, the finished picture, if a good one, +leaves the spectator nothing to do, and, if bad, confuses, stupefies, +disenchants, and disheartens him. + +Hilda was greatly interested in this rich portfolio. She lingered so +long over one particular sketch, that Miriam asked her what discovery +she had made. + +"Look at it carefully," replied Hilda, putting the sketch into her +hands. "If you take pains to disentangle the design from those +pencil-marks that seem to have been scrawled over it, I think you will +see something very curious." + +"It is a hopeless affair, I am afraid," said Miriam. "I have neither +your faith, dear Hilda, nor your perceptive faculty. Fie! what a blurred +scrawl it is indeed!" + +The drawing had originally been very slight, and had suffered more +from time and hard usage than almost any other in the collection; it +appeared, too, that there had been an attempt (perhaps by the very hand +that drew it) to obliterate the design. By Hilda's help, however, Miriam +pretty distinctly made out a winged figure with a drawn sword, and a +dragon, or a demon, prostrate at his feet. + +"I am convinced," said Hilda in a low, reverential tone, "that Guido's +own touches are on that ancient scrap of paper! If so, it must be his +original sketch for the picture of the Archangel Michael setting his +foot upon the demon, in the Church of the Cappuccini. The composition +and general arrangement of the sketch are the same with those of the +picture; the only difference being, that the demon has a more upturned +face, and scowls vindictively at the Archangel, who turns away his eyes +in painful disgust." + +"No wonder!" responded Miriam. "The expression suits the daintiness of +Michael's character, as Guido represents him. He never could have looked +the demon in the face!" + +"Miriam!" exclaimed her friend reproachfully, "you grieve me, and you +know it, by pretending to speak contemptuously of the most beautiful and +the divinest figure that mortal painter ever drew." + +"Forgive me, Hilda!" said Miriam. "You take these matters more +religiously than I can, for my life. Guido's Archangel is a fine +picture, of course, but it never impressed me as it does _you_." + +"Well; we will not talk of that," answered Hilda. "What I wanted you to +notice, in this sketch, is the face of the demon. It is entirely unlike +the demon of the finished picture. Guido, you know, always affirmed that +the resemblance to Cardinal Pamfili was either casual or imaginary. Now, +here is the face as he first conceived it." + +"And a more energetic demon, altogether, than that of the finished +picture," said Kenyon, taking the sketch into his hand. "What a spirit +is conveyed into the ugliness of this strong, writhing, squirming +dragon, under the Archangel's foot! Neither is the face an impossible +one. Upon my word, I have seen it somewhere, and on the shoulders of a +living man!" + +"And so have I," said Hilda. "It was what struck me from the first." + +"Donatello, look at this face!" cried Kenyon. + +The young Italian, as may be supposed, took little interest in matters +of art, and seldom or never ventured an opinion respecting them. After +holding the sketch a single instant in his hand, he flung it from him +with a shudder of disgust and repugnance, and a frown that had all the +bitterness of hatred. + +"I know the face well!" whispered he. "It is Miriam's model!" + +It was acknowledged both by Kenyon and Hilda that they had detected, or +fancied, the resemblance which Donatello so strongly affirmed; and it +added not a little to the grotesque and weird character which, half +playfully, half seriously, they assigned to Miriam's attendant, to think +of him as personating the demon's part in a picture of more than two +centuries ago. Had Guido, in his effort to imagine the utmost of sin +and misery, which his pencil could represent, hit ideally upon just this +face? Or was it an actual portrait of somebody, that haunted the old +master, as Miriam was haunted now? Did the ominous shadow follow him +through all the sunshine of his earlier career, and into the gloom that +gathered about its close? And when Guido died, did the spectre betake +himself to those ancient sepulchres, there awaiting a new victim, till +it was Miriam's ill-hap to encounter him? + +"I do not acknowledge the resemblance at all," said Miriam, looking +narrowly at the sketch; "and, as I have drawn the face twenty times, I +think you will own that I am the best judge." + +A discussion here arose, in reference to Guido's Archangel, and it was +agreed that these four friends should visit the Church of the Cappuccini +the next morning, and critically examine the picture in question; +the similarity between it and the sketch being, at all events, a very +curious circumstance. + +It was now a little past ten o'clock, when some of the company, who had +been standing in a balcony, declared the moonlight to be resplendent. +They proposed a ramble through the streets, taking in their way some +of those scenes of ruin which produced their best effects under the +splendor of the Italian moon. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE + + +The proposal for a moonlight ramble was received with acclamation by +all the younger portion of the company. They immediately set forth and +descended from story to story, dimly lighting their way by waxen tapers, +which are a necessary equipment to those whose thoroughfare, in the +night-time, lies up and down a Roman staircase. Emerging from the +courtyard of the edifice, they looked upward and saw the sky full of +light, which seemed to have a delicate purple or crimson lustre, or, at +least some richer tinge than the cold, white moonshine of other +skies. It gleamed over the front of the opposite palace, showing the +architectural ornaments of its cornice and pillared portal, as well as +the iron-barred basement windows, that gave such a prison-like aspect to +the structure, and the shabbiness and Squalor that lay along its base. +A cobbler was just shutting up his little shop, in the basement of the +palace; a cigar vender's lantern flared in the blast that came through +the archway; a French sentinel paced to and fro before the portal; a +homeless dog, that haunted thereabouts, barked as obstreperously at the +party as if he were the domestic guardian of the precincts. + +The air was quietly full of the noise of falling water, the cause +of which was nowhere visible, though apparently near at hand. This +pleasant, natural sound, not unlike that of a distant cascade in the +forest, may be heard in many of the Roman streets and piazzas, when +the tumult of the city is hushed; for consuls, emperors, and popes, the +great men of every age, have found no better way of immortalizing their +memories than by the shifting, indestructible, ever new, yet unchanging, +upgush and downfall of water. They have written their names in that +unstable element, and proved it a more durable record than brass or +marble. + +"Donatello, you had better take one of those gay, boyish artists for +your companion," said Miriam, when she found the Italian youth at +her side. "I am not now in a merry mood, as when we set all the world +a-dancing the other afternoon, in the Borghese grounds." + +"I never wish to dance any more," answered Donatello. + +"What a melancholy was in that tone!" exclaimed Miriam. "You are getting +spoilt in this dreary Rome, and will be as wise and as wretched as all +the rest of mankind, unless you go back soon to your Tuscan vineyards. +Well; give me your arm, then! But take care that no friskiness comes +over you. We must walk evenly and heavily to-night!" + +The party arranged itself according to its natural affinities or casual +likings; a sculptor generally choosing a painter, and a painter a +sculp--tor, for his companion, in preference to brethren of their own +art. Kenyon would gladly have taken Hilda to himself, and have drawn +her a little aside from the throng of merry wayfarers. But she kept near +Miriam, and seemed, in her gentle and quiet way, to decline a separate +alliance either with him or any other of her acquaintances. + +So they set forth, and had gone but a little way, when the narrow street +emerged into a piazza, on one side of which, glistening and dimpling in +the moonlight, was the most famous fountain in Rome. Its murmur--not +to say its uproar--had been in the ears of the company, ever since they +came into the open air. It was the Fountain of Trevi, which draws its +precious water from a source far beyond the walls, whence it flows +hitherward through old subterranean aqueducts, and sparkles forth as +pure as the virgin who first led Agrippa to its well-spring, by her +father's door. + +"I shall sip as much of this water as the hollow of my hand will hold," +said Miriam. + +"I am leaving Rome in a few days; and the tradition goes, that a +parting draught at the Fountain of Trevi insures the traveller's return, +whatever obstacles and improbabilities may seem to beset him. Will you +drink, Donatello?" + +"Signorina, what you drink, I drink," said the youth. + +They and the rest of the party descended some steps to the water's +brim, and, after a sip or two, stood gazing at the absurd design of the +fountain, where some sculptor of Bernini's school had gone absolutely +mad in marble. It was a great palace front, with niches and many +bas-reliefs, out of which looked Agrippa's legendary virgin, and several +of the allegoric sisterhood; while, at the base, appeared Neptune, with +his floundering steeds, and Tritons blowing their horns about him, and +twenty other artificial fantasies, which the calm moonlight soothed into +better taste than was native to them. + +And, after all, it was as magnificent a piece of work as ever human +skill contrived. At the foot of the palatial facade was strewn, with +careful art and ordered irregularity, a broad and broken heap of massive +rock, looking is if it might have lain there since the deluge. Over a +central precipice fell the water, in a semicircular cascade; and from +a hundred crevices, on all sides, snowy jets gushed up, and streams +spouted out of the mouths and nostrils of stone monsters, and fell in +glistening drops; while other rivulets, that had run wild, came leaping +from one rude step to another, over stones that were mossy, slimy, and +green with sedge, because, in a Century of their wild play, Nature had +adopted the Fountain of Trevi, with all its elaborate devices, for her +own. Finally, the water, tumbling, sparkling, and dashing, with +joyous haste and never-ceasing murmur, poured itself into a great +marble-brimmed reservoir, and filled it with a quivering tide; on which +was seen, continually, a snowy semicircle of momentary foam from the +principal cascade, as well as a multitude of snow points from smaller +jets. The basin occupied the whole breadth of the piazza, whence flights +of steps descended to its border. A boat might float, and make voyages +from one shore to another in this mimic lake. + + +In the daytime, there is hardly a livelier scene in Rome than the +neighborhood of the Fountain of Trevi; for the piazza is then filled +with the stalls of vegetable and fruit dealers, chestnut roasters, +cigar venders, and other people, whose petty and wandering traffic +is transacted in the open air. It is likewise thronged with idlers, +lounging over the iron railing, and with Forestieri, who came hither to +see the famous fountain. Here, also, are seen men with buckets, urchins +with cans, and maidens (a picture as old as the patriarchal times) +bearing their pitchers upon their heads. For the water of Trevi is in +request, far and wide, as the most refreshing draught for feverish lips, +the pleasantest to mingle with wine, and the wholesomest to drink, +in its native purity, that can anywhere be found. But now, at early +midnight, the piazza was a solitude; and it was a delight to behold this +untamable water, sporting by itself in the moonshine, and compelling +all the elaborate trivialities of art to assume a natural aspect, in +accordance with its own powerful simplicity. + +"What would be done with this water power," suggested an artist, "if we +had it in one of our American cities? Would they employ it to turn the +machinery of a cotton mill, I wonder?" + +"The good people would pull down those rampant marble deities," said +Kenyon, "and, possibly, they would give me a commission to carve the +one-and-thirty (is that the number?) sister States, each pouring a +silver stream from a separate can into one vast basin, which should +represent the grand reservoir of national prosperity." + +"Or, if they wanted a bit of satire," remarked an English artist, "you +could set those same one-and-thirty States to cleansing the national +flag of any stains that it may have incurred. The Roman washerwomen at +the lavatory yonder, plying their labor in the open air, would serve +admirably as models." + +"I have often intended to visit this fountain by moonlight,", said +Miriam, "because it was here that the interview took place between +Corinne and Lord Neville, after their separation and temporary +estrangement. Pray come behind me, one of you, and let me try whether +the face can be recognized in the water." + +Leaning over the stone brim of the basin, she heard footsteps stealing +behind her, and knew that somebody was looking over her shoulder. The +moonshine fell directly behind Miriam, illuminating the palace front and +the whole scene of statues and rocks, and filling the basin, as it were, +with tremulous and palpable light. Corinne, it will be remembered, knew +Lord Neville by the reflection of his face in the water. In Miriam's +case, however (owing to the agitation of the water, its transparency, +and the angle at which she was compelled to lean over), no reflected +image appeared; nor, from the same causes, would it have been possible +for the recognition between Corinne and her lover to take place. The +moon, indeed, flung Miriam's shadow at the bottom of the basin, as well +as two more shadows of persons who had followed her, on either side. + +"Three shadows!" exclaimed Miriam--"three separate shadows, all so black +and heavy that they sink in the water! There they lie on the bottom, +as if all three were drowned together. This shadow on my right is +Donatello; I know him by his curls, and the turn of his head. My +left-hand companion puzzles me; a shapeless mass, as indistinct as the +premonition of calamity! Which of you can it be? Ah!" + +She had turned round, while speaking, and saw beside her the strange +creature whose attendance on her was already familiar, as a marvel and +a jest; to the whole company of artists. A general burst of laughter +followed the recognition; while the model leaned towards Miriam, as she +shrank from him, and muttered something that was inaudible to those who +witnessed the scene. By his gestures, however, they concluded that he +was inviting her to bathe her hands. + +"He cannot be an Italian; at least not a Roman," observed an artist. "I +never knew one of them to care about ablution. See him now! It is as +if he were trying to wash off' the time-stains and earthly soil of a +thousand years!" + +Dipping his hands into the capacious washbowl before him, the model +rubbed them together with the utmost vehemence. Ever and anon, too, +he peeped into the water, as if expecting to see the whole Fountain of +Trevi turbid with the results of his ablution. Miriam looked at him, +some little time, with an aspect of real terror, and even imitated him +by leaning over to peep into the basin. Recovering herself, she took up +some of the water in the hollow of her hand, and practised an old form +of exorcism by flinging it in her persecutor's face. + +"In the name of all the Saints," cried she, "vanish, Demon, and let me +be free of you now and forever!" + +"It will not suffice," said some of the mirthful party, "unless the +Fountain of Trevi gushes with holy water." + +In fact, the exorcism was quite ineffectual upon the pertinacious demon, +or whatever the apparition might be. Still he washed his brown, bony +talons; still he peered into the vast basin, as if all the water of that +great drinking-cup of Rome must needs be stained black or sanguine; and +still he gesticulated to Miriam to follow his example. The spectators +laughed loudly, but yet with a kind of constraint; for the creature's +aspect was strangely repulsive and hideous. + +Miriam felt her arm seized violently by Donatello. She looked at him, +and beheld a tigerlike fury gleaming from his wild eyes. + +"Bid me drown him!" whispered he, shuddering between rage and horrible +disgust. "You shall hear his death gurgle in another instant!" + +"Peace, peace, Donatello!" said Miriam soothingly, for this naturally +gentle and sportive being seemed all aflame with animal rage. "Do him no +mischief! He is mad; and we are as mad as he, if we suffer ourselves to +be disquieted by his antics. Let us leave him to bathe his hands till +the fountain run dry, if he find solace and pastime in it. What is it to +you or me, Donatello? There, there! Be quiet, foolish boy!" + +Her tone and gesture were such as she might have used in taming down the +wrath of a faithful hound, that had taken upon himself to avenge some +supposed affront to his mistress. She smoothed the young man's curls +(for his fierce and sudden fury seemed to bristle among his hair), and +touched his cheek with her soft palm, till his angry mood was a little +assuaged. + +"Signorina, do I look as when you first knew me?" asked he, with a +heavy, tremulous sigh, as they went onward, somewhat apart from their +companions. "Methinks there has been a change upon me, these many +months; and more and more, these last few days. The joy is gone out of +my life; all gone! all gone! Feel my hand! Is it not very hot? Ah; and +my heart burns hotter still!" + +"My poor Donatello, you are ill!" said Miriam, with deep sympathy and +pity. "This melancholy and sickly Rome is stealing away the rich, joyous +life that belongs to you. Go back, my dear friend, to your home among +the hills, where (as I gather from what you have told me) your days were +filled with simple and blameless delights. Have you found aught in the +world that is worth' what you there enjoyed? Tell me truly, Donatello!" + +"Yes!" replied the young man. + +"And what, in Heaven's name?" asked she. + +"This burning pain in my heart," said Donatello; "for you are in the +midst of it." + +By this time, they had left the Fountain of Trevi considerably behind +them. Little further allusion was made to the scene at its margin; for +the party regarded Miriam's persecutor as diseased in his wits, and were +hardly to be surprised by any eccentricity in his deportment. + +Threading several narrow streets, they passed through the Piazza of the +Holy Apostles, and soon came to Trajan's Forum. All over the surface +of what once was Rome, it seems to be the effort of Time to bury up the +ancient city, as if it were a corpse, and he the sexton; so that, in +eighteen centuries, the soil over its grave has grown very deep, by the +slow scattering of dust, and the accumulation of more modern decay upon +older ruin. + +This was the fate, also, of Trajan's Forum, until some papal antiquary, +a few hundred years ago, began to hollow it out again, and disclosed the +full height of the gigantic column wreathed round with bas-reliefs of +the old emperor's warlike deeds. In the area before it stands a grove of +stone, consisting of the broken and unequal shafts of a vanished temple, +still keeping a majestic order, and apparently incapable of further +demolition. The modern edifices of the piazza (wholly built, no doubt, +out of the spoil of its old magnificence) look down into the hollow +space whence these pillars rise. + +One of the immense gray granite shafts lay in the piazza, on the verge +of the area. It was a great, solid fact of the Past, making old Rome +actually sensible to the touch and eye; and no study of history, nor +force of thought, nor magic of song, could so vitally assure us that +Rome once existed, as this sturdy specimen of what its rulers and people +wrought. + +"And see!" said Kenyon, laying his hand upon it, "there is still a +polish remaining on the hard substance of the pillar; and even now, late +as it is, I can feel very sensibly the warmth of the noonday sun, which +did its best to heat it through. This shaft will endure forever. The +polish of eighteen centuries ago, as yet but half rubbed off, and the +heat of to-day's sunshine, lingering into the night, seem almost equally +ephemeral in relation to it." + +"There is comfort to be found in the pillar," remarked Miriam, "hard +and heavy as it is. Lying here forever, as it will, it makes all human +trouble appear but a momentary annoyance." + +"And human happiness as evanescent too," observed Hilda, sighing; "and +beautiful art hardly less so! I do not love to think that this dull +stone, merely by its massiveness, will last infinitely longer than +any picture, in spite of the spiritual life that ought to give it +immortality!" + +"My poor little Hilda," said Miriam, kissing her compassionately, "would +you sacrifice this greatest mortal consolation, which we derive from +the transitoriness of all things, from the right of saying, in every +conjecture, 'This, too, will pass away,' would you give up this +unspeakable boon, for the sake of making a picture eternal?" + +Their moralizing strain was interrupted by a demonstration from the rest +of the party, who, after talking and laughing together, suddenly joined +their voices, and shouted at full pitch, + +"Trajan! Trajan!" + +"Why do you deafen us with such an uproar?" inquired Miriam. + +In truth, the whole piazza had been filled with their idle vociferation; +the echoes from the surrounding houses reverberating the cry of +"Trajan," on all sides; as if there was a great search for that imperial +personage, and not so much as a handful of his ashes to be found. + +"Why, it was a good opportunity to air our voices in this resounding +piazza," replied one of the artists. "Besides, we had really some hopes +of summoning Trajan to look at his column, which, you know, he never +saw in his lifetime. Here is your model (who, they say, lived and sinned +before Trajan's death) still wandering about Rome; and why not the +Emperor Trajan?" + +"Dead emperors have very little delight in their columns, I am afraid," +observed Kenyon. "All that rich sculpture of Trajan's bloody warfare, +twining from the base of the pillar to its capital, may be but an ugly +spectacle for his ghostly eyes, if he considers that this huge, storied +shaft must be laid before the judgment-seat, as a piece of the evidence +of what he did in the flesh. If ever I am employed to sculpture a hero's +monument, I shall think of this, as I put in the bas-reliefs of the +pedestal!" + +"There are sermons in stones," said Hilda thoughtfully, smiling at +Kenyon's morality; "and especially in the stones of Rome." + +The party moved on, but deviated a little from the straight way, in +order to glance at the ponderous remains of the temple of Mars Ultot, +within which a convent of nuns is now established,--a dove-cote, in the +war-god's mansion. At only a little distance, they passed the portico +of a Temple of Minerva, most rich and beautiful in architecture, but +woefully gnawed by time and shattered by violence, besides being buried +midway in the accumulation of soil, that rises over dead Rome like a +flood tide. Within this edifice of antique sanctity, a baker's shop +was now established, with an entrance on one side; for, everywhere, the +remnants of old grandeur and divinity have been made available for the +meanest necessities of today. + +"The baker is just drawing his loaves out of the oven," remarked Kenyon. +"Do you smell how sour they are? I should fancy that Minerva (in revenge +for the desecration of her temple) had slyly poured vinegar into the +batch, if I did not know that the modern Romans prefer their bread in +the acetous fermentation." + +They turned into the Via Alessandria, and thus gained the rear of the +Temple of Peace, and, passing beneath its great arches, pursued their +way along a hedge-bordered lane. In all probability, a stately Roman +street lay buried beneath that rustic-looking pathway; for they had now +emerged from the close and narrow avenues of the modern city, and were +treading on a soil where the seeds of antique grandeur had not yet +produced the squalid crop that elsewhere sprouts from them. Grassy as +the lane was, it skirted along heaps of shapeless ruin, and the bare +site of the vast temple that Hadrian planned and built. It terminated +on the edge of a somewhat abrupt descent, at the foot of which, with a +muddy ditch between, rose, in the bright moonlight, the great curving +wall and multitudinous arches of the Coliseum. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +MIRIAM'S TROUBLE + + +As usual of a moonlight evening, several carriages stood at the entrance +of this famous ruin, and the precincts and interior were anything but a +solitude. The French sentinel on duty beneath the principal archway eyed +our party curiously, but offered no obstacle to their admission. Within, +the moonlight filled and flooded the great empty space; it glowed upon +tier above tier of ruined, grass-grown arches, and made them even +too distinctly visible. The splendor of the revelation took away that +inestimable effect of dimness and mystery by which the imagination +might be assisted to build a grander structure than the Coliseum, and to +shatter it with a more picturesque decay. Byron's celebrated description +is better than the reality. He beheld the scene in his mind's eye, +through the witchery of many intervening years, and faintly illuminated +it as if with starlight instead of this broad glow of moonshine. + +The party of our friends sat down, three or four of them on a prostrate +column, another on a shapeless lump of marble, once a Roman altar; +others on the steps of one of the Christian shrines. Goths and +barbarians though they were, they chatted as gayly together as if they +belonged to the gentle and pleasant race of people who now inhabit +Italy. There was much pastime and gayety just then in the area of the +Coliseum, where so many gladiators and Wild beasts had fought and died, +and where so much blood of Christian martyrs had been lapped up by that +fiercest of wild beasts, the Roman populace of yore. Some youths and +maidens were running merry races across the open space, and playing at +hide and seek a little way within the duskiness of the ground tier of +arches, whence now and then you could hear the half-shriek, halflaugh of +a frolicsome girl, whom the shadow had betrayed into a young man's +arms. Elder groups were seated on the fragments of pillars and blocks +of marble that lay round the verge of the arena, talking in the quick, +short ripple of the Italian tongue. On the steps of the great black +cross in the centre of the Coliseum sat a party singing scraps of songs, +with much laughter and merriment between the stanzas. + +It was a strange place for song and mirth. That black cross marks one of +the special blood-spots of the earth where, thousands of times over, the +dying gladiator fell, and more of human agony has been endured for the +mere pastime of the multitude than on the breadth of many battlefields. +From all this crime and suffering, however, the spot has derived a more +than common sanctity. An inscription promises seven years' indulgence, +seven years of remission from the pains of purgatory, and earlier +enjoyment of heavenly bliss, for each separate kiss imprinted on the +black cross. What better use could be made of life, after middle age, +when the accumulated sins are many and the remaining temptations few, +than to spend it all in kissing the black cross of the Coliseum! + +Besides its central consecration, the whole area has been made sacred +by a range of shrines, which are erected round the circle, each +commemorating some scene or circumstance of the Saviour's passion and +suffering. In accordance with an ordinary custom, a pilgrim was +making his progress from shrine to shrine upon his knees, and saying a +penitential prayer at each. Light-footed girls ran across the path along +which he crept, or sported with their friends close by the shrines +where he was kneeling. The pilgrim took no heed, and the girls meant +no irreverence; for in Italy religion jostles along side by side +with business and sport, after a fashion of its own, and people are +accustomed to kneel down and pray, or see others praying, between two +fits of merriment, or between two sins. + +To make an end of our description, a red twinkle of light was visible +amid the breadth of shadow that fell across the upper part of the +Coliseum. Now it glimmered through a line of arches, or threw a broader +gleam as it rose out of some profound abyss of ruin; now it was muffled +by a heap of shrubbery which had adventurously clambered to that dizzy +height; and so the red light kept ascending to loftier and loftier +ranges of the structure, until it stood like a star where the blue sky +rested against the Coliseum's topmost wall. It indicated a party of +English or Americans paying the inevitable visit by moonlight, and +exalting themselves with raptures that were Byron's, not their own. + +Our company of artists sat on the fallen column, the pagan altar, and +the steps of the Christian shrine, enjoying the moonlight and shadow, +the present gayety and the gloomy reminiscences of the scene, in almost +equal share. Artists, indeed, are lifted by the ideality of their +pursuits a little way off the earth, and are therefore able to catch +the evanescent fragrance that floats in the atmosphere of life above +the heads of the ordinary crowd. Even if they seem endowed with little +imagination individually, yet there is a property, a gift, a talisman, +common to their class, entitling them to partake somewhat more +bountifully than other people in the thin delights of moonshine and +romance. + +"How delightful this is!" said Hilda; and she sighed for very pleasure. + +"Yes," said Kenyon, who sat on the column, at her side. "The Coliseum +is far more delightful, as we enjoy it now, than when eighty thousand +persons sat squeezed together, row above row, to see their fellow +creatures torn by lions and tigers limb from limb. What a strange +thought that the Coliseum was really built for us, and has not come to +its best uses till almost two thousand years after it was finished!" + +"The Emperor Vespasian scarcely had us in his mind," said Hilda, +smiling; "but I thank him none the less for building it." + +"He gets small thanks, I fear, from the people whose bloody instincts +he pampered," rejoined Kenyon. "Fancy a nightly assemblage of eighty +thousand melancholy and remorseful ghosts, looking down from those tiers +of broken arches, striving to repent of the savage pleasures which they +once enjoyed, but still longing to enjoy them over again." + +"You bring a Gothic horror into this peaceful moonlight scene," said +Hilda. + + +"Nay, I have good authority for peopling the Coliseum with phantoms," +replied the sculptor. "Do you remember that veritable scene in Benvenuto +Cellini's autobiography, in which a necromancer of his acquaintance +draws a magic circle--just where the black cross stands now, I +suppose--and raises myriads of demons? Benvenuto saw them with his +own eyes,--giants, pygmies, and other creatures of frightful aspect, +capering and dancing on yonder walls. Those spectres must have been +Romans, in their lifetime, and frequenters of this bloody amphitheatre." + +"I see a spectre, now!" said Hilda, with a little thrill of uneasiness. +"Have you watched that pilgrim, who is going round the whole circle of +shrines, on his knees, and praying with such fervency at every one? Now +that he has revolved so far in his orbit, and has the moonshine on his +face as he turns towards us, methinks I recognize him!" + +"And so do I," said Kenyon. "Poor Miriam! Do you think she sees him?" + +They looked round, and perceived that Miriam had risen from the steps of +the shrine and disappeared. She had shrunk back, in fact, into the deep +obscurity of an arch that opened just behind them. + +Donatello, whose faithful watch was no more to be eluded than that of +a hound, had stolen after her, and became the innocent witness of a +spectacle that had its own kind of horror. Unaware of his presence, +and fancying herself wholly unseen, the beautiful Miriam began to +gesticulate extravagantly, gnashing her teeth, flinging her arms wildly +abroad, stamping with her foot. + +It was as if she had stepped aside for an instant, solely to snatch the +relief of a brief fit of madness. Persons in acute trouble, or laboring +under strong excitement, with a necessity for concealing it, are prone +to relieve their nerves in this wild way; although, when practicable, +they find a more effectual solace in shrieking aloud. + +Thus, as soon as she threw off her self-control, under the dusky arches +of the Coliseum, we may consider Miriam as a mad woman, concentrating +the elements of a long insanity into that instant. + +"Signorina! signorina! have pity on me!" cried Donatello, approaching +her; "this is too terrible!" + +"How dare you look, at me!" exclaimed Miriam, with a start; then, +whispering below her breath, "men have been struck dead for a less +offence!" + +"If you desire it, or need it," said Donatello humbly, "I shall not be +loath to die." + +"Donatello," said Miriam, coming close to the young man, and speaking +low, but still the almost insanity of the moment vibrating in her voice, +"if you love yourself; if you desire those earthly blessings, such as +you, of all men, were made for; if you would come to a good old age +among your olive orchards and your Tuscan vines, as your forefathers +did; if you would leave children to enjoy the same peaceful, happy, +innocent life, then flee from me. Look not behind you! Get you gone +without another word." He gazed sadly at her, but did not stir. "I tell +you," Miriam went on, "there is a great evil hanging over me! I know +it; I see it in the sky; I feel it in the air! It will overwhelm me +as utterly as if this arch should crumble down upon our heads! It will +crush you, too, if you stand at my side! Depart, then; and make the sign +of the cross, as your faith bids you, when an evil spirit is nigh. Cast +me off, or you are lost forever." + +A higher sentiment brightened upon Donatello's face than had hitherto +seemed to belong to its simple expression and sensuous beauty. + +"I will never quit you," he said; "you cannot drive me from you." + +"Poor Donatello!" said Miriam in a changed tone, and rather to herself +than him. "Is there no other that seeks me out, follows me,--is +obstinate to share my affliction and my doom,--but only you! They call +me beautiful; and I used to fancy that, at my need, I could bring the +whole world to my feet. And lo! here is my utmost need; and my beauty +and my gifts have brought me only this poor, simple boy. Half-witted, +they call him; and surely fit for nothing but to be happy. And I accept +his aid! To-morrow, to-morrow, I will tell him all! Ah! what a sin to +stain his joyous nature with the blackness of a woe like mine!" + +She held out her hand to him, and smiled sadly as Donatello pressed it +to his lips. They were now about to emerge from the depth of the arch; +but just then the kneeling pilgrim, in his revolution round the orbit of +the shrines, had reached the one on the steps of which Miriam had been +sitting. There, as at the other shrines, he prayed, or seemed to +pray. It struck Kenyon, however,--who sat close by, and saw his face +distinctly, that the suppliant was merely performing an enjoined +penance, and without the penitence that ought to have given it effectual +life. Even as he knelt, his eyes wandered, and Miriam soon felt that +he had detected her, half hidden as she was within the obscurity of the +arch. + +"He is evidently a good Catholic, however," whispered one of the party. +"After all, I fear we cannot identify him with the ancient pagan who +haunts the catacombs." + +"The doctors of the Propaganda may have converted him," said another; +"they have had fifteen hundred years to perform the task." + +The company now deemed it time to continue their ramble. Emerging from +a side entrance of the Coliseum, they had on their left the Arch of +Constantine, and above it the shapeless ruins of the Palace of the +Caesars; portions of which have taken shape anew, in mediaeval convents +and modern villas. They turned their faces cityward, and, treading over +the broad flagstones of the old Roman pavement, passed through the +Arch of Titus. The moon shone brightly enough within it to show the +seven-branched Jewish candlestick, cut in the marble of the interior. +The original of that awful trophy lies buried, at this moment, in the +yellow mud of the Tiber; and, could its gold of Ophir again be brought +to light, it would be the most precious relic of past ages, in the +estimation of both Jew and Gentile. + +Standing amid so much ancient dust, it is difficult to spare the reader +the commonplaces of enthusiasm, on which hundreds of tourists have +already insisted. Over this half-worn pavement, and beneath this Arch +of Titus, the Roman armies had trodden in their outward march, to fight +battles a world's width away. Returning victorious, with royal captives +and inestimable spoil, a Roman triumph, that most gorgeous pageant of +earthly pride, had streamed and flaunted in hundred-fold succession +over these same flagstones, and through this yet stalwart archway. It is +politic, however, to make few allusions to such a past; nor, if we would +create an interest in the characters of our story, is it wise to suggest +how Cicero's foot may have stepped on yonder stone, or how Horace was +wont to stroll near by, making his footsteps chime with the measure of +the ode that was ringing in his mind. The very ghosts of that massive +and stately epoch have so much density that the actual people of to-day +seem the thinner of the two, and stand more ghost-like by the arches +and columns, letting the rich sculpture be discerned through their +ill-compacted substance. + +The party kept onward, often meeting pairs and groups of midnight +strollers like themselves. On such a moonlight night as this, Rome keeps +itself awake and stirring, and is full of song and pastime, the noise of +which mingles with your dreams, if you have gone betimes to bed. But it +is better to be abroad, and take our own share of the enjoyable time; +for the languor that weighs so heavily in the Roman atmosphere by day is +lightened beneath the moon and stars. + +They had now reached the precincts of the Forum. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE + + +"Let us settle it," said Kenyon, stamping his foot firmly down, "that +this is precisely the spot where the chasm opened, into which Curtius +precipitated his good steed and himself. Imagine the great, dusky gap, +impenetrably deep, and with half-shaped monsters and hideous faces +looming upward out of it, to the vast affright of the good citizens who +peeped over the brim! There, now, is a subject, hitherto unthought of, +for a grim and ghastly story, and, methinks, with a moral as deep as +the gulf itself. Within it, beyond a question, there were prophetic +visions,--intimations of all the future calamities of Rome,--shades of +Goths, and Gauls, and even of the French soldiers of to-day. It was a +pity to close it up so soon! I would give much for a peep into such a +chasm." + +"I fancy," remarked Miriam, "that every person takes a peep into it +in moments of gloom and despondency; that is to say, in his moments of +deepest insight." + +"Where is it, then?" asked Hilda. "I never peeped into it." + +"Wait, and it will open for you," replied her friend. "The chasm was +merely one of the orifices of that pit of blackness that lies beneath +us, everywhere. The firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin +crust spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive +stage scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the +chasm. A footstep, a little heavier than ordinary, will serve; and we +must step very daintily, not to break through the crust at any moment. +By and by, we inevitably sink! It was a foolish piece of heroism in +Curtius to precipitate himself there, in advance; for all Rome, you see, +has been swallowed up in that gulf, in spite of him. The Palace of the +Caesars has gone down thither, with a hollow, rumbling sound of its +fragments! All the temples have tumbled into it; and thousands of +statues have been thrown after! All the armies and the triumphs have +marched into the great chasm, with their martial music playing, as they +stepped over the brink. All the heroes, the statesmen, and the poets! +All piled upon poor Curtius, who thought to have saved them all! I am +loath to smile at the self-conceit of that gallant horseman, but cannot +well avoid it." + +"It grieves me to hear you speak thus, Miriam," said Hilda, whose +natural and cheerful piety was shocked by her friend's gloomy view of +human destinies. "It seems to me that there is no chasm, nor any hideous +emptiness under our feet, except what the evil within us digs. If there +be such a chasm, let us bridge it over with good thoughts and deeds, and +we shall tread safely to the other side. It was the guilt of Rome, no +doubt, that caused this gulf to open; and Curtius filled it up with his +heroic self-sacrifice and patriotism, which was the best virtue that the +old Romans knew. Every wrong thing makes the gulf deeper; every right +one helps to fill it up. As the evil of Rome was far more than its good, +the whole commonwealth finally sank into it, indeed, but of no original +necessity." + +"Well, Hilda, it came to the same thing at last," answered Miriam +despondingly. + +"Doubtless, too," resumed the sculptor (for his imagination was greatly +excited by the idea of this wondrous chasm), "all the blood that the +Romans shed, whether on battlefields, or in the Coliseum, or on the +cross,--in whatever public or private murder,--ran into this fatal gulf, +and formed a mighty subterranean lake of gore, right beneath our feet. +The blood from the thirty wounds in Caesar's breast flowed hitherward, +and that pure little rivulet from Virginia's bosom, too! Virginia, +beyond all question, was stabbed by her father, precisely where we are +standing." + +"Then the spot is hallowed forever!" said Hilda. + +"Is there such blessed potency in bloodshed?" asked Miriam. "Nay, Hilda, +do not protest! I take your meaning rightly." + +They again moved forward. And still, from the Forum and the Via Sacra, +from beneath the arches of the Temple of Peace on one side, and the +acclivity of the Palace of the Caesars on the other, there arose singing +voices of parties that were strolling through the moonlight. Thus, +the air was full of kindred melodies that encountered one another, and +twined themselves into a broad, vague music, out of which no single +strain could be disentangled. These good examples, as well as the +harmonious influences of the hour, incited our artist friends to make +proof of their own vocal powers. With what skill and breath they had, +they set up a choral strain,--"Hail, Columbia!" we believe, which +those old Roman echoes must have found it exceeding difficult to repeat +aright. Even Hilda poured the slender sweetness of her note into her +country's song. Miriam was at first silent, being perhaps unfamiliar +with the air and burden. But suddenly she threw out such a swell and +gush of sound, that it seemed to pervade the whole choir of other +voices, and then to rise above them all, and become audible in what +would else have been thee silence of an upper region. That volume of +melodious voice was one of the tokens of a great trouble. There had long +been an impulse upon her--amounting, at last, to a necessity to shriek +aloud; but she had struggled against it, till the thunderous anthem gave +her an opportunity to relieve her heart by a great cry. + +They passed the solitary Column of Phocas, and looked down into the +excavated space, where a confusion of pillars, arches, pavements, and +shattered blocks and shafts--the crumbs of various ruin dropped from the +devouring maw of Time stand, or lie, at the base of the Capitoline Hill. +That renowned hillock (for it is little more) now arose abruptly above +them. The ponderous masonry, with which the hillside is built up, is as +old as Rome itself, and looks likely to endure while the world retains +any substance or permanence. It once sustained the Capitol, and now +bears up the great pile which the mediaeval builders raised on the +antique foundation, and that still loftier tower, which looks abroad +upon a larger page of deeper historic interest than any other scene +can show. On the same pedestal of Roman masonry, other structures will +doubtless rise, and vanish like ephemeral things. + +To a spectator on the spot, it is remarkable that the events of Roman +history, and Roman life itself, appear not so distant as the Gothic ages +which succeeded them. We stand in the Forum, or on the height of the +Capitol, and seem to see the Roman epoch close at hand. We forget that +a chasm extends between it and ourselves, in which lie all those dark, +rude, unlettered centuries, around the birth-time of Christianity, as +well as the age of chivalry and romance, the feudal system, and the +infancy of a better civilization than that of Rome. Or, if we remember +these mediaeval times, they look further off than the Augustan age. The +reason may be, that the old Roman literature survives, and creates for +us an intimacy with the classic ages, which we have no means of forming +with the subsequent ones. + +The Italian climate, moreover, robs age of its reverence and makes it +look newer than it is. Not the Coliseum, nor the tombs of the Appian +Way, nor the oldest pillar in the Forum, nor any other Roman ruin, be +it as dilapidated as it may, ever give the impression of venerable +antiquity which we gather, along with the ivy, from the gray walls of an +English abbey or castle. And yet every brick or stone, which we pick up +among the former, had fallen ages before the foundation of the latter +was begun. This is owing to the kindliness with which Natures takes an +English ruin to her heart, covering it with ivy, as tenderly as Robin +Redbreast covered the dead babes with forest leaves. She strives to make +it a part of herself, gradually obliterating the handiwork of man, and +supplanting it with her own mosses and trailing verdure, till she has +won the whole structure back. But, in Italy, whenever man has once hewn +a stone, Nature forthwith relinquishes her right to it, and never lays +her finger on it again. Age after age finds it bare and naked, in the +barren sunshine, and leaves it so. Besides this natural disadvantage, +too, each succeeding century, in Rome, has done its best to ruin the +very ruins, so far as their picturesque effect is concerned, by stealing +away the marble and hewn stone, and leaving only yellow bricks, which +never can look venerable. + + +The party ascended the winding way that leads from the Forum to the +Piazza of the Campidoglio on the summit of the Capitoline Hill. They +stood awhile to contemplate the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus +Aurelius. The moonlight glistened upon traces of the gilding which +had once covered both rider and steed; these were almost gone, but the +aspect of dignity was still perfect, clothing the figure as it were with +an imperial robe of light. It is the most majestic representation of +the kingly character that ever the world has seen. A sight of the old +heathen emperor is enough to create an evanescent sentiment of loyalty +even in a democratic bosom, so august does he look, so fit to rule, +so worthy of man's profoundest homage and obedience, so inevitably +attractive of his love. He stretches forth his hand with an air of grand +beneficence and unlimited authority, as if uttering a decree from which +no appeal was permissible, but in which the obedient subject would +find his highest interests consulted; a command that was in itself a +benediction. + +"The sculptor of this statue knew what a king should be," observed +Kenyon, "and knew, likewise, the heart of mankind, and how it craves a +true ruler, under whatever title, as a child its father." + +"O, if there were but one such man as this?" exclaimed Miriam. "One such +man in an age, and one in all the world; then how speedily would the +strife, wickedness, and sorrow of us poor creatures be relieved. We +would come to him with our griefs, whatever they might be,--even a poor, +frail woman burdened with her heavy heart,--and lay them at his feet, +and never need to take them up again. The rightful king would see to +all." + +"What an idea of the regal office and duty!" said Kenyon, with a smile. +"It is a woman's idea of the whole matter to perfection. It is Hilda's, +too, no doubt?" + +"No," answered the quiet Hilda; "I should never look for such assistance +from an earthly king." + +"Hilda, my religious Hilda," whispered Miriam, suddenly drawing the girl +close to her, "do you know how it is with me? I would give all I have or +hope--my life, O how freely--for one instant of your trust in God! You +little guess my need of it. You really think, then, that He sees and +cares for us?" + +"Miriam, you frighten me." + +"Hush, hush? do not let them hear yet!" whispered Miriam. "I frighten +you, you say; for Heaven's sake, how? Am I strange? Is there anything +wild in my behavior?" + +"Only for that moment," replied Hilda, "because you seemed to doubt +God's providence." + +"We will talk of that another time," said her friend. "Just now it is +very dark to me." + +On the left of the Piazza of the Campidoglio, as you face cityward, and +at the head of the long and stately flight of steps descending from the +Capitoline Hill to the level of lower Rome, there is a narrow lane +or passage. Into this the party of our friends now turned. The path +ascended a little, and ran along under the walls of a palace, but soon +passed through a gateway, and terminated in a small paved courtyard. It +was bordered by a low parapet. + +The spot, for some reason or other, impressed them as exceedingly +lonely. On one side was the great height of the palace, with the +moonshine falling over it, and showing all the windows barred and +shuttered. Not a human eye could look down into the little courtyard, +even if the seemingly deserted palace had a tenant. On all other sides +of its narrow compass there was nothing but the parapet, which as it now +appeared was built right on the edge of a steep precipice. Gazing +from its imminent brow, the party beheld a crowded confusion of roofs +spreading over the whole space between them and the line of hills that +lay beyond the Tiber. A long, misty wreath, just dense enough to catch +a little of the moonshine, floated above the houses, midway towards the +hilly line, and showed the course of the unseen river. Far away on the +right, the moon gleamed on the dome of St. Peter's as well as on many +lesser and nearer domes. + +"What a beautiful view of the city!" exclaimed Hilda; "and I never saw +Rome from this point before." + +"It ought to afford a good prospect," said the sculptor; "for it +was from this point--at least we are at liberty to think so, if we +choose--that many a famous Roman caught his last glimpse of his native +city, and of all other earthly things. This is one of the sides of the +Tarpeian Rock. Look over the parapet, and see what a sheer tumble there +might still be for a traitor, in spite of the thirty feet of soil that +have accumulated at the foot of the precipice." + +They all bent over, and saw that the cliff fell perpendicularly downward +to about the depth, or rather more, at which the tall palace rose in +height above their heads. Not that it was still the natural, shaggy +front of the original precipice; for it appeared to be cased in ancient +stonework, through which the primeval rock showed its face here and +there grimly and doubtfully. Mosses grew on the slight projections, and +little shrubs sprouted out of the crevices, but could not much soften +the stern aspect of the cliff. Brightly as the Italian moonlight fell +adown the height, it scarcely showed what portion of it was man's work +and what was nature's, but left it all in very much the same kind of +ambiguity and half-knowledge in which antiquarians generally leave the +identity of Roman remains. + +The roofs of some poor-looking houses, which had been built against the +base and sides of the cliff, rose nearly midway to the top; but from an +angle of the parapet there was a precipitous plunge straight downward +into a stonepaved court. + +"I prefer this to any other site as having been veritably the Traitor's +Leap," said Kenyon, "because it was so convenient to the Capitol. It was +an admirable idea of those stern old fellows to fling their political +criminals down from the very summit on which stood the Senate House and +Jove's Temple, emblems of the institutions which they sought to violate. +It symbolizes how sudden was the fall in those days from the utmost +height of ambition to its profoundest ruin." + +"Come, come; it is midnight," cried another artist, "too late to be +moralizing here. We are literally dreaming on the edge of a precipice. +Let us go home." + +"It is time, indeed," said Hilda. + +The sculptor was not without hopes that he might be favored with the +sweet charge of escorting Hilda to the foot of her tower. Accordingly, +when the party prepared to turn back, he offered her his arm. Hilda at +first accepted it; but when they had partly threaded the passage between +the little courtyard and the Piazza del Campidoglio, she discovered that +Miriam had remained behind. + +"I must go back," said she, withdrawing her arm from Kenyon's; "but pray +do not come with me. Several times this evening I have had a fancy that +Miriam had something on her mind, some sorrow or perplexity, which, +perhaps, it would relieve her to tell me about. No, no; do not turn +back! Donatello will be a sufficient guardian for Miriam and me." + +The sculptor was a good deal mortified, and perhaps a little angry: but +he knew Hilda's mood of gentle decision and independence too well not to +obey her. He therefore suffered the fearless maiden to return alone. + +Meanwhile Miriam had not noticed the departure of the rest of the +company; she remained on the edge of the precipice and Donatello along +with her. + +"It would be a fatal fall, still," she said to herself, looking over the +parapet, and shuddering as her eye measured the depth. "Yes; surely yes! +Even without the weight of an overburdened heart, a human body would +fall heavily enough upon those stones to shake all its joints asunder. +How soon it would be over!" + +Donatello, of whose presence she was possibly not aware, now pressed +closer to her side; and he, too, like Miriam, bent over the low parapet +and trembled violently. Yet he seemed to feel that perilous fascination +which haunts the brow of precipices, tempting the unwary one to fling +himself over for the very horror of the thing; for, after drawing +hastily back, he again looked down, thrusting himself out farther than +before. He then stood silent a brief space, struggling, perhaps, to make +himself conscious of the historic associations of the scene. + +"What are you thinking of, Donatello?" asked Miriam. + +"Who are they," said he, looking earnestly in her face, "who have been +flung over here in days gone by?" + +"Men that cumbered the world," she replied. "Men whose lives were the +bane of their fellow creatures. Men who poisoned the air, which is the +common breath of all, for their own selfish purposes. There was short +work with such men in old Roman times. Just in the moment of their +triumph, a hand, as of an avenging giant, clutched them, and dashed the +wretches down this precipice." + +"Was it well done?" asked the young man. + +"It was well done," answered Miriam; "innocent persons were saved by the +destruction of a guilty one, who deserved his doom." + +While this brief conversation passed, Donatello had once or twice +glanced aside with a watchful air, just as a hound may often be seen to +take sidelong note of some suspicious object, while he gives his more +direct attention to something nearer at, hand. Miriam seemed now first +to become aware of the silence that had followed upon the cheerful talk +and laughter of a few moments before. + +Looking round, she perceived that all her company of merry friends had +retired, and Hilda, too, in whose soft and quiet presence she had always +an indescribable feeling of security. All gone; and only herself and +Donatello left hanging over the brow of the ominous precipice. + +Not so, however; not entirely alone! In the basement wall of the palace, +shaded from the moon, there was a deep, empty niche, that had probably +once contained a statue; not empty, either; for a figure now came forth +from it and approached Miriam. She must have had cause to dread some +unspeakable evil from this strange persecutor, and to know that this was +the very crisis of her calamity; for as he drew near, such a cold, sick +despair crept over her that it impeded her breath, and benumbed her +natural promptitude of thought. Miriam seemed dreamily to remember +falling on her knees; but, in her whole recollection of that wild +moment, she beheld herself as in a dim show, and could not well +distinguish what was done and suffered; no, not even whether she were +really an actor and sufferer in the scene. + +Hilda, meanwhile, had separated herself from the sculptor, and turned +back to rejoin her friend. At a distance, she still heard the mirth of +her late companions, who were going down the cityward descent of the +Capitoline Hill; they had set up a new stave of melody, in which her +own soft voice, as well as the powerful sweetness of Miriam's, was sadly +missed. + +The door of the little courtyard had swung upon its hinges, and +partly closed itself. Hilda (whose native gentleness pervaded all her +movements) was quietly opening it, when she was startled, midway, by the +noise of a struggle within, beginning and ending all in one breathless +instant. Along with it, or closely succeeding it, was a loud, fearful +cry, which quivered upward through the air, and sank quivering +downward to the earth. Then, a silence! Poor Hilda had looked into the +court-yard, and saw the whole quick passage of a deed, which took but +that little time to grave itself in the eternal adamant. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +THE FAUN'S TRANSFORMATION + + +The door of the courtyard swung slowly, and closed itself of its own +accord. Miriam and Donatello were now alone there. She clasped her +hands, and looked wildly at the young man, whose form seemed to have +dilated, and whose eyes blazed with the fierce energy that had suddenly +inspired him. It had kindled him into a man; it had developed within him +an intelligence which was no native characteristic of the Donatello whom +we have heretofore known. But that simple and joyous creature was gone +forever. + +"What have you done?" said Miriam, in a horror-stricken whisper. + +The glow of rage was still lurid on Donatello's face, and now flashed +out again from his eyes. + +"I did what ought to be done to a traitor!" he replied. "I did what your +eyes bade me do, when I asked them with mine, as I held the wretch over +the precipice!" + +These last words struck Miriam like a bullet. Could it be so? Had her +eyes provoked or assented to this deed? She had not known it. But, alas! +looking back into the frenzy and turmoil of the scene just acted, she +could not deny--she was not sure whether it might be so, or no--that a +wild joy had flamed up in her heart, when she beheld her persecutor in +his mortal peril. Was it horror?--or ecstasy? or both in one? Be the +emotion what it might, it had blazed up more madly, when Donatello +flung his victim off the cliff, and more and more, while his shriek went +quivering downward. With the dead thump upon the stones below had come +an unutterable horror. + +"And my eyes bade you do it!" repeated she. + +They both leaned over the parapet, and gazed downward as earnestly as if +some inestimable treasure had fallen over, and were yet recoverable. +On the pavement below was a dark mass, lying in a heap, with little or +nothing human in its appearance, except that the hands were stretched +out, as if they might have clutched for a moment at the small square +stones. But there was no motion in them now. Miriam watched the heap of +mortality while she could count a hundred, which she took pains to do. +No stir; not a finger moved! + +"You have killed him, Donatello! He is quite dead!" said she. "Stone +dead! Would I were so, too!" + +"Did you not mean that he should die?" sternly asked Donatello, still in +the glow of that intelligence which passion had developed in him. "There +was short time to weigh the matter; but he had his trial in that breath +or two while I held him over the cliff, and his sentence in that one +glance, when your eyes responded to mine! Say that I have slain him +against your will,--say that he died without your whole consent,--and, +in another breath, you shall see me lying beside him." + +"O, never!" cried Miriam. "My one, own friend! Never, never, never!" + +She turned to him,--the guilty, bloodstained, lonely woman,--she turned +to her fellow criminal, the youth, so lately innocent, whom she had +drawn into her doom. She pressed him close, close to her bosom, with a +clinging embrace that brought their two hearts together, till the horror +and agony of each was combined into one emotion, and that a kind of +rapture. + +"Yes, Donatello, you speak the truth!" said she; "my heart consented to +what you did. We two slew yonder wretch. The deed knots us together, for +time and eternity, like the coil of a serpent!" + +They threw one other glance at the heap of death below, to assure +themselves that it was there; so like a dream was the whole thing. Then +they turned from that fatal precipice, and came out of the courtyard, +arm in arm, heart in heart. Instinctively, they were heedful not to +sever themselves so much as a pace or two from one another, for fear +of the terror and deadly chill that would thenceforth wait for them +in solitude. Their deed--the crime which Donatello wrought, and Miriam +accepted on the instant--had wreathed itself, as she said, like a +serpent, in inextricable links about both their souls, and drew them +into one, by its terrible contractile power. It was closer than a +marriage bond. So intimate, in those first moments, was the union, that +it seemed as if their new sympathy annihilated all other ties, and that +they were released from the chain of humanity; a new sphere, a special +law, had been created for them alone. The world could not come near +them; they were safe! + +When they reached the flight of steps leading downward from the Capitol, +there was a faroff noise of singing and laughter. Swift, indeed, had +been the rush of the crisis that was come and gone! This was still the +merriment of the party that had so recently been their companions. They +recognized the voices which, a little while ago, had accorded and sung +in cadence with their own. But they were familiar voices no more; they +sounded strangely, and, as it were, out of the depths of space; so +remote was all that pertained to the past life of these guilty ones, in +the moral seclusion that had suddenly extended itself around them. But +how close, and ever closer, did the breath of the immeasurable waste, +that lay between them and all brotherhood or sisterhood, now press them +one within the other! + +"O friend!" cried Miriam, so putting her soul into the word that it +took a heavy richness of meaning, and seemed never to have been spoken +before, "O friend, are you conscious, as I am, of this companionship +that knits our heart-strings together?" + +"I feel it, Miriam," said Donatello. "We draw one breath; we live one +life!" + +"Only yesterday," continued Miriam; "nay, only a short half-hour ago, +I shivered in an icy solitude. No friendship, no sisterhood, could come +near enough to keep the warmth within my heart. In an instant all is +changed! There can be no more loneliness!" + +"None, Miriam!" said Donatello. + +"None, my beautiful one!" responded Miriam, gazing in his face, which +had taken a higher, almost an heroic aspect, from the strength of +passion. "None, my innocent one! Surely, it is no crime that we have +committed. One wretched and worthless life has been sacrificed to cement +two other lives for evermore." + +"For evermore, Miriam!" said Donatello; "cemented with his blood!" + +The young man started at the word which he had himself spoken; it may be +that it brought home, to the simplicity of his imagination, what he had +not before dreamed of,--the ever-increasing loathsomeness of a union +that consists in guilt. Cemented with blood, which would corrupt and +grow more noisome forever and forever, but bind them none the less +strictly for that. + + +"Forget it! Cast it all behind you!" said Miriam, detecting, by her +sympathy, the pang that was in his heart. "The deed has done its office, +and has no existence any more." + +They flung the past behind them, as she counselled, or else distilled +from it a fiery, intoxication, which sufficed to carry them triumphantly +through those first moments of their doom. For guilt has its moment of +rapture too. The foremost result of a broken law is ever an ecstatic +sense of freedom. And thus there exhaled upward (out of their dark +sympathy, at the base of which lay a human corpse) a bliss, or an +insanity, which the unhappy pair imagined to be well worth the sleepy +innocence that was forever lost to them. + +As their spirits rose to the solemn madness of the occasion, they went +onward, not stealthily, not fearfully, but with a stately gait and +aspect. Passion lent them (as it does to meaner shapes) its brief +nobility of carriage. They trod through the streets of Rome, as if they, +too, were among the majestic and guilty shadows, that, from ages +long gone by, have haunted the blood-stained city. And, at Miriam's +suggestion, they turned aside, for the sake of treading loftily past the +old site of Pompey's Forum. + +"For there was a great deed done here!" she said,--"a deed of blood +like ours! Who knows but we may meet the high and ever-sad fraternity of +Caesar's murderers, and exchange a salutation?" + +"Are they our brethren, now?" asked Donatello. + +"Yes; all of them," said Miriam,--"and many another, whom the world +little dreams of, has been made our brother or our sister, by what we +have done within this hour!" + +And at the thought she shivered. Where then was the seclusion, the +remoteness, the strange, lonesome Paradise, into which she and her one +companion had been transported by their crime? Was there, indeed, no +such refuge, but only a crowded thoroughfare and jostling throng of +criminals? And was it true, that whatever hand had a blood-stain on +it,--or had poured out poison,--or strangled a babe at its birth,--or +clutched a grandsire's throat, he sleeping, and robbed him of his few +last breaths,--had now the right to offer itself in fellowship with +their two hands? Too certainly, that right existed. It is a terrible +thought, that an individual wrong-doing melts into the great mass of +human crime, and makes us, who dreamed only of our own little separate +sin,--makes us guilty of the whole. And thus Miriam and her lover were +not an insulated pair, but members of an innumerable confraternity of +guilty ones, all shuddering at each other. + +"But not now; not yet," she murmured to herself. "To-night, at least, +there shall be no remorse!" + +Wandering without a purpose, it so chanced that they turned into a +street, at one extremity of which stood Hilda's tower. There was a +light in her high chamber; a light, too, at the Virgin's shrine; and the +glimmer of these two was the loftiest light beneath the stars. Miriam +drew Donatello's arm, to make him stop, and while they stood at some +distance looking at Hilda's window, they beheld her approach and throw +it open. She leaned far forth, and extended her clasped hands towards +the sky. + +"The good, pure child! She is praying, Donatello," said Miriam, with a +kind of simple joy at witnessing the devoutness of her friend. Then her +own sin rushed upon her, and she shouted, with the rich strength of her +voice, "Pray for us, Hilda; we need it!" + +Whether Hilda heard and recognized the voice we cannot tell. The window +was immediately closed, and her form disappeared from behind the snowy +curtain. Miriam felt this to be a token that the cry of her condemned +spirit was shut out of heaven. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +THE BURIAL CHANT + + +The Church of the Capuchins (where, as the reader may remember, some of +our acquaintances had made an engagement to meet) stands a little aside +from the Piazza Barberini. Thither, at the hour agreed upon, on the +morning after the scenes last described, Miriam and Donatello directed +their steps. At no time are people so sedulously careful to keep their +trifling appointments, attend to their ordinary occupations, and thus +put a commonplace aspect on life, as when conscious of some secret that +if suspected would make them look monstrous in the general eye. + +Yet how tame and wearisome is the impression of all ordinary things in +the contrast with such a fact! How sick and tremulous, the next morning, +is the spirit that has dared so much only the night before! How icy cold +is the heart, when the fervor, the wild ecstasy of passion has faded +away, and sunk down among the dead ashes of the fire that blazed so +fiercely, and was fed by the very substance of its life! How faintly +does the criminal stagger onward, lacking the impulse of that strong +madness that hurried him into guilt, and treacherously deserts him in +the midst of it! + +When Miriam and Donatello drew near the church, they found only Kenyon +awaiting them on the steps. Hilda had likewise promised to be of the +party, but had not yet appeared. Meeting the sculptor, Miriam put a +force upon herself and succeeded in creating an artificial flow +of spirits, which, to any but the nicest observation, was quite as +effective as a natural one. She spoke sympathizingly to the sculptor on +the subject of Hilda's absence, and somewhat annoyed him by alluding in +Donatello's hearing to an attachment which had never been openly avowed, +though perhaps plainly enough betrayed. He fancied that Miriam did not +quite recognize the limits of the strictest delicacy; he even went so +far as to generalize, and conclude within himself, that this deficiency +is a more general failing in woman than in man, the highest refinement +being a masculine attribute. + +But the idea was unjust to the sex at large, and especially so to this +poor Miriam, who was hardly responsible for her frantic efforts to be +gay. Possibly, moreover, the nice action of the mind is set ajar by any +violent shock, as of great misfortune or great crime, so that the finer +perceptions may be blurred thenceforth, and the effect be traceable in +all the minutest conduct of life. + +"Did you see anything of the dear child after you left us?" asked +Miriam, still keeping Hilda as her topic of conversation. "I missed her +sadly on my way homeward; for nothing insures me such delightful and +innocent dreams (I have experienced it twenty times) as a talk late in +the evening with Hilda." + +"So I should imagine," said the sculptor gravely; "but it is an +advantage that I have little or no opportunity of enjoying. I know not +what became of Hilda after my parting from you. She was not especially +my companion in any part of our walk. The last I saw of her she +was hastening back to rejoin you in the courtyard of the Palazzo +Caffarelli." + +"Impossible!" cried Miriam, starting. + +"Then did you not see her again?" inquired Kenyon, in some alarm. + +"Not there," answered Miriam quietly; "indeed, I followed pretty closely +on the heels of the rest of the party. But do not be alarmed on Hilda's +account; the Virgin is bound to watch over the good child, for the sake +of the piety with which she keeps the lamp alight at her shrine. And +besides, I have always felt that Hilda is just as safe in these evil +streets of Rome as her white doves when they fly downwards from the +tower top, and run to and fro among the horses' feet. There is certainly +a providence on purpose for Hilda, if for no other human creature." + +"I religiously believe it," rejoined the sculptor; "and yet my mind +would be the easier, if I knew that she had returned safely to her +tower." + +"Then make yourself quite easy," answered Miriam. "I saw her (and it +is the last sweet sight that I remember) leaning from her window midway +between earth and sky!" + +Kenyon now looked at Donatello. + +"You seem out of spirits, my dear friend," he observed. "This languid +Roman atmosphere is not the airy wine that you were accustomed to +breathe at home. I have not forgotten your hospitable invitation to +meet you this summer at your castle among the Apennines. It is my fixed +purpose to come, I assure you. We shall both be the better for some deep +draughts of the mountain breezes." + +"It may he," said Donatello, with unwonted sombreness; "the old house +seemed joyous when I was a child. But as I remember it now it was a grim +place, too." + +The sculptor looked more attentively at the young man, and was surprised +and alarmed to observe how entirely the fine, fresh glow of animal +spirits had departed out of his face. Hitherto, moreover, even while he +was standing perfectly still, there had been a kind of possible gambol +indicated in his aspect. It was quite gone now. All his youthful gayety, +and with it his simplicity of manner, was eclipsed, if not utterly +extinct. + + +"You are surely ill, my dear fellow," exclaimed Kenyon. + +"Am I? Perhaps so," said Donatello indifferently; "I never have been +ill, and know not what it may be." + +"Do not make the poor lad fancy-sink," whispered Miriam, pulling the +sculptor's sleeve. "He is of a nature to lie down and die at once, if he +finds himself drawing such melancholy breaths as we ordinary people are +enforced to burden our lungs withal. But we must get him away from this +old, dreamy and dreary Rome, where nobody but himself ever thought of +being gay. Its influences are too heavy to sustain the life of such a +creature." + +The above conversation had passed chiefly on the steps of the +Cappuccini; and, having said so much, Miriam lifted the leathern curtain +that hangs before all church-doors in italy. "Hilda has forgotten her +appointment," she observed, "or else her maiden slumbers are very sound +this morning. We will wait for her no longer." + +They entered the nave. The interior of the church was of moderate +compass, but of good architecture, with a vaulted roof over the nave, +and a row of dusky chapels on either side of it instead of the customary +side-aisles. Each chapel had its saintly shrine, hung round with +offerings; its picture above the altar, although closely veiled, if by +any painter of renown; and its hallowed tapers, burning continually, to +set alight the devotion of the worshippers. The pavement of the nave was +chiefly of marble, and looked old and broken, and was shabbily patched +here and there with tiles of brick; it was inlaid, moreover, with +tombstones of the mediaeval taste, on which were quaintly sculptured +borders, figures, and portraits in bas-relief, and Latin epitaphs, +now grown illegible by the tread of footsteps over them. The church +appertains to a convent of Capuchin monks; and, as usually happens when +a reverend brotherhood have such an edifice in charge, the floor seemed +never to have been scrubbed or swept, and had as little the aspect of +sanctity as a kennel; whereas, in all churches of nunneries, the maiden +sisterhood invariably show the purity of their own hearts by the virgin +cleanliness and visible consecration of the walls and pavement. + +As our friends entered the church, their eyes rested at once on a +remarkable object in the centre of the nave. It was either the actual +body, or, as might rather have been supposed at first glance, the +cunningly wrought waxen face and suitably draped figure of a dead monk. +This image of wax or clay-cold reality, whichever it might be, lay on +a slightly elevated bier, with three tall candles burning on each side, +another tall candle at the head, and another at the foot. There was +music, too; in harmony with so funereal a spectacle. From beneath +the pavement of the church came the deep, lugubrious strain of a De +Profundis, which sounded like an utterance of the tomb itself; so +dismally did it rumble through the burial vaults, and ooze up among the +flat gravestones and sad epitaphs, filling the church as with a gloomy +mist. + +"I must look more closely at that dead monk before we leave the church," +remarked the sculptor. "In the study of my art, I have gained many a +hint from the dead which the living could never have given me." + +"I can well imagine it," answered Miriam. "One clay image is readily +copied from another. But let us first see Guido's picture. The light is +favorable now." + +Accordingly, they turned into the first chapel on the right hand, as you +enter the nave; and there they beheld,--not the picture, indeed,--but +a closely drawn curtain. The churchmen of Italy make no scruple of +sacrificing the very purpose for which a work of sacred art has been +created; that of opening the way; for religious sentiment through the +quick medium of sight, by bringing angels, saints, and martyrs down +visibly upon earth; of sacrificing this high purpose, and, for aught +they know, the welfare of many souls along with it, to the hope of a +paltry fee. Every work by an artist of celebrity is hidden behind a +veil, and seldom revealed, except to Protestants, who scorn it as an +object of devotion, and value it only for its artistic merit. + +The sacristan was quickly found, however, and lost no time in disclosing +the youthful Archangel, setting his divine foot on the head of his +fallen adversary. It was an image of that greatest of future events, +which we hope for so ardently, at least, while we are young,--but find +so very long in coming, the triumph of goodness over the evil principle. + +"Where can Hilda be?" exclaimed Kenyon. "It is not her custom ever to +fail in an engagement; and the present one was made entirely on +her account. Except herself, you know, we were all agreed in our +recollection of the picture." + +"But we were wrong, and Hilda right, as you perceive," said Miriam, +directing his attention to the point on which their dispute of the night +before had arisen. "It is not easy to detect her astray as regards any +picture on which those clear, soft eyes of hers have ever rested." + +"And she has studied and admired few pictures so much as this," observed +the sculptor. "No wonder; for there is hardly another so beautiful in +the world. What an expression of heavenly severity in the Archangel's +face! There is a degree of pain, trouble, and disgust at being brought +in contact with sin, even for the purpose of quelling and punishing it; +and yet a celestial tranquillity pervades his whole being." + +"I have never been able," said Miriam, "to admire this picture nearly so +much as Hilda does, in its moral and intellectual aspect. If it cost her +more trouble to be good, if her soul were less white and pure, she would +be a more competent critic of this picture, and would estimate it not +half so high. I see its defects today more clearly than ever before." + +"What are some of them?" asked Kenyon. + +"That Archangel, now," Miriam continued; "how fair he looks, with his +unruffled wings, with his unhacked sword, and clad in his bright +armor, and that exquisitely fitting sky-blue tunic, cut in the latest +Paradisiacal mode! What a dainty air of the first celestial society! +With what half-scornful delicacy he sets his prettily sandalled foot +on the head of his prostrate foe! But, is it thus that virtue looks the +moment after its death struggle with evil? No, no; I could have told +Guido better. A full third of the Archangel's feathers should have been +torn from his wings; the rest all ruffled, till they looked like Satan's +own! His sword should be streaming with blood, and perhaps broken +halfway to the hilt; his armor crushed, his robes rent, his breast gory; +a bleeding gash on his brow, cutting right across the stern scowl of +battle! He should press his foot hard down upon the old serpent, as +if his very soul depended upon it, feeling him squirm mightily, and +doubting whether the fight were half over yet, and how the victory might +turn! And, with all this fierceness, this grimness, this unutterable +horror, there should still be something high, tender, and holy in +Michael's eyes, and around his mouth. But the battle never was such a +child's play as Guido's dapper Archangel seems to have found it." + +"For Heaven's sake, Miriam," cried Kenyon, astonished at the wild energy +of her talk; "paint the picture of man's struggle against sin according +to your own idea! I think it will be a masterpiece." + +"The picture would have its share of truth, I assure you," she answered; +"but I am sadly afraid the victory would fail on the wrong side. Just +fancy a smoke-blackened, fiery-eyed demon bestriding that nice young +angel, clutching his white throat with one of his hinder claws; and +giving a triumphant whisk of his scaly tail, with a poisonous dart at +the end of it! That is what they risk, poor souls, who do battle with +Michael's enemy." + +It now, perhaps, struck Miriam that her mental disquietude was impelling +her to an undue vivacity; for she paused, and turned away from the +picture, without saying a word more about it. All this while, moreover, +Donatello had been very ill at ease, casting awe-stricken and inquiring +glances at the dead monk; as if he could look nowhere but at that +ghastly object, merely because it shocked him. Death has probably a +peculiar horror and ugliness, when forced upon the contemplation of a +person so naturally joyous as Donatello, who lived with completeness in +the present moment, and was able to form but vague images of the future. + +"What is the matter, Donatello?" whispered Miriam soothingly. "You are +quite in a tremble, my poor friend! What is it?" + +"This awful chant from beneath the church," answered Donatello; "it +oppresses me; the air is so heavy with it that I can scarcely draw my +breath. And yonder dead monk! I feel as if he were lying right across my +heart." + +"Take courage!" whispered she again "come, we will approach close to +the dead monk. The only way, in such cases, is to stare the ugly horror +right in the face; never a sidelong glance, nor half-look, for those are +what show a frightfull thing in its frightfullest aspect. Lean on me, +dearest friend! My heart is very strong for both of us. Be brave; and +all is well." + +Donatello hung back for a moment, but then pressed close to Miriam's +side, and suffered her to lead him up to the bier. The sculptor +followed. A number of persons, chiefly women, with several children +among them, were standing about the corpse; and as our three friends +drew nigh, a mother knelt down, and caused her little boy to kneel, +both kissing the beads and crucifix that hung from the monk's girdle. +Possibly he had died in the odor of sanctity; or, at all events, death +and his brown frock and cowl made a sacred image of this reverend +father. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +THE DEAD CAPUCHIN + + +The dead monk was clad, as when alive, in the brown woollen frock of +the Capuchins, with the hood drawn over his head, but so as to leave the +features and a portion of the beard uncovered. His rosary and cross hung +at his side; his hands were folded over his breast; his feet (he was of +a barefooted order in his lifetime, and continued so in death) protruded +from beneath his habit, stiff and stark, with a more waxen look than +even his face. They were tied together at the ankles with a black +ribbon. + +The countenance, as we have already said, was fully displayed. It had a +purplish hue upon it, unlike the paleness of an ordinary corpse, but +as little resembling the flush of natural life. The eyelids were +but partially drawn down, and showed the eyeballs beneath; as if the +deceased friar were stealing a glimpse at the bystanders, to watch +whether they were duly impressed with the solemnity of his obsequies. +The shaggy eyebrows gave sternness to the look. Miriam passed between +two of the lighted candles, and stood close beside the bier. + +"My God!" murmured she. "What is this?" + +She grasped Donatello's hand, and, at the same instant, felt him give a +convulsive shudder, which she knew to have been caused by a sudden +and terrible throb of the heart. His hand, by an instantaneous change, +became like ice within hers, which likewise grew so icy that their +insensible fingers might have rattled, one against the other. No wonder +that their blood curdled; no wonder that their hearts leaped and paused! +The dead face of the monk, gazing at them beneath its half-closed +eyelids, was the same visage that had glared upon their naked souls, the +past midnight, as Donatello flung him over the precipice. + +The sculptor was standing at the foot of the bier, and had not yet seen +the monk's features. + +"Those naked feet!" said he. "I know not why, but they affect me +strangely. They have walked to and fro over the hard pavements of Rome, +and through a hundred other rough ways of this life, where the monk went +begging for his brotherhood; along the cloisters and dreary corridors +of his convent, too, from his youth upward! It is a suggestive idea, to +track those worn feet backward through all the paths they have trodden, +ever since they were the tender and rosy little feet of a baby, and +(cold as they now are) were kept warm in his mother's hand." + +As his companions, whom the sculptor supposed to be close by him, made +no response to his fanciful musing, he looked up, and saw them at the +head of the bier. He advanced thither himself. + +"Ha!" exclaimed he. + +He cast a horror-stricken and bewildered glance at Miriam, but withdrew +it immediately. Not that he had any definite suspicion, or, it may be, +even a remote idea, that she could be held responsible in the least +degree for this man's sudden death. In truth, it seemed too wild a +thought to connect, in reality, Miriam's persecutor of many past months +and the vagabond of the preceding night, with the dead Capuchin +of to-day. It resembled one of those unaccountable changes and +interminglings of identity, which so often occur among the personages +of a dream. But Kenyon, as befitted the professor of an imaginative art, +was endowed with an exceedingly quick sensibility, which was apt to give +him intimations of the true state of matters that lay beyond his actual +vision. There was a whisper in his ear; it said, "Hush!" Without asking +himself wherefore, he resolved to be silent as regarded the mysterious +discovery which he had made, and to leave any remark or exclamation +to be voluntarily offered by Miriam. If she never spoke, then let the +riddle be unsolved. + +And now occurred a circumstance that would seem too fantastic to be +told, if it had not actually happened, precisely as we set it down. As +the three friends stood by the bier, they saw that a little stream of +blood had begun to ooze from the dead monk's nostrils; it crept slowly +towards the thicket of his beard, where, in the course of a moment or +two, it hid itself. + +"How strange!" ejaculated Kenyon. "The monk died of apoplexy, I suppose, +or by some sudden accident, and the blood has not yet congealed." + +"Do you consider that a sufficient explanation?" asked Miriam, with a +smile from which the sculptor involuntarily turned away his eyes. "Does +it satisfy you?" + +"And why not?" he inquired. + +"Of course, you know the old superstition about this phenomenon of blood +flowing from a dead body," she rejoined. "How can we tell but that the +murderer of this monk (or, possibly, it may be only that privileged +murderer, his physician) may have just entered the church?" + +"I cannot jest about it," said Kenyon. "It is an ugly sight!" + +"True, true; horrible to see, or dream of!" she replied, with one of +those long, tremulous sighs, which so often betray a sick heart by +escaping unexpectedly. "We will not look at it any more. Come away, +Donatello. Let us escape from this dismal church. The sunshine will do +you good." + +When had ever a woman such a trial to sustain as this! By no possible +supposition could Miriam explain the identity of the dead Capuchin, +quietly and decorously laid out in the nave of his convent church, with +that of her murdered persecutor, flung heedlessly at the foot of the +precipice. The effect upon her imagination was as if a strange and +unknown corpse had miraculously, while she was gazing at it, assumed the +likeness of that face, so terrible henceforth in her remembrance. It was +a symbol, perhaps, of the deadly iteration with which she was doomed +to behold the image of her crime reflected back upon her in a thousand +ways, and converting the great, calm face of Nature, in the whole, and +in its innumerable details, into a manifold reminiscence of that one +dead visage. + +No sooner had Miriam turned away from the bier, and gone a few steps, +than she fancied the likeness altogether an illusion, which would vanish +at a closer and colder view. She must look at it again, therefore, and +at once; or else the grave would close over the face, and leave the +awful fantasy that had connected itself therewith fixed ineffaceably in +her brain. + +"Wait for me, one moment!" she said to her companions. "Only a moment!" + +So she went back, and gazed once more at the corpse. Yes; these were +the features that Miriam had known so well; this was the visage that she +remembered from a far longer date than the most intimate of her friends +suspected; this form of clay had held the evil spirit which blasted her +sweet youth, and compelled her, as it were, to stain her womanhood +with crime. But, whether it were the majesty of death, or something +originally noble and lofty in the character of the dead, which the soul +had stamped upon the features, as it left them; so it was that Miriam +now quailed and shook, not for the vulgar horror of the spectacle, but +for the severe, reproachful glance that seemed to come from between +those half-closed lids. True, there had been nothing, in his lifetime, +viler than this man. She knew it; there was no other fact within her +consciousness that she felt to be so certain; and yet, because her +persecutor found himself safe and irrefutable in death, he frowned upon +his victim, and threw back the blame on her! + +"Is it thou, indeed?" she murmured, under her breath. "Then thou hast +no right to scowl upon me so! But art thou real, or a vision?" She bent +down over the dead monk, till one of her rich curls brushed against his +forehead. She touched one of his folded hands with her finger. + +"It is he," said Miriam. "There is the scar, that I know so well, on his +brow. And it is no vision; he is palpable to my touch! I will question +the fact no longer, but deal with it as I best can." + +It was wonderful to see how the crisis developed in Miriam its own +proper strength, and the faculty of sustaining the demands which it made +upon her fortitude. She ceased to tremble; the beautiful woman gazed +sternly at her dead enemy, endeavoring to meet and quell the look of +accusation that he threw from between his half-closed eyelids. + +"No; thou shalt not scowl me down!" said she. "Neither now, nor when +we stand together at the judgment-seat. I fear not to meet thee there. +Farewell, till that next encounter!" + +Haughtily waving her hand, Miriam rejoined her friends, who were +awaiting her at the door of the church. As they went out, the sacristan +stopped them, and proposed to show the cemetery of the convent, where +the deceased members of the fraternity are laid to rest in sacred earth, +brought long ago from Jerusalem. + +"And will yonder monk be buried there?" she asked. + +"Brother Antonio?" exclaimed the sacristan. + +"Surely, our good brother will be put to bed there! His grave is already +dug, and the last occupant has made room for him. Will you look at it, +signorina?" + +"I will!" said Miriam. + +"Then excuse me," observed Kenyon; "for I shall leave you. One dead monk +has more than sufficed me; and I am not bold enough to face the whole +mortality of the convent." + +It was easy to see, by Donatello's looks, that he, as well as the +sculptor, would gladly have escaped a visit to the famous cemetery of +the Cappuccini. But Miriam's nerves were strained to such a pitch, that +she anticipated a certain solace and absolute relief in passing from +one ghastly spectacle to another of long-accumulated ugliness; and there +was, besides, a singular sense of duty which impelled her to look at +the final resting-place of the being whose fate had been so disastrously +involved with her own. She therefore followed the sacristan's guidance, +and drew her companion along with her, whispering encouragement as they +went. + +The cemetery is beneath the church, but entirely above ground, and +lighted by a row of iron-grated windows without glass. A corridor runs +along beside these windows, and gives access to three or four vaulted +recesses, or chapels, of considerable breadth and height, the floor of +which consists of the consecrated earth of Jerusalem. It is smoothed +decorously over the deceased brethren of the convent, and is kept +quite free from grass or weeds, such as would grow even in these gloomy +recesses, if pains were not bestowed to root them up. But, as the +cemetery is small, and it is a precious privilege to sleep in holy +ground, the brotherhood are immemorially accustomed, when one of their +number dies, to take the longest buried skeleton out of the oldest +grave, and lay the new slumberer there instead. Thus, each of the good +friars, in his turn, enjoys the luxury of a consecrated bed, attended +with the slight drawback of being forced to get up long before daybreak, +as it were, and make room for another lodger. + +The arrangement of the unearthed skeletons is what makes the special +interest of the cemetery. The arched and vaulted walls of the burial +recesses are supported by massive pillars and pilasters made of +thigh-bones and skulls; the whole material of the structure appears +to be of a similar kind; and the knobs and embossed ornaments of this +strange architecture are represented by the joints of the spine, and +the more delicate tracery by the Smaller bones of the human frame. The +summits of the arches are adorned with entire skeletons, looking as if +they were wrought most skilfully in bas-relief. There is no possibility +of describing how ugly and grotesque is the effect, combined with a +certain artistic merit, nor how much perverted ingenuity has been shown +in this queer way, nor what a multitude of dead monks, through how many +hundred years, must have contributed their bony framework to build +up these great arches of mortality. On some of the skulls there are +inscriptions, purporting that such a monk, who formerly made use of +that particular headpiece, died on such a day and year; but vastly the +greater number are piled up indistinguishably into the architectural +design, like the many deaths that make up the one glory of a victory. + +In the side walls of the vaults are niches where skeleton monks sit or +stand, clad in the brown habits that they wore in life, and labelled +with their names and the dates of their decease. Their skulls (some +quite bare, and others still covered with yellow skin, and hair that +has known the earth-damps) look out from beneath their hoods, grinning +hideously repulsive. One reverend father has his mouth wide open, as if +he had died in the midst of a howl of terror and remorse, which perhaps +is even now screeching through eternity. As a general thing, however, +these frocked and hooded skeletons seem to take a more cheerful view of +their position, and try with ghastly smiles to turn it into a jest. But +the cemetery of the Capuchins is no place to nourish celestial hopes: +the soul sinks forlorn and wretched under all this burden of dusty +death; the holy earth from Jerusalem, so imbued is it with mortality, +has grown as barren of the flowers of Paradise as it is of earthly weeds +and grass. Thank Heaven for its blue sky; it needs a long, upward gaze +to give us back our faith. Not here can we feel ourselves immortal, +where the very altars in these chapels of horrible consecration are +heaps of human bones. + +Yet let us give the cemetery the praise that it deserves. There is no +disagreeable scent, such as might have been expected from the decay of +so many holy persons, in whatever odor of sanctity they may have taken +their departure. The same number of living monks would not smell half so +unexceptionably. + +Miriam went gloomily along the corridor, from one vaulted Golgotha to +another, until in the farthest recess she beheld an open grave. + +"Is that for him who lies yonder in the nave?" she asked. + +"Yes, signorina, this is to be the resting-place of Brother Antonio, who +came to his death last night," answered the sacristan; "and in yonder +niche, you see, sits a brother who was buried thirty years ago, and has +risen to give him place." + +"It is not a satisfactory idea," observed Miriam, "that you poor friars +cannot call even your graves permanently your own. You must lie down +in them, methinks, with a nervous anticipation of being disturbed, like +weary men who know that they shall be summoned out of bed at midnight. +Is it not possible (if money were to be paid for the privilege) to leave +Brother Antonio--if that be his name--in the occupancy of that narrow +grave till the last trumpet sounds?" + +"By no means, signorina; neither is it needful or desirable," answered +the sacristan. "A quarter of a century's sleep in the sweet earth +of Jerusalem is better than a thousand years in any other soil. Our +brethren find good rest there. No ghost was ever known to steal out of +this blessed cemetery." + +"That is well," responded Miriam; "may he whom you now lay to sleep +prove no exception to the rule!" + +As they left the cemetery she put money into the sacristan's hand to an +amount that made his eyes open wide and glisten, and requested that it +might be expended in masses for the repose of Father Antonio's soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +THE MEDICI GARDENS + + +"Donatello," said Miriam anxiously, as they came through the Piazza +Barberini, "what can I do for you, my beloved friend? You are shaking as +with the cold fit of the Roman fever." "Yes," said Donatello; "my heart +shivers." As soon as she could collect her thoughts, Miriam led the +young man to the gardens of the Villa Medici, hoping that the quiet +shade and sunshine of that delightful retreat would a little revive his +spirits. The grounds are there laid out in the old fashion of straight +paths, with borders of box, which form hedges of great height and +density, and are shorn and trimmed to the evenness of a wall of +stone, at the top and sides. There are green alleys, with long vistas +overshadowed by ilex-trees; and at each intersection of the paths, the +visitor finds seats of lichen-covered stone to repose upon, and marble +statues that look forlornly at him, regretful of their lost noses. In +the more open portions of the garden, before the sculptured front of +the villa, you see fountains and flower-beds, and in their season +a profusion of roses, from which the genial sun of Italy distils a +fragrance, to be scattered abroad by the no less genial breeze. + +But Donatello drew no delight from these things. He walked onward in +silent apathy, and looked at Miriam with strangely half-awakened and +bewildered eyes, when she sought to bring his mind into sympathy with +hers, and so relieve his heart of the burden that lay lumpishly upon it. + +She made him sit down on a stone bench, where two embowered alleys +crossed each other; so that they could discern the approach of any +casual intruder a long way down the path. + +"My sweet friend," she said, taking one of his passive hands in both of +hers, "what can I say to comfort you?" + +"Nothing!" replied Donatello, with sombre reserve. "Nothing will ever +comfort me." + +"I accept my own misery," continued Miriam, "my own guilt, if guilt it +be; and, whether guilt or misery, I shall know how to deal with it. But +you, dearest friend, that were the rarest creature in all this world, +and seemed a being to whom sorrow could not cling,--you, whom I +half fancied to belong to a race that had vanished forever, you only +surviving, to show mankind how genial and how joyous life used to be, in +some long-gone age,--what had you to do with grief or crime?" + +"They came to me as to other men," said Donatello broodingly. "Doubtless +I was born to them." + +"No, no; they came with me," replied Miriam. "Mine is the +responsibility! Alas! wherefore was I born? Why did we ever meet? Why +did I not drive you from me, knowing for my heart foreboded it--that the +cloud in which I walked would likewise envelop you!" + +Donatello stirred uneasily, with the irritable impatience that is often +combined With a mood of leaden despondency. A brown lizard with two +tails--a monster often engendered by the Roman sunshine--ran across his +foot, and made him start. Then he sat silent awhile, and so did Miriam, +trying to dissolve her whole heart into sympathy, and lavish it all upon +him, were it only for a moment's cordial. + +The young man lifted his hand to his breast, and, unintentionally, as +Miriam's hand was within his, he lifted that along with it. "I have a +great weight here!" said he. The fancy struck Miriam (but she drove it +resolutely down) that Donatello almost imperceptibly shuddered, while, +in pressing his own hand against his heart, he pressed hers there too. + +"Rest your heart on me, dearest one!" she resumed. "Let me bear all its +weight; I am well able to bear it; for I am a woman, and I love you! I +love you, Donatello! Is there no comfort for you in this avowal? Look +at me! Heretofore you have found me pleasant to your sight. Gaze into my +eyes! Gaze into my soul! Search as deeply as you may, you can never see +half the tenderness and devotion that I henceforth cherish for you. All +that I ask is your acceptance of the utter self-sacrifice (but it shall +be no sacrifice, to my great love) with which I seek to remedy the evil +you have incurred for my sake!" + +All this fervor on Miriam's part; on Donatello's, a heavy silence. + +"O, speak to me!" she exclaimed. "Only promise me to be, by and by, a +little happy!" + +"Happy?" murmured Donatello. "Ah, never again! never again!" + +"Never? Ah, that is a terrible word to say to me!" answered Miriam. "A +terrible word to let fall upon a woman's heart, when she loves you, and +is conscious of having caused your misery! If you love me, Donatello, +speak it not again. And surely you did love me?" + +"I did," replied Donatello gloomily and absently. + +Miriam released the young man's hand, but suffered one of her own to +lie close to his, and waited a moment to see whether he would make +any effort to retain it. There was much depending upon that simple +experiment. + +With a deep sigh--as when, sometimes, a slumberer turns over in a +troubled dream Donatello changed his position, and clasped both his +hands over his forehead. The genial warmth of a Roman April kindling +into May was in the atmosphere around them; but when Miriam saw +that involuntary movement and heard that sigh of relief (for so she +interpreted it), a shiver ran through her frame, as if the iciest wind +of the Apennines were blowing over her. + +"He has done himself a greater wrong than I dreamed of," thought she, +with unutterable compassion. "Alas! it was a sad mistake! He might +have had a kind of bliss in the consequences of this deed, had he been +impelled to it by a love vital enough to survive the frenzy of that +terrible moment, mighty enough to make its own law, and justify itself +against the natural remorse. But to have perpetrated a dreadful murder +(and such was his crime, unless love, annihilating moral distinctions, +made it otherwise) on no better warrant than a boy's idle fantasy! I +pity him from the very depths of my soul! As for myself, I am past my +own or other's pity." + +She arose from the young man's side, and stood before him with a sad, +commiserating aspect; it was the look of a ruined soul, bewailing, +in him, a grief less than what her profounder sympathies imposed upon +herself. + +"Donatello, we must part," she said, with melancholy firmness. "Yes; +leave me! Go back to your old tower, which overlooks the green valley +you have told me of among the Apennines. Then, all that has passed will +be recognized as but an ugly dream. For in dreams the conscience sleeps, +and we often stain ourselves with guilt of which we should be incapable +in our waking moments. The deed you seemed to do, last night, was +no more than such a dream; there was as little substance in what you +fancied yourself doing. Go; and forget it all!" + +"Ah, that terrible face!" said Donatello, pressing his hands over his +eyes. "Do you call that unreal?" + +"Yes; for you beheld it with dreaming eyes," replied Miriam. "It was +unreal; and, that you may feel it so, it is requisite that you see this +face of mine no more. Once, you may have thought it beautiful; now, it +has lost its charm. Yet it would still retain a miserable potency' to +bring back the past illusion, and, in its train, the remorse and anguish +that would darken all your life. Leave me, therefore, and forget me." + +"Forget you, Miriam!" said Donatello, roused somewhat from his apathy of +despair. + +"If I could remember you, and behold you, apart from that frightful +visage which stares at me over your shoulder, that were a consolation, +at least, if not a joy." + +"But since that visage haunts you along with mine," rejoined Miriam, +glancing behind her, "we needs must part. Farewell, then! But if +ever--in distress, peril, shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is most +poignant, whatever burden heaviest--you should require a life to be +given wholly, only to make your own a little easier, then summon me! As +the case now stands between us, you have bought me dear, and find me of +little worth. Fling me away, therefore! May you never need me more! But, +if otherwise, a wish--almost an unuttered wish will bring me to you!" + +She stood a moment, expecting a reply. But Donatello's eyes had again +fallen on the ground, and he had not, in his bewildered mind and +overburdened heart, a word to respond. + +"That hour I speak of may never come," said Miriam. "So +farewell--farewell forever." + +"Farewell," said Donatello. + +His voice hardly made its way through the environment of unaccustomed +thoughts and emotions which had settled over him like a dense and dark +cloud. Not improbably, he beheld Miriam through so dim a medium that she +looked visionary; heard her speak only in a thin, faint echo. + +She turned from the young man, and, much as her heart yearned towards +him, she would not profane that heavy parting by an embrace, or even a +pressure of the hand. So soon after the semblance of such mighty love, +and after it had been the impulse to so terrible a deed, they parted, +in all outward show, as coldly as people part whose whole mutual +intercourse has been encircled within a single hour. + +And Donatello, when Miriam had departed, stretched himself at full +length on the stone bench, and drew his hat over his eyes, as the idle +and light-hearted youths of dreamy Italy are accustomed to do, when they +lie down in the first convenient shade, and snatch a noonday slumber. +A stupor was upon him, which he mistook for such drowsiness as he had +known in his innocent past life. But, by and by, he raised himself +slowly and left the garden. Sometimes poor Donatello started, as if +he heard a shriek; sometimes he shrank back, as if a face, fearful to +behold, were thrust close to his own. In this dismal mood, bewildered +with the novelty of sin and grief, he had little left of that singular +resemblance, on account of which, and for their sport, his three friends +had fantastically recognized him as the veritable Faun of Praxiteles. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +MIRIAM AND HILDA + + +On leaving the Medici Gardens Miriam felt herself astray in the world; +and having no special reason to seek one place more than another, she +suffered chance to direct her steps as it would. Thus it happened, that, +involving herself in the crookedness of Rome, she saw Hilda's tower +rising before her, and was put in mind to climb to the young girl's +eyry, and ask why she had broken her engagement at the church of the +Capuchins. People often do the idlest acts of their lifetime in their +heaviest and most anxious moments; so that it would have been no wonder +had Miriam been impelled only by so slight a motive of curiosity as we +have indicated. But she remembered, too, and with a quaking heart, what +the sculptor had mentioned of Hilda's retracing her steps towards the +courtyard of the Palazzo Caffarelli in quest of Miriam herself. Had she +been compelled to choose between infamy in the eyes of the whole world, +or in Hilda's eyes alone, she would unhesitatingly have accepted the +former, on condition of remaining spotless in the estimation of her +white-souled friend. This possibility, therefore, that Hilda had +witnessed the scene of the past night, was unquestionably the cause +that drew Miriam to the tower, and made her linger and falter as she +approached it. + +As she drew near, there were tokens to which her disturbed mind gave a +sinister interpretation. Some of her friend's airy family, the doves, +with their heads imbedded disconsolately in their bosoms, were huddled +in a corner of the piazza; others had alighted on the heads, wings, +shoulders, and trumpets of the marble angels which adorned the facade +of the neighboring church; two or three had betaken themselves to the +Virgin's shrine; and as many as could find room were sitting on Hilda's +window-sill. But all of them, so Miriam fancied, had a look of weary +expectation and disappointment, no flights, no flutterings, no cooing +murmur; something that ought to have made their day glad and bright +was evidently left out of this day's history. And, furthermore, Hilda's +white window-curtain was closely drawn, with only that one little +aperture at the side, which Miriam remembered noticing the night before. + +"Be quiet," said Miriam to her own heart, pressing her hand hard upon +it. "Why shouldst thou throb now? Hast thou not endured more terrible +things than this?" + +Whatever were her apprehensions, she would not turn back. It might +be--and the solace would be worth a world--that Hilda, knowing nothing +of the past night's calamity, would greet her friend with a sunny smile, +and so restore a portion of the vital warmth, for lack of which her soul +was frozen. But could Miriam, guilty as she was, permit Hilda to kiss +her cheek, to clasp her hand, and thus be no longer so unspotted from +the world as heretofore. + +"I will never permit her sweet touch again," said Miriam, toiling up +the staircase, "if I can find strength of heart to forbid it. But, O! it +would be so soothing in this wintry fever-fit of my heart. There can be +no harm to my white Hilda in one parting kiss. That shall be all!" + +But, on reaching the upper landing-place, Miriam paused, and stirred not +again till she had brought herself to an immovable resolve. + +"My lips, my hand, shall never meet Hilda's more," said she. + +Meanwhile, Hilda sat listlessly in her painting-room. Had you looked +into the little adjoining chamber, you might have seen the slight +imprint of her figure on the bed, but would also have detected at once +that the white counterpane had not been turned down. The pillow was more +disturbed; she had turned her face upon it, the poor child, and bedewed +it with some of those tears (among the most chill and forlorn that gush +from human sorrow) which the innocent heart pours forth at its first +actual discovery that sin is in the world. The young and pure are not +apt to find out that miserable truth until it is brought home to them by +the guiltiness of some trusted friend. They may have heard much of +the evil of the world, and seem to know it, but only as an impalpable +theory. In due time, some mortal, whom they reverence too highly, +is commissioned by Providence to teach them this direful lesson; he +perpetrates a sin; and Adam falls anew, and Paradise, heretofore in +unfaded bloom, is lost again, and dosed forever, with the fiery swords +gleaming at its gates. + +The chair in which Hilda sat was near the portrait of Beatrice Cenci, +which had not yet been taken from the easel. It is a peculiarity of +this picture, that its profoundest expression eludes a straightforward +glance, and can only be caught by side glimpses, or when the eye +falls casually upon it; even as if the painted face had a life and +consciousness of its own, and, resolving not to betray its secret of +grief or guilt, permitted the true tokens to come forth only when it +imagined itself unseen. No other such magical effect has ever been +wrought by pencil. + +Now, opposite the easel hung a looking-glass, in which Beatrice's face +and Hilda's were both reflected. In one of her weary, nerveless changes +of position, Hilda happened to throw her eyes on the glass, and took in +both these images at one unpremeditated glance. She fancied--nor was it +without horror--that Beatrice's expression, seen aside and vanishing in +a moment, had been depicted in her own face likewise, and flitted from +it as timorously. + +"Am I, too, stained with guilt?" thought the poor girl, hiding her face +in her hands. + +Not so, thank Heaven! But, as regards Beatrice's picture, the incident +suggests a theory which may account for its unutterable grief and +mysterious shadow of guilt, without detracting from the purity which we +love to attribute to that ill-fated girl. Who, indeed, can look at that +mouth,--with its lips half apart, as innocent as a babe's that has +been crying, and not pronounce Beatrice sinless? It was the intimate +consciousness of her father's sin that threw its shadow over her, and +frightened her into a remote and inaccessible region, where no sympathy +could come. It was the knowledge of Miriam's guilt that lent the same +expression to Hilda's face. + +But Hilda nervously moved her chair, so that the images in the glass +should be no longer Visible. She now watched a speck of sunshine that +came through a shuttered window, and crept from object to object, +indicating each with a touch of its bright finger, and then letting them +all vanish successively. In like manner her mind, so like sunlight +in its natural cheerfulness, went from thought to thought, but found +nothing that it could dwell upon for comfort. Never before had this +young, energetic, active spirit known what it is to be despondent. It +was the unreality of the world that made her so. Her dearest friend, +whose heart seemed the most solid and richest of Hilda's possessions, +had no existence for her any more; and in that dreary void, out of which +Miriam had disappeared, the substance, the truth, the integrity of life, +the motives of effort, the joy of success, had departed along with her. + +It was long past noon, when a step came up the staircase. It had passed +beyond the limits where there was communication with the lower regions +of the palace, and was mounting the successive flights which led only to +Hilda's precincts. Faint as the tread was, she heard and recognized it. +It startled her into sudden life. Her first impulse was to spring to +the door of the studio, and fasten it with lock and bolt. But a second +thought made her feel that this would be an unworthy cowardice, on her +own part, and also that Miriam--only yesterday her closest friend had +a right to be told, face to face, that thenceforth they must be forever +strangers. + +She heard Miriam pause, outside of the door. We have already seen what +was the latter's resolve with respect to any kiss or pressure of +the hand between Hilda and herself. We know not what became of the +resolution. As Miriam was of a highly impulsive character, it may have +vanished at the first sight of Hilda; but, at all events, she appeared +to have dressed herself up in a garb of sunshine, and was disclosed, as +the door swung open, in all the glow of her remarkable beauty. The truth +was, her heart leaped conclusively towards the only refuge that it had, +or hoped. She forgot, just one instant, all cause for holding herself +aloof. Ordinarily there was a certain reserve in Miriam's demonstrations +of affection, in consonance with the delicacy of her friend. To-day, she +opened her arms to take Hilda in. + +"Dearest, darling Hilda!" she exclaimed. "It gives me new life to see +you!" + +Hilda was standing in the middle of the room. When her friend made a +step or two from the door, she put forth her hands with an involuntary +repellent gesture, so expressive that Miriam at once felt a great chasm +opening itself between them two. They might gaze at one another from the +opposite side, but without the possibility of ever meeting more; or, at +least, since the chasm could never be bridged over, they must tread +the whole round of Eternity to meet on the other side. There was even +a terror in the thought of their meeting again. It was as if Hilda or +Miriam were dead, and could no longer hold intercourse without violating +a spiritual law. + +Yet, in the wantonness of her despair, Miriam made one more step towards +the friend whom she had lost. "Do not come nearer, Miriam!" said +Hilda. Her look and tone were those of sorrowful entreaty, and yet +they expressed a kind of confidence, as if the girl were conscious of a +safeguard that could not be violated. + +"What has happened between us, Hilda?" asked Miriam. "Are we not +friends?" + +"No, no!" said Hilda, shuddering. + +"At least we have been friends," continued Miriam. "I loved you dearly! +I love you still! You were to me as a younger sister; yes, dearer than +sisters of the same blood; for you and I were so lonely, Hilda, that the +whole world pressed us together by its solitude and strangeness. Then, +will you not touch my hand? Am I not the same as yesterday?" + +"Alas! no, Miriam!" said Hilda. + +"Yes, the same, the same for you, Hilda," rejoined her lost friend. +"Were you to touch my hand, you would find it as warm to your grasp as +ever. If you were sick or suffering, I would watch night and day for +you. It is in such simple offices that true affection shows itself; +and so I speak of them. Yet now, Hilda, your very look seems to put me +beyond the limits of human kind!" + +"It is not I, Miriam," said Hilda; "not I that have done this." + +"You, and you only, Hilda," replied Miriam, stirred up to make her own +cause good by the repellent force which her friend opposed to her. "I am +a woman, as I was yesterday; endowed with the same truth of nature, the +same warmth of heart, the same genuine and earnest love, which you +have always known in me. In any regard that concerns yourself, I am not +changed. And believe me, Hilda, when a human being has chosen a friend +out of all the world, it is only some faithlessness between themselves, +rendering true intercourse impossible, that can justify either friend in +severing the bond. Have I deceived you? Then cast me off! Have I wronged +you personally? Then forgive me, if you can. But, have I sinned against +God and man, and deeply sinned? Then be more my friend than ever, for I +need you more." + +"Do not bewilder me thus, Miriam!" exclaimed Hilda, who had not forborne +to express, by look and gesture, the anguish which this interview +inflicted on her. "If I were one of God's angels, with a nature +incapable of stain, and garments that never could be spotted, I would +keep ever at your side, and try to lead you upward. But I am a poor, +lonely girl, whom God has set here in an evil world, and given her only +a white robe, and bid her wear it back to Him, as white as when she put +it on. Your powerful magnetism would be too much for me. The pure, white +atmosphere, in which I try to discern what things are good and true, +would be discolored. And therefore, Miriam, before it is too late, I +mean to put faith in this awful heartquake which warns me henceforth to +avoid you." + +"Ah, this is hard! Ah, this is terrible!" murmured Miriam, dropping her +forehead in her hands. In a moment or two she looked up again, as pale +as death, but with a composed countenance: "I always said, Hilda, that +you were merciless; for I had a perception of it, even while you +loved me best. You have no sin, nor any conception of what it is; and +therefore you are so terribly severe! As an angel, you are not amiss; +but, as a human creature, and a woman among earthly men and women, you +need a sin to soften you." + +"God forgive me," said Hilda, "if I have said a needlessly cruel word!" + +"Let it pass," answered Miriam; "I, whose heart it has smitten upon, +forgive you. And tell me, before we part forever, what have you seen or +known of me, since we last met?" + +"A terrible thing, Miriam," said Hilda, growing paler than before. + +"Do you see it written in my face, or painted in my eyes?" inquired +Miriam, her trouble seeking relief in a half-frenzied raillery. "I would +fain know how it is that Providence, or fate, brings eye-witnesses to +watch us, when we fancy ourselves acting in the remotest privacy. Did +all Rome see it, then? Or, at least, our merry company of artists? Or is +it some blood-stain on me, or death-scent in my garments? They say that +monstrous deformities sprout out of fiends, who once were lovely angels. +Do you perceive such in me already? Tell me, by our past friendship, +Hilda, all you know." + +Thus adjured, and frightened by the wild emotion which Miriam could not +suppress, Hilda strove to tell what she had witnessed. + +"After the rest of the party had passed on, I went back to speak to +you," she said; "for there seemed to be a trouble on your mind, and I +wished to share it with you, if you could permit me. The door of the +little courtyard was partly shut; but I pushed it open, and saw you +within, and Donatello, and a third person, whom I had before noticed in +the shadow of a niche. He approached you, Miriam. You knelt to him! I +saw Donatello spring upon him! I would have shrieked, but my throat +was dry. I would have rushed forward, but my limbs seemed rooted to the +earth. It was like a flash of lightning. A look passed from your eyes to +Donatello's--a look."--"Yes, Hilda, yes!" exclaimed Miriam, with intense +eagerness. "Do not pause now! That look?" + +"It revealed all your heart, Miriam," continued Hilda, covering her +eyes as if to shut out the recollection; "a look of hatred, triumph, +vengeance, and, as it were, joy at some unhoped-for relief." + +"Ah! Donatello was right, then," murmured Miriam, who shook throughout +all her frame. "My eyes bade him do it! Go on, Hilda." + +"It all passed so quickly, all like a glare of lightning," said Hilda, +"and yet it seemed to me that Donatello had paused, while one might draw +a breath. But that look! Ah, Miriam, spare me. Need I tell more?" + +"No more; there needs no more, Hilda," replied Miriam, bowing her head, +as if listening to a sentence of condemnation from a supreme tribunal. +"It is enough! You have satisfied my mind on a point where it was +greatly disturbed. Henceforward I shall be quiet. Thank you, Hilda." + +She was on the point of departing, but turned back again from the +threshold. + +"This is a terrible secret to be kept in a young girl's bosom," she +observed; "what will you do with it, my poor child?" + +"Heaven help and guide me," answered Hilda, bursting into tears; "for +the burden of it crushes me to the earth! It seems a crime to know +of such a thing, and to keep it to myself. It knocks within my heart +continually, threatening, imploring, insisting to be let out! O my +mother!--my mother! Were she yet living, I would travel over land and +sea to tell her this dark secret, as I told all the little troubles of +my infancy. But I am alone--alone! Miriam, you were my dearest, only +friend. Advise me what to do." + +This was a singular appeal, no doubt, from the stainless maiden to the +guilty woman, whom she had just banished from her heart forever. But +it bore striking testimony to the impression which Miriam's natural +uprightness and impulsive generosity had made on the friend who knew her +best; and it deeply comforted the poor criminal, by proving to her that +the bond between Hilda and herself was vital yet. + +As far as she was able, Miriam at once responded to the girl's cry for +help. + +"If I deemed it good for your peace of mind," she said, "to bear +testimony against me for this deed in the face of all the world, no +consideration of myself should weigh with me an instant. But I believe +that you would find no relief in such a course. What men call justice +lies chiefly in outward formalities, and has never the close application +and fitness that would be satisfactory to a soul like yours. I cannot be +fairly tried and judged before an earthly tribunal; and of this, Hilda, +you would perhaps become fatally conscious when it was too late. Roman +justice, above all things, is a byword. What have you to do with it? +Leave all such thoughts aside! Yet, Hilda, I would not have you keep my +secret imprisoned in your heart if it tries to leap out, and stings you, +like a wild, venomous thing, when you thrust it back again. Have you no +other friend, now that you have been forced to give me up?" + +"No other," answered Hilda sadly. + +"Yes; Kenyon!" rejoined Miriam. + +"He cannot be my friend," said Hilda, "because--because--I have fancied +that he sought to be something more." + +"Fear nothing!" replied Miriam, shaking her head, with a strange smile. +"This story will frighten his new-born love out of its little life, if +that be what you wish. Tell him the secret, then, and take his wise and +honorable counsel as to what should next be done. I know not what else +to say." + +"I never dreamed," said Hilda,--"how could you think it?--of betraying +you to justice. But I see how it is, Miriam. I must keep your secret, +and die of it, unless God sends me some relief by methods which are now +beyond my power to imagine. It is very dreadful. Ah! now I understand +how the sins of generations past have created an atmosphere of sin +for those that follow. While there is a single guilty person in the +universe, each innocent one must feel his innocence tortured by that +guilt. Your deed, Miriam, has darkened the whole sky!" + +Poor Hilda turned from her unhappy friend, and, sinking on her knees in +a corner of the chamber, could not be prevailed upon to utter another +word. And Miriam, with a long regard from the threshold, bade farewell +to this doves' nest, this one little nook of pure thoughts and innocent +enthusiasms, into which she had brought such trouble. 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Ver.04.29.93 FOR COPYRIGHT PROTECTED ETEXTS*END* + + + + + +This Etext prepared by +Michael Pullen +globaltraveler5565@yahoo.com + + + + + +THE MARBLE FAUN + +or The Romance of Monte Beni + +Nathaniel Hawthorne + +In Two Volumes + +This is Volume One + + + + +Contents + +Volume I + + I MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO + II THE FAUN + III SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES + IV THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB + V MIRIAM'S STUDIO + VI THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE + VII BEATRICE + VIII THE SUBURBAN VILLA + IX THE FAUN AND NYMPH + X THE SYLVAN DANCE + XI FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES + XII A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN + XIII A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO + XIV CLEOPATRA + XV AN AESTHETIC COMPANY + XVI A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE + XVII MIRIAM'S TROUBLE + XVIII ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE + XIX THE FAUN'S TRANSFORMATION + XX THE BURIAL CHANT + XXI THE DEAD CAPUCHIN + XXII THE MEDICI GARDENS + XXIII MIRIAM AND HILDA + + +Volume II + + XXIV THE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES + XXV SUNSHINE + XXVI THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI + XXVII MYTHS + XXVIII THE OWL TOWER + XXIX ON THE BATTLEMENTS + XXX DONATELLO'S BUST + XXXI THE MARBLE SALOON + XXXII SCENES BY THE WAY + XXXIII PICTURED WINDOWS + XXXIV MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA + XXXV THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION + XXXVI HILDA'S TOWER + XXXVII THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE GALLERIES + XXXVIII ALTARS AND INCENSE + XXXIX THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL + XL HILDA AND A FRIEND + XLI SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS + XLII REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM + XLIII THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP + XLIV THE DESERTED SHRINE + XLV THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES + XLVI A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA + XLVII THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA + XLVIII A SCENE IN THE CORSO + XLIX A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL + L MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO + + + + +THE MARBLE FAUN + + + + +Volume I + + + +CHAPTER I + + +MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO + + +Four individuals, in whose fortunes we should be glad to interest the +reader, happened to be standing in one of the saloons of the +sculpture-gallery in the Capitol at Rome. It was that room (the first, +after ascending the staircase) in the centre of which reclines the noble +and most pathetic figure of the Dying Gladiator, just sinking into his +death-swoon. Around the walls stand the Antinous, the Amazon, the Lycian +Apollo, the Juno; all famous productions of antique sculpture, and still +shining in the undiminished majesty and beauty of their ideal life, +although the marble that embodies them is yellow with time, and perhaps +corroded by the damp earth in which they lay buried for centuries. Here, +likewise, is seen a symbol (as apt at this moment as it was two thousand +years ago) of the Human Soul, with its choice of Innocence or Evil close +at hand, in the pretty figure of a child, clasping a dove to her bosom, +but assaulted by a snake. + +From one of the windows of this saloon, we may see a flight of broad stone +steps, descending alongside the antique and massive foundation of the +Capitol, towards the battered triumphal arch of Septimius Severus, right +below. Farther on, the eye skirts along the edge of the desolate Forum +(where Roman washerwomen hang out their linen to the sun), passing over a +shapeless confusion of modern edifices, piled rudely up with ancient brick +and stone, and over the domes of Christian churches, built on the old +pavements of heathen temples, and supported by the very pillars that once +upheld them. At a distance beyond--yet but a little way, considering how +much history is heaped into the intervening space--rises the great sweep +of the Coliseum, with the blue sky brightening through its upper tier of +arches. Far off, the view is shut in by the Alban Mountains, looking just +the same, amid all this decay and change, as when Romulus gazed +thitherward over his half finished wall. + +We glance hastily at these things,--at this bright sky, and those blue +distant mountains, and at the ruins, Etruscan, Roman, Christian, venerable +with a threefold antiquity, and at the company of world-famous statues in +the saloon,--in the hope of putting the reader into that state of feeling +which is experienced oftenest at Rome. It is a vague sense of ponderous +remembrances; a perception of such weight and density in a bygone life, of +which this spot was the centre, that the present moment is pressed down or +crowded out, and our individual affairs and interests are but half as real +here as elsewhere. Viewed through this medium, our narrative--into which +are woven some airy and unsubstantial threads, intermixed with others, +twisted out of the commonest stuff of human existence--may seem not widely +different from the texture of all our lives. + +Side by side with the massiveness of the Roman Past, all matters that we +handle or dream of nowadays look evanescent and visionary alike. + +It might be that the four persons whom we are seeking to introduce were +conscious of this dreamy character of the present, as compared with the +square blocks of granite wherewith the Romans built their lives. Perhaps +it even contributed to the fanciful merriment which was just now their +mood. When we find ourselves fading into shadows and unrealities, it +seems hardly worth while to be sad, but rather to laugh as gayly as we may, +and ask little reason wherefore. + +Of these four friends of ours, three were artists, or connected with art; +and, at this moment, they had been simultaneously struck by a resemblance +between one of the antique statues, a well-known masterpiece of Grecian +sculpture, and a young Italian, the fourth member of their party. + +"You must needs confess, Kenyon," said a dark-eyed young woman, whom her +friends called Miriam, "that you never chiselled out of marble, nor +wrought in clay, a more vivid likeness than this, cunning a bust-maker as +you think yourself. The portraiture is perfect in character, sentiment, +and feature. If it were a picture, the resemblance might be half illusive +and imaginary; but here, in this Pentelic marble, it is a substantial fact, +and may be tested by absolute touch and measurement. Our friend +Donatello is the very Faun of Praxiteles. Is it not true, Hilda?" + +"Not quite--almost--yes, I really think so," replied Hilda, a slender, +brown-haired, New England girl, whose perceptions of form and expression +were wonderfully clear and delicate. "If there is any difference between +the two faces, the reason may be, I suppose, that the Faun dwelt in woods +and fields, and consorted with his like; whereas Donatello has known +cities a little, and such people as ourselves. But the resemblance is +very close, and very strange." + +"Not so strange," whispered Miriam mischievously; "for no Faun in Arcadia +was ever a greater simpleton than Donatello. He has hardly a man's share +of wit, small as that may be. It is a pity there are no longer any of +this congenial race of rustic creatures for our friend to consort with!" + +"Hush, naughty one!" returned Hilda. "You are very ungrateful, for you +well know he has wit enough to worship you, at all events." + +"Then the greater fool he!" said Miriam so bitterly that Hilda's quiet +eyes were somewhat startled. + +"Donatello, my dear friend," said Kenyon, in Italian, "pray gratify us all +by taking the exact attitude of this statue." + +The young man laughed, and threw himself into the position in which the +statue has been standing for two or three thousand years. In truth, +allowing for the difference of costume, and if a lion's skin could have +been substituted for his modern talma, and a rustic pipe for his stick, +Donatello might have figured perfectly as the marble Faun, miraculously +softened into flesh and blood. + +"Yes; the resemblance is wonderful," observed Kenyon, after examining the +marble and the man with the accuracy of a sculptor's eye. "There is one +point, however, or, rather, two points, in respect to which our friend +Donatello's abundant curls will not permit us to say whether the likeness +is carried into minute detail." + +And the sculptor directed the attention of the party to the ears of the +beautiful statue which they were contemplating. + +But we must do more than merely refer to this exquisite work of art; it +must be described, however inadequate may be the effort to express its +magic peculiarity in words. + +The Faun is the marble image of a young man, leaning his right arm on the +trunk or stump of a tree; one hand hangs carelessly by his side; in the +other he holds the fragment of a pipe, or some such sylvan instrument of +music. His only garment--a lion's skin, with the claws upon his +shoulder--falls halfway down his back, leaving the limbs and entire front +of the figure nude. The form, thus displayed, is marvellously graceful, +but has a fuller and more rounded outline, more flesh, and less of heroic +muscle, than the old sculptors were wont to assign to their types of +masculine beauty. The character of the face corresponds with the figure; +it is most agreeable in outline and feature, but rounded and somewhat +voluptuously developed, especially about the throat and chin; the nose is +almost straight, but very slightly curves inward, thereby acquiring an +indescribable charm of geniality and humor. The mouth, with its full yet +delicate lips, seems so nearly to smile outright, that it calls forth a +responsive smile. The whole statue--unlike anything else that ever was +wrought in that severe material of marble--conveys the idea of an amiable +and sensual creature, easy, mirthful, apt for jollity, yet not incapable +of being touched by pathos. It is impossible to gaze long at this stone +image without conceiving a kindly sentiment towards it, as if its +substance were warm to the touch, and imbued with actual life. It comes +very close to some of our pleasantest sympathies. + +Perhaps it is the very lack of moral severity, of any high and heroic +ingredient in the character of the Faun, that makes it so delightful an +object to the human eye and to the frailty of the human heart. The being +here represented is endowed with no principle of virtue, and would be +incapable of comprehending such; but he would be true and honest by dint +of his simplicity. We should expect from him no sacrifice or effort for +an abstract cause; there is not an atom of martyr's stuff in all that +softened marble; but he has a capacity for strong and warm attachment, and +might act devotedly through its impulse, and even die for it at need. It +is possible, too, that the Faun might be educated through the medium of +his emotions, so that the coarser animal portion of his nature might +eventually be thrown into the background, though never utterly expelled. + +The animal nature, indeed, is a most essential part of the Faun's +composition; for the characteristics of the brute creation meet and +combine with those of humanity in this strange yet true and natural +conception of antique poetry and art. Praxiteles has subtly diffused +throughout his work that mute mystery,which so hopelessly perplexes us +whenever we attempt to gain an intellectual or sympathetic knowledge of +the lower orders of creation. The riddle is indicated, however, only by +two definite signs: these are the two ears of the Faun, which are leaf +shaped, terminating in little peaks, like those of some species of animals. +Though not so seen in the marble, they are probably to be considered as +clothed in fine, downy fur. In the coarser representations of this class +of mythological creatures, there is another token of brute kindred,--a +certain caudal appendage; which, if the Faun of Praxiteles must be +supposed to possess it at all, is hidden by the lion's skin that forms his +garment. The pointed and furry ears, therefore, are the sole indications +of his wild, forest nature. + +Only a sculptor of the finest imagination, the most delicate taste, the +sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic skill--in a word, a sculptor and +a poet too--could have first dreamed of a Faun in this guise, and then +have succeeded in imprisoning the sportive and frisky thing in marble. +Neither man nor animal, and yet no monster, but a being in whom both races +meet on friendly ground. The idea grows coarse as we handle it, and +hardens in our grasp. But, if the spectator broods long over the statue, +he will be conscious of its spell; all the pleasantness of sylvan life, +all the genial and happy characteristics of creatures that dwell in woods +and fields, will seem to be mingled and kneaded into one substance, along +with the kindred qualities in the human soul. Trees, grass, flowers, +woodland streamlets, cattle, deer, and unsophisticated man. The essence +of all these was compressed long ago, and still exists, within that +discolored marble surface of the Faun of Praxiteles. + +And, after all, the idea may have been no dream, but rather a poet's +reminiscence of a period when man's affinity with nature was more strict, +and his fellowship with every living thing more intimate and dear. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +THE FAUN + + +Donatello," playfully cried Miriam, "do not leave us in this perplexity! +Shake aside those brown curls, my friend, and let us see whether this +marvellous resemblance extends to the very tips of the ears. If so, we +shall like you all the better!" + +"No, no, dearest signorina," answered Donatello, laughing, but with a +certain earnestness. "I entreat you to take the tips of my ears for +granted." As he spoke, the young Italian made a skip and jump, light +enough for a veritable faun; so as to place himself quite beyond the reach +of the fair hand that was outstretched, as if to settle the matter by +actual examination. "I shall be like a wolf of the Apennines," he +continued, taking his stand on the other side of the Dying Gladiator, "if +you touch my ears ever so softly. None of my race could endure it. It +has always been a tender point with my forefathers and me." + +He spoke in Italian, with the Tuscan rusticity of accent, and an unshaped +sort of utterance, betokening that he must heretofore have been chiefly +conversant with rural people. + +"Well, well," said Miriam, "your tender point--your two tender points, if +you have them--shall be safe, so far as I am concerned. But how strange +this likeness is, after all! and how delightful, if it really includes +the pointed ears! O, it is impossible, of course," she continued, in +English, "with a real and commonplace young man like Donatello; but you +see how this peculiarity defines the position of the Faun; and, while +putting him where he cannot exactly assert his brotherhood, still disposes +us kindly towards the kindred creature. He is not supernatural, but just +on the verge of nature, and yet within it. What is the nameless charm of +this idea, Hilda? You can feel it more delicately than I." + +"It perplexes me," said Hilda thoughtfully, and shrinking a little; +"neither do I quite like to think about it." + +"But, surely," said Kenyon, "you agree with Miriam and me that there is +something very touching and impressive in this statue of the Faun. In +some long-past age, he must really have existed. Nature needed, and still +needs, this beautiful creature; standing betwixt man and animal, +sympathizing with each, comprehending the speech of either race, and +interpreting the whole existence of one to the other. What a pity that +he has forever vanished from the hard and dusty paths of life,--unless," +added the sculptor, in a sportive whisper, "Donatello be actually he!" + +"You cannot conceive how this fantasy takes hold of me," responded Miriam, +between jest and earnest. "Imagine, now, a real being, similar to this +mythic Faun; how happy, how genial, how satisfactory would be his life, +enjoying the warm, sensuous, earthy side of nature; revelling in the +merriment of woods and streams; living as our four-footed kindred do,--as +mankind did in its innocent childhood; before sin, sorrow or morality +itself had ever been thought of! Ah! Kenyon, if Hilda and you and I--if +I, at least--had pointed ears! For I suppose the Faun had no conscience, +no remorse, no burden on the heart, no troublesome recollections of any +sort; no dark future either." + +"What a tragic tone was that last, Miriam!" said the sculptor; and, +looking into her face, he was startled to behold it pale and tear-stained. +"How suddenly this mood has come over you!" + +"Let it go as it came," said Miriam, "like a thunder-shower in this Roman +sky. All is sunshine again, you see!" + +Donatello's refractoriness as regarded his ears had evidently cost him +something, and he now came close to Miriam's side, gazing at her with an +appealing air, as if to solicit forgiveness. His mute, helpless gesture +of entreaty had something pathetic in it, and yet might well enough excite +a laugh, so like it was to what you may see in the aspect of a hound when +he thinks himself in fault or disgrace. It was difficult to make out the +character of this young man. So full of animal life as he was, so joyous +in his deportment, so handsome, so physically well-developed, he made no +impression of incompleteness, of maimed or stinted nature. And yet, in +social intercourse, these familiar friends of his habitually and +instinctively allowed for him, as for a child or some other lawless thing, +exacting no strict obedience to conventional rules, and hardly noticing +his eccentricities enough to pardon them. There was an indefinable +characteristic about Donatello that set him outside of rules. + +He caught Miriam's hand, kissed it, and gazed into her eyes without saying +a word. She smiled, and bestowed on him a little careless caress, +singularly like what one would give to a pet dog when he puts himself in +the way to receive it. Not that it was so decided a caress either, but +only the merest touch, somewhere between a pat and a tap of the finger; it +might be a mark of fondness, or perhaps a playful pretence of punishment. +At all events, it appeared to afford Donatello exquisite pleasure; +insomuch that he danced quite round the wooden railing that fences in the +Dying Gladiator. + +"It is the very step of the Dancing Faun," said Miriam, apart, to Hilda. +"What a child, or what a simpleton, he is! I continually find myself +treating Donatello as if he were the merest unfledged chicken; and yet he +can claim no such privileges in the right of his tender age, for he is at +least--how old should you think him, Hilda?" + +"Twenty years, perhaps," replied Hilda, glancing at Donatello; "but, +indeed, I cannot tell; hardly so old, on second thoughts, or possibly +older. He has nothing to do with time, but has a look of eternal youth in +his face." + +"All underwitted people have that look," said Miriam scornfully. + +"Donatello has certainly the gift of eternal youth, as Hilda suggests," +observed Kenyon, laughing; "for, judging by the date of this statue, which, +I am more and more convinced, Praxiteles carved on purpose for him, he +must be at least twenty-five centuries old, and he still looks as young as +ever." + +"What age have you, Donatello?" asked Miriam. + +"Signorina, I do not know," he answered; "no great age, however; for I +have only lived since I met you." + +"Now, what old man of society could have turned a silly compliment more +smartly than that!" exclaimed Miriam. "Nature and art are just at one +sometimes. But what a happy ignorance is this of our friend Donatello! +Not to know his own age! It is equivalent to being immortal on earth. If +I could only forget mine!" + +"It is too soon to wish that," observed the sculptor; "you are scarcely +older than Donatello looks." + +"I shall be content, then," rejoined Miriam, "if I could only forget one +day of all my life." Then she seemed to repent of this allusion, and +hastily added, "A woman's days are so tedious that it is a boon to leave +even one of them out of the account." + +The foregoing conversation had been carried on in a mood in which all +imaginative people, whether artists or poets, love to indulge. In this +frame of mind, they sometimes find their profoundest truths side by side +with the idlest jest, and utter one or the other, apparently without +distinguishing which is the most valuable, or assigning any considerable +value to either. The resemblance between the marble Faun and their living +companion had made a deep, half-serious, half-mirthful impression on these +three friends, and had taken them into a certain airy region, lifting up, +as it is so pleasant to feel them lifted, their heavy earthly feet from +the actual soil of life. The world had been set afloat, as it were, for a +moment, and relieved them, for just so long, of all customary +responsibility for what they thought and said. + +It might be under this influence--or, perhaps, because sculptors always +abuse one another's works--that Kenyon threw in a criticism upon the Dying +Gladiator. + +"I used to admire this statue exceedingly," he remarked, "but, latterly, I +find myself getting weary and annoyed that the man should be such a length +of time leaning on his arm in the very act of death. If he is so terribly +hurt, why does he not sink down and die without further ado? Flitting +moments, imminent emergencies, imperceptible intervals between two breaths, +ought not to be incrusted with the eternal repose of marble; in any +sculptural subject, there should be a moral standstill, since there must +of necessity be a physical one. Otherwise, it is like flinging a block of +marble up into the air, and, by some trick of enchantment, causing it to +stick there. You feel that it ought to come down, and are dissatisfied +that it does not obey the natural law." + +"I see," said Miriam mischievously, "you think that sculpture should be a +sort of fossilizing process. But, in truth, your frozen art has nothing +like the scope and freedom of Hilda's and mine. In painting there is no +similar objection to the representation of brief snatches of time, +--perhaps because a story can be so much more fully told in picture, and +buttressed about with circumstances that give it an epoch. For instance, +a painter never would have sent down yonder Faun out of his far antiquity, +lonely and desolate, with no companion to keep his simple heart warm." + +"Ah, the Faun!" cried Hilda, with a little gesture of impatience; "I have +been looking at him too long; and now, instead of a beautiful statue, +immortally young, I see only a corroded and discolored stone. This change +is very apt to occur in statues." + +"And a similar one in pictures, surely," retorted the sculptor. "It is +the spectator's mood that transfigures the Transfiguration itself. I defy +any painter to move and elevate me without my own consent and assistance." + +"Then you are deficient of a sense," said Miriam. + +The party now strayed onward from hall to hall of that rich gallery, +pausing here and there, to look at the multitude of noble and lovely +shapes, which have been dug up out of the deep grave in which old Rome +lies buried. And still, the realization of the antique Faun, in the +person of Donatello, gave a more vivid character to all these marble +ghosts. Why should not each statue grow warm with life! Antinous might +lift his brow, and tell us why he is forever sad. The Lycian Apollo might +strike his lyre; and, at the first vibration, that other Faun in red +marble, who keeps up a motionless dance, should frisk gayly forth, leading +yonder Satyrs, with shaggy goat-shanks, to clatter their little hoofs upon +the floor, and all join hands with Donatello! Bacchus, too, a rosy flush +diffusing itself over his time-stained surface, could come down from his +pedestal, and offer a cluster of purple grapes to Donatello's lips; +because the god recognizes him as the woodland elf who so often shared his +revels. And here, in this sarcophagus, the exquisitely carved figures +might assume life, and chase one another round its verge with that wild +merriment which is so strangely represented on those old burial coffers: +though still with some subtile allusion to death, carefully veiled, but +forever peeping forth amid emblems of mirth and riot. + +As the four friends descended the stairs, however, their play of fancy +subsided into a much more sombre mood; a result apt to follow upon such +exhilaration as that which had so recently taken possession of them. + +"Do you know," said Miriam confidentially to Hilda, "I doubt the reality +of this likeness of Donatello to the Faun, which we have been talking so +much about? To say the truth, it never struck me so forcibly as it did +Kenyon and yourself, though I gave in to whatever you were pleased to +fancy, for the sake of a moment's mirth and wonder." "I was certainly in +earnest, and you seemed equally so," replied Hilda, glancing back at +Donatello, as if to reassure herself of the resemblance. "But faces +change so much, from hour to hour, that the same set of features has often +no keeping with itself; to an eye, at least, which looks at expression +more than outline. How sad and sombre he has grown all of a sudden!" +"Angry too, methinks! nay, it is anger much more than sadness," said +Miriam. "I have seen Donatello in this mood once or twice before. If you +consider him well, you will observe an odd mixture of the bulldog, or some +other equally fierce brute, in our friend's composition; a trait of +savageness hardly to be expected in such a gentle creature as he usually +is. Donatello is a very strange young man. I wish he would not haunt my +footsteps so continually." + +"You have bewitched the poor lad," said the sculptor, laughing. "You have +a faculty of bewitching people, and it is providing you with a singular +train of followers. I see another of them behind yonder pillar; and it is +his presence that has aroused Donatello's wrath." + +They had now emerged from the gateway of the palace; and partly concealed +by one of the pillars of the portico stood a figure such as may often be +encountered in the streets and piazzas of Rome, and nowhere else. He +looked as if he might just have stepped out of a picture, and, in truth, +was likely enough to find his way into a dozen pictures; being no other +than one of those living models, dark, bushy bearded, wild of aspect and +attire, whom artists convert into saints or assassins, according as their +pictorial purposes demand. + +"Miriam," whispered Hilda, a little startled, "it is your model!" + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES + + +Miriam's model has so important a connection with our story, that it is +essential to describe the singular mode of his first appearance, and how +he subsequently became a self-appointed follower of the young female +artist. In the first place, however, we must devote a page or two to +certain peculiarities in the position of Miriam herself. + +There was an ambiguity about this young lady, which, though it did not +necessarily imply anything wrong, would have operated unfavorably as +regarded her reception in society, anywhere but in Rome. The truth was, +that nobody knew anything about Miriam, either for good or evil. She had +made her appearance without introduction, had taken a studio, put her card +upon the door, and showed very considerable talent as a painter in oils. +Her fellow professors of the brush, it is true, showered abundant +criticisms upon her pictures, allowing them to be well enough for the idle +half-efforts of an amateur, but lacking both the trained skill and the +practice that distinguish the works of a true artist. + +Nevertheless, be their faults what they might, Miriam's pictures met with +good acceptance among the patrons of modern art. Whatever technical merit +they lacked, its absence was more than supplied by a warmth and +passionateness, which she had the faculty of putting into her productions, +and which all the world could feel. Her nature had a great deal of color, +and, in accordance with it, so likewise had her pictures. + +Miriam had great apparent freedom of intercourse; her manners were so far +from evincing shyness, that it seemed easy to become acquainted with her, +and not difficult to develop a casual acquaintance into intimacy. Such, +at least, was the impression which she made, upon brief contact, but not +such the ultimate conclusion of those who really sought to know her. So +airy, free, and affable was Miriam's deportment towards all who came +within her sphere, that possibly they might never be conscious of the fact, +but so it was, that they did not get on, and were seldom any further +advanced into her good graces to-day than yesterday. By some subtile +quality, she kept people at a distance, without so much as letting them +know that they were excluded from her inner circle. She resembled one of +those images of light, which conjurers evoke and cause to shine before us, +in apparent tangibility, only an arm's length beyond our grasp: we make a +step in advance, expecting to seize the illusion, but find it still +precisely so far out of our reach. Finally, society began to recognize +the impossibility of getting nearer to Miriam, and gruffly acquiesced. + +There were two persons, however, whom she appeared to acknowledge as +friends in the closer and truer sense of the word; and both of these more +favored individuals did credit to Miriam's selection. One was a young +American sculptor, of high promise and rapidly increasing celebrity; the +other, a girl of the same country, a painter like Miriam herself, but in a +widely different sphere of art. Her heart flowed out towards these two; +she requited herself by their society and friendship (and especially by +Hilda's) for all the loneliness with which, as regarded the rest of the +world, she chose to be surrounded. Her two friends were conscious of the +strong, yearning grasp which Miriam laid upon them, and gave her their +affection in full measure; Hilda, indeed, responding with the fervency of +a girl's first friendship, and Kenyon with a manly regard, in which there +was nothing akin to what is distinctively called love. + +A sort of intimacy subsequently grew up between these three friends and a +fourth individual; it was a young Italian, who, casually visiting Rome, +had been attracted by the beauty which Miriam possessed in a remarkable +degree. He had sought her, followed her, and insisted, with simple +perseverance, upon being admitted at least to her acquaintance; a boon +which had been granted, when a more artful character, seeking it by a more +subtle mode of pursuit, would probably have failed to obtain it. This +young man, though anything but intellectually brilliant, had many +agreeable characteristics which won him the kindly and halfcontemptuous +regard of Miriam and her two friends. It was he whom they called +Donatello, and whose wonderful resemblance to the Faun of Praxiteles forms +the keynote of our narrative. + +Such was the position in which we find Miriam some few months after her +establishment at Rome. It must be added, however, that the world did not +permit her to hide her antecedents without making her the subject of a +good deal of conjecture; as was natural enough, considering the abundance +of her personal charms, and the degree of notice that she attracted as an +artist. There were many stories about Miriam's origin and previous life, +some of which had a very probable air, while others were evidently wild +and romantic fables. We cite a few, leaving the reader to designate them +either under the probable or the romantic head. + +It was said, for example, that Miriam was the daughter and heiress of a +great Jewish banker (an idea perhaps suggested by a certain rich Oriental +character in her face), and had fled from her paternal home to escape a +union with a cousin, the heir of another of that golden brotherhood; the +object being to retain their vast accumulation of wealth within the family. +Another story hinted that she was a German princess, whom, for reasons +of state, it was proposed to give in marriage either to a decrepit +sovereign, or a prince still in his cradle. According to a third +statement, she was the off-spring of a Southern American planter, who had +given her an elaborate education and endowed her with his wealth; but the +one burning drop of African blood in her veins so affected her with a +sense of ignominy, that she relinquished all and fled her country. By +still another account she was the lady of an English nobleman; and, out of +mere love and honor of art, had thrown aside the splendor of her rank, and +come to seek a subsistence by her pencil in a Roman studio. + +In all the above cases, the fable seemed to be instigated by the large and +bounteous impression which Miriam invariably made, as if necessity and she +could have nothing to do with one another. Whatever deprivations she +underwent must needs be voluntary. But there were other surmises, taking +such a commonplace view as that Miriam was the daughter of a merchant or +financier, who had been ruined in a great commercial crisis; and, +possessing a taste for art, she had attempted to support herself by the +pencil, in preference to the alternative of going out as governess. + +Be these things how they might, Miriam, fair as she looked, was plucked up +out of a mystery, and had its roots still clinging to her. She was a +beautiful and attractive woman, but based, as it were, upon a cloud, and +all surrounded with misty substance; so that the result was to render her +sprite-like in her most ordinary manifestations. This was the case even +in respect to Kenyon and Hilda, her especial friends. But such was the +effect of Miriam's natural language, her generosity, kindliness, and +native truth of character, that these two received her as a dear friend +into their hearts, taking her good qualities as evident and genuine, and +never imagining that what was hidden must be therefore evil. + +We now proceed with our narrative. + +The same party of friends, whom we have seen at the sculpture-gallery of +the Capitol, chanced to have gone together, some months before, to the +catacomb of St. Calixtus. They went joyously down into that vast tomb, +and wandered by torchlight through a sort of dream, in which reminiscences +of church aisles and grimy cellars--and chiefly the latter--seemed to be +broken into fragments, and hopelessly intermingled. The intricate +passages along which they followed their guide had been hewn, in some +forgotten age, out of a dark-red, crumbly stone. On either side were +horizontal niches, where, if they held their torches closely, the shape of +a human body was discernible in white ashes, into which the entire +mortality of a man or woman had resolved itself. Among all this extinct +dust, there might perchance be a thigh-bone, which crumbled at a touch; or +possibly a skull, grinning at its own wretched plight, as is the ugly and +empty habit of the thing. + +Sometimes their gloomy pathway tended upward, so that, through a crevice, +a little daylight glimmered down upon them, or even a streak of sunshine +peeped into a burial niche; then again, they went downward by gradual +descent, or by abrupt, rudely hewn steps, into deeper and deeper recesses +of the earth. Here and there the narrow and tortuous passages widened +somewhat, developing themselves into small chapels;--which once, no doubt, +had been adorned with marble-work and lighted with ever-burning lamps and +tapers. All such illumination and ornament, however, had long since been +extinguished and stript away; except, indeed, that the low roofs of a few +of these ancient sites of worship were covered with dingy stucco, and +frescoed with scriptural scenes and subjects, in the dreariest stage of +ruin. + +In one such chapel, the guide showed them a low arch, beneath which the +body of St. Cecilia had been buried after her martyrdom, and where it lay +till a sculptor saw it, and rendered it forever beautiful in marble. + +In a similar spot they found two sarcophagi, one containing a skeleton, +and the other a shrivelled body, which still wore the garments of its +former lifetime. + +"How dismal all this is!" said Hilda, shuddering. "I do not know why we +came here, nor why we should stay a moment longer." + +"I hate it all!" cried Donatello with peculiar energy. "Dear friends, +let us hasten back into the blessed daylight!" + +From the first, Donatello had shown little fancy for the expedition; for, +like most Italians, and in especial accordance with the law of his own +simple and physically happy nature, this young man had an infinite +repugnance to graves and skulls, and to all that ghastliness which the +Gothic mind loves to associate with the idea of death. He shuddered, and +looked fearfully round, drawing nearer to Miriam, whose attractive +influence alone had enticed him into that gloomy region. + +"What a child you are, poor Donatello!" she observed, with the freedom +which she always used towards him. "You are afraid of ghosts!" + +"Yes, signorina; terribly afraid!" said the truthful Donatello. + +"I also believe in ghosts," answered Miriam, "and could tremble at them, +in a suitable place. But these sepulchres are so old, and these skulls +and white ashes so very dry, that methinks they have ceased to be haunted. +The most awful idea connected with the catacombs is their interminable +extent, and the possibility of going astray into this labyrinth of +darkness, which broods around the little glimmer of our tapers." + +"Has any one ever been lost here?" asked Kenyon of the guide. + +"Surely, signor; one, no longer ago than my father's time," said the guide; +and he added, with the air of a man who believed what he was telling, +"but the first that went astray here was a pagan of old Rome, who hid +himself in order to spy out and betray the blessed saints, who then dwelt +and worshipped in these dismal places. You have heard the story, signor? +A miracle was wrought upon the accursed one; and, ever since (for fifteen +centuries at least), he has been groping in the darkness, seeking his way +out of the catacomb." + +"Has he ever been seen?" asked Hilda, who had great and tremulous faith +in marvels of this kind. + +"These eyes of mine never beheld him, signorina; the saints forbid!" +answered the guide. "But it is well known that he watches near parties +that come into the catacomb, especially if they be heretics, hoping to +lead some straggler astray. What this lost wretch pines for, almost as +much as for the blessed sunshine, is a companion to be miserable with him." + +"Such an intense desire for sympathy indicates something amiable in the +poor fellow, at all events," observed Kenyon. + +They had now reached a larger chapel than those heretofore seen; it was of +a circular shape, and, though hewn out of the solid mass of red sandstone, +had pillars, and a carved roof, and other tokens of a regular +architectural design. Nevertheless, considered as a church, it was +exceedingly minute, being scarcely twice a man's stature in height, and +only two or three paces from wall to wall; and while their collected +torches illuminated this one small, consecrated spot, the great darkness +spread all round it, like that immenser mystery which envelops our little +life, and into which friends vanish from us, one by one. "Why, where is +Miriam?" cried Hilda. The party gazed hurriedly from face to face, and +became aware that one of their party had vanished into the great darkness, +even while they were shuddering at the remote possibility of such a +misfortune. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB + + +Surely, she cannot be lost!" exclaimed Kenyon. "It is but a moment since +she was speaking." + +"No, no!" said Hilda, in great alarm. "She was behind us all; and it is +a long while since we have heard her voice!" + +"Torches! torches!" cried Donatello desperately. "I will seek her, be +the darkness ever so dismal!" + +But the guide held him back, and assured them all that there was no +possibility of assisting their lost companion, unless by shouting at the +very top of their voices. As the sound would go very far along these +close and narrow passages, there was a fair probability that Miriam might +hear the call, and be able to retrace her steps. + +Accordingly, they all--Kenyon with his bass voice; Donatello with his +tenor; the guide with that high and hard Italian cry, which makes the +streets of Rome so resonant; and Hilda with her slender scream, piercing +farther than the united uproar of the rest--began to shriek, halloo, and +bellow, with the utmost force of their lungs. And, not to prolong the +reader's suspense (for we do not particularly seek to interest him in this +scene, telling it only on account of the trouble and strange entanglement +which followed), they soon heard a responsive call, in a female voice. + +"It was the signorina!" cried Donatello joyfully. + +"Yes; it was certainly dear Miriam's voice," said Hilda. "And here she +comes! Thank Heaven! Thank Heaven!" + +The figure of their friend was now discernible by her own torchlight, +approaching out of one of the cavernous passages. Miriam came forward, +but not with the eagerness and tremulous joy of a fearful girl, just +rescued from a labyrinth of gloomy mystery. She made no immediate +response to their inquiries and tumultuous congratulations; and, as they +afterwards remembered, there was something absorbed, thoughtful, and +self-concentrated in her deportment. She looked pale, as well she might, +and held her torch with a nervous grasp, the tremor of which was seen in +the irregular twinkling of the flame. This last was the chief perceptible +sign of any recent agitation or alarm. + +"Dearest, dearest Miriam," exclaimed Hilda, throwing her arms about her +friend, "where have you been straying from us? Blessed be Providence, +which has rescued you out of that miserable darkness!" + +"Hush, dear Hilda!" whispered Miriam, with a strange little laugh. "Are +you quite sure that it was Heaven's guidance which brought me back? If so, +it was by an odd messenger, as you will confess. See; there he stands." + +Startled at Miriam's words and manner, Hilda gazed into the duskiness +whither she pointed, and there beheld a figure standing just on the +doubtful limit of obscurity, at the threshold of the small, illuminated +chapel. Kenyon discerned him at the same instant, and drew nearer with +his torch; although the guide attempted to dissuade him, averring that, +once beyond the consecrated precincts of the chapel, the apparition would +have power to tear him limb from limb. It struck the sculptor, however, +when he afterwards recurred to these circumstances, that the guide +manifested no such apprehension on his own account as he professed on +behalf of others; for he kept pace with Kenyon as the latter approached +the figure, though still endeavoring to restrain 'him. + +In fine, they both drew near enough to get as good a view of the spectre +as the smoky light of their torches, struggling with the massive gloom, +could supply. + +The stranger was of exceedingly picturesque, and even melodramatic aspect. +He was clad in a voluminous cloak, that seemed to be made of a buffalo's +hide, and a pair of those goat-skin breeches, with the hair outward, which +are still commonly worn by the peasants of the Roman Campagna. In this +garb, they look like antique Satyrs; and, in truth, the Spectre of the +Catacomb might have represented the last survivor of that vanished race, +hiding himself in sepulchral gloom, and mourning over his lost life of +woods and streams. + +Furthermore, he had on a broad-brimmed, conical hat, beneath the shadow of +which a wild visage was indistinctly seen, floating away, as it were, into +a dusky wilderness of mustache and beard. His eyes winked, and turned +uneasily from the torches, like a creature to whom midnight would be more +congenial than noonday. + +On the whole, the spectre might have made a considerable impression on the +sculptor's nerves, only that he was in the habit of observing similar +figures, almost every day, reclining on the Spanish steps, and waiting for +some artist to invite them within the magic realm of picture. Nor, even +thus familiarized with the stranger's peculiarities of appearance, could +Kenyon help wondering to see such a personage, shaping himself so suddenly +out of the void darkness of the catacomb. + +"What are you?" said the sculptor, advancing his torch nearer. "And how +long have you been wandering here?" + +"A thousand and five hundred years!" muttered the guide, loud enough to +be heard by all the party. "It is the old pagan phantom that I told you +of, who sought to betray the blessed saints!" + +"Yes; it is a phantom!" cried Donatello, with a shudder. "Ah, dearest +signorina, what a fearful thing has beset you in those dark corridors!" + +"Nonsense, Donatello," said the sculptor. "The man is no more a phantom +than yourself. The only marvel is, how he comes to be hiding himself in +the catacomb. Possibly our guide might solve the riddle." + +The spectre himself here settled the point of his tangibility, at all +events, and physical substance, by approaching a step nearer, and laying +his hand on Kenyon's arm. + +"Inquire not what I am, nor wherefore I abide in the darkness," said he, +in a hoarse, harsh voice, as if a great deal of damp were clustering in +his throat. "Henceforth, I am nothing but a shadow behind her footsteps. +She came to me when I sought her not. She has called me forth, and must +abide the consequences of my reappearance in the world." + +"Holy Virgin! I wish the signorina joy of her prize," said the guide, +half to himself. "And in any case, the catacomb is well rid of him." + +We need follow the scene no further. So much is essential to the +subsequent narrative, that, during the short period while astray in those +tortuous passages, Miriam had encountered an unknown man, and led him +forth with her, or was guided back by him, first into the torchlight, +thence into the sunshine. + +It was the further singularity of this affair, that the connection, thus +briefly and casually formed, did not terminate with the incident that gave +it birth. As if her service to him, or his service to her, whichever it +might be, had given him an indefeasible claim on Miriam's regard and +protection, the Spectre of the Catacomb never long allowed her to lose +sight of him, from that day forward. He haunted her footsteps with more +than the customary persistency of Italian mendicants, when once they have +recognized a benefactor. For days together, it is true, he occasionally +vanished, but always reappeared, gliding after her through the narrow +streets, or climbing the hundred steps of her staircase and sitting at her +threshold. + +Being often admitted to her studio, he left his features, or some shadow +or reminiscence of them, in many of her sketches and pictures. The moral +atmosphere of these productions was thereby so influenced, that rival +painters pronounced it a case of hopeless mannerism, which would destroy +all Miriam's prospects of true excellence in art. + +The story of this adventure spread abroad, and made its way beyond the +usual gossip of the Forestieri, even into Italian circles, where, enhanced +by a still potent spirit of superstition, it grew far more wonderful than +as above recounted. Thence, it came back among the Anglo-Saxons, and was +communicated to the German artists, who so richly supplied it with +romantic ornaments and excrescences, after their fashion, that it became a +fantasy worthy of Tieck or Hoffmann. For nobody has any conscience about +adding to the improbabilities of a marvellous tale. + +The most reasonable version of the incident, that could anywise be +rendered acceptable to the auditors, was substantially the one suggested +by the guide of the catacomb, in his allusion to the legend of Memmius. +This man, or demon, or man-demon, was a spy during the persecutions of the +early Christians, probably under the Emperor Diocletian, and penetrated +into the catacomb of St. Calixtus, with the malignant purpose of tracing +out the hiding-places of the refugees. But, while he stole craftily +through those dark corridors, he chanced to come upon a little chapel, +where tapers were burning before an altar and a crucifix, and a priest was +in the performance of his sacred office. By divine indulgence, there was +a single moment's grace allowed to Memmius, during which, had he been +capable of Christian faith and love, he might have knelt before the cross, +and received the holy light into his soul, and so have been blest forever. +But he resisted the sacred impulse. As soon, therefore, as that one +moment had glided by, the light of the consecrated tapers, which represent +all truth, bewildered the wretched man with everlasting error, and the +blessed cross itself was stamped as a seal upon his heart, so that it +should never open to receive conviction. + +Thenceforth, this heathen Memmius has haunted the wide and dreary +precincts of the catacomb, seeking, as some say, to beguile new victims +into his own misery; but, according to other statements, endeavoring to +prevail on any unwary visitor to take him by the hand, and guide him out +into the daylight. Should his wiles and entreaties take effect, however, +the man-demon would remain only a little while above ground. He would +gratify his fiendish malignity by perpetrating signal mischief on his +benefactor, and perhaps bringing some old pestilence or other forgotten +and long-buried evil on society; or, possibly, teaching the modern world +some decayed and dusty kind of crime, which the antique Romans knew,--and +then would hasten back to the catacomb, which, after so long haunting it, +has grown his most congenial home. + +Miriam herself, with her chosen friends, the sculptor and the gentle Hilda, +often laughed at the monstrous fictions that had gone abroad in reference +to her adventure. Her two confidants (for such they were, on all ordinary +subjects) had not failed to ask an explanation of the mystery, since +undeniably a mystery there was, and one sufficiently perplexing in itself, +without any help from the imaginative faculty. And, sometimes responding +to their inquiries with a melancholy sort of playfulness, Miriam let her +fancy run off into wilder fables than any which German ingenuity or +Italian superstition had contrived. + +For example, with a strange air of seriousness over all her face, only +belied by a laughlng gleam in her. dark eyes, she would aver that the +spectre (who had been an artist in his mortal lifetime)had promised to +teach her a long-lost, but invaluable secret of old Roman fresco painting. +The knowledge of this process would place Miriam at the head of modern +art; the sole condition being agreed upon, that she should return with him +into his sightless gloom, after enriching a certain extent of stuccoed +wall with the most brilliant and lovely designs. And what true votary of +art would not purchase unrivalled excellence, even at so vast a sacrifice! + +Or, if her friends still solicited a soberer account, Miriam replied, that, +meeting the old infidel in one of the dismal passages of the catacomb, +she had entered into controversy with him, hoping to achieve the glory and +satisfaction of converting him to the Christian faith. For the sake of +so excellent a result; she had even staked her own salvation against his, +binding herself to accompany him back into his penal gloom, if, within a +twelvemonth's space, she should not have convinced him of the errors +through which he had so long groped and stumbled. But, alas! up to the +present time, the controversy had gone direfully in favor of the man-demon; +and Miriam (as she whispered in Hilda's ear) had awful forebodings, that, +in a few more months, she must take an eternal farewell of the sun! + +It was somewhat remarkable that all her romantic fantasies arrived at this +self-same dreary termination,--it appeared impossible for her even to +imagine any other than a disastrous result from her connection with her +ill-omened attendant. + +This singularity might have meant nothing, however, had it not suggested a +despondent state of mind, which was likewise indicated by many other +tokens. Miriam's friends had no difficulty in perceiving that, in one way +or another, her happiness was very seriously compromised. Her spirits +were often depressed into deep melancholy. If ever she was gay, it was +seldom with a healthy cheerfulness. She grew moody, moreover, and subject +to fits of passionate ill temper; which usually wreaked itself on the +heads of those who loved her best. Not that Miriam's indifferent +acquaintances were safe from similar outbreaks of her displeasure, +especially if they ventured upon any allusion to the model. In such cases, +they were left with little disposition to renew the subject, but inclined, +on the other hand, to interpret the whole matter as much to her discredit +as the least favorable coloring of the facts would allow. + +It may occur to the reader, that there was really no demand for so much +rumor and speculation in regard to an incident, Which might well enough +have been explained without going many steps beyond the limits of +probability. The spectre might have been merely a Roman beggar, whose +fraternity often harbor in stranger shelters than the catacombs; or one of +those pilgrims, who still journey from remote countries to kneel and +worship at the holy sites, among which these haunts of the early +Christians are esteemed especially sacred. Or, as was perhaps a more +plausible theory, he might be a thief of the city, a robber of the +Campagna, a political offender, or an assassin, with blood upon his hand; +whom the negligence or connivance of the police allowed to take refuge in +those subterranean fastnesses, where such outlaws have been accustomed to +hide themselves from a far antiquity downward. Or he might have been a +lunatic, fleeing instinctively from man, and making it his dark pleasure +to dwell among the tombs, like him whose awful cry echoes afar to us from +Scripture times. + +And, as for the stranger's attaching himself so devotedly to Miriam, her +personal magnetism might be allowed a certain weight in the explanation. +For what remains, his pertinacity need not seem so very singular to those +who consider how slight a link serves to connect these vagabonds of idle +Italy with any person that may have the ill-hap to bestow charity, or be +otherwise serviceable to them, or betray the slightest interest in their +fortunes. + +Thus little would remain to be accounted for, except the deportment of +Miriam herself; her reserve, her brooding melancholy, her petulance, and +moody passion. If generously interpreted, even these morbid symptoms +might have sufficient cause in the stimulating and exhaustive influences +of imaginative art, exercised by a delicate young woman, in the nervous +and unwholesome atmosphere of Rome. Such, at least, was the view of the +case which Hilda and Kenyon endeavored to impress on their own minds, and +impart to those whom their opinions might influence. + +One of Miriam's friends took the matter sadly to heart. This was the +young Italian. Donatello, as we have seen, had been an eyewitness of the +stranger's first appearance, and had ever since nourished a singular +prejudice against the mysterious, dusky, death-scented apparition. It +resembled not so much a human dislike or hatred, as one of those +instinctive, unreasoning antipathies which the lower animals sometimes +display, and which generally prove more trustworthy than the acutest +insight into character. The shadow of the model, always flung into the +light which Miriam diffused around her, caused no slight trouble to +Donatello. Yet he was of a nature so remarkably genial and joyous, so +simply happy, that he might well afford to have something subtracted from +his comfort, and make tolerable shift to live upon what remained. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +MIRIAM'S STUDIO + + +The courtyard and staircase of a palace built three hundred years ago are +a peculiar feature of modern Rome, and interest the stranger more than +many things of which he has heard loftier descriptions. You pass through +the grand breadth and height of a squalid entrance-way, and perhaps see a +range of dusky pillars, forming a sort of cloister round the court, and in +the intervals, from pillar to pillar, are strewn fragments of antique +statues, headless and legless torsos, and busts that have invariably lost +what it might be well if living men could lay aside in that unfragrant +atmosphere--the nose. Bas-reliefs, the spoil of some far older palace, +are set in the surrounding walls, every stone of which has been ravished +from the Coliseum, or any other imperial ruin which earlier barbarism had +not already levelled with the earth. Between two of the pillars, moreover, +stands an old sarcophagus without its lid, and with all its more +prominently projecting sculptures broken off; perhaps it once held famous +dust, and the bony framework of some historic man, although now only a +receptacle for the rubbish of the courtyard, and a half-worn broom. + +In the centre of the court, under the blue Italian sky, and with the +hundred windows of the vast palace gazing down upon it from four sides, +appears a fountain. It brims over from one stone basin to another, or +gushes from a Naiad's urn, or spurts its many little jets from the mouths +of nameless monsters, which were merely grotesque and artificial when +Bernini, or whoever was their unnatural father, first produced them; but +now the patches of moss, the tufts of grass, the trailing maiden-hair, and +all sorts of verdant weeds that thrive in the cracks and crevices of moist +marble, tell us that Nature takes the fountain back into her great heart, +and cherishes it as kindly as if it were a woodland spring. And hark, the +pleasant murmur, the gurgle, the plash! You might hear just those +tinkling sounds from any tiny waterfall in the forest, though here they +gain a delicious pathos from the stately echoes that reverberate their +natural language. So the fountain is not altogether glad, after all its +three centuries at play! + +In one of the angles of the courtyard, a pillared doorway gives access to +the staircase, with its spacious breadth of low marble steps, up which, in +former times, have gone the princes and cardinals of the great Roman +family who built this palace. Or they have come down, with still grander +and loftier mien, on their way to the Vatican or the Quirinal, there to +put off their scarlet hats in exchange for the triple crown. But, in fine, +all these illustrious personages have gone down their hereditary +staircase for the last time, leaving it to be the thoroughfare of +ambassadors, English noblemen, American millionnaires, artists, tradesmen, +washerwomen, and people of every degree,--all of whom find such gilded and +marble-panelled saloons as their pomp and luxury demand, or such homely +garrets as their necessity can pay for, within this one multifarious abode. +Only, in not a single nook of the palace (built for splendor, and the +accommodation of a vast retinue, but with no vision of a happy fireside or +any mode of domestic enjoyment) does the humblest or the haughtiest +occupant find comfort. + +Up such a staircase, on the morning after the scene at the sculpture +gallery, sprang the light foot of Donatello. He ascended from story to +story, passing lofty doorways, set within rich frames of sculptured marble, +and climbing unweariedly upward, until the glories of the first piano and +the elegance of the middle height were exchanged for a sort of Alpine +region, cold and naked in its aspect. Steps of rough stone, rude wooden +balustrades, a brick pavement in the passages, a dingy whitewash on the +walls; these were here the palatial features. Finally, he paused before +an oaken door, on which was pinned a card, bearing the name of Miriam +Schaefer, artist in oils. Here Donatello knocked, and the door +immediately fell somewhat ajar; its latch having been pulled up by means +of a string on the inside. Passing through a little anteroom, he found +himself in Miriam's presence. + +"Come in, wild Faun," she said, "and tell me the latest news from Arcady!" + +The artist was not just then at her easel, but was busied with the +feminine task of mending a pair of gloves. + +There is something extremely pleasant, and even touching,--at least, of +very sweet, soft, and winning effect,--in this peculiarity of needlework, +distinguishing women from men. Our own sex is incapable of any such +by-play aside from the main business of life; but women--be they of what +earthly rank they may, however gifted with intellect or genius, or endowed +with awful beauty--have always some little handiwork ready to fill the +tiny gap of every vacant moment. A needle is familiar to the fingers of +them all. A queen, no doubt, plies it on occasion; the woman poet can use +it as adroitly as her pen; the woman's eye, that has discovered a new star, +turns from its glory to send the polished little instrument gleaming +along the hem of her kerchief, or to darn a casual fray in her dress. And +they have greatly the advantage of us in this respect. The slender thread +of silk or cotton keeps them united with the small, familiar, gentle +interests of life, the continually operating influences of which do so +much for the health of the character, and carry off what would otherwise +be a dangerous accumulation of morbid sensibility. A vast deal of human +sympathy runs along this electric line, stretching from the throne to the +wicker chair of the humblest seamstress, and keeping high and low in a +species of communion with their kindred beings. Methinks it is a token of +healthy and gentle characteristics, when women of high thoughts and +accomplishments love to sew; especially as they are never more at home +with their own hearts than while so occupied. + +And when the work falls in a woman's lap, of its own accord, and the +needle involuntarily ceases to fly, it is a sign of trouble, quite as +trustworthy as the throb of the heart itself. This was what happened to +Miriam. Even while Donatello stood gazing at her, she seemed to have +forgotten his presence, allowing him to drop out of her thoughts, and the +torn glove to fall from her idle fingers. Simple as he was, the young man +knew by his sympathies that something was amiss. + +"Dear lady, you are sad," said he, drawing close to her. + +"It is nothing, Donatello," she replied, resuming her work; "yes; a little +sad, perhaps; but that is not strange for us people of the ordinary world, +especially for women. You are of a cheerfuller race, my friend, and know +nothing of this disease of sadness. But why do you come into this shadowy +room of mine?" + +"Why do you make it so shadowy?" asked he. + +"We artists purposely exclude sunshine, and all but a partial light," said +Miriam, "because we think it necessary to put ourselves at odds with +Nature before trying to imitate her. That strikes you very strangely, +does it not? But we make very pretty pictures sometimes with our artfully +arranged lights and shadows. Amuse yourself with some of mine, Donatello, +and by and by I shall be in the mood to begin the portrait we were talking +about." + +The room had the customary aspect of a painter's studio; one of those +delightful spots that hardly seem to belong to the actual world, but +rather to be the outward type of a poet's haunted imagination, where there +are glimpses, sketches, and half-developed hints of beings and objects +grander and more beautiful than we can anywhere find in reality. The +windows were closed with shutters, or deeply curtained, except one, which +was partly open to a sunless portion of the sky, admitting only from high +upward that partial light which, with its strongly marked contrast of +shadow, is the first requisite towards seeing objects pictorially. +Pencil-drawings were pinned against the wall or scattered on the tables. +Unframed canvases turned their backs on the spectator, presenting only a +blank to the eye, and churlishly concealing whatever riches of scenery or +human beauty Miriam's skill had depicted on the other side. + +In the obscurest part of the room Donatello was half startled at +perceiving duskily a woman with long dark hair, who threw up her arms with +a wild gesture of tragic despair, and appeared to beckon him into the +darkness along with her. + +"Do not be afraid, Donatello," said Miriam, smiling to see him peering +doubtfully into the mysterious dusk. "She means you no mischief, nor +could perpetrate any if she wished it ever so much. It is a lady of +exceedingly pliable disposition; now a heroine of romance, and now a +rustic maid; yet all for show; being created, indeed, on purpose to wear +rich shawls and other garments in a becoming fashion. This is the true +end of her being, although she pretends to assume the most varied duties +and perform many parts in life, while really the poor puppet has nothing +on earth to do. Upon my word, I am satirical unawares, and seem to be +describing nine women out of ten in the person of my lay-figure. For most +purposes she has the advantage of the sisterhood. Would I were like her!" + +"How it changes her aspect," exclaimed Donatello, "to know that she is but +a jointed figure! When my eyes first fell upon her, I thought her arms +moved, as if beckoning me to help her in some direful peril." + +"Are you often troubled with such sinister freaks of fancy?" asked Miriam. +"I should not have supposed it." + +"To tell you the truth, dearest signorina," answered the young Italian, "I +am apt to be fearful in old, gloomy houses, and in the dark. I love no +dark or dusky corners, except it be in a grotto, or among the thick green +leaves of an arbor, or in some nook of the woods, such as I know many in +the neighborhood of my home. Even there, if a stray sunbeam steal in, the +shadow is all the better for its cheerful glimmer." + +"Yes; you are a Faun, you know," said the fair artist, laughing at the +remembrance of the scene of the day before. "But the world is sadly +changed nowadays; grievously changed, poor Donatello, since those happy +times when your race used to dwell in the Arcadian woods, playing hide and +seek with the nymphs in grottoes and nooks of shrubbery. You have +reappeared on earth some centuries too late." + +"I do not understand you now," answered Donatello, looking perplexed; +"only, signorina, I am glad to have my lifetime while you live; and where +you are, be it in cities or fields, I would fain be there too." + +"I wonder whether I ought to allow you to speak in this way," said Miriam, +looking thoughtfully at him. "Many young women would think it behooved +them to be offended. Hilda would never let you speak so, I dare say. +But he is a mere boy," she added, aside, "a simple boy, putting his boyish +heart to the proof on the first woman whom he chances to meet. If yonder +lay-figure had had the luck to meet him first, she would have smitten him +as deeply as I." + +"Are you angry with me?" asked Donatello dolorously. + +"Not in the least," answered Miriam, frankly giving him her hand. "Pray +look over some of these sketches till I have leisure to chat with you a +little. I hardly think I am in spirits enough to begin your portrait +to-day." + +Donatello was as gentle and docile as a pet spaniel; as playful, too, in +his general disposition, or saddening with his mistress's variable mood +like that or any other kindly animal which has the faculty of bestowing +its sympathies more completely than men or women can ever do. +Accordingly, as Miriam bade him, he tried to turn his attention to a great +pile and confusion of pen and ink sketches and pencil drawings which lay +tossed together on a table. As it chanced, however, they gave the poor +youth little delight. + +The first that he took up was a very impressive sketch, in which the +artist had jotted down her rough ideas for a picture of Jael driving the +nail through the temples of Sisera. It was dashed off with remarkable +power, and showed a touch or two that were actually lifelike and deathlike, +as if Miriam had been standing by when Jael gave the first stroke of her +murderous hammer, or as if she herself were Jael, and felt irresistibly +impelled to make her bloody confession in this guise. + +Her first conception of the stern Jewess had evidently been that of +perfect womanhood, a lovely form, and a high, heroic face of lofty beauty; +but, dissatisfied either with her own work or the terrible story itself, +Miriam had added a certain wayward quirk of her pencil, which at once +converted the heroine into a vulgar murderess. It was evident that a Jael +like this would be sure to search Sisera's pockets as soon as the breath +was out of his body. + +In another sketch she had attempted the story of Judith, which we see +represented by the old masters so often, and in such various styles. +Here, too, beginning with a passionate and fiery conception of the subject +in all earnestness, she had given the last touches in utter scorn, as it +were, of the feelings which at first took such powerful possession of her +hand. The head of Holofernes (which, by the bye, had a pair of twisted +mustaches, like those of a certain potentate of the day) being fairly cut +off, was screwing its eyes upward and twirling its features into a +diabolical grin of triumphant malice, which it flung right in Judith's +face. On her part, she had the startled aspect that might be conceived of +a cook if a calf's head should sneer at her when about to be popped into +the dinner-pot. + +Over and over again, there was the idea of woman, acting the part of a +revengeful mischief towards man. It was, indeed, very singular to see how +the artist's imagination seemed to run on these stories of bloodshed, in +which woman's hand was crimsoned by the stain; and how, too,--in one form +or another, grotesque or sternly sad,--she failed not to bring out the +moral, that woman must strike through her own heart to reach a human life, +whatever were the motive that impelled her. + +One of the sketches represented the daughter of Herodias receiving the +head of John the Baptist in a charger. The general conception appeared to +be taken from Bernardo Luini's picture, in the Uffizzi Gallery at Florence; +but Miriam had imparted to the saint's face a look of gentle and heavenly +reproach, with sad and blessed eyes fixed upward at the maiden; by the +force of which miraculous glance, her whole womanhood was at once awakened +to love and endless remorse. + +These sketches had a most disagreeable effect on Donatello's peculiar +temperament. He gave a shudder; his face assumed a look of trouble, fear, +and disgust; he snatched up one sketch after another, as if about to tear +it in pieces. Finally, shoving away the pile of drawings, he shrank back +from the table and clasped his hands over his eyes. + +"What is the matter, Donatello?" asked Miriam, looking up from a letter +which she was now writing. "Ah! I did not mean you to see those drawings. +They are ugly phantoms that stole out of my mind; not things that I +created, but things that haunt me. See! here are some trifles that +perhaps will please you better." + +She gave him a portfolio, the sketches in which indicated a happier mood +of mind, and one, it is to be hoped, more truly characteristic of the +artist. Supposing neither of these classes of subject to show anything of +her own individuality, Miriam had evidently a great scope of fancy, and a +singular faculty of putting what looked like heart into her productions. +The latter sketches were domestic and common scenes, so finely and +subtilely idealized that they seemed such as we may see at any moment, and +eye,where; while still there was the indefinable something added, or taken +away, which makes all the difference between sordid life and an earthly +paradise. The feeling and sympathy in. all of them were deep and true. +There was the scene, that comes once in every life, of the lover winning +the soft and pure avowal of bashful affection from the maiden whose +slender form half leans towards his arm, half shrinks from it, we know not +which. There was wedded affection in its successive stages, represented +in a series of delicately conceived designs, touched with a holy fire, +that burned from youth to age in those two hearts, and gave one identical +beauty to the faces throughout all the changes of feature. + +There was a drawing of an infant's shoe, half worn out, with the airy +print of the blessed foot within; a thing that would make a mother smile +or weep out of the very depths of her heart; and yet an actual mother +would not have been likely to appreciate the poetry of the little shoe, +until Miriam revealed it to her. It was wonderful, the depth and force +with which the above, and other kindred subjects, were depicted, and the +profound significance which they often acquired. The artist, still in her +fresh youth, could not probably have drawn any of these dear and rich +experiences from her own life; unless, perchance, that first sketch of all, +the avowal of maiden affection, were a remembered incident, and not a +prophecy. But it is more delightful to believe that, from first to last, +they were the productions of a beautiful imagination, dealing with the +warm and pure suggestions of a woman's heart, and thus idealizing a truer +and lovelier picture of the life that belongs to woman, than an actual +acquaintance with some of its hard and dusty facts could have inspired. +So considered, the sketches intimated such a force and variety of +imaginative sympathies as would enable Miriam to fill her life richly with +the bliss and suffering of womanhood, however barren it might individually +be. + +There was one observable point, indeed, betokening that the artist +relinquished, for her personal self, the happiness which she could so +profoundly appreciate for others. In all those sketches of common life, +and the affections that spiritualize it, a figure was portrayed apart, now +it peeped between the branches of a shrubbery, amid which two lovers sat; +now it was looking through a frosted window, from the outside, while a +young wedded pair sat at their new fireside within; and once it leaned +from a chariot, which six horses were whirling onward in pomp and pride, +and gazed at a scene of humble enjoyment by a cottage door. Always it was +the same figure, and always depicted with an expression of deep sadness; +and in every instance, slightly as they were brought out, the face and +form had the traits of Miriam's own. + +"Do you like these sketches better, Donatello?" asked Miriam. "Yes," +said Donatello rather doubtfully. "Not much, I fear," responded she, +laughing. "And what should a boy like you--a Faun too,--know about the +joys and sorrows, the intertwining light and shadow, of human life? I +forgot that you were a Faun. You cannot suffer deeply; therefore you can +but half enjoy. Here, now, is a subject which you can better appreciate." + +The sketch represented merely a rustic dance, but with such extravagance +of fun as was delightful to behold; and here there was no drawback, except +that strange sigh and sadness which always come when we are merriest. + +"I am going to paint the picture in oils," said the artist; "and I want +you, Donatello, for the wildest dancer of them all. Will you sit for me, +some day?--or, rather, dance for me?" + +"O, most gladly, signorina!" exclaimed Donatello. "See; it shall be like +this." + +And forthwith he began to dance, and flit about the studio, like an +incarnate sprite of jollity, pausing at last on the extremity of one toe, +as if that were the only portion of himself whereby his frisky nature +could come in contact with the earth. The effect in that shadowy chamber, +whence the artist had so carefully excluded the sunshine, was as +enlivening as if one bright ray had contrived to shimmer in and. frolic +around the walls, and finally rest just in the centre of the floor. + +"That was admirable!" said Miriam, with an approving smile. "If I can +catch you on my canvas, it will be a glorious picture; only I am afraid +you will dance out of it, by the very truth of the representation, just +when I shall have given it the last touch. We will try it one of these +days. And now, to reward you for that jolly exhibition, you shall see +what has been shown to no one else." + +She went to her easel, on which was placed a picture with its back turned +towards the spectator. Reversing the position, there appeared the +portrait of a beautiful woman, such as one sees only two or three, if even +so many times, in all a lifetime; so beautiful, that she seemed to get +into your consciousness and memory, and could never afterwards be shut out, +but haunted your dreams, for pleasure or for pain; holding your inner +realm as a conquered territory, though without deigning to make herself at +home there. + +She was very youthful, and had what was usually thought to be a Jewish +aspect; a complexion in which there was no roseate bloom, yet neither was +it pale; dark eyes, into which you might look as deeply as your glance +would go, and still be conscious of a depth that you had not sounded, +though it lay open to the day. She had black, abundant hair, with none +of the vulgar glossiness of other women's sable locks; if she were really +of Jewish blood, then this was Jewish hair, and a dark glory such as +crowns no Christian maiden's head. Gazing at this portrait, you saw what +Rachel might have been, when Jacob deemed her worth the wooing seven years, +and seven more; or perchance she might ripen to be what Judith was, when +she vanquished Holofernes with her beauty, and slew him for too much +adoring it. + +Miriam watched Donatello's contemplation of the picture, and seeing his +simple rapture, a smile of pleasure brightened on her face, mixed with a +little scorn; at least, her lips curled, and her eyes gleamed, as if she +disdained either his admiration or her own enjoyment of it. + +"Then you like the picture, Donatello?" she asked. + +"O, beyond what I can tell!" he answered. "So beautiful!--so beautiful!" + +"And do you recognize the likeness?" + +"Signorina," exclaimed Donatello, turning from the picture to the artist, +in astonishment that she should ask/:he question, "the resemblance is as +little to be mistaken as if you had bent over the smooth surface of a +fountain, and possessed the witchcraft to call forth the image that you +made there! It is yourself!" + +Donatello said the truth; and we forebore to speak descriptively of +Miriam's beauty earlier in our narrative, because we foresaw this occasion +to bring it perhaps more forcibly before the reader. + +We know not whether the portrait were a flattered likeness; probably not, +regarding it merely as the delineation of a lovely face; although Miriam, +like all self-painters, may have endowed herself with certain graces which +Other eyes might not discern. Artists are fond of painting their own +portraits; and, in Florence, there is a gallery of hundreds of them, +including the most illustrious, in all of which there are autobiographical +characteristics, so to speak,--traits, expressions, loftinesses, and +amenities, which would have been invisible, had they not been painted from +within. Yet their reality and truth are none the less. Miriam, in like +manner, had doubtless conveyed some of the intimate results of her heart +knowledge into her own.portrait, and perhaps wished to try whether they +would be perceptible to so simple and natural an observer as Donatello. + +"Does the expression please you?" she asked. + +"Yes," said Donatello hesitatingly; "if it would only smile so like the +sunshine as you sometimes do. No, it is sadder than I thought at first. +Cannot you make yourself smile a little, signorina?" + +"A forced smile is uglier than a frown," said Miriam, a bright, natural +smile breaking out over her face even as she spoke. + +"O, catch it now!" cried Donatello, clapping his hands. "Let it shine +upon the picture! There! it has vanished already! And you are sad again, +very sad; and the picture gazes sadly forth at me, as if some evil had +befallen it in the little time since I looked last." + +"How perplexed you seem, my friend!" answered Miriam. "I really half +believe you are a Faun, there is such a mystery and terror for you in +these dark moods, which are just as natural as daylight to us people of +ordinary mould. I advise you, at all events, to look at other faces with +those innocent and happy eyes, and never more to gaze at mine!" + +"You speak in vain," replied the young man, with a deeper emphasis than +she had ever before heard in his voice; "shroud yourself in what gloom you +will, I must needs follow you." + +"Well, well, well," said Miriam impatiently; "but leave me now; for to +speak plainly, my good friend, you grow a little wearisome. I walk this +afternoon in the Borghese grounds. Meet me there, if it suits your +pleasure." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE + + +After Donatello had left the studio, Miriam herself came forth, and taking +her way through some of the intricacies of the city, entered what might be +called either a widening of a street, or a small piazza. The neighborhood +comprised a baker's oven, emitting the usual fragrance of sour bread; a +shoe shop; a linen-draper's shop; a pipe and cigar shop; a lottery office; +a station for French soldiers, with a sentinel pacing in front; and a +fruit-stand, at which a Roman matron was selling the dried kernels of +chestnuts, wretched little figs, and some bouquets of yesterday. A church, +of course, was near at hand, the facade of which ascended into lofty +pinnacles, whereon were perched two or three winged figures of stone, +either angelic or allegorical, blowing stone trumpets in close vicinity to +the upper windows of an old and shabby palace. This palace was +distinguished by a feature not very common in the architecture of Roman +edifices; that is to say, a mediaeval tower, square, massive, lofty, and +battlemented and machicolated at the summit. + +At one of the angles of the battlements stood a shrine of the Virgin, such +as we see everywhere at the street corners of Rome, but seldom or never, +except in this solitary, instance, at a height above the ordinary level of +men's views and aspirations. Connected with this old tower and its lofty +shrine, there is a legend which we cannot here pause to tell; but for +centuries a lamp has been burning before the Virgin's image, at noon, at +midnight, and at all hours of the twenty-four, and must be kept burning +forever, as long as the tower shall stand; or else the tower itself, the +palace, and whatever estate belongs to it, shall pass from its hereditary +possessor, in accordance with an ancient vow, and become the property of +the Church. + +As Miriam approached, she looked upward, and saw,--not, indeed, the flame +of the neverdying lamp, which was swallowed up in the broad sunlight that +brightened the shrine, but a flock of white doves, skimming, fluttering, +and wheeling about the topmost height of the tower, their silver wings +flashing in the pure transparency of the air. Several of them sat on the +ledge of the upper window, pushing one another off by their eager struggle +for this favorite station, and all tapping their beaks and flapping their +wings tumultuously against the panes; some had alighted in the street, far +below, but flew hastily upward, at the sound of the window being thrust +ajar, and opening in the middle, on rusty hinges, as Roman windows do. + +A fair young girl, dressed in white, showed herself at the aperture for a +single instant, and threw forth as much as her two small hands could hold +of some kind of food, for the flock of eleemosynary doves. It seemed +greatly to the taste of the feathered people; for they tried to snatch +beakfuls of it from her grasp, caught it in the air, and rushed downward +after it upon the pavement. + +"What a pretty scene this is," thought Miriam, with a kindly smile, "and +how like a dove she is herself, the fair, pure creature! The other doves +know her for a sister, I am sure." + +Miriam passed beneath the deep portal of the palace, and turning to the +left, began to mount flight after flight of a staircase, which, for the +loftiness of its aspiration, was worthy to be Jacob's ladder, or, at all +events, the staircase of the Tower of Babel. The city bustle, which is +heard even in Rome, the rumble of wheels over the uncomfortable +paving-stones, the hard harsh cries reechoing in the high and narrow +streets, grew faint and died away; as the turmoil of the world will always +die, if we set our faces to climb heavenward. Higher, and higher still; +and now, glancing through the successive windows that threw in their +narrow light upon the stairs, her view stretched across the roofs of the +city, unimpeded even by the stateliest palaces. Only the domes of +churches ascend into this airy region, and hold up their golden crosses on +a level with her eye; except that, out of the very heart of Rome, the +column of Antoninus thrusts itself upward, with St. Paul upon its summit, +the sole human form that seems to have kept her company. + +Finally, the staircase came to an end; save that, on one side of the +little entry where it terminated, a flight of a dozen steps gave access to +the roof of the tower and the legendary shrine. On the other side was a +door, at which Miriam knocked, but rather as a friendly announcement of +her presence than with any doubt of hospitable welcome; for, awaiting no +response, she lifted the latch and entered. + +"What a hermitage you have found for yourself, dear Hilda!" she, +exclaimed. "You breathe sweet air, above all the evil scents of Rome; and +even so, in your maiden elevation, you dwell above our vanities and +passions, our moral dust and mud, with the doves and the angels for your +nearest neighbors. I should not wonder if the Catholics were to make a +saint of you, like your namesake of old; especially as you have almost +avowed yourself of their religion, by undertaking to keep the lamp alight +before the Virgin's shrine." + +"No, no, Miriam!" said Hilda, who had come joyfully forward to greet her +friend. "You must not call me a Catholic. A Christian girl--even a +daughter of the Puritans--may surely pay honor to the idea of divine +Womanhood, without giving up the faith of her forefathers. But how kind +you are to climb into my dove-cote!" + +"It is no trifling proof of friendship, indeed," answered Miriam; "I +should think there were three hundred stairs at least." + +"But it will do you good," continued Hilda. "A height of some fifty feet +above the roofs of Rome gives me all the advantages that I could get from +fifty miles of distance. The air so exhilarates my spirits, that +sometimes I feel half inclined to attempt a flight from the top of my +tower, in the faith that I should float upward." + +"O, pray don't try it!" said Miriam, laughing; "If it should turn out +that you are less than an angel, you would find the stones of the Roman +pavement very hard; and if an angel, indeed, I am afraid you would never +come down among us again." + +This young American girl was an example of the freedom of life which it is +possible for a female artist to enjoy at Rome. She dwelt in her tower, as +free to descend into the corrupted atmosphere of the city beneath, as one +of her companion doves to fly downward into the street;--all alone, +perfectly independent, under her own sole guardianship, unless watched +over by the Virgin, whose shrine she tended; doing what she liked without +a suspicion or a shadow upon the snowy whiteness of her fame. The customs +of artist life bestow such liberty upon the sex, which is elsewhere +restricted within so much narrower limits; and it is perhaps an indication +that, whenever we admit women to a wider scope of pursuits and professions, +we must also,remove the shackles of our present conventional rules, which +would then become an insufferable restraint on either maid or wife. The +system seems to work unexceptionably in Rome; and in many other cases, as +in Hilda's, purity of heart and life are allowed to assert themselves, and +to be their own proof and security, to a degree unknown in the society of +other cities. + +Hilda, in her native land, had early shown what was pronounced by +connoisseurs a decided genius for the pictorial art. Even in her +schooldays--still not so very distant--she had produced sketches that were +seized upon by men of taste, and hoarded as among the choicest treasures +of their portfolios; scenes delicately imagined, lacking, perhaps, the +reality which comes only from a close acquaintance with life, but so +softly touched with feeling and fancy that you seemed to be looking at +humanity with angels' eyes. With years and experience she might be +expected to attain a darker and more forcible touch, which would impart to +her designs the relief they needed. Had Hilda remained in her own country, +it is not improbable that she might have produced original works worthy +to hang in that gallery of native art which, we hope, is destined to +extend its rich length through many future centuries. An orphan, however, +without near relatives, and possessed of a little property, she had found +it within her possibilities to come to Italy; that central clime, whither +the eyes and the heart of every artist turn, as if pictures could not be +made to glow in any other atmosphere, as if statues could not assume grace +and expression, save in that land of whitest marble. + +Hilda's gentle courage had brought her safely over land and sea; her mild, +unflagging perseverance had made a place for her in the famous city, even +like a flower that finds a chink for itself, and a little earth to grow in, +on whatever ancient wall its slender roots may fasten. Here she dwelt, +in her tower, possessing a friend or two in Rome, but no home companion +except the flock of doves, whose cote was in a ruinous chamber contiguous +to her own. They soon became as familiar with the fair-haired Saxon girl +as if she were a born sister of their brood; and her customary white robe +bore such an analogy to their snowy plumage that the confraternity of +artists called Hilda the Dove, and recognized her aerial apartment as the +Dovecote. And while the other doves flew far and wide in quest of what +was good for them, Hilda likewise spread her wings, and sought such +ethereal and imaginative sustenance as God ordains for creatures of her +kind. + +We know not whether the result of her Italian studies, so far as it could +yet be seen, will be accepted as a good or desirable one. Certain it is, +that since her arrival in the pictorial land, Hilda seemed to have +entirely lost the impulse of original design, which brought her thither. +No doubt the girl's early dreams had been of sending forms and hues of +beauty into the visible world out of her own mind; of compelling scenes of +poetry and history to live before men's eyes, through conceptions and by +methods individual to herself. But more and more, as she grew familiar +with the miracles of art that enrich so many galleries in Rome, Hilda had +ceased to consider herself as an original artist. No, wonder that this +change should have befallen her. She was endowed with a deep and +sensitive faculty of appreciation; she had the gift of discerning and +worshipping excellence in a most unusual measure. No other person, it is +probable, recognized so adequately, and enjoyed with such deep delight, +the pictorial wonders that were here displayed. She saw no, not saw, but +felt through and through a picture; she bestowed upon it all the warmth +and richness of a woman's sympathy; not by any intellectual effort, but by +this strength of heart, and this guiding light of sympathy, she went +straight to the central point, in which the master had conceived his work. +Thus she viewed it, as it were, with his own eyes, and hence her +comprehension of any picture that interested her was perfect. + +This power and depth of appreciation depended partly upon Hilda's physical +organization, which was at once healthful and exquisitely delicate; and, +connected with this advantage, she had a command of hand, a nicety and +force of touch, which is an endowment separate from pictorial genius, +though indispensable to its exercise. + +It has probably happened in many other instances, as it did in Hilda's +case, that she ceased to aim at original achievement in consequence of the +very gifts which so exquisitely fitted her to profit by familiarity with +the works of the mighty old masters. Reverencing these wonderful men so +deeply, she was too grateful for all they bestowed upon her, too loyal, +too humble, in their awful presence, to think of enrolling herself in +their society. Beholding the miracles of beauty which they had achieved, +the world seemed already rich enough in original designs, and nothing more +was so desirable as to diffuse those self-same beauties more widely among +mankind. All the youthful hopes and ambitions, the fanciful ideas which +she had brought from home, of great pictures to be conceived in her +feminine mind, were flung aside, and, so far as those most intimate with +her could discern, relinquished without a sigh. All that she would +henceforth attempt and that most reverently, not to say religiously was to +catch and reflect some of the glory which had been shed upon canvas from +the immortal pencils of old. + +So Hilda became a copyist: in the Pinacotheca of the Vatican, in the +galleries of the Pam-fili-Doria palace, the Borghese, the Corsini, the +Sciarra, her easel was set up before many a famous picture by Guido, +Domenichino, Raphael, and the devout painters of earlier schools than +these. Other artists and visitors from foreign lands beheld the slender, +girlish figure in front of some world-known work, absorbed, unconscious of +everything around her, seeming to live only in what she sought to do. +They smiled, no doubt, at the audacity which led her to dream of copying +those mighty achievements. But, if they paused to look over her shoulder, +and had sensibility enough to understand what was before their eyes, they +soon felt inclined to believe that the spirits of the old masters were +hovering over Hilda, and guiding her delicate white hand. In truth, from +whatever realm of bliss and many colored beauty those spirits might +descend, it would have been no unworthy errand to help so gentle and pure +a worshipper of their genius in giving the last divine touch to her +repetitions of their works. + +Her copies were indeed marvellous. Accuracy was not the phrase for them; +a Chinese copy is accurate. Hilda's had that evanescent and ethereal +life--that flitting fragrance, as it were, of the originals--which it is +as difficult to catch and retain as it would be for a sculptor to get the +very movement and varying color of a living man into his marble bust. +Only by watching the efforts of the most skilful copyists--men who spend a +lifetime, as some of them do, in multiplying copies of a single +picture--and observing how invariably they leave out just the indefinable +charm that involves the last, inestimable value, can we understand the +difficulties of the task which they undertake. + +It was not Hilda's general practice to attempt reproducing the whole of a +great picture, but to select some high, noble, and delicate portion of it, +in which the spirit and essence of the picture culminated: the Virgin's +celestial sorrow, for example, or a hovering angel, imbued with immortal +light, or a saint with the glow of heaven in his dying face,--and these +would be rendered with her whole soul. If a picture had darkened into an +indistinct shadow through time and neglect, or had been injured by +cleaning, or retouched by some profane hand, she seemed to possess the +faculty of seeing it in its pristine glory. The copy would come from her +hands with what the beholder felt must be the light which the old master +had left upon the original in bestowing his final and most ethereal touch. +In some instances even (at least, so those believed who best appreciated +Hilda's power and sensibility) she had been enabled to execute what the +great master had conceived in his imagination, but had not so perfectly +succeeded in putting upon canvas; a result surely not impossible when such +depth of sympathy as she possessed was assisted by the delicate skill and +accuracy of her slender hand. In such cases the girl was but a finer +instrument, a more exquisitely effective piece of mechanism,.by the help +of which the spirit of some great departed painter now first achieved his +ideal, centuries after his own earthly hand, that other tool, had turned +to dust. + +Not to describe her as too much a wonder, however, Hilda, or the Dove, as +her well-wishers half laughingly delighted to call her, had been +pronounced by good judges incomparably the best copyist in Rome. After +minute examination of her works, the most skilful artists declared that +she had been led to her results by following precisely the same process +step by step through which the original painter had trodden to the +development of his idea. Other copyists--if such they are worthy to be +called--attempt only a superficial imitation. Copies of the old masters +in this sense are produced by thousands; there are artists, as we have +said, who spend their lives in painting the works, or perhaps one single +work, of one illustrious painter over and over again: thus they convert +themselves into Guido machines, or Raphaelic machines. Their performances, +it is true, are often wonderfully deceptive to a careless eye; but +working entirely from the outside, and seeking only to reproduce the +surface, these men are sure to leave out that indefinable nothing, that +inestimable something, that constitutes the life and soul through which +the picture gets its immortality. Hilda was no such machine as this; she +wrought religiously, and therefore wrought a miracle. + +It strikes us that there is something far higher and nobler in all this, +in her thus sacrificing herself to the devout recognition of the highest +excellence in art, than there would have been in cultivating her not +inconsiderable share of talent for the production of works from her own +ideas. She might have set up for herself, and won no ignoble name; she +might have helped to fill the already crowded and cumbered world with +pictures, not destitute of merit, but falling short, if by ever so little, +of the best that has been done; she might thus have gratified some tastes +that were incapable of appreciating Raphael. But this could be done only +by lowering the standard of art to the comprehension of the spectator. +She chose the better and loftier and more unselfish part, laying her +individual hopes, her fame, her prospects of enduring remembrance, at the +feet of those great departed ones whom she so loved and venerated; and +therefore the world was the richer for this feeble girl. + +Since the beauty and glory of a great picture are confined within itself, +she won out that glory by patient faith and self-devotion, and multiplied +it for mankind. From the dark, chill corner of a gallery,--from some +curtained chapel in a church, where the light came seldom and aslant, +--from the prince's carefully guarded cabinet, where not one eye in +thousands was permitted to behold it, she brought the wondrous picture +into daylight, and gave all its magic splendor for the enjoyment of the +world. Hilda's faculty of genuine admiration is one of the rarest to be +found in human nature; and let us try to recompense her in kind by +admiring her generous self-surrender, and her brave, humble magnanimity in +choosing to be the handmaid of those old magicians, instead of a minor +enchantress within a circle of her own. + +The handmaid of Raphael, whom she loved with a virgin's love! Would it +have been worth Hilda's while to relinquish this office for the sake of +giving the world a picture or two which it would call original; pretty +fancies of snow and moonlight; the counterpart in picture of so many +feminine achievements in literature! + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +BEATRICE + + +Miriam was glad to find the Dove in her turret-home; for being endowed +with an infinite activity, and taking exquisite delight in the sweet labor +of which her life was full, it was Hilda's practice to flee abroad betimes, +and haunt the galleries till dusk. Happy were those (but they were very +few) whom she ever chose to be the companions of her day; they saw the art +treasures of Rome, under her guidance, as they had never seen them before. +Not that Hilda could dissertate, or talk learnedly about pictures; she +would probably have been puzzled by the technical terms of her own art. +Not that she had much to say about what she most profoundly admired; but +even her silent sympathy was so powerful that it drew your own along with +it, endowing you with a second-sight that enabled you to see excellences +with almost the depth and delicacy of her own perceptions. + +All the Anglo-Saxon denizens of Rome, by this time, knew Hilda by sight. +Unconsciously, the poor child had become one of the spectacles of the +Eternal City, and was often pointed out to strangers, sitting at her easel +among the wild-bearded young men, the white-haired old ones, and the +shabbily dressed, painfully plain women, who make up the throng of +copyists. The old custodes knew her well, and watched over her as their +own child. Sometimes a young artist, instead of going on with a copy of +the picture before which he had placed his easel, would enrich his canvas +with an original portrait of Hilda at her work. A lovelier subject could +not have been selected, nor one which required nicer skill and insight in +doing it anything like justice. She was pretty at all times, in our +native New England style, with her light-brown ringlets, her delicately +tinged, but healthful cheek, her sensitive, intelligent, yet most feminine +and kindly face. But, every few moments, this pretty and girlish face +grew beautiful and striking, as some inward thought and feeling brightened, +rose to the surface, and then, as it were, passed out of sight again; so +that, taking into view this constantly recurring change, it really seemed +as if Hilda were only visible by the sunshine of her soul. + +In other respects, she was a good subject for a portrait, being +distinguished by a gentle picturesqueness, which was perhaps unconsciously +bestowed by some minute peculiarity of dress, such as artists seldom fail +to assume. The effect was to make her appear like an inhabitant of +pictureland, a partly ideal creature, not to be handled, nor even +approached too closely. In her feminine self, Hilda was natural, and of +pleasant deportment, endowed with a mild cheerfulness of temper, not +overflowing with animal spirits, but never long despondent. There was a +certain simplicity that made every one her friend, but it was combined +with a subtile attribute of reserve, that insensibly kept those at a +distance who were not suited to her sphere. + +Miriam was the dearest friend whom she had ever known. Being a year or +two the elder, of longer acquaintance with Italy, and better fitted to +deal with its crafty and selfish inhabitants, she had helped Hilda to +arrange her way of life, and had encouraged her through those first weeks, +when Rome is so dreary to every newcomer. + +"But how lucky that you are at home today," said Miriam, continuing the +conversation which was begun, many pages back. "I hardly hoped to find +you, though I had a favor to ask,--a commission to put into your charge. +But what picture is this?" + +"See! "said Hilda, taking her friend's hand, and leading her in front of +the easel. "I wanted your opinion of it." + +"If you have really succeeded," observed Miriam, recognizing the picture +at the first glance, "it will be the greatest miracle you have yet +achieved." + +The picture represented simply a female head; a very youthful, girlish, +perfectly beautiful face, enveloped in white drapery, from beneath which +strayed a lock or two of what seemed a rich, though hidden luxuriance of +auburn hair. The eyes were large and brown, and met those of the +spectator, but evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape. +There was a little redness about the eyes, very slightly indicated, so +that you would question whether or no the girl had been weeping. The +whole face was quiet; there was no distortion or disturbance of any single +feature; nor was it easy to see why the expression was not cheerful, or +why a single touch of the artist's pencil should not brighten it into +joyousness. But, in fact, it was the very saddest picture ever painted or +conceived; it involved an unfathomable depth of sorrow, the sense of which +came to the observer by a sort of intuition. It was a sorrow that removed +this beautiful girl out of the sphere of humanity, and set her in a +far-off region, the remoteness of which--while yet her face is so close +before us--makes us shiver as at a spectre. + +"Yes, Hilda," said her friend, after closely examining the picture," you +have done nothing else so wonderful as this. But by what unheard-of +solicitations or secret interest have you obtained leave to copy Guido's +Beatrice Cenci? It is an unexampled favor; and the impossibility of +getting a genuine copy has filled the Roman picture shops with Beatrices, +gay, grievous, or coquettish, but never a true one among them." + +"There has been one exquisite copy, I have heard," said Hilda, "by an +artist capable of appreciating the spirit of the picture. It was Thompson, +who brought it away piecemeal, being forbidden (like the rest of us) to +set up his easel before it. As for me, I knew the Prince Barberini would +be deaf to all entreaties; so I had no resource but to sit down before the +picture, day after day, and let it sink into my heart. I do believe it +is now photographed there. It is a sad face to keep so close to one's +heart; only what is so very beautiful can never be quite a pain. Well; +after studying it in this way, I know not how many times, I came home, and +have done my best to transfer the image to canvas." + +"Here it is, then," said Miriam, contemplating Hilda's work with great +interest and delight, mixed with the painful sympathy that the picture +excited. "Everywhere we see oil-paintings, crayon sketches, cameos, +engravings, lithographs, pretending to be Beatrice, and representing the +poor girl with blubbered eyes, a leer of coquetry, a merry look as if she +were dancing, a piteous look as if she were beaten, and twenty other modes +of fantastic mistake. But here is Guido's very Beatrice; she that slept +in the dungeon, and awoke, betimes, to ascend the scaffold, And now that +you have done it, Hilda, can you interpret what the feeling is, that gives +this picture such a mysterious force? For my part, though deeply sensible +of its influence, I cannot seize it." + +"Nor can I, in words," replied her friend. "But while I was painting her, +I felt all the time as if she were trying to escape from my gaze. She +knows that her sorrow is so strange and so immense, that she ought to be +solitary forever, both for the world's sake and her own; and this is the +reason we feel such a distance between Beatrice and ourselves, even when +our eyes meet hers. It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet her glance, +and to feel that nothing can be done to help or comfort her; neither does +she ask help or comfort, knowing the hopelessness of her case better than +we do. She is a fallen angel,--fallen, and yet sinless; and it is only +this depth of sorrow, with its weight and darkness, that keeps her down +upon earth, and brings her within our view even while it sets her beyond +our reach." + +"You deem her sinless?" asked Miriam; "that is not so plain to me. If I +can pretend to see at all into that dim region, whence she gazes so +strangely and sadly at us, Beatrice's own conscience does not acquit her +of something evil, and never to be forgiven!" + +"Sorrow so black as hers oppresses her very nearly as sin would," said +Hilda. + +"Then," inquired Miriam, "do you think that there was no sin in the deed +for which she suffered?" + +"Ah!" replied Hilda, shuddering," I really had quite forgotten Beatrice's +history, and was thinking of her only as the picture seems to reveal her +character. Yes, yes; it was terrible guilt, an inexpiable crime, and she +feels it to be so. Therefore it is that the forlorn creature so longs to +elude our eyes, and forever vanish away into nothingness! Her doom is +just!" + +"O Hilda, your innocence is like a sharp steel sword!" exclaimed her +friend. "Your judgments are often terribly severe, though you seem all +made up of gentleness and mercy. Beatrice's sin may not have been so +great: perhaps it was no sin at all, but the best virtue possible in the +circumstances. If she viewed it as a sin, it may have been because her +nature was too feeble for the fate imposed upon her. Ah!" continued +Miriam passionately, "if I could only get within her consciousness!--if I +could but clasp Beatrice Cenci's ghost, and draw it into myself! I would +give my life to know whether she thought herself innocent, or the one +great criminal since time began." + +As Miriam gave utterance to these words, Hilda looked from the picture +into her face, and was startled to observe that her friend's expression +had become almost exactly that of the pottrait; as if her passionate wish +and struggle to penetrate poor Beatrice's mystery had been successful. + +"O, for Heaven's sake, Miriam, do not look so!" she cried. "What an +actress you are! And I never guessed it before. Ah! now you are yourself +again!" she added, kissing her. "Leave Beatrice to me in future." + +"Cover up your magical picture, then," replied her friend, "else I never +can look away from it. It is strange, dear Hilda, how an innocent, +delicate, white soul like yours has been able to seize the subtle mystery +of this portrait; as you surely must, in order to reproduce it so +perfectly. Well; we will not talk of it any more. Do you know, I have +come to you this morning on a small matter of business. Will you +undertake it for me?" + +"O, certainly," said Hilda, laughing; "if you choose to trust me with +business." + +"Nay, it is not a matter of any difficulty," answered Miriam; "merely to +take charge of this packet, and keep it for me awhile." + +"But why not keep it yourself?" asked Hilda. + +"Partly because it will be safer in your charge," said her friend. "I am +a careless sort of person in ordinary things; while you, for all you dwell +so high above the world, have certain little housewifely ways of accuracy +and order. The packet is of some slight importance; and yet, it may be, +I shall not ask you for it again. In a week or two, you know, I am +leaving Rome. You, setting at defiance the malarial fever, mean to stay +here and haunt your beloved galleries through the summer. Now, four +months hence, unless you hear more from me, I would have you deliver the +packet according to its address." + +Hilda read the direction; it was to Signore Luca Barboni, at the Plazzo +Cenci, third piano. + +"I will deliver it with my own hand," said she, "precisely four months +from to-day, unless you bid me to the contrary. Perhaps I shall meet the +ghost of Beatrice in that grim old palace of her forefathers." + +"In that case," rejoined Miriam, "do not fail to speak to her, and try to +win her confidence. Poor thing! she would be all the better for pouring +her heart out freely, and would be glad to do it, if she were sure of +sympathy. It irks my brain and heart to think of her, all shut up within +herself." She withdrew the cloth that Hilda had drawn over the picture, +and took another long look at it. "Poor sister Beatrice! for she was +still a woman, Hilda, still a sister, be her sin or sorrow what they might. +How well you have done it, Hilda! I knot not whether Guido will thank +you, or be jealous of + +your rivalship." + +"Jealous, indeed!" exclaimed Hilda. "If Guido had not wrought through me, +my pains would have been thrown away." + +"After all," resumed Miriam, "if a woman had painted the original picture, +there might have been something in it which we miss now. I have a great +mind to undertake a copy myself; and try to give it what it lacks. Well; +goodby. But, stay! I am going for a little airing to the grounds of the +Villa Borghese this afternoon. You will think it very foolish, but I +always feel the safer in your company, Hilda, slender little maiden as you +are. Will you come?" + +"Ah, not to-day, dearest Miriam," she replied; "I have set my heart on +giving another touch or two to this picture, and shall not stir abroad +till nearly sunset." + +"Farewell, then," said her visitor. "I leave you in your dove-cote. What +a sweet, strange life you lead here; conversing with the souls of the old +masters, feeding and fondling your sister doves, and trimming the Virgin's +lamp! Hilda, do you ever pray to the Virgin while you tend her shrine?" + +"Sometimes I have been moved to do so," replied the Dove, blushing, and +lowering her eyes; "she was a woman once. Do you think it would be +wrong?" + +"Nay, that is for you to judge," said Miriam; "but when you pray next, +dear friend, remember me!" + +She went down the long descent of the lower staircase, and just as she +reached the street the flock of doves again took their hurried flight from +the pavement to the topmost window. She threw her eyes upward and beheld +them hovering about Hilda's head; for, after her friend's departure, the +girl had been more impressed than before by something very sad and +troubled in her manner. She was, therefore, leaning forth from her airy +abode, and flinging down a kind, maidenly kiss, and a gesture of farewell, +in the hope that these might alight upon Miriam's heart, and comfort its +unknown sorrow a little. Kenyon the sculptor, who chanced to be passing +the head of the street, took note of that ethereal kiss, and wished that +he could have caught it in the air and got Hilda's leave to keep it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE SUBURBAN VILLA + + +Donatello, while it was still a doubtful question betwixt afternoon and +morning, set forth to keep the appointment which Miriam had carelessly +tendered him in the grounds of the Villa Borghese. The entrance to these +grounds (as all my readers know, for everybody nowadays has been in Rome) +is just outside of the Porta del Popolo. Passing beneath that not very +impressive specimen of Michael Angelo's architecture, a minute's walk will +transport the visitor from the small, uneasy, lava stones of the Roman +pavement into broad, gravelled carriage-drives, whence a little farther +stroll brings him to the soft turf of a beautiful seclusion. A seclusion, +but seldom a solitude; for priest, noble, and populace, stranger and +native, all who breathe Roman air, find free admission, and come hither to +taste the languid enjoyment of the day-dream that they call life. + +But Donatello's enjoyment was of a livelier kind. He soon began to draw +long and delightful breaths among those shadowy walks. Judging by the +pleasure which the sylvan character of the scene excited in him, it might +be no merely fanciful theory to set him down as the kinsman, not far +remote, of that wild, sweet, playful, rustic creature, to whose marble +image he bore so striking a resemblance. How mirthful a discovery would +it be (and yet with a touch of pathos in it), if the breeze which sported +fondly with his clustering locks were to waft them suddenly aside, and +show a pair of leaf-shaped, furry ears! What an honest strain of wildness +would it indicate! and into what regions of rich mystery would it extend +Donatello's sympathies, to be thus linked (and by no monstrous chain) with +what we call the inferior trioes of being, whose simplicity, mingled with +his human intelligence, might partly restore what man has lost of the +divine! + +The scenery amid which the youth now strayed was such as arrays itself in +the imagination when we read the beautiful old myths, and fancy a brighter +sky, a softer turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable trees, +than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the Western world. +The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-honored were they, seemed to have +lived for ages undisturbed, and to feel no dread of profanation by the axe +any more than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It had already passed out +of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago they were +grievously imperilled by the Gaul's last assault upon the walls of Rome. +As if confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they assumed +attitudes of indolent repose. They leaned over the green turf in +ponderous grace, throwing abroad their great branches without danger of +interfering with other trees, though other majestic trees grew near enough +for dignified society, but too distant for constraint. Never was there a +more venerable quietude than that which slept among their sheltering +boughs; never a sweeter sunshine than that now gladdening the gentle gloom +which these leafy patriarchs strove to diffuse over the swelling and +subsiding lawns. + +In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lifted their dense clump +of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high that they looked like +green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow upon the turf so far off +that you hardly knew which tree had made it. Again, there were avenues +of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge funeral candles, which spread +dusk and twilight round about them instead of cheerful radiance. The more +open spots were all abloom, even so early in the season, with anemones of +wondrous size, both white and rose-colored, and violets that betrayed +themselves by their rich fragrance, even if their blue eyes failed to meet +your own. Daisies, too, were abundant, but larger than the modest little +English flower, and therefore of small account. + +These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful than the finest of +English park scenery, more touching, more impressive, through the neglect +that leaves Nature so much to her own ways and methods. Since man seldom +interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet way and makes herself +at home. There is enough of human care, it is true, bestowed, long ago +and still bestowed, to prevent wildness from growing into deformity; and +the result is an ideal landscape, a woodland scene that seems to have been +projected out of the poet's mind. If the ancient Faun were other than a +mere creation of old poetry, and could have reappeared anywhere, it must +have been in such a scene as this. + +In the openings of the wood there are fountains plashing into marble +basins, the depths of which are shaggy with water-weeds; or they tumble +like natural cascades from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to +make the quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here and there +with careless artifice, stand old altars bearing Roman inscriptions. +Statues, gray with the long corrosion of even that soft atmosphere, half +hide and half reveal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen and +broken on the turf. Terminal figures, columns of marble or granite +porticos, arches, are seen in the vistas of the wood-paths, either +veritable relics of antiquity, or with so exquisite a touch of artful ruin +on them that they are better than if really antique. At all events, grass +grows on the tops of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers root +themselves in the chinks of the massive arches and fronts of temples, and +clamber at large over their pediments, as if this were the thousandth +summer since their winged seeds alighted there. + +What a strange idea--what a needless labor--to construct artificial ruins +in Rome, the native soil of ruin! But even these sportive imitations, +wrought by man in emulation of what time has done to temples and palaces, +are perhaps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions, have grown to be +venerable in sober earnest. The result of all is a scene, pensive, lovely, +dreamlike, enjoyable and sad, such as is to be found nowhere save in +these princely villa-residences in the neighborhood of Rome; a scene that +must have required generations and ages, during which growth, decay, and +man's intelligence wrought kindly together, to render it so gently wild as +we behold it now. + +The final charm is bestowed by the malaria. There is a piercing, +thrilling, delicious kind of regret in the idea of so much beauty thrown +away, or only enjoyable at its half-development, in winter and early +spring, and never to be dwelt amongst, as the home scenery of any human +being. For if you come hither in summer, and stray through these glades +in the golden sunset, fever walks arm in arm with you, and death awaits +you at the end of the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its +loveliness; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it beyond the +scope of man's actual possessions. But Donatello felt nothing of this +dream-like melancholy that haunts the spot. As he passed among the sunny +shadows, his spirit seemed to acquire new elasticity. The flicker of the +sunshine, the sparkle of the fountain's gush, the dance of the leaf upon +the bough, the woodland fragrance, the green freshness, the old sylvan +peace and freedom, were all intermingled in those long breaths which he +drew. + +The ancient dust, the mouldiness of Rome, the dead atmosphere in which he +had wasted so many months, the hard pavements, the smell of ruin and +decaying generations, the chill palaces, the convent bells, the heavy +incense of altars, the life that he had led in those dark, narrow streets, +among priests, soldiers, nobles, artists, and women,--all the sense of +these things rose from the young man's consciousness like a cloud which +had darkened over him without his knowing how densely. + +He drank in the natural influences of the scene, and was intoxicated as by +an exhilarating wine. He ran races with himself along the gleam and +shadow of the wood-paths. He leapt up to catch the overhanging bough of +an ilex, and swinging himself by it alighted far onward, as if he had +flown thither through the air. In a sudden rapture he embraced the trunk +of a sturdy tree, and seemed to imagine it a creature worthy of affection +and capable of a tender response; he clasped it closely in his arms, as a +Faun might have clasped the warm feminine grace of the nymph, whom +antiquity supposed to dwell within that rough, encircling rind. Then, in +order to bring himself closer to the genial earth, with which his kindred +instincts linked him so strongly, he threw himself at full length on the +turf, and pressed down his lips, kissing the violets and daisies, which +kissed him back again, though shyly, in their maiden fashion. + +While he lay there, it was pleasant to see how the green and blue lizards, +who had beta basking on some rock or on a fallen pillar that absorbed the +warmth of the sun, scrupled not to scramble over him with their small feet; +and how the birds alighted on the nearest twigs and sang their little +roundelays unbroken by any chirrup of alarm; they recognized him, it may +be, as something akin to themselves, or else they fancied that he was +rooted and grew there; for these wild pets of nature dreaded him no more +in his buoyant life than if a mound of soil and grass and flowers had long +since covered his dead body, converting it back to the sympathies from +which human existence had estranged it. + +All of us, after a long abode in cities, have felt the blood gush more +joyously through our veins with the first breath of rural air; few could +feel it so much as Donatello, a creature of simple elements, bred in the +sweet sylvan life of Tuscany, and for months back dwelling amid the mouldy +gloom and dim splendor of old Rome. Nature has been shut out for +numberless centuries from those stony-hearted streets, to which he had +latterly grown accustomed; there is no trace of her, except for what +blades of grass spring out of the pavements of the less trodden piazzas, +or what weeds cluster and tuft themselves on the cornices of ruins. +Therefore his joy was like that of a child that had gone astray from home, +and finds him suddenly in his mother's arms again. + +At last, deeming it full time for Miriam to keep her tryst, he climbed to +the tiptop of the tallest tree, and thence looked about him, swaying to +and fro in the gentle breeze, which was like the respiration of that great +leafy, living thing. Donatello saw beneath him the whole circuit of the +enchanted ground; the statues and columns pointing upward from among the +shrubbery, the fountains flashing in the sunlight, the paths winding +hither and thither, and continually finding out some nook of new and +ancient pleasantness. He saw the villa, too, with its marble front +incrusted all over with basreliefs, and statues in its many niches. It +was as beautiful as a fairy palace, and seemed an abode in which the lord +and lady of this fair domain might fitly dwell, and come forth each +morning to enjoy as sweet a life as their happiest dreams of the past +night could have depicted. All this he saw, but his first glance had +taken in too wide a sweep, and it was not till his eyes fell almost +directly beneath him, that Donatello beheld Miriam just turning into the +path that led across the roots of his very tree. + +He descended among the foliage, waiting for her to come close to the trunk, +and then suddenly dropped from an impending bough, and alighted at her +side. It was as if the swaying of the branches had let a ray of sunlight +through. The same ray likewise glimmered among the gloomy meditations +that encompassed Miriam, and lit up the pale, dark beauty of her face, +while it responded pleasantly to Donatello's glance. + +"I hardly know," said she, smiling, "whether you have sprouted out of the +earth, or fallen from the clouds. In either case you are welcome." + +And they walked onward together. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE FAUN AND NYMPH + + +Mirian's sadder mood, it might be, had at first an effect on Donatello s +spirits. It checked the joyous ebullition into which they would otherwise +have effervesced when he found himself in her society, not, as heretofore, +in the old gloom of Rome, but under that bright soft sky and in those +Arcadian woods. He was silent for a while; it being, indeed, seldom +Donatello's impulse to express himself copiously in words. His usual +modes of demonstration were by the natural language of gesture, the +instinctive movement of his agile frame, and the unconscious play of his +features, which, within a limited range of thought and emotion, would +speak volumes in a moment. + +By and by, his own mood seemed to brighten Miriam's, and was reflected +back upon himself. He began inevitably, as it were, to dance along the +wood-path; flinging himself into attitudes of strange comic grace. Often, +too, he ran a little way in advance of his companion, and then stood to +watch her as she approached along the shadowy and sun-fleckered path. +With every step she took, he expressed his joy at her nearer and nearer +presence by what might be thought an extravagance of gesticulation, but +which doubtless was the language of the natural man, though laid aside and +forgotten by other men, now that words have been feebly substituted in the +place of signs and symbols. He gave Miriam the idea of a being not +precisely man, nor yet a child, but, in a high and beautiful sense, an +animal, a creature in a state of development less than what mankind has +attained, yet the more perfect within itself for that very deficiency. +This idea filled her mobile imagination with agreeable fantasies, which, +after smiling at them herself, she tried to cofivey to the young man. + +"What are you, my friend?" she exclaimed, always keeping in mind his +singular resemblance to the Faun of the Capitol. "If you are, in good +truth, that wild and pleasant creature whose face you wear, pray make me +known to your kindred. They will be found hereabouts, if anywhere. Knock +at the rough rind of this ilex-tree, and summon forth the Dryad! Ask the +water-nymph to rise dripping from yonder fountain, and exchange a moist +pressure of the hand with me! Do not fear that I shall shrink; even if +one of your rough cousins, a hairy Satyr, should come capering on his +goat-legs out of the haunts of far antiquity, and propose to dance with me +among these lawns! And will not Bacchus,--with whom you consorted so +familiarly of old, and who loved you so well,--will he not meet us here, +and squeeze rich grapes into his cup for you and me?" + +Donatello smiled; he laughed heartily, indeed, in sympathy with the mirth +that gleamed out of Miriam's deep, dark eyes. But he did not seem quite +to understand her mirthful talk, nor to be disposed to explain what kind +of creature he was, or to inquire with what divine or poetic kindred his +companion feigned to link him. He appeared only to know that Miriam was +beautiful, and that she smiled graciously upon him; that the present +moment was very sweet, and himself most happy, with the sunshine, the +sylvan scenery, and woman's kindly charm, which it enclosed within its +small circumference. It was delightful to see the trust which he reposed +in Miriam, and his pure joy in her propinquity; he asked nothing, sought +nothing, save to be near the beloved object, and brimmed over with ecstasy +at that simple boon. A creature of the happy tribes below us sometimes +shows the capacity of this enjoyment; a man, seldom or never. + +"Donatello," said Miriam, looking at him thoughtfully, but amused, yet not +without a shade of sorrow, "you seem very happy; what makes you so?" + +"Because I love you!" answered Donatello. + +He made this momentous confession as if it were the most natural thing in +the world; and on her part,--such was the contagion of his simplicity,- +Miriam heard it without anger or disturbance, though with no responding +emotion. It was as if they had strayed across the limits of Arcadia; and +come under a civil polity where young men might avow their passion with as +little restraint as a bird pipes its note to a similar purpose. + +"Why should you love me, foolish boy?" said she. "We have no points of +sympathy at all. There are not two creatures more unlike, in this wide +world, than you and I!" + +"You are yourself, and I am Donatello," replied he. "Therefore I love you! +There needs no other reason." + +Certainly, there was no better or more explicable reason. It might have +been imagined that Donatello's unsophisticated heart would be more readily +attracted to a feminine nature of clear simplicity like his own, than to +one already turbid with grief or wrong, as Miriam's seemed to be. Perhaps, +On the other hand, his character needed the dark element, which it found +in her. The force and energy of will, that sometimes flashed through her +eyes, may have taken him captive; or, not improbably, the varying lights +and shadows of her temper, now so mirthful, and anon so sad with +mysterious gloom, had bewitched the youth. Analyze the matter as we may, +the reason assigned by Donatello himself was as satisfactory as we are +likely to attain. + +Miriam could not think seriously of the avowal that had passed. He held +out his love so freely, in his open palm, that she felt it could be +nothing but a toy, which she might play with for an instant, and give back +again. And yet Donatello's heart was so fresh a fountain, that, had +Miriam been more world-worn than she was, she might have found it +exquisite to slake her thirst with the feelings that welled up and brimmed +over from it. She was far, very far, from the dusty mediaeval epoch, when +some women have a taste for such refreshment. Even for her, however, +there was an inexpressible charm in the simplicity that prompted +Donatello's words and deeds; though, unless she caught them in precisely +the true light, they seemed but folly, the offspring of a maimed or +imperfectly developed intellect. Alternately, she almost admired, or +wholly scorned him, and knew not which estimate resulted from the deeper +appreciation. But it could not, she decided for herself, be other than an +innocent pastime, if they two--sure to be separated by their different +paths in life, to-morrow--were to gather up some of the little pleasures +that chanced to grow about their feet, like the violets and wood-anemones, +to-day. + +Yet an impulse of rectitude impelled Miriam to give him what she still +held to be a needless warning against an imaginary peril. + +"If you were wiser, Donatello, you would think me a dangerous person," +said she, "If you follow my footsteps, they will lead you to no good. You +ought to be afraid of me." + +"I would as soon think of fearing the air we breathe," he replied. + +"And well you may, for it is full of malaria," said Miriam; she went on, +hinting at an intangible confession, such as persons with overburdened +hearts often make to children or dumb animals, or to holes in the earth, +where they think their secrets may be at once revealed and buried. "Those +who come too near me are in danger of great mischiefs, I do assure you. +Take warning, therefore! It is a sad fatality that has brought you from +your home among the Apennines,--some rusty old castle, I suppose, with a +village at its foot, and an Arcadian environment of vineyards, fig-trees, +and olive orchards,--a sad mischance, I say, that has transported you to +my side. You have had a happy life hitherto, have you not, Donatello?" + +"O, yes," answered the young man; and, though not of a retrospective turn, +he made the best effort he could to send his mind back into the past. "I +remember thinking it happiness to dance with the contadinas at a village +feast; to taste the new, sweet wine at vintage-time, and the old, ripened +wine, which our podere is famous for, in the cold winter evenings; and to +devour great, luscious figs, and apricots, peaches, cherries, and melons. +I was often happy in the woods, too, with hounds and horses, and very +happy in watching all sorts, of creatures and birds that haunt the leafy +solitudes. But never half so happy as now!" + +"In these delightful groves?" she asked. + +"Here, and with you," answered Donatello. "Just as we are now." + +"What a fulness of content in him! How silly, and how delightful!" said +Miriam to herself. Then addressing him again: "But, Donatello, how long +will this happiness last?" + +"How long!" he exclaimed; for it perplexed him even more to think of the +future than to remember the past. "Why should it have any end? How long! +Forever! forever! forever!" + +"The child! the simpleton!" said Miriam, with sudden laughter, and +checking it as suddenly. "But is he a simpleton indeed? Here, in those +few natural words, he has expressed that deep sense, that profound +conviction of its own immortality, which genuine love never fails to bring. +He perplexes me,--yes, and bewitches me,--wild, gentle, beautiful +creature that he is! It is like playing with a young greyhound!" + +Her eyes filled with tears, at the same time that a smile shone out of +them. Then first she became sensible of a delight and grief at once, in +feeling this zephyr of a new affection, with its untainted freshness, blow +over her weary, stifled heart, which had no right to be revived by it. +The very exquisiteness of the enjoyment made her know that it ought to be +a forbidden one. + +"Donatello," she hastily exclaimed, "for your own sake, leave me! It is +not such a happy thing as you imagine it, to wander in these woods with me, +a girl from another land, burdened with a doom that she tells to none. +I might make you dread me,--perhaps hate me,--if I chose; and I must +choose, if I find you loving me too well!" + +"I fear nothing!" said Donatello, looking into her unfathomable eyes with +perfect trust. "I love always!" + +"I speak in vain," thought Miriam within herself. + +"Well, then, for this one hour, let me be such as he imagines me. +To-morrow will be time enough to come back to my reality. My reality! +what is it? Is the past so indestructible? the future so immitigable? +Is the dark dream, in which I walk, of such solid, stony substance, that +there can be no escape out of its dungeon? Be it so! There is, at least, +that ethereal quality in my spirit, that it can make me as gay as +Donatello himself,--for this one hour!" + +And immediately she brightened up, as if an inward flame, heretofore +stifled, were now permitted to fill her with its happy lustre, glowing +through her cheeks and dancing in her eye-beams. + +Donatello, brisk and cheerful as he seemed before, showed a sensibility to +Miriam's gladdened mood by breaking into still wilder and ever-varying +activity. He frisked around her, bubbling over with joy, which clothed +itself in words that had little individual meaning, and in snatches of +song that seemed as natural as bird notes. Then they both laughed +together, and heard their own laughter returning in the echoes, and +laughed again at the response, so that the ancient and solemn grove became +full of merriment for these two blithe spirits. A bird happening to sing +cheerily, Donatello gave a peculiar call, and the little feathered +creature came fluttering about his head, as if it had known him through +many summers. + +"How close he stands to nature!" said Miriam, observing this pleasant +familiarity between her companion and the bird. "He shall make me as +natural as himself for this one hour." + +As they strayed through that sweet wilderness, she felt more and more the +influence of his elastic temperament. Miriam was an impressible and +impulsive creature, as unlike herself, in different moods, as if a +melancholy maiden and a glad one were both bound within the girdle about +her waist, and kept in magic thraldom by the brooch that clasped it. +Naturally, it is true, she was the more inclined to melancholy, yet fully +capable of that high frolic of the spirits which richly compensates for +many gloomy hours; if her soul was apt to lurk in the darkness of a cavern, +she could sport madly in the sunshine before the cavern's mouth. Except +the freshest mirth of animal spirits, like Donatello's, there is no +merriment, no wild exhilaration, comparable to that of melancholy people +escaping from the dark region m which it is their custom to keep +themselves imprisoned. + +So the shadowy Miriam almost outdid Donatello on his own ground. They ran +races with each other, side by side, with shouts and laughter; they pelted +one another with early flowers, and gathering them up twined them with +green leaves into garlands for both their heads. They played together +like children, or creatures of immortal youth. So much had they flung +aside the sombre habitudes of daily life, that they seemed born to be +sportive forever, and endowed with eternal mirthfulness instead of any +deeper joy. It was a glimpse far backward into Arcadian life, or, further +still, into the Golden Age, before mankind was burdened with sin and +sorrow, and before pleasure had been darkened with those shadows that +bring it into high relief, and make it happiness. + +"Hark!" cried Donatello, stopping short, as he was about to bind Miriam's +fair hands with flowers, and lead her along in triumph, "there is music +somewhere in the grove!" + +"It is your kinsman, Pan, most likely," said Miriam, "playing on his pipe. +Let us go seek him, and make him puff out his rough cheeks and pipe his +merriest air! Come; the strain of music will guide us onward like a gayly +colored thread of silk." + +"Or like a chain of flowers," responded Donatello, drawing her along by +that which he had twined. "This way!--Come!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE SYLVAN DANCE + + +As the music came fresher on their ears, they danced to its cadence, +extemporizing new steps and attitudes. Each varying movement had a grace +which might have been worth putting into marble, for the long delight of +days to come, but vanished with the movement that gave it birth, and was +effaced from memory by another. In Miriam's motion, freely as she flung +herself into the frolic of the hour, there was still an artful beauty; in +Donatello's, there was a charm of indescribable grotesqueness hand in hand +with grace; sweet, bewitching, most provocative of laughter, and yet akin +to pathos, so deeply did it touch the heart. This was the ultimate +peculiarity, the final touch, distinguishing between the sylvan creature +and the beautiful companion at his side. Setting apart only this, Miriam +resembled a Nymph, as much as Donatello did a Faun. + +There were flitting moments, indeed, when she played the sylvan character +as perfectly as he. Catching glimpses of her, then, you would have +fancied that an oak had sundered its rough bark to let her dance freely +forth, endowed with the same spirit in her human form as that which +rustles in the leaves; or that she had emerged through the pebbly bottom +of a fountain, a water-nymph, to play and sparkle in the sunshine, +flinging a quivering light around her, and suddenly disappearing in a +shower of rainbow drops. + +As the fountain sometimes subsides into its basin, so in Miriam there were +symptoms that the frolic of her spirits would at last tire itself out. + +"Ah! Donatello," cried she, laughing, as she stopped to take a breath; +"you have an unfair advantage over me! I am no true creature of the woods; +while you are a real Faun, I do believe. When your curls shook just now, +methought I had a peep at the pointed ears." + +Donatello snapped his fingers above his head, as fauns and satyrs taught +us first to do, and seemed to radiate jollity out of his whole nimble +person. Nevertheless, there was a kind of dim apprehension in his face, +as if he dreaded that a moment's pause might break the spell, and snatch +away the sportive companion whom he had waited for through so many dreary +months. + +"Dance! dance!" cried he joyously. "If we take breath, we shall be as +we were yesterday. There, now, is the music, just beyond this clump of +trees. Dance, Miriam, dance!" + +They had now reached an open, grassy glade (of which there are many in +that artfully constructed wilderness), set round with stone seats, on +which the aged moss had kindly essayed to spread itself instead of +cushions. On one of the stone benches sat the musicians, whose strains +had enticed our wild couple thitherward. They proved to be a vagrant band, +such as Rome, and all Italy, abounds with; comprising a harp, a flute, +and a violin, which, though greatly the worse for wear, theperformers had +skill enough to provoke and modulate into tolerable harmony. It chanced +to be a feast-day; and, instead of playing in the sun-scorched piazzas of +the city, or beneath the windows of some unresponsive palace, they had +bethought themselves to try the echoes of these woods; for, on the festas +of the Church, Rome scatters its merrymakers all abroad, ripe for the +dance or any other pastime. + +As Miriam and Donatello emerged from among the trees, the musicians +scraped, tinkled, or blew, each according to his various kind of +instrument, more inspiringly than ever. A darkchecked little girl, with +bright black eyes, stood by, shaking a tambourine set round with tinkling +bells, and thumping it on its parchment head. Without interrupting his +brisk, though measured movement, Donatello snatched away this unmelodious +contrivance, and, flourishing it above his head, produced music of +indescribable potency, still dancing with frisky step, and striking the +tambourine, and ringing its little bells, all in one jovial act. + +It might be that there was magic in the sound, or contagion, at least, in +the spirit which had got possession of Miriam and himself, for very soon a +number of festal people were drawn to the spot, and struck into the dance, +singly or in pairs, as if they were all gone mad with jollity. Among them +were some of the plebeian damsels whom we meet bareheaded in the Roman +streets, with silver stilettos thrust through their glossy hair; the +contadinas, too, from the Campagna and the villages, with their rich and +picturesque costumes of scarlet and all bright hues, such as fairer +maidens might not venture to put on. Then came the modern Roman from +Trastevere, perchance, with his old cloak drawn about him like a toga, +which anon, as his active motion heated him, he flung aside. Three French +soldiers capered freely into the throng, in wide scarlet trousers, their +short swords dangling at their sides; and three German artists in gray +flaccid hats and flaunting beards; and one of the Pope's Swiss guardsmen +in the strange motley garb which Michael Angelo contrived for them. Two +young English tourists (one of them a lord) took contadine partners and +dashed in, as did also a shaggy man in goat-skin breeches, who looked like +rustic Pan in person, and footed it as merrily as he. Besides the above +there was a herdsman or two from the Campagna, and a few peasants in +sky-blue jackets, and small-clothes tied with ribbons at the knees; +haggard and sallow were these last, poor serfs, having little to eat and +nothing but the malaria to breathe; but still they plucked up a momentary +spirit and joined hands in Donatello's dance. + +Here, as it seemed, had the Golden Age come back again within the +Precincts of this sunny glade, thawing mankind out of their cold +formalities, releasing them from irksome restraint, mingling them together +in such childlike gayety that new flowers (of which the old bosom of the +earth is full) sprang up beneath their footsteps. The sole exception to +the geniality of the moment, as we have understood, was seen in a +countryman of our own, who sneered at the spectacle, and declined to +compromise his dignity by making part of it. + +The harper thrummed with rapid fingers; the violin player flashed his bow +back and forth across the strings; the flautist poured his breath in quick +puffs of jollity, while Donatello shook the tambourine above his head, and +led the merry throng with unweariable steps. As they followed one another +in a wild ring of mirth, it seemed the realization of one of those +bas-reliefs where a dance of nymphs, satyrs, or bacchanals is twined +around the circle of an antique vase; or it was like the sculptured scene +on the front and sides of a sarcophagus, where, as often as any other +device, a festive procession mocks the ashes and white bones that are +treasured up within. You might take it for a marriage pageant; but after +a while, if you look at these merry-makers, following them from end to end +of the marble coffin, you doubt whether their gay movement is leading them +to a happy close. A youth has suddenly fallen in the dance; a chariot is +overturned and broken, flinging the charioteer headlong to the ground; a +maiden seems to have grown faint or weary, and is drooping on the bosom of +a friend. Always some tragic incident is shadowed forth or thrust +sidelong into the spectacle; and when once it has caught your eye you can +look no more at the festal portions of the scene, except with reference to +this one slightly suggested doom and sorrow. + +As in its mirth, so in the darker characteristic here alluded to, there +was an analogy between the sculptured scene on the sarcophagus and the +wild dance which we have been describing. In the midst of its madness and +riot Miriam found herself suddenly confronted by a strange figure that +shook its fantastic garments in the air, and pranced before her on its +tiptoes, almost vying with the agility of Donatello himself. It was the +model. + +A moment afterwards Donatello was aware that she had retired from the +dance. He hastened towards her, and flung himself on the grass beside the +stone bench on which Miriam was sitting. But a strange distance and +unapproachableness had all at once enveloped her; and though he saw her +within reach of his arm, yet the light of her eyes seemed as far off as +that of a star, nor was there any warmth in the melancholy smile with +which she regarded him. + +"Come back!" cried he. "Why should this happy hour end so soon?" + +"It must end here, Donatello," said she, in answer to his words and +outstretched hand; "and such hours, I believe, do not often repeat +themselves in a lifetime. Let me go, my friend; let me vanish from you +quietly among the shadows of these trees. See, the companions of our +pastime are vanishing already!" + +Whether it was that the harp-strings were broken, the violin out of tune, +or the flautist out of breath, so it chanced that the music had ceased, +and the dancers come abruptly to a pause. All that motley throng of +rioters was dissolved as suddenly as it had been drawn together. In +Miriam's remembrance the scene had a character of fantasy. It was as if a +company of satyrs, fauns, and nymphs, with Pan in the midst of them, had +been disporting themselves in these venerable woods only a moment ago; and +now in another moment, because some profane eye had looked at them too +closely, or some intruder had cast a shadow on their mirth, the sylvan +pageant had utterly disappeared. If a few of the merry-makers lingered +among the trees, they had hidden their racy peculiarities under the garb +and aspect of ordinary people, and sheltered themselves in the weary +commonplace of daily life. Just an instant before it was Arcadia and the +Golden Age. The spell being broken, it was now only that old tract of +pleasure ground, close by the people's gat:e of Rome,--a tract where the +crimes and calamities of ages, the many battles, blood recklessly poured +out, and deaths of myriads, have corrupted all the soil, creating an +influence that makes the air deadly to human lungs. + +"You must leave me," said Miriam to Donatello more imperatively than +before; "have I not said it? Go; and look not behind you." + +"Miriam," whispered Donatello, grasping her hand forcibly, "who is it that +stands in the shadow yonder, beckoning you to follow him?" + +"Hush; leave me!" repeated Miriam. "Your hour is past; his hour has +come." + +Donatello still gazed in the direction which he had indicated, and the +expression of his face was fearfully changed, being so disordered, perhaps +with terror,--at all events with anger and invincible repugnance,--that +Miriam hardly knew him. His lips were drawn apart so as to disclose his +set teeth, thus giving him a look of animal rage, which we seldom see +except in persons of the simplest and rudest natures. A shudder seemed to +pass through his very bones. + +"I hate him!" muttered he. + +"Be satisfied; I hate him too!" said Miriam. + +She had no thought of making this avowal, but was irresistibly drawn to it +by the sympathy of the dark emotion in her own breast with that so +strongly expressed by Donatello. Two drops of water or of blood do not +more naturally flow into each other than did her hatred into his. + +"Shall I clutch him by the throat?" whispered Donatello, with a savage +scowl. "Bid me do so, and we are rid of him forever." + +"In Heaven's name, no violence!" exclaimed Miriam, affrighted out of the +scornful control which she had hitherto held over her companion, by the +fierceness that he so suddenly developed. "O, have pity on me, Donatello, +if for nothing else, yet because in the midst of my wretchedness I let +myself be your playmate for this one wild hour! Follow me no farther. +Henceforth leave me to my doom. Dear friend,--kind, simple, loving +friend,--make me not more wretched by the remembrance of having thrown +fierce hates or loves into the wellspring of your happy life!" + +"Not follow you!" repeated Donatello, soothed from anger into sorrow, +less by the purport of what she said, than by the melancholy sweetness of +her voice,--"not follow you! What other path have I?" + +"We will talk of it once again," said Miriam still soothingly; +"soon--to-morrow when you will; only leave me now." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES + + +In the Borghese Grove, so recently uproarious with merriment and music, +there remained only Miriam and her strange follower. + +A solitude had suddenly spread itself around them. It perhaps symbolized +a peculiar character in the relation of these two, insulating them, and +building up an insuperable barrier between their life-streams and other +currents, which might seem to flow in close vicinity. For it is one of +the chief earthly incommodities of some species of misfortune, or of a +great crime, that it makes the actor in the one, or the sufferer of the +other, an alien in the world, by interposing a wholly unsympathetic medium +betwixt himself and those whom he yearns to meet. + +Owing, it may be, to this moral estrangement,--this chill remoteness of +their position,--there have come to us but a few vague whisperings of what +passed in Miriam's interview that afternoon with the sinister personage +who had dogged her footsteps ever since the visit to the catacomb. In +weaving these mystic utterances into a continuous scene, we undertake a +task resembling in its perplexity that of gathering up and piecing +together the fragments ora letter which has been torn and scattered to the +winds. Many words of deep significance, many entire sentences, and those +possibly the most important ones, have flown too far on the winged breeze +to be recovered. If we insert our own conjectural amendments, we perhaps +give a purport utterly at variance with the true one. Yet unless we +attempt something in this way, there must remain an unsightly gap, and a +lack of continuousness and dependence in our narrative; so that it would +arrive at certain inevitable catastrophes without due warning of their +imminence. + +Of so much we are sure, that there seemed to be a sadly mysterious +fascination in the influence of this ill-omened person over Miriam; it was +such as beasts and reptiles of subtle and evil nature sometimes exercise +upon their victims. Marvellous it was to see the hopelessness with which +being naturally of so courageous a spirit she resigned herself to the +thraldom in which he held her. That iron chain, of which some of the +massive links were round her feminine waist, and the others in his +ruthless hand,--or which, perhaps, bound the pair together by a bond +equally torturing to each,--must have been forged in some such unhallowed +furnace as is only kindled by evil passions, and fed by evil deeds. + +Yet, let us trust, there may have been no crime in Miriam, but only one of +those fatalities which are among the most insoluble riddles propounded to +mortal comprehension; the fatal decree by which every crime is made to be +the agony of many innocent persons, as well as of the single guilty one. + +It was, at any rate, but a feeble and despairing kind of remonstrance +which she had now the energy to oppose against his persecution. + +"You follow me too closely," she said, in low, faltering accents; "you +allow me too scanty room to draw my breath. Do you know what will be the +end of this?" "I know well what must be the end," he replied. + +"Tell me, then," said Miriam, "that I may compare your foreboding with my +own. Mine is a very dark one." + +"There can be but one result, and that soon," answered the model. "You +must throw off your present mask and assume another. You must vanish out +of the scene: quit Rome with me, and leave no trace whereby to follow you. +It is in my power, as you well know, to compel your acquiescence in my +bidding. You are aware of the penalty of a refusal." + +"Not that penalty with which you would terrify me," said Miriam; "another +there may be, but not so grievous." "What is that other?" he inquired. +"Death! simply death!" she answered. "Death," said her persecutor, "is +not so simple and opportune a thing as you imagine. You are strong and +warm with life. Sensitive and irritable as your spirit is, these many +months of trouble, this latter thraldom in which I hold you, have scarcely +made your cheek paler than I saw it in your girlhood. Miriam,--for I +forbear to speak another name, at which these leaves would shiver above +our heads,--Miriam, you cannot die!" + +"Might not a dagger find my heart?" said she, for the first time meeting +his eyes. "Would not poison make an end of me? Will not the Tiber drown +me?" + +"It might," he answered; "for I allow that you are mortal. But, Miriam, +believe me, it is not your fate to die while there remains so much to be +sinned and suffered in the world. We have a destiny which we must needs +fulfil together. I, too, have struggled to escape it. I was as anxious +as yourself to break the tie between us,--to bury the past in a fathomless +grave,--to make it impossible that we should ever meet, until you confront +me at the bar of Judgment! You little can imagine what steps I took to +render all this secure; and what was the result? Our strange interview in +the bowels of the earth convinced me of the futility of my design." + +"Ah, fatal chance!" cried Miriam, covering her face with her hands. + +"Yes, your heart trembled with horror when you recognized me," rejoined he; +"but you did not guess that there was an equal horror in my own!" + +"Why would not the weight of earth above our heads have crumbled down upon +us both, forcing us apart, but burying us equally?" cried Miriam, in a +burst of vehement passion. "O, that we could have wandered in those +dismal passages till we both perished, taking opposite paths in the +darkness, so that when we lay down to die, our last.breaths might not +mingle!" + +"It were vain to wish it," said the model. "In all that labyrinth of +midnight paths, we should have found one another out to live or die +together. Our fates cross and are entangled. The threads are twisted +into a strong cord, which is dragging us to an evil doom. Could the knots +be severed, we might escape. But neither can your slender fingers untie +these knots, nor my masculine force break them. We must submit!" + +"Pray for rescue, as I have," exclaimed Miriam. "Pray for deliverance +from me, since I am your evil genius, as you mine. Dark as your life has +been, I have known you to pray in times past!" + +At these words of Miriam, a tremor and horror appeared to seize upon her +persecutor, insomuch that he shook and grew ashy pale before her eyes. In +this man's memory there was something that made it awful for him to think +of prayer; nor would any torture be more intolerable than to be reminded +of such divine comfort and succor as await pious souls merely for the +asking; This torment was perhaps the token of a native temperament deeply +susceptible of religious impressions, but which had been wronged, violated, +and debased, until, at length, it was capable only of terror from the +sources that were intended for our purest and loftiest consolation. He +looked so fearfully at her, and with such intense pain struggling in his +eyes, that Miriam felt pity. + +And now, all at once, it struck her that he might be mad. It was an idea +that had never before seriously occurred to her mind, although, as soon as +suggested, it fitted marvellously into many circumstances that lay within +her knowledge. But, alas! such was her evil fortune, that, whether mad +or no, his power over her remained the same, and was likely to be used +only the more tyrannously, if exercised by a lunatic. + +I would not give you pain," she said, soothingly; "your faith allows you +the consolations of penance and absolution. Try what help there may be in +these, and leave me to myself." + +"Do not think it, Miriam," said he; "we are bound together, and can never +part again." "Why should it seem so impossible?" she rejoined. "Think +how I had escaped from all the past! I had made for myself a new sphere, +and found new friends, new occupations, new hopes and enjoyments. My +heart, methinks, was almost as unburdened as if there had been no +miserable life behind me. The human spirit does not perish of a single +wound, nor exhaust itself in a single trial of life. Let us but keep +asunder, and all may go well for both." "We fancied ourselves forever +sundered," he replied. "Yet we met once, in the bowels of the earth; and, +were we to part now, our fates would fling us together again in a desert, +on a mountain-top, or in whatever spot seemed safest. You speak in vain, +therefore." + +"You mistake your own will for an iron necessity," said Miriam; "otherwise, +you might have suffered me to glide past you like a ghost, when we met +among those ghosts of ancient days. Even now you might bid me pass as +freely." + +"Never!" said he, with unmitigable will; "your reappearance has destroyed +the work of years. You know the power that I have over you. Obey my +bidding; or, within a short time, it shall be exercised: nor will I cease +to haunt you till the moment comes." + +"Then," said Miriam more calmly," I foresee the end, and have already +warned you of it. It will be death!" + +"Your own death, Miriam,--or mine?" he asked, looking fixedly at her. + +"Do you imagine me a murderess?" said she, shuddering; "you, at least, +have no right to think me so!" + +"Yet," rejoined he, with a glance of dark meaning, "men have said that +this white hand had once a crimson stain." He took her hand as he spoke, +and held it in his own, in spite of the repugnance, amounting to nothing +short of agony, with which she struggled to regain it. Holding it up to +the fading light (for there was already dimness among the trees), he +appeared to examine it closely, as if to discover the imaginary +blood-stain with which he taunted her. He smiled as he let it go. "It +looks very white," said he; "but I have known hands as white, which all +the water in the ocean would not have washed clean." + +"It had no stain," retorted Miriam bitterly, "until you grasped it in your +own." + +The wind has blown away whatever else they may have spoken. + +They went together towards the town, and, on their way, continued to make +reference, no doubt, to some strange and dreadful history of their former +life, belonging equally to this dark man and to the fair and youthful +woman whom he persecuted. In their words, or in the breath that uttered +them, there seemed to be an odor of guilt, and a scent of blood. Yet, how +can we imagine that a stain of ensanguined crime should attach to Miriam! +Or how, on the other hand, should spotless innocence be subjected to a +thraldom like that which she endured from the spectre, whom she herself +had evoked out of the darkness! Be this as it might, Miriam, we have +reason to believe, still continued to beseech him, humbly, passionately, +wildly, only to go his way, and leave her free to follow her own sad path. + +Thus they strayed onward through the green wilderness of the Borghese +grounds, and soon came near the city wall, where, had Miriam raised her +eyes, she might have seen Hilda and the sculptor leaning on the parapet. +But she walked in a mist of trouble, and could distinguish little beyond +its limits. As they came within public observation, her persecutor fell +behind, throwing off the imperious manner which he had assumed during +their solitary interview. The Porta del Popolo swarmed with life. The +merry-makers, who had spent the feast-day outside the walls, were now +thronging in; a party of horsemen were entering beneath the arch; a +travelling carriage had been drawn up just within the verge, and was +passing through the villainous ordeal of the papal custom-house. In the +broad piazza, too, there was a motley crowd. + +But the stream of Miriam's trouble kept its way through this flood of +human life, and neither mingled with it nor was turned aside. With a sad +kind of feminine ingenuity, she found a way to kneel before her tyrant +undetected, though in full sight of all the people, still beseeching him +for freedom, and in vain. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN + + +Hilda, after giving the last touches to the picture of Beatrice Cenci, had +flown down from her dove-cote, late in the afternoon, and gone to the +Pincian Hill, in the hope of hearing a strain or two of exhilarating music. +There, as it happened, she met the sculptor, for, to say the truth, +Kenyon had well noted the fair artist's ordinary way of life, and was +accustomed to shape his own movements so as to bring him often within her +sphere. + +The Pincian Hill is the favorite promenade of the Roman aristocracy. At +the present day, however, like most other Roman possessions, it belongs +less to the native inhabitants than to the barbarians from Gaul, Great +Britain, anti beyond the sea, who have established a peaceful usurpation +over whatever is enjoyable or memorable in the Eternal City. These +foreign guests are indeed ungrateful, if they do not breathe a prayer for +Pope Clement, or whatever Holy Father it may have been, who levelled the +summit of the mount so skilfully, and bounded it with the parapet of the +city wall; who laid out those broad walks and drives, and overhung them +with the deepening shade of many kinds of tree; who scattered the flowers, +of all seasons and of every clime, abundantly over those green, central +lawns; who scooped out hollows in fit places, and, setting great basins of +marble in them, caused ever-gushing fountains to fill them to the brim; +who reared up the immemorial obelisk out of the soil that had long hidden +it; who placed pedestals along the borders of the avenues, and crowned +them with busts of that multitude of worthies--statesmen, heroes, artists, +men of letters and of song--whom the whole world claims as its chief +ornaments, though Italy produced them all. In a word, the Pincian garden +is one of the things that reconcile the stranger (since he fully +appreciates the enjoyment, and feels nothing of the cost) to the rule of +an irresponsible dynasty of Holy Fathers, who seem to have aimed at making +life as agreeable an affair as it can well be. + +In this pleasant spot, the red-trousered French soldiers are always to be +seen; bearded and grizzled veterans, perhaps with medals of Algiers or the +Crimea on their breasts. To them is assigned the peaceful duty of seeing +that children do not trample on the flower beds, nor any youthful lover +rifle them of their fragrant blossoms to stick in the beloved one's hair. +Here sits (drooping upon some marble bench, in the treacherous sunshine) +the consumptive girl, whose friends have brought her, for cure, to a +climate that instils poison into its very purest breath. Here, all day, +come nursery-maids, burdened with rosy English babies, or guiding the +footsteps of little travellers from the far Western world. Here, in the +sunny afternoons, roll and rumble all kinds of equipages, from the +cardinal's old-fashioned and gorgeous purple carriage to the gay barouche +of modern date. Here horsemen gallop on thoroughbred steeds. Here, in +short, all the transitory population of Rome, the world's great +watering-place, rides, drives, or promenades! Here are beautiful sunsets; +and here, whichever way you turn your eyes, are scenes as well worth +gazing at, both in themselves and for their historic interest, as any that +the sun ever rose and set upon. Here, too, on certain afternoons of the +week, a French military band flings out rich music over the poor old city, +floating her with strains as loud as those of her own echoless triumphs. + +Hilda and the sculptor (by the contrivance of the latter, who loved best +to be alone with his young countrywoman) had wandered beyond the throng of +promenaders, whom they left in a dense cluster around the music. They +strayed, indeed, to the farthest point of the Pincian Hill, and leaned +over the parapet, looking down upon the Muro Torto, a massive fragment of +the oldest Roman wall, which juts over, as if ready to tumble down by its +own weight, yet seems still the most indestructible piece of work that +men's hands ever piled together. In the blue distance rose Soracte, and +other heights, which have gleamed afar, to our imaginations, but look +scarcely real to our bodily eyes, because, being dreamed about so much, +they have taken the aerial tints which belong only to a dream. These, +nevertheless, are the solid framework of hills that shut in Rome, and its +wide surrounding Campagna,--no land of dreams, but the broadest page of +history, crowded so full with memorable events that one obliterates +another; as if Time had crossed and recrossed his own records till they +grew illegible. + +But, not to meddle with history,--with which our narrative is no otherwise +concerned, than that the very dust of Rome is historic, and inevitably +settles on our page and mingles with our ink,--we will return to our two +friends, who were still leaning over the wall. Beneath them lay the broad +sweep of the Borghese grounds, covered with trees, amid which appeared the +white gleam of pillars and statues, and the flash of an upspringing +fountain, all to be overshadowed at a later period of the year by the +thicker growth of foliage. + +The advance of vegetation, in this softer climate, is less abrupt than the +inhabitant of the cold North is accustomed to observe. Beginning earlier, +--even in February,--Spring is not compelled to burst into Summer with +such headlong haste; there is time to dwell upon each opening beauty, and +to enjoy the budding leaf, the tender green, the sweet youth and freshness +of the year; it gives us its. maiden charm, before, settling into the +married Summer, which, again, does not so soon sober itself into matronly +Autumn. In our own country, the virgin Spring hastens to its bridal too +abruptly. But here, after a month or two of kindly growth, the leaves of +the young trees, which cover that portion of the Borghese grounds nearest +the city wall, were still in their tender halfdevelopment. + +In the remoter depths, among the old groves of ilex-trees, Hilda and +Kenyon heard the faint sound of music, laughter, and mingling voices. It +was probably the uproar--spreading even so far as the walls of Rome, and +growing faded and melancholy in its passage--of that wild sylvan merriment, +which we have already attempted to describe. By and by it +ceased--although the two listeners still tried to distinguish it between +the bursts of nearer music from the military band. But there was no +renewal of that distant mirth. Soon afterwards they saw a solitary figure +advancing along one of the paths that lead from the obscurer part of the +ground towards the gateway. + +"Look! is it not Donatello?" said Hilda. + +"He it is, beyond a doubt," replied the sculptor. "But how gravely he +walks, and with what long looks behind him! He seems either very weary, +or very sad. I should not hesitate to call it sadness, if Donatello were +a creature capable of the sin and folly of low spirits. In all these +hundred paces, while we have been watching him, he has not made one of +those little caprioles in the air which are characteristic of his natural +gait. I begin to doubt whether he is a veritable Faun." + +"Then," said Hilda, with perfect simplicity, "you have thought him--and do +think him--one of that strange, wild, happy race of creatures, that used +to laugh and sport in the woods, in the old, old times? So do I, indeed! +But I never quite believed, till now, that fauns existed anywhere but in +poetry." + +The sculptor at first merely smiled. Then, as the idea took further +possession of his mind, he laughed outright, and wished from the bottom of +his heart (being in love with Hilda, though he had never told her so) that +he could have rewarded or punished her for its pretty absurdity with a +kiss. + +"O Hilda, what a treasure of sweet faith and pure imagination you hide +under that little straw hat!" cried he, at length. "A Faun! a Faun! +Great Pan is not dead, then, after all! The whole tribe of mythical +creatures yet live in the moonlit seclusion of a young girl's fancy, and +find it a lovelier abode and play-place, I doubt not, than their Arcadian +haunts of yore. What bliss, if a man of marble, like myself, could stray +thither, too!" + +"Why do you laugh so?" asked Hilda, reddening; for she was a little +disturbed at Kenyon's ridicule, however kindly expressed. "What can I +have said, that you think so very foolish?" + +"Well, not foolish, then," rejoined the sculptor, "but wiser, it may be, +than I can fathom. Really, however, the idea does strike one as +delightfully fresh, when we consider Donatello's position and external +environment. Why, my dear Hilda, he is a Tuscan born, of an old noble +race in that part of Italy; and he has a moss-grown tower among the +Apennines, where he and his forefathers have dwelt, under their own vines +and fig-trees, from an unknown antiquity. His boyish passion for Miriam +has introduced him familiarly to our little circle; and our republican and +artistic simplicity of intercourse has included this young Italian, on the +same terms as one of ourselves. But, if we paid due respect to rank and +title, we should bend reverentially to Donatello, and salute him as his +Excellency the Count di Monte Beni." + +"That is a droll idea, much droller than his being a Faun!" said Hilda, +laughing in her turn. "This does not quite satisfy me, however, +especially as you yourself recognized and acknowledged his wonderful +resemblance to the statue." + +"Except as regards the pointed ears," said Kenyon; adding, aside, "and one +other little peculiarity, generally observable in the statues of fauns." + +"As for his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni's ears," replied Hilda, +smiling again at the dignity with which this title invested their playful +friend, "you know we could never see their shape, on account of his +clustering curls. Nay, I remember, he once started back, as shyly as a +wild deer, when Miriam made a pretence of examining them. How do you +explain that?" + +"O, I certainly shall not contend against such a weight of evidence, the +fact of his faunship being otherwise so probable," answered the sculptor, +still hardly retaining his gravity. "Faun or not, Donatello or the Count +di Monte Beni--is a singularly wild creature, and, as I have remarked on +other occasions, though very gentle, does not love to be touched. +Speaking in no harsh sense, there is a great deal of animal nature in him, +as if he had been born in the woods, and had run wild all his childhood, +and were as yet but imperfectly domesticated. Life, even in our day, is +very simple and unsophisticated in some of the shaggy nooks of the +Apennines." + +"It annoys me very much," said Hilda, "this inclination, which most people +have, to explain away the wonder and the mystery out of everything. Why +could not you allow me--and yourself, too--the satisfaction of thinking +him a Faun?" + +"Pray keep your belief, dear Hilda, if it makes you any happier," said the +sculptor; "and I shall do my best to become a convert. Donatello has +asked me to spend the summer with him, in his ancestral tower, where I +purpose investigating the pedigree of these sylvan counts, his forefathers; +and if their shadows beckon me into dreamland, I shall willingly follow. +By the bye, speaking of Donatello, there is a point on which I should like +to be enlightened." + +"Can I help you, then?" said Hilda, in answer to his look. + +"Is there the slightest chance of his winning Miriam's affections?" +suggested Kenyon. + +"Miriam! she, so accomplished and gifted!" exclaimed Hilda; "and he, a +rude, uncultivated boy! No, no, no!" + +"It would seem impossible," said the sculptor. "But, on the other hand, a +gifted woman flings away her affections so unaccountably, sometimes! +Miriam of late has been very morbid and miserable, as we both know. Young +as she is, the morning light seems already to have faded out of her life; +and now comes Donatello, with natural sunshine enough for himself and her, +and offers her the opportunity of making her heart and life all new and +cheery again. People of high intellectual endowments do not require +similar ones in those they love. They are just the persons to appreciate +the wholesome gush of natural feeling, the honest affection, the simple +joy, the fulness of contentment with what he loves, which Miriam sees in +Donatello. True; she may call him a simpleton. It is a necessity of the +case; for a man loses the capacity for this kind of affection, in +proportion as he cultivates and refines himself." + +"Dear me!" said Hilda, drawing imperceptibly away from her companion. +"Is this the penalty of refinement? Pardon me; I do not believe it. It +is because you are a sculptor, that you think nothing can be finely +wrought except it be cold and hard, like the marble in which your ideas +take shape. I am a painter, and know that the most delicate beauty may be +softened and warmed throughout." + +"I said a foolish thing, indeed," answered the sculptor. "It surprises me, +for I might have drawn a wiser knowledge out of my own experience. It is +the surest test of genuine love, that it brings back our early simplicity +to the worldliest of us." + +Thus talking, they loitered slowly along beside the parapet which borders +the level summit of the Pincian with its irregular sweep. At intervals +they looked through the lattice-work of their thoughts at the varied +prospects that lay before and beneath them. + +From the terrace where they now stood there is an abrupt descent towards +the Piazza del Popolo; and looking down into its broad space they beheld +the tall palatial edifices, the church domes, and the ornamented gateway, +which grew and were consolidated out of the thought of Michael Angelo. +They saw, too, the red granite obelisk, oldest of things, even in Rome, +which rises in the centre of the piazza, with a fourfold fountain at its +base. All Roman works and ruins (whether of the empire, the far-off +republic, or the still more distant kings) assume a transient, visionary, +and impalpable character when we think that this indestructible monument +supplied one of the recollections which Moses and the Israelites bore from +Egypt into the desert. Perchance, on beholding the cloudy pillar and the +fiery column, they whispered awestricken to one another, "In its shape it +is like that old obelisk which we and our fathers have so often seen on +the borders of the Nile." And now that very obelisk, with hardly a trace +of decay upon it, is the first thing that the modern traveller sees after +entering the Flaminian Gate! + +Lifting their eyes, Hilda and her companion gazed westward, and saw beyond +the invisible Tiber the Castle of St. Angelo; that immense tomb of a pagan +emperor, with the archangel at its summit. + +Still farther off appeared a mighty pile of buildings, surmounted by the +vast dome, which all of us have shaped and swelled outward, like a huge +bubble, to the utmost Scope of our imaginations, long before we see it +floating over the worship of the city. It may be most worthily seen from +precisely the point where our two friends were now standing. At any +nearer view the grandeur of St. Peter's hides itself behind the immensity +of its separate parts,--so that we see only the front, only the sides, +only the pillared length and loftiness of the portico, and not the mighty +whole. But at this distance the entire outline of the world's cathedral, +as well as that of the palace of the world's chief priest, is taken in at +once. In such remoteness, moreover, the imagination is not debarred from +lending its assistance, even while we have the reality before our eyes, +and helping the weakness of human sense to do justice to so grand an +object. It requires both faith and fancy to enable us to feel, what is +nevertheless so true, that yonder, in front of the purple outline of hills, +is the grandest edifice ever built by man, painted against God's +loveliest sky. + +After contemplating a little while a scene which their long residence in +Rome had made familiar to them, Kenyon and Hilda again let their glances +fall into the piazza at their feet. They there beheld Miriam, who had +just entered the Porta del Popolo, and was standing by the obelisk and +fountain. With a gesture that impressed Kenyon as at once suppliant and +imperious, she seemed to intimate to a figure which had attended her thus +far, that it was now her desire to be left alone. The pertinacious model, +however, remained immovable. + +And the sculptor here noted a circumstance, which, according to the +interpretation he might put upon it, was either too trivial to be +mentioned, or else so mysteriously significant that he found it difficult +to believe his eyes. Miriam knelt down on the steps of the fountain; so +far there could be no question of the fact. To other observers, if any +there were, she probably appeared to take this attitude merely for the +convenience of dipping her fingers into the gush of water from the mouth +of one of the stone lions. But as she clasped her hands together after +thus bathing them, and glanced upward at the model, an idea took strong +possession of Kenyon's mind that Miriam was kneeling to this dark follower +there in the world's face! + +"Do you see it?" he said to Hilda. + +"See what?" asked she, surprised at the emotion of his tone. "I see +Miriam, who has just bathed her hands in that delightfully cool water. I +often dip my fingers into a Roman fountain, and think of the brook that +used to be one of my playmates in my New England village." + +"I fancied I saw something else," said Kenyon; "but it was doubtless a +mistake." + +But, allowing that he had caught a true glimpse into the hidden +significance of Miriam's gesture, what a terrible thraldom did it suggest! +Free as she seemed to be,--beggar as he looked,--the nameless vagrant +must then be dragging the beautiful Miriam through the streets of Rome, +fettered and shackled more cruelly than any captive queen of yore +following in an emperor's triumph. And was it conceivable that she would +have been thus enthralled unless some great error--how great Kenyon dared +not think--or some fatal weakness had given this dark adversary a vantage +ground? + +"Hilda," said he abruptly, "who and what is Miriam? Pardon me; but are +you sure of her?" + +"Sure of her!" repeated Hilda, with an angry blush, for her friend's sake. +"I am sure that she is kind, good, and generous; a true and faithful +friend, whom I love dearly, and who loves me as well! What more than this +need I be sure of?" + +"And your delicate instincts say all this in her favor?--nothing against +her?" continued the sculptor, without heeding the irritation of Hilda's +tone. "These are my own impressions, too. But she is such a mystery! We +do not even know whether she is a countrywoman of ours, or an Englishwoman, +or a German. There is Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins, one would say, and +a right English accent on her tongue, but much that is not English +breeding, nor American. Nowhere else but in Rome, and as an artist, could +she hold a place in society without giving some clew to her past life." + +"I love her dearly," said Hilda, still with displeasure in her tone, "and +trust her most entirely." + +"My heart trusts her at least, whatever my head may do," replied Kenyon; +"and Rome is not like one of our New England villages, where we need the +permission of each individual neighbor for every act that we do, every +word that we utter, and every friend that we make or keep. In these +particulars the papal despotism allows us freer breath than our native air; +and if we like to take generous views of our associates, we can do so, to +a reasonable extent, without ruining ourselves." + +"The music has ceased," said Hilda; "I am going now." + +There are three streets that, beginning close beside each other, diverge +from the Piazza del Popolo towards the heart of Rome: on the left, the Via +del Babuino; on the right, the Via della Ripetta; and between these two +that worldfamous avenue, the Corso. It appeared that Miriam and her +strange companion were passing up the first mentioned of these three, and +were soon hidden from Hilda and the sculptor. + +The two latter left the Pincian by the broad and stately walk that skirts +along its brow. Beneath them, from the base of the abrupt descent, the +city spread wide away in a close contiguity of red-earthen roofs, above +which rose eminent the domes of a hundred churches, beside here and there +a tower, and the upper windows of some taller or higher situated palace, +looking down on a multitude of palatial abodes. At a distance, ascending +out of the central mass of edifices, they could see the top of the +Antonine column, and near it the circular roof of the Pantheon looking +heavenward with its ever-open eye. + +Except these two objects, almost everything that they beheld was mediaeval, +though built, indeed, of the massive old stones and indestructible bricks +of imperial Rome; for the ruins of the Coliseum, the Golden House, and +innumerable temples of Roman gods, and mansions of Caesars and senators, +had supplied the material for all those gigantic hovels, and their walls +were cemented with mortar of inestimable cost, being made of precious +antique statues, burnt long ago for this petty purpose. + +Rome, as it now exists, has grown up under the Popes, and seems like +nothing but a heap of broken rubbish, thrown into the great chasm between +our own days and the Empire, merely to fill it up; and, for the better +part of two thousand years, its annals of obscure policies, and wars, and +continually recurring misfortunes, seem also but broken rubbish, as +compared with its classic history. + +If we consider the present city as at all connected with the famous one of +old, it is only because we find it built over its grave. A depth of +thirty feet of soil has covered up the Rome of ancient days, so that it +lies like the dead corpse of a giant, decaying for centuries, with no +survivor mighty enough even to bury it, until the dust of all those years +has gathered slowly over its recumbent form and made a casual sepulchre. + +We know not how to characterize, in any accordant and compatible terms, +the Rome that lies before us; its sunless alleys, and streets of palaces; +its churches, lined with the gorgeous marbles that were originally +polished for the adornment of pagan temples; its thousands of evil smells, +mixed up with fragrance of rich incense, diffused from as many censers; +its little life, deriving feeble nutriment from what has long been dead. +Everywhere, some fragment of ruin suggesting the magnificence of a former +epoch; everywhere, moreover, a Cross,--and nastiness at the foot of it. +As the sum of all, there are recollections that kindle the soul, and a +gloom and languor that depress it beyond any depth of melancholic +sentiment that can be elsewhere known. + +Yet how is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential word of Rome? +The city of ail time, and of all the world! The spot for which man's +great life and deeds have done so much, and for which decay has done +whatever glory and dominion could not do! At this moment, the evening +sunshine is flinging its golden mantle over it, making all that we thought +mean magnificent; the bells of all the churches suddenly ring out, as if +it were a peal of triumph because Rome is still imperial. + +"I sometimes fancy," said Hilda, on whose susceptibility the scene always +made a strong impression, "that Rome--mere Rome--will crowd everything +else out of my heart." + +"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated the sculptor. They had now reached the +grand stairs that ascend from the Piazza di Spagna to the hither brow of +the Pincian Hill. Old Beppo, the millionnaire of his ragged fraternity, +it is a wonder that no artist paints him as the cripple whom St. Peter +heals at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,--was just mounting his donkey +to depart, laden with the rich spoil of the day's beggary. + +Up the stairs, drawing his tattered cloak about his face, came the model, +at whom Beppo looked askance, jealous of an encroacher on his rightful +domain. The figure passed away, however, up the Via Sistina. In the +piazza below, near the foot of the magnificent steps, stood Miriam, with +her eyes bent on the ground, as if she were counting those little, square, +uncomfortable paving-stones, that make it a penitential pilgrimage to walk +in Rome. She kept this attitude for several minutes, and when, at last, +the importunities of a beggar disturbed her from it, she seemed bewildered +and pressed her hand upon her brow. + +"She has been in some sad dream or other, poor thing!" said Kenyon +sympathizingly; "and even now she is imprisoned there in a kind of cage, +the iron bars of which are made of her own thoughts." + +"I fear she is not well," said Hilda. "I am going down the stairs, and +will join Miriam." + +"Farewell, then," said the sculptor. "Dear Hilda, this is a perplexed and +troubled world! It soothes me inexpressibly to think of you in your tower, +with white doves and white thoughts for your companions, so high above us +all, and With the Virgin for your household friend. You know not how far +it throws its light, that lamp which you keep burning at her shrine! I +passed beneath the tower last night, and the ray cheered me, because you +lighted it." + +"It has for me a religious significance," replied Hilda quietly, "and yet +I am no Catholic." + +They parted, and Kenyon made haste along the Via Sistina, in the hope of +overtaking the model, whose haunts and character he was anxious to +investigate, for Miriam's sake. He fancied that he saw him a long way in +advance, but before he reached the Fountain of the Triton the dusky figure +had vanished. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO + + +About this period, Miriam seems to have been goaded by a weary +restlessness that drove her abroad on any errand or none. She went one +morning to visit Kenyon in his studio, whither he had invited her to see a +new statue, on which he had staked many hopes, and which was now almost +completed in the clay. Next to Hilda, the person for whom Miriam felt +most affection and confidence was Kenyon; and in all the difficulties that +beset her life, it was her impulse to draw near Hilda for feminine +sympathy, and the sculptor for brotherly counsel. + +Yet it was to little purpose that she approached the edge of the voiceless +gulf between herself and them. Standing on the utmost verge of that dark +chasm, she might stretch out her hand, and never clasp a hand of theirs; +she might strive to call out, "Help, friends! help!" but, as with +dreamers when they shout, her voice would perish inaudibly in the +remoteness that seemed such a little way. This perception of an infinite, +shivering solitude, amid which we cannot come close enough to human beings +to be warmed by them, and where they turn to cold, chilly shapes of mist, +is one of the most forlorn results of any accident, misfortune, crime, or +peculiarity of character, that puts an individual ajar with the world. +Very often, as in Miriam's case, there is an insatiable instinct that +demands friendship, love, and intimate communion, but is forced to pine in +empty forms; a hunger of the heart, which finds only shadows to feed upon. + +Kenyon's studio was in a cross-street, or, rather, an ugly and dirty +little lane, between the Corso and the Via della Ripetta; and though chill, +narrow, gloomy, and bordered with tall and shabby structures, the lane +was not a whit more disagreeable than nine tenths of the Roman streets. +Over the door of one of the houses was a marble tablet, bearing an +inscription, to the purport that the sculpture-rooms within had formerly +been occupied by the illustrious artist Canova. In these precincts (which +Canova's genius was not quite of a character to render sacred, though it +certainly made them interesting) the young American sculptor had now +established himself. + +The studio of a sculptor is generally but a rough and dreary-looking place, +with a good deal the aspect, indeed, of a stone-mason's workshop. Bare +floors of brick or plank, and plastered walls,--an old chair or two, or +perhaps only a block of marble (containing, however, the possibility of +ideal grace within it) to sit down upon; some hastily scrawled sketches of +nude figures on the whitewash of the wall. These last are probably the +sculptor's earliest glimpses of ideas that may hereafter be solidified +into imperishable stone, or perhaps may remain as impalpable as a dream. +Next there are a few very roughly modelled little figures in clay or +plaster, exhibiting the second stage of the idea as it advances towards a +marble immortality; and then is seen the exquisitely designed shape of +clay, more interesting than even the final marble, as being the intimate +production of the sculptor himself, moulded throughout with his loving +hands, and nearest to his imagination and heart. In the plaster-cast, +from this clay model, the beauty of the statue strangely disappears, to +shine forth again with pure white radiance, in the precious marble of +Carrara. Works in all these stages of advancement, and some with the +final touch upon them, might be found in Kenyon's studio. + +Here might be witnessed the process of actually chiselling the marble, +with which (as it is not quite satisfactory to think) a sculptor in these +days has very little to do. In Italy, there is a class of men whose +merely mechanical skill is perhaps more exquisite than was possessed by +the ancient artificers, who wrought out the designs of Praxiteles; or, +very possibly, by Praxiteles himself. Whatever of illusive representation +can be effected in marble, they are capable of achieving, if the object be +before their eyes. The sculptor has but to present these men with a +plaster-cast of his design, and a sufficient block of marble, and tell +them that the figure is imbedded in the stone, and must be freed from its +encumbering superfluities; and, in due time, without the necessity of his +touching the work with his own finger, he will see before him the statue +that is to make him renowned. His creative power has wrought it with a +word. + +In no other art, surely, does genius find such effective instruments, and +so happily relieve itself of the drudgery, of actual performance; doing +wonderfully nice things by the hands of other people, when it may be +suspected they could not always be done by the sculptor's own. And how +much of the admiration which our artists get for their buttons and +buttonholes, their shoe-ties, their neckcloths,--and these, at our present +epoch of taste, make a large share of the renown,--would be abated, if we +were generally aware that the sculptor can claim no credit for such pretty +performances, as immortalized in marble! They are not his work, but that +of some nameless machine in human shape. + +Miriam stopped an instant in an antechamber, to look at a half-finished +bust, the features of which seemed to be struggling out of the stone; and, +as it were, scattering and dissolving its hard substance by the glow of +feeling and intelligence. As the skilful workman gave stroke after stroke +of the chisel with apparent carelessness, but sure effect, it was +impossible not to think that the outer marble was merely an extraneous +environment; the human countenance within its embrace must have existed +there since the limestone ledges of Carrara were first made. Another +bust was nearly completed, though still one of Kenyon's most trustworthy +assistants was at work, giving delicate touches, shaving off an impalpable +something, and leaving little heaps of marble dust to attest it. + +"As these busts in the block of marble," thought Miriam, "so does our +individual fate exist in the limestone of time. We fancy that we carve it +out; but its ultimate shape is prior to all our action." + +Kenyon was in the inner room, but, hearing a step in the antechamber, he +threw a veil over what he was at work upon, and came out to receive his +visitor. He was dressed in a gray blouse, with a little cap on the top of +his head; a costume which became him better than tho formal garments which +he wore whenever he passed out of his own domains. The sculptor had a +face which, when time had done a little more for it, would offer a worthy +subject for as good an artist as himself: features finely cut, as if +already marble; an ideal forehead, deeply set eyes, and a mouth much +hidden in a lightbrown beard, but apparently sensitive and delicate. + +"I will not offer you my hand," said he; "it is grimy with Cleopatra's +clay." + +"No; I will not touch clay; it is earthy and human," answered Miriam. "I +have come to try whether there is any calm and coolness among your marbles. +My own art is too nervous, too passionate, too full of agitation, for me +to work at it whole days together, without intervals of repose. So, what +have you to show me?" + +"Pray look at everything here," said Kenyon. "I love to have painters see +my work. Their judgment is unprejudiced, and more valuable than that of +the world generally, from the light which their own art throws on mine. +More valuable, too, than that of my brother sculptors, who never judge me +fairly,--nor I them, perhaps." + +To gratify him, Miriam looked round at the specimens in marble or plaster, +of which there were several in the room, comprising originals or casts of +most of the designs that Kenyon had thus far produced. He was still too +young to have accumulated a large gallery of such things. What he had to +show were chiefly the attempts and experiments, in various directions, of +a beginner in art, acting as a stern tutor to himself, and profiting more +by his failures than by any successes of which he was yet capable. Some +of them, however, had great merit; and in the pure, fine glow of the new +marble, it may be, they dazzled the judgment into awarding them higher +praise than they deserved. Miriam admired the statue of a beautiful youth, +a pearlfisher; who had got entangled in the weeds at the bottom of the +sea, and lay dead among the pearl-oysters, the rich shells, and the +seaweeds, all of like value to him now. + +"The poor young man has perished among the prizes that he sought," +remarked she. "But what a strange efficacy there is in death! If we +cannot all win pearls, it causes an empty shell to satisfy us just as well. +I like this statue, though it is too cold and stern in its moral lesson; +and, physically, the form has not settled itself into sufficient repose." + +In another style, there was a grand, calm head of Milton, not copied from +any one bust or picture, yet more authentic than any of them, because all +known representations of the poet had been profoundly studied, and solved +in the artist's mind. The bust over the tomb in Grey Friars Church, the +original miniatures and pictures, wherever to be found, had mingled each +its special truth in this one work; wherein, likewise, by long perusal and +deep love of the Paradise Lost, the Comus, the Lycidas, and L'Allegro, the +sculptor had succeeded, even better than he knew, in spiritualizing his +marble with the poet's mighty genius. And this was a great thing to have +achieved, such a length of time after the dry bones and dust of Milton +were like those of any other dead man. + +There were also several portrait-busts, comprising those of two or three +of the illustrious men of our own country, whom Kenyon, before he left +America, had asked permission to model. He had done so, because he +sincerely believed that, whether he wrought the busts in marble or bronze, +the one would corrode and the other crumble in the long lapse of time, +beneath these great men's immortality. Possibly, however, the young +artist may have underestimated the durability of his material. Other +faces there were, too, of men who (if the brevity of their remembrance, +after death, can be augured from their little value in life) should have +been represented in snow rather than marble. Posterity will be puzzled +what to do with busts like these, the concretions and petrifactions of a +vain selfestimate; but will find, no doubt, that they serve to build into +stone walls, or burn into quicklime, as well as if the marble had never +been blocked into the guise of human heads. + +But it is an awful thing, indeed, this endless endurance, this almost +indestructibility, of a marble bust! Whether in our own case, or that of +other men, it bids us sadly measure the little, little time during which +our lineaments are likely to be of interest to any human being. It is +especially singular that Americans should care about perpetuating +themselves in this mode. The brief duration of our families, as a +hereditary household, renders it next to a certainty that the +great-grandchildren will not know their father's grandfather, and that +half a century hence at furthest, the hammer of the auctioneer will thump +its knock-down blow against his blockhead, sold at so much for the pound +of stone! And it ought to make us shiver, the idea of leaving our +features to be a dusty-white ghost among strangers of another generation, +who will take our nose between their thumb and fingers (as we have seen +men do by Caesar's), and infallibly break it off if they can do so without +detection! + +"Yes," said Miriam, who had been revolving some such thoughts as the above, +"it is a good state of mind for mortal man, when he is content to leave +no more definite memorial than the grass, which will sprout kindly and +speedily over his grave, if we do not make the spot barren with marble. +Methinks, too, it will be a fresher and better world, when it flings off +this great burden of stony memories, which the ages have deemed it a piety +to heap upon its back." + +"What you say," remarked Kenyon, "goes against my whole art. Sculpture, +and the delight which men naturally take in it, appear to me a proof that +it is good to work with all time before our view." + +"Well, well," answered Miriam, "I must not quarrel with you for flinging +your heavy stones at poor Posterity; and, to say the truth, I think you +are as likely to hit the mark as anybody. These busts, now, much as I +seem to scorn them, make me feel as if you were a magician.. You turn +feverish men into cool, quiet marble. What a blessed change for them! +Would you could do as much for me!" + +"O, gladly!" cried Kenyon, who had long wished to model that beautiful +and most expressive face. "When will you begin to sit?" + +"Poh! that was not what I meant," said Miriam. "Come, show me something +else." + +"Do you recognize this?" asked the sculptor. + +He took out of his desk a little old-fashioned ivory coffer, yellow with +age; it was richly carved with antique figures and foliage; and had Kenyon +thought fit to say that Benvenuto Cellini wrought this precious box, the +skill and elaborate fancy of the work would by no means have discredited +his word, nor the old artist's fame. At least, it was evidently a +production of Benvenuto's school and century, and might once have been the +jewel-case of some grand lady at the court of the De' Medici. + +Lifting the lid, however, no blaze of diamonds was disclosed, but only, +lapped in fleecy cotton, a small, beautifully shaped hand, most delicately +sculptured in marble. Such loving care and nicest art had been lavished +here, that the palm really seemed to have a tenderness in its very +substance. Touching those lovely fingers,--had the jealous sculptor +allowed you to touch,--you could hardly believe that a virgin warmth would +not steal from them into your heart. + +"Ah, this is very beautiful!" exclaimed Miriam, with a genial smile. "It +is as good in its way as Loulie's hand with its baby-dimples, which Powers +showed me at Florence, evidently valuing it as much as if he had wrought +it out of a piece of his great heart. As good as Harriet Hosmer's clasped +hands of Browning and his wife, symbolizing the individuality and heroic +union of two high, poetic lives! Nay, I do not question that it is better +than either of those, because you must have wrought it passionately, in +spite of its maiden palm and dainty fingertips." + +"Then you do recognize it?" asked Kenyon. + +"There is but one right hand on earth that could have supplied the model," +answered Miriam; "so small and slender, so perfectly symmetrical, and yet +with a character of delicate energy. I have watched it a hundred times at +its work; but I did not dream that you had won Hilda so far! How have you +persuaded that shy maiden to let you take her hand in marble?" + +"Never! She never knew it!" hastily replied Kenyon, anxious to vindicate +his mistress's maidenly reserve. "I stole it from her. The hand is a +reminiscence. After gazing at it so often, and even holding it once for +an instant, when Hilda was not thinking of me, I should be a bungler +indeed, if I could not now reproduce it to something like the life." + +"May you win the original one day!" said Miriam kindly. + +"I have little ground to hope it," answered the sculptor despondingly; +"Hilda does not dwell in our mortal atmosphere; and gentle and soft as she +appears, it will be as difficult to win her heart as to entice down a +white bird from its sunny freedom in the sky. It is strange, with all her +delicacy and fragility, the impression she makes of being utterly +sufficient to herself. No; I shall never win her. She is abundantly +capable of sympathy, and delights to receive it, but she has no need of +love." + +"I partly agree with you," said Miriam. "It is a mistaken idea, which men +generally entertain, that nature has made women especially prone to throw +their whole being into what is technically called love. We have, to say +the least, no more necessity for it than yourselves; only we have nothing +else to do with our hearts. When women have other objects in life, they +are not apt to fall in love. I can think of many women distinguished in +art, literature, and science,--and multitudes whose hearts and minds find +good employment in less ostentatious ways,--who lead high, lonely lives, +and are conscious of no sacrifice so far as your sex is concerned." + +"And Hilda will be one of these!" said Kenyon sadly; "the thought makes +me shiver for myself, and and for her, too." + +"Well," said Miriam, smiling, "perhaps she may sprain the delicate wrist +which you have sculptured to such perfection. In that case you may hope. +These old masters to whom she has vowed herself, and whom her slender hand +and woman's heart serve so faithfully, are your only rivals." + +The sculptor sighed as he put away the treasure of Hilda's marble hand +into the ivory coffer, and thought how slight was the possibility that he +should ever feel responsive to his own the tender clasp of the original. +He dared not even kiss the image that he himself had made: it had assumed +its share of Hilda's remote and shy divinity. + +"And now," said Miriam, "show me the new statue which you asked me hither +to see." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +CLEOPATRA + + +My new statue!" said Kenyon, who had positively forgotten it in the +thought of Hilda; "here it is, under this veil." "Not a nude figure, I +hope," observed Miriam. "Every young sculptor seems to think that he must +give the world some specimen of indecorous womanhood, and call it Eve, +Venus, a Nymph, or any name that may apologize for a lack of decent +clothing. I am weary, even more than I am ashamed, of seeing such things. +Nowadays people are as good as born in their clothes, and there is +practically not a nude human being in existence. An artist, therefore, as +you must candidly confess, cannot sculpture nudity with a pure heart, if +only because he is compelled to steal guilty glimpses at hired models. +The marble inevitably loses its chastity under such circumstances. An old +Greek sculptor, no doubt, found his models in the open sunshine, and among +pure and princely maidens, and thus the nude statues of antiquity are as +modest as violets, and sufficiently draped in their own beauty. But as +for Mr. Gibson's colored Venuses (stained, I believe, with tobacco juice), +and all other nudities of to-day, I really do not understand what they +have to say to this generation, and would be glad to see as many heaps of +quicklime in their stead." + +"You are severe upon the professors of my art," said Kenyon, half smiling, +half seriously; "not that you are wholly wrong, either. We are bound to +accept drapery of some kind, and make the best of it. But what are we to +do? Must we adopt the costume of to-day, and carve, for example, a Venus +in a hoop-petticoat?" + +"That would be a boulder, indeed!" rejoined Miriam, laughing. "But the +difficulty goes to confirm me in my belief that, except for portrait-busts, +sculpture has no longer a right to claim any place among living arts. It +has wrought itself out, and come fairly to an end. There is never a new +group nowadays; never even so much as a new attitude. Greenough (I take +my examples among men of merit) imagined nothing new; nor Crawford either, +except in the tailoring line. There are not, as you will own, more than +half a dozen positively original statues or groups in the world, and these +few are of immemorial antiquity. A person familiar with the Vatican, the +Uffizzi Gallery, the Naples Gallery, and the Louvre, will at once refer +any modern production to its antique prototype; which, moreover, had begun +to get out of fashion, even in old Roman days." + +"Pray stop, Miriam," cried Kenyon, "or I shall fling away the chisel +forever!" + +"Fairly own to me, then, my friend," rejoined Miriam, whose disturbed mind +found a certain relief in this declamation, "that you sculptors are, of +necessity, the greatest plagiarists in the world." + +"I do not own it," said Kenyon, "yet cannot utterly contradict you, as +regards the actual state of the art. But as long as the Carrara quarries +still yield pure blocks, and while my own country has marble mountains, +probably as fine in quality, I shall steadfastly believe that future +sculptors will revive this noblest of the beautiful arts, and people the +world with new shapes of delicate grace and massive grandeur. Perhaps," +he added, smiling, "mankind will consent to wear a more manageable costume; +or, at worst, we sculptors shall get the skill to make broadcloth +transparent, and render a majestic human character visible through the +coats and trousers of the present day." + +"Be it so!" said Miriam; "you are past my counsel. Show me the veiled +figure, which, I am afraid, I have criticised beforehand. To make amends, +I am in the mood to praise it now." + +But, as Kenyon was about to take the cloth off the clay model, she laid +her hand on his arm. + +"Tell me first what is the subject," said she, "for I have sometimes +incurred great displeasure from members of your brotherhood by being too +obtuse to puzzle out the purport of their productions. It is so difficult, +you know, to compress and define a character or story, and make it patent +at a glance, within the narrow scope attainable by sculpture! Indeed, I +fancy it is still the ordinary habit with sculptors, first to finish their +group of statuary,--in such development as the particular block of marble +will allow,--and then to choose the subject; as John of Bologna did with +his Rape of the Sabines. Have you followed that good example?" + +"No; my statue is intended for Cleopatra," replied Kenyon, a little +disturbed by Miriam's raillery. "The special epoch of her history you +must make out for yourself." + +He drew away the cloth that had served to keep the moisture of the clay +model from being exhaled. The sitting figure of a woman was seen. She +was draped from head to foot in a costume minutely and scrupulously +studied from that of ancient Egypt, as revealed by the strange sculpture +of that country, its coins, drawings, painted mummy-cases, and whatever +other tokens have been dug out of its pyramids, graves, and catacombs. +Even the stiff Egyptian head-dress was adhered to, but had been softened +into a rich feminine adornment, without losing a particle of its truth. +Difficulties that might well have seemed insurmountable had been +courageously encountered and made flexible to purposes of grace and +dignity; so that Cleopatra sat attired in a garb proper to her historic +and queenly state, as a daughter of the Ptolemies, and yet such as the +beautiful woman would have put on as best adapted to heighten the +magnificence of her charms, and kindle a tropic fire in the cold eyes of +Octavius. + +A marvellous repose--that rare merit in statuary, except it be the lumpish +repose native to the block of stone--was diffused throughout the figure. +The spectator felt that Cleopatra had sunk down out of the fever and +turmoil of her life, and for one instant--as it were, between two pulse +throbs--had relinquished all activity, and was resting throughout every +vein and muscle. It was the repose of despair, indeed; for Octavius had +seen her, and remained insensible to her enchantments. But still there +was a great smouldering furnace deep down in the woman's heart. The +repose, no doubt, was as complete as if she were never to stir hand or +foot again; and yet, such was the creature's latent energy and fierceness, +she might spring upon you like a tigress, and stop the very breath that +you were now drawing midway in your throat. + +The face was a miraculous success. The sculptor had not shunned to give +the full Nubian lips, and other characteristics of the Egyptian +physiognomy. His courage and integrity had been abundantly rewarded; for +Cleopatra's beauty shone out richer, warmer, more triumphantly beyond +comparison, than if, shrinking timidly from the truth, he had chosen the +tame Grecian type. The expression was of profound, gloomy, heavily +revolving thought; a glance into her past life and present emergencies, +while her spirit gathered itself up for some new struggle, or was getting +sternly reconciled to impending doom. In one view, there was a certain +softness and tenderness,--how breathed into the statue, among so many +strong and passionate elements, it is impossible to say. Catching another +glimpse, you beheld her as implacable as a stone and cruel as fire. + +In a word, all Cleopatra--fierce, voluptuous, passionate, tender, wicked, +terrible, and full of poisonous and rapturous enchantment--was kneaded +into what, only a week or two before, had been a lump of wet clay from the +Tiber. Soon, apotheosized in an indestructible material, she would be +one of the images that men keep forever, finding a heat in them which does +not cool down, throughout the centuries? + +"What a woman is this!" exclaimed Miriam, after a long pause. "Tell me, +did she ever try, even while you were creating her, to overcome you with +her fury or her love? Were you not afraid to touch her, as she grew more +and more towards hot life beneath your hand? My dear friend, it is a great +work! How have you learned to do it?" + +"It is the concretion of a good deal of thought, emotion, and toil of +brain and hand," said Kenyon, not without a perception that his work was +good; "but I know not how it came about at last. I kindled a great fire +within my mind, and threw in the material,--as Aaron threw the gold of the +Israelites into the furnace,--and in the midmost heat uprose Cleopatra, as +you see her." + +"What I most marvel at," said Miriam, "is the womanhood that you have so +thoroughly mixed up with all those seemingly discordant elements. Where +did you get that secret? You never found it in your gentle Hilda, yet I +recognize its truth." + +"No, surely, it was not in Hilda," said Kenyon. "Her womanhood is of the +ethereal type, and incompatible with any shadow of darkness or evil." + +"You are right," rejoined Miriam; "there are women of that ethereal type, +as you term it, and Hilda is one of them. She would die of her first +wrong-doing,--supposing for a moment that she could be capable of doing +wrong. Of sorrow, slender as she seems, Hilda might bear a great burden; +of sin, not a feather's weight. Methinks now, were it my doom, I could +bear either, or both at once; but my conscience is still as white as +Hilda's. Do you question it?" + +"Heaven forbid, Miriam!" exclaimed the sculptor. + +He was startled at the strange turn which she had so suddenly given to the +conversation. Her voice, too,--so much emotion was stifled rather than +expressed in it, sounded unnatrural. + +"O, my friend," cried she, with sudden passion, "will you be my friend +indeed? I am lonely, lonely, lonely! There is a secret in my heart that +burns me,--that tortures me! Sometimes I fear to go mad of it; sometimes I +hope to die of it; but neither of the two happens. Ah, if I could but +whisper it to only one human soul! And you--you see far into womanhood; +you receive it widely into your large view. Perhaps--perhaps, but Heaven +only knows, you might understand me! O, let me speak!" + +"Miriam, dear friend," replied the sculptor, "if I can help you, speak +freely, as to a brother." + +"Help me? No!" said Miriam. + +Kenyon's response had been perfectly frank and kind; and yet the subtlety +of Miriam's emotion detected a certain reserve and alarm in his warmly +expressed readiness to hear her story. In his secret soul, to say the +truth, the sculptor doubted whether it were well for this poor, suffering +girl to speak what she so yearned to say, or for him to listen. If there +were any active duty of friendship to be performed, then, indeed, he would +joyfully have come forward to do his best. But if it were only a pent-up +heart that sought an outlet? in that case it was by no means so certain +that a confession would do good. The more her secret struggled and fought +to be told, the more certain would it be to change all former relations +that had subsisted between herself and the friend to whom she might reveal +it. Unless he could give her all the sympathy, and just the kind of +sympathy that the occasion required, Miriam would hate him by and by, and +herself still more, if he let her speak. + +This was what Kenyon said to himself; but his reluctance, after all, and +whether he were conscious of it or no, resulted from a suspicion that had +crept into his heart and lay there in a dark corner. Obscure as it was, +when Miriam looked into his eyes, she detected it at once. + +"Ah, I shall hate you!" cried she, echoing the thought which he had not +spoken; she was half choked with the gush of passion that was thus turned +back upon her. "You are as cold and pitiless as your own marble." + +"No; but full of sympathy, God knows!" replied he. + +In truth, his suspicions, however warranted by the mystery in which Miriam +was enveloped, had vanished in the earnestness of his kindly and sorrowful +emotion. He was now ready to receive her trust. + +"Keep your sympathy, then, for sorrows that admit of such solace," said +she, making a strong effort to compose herself. "As for my griefs, I know +how to manage them. It was all a mistake: you can do nothing for me, +unless you petrify me into a marble companion for your Cleopatra there; +and I am not of her sisterhood, I do. assure you. Forget this foolish +scene, my friend, and never let me see a reference to it in your eyes when +they meet mine hereafter." + +"Since you desire it, all shall be forgotten," answered the sculptor, +pressing her hand as she departed; "or, if ever I can serve you, let my +readiness to do so be remembered. Meanwhile, dear Miriam, let us meet in +the same clear, friendly light as heretofore." + +"You are less sincere than I thought you," said Miriam, "if you try to +make me think that there will be no change." + +As he attended her through the antechamber, she pointed to the statue of +the pearl-diver. + +"My secret is not a pearl," said she; "yet a man might drown himself in +plunging after it." + +After Kenyon had closed the door, she went wearily down the staircase, but +paused midway, as if debating with herself whether to return. + +"The mischief was done," thought she; "and I might as well have had the +solace that ought to come with it. I have lost,--by staggering a little +way beyond the mark, in the blindness of my distress, I have lost, as we +shall hereafter find, the genuine friendship of this clear-minded, +honorable, true-hearted young man, and all for nothing. What if I should +go back this moment and compel him to listen?" + +She ascended two or three of the stairs, but again paused, murmured to +herself, and shook her head. + +"No, no, no," she thought; "and I wonder how I ever came to dream of it. +Unless I had his heart for my own,--and that is Hilda's, nor would I steal +it from her,--it should never be the treasure Place of my secret. It is +no precious pearl, as I just now told him; but my dark-red carbuncle--red +as blood--is too rich a gem to put into a stranger's casket." + +She went down the stairs, and found her shadow waiting for her in the +street. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +AN AESTHETIC COMPANY + + +On the evening after Miriam's visit to Kenyon's studio, there was an +assemblage composed almost entirely of Anglo-Saxons, and chiefly of +American artists, with a sprinkling of their English brethren; and some +few of the tourists who still lingered in Rome, now that Holy Week was +past. Miriam, Hilda, and the sculptor were all three present, and with +them Donatello, whose life was so far turned from fits natural bent that, +like a pet spaniel, he followed his beloved mistress wherever he could +gain admittance. + +The place of meeting was in the palatial, but somewhat faded and gloomy +apartment of an eminent member of the aesthetic body. It was no more +formal an occasion than one of those weekly receptions, common among the +foreign residents of Rome, at which pleasant people--or disagreeable ones, +as the case may be--encounter one another with little ceremony. + +If anywise interested in art, a man must be difficult to please who cannot +find fit companionship among a crowd of persons, whose ideas and pursuits +all tend towards the general purpose of enlarging the world's stock of +beautiful productions. + +One of the chief causes that make Rome the favorite residence of +artists--their ideal home which they sigh for in advance, and are so loath +to migrate from, after once breathing its enchanted air--is, doubtless, +that they there find themselves in force, and are numerous enough to +create a congenial atmosphere. In every other clime they are isolated +strangers; in this land of art, they are free citizens. + +Not that, individually, or in the mass, there appears to be any large +stock of mutual affection among the brethren of the chisel and the pencil. +On the contrary, it will impress the shrewd observer that the jealousies +and petty animosities, which the poets of our day have flung aside, still +irritate and gnaw into the hearts of this kindred class of imaginative men. +It is not difficult to suggest reasons why this should be the fact. The +public, in whose good graces lie the sculptor's or the painter's prospects +of success, is infinitely smaller than the public to which literary men +make their appeal. It is composed of a very limited body of wealthy +patrons; and these, as the artist well knows, are but blind judges in +matters that require the utmost delicacy of perception. Thus, success in +art is apt to become partly an affair of intrigue; and it is almost +inevitable that even a gifted artist should look askance at his gifted +brother's fame, and be chary of the good word that might help him to sell +still another statue or picture. You seldom hear a painter heap generous +praise on anything in his special line of art; a sculptor never has a +favorable eye for any marble but his own. + +Nevertheless, in spite of all these professional grudges, artists are +conscious of a social warmth from each other's presence and contiguity. +They shiver at the remembrance of their lonely studios in the +unsympathizing cities of their native land. For the sake of such +brotherhood as they can find, more than for any good that they get from +galleries, they linger year after year in Italy, while their originality +dies out of them, or is polished away as a barbarism. + +The company this evening included several men and women whom the world has +heard of, and many others, beyond all question, whom it ought to know. It +would be a pleasure to introduce them upon our humble pages, name by name, +and had we confidence enough in our own taste--to crown each +well-deserving brow according to its deserts. The opportunity is tempting, +but not easily manageable, and far too perilous, both in respect to those +individuals whom we might bring forward, and the far greater number that +must needs be left in the shade. Ink, moreover, is apt to have a +corrosive quality, and might chance to raise a blister, instead of any +more agreeable titillation, on skins so sensitive as those of artists. We +must therefore forego the delight of illuminating this chapter with +personal allusions to men whose renown glows richly on canvas, or gleams +in the white moonlight of marble. + +OtherWise we might point to an artist who has studied Nature with such +tender love that she takes him to her intimacy, enabling him to reproduce +her in landscapes that seem the reality of a better earth, and yet are but +the truth of the very scenes around us, observed by the painter's insight +and interpreted for us by his skill. By his magic, the moon throws her +light far out of the picture, and the crimson of the summer night +absolutely glimmers on the beholder's face. Or we might indicate a +poetpainter, whose song has the vividness of picture, and whose canvas is +peopled with angels, fairies, and water sprites, done to the ethereal life, +because he saw them face to face in his poetic mood. Or we might bow +before an artist, who has wrought too sincerely, too religiously, with too +earnest a feeling, and too delicate a touch, for the world at once to +recognize how much toil and thought are compressed into the stately brow +of Prospero, and Miranda's maiden loveliness; or from what a depth within +this painter's heart the Angel is leading forth St. Peter. + +Thus it would be easy to go on, perpetrating a score of little +epigrammatical allusions, like the above, all kindly meant, but none of +them quite hitting the mark, and often striking where they were not aimed. +It may be allowable to say, however, that American art is much better +represented at Rome in the pictorial than in the sculpturesque department. +Yet the men of marble appear to have more weight with the public than the +men of canvas; perhaps on account of the greater density and solid +substance of the material in which they work, and the sort of physical +advantage which their labors thus acquire over the illusive unreality of +color. To be a sculptor seems a distinction in itself; whereas a painter +is nothing, unless individually eminent. + +One sculptor there was, an Englishman, endowed with a beautiful fancy, and +possessing at his fingers' ends the capability of doing beautiful things. +He was a quiet, simple, elderly personage, with eyes brown and bright, +under a slightly impending brow, and a Grecian profile, such as he might +have cut with his own chisel. He had spent his life, for forty years, in +making Venuses, Cupids, Bacchuses, and a vast deal of other marble progeny +of dreamwork, or rather frostwork: it was all a vapory exhalation out of +the Grecian mythology, crystallizing on the dull window-panes of to-day. +Gifted with a more delicate power than any other man alive, he had +foregone to be a Christian reality, and perverted himself into a Pagan +idealist, whose business or efficacy, in our present world, it would be +exceedingly difficult to define. And, loving and reverencing the pure +material in which he wrought, as surely this admirable sculptor did, he +had nevertheless robbed the marble of its chastity, by giving it an +artificial warmth of hue. Thus it became a sin and shame to look at his +nude goddesses. They had revealed themselves to his imagination, no doubt, +with all their deity about them; but, bedaubed with buff color, they +stood forth to the eyes of the profane in the guise of naked women. But, +whatever criticism may be ventured on his style, it was good to meet a man +so modest and yet imbued with such thorough and simple conviction of his +own right principles and practice, and so quietly satisfied that his kind +of antique achievement was all that sculpture could effect for modern life. + + +This eminent person's weight and authority among his artistic brethren +were very evident; for beginning unobtrusively to utter himself on a topic +of art, he was soon the centre of a little crowd of younger sculptors. +They drank in his wisdom, as if it would serve all the purposes of +original inspiration; he, meanwhile, discoursing with gentle calmness, as +if there could possibly be no other side, and often ratifying, as it were, +his own conclusions by a mildly emphatic "Yes." + +The veteran Sculptor's unsought audience was composed mostly of our own +countrymen. It is fair to say, that they were a body of very dexterous +and capable artists, each of whom had probably given the delighted public +a nude statue, or had won credit for even higher skill by the nice carving +of buttonholes, shoe-ties, coat-seams, shirt-bosoms, and other such +graceful peculiarities of modern costume. Smart, practical men they +doubtless were, and some of them far more than this, but still not +precisely what an uninitiated person looks for in a sculptor. A sculptor, +indeed, to meet the demands which our preconceptions make upon him, should +be even more indispensably a poet than those who deal in measured verse +and rhyme. His material, or instrument, which serves him in the stead of +shifting and transitory language, is a pure, white, undecaying substance. +It insures immortality to whatever is wrought in it, and therefore makes +it a religious obligation to commit no idea to its mighty guardianship, +save such as may repay the marble for its faithful care, its incorruptible +fidelity, by warming it with an ethereal life. Under this aspect, marble +assumes a sacred character; and no man should dare to touch it unless he +feels within himself a certain consecration and a priesthood, the only +evidence of which, for the public eye, will he the high treatment of +heroic subjects, or the delicate evolution of spiritual, through material +beauty. + +No ideas such as the foregoing--no misgivings suggested by them probably, +troubled the self-complacency of most of these clever sculptors. Marble, +in their view, had no such sanctity as we impute to it. It was merely a +sort of white limestone from Carrara, cut into convenient blocks, and +worth, in that state, about two or three dollars per pound; and it was +susceptible of being wrought into certain shapes (by their own mechanical +ingenuity, or that of artisans in their employment) which would enable +them to sell it again at a much higher figure. Such men, on the strength +of some small knack in handling clay, which might have been fitly employed +in making wax-work, are bold to call themselves sculptors. How terrible +should be the thought that the nude woman whom the modern artist patches +together, bit by bit, from a dozen heterogeneous models, meaning nothing +by her, shall last as long as the Venus of the Capitol!--that his group +of--no matter what, since it has no moral or intellectual existence will +not physically crumble any sooner than the immortal agony of the Laocoon! + +Yet we love the artists, in every kind; even these, whose merits we are +not quite able to appreciate. Sculptors, painters, crayon sketchers, or +whatever branch of aesthetics they adopted, were certainly pleasanter +people, as we saw them that evening, than the average whom we meet in +ordinary society. They were not wholly confined within the sordid compass +of practical life; they had a pursuit which, if followed faithfully out, +would lead them to the beautiful, and always had a tendency thitherward, +even if they lingered to gather up golden dross by the wayside. Their +actual business (though they talked about it very much as other men talk +of cotton, politics, flour barrels, and sugar) necessarily illuminated +their conversation with something akin to the ideal. So, when the guests +collected themselves in little groups, here and there, in the wide saloon, +a cheerful and airy gossip began to be heard. The atmosphere ceased to be +precisely that of common life; a hint, mellow tinge, such as we see in +pictures, mingled itself with the lamplight. + +This good effect was assisted by many curious little treasures of art, +which the host had taken care to strew upon his tables. They were +principally such bits of antiquity as the soil of Rome and its +neighborhood are still rich in; seals, gems, small figures of bronze, +mediaeval carvings in ivory; things which had been obtained at little cost, +yet might have borne no inconsiderable value in the museum of a virtuoso. + +As interesting as any of these relics was a large portfolio of old +drawings, some of which, in the opinion of their possessor, bore evidence +on their faces of the touch of master-hands. Very ragged and ill +conditioned they mostly were, yellow with time, and tattered with rough +usage; and, in their best estate, the designs had been scratched rudely +with pen and ink, on coarse paper, or, if drawn with charcoal or a pencil, +were now half rubbed out. You would not anywhere see rougher and homelier +things than these. But this hasty rudeness made the sketches only the +more valuable; because the artist seemed to have bestirred himself at the +pinch of the moment, snatching up whatever material was nearest, so as to +seize the first glimpse of an idea that might vanish in the twinkling of +an eye. Thus, by the spell of a creased, soiled, and discolored scrap of +paper, you were enabled to steal close to an old master, and watch him in +the very effervescence of his genius. + +According to the judgment of several con-, noisseurs, Raphael's own hand +had communidated its magnetism to one of these sketches; and, if genuine, +it was evidently his first conception of a favorite Madonna, now hanging +in the private apartment of the Grand Duke, at Florence. Another drawing +was attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and appeared to be a somewhat varied +design for his picture of Modesty and Vanity, in the Sciarra Palace. +There were at least half a dozen others, to which the owner assigned as +high an origin. It was delightful to believe in their authenticity, at +all events; for these things make the spectator more vividly sensible of a +great painter's power, than the final glow and perfected art of the most +consummate picture that may have been elaborated from them. There is an +effluence of divinity in the first sketch; and there, if anywhere, you +find the pure light of inspiration, which the subsequent toil of the +artist serves to bring out in stronger lustre, indeed, but likewise +adulterates it with what belongs to an inferior mood. The aroma and +fragrance of new thoughts were perceptible in these designs, after three +centuries of wear and tear. The charm lay partly in their very +imperfection; for this is suggestive, and sets the imagination at work; +whereas, the finished picture, if a good one, leaves the spectator nothing +to do, and, if bad, confuses, stupefies, disenchants, and disheartens him. + +Hilda was greatly interested in this rich portfolio. She lingered so long +over one particular sketch, that Miriam asked her what discovery she had +made. + +"Look at it carefully," replied Hilda, putting the sketch into her hands. +"If you take pains to disentangle the design from those pencil~ marks that +seem to have been scrawled over it, I think you will see something very +curious." + +"It is a hopeless affair, I am afraid," said Miriam. "I have neither your +faith, dear Hilda, nor your perceptive faculty. Fie! what a blurred +scrawl it is indeed!" + +The drawing had originally been very slight, and had suffered more from +time and hard usage than almost any other in the collection; it appeared, +too, that there had been an attempt (perhaps by the very hand that drew +it) to obliterate the design. By Hilda's help, however, Miriam pretty +distinctly made out a winged figure with a drawn sword, and a dragon, or a +demon, prostrate at his feet. + +"I am convinced," said Hilda in a low, reverential tone," that Guido's own +touches are on that ancient scrap of paper! If so, it must be his +original sketch for the picture of the Archangel Michael setting his foot +upon the demon, in the Church of the Cappuccini. The composition and +general arrangement of the sketch are the same with those of the picture; +the only difference being, that the demon has a more upturned face, and +scowls vindictively at the Archangel, who turns away his eyes in painful +disgust." + +"No wonder!" responded Miriam. "The expression suits the daintiness of +Michael's character, as Guido represents him. He never could have looked +the demon in the face!" + +"Miriam!" exclaimed her friend reproachfully, "you grieve me, and you +know it, by pretending to speak contemptuously of the most beautiful and +the divinest figure that mortal painter ever drew." + +"Forgive me, Hilda!" said Miriam. "You take these matters more +religiously than I can, for my life. Guido's Archangel is a fine picture, +of course, but it never impressed me as it does yOU." + +"Well; we will not talk of that," answered Hilda. "What I wanted you to +notice, in this sketch, is the face of the demon. It is entirely unlike +the demon of the finished picture. Guido, you know, always affirmed that +the resemblance to Cardinal Pamfili was either casual or imaginary. Now, +here is the face as he first conceived it." + +"And a more energetic demon, altogether, than that of the finished picture," +said Kenyon, taking the sketch into his hand. "What a spirit is +conveyed into the ugliness of this strong, writhing, squirming dragon, +under the Archangel's foot! Neither is the face an impossible one. Upon +my word, I have seen it somewhere, and on the shoulders of a living man!" + +"And so have I," said Hilda. "It was what struck me from the first." + +"Donatello, look at this face!" cried Kenyon. + +The young Italian, as may be supposed, took little interest in matters of +art, and seldom or never ventured an opinion respecting them. After +holding the sketch a single instant in his hand, he flung it from him with +a shudder of disgust and repugnance, and a frown that had all the +bitterness of hatred. + +"I know the face well!" whispered he. "It is Miriam's model!" + +It was acknowledged both by Kenyon and Hilda that they had detected, or +fancied, the resemblance which Donatello so strongly affirmed; and it +added not a little to the grotesque and weird character which, half +playfully, half seriously, they assigned to Miriam's attendant, to think +of him as personating the demon's part in a picture of more than two +centuries ago. Had Guido, in his effort to imagine the utmost of sin and +misery, which his pencil could represent, hit ideally upon just this face? +Or was it an actual portrait of somebody, that haunted the old master, as +Miriam was haunted now? Did the ominous shadow follow him through all the +sunshine of his earlier career, and into the gloom that gathered about its +close? And when Guido died, did the spectre betake himself to those +ancient sepulchres, there awaiting a new victim, till it was Miriam's +ill-hap to encounter him? + +"I do not acknowledge the resemblance at all," said Miriam, looking +narrowly at the sketch; "and, as I have drawn the face twenty times, I +think you will own that I am the best judge." + +A discussion here arose, in reference to Guido's Archangel, and it was +agreed that these four friends should visit the Church of the Cappuccini +the next morning, and critically examine the picture in question; the +similarity between it and the sketch being, at all events, a very curious +circumstance. + +It was now a little past ten o'clock, when some of the company, who had +been standing in a balcony, declared the moonlight to be resplendent. +They proposed a ramble through the streets, taking in their way some of +those scenes of ruin which produced their best effects under the splendor +of the Italian moon. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE + + +The proposal for a moonlight ramble was received with acclamation by all +the younger portion of the company. They immediately set forth and +descended from story to story, dimly lighting their way by waxen tapers, +which are a necessary equipment to those whose thoroughfare, in the +night-time, lies up and down a Roman staircase. Emerging from the +courtyard of the edifice, they looked upward and saw the sky full of light, +which seemed to have a delicate purple or crimson lustre, or, at least +some richer tinge than the cold, white moonshine of other skies. It +gleamed over the front of the opposite palace, showing the architectural +ornaments of its cornice and pillared portal, as well as the ironbarred +basement windows, that gave such a prison-like aspect to the structure, +and the shabbiness and Squalor that lay along its base. A cobbler was +just shutting up his little shop, in the basement of the palace; a cigar +vender's lantern flared in the blast that came through the archway; a +French sentinel paced to and fro before the portal; a homeless dog, that +haunted thereabouts, barked as obstreperously at the party as if he were +the domestic guardian of the precincts. + +The air was quietly full of the noise of falling water, the cause of which +was nowhere visible, though apparently near at hand. This pleasant, +natural sound, not unlike that of a distant cascade in the forest, may be +heard in many of the Roman streets and piazzas, when the tumult of the +city is hushed; for consuls, emperors, and popes, the great men of every +age, have found no better way of immortalizing their memories than by the +shifting, indestructible, ever new, yet unchanging, upgush and downfall of +water. They have written their names in that unstable.element, and proved +it a more durable record than brass or marble. + +"Donatello, you had better take one of those gay, boyish artists for your +companion," said Miriam, when she found the Italian youth at her side. "I +am not now in a merry mood, as when we set all the world a-dancing the +other afternoon, in the Borghese grounds." + +"I never wish to dance any more," answered Donatello. + +"What a melancholy was in that tone!" exclaimed Miriam. "You are getting +spoilt in this dreary Rome, and will be as wise and as wretched as all the +rest of mankind, unless you go back soon to your Tuscan vineyards. Well; +give me your arm, then! But take care that no friskiness comes over you. +We must walk evenly and heavily to-night!" + +The party arranged itself according to its natural affinities or casual +likings; a sculptor generally choosing a painter, and a painter a +sculp--tor, for his companion, in preference to brethren of their own art. +Kenyon would gladly have taken Hilda to himself, and have drawn her a +little aside from the throng of merry wayfarers. But she kept near +Miriam, and seemed, in her gentle and quiet way, to decline a separate +alliance either with him or any other of her acquaintances. + +So they set forth, and had gone but a little way, when the narrow street +emerged into a piazza, on one side of which, glistening and dimpling in +the moonlight, was the most famous fountain in Rome. Its murmur--not to +say its uproar--had been in the ears of the company, ever since they came +into the open air. It was the Fountain of Trevi, which draws its +precious water from a source far beyond the walls, whence it flows +hitherward through old subterranean aqueducts, and sparkles forth as pure +as the virgin who first led Agrippa to its well-spring, by her father's +door. + +"I shall sip as much of this water as the hollow of my hand will hold," +said Miriam. + +"I am leaving Rome in a few days; and the tradition goes, that a parting +draught at the Fountain of Trevi insures the traveller's return, whatever +obstacles and improbabilities may seem to beset him. Will you drink, +Donatello?" + +"Signorina, what you drink, I drink," said the youth. + +They and the rest of the party descended some steps to the water's brim, +and, after a sip or two, stood gazing at the absurd design of the fountain, +where some sculptor of Bernini's school had gone absolutely mad in marble. +It was a great palace front, with niches and many bas-reliefs, out of +which looked Agrippa's legendary virgin, and several of the allegoric +sisterhood; while, at the base, appeared Neptune, with his floundering +steeds, and Tritons blowing their horns about him, and twenty other +artificial fantasies, which the calm moonlight soothed into better taste +than was native to them. + +And, after all, it was as magnificent a piece of work as ever human skill +contrived. At the foot of the palatial facade was strewn, with careful +art and ordered irregularity, a broad and broken heap of massive rock, +looking is if it might have lain there since the deluge. Over a central +precipice fell the water, in a semicircular cascade; and from a hundred +crevices, on all sides, snowy jets gushed up, and streams spouted out of +the mouths and nostrils of stone monsters, and fell in glistening drops; +while other rivulets, that had run wild, came leaping from one rude step +to another, over stones that were mossy, slimy, and green with sedge, +because, in a Century of their wild play, Nature had adopted the Fountain +of Trevi, with all its elaborate devices, for her own. Finally, the water, +tumbling, sparkling, and dashing, with joyous haste and never-ceasing +murmur, poured itself into a great marble-brimmed reservoir, and filled it +with a quivering tide; on which was seen, continually, a snowy semicircle +of momentary foam from the principal cascade, as well as a multitude of +snow points from smaller jets. The basin occupied the whole breadth of +the piazza, whence flights of steps descended to its border. A boat +might float, and make voyages from one shore to another in this mimic lake. + + +In the daytime, there is hardly a livelier scene in Rome than the +neighborhood of the Fountain of Trevi; for the piazza is then filled with +the stalls of vegetable and fruit dealers, chestnut roasters, cigar +venders, and other people, whose petty and wandering traffic is transacted +in the open air. It is likewise thronged with idlers, lounging over the +iron railing, and with Forestieri, who came hither to see the famous +fountain. Here, also, are seen men with buckets, urchins with cans, and +maidens (a picture as old as the patriarchal times) bearing their pitchers +upon their heads. For the water of Trevi is in request, far and wide, as +the most refreshing draught for feverish lips, the pleasantest to mingle +with wine, and the wholesomest to drink, in its native purity, that can +anywhere be found. But now, at early midnight, the piazza was a solitude; +and it was a delight to behold this untamable water, sporting by itself in +the moonshine, and compelling all the elaborate trivialities of art to +assume a natural aspect, in accordance with its own powerful simplicity. + +"What would be done with this water power," suggested an artist, "if we +had it in one of our American cities? Would they employ it to turn the +machinery of a cotton mill, I wonder?" + +"The good people would pull down those rampant marble deities," said +Kenyon, "and, possibly, they would give me a commission to carve the +one-and-thirty (is that the number?) sister States, each pouring a silver +stream from a separate can into one vast basin, which should represent the +grand reservoir of national prosperity." + +"Or, if they wanted a bit of satire," remarked an English artist, "you +could set those same one-and-thirty States to cleansing the national flag +of any stains that it may have incurred. The Roman washerwomen at the +lavatory yonder, plying their labor in the open air, would serve admirably +as models." + +"I have often intended to visit this fountain by moonlight,", said Miriam, +"because it was here that the interview took place between Corinne and +Lord Neville, after their separation and temporary estrangement. Pray +come behind me, one of you, and let me try whether the face can be +recognized in the water." + +Leaning over the stone brim of the basin, she heard footsteps stealing +behind her, and knew that somebody was looking over her shoulder. The +moonshine fell directly behind Miriam, illuminating the palace front and +the whole scene of statues and rocks, and filling the basin, as it were, +with tremulous and palpable light. Corinne, it will be remembered, knew +Lord Neville by the reflection of his face in the water. In Miriam's case, +however (owing to the agitation of the water, its transparency, and the +angle at which she was compelled to lean over), no reflected image +appeared; nor, from the same causes, would it have been possible for the +recognition between Corinne and her lover to take place. The moon, indeed, +flung Miriam's shadow at the bottom of the basin, as well as two more +shadows of persons who had followed her, on either side, + +"Three shadows!" exclaimed Miriam--"three separate shadows, all so black +and heavy that they sink in the water! There they lie on the bottom, as +if all three were drowned together. This shadow on my right is Donatello; +I know him by his curls, and the turn of his head. My left-hand +companion puzzles me; a shapeless mass, as indistinct as the premonition +of calamity! Which of you can it be? Ah!" + +She had turned round, while speaking, and saw beside her the strange +creature whose attendance on her was already familiar, as a marvel and a +jest; to the whole company of artists. A general burst of laughter +followed the recognition; while the model leaned towards Miriam, as she +shrank from him, and muttered something that was inaudible to those who +witnessed the scene. By his gestures, however, they concluded that he was +inviting her to bathe her hands. + +"He cannot be an Italian; at least not a Roman," observed an artist. "I +never knew one of them to care about ablution. See him now! It is as if +he were trying to wash off' the time-stains and earthly soil of a thousand +years!" + +Dipping his hands into the capacious washbowl before him, the model rubbed +them together with the utmost vehemence. Ever and anon, too, he peeped +into the water, as if expecting to see the whole Fountain of Trevi turbid +with the results of his ablution. Miriam looked at him, some little time, +with an aspect of real terror, and even imitated him by leaning over to +peep into the basin. Recovering herself, she took up some of the water in +the hollow of her hand, and practised an old form of exorcism by flinging +it in her persecutor's face. + +"In the name of all the Saints," cried she, "vanish, Demon, and let me be +free of you now and forever!" + +"It will not suffice," said some of the mirthful party, "unless the +Fountain of Trevi gushes with holy water." + +In fact, the exorcism was quite ineffectual upon the pertinacious demon, +or whatever the apparition might be. Still he washed his brown, bony +talons; still he peered into the vast basin, as if all the water of that +great drinking-cup of Rome must needs be stained black or sanguine; and +still he gesticulated to Miriam to follow his example. The spectators +laughed loudly, but yet with a kind of constraint; for the creature's +aspect was strangely repulsive and hideous. + +Miriam felt her arm seized violently by Donatello. She looked at him, and +beheld a tigerlike fury gleaming from his wild eyes. + +"Bid me drown him!" whispered he, shuddering between rage and horrible +disgust. "You shall hear his death gurgle in another instant!" + +"Peace, peace, Donatello!" said Miriam soothingly, for this naturally +gentle and sportive being seemed all aflame with animal rage. "Do him no +mischief! He is mad; and we are as mad as he, if we suffer ourselves to +be disquieted by his antics. Let us leave him to bathe his hands till the +fountain run dry, if he find solace and pastime in it. What is it to you +or me, Donatello? There, there! Be quiet, foolish boy!" + +Her tone and gesture were such as she might have used in taming down the +wrath of a faithful hound, that had taken upon himself to avenge some +supposed affront to his mistress. She smoothed the young man's curls +(for his fierce and sudden fury seemed to bristle among his hair), and +touched his cheek with her soft palm, till his angry mood was a little +assuaged. + +"Signorina, do I look as when you first knew me?" asked he, with a heavy, +tremulous sigh, as they went onward, somewhat apart from their companions. +"Methinks there has been a change upon me, these many months; and more +and more, these last few days. The joy is gone out of my life; all gone! +all gone! Feel my hand! Is it not very hot? Ah; and my heart burns +hotter still!" + +"My poor Donatello, you are ill!" said Miriam, with deep sympathy and +pity. "This melancholy and sickly Rome is stealing away the rich, joyous +life that belongs to you. Go back, my dear friend, to your home among the +hills, where (as I gather from what you have told me) your days were +filled with simple and blameless delights. Have you found aught in the +world that is worth' what you there enjoyed? Tell me truly, Donatello!" + +"Yes!" replied the young man. + +"And what, in Heaven's name?" asked she. + +"This burning pain in my heart," said Donatello; "for you are in the midst +of it." + +By this time, they had left the Fountain of Trevi considerably behind them. +Little further allusion was made to the scene at its margin; for the +party regarded Miriam's persecutor as diseased in his wits, and were +hardly to be surprised by any eccentricity in his deportment. + +Threading several narrow streets, they passed through the Piazza of the +Holy Apostles, and soon came to Trajan's Forum. All over the surface of +what once was Rome, it seems to be the effort of Time to bury up the +ancient city, as if it were a corpse, and he the sexton; so that, in +eighteen centuries, the soil over its grave has grown very deep, by the +slow scattering of dust, and the accumulation of more modern decay upon +older ruin. + +This was the fate, also, of Trajan's Forum, until some papal antiquary, a +few hundred years ago, began to hollow it out again, and disclosed the +full height of the gigantic column wreathed round with bas-reliefs of the +old emperor's warlike deeds. In the area before it stands a grove of +stone, consisting of the broken and unequal shafts of a vanished temple, +still keeping a majestic order, and apparently incapable of further +demolition. The modern edifices of the piazza (wholly built, no doubt, +out of the spoil of its old magnificence) look down into the hollow space +whence these pillars rise. + +One of the immense gray granite shafts lay in the piazza, on the verge of +the area. It was a great, solid fact of the Past, making old Rome +actually sensible to the touch and eye; and no study of history, nor force +of thought, nor magic of song, could so vitally assure us that Rome once +existed, as this sturdy specimen of what its rulers and people wrought. + +"And see!" said Kenyon, laying his hand upon it, "there is still a polish +remaining on the hard substance of the pillar; and even now, late as it is, +I can feel very sensibly the warmth of the noonday sun, which did its +best to heat it through. This shaft will endure forever. The polish of +eighteen centuries ago, as yet but half rubbed off, and the heat of +to-day's sunshine, lingering into the night, seem almost equally ephemeral +in relation to it." + +"There is comfort to be found in the pillar," remarked Miriam, "hard and +heavy as it is. Lying here forever, as it will, it makes all human +trouble appear but a momentary annoyance." + +"And human happiness as evanescent too," observed Hilda, sighing; "and +beautiful art hardly less so! I do not love to think that this dull stone, +merely by its massiveness, will last infinitely longer than any picture, +in spite of the spiritual life that ought to give it immortality!" + +"My poor little Hilda," said Miriam, kissing her compassionately, "would +you sacrifice this greatest mortal consolation, which we derive from the +transitoriness of all things, from the right of saying, in every +conjecture, 'This, too, will pass away,' would you give up this +unspeakable boon, for the sake of making a picture eternal?" + +Their moralizing strain was interrupted by a demonstration from the rest +of the party, who, after talking and laughing together, suddenly joined +their voices, and shouted at full pitch, + +"Trajan! Trajan!" + +"Why do you deafen us with such an uproar?" inquired Miriam. + +In truth, the whole piazza had been filled with their idle vociferation; +the echoes from the surrounding houses reverberating the cry of "Trajan," +on all sides; as if there was a great search for that imperial personage, +and not so much as a handful of his ashes to be found. + +"Why, it was a good opportunity to air our voices in this resounding +piazza," replied one of the artists. "Besides, we had really some hopes +of summoning Trajan to look at his column, which, you know, he never saw +in his lifetime. Here is your model (who, they say, lived and sinned +before Trajan's death) still wandering about Rome; and why not the Emperor +Trajan?" + +"Dead emperors have very little delight in their columns, I am afraid," +observed Kenyon. "All that rich sculpture of Trajan's bloody warfare, +twining from the base of the pillar to its capital, may be but an ugly +spectacle for his ghostly eyes, if he considers that this huge, storied +shaft must be laid before the judgment-seat, as a piece of the evidence of +what he did in the flesh. If ever I am employed to sculpture a hero's +monument, I shall think of this, as I put in the bas-reliefs of the +pedestal!" + +"There are sermons in stones," said Hilda thoughtfully, smiling at +Kenyon's morality; "and especially in the stones of Rome." + +The party moved on, but deviated a little from the straight way, in order +to glance at the ponderous remains of the temple of Mars Ultot, within +which a convent of nuns is now established,--a dove-cote, in the war-god's +mansion. At only a little distance, they passed the portico of a Temple +of Minerva, most rich and beautiful in architecture, but woefully gnawed +by time and shattered by violence, besides being buried midway in the +accumulation of soil, that rises over dead Rome like a flood tide. Within +this edifice of antique sanctity, a baker's shop was now established, with +an entrance on one side; for, everywhere, the remnants of old grandeur and +divinity have been made available for the meanest necessities of today. + +"The baker is just drawing his loaves out of the oven," remarked Kenyon. +"Do you smell how sour they are? I should fancy that Minerva (in revenge +for the desecration of her temple) had slyly poured vinegar into the batch, +if I did not know that the modern Romans prefer their bread in the +acetous fermentation." + +They turned into the Via Alessandria, and thus gained the rear of the +Temple of Peace, and, passing beneath its great arches, pursued their way +along a hedge-bordered lane. In all probability, a stately Roman street +lay buried beneath that rustic-looking pathway; for they had now emerged +from the close and narrow avenues of the modern city, and were treading on +a soil where the seeds of antique grandeur had not yet produced the +squalid crop that elsewhere sprouts from them. Grassy as the lane was, it +skirted along heaps of shapeless ruin, and the bare site of the vast +temple that Hadrian planned and built. It terminated on the edge of a +somewhat abrupt descent, at the foot of which, with a muddy ditch between, +rose, in the bright moonlight, the great curving wall and multitudinous +arches of the Coliseum. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +MIRIAM'S TROUBLE + + +As usual of a moonlight evening, several carriages stood at the entrance +of this famous ruin, and the precincts and interior were anything but a +solitude. The French sentinel on duty beneath the principal archway eyed +our party curiously, but offered no obstacle to their admission. Within, +the moonlight filled and flooded the great empty space; it glowed upon +tier above tier of ruined, grass-grown arches, and made them even too +distinctly visible. The splendor of the revelation took away that +inestimable effect of dimness and mystery by which the imagination might +be assisted to build a grander structure than the Coliseum, and to shatter +it with a more picturesque decay. Byron's celebrated description is +better than the reality. He beheld the scene in his mind's eye, through +the witchery of many intervening years, and faintly illuminated it as if +with starlight instead of this broad glow of moonshine. + +The party of our friends sat down, three or four of them on a prostrate +column, another on a shapeless lump of marble, once a Roman altar; others +on the steps of one of the Christian shrines. Goths and barbarians though +they were, they chatted as gayly together as if they belonged to the +gentle and pleasant race of people who now inhabit Italy. There was much +pastime and gayety just then in the area of the Coliseum, where so many +gladiators and Wild beasts had fought and died, and where so much blood of +Christian martyrs had been lapped up by that fiercest of wild beasts, the +Roman populace of yore. Some youths and maidens were running merry races +across the open space, and playing at hide and seek a little way within +the duskiness of the ground tier of arches, whence now and then you could +hear the half-shriek, halflaugh of a frolicsome girl, whom the shadow had +betrayed into a young man's arms. Elder groups were seated on the +fragments of pillars and blocks of marble that lay round the verge of the +arena, talking in the quick, short ripple of the Italian tongue. On the +steps of the great black cross in the centre of the Coliseum sat a party +singing scraps of songs, with much laughter and merriment between the +stanzas. + +It was a strange place for song and mirth. That black cross marks one of +the special blood-spots of the earth where, thousands of times over, the +dying gladiator fell, and more of human agony has been endured for the +mere pastime of the multitude than on the breadth of many battlefields. +From all this crime and suffering, however, the spot has derived a more +than common sanctity. An inscription promises seven years' indulgence, +seven years of remission from the pains of purgatory, and earlier +enjoyment of heavenly bliss, for each separate kiss imprinted on the black +cross. What better use could be made of life, after middle age, when the +accumulated sins are many and the remaining temptations few, than to spend +it all in kissing the black cross of the Coliseum! + +Besides its central consecration, the whole area has been made sacred by a +range of shrines, which are erected round the circle, each commemorating +some scene or circumstance of the Saviour's passion and suffering. In +accordance with an ordinary custom, a pilgrim was making his progress from +shrine to shrine upon his knees, and saying a penitential prayer at each. +Light-footed girls ran across the path along which he crept, or sported +with their friends close by the shrines where he was kneeling. The +pilgrim took no heed, and the girls meant no irreverence; for in Italy +religion jostles along side by side with business and sport, after a +fashion of its own, and people are accustomed to kneel down and pray, or +see others praying, between two fits of merriment, or between two sins. + +To make an end of our description, a red twinkle of light was visible amid +the breadth of shadow that fell across the upper part of the Coliseum. +Now it glimmered through a line of arches, or threw a broader gleam as it +rose out of some profound abyss of ruin; now it was muffled by a heap of +shrubbery which had adventurously clambered to that dizzy height; and so +the red light kept ascending to loftier and loftier ranges of the +structure, until it stood like a star where the blue sky rested against +the Coliseum's topmost wall. It indicated a party of English or Americans +paying the inevitable visit by moonlight, and exalting themselves with +raptures that were Byron's, not their own. + +Our company of artists sat on the fallen column, the pagan altar, and the +steps of the Christian shrine, enjoying the moonlight and shadow, the +present gayety and the gloomy reminiscences of the scene, in almost equal +share. Artists, indeed, are lifted by the ideality of their pursuits a +little way off the earth, and are therefore able to catch the evanescent +fragrance that floats in the atmosphere of life above the heads of the +ordinary crowd. Even if they seem endowed with little imagination +individually, yet there is a property, a gift, a talisman, common to their +class, entitling them to partake somewhat more bountifully than other +people in the thin delights of moonshine and romance. + +"How delightful this is!" said Hilda; and she sighed for very pleasure. + +"Yes," said Kenyon, who sat on the column, at her side. "The Coliseum is +far more delightful, as we enjoy it now, than when eighty thousand persons +sat squeezed together, row above row, to see their fellow creatures torn +by lions and tigers limb from limb. What a strange thought that the +Coliseum was really built for us, and has not come to its best uses till +almost two thousand years after it was finished!" + +"The Emperor Vespasian scarcely had us in his mind," said Hilda, smiling; +"but I thank him none the less for building it." + +"He gets small thanks, I fear, from the people whose bloody instincts he +pampered," rejoined Kenyon. "Fancy a nightly assemblage of eighty +thousand melancholy and remorseful ghosts, looking down from those tiers +of broken arches, striving to repent of the savage pleasures which they +once enjoyed, but still longing to enjoy them over again." + +"You bring a Gothic horror into this peaceful moonlight scene," said Hilda. + + +"Nay, I have good authority for peopling the Coliseum with phantoms," +replied the sculptor. "Do you remember that veritable scene in Benvenuto +Cellini's autobiography, in which a necromancer of his acquaintance draws +a magic circle--just where the black cross stands now, I suppose--and +raises myriads of demons? Benvenuto saw them with his own eyes,--giants, +pygmies, and other creatures of frightful aspect, capering and dancing on +yonder walls. Those spectres must have been Romans, in their lifetime, +and frequenters of this bloody amphitheatre." + +"I see a spectre, now!" said Hilda, with a little thrill of uneasiness. +"Have you watched that pilgrim, who is going round the whole circle of +shrines, on his knees, and praying with such fervency at every one? Now +that he has revolved so far in his orbit, and has the moonshine on his +face as he turns towards us, methinks I recognize him!" + +"And so do I," said Kenyon. "Poor Miriam! Do you think she sees him?" + +They looked round, and perceived that Miriam had risen from the steps of +the shrine and disappeared. She had shrunk back, in fact, into the deep +obscurity of an arch that opened just behind them. + +Donatello, whose faithful watch was no more to be eluded than that of a +hound, had stolen after her, and became the innocent witness of a +spectacle that had its own kind of horror. Unaware of his presence, and +fancying herself wholly unseen, the beautiful Miriam began to gesticulate +extravagantly, gnashing her teeth, flinging her arms wildly abroad, +stamping with her foot. + +It was as if she had stepped aside for an instant, solely to snatch the +relief of a brief fit of madness. Persons in acute trouble, or laboring +under strong excitement, with a necessity for concealing it, are prone to +relieve their nerves in this wild way; although, when practicable, they +find a more effectual solace in shrieking aloud. + +Thus, as soon as she threw off her self-control, under the dusky arches of +the Coliseum, we may consider Miriam as a mad woman, concentrating the +elements of a long insanity into that instant. + +"Signorina! signorina! have pity on me!" cried Donatello, approaching +her; "this is too terrible!" + +"How dare you look, at me!" exclaimed Miriam, with a start; then, +whispering below her breath, "men have been struck dead for a less offence!" + +"If you desire it, or need it," said Donatello humbly, "I shall not be +loath to die." + +"Donatello," said Miriam, coming close to the young man, and speaking low, +but still the almost insanity of the moment vibrating in her voice, "if +you love yourself; if you desire those earthly blessings, such as you, of +all men, were made for; if you would come to a good old age among your +olive orchards and your Tuscan vines, as your forefathers did; if you +would leave children to enjoy the same peaceful, happy, innocent life, +then flee from me. Look not behind you! Get you gone without another +word." He gazed sadly at her, but did not stir. "I tell you," Miriam +went on, "there is a great evil hanging over me! I know it; I see it in +the sky; I feel it in the air! It will overwhelm me as utterly as if this +arch should crumble down upon our heads! It will crush you, too, if you +stand at my side! Depart, then; and make the sign of the cross, as your +faith bids you, when an evil spirit is nigh. Cast me off, or you are lost +forever." + +A higher sentiment brightened upon Donatello's face than had hitherto +seemed to belong to its simple expression and sensuous beauty. + +"I will never quit you," he said; "you cannot drive me from you." + +"Poor Donatello!" said Miriam in a changed tone, and rather to herself +than him. "Is there no other that seeks me out, follows me,--is obstinate +to share my affliction and my doom,--but only you! They call me +beautiful; and I used to fancy that, at my need, I could bring the whole +world to my feet. And lo! here is my utmost need; and my beauty and my +gifts have brought me only this poor, simple boy. Half-witted, they call +him; and surely fit for nothing but to be happy. And I accept his aid! +To-morrow, to-morrow, I will tell him all! Ah! what a sin to stain his +joyous nature with the blackness of a woe like mine!" + +She held out her hand to him, and smiled sadly as Donatello pressed it to +his lips. They were now about to emerge from the depth of the arch; but +just then the kneeling pilgrim, in his revolution round the orbit of the +shrines, had reached the one on the steps of which Miriam had been sitting. +There, as at the other shrines, he prayed, or seemed to pray. It struck +Kenyon, however,--who sat close by, and saw his face distinctly, that the +suppliant was merely performing an enjoined penance, and without the +penitence that ought to have given it effectual life. Even as he knelt, +his eyes wandered, and Miriam soon felt that he had detected her, half +hidden as she was within the obscurity of the arch. + +"He is evidently a good Catholic, however," whispered one of the party. +"After all, I fear we cannot identify him with the ancient pagan who +haunts the catacombs." + +"The doctors of the Propaganda may have converted him," said another; +"they have had fifteen hundred years to perform the task." + +The company now deemed it time to continue their ramble. Emerging from a +side entrance of the Coliseum, they had on their left the Arch of +Constantine, and above it the shapeless ruins of the Palace of the Caesars; +portions of which have taken shape anew, in mediaeval convents and modern +villas. They turned their faces cityward, and, treading over the broad +flagstones of the old Roman pavement, passed through the Arch of Titus. +The moon shone brightly enough within it to show the seven-branched Jewish +candlestick, cut in the marble of the interior. The original of that +awful trophy lies buried, at this moment, in the yellow mud of the Tiber; +and, could its gold of Ophir again be brought to light, it would be the +most precious relic of past ages, in the estimation of both Jew and +Gentile. + +Standing amid so much ancient dust, it is difficult to spare the reader +the commonplaces of enthusiasm, on which hundreds of tourists have already +insisted. Over this half-worn pavement, and beneath this Arch of Titus, +the Roman armies had trodden in their outward march, to fight battles a +world's width away. Returning victorious, with royal captives and +inestimable spoil, a Roman triumph, that most gorgeous pageant of earthly +pride, had streamed and flaunted in hundred-fold succession over these +same flagstones, and through this yet stalwart archway. It is politic, +however, to make few allusions to such a past; nor, if we would create an +interest in the characters of our story, is it wise to suggest how +Cicero's foot may have stepped on yonder stone, or how Horace was wont to +stroll near by, making his footsteps chime with the measure of the ode +that was ringing in his mind. The very ghosts of that massive and stately +epoch have so much density that the actual people of to-day seem the +thinner of the two, and stand more ghost-like by the arches and columns, +letting the rich sculpture be discerned through their ill-compacted +substance. + +The party kept onward, often meeting pairs and groups of midnight +strollers like themselves. On such a moonlight night as this, Rome keeps +itself awake and stirring, and is full of song and pastime, the noise of +which mingles with your dreams, if you have gone betimes to bed. But it +is better to be abroad, and take our own share of the enjoyable time; for +the languor that weighs so heavily in the Roman atmosphere by day is +lightened beneath the moon and stars. + +They had now reached the precincts of the Forum. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE + + +"Let us settle it," said Kenyon, stamping his foot firmly down, "that this +is precisely the spot where the chasm opened, into which Curtius +precipitated his good steed and himself. Imagine the great, dusky gap, +impenetrably deep, and with half-shaped monsters and hideous faces looming +upward out of it, to the vast affright of the good citizens who peeped +over the brim! There, now, is a subject, hitherto unthought of, for a +grim and ghastly story, and, methinks, with a moral as deep as the gulf +itself. Within it, beyond a question, there were prophetic visions, +--intimations of all the future calamities of Rome,--shades of Goths, and +Gauls, and even of the French soldiers of to-day. It was a pity to close +it up so soon! I would give much for a peep into such a chasm." + +"I fancy," remarked Miriam, "that every person takes a peep into it in +moments of gloom and despondency; that is to say, in his moments of +deepest insight." + +"Where is it, then?" asked Hilda. "I never peeped into it." + +"Wait, and it will open for you," replied her friend. "The chasm was +merely one of the orifices of that pit of blackness that lies beneath us, +everywhere. The firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin crust +spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive stage +scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the chasm. A +footstep, a little heavier than ordinary, will serve; and we must step +very daintily, not to break through the crust at any moment. By and by, +we inevitably sink! It was a foolish piece of heroism in Curtius to +precipitate himself there, in advance; for all Rome, you see, has been +swallowed up in that gulf, in spite of him. The Palace of the Caesars has +gone down thither, with a hollow, rumbling sound of its fragments! All +the temples have tumbled into it; and thousands of statues have been +thrown after! All the armies and the triumphs have marched into the great +chasm, with their martial music playing, as they stepped over the brink. +All the heroes, the statesmen, and the poets! All piled upon poor Curtius, +who thought to have saved them all! I am loath to smile at the +self-conceit of that gallant horseman, but cannot well avoid it." + +"It grieves me to hear you speak thus, Miriam," said Hilda, whose natural +and cheerful piety was shocked by her friend's gloomy view of human +destinies. "It seems to me that there is no chasm, nor any hideous +emptiness under our feet, except what the evil within us digs. If there +be such a chasm, let us bridge it over with good thoughts and deeds, and +we shall tread safely to the other side. It was the guilt of Rome, no +doubt, that caused this gulf to open; and Curtius filled it up with his +heroic self-sacrifice and patriotism, which was the best virtue that the +old Romans knew. Every wrong thing makes the gulf deeper; every right one +helps to fill it up. As the evil of Rome was far more than its good, the +whole commonwealth finally sank into it, indeed, but of no original +necessity." + +"Well, Hilda, it came to the same thing at last," answered Miriam +despondingly. + +"Doubtless, too," resumed the sculptor (for his imagination was greatly +excited by the idea of this wondrous chasm), "all the blood that the +Romans shed, whether on battlefields, or in the Coliseum, or on the cross, +--in whatever public or private murder,--ran into this fatal gulf, and +formed a mighty subterranean lake of gore, right beneath our feet. The +blood from the thirty wounds in Caesar's breast flowed hitherward, and +that pure little rivulet from Virginia's bosom, too! Virginia, beyond all +question, was stabbed by her father, precisely where we are standing." + +"Then the spot is hallowed forever!" said Hilda. + +"Is there such blessed potency in bloodshed?" asked Miriam. "Nay, Hilda, +do not protest! I take your meaning rightly." + +They again moved forward. And still, from the Forum and the Via Sacra, +from beneath the arches of the Temple of Peace on one side, and the +acclivity of the Palace of the Caesars on the other, there arose singing +voices of parties that were strolling through the moonlight. Thus, the +air was full of kindred melodies that encountered one.another, and twined +themselves into a broad, vague music, out of which no single strain could +be disentangled. These good examples, as well as the harmonious +influences of the hour, incited our artist friends to make proof of their +own vocal powers. With what skill and breath they had, they set up a +choral strain,--"Hail, Columbia!" we believe, which those old Roman +echoes must have found it exceeding difficult to repeat aright. Even +Hilda poured the slender sweetness of her note into her country's song. +Miriam was at first silent, being perhaps unfamiliar with the air and +burden. But suddenly she threw out such a swell and gush of sound, that +it seemed to pervade the whole choir of other voices, and then to rise +above them all, and become audible in what would else have been thee +silence of an upper region. That volume of melodious voice was one of the +tokens of a great trouble. There had long been an impulse upon +her--amounting, at last, to a necessity to shriek aloud; but she had +struggled against it, till the thunderous anthem gave her an opportunity +to relieve her heart by a great cry. + +They passed the solitary Column of Phocas, and looked down into the +excavated space, where a confusion of pillars, arches, pavements, and +shattered blocks and shafts--the crumbs of various ruin dropped from the +devouring maw of Time stand, or lie, at the base of the Capitoline Hill. +That renowned hillock (for it is little more) now arose abruptly above +them. The ponderous masonry, with which the hillside is built up, is as +old as Rome itself, and looks likely to endure while the world retains any +substance or permanence. It once sustained the Capitol, and now bears up +the great pile which the mediaeval builders raised on the antique +foundation, and that still loftier tower, which looks abroad upon a larger +page of deeper historic interest than any other scene can show. On the +same pedestal of Roman masonry, other structures will doubtless rise, and +vanish like ephemeral things. + +To a spectator on the spot, it is remarkable that the events of Roman +history, and Roman life itself, appear not so distant as the Gothic ages +which succeeded them. We stand in the Forum, or on the height of the +Capitol, and seem to see the Roman epoch close at hand. We forget that a +chasm extends between it and ourselves, in which lie all those dark, rude, +unlettered centuries, around the birth-time of Christianity, as well as +the age of chivalry and romance, the feudal system, and the infancy of a +better civilization than that of Rome. Or, if we remember these mediaeval +times, they look further off than the Augustan age. The reason may be, +that the old Roman literature survives, and creates for us an intimacy +with the classic ages, which we have no means of forming with the +subsequent ones. + +The Italian climate, moreover, robs age of its reverence and makes it look +newer than it is. Not the Coliseum, nor the tombs of the Appian Way, nor +the oldest pillar in the Forum, nor any other Roman ruin, be it as +dilapidated as it may, ever give the impression of venerable antiquity +which we gather, along with the ivy, from the gray walls of an English +abbey or castle. And yet every brick or stone, which we pick up among the +former, had fallen ages before the foundation of the latter was begun. +This is owing to the kindliness with which Natures takes an English ruin +to her heart, covering it with ivy, as tenderly as Robin Redbreast covered +the dead babes with forest leaves. She strives to make it a part of +herself, gradually obliterating the handiwork of man, and supplanting it +with her own mosses and trailing verdure, till she has won the whole +structure back. But, in Italy, whenever man has once hewn a stone, Nature +forthwith relinquishes her right to it, and never lays her finger on it +again. Age after age finds it bare and naked, in the barren sunshine, +and leaves it so. Besides this natural disadvantage, too, each succeeding +century, in Rome, has done its best to ruin the very ruins, so far as +their picturesque effect is concerned, by stealing away the marble and +hewn stone, and leaving only yellow bricks, which never can look venerable. + + +The party ascended the winding way that leads from the Forum to the Piazza +of the Campidoglio on the summit of the Capitoline Hill. They stood +awhile to contemplate the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius. +The moonlight glistened upon traces of the gilding which had once covered +both rider and steed; these were almost gone, but the aspect of dignity +was still perfect, clothing the figure as it were with an imperial robe of +light. It is the most majestic representation of the kingly character +that ever the world has seen. A sight of the old heathen emperor is +enough to create an evanescent sentiment of loyalty even in a democratic +bosom, so august does he look, so fit to rule, so worthy of man's +profoundest homage and obedience, so inevitably attractive of his love. +He stretches forth his hand with an air of grand beneficence and unlimited +authority, as if uttering a decree from which no appeal was permissible, +but in which the obedient subject would find his highest interests +consulted; a command that was in itself a benediction. + +"The sculptor of this statue knew what a king should be," observed Kenyon, +"and knew, likewise, the heart of mankind, and how it craves a true ruler, +under whatever title, as a child its father" + +"O, if there were but one such man as this?" exclaimed Miriam. "One such +man in an age, and one in all the world; then how speedily would the +strife, wickedness, and sorrow of us poor creatures be relieved. We would +come to him with our griefs, whatever they might be,--even a poor, frail +woman burdened with her heavy heart,--and lay them at his feet, and never +need to take them up again. The rightful king would see to all." + +"What an idea of the regal office and duty!" said Kenyon, with a smile. +"It is a woman's idea of the whole matter to perfection. It is Hilda's, +too, no doubt?" + +"No," answered the quiet Hilda; "I should never look for such assistance +from an earthly king." + +"Hilda, my religious Hilda," whispered Miriam, suddenly drawing the girl +close to her, "do you know how it is with me? I would give all I have or +hope--my life, O how freely--for one instant of your trust in God! You +little guess my need of it. You really think, then, that He sees and +cares for us?" + +"Miriam, you frighten me." + +"Hush, hush? do not let them hear yet!" whispered Miriam. "I frighten +you, you say; for Heaven's sake, how? Am I strange? Is there anything +wild in my behavior?" + +"Only for that moment," replied Hilda, "because you seemed to doubt God's +providence." + +"We will talk of that another time," said her friend. "Just now it is +very dark to me." + +On the left of the Piazza of the Campidoglio, as you face cityward, and at +the head of the long and stately flight of steps descending from the +Capitoline Hill to the level of lower Rome, there is a narrow lane or +passage. Into this the party of our friends now turned. The path +ascended a little, and ran along under the walls of a palace, but soon +passed through a gateway, and terminated in a small paved courtyard. It +was bordered by a low parapet. + +The spot, for some reason or other, impressed them as exceedingly lonely. +On one side was the great height of the palace, with the moonshine falling +over it, and showing all the windows barred and shuttered. Not a human +eye could look down into the little courtyard, even if the seemingly +deserted palace had a tenant. On all other sides of its narrow compass +there was nothing but the parapet, which as it now appeared was built +right on the edge of a steep precipice. Gazing from its imminent brow, +the party beheld a crowded confusion of roofs spreading over the whole +space between them and the line of hills that lay beyond the Tiber. A +long, misty wreath, just dense enough to catch a little of the moonshine, +floated above the houses, midway towards the hilly line, and showed the +course of the unseen river. Far away on the right, the moon gleamed on +the dome of St. Peter's as well as on many lesser and nearer domes. + +"What a beautiful view of the city!" exclaimed Hilda; "and I never saw +Rome from this point before." + +"It ought to afford a good prospect," said the sculptor; "for it was from +this point--at least we are at liberty to think so, if we choose--that +many a famous Roman caught his last glimpse of his native city, and of all +other earthly things. This is one of the sides of the Tarpeian Rock. +Look over the parapet, and see what a sheer tumble there might still be +for a traitor, in spite of the thirty feet of soil that have accumulated +at the foot of the precipice." + +They all bent over, and saw that the cliff fell perpendicularly downward +to about the depth, or rather more, at which the tall palace rose in +height above their heads. Not that it was still the natural, shaggy front +of the original precipice; for it appeared to be cased in ancient +stonework, through which the primeval rock showed its face here and there +grimly and doubtfully. Mosses grew on the slight projections, and little +shrubs sprouted out of the crevices, but could not much soften the stern +aspect of the cliff. Brightly as the Italian moonlight fell adown the +height, it scarcely showed what portion of it was man's work and what was +nature's, but left it all in very much the same kind of ambiguity and +half-knowledge in which antiquarians generally leave the identity of Roman +remains. + +The roofs of some poor-looking houses, which had been built against the +base and sides of the cliff, rose nearly midway to the top; but from an +angle of the parapet there was a precipitous plunge straight downward into +a stonepaved court. + +"I prefer this to any other site as having been veritably the Traitor's +Leap," said Kenyon, "because it was so convenient to the Capitol. It was +an admirable idea of those stern old fellows to fling their political +criminals down from the very summit on which stood the Senate House and +Jove's Temple, emblems of the institutions which they sought to violate. +It symbolizes how sudden was the fall in those days from the utmost height +of ambition to its profoundest ruin." + +"Come, come; it is midnight," cried another artist, "too late to be +moralizing here. We are literally dreaming on the edge of a precipice. +Let us go home." + +"It is time, indeed," said Hilda. + +The sculptor was not without hopes that he might be favored with the sweet +charge of escorting Hilda to the foot of her tower. Accordingly, when the +party prepared to turn back, he offered her his arm. Hilda at first +accepted it; but when they had partly threaded the passage between the +little courtyard and the Piazza del Campidoglio, she discovered that +Miriam had remained behind. + +"I must go back," said she, withdrawing her arm from Kenyon's; "but pray +do not come with me. Several times this evening I have had a fancy that +Miriam had something on her mind, some sorrow or perplexity, which, +perhaps, it would relieve her to tell me about. No, no; do not turn back! +Donatello will be a sufficient guardian for Miriam and me." + +The sculptor was a good deal mortified, and perhaps a little angry: but he +knew Hilda's mood of gentle decision and independence too well not to obey +her. He therefore suffered the fearless maiden to return alone. + +Meanwhile Miriam had not noticed the departure of the rest of the company; +she remained on the edge of the precipice and Donatello along with her. + +"It would be a fatal fall, still," she said to herself, looking over the +parapet, and shuddering as her eye measured the depth. "Yes; surely yes! +Even without the weight of an overburdened heart, a human body would fall +heavily enough upon those stones to shake all its joints asunder. How +soon it would be over!" + +Donatello, of whose presence she was possibly not aware, now pressed +closer to her side; and he, too, like Miriam, bent over the low parapet +and trembled violently. Yet he seemed to feel that perilous fascination +which haunts the brow of precipices, tempting the unwary one to fling +himself over for the very horror of the thing; for, after drawing hastily +back, he again looked down, thrusting himself out farther than before. He +then stood silent a brief space, struggling, perhaps, to make himself +conscious of the historic associations of the scene. + +"What are you thinking of, Donatello?" asked Miriam. + +"Who are they," said he, looking earnestly in her face, "who have been +flung over here in days gone by?" + +"Men that cumbered the world," she replied. "Men whose lives were the +bane of their fellow creatures. Men who poisoned the air, which is the +common breath of all, for their own selfish purposes. There was short +work with such men in old Roman times. Just in the moment of their +triumph, a hand, as of an avenging giant, clutched them, and dashed the +wretches down this precipice." + +"Was it well done?" asked the young man. + +"It was well done," answered Miriam; "innocent persons were saved by the +destruction of a guilty one, who deserved his doom." + +While this brief conversation passed, Donatello had once or twice glanced +aside with a watchful air, just as a hound may often be seen to take +sidelong note of some suspicious object, while he gives his more direct +attention to something nearer at, hand. Miriam seemed now first to become +aware of the silence that had followed upon the cheerful talk and laughter +of a few moments before. + +Looking round, she perceived that all her company of merry friends had +retired, and Hilda, too, in whose soft and quiet presence she had always +an indescribable feeling of security. All gone; and only herself and +Donatello left hanging over the brow of the ominous precipice. + +Not so, however; not entirely alone! In the basement wall of the palace, +shaded from the moon, there was a deep, empty niche, that had probably +once contained a statue; not empty, either; for a figure now came forth +from it and approached Miriam. She must have had cause to dread some +unspeakable evil from this strange persecutor, and to know that this was +the very crisis of her calamity; for as he drew near, such a cold, sick +despair crept over her that it impeded her breath, and benumbed her +natural promptitude of thought. Miriam seemed dreamily to remember +falling on her knees; but, in her whole recollection of that wild moment, +she beheld herself as in a dim show, and could not well distinguish what +was done and suffered; no, not even whether she were really an actor and +sufferer in the scene. + +Hilda, meanwhile, had separated herself from the sculptor, and turned back +to rejoin her friend. At a distance, she still heard the mirth of her +late companions, who were going down the cityward descent of the +Capitoline Hill; they had set up a new stave of melody, in which her own +soft voice, as well as the powerful sweetness of Miriam's, was sadly +missed. + +The door of the little courtyard had swung upon its hinges, and partly +closed itself. Hilda (whose native gentleness pervaded all her movements) +was quietly opening it, when she was startled, midway, by the noise of a +struggle within, beginning and ending all in one breathless instant. +Along with it, or closely succeeding it, was a loud, fearful cry, which +quivered upward through the air, and sank quivering downward to the earth. +Then, a silence! Poor Hilda had looked into the court-yard, and saw the +whole quick passage of a deed, which took but that little time to grave +itself in the eternal adamant. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +THE FAUN'S TRANSFORMATION + + +The door of the courtyard swung slowly, and closed itself of its own +accord. Miriam and Donatello were now alone there. She clasped her hands, +and looked wildly at the young man, whose form seemed to have dilated, +and whose eyes blazed with the fierce energy that had suddenly inspired +him. It had kindled him into a man; it had developed within him an +intelligence which was no native characteristic of the Donatello whom we +have heretofore known. But that simple and joyous creature was gone +forever. + +"What have you done?" said Miriam, in a horror-stricken whisper. + +The glow of rage was still lurid on Donatello's face, and now flashed out +again from his eyes. + +"I did what ought to be done to a traitor!" he replied. "I did what your +eyes bade me do, when I asked them with mine, as I held the wretch over +the precipice!" + +These last words struck Miriam like a bullet. Could it be so? Had her +eyes provoked or assented to this deed? She had not known it. But, alas! +looking back into the frenzy and turmoil of the scene just acted, she +could not deny--she was not sure whether it might be so, or no--that a +wild joy had flamed up in her heart, when she beheld her persecutor in his +mortal peril. Was it horror?--or ecstasy? or both in one? Be the emotion +what it might, it had blazed up more madly, when Donatello flung his +victim off the cliff, and more and more, while his shriek went quivering +downward. With the dead thump upon the stones below had come an +unutterable horror. + +"And my eyes bade you do it!" repeated she. + +They both leaned over the parapet, and gazed downward as earnestly as if +some inestimable treasure had fallen over, and were yet recoverable. On +the pavement below was a dark mass, lying in a heap, with little or +nothing human in its appearance, except that the hands were stretched out, +as if they might have clutched for a moment at the small square stones. +But there was no motion in them now. Miriam watched the heap of mortality +while she could count a hundred, which she took pains to do. No stir; +not a finger moved! + +"You have killed him, Donatello! He is quite dead!" said she. "Stone +dead! Would I were so, too!" + +"Did you not mean that he should die?" sternly asked Donatello, still in +the glow of that intelligence which passion had developed in him. "There +was short time to weigh the matter; but he had his trial in that breath or +two while I held him over the cliff, and his sentence in that one glance, +when your eyes responded to mine! Say that I have slain him against your +will,--say that he died without your whole consent,--and, in another +breath, you shall see me lying beside him." + +"O, never!" cried Miriam. "My one, own friend! Never, never, never!" + +She turned to him,--the guilty, bloodstained, lonely woman,--she turned to +her fellow criminal, the youth, so lately innocent, whom she had drawn +into her doom. She pressed him close, close to her bosom, with a clinging +embrace that brought their two hearts together, till the horror and agony +of each was combined into one emotion, and that a kind of rapture. + +"Yes, Donatello, you speak the truth!" said she; "my heart consented to +what you did. We two slew yonder wretch. The deed knots us together, +for time and eternity, like the coil of a serpent!" + +They threw one other glance at the heap of death below, to assure +themselves that it was there; so like a dream was the whole thing. Then +they turned from that fatal precipice, and came out of the courtyard, arm +in arm, heart in heart. Instinctively, they were heedful not to sever +themselves so much as a pace or two from one another, for fear of the +terror and deadly chill that would thenceforth wait for them m solitude. +Their deed--the crime which Donatello wrought, and Miriam accepted on the +instant--had wreathed itself, as she said, like a serpent, in inextricable +links about both their souls, and drew them into one, by its terrible +contractile power. It was closer than a marriage bond. So intimate, in +those first moments, was the union, that it seemed as if their new +sympathy annihilated all other ties, and that they were released from the +chain of humanity; a new sphere, a special law, had been created for them +alone. The world could not come near them; they were safe! + +When they reached the flight of steps leading downward from the Capitol, +there was a faroff noise of singing and laughter. Swift, indeed, had been +the rush of the crisis that was come and gone! This was still the +merriment of the party that had so recently been their companions. They +recognized the voices which, a little while ago, had accorded and sung in +cadence with their own. But they were familiar voices no more; they +sounded strangely, and, as it were, out of the depths of space; so remote +was all that pertained to the past life of these guilty ones, in the moral +seclusion that had suddenly extended itself around them. But how close, +and ever closer, did the breath of the immeasurable waste, that lay +between them and all brotherhood or sisterhood, now press them one within +the other! + +"O friend!" cried Miriam, so putting her soul into the word that it took +a heavy richness of meaning, and seemed never to have been spoken before, +"O friend, are you conscious, as I am, of this companionshiP that knits +our heart-strings together?" + +"I feel it, Miriam," said Donatello. "We draw one breath; we live one +life!" + +"Only yesterday," continued Miriam; "nay, only a short half-hour ago, I +shivered in an icy solitude. No friendship, no sisterhood, could come +near enough to keep the warmth within my heart. In an instant all is +changed! There can be no more loneliness!" + +"None, Miriam!" said Donatello. + +"None, my beautiful one!" responded Miriam, gazing in his face, which had +taken a higher, almost an heroic aspect, from the strength of passion. +"None, my innocent one! Surely, it is no crime that we have committed. +One wretched and worthless life has been sacrificed to cement two other +lives for evermore." + +"For evermore, Miriam!" said Donatello; "cemented with his blood!" + +The young man started at the word which he had himself spoken; it may be +that it brought home, to the simplicity of his imagination, what he had +not before dreamed of,--the ever-increasing loathsomeness of a union that +consists in guilt. Cemented with blood, which would corrupt and grow more +noisome forever and forever, but bind them none the less strictly for that. + + +"Forget it! Cast it all behind you!" said Miriam, detecting, by her +sympathy, the pang that was in his heart. "The deed has done its office, +and has no existence any more." + +They flung the past behind them, as she counselled, or else distilled from +it a fiery, intoxication, which sufficed to carry them triumphantly +through those first moments of their doom. For guilt has its moment of +rapture too. The foremost result of a broken law is ever an ecstatic +sense of freedom. And thus there exhaled upward (out of their dark +sympathy, at the base of which lay a human corpse) a bliss, or an insanity, +which the unhappy pair imagined to be well worth the sleepy innocence +that was forever lost to them. + +As their spirits rose to the solemn madness of the occasion, they went +onward, not stealthily, not fearfully, but with a stately gait and aspect. +Passion lent them (as it does to meaner shapes) its brief nobility of +carriage. They trod through the streets of Rome, as if they, too, were +among the majestic and guilty shadows, that, from ages long gone by, have +haunted the blood-stained city. And, at Miriam's suggestion, they turned +aside, for the sake of treading loftily past the old site of Pompey's +Forum. + +"For there was a great deed done here!" she said,--"a deed of blood like +ours! Who knows but we may meet the high and ever-sad fraternity of +Caesar's murderers, and exchange a salutation?" + +"Are they our brethren, now?" asked Donatello. + +"Yes; all of them," said Miriam,--" and many another, whom the world +little dreams of, has been made our brother or our sister, by what we have +done within this hour!" + +And at the thought she shivered. Where then was the seclusion, the +remoteness, the strange, lonesome Paradise, into which she and her one +companion had been transported by their crime? Was there, indeed, no such +refuge, but only a crowded thoroughfare and jostling throng of criminals? +And was it true, that whatever hand had a blood-stain on it,--or had +poured out poison,--or strangled a babe at its birth,--or clutched a +grandsire's throat, he sleeping, and robbed him of his few last breaths, +--had now the right to offer itself in fellowship with their two hands? +Too certainly, that right existed. It is a terrible thought, that an +individual wrong-doing melts into the great mass of human crime, and makes +us, who dreamed only of our own little separate sin,--makes us guilty of +the whole. And thus Miriam and her lover were not an insulated pair, but +members of an innumerable confraternity of guilty ones, all shuddering at +each other. + +"But not now; not yet," she murmured to herself. "To-night, at least, +there shall be no remorse!" + +Wandering without a purpose, it so chanced that they turned into a street, +at one extremity of which stood Hilda's tower. There was a light in her +high chamber; a light, too, at the Virgin's shrine; and the glimmer of +these two was the loftiest light beneath the stars. Miriam drew +Donatello's arm, to make him stop, and while they stood at some distance +looking at Hilda's window, they beheld her approach and throw it open. +She leaned far forth, and extended her clasped hands towards the sky. + +"The good, pure child! She is praying, Donatello," said Miriam, with a +kind of simple joy at witnessing the devoutness of her friend. Then her +own sin rushed upon her, and she shouted, with the rich strength of her +voice, "Pray for us, Hilda; we need it!" + +Whether Hilda heard and recognized the voice we cannot tell. The window +was immediately closed, and her form disappeared from behind the snowy +curtain. Miriam felt this to be a token that the cry of her condemned +spirit was shut out of heaven. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +THE BURIAL CHANT + + +The Church of the Capuchins (where, as the reader may remember, some of +our acquaintances had made an engagement to meet) stands a little aside +from the Piazza Barberini. Thither, at the hour agreed upon, on the +morning after the scenes last described, Miriam and Donatello directed +their steps. At no time are people so sedulously careful to keep their +trifling appointments, attend to their ordinary occupations, and thus put +a commonplace aspect on life, as when conscious of some secret that if +suspected would make them look monstrous in the general eye. + +Yet how tame and wearisome is the impression of all ordinary things in the +contrast with such a fact! How sick and tremulous, the next morning, is +the spirit that has dared so much only the night before! How icy cold is +the heart, when the fervor, the wild ecstasy of passion has faded away, +and sunk down among the dead ashes of the fire that blazed so fiercely, +and was fed by the very substance of its life! How faintly does the +criminal stagger onward, lacking the impulse of that strong madness that +hurried him into guilt, and treacherously deserts him in the midst of it! + +When Miriam and Donatello drew near the church, they found only Kenyon +awaiting them on the steps. Hilda had likewise promised to be of the +party, but had not yet appeared. Meeting the sculptor, Miriam put a force +upon herself and succeeded in creating an artificial flow of spirits, +which, to any but the nicest observation, was quite as effective as a +natural one. She spoke sympathizingly to the sculptor on the subject of +Hilda's absence, and somewhat annoyed him by alluding in Donatello's +hearing to an attachment which had never been openly avowed, though +perhaps plainly enough betrayed. He fancied that Miriam did not quite +recognize the limits of the strictest delicacy; he even went so far as to +generalize, and conclude within himself, that this deficiency is a more +general failing in woman than in man, the highest refinement being a +masculine attribute. + +But the idea was unjust to the sex at large, and especially so to this +poor Miriam, who was hardly responsible for her frantic efforts to be gay. +Possibly, moreover, the nice action of the mind is set ajar by any +violent shock, as of great misfortune or great crime, so that the finer +perceptions may be blurred thenceforth, and the effect be traceable in all +the minutest conduct of life. + +"Did you see anything of the dear child after you left us?" asked Miriam, +still keeping Hilda as her topic of conversation. "I missed her sadly on +my way homeward; for nothing insures me such delightful and innocent +dreams (I have experienced it twenty times)as a talk late in the evening +with Hilda." + +"So I should imagine," said the sculptor gravely; "but it is an advantage +that I have little or no opportunity of enjoying. I know not what became +of Hilda after my parting from you. She was not especially my companion +in any part of our walk. The last I saw of her she was hastening back to +rejoin you in the courtyard of the Palazzo Caffarelli." + +"Impossible!" cried Miriam, starting. + +"Then did you not see her again?" inquired Kenyon, in some alarm. + +"Not there," answered Miriam quietly; "indeed, I followed pretty closely +on the heels of the rest of the party. But do not be alarmed on Hilda's +account; the Virgin is bound to watch over the good child, for the sake of +the piety with which she keeps the lamp alight at her shrine. And besides, +I have always felt that Hilda is just as safe in these evil streets of +Rome as her white doves when they fly downwards from the tower top, and +run to and fro among the horses' feet. There is certainly a providence on +purpose for Hilda, if for no other human creature." + +"I religiously believe it," rejoined the sculptor; "and yet my mind would +be the easier, if I knew that she had returned safely to her tower." + +"Then make yourself quite easy," answered Miriam. "I saw her (and it is +the last sweet sight that I remember) leaning from her window midway +between earth and sky!" + +Kenyon now looked at Donatello. + +"You seem out of spirits, my dear friend," he observed. "This languid +Roman atmosphere is not the airy wine that you were accustomed to breathe +at home. I have not forgotten your hospitable invitation to meet you this +summer at your castle among the Apennines. It is my fixed purpose to +come, I assure you. We shall both be the better for some deep draughts +of the mountain breezes." + +"It may he," said Donatello, with unwonted sombreness; "the old house +seemed joyous when I was a child. But as I remember it now it was a grim +place, too." + +The sculptor looked more attentively at the young man, and was surprised +and alarmed to observe how entirely the fine, fresh glow of animal spirits +had departed out of his face. Hitherto, moreover, even while he was +standing perfectly still, there had been a kind of possible gambol +indicated in his aspect. It was quite gone now. All his youthful gayety, +and with it his simplicity of manner, was eclipsed, if not utterly extinct. + + +"You are surely ill, my dear fellow," exclaimed Kenyon. + +"Am I? Perhaps so," said Donatello indifferently; "I never have been ill, +and know not what it may be." + +"Do not make the poor lad fancy-sink," whispered Miriam, pulling the +sculptor's sleeve. "He is of a nature to lie down and die at once, if he +finds himself drawing such melancholy breaths as we ordinary people are +enforced to burden our lungs withal. But we must get him away from this +old, dreamy and dreary Rome, where nobody but himself ever thought of +being gay. Its influences are too heavy to sustain the life of such a +creature." + +The above conversation had passed chiefly on the steps of the Cappuccini; +and, having said so much, Miriam lifted the leathern curtain that hangs +before all church-doors in italy. +" +Hilda has forgotten her appointment," she observed, "or else her maiden +slumbers are very sound this morning. We will wait for her no longer." + +They entered the nave. The interior of the church was of moderate compass, +but of good architecture, with a vaulted roof over the nave, and a row of +dusky chapels on either side of it instead of the customary side-aisles. +Each chapel had its saintly shrine, hung round with offerings; its picture +above the altar, although closely veiled, if by any painter of renown; and +its hallowed tapers, burning continually, to set alight the devotion of +the worshippers. The pavement of the nave was chiefly of marble, and +looked old and broken, and was shabbily patched here and there with tiles +of brick; it was inlaid, moreover, with tombstones of the mediaeval taste, +on which were quaintly sculptured borders, figures, and portraits in +bas-relief, and Latin epitaphs, now grown illegible by the tread of +footsteps over them. The church appertains to a convent of Capuchin monks; +and, as usually happens when a reverend brotherhood have such an edifice +in charge, the floor seemed never to have been scrubbed or swept, and had +as little the aspect of sanctity as a kennel; whereas, in all churches of +nunneries, the maiden sisterhood invariably show the purity of their own +hearts by the virgin cleanliness and visible consecration of the walls and +pavement. + +As our friends entered the church, their eyes rested at once on a +remarkable object in the centre of the nave. It was either the actual +body, or, as might rather have been supposed at first glance, the +cunningly wrought waxen face and suitably draped figure of a dead monk. +This image of wax or clay-cold reality, whichever it might be, lay on a +slightly elevated bier, with three tall candles burning on each side, +another tall candle at the head, and another at the foot. There was music, +too; in harmony with so funereal a spectacle. From beneath the pavement +of the church came the deep, lugubrious strain of a De Profundis, which +sounded like an utterance of the tomb itself; so dismally did it rumble +through the burial vaults, and ooze up among the flat gravestones and sad +epitaphs, filling the church as with a gloomy mist. + +"I must look more closely at that dead monk before we leave the church," +remarked the sculptor. "In the study of my art, I have gained many a hint +from the dead which the living could never have given me." + +"I can well imagine it," answered Miriam. "One clay image is readily +copied from another. But let us first see Guido's picture. The light is +favorable now." + +Accordingly, they turned into the first chapel on the right hand, as you +enter the nave; and there they beheld,--not the picture, indeed,--but a +closely drawn curtain. The churchmen of Italy make no scruple of +sacrificing the very purpose for which a work of sacred art has been +created; that of opening the way; for religious sentiment through the +quick medium of sight, by bringing angels, saints, and martyrs down +visibly upon earth; of sacrificing this high purpose, and, for aught they +know, the welfare of many souls along with it, to the hope of a paltry fee. +Every work by an artist of celebrity is hidden behind a veil, and seldom +revealed, except to Protestants, who scorn it as an object of devotion, +and value it only for its artistic merit. + +The sacristan was quickly found, however, and lost no time in disclosing +the youthful Archangel, setting his divine foot on the head of his fallen +adversary. It was an image of that greatest of future events, which we +hope for so ardently, at least, while we are young,--but find so very long +in coming, the triumph of goodness over the evil principle. + +"Where can Hilda be?" exclaimed Kenyon. "It is not her custom ever to +fail in an engagement; and the present one was made entirely on her +account. Except herself, you know, we were all agreed in our recollection +of the picture." + +"But we were wrong, and Hilda right, as you perceive," said Miriam, +directing his attention to the point on which their dispute of the night +before had arisen. "It is not easy to detect her astray as regards any +picture on which those clear, soft eyes of hers have ever rested." + +"And she has studied and admired few pictures so much as this," observed +the sculptor. "No wonder; for there is hardly another so beautiful in +the world. What an expression of heavenly severity in the Archangel's +face! There is a degree of pain, trouble, and disgust at being brought in +contact with sin, even for the purpose of quelling and punishing it; and +yet a celestial tranquillity pervades his whole being." + +"I have never been able," said Miriam, "to admire this picture nearly so +much as Hilda does, in its moral and intellectual aspect. If it cost her +more trouble to be good, if her soul were less white and pure, she would +be a more competent critic of this picture, and would estimate it not half +so high. I see its defects today more clearly than ever before." + +"What are some of them?" asked Kenyon. + +"That Archangel, now," Miriam continued; "how fair he looks, with his +unruffled wings, with his unhacked sword, and clad in his bright armor, +and that exquisitely fitting sky-blue tunic, cut in the latest +Paradisiacal mode! What a dainty air of the first celestial society! +With what half-scornful delicacy he sets his prettily sandalled foot on +the head of his prostrate foe! But, is it thus that virtue looks the +moment after its death struggle with evil? No, no; I could have told +Guido better. A full third of the Archangel's feathers should have been +torn from his wings; the rest all ruffled, till they looked like Satan's +own! His sword should be streaming with blood, and perhaps broken halfway +to the hilt; his armor crushed, his robes rent, his breast gory; a +bleeding gash on his brow, cutting right across the stern scowl of battle! +He should press his foot hard down upon the old serpent, as if his very +soul depended upon it, feeling him squirm mightily, and doubting whether +the fight were half over yet, and how the victory might turn! And, with +all this fierceness, this grimness, this unutterable horror, there should +still be something high, tender, and holy in Michael's eyes, and around +his mouth. But the battle never was such a child's play as Guido's dapper +Archangel seems to have found it." + +"For Heaven's sake, Miriam," cried Kenyon, astonished at the wild energy +of her talk; "paint the picture of man's struggle against sin according to +your own idea! I think it will be a masterpiece." + +"The picture would have its share of truth, I assure you," she answered; +"but I am sadly afraid the victory would fail on the wrong side. Just +fancy a smoke-blackened, fiery-eyed demon bestriding that nice young angel, +clutching his white throat with one of his hinder claws; and giving a +triumphant whisk of his scaly tail, with a poisonous dart at the end of it! +That is what they risk, poor souls, who do battle with Michael's enemy." + +It now, perhaps, struck Miriam that her mental disquietude was impelling +her to an undue vivacity; for she paused, and turned away from the picture, +without saying a word more about it. All this while, moreover, Donatello +had been very ill at ease, casting awe-stricken and inquiring glances at +the dead monk; as if he could look nowhere but at that ghastly object, +merely because it shocked him. Death has probably a peculiar horror and +ugliness, when forced upon the contemplation of a person so naturally +joyous as Donatello, who lived with completeness in the present moment, +and was able to form but vague images of the future. + +"What is the matter, Donatello?" whispered Miriam soothingly. "You are +quite in a tremble, my poor friend! What is it?" + +"This awful chant from beneath the church,," answered Donatello; "it +oppresses me; the air is so heavy with it that I can scarcely draw my +breath. And yonder dead monk! I feel as if he were lying right across my +heart." + +"Take courage!" whispered she again "come, we will approach close to the +dead monk. The only way, in such cases, is to stare the ugly horror +right in the face; never a sidelong glance, nor half-look, for those are +what show a frightfill thing in its frightfullest aspect. Lean on me, +dearest friend! My heart is very strong for both of us. Be brave; and +all is well." + +Donatello hung back for a moment, but then pressed close to Miriam's side, +and suffered her to lead him up to the bier. The sculptor followed. A +number of persons, chiefly women, with several children among them, were +standing about the corpse; and as our three friends drew nigh, a mother +knelt down, and caused her little boy to kneel, both kissing the beads and +crucifix that hung from the monk's girdle. Possibly he had died in the +odor of sanctity; or, at all events, death and his brown frock and cowl +made a sacred image of this reverend father. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +THE DEAD CAPUCHIN + + +The dead monk was clad, as when alive, in the brown woollen frock of the +Capuchins, with the hood drawn over his head, but so as to leave the +features and a portion of the beard uncovered. His rosary and cross hung +at his side; his hands were folded over his breast; his feet (he was of a +barefooted order in his lifetime, and continued so in death) protruded +from beneath his habit, stiff and stark, with a more waxen look than even +his face. They were tied together at the ankles with a black ribbon. + +The countenance, as we have already said, was fully displayed. It had a +purplish hue upon it, unlike the paleness of an ordinary corpse, but as +little resembling the flush of natural life. The eyelids were but +partially drawn down, and showed the eyeballs beneath; as if the deceased +friar were stealing a glimpse at the bystanders, to watch whether they +were duly impressed with the solemnity of his obsequies. The shaggy +eyebrows gave sternness to the look. Miriam passed between two of the +lighted candles, and stood close beside the bier. + +"My God!" murmured she. "What is this?" + +She grasped Donatello's hand, and, at the same instant, felt him give a +convulsive shudder, which she knew to have been caused by a sudden and +terrible throb of the heart. His hand, by an instantaneous change, became +like ice within hers, which likewise grew so icy that their insensible +fingers might have rattled, one against the other. No wonder that their +blood curdled; no wonder that their hearts leaped and paused! The dead +face of the monk, gazing at them beneath its half-closed eyelids, was the +same visage that had glared upon their naked souls, the past midnight, as +Donatello flung him over the precipice. + +The sculptor was standing at the foot of the bier, and had not yet seen +the monk's features. + +"Those naked feet!" said he. "I know not why, but they affect me +strangely. They have walked to and fro over the hard pavements of Rome, +and through a hundred other rough ways of this life, where the monk went +begging for his brotherhood; along the cloisters and dreary corridors of +his convent, too, from his youth upward! It is a suggestive idea, to +track those worn feet backward through all the paths they have trodden, +ever since they were the tender and rosy little feet of a baby, and (cold +as they now are) were kept warm in his mother's hand." + +As his companions, whom the sculptor supposed to be close by him, made no +response to his fanciful musing, he looked up, and saw them at the head of +the bier. He advanced thither himself. + +"Ha!" exclaimed he. + +He cast a horror-stricken and bewildered glance at Miriam, but withdrew it +immediately. Not that he had any definite suspicion, or, it may be, even +a remote idea, that she could be held responsible in the least degree for +this man's sudden death. In truth, it seemed too wild a thought to +connect, in reality, Miriam's persecutor of many past months and the +vagabond of the preceding night, with the dead Capuchin of to-day. It +resembled one of those unaccountable changes and interminglings of +identity, which so often occur among the personages of a dream. But +Kenyon, as befitted the professor of an imaginative art, was endowed with +an exceedingly quick sensibility, which was apt to give him intimations of +the true state of matters that lay beyond his actual vision. There was a +whisper in his ear; it said, "Hush!" Without asking himself wherefore, he +resolved to be silent as regarded the mysterious discovery which he had +made, and to leave any remark or exclamation to be voluntarily offered by +Miriam. If she never spoke, then let the riddle be unsolved. + +And now occurred a circumstance that would seem too fantastic to be told, +if it had not actually happened, precisely as we set it down. As the +three friends stood by the bier, they saw that a little stream of blood +had begun to ooze from the dead monk's nostrils; it crept slowly towards +the thicket of his beard, where, in the course of a moment or two, it hid +itself. + +"How strange!" ejaculated Kenyon. "The monk died of apoplexy, I suppose, +or by some sudden accident, and the blood has not yet congealed." + +"Do you consider that a sufficient explanation?" asked Miriam, with a +smile from which the sculptor involuntarily turned away his eyes. "Does +it satisfy you?" + +"And why not?" he inquired. + +"Of course, you know the old superstition about this phenomenon of blood +flowing from a dead body," she rejoined. "How can we tell but that the +murderer of this monk (or, possibly, it may be only that privileged +murderer, his physician) may have just entered the church?" + +"I cannot jest about it," said Kenyon. "It is an ugly sight!" + +"True, true; horrible to see, or dream of!" she replied, with one of those +long, tremulous sighs, which so often betray a sick heart by escaping +unexpectedly. "We will not look at it any more. Come away, Donatello. +Let us escape from this dismal church. The sunshine will do you good." + +When had ever a woman such a trial to sustain as this! By no possible +supposition could Miriam explain the identity of the dead Capuchin, +quietly and decorously laid out in the nave of his convent church, with +that of her murdered persecutor, flung heedlessly at the foot of the +precipice. The effect upon her imagination was as if a strange and +unknown corpse had miraculously, while she was gazing at it, assumed the +likeness of that face, so terrible henceforth in her remembrance. It was +a symbol, perhaps, of the deadly iteration with which she was doomed to +behold the image of her crime reflected back upon her in a thousand ways, +and converting the great, calm face of Nature, in the whole, and in its +innumerable details, into a manifold reminiscence of that one dead visage. + +No sooner had Miriam turned away from the bier, and gone a few steps, than +she fancied the likeness altogether an illusion, which would vanish at a +closer and colder view. She must look at it again, therefore, and at once; +or else the grave would close over the face, and leave the awful fantasy +that had connected itself therewith fixed ineffaceably in her brain. + +"Wait for me, one moment!" she said to her companions. "Only a moment!" + +So she went back, and gazed once more at the corpse. Yes; these were the +features that Miriam had known so well; this was the visage that she +remembered from a far longer date than the most intimate of her friends +suspected; this form of clay had held the evil spirit which blasted her +sweet youth, and compelled her, as it were, to stain her womanhood with +crime. But, whether it were the majesty of death, or something originally +noble and lofty in the character of the dead, which the soul had stamped +upon the features, as it left them; so it was that Miriam now quailed and +shook, not for the vulgar horror of the spectacle, but for the severe, +reproachful glance that seemed to come from between those half-closed lids. +True, there had been nothing, in his lifetime, viler than this man. +She knew it; there was no other fact within her consciousness that she +felt to be so certain; and yet, because her persecutor found himself safe +and irrefutable in death, he frowned upon his victim, and threw back the +blame on her! + +"Is it thou, indeed?" she murmured, under her breath. "Then thou hast no +right to scowl upon me so! But art thou real, or a vision?" She bent down +over the dead monk, till one of her rich curls brushed against his +forehead. She touched one of his folded hands with her finger. + +"It is he," said Miriam. "There is the scar, that I know so well, on his +brow. And it is no vision; he is palpable to my touch! I will question +the fact no longer, but deal with it as I best can." + +It was wonderful to see how the crisis developed in Miriam its own proper +strength, and the faculty of sustaining the demands which it made upon her +fortitude. She ceased to tremble; the beautiful woman gazed sternly at +her dead enemy, endeavoring to meet and quell the look of accusation that +he threw from between his half-closed eyelids. + +"No; thou shalt not scowl me down!" said she. "Neither now, nor when we +stand together at the judgment-seat. I fear not to meet thee there. +Farewell, till that next encounter!" + +Haughtily waving her hand, Miriam rejoined her friends, who were awaiting +her at the door of the church. As they went out, the sacristan stopped +them, and proposed to show the cemetery of the convent, where the deceased +members of the fraternity are laid to rest in sacred earth, brought long +ago from Jerusalem. + +"And will yonder monk be buried there?" she asked. + +"Brother Antonio?" exclaimed the sacristan. + +"Surely, our good brother will be put to bed there! His grave is already +dug, and the last occupant has made room for him. Will you look at it, +signorina?" + +"I will!" said Miriam. + +"Then excuse me," observed Kenyon; "for I shall leave you. One dead monk +has more than sufficed me; and I am not bold enough to face the whole +mortality of the convent." + +It was easy to see, by Donatello's looks, that he, as well as the sculptor, +would gladly have escaped a visit to the famous cemetery of the +Cappuccini. But Miriam's nerves were strained to such a pitch, that she +anticipated a certain solace and absolute relief in passing from one +ghastly spectacle to another of long-accumulated ugliness; and there was, +besides, a singular sense of duty which impelled her to look at the final +resting-place of the being whose fate had been so disastrously involved +with her own. She therefore followed the sacristan's guidance, and drew +her companion along with her, whispering encouragement as they went. + +The cemetery is beneath the church, but entirely above ground, and lighted +by a row of iron-grated windows without glass. A corridor runs along +beside these windows, and gives access to three or four vaulted recesses, +or chapels, of considerable breadth and height, the floor of which +consists of the consecrated earth of Jerusalem. It is smoothed decorously +over the deceased brethren of the convent, and is kept quite free from +grass or weeds, such as would grow even in these gloomy recesses, if pains +were not bestowed to root them up. But, as the cemetery is small, and it +is a precious privilege to sleep in holy ground, the brotherhood are +immemorially accustomed, when one of their number dies, to take the +longest buried skeleton out of the oldest grave, and lay the new slumberer +there instead. Thus, each of the good friars, in his turn, enjoys the +luxury of a consecrated bed, attended with the slight drawback of being +forced to get up long before daybreak, as it were, and make room for +another lodger. + +The arrangement of the unearthed skeletons is what makes the special +interest of the cemetery. The arched and vaulted walls of the burial +recesses are supported by massive pillars and pilasters made of +thigh-bones and skulls; the whole material of the structure appears to be +of a similar kind; and the knobs and embossed ornaments of this strange +architecture are represented by the joints of the spine, and the more +delicate tracery by the Smaller bones of the human frame. The summits of +the arches are adorned with entire skeletons, looking as if they were +wrought most skilfully in bas-relief. There is no possibility of +describing how ugly and grotesque is the effect, combined with a certain +artistic merit, nor how much perverted ingenuity has been shown in this +queer way, nor what a multitude of dead monks, through how many hundred +years, must have contributed their bony framework to build up. these +great arches of mortality. On some of the skulls there are inscriptions, +purporting that such a monk, who formerly made use of that particular +headpiece, died on such a day and year; but vastly the greater number are +piled up indistinguishably into the architectural design, like the many +deaths that make up the one glory of a victory. + +In the side walls of the vaults are niches where skeleton monks sit or +stand, clad in the brown habits that they wore in life, and labelled with +their names and the dates of their decease. Their skulls (some quite +bare, and others still covered with yellow skin, and hair that has known +the earth-damps) look out from beneath their hoods, grinning hideously +repulsive. One reverend father has his mouth wide open, as if he had died +in the midst of a howl of terror and remorse, which perhaps is even now +screeching through eternity. As a general thing, however, these frocked +and hooded skeletons seem to take a more cheerful view of their position, +and try with ghastly smiles to turn it into a jest. But the cemetery of +the Capuchins is no place to nourish celestial hopes: the soul sinks +forlorn and wretched under all this burden of dusty death; the holy earth +from Jerusalem, so imbued is it with mortality, has grown as barren of the +flowers of Paradise as it is of earthly weeds and grass. Thank Heaven for +its blue sky; it needs a long, upward gaze to give us back our faith. Not +here can we feel ourselves immortal, where the very altars in these +chapels of horrible consecration are heaps of human bones. + +Yet let us give the cemetery the praise that it deserves. There is no +disagreeable scent, such as might have been expected from the decay of so +many holy persons, in whatever odor of sanctity they may have taken their +departure. The same number of living monks would not smell half so +unexceptionably. + +Miriam went gloomily along the corridor, from one vaulted Golgotha to +another, until in the farthest recess she beheld an open grave. + +"Is that for him who lies yonder in the nave?" she asked. + +"Yes, signorina, this is to be the resting-place of Brother Antonio, who +came to his death last night," answered the sacristan; "and in yonder +niche, you see, sits a brother who was buried thirty years ago, and has +risen to give him place." + +"It is not a satisfactory idea," observed Miriam, "that you poor friars +cannot call even your graves permanently your own. You must lie down in +them, methinks, with a nervous anticipation of being disturbed, like weary +men who know that they shall be summoned out of bed at midnight. Is it +not possible (if money were to be paid for the privilege) to leave Brother +Antonio--if that be his name--in the occupancy of that narrow grave till +the last trumpet sounds?" + +"By no means, signorina; neither is it needful or desirable," answered the +sacristan. "A quarter of a century's sleep in the sweet earth of +Jerusalem is better than a thousand years in any other soil. Our brethren +find good rest there. No ghost was ever known to steal out of this +blessed cemetery." + +"That is well," responded Miriam; "may he whom you now lay to sleep prove +no exception to the rule!" + +As they left the cemetery she put money into the sacristan's hand to an +amount that made his eyes open wide and glisten, and requested that it +might be expended in masses for the repose of Father Antonio's soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +THE MEDICI GARDENS + + +Donatello," said Miriam anxiously, as they came through the Piazza +Barberini, "what can I do for you, my beloved friend? You are shaking as +with the cold fit of the Roman fever." "Yes," said Donatello; "my heart +shivers." As soon as she could collect her thoughts, Miriam led the young +man to the gardens of the Villa Medici, hoping that the quiet shade and +sunshine of that delightful retreat would a little revive his spirits. +The grounds are there laid out in the old fashion of straight paths, with +borders of box, which form hedges of great height and density, and are +shorn and trimmed to the evenness of a wall of stone, at the top and sides. +There are green alleys, with long vistas overshadowed by ilex-trees; and +at each intersection of the paths, the visitor finds seats of +lichen-covered stone to repose upon, and marble statues that look +forlornly at him, regretful of their lost noses. In the more open +portions of the garden, before the sculptured front of the villa, you see +fountains and flower-beds, and in their season a profusion of roses, from +which the genial sun of Italy distils a fragrance, to be scattered abroad +by the no less genial breeze. + +But Donatello drew no delight from these things. He walked onward in +silent apathy, and looked at Miriam with strangely half-awakened and +bewildered eyes, when she sought to bring his mind into sympathy with hers, +and so relieve his heart of the burden that lay lumpishly upon it. + +She made him sit down on a stone bench, where two embowered alleys crossed +each other; so that they could discern the approach of any casual intruder +a long way down the path. + +"My sweet friend," she said, taking one of his passive hands in both of +hers, "what can I say to comfort you?" + +"Nothing!" replied Donatello, with sombre reserve. "Nothing will ever +comfort me." + +"I accept my own misery," continued Miriam, "my own guilt, if guilt it be; +and, whether guilt or misery, I shall know how to deal with it. But you, +dearest friend, that were the rarest creature in all this world, and +seemed a being to whom sorrow could not cling,--you, whom I half fancied +to belong to a race that had vanished forever, you only surviving, to show +mankind how genial and how joyous life used to be, in some long-gone age, +--what had you to do with grief or crime?" + +"They came to me as to other men," said Donatello broodingly. "Doubtless +I was born to them." + +"No, no; they came with me," replied Miriam. "Mine is the responsibility! +Alas! wherefore was I born? Why did we ever meet? Why did I not drive +you from me, knowing for my heart foreboded it--that the cloud in which I +walked would likewise envelop you!" + +Donatello stirred uneasily, with the irritable impatience that is often +combined With a mood of leaden despondency. A brown lizard with two +tails--a monster often engendered by the Roman sunshine--ran across his +foot, and made him start. Then he sat silent awhile, and so did Miriam, +trying to dissolve her whole heart into sympathy, and lavish it all upon +him, were it only for a moment's cordial. + +The young man lifted his hand to his breast, and, unintentionally, as +Miriam's hand was within his, he lifted that along with it. "I have a +great weight here!" said he. The fancy struck Miriam (but she drove it +resolutely down) that Donatello almost imperceptibly shuddered, while, in +pressing his own hand against his heart, he pressed hers there too. + +"Rest your heart on me, dearest one!" she resumed. "Let me bear all its +weight; I am well able to bear it; for I am a woman, and I love you! I +love you, Donatello! Is there no comfort for you in this avowal? Look at +me! Heretofore you have found me pleasant to your sight. Gaze into my +eyes! Gaze into my soul! Search as deeply as you may, you can never see +half the tenderness and devotion that I henceforth cherish for you. All +that I ask is your acceptance of the utter self-sacrifice (but it shall be +no sacrifice, to my great love) with which I seek to remedy the evil you +have incurred for my sake!" + +All this fervor on Miriam's part; on Donatello's, a heavy silence. + +"O, speak to me!" she exclaimed. "Only promise me to be, by and by, a +little happy!" + +"Happy?" murmured Donatello. "Ah, never again! never again!" + +"Never? Ah, that is a terrible word to say to me!" answered Miriam. "A +terrible word to let fall upon a woman's heart, when she loves you, and is +conscious of having caused your misery! If you love me, Donatello, speak +it not again. And surely you did love me?" + +"I did," replied Donatello gloomily and absently. + +Miriam released the young man's hand, but suffered one of her own to lie +close to his, and waited a moment to see whether he would make any effort +to retain it. There was much depending upon that simple experiment. + +With a deep sigh--as when, sometimes, a slumberer turns over in a troubled +dream Donatello changed his position, and clasped both his hands over his +forehead. The genial warmth of a Roman April kindling into May was in the +atmosphere around them; but when Miriam saw that involuntary movement and +heard that sigh of relief (for so she interpreted it), a shiver ran +through her frame, as if the iciest wind of the Apennines were blowing +over her. + +"He has done himself a greater wrong than I dreamed of," thought she, with +unutterable compassion. "Alas! it was a sad mistake! He might have had +a kind of bliss in the consequences of this deed, had he been impelled to +it by a love vital enough to survive the frenzy of that terrible moment, +mighty enough to make its own law, and justify itself against the natural +remorse. But to have perpetrated a dreadful murder (and such was his +crime, unless love, annihilating moral distinctions, made it otherwise) on +no better warrant than a boy's idle fantasy! I pity him from the very +depths of my soul! As for myself, I am past my own or other's pity." + +She arose from the young man's side, and stood before him with a sad, +commiserating aspect; it was the look of a ruined soul, bewailing, in him, +a grief less than what her profounder sympathies imposed upon herself. + +"Donatello, we must part," she said, with melancholy firmness. "Yes; +leave me! Go back to your old tower, which overlooks the green valley you +have told me of among the Apennines. Then, all that has passed will be +recognized as but an ugly dream. For in dreams the conscience sleeps, and +we often stain ourselves with guilt of which we should be incapable in our +waking moments. The deed you seemed to do, last night, was no more than +such a dream; there was as little substance in what you fancied yourself +doing. Go; and forget it all!" + +"Ah, that terrible face!" said Donatello, pressing his hands over his +eyes. "Do you call that unreal?" + +"Yes; for you beheld it with dreaming eyes," replied Miriam. "It was +unreal; and, that you may feel it so, it is requisite that you see this +face of mine no more. Once, you may have thought it beautiful; now, it +has lost its charm. Yet it would still retain a miserable potency' to +bring back the past illusion, and, in its train, the remorse and anguish +that would darken all your life. Leave me, therefore, and forget me." + +"Forget you, Miriam!" said Donatello, roused somewhat from his apathy of +despair. + +"If I could remember you, and behold you, apart from that frightful visage +which stares at me over your shoulder, that were a consolation, at least, +if not a joy." + +"But since that visage haunts you along with mine," rejoined Miriam, +glancing behind her, "we needs must part. Farewell, then! But if +ever--in distress, peril, shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is most +poignant, whatever burden heaviest--you should require a life to be given +wholly, only to make your own a little easier, then summon me! As the +case now stands between us, you have bought me dear, and find me of little +worth. Fling me away, therefore! May you never need me more! But, if +otherwise, a wish--almost an unuttered wish will bring me to you!" + +She stood a moment, expecting a reply. But Donatello's eyes had again +fallen on the ground, and he had not, in his bewildered mind and +overburdened heart, a word to respond. + +"That hour I speak of may never come," said Miriam. "So +farewell--farewell forever." + +"Farewell," said Donatello. + +His voice hardly made its way through the environment of unaccustomed +thoughts and emotions which had settled over him like a dense and dark +cloud. Not improbably, he beheld Miriam through so dim a medium that she +looked visionary; heard her speak only in a thin, faint echo. + +She turned from the young man, and, much as her heart yearned towards him, +she would not profane that heavy parting by an embrace, or even a pressure +of the hand. So soon after the semblance of such mighty love, and after +it had been the impulse to so terrible a deed, they parted, in all outward +show, as coldly as people part whose whole mutual intercourse has been +encircled within a single hour. + +And Donatello, when Miriam had departed, stretched himself at full length +on the stone bench, and drew his hat over his eyes, as the idle and +light-hearted youths of dreamy Italy are accustomed to do, when they lie +down in the first convenient shade, and snatch a noonday slumber. A +stupor was upon him, which he mistook for such drowsiness as he had known +in his innocent past life. But, by and by, he raised himself slowly and +left the garden. Sometimes poor Donatello started, as if he heard a +shriek; sometimes he shrank back, as if a face, fearful to behold, were +thrust close to his own. In this dismal mood, bewildered with the +novelty of sin and grief, he had little left of that singular resemblance, +on account of which, and for their sport, his three friends had +fantastically recognized him as the veritable Faun of Praxiteles. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +MIRIAM AND HILDA + + +On leaving the Medici Gardens Miriam felt herself astray in the world; and +having no special reason to seek one place more than another, she suffered +chance to direct her steps as it would. Thus it happened, that, involving +herself in the crookedness of Rome, she saw Hilda's tower rising before +her, and was put in mind to climb to the young girl's eyry, and ask why +she had broken her engagement at the church of the Capuchins. People +often do the idlest acts of their lifetime in their heaviest and most +anxious moments; so that it would have been no wonder had Miriam been +impelled only by so slight a motive of curiosity as we have indicated. +But she remembered, too, and with a quaking heart, what the sculptor had +mentioned of Hilda's retracing her steps towards the courtyard of the +Palazzo Caffarelli in quest of Miriam herself. Had she been compelled to +choose between infamy in the eyes of the whole world, or in Hilda's eyes +alone, she would unhesitatingly have accepted the former, on condition of +remaining spotless in the estimation of her white-souled friend. This +possibility, therefore, that Hilda had witnessed the scene of the past +night, was unquestionably the cause that drew Miriam to the tower, and +made her linger and falter as she approached it. + +As she drew near, there were tokens to which her disturbed mind gave a +sinister interpretation. Some of her friend's airy family, the doves, +with their heads imbedded disconsolately in their bosoms, were huddled in +a corner of the piazza; others had alighted on the heads, wings, shoulders, +and trumpets of the marble angels which adorned the facade of the +neighboring church; two or three had betaken themselves to the Virgin's +shrine; and as many as could find room were sitting on Hilda's window-sill. +But all of them, so Miriam fancied, had a look of weary expectation and +disappointment, no flights, no flutterings, no cooing murmur; something +that ought to have made their day glad and bright was evidently left out +of this day's history. And, furthermore, Hilda's white windowcurtain was +closely drawn, with only that one little aperture at the side, which +Miriam remembered noticing the night before. + +"Be quiet," said Miriam to her own heart, pressing her hand hard upon it. +"Why shouldst thou throb now? Hast thou not endured more terrible things +than this?" + +Whatever were her apprehensions, she would not turn back. It might +be--and the solace would be worth a world--that Hilda, knowing nothing of +the past night's calamity, would greet her friend with a sunny smile, and +so restore a portion of the vital warmth, for lack of which her soul was +frozen. But could Miriam, guilty as she was, permit Hilda to kiss her +cheek, to clasp her hand, and thus be no longer so unspotted from the +world as heretofore + +"I will never permit her sweet touch again," said Miriam, toiling up the +staircase, "if I can find strength of heart to forbid it. But, O! it +would be so soothing in this wintry fever-fit of my heart. There can be +no harm to my white Hilda in one parting kiss. That shall be all!" + +But, on reaching the upper landing-place, Miriam paused, and stirred not +again till she had brought herself to an immovable resolve. + +"My lips, my hand, shall never meet Hilda's more," said she. + +Meanwhile, Hilda sat listlessly in her painting-room. Had you looked into +the little adjoining chamber, you might have seen the slight imprint of +her figure on the bed, but would also have detected at once that the white +counterpane had not been turned down. The pillow was more disturbed; she +had turned her face upon it, the poor child, and bedewed it with some of +those tears (among the most chill and forlorn that gush from human sorrow) +which the innocent heart pours forth at its first actual discovery that +sin is in the world. The young and pure are not apt to find out that +miserable truth until it is brought home to them by the guiltiness of some +trusted friend. They may have heard much of the evil of the world, and +seem to know it, but only as an impalpable theory. In due time, some +mortal, whom they reverence too highly, is commissioned by Providence to +teach them this direful lesson; he perpetrates a sin; and Adam falls anew, +and Paradise, heretofore in unfaded bloom, is lost again, and dosed +forever, with the fiery swords gleaming at its gates. + +The chair in which Hilda sat was near the portrait of Beatrice Cenci, +which had not yet been taken from the easel. It is a peculiarity of this +picture, that its profoundest expression eludes a straightforward glance, +and can only be caught by side glimpses, or when the eye falls casually +upon it; even as if the painted face had a life and consciousness of its +own, and, resolving not to betray its secret of grief or guilt, permitted +the true tokens to come forth only when it imagined itself unseen. No +other such magical effect has ever been wrought by pencil. + +Now, opposite the easel hung a looking-glass, in which Beatrice's face and +Hilda's were both reflected. In one of her weary, nerveless changes of +position, Hilda happened to throw her eyes on the glass, and took in both +these images at one unpremeditated glance. She fancied--nor was it +without horror--that Beatrice's expression, seen aside and vanishing in a +moment, had been depicted in her own face likewise, and flitted from it as +timorously. + +"Am I, too, stained with guilt?" thought the poor girl, hiding her face +in her hands. + +Not so, thank Heaven! But, as regards Beatrice's picture, the incident +suggests a theory which may account for its unutterable grief and +mysterious shadow of guilt, without detracting from the purity which we +love to attribute to that ill-fated girl. Who, indeed, can look at that +mouth,--with its lips half apart, as innocent as a babe's that has been +crying, and not pronounce Beatrice sinless? It was the intimate +consciousness of her father's sin that threw its shadow over her, and +frightened her into a remote and inaccessible region, where no sympathy +could come. It was the knowledge of Miriam's guilt that lent the same +expression to Hilda's face. + +But Hilda nervously moved her chair, so that the images in the glass +should be no longer Visible. She now watched a speck of sunshine that +came through a shuttered window, and crept from object to object, +indicating each with a touch of its bright finger, and then letting them +all vanish successively. In like manner her mind, so like sunlight in its +natural cheerfulness, went from thought to thought, but found nothing that +it could dwell upon for comfort. Never before had this young, energetic, +active spirit known what it is to be despondent. It was the unreality of +the world that made her so. Her dearest friend, whose heart seemed the +most solid and richest of Hilda's possessions, had no existence for her +any more; and in that dreary void, out of which Miriam had disappeared, +the substance, the truth, the integrity of life, the motives of effort, +the joy of success, had departed along with her. + +It was long past noon, when a step came up the staircase. It had passed +beyond the limits where there was communication with the lower regions of +the palace, and was mounting the successive flights which led only to +Hilda's precincts. Faint as the tread was, she heard and recognized it. +It startled her into sudden life. Her first impulse was to spring to the +door of the studio, and fasten it with lock and bolt. But a second +thought made her feel that this would be an unworthy cowardice, on her own +part, and also that Miriam- only yesterday her closest friend had a right +to be told, face to face, that thenceforth they must be forever strangers. + +She heard Miriam pause, outside of the door. We have already seen what +was the latter's resolve with respect to any kiss or pressure of the hand +between Hilda and herself. We know not what became of the resolution. As +Miriam was of a highly impulsive character, it may have vanished at the +first sight of Hilda; but, at all events, she appeared to have dressed +herself up in a garb of sunshine, and was disclosed, as the door swung +open, in all the glow of her remarkable beauty. The truth was, her heart +leaped conclusively towards the only refuge that it had, or hoped. She +forgot, just one instant, all cause for holding herself aloof. Ordinarily +there was a certain reserve in Miriam's demonstrations of affection, in +consonance with the delicacy of her friend. To-day, she opened her arms +to take Hilda in. + +"Dearest, darling Hilda!" she exclaimed. "It gives me new life to see +you!" + +Hilda was standing in the middle of the room. When her friend made a +step or two from the door, she put forth her hands with an involuntary +repellent gesture, so expressive that Miriam at once felt a great chasm +opening itself between them two. They might gaze at one another from the +opposite side, but without the possibility of ever meeting more; or, at +least, since the chasm could never be bridged over, they must tread the +whole round of Eternity to meet on the other side. There was even a +terror in the thought of their meeting again. It was as if Hilda or +Miriam were dead, and could no longer hold intercourse without violating a +spiritual law. + +Yet, in the wantonness of her despair, Miriam made one more step towards +the friend whom she had lost. "Do not come nearer, Miriam!" said Hilda. +Her look and tone were those of sorrowful entreaty, and yet they +expressed a kind of confidence, as if the girl were conscious of a +safeguard that could not be violated. + +"What has happened between us, Hilda?" asked Miriam. "Are we not +friends?" + +"No, no!" said Hilda, shuddering. + +"At least we have been friends," continued Miriam. "I loved you dearly! +I love you still! You were to me as a younger sister; yes, dearer than +sisters of the same blood; for you and I were so lonely, Hilda, that the +whole world pressed us together by its solitude and strangeness. Then, +will you not touch my hand? Am I not the same as yesterday?" + +"Alas! no, Miriam!" said Hilda. + +"Yes, the same, the same for you, Hilda," rejoined her lost friend. "Were +you to touch my hand, you would find it as warm to your grasp as ever. If +you were sick or suffering, I would watch night and day for you. It is in +such simple offices that true affection shows itself; and so I speak of +them. Yet now, Hilda, your very look seems to put me beyond the limits of +human kind!" + +"It is not I, Miriam," said Hilda; "not I that have done this." + +"You, and you only, Hilda," replied Miriam, stirred up to make her own +cause good by the repellent force which her friend opposed to her. "I am +a woman, as I was yesterday; endowed with the same truth of nature, the +same warmth of heart, the same genuine and earnest love, which you have +always known in me. In any regard that concerns yourself, I am not +changed. And believe me, Hilda, when a human being has chosen a friend +out of all the world, it is only some faithlessness between themselves, +rendering true intercourse impossible, that can justify either friend in +severing the bond. Have I deceived you? Then cast me off! Have I +wronged you personally? Then forgive me, if you can. But, have I sinned +against God and man, and deeply sinned? Then be more my friend than ever, +for I need you more." + +"Do not bewilder me thus, Miriam!" exclaimed Hilda, who had not forborne +to express, by look and gesture, the anguish which this interview +inflicted on her. "If I were one of God's angels, with a nature incapable +of stain, and garments that never could be spotted, I would keep ever at +your side, and try to lead you upward. But I am a poor, lonely girl, whom +God has set here in an evil world, and given her only a white robe, and +bid her wear it back to Him, as white as when she put it on. Your +powerful magnetism would be too much for me. The pure, white atmosphere, +in which I try to discern what things are good and true, would be +discolored. And therefore, Miriam, before it is too late, I mean to put +faith in this awful heartquake which warns me henceforth to avoid you." + +"Ah, this is hard! Ah, this is terrible!" murmured Miriam, dropping her +forehead in her hands. In a moment or two she looked up again, as pale as +death, but with a composed countenance: "I always said, Hilda, that you +were merciless; for I had a perception of it, even while you loved me best. +You have no sin, nor any conception of what it is; and therefore you are +so terribly severe! As an angel, you are not amiss; but, as a human +creature, and a woman among earthly men and women, you need a sin to +soften you." + +"God forgive me," said Hilda, "if I have said a needlessly cruel word!" + +"Let it pass," answered Miriam; "I, whose heart it has smitten upon, +forgive you. And tell me, before we part forever, what have you seen or +known of me, since we last met?" + +"A terrible thing, Miriam," said Hilda, growing paler than before. + +"Do you see it written in my face, or painted in my eyes?" inquired +Miriam, her trouble seeking relief in a half-frenzied raillery. "I would +fain know how it is that Providence, or fate, brings eye-witnesses to +watch us, when we fancy ourselves acting in the remotest privacy. Did all +Rome see it, then? Or, at least, our merry company of artists? Or is it +some blood-stain on me, or death-scent in my garments? They say that +monstrous deformities sprout out of fiends, who once were lovely angels. +Do you perceive such in me already? Tell me, by our past friendship, Hilda, +all you know." + +Thus adjured, and frightened by the wild emotion which Miriam could not +suppress, Hilda strove to tell what she had witnessed. + +"After the rest of the party had passed on, I went back to speak to you," +she said; "for there seemed to be a trouble on your mind, and I wished to +share it with you, if you could permit me. The door of the little +courtyard was partly shut; but I pushed it open, and saw you within, and +Donatello, and a third person, whom I had before noticed in the shadow of +a niche. He approached you, Miriam. You knelt to him! I saw Donatello +spring upon him! I would have shrieked, but my throat was dry. I would +have rushed forward, but my limbs seemed rooted to the earth. It was like +a flash of lightning. A look passed from your eyes to Donatello's--a +look"--"Yes, Hilda, yes!" exclaimed Miriam, with intense eagerness. "Do +not pause now! That look?" + +"It revealed all your heart, Miriam," continued Hilda, covering her eyes +as if to shut out the recollection; "a look of hatred, triumph, vengeance, +and, as it were, joy at some unhoped-for relief." + +"Ah! Donatello was right, then," murmured Miriam, who shook throughout +all her frame. "My eyes bade him do it! Go on, Hilda." + +"It all passed so quickly, all like a glare of lightning," said Hilda, +"and yet it seemed to me that Donatello had paused, while one might draw a +breath. But that look! Ah, Miriam, spare me. Need I tell more?" + +"No more; there needs no more, Hilda," replied Miriam, bowing her head, as +if listening to a sentence of condemnation from a supreme tribunal. "It +is enough! You have satisfied my mind on a point where it was greatly +disturbed. Henceforward I shall be quiet. Thank you, Hilda." + +She was on the point of departing, but turned back again from the +threshold. + +"This is a terrible secret to be kept in a young girl's bosom," she +observed; "what will you do with it, my poor child?" + +"Heaven help and guide me," answered Hilda, bursting into tears; "for the +burden of it crushes me to the earth! It seems a crime to know of such a +thing, and to keep it to myself. It knocks within my heart continually, +threatening, imploring, insisting to be let out! O my mother!--my mother! +Were she yet living, I would travel over land and sea to tell her this +dark secret, as I told all the little troubles of my infancy. But I am +alone--alone! Miriam, you were my dearest, only friend. Advise me what +to do." + +This was a singular appeal, no doubt, from the stainless maiden to the +guilty woman, whom she had just banished from her heart forever. But it +bore striking testimony to the impression which Miriam's natural +uprightness and impulsive generosity had made on the friend who knew her +best; and it deeply comforted the poor criminal, by proving to her that +the bond between Hilda and herself was vital yet. + +As far as she was able, Miriam at once responded to the girl's cry for +help. + +"If I deemed it good for your peace of mind," she said, "to bear testimony +against me for this deed in the face of all the world, no consideration of +myself should weigh with me an instant. But I believe that you would +find no relief in such a course. What men call justice lies chiefly in +outward formalities, and has never the close application and fitness that +would be satisfactory to a soul like yours. I cannot be fairly tried and +judged before an earthly tribunal; and of this, Hilda, you would perhaps +become fatally conscious when it was too late. Roman justice, above all +things, is a byword. What have you to do with it? Leave all such +thoughts aside! Yet, Hilda, I would not have you keep my secret imprisoned +in your heart if it tries to leap out, and stings you, like a wild, +venomous thing, when you thrust it back again. Have you no other friend, +now that you have been forced to give me up?" + +"No other," answered Hilda sadly. + +"Yes; Kenyon!" rejoined Miriam. + +"He cannot be my friend," said Hilda, "because--because--I have fancied +that he sought to be something more." + +"Fear nothing!" replied Miriam, shaking her head, with a strange smile. +"This story will frighten his new-born love out of its little life, if +that be what you wish. Tell him the secret, then, and take his wise and +honorable counsel as to what should next be done. I know not what else to +say." + +"I never dreamed," said Hilda,--"how could you think it?--of betraying you +to justice. But I see how it is, Miriam. I must keep your secret, and +die of it, unless God sends me some relief by methods which are now beyond +my power to imagine. It is very dreadful. Ah! now I understand how the +sins of generations past have created an atmosphere of sin for those that +follow. While there is a single guilty person in the universe, each +innocent one must feel his innocence tortured by that guilt. Your deed, +Miriam, has darkened the whole sky!" + +Poor Hilda turned from her unhappy friend, and, sinking on her knees in a +corner of the chamber, could not be prevailed upon to utter another word. +And Miriam, with a long regard from the threshold, bade farewell to this +doves' nest, this one little nook of pure thoughts and innocent +enthusiasms, into which she had brought such trouble. Every crime +destroys more Edens than our own! + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of "The Marble Faun, Volume 1" +by Hawthorne. + diff --git a/old/1faun10.zip b/old/1faun10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..aa547c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1faun10.zip |