Hawthorne_Marble_Faun.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
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, tho Lycian Apollo, the Juno ; all famous pro-
ductions of antique sculpture, and still shining in the un-
diminished 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
hurried 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 Imiocence 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 an-
tique 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
5
6 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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, considermg 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 oflf, 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, Etrus-
can, Roman, Christian, venerable with a threefold antiq-
uity, 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 in-
terests 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 ex-
istence 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 now-a-days 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 con-
nected with art ; and, at this moment, they had been
simultaneously struck by a resemblance between one of
THE MARBLE FAUK. 7
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 char
acter, sentiment, and feature. If it were a picture, the
resemblance might be half illusive and imaginary ; buf
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 no*
true, Hilda ? "
" Not quite almost yes, I really think so," replied
Hilda, a slender, brown-haired. New England girl, whose
perceptions of form and exj)ression 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 differ-
ence of costume, and if a lion's skin could have been sub-
stituted for his modern talma, and a rustic pipe for his
8 THE MARBLE FAUN.
stick, Donatello might have figured perfectly as the mar-
ble Faun, miraculously softened into flesh and blood.
" Yes ; the resemblance is wonderful," observed Ken-
yon, after examining the marble and the man with the
accuracy of a sculptor's eye, " There is one point, how-
ever, 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 contem-
plating.
But we must do more than merely refer to this exqui-
site work of art ; it must be described, however inade-
quate 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 half way 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 out-
line and feature, but rounded and somewhat voluptuously
developed, especially about the throat and chin ; the nose
is almost straight, but very slightly curves inward, there-
by 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, mirth-
ful, 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 ac-
tual life. It comes very close to some of our pleasantest
sympathies.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 9
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 through-
out his work that mute mystery which so hopelessly per-
plexes 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 del-
icate taste, the sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic
skiU in a word, a sculptor and a poet too could have
first dreamed of a Faun in this guise, and then have suc-
ceeded in imprisoning the sportive and frisky thing in
marble. Neither man nor animal, and yet no monster ;
10 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 pleasant-
ness of sylvan life, all the genial and happy characteris-
tics of creatures that dwell in the 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 un-
sophisticated man ! The essence of all these was com-
pressed 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 affin-
ity with nature was more strict, and his fellowship with
every living thing more intimate and dear.
CHAPTER II.
THE FAUN.
" Donate LLo," playfully cried Miriam, " do not leave
us in this perplexity ! Shake aside those brown curls,
my friend, and let us see whether this marvellous resem-
blance extends to the very tips of the ears. If so, we
shall like you all the better ! "
" No, no, dearest signorina," answered Donatello, laugh-
ing, 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 fami ; so as to place himself quite beyond the
reach of the fair hand that was outstretched, as if to set-
tle 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 ac-
cent, and an unshaped sort of utterance, betokening that
THE MARBLE FAUN. 11
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 ! Oh, it is impossible, of course," she con-
tinued, in English, " with a real and commonplace young
man like Donatello ; but you see how this peculiarity de-
fines the position of the Faun ; and, while putting him
where he cannot exactly assert his brotherhood, still dis-
poses 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 shrink-
ing a little ; " neither do I quite like to think about it."
" But, surely," said Kenyon, " you agree with Miriam
and rme, that there is something very touching and im-
pressive 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 exist-
ence of one to the other. What a pity that he has for-
ever vanished from the hard and dusty paths of life,
unless," added the sculptor, in a sportive whisper, " Dona-
tello be actually he ! "
" You cannot conceive how this fantasy takes hold of
me," responded Miriam, between jest and earnest. " Im-
agine, 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 ; rev-
elling in the merriment of woods and streams ; living as
our four-footed kindred do, as mankind did in its inno-
cent 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 burthen on
the heart, no troublesome recollections of any sort ; no
dai^ future either."
" What a tragic tone was that last, Miriam ! " said the
12 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 evi-
dently 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 en-
treaty had something pathetic in it, and yet might weU
enough excite a laugh, so like it was to what you may see
in the aspect of a hound when he thinks himself m fault
or disgrace. It was difficult to make out the character of
this young man. So full of animal life as he was, so joy-
ous 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 tlie 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 ; inso-
much that he danced quite round the wooden railing that
fences in the Dying Gladiator.
" It is the very step of the Dancing Faun," said Miri-
am 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," rephed Hilda, glancing at
THE MARBLE FAUN. 1^
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, judg-
ing 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 Dona-
tello ! Not to know his own age ! It is equivalent to be-
ing 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 some-
times 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 be-
tween 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 reUeved them for just so long of all customary re-
sponsibility for what they thought and said.
14 THE MARBLE FAUN.
It might be under this influence or, perhaps, because
sculptors always abuse one another's works that Ken-
yon threw in a criticism upon the Dying Gladiator.
"I used to admire this statue exceedingly," he re-
marked, " 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 with-
out further ado? Flitting moments, imminent emerg-
encies, imperceptible intervals between two breaths,
ought not to be encrusted 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 or 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.
i ne party now strayed onward from hall to hall of that
i'ich gallery, pausing here and there, to look at the multi-
tude of noble and lovely shapes, which have been dug up
THE MARBLE FAUN. 15
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 fig-
might assume life, and chase one another round its
vergeures with that wild merriment which is so strangely
represented on those old burial coffers ; though still
with some subtle 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
16 THE MARBLE FAUN.
will observe an odd mixture of the bull-dog, or some other
equally tierce 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 \\T:'ath."
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 encomitered 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 assassms, according as their pictorial
purposes demand,
" Miriam," whispered Hilda, a little startled, " it is your
model ! "
CHAPTER III.
SUBTERRAIiEAN EEMIIS^ISCENCES.
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 reg:Arded her reception in
society, anywhere but in Rome. The truth was, that no-
body 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 17
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 tliey lacked, its
absence was more than supplied by a warmth and passion-
ateness, 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 affa-
ble was Miriam's deportment towards all who came with-
in 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 farther advanced into her good graces
to-day than yesterday. By some subtle 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 con-
jurers 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
18 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 meas-
ure ; 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 the 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 boom 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 key-note 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, consider-
ing 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, leav-
ing the reader to designate them either under the proba-
ble 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 goldeu
THE MARBLE FAUN. 19
brotherhood ; the object being, to retain their vast accu-
mulation of wealth within the family. Another story-
hinted, that she was a German princess, whom, for rea-
sons 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 offspring of
a Southern American planter, who had given her an elabo-
rate 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 relmquished 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 in-
variably made, as if necessity and she could have nothing
to do with one another. Whatever deprivations she un-
derwent 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 clmging to her. She was a beautiful and at-
tractive 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 man-
ifestations. 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 quali-
ties 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
20 THE MARBLE FAUN.
together, some months before, to the catacomb of St. Ca-
lixtus. 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 frag-
ments, and hopelessly intermingled. The intricate pas-
sages 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 closelj', 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 possiby 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 con-
taining 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.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 21
*' Dear friends, let us hasten back into the blessed day-
light!"
From the first, Donatello had shown little fancy for the
expedition ; for, like most Italians, and in especial accord-
ance 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 him-
self 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 centu-
ries at least), he has been groping in the darkness, seek-
ing 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
know that he watches near parties that come into the
catacomb, especially if they be heretics, hoping to lead
22 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Bome straggler astray. What this lost wretch pines for,
almost as much as for the blessed sunshine, is a com-
panion to be miserable with him,"
" Such an intense desire for sympathy indicates some-
thing amiable in the poor fellow, at all events," observed
Kenyon.
They had now reached a larger chapel than those here-
tofore 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 ex-
ceedingly 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 be-
came aware that one of their party had vanished into the
great darkness, even while they were shuddering at the
remote possibilty 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 com-
panion, 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.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 23
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 en-
tanglement 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 eager-
ness 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 congratula-
tions ; 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 stray-
ing 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
descerned him at the same instant, and drew nearer with
24 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 ac-
count 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 indis-
tinctly seen, floating away, as it were, into a dusky wil-
derness of moustache 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 consider-
able 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 peculiari-
ties 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 aU the party. " It is
THE MARBLE FAUN. 25
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 shud-
der. " Ah, dearest signorina, what 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 tangi-
bility, at all events, and physical substance, by approach-
ing 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 reappear-
ance 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 farther. So much is es-
sential 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 torch-
light, 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 for-
ward. 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 hei
threshold.
26 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 orna-
ments 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 sub-
stantially 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. Calix-
tus, 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 mdulgence, 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 27
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 entrea-
ties 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, pos-
sibly, 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 adven-
ture. Her two confidants (for such they were, on all or-
dinary subjects) had not failed to ask an explanation of
the mystery, since undeniably a mystery there was, and
one sufficiently perplexing 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 con-
trived.
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-paint-
ing. 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 stuc-
coed wall with the most brilliant and lovely designs.
And what true votary of art would not purchase un-
rivalled 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
28 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 selfsame 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.
U ever she was gay, it was seldom with a healthy cheer-
fulness. 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, jjut 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 prob-
ability. 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 Chris-
tians are esteemed especially sacred. Or, as was perhaps
THE MARBLE FAUN. 29
a more plausible theory, he might be a thief of the city,
a robber of the Campagna, a political offender, or an as-
sassin, 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 down-
ward. Or he might have been a lunatic, fleeing instinc-
tively 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 devot-
edly 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 ex-
hausting influences of an 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 eye-witness of the stranger's first appear-
ance, 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
so THE MARBLE FAUN.
might well afford to have something subtracted from his
comfort, and make tolerable shift to live upon what re-
mained.
CHAPTER V.
mikiam's studio.
The courtyard and staircase of a palace built three
hmidred 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 en-
trance-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 ; per-
haps it once held famous dust, and the bony frame-
work of some historic man, although now only a recep-
tacle 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 hmidred 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 spirts its many little jets from
the mouths of nameless monsters, which were merely gro-
tesque 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 81
takes the fountain back into her great heart, and cher-
ishes 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 water-
fall in the forest though here they gain a delicious pathos
from the stately echoes that reverberate their natui-al lan-
guage. So the fountain is not altogether glad, after all
its three centuries of play !
In one of the angles of the courtyard, a pillared door-
way 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 ex-
change for the triple crown. But, in fine, all these illus-
trious personages have gone down their hereditary stair-
case for the last time, leaving it to be the thoroughfare of
ambassadors, English noblemen, American millionaires,
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, bear-
ing the name of Miriam Schaefer, artist in oils. Here
Donatello knocked, and the door immediately fell some-
^^hat ajar ; its latch having been pulled up by means of a
82 THE MARBLE FAUN.
string on the inside. Passing though 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 touch-
ing at least, of very sweet, soft, and winning effect
in this peculiarity of needle- work, 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 inter-
ests 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 accom-
plishments 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 mvoluntarily ceases to fly, it is a
sign of trouble, quite as trustworthy as the tlirob 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 di'op out of her
thoughts, and the torn glove to fall from her idle fingers.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 33
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 noth-
ing 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 neces-
sary 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 your-
self 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 de-
picted 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.
3
34 THE MARBLE FAUN^.
" 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 pup-
pet 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 be-
fore. " But the world is sadlj' changed now-a-days ; griev-
ously 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 1 ought to allow you to speak in
THE MARBLE FAUN. 85
this way," said Miriam, looking thoughtfully at him.
" Many young women would think it behoved 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 smit-
ten him as deeply as I."
"Are you angry with me?" asked Donatello, dolo-
rously.
"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 lilte that or any other kindly
animal which has the faculty of bestowing its sympathies
more completely than men or women can ever do. Ac-
cordingly, as Miriam bade him, he tried to turn his atten-
tion 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 fov a
picture of Jael driving the nail through the temples of
Sisera. It was dashed off with remarkable power, 3nd
showed a touch or two that were actually life-like and
death-like, 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, wh-ch
at once converted the heroine into a vulgar murderfs.
It was evident that a Jael like this would be sure i^o
search Sisera's pockets as soon as the breath was ou^ r4
his body.
86 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 power-
ful possession of her hand. The head of Holofernes
(which by the by had a pair of twisted moustaches, 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 fiung
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 imag-
ination 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 Hero-
dias receiving the head of John the Baptist in a charger.
The general conception appeared to be taken from Ber-
nardo 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 mi-
raculous glance, her whole womanhood was at once awa-
kened to love and endless remorse.
These sketches had a most disagreeable effect on Do-
natello'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, look-
ing up from a letter which she was now wi'iting. " Ah J
THE MARBLE FAUN. 37
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 in-
dicated 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 ideal-
ized that they seemed such as we may see at any moment,
and everywhere; while still there was the indefinable
something added, or taken away, which makes all the dif-
ference 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 affec-
tion 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 kin-
dred 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, per-
chance, that first sketch of all, the avowal of maiden affec-
tion, 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, deal-
ing with the warm and pure suggestions of a woman's
88 THEMARBLEFAUN.
heart, and thus idealizing a truer and lovelier picture of
the life that belongs to woman, than an actual acquaint-
ance with some of its hard and dusty facts could have in-
spired. 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 individ-
ually be.
There was one observable point, indeed, betokening
that the artist relinquished, for her personal self, the hap-
piness 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 shrub-
bery, 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 Avere
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 appreci-
ate."
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 ar-
tist ; " and I want you, Donatello, for the wildest dancer
of them all. Will you sit for me some day ? or, rather,
dance for me ? "
THE MARBLE FAUN- 39
Oh ! 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 por-
tion 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 con-
trived 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 approv-
ing 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 exhi-
bition, 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 toward 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
40 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Judith was, when she vanquished Holofernes with her
beauty, and slew him for too much adoring it.
Miriam watched Donatello's contemplation of the pict-
ure, 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.
*' Oh, beyond what I can tell ! " he answered. " So
beautiful ! so beautiful ! "
" And do you recognize the likeness ? "
" Signora," exclaimed Donatello, turning from the pict-
ure 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 forbore 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 known not whether the portrait were a flattered
likeness ; probably not, regarding it merely as the deline-
ation of a lovely face ; although Miriam, like all self-paint-
ers, may have endowed herself with certain graces which
other eyes might not discern. Artists are fond of paint-
ing their own portraits ; and, in Florence, there is a
gallery of hundreds of them, including the most illustri-
ous, in all of which there are autobiographical characteris-
tics, 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-knowl-
edge into her own portrait, and perhaps wished to try
whether they would be perceptible to so simple and natu-
ral 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 your-
self smile a little, signorina ? "
THE MARBLE FAUN. 41
** A forced smile is uglier than a frown," said Miriam,
a bright, natural smile breaking out over her face, even
as she spoke.
" Oh ! 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 ordi-
nary 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 pleas-
ure."
CHAPTER VI.
THE virgin's shrine.
After Donatello had left the studio, Miriam herself
came forth, and taking her way through some of the in-
tricacies of the city, entered what might be called either
a widening of a street, or a small piazza. The neighbor-
hood comprised a baker's oven, emitting the usual fra-
grance 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
42 THE MARBLE FAUN.
hand, the fa9ade of which ascended mto lofty pinnacles,
whereon were perched two or three winged figures of
stone, either angelic or allegorical, blowing stone trum-
pets in close vicinity to the upper windows of an old and
shabby palace. This palace was distinguished by a fea-
ture not very common in the architecture of Roman
edifices ; that is to say, a mediseval tower, square, mas-
sive, 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 soli-
tary 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 mid-
night, 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, flut-
tering, and wheeling about the topnfost 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 hmges, 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 j for they tried to
THE MARBLE FAUN. 43
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 Jac )b'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 re-
echoing 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, unim-
peded 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 com-
pany.
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 announce-
ment 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 name-
sake of old ; especially as you have almost avowed your-
44 THE MARBLE FAUN.
self 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 Puri-
tans may surely pay honor to the idea of divine Woman-
hood, 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 some-
times I feel half inclined to attempt a flight from the
top of my tower, in the faith that I should float up-
ward."
" Oh, 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 free-
dom 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 guard-
ianship, unless watched over by the Virgin, whose
shrine she tended ; doing what she liked, without a sus-
picion 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 pur-
suits and professions, we must also remove the shackles
of our present conventional rules, which would then be-
come 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 45
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 pic-
torial art. Even in her school days still not so very
distant she had produced sl^etches 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 forci-
ble 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 mar-
ble.
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 contigu-
ous 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 anal-
ogy to their snowy plumage that the confraternity of
artists called Hilda the Dove, and recognized her aerial
apartment as the Dove-cote. 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 ethe-
46 THE MARBLE FAUN.
real and imaginative sustenance as God ordains for crea-
tures of her kind.
We know not whether the result of her Italian studies,
so far as it could j^et 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 his-
tory 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 picto-
rial 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 pic-
torial 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 47
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 selfsame beauties more widely among man-
kind. 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 hence-
forth 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 Pamfili-Doria palace, the
Borghese, the Corsini, the Sciarra, her easel was set up
before many a famous picture of Guido, Domenichino,
Raphael, and the devout painters of earlier schools than
these. Other artists and visitors from foreign lands be-
held 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 deli-
cate 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 flit-
ting 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,
48 THE MARBLE FAUN.
as some of them do, in multiplying copies of a single pict
lire and observing how invariably they leave out just
the indefinable charm that involves the last, inestimable
value, can we understand the diflBculties of the task which
they undertake.
It was not Hilda's general practice to attempt repro-
ducing 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 celes-
tial 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 Math her whole
soul. If a picture had darkened into an indistinct shadow
through time and neglect, or had been injured by clean-
ing, 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 mechan-
ism, by the help of which the spirit of some great de-
parted 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-^vishers 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 percLsely
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 j there
THE MARBLE FAUN. 49
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 de-
ceptive 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 her
devout recognition of the highest excellence in art, than
there would have been in cultivating her not inconsider-
able 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 con-
fined 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 recom-
pense her in kind by admiring her generous self-surrender,
4
60 THE MARBLE FAUN.
and her brave, humble magnanhnity 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 vir-
gin's love 1 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 I
CHAPTER VII.
BEATRICE.
Miriam was glad to find the Dove in her turret-home ;
for being en'lowed 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 com-
panions 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 profomidly 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,
THE MARBLE FAUN. 51
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
picture-land, 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 subtle attribute of reserve, that in-
sensibly 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 ac-
quaintance with Italy, and better fitted to deal with its
crafty and selfish inhabitants, she Jiad helped Hilda to
arrange her way of life, and had encouraged her through
those first weeks, when Rome is so dreary to every new-
comer.
" But how lucky that you are at home to-day," 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 lead-
ing her in front of the easel. " I wanted your opinion of
it."
52 THE MARBLE FAUN.
If you have really succeeded," observed Miriam, rec-
ognizing 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 stra^^ed a lock or two
of what seemed a rich, though hidden luxuriance of au-
burn hair. Tlie eyes Avere large and bro^vn, and met
those of the spectator, but evidently with a strange, inef-
fectual effort to escape. There was a little redness about
the eyes, very slightly indicated, so that you would ques-
tion whether or no the girl had been weeping. The
whole face was quiet ; there was no distortion or disturb-
ance 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 unlieard-of solicitations or secret in-
terest 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 re-
source but to sit down before the picture, day after day,
and let it sink into my heart. I do believe it is now pho-
tographed there. It is a sad face to keep so close to one's
heart ; only, what is so very beautiful can never be quite
THE MARBLE FAUN. 53
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 try-
ing 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 infi-
nitely 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 be-
yond 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 some-
thing 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
64 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 nothing-
ness ! Her doom is just ! "
" Oh I Hilda, your innocence is like a sharp steel sword,"
exclaimed her friend. " Your judgments are often terribly
severe, thuogh you seem all made up of gentleness and
mercy. Beatrice's sin may not have been so great : per-
haps 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 im-
posed 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 strug-
gle to penetrate poor Beatrice's mystery had been suc-
cessful.
"Oh! 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 fu-
ture."
"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 ? "
" Oh, certainly," said Hilda, laughing ; " if you choose
to trust me with business."
" Nay, it is not a matter of any difBculty," answered
Miriam ; " merely to take change of this packet, and keep
it for me awhile."
THE MARBLE FAUN. 65
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 good little housewifely ways of accu-
racy and order. The packet is of some slight impor-
tance ; 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 malaria 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 Bar-
boni, at the Palazzo Cenci, third piano.
" I will deliver it with my own hand," said she, " pre-
cisely 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 know 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 under-
take a copy myself, and try to give it what it lacks.
Well ; good by. But, stay ! I am going for a little air-
ing to the grounds of the Villa Borghese this afternoon.
You will thmk it very foolish, but I always feel the safer
in your company, Hilda, slender little maiden as you are.
Will you come ! "
56 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" Ah, not to-day, dearest Miriam," she replied, " I have
set my heart on giving another touch or two to this pict-
ure, 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
lamj) ! Hilda, do you ever jaray to the Viigin 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 be-
held 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 ^vished
that he could have caught it in the air and got Hilda's
leave to keep it.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SUBUEBAH" VILLA.
DosTATELLO, wMlc it was still a doubtful question be-
twixt afternoon and mornmg, set forth to keep the appoint-
ment 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 now-a-days has been in Rome) is just out-
side of the Porta del Popolo. Passing beneath that not
THE MARBLE FAUN. 57
very impressive specimen of Michael Angelo's architec-
ture, 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 lan-
guid enjoyment of the daydream 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 kins-
man, not far remote, of that wild, sweet, playful, rustic
creature, to whose marble image he bore so striking a re-
semblance. 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 Dona-
tello's sympathies, to be thus linked (and by no monstrous
chain) with what we call the inferior tribes 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 imagmation 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 undis-
turbed, 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,
58 THE MARBLE FAUN.
though other majestic trees grew near enough for dignified
society, but too distant for constraint. Never was there
a more venerable quietude than that wliich 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 swelHng and subsid-
ing 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 a-bloom, even so early in the season, with
anemones of wondrous size, both white and rose-colored,
and violets that betrayed themselves by their rich fra-
grance, even if their blue eyes failed to meet your own.
Palsies, too, were abundant, but larger than the modest
little English flowers, 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 sel-
dom interferes vrith her, she sets to work in her quiet way
and makes herself at home. There is enough of hiunan
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 po-
etry, and could have reappeared anywhere, it must have
been in such a scene as this.
In the openings of the wood there are fountains plash-
ing 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 corro-
sion of even that soft atmosphere, half hide and half re-
THE MARBLE FAUN". 59
veal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen and
broken on the turf. Termmal figures, columns of marble
or granite porticoes, 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 pedi-
ments, as if this were the thousandth summer since their
ringed seeds alighted there.
What a strange idea what a needless labor to con-
struct artificial ruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin I
But even these sportive imitations, wi-ought 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, dream-like, enjoyable and
ad, 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
(jrowth, 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
HO 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
%rm in arm with you, and death awaits you at the end of
the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its loveli-
ness; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it
beyond the scope of man's actual possessions. But Dona-
teUo 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
60 THE MARBLE FAUN.
atmosphere in which he had wasted so many months, the
hard pavements, the smell of ruiu and decaymg genera-
tions, 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 mfluences 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 leai^t up to catch the overhanging bough
of an ilex, and swinging himself by it alighted far on-
ward, 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 afl'ection
and capable of a tender response ; he clasped it closely in
his arms, as a Faun might have clasped the warm, femi-
nine 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 linlced him so strongly, he threw himself
at full length on the turf, and pressed down his lips, kiss-
ing 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 been 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 soU 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 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, bfed in the sweet sylvan life
THE MARBLE FAUN. 61
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 sprmg 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 cir-
cuit 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 bas-reliefs, and stat-
ues 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 trunlv, 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.
62 THE MARBLE FAUN.
CHAPTER IX.
THE FAUN AND NYMPH.
Mieiam's sadder mood, it might be, had at first an
effect on Donatello's spirits. It checked the joyous ebul-
lition 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 awhile ;
it being, indeed, seldom Donatello's impulse to express
himself copiously in words. His usual modes of demon-
stration were by the natural language of gesture, the in-
stinctive movement of his agile frame, and the uncon-
scious 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 inevi-
tably, as it were, to dance along the woodpath, 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 beauti-
ful sense, an animal a creature in a state of develop-
ment 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 oi
THE MARBLE FAUN. 63
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-treCj
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 capermg 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 sym-
pathy 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 Imk 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 sun-
shine, 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
Mriam, 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 some-
times 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
64 THE MARBLE FAUN.
men might avow their passion with as little restrain?; as
a bird pipes its notes 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 improb-
ably, 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 satisfac-
tory 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, thei'e 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 im-
perfectly developed intellect. Alternately, slie 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 tlian an
innocent pastime, if they two sure to be separated
by their different paths in Hie, to-morrow were to
THE MARBLE FAUN. 65
gather up some of the little pleasures that chanced to
grow about their feet, like the violets and wood-anem-
ones, 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 foot-
steps, 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 there-
fore 1 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 en-
vironment 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,
DonateUo ? "
" Oh, 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 think-
ing 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 hamit the leafy solitudes. But never half so
happy as now ! "
" In these delightful groves ? " she asked.
" Here, and with you," answered DonateUo. Just as
we are now."
*' What a fulness of content in him ! How silly, and
5
66 THE MARBLE FAUN.
how delightful ! " said Miriam to herself. Then address-
ing 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 ! For
ever ! forever ! forever ! "
" The child ! the simpleton ! " said Miriam, with sudden
laughter, and checking it as suddenly. " But is he a sim-
pleton 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 un-
fathomable 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 67
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 be-
came full of merriment for these two blithe spirits. A
bird happening to sing cheerily, Donatello gave a pecu-
liar 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, ob-
serving 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 sun-
shine before the cavern's mouth. Except the freshest
mirth of animal spirits, like Donatello's there is no mer-
riment, no wild exhilaration, comparable to that of melan-
choly 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 again, twined
them with green leaves into garlands for both their heada
68 THE MARBLE FAUN.
They played together like children, or creatures of im-
mortal youth. So much had they flung aside the sombre
habitudes of dady life, that they seemed born to be
sportive forever, and endowed with eternal mirthfulness
instead of any deeper joy. It was a glimpse far back-
ward into Arcadian life, or, farther 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 hap-
piness.
" Hark I " cried Donatello, stopping short, as he was
about to bind Miriam's fair hands vnth 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 I
Come ; the strain of music ^vill 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 Dona-
tello's there was a charm of indescribable grotesqueness.
hand in hand with grace ; sweet, bewitching, most provo-
cative 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 69
and the beautiful companion at his side. Setting apart
only this, Miriam resembled a Nymph, as much as Dona-
tello 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 sun-
dered its rough bark to let her dance freely forth, en-
dowed 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 m 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 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 jol-
lity 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 har-
70 THE MARBLE FAUN.
mony. 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 be-
thought themselves to try the echoes of these woods ; for,
on the festas of the Church, Rome scatters its merry-
makers all abroad, ripe for the dance or any other pas-
time.
As Miriam and Donatello emerged from among the
trees the musicians scraped, tinkled, or blew, each accord-
ing to his various kind of instrument, more inspiringly
than ever. A dark-cheeked little girl, with bright black
eyes, stood by, shaking a tambourine set round with tink-
ling bells, and thumping it on its parchment head. With-
out interrupting his brisk, though measured movement,
Donatello snatched away this unmelodious contrivance,
and flourishing it above his head, produced music of inde-
scribable potency, still dancing with frisky step, and strik-
ing the tambourine, and ringing its little bells, all in one
jovial act.
It might be that there was magic in the sound, or con-
tagion, 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 jol-
lity. 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 con-
tadinas, too, from the Campagna and the villages, with
their rich and picturesque costumes of scarlet and all
biught 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 dan-
gling 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 Eng-
lish 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 71
it as merrily as he. Besides the above there was a herds-
man 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 child-
like 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 flutist 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 sculp-
tured 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, follow-
ing 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 char-
iot is overturned and broken, flinging the charioteer head-
long 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 sug-
gested doom and sorrow.
72 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 garment in the air,
and pranced before her on its tiptoes, almost vying with
the agility of Donatello hmiself. 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 repea.t 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 dis-
porting themselves in these venerable woods only a mo-
ment ago ; and now in another moment, because some
profane eye had looked at them too closely, or some in-
truder had cast a shadow on their mirth, the silver 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 73
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, creat-
ing 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 Dontello, grasping her hand for-
cibly, " who is it that stands in the shadow yonder, beck-
oning 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 in-
dicated, and the expression of his face was fearfully
changed, being so disordered, perhaps with terror at all
events with anger and invincible repugnance that Mir-
iam hardly knew him. His lips were dra^vn 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 sim-
plest 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 emo-
tion 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 Dona-
tello, 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 hith-
erto held over her companion, by the fierceness that he so
suddenly developed. " Oh, have pity on me, Donatello, if
for nothing else, yet because in the midst of my wretched-
ness I let myself be your playmate for this one wild hour.
Follow me no farther. Henceforth, leave me to my doom.
74 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 pui-port 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.
FKAGMENTARY 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 mis-
f ortmie, 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 him-
self 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 Avhisperings of what passed in Miriam's in-
terview that afternoon with the sinister personage who
had dogged her footsteps ever since the visit to the cata-
comb. In weaving these mystic utterances into a con-
tinuous scene, we undertake a task resembling in its per-
plexity that of gathering up and piecing together the frag-
ments of a letter which has been torn and scattered to the
winds. Many words of deep significance, many entire sen-
tences, and those possibly the most important ones, have
ilown too far on the winged breeze to be recovered. If we
THE MARBLE FAUN. 75
insert our own conjectural amendments, we perhaps give
a purport utterly at variance with the true one. Yet un-
less we attempt something in this way, there must remain
an unsightly gap, and a lack of continuousness and depen-
dence in our narrative ; so that it would arrive at certain
inevitable catastrophes without due warning of their im-
minence.
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 compre-
hension ; 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 ac-
quiescence in my bidding. You are aware of the penalty
of a refusal"
76 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Not that penalty with which you would terrify me,"
said Miriam ; " another there may be, but not so griev-
ous."
" "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 dro^vn 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."
"All, fatal chance!" cried Miriam, covering her face
with her hands.
" Yes, your heart trembled with horror when you rec-
ognized 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 vehe-
ment passion. "Oh, that we could have wandered in
those dismal passages till we both perished, taking oppo-
site 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 77
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 those knots, nor my masculine
force break them. We must submit ! "
"Pray for rescue, a^ 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 hav^
known you to pray in times past ! "
At these words of Miriam, a tremor and horror ap-
peared 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 intol-
erable, 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 tyramiously, 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,
78 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 re-
appearance has destroyed the work of years. You know
the power that I have over you. Obey my bidding ; or,
within 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, shud-
dering ; " 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 o^vn."
The wind has blo"\vn away whatever else they may
have spoken.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 79
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, belong-
ing 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 Mir-
iam ! Or, how, on the other hand, should spotless inno-
cence 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 wilder-
ness 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 midst of trouble, and could distin-
guish little beyond its limits. As they came within pub-
lic 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.
80 THE MARBLE FAUN
CHAPTER XII.
A STROLL OX 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 move-
ments so as to bring him often Avithin her sphere.
The Pincian Hill is the favorite promenade of the Ro-
man aristocracy. At the present day, however, like most
other Roman possessions, it belongs less to the native in-
habitants than to the barbarians from Gaul, Great Britain,
and beyond the sea, who have established a peaceful usur-
pation over whatever is enjoyable or memorable in the
Eternal City. These foreign guests are indeed ungrate-
ful, 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 la^vns; v/ho 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 crov.^ned them with busts of that multi-
tude of worthies statesmen, heroes, artists, men of let-
ters, 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 recon-
cile the stranger (since he fully appreciates the enjoy-
ment, and feels nothing of the cost) to the rule of an
THE MARBLE FAUK. 81
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 con-
sumptive 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 after-
noons, 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 thorough-bred steeds. Here, in short, all the transitory
population of Rome, the world's great watering-place,
rides, di'ives, or promenades! Here are beautiful sun-
sets ; 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 country-
woman) 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 bodUy eyes, because, being dreamed about so much,
6
82 THE MARBLE FAUN. i
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 Cam-
pagna ; no laud of dreams, but the broadest page of his-
tory, crowded so full with memorable events that one
obliterates another ; as if Time had crossed and recrossed
his o^vn records till they grew illegible.
But, not to meddle with history, with which our nar-
rative 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-develop-
ment.
In the remoter depths, among the old groves of ilex-
trees, Hilda and Kenyon heard the famt sound of music,
laughter, and mingling voices. It was probably the up-
roar 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 83
a solitary figure, advancing along one of the paths that
lead from the obscurer part of the grounds, 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 a 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, in-
deed ! 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 ab-
surdity with a kiss.
" Oh, 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 ! "
" Wliy do you laugh sto ? " 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
84 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 un-
known antiquity. His boyish passion for Mh'iam has
introduced him familiarly to our little circle ; and our
republican and artistic simplicity of intercourse has in-
cluded 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 examirdng them.
How do you explain that ? "
" Oh, 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 re-
marked 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 aAvay the wonder and
the mystery out of everything. AVliy could not you allow
me and yourself, too the satisfaction of thinking him a
Faun?"
THE MARBLE FAUN. 85
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 fore-
fathers ; and if their shadows beckon me into dreamland^
I shall willingly follow. By the by, speaking of Dona-
tello, there is a point on which I should like to be en-
lightened."
" 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 1 No, no, no ! "
" It would seem impossible," said the sculptor. " But,
on the other hand, a gifted woman flings away her affec-
tions 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 nat-
ural 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, m 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 through-
out."
" I said a foolish thing, indeed," answered the sculptor.
It surprises me, for I might have drawn a wiser knowl-
86 THE MARBLE FAUN".
edge 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 par-
apet 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 look-
ing 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 awe-
stricken 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 Flamin-
ian Gate !
Lifting their eyes, Hilda and her companion gazed west-
ward, and saw beyond the invisible Tiber the Castle of
St. Angelo ; that immense tomb of a pagan emperor, Avith
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 were 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 MARBLE FAUN. 87
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 palaoe 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 weak-
ness 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. Ken-
yon 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 pertuaa-
cious model, however, remained immovable.
And the sculptor here noted a circumstance, which, ac-
cording to the interpretation he might put upon it, was
either too trivial to be mentioned, or else so mysteriously
significant that he found it difScult 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 observ-
ers, 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."
88 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" 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 terri-
ble 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 cap-
tive 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 breed-
ing, nor American. Nowhere else but in Rome, and as
an artist, could she hold a place in society without giving
some clue 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 rear
sonable extent, without ruining ourselves."
THE MARBLE FAUN. 89
"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, besides 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 cen-
tral mass of edifices, they could see the top of the An-
tonine column, and near it the circular roof of the Pan-
theon, 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 ruin of the Coliseum, the Golden House, and in-
numerable temples of Roman gods, and mansions of
Caesars and senators, had supplied the material for all
those gigantic hovels, and their wails were cemented with
mortar of inestimable cost, being made of precious an-
tique statues, burnt long ago for this petty purpose.
Rome, as it now exists, has grown up under the Popes,
and seems lilce 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 cov-
ered up the Rome of ancient days, so that it lies like the
dead corpse of a giant, decaying for centuries, with no
90 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 nutri-
ment 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 de-
press 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 even-
ing 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 susceptibil-
ity 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 91
below, near the foot of the magnificent steps, stood Mir-
iam, with her eyes bent on the ground, as if she were
counting those httle, square, uncomfortable paving-stones,
that make it a penitential pilgrimage to walli 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 im-
prisoned 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 inex-
pressibly 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
92 THE MARBLE FAUN.
almost completed in the clay. Next to Hilda, the person
for whom Miriam felt most affection and conJBdence 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
theh's ; 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 mfinite, shiver-
ing 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 in-
timate 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 then nine tenths of the
Roman streets. Over the door of one of the houses was
a marble tablet, bearing an inscription, to the purpose
that the sculpture-rooms within had formerly been oc-
cupied by the illustrious artist Canova. In these pre-
cincts (which Canova's genius was not quite of a char-
acter to render sacred, though it certainly made them
interesting) the young American sculptor had now estab-
lished 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 per-
haps only a block of marble (containing, however, the
possibihty of ideal grace within it) to sit down upon ;
THE MARBLE FAUN. 93
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,
exliibiting the second stage of the idea as it advances
towards a marble immortality ; and then is seen the ex-
quisitely designed shape of clay, more interesting than
even the final marble, as being the intimate production of
the sculptor himself, moulded thoughout 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 chisel-
ling 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 Prax-
iteles ; or, very possibly, by Praxiteles himself. What-
ever 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 buttonlioles, their shoeties, their neck-
cloths, and these, at our present epoch of taste, make a
4 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 w^ork, but that of some nameless ma-
chine 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 dissohing 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 hu-
man countenance within its embrace must have existed
there since the limestone ledges of Carrara were first
made. Another bust was nearly completed, though stiU
one of Kenyon's most trustworthy assistants was at work,
giving delicate touches, shaving off an impalpable some-
thing, and leaving little heaps of marble-dust to attest
it.
" As these busts in the block of marble," thought Miri-
am, " 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 imier 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 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 95
me to work at it whole days together, without intervals of
repose. So, what have you to show me ? "
"Pray look at everythmg 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, per-
haps."
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 ex-
periments, 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 pearl-fisher, 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 sea- weeds, 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
elficacy there is in death 1 If we camiot 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 Mil-
ton, not copied from any one bust or picture, yet more
authentic than any of them, because all known repre-
sentations 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, likeAvise, by long perusal and
deep love of the Paradise Los% the Coniusy the LycidaSy
96 THE MARBLE FAUN.
and V Allegro^ the sculptor had succeeded even bettef
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 per-
mission to model. He had done so, because he sincerely
believed that, whether he ^vrought 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 im-
mortality. Possibly, however, the young artist may
have under-estimated the durability of his material.
Other faces there were, too, of men who (if the brevity
of their remembrance, after death, can be argued from
their little value in life) should have been represented in
snow rather than marble. Posteritj^ will be puzzled what
to do with busts like these, the concretions and petrifac-
tions of a vain self-estimate ; but will find, no doubt, that
they serve to build into stone walls, or burn into quick-
lime, 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 o^vn 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 per-
petuating 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 farthest, 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 Cresar's), and infallibly break it off, if they
can do so without detection !
"Yes," said IVIiriam, who had been revolving some
THE MARBLE FAUN. 97
such thoughts as the above, " it is a good state of mind
for mortal man, when he is content to leave no more de-
finite 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 oflt" 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 natu-
rally 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 ! "
" Oh, 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 dis-
closed, but only, lapped in fleecy cotton, a small, beauti-
fully-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
7
98 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 finger-tips."
" 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 char-
acter 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 Ken-
yon, anxious to vindicate his mistress's maidenly reserve.
" I stole it from her. The hand is a i-eminiscence. After
gazing at it so often, and even holding it once for an in-
stant when Hilda wa:s not thinking of me, I should be a
bungler indeed, if I could not now reproduce it to some-
thing 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 at-
mosphere ; 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 mis*
taken idea, which men generally entertain, that naturd
has made women epecially prone to throw their whola
THE MARBLE FAUN. 99
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 per-
fection. 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.
Mt new statue ! " said Kenyon, who had positively for-
gotten 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 womanliood, 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. Now-a-days
people are as good as born in their clothes, and there is
100 THE MARBLE FAUN.
practically not a nude human being in existence. An
artist, therefore, as you must candidly confess, camiot
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 circum-
stances. An old Greek sculptor, no doubt, found his
models in the open sunshine, and among pure and prince-
ly maidens, and thus the nude statues of antiquity are
as modest as violets, and sufficiently draped in their owti
beauty. But as for Mr. Gibson's colored Venuses,
(stained, I believe, with tobacco juice,) and all other nu-
dities 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 m 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 now-a-days ; never even so much
as a new attitude. Greenough (I take my examples
among men of merit) imagined nothing new ; nor Craw-
ford either, except in the tailoring line. There are not,
as you will o^vn, more than half a dozen positively origi-
nal statues or groups in the world, and these few are of
immemorial antiquity. A person familiar with the Vati-
can, the Ufiizzi 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 decla-
mation, " that you sculptors are, of necessity, the greatest
plagiarists in the world."
THE MARBLE FAUN. .101
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, smil-
ing, " 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
criticized 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 Ken-
yon, 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 scrupul-
ously 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.
102 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Even the stiff Egyptian head-dress was adhered to, but
had been softened into a rich feminine adornment, with-
out 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
lil^nity ; so that Cleopatra sat attired in a garb proper to
her historic and queenly state, as a daughter of the Ptole-
mies, 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, ex-
cept 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, be-
tween two pulse- throbs had relinquished all activity, and
was resting throughout every vein and muscle. It was
the repose of despair, indeed ; for Octavius liad 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 char-
acteristics of the Egyptian physiognomy. His courage
and integrity had been abundantly rewarded ; for Cleo-
patra's beauty shone out richer, warmer, more trium-
pTiantly beyond comparison, than if, shrinking timidly
from the truth, he had chosen the tame Grecian type.
The expression was of profound, gloomy, heavily revolv-
ing thought ; a glance into her past life and present emer-
gencies, 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 ten-
derness 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.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 103
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 mate-
rial, she would be one of the images that men keep for-
ever, 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 r vercome 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, emo-
tion, and toil of brain and hand," said Kenyon, not with-
out 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 wom-
anliood 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 suppos-
ing 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
104 THE MARBLE FAUN.
so much emotion was stifled than expressed in it sounded
unnatural.
" Oil, 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 tor-
tures 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! Oh, let me
speak ! "
" Mh'iam, 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 cer-
tain 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 friend-
ship 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 sympa-
thy, and just the kind of sympathy that the occasion re-
quired, 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 reluc-
tance, 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."
THE MARBLE FAUN. 105
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 Cleo-
patra 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 remem-
bered. Meanwhile, dear Miriam, let us meet in the same
clear, friendly light as heretofore."
" You are less sincere than I thought you," said Mir-
iam, " 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, truehearted 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
come 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
106 THE MARBLE FAUiST.
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 wait-
ing for her in the street.
CHAPTER XV.
AUr ESTHETIC 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 its 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 for-
eign residents of Rome, at which pleasant people or dis-
agreeable ones, as the case may be encounter one an-
other with little ceremony.
If anywise interested in art, a man must be difficult to
please who cannot find fit comj)anionship among a crowd
of persons, whose ideas and pursuits all tend towards the
general purpose of enlarging the world's stock of beauti-
ful productions.
One of the chief causes that make Rome the favorit
residence of artists their ideal home which they sigh for
in advance, and are so loth 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.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 107
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 im-
press 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 infuiitely smaller than the public to which lit-
erary 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 al-
most inevitable that even a gifted artist should look ask-
ance 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 pamter heap generous
praise on anything in his special Ime 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 remem-
brance 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 cro^vn 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
108 THE MARBLE FAUN.
titillation, on skins so sensitive as those of artists. "We
must therefore forego the delight of illuininatmg 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 pic-
ture, 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 rep-
resented at Rome m the pictorial than in the sculptu-
resque department. Yet the men of marble appear to
have more weight with the public than the men of can-
vas ; 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 noth-
ing, 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,
THE MARBLE FAUN. 109
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
dream- work, or rather frost-work : it was all a vapory
exlialation 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 exceedmgly 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 unob-
trusively 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
modem costume. Smart, practical men they doubtless
110 THE MARBLE FAUN.
were, and some of them far more than this, but, still, not
precisely what an uninitiated person looks for in a sculp-
tor. A sculptor, indeed, to meet the demands which our
preconceptions make upon him, should be even more in-
dispensably 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 msures immortal-
ity to whatever is wrought in it, and therefore makes it a
religious obligation to commit no idea to its mighty guar-
dianship, save such as may repay the marble for its faith-
ful 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 priest-
hood, 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 foregomg no misgivings sug-
gested 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 conve-
nient 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 waxwork, 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 intel-
lectual existence will not physically crumble any sooner
than the immortal agony of the Laocoon !
Yet we love the artists, m every kind; even these,
whose merits we are not quite able to appreciate. Sculp-
tors, painters, crayon sketchers, or whatever branch of
sesthetics they adopted, were certainly pleasanter people,
THE MARBLE FAUN. Ill
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 busmess (though they talked
about it very much as other men talk of cotton, politics,
flour barrels, and sugar) necessarily illuminated their con-
versation w^ith 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 faint, mellow tinge, such as we see in
pictures, mingled itself with the lamplight.
This good efl'ect 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 an-
tiquity 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 lit-
tle cost, yet might have borne no inconsiderable value in
the museum. of a virtuoso.
As interesting as any of these relics was a large port-
folio 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 besth-red himself at the pmch of the mo-
ment, snatching up whatever material was nearest, so as
to seize the first glimpse of an idea that might vanish in
the t^vinkling 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,
112 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 pic-
ture 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 elabo-
rated from them. There is an efiluence 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 portfoho. She
lingered so long over one particular sketch, that Mu-iam
asked her what discovery she had made.
" Look at it carefully," replied Hilda, puttmg 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 sometlung 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,
Miiiam pretty distinctly made out a winged figure "with a
THE MARBLE FAUN. 113
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 com-
position 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 vin-
dictively 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 rep-
resents 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 con-
temptuously of the most beautiful and the divinest figure
that mortal pamter ever drew."
" Forgive me, Hilda .' " said Miriam. " You take these
matters more religiousiy than I can, for my life. Guido's
Archangel is a fine picture, of course, but it never im-
pressed 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 fin-
ished 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 uglmess
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 in-
8
114 THE MARBLE FAUN.
terest in matters of art, and seldom or never ventured an
opinion respecting them. After holding the sketch a sin-
gle instant in his hand, he flung it from him with a shud-
der of disgust and repugnance, and a froAvn that had all
the bitterness of hatred.
" I know the face well I " 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 aifirmed ; and it added not a little
to the grotesque and weird character which, half play-
fully, half seriously, they assigned to Miriam's attendant,
to think of him as personating the demon's part in a pic-
ture 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 encomiter 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 Guide's Arch-
angel, 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 ram-
ble through the streets, taking in their way some of those
scenes of ruin, which produced their bcbt effects under
the splendor of the ItaUan moon.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 115
CHAPTER XVI.
A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE.
The proposal for a moonlight ramble was received with
3x;clamation 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 win-
dows, 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 liis little shop, in the base-
ment of the palace ; a cigar vendor'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 pre-
cincts.
The air was quietly full of the noise of falling water,
the cause of which was nowhere visible, though appar-
ently 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 at 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, up-gush
and downfall of water. They have written their names
In that unstable element, and proved it a more durable
record than brass or marble.
116 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" Donatello, you had better take one of those gay, boy-
ish artists for your companion," said Miriam, wlien 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 Dona-
tello.
" 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 vine-
yards. Well ; give me your arm then ! But take care
that no f riskiness comes over you. We must walk evenly
and heavily to-night ! "
The party arranged itself according to its natural affin-
ities or casual likings; a sculptor generally choosing a
painter, and a painter a sculptor, 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 Agrij)pa to its wellspring, 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 117
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 strown, with careful art and ordered irregu-
larity, a broad and broken heap of massive rock, looking
as 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. Final-
ly, the water, tumbling, sparkling, and dashing, with joy-
ous haste and never-ceasing murmur, poured itself into a
great marble-brimmed reservoir, and filled it with a quiv-
ering tide ; on which was seen, continually, a snowy semi-
circle 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 vendors, and other people,
whose petty and wandering traffic is transacted in the open
air. It is likewise thronged with idlers, lounging over the
iron railmg, and with Forestieri, who came hither to see
the famous fountain. Here, also, are seen men with buck-
118 THE MARBLE FAUN- ]
cts, urchins with cans, and maidens (a picture as old as th
patriarchal times) bearing their pitchers upon their heads.
For the water of Trevi is in request, far and wide, as th^
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
nearly 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 triviali-
ties of art to assume a natural aspect, in accordance with
its own powerful simplicity.
"What would be done with this water-power," sug-
gested 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 Eng-
lish 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 moon-
light," said Miriam, " because it was here that the inter-
view 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 di-
rectly behind Miriam, illummating 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
I THE MARBLE PAUN 119
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 sep-
arate 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," ob-
served 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 imi-
tated him by leaning over to peep into the basin. Recover-
ing 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."
120 THE MARBLE FAUN.
In fact, the exorcism was quite ineffectual upon the per.
tinacious 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 drink-
ing-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
constramt ; for the creature's aspect was strangely repul-
sive and hideous.
Mh-iam felt her arm seized violently by Donatello.
She looked at him, and beheld a tiger-like fury gleaming
from his wild eyes.
" Bid me drown him ! " whispered he, shuddering be-
tween 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. " Me-
thinks 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 ray 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
vl
THE MARBLE FATJN. 121
the hills, where (as I gather from what you have told
me) your days were filled with simple and blameless de-
lights. 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.
" Tills burnmg pain in my heart," said Donatello ; " for
you are in the midst of it."
By this time, they had left the Fountain of Trevi con-
siderably behind them. Little further allusion was made
to the scene at its margin ; for the party regarded Miri-
am's persecutor as diseased in his wits, and were hardly
to be surprised by any eccentricity m 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 Rom.e, 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 eight-
een centuries, the soil over its grave has grown very
deep, by the slow scattering of dust, and the accumu-
lation 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 Em-
peror's warlike deeds. In the area before it, stands a
grove of stone, consistmg 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 actuallj^ 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 sen-
122 THE MARBLE FAUN.
sibly 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 mo-
mentary 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 mas-
siveness, will last infinitely longer than any picture, in
spite of the spiritual life that ought to give it immortal-
ity ! "
" My poor little Hilda," said Miriam, kissing her com-
passionately, "would you sacrifice this greatest mortal
consolation, which we derive from the transitoriness of all
things from tlie right of saying, in every conjuncture,
This, too, will pass away ' would you give up this un-
speakable boon, for the sake of making a picture eternal ? "
Their moralizing strain was interrupted by a demon-
stration 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?" in-
quired ]\Iiriam.
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. " Be-
sides, 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 col-
umns, I am afraid," observed Kenyon. "AH that rinh
THE MARBLE FAUN. 123
sculpture of Trajan's bloody warfare, twining from the
base of the pillar to its capital, may be but an ugly spec-
tacle 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 pedes-
tal!"
"There are sermons in stones," said Hilda, thought-
fully, smiling at Kenyon's morality ; " and especially in
the stones of Rome."
The party moved on, but deviated a littls from the
straight way, in order to glance at the ponderous remains
of the Temple of Mars Ultor, 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 por-
tico of a Temple of Minerva, most rich and beautiful in
architecture, but wofully gnawed by time and shattered
by violence, besides being buried midway in the accumu-
lation 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
to-day.
" 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 desecra-
tion 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
ite of the vast temple that Hadrian planned and built.
124 THE MARBLE FAUN.
It terminated on the edge of a somewhat abrupt descent,
at the foot of which, witli a muddy ditch between, rose,
in the bright moonlight, the great curving wall and multi-
tudinous arches of the Coliseum,
CHAPTER XVII.
Miriam's tkouble.
As usual of a moonlight evening, several carriages
stood at the entrance of this famous ruin, and the pre-
cmcts 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-g^o^vn arches, and made them even too dis-
tinctly 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 matyrs 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 126
arches, whence now and then you could hear the half-
shiiek, half-laugh 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
battle-fields. 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 im-
printed 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 cir-
cumstance of the Saviour's passion and suffering. In
accordance with an ordinary custom, a pilgrim was mak-
ing 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 irrever-
ence ; 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
126 THE MARBLE FAUN.
rose out of some profound abyss of ruin; now it was
muffled by a heap of shrubbery which had adventurously
olambered to that dizzy lieight ; and so the red Hght kept
ascending to loftier and loftier ranges of the structure
until it stood like a star where the blue sky rested against
the C!oliseum's topmost wall. It indicated a party of Eng-
lish or Americans paying the inevitable visit by moon-
light, and exalting themselves with raptui-es that were
Byron's, not their o\vn.
Our company of artists sat on the fallen column, the
pagan altar, and the steps of the Christian shrine, enjoy-
ing 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 atmos-
phere 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 bomiti-
fully 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 liorp iind tigers limb from limb. What a strange
tboTght 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 do^vn 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."
THE MARBLE FAUN. 127
" You bring a Gothic horror into this peaceful moon-
light scene," said Hilda.
" Nay, I have good authority for peopling the Coliseum
with phantoms," replied the sculptor. " Do you remem-
ber that veritable scene in Benvenuto Cellini's autobi-
ography, 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? Ben-
venuto saw them with his own eyes giants, pigmies,
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, wdth 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 I "
" 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 fancy-
ing herself wholly unseen, the beautiful Miriam began to
gesticulate extravagantly, gnashing her teeth, flinging her
arms wildly abroad, stamping with 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 wdld
way ; although, when practicable, they find a more effect-
ual 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.
128 THE MARBLE FAUN.
"Signorina! signorinat have pity on me! "cried Do-
natello, approaching her " tliis 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 loth 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 tliose 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 an-
other word." He gazed sadly at her, but did not stir.
" I tell you," Miriam went on, " there is a great evil hang-
ing 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 do^vn 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 for-
ever."
A higher sentiment brightened upon Donatello's face,
than had hitherto seemed to belong to its simple expres-
sion 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, thej'^ call him; and
surely fit fCi* 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 1 "
THE MARBLE FAUN. 129
She held out her hand to him, and smiled sadly as
Donatello pressed it to his lips. Tliey 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
fihrines, 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 Csesars ; por-
tions of which have taken shape anew, in mediaeval con-
vents and modern villas. They turned their faces city-
ward, and, treading over the broad flagstones of the old
Roman pavement, passed through the Arch of Titus.
The moon shone larightly 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 es-
timation 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
9
130 THE MARBLE FAUN.
pride, had streamed and flaunted in hundred-fold succes-
sion 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 could create an inter-
est 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 foot-
steps 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 moon-
light night as this, Rome keeps itself awake and stirring,
and is full of song and pastime, the noise of which min-
gles with your dreams, if you have gone betimes to bed.
But it is better to be abroad, and take our oAvn 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 OP 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, impen-
etrably 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 pro-
phetic visions intimations of all the future calamities of
Rome shades of Goths and Gauls, and even of the
THE MARBLE FAUN. 131
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 earth-
quake 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 hero-
ism 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 Csesars has gone down
thither, with a hollow, rumbling sound of its frag-
ments! 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 loth to smile at the self-con-
ceit 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
132 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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," an-
swered Miriam, despondingly.
" Doubtless, too," resumed the sculptor (for his imagi-
nation was greatly excited by the idea of this wondrous
chasm,) "all the blood that the Romans shed, whether on
battle-fields, 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 Ave
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 mean-
ing 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 accilvity 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 influ-
ences 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 unfa-
miliar 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 the silence of an upper region. That volume
at melodious voice was one of the tokens of a great
THE MARBLE FAUN. 133
trouble. Tliere 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 pil-
lars, 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 Capito-
line Hill. That renowned hillock (for it is little more)
now rose abruptly above them. The ponderous masonry,
with which the hill-side 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 Cap-
itol, 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 struct-
ures 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 chiv-
alry and romance, the feudal system, and the infancy of a
better civilization than that of Rome. Or, if we remem-
ber these mediaeval times, they look farther 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 rever-
ence, and makes it look newer than it is. Not the Coli-
seum, 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 vener-
able antiquity which we gather, along with the ivy, from
X34 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 fomidation of the latter was
begun. This is owing to the kindliness with which Na-
ture 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 ver-
dure, till she has won the whole structure back. I^t, in
Italy, whenever man has once hewn a stone, Nature forth-
with relinquishes her right to it, and never lays her finger
on it again. Age after age finds it bare and naked, in the
barren sunshme, 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 pictur-
esque effect it 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 sum-
mit of the Capitoline Hill. They stood awhile to con-
template the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aure-
lius. 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 eva-
nescent 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 inter-
est 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."
THE MARBLE FAUN. 135
Oh, if there were but one such man as this ! " ex-
claimed Miriam. " One such man in an age, and one in
all the world ; then how speedily would the strife, wick-
edness, 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, sud-
denly drawing the girl close to her, " do you know how
it is with me? I would give all I have or hope my
life, oh how freely for one instant of your trust in God I
You little guess my need of it. You really thuik then,
that He sees and cares for us ? "
" Miriam, you frighten me."
" Hush, hush ! do not let them hear you ! " whispered
Miriam. " I frighten you, you say ; for Heaven's sake,
how ? Am I strange ? is there anything wild in my be-
havior ? "
" 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 show-
ing 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 aU other
136 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 moon-
shine, 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 pomt 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 tum-
ble there might still be for a traitor, in spite of the thirty
feet of soil that have accumulated at the foot of the pre-
cipice."
They all bent over, and saw that the cliff fell perpen-
dicularly 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 origi-
nal 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 a-down
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 phmge straight do^vnward into a
stone-paved court.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 137
I prefer this to any other site as having been verita-
bly 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 am-
bition to its profoundest ruin."
" Come, come ; it is midnight," cried another artist,
" too late to be moralizing here. We are literally dream-
ing 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 ac-
cepted it ; but when they had partly threaded the passage
between the little courtyard and the Piazza del Campi-
doglio, 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 suflBcient 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,
138 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 Miri-
am.
" Who were 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 o^vn 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 per-
sons 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 feel-
ing of security. All gone ; and only herself and Dona-
tello 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 139
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 sculp-
tor, 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 courtyard,
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 here-
tofore known. But that simple and joyous creature was
gone forever.
140 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" 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 be-
held 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 down-
ward as earnestly as if some inestimable treasure had
fallen over, and were yet recoverable. On the pavement,
below, was a dark mass, lymg 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 mor-
tality 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 pas-
sion 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."
THE MARBLE FAUN. 141
0h, never!" cried Miriam. "My one, own friend I
Never, never, never ! "
She turned to him the guilty, blood-stained, 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 em-
brace 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 be-
low, 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 ser-
pent, 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 down-
ward from the Capitol, there was a far-off noise of sing-
ing 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 sud-
142 THE MARBLE FAUN.
denly extended itself around them. But how close, and
ever closer, did the breadth of the immeasurable waste,
that lay between them and all brotherhood or sisterhood,
now press them one within the other !
" Oh, friend," cried Miriam, so putting her soul into
that word that it took a heavy richness of meaning, and
seemed never to have been spoken before. " Oh, 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 inno-
cent one ! Surely, it is no crime that we have committed.
One wretched and worthless life has been sacrificed, to
cement two other lives forevermore."
" Forevermore, Miriam ! " said Donatello ; " cemented
with his blood ! "
The young man started at the word which he had him-
self spoken ; it may be that it brought home, to the sim-
plicity of his imagination, what he had not before dreamed
of the ever-increasing loathesomeness 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 ofBce, and has no exist-
ence 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 143
of their dark sympathy, at the base of which lay a human
corpse) a bUss, or an insanity, which the unliappy 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 oc-
casion, 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 Para-
dise, 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 grand-
sire'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 ^vrong-doing
melts into the great mass of human crime, and makes us
who dreamed only of oiu" 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 in-
numerable 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 I "
144 THE MARBLE FAUN.
"Wandering without a purpose, it so chanced that they
turned into a street, at one extremity of which stood Hil-
da's tower. There was a liglit in her high chamber ; a
light, too, at the Virgin's slirine; 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, Avith 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 can-
not tell. The window was immediately closed, and
her form disappeared from behind the sno^vy curtain.
Miriam felt this to be a token that the cry of her con-
demned spirit was shut out of heaven.
CHAPTER XX.
THE BUEIAL 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 Do-
natello 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 com-
monplace aspect on life, as when conscious of some secret
that if suspected would make them look monstrous m 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 r:orning, is the spirit that
has dared so much, only the night before ! How icy cold
is the heart, when the fervor, the ^vild ecstasy of passion
has faded away, and sunk down among the dead ashes of
THE MARBLE FAUN. 145
the fire that Llazed so fiercely, and was fed by the very
substance of its life ! How faintly does the criminal stag-
ger 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 sym-
pathizingly to the sculptor on the subject of Hilda's ab-
sence, and somewhat annoyed him by alluding in Donar-
tello'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 gen-
eralize, 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 es-
pecially so to this poor Miriam, who was hardly respon-
sible for her frantic efforts to be gay. Possibly, more-
over, 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 home-
ward; for nothing insures me such delightful and in-
nocent 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 oppor-
tunity 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."
10
146 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" Impossible ! " cried Miriam, starting.
" Tlien 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 e^dl 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 or purpose for Hilda, if on 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 remem-
ber) leaning from her window midway between earth
and sky ! "
Kenyon now looked at Donatello.
" You seem out of spirits, my dear friend," he ob-
served. " 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 moun-
tain-breezes."
" It may be," said Donatello, with unwonted sombre-
ness ; " 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 gam-
bol 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.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 147
"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-sick," whispered
Miriam, pulling the sculptor's sleeve. " He is of a na-
ture to lie down and die at once, if he finds himself draw-
ing 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 in-
fluences are too heavy to sustain the life of such a crea-
ture."
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 morn-
ing. 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 mstead of the customary side-aisles.
Each chapel had its saintly shrine, hung round with offer-
ings ; 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 wor-
shippers. 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 por-
traits in bas-relief, and Latin epitaphs, now grown illegi-
ble 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 fioor seemed never to have been
scrubbed or swept, and had as little the aspect of sanc-
tity 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 consecra-
tion of the walls and pavement.
As our friends entered the church, their eyes rested at
148 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 fiat 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 visil)ly upon earth ; of sacrifi-
cing this high purpose, and, for aught they know, the
welfare of many souls along with it, to the hope of a pal-
try 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.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 149
"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 tran-
quillity 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 esti-
mate it not half so high. I see its defects to-day 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 unliacked
sword, and clad in his bright armor, and that exquisitely
fitting sky-blue tunic, cut in the latest Paradisiacal mode !
What a damty 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 half way 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 bat-
tle I He should press his foot hard down upon the old
150 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 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 fall on the wrong side. Just fancy a smoke-black-
ened, 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 dis-
quietude 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, Dona-
tello 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 complete-
ness 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 ;
THE MARBLE FAUN. 151
never a side-long glance, nor a half-look, for those are
what show a frightful 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 bare-footed 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 pale-
ness 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 Avhether 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,
152 THE MARBLE FAUN.
felt him give a convulsive sliudder, 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 hun-
dred 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 up-
ward I 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) Avere kept warm m 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 ma}'' 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, Avhich was apt to give him intunations of the
THE MARBLE FAUN. 153
true state of matters that lay beyond his actual vision.
There was a whisper in his ear ; it said, " Hush ! " With-
out 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 hapi')ened, pre-
cisely 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, m 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 involun-
tarily 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 monlc (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 re-
plied, 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
154 THE MARBLE FAUN.
she was gazing at it, assumed the likeness of that face, so
terrible henceforth m her remembrance. It was a sym-
bol, 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, m 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 comiected itself therewith, fixed
ineffaceably in her brain.
" Wait for me, one moment ! " she said to her compan-
ions. " 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 sus-
pected ; 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 f roA\Tied 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 ric^
curls brushed against his forehead. She touched one of
his folded hands with her finger.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 155
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 sus-
taining 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 shall not scowl me down ! " said she.
" Neither now, nor when we stand together at the judg-
ment-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 pro-
posed 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 cer-
tain 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 im-
pelled 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
156 THE MARBLE FAUN.
drew her companion along with her, whispering encour
agement as they went.
The cemetery is beneath the church, but entirely above
ground, and lighted by a row of iron-grated windows with-
out 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 be-
fore 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 orna-
ments 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 mscriptions, purporting
that such a monk, who formerly made use of that particu-
lar headpiece, died on such a day and year ; but vastly
the greater number are piled up indistinguishably into the
THE MARBLE FAUN. 157
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 skele-
ton 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 knowTi
the earth-damps) look out from beneath their hoods, grin-
ning 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 screech-
ing through eternity. As a general thing, however, these
frocked and hooded skeletons seem to take a more cheer-
ful 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 de-
parture. 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 camiot call even your graves permanently
158 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 mid-
night. 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 de-
sirable," answered the sacristan. " A quarter of a cen-
tury'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 shakmg 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 re-
treat 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 159
that look forlornly at him, regretful of their lost noses.
In the more open portions of the garden, before the sculp-
tured 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,
tliat 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 lone-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 1 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 despond-
ency. 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 sym-
160 THE MARBLE FAUN.
pathy, and lavish it all upon him, were it only for a mo-
ment's cordial.
The young man lifted his hand to his breast, and, in-
tentionally, 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 1 " 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, Dona-
tello ! 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 1 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.
" Oh, 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 1 "
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 kindhng into May
was in the atmosphere around them ; but when Miriam
THE MARBLE FAUN. 161
saw that involuntary movement and heard that sigh of re-
lief (for so she interpreted it), a shiver ran through her
frame, as if the iciest wind of the Apemiines were blow-
ing over her.
" He has done himself a greater wrong that I dreamed
of," thought she, with unutterable compassion. " Alas !
it was a sad mistake I 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 ter-
rible 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 other-
wise) on no better warrant than a boy's idle fantasy 1 I
pity him from the very depths of my soul ! As for my-
self, 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 mcapable in our waking mo-
ments. 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 1 " said Donatello, pressmg 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 re-
morse and anguish that would darken all your life. Leave
me, therefore, and forget me."
" Forget you, Miriam ! " said Donatello, roused some-
II
162 THE MARBLE FAUN.
what from his apathy of despau\ " If I could remember
you, and behold you, apart from that frightful visage
which stares at me over your shoulder, that were a con-
solation, 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 Dona-
tello's eyes had again fallen on the ground, and he had
not, in his be^vildered mind and over-burdened 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 environ-
ment of unaccustomed thoughts and emotions which had
settled over him like a dense and dark cloud. Not im-
probably, he beheld Miriam through so dim a medium
that she looked visionary; heard her speak only m a thin,
faint echo.
She turned from the young man, and, much as her
heart yearned towards him, she would not profane that
hea\y parting by an embrace, or even a pressui'e 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 with-
in a smgle 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 slum
ber. A stupor was uiDon him, which he mistook iol
THE MARBLE FAUN". 163
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 XXin.
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 up to the
young girl's eyrie, 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 re-
membered, too, and with a quaking heart, what the sculp-
tor 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 in-
famy in the eyes of the whole world, or in Hilda's eyes
alone, she would unhesitatingly have accepted the former,
on condition of remaming spotless in the estimation of
her white- souled friend. This possibility, therefore, that
Hilda had witnessed the scene of the past night, was un-
questionably 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 dis-
turbed mind gave a sinister interpretation. Some of her
friend's airy family, the doves, with their heads imbedded
164 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 win-
dow-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
windoAV-curtain was closely drawn, with only that one
little aperture at the side, which Miriam remembered notic-
ing 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, oh ! it would be so soothing in
this Avintry 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 165
more disturbed ; she had turned her face upon it, the poor
child, and bedewed it with some of those tears (among tlie
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 closed 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 pro-
foundest 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 1 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 at-
tribute to that ill-fated girl. Who, indeed, can look at
that mouth with its lips half apart, as innocent as a
baby's that has been crying and not pronounce Beatrice
166 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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 im-
ages in the glass should be no longer visible. She now
watched a speck of sunshine that came through a shut-
tered 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 fomid 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 disap-
peared, 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 stair-
case. 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
OAvn part, and also that Miriam only yesterday her closest
friend had a right to be told, face to face, that thence-
forth they must be forever strangers.
She heard Miriam pause, outside of the door. We have
already seen what was the latter's resolve -svith 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,
THE MARBLE FAUN. 167
in all the glow of her remarkable beauty. The truth
was, her heart leaped convulsively towards the only ref-
uge 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 open-
ing 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
168 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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-
kmd ! "
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 heart-quake, 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 mo-
ment 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
THE MARBLE FAUN. 169
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 need-
lessly 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 actmg in the remotest privacy.
Did all Rome see it, then ? Or, at least, our merry com-
pany 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 all like a flash of
lightning. A look passed from your eyes to Donatellb'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,
170 THE MARBLE FAUN.
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."
" All ! 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 ! All, 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, burst-
ing 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 contin-
ually, threatenmg, imploring, insisting to be let out!
Oh, 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 ]\Iiriam'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 j^eace of mind," she said,
THE MARBLE FAUN. 171
to bear testimony against me for this deed, in the face
of all the world, no consideration of myself should weigh
with me an mstant. 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 be-
fore 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 1 " rejoined Miriam.
" He cannot be my friend," said Hilda, " because ^be-
cause 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 honor-
able 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, un-
less 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, sink-
ing 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
172 THE MARBLE FAUN.
doves' nest, this one little nook of pure thoughts and in-
nocent enthusiasms, into which she had brought such
trouble. Every crime destroys more Edens than our
o\vn!
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE TOWEE A^IONG THE APENNINES.
It was in June, that the sculptor, Kenyon, arrived on
horseback at the gate of an ancient country-house (which,
from some of its features, might almost be called a castle)
situated in a part of Tuscany somewhat remote from the
ordinary track of tourists. Thither we must now accom-
pany him, and endeavor to make our story flow onward,
like a streamlet, past a gray tower that rises on the hill-
side, overlooking a spacious valley, which is set in the
grand framework of the Apemiines.
The sculptor had left Rome with the retreating tide of
foreign residents. For, as summer approaches, the Niobe
of Nations is made to bewail anew, and doubtless with
sincerity, the loss of that large part of her population,
which she derives from other lands, and on whom depends
much of whatever remnant of prosperity she still enjoys.
Rome, at this season, is pervaded and overhung with
atmospheric terrors, and insulated within a charmed and
deadly circle. The crowd of wandering tourists betake
themselves to Switzerland, to the Rhine, or, from this
central home of the world, to their native homes in Eng-
land or America, which they are apt thenceforward to
look upon as provincial, after once having yielded to the
spell of the Eternal City. The artist, who contemplates
an indefinite succession of winters in this home of art
(though his first thought was merely to improve himself
by a brief visit), goes forth, in the summer time, to sketch
scenery and costume among the Tuscan hills, and pour,
if he can, the purple air of Italy over his canvas. He
studies the old schools of art in the mountain- towns where
they were born, and where they are still to be seen in the
faded frescoes of Giotto and Cimabue, on the walls of
many a church, or in the dark chapels, in which the sac-
THE MARBLE FAUN. 173
ristan draws aside the veil from a treasured picture of
Perugino. Thenoe, the happy painter goes to walk the
long, bright galleries of Florence, or to steal glowing col-
ors from the miraculous works, which he finds in a score
of Venetian palaces. Such summers as these, spent amid
whatever is exquisite in art, or wild and picturesque in na-
ture, may not inadequately repay him for the chill neglect
and disappointment through which he has probably lan-
guished, in his Roman winter. This sunny, shadowy,
breezy, wandering life, in which he seeks for beauty as
his treasure, and gathers for his winter's honey what is
but a passing fragrance to all other men, is worth living
for, come afterwards what may. Even if he die unrecog-
nized, the artist has had his share of enjoyment and suc-
cess.
Kenyon had seen, at a distance of many miles, the old
villa or castle, towards which his journey lay, looking
from its height over a broad expanse of valley. As he
drew nearer, however, it had been hidden among the ine-
qualities of the hill-side, until the winding road brought
him almost to the iron gateway. The sculptor found this
substantial barrier fastened with lock and bolt. There
was no bell, nor other instrument of sound ; and, after
summoning the invisible garrison with his voice, instead
of a trumpet, he had leisure to take a glance at the exte-
rior of the fortress.
About thirty yards within the gateway rose a square
tower, lofty enough to be a very prominent object in the
landscape, and more than suificiently massive in propor-
tion to its height. Its antiquity was evidently such, that,
in a climate of more abundant moisture, the ivy would
have mantled it from head to foot in a garment that might,
by this time, have been centuries old, though ever new.
In the dry Italian air, however, Nature had only so far
adopted this old pile of stonework as to cover almost
every hand's-breadth of it with close-clinging lichens and
yellow moss ; and the immemorial growth of these kindly
productions rendered the general hue of the tower soft
and venerable, and took away the aspect of nakedness
which would have made its age drearier than now.
Up and down the height of the tower were scattered
three or four windows, the lower ones grated with iron
174 THE MARBLE FAUN.
bars, the upper ones vacant both of window-frames and
glass. Besides these larger openings, there were several
loopholes and little square apertures, which might be
supposed to light the staircase, that doubtless clhnbed the
interior towards the battlemented and machicolated sum-
mit. With this last-mentioned warlike garniture upon its
stern old head and brow, the tower seemed evidently a
stronghold of times long past. Many a crossbowman had
shot his shafts from those windows and loopholes, and
from the vantage height of those gray battlements ; many
a flight of arrows, too, had hit all romid about the embras-
ures above, or the apertures below, where the helmet of
a defender had momentarily glimmered. On festal nights,
moreover, a hundred lamps had often gleamed afar over
the valley, suspended from the iron hooks that were
ranged for the purpose beneath the battlements and every
window.
Connected with the tower, and extending behind it,
there seemed to be a very spacious residence, chiefly of
more modern date. It perhaps owed much of its fresher
appearance, however, to a coat of stucco and yellow wash,
which is a sort of renovation very much in vogue with
the Italians. Kenyon noticed over a door- way, in the
portion of the edifice immediately adjacent to the tower,
a cross, which, with a bell suspended above the roof, in-
dicated that this was a consecrated precinct, and the
chapel of the mansion.
Meanwhile, the hot sun so incommoded the unsheltered
traveller, that he shouted forth another impatient sum-
mons. Happening, at the same moment, to look upward,
he saw a figure leaning from an embrasure of the battle-
ments, and gazing do^vn at him.
"Ho, Signor Count!" cried the sculptor waving his
straw hat, for he recognized the face, after a moment's
doubt. " This is a warm reception, truly ! Pray bid
your porter let me in, before the sun shrivels me quite
into a cinder."
"I will come myself," responded Dorxatello, flinging
down his voice out of the clouds, as it were ; " old Tomaso
and old Stella are both asleep no doubt, and the rest of
the people are in the vineyard. But I have expected you,
and you are welcome ! "
THE MARBLE FAUN. 175
The young count, as perhaps we had better designate
him in his ancestral tower, vanished from the battle-
ments ; and Kenyon saw his figure appear successively
at each of the windows, as he descended. On every reap-
pearance, he turned his face towards the sculptor and gave
a nod and smile ; for a kindly impulse prompted him thus
to assure his visitor of a welcome, after keeping him so
long at an inhospitable threshold.
Kenyon, however, (naturally and professionally expert
at readmg the expression of the human countenance) had
a vague sense that this was not the young friend whom
he had known so familiarly in Rome ; not the sylvan and
untutored youth, whom Miriam, Hilda, and himself, had
liked, laughed at, and sported with ; not the Donatello
whose identity they had so playfully mixed up with that
of the Faun of Praxiteles.
Finally, when his host had emerged from a side-portal
of the mansion, and approached the gateway, the traveller
still felt that there was something lost, or something
gained (he hardly knew which), that set the Donatello
of to-day irreconcilably at odds with him of yesterday.
His very gait showed it, in a certain gravity, a weight
and measure of step, that had nothing in common with
the irregular buoyancy which used te' distinguish him.
His face was paler and thimier, and the lips less full, and
less apart.
" I have looked for you a long while," said Donatello ;
and, though his voice soimded differently, and cut out its
words more sharply than had been its wont, still there
was a smile shining on his face, that, for the moment,
quite brought back the Faun. " I shall be more cheerful,
perhaps, now that you have come. It is very sohtary
here."
" I have come slowly along, often lingering, often turn-
ing aside," replied Kenyon ; " for I found a great deal to
interest me in the mediaeval sculpture hidden away in
the churches herea]x)uts. An artist, whether painter or
sculpk)r, may be pardoned for loitering through such a
region. But what a fine old tower I Its tall front is like
a page of black-letter, taken from the history of the
Italian republics."
" I know little or nothing of its history," said the count,
176 THE MARBLE FAUN.
glancing upward at the battlements, where he had just
been standing. " But I thank my forefathers for building
it so high. I like the ^Yindy summit better than the
world below, and spend much of my time there, now-a-
days."
" It is a pity you are not a star-gazer," observed Ken-
yon, also looking up. " It is higher than Galileo's tower,
which I saw, a week or two ago, outside of the walls of
Florence."
"A star-gazer? I am one," replied Donatello. "I
sleep in the tower, and often watch very late on the bat-
tlements. There is a dismal old staircase to climb, how-
ever, before reaching the top, and a succession of dismal
chambers, from story to story. Some of them were
prison chambers in times past, as old Tomaso will tell
you."
The repugnance intimated in his tone at the idea of this
gloomy staircase and these ghostly, dimly lighted rooms,
reminded Kenyon of the original Donatello, much more
than his present custom of midnight vigils on the battle-
ments.
" I shall be glad to share your watch," said the guest ;
"especially by moonlight. The prospect of this broad
valley must be very fine. But I was not aware, my
friend, that these were your country habits. I have fan-
cied you in a sort of Arcadian life, tasting rich figs, and
squeezing the juice out of the sunniest grapes, and sleep-
ing soundly, all night, after a day of simple pleasures."
" I may have known such a life, when I was younger,"
answered the count, gravely. "I am not a boy now.
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind."
The sculptor could not but smile at the triteness of the
remark, which, nevertheless, had a kind of originality as
commg from Donatello. He had thought it out from his
own experience, and perhaps considered himself as com-
municating a new truth to mankind.
They were now advancing up the courtyard ; and the
long extent of the \illa, with its iron-barred lower win-
dows and balconied upper ones, became visible, stretching
back towards a grove of trees.
" At some period of your family history," observed Ken-
yon, " the Counts of Monte Beni must have led a patri-
THE MARBLE FAUX. 177
archal life in this vast house. A great-grandsire and all
his descendants might find ample verge here, and with
space, too, for each separate brood of little ones to play
withm its own precincts. Is your present household a
large one?"
" Only myself," answered Donatello, " and Tomaso,
who has been butler since my grandfather's time, and old
Stella, who goes sweeping and dusting about the chambers,
and Girolamo, the cook, who has but an idle life of it.
He shall send you up a chicken forthwith. But, first of
all, I must summon one of the contadini from the farm-
house yonder, to take your horse to the stable."
Accordingly, the young count shouted amain, and with
such effect, that, after several repetitions of the outcry, an
old gray woman protruded her head and a broom-handle
from a chamber window ; the venerable butler emerged
from a recess in the side of the house, where was a well,
or reservoir, in which he had been cleansing a small
wine-cask ; and a sunburnt contadino, in his shirt- sleeves,
showed himself on the outskirts of the vineyard, with
some kind of a farming tool in his hand. Donatello found
employment for all these retainers in providing accom-
modation for his guest and steed, and then ushered the
sculptor into the vestibule of the house.
It was a square and lofty entrance room, which, by the
solidity of its construction, might have been an Etruscan
tomb, being paved and walled with heavy blocks of stone,
and vaulted almost as massively overhead. On two sides,
there were doors, opening into long suites of anterooms
and saloons ; on the third side, a stone staircase, of spa-
cious breadth, ascending, by dignified degrees and with
wide resting-places, to another floor of similar extent.
Through one of the doors, which was ajar, Kenyon beheld
an almost interminable vista of apartments, opening one
beyond the other, and reminding him of the hundred
rooms in Blue Beard's castle, or the countless halls in
some palace of the Arabian Nights.
It must have been a numerous family, indeed, that could
ever have sufficed to people with human life so large an
abode as this, and impart social warmth to such a wide
world within doors. The sculptor confessed to himself,
that Donatello could allege reason enough for growing
12
178 THE MARBLE FAUN.
melancholy, having only his own personality to vivify it
aU.
" How a woman's face would brighten it up ! " he ejacu-
lated, not intending to be overheard.
But, glancijig at Donatello, he saw a stern and sorrow-
ful look in his eyes, which altered his youthful face as if
it had seen thirty years of trouble; and, at the same
moment, old Stella showed herself through one of the
door- ways, as the only representative of her sex at Monte
Beni.
CHAPTER XXV.
SUNSHIrE.
" Come," said the Count, " I see you already find the
old house dismal. So do I, indeed 1 And yet it was a
cheerful place m my boyhood. But, you see, in my
father's days (and the same was true of all my endless
line of grandfathers, as I have heard), there used to be
uncles, aunts, and all manner of kindred, dwelling together
as one family. They were a merry and kindly race of
people, for the most part, and kept one another's hearts
warm.
" Two hearts might be enough for warmth," observed
the sculptor, " even in so large a house as this. One soli-
tary heart, it is true, may be apt to shiver a little. But,
I trust, my friend, that the genial blood of your race still
flows in many veins besides your own ? "
" I am the last," said Donatello, gloomily. " They have
all vanished from me, since my childhood. Old Tomaso
will tell you that the air of Monte Beni is not so favorable
to length of days as it used to be. But that is not the
secret of the quick extinction of my kindred."
" Then you are aware of a more satisfactory reason ? "
suggested Kenyon.
" I thought of one, the other night, while I was gazing
at the stars," answered Donatello ; " but, pardon me, I do
not mean to tell it. One cause, however, of the longer
and healthier life of my forefathers, was, that they had
many pleasant customs, and means of making themselves
THE MARBLE FAUN. 179
glad, and their guests and friends along with them. Now-
a-days we have but one ! "
" And what is that ? " asked the sculptor.
" You shall see ! " said his young host.
By this time, he had ushered the sculptor into one of
the numberless saloons ; and, calling for refreshment, old
Stella placed a cold fowl upon the table, and quickly fol-
lowed it with a savory omelet, which Girolamo had lost
no time in preparing. She also brought some cherries,
plums, and apricots, and a plate full of particularly deli-
cate figs, of last year's growth. The butler showing his
white head at the door, his master beckoned to him.
" Tomaso, bring some Sunshine ! " said he.
The readiest method of obeying this order, one might
suppose, would have been, to fling wide the green window-
blinds, and let the glow of the summer noon into the care-
fully shaded room. But, at Monte Beni, with provident
caution against the wintry days, when there is little sunt
shine, and the rainy ones, when there is none, it was the
hereditary custom to keep their Sunshine stored away in
the cellar. Old Tomaso quickly produced some of it in a
small, straw-covered flask, out of which he extracted the
cork, and inserted a little cotton wool, to absorb the olive
oil that kept the precious liquid from the air.
" This is a wine," observed the Count, " the secret of
making which has been kept in our family for centuries
upon centuries ; nor would it avail any man to steal the
secret, unless he could also steal the vineyard, in which
alone the Monte Beni grape can be produced. There is
little else left me, save that patch of vines. Taste some
of their juice, and tell me whether it is worthy to be
called Sunshine ! for that is its name."
" A glorious name, too ! " cried the sculptor.
" Taste it," said Donatello, filling his friend's glass and
pouring likewise a little into his own. " But first smell
its fragrance ; for the wine is very lavish of it, and will
scatter it all abroad."
" Ah, how exquisite ! " said Kenyon. " No other wine
has a bouquet like this. The flavor must be rare indeed,
if it fulfil the promise of this fragrance, which is like the
airy sweetness of youthful hopes, that no realities will
ever satisfy ! "
180 THE MARBLE FAUN.
This invaluable liquor was of a pale golden hue, like
other of the rarest Italian wines, and, if carelessly and
irreligiously quaffed, might have been mistaken for a very
fine sort of Champagne. It was not, however, an effer-
vescing wine, although its delicate piquancy produced a
somewhat similar effect upon the palate. Sipping, the
guest longed to sip again; but the wine demanded so
deliberate a pause, in order to detect the hidden peculiari-
ties and subtle exquisiteness of its flavor, that to drink it
was really more a moral than a physical enjoyment.
There was a deliciousness in it that eluded analysis, and
. like whatever else is superlatively good was perhaps
better appreciated in the memory than by present con-
sciousness. One of its most ethereal charms lay in the
transitory life of the wine's richest qualities ; for, while it
required a certain leisure and delay, yet, if you lingered
too long upon the draught, it became disenchanted both
of its fragrance and its flavor.
The lustre should not be forgotten, among the other
admirable endowments of the Monte Beni wine ; for, as
it stood in Kenyon's glass, a little circle of light glowed
on the table round about it, as if it were really so much
golden sunshine.
" I feel myself a better man for that ethereal potation,"
observed the sculptor. "The finest Orvieto, or that
famous wine, the Est Est Est of Montefiascone, is vulgar
in comparison. This is surely the wine of the Golden
Age, such as Bacchus himself first taught mankind to
press from the choicest of his grapes. My dear Count,
why is it not illustrious ? The pale, liquid gold, in every
such flask as that, might be solidified into golden scudi,
and would quickly make you a millionaire ! "
Tomaso, the old butler, who was standing by the table,
and enjoying the praises of the wine quite as much as if
bestowed upon himself, made answer,
" We have a tradition, signore," said he, " that this rare
wine of our vineyard would lose all its wonderful quali-
ties, if any of it were sent to market. The Counts of
Monte Beni have never parted with a single flask of it
for gold. At their banquets, in the olden time, they have
entertained princes, cardinals, and once an emperor, and
once a pope, with this delicious wine, and always, even
THE MARBLE FAUN. 181
to this day, it lias been their custom to let it flow freely,
when those whom they love and honor sit at the board.
But the grand duke himself could not drink that wine,
except it were under this very roof ! "
" What you tell me, my good friend," replied Kenyon,
" makes me venerate the Sunshine of Monte Beni even
more abundantly than before. As I understand you, it
is a sort of consecrated juice, and symbolizes the holy
virtues of hospitality and social kindness ? "
" Why, partly so, signore," said the old butler, with
a shrewd twinkle in his eye ; " but, to speak out all the
truth, there is another excellent reason why neither a
cask nor a flask of our precious vintage should ever be
sent to market. The wine, signore, is so fond of its native
home, that a transportation of even a few miles, turns it
quite sour. And yet it is a wine that keeps well in the
cellar, underneath this floor, and gathers fragrance, flavor,
and brightness in its dark dungeon. That very flask of
Sunshine, now, has kept itself for you, sir guest, (as a
maid reserves her sweetness till her lover comes for it,)
ever since a merry vintage-time, when the Signore Count
here was a boy ! "
You must not wait for Tomaso to end his discourse
about the wine, before drinking off your glass," observed
Donatello. " When once the flask is uncorked, its finest
qualities lose little time in making their escape. I doubt
whether your last sip will be quite so delicious as you
found the first."
And, in truth, the sculptor fancied that the Sunshine
became almost imperceptibly clouded, as he approached
the bottom of the flask. The effect of the wine, however,
was a gentle exhilaration, which did not so speedily pass
away.
Being thus refreshed, Kenyon looked around him at
the antique saloon in which they sat. It was constructed
in a most ponderous style, with a stone floor, on which
heavy pilasters were planted against the wall, supporting
arches that crossed one another in the vaulted ceiling.
The upright walls, as well as the compartments of the
roof, were completely covered with frescoes, which doubt-
less had been brilliant when first executed, and perhaps
for generations afterwards. The designs were of a festive
182 THE MARBLE FAUN.
and joyous character, representing Arcadian scenes,
where nymphs, favms, and satyrs, disported themselves
among mortal youths and maidens ; and Pan, and the
god of wine, and he of sunshine and music, disdained not
to brighten some sylvan merry-making with the scarcely
veiled glory of their presence. A wreath of dancing
figures, in admirable variety of shape and motion, was
festooned quite round the cornice of the room.
In its first splendor, the saloon must have presented an
aspect both gorgeous and enlivening; for it invested
some of the cheerfullest ideas and emotions of which the
human mind is susceptible with the external reality of
beautiful form, and rich, harmonious glow and variety of
color. But the frescoes were now very ancient. They had
been rubbed and scrubbed by old Stella and many a pre-
decessor, and had been defaced in one spot, and retouched
in another, and had peeled from the wall in patches, and
had hidden some of their brightest portions under dreary
dust, till the joyousness had quite vanished out of them
all. It was often difficult to puzzle out the design ; and
even where it was more readily intelligible, the figures
showed like the ghosts of dead and buried joys the
closer their resemblance to the happy past, the gloomier
now. For it is thus, that with only an inconsiderable
change, the gladdest objects and existences become the
saddest ; hope fading into disappointment ; joy darkening
into grief, and festal splendor into funereal duskuiess ;
and all evolving, as their moral, a grim identity between
gay things and sorrowful ones. Only give them a little
time, and they turn out to be just alike !
There has been much festivity in this saloon, if I
may judge by the character of its frescoes," remarked
Kenyon, whose spirits were still upheld by the mild
potency of the Monte Beni mne. " Your forefathers, my
dear Count, must have been joyous fellows, keeping up
the vintage merriment throughout the year. It does me
good to think of them gladdening the hearts of men and
women, with their wine of Sunshine, even in the Iron
age, as Pan and Bacchus, whom we see yonder, did in the
Golden one ! "
Yes ; there have been merry times in the banquet-
hall of Monte Beni, even within my o^vn remembrance,"
THE MARBLE FAUN. 183
replied Donatello, looking gravely at the painted walls.
" It was meant for mirth, as you see ; and when I
brought my own cheerfulness into the saloon, these fres-
coes looked cheerful too. But metlihiks they have all
faded, smce I saw them last."
" It would be a good idea," said the sculptor, falling
into his companion's vein, and helping him out with an
illustration which Donatello himself could not have put
into shape, " to convert this saloon into a chapel ; and
when the priest tells his hearers of the instability of
earthly joys, and would show how drearily they vanish,
he may point to these pictures, that were so joyous, and
are so dismal. He could not illustrate his theme so aptly
in any other way."
" True, indeed," answered the Count, his former sim-
plicity strangely mixing itself up with an experience that
had changed him ; " and yonder, where the minstrels used
to stand, the altar shall be placed. A sinful man might
do all the more effective penance in this old banquet-hall."
" But I should regret to have suggested so ungenial a
transformation in your hospitable saloon," continued Ken-
yon, duly noting the change in Donatello's characteristics.
" You startle me, my friend, by so ascetic a design ! It
would hardly have entered your head, when we first met.
Pray do notr if I may take the freedom of a somewhat
elder man to advise you," added he, smiling " pray do
not, under a notion of improvement, take upon yourself
to be sombre, thoughtful, and penitential, like all the rest
of us."
Donatello made no answer, but sat awhile, appearing
to follow with his eyes one of the figures, which was re-
peated many times over in the groups upon the walls and
ceiling. It formed the principal link of an allegory, by
which (as is often the case in such pictorial designs) the
whole series of frescoes were bound together, but which it
would be impossible, or, at least, very wearisome, to un-
ravel. The sculptor's eyes took a similar direction, and
soon began to trace through the vicissitudes once gay,
now sombre in which the old artist had involved it, the
same individual figure. He fancied a resemblance in it to
Donatello himself ; and it put him in mind of one of the
purposes with which he had come to Monte Beni.
184 THE MARBLE FAUN.
"My dear Count," said he, "I have a proposal to
make. You must let me employ a little of my leisure in
modelling your bust. You remember what a striking re-
semblance we all of us Hilda, Miriam, and I found
between your features and those of the Faun of Praxite-
les. Then, it seemed an identity ; but now that I know
your face better, the likeness is far less apparent. Your
head in marble would be a treasure to me. Shall I have
it?"
" I have a weakness which I fear I cannot overcome,"
replied the Count, turning away his face. "It troubles
me to be looked at steadfastly."
" I have observed it since we have been sitting here,
though never before," rejoined the sculptor. "It is a
kind of nervousness, I apprehend, which you caught in
the Roman air, and which grows upon you, in your soli-
tary life. It need be no hindrance to my taking your
bust ; for I will catch the likeness and expression by side
glimpses, which (if portrait painters and bust makers did
but know it) always brings home richer results than a
broad stare."
" You may take me if you have the power," said Do-
natello ; but, even as he spoke, he turned away his face ;
"and if you can see what makes me shrink from you,
you are welcome to put it in the bust. It is not my will,
but my necessity, to avoid men's eyes. Only," he added,
with a smile which made Kenyon doubt whether he might
not as well copy the Faun as model a new bust, " only,
you know, you must not insist on my uncovering these
ears of mine ! "
" Nay ; I never should dream of such a thing," an-
swered the sculptor, laughing as the young count shook
his clustering curls. " I could not hope to persuade you,
remembering how Miriam once failed ! "
Nothing is more unaccountable than the spell that
often lurks in a spoken word. A thought may be pres-
ent to the mind, so distinctly that no utterance could
make it more so ; and two minds may be conscious of the
same thought, in which one or both take the profoundest
interest ; but as long as it remains unspoken, their famil-
iar talk flows quietly over the hidden idea, as a rivulet
may sparkle and dimple over something sunken in its
THE MARBLE FAUN. 185
bed. But, speak the word ; and it is like bringing up a
drowned body out of the deepest pool of the rivulet,
which has been aware of the horrible secret all along, in
spite of its smiling surface.
And even so, when Kenyon chanced to make a distinct
reference to Donatello's relations with Miriam (though
the subject was already in both their minds), a ghastly
emotion rose up out of the depths of the young count's
heart. He trembled either with anger or terror, and
glared at the sculptor with wild eyes, like a wolf that
meets you in the forest, and hesitates whether to flee or
turn to bay. But, as Kenyon still looked calmly at him,
his aspect gradually became less disturbed, though far
from resuming its former quietude.
" You have spoken her name," said he, at last, in an
altered and tremulous tone ; " tell me, now, all that you
know of her."
" I scarcely think that I have any later intelligence
than yourself," answered Kenyon ; " Miriam left Rome
at about the time of your own departure. Within a day
or two after our last meeting at the Church of the Cap-
uchins, I called at her studio and found it vacant.
Whither she has gone, I cannot tell."
Donatello asked no further questions.
They rose from table, and strolled together about the
premises, whiling away the afternoon with brief intervals
of unsatisfactory conversation, and many shadowy si-
lences. The sculptor had a perception of change in his
companion, possibly of growth and development, but
certainly of change, which saddened him, because it
took away much of the simple grace that was the best
of Donatello's peculiarities.
Kenyon betook himself to repose that night in a grim,
old, vaulted apartment, which, in the lapse of five or six
centuries, had probably been the birth, bridal, and death
chamber of a great many generations of the Monte Beni
family. He was aroused, soon after daylight, by the
clamor of a tribe of beggars who had taken their stand
in a little rustic lane that crept beside that portion of the
villa, and were addressing their petitions to the open
windows. By-and-by, they appeared to ha,ve receired
almS; and took their departure.
186 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" Some charitable Christian has sent those vagabonds
away," thought the sculptor, as he resumed his inter-
rupted nap ; " who could it be ? Donatello has his own
rooms in the tower ; Stella, Tomaso, and the cook are a
world's width off ; and I fancied myself the only inliabi-
tant in this part of the house."
In the breadth and space which so delightfully charac-
terized an Italian \illa, a dozen guests might have had
each his suite of apartments ^vithout infrmging upon one
another's ample precincts. But, so far as Kenyon knew,
he was the only visitor beneath Donatello's widely ex-
tended root.
CHAPTER XXVL
THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BEia.
From the old butler, whom he found to be a very
gracious and affable personage, Kenyon soon learned
many curious particulars about the family history and
hereditary peculiarities of the Counts of Monte Beni.
There was a pedigree, the later portion of which that
is to say, for a little more than a thousand years a gene-
alogist would have found delight in tracmg out, link by
link, and authenticating by records and documentary e\'i-
dences. It would have been as difficult, however, to follow
up the stream of Donatello's ancestry to its dim source,
as travellers have found it to reach the mysterious foun-
tains of the Nile. And, far beyond the region of definite
and demonstrable fact, a romancer might have strayed
into a region of old poetry, where the rich soil, so long
uncultivated and untrodden, had lapsed into nearly its
primeval state of wilderness. Among those antique paths,
now overgrown with tangled and riotous vegetation, the
wanderer must needs follow his own guidance, and arrive
nowhither at last.
The race of Monte Beni, beyond a doubt, was one of
the oldest in Italy, where families appear to survive at
least, if not to flourish, on their half-decayed roots, of-
tener than in England or France. It came down in a
broad track from the Middle Ages ; but, at epochs an-
THE MARBLE FAUN. 187
terlor to those, it was distinctly visible in the gloom of
the period before chivalry put forth its flower ; and far-
ther still, we are almost afraid to say, it was seen, though
with a fainter and wavering course, m the early morn of
Christendom, when the Roman Empire had hardly begun
to show symptoms of decline. At that venerable distance,
the heralds gave up the lineage m despair.
But where written record left the genealogy of Monte
Beni, tradition took it up, and carried it without dread or
shame beyond the Imperial ages into the times of the
Roman republic ; beyond those, again, into the epoch of
kingly rule. Nor even so remotely among the mossy
centuries did it pause, but strayed onward into that gray
antiquity of which there is no token left, save its cavern-
ous tombs, and a few bronzes, and some quaintly wrought
ornaments of gold, and gems with mystic figures and in-
Bcriptions. There, or thereabouts, the line was supposed
to have had its origin in the sylvan Ufe of Etruria, while
Italy was yet guiltless of Rome.
Of course, as we regret to say, the earlier and very
much the larger portion of this respectable descent and
the same is true of many briefer pedigrees must be
looked upon as altogether mythical. Still, it threw a
romantic interest around the unquestionable antiquity of
the Monte Beni family, and over that tract of their own
vines and fig-trees, beneath the shade of which they had
unquestionably dwelt for immemorial ages. And there
they had laid the foundations of their tower, so long ago
that one half of its height was said to be sunken under
the surface and to hide subterranean chambers which once
were cheerful with the olden sunshine.
One story, or myth, that had mixed itself up with their
mouldy genealogy, interested the sculptor by its wild, and
perhaps grotesque, yet not unfascinating peculiarity. He
caught at it the more eagerly, as it afforded a shadowy
and whimsical semblance of explanation for the likeness
which he, with Miriam and Hilda, had seen or fancied,
between Donatello and the Faun of Praxiteles.
The Monte Beni family, as this legend averred, drew
their origin from the Pelasgic race, who peopled Italy in
times that may be called pre-historic. It was the same
noble breed of men, of Asiatic birth, that settled in
188 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Greece ; the same happy and poetic kindred who dwelt in
Arcadia, and wliether they ever lived such life or not
enriched the world with di'eams, at least, and fables,
lovely, if unsubstantial, of a Golden Age. In those de-
licious times, when dieties and demigods appeared famil-
iarly on earth, mingling with its inhabitants as friend with
friend, when nymphs, satyrs, and the whole train of
classic faith or fable, hardly took pains to hide themselves
in the primeval woods, at that auspicious period the line-
age of Monte Beni had its rise. Its progenitor was a being
not altogether human, yet partaking so largely of the
gentlest human qualities, as to be neither awful nor
shocking to the imagination. A sylvan creature, native
among the woods, had loved a mortal maiden, and per-
haps by kindness, and the subtle courtesies which love
might teach to his simplicity, or possibly by a ruder
wooing had won her to his haunts. In due time, he
gained her womanly affection ; and making their bridal
bower, for aught we know, in the hollow of a great tree,
the pair spent a happy wedded life in that ancient neigh-
borhood where now stood Donatello's tower.
From this union sprang a vigorous progeny that took
its place unquestioned among human families. In that
age, however, and long afterwards, it showed the inefface-
able lineaments of its wild paternity : it was a pleasant
and kindly race of men, but capable of savage fierceness,
and never quite restrainable within the trammels of so-
cial law. They were strong, active, genial, cheerful as
the sunshme, passionate as the tornado. Their lives
were rendered blissful by an unsought harmony with
nature.
But, as centui-ies passed away, the Faun's wild blood
had necessarily been attempered with constant intermix-
tures from the more ordinary streams of human life. It
lost many of its original qualities, and served, for the
most part, only to bestow an unconquerable vigor which
kept the family from extinction, and enabled them to
make their own part good throughout the perils and rude
emergencies of their interminable descent. In the con-
stant wars ^vith which Italy was plagued, by the dissen-
sions of her petty states and republics, there was a de-
mand for native hardihood.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 189
The successive members of the Monte Beni family
showed valor and policy enough, at all events, to keep
their hereditary possessions out of the clutch of grasping
neighbors, and probably differed very little from the
other feudal barons with whom they fought and feasted.
Such a degree of conformity with the manners of the
generations, through which it survived, must have been
essential to the prolonged continuance of the race.
It is well known, however, that any hereditary pecu-
liarity as a supernumerary finger, or an anomalous shape
of feature, like the Austrian lip is wont to show itself
in a family after a very wayward fashion. It skips at its
own pleasure along the line, and, latent for half a century
or so, crops out again in a great-grandson. And thus, it
was said, from a period beyond memory or record, there
had ever and anon been a descendant of the Monte Benis
bearing nearly all the characteristics that were attributed
to the original founder of the race. Some traditions even
went so far as to enumerate the ears, covered with a del-
icate fur, and shaped like a pointed leaf, among the
proofs of authentic descent which were seen in these
favored individuals. We appreciate the beauty of such
tokens of a nearer kindred to the great family of nature
than other mortals bear ; but it would be idle to ask
credit for a statement which might be deemed to partake
so largely of the grotesque.
But it was indisputable that, once in a century, or
oftener, a son of Monte Beni gathered into himself the
scattered qualities of his race, and reproduced the charac-
ter that had been assigned to it from immemorial times.
Beautiful, strong, brave, kindly, sincere, of honest im-
pulses, and endowed with simple tastes and the love of
homely pleasures, he was believed to possess gifts by
which he could associate himself with the wild things of
the forests, and with the fowls of the air, and could feel
a sympathy even with the trees, among which it was his
joy to dwell. On the other hand, there were deficiencies
both of intellect and heart, and especially, as it seemed,
in the development of the higher portion of man's nature.
These defects were less perceptible in early youth, but
showed themselves more strongly with advancing age,
when, as the animal spirits settled down upon a lower
190 THE MARBLE FAUN.
level, the representative of the Monte Benis was apt to
become sensual, addicted to gross pleasures, heavy, un-
sympathizing, and insulated within the narrow limits of
a surly selfishness.
A similar change, indeed, is no more than what we
constantly observe to take place in persons who are not
careful to substitute other graces for those which they in-
evitably lose along with the quick sensibility and joyous
vivacity of youth. At worst, the reigning Count of
Monte Beni, as his hair grew white, was still a jolly old
fellow over his flask of wine the wine that Bacchus
himself was fabled to have taught his sylvan ancestor
how to express, and from what choicest grapes, which
would ripen only in a certain divinely favored portion of
the Monte Beni vineyard.
The family, be it observed, were both proud and
ashamed of these legends ; but whatever part of them
they might consent to incorporate into their ancestral
history, they steadily repudiated all that referred to their
one distinctive feature, the pointed and furry ears. In a
great many years past, no sober credence had been yielded
to the mythical portion of the pedigree. It might, how-
ever, be considered as typifying some such assemblage
of qualities in this case, chiefly remarkable for their
simplicity and naturalness as, when they reappear in
successive generations, constitute what we call family
character. The sculptor found, moreover, on the evi-
dence of some old portraits, that the physical features of
the race had long been similar to what he now saw them
in Donatello. With accumulating years, it is true, the
Monte Beni face had a tendency to look grim and savage ;
and, in two or three instances, the family pictures glared
at the spectator in the eyes like some surly animal, that
had lost its good-humor when it out-lived its playful-
ness.
The young count accorded his guest full liberty to in-
vestigate the personal annals of these pictured worthies,
as well as all the rest of his progenitors ; and ample ma-
terials were at hand in many chests of worm-eaten papers
and yellow parchments, that had been gathering into
larger and dustier piles ever since the dark ages. But,
to confess the truth, the information afforded by these
THE MARBLE FAUN. 191
musty documents was so much more prosaic than what
Kenyon acquired from Tomaso's legends, that even the
superior authenticity of the former could not reconcile
him to its dulness.
What especially delighted the sculptor, was the analogy
between Donatello's character, as he himself knew it, and
those peculiar traits which the old butler's narrative as-
sumed to have been long hereditary in the race. He was
amused at finding, too, that not only Tomaso but the
peasantry of the estate and neighboring village recognized
his friend as a genuine Monte Beni, of the original type.
They seemed to cherish a great affection for the young
count, and were full of stories about his sportive child-
hood ; how he had played among the little rustics, and
been at once the wildest and the sweetest of them all ;
and how, in his very infancy, he had plunged into the
deep pools of the streamlets and never been drowned,
and had clambered to the topmost branches of tall trees
without ever breaking his neck. No such mischance
could happen to the sylvan child, because, handling all
the elements of nature so fearlessly and freely, nothing
had either the power or the will to do him harm.
He grew up, said these humble friends, the playmate
not only of all mortal kind, but of creatures of the woods ;
although, when Kenyon pressed them for some particu-
lars of this latter mode of companionship, they could re-
member little more than a few anecdotes of a pet fox,
which used to growl and snap at everybody save Dona-
tello himself.
But they enlarged and never were weary of the theme
upon the blithesome effects of Donatello's presence in
his rosy childhood and budding youth. Their hovels had
always glowed like sunshine when he entered them ; so
that, as the peasants expressed it, their young master
had never darkened a door-way in his life. He was the
soul of vintage festivals. While he was a mere infant,
scarcely able to run alone, it had been the custom to
make him tread the wine-press with his tender little feet,
if it were only to crush one cluster of the grapes. And
the grape-juice that gushed beneath his childish tread,
be it ever so small in quantity, sufiiced to impart a plea-
sant flavor to a whole cask of wine. The race of Monte
192 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Beni so these rustic chroniclers assured the sculptor-
had possessed the gift from the oldest of old times of ex-
pressing good wine from ordinary grapes, and a ravishing
liquor from the choice growth of their vmeyard.
In a word, as he listened to such tales as these, Kenyon
could have imagined that the valleys and hill-sides about
him were a veritable Arcadia, and that Donatello was not
merely a sylvan faun, but the genial wine-god in his very
person. Making many allowances for the poetic fancies
of Italian peasants, he set it down for fact, that his friend,
in a simple way, and among rustic folks, had been an ex-
ceedmgly delightful fellow in his younger days.
But the contadini sometimes added, shaking their heads
and sighing, that the young count was sadly changed since
he went to Rome. The village girls now missed the
merry smile with which he used to greet them.
The sculptor inquired of his good friend Tomaso
whether he, too, had noticed the shadow which was said
to have recently fallen over Donatello's life.
" Ah, yes, signor ! " answered the old butler, " it is
even so, since he came back from that wicked and mis-
erable city. The world has grown either too evil, or else
too wise and sad, for such men as the old Counts of
Monte Beni used to be. His very first taste of it, as you
see, has changed and spoilt my poor young lord. There
had not been a single count in the family these hun-
dred years and more, who was so true a Monte Beni, of
the antique stamp, as this poor signorino ; and now it
brings the tears into my eyes to hear him sighing over a
cup of Sunshine ! Ah, it is a sad world now ! "
" Then you thmk there was a merrier world once ? "
asked Kenyon.
" Surely, signor," said Tomaso ; " a merrier world,
and merrier Counts of Monte Beni to live in it 1 Such
tales of them as I have heard, when I was a child on my
grandfather's knee ! The good old man remembered a
lord of Monte Beni at least, he had heard of such a
one, though I Avill not make oath upon the holy crucifix
that my grandsire lived in his time Avho used to go
into the woods and call pretty damsels out of the foun-
tains, and out of the trunks of the old trees. That merry
lord was known to dance with them a whole long sum-
THE MARBLE FAUN. 193
mer afternoon. "When shall we see such frolics in our
days?"
"Not soon, I am afraid," acquiesced the sculptor.
" You are right, excellent Tomaso ; the world is sadder
now 1 "
And, in truth, while our friend smiled at these wild
fables, he sighed in the same breath to think how the
once genial earth produces, in every successive genera-
tion, fewer flowers than used to gladden the preceding
ones. Not that the modes and seeming possibilities of
human enjoyment are rarer in our refined and softened
era, on the contrary, they never before were nearly so
abundant, but that mankind are getting so far beyond
the childhood of their race that they scorn to be happy
any longer, A simple and joyous character can find no
place for itself among the sage and sombre figures that
would put his unsophisticated cheerfulness to shame.
The entire system of man's affairs, as at present estab-
lished, is built up purposely to exclude the careless and
happy soul. The very children would upbraid the
wretched individual who should endeavor to take life
and the world as what we might naturally suppose
them meant for a place and opportunity for enjoyment.
It is the iron rule in our day to require an object and
a purpose in life. It makes us all parts of a complicated
scheme of progress, which can only result in our arrival
at a colder and drearier region than we were born in. It
insists upon everybody's addmg somewhat a mite, per-
haps, but earned by incessant effort to an accumulated
pile of usefulness, of which the only use will be, to bur-
den our posterity with even heavier thoughts and more
inordinate labor than our own. No life now wanders like
an unfettered stream ; there is a mill-wheel for the tiniest
rivulet to turn. We go all wrong, by too strenuous a res-
olution to go all right.
Therefore it was so, at least, the sculptor thought,
although partly suspicious of Donatello's darker misfor-
tune that the young count found it impossible now-a-
days to be what his forefathers had been. He could not
live their healthy life of animal spirits, in their sympathy
with nature, and brotherhood with all that breathed
around them. Nature, in beast, fowl, and tree, and earth,
J3
194 THE MARBLE FAUN.
flood, and sky, is what it Avas of old ; but sin, care, and
self-consciousness have set the human portion of the
world askew ; and thus the simplest character is ever the
soonest to go astray.
" At any rate, Tomaso," said Kenyon, doing his best to
comfort the old man, " let us hope that your young lord
will still enjoy himself at vintage-time. By the aspect
of the vineyard, I judge that this will be a famous year
for the golden wine of Monte Beni. As long as your
grapes produce that admirable liquor, sad as you think
the world, neither the count nor his guests will quite for-
get to smile."
" Ah, signor," rejoined the butler with a sigh, " but he
scarcely wets his lips with the sunny juice."
" There is yet another hope," observed Kenyon ; " the
young count may fall in love, and bring home a fair and
laughing wife to chase the gloom out of yonder old, fres-
coed saloon. Do you think he could do a better thing,
my good Tomaso ? "
" Maybe not, signor," said the sage butler, looking ear-
nestly at him ; " and, maybe, not a worse ! "
The sculptor fancied that the good old man had it
partly in his mind to make some remark, or commmiicate
some fact, which, on second thoughts, he resolved to keep
concealed in his own breast. lie now took his departure
cellarward, shaking his white head and nuittering to him-
self, and did not reappear till dinner-time, when he fa-
vored Kenyon, whom he had taken far into his good
graces, with a choicer flask of Sunshine than had yet
blessed his palate.
To say the truth, this golden wine was no unnecessary
ingredient towards making the life of Monte Beni palata-
ble. It seemed a pity that Donatello did not drink a
little more of it, and go jollily to bed at least, even if he
should awake with an accession of darker melancholy the
next morning.
Nevertheless, there was no lack of outward means for
leading an agreeable life in the old villa. Wandering
musicians haunted the precincts of Monte Beni, where
they seemed to claim a prescriptive right ; they made the
lawn and shrubbery tuneful with the sound of fiddle, harp,
and flute, and now and then with the tangled squeaking
THE MARBLE FAUN, 195
of a bagpipe. Improvisatori likewise came and told
tales or recited verses to the contadini among whom
Kenyon often was an auditor after their day's work in
the vineyard. Jugglers, too, obtained permission to do
feats of magic in the hall, where they set even the sage
Tomaso, and Stella, Girolamo, and the peasant girls from
the farmhouse, all of a broad grin, between merriment
and wonder. These good people got food and lodging
for their pleasant pains, and some of the small wine of
Tuscany, and a reasonable handful of the Grand Duke's
copper coin, to keep up the hospitable renown of Monte
Peni. But very seldom had they the young count as a
listener, or a spectator.
There were sometimes dances by moonlight on the lawn,
but never since he came from Rome did Donatello's pres-
ence deepen the blushes of the pretty contadinas, or his
footsteps weary out the most agile partner or competitor
as once it was sure to do.
Paupers for this kind of vermin infested the house
of Monte Beni worse than any other spot in beggar-
haunted Italy stood beneath all the windows, making
loud supplication, or even establishing themselves on the
marble steps of the grand entrance. They ate and drank,
and filled their bags, and pocketed the little money that
was given them, and went forth on their devious ways,
showering blessings innumerable on the mansion and its
lord, and on the souls of his deceased forefathers, who
had always been just such simpletons as to be compas-
sionate to beggary. But, in spite of their favorable pray-
ers by which Italian philanthropists set great store
a cloud seemed to hang over these once Arcadian pre-
cincts, and to be darkest around the summit of the tower
where Donatello was wont to sdt and brood.
196 THE MARBLE FAUN.
CHAPTER XXVII.
MYTHS.
After the sculptor's arrival, however, the young count
Bometimes came down from his forlorn elevation, and
rambled with him among the neighboring woods and hills.
He led his friend to many enchanting nooks, which which
he himself had been familiar in his childhood. But of
late, as he remarked to Kenyon, a sort of strangeness had
overgrown them, like clusters of dark shrubbery, so that
he hardly recognized the places which he had known and
loved so well.
To the sculptor's eye, nevertheless, they were still rich
with beauty. They were picturesque in that sweetly im-
pressive way, where wildness, in a long lapse- of years,
has crept over scenes that have been once adorned with
the careful art and toil of man ; and when man could do
no more for them, time and nature came, and wrought
hand in hand to bring them to a soft and venerable perfec-
tion. There grew the fig-tree that had run wild and taken
to wife the vine, which likewise had gone rampant out of
all human control ; so that the two wild things had tangled
and knotted themselves into a wild marriage-bond, and
hung their various progeny the luscious figs, the grapes,
oozy with the southern juice, and both endowed with a
wild flavor that added the final charm on the same
bough together.
In Kenyon's opinion, never was any other nook so
lovely as a certain little dell which he and Donatello
visited. It was hollowed in among the hills, and open to
a glimpse of the broad, fertile valley. A fountain had its
birth here, and fell into a marble basin, which was all
covered with moss and shaggy with water- weeds. Over
the gush of the small stream, with an urn in her arms,
stood a marble nymph, whose nakedness the moss had
kindly clothed as with a garment ; and the long trails and
tresses of the maidenhair had done what they could in
the poor thing's behalf, by hanging themselves about her
THE MARBLE FAUN. 197
waist. In former days it might be a remote antiquity
this lady of the fountain had first received the infant
tide into her urn and poured it thence into the marble
basin. But now the sculptured urn had a great crack
from top to bottom ; and the discontented nymph was
compelled to see the basin fill itself through a channel
which she could not control, although with water long
ago consecrated to her.
For this reason, or some other, she looked terribly for-
lorn ; and you might have fancied that the whole foun-
tain was but the overflow of her lonely tears.
This was a place that I used greatly to delight in,"
remarked Donatello, sighing. " As a child, and as a boy,
I have been very happy here."
"And, as a man, I should ask no fitter place to be
happy in," answered Kenyon. " But you, my friend, are
of such a social nature, that I should hardly have thought
these lonely haunts would take your fancy. It is a place
for a poet to dream in, and people it with the beings of
his imagination."
" I am no poet, that I know of," said Donatello, " but
yet, as I tell you, I have been very happy here, in the
company of this fountain and this nymph. It is said that
a Faun, my oldest forefather, brought home hither to this
very spot a human maiden, whom he loved and wedded.
This spring of delicious water was their household
well."
" It is a most enchanting fable ! " exclaimed Kenyon ;
that is, if it be not a fact."
"And why not a fact?" said the simple Donatello.
" There is likewise another sweet old story connected with
this spot. But, now that I remember it, it seems to me
more sad than sweet, though formerly the sorrow, in
which it closes, did not so much impress me. If I had
the gift of tale- telling, this one would be sure to interest
you mightily."
" Pray tell it," said Kenyon ; " no matter whether well
or ill. These wild legends have often the most power-
ful charm when least artfully told."
So the young count narrated a myth of one of his pro-
genitors, he might have lived a centuiy ago, or a thou-
sand years, or before the Christian epoch, for anything
198 THE MARBLE FAUN.
that Donatello knew to the contrary, who had made ac-
quaintance with a fair creature belonging to this fountain.
Whether woman or sprite was a mystery, as was all else
about her, except that her life and soul were somehow
interfused throughout the gushing water. She was a
fresh, cool, dewy thing, sunny and shadowy, full of pleas-
ant little mischiefs, fitful and changeable with the whim
of the moment, but yet as constant as her native stream,
which kept the same gush and flow forever, while marble
crumbled over and around it. The fountain woman loved
the youth, a knight, as Donatello called him, for ac-
cording to the legend, his race was akin to hers. At
least, whether kin or no, there had been friendship and
sympathy of old betwixt an ancestor of his, with furry
ears, and the long-lived lady of the fountain. And, after
all those ages, she was still as young as a May morning,
and as frolicsome as a bird upon a tree, or a breeze that
makes merry with the leaves.
She taught him how to call her from her pebbly source,
and they spent many a happy hour together, more espe-
cially in the fervor of the summer days. For often as he
sat waiting for her by the margin of the spring, she would
suddenly fall down around him in a shower of sunny
raindrops, with a rainbow glancing through them, and
forthwith gather herself up into the likeness of a beauti-
ful girl, laughing or was it the warble of the rill over
the pebbles ? to see the youth's amazement.
Thus, kind maiden that she was, the hot atmosphere
became deliciously cool and fragrant for this favored
knight; and, furthermore, when he knelt down to drink
out of the spring, nothing was more common than for a
pair of rosy lips to come up out of its little depths, and
touch his mouth with the thrill of a sweet, cool, dewy
kiss !
" It is a delightful story for the hot noon of your Tus-
can summer," observed the sculptor, at this point. " But
the deportment of the watery lady must have had a most
chilling influence in midwinter. Her lover would find it,
veiy literally, a cold reception ! "
" I suppose," said Donatello, rather sulkily, " you are
making fun of the story. But I see nothing laughable in
the thing itself, nor in what you say about it."
THE MARBLE FAUN. 199
He went on to relate, that for a long while, the knight
found infinite pleasure and comfort in the friendship of
the fountain nymph. In his merriest hours, she gladdened
him with her sportive humor. If ever he was annoyed
with earthly troubles, she laid her moist hand upon his
brow, and charmed the fret and fever quite away.
But one day one fatal noontide the young knight
came rushing with hasty and irregular steps to the accus-
tomed fountain. He called the nymph ; but no doubt
because there was something unusual and frightful in his
tone she did not appear, nor answer him. He flung
himself down, and washed his hands and bathed his fever-
ish brow in the cool, pure water. And then, there was a
sound of woe ; it might have been a woman's voice ; it
might have been only the sighing of the brook over the
pebbles. The water shrank away from the youth's hands,
and left his brow as dry and feverish as before.
Donatello here came to a dead pause.
" Why did the water shrink from this unhappy knight ? "
inquired the sculptor.
" Because he had tried to wash off a blood-stain ! " said
the young count, in a horror-stricken whisper. " The
guilty man had polluted the pure water. The nymph
might have comforted him in sorrow, but could not cleanse
his conscience of a crime."
" And did he never behold her more ? " asked Kenyon.
" Never but once," replied his friend. " He never be-
held her blessed face but once again, and then there was
a blood-stain on the poor nymph's brow ; it was the stain
his guilt had left in the fountain where he tried to wash
it off. He mourned for her his whole life long, and em-
ployed the best sculptor of the time to carve this statue
of the nymph from his description of her aspect. But,
though my ancestor would fain have had the image wear
her happiest look, the artist, unlike yourself, was so im-
pressed ^vith the mournfulness of the story, that, in spite
of his best efforts, he made her forlorn, and forever weep-
ing, as you see I "
Kenyon found a certain charm in this simple legend.
Whether so intended or not, he understood it as an apo-
logue, typifying the soothing and genial effects of an
habitual intercourse with nature, in all ordinary cares and
200 THE MARBLE FAUN.
griefs ; while, on the other hand, her mild influences fall
short in their eft'ect upon the ruder passions and are alto-
gether powerless in the dread fever-fit or deadly chill of
guilt.
" Do you say," he asked, " that the nymph's face has
never since been shown to any mortal ? Methinks, you
by your native qualities, are as well entitled to her favor
as ever your progenitor could have been. Why have you
not summoned her ? "
" I called her often when I was a silly child," answered
Donatello ; and he added, in an inward voice, " Thank
Heaven, she did not come ! "
" Then you never saw her ? " said the sculptor.
" Never in my life ! " rejoined the count. " No, my
dear friend, I have not seen my nymph ; although here,
by her fountain, I used to make many strange acquaint-
ances ; for, from my earliest childhood, I was familiar
with whatever creatures haunt the woods. You would
have laughed to see the friends I had among them ; yes,
among the wild, nimble things, that reckon man their
deadliest enemy ! How it was first taught me, I cannot
tell ; but there was a charm a voice, a murmur, a kind
of chant by which I called the woodland inhabitants,
the furry people, and the feathered people, in a language
that they seemed to understand."
" I have heard of such a gift," responded the sculptor
gravely, " but never before met with a person endowed
with it. Pray, try the charm ; and lest I should frighten
your friends away, I will withdraw into this thicket, and
merely peep at them."
" I doubt," said Donatello, " whether they will remem-
ber my voice now. It changes, you know, as the boy
grows towards manhood."
Nevertheless, as the young count's good-nature and
easy persuadability were among his best characteristics,
he set about complying with Kenyon's request. The lat-
ter, in his concealment among the shrubberies, heard him
send forth a sort of modulated breath, wild, rude, yet har-
monious. It struck the auditor as at once the strangest
and the most natural utterance that had ever reached his
ears. Any idle boy, it should seem, singing to himself,
and setting his wordless song to no other or more definite
THE MARBLE FAUN 201
tune than the play of his own pulses, might produce a
sound almost identical with this ; and yet, it was as indi-
vidual as a murmur of the breeze. Donatello tried it,
over and over again, with many breaks, at first, and
pauses of uncertainty ; then with more confidence, and a
fuller swell, like a wayfarer groping out of obscurity into
the light, and moving with freer footsteps as it brightens
around him.
Anon, his voice appeared to fill the air, yet not with an
obtrusive clangor. The sound was of a murmurous char-
acter, soft, attractive, persuasive, friendly. The sculptor
fancied that such might have been the original voice and
utterance of the natural man, before the sophistication of
the human intellect formed what we now call language.
In this broad dialect broad as the sympathies of nature
the human brother might have spoken to his inarticu-
late brotherhood that prowl the woods, or soar upon the
wing, and have been intelligible, to such extent as to win
their confidence.
The sound had its pathos too. At some of its simple
cadences, the tears came quietly into Kenyon's eyes.
They welled up slowly from his heart, which was thrill-
ing with an emotion more delightful than he had often
felt before, but which he forebore to analyze, lest, if he
seized it, it should at once perish in his grasp.
Donatello paused two or three times, and seemed to
listen ; then, recommencing, he poured his spirit and life
more earnestly into the strain. And, finally, or else
the sculptor's hope and imagination deceived him, soft
treads were audible upon the fallen leaves. There was a
rustling among tlie shrubbery ; a whirr of wings, more-
over, that hovered in the air. It may have been all an
illusion ; but Kenyon fancied that he would distinguish
the stealthy, cat-like movement of some small forest citi-
zen, and that he could even see its doubtful shadow, if
not really its substance. But, all at once, whatever might
be the reason, there ensued a hurried rush and scamper of
little feet ; and then the sculptor heard a wild, sorrowful
cry, and through the crevices of the tliicket beheld Dona-
tello fling himself on the ground.
Emerging from his hiding-place, he saw no living
thing, save a brown lizard (it was of the tarantula species)
202 THE MARBLE FAUN.
rustling away through the sunshine. To all present ap-
pearance, this venomous reptile was the only creature
that had responded to the young count's efforts to renew
his intercourse with the lower orders of nature.
" What has happened to you ? " exclaimed Kenyon,
stooping down over his friend, and wondering at the an-
guish which he betrayed.
" Death, death ! " sobbed Donatello. " They know it ! "
He grovelled beside the fountain, in a fit of such pas-
sionate sobbing and weeping, that it seemed as if his heart
had broken, and spilt its wild sorrows upon the ground.
His unrestrained grief and childish tears made Kenyon
sensible in how small a degree the customs and restraints
of society had really acted upon this young man, in spite
of the quietude of his ordinary deportment. In response
to his friend's efforts to console him, he murmured words
hardly more articulate than the strange chant, which he
had so recently been breathing into the air.
" They know it ! " was all that Kenyon could yet dis-
tinguish. " They know it ! "
" Who know it ? " asked the sculptor. " And what is
it they know ? "
" They know it ! " repeated Donatello, trembling.
" They shun me ! All nature shrinks from me, and shud-
ders at me ! I live in the midst of a curse, that hems me
round with a circle of fire ! No innocent thing can come
near me."
" Be comforted, my dear friend," said Kenyon, kneeling
beside him. " You labor under some illusion, but no
curse. As for this strange, natural spell, which you have
been exercising, and of which I have heard before, though
I never believed in, nor expected to witness it, I am sat-
isfied that you still possess it. It was my own half-con-
cealed presence, no doubt, and some involuntary little
movement of mine, that scared away your forest friends."
" They are friends of mine no longer," answered Do-
natello.
" We all of us, as we grow older," rejoined Kenyon,
"lose somewhat of our proximity to nature. It is the
price we pay for experience."
" A heavy price then ! " said Donatello, rising from the
ground. " But we will speak no more of it. Forget this
THE MARBLE FAUN 203
scene, my dear friend. In your eyes, it must look very
absurd. It is a grief, I presume, to all men, to find the
pleasant privileges and properties of early life departing
from them. That grief has now befallen me. Well ; I
shall waste no more tears for such a cause ! "
Nothing else made Kenyon so sensible of a change in
Donatello, as his newly acquired power of dealing with
his own emotions, and, after a struggle more or less fierce,
thrusting them down into the prison-cells where he usually
kept them confined. The restraint which he now put
upon himself, and the mask of dull composure which he
succeeded in clasping over his still beautiful, and once
faun-like face, affected the sensitive sculptor more sadly
than even the unrestrained passion of the preceding scene.
It is a very miserable epoch, when the evil necessities of
life, in our tortuous world, first get the better of us so far,
as to compel us to attempt throwing a cloud over our
transparency. Simplicity increases in value the longer
we can keep it, and the farther we carry it onward into
life; the loss of a child's simplicity, in the mevitable
lapse of years, causes but a natural sigh or two, because
even his mother feared that he could not keep it always.
But after a young man has brought it through his child-
hood, and has still worn it in his bosom, not as an early
dew-drop, but as a diamond of pure, white lustre, it is
a pity to lose it, then. And thus, when Kenyon saw how
much his friend had now to hide, and how well he hid it,
he would have wept, although his tears would have been
even idler than those which Donatello had just shed.
They parted on the lawn before the house, the count to
climb his tower, and the sculptor to read an antique
edition of Dante, which he had found among some old
volumes of Catholic devotion, in a seldom- visited room.
Tomaso met him in the entrance hall, and showed a desire
to speak.
" Our poor signorino looks very sad to-day ! " he said.
" Even so, good Tomaso," replied the sculptor. " Would
that we could raise his spirits a little ! "
" There might be means, signor," answered the old
butler, " if one might but be sure that they were the right
ones. We men are but rough nurses for a sick body or
a sick spirit."
204 THE MARBLE FAUN.
"Women, you would say, my good friend, are better,*
said the sculptor, struck by an intelligence in the butler'g
face. " That is possible ! But it depends."
" Ah ; we will wait a little longer," said Tomaso, with
the customary shake of his head-
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE OWL TOWER.
" Will you not show me your tower ? " said the sculp-
tor one day to his friend.
" It is plainly enough to be seen, methinks," answered
the count, with a kind of sulkiness that often appeared in
him, as one of the little symptoms of inward trouble.
" Yes ; its exterior is visible far and wide," said Ken-
yon. " But such a gray, moss-grown tower as this, how-
ever valuable as an object of scenery, will certainly be
quite as interesting inside as out. It cannot be less then
six hundred years old ; the foundations and lower story
are much older than that, I should judge ; and traditions
probably cling to the walls within quite as plentifully as
the gray and yellow lichens cluster on its face without."
" No doubt," replied Donatello ; " but I know little of
such things, and never could comprehend the interest
which some of you Forestieri take in them. A year or
two ago an English signor with a venerable white beard
they say he was a magician, too came hither from as
far off as Florence, just to see my tower."
" Ah, I have seen him at Florence," observed Kenyon.
" He is a necromancer, as you say, and dwells in an old
mansion of the Knights Templars, close by the Ponte
Vecchio, with a great many ghostly books, pictures, and
antiquities, to make the house gloomy, and one bright-
eyed little girl to keep it cheerful ! "
" I know him only by his white beard," said Donatello ;
" but he could have told you a great deal about the tower,
and the sieges which it has stood, and the prisoners who
have been confined in it. And he gathered up all the
traditions of the Monte Beni family, and, among the rest,
THE MARBLE FAUN. 205
the sad one which I told you at the fountain the other
day. He had known mighty poets, he said, in his earlier
life ; and the most illustrious of them would have rejoiced
to pregerve such a legend in immortal rhyme especially
if he could have had some of our wine of Sunshine to
help out his inspiration ! "
"Any man might be a poet, as well as Byron, with
such wine and such a theme," rejoined the sculptor.
" But, shall we climb your tower ? The thunderstorm
gathering yonder among the hills will be a spectacle
worth witnessing."
" Come, then," said the Count, adding, with a sigh, " it
has a weary staircase, and dismal chambers, and it is very
lonesome at the summit ! "
" Like a man's life, when he has climbed to eminence,"
remarked the sculptor ; or, let us rather say, with its
diflficult steps, and the dark prison-cells you speak of,
your tower resembles the spiritual experience of many
a sinful soul, which, nevertheless, may struggle upward
into the pure air and light of Heaven at last ! "
Donatello sighed again, and led the way up into the
tower.
Mounting the broad staircase that ascended from the
entrance hall, they traversed the great wilderness of a
house, through some obscure passages, and came to a low,
ancient door- way. It admitted them to a narrow turret-
stair which zigzagged upward, lighted in its progress by
loopholes and u'on-barred windows. Reaching the top of
the first flight, the Count threw open a door of worm-eaten
oak, and disclosed a chamber that occupied the whole area
of the tower. It was most pitiably forlorn of aspect, with
a brick-paved floor, bare holes through the massive walls,
grated with iron, instead of windows, and for furniture an
old stool, which increased the dreariness of the place ten-
fold, by suggesting an idea of its having once been
tenanted.
" This was a prisoner's cell in the old days," said Dona-
tello ; " the white-bearded necromancer, of whom I told
you, found out that a certain famous monk was confined
here, about five hundred years ago. He was a very holy
man, and was afterwards burned at the stake in the Grand-
ducal Square atFirenze. There have always been stories,
206 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Tomaso says, of a hooded monk creeping up and down
these stah-s, or standing in the door- way of this chamber.
It must needs be the ghost of the ancient prisoner. Do
you believe in ghosts ? "
" I can hardly tell," replied Kenyon ; " on the whole, I
think not."
" Neither do I," responded the Count ; " for, if spirits
ever come back, I should surely have met one within
these two months past. Ghosts never rise ! So much I
know, and am glad to know it ! "
Follomng the narrow staircase still higher, they came
to another room of similar size and equally forlorn, but
inhabited by two personages of a race which from time
immemorial have held proprietorship and occupancy in
ruined towers. These were a pair of owls, who, being
doubtless acquainted with Donatello, showed little sign
of alarm at the entrance of visitors. They gave a dismal
croak or two, and hopped aside into the darkest corner ;
since it was not yet their hour to flap duskily abroad.
" They do not desert me, like my other feathered ac-
quaintances," observed the young count, with a sad smile,
alluding to the scene which Kenyon had witnessed at the
fountain side. " When I was a wild, playful boy, the owls
did not love me half so well."
He made no further pause here, but led his friend up
another flight of steps ; while, at every stage, the windows
and narrow loopholes afforded Kenyon more extensive
eyeshots over hill and valley, and allowed him to taste the
cool purity of mid-atmosphere. At length they reached
the topmost chamber, directly beneath the roof of the
tower.
"This is my own abode," said Donatello; "my own
owl's nest."
In fact, the room was fitted up as a bedchamber, though
in a style of the utmost simplicity. It likewise served as
an oratory ; there being a crucifix m one corner, and a
multitude of holy emblems, such as Catholics judge it
necessary to help their devotion ^vithal. Several ugly
little prints, representing the sufferings of the Saviour,
and the martyrdoms of saints, hung on the wall ; and, be-
hind the crucifix, there was a good copy of Titian's Mag-
dalen of the Pitti Palace clad only in the flow of her
THE MARBLE FAUN. 207
golden ringlets. . She had a confident look, (but it was
Titian's fault, not the penitient woman's) as if expecting
to win heaven by the free display of her earthly charms
Inside of a glass case, appeared an image of the sacred
Bambino, in the guise of a little waxen boy, very prettily
made, reclining among flowers, like a Cupid, and holding
up a heart that resembled a bit of red sealing-wax. A
small vase of precious marble was full of holy water.
Beneath the crucifix, on a table, lay a human skull,
which looked as if it might have been dug up out of some
old grave. But, examining it more closely, Kenyon saw
that it was carved in gray alabaster, most skilfully done
to the death, with accurate imitation of the teeth, the
sutures, the empty eye-caverns, and the fragile little bones
of the nose. This hideous emblem rested on a cushion of
white marble, so nicely wrought that you seemed to see
the impression of the heavy skull in a silken and downy
substance.
Donatello dipped his fingers into the holy- water vase,
and crossed himself. After doing so, he trembled.
" I have no right to make the sacred symbol on a sinful
breast ! "
" On what mortal breast can it be made then ? " asked
the sculptor. " Is there one that hides no sin ? "
" But these blessed emblems make you smile, I fear,"
resumed the Count, looking askance at his friend. " You
heretics, I know, attempt to pray without even a crucifix
to kneel at."
" I, at least, whom you call a heretic, reverence that
holy symbol," answered Kenyon. " What I am most in-
clined to murmur at, is this death's head. I could laugh,
moreover, in its ugly face I It is absurdly monstrous, my
dear friend, thus to fling the dead weight of our mortality
upon our immortal hopes. While we live on earth, 'tis
true, we must needs carry our skeletons about with us ;
but, for heaven's sake, do not let us burden our spirits
with them, in our feeble efforts to soar upward ! Believe
me, it will change the whole aspect of death, if you can
once disconnect it, in your idea, with that corruption from
which it disengages our higher part."
" I do not well understand you," said Donatello ; and
he took up the alabaster skull, shuddering, and evidently
208 THE MARBLE FAUN.
feeling it a kind of penance to touch it. " I only know
that this skull has been in my family for centuries. Old
Tomaso has a story that it was copied by a famous sculp-
tor from the skull of that same unhappy knight who loved
the fountain-lady, and lost her by a blood-stain. He lived
and died with a deep sense of sin upon him, and, on his
death-bed, he ordained that this token of him should go
down to his posterity. And my forefathers, being a cheer-
ful race of men in their natural disposition, found it need-
ful to have the skull often before their eyes, because they
dearly loved life and its enjoyments, and hated the very
thought of death."
" I am afraid," said Kenyon, " they liked it none the
better, for seeing its face under this abominable mask."
Without further discussion, the Count led the way up
one more flight of stairs, at the end of which they emerged
upon the summit of the tower. The sculptor felt as if
his being were suddenly magnified a hundred-fold; so
wide was the Umbrian valley that suddenly opened before
him, set m its grand framework of nearer and more dis-
tant hills. It seemed as if all Italy lay under his eyes
in that one picture. For there was the broad, sunny
smile of God, which we fancy to be spread over that favored
land more abundantly than on other regions, and, beneath
it, glowed a most rich and varied fertility. The trim
vineyards were there, and the fig-trees, and the mulberries,
and the smoky-hued tracts of the olive-orchards ; there,
too, were fields of every kind of gi'ain, among which waved
the Indian corn, putting Kenyon m mind of the fondly-
remembered acres of his father's homestead. White
villas, gray convents, church-spires, -villages, to^vDS, each
with its battlemented walls and towered gateway, were
scattered upon this spacious map ; a river gleamed across
it ; and lakes opened their blue eyes La its face, reflectuig
heaven, lest mortals should forget that better land, when
they beheld the earth so beautiful.
What made the valley look stiU wider, was the two or
three varieties of weather that were visible on its surface,
all at the same instant of time. Here lay the quiet sun-
shine ; there fell the great black patches of ominous shadow
from the clouds ; and behind them, like a giant of league-
long strides, came hurrymg the thunderstorm, wliich had
THE MARBLE FAUN. 209
already swept midway across the plain. In the rear of
the approaching tempest, brightened forth again the sunny
splendor, which its progress had darkened with so terrible
a frown.
All round this majestic landscape, the bald-peaked or
forest-crowned mountains descended boldly upon the
plain. On many of their spurs and midway declivities,
and even on their summits, stood cities, some of them
famous of old ; for these had been the seats and nurseries
of early art, where the flower of beauty sprang out of a
rocky soil, and in a high, keen atmosphere, when the
richest and most sheltered gardens failed to nourish it.
" Thank God for letting me again behold this scene ! "
said the sculptor, a devout man in his way, reverently
taking off his hat. " I have viewed it from many points,
and never without as full a sensation of gratitude as my
heart seems capable of feeling. How it strengthens the
poor human spirit in its reliance on His providence, to
ascend but this little way above the common level, and so
attain a somewhat wider glimpse of His dealings with
mankind ! He doeth all things right ! His will be done ! "
" You discern something that is hidden from me," ob-
served Donatello, gloomily, yet striving with unwonted
grasp to catch the analogies which so cheered his friend.
*' I see sunshine on one spot, and cloud in another, and no
reason for it in either case. The sun on you ; the cloud
on me ! What comfort can I draw from this ? "
" Nay ; I cannot preach," said Kenyon, " with a page of
heaven and a page of earth spread wide open before us !
Only begin to read it, and you will find it interpreting
itself without the aid of words. It is a great mistake to
try to put our best thoughts into human language. When
we ascend into the higher regions of emotion and spiritual
enjoyment, they are only expressible by such grand hiero-
glyphics as these around us."
They stood awhile, contemplating the scene ; but as
inevitably happens after a spnitual flight, it was not long
before the sculptor, felt his wings flagging in the rarity of
the upper atmosphere. He was glad to let himself quietly
downward out of the mid-sky, as it were, and alight on
the solid platform of the battlemented tower. He looked
about him, and beheld growing out of the stone pavement^
210 THE MARBLE FAUN.
which formed the roof, a httle shrub, with green and glossy
leaves. It was the only green thing there ; and heaven
knows how its seeds had ever been planted, at that airy-
height, or how it had found nourishment for its small life,
in the chinks of the stones ; for it had no earth, and noth-
ing more like soil than the crumbling mortar, which had
been crammed into the crevices in a long-past age.
Yet the plant seemed fond of its native sit ; and
Donatello said it had always gro^vn there, from his ear-
liest remembrance, and never, he believed, any smaller or
any larger than they saw it now.
" I wonder if the shrub teaches you any good lesson,"
said he, observing the interest with which Kenyon exam-
ined it. " If the wide valley has a great meaning, the
plant ought to have at least a little one ; and it has been
growing on our tower long enough to have learned how
to speak it."
" Oh, certainly ! " answered the sculptor ; " the shrub
has its moral, or it would have perished long ago. And,
no doubt, it is for your use and edification, since you have
had it befoie your eyes all your lifetime, and now are
moved to ask what may be its lesson."
" It teaches me nothing," said the simple Donatello,
stooping over the plant, and perplexing himself Avith a
minute scrutiny. " But here was a worm that would
have killed it ; an ugly creature, which I will fling over
the battlements."
CHAPTER XXIX.
ON THE BATTLEMENTS.
The sculptor now looked through an embrasure, and
threw down a bit of lime, watching its fall, till it struck
upon a stone bench at the rocky foundation of the tower,
and flew into many fragments.
" Pray pardon me for helping Time to crumble away
your ancestral walls," said he. " But I am one of those
persons who have a natural tendency to climb heights,
and to stand on the verge of them, measuring the deptb
THE MARBLE FAUN". 211
below. If I were to do just as I like, at this moment, I
should fling myself down after that bit of lime. It is a
very singular temptation, and all but irresistible ; partly,
I believe, because it might be so easily done, and partly
because such momentous consequences would ensue, with-
out my being compelled to wait a moment for them.
Have you never felt this strange impulse of an evil spirit
at your back, shoving you towards a precipice ? "
" Ah, no ! " cried l3onatello, shrinking from the battle-
mented wall with a face of horror. " I cling to life in a
way which you cannot conceive ; it has been so rich, so
warm, so sunny ! and beyond its verge, nothing but the
chilly dark ! And then a fall from a precipice is such an
awful death ! "
" Nay ; if it be a great height," said Kenyon, " a man
would leave his life in the air, and never feel the hard
shock at the bottom."
" That is not the way with this kind of death ! " ex-
claimed Donatello, in a low, horror-stricken voice, which
grew higher and more full of emotion as he proceeded.
" Imagine a fellow-creature breathing, now, and looking
you in the face, and now tumbling down, down, down,
with a long shriek wavering after him, all the way ! He
does not leave his life in the air ! No ; but it keeps in
him till he thumps against the stones, a horribly long
while ; then, he lies there frightfully quiet, a dead heap
of bruised flesh and broken bones ! A quiver runs
through the crushed mass ; and no more movement after
that ! No ; not if you would give your soul to make him
stir a finger ! Ah, terrible ! Yes, yes ; I would fain
fling myself down for the very dread of it, that I might
endure it once for all, and dream of it no more ! "
" How forcibly how frightfully you conceive this ! "
said the sculptor, aghast at the passionate horror which
was betrayed in the count's words, and still more in his
wild gestures and ghastly look. " Nay, if the height of
your tower affects your imagination thus, you do wrong
to trust yourself here in solitude, and in the night-time,
and at all unguarded hours. You are not safe in your
chamber. It is but a step or two ; and what if a vivid
dream should lead you up hither, at midnight, and act
itself out as a reality ! "
212 THE MARBLE FAUIT.
Donatello had hidden his face in his hands, and waa
leaning against the parapet,
No fear of that ! " said he. " "Whatever the dream
may be, I am too genuine a coward to act out my own
death in it."
The paroxysm passed away, and the two friends con-
tinued their desultory talk, very much as if no such in-
terruption had occurred. Nevertheless, it affected the
s?ulptor with infinite pity to see this young man, who had
been born to gladness as an assured heritage, now involved
in a misty bewilderment of grievous thoughts, amid which
he seemed to go staggering blindfold. Kenyon, not with-
out an unshaped suspicion of the definite fact, knew that
his condition must have resulted from the weight and
gloom of life, now first, through the agency of a secret
trouble, making themselves felt on a character that had
heretofore breathed only an atmosphere of joy. The
effect of this hard lesson, upon Donatello's intellect and
disposition, was very striking. It was perceptible that
he had already had glimpses of strange and subtle mat-
ters in those dark caverns, into which all men must de-
scend, if they would know anything beneath the surface
and illusive pleasures of existence. And when they
emerge, though dazzled and blinded by the first glare of
daylight, they take truer and sadder views of life forever
afterwards.
From some mysterious source, as the sculptor felt as-
sured, a soul had been inspired into the young count'?
simplicity, since their intercourse in Rome. He noW
showed a far deeper sense, and an intelligence that began
to deal with high subjects, though in a feeble and childish
way. He evinced, too, a more definite and nobler in-
dividuality, but developed out of grief and pain, and fear-
fully conscious of the pangs that had given it birth.
Every human life, if it ascends to truth or delves down
to reality, must undergo a similar change ; but sometimes;
perhaps, the instruction comes without the sorrow ; and
oftener the sorrow teaches no lesson that abides with us.
In Donatello's case, it was pitiful, and almost ludicroust
to observe the confused struggle that he made ; how com-
pletely he was taken by surprise; how ill-prepared he
stood, on this old battle-field of the world, to fight witii
THE MARBLE FAUN. 213
I such an inevitable foe as mortal calamity, and sin for its
stronger ally.
"And yet," thought Kenyon, "the poor fellow bears
himself like a hero, too ! If he would only tell me his
trouble, or give me an opening to speak frankly about it,
I might help him ; but he finds it too horrible to be
uttered, and fancies himself the only mortal that ever
felt the anguish of remorse. Yes ; he believes that no-
body ever endured his agony before ; so that sharp
enough in itself it has all the additional zest of a tor-
ture just invented to plague him individually."
The sculptor endeavored to dismiss the painful sub-
ject from his mind ; and, leaning against the battlements,
he turned his face southward and westward, and gazed
across the breadth of the valley. His thoughts flew far
beyond even those wide boundaries, taking an air-line
from Donatello's tower to another turret that ascended
into the sky of the summer afternoon, invisibly to him,
above the roofs of distant Rome. Then rose tumultu-
ously into his consciousness that strong love for Hilda,
which it was his habit to confine in one of the heart's
inner chambers, because he had found no encouragement
to bring it forward. But now, he felt a strange pull at
his heartstrings. It could not have been more percepti-
ble, if all the way between these battlements and Hilda's
dove-cote, had stretched an exquisitely sensitive cord,
which, at the hither end, was knotted with his aforesaid
heartstrings, and, at the remoter one, was grasped by a
gentle hand. His breath grew tremulous. He put his
hand to his breast ; so distinctly did he seem to feel that
cord drawn once and again, and agam, as if though
still it was bashfully intimated there were an impor-
tunate demand for his presence. Oh ! for the white wings
of Hilda's doves, that he might have flown thither, and
alighted at the virgin's shrine !
But lovers, and Kenyon knew it well, project so life-
like a copy of their mistresses out of their own imagina-
tions, that it can pull at the heartstrings almost as per-
ceptibly as the genuine original. No airy intimations are
to be trusted ; no evidences of responsive affection less
positive than whispered and broken words, or tender pres-
sures of the hand, allowed and half-returned ; or glances,
214 THE MARBLE FAUN.
that distil many passionate avowals into one gleam of
richly-colored light. Even these should be weighed
rigorously, at the instant ; for, in another mstant, the
imagination seizes on them as its property, and stamps
them with its o^vn arbitrary value. But Hilda's maidenly
reserve had given her lover no such tokens, to be inter-
preted either by his hopes or fears.
Yonder, over mountain and valley, lies Rome," said
the sculptor; "shall you return thither in the autumn?"
"Never! I hate Rome," answered Donatello; "and
have good cause."
" And yet it was a pleasant winter that we spent there,"
observed Kenyon, " and with pleasant friends about us.
You would meet them again there all of them."
All " ? asked Donatello.
All, to the best of my belief," said the sculptor ; " but
you need not go to Rome to seek them. If there were
one of those friends whose lifetime was twisted with your
own, I am enough of a fatalist to feel assured that you
will meet that one again, wander whither you may.
Neither can we escape the companions whom Provi-
dence assigns for us, by clunbing an old tower like
this."
" Yet the stairs are steep and dark," rejoined the Count ;
*' none but yourself would seek me here, or find me, if
they sought."
As Donatello did not take advantage of this opening
which his friend had kindly afforded him, to pour out his
hidden troubles, the latter again threw aside the subject,
and returned to the enjoyment of the scene before him.
The thunderstorm, which he had beheld striding across
the valley, had passed to the left of Monte Beni, and was
continuing its march towards the hills that formed the
boundary on the eastward. Above the whole valley, in-
deed, the sky was heavy with tumbling vapors inter-
spersed with which were tracts of blue, vividly brightened
by the sun ; but, in the east, where the tempest was yet
trailing its ragged skirts, lay a dusky region of cloud and
sullen mist, in which some of the hills appeared of a dark-
purple hue. Others became so indistinct, that the spec-
tator could not tell rocky height from impalpable cloud.
Far into this misty cloud-region, however, within the
THE MARBLE FAUN. 215
domain of chaos, as it were, hill-tops were seen bright-
ening in the sunshine ; they looked like fragments of the
world, broken adrift and based on nothingness, or like
portions of a sphere destined to exist, but not yet finally
compacted.
The sculptor, habitually drawmg many of the images
and illustrations of his thoughts from the plastic art, fan-
cied that the scene represented the process of the Creator,
when He held the new, imperfect earth m His hand, and
modelled it.
" What a magic is in mist and vapor among the moun-
tains ! " he exclaimed. " With their help, one single
scene becomes a thousand. The cloud-scenery gives
such variety to a hilly landscape that it would be worth
while to journalize its aspect from hour to hour. A
cloud, however, as I have myself experienced, is apt to
grow solid and as heavy as a stone the instant that you
take in hand to describe it. But, in my own heart, I have
found great use in clouds. Such silvery ones as those to
the northward, for example, have often suggested sculp-
turesque groups, figures, and attitudes ; they are especially
rich in attitudes of living repose, which a sculptor only
hits upon by the rarest good fortune. When I go back
to my dear native land, the clouds along the horizon will
be my only gallery of art ! "
" I can see cloud-shapes too," said Donatello ; " yonder
is one that shifts strangely ; it has been like people whom
I knew. And now, if I watch it a little longer, it will
take the figure of a monk reclining, with his cowl about
his head and drawn partly over his face, and well ! did
I not tell you so ? "
" I think," remarked Kenyon, " we can hardly be gaz-
ing at the same cloud. What I behold is a reclining
figure, to be sure, but feminine, and with a despondent
air, wonderfully well expressed in the wavering outline
from head to foot. It moves my very heart by something
indefinable that it suggests."
" I see the figure, and almost the face," said the Count,
adding, in a lower voice, " It is Miriam's ! "
" No, not Miriam's," answered the sculptor.
While the two gazers thus found their own reminis-
cences and presentiments floating among (/he clouds, the
216 THE MARBLE FAUX.
day drew to its close, and now showed them the fair spec-
tacle of an Italian sunset. The sky was soft and bright,
but not so gorgeous as Kenyon had seen it, a thousand
times, in America ; for there the western sky is wont to be
set aflame with breadths and depths of color, with which
poets seek in vain to dye their verses, and which painters
never dare to copy. As beheld from the tower of Monte
Beni, the scene was tenderly magnificent, with mild gra-
dations of hue, and a lavish outpouring of gold, but rather
such gold as we see on the leaf of a bright flower than the
burnished glow of metal from the mine. Or, if metallic,
it looked airy and unsubstantial, like the glorified dreams
of an alchemist. And speedily more speedily than in
our OAvn clime came the twilight and, brightening
through its gray transparency, the stars.
A swarm of minute insects that had been hovering all
day round the battlements were now swept away by the
freshness of a rising breeze. The two owls in the cham-
ber beneath Donatello's uttered their soft, melancholy
cry which, with national avoidance of harsh sounds,
Italian owls substitute for the hoot of their kindred in
other countries, and flew darkling forth among the
shrubbery. A convent-bell rang out, near at hand, and
was not only echoed among the hills, but answered by
another bell, and still another, which doubtless had far-
ther and farther responses, at various distances along the
valley ; for, like the English drum-beat around the globe,
there is a chain of convent-bells from end to end, and
cross- wise, and in all possible directions over priest-ridden
Italy.
" Come," said the sculptor, " the evening air grows cool.
It is time to descend."
" Time for you, my friend," replied the Count, and he
hesitated a little before adding, " I must keep a vigil here
for some hours longer. It is my frequent custom to keep
vigils ; and sometimes the thought occurs to me whether
it were not better to keep them in yonder convent, the
bell of which just now seemed to summon me. Would I
do wisely do you think, to exchange this old tower for a
cell ? "
" What ! Turn monk ? " exclaimed his friend. " A
horrible idea ! "
THE MARBLE FAUN. 217
" True," said Donatello sighing. " Therefore, if at all,
I purpose doing it."
" Then think of it no more, for Heaven's sake ! " cried
the sculptor. " There are a thousand better and more
poignant methods of being miserable than that, if to be
miserable is what you wish. Nay ; I question whether
a monk keeps himself up to the intellectual and spiritual
height which misery implies. A monk I judge from
their sensual physiognomies, which meet me at every
turn is inevitably a beast ! Their souls, if they have
any to begin with, perish out of them, before their slug-
gish, swinish existence is half done. Better, a million
times, to stand star-gazing on these airy battlements,
than to smother your new germ of a higher life in a
monkish cell ! "
" You make me tremble," said Donatello, by your
bold aspersion of men who have devoted themselves to
God's service ! "
" They serve neither God nor man, and themselves
least of all, though their motives be utterly selfish," re-
plied Kenyon. " Avoid the convent, my dear friend, as
you would shun the death of the soul ! But, for my own
part, if I had an insupportable burden, if, for any cause,
I were bent upon sacrificing every earthly hope as a
peace-ofering towards heaven, I would make the wide
world my cell, and good deeds to mankind my prayer.
Many penitent men have done this, and found peace in
it."
" Ah ! but you are a heretic ! " said the Count.
Yet his face brightened beneath the stars ; and, look-
ing at it though the twilight, the sculptor's remembrance
went back to that scene in the Capitol, where, both in
features and expression, Donatello had seemed identical
with the Faun. And still there was a resemblance ; for
now, when first the idea was suggested of living for the
welfare of his fellow-creatures the original beauty, which
sorrow had partly effaced, came back elevated and spirit-
ualized. In the black depths, the Faun had found a soul
and was struggling with it towards the light of heaven.
The illumination, it is true soon faded out of Dona-
ello's face. The idea of life-long and unselfish effort was
too high to be received by him with more than a momen-
218 THE MARBLE FAUN.
tary comprehension. An Italian, indeed, seldom dreams
of being philanthropic, except in bestowing alms among
the paupers, who appeal to his beneficence at every step ;
nor does it occur to him that there are fitter modes of
propitiatmg Heaven than by penances, pilgrimages, and
offerings at shrines. Perhaps, too, their system has its
share of moral advantages ; they, at all events, cannot
well pride themselves, as our o^vn more energetic benevo-
lence is apt to do, upon sharing in the counsels of Provi-
dence and kindly helpmg out its otherwise impracticable
designs.
And now the broad valley twinkled with lights, that
glimmered through its duskiness, like the fire-flies in the
garden of a Florentine palace. A gleam of lightning
from the rear of the tempest showed the circumference
of hills, and the great space between, as the last cannon-
flash of a retreating army reddens across the field where
it has fought. The sculptor was on the point of descend-
ing the turret- stair, when, somewhere in the darkness
that lay beneath them, a woman's voice was heard, sing-
ing a low, sad strain.
" Hark ! " said he, laying his hand on Donatello's arm.
And Donatello had said " Hark ! " at the same instant.
The song, if song it could be called, that had only a
wild rhythm, and flowed forth in the fitful measure of a
wind-harp, did not clothe itself in the sharp brilliancy of
the Italian tongue. The words, so far as they could be
distinguished, were German, and therefore unintelligible
to the count, and hardly less so to the sculptor ; being
softened and molten, as it were, into the melancholy rich-
ness of the voice that sung them. It was as the murmur
of a soul bemldered amid the sinful gloom of earth, and
retaining only enough memory of a better state to make
sad music of the wail, which would else have been a de-
spairing shriek. Never was there profounder pathos than
breathed through that mysterious voice ; it brought the
tears into the sculptor's eyes, with remembrances and
forebodings of whatever sorrow he had felt or appre-
hended ; it made Donatello sob, as chiming in -with th^
anguish that he found unutterable, and giving it the ex-
pression which he vaguely sought.
But, when the emotion was at its profoundest depth,
THE MARBLE FAUN. 219
the voice rose out of it, yet so gradually that a gloom
seemed to pervade it, far upward from the abyss, and not
entirely to fall away as it ascended into a higher and
purer region. At last, the auditors would have fancied
that the melody, with its rich sweetness all there, and
much of its sorrow gone, was floating around the very
summit of the tower.
" Donatello," said the sculptor, when there was silence
again ; " had that voice no message for your ear ? "
" I dare not receive it," said Donatello ; " the anguish
of which it spoke abides with me : the hope dies away
Avith the breath that brought it hither. It is not good
for me to hear that voice."
The sculptor sighed, and left the poor penitent keeping
his vigil on the tower.
CHAPTER XXX.
DONATELLO'S BUST,
Kenyon, it will be remembered, had asked Donatello's
permission to model his bust. The work had now made
considerable progress, and necessarily kept the sculptor's
thoughts brooding much and often upon his host's per-
sonal characteristics. These it was his difficult office to
bring out from their depths, and interpret them to all
men, showing them what they could not discern for
themselves, yet must be compelled to recognize at a
glance, on the surface of a block of marble.
He had never undertaken a portrait-bust which gave
him so much trouble as Donatello's ; not that there was
any special difficulty in hitting the likeness, though even
in this respect the grace and harmony of the features
seemed inconsistent with a prominent expression of indi-
viduality ; but he was chiefly perplexed how to make
this genial and kind type of countenance the index of
the mind within. His acuteness and his sympathies, in-
deed, were both somewhat at fault in their efforts to en-
lighten him as to the moral phase through which the
count was now passing. If at one sitting he caught a
glimpse of what appeared to be a genuine and perma-
220 THE MARBLE FAUN.
nent trait, it would pj-obably be less perceptible on a
second occasion, and perhaps have vanished entirely at
a third. So evanescent a show of character threw the
sculptor into despair ; not marble or clay, but cloud and
vapor was the material in which it ought to be repre-
sented. Even the ponderous depression which constantly
weighed upon Donatello's heart could not compel him
into the kind of repose which the plastic art requires.
Hopeless of a good result, Kenyon gave up all pre-
conceptions about the character of his subject, and let
his hands work uncontrolled with the clay, somewhat as
a spiritual medium, while holding a pen, yields it to an
unseen guidance other than that of her own will. Now
and then he fancied that his plan was destined to be the
successful one. A skill and insight beyond his conscious-
ness seemed occasionally to take up the task. The mys-
tery, the miracle, of imbuing an inanimate substance
with thought, feeling, and all the intangible attributes of
the soul, appeared on the verge of being wrought. And
now, as he flattered himself, the true image of his friend
was about to emerge from the facile material, bringing
with it more of Donatello's character than the keenest
observer could detect at any one moment in the face of
the original. Vain expectation ! some touch, whereby
the artist thought to improve or hasten the result, inter-
fered with the design of his unseen spiritual assistant,
and spoilt the whole. There was still the moist, brown
clay, indeed, and the features of Donatello, but without
any semblance of intelligent and sympathetic life.
" The difficulty will drive me mad, I verily believe ! "
cried the sculptor, nervously. " Look at the wretched
piece of work yourself, my dear friend, and tell me
whether you recognize any manner of likeness to your
inner man ? "
" None," replied Donatello, speaking the simple truth.
" It is like looking a stranger in the face."
This frankly unfavorable testimony so wrought with
the sensitive artist, that he fell into a passion with the
stubborn image, and cared not what might happen to it
thenceforward. Wielding that wonderful power which
sculptors possess over moist clay, however refractory it
may show itself in certain respects, he compressed,
THE MARBLE FAUN". 221
elongated, widened, and otherwise altei'ed the features of
the bust in mere recklessness, and at every change in-
quired of the Count whether the expression became any-
wise more satisfactory.
" Stop ! " cried Donatello, at last, catching the sculp-
tor's hand. " Let it remain so ! "
By some accidental handling of the clay, entirely in-
dependent of his own will, Kenyon had given the coun -
tenance a distorted and violent look combining animal
fierceness with intelligent hatred. Had Hilda, or had
Miriam seen the bust, with the expression which it had
now assumed, they might have recognized Donatello's
face as they beheld it at that terrible moment when he
held his victim over the edge of the precipice.
" What have I done ? " said the sculptor, shocked at
his own casual production. " It were a sin to let the
clay which bears your features harden into a look like
that. Cain never wore an uglier one."
" For that very reason let it remain ! " answered the
Count, who had grown pale as ashes at the aspect of his
crime, thus strang-ely presented to him in another of the
many guises under which guilt stares the criminal in the
face. " Do not alter it ! Chisel it, rather, in eternal
marble ! I will set it up in my oratory and keep it con-
tinually before my eyes. Sadder and more horrible is a
face like this, alive with my own crime, than the dead
skull which my forefathers handed down to me ! "
But, without m the least heeding Donatello's remon-
strances, the sculptor again applied his artful fingers to
the clay, and compelled the bust to dismiss the expression
that had so startled them both.
" Believe me," said he, turning his eyes upon his friend,
full of grave and tender sympathy, " you know not what
is requisite for your spiritual growth, seeking, as you do,
to keep your soul perpetually in the unwholesome region
of remorse. It was needful for you to pass through that
dark valley, but it is infinitely dangerous to linger there
too long ; there is poison m the atmosphere, when we sit
down and brood in it, instead of girding up our loins to
press onward. Not despondency, not slothful anguish, is
what you now require but effort ! Has there been an
unutterable evil in your young life ? Then crowd it out
222 THE MARBLE FAUN.
with good, or it will lie corrupting there forever, and
cause your capacity for better thmgs to partake its noi-
some corruption ! "
" You stir up many thoughts," said Donatello, pressing
his hand upon his brow, "but the multitude and the
whirl of them make me dizzy."
They now left the sculptor's temporary studio, without
observing that his last accidental touches, with which he
hurriedly effaced the look of deadly rage, had given the
bust a higher and sweeter expression that it had hitherto
worn. It is to be regretted that Kenyon had not seen it ;
for only an artist, perhaps, can conceive the irksomeness,
the irritation of brain, the depression of spirits, that re-
sulted from his failure to satisfy himself, after so much
toil and thought as he had bestowed on Donatello's bust.
In case of success, indeed, all this thoughtful toil would
have been reckoned, not only as well bestowed, but as
among the happiest hours of his life ; whereas, deeming
himself to have failed, it was just so much of life that
had better never have been lived ; for thus does the good
or ill result of his labor throw back sunshine or gloom
upon the artist's mind. The sculptor, therefore, would
have done well to glance again at his work ; for here
were still the features of the antique Faun, but now illu-
minated with a higher meaning, such as the old marble
never bore.
Donatello having quitted him, Kenyon spent the rest
of the day strolling about the pleasant precincts of Monte
Beni, where the summer was now so far advanced that it
began, indeed, to partake of the ripe wealth of autumn.
Apricots had long been abundant, and had passed away,
and plums and cherries along with them. But now came
great, juicy pears, melting and delicious, and peaches of
goodly size and tempting aspect, though cold and watery
to the palate, compared with the sculptor's rich remin-
iscences of that fruit in America. The purple figs had
already enjoyed their day, and the white ones were
luscious now. The contadini (who, by this time, knew
Kenyon well) found many clusters of ripe grapes for
him, in every little globe of which was included a fra-
grant draught of the sunny Monte Beni wine.
Unexpectedly, in a nook, close by the farmhouse, he
THE MARBLE FAUN. 223
happened upon a spot where the vintage had actually
commenced. A great heap of early-ripened grapes had
been gathered, and thrown into a mighty tub. In the
middle of it stood a lusty and jolly contadino, nor stood,
merely, but stamped with all his might, and danced amain;
while the red juice bathed his feet, and threw its foam
midway up his brown and shaggy legs. Here, then, was
the rery process that shows so picturesquely in Scripture
and in poetry, of treading out the wine- press and dyeing
the feet and garments with the crimson effusion as with
the blood of a battle-field. The memory of the process
does not make the Tuscan wine taste more deliciously.
The contadini hospitably offered Kenyon a sample of the
new liquor, that had already stood fermenting for a day
or two. He had tried a similar draught, however, in
years past, and was little inclined to make proof of it
again ; for he knew that it would be a sour and bitter
juice, a wine of woe and tribulation, and that the more a
man drinks of such liquor, the sorrier he is likely to be.
The scene reminded the sculptor of our New England
vintages, where the big piles of golden and rosy apples
lie under the orchard trees, in the mild autumnal sun-
shine ; and the creaking cider-mill, set in motion by a cir-
cumgyratory horse, is all a-gush with the luscious juice.
To speak frankly, the cider making is the more pictur-
esque sight of the two, and the new, sweet cider an
infinitely better drink than the ordinary, unripe Tuscan
wine. Such as it is, however, the latter fills thousands
upon thousands of small, flat barrels, and, still growing
thinner and sharper, loses the little life it had, as wine,
and becomes apotheosized as a more praiseworthy vinegar.
Yet all these vineyard scenes, and the processes con-
nected with the culture of the grape, had a flavor
of poetry about them. The toil that produces those
kindly gifts of nature which are not the substance of life,
but; its luxury, is unlike other toil. We are inclined to
fancy that it does not bend the sturdy frame and stiffen
the over^vrought muscles, like the labor that is devoted in
sad, hard earnest to raise gram for sour bread. Certainly,
the sunburnt young men and dark- cheeked laughing girls,
who weeded the rich acres of Monte Beni, might well
enough have passed for inhabitants of an unsophisticated
224 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Arcadia. Later in the season, when the true vintage-
time should come, and the wine of Sunshine gush into
the vats, it was hardly too wild a dream that Bacchus
himself might revisit the haunts which he loved of old.
But, alas, where now would he find the Faun with whom
we see him consorting in so many an antique group ?
Donatello's remorseful anguish saddened this primitive
and delightful life. Kenyon had a pain of his own,
moreover, although not all a pain, in the never quiet,
never satisfied yearning of his heart towards Hilda. He
was authorized to use little freedom towards that shy
maiden, even in his visions ; so that he almost reproached
himself when sometimes his imagination pictured in de .
tail, the sweet years that they might spend together, in a
retreat like this. It had just that rarest quality of re-
moteness from the actual and ordinary world a remote-
ness through which all delights might visit them freely,
sifted from all troubles which lovers so reasonably insist
upon, in their ideal arrangements for a happy union. It
is possible, indeed, that even Donatello's grief and Ken-
yon's pale, sunless affection, lent a charm to Monte Beni,
which it would not have retained amid a more redundant
joyousness. The sculptor strayed amid its vineyards and
orchards, its dells and tangled shrubberies, "vvith somewhat
the sensations of an adventurer who should find his way
to the sight of ancient Eden, and behold its loveliness
through the transparency of that gloom which has been
brooding over those haunts of innocence ever since the
fall. Adam saw it in a brighter sunshine, but never
knew the shade of pensive beauty which Eden won from
his expulsion.
It was in the decline of the afternoon that Kenyon re-
turned from his long, musing ramble. Old Tomaso -
between whom and hunself for some time past there had
been a mysterious understanding met him in the en-
trance hall, and drew him a little aside.
" The signorina would speak with you," he whispered.
" In the chapel ? " asked the sculptor.
No ; in the saloon beyond it," answered the butler ;
"the entrance you once saw the signorina appear
through it is near the altar, hidden behind the tapestry."
Kenyon lost no time in obeying the summons.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 225
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE MAEBLE SALOON.
In an old Tuscan villa, a chapel ordinarily makes one
among the numerous apartments ; though it often happens
that the door is permanently closed, the key lost, and the
place left to itself, in dusty sanctity, like that chamber in
man's heart where he hides his religious awe. This was
very much the case with the chapel of Monte Beni. One
rainy day, however, in his wanderings through the great,
intricate house, Kenyon had unexpectedly found his way
into it, and been impressed by its solemn aspect. The
arched windows, high upward in the wall, and darkened
with dust and cobweb, threw down a dim light that showed
the altar, with a picture of a martyrdom above, and some
tall tapers ranged before it. They had apparently been
lighted, and burned an hour or two, and been extinguished
perhaps half a century before. The marble vase at the
entrance held some hardened mud at the bottom, accruing
from the dust that had settled in it during the gradual
evaporation of the holy water ; and a spider (being an
insect that delights in pointing the moral of desolation
and neglect) had taken pains to weave a prodigiously
thick tissue across the circular brim. An old family
banner, tattered by the moths, drooped from the vaulted
roof. In niches, there were some mediaeval busts of
Donatello's forgotten ancestry ; and among them, it might
be, the forlorn visage of that hapless knight between
whom and the fountain-nymph had occurred such tender
love passages.
Throughout all the jovial prosperity of Monte Beni,
this one spot within the domestic walls had kept itself
silent, stem and sad. When the individual or the family
retired from song and mirth, they here sought those
realities which men do not invite their festive associates
to share. And here, on the occasion above referred to, the
sculptor had discovered accidentally, so far as he was
15
226 THE MARBLE FAUN.
concerned, though with a purpose on her part that there
was a guest under Donatello's roof, whose presence the
Count did not suspect. An interview had since taken
place, and he was now summoned to another.
He crossed the chapel, in compliance with Tomaso's
instructions, and passing through the side entrance, found
hunself in a saloon, of no great size, but more magnificent
than he had supposed the villa to contain. x\s it was
vacant, Kenyon had leisure to pace it once or twice, and
examine it with a careless sort of scrutiny, before any
person appeared.
This beautiful hall was floored with rich marbles, in
artistically arranged figures and compartments. The
walls, likewise, were almost entirely cased in marble of
various kinds, the prevalent variety being giallo antico,
intermixed with verd-antique, and others equally pre-
cious. The splendor of the giallo antico, however, was
what gave character to the saloon ; and the large and
deep niches, apparently intended for full-length statues,
along the walls, were lined with the same costly material.
Without visiting Italy, one can have no idea of the beauty
and magnificence that are produced by these fittings-up
of polished marble. Without such experience, indeed,
we do not even know what marble means, in any sense,
save as the white limestone of which we carve our man-
tel-pieces. This rich hall of Monte Beni, moreover, was
adorned, at its upper end, with two pillars that seemed to
consist of oriental alabaster ; and Avherever there was a
space vacant of precious and variegated marble, it was
frescoed with ornaments in arabesque. Above, there waa
a coved and vaulted ceiling, glowing with pictured scenes,
with affected Kenyon with a vague sense of splendor,
without his twisting his neck to gaze at them.
It is one of the special excellences of such a saloon of
polished and richly-colored marble, that decay can never
tarnish it. Until the house crumbles down upon it, it
shines indestructibly, and with a little dusting looks just
as brilliant in its three hundredth year as the day after
the final slab of giallo antico was fitted into the wall. To
the sculptor, at this first view of it, it seemed a hall where
the sun was magically imprisoned, and must always shine
He anticipated Miriam's entrance, arrayed in queenly
THE MARBLE FAUN. 227
robes, and beaming with even more than the singular
beauty that had heretofore distinguished her.
While this thought was passing through his mind, the
pillared door, at the upper end of the saloon, was partly-
opened, and Miriam appeared. She was very pale, and
dressed in deep mourning. As she advanced towards the
sculptor, the feebleness of her step was so apparent that
he made haste to meet her, apprehending that she might
sink down on the marble floor, without the instant sup-
port of his arm.
But, with a gleam of her natural self-reliance, she de-
clined his aid, and, after touching her cold hand to his,
went and sat down on one of the cushioned divans that
were ranged against the wall.
"You are very ill, Miriam!" said Kenyon, much
shocked at her appearance. " I had not thought of this."
" No ; not so ill as I seem to you," she answered, add-
ing despondently, "yet I am ill enough, I believe, to die,
unless some change speedily occurs."
" What, then, is your disorder ? " asked the sculptor ;
" and what the remedy ? "
"The disorder!" repeated Miriam. "There is none
that I know of, save too much life and strength, without
a purpose for one or the other. It is my too redundant
energy that is slowly or perhaps rapidly wearing me
away, because I can apply it to no use. The object, which
I am bound to consider my only one on earth, fails me
utterly. The sacrifice which I yearn to make of myself,
my hopes, my everything, is coldly put aside. Nothing
is left for me but to brood, brood, brood, all day, all night
in unprofitable longings and repinings."
" This is very sad, Sliriam," said Kenyon.
" Ay, indeed ; I fancy so," she replied, with a short,
unnatural laugh.
" With all your activity of mind," resumed he, " so
fertile in plans as I have known you can you imagine no
method of bringing your resources into play ? "
" My mind is not active any longer," answered Miriam,
in a cold, indifferent tone. " It deals with one thought
and no more. One recollection paralyzes it. It is not
remorse ; do not think it ! I put myself out of the ques-
tion, and feel neither regret nor penitence on my own be-
228 THE MARBLE FAUN.
half. But what benumbs me what robs me of all power
it is no secret for a woman to tell a man, yet I care not
though you know it is the certainty that I am, and must
ever be, an object of horror in Donatello's sight."
The sculptor a young man, and cherishing a love
which insulated him from the wild experiences which some
men gather was startled to perceive how Miriam's rich,
ill-regulated nature impelled her to fling herself, con-
science and all, on one passion, the object of which intel-
lectually seemed far beneath her.
" How have you obtained the certainty of which you
speak ? " asked he, after a pause.
" Oh, by a sure token," said Miriam ; " a gesture, mere-
ly ; a shudder, a cold shiver that ran through him one
sunny morning when his hand happened to touch mine !
But it was enough."
" I firmly believe, Miriam," said the sculptor, " that he
loves you still."
She started, and a flush of color came tremulously over
the paleness of her cheek.
" Yes," repeated Kenyon, " if my interest in Donatello
and in yourself, Miriam endows me with any true in-
sight, he not only loves you still, but with a force and
depth proportioned to the stronger grasp of his faculties,
in their new development."
" Do not deceive me," said Miriam, growing pale
again.
" Not for the world ! " replied Kenyon. " Here is what
I take to be the truth. There was an interval, no doubt,
when the horror of some calamity, which I need not shape
out in my conjectures, threw Donatello into a stupor of
mystery. Connected with the first shock there was an
intolerable pain and shuddering repugnance attaching
themselves to all the circumstances and surroundings of
the event that so terribly affected him. Was his dearest
friend involved within the horror of that moment? He
would shrink from her as he shrank most of all from him-
self. But as his mind roused itself, as it rose to a higher
life than he had hitherto experienced, whatever had
been true and permanent within him revived by the self-
same impulse. So has it been with his love."
" But, surely," said Miriam, " he knows that I am here I
THE MARBLE FAUN. 229
Why, then, except that I am odious to him, does he not
bid me welcome ? "
" He is, I believe, aware of your presence here," an-
swered the sculptor. " Your song, a night or two ago,
must have revealed it to him, and in truth, I had
fancied that there was already a consciousness of it in his
mind. But, the more passionately he longs for your
society, the more religiously he deems himself bound to
avoid it. The idea of a life-long penance has taken strong
possession of Donatello. He gropes blindly about him
for some method of sharp self-torture, and finds, of course,
no other so efficacious as this."
" But, he loves me," repeated Miriam, in a low voice,
to herself. " Yes ; he loves me ! "
It was strange to observe the womanly softness that
came over her, as she admitted that comfort into her
bosom. The cold, unnatural indifference of her manner,
a kind of frozen passionateness, which had shocked and
chilled the sculptor, disappeared. She blushed, and
turned away her eyes, knowing that there was more sur-
prise and joy in their de'wy glances, than any man save
one ought to detect there.
"In other respects," she inquired at length, "is he
much changed ? "
" A wonderful process is going forward in Donatello's
mind," answered the sculptor. " The germs of faculties
that have heretofore slept are fast springing into activity.
The world of thought is disclosing itself to his inward
sight. He startles me, at times, with his perception of
deep truths ; and, quite as often, it must be owned he
compels me to smile by the intermixture of his former
simplicity with a new intelligence. But, he is bewildered
with the revelations that each day brings. Out of his
bitter agony, a soul and intellect, I could almost say, have
been inspired into him."
" Ah, I could help him here ! " cried Miriam, clasping
her hands. " And how sweet a toil to bend and adapt my
whole nature to do him good ! To instruct, to elevate, to
enrich his mind with the wealth that would flow in upon
me, had I such a motive for acquiring it ! who else can
perform the task ? Who else has the tender sympathy
which he requires ? Who else, save only me, a woman,
30 THE MARBLE FAUN.
a sharer in the same dread secret, a partaker in one iden-
tical guilt, could meet him on such terms of intimate
equality as the case demands ? With this object before
me, I might feel a right to live ! Without it, it is a shame
for me to have lived so long."
" I fully agree with you," said Kenyon, " that your true
place is by his side."
" Surely it is," replied Miriam. " If Donatello is enti-
tled to aught on earth, it is to my complete self-sacrifice
for his sake. It does not weaken his claim, methinks,
that my only prospect of happiness a fearful word,
however lies in the good that may accrue to him from
our intercourse. But he rejects me ! He will not listen
to the whisper of his heart, telling him that she, most
wretched, who beguiled him into evil, might guide him to
a higher innocence than that from which he fell. How
is this first, great difiiculty to be obviated ?
" It lies at your own option, Miriam, to do away the
obstacle, at any moment," remarked the sculptor. " It is
but to ascend Donatello's tower, and you will meet him
there, under the eye of God."
" I dare not," answered Miriam. " No ; I dare not ! "
" Do you fear," asked the sculptor, " the dread eye-
witness whom I have named ? "
" No ; for, as far as I can see into that cloudy and in-
scrutable thing, my heart, it has none but pure motives,"
replied Miriam. " But, my friend, you little know what
a weak or what a strong creature, a woman is ! I fear not
Heaven, in this case, at least, but shall I confess it ? I
am greatly in dread of Donatello. Once, he shuddered
at my touch. If he shudder once again, or frown, I
die ! "
Kenyon could not but marvel at the subjection into
which this proud and self-dependent woman had wilfully
flung herself, hanging her life upon the chance of an an-
gry or favorable regard from a person who, a little while
before, had seemed the plaything of a moment. But, in
Miriam's eyes, Donatello was always, thenceforth, invested
with the tragic dignity of their hour of crime ; and, fur-
thermore, the keen and deep insight, with which her love
endowed her, enabled her to know him far better than he
could be known by ordinary observation. Beyond all
THE MARBLE FAUN. 231
question, since she loved him so, there was a force in
Donatello worthy of her respect and love.
" You see my weakness," said Miriam, flinging out her
hands, as a person does when a defect is acknowledged,
and beyond remedy. " What I need, now, is an opportu-
nity to show my strength."
" It has occurred to me," Kenyon remarked, " that the
time is come, when it may be desirable to remove Dona-
tello from the complete seclusion in which he buries him-
self. He has struggled long enough with one idea. He
now needs a variety of thought, which cannot be other-
wise so readily supplied to him, as through the medium
of a variety of scenes. His mind is awakened, now ; his
heart, though full of pain, is no longer benumbed. They
should have food and solace. If he linger here much
longer, I fear that he may sink back into a lethargy.
The extreme excitability, which circumstances have im-
parted to his moral system, has its dangers and its advan-
tages ; it being one of the dangers, that an obdurate scar
may supervene upon its very tenderness. Solitude has
done what it could for him ; now, for a while, let him be
enticed into the outer world."
" What is your plan, then ? " asked Miriam.
" Simply," replied Kenyon, " to persuade Donatello to
be my companion in a ramble among these hills and val-
leys. The little adventures and vicissitudes of travel will
do him infinite good. After his recent profound experi-
ence, he will re-create the world by the new eyes with
which he will regard it. He will escape, I hope, out of a
morbid life, and find his way into a healthy one."
" And what is to be my part in this process ? " inquired
Miriam sadly, and not without jealousy. " You are tak-
ing him from me, and putting yourself, and all man-
ner of living interests, into the place which I ought to
fill!"
" It would rejoice me, Miriam, to yield the entire re-
sponsibility of this office to yourself," answered the
sculptor. " I do not pretend to be the guide and counsellor
whom Donatello needs ; for, to mention no other obstacle,
I am a man, and between man and man there is always
an insuperable gulf. They can never quite grasp each
other's hands ; and therefore man never derives any in-
232 THE MARBLE FAUN.
timate help, any heart, sustenance, from his brother man,
but from woman, his mother, his sister, or his wife.
Be Donatello's friend at need, therefore, and most gladly
will I resign him ! "
" It is not kind to taunt me thus," said Miriam. " I
have told you that I cannot do what you suggest, because
I dare not."
" Well, then," rejoined the sculptor, " see if tliere is
any possibility of adapting yourself to my scheme. The
incidents of a journey often fling people together in the
oddest, and therefore the most natural way. Supposing
you were to find yourself on the same route, a reunion
with Donatello might ensue, and Providence have a larger
hand in it than either of us."
" It is not a hopeful plan," said Miricim, shaking her
head, after a moment's thought; " yet I will not reject it
without a trial. Only, in case it fail, here is a resolution
to which I bind myself, come what come may ! You know
the bronze statue of Pope Julius in the great square of
Perugia? I remember standing in the shadow of that
statue one sunny noontime and being impressed by its
paternal aspect, and fancying that a blessing fell upon
me from its outstretched hand. Ever since, I have had a
superstition, you will call it foolish, but sad and ill-fated
persons always dream such things, that if I waited long
enough in that same spot, some good event would come
to pass. Well, my friend, precisely a fortnight after you
begin your tour, unless we sooner meet, bring Dona-
tello, at noon, to the base of the statue. You will find
me there ! "
Kenyon assented to the proposed arrangement, and,
after some conversation respecting his contemplated line
of travel, prepared to take his leave. As he met Miriam's
eyes, in biddmg farewell, he was surprised at the new,
tender gladness that beamed out of them, and at the ap-
pearance of health and bloom, which, in this little while,
had overspread her face.
" May I tell you, Miriam," said he, smiling, " that you
are still as beautiful as ever ? "
" You have a right to notice it," she replied, " for, if it
be so, my faded bloom ha^ been revived by the hopes you
give me. Do you, then, think me beautiful ? I rejoice,
THEMARBLEFAUN. 233
most truly. Beauty if I possess it shall be one of the
instruments by which I will try to educate and elevate
him, to whose good I solely dedicate myself."
The sculptor had nearly reached the door, when, hear-
ing her call him, he turned back, and beheld Miriam still
standing where he had left her, in the magnificeut hall,
which seemed only a fit setting for her beauty. She
beckoned him to return.
" You are a man of refined taste," said she ; " more
than that, a man of delicate sensibility. Now tell me
frankly, and on your honor ! Have I not shocked you
many times during this interview by my betrayal of
woman's cause, my lack of feminine modesty, my reckless,
passionate, most indecorous avowal, that I live only in
the life of one who perhaps scorns and shudders at me ? "
Thus adjured, however difficult the point to which she
brought him, the sculptor was not a man to swerve aside
from the simple truth.
" Miriam," replied he, " you exaggerate the impression
made upon my mind ; but it has been painful, and some-
what of the character which you suppose."
I knew it," said Mhlam, mournfully, and with no re-
sentment. "What remains of my finer nature would
have told me so, even if it had not been perceptible in all
your manner. Well, my dear friend, when you go back
to Rome, tell Hilda what her severity has done ! She
was all womanliood to me ; and when she cast me off, I
had no longer any terms to keep with the reserves and
decorums of my sex. Hilda has set me free ! Pray tell
her so, from Miriam, and thank her ! "
I shall tell Hilda nothing that will give her pain,"
answered Kenyon. " But, Miriam, though I know not
what passed betv/een her and yourself, I feel and let
the noble frankness of your disposition forgive me, if I
say so I feel that she was right. You have a thousand
admirable qualities. Whatever mass of evil may have
fallen into your life, pardon me, but your own words
suggest it, you are still as capable as ever of many high
and heroic virtues. But the white shining purity of
Hilda's nature is a thing apart ; and she is bound by the
undefiled material of which God moulded her, to keep
that severity which I, as well as you, have recognized."
234 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" Oh, you are right ! " said Miriam ; " I never ques-
tioned it ; though, as I told you, when she cast me off, it
severed some few remaining bonds between me and dec-
orous womanhood. But were there anything to forgive, I
do forgive her. May you win her virgin heart ; for me-
thinks there can be few men in this evil world who are
not more unworthy of her than yourself."
CHAPTER XXXII.
SCENES BY THE WAY.
When it came to the point of quitting the reposeful
life of Monte Beni, the sculptor was not without regrets,
and would willingly have dreamed a little longer of the
sweet paradise on earth that Hilda's presence there might
make. Nevertheless, amid all its repose, he had begun
to be sensible of a restless melancholy, to which the culti-
vators of the ideal arts are more liable than sturdier men.
On his own part, therefore, and leaving Donatello out of
the case, he would have judged it well to go. He made
parting visits to the legendary dell, and to other delight-
ful spots with which he had grown familiar ; he climbed
the tower again, and saw a sunset and a moonrise over
the great valley ; he drank, on the eve of this departure,
one flask, and then another, of the Monte Beni Sunshine,
and stored up its flavor in his memory, as the standard of
what is exquisite in wine. These things accomplished,
Kenyon was ready for the journey.
Donatello had not very easily been stirred out of the
peculiar sluggishness, which inthralls and bewitches mel-
ancholy people. He had offered merely a passive resists
ance, however, not an active one, to his friend's schemes ;
and when the appointed hour came, he yielded to the im-
pulse which Kenyon failed not to apply ; and was started
upon the journey before he had made up his mind to
undertake it. They wandered forth at large, like two
knights-errant among the valleys, and the mountains, and
the old mountain-towTis of that picturesque and lovely
region. Save to keep the appointment with Miriam, a
THE MARBLE FAUN. 235
fortnight thereafter, in the great square of Perugia, there
was nothing more definite in the sculptor's plan, than that
they should let themselves he blown hither and thither
like winged seeds, that mount upon each wandering
breeze. Yet there was an idea of fatality implied in the
simile of the winged seeds which did not altogether suit
Kenyon's fancy ; for, if you look closely into the matter
it will be seen that whatever appears most vagrant, and
utterly purposeless, turns out, in the end, to have been
impelled the most surely on a preordained and unswerv-
ing track. Chance and change love to deal with men's
settled plans, not with their idle vagaries. If we desire
unexpected and unimagmable events, we should contrive
an iron framework, such as we fancy may compel the
future to take one inevitable shape ; then comes in the
unexpected, and shatters our design m fragments.
The travellers set forth on horseback, and purposed to
perform much of their aimless journey ings, under the
moon, and in the cool of the morning or evening twilight ;
the mid-day sun, while summer had hardly begun to trail
its departing skirts over Tuscany, being still too fervid to
allow of noontide exposure.
For a while, they wandered in that same broad valley
which Kenyon had viewed with such delight from the
Monte Beni tower. The sculptor soon began to enjoy
the idle activity of their new life, which the lapse of a
day or two sufficed to establish as a kind of system ; it is
so natural for mankind to be nomadic, that a very little
taste of that primitive mode of existence subverts the
settled habits of many preceding years. Kenyon's cares,
and whatever gloomy ideas before possessed him, seemed
to be left at Monte Beni, and were scarcely remembered
by the time that its gray tower grew undistinguishable on
the brown hill-side. His perceptive faculties, which had
found little exercise of late, amid so thoughtful a way of
life, became keen, and kept his eyes busy with a hundred
agreeable scenes.
He delighted in the picturesque bits of rustic character
and manners, so little of which ever comes upon the sur-
face of our life at home. There for example, were the
old women, tending pigs or sheep by the wayside. As
they followed the vagrant steps of their charge, these ven-
236 THE MARBLE FAUN".
erable ladies kept spinning yarn with that elsewhere for-
gotten contrivance, the distaff; and so WTinkled and
stain-looking were they, that you might have taken them
for the Parcge, spuming the threads of human destiny.
In contrast with their great grandmothers were the chU-
dren, leading goats of shaggy beard, tied by the horns,
and letting them browse on branch and shrub. It is the
fashion of Italy to add the petty industry of age and
childhood to the hum of human toil. To the eyes of an
observer from the western world, it was a strange spec-
tacle to see sturdy, sunburnt creatures, in petticoats, but
otherwise manlike, toiling side by side with male laborers,
m the rudest work of the fields. These sturdy women
(if as such we must recognize them ) wore the high-
crowned, broad-brimmed hat of Tuscan straw, the cus-
tomary female head-apparel ; and, as every breeze blew
back its breadth of brim, the sunshine constantly added
depth to the brown glow of their cheeks. The elder
sisterhood, however, set off their witch-like ugliness to the
worst advantage with black felt hats, bequeathed them,
one would fancy, by their long-buried husbands.
Another ordinary sight, as sylvan as the above, and
more agreeable, was a girl, bearing on her back a huge
bundle of green t\vigs and shrubs, or grass, intermixed
with scarlet poppies and blue flowers ; the verdant burden
being sometimes of such size as to hide the bearer's figure,
and seem a self-moving mass of fragrant bloom and ver-
dure. Oftener, however, the bundle reached only half-
way down the back of the rustic nymph, leaving in sight
her well-develofied lower limbs, and the crooked knife,
hanging behind her, with which she had been reaping this
strange harvest sheaf. A pre-Raphaelite artist (he, for
instance, who j)ainted so marvellously a wind-swept heap
of autumnal leaves) might find an admirable subject in
one of these Tuscan girls stepping with a free, erect, and
graceful carriage. The miscellaneous herbage and tangled
twigs and blossoms of her bundle, crowning her head
(while her ruddy, comely face looks out between the
hanging side festoons like a larger flower), would give the
painter boundless scope for the minute delineation which
he loves.
Though mixed up with what was rude and earthlike,
THE MARBLE FAUN. 237
there was still a remote, dreamlike, Arcadian charm,
which is scarcely to be found in the daily toil of other
lands. Among the pleasant features of the wayside were
always the vmes, clambering on fig-trees, or other sturdy
trunks ; they wreathed themselves, in huge and rich fes-
toons, from one tree to another, suspending clusters of
ripening grapes in the interval between. Under such
careless mode of culture, the luxuriant vine is a lovelier
spectacle than where it produces a more precious liquor,
and is therefore more artificially restrained and trimmed.
Nothing can be more picturesque than an old grape-vine,
with almost a trunk of its own, clinging fast around its
supporting tree. Nor does the picture lack its moral. You
might twist it to more than one grave purpose, as you saw
how the knotted, serpentine growth imprisoned within its
strong embrace the friend that had supported its tender
infancy ; and how (as seemingly flexible natures are prone
to do) it converted the sturdier tree entirely to its own
selfish ends, extending its innumerable arms on every
bough, and permitting hardly a leaf to sprout except its
own. It occurred to Kenyon, that the enemies of the vine,
in his native land, might here have seen an emblem of the
remorseless gripe, which the habit of vinous enjoyment
lays upon its victim, possessing him wholly, and letting him
live no life but such as it bestows.
The scene was not less characteristic when their path
led the two wanderers through some small, ancient town.
There, besides the peculiarities of present life, they saw
tokens of the life that had long ago been lived and flung
aside. The little town, such as we see in our mind's eye,
would have its gate and its surrounding walls, so ancient
and massive that ages had not sufiiced to crumble them
away ; but in the lofty upper portion of the gateway, still
standing over the empty arch, where there was no longer
a gate to shut, there would be a dove-cote, and peaceful
doves for the only warders. Pumpkins lay ripening in
the open chambers of the structure. Then, as for the
town- wall, on the outside an orchard extends peacefully
along its base, full, not of apple-trees, but of those old
humorists with gnarled trmiks and twisted boughs, the
olives. Houses have been built upon the ramparts, or
burrowed out of their ponderous foundation. Even the
238 THE MARBLE FAUN.
gray, martial towers crowned with ruined turrets, have
been converted into rustic habitations, from tlie windows
of which hang ears of Indian corn. At a door, that has
been broken through the massive stonework, where it
was meant to be strongest, some contadini are \vinnowing
grain. Small windows, too, are pierced through the
whole line of ancient wall, so that it seems a row of dwell-
ings with one continuous front, built in a strange style of
needless strength ; but remnants of the old battlements
and machicolations are interspersed with the homely
chambers and earthen-tiled house-tops ; and all along its
extent both grape-vines and running flower-shrubs are
encouraged to clamber and sport over the roughness of
its decay.
Finally the long grass intermixed with weeds and wild
flowers, waves on the uppermost height of the shattered
rampart; and it is exceedingly pleasant in the golden
sunshine of the afternoon to behold the warlike precinct
so friendly in its old days, and so overgrown with rural
peace. In its guard-rooms, its prison-chambers, and
scooped out of its ponderous breadth, there are dwellings
now-a-days where happy human lives are spent. Human
parents and broods of children nestle in them, even as
the swallows nestle in the little crevices along the broken
summit of the wall.
Passing through the gateway of this same little to"svn,
challenged only by those watchful sentinels, the pigeons,
we find ourselves in a long, narrow street, paved from side
to side with flagstones, in the old Roman fashion. Noth-
ing can exceed the grim ugliness of the houses, most of
which are three or four stories high, stone built, gray, di-
lapidated, or half- covered with plaster in patches, and
contiguous all along from end to end of the to\vn. Nature,
in the shape of tree, shrub, or grassy side-walk, is as much
shut out from the one street of the rustic village as from
the heart of any swarmmg' city. The dark and half-
ruinous habitations, with their small windows, many of
which are drearily closed with wooden shutters, are but
magnified hovels, piled story upon story, and squalid with
the grime that successive ages have left behind them. It
would be a hideous scene to contemplate in a rainy day,
or when no human life pervaded it. In the summer-noon,
THE MARBLE FAFN. 239
however, it possesses vivacity enough to keep itself cheer-
ful ; for all the within-doors of the village then bubbles
over upon the flagstones, or looks out from the small win-
dows, and from here and there a balcony. Some of the
populace are at the butcher's shop ; others are at the foun-
tain, which gushes into a marble basm that resembles an
ajitique sarcophagus. A tailor is sewing before his door,
with a young priest seated sociably beside him ; a burly
friar goes by with an empty wine-barrel on his head ;
children are at play ; woman at their own doorsteps mend
clothes, embroider, weave hats of Tuscan straw, or twirl
the distaff. Many idlers, meanwhile, strolling from one
group to another, let the warm day slide by in the SAveet,
interminable task of doing nothing.
From all these people there comes a babblement that
seems quite disproportioned to the number of tongues that
make it. So many words are not uttered in a New Eng-
land village throughout the year except it be at a poli-
tical canvass or town-meeting as are spoken here, with
no especial purpose, in a single day. Neither so many
words, nor so much laughter ; for people talk about nothing
as if they were terribly in earnest, and make merry at
nothing, as if it were the best of all possible jokes. In so
long a time as they liave existed, and within such narrow
precincts, these little walled towns are brought into a
closeness of society that makes them but a larger house-
hold. All the inhabitants are akin to each, and each to
all ; they assemble in the street as their common saloon,
and thus live and die in a familiarity of intercourse, such
as never can be known where a village is open at either
end, and all roundabout, and has ample room within
itself.
Stuck up beside the door of one house, in this village
street, is a withered bough ; and on a stone seat, just un-
der the shadow of the bough, sits a party of jolly drinkers,
making proof of the new wine, or quaffing the old, as their
often-tried and comfortable friend. Kenyon draws bridle
here (for the bough, or bush, is a symbol of the wine shop
at this day in Italy, as it was three hundred years ago in
England), and calls for a goblet of the deep, mild purple
juice, well diluted with water from the fountain. The
Sunshine of Monte Beni would be welcome now. Mean-
240 THE MARBLE FAUN.
while, Donatello has ridden onward, but alights where a
shrine, ^vith a burning lamp before it, is built into the
wall of an inn-stable. He kneels, and crosses himself,
and mutters a brief prayer, without attracting notice from
the passers-by, many of whom are parenthetically devout,
in a similar fashion. By this time the sculptor has drunk
off his wine-and- water and our two travellers resume their
way, emerging from the opposite gate of the village.
Before them, again, lies the broad valley ; with a mist
so thinly scattered over it as to be perceptible only in the
distance, and most so in the nooks of the hills. Now that
we have called it mist, it seems a mistake not rather to
have called it sunshine ; the glory of so much light being
mingled with so little gloom, in the airy material of that
vapor. Be it mist or sunshine, it adds a touch of ideal
beauty to the scene, almost persuading the spectator that
this valley and those hills are visionary, because their visi-
ble atmosphere is so like the substance of a dream.
Immediately about them, however, there were abun-
dant tokens that the country was not really the paradise
it looked to be, at a casual glance. Neither the wretched
cottages nor the dreary farm-houses seemed to partake of
the prosperity, with which so kindly a climate, and so fer-
tile a portion of Mother Earth's bosom, should have filled
them, one and all. But, possibly, the peasant inliabitants
do not exist in so grimy a poverty ; and in homes so com-
fortless, as a stranger, with his native ideas of those mat-
ters, would be likely to imagine. The Italians appear to
possess none of that emulative pride which we see in our
New England villages, where every householder, accord-
ing to his taste and means, endeavors to make his house-
stead an ornament to the grassy and elm-shadowed way-
side. In Italy there are no neat doorsteps and thresholds ;
no pleasant, vine-sheltered porches ; none of those grass-
plots or smoothly- shorn lawns, which hospitably invite
the imagination into the sweet domestic interiors of English
life. Everything, however sunny and luxuriant may be
the scene around, is especially disheartening in the im-
mediate neighborhood of an Italian home.
An artist, it is true, might often thank his stars for
those old houses, so picturesquely time-stained, and with
the plaster falling in blotches from the ancient brickwork.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 241
The prison-like, iron-barred windows, and the wide arched,
dismal entrance, admitting on one hand to the stable, on
the other to the kitchen, might impress him as far better
worth his pencil than the newly-painted pine boxes, in
which if he be an American his countrymen live and
thrive. But there is reason to suspect that a people are
waning to decay and ruin the moment that their life be-
comes fascinating either in the poet's imagination or the
painter's eye.
As usual, on Italian waysides, the wanderers passed
great, black crosses, hung with all the instruments of the
sacred agony and passion ; there were the crown of thorns,
the hammer and nails, the pinchers, the spear, the sponge ;
and perched over the whole, the cock that crowed to
Saint Peter's remorseful conscience. Thus, while the
fertile scene showed the never- failing beneficence of the
Creator towards man in his transitory state, these symbols
reminded each wayfarer of the Saviour's infinitely greater
love for him as an immortal spirit. Beholding these con-
secrated stations, the idea seemed to strike Donatello of
converting the otherwise aimless journey into a penitential
pilgrimage. At each of them he alighted to kneel and
kiss the cross, and humbly press his forehead against its
foot ; and this so invariably, that the sculptor soon learned
to draw bridle of his own accord. It may be, too, heretic
as he was, that Kenyon likewise put up a prayer, rendered
more fervent by the symbols before his eyes, for the peace
of his friend's conscience, and the pardon of the sin that
so oppressed him.
Not only at the crosses did Donatello kneel, but at each
of the many shrines, where the blessed Virgin in fres-
co faded with sunshine and half washed out with show-
ers looked beningly at her worshipper ; or where she
was represented in a wooden image, or a bas-relief of plas-
ter or marble, as accorded with the means of the devout
person who built, or restored from a mediaeval antiquity,
these places of wayside worship. They were every-
where ; under arched niches, or in little penthouses with
a brick tiled roof, just large enough to shelter them ; or
perhaps in some bit of old Roman masonry, the founders
of which had died before the Advent ; or in the wall of
a country inn or farm-house, or at the midway point of a
i6
242 THE MARBLE FAUN.
bridge, or in the shallow cavity of a natural rock, or high
upward in the deep cuts of the road. It appeared to the
sculptor that Donatello prayed the more earnestly and the
more hopefully at these shrines, because the mild face of
the Madonna promised him to intercede as a tender
mother betwixt the poor culprit and the aAvfulness of
judgment.
It was beautiful to observe, indeed, how tender was the
soul of man and woman towards the Virgin mother, in
recognition of the tenderness which, as their faith taught
them, she immortally cherishes towards all human souls.
In the wire- work screen, before each shrine, hung offer-
ings of roses, or whatever flower was sweetest and
most seasonable ; some already wilted and withered, some
fresh with that very morning's dew-drops. Flowers there
were, too, that, being artificial, never bloomed on earth,
nor would ever fade. The thought occurred to Kenyon,
that flower-pots with living plants, might be set within the
niches, or even that rose-trees, and all kinds of flowering
shrubs, might be reared under the shrines and taught to
twine and wTeath themselves around ; so that the Virgin
should dwell within a bower of verdure, bloom, and fra-
grant freshness, symbolizing a homage perpetually new.
There are many things in the religious customs of these
people that seem good ; many things, at least, that might
be both good and beautiful, if the soul of goodness and
the sense of beauty were as much alive in the Italians
now as they must have been when those customs were
first imagined and adopted. But, instead of blossoms on
the shrub, or freshly gathered, with the dew-drops on
their leaves, their worship, now-a-days, is best symbolized
by the artificial flower.
The sculptor fancied, moreover, (but perhaps it was his
heresy that suggested the idea,) that it would be of happy
influence to place a comfortable and shady seat beneath
every wayside shrine. Then, the weary and sun-scorched
traveller, while resting himself under her protecting shad-
ow, might thank the Virgin for her hospitality. Nor
perchance, were he to regale hnnself, even in such a con-
secrated spot, with the fragrance of a pipe, would it rise
to heaven more offensively than the smoke of priestly m-
cense. We do ourselves wrong, and too meanly estimate
THE MARBLE FAUN. 243
the Holiness above us, when we deem that any act or
enjoyment, good in itself, is not good to do religiously.
What may be the iniquities of the papal system, it
was a wise and lovely sentiment, that set up the frequent
Bhrine and cross along the roadside. No wayfarer, bent
on whatever worldly errand, can fail to be reminded, at
every mile or two, that this is not the business which
most concerns him. The pleasure-seeker is silently ad-
monished to look heavenward for a joy infinitely greater
than he now possesses. The wretch in temptation beholds
the cross, and is warned, that if he yield, the Saviour's
agony for his sake will have been endured in vain. The
stubborn criminal, whose heart has long been like a stone,
feels it throb anew with dread and hope, and our poor
Donatello, as he went kneeling from shrine to cross, and
from cross to shrine, doubtless found an efficacy in these
symbols that helped him towards a higher penitence.
Whether the young Count of Monte Beni noticed the
fact, or no, there was more than one incident of their
journey that led Kenyon to believe, that they were at-
tended, or closely followed, or preceded, near at hand, by
some one who took an interest in their motions. As it
were, the step, the sweeping garment, the faintly-heard
breath, of an invisible companion, was beside them, as
they went on their way. It was like a dream that had
strayed out of their slumber and was haunting them in
the daytime, when its shadowy substance could have
neither density nor outline, in the too obtrusive light.
After sunset, it grew a little more distinct.
" On the left of that last shrine," asked the sculptor,
as they rode, under the moon, " did you observe the
figure of a woman kneeling, with her face hidden in her
hands ? "
" I never looked that way," replied Donatello. " I was
saying my own prayer It was some penitent, perchance.
May the Blessed Virgin be the more gracious to the poor
soul, because she is a woman."
244 THE MARBLE FAUN.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
PICTUEED WINDOWS.
After wide wandering though the valley, the two
travellers directed their course towards its boundary of
hills. Here, the natural scenery and men's modifications
of it immediately took a different aspect from that of the
fertile and smilinj^ plain. Not unfrequently there was a
convent on the hill-side ; or on some insulated promon-
tory, a ruined castle, once the den of a robber chieftain,
who was accustomed to dash down from his commanding
height upon the road that wound below. For ages back,
the old fortress had been flinging do^vn its crumbling ram-
parts, stone by stone, towards the grimy village at its foot.
Their road wound onward among the hills, which rose
steep and lofty from the scanty level space that lay be-
tween them. They continually thrust their great bulks
before the wayfarers, as if griml}^ resolute to forbid their
passage, or closed abruptly behind them, when they still
dared to proceed. A gigantic hill would set its foot right
down before them, and only at the last moment, would
grudgingly withdraw it, just far enough to let them creep
towards another obstacle. Adown these rough heights
were visible the dry tracks of many a mountain-torrent
that had lived a life too fierce and passionate to be a long
one. Or, perhaps a stream was yet hurrying shyly along
the edge of a far wider bed of pebbles and shelving rock
than it seemed to need, though not too wide for the
swollen rage of which this shy rivulet was capable. A
stone bridge bestrode it, the ponderous arches of which
were upheld and rendered indestructible by the weight
of the very stones that threatened to crush them do^vn.
Old Roman toil was perceptible in the foundations of that
massive bridge ; the first weight that it ever bore was
that of an army of the Republic.
Threading these defiles, they would arrive at some im-
memorial city, crowning the high summit of a hill with
its cathedral, its many churches, and public edifices, all
THE MARBLE FAUN. 245
of Gothic architecture. With no more level ground
than a single piazza, in the midst, the ancient town tum-
bled its crooked and narrow streets down the mountain-
side, through arched passages and by steps of stone. The
aspect of everything was awfully old ; older, indeed, in
its effect on the imagination, than Rome itself, because
history does not lay its finger on these forgotten edifices
and tell us all about their orgin. Etruscan princes may
have dwelt in them. A thousand years, at all events,
would seem but a middle age for these structures. They
are built of such huge, square stones, that their appear-
ance of ponderous durability distresses the beholder with
the idea that they can never fall, never crumble away,
never be less fit than now for human habitation.
Many of them may once have been palaces, and still
retain a squalid grandeur. But, gazing at them, we
recognize how undesirable it is to build the tabernacle
of our brief lifetime out of permanent materials, and
with a view to their being occupied by future genera-
tions.
All towns should be made capable of purification by
fire, or of decay within each half-century. Otherwise,
they become the hereditary haunts of vermin and noi-
someness, besides standing apart from the possibility of
such improvements as are constantly introduced into the
rest of man's contrivances and accommodations. It is
beautiful, no doubt, and exceedingly satisfactory to some
of our natural instincts, to imagine our far posterity
dwelling under the same roof-tree as ourselves. Still,
when people insist on building indestructible houses, they
incur, or their children do, a misfortune analogous to that
of the Sibyl, when she obtained the grievous boon of im-
mortality. So, we may build almost immortal habitations,
it is true ; but we cannot keep them from growing old,
musty, unwholesome, dreary, full of death-scents, ghosts,
and murder-stains ; in short, such habitations as one sees
everywhere in Italy, be they hovels or palaces.
" You should go with me to my native country," ob-
served the sculptor, to Donatello. "In that fortunate
land, each generation has only its own sins and sorrows
to bear. Here, it seems as if all the weary and dreary
Past were piled upon the back of the Present. If I were
246 THE MARBLE FAUN.
to lose my spirits in this country, if I were to suffer
any heavy misfortune here, methinks it would be im-
possible to stand up against it, under such adverse in-
fluences."
" The sky itself is an old roof, now," answered the
Count ; " and, no doubt, the sins of mankind have made
it gloomier than it used to be."
" Oh, my poor Faun," thought Kenyon to himself,
" how art thou changed ! "
A city, like this of which we speak, seems a sort of
stony growth out of the hill-side, or a fossilized town ; so
ancient and strange it looks, without enough of life and
juiciness in it to be any longer susceptible of decay.
An earthquake would afford it the only chance of being
ruined, beyond its present ruin.
Yet, though dead to all the purposes for which we live
to-day, the place has its glorious recollections, and not
merely rude and warlike ones, but those of brighter and
milder triumphs, the fruits of which we still enjoy. Italy
can count several of these lifeless towns which, four or
five hundred years ago, were each the birthplace of its
own school of art; nor have they yet forgotten to be
proud of the dark, old pictures, and the faded frescoes,
the pristine beauty of which was a light and gladness to
the world. But now, unless one happens to be a painter,
these famous works make us miserably desperate. They
are poor, dim ghosts of what, when Giotto or Cimabue
first created them, threw a splendor along the stately
aisles ; so far gone towards nothingness, in our day, that
scarcely a hint of design or expression can glimmer
through the dusk. Those early artists did well to paint
their frescoes. Glowing on the church walls, they might
be looked upon as symbols of the living spirit that made
Catholicism a true religion, and that glorified it as long as
it retained a genuine life ; they filled the transepts vnth a
radiant throng of saints and angels, and threw around the
high altar a faint reflection as much as mortals could
see, or bear of a Diviner Presence. But now that the
colors are so wretchedly bedimmed now that blotches
of plastered wall dot the frescoes all over, like a mean
reality thrusting itself through life's brightest illusions,
the next best artist to Cimabue or Giotto or Ghirlandaio
THE MARBLE FAUN. 24T
or Pinturicchio, will be he that shall reverently cover
their ruined masterpieces with whitewash !
Kenyon, however, being an earnest student and critic
of Art, lingered long before these pathetic relics ; and
Donatello, in his present ]3hase of penitence, thought no
time spent amiss while he could be kneeling before an
altar. Whenever they found a cathedral, therefore, or a
Gothic church, the two travellers were of one mind to
enter it. In some of these holy edifices they saw pictures
that time had not dimmed nor injured in the least, though
they perhaps belonged to as old a school of Art as any
that were perishing around them. These were the painted
windows ; and as often as he gazed at them the sculptor
blessed the mediaeval time, and its gorgeous contrivances
of splendor ; for surely the skill of man has never accom-
plished, nor his mind imagined, any other beauty or glory
worthy to be compared with these.
It is the special excellence of pictured glass, that the
light, which falls merely on the outside of other pictures,
is here interfused throughout the work ; it illuminates the
design, and invests it with a living radiance ; and in re-
quital the unfading colors transmute the common daylight
into a miracle of richness and glory in its passage through
the heavenly substance of the blessed and angelic shapes
which throng the high-arched window.
" It is a woful thing," cried Kenyon, while one of
these frail, yet enduring and fadeless pictures threw its
hues on his face, and on the pavement of the church
around him, "a sad necessity that any Christian soul
should pass from earth without once seeing an antique
painted window, with the bright Italian sunshine glowing
through it ! There is no other such true symbol of the
glories of the better world, where a celestial radiance will
be inherent in all things and persons, and render each
continually transparent to the sight of all."
" But what a horror it would be," said Donatello, sadly,
" if there were a soul among them through which the light
could not be transfused."
" Yes ; and perhaps this is to be the punishment of sin,"
replied the sculptor ; " not that it shall be made evident
lo the universe, which can profit nothing by such knowl-
edge, but that it shall insulate the sinner from all sweet
248 THE MARBLE FAUN.
society by rendering him impermeable to light, and, there-
fore, unrecognizable in the abode of heavenly simplicity
and truth. Then, what remams for him, but the dreari-
ness of infinite and eternal solitude."
" That would be a horrible destiny, indeed 1 " said Do.
natello.
His voice as he spoke the words had a hollow and
dreary cadence, as if he anticipated some such frozen
solitude for himself. A figure in a dark robe was lurking
in the obscurity of a side- chapel close by, and made an
impulsive movement forward, but hesitated as Donatello
spoke again.
" But there might be a more miserable torture than to
be solitary forever," said he. " Think of having a single
companion in eternity, and instead of finding any conso-
lation, or at all events variety of torture, to see your own
weary, weary sin repeated in that mseparable soul."
" I think, my dear Count, you have never read Dante,"
observed Kenyon. " That idea is somewhat m his style,
but I cainiot help regretting that it came into your mind
just then."
The dark-robed figure had shrmik back, and was quite
lost to sight among the shadows of the chapel.
" There was an English poet," resumed Kenyon, turn-
ing again towards the window ; " who speaks of the ' dim,
religious light,' transmitted through painted glass. I al-
ways admired this richly descriptive phrase ; but, though
he was once in Italy, I question whether Milton ever saw
any but the dingy pictures m the dusty mndows of Eng-
lish cathedrals, imperfectly shown by the gray English
daylight. He would else have illuminated that word,
*dim,' with some epithet that should not chase away the
dimness, yet should make it glow like a million of rubies,
sapphires, emeralds, and topazes. Is it not so wdth yonder
window ? The pictures are most brilliant in themselves,
yet dim with tenderness and reverence because God him-
self is shining through them."
" The pictures fill me with emotion, but not such as
you seem to experience," said Donatello. " I tremble at
those awful samts : and, most of all, at the figure above
them. He glows with Divine wrath ! "
" My dear friend," exclaimed Kenyon, " how strangely
r THE MARBLE FAUN-. 240
your eyes have transmuted the expression of the figure ;
It is divine love, not wrath."
"^o my eyes," said Donatello, stubbornly, " it is wrath,
not love ! Each must interpret for himself."
The friends left the church, and, looking up from the
exterior, at the wmdow which they had just been con-
templating within, nothing was visible but the merest out-
line of dusky shapes. Neither the individual likeness of
saint, angel, nor Saviour, and far less the combined scheme
and purport of the picture, could anywise be made out.
That miracle of radiant art, thus viewed, was nothing
better than an mcomprehensible obscurity, without a
gleam of beauty to induce the beholder to attempt un-
ravelling it.
" All this," thought the sculptor, " is a most forcible
emblem of the different aspect of religious truth and
sacred story, as viewed from the warm interior of belief,
or from its cold and dreary outside. Christian faith is a
grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Stand-
mg without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine
any ; standing within, every ray of light reveals a har-
mony of unspeakable splendors."
After Kenyon and Donatello emerged from the church,
however, they had better opportunity for acts of charity
and mercy than for religious contemplation ; being imme-
diately surrounded by a swarm of beggars, who are the
present possessors of Italy, and share the spoil of the
stranger with the fleas and mosquitos, their formidable
allies. These pests the human ones had hunted the
two travellers at every stage of their journey. From
village to village, ragged boys and girls kept almost un-
der the horses' feet; hoary grandsires and grandames
caught glimpses of their approach, and hobbled to inter-
cept them at some point of vantage ; blind men stared
them out of countenance with their sightless orbs ; women
held up their unwashed babies ; cripples displayed their
wooden legs, their grievous scars, their dangling, boneless
arms, their broken backs, their burden of a hump, or
whatever infirmity or deformity Providence had assigned
them for an inheritance. On the highest mountain sum-
mit in the most shadowy ravine there was a beggar
waiting for them. In one small village, Kenyon had the
250 THE MARBLE FAUN.
curiosity to count merely how many children were crying,
whining, and bellowing all at once for alms. They proved
to be more than forty of as ragged and dirty little imps
as any in the world ; besides whom, all the wrinkled ma-
trons, and most of the village maids, and not a few stal-
wart men, held out their hands grimly, piteously, or
smilingly, m the forlorn hope of whatever trifle of coin
might remain in pockets already so fearfully taxed. Had
they been permitted, they would gladly have knelt down
and worshipped the travellers, and have cursed them,
without rismg from their knees, if the expected boon
failed to be awarded.
Yet they were not so miserably poor but that the
grown people kept houses over their heads. In the way
of food, they had, at least, vegetables in their little gar-
dens, pigs and chickens to kill, eggs to fry into omelets
with oil, wine to drink, and many other things to make
life comfortable. As for the children, when no more
small coin appeared to be forthcoming, they began to
laugh and play, and turns heels over head, showing them-
selves jolly and vivacious brats, and evidently as well fed
as needs be. The truth is, the Italian peasantry look
upon strangers as the almoners of Providence, and there-
fore feel no more shame in asking and receiving alms,
than in availing themselves of providential bounties in
whatever other form.
In accordance with his nature, Donatello was always
exceedmgly charitable to these ragged battalions, and ap-
peared to derive a certain consolation from the praj^ers
which many of them put up in his behalf. In Italy a
copper coin of minute value will often make all the dif-
ference between a vindictive curse death by apoplexy be-
ing the favorite one mumbled in an old witch's toothless
jaws, and a prayer from the same lips, so earnest that
it would seem to reward the charitable soul with at least
a puif of grateful breath to help him heavenward. Good
wishes being so cheap, though possibly not very effica-
cious, and anathemas so exceedingly bitter, even if the
greater portion of their poison remain in the mouth that
utters them, it may be wise to expend son:ve reasonable
amount in the purchase of the former. Donatello invari.
ably did so ; and as he distributed his alms under the
THE MARBLE FAUN. 251
pictured window, of which we have been speaking, no
less than seven ancient women lifted their hands and be-
sought blessings on his head.
" Come,". said the sculptor, rejoicing at the happier ex-
pression which he saw in his friend's face, " I think your
steed will not stumble with you to-day. Each of these
old dames looks as much like Horace's Atra Cura as can
well be conceived ; but, though there are seven of them,
they will make your burden on horseback lighter instead
of heavier."
" Are we to ride far ? " asked the Count.
"A tolerable journey betwixt now and to-morrow
noon," Kenyon replied ; " for, at that hour, I purpose to
be standing by the Pope's statute in the great square of
Perugia."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA.
Perugia, on its lofty hill-top, was reached by the two
travelers before the sun had quite kissed away the early
freshness of the morning. Since midnight, there had
been a heavy rain, brmging infinite refreshment to the
scene of verdure and fertility amid which this ancient
civilization stands ; insomuch that Kenyon loitered, when
they came to the gray city-wall, and was loth to give up
the prospect of the sunny wilderness that lay below. It
was as green as England, and bright as Italy alone.
There was the wide valley, sweeping down and spread-
ing away on all sides from the weed-grown ramparts, and
bounded afar by mountains, which lay asleep in the sun,
with thin mists and silvery clouds floating about their
heads by way of morning dreams.
" It lacks still two hours of noon," said the sculptor to
his friend, as they stood under the arch of the gateway,
waiting for their passports to be examined ; " will you
come with me to see some admirable frescoes by Peru-
gino? There is a hall in the Exchange, of no great
magnitude, but covered with what must have been at
the time it was painted such magnificence and beauty
as the world had not elsewhere to sliow."
252 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" It depresses me to look at old frescoes," responded
the Count ; " it is a pain, yet not enough of a pain to an-
swer as a penance."
" Will you look at some pictures by Era Angelico in
the Church of San Domenico ? " asked Kenyon ; " they
are full of religious sincerity. When one studies them
faithfully, it is like holding a conversation about heavenly
things with a tender and devout-minded man."
" You have sho\vn me some of Era Angelico's pictures,
I remember," answered Donatello ; " his angels look as if
they had never taken a flight out of heaven ; and his
saints seem to have been born saints, and always to have
lived so. Young maidens, and all innocent persons, I
doubt not, may tind great delight and profit in looking at
such holy pictures. But they are not for me."
" Your criticism, I fancy, has great moral depth," re-
plied Kenyon ; " and I see in it the reason why Hilda so
highly appreciates Era Angelico's pictures. Well ; we
will let all such matters pass for to-day, and stroll about
this fine old city till noon."
They wandered to and fro, accordingly, and lost them-
selves among the strange, precipitate passages, which, in
Perugia, are called streets. Some of them are like
caverns, bemg arched all over, and plunging doMTi ab-
ruptly towards an unknoAvn darkness ; which, when you
have fathomed its depths, admits you to a daylight that
you scarcely hoped to behold again. Here they met
shabby men, and the careworn wives and mothers of the
people, some of whom guided children in leading-strings
through those dim and antique thoroughfares, where a
hundred generations had passed before the little feet of
to-day began to tread them. Thence they climbed up-
ward again, and came to the level plateau, on the summit
of the hill, where are situated the grand piazza and the
principal public edifices.
It happened to be market-day in Perugia. The great
square, therefore, presented a far more vivacious spectacle
than would have been witnessed in it at any other time
of the week, though not so lively as to overcome the gray
solemnity of the architectural portion of the scene. In
the shadow of the cathedral and other old Gothic struc-
tures seeking shelter from the sunshine that fell across
THE MARBLE PAtJN. 263
the rest of the piazza was a crowd of people, engaged as
buyers or sellers in the petty traffic of a country -fair.
Dealers had erected booths and stalls on the pavement,
and overspread them ^vith scanty awnings, beneath which
they stood, vociferously crying their merchandise ; such
as shoes, hats and caps, yarn stockings, cheap jewelry
and cutlery, books, chiefly little volumes of a religious
character, and a few French novels ; toys, tin- ware, old
iron, cloth, rosaries of beads, crucifixes, cakes, biscuits,
sugar- plums, and innumerable little odds and ends, which
we see no object in advertising. Baskets of grapes, figs,
and pears, stood on the ground. Donkeys, bearing pan-
niers stuffed out with kitchen vegetables, and requiring
an ample road- way, roughly shouldered aside the throng.
Crowded as the square was, a juggler found room to
spread out a white cloth upon the pavement, and cover it
with cups, plates, balls, cards, the whole material of his
magic, in short, wherewith he proceeded to work mira-
cles under the noonday sun. An organ-grinder at one
point, and a clarion and a flute at another, accomplished
what they could towards filling the wide space with tune-
ful noise. Theu" small uproar, however, was nearly
drowned by the multitudinous voices of the people, bar-
gaining, quarreling, laughing, and babbling copiously at
random ; for the briskness of the mountain atmosphere,
or some other cause, made everybody so loquacious that
more words were wasted in Perugia on this one market-
day than the noisiest piazza of Rome would utter in a
month.
Through all this petty tumult, which kept beguiling
one's eyes and upper strata of thought, it was delightful
to catch glimpses of the grand old architecture that stood
around the square. The life of the flitting moment, ex-
isting in the antique shell of an age gone by, has a fasci-
nation which we do not find in either the past or present,
taken by themselves. It might seem irreverent to make
the gray cathedral and the tall, time-worn palaces echo
back the exuberant vociferation of the market ; but they
did so, and caused the sound to assume a kind of poetic
rhythm, and themselves looked only the more majestic
for their condescension.
On one side, there was an immense edifice devoted
254 THE MARBLE FAUN.
to public purposes, with an antique gallery, and a range
of arched and stone-mullioued windows, running along its
front ; and by way of entrance it had a central Gothic
arch, elaborately wreathed around with sculptured semi-
circles, within which the spectator was aware of a stately
and impressive gloom. Though merely the mmiicipal
council house and exchange of a decayed country town,
this structure was worthy to have held in one portion of
it the parliament-hall of a nation, and in the other, the
state apartments of its ruler. On another side of the
square rose the mediaeval front of the cathedral, where
the imagination of a Gothic architect had long ago flow-
ered out indestructibly, achieving, in the first place, a
grand design, and then covering it with such abundant
detail of ornament, that the magnitude of the work
seemed less a miracle than its minuteness. You would
suppose that he must have softened the stone into wax,
until his most delicate fancies were modelled in the pliant
material, and then had hardenecl it mto stone again.
The whole was a vast, black-letter page of the richest and
quaintest poetry. In fit keeping with all this old magni-
ficence, was a great marble fountain, where again the
Gothic imagination showed its overflow and gratuity of
device in the manifold sculptures which it lavished as
freely as the water did its shifting shapes.
Besides the two venerable structures which we have
described there were lofty palaces, perhaps of m old a
date, rising story above story, and adorned with balconies,
whence, hundreds of years ago, the princely occupants
liad been accustomed to gaze down at the sports, busi-
ness, and popular assemblages of the piazza. And, be-
yond all question, they thus witnessed the erection of a
bronze statue, which, three centuries since, was placed on
the pedestal that it still occupies.
" I never come to Perugia," said Kenyon, " without
spending as much time as I can spare in studying yonder
statue of Pope Julius the Third. Those sculptors of the
middle age have fitter lessons for the professors of my
art than we can find in the Grecian masterpieces. They
belong to our Christian civilization ; and, being earnest
works, they always express somethmg which we do not
get from the antique. Will you look at it ? "
THE MARBLE FAUN". 255
Willingly," replied the Count, " for I see, even so far
off, that the statue is bestomng a benediction, and there is
a feeling in my heart that I may be permitted to share it."
Remembering the similar idea \Yhich Miriam a short
time before had expressed, the sculptor smiled hopefully
at the coincidence. They made their way through the
throng of the market-place, and approached close to the
iron railing that protected the pedestal of the statue.
It was the figure of a pope, arrayed in his pontifical
robes, and crowned with the tiara. He sat in a bronze
chair, elevated high above the pavement, and seemed to
take kindly yet authoritative cognizance of the busy scene
which was at that moment passing before his eyes. His
right hand was raised and spread abroad, as if in the act
of shedding forth a benediction, which every man so
broad, so -wise, and so serenely affectionate was the bronze
pope's regard might hope to feel quietly descending
upon the need, or the distress, that he had closest at his
heart. The statue had life and observation in it, as well
as patriarchal majesty. An imaginative spectator could
not but be impressed with the idea that this benignly
awful representative of divine and human authority might
rise from his brazen chair, should any great public ex-
igency demand his interposition, and encourage or restrain
the people by his gesture, or even by prophetic utterances
worthy of so grand a presence.
And, in the long, calm intervals, amid the quiet lapse
of ages, the pontiff watched the daily turmoil around his
seat, listening with majestic patience to the market cries,
and all the petty uproar that awoke the echoes of the
stately old piazza. He was the enduring friend of these
men, and of their forefathers and children, the familiar
face of generations.
" The pope's blessing, methinks, has fallen upon you,"
observed the sculptor, looking at his friend.
In truth, Donatello's countenance indicated a healthier
spirit than while he was brooding in his melancholy
tower. The change of scene, the breaking up of custom,
the fresh flow of incidents, the sense of being homeless,
and therefore free, had done something for our poor
Faun ; these circumstances had at least promoted a reac-
tion, which might else have been slower in its progress.
256 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Then, no doubt, the bright day, the gay spectacle of the
market-place, and the sympathetic exhilaration of so many
people's cheerfulness, had each their suitable effect on a
temper naturally prone to be glad. Perhaps, too, he was
magnetically conscious of a presence that formerly suf-
ficed to make him happy. Be the cause what it might,
Donatello's eyes shone with a serene and hopeful expres-
sion, while looking upward at the bronze pope, to whose
widely diffused blessing, it may be, he attributed all this
good influence.
" Yes, my dear friend," said he, in reply to the sculp-
tor's remark, " I feel the blessing upon my spirit."
" It is wonderful," said Kenyon, with a smile, " won-
derful and delightful to think how long a good man's
beneficence may be potent, even after his death. How
great, then, must have been the efiicacy of this excellent
pontiff's blessing while he Avas alive ! "
" I have heard," remarked the Count, " that there was
a brazen image set up in the Wilderness, the sight of
which healed the Israelites of their poisonous and rank-
ling wounds. If it be the blessed Virgin's pleasure, why
should not this holy image before us do me equal good ?
A wound has long been rankling in my soul, and fiUmg
it with poison."
" I did wrong to smile," answered Kenyon. " It is
not for me to limit Providence in its operations on man's
spirit."
While they stood talking, the clock of the neighboring
cathedral told the hour, with twelve reverberating strokes,
which it flung dowTi upon the crowded market-place, as if
warning one and all to take advantage of the bronze pon-
tiff's benediction, or of Heaven's blessing, however prof-
fered, before the opportunity were lost.
"High noon," said the sculptor. "It is Miriam's
hour 1 "
THE MARBLE FAUN. 25T
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE BRONZE PONTIFF's BENEDICTION,
When the last of the twelve strokes had fallen from
the cathedral clock, Kenyon threw his eyes over the
busy scene of the market-place, expecting to discern
Miriam somewhere in the crowd. He looked next to-
wards the cathedral itself, where it was reasonable to im-
agine that she might have taken shelter, while awaiting
her appointed time. Seeing no trace of her in either
direction, his eyes came back from their quest somewhat
disappointed, and rested on a figure which was leaning,
like Donatello and himself, on the iron balustrade that
surrounded the statue. Only a moment before, they two
had been alone.
It was the figure of a woman, with her head bowed on
her hands, as if she deeply felt what we have been
endeavoring to convey into our feeble description the
benign and awe-inspiring influence which the pontiff's
statue exercises upon a sensitive spectator. No matter
though it were modelled for a Catholic chief priest, the
desolate heart, whatever be its religion, recognizes in that
image the likeness of a father.
" Miriam," said the sculptor, with a tremor in his voice,
" is it yourself ? "
" It is I," she replied ; " I am faithful to my engage-
ment, though with many fears."
She lifted her head, and revealed to Kenyon revealed
to Donatello likewise the well-remembered features of
Miriam. They were pale and worn, but distinguished
even now, though less gorgeously, by a beauty that might
be imagined bright enough to glimmer with its own light
in a dim cathedral aisle, and had no need to shrink from
the severer test of the mid-day sun. But she seemed
tremulous, and hardly able to go through with a scene
which at a distance she had found courage to undertake.
" You are most welcome, Miriam ! " said the sculptor,
seeking to afford her the encouragement which he saw
17
258 THE MARBLE FAUN.
she so greatly required. " I have a hopeful trust that the
result of this interview will be propitious. Come ; let
me lead you to Donatello."
" No, Kenyon, no ! " whispered Miriam, shrinking back ;
" unless of his own accord he speaks my name unless he
bid me stay no word shall ever pass between him and
me. It is not that I take upon me to be proud at this
late hour. Among other feminine qualities, I threw away
my pride when Hilda cast me off."
" If not pride, what else restrains you ? " Kenyon
asked, a little angry at her unseasonable scruples, and also
at this half-complaining reference to Hilda's just severity.
" After daring so much, it is no time for fear ! If we let
him part from you without a word, your opportunity of
doing him mestimable good is lost forever."
" True ; it will be lost forever ! " repeated JMiriam,
sadly. " But, dear friend, ^\ill it be my fault ? I will-
ingly fling my woman's pride at his feet. But do you
not see ? his heart must be left freely to its own decis-
ion whether to recognize me, because on his voluntary
choice depends the whole question whether my devotion
Avill do him good or harm. Except he feel an infinite
need of me, I am a burden and fatal obstruction to him ! "
" Take your own course, then, Miriam," said Kenyon ;
" and doubtless, the crisis being what it is, your spirit is
better instructed for its emergencies than mine."
While the foregoing words passed between them they
had withdrawn a little from the immediate vicinity of the
statue, so as to be out of Donatello's hearing. Still, how-
ever, they were beneath the pontiff's outstretched hand ;
and Miriam, mth her beauty and her sorrow, looked up
into his benignant face, as if she had come thither for
his pardon and paternal affection, and despaired of so vast
a boon.
Meanwhile, she had not stood thus long in the public
square of Perugia, \vithout attractmg the observation of
many eyes. With their quick sense of beauty, these Ital-
ians had recognized her loveliness, and spared not to take
their fill of gazing at it ; though their native gentleness
and courtesy made their homage far less abtrusive than
that of Germans, French, or Anglo-Saxons might have
been. It is not improbable that Miriam had planned this
THE MARBLE FAUN. 259
momentous iiiterview, on so public a spot and at high
noon, with an eye to the sort of protection that would be
thrown over it by a multitude of eye-witnesses. In cir-
cumstances of profound feeling and passion, there is often
a sense that too great a seclusion cannot be endured ;
there is an indefinite dread of being quite alone with the
object of our deepest interest. The species of solitude
that a crowd harbors within itself, is felt to be preferable,
in certain conditions of the heart, to the remoteness of a
desert or the depths of an untrodden wood. Hatred, love,
or whatever kind of too intense emotion, or even indiffer-
ence, where emotion has once been, instinctively seeks to
interpose some barrier between itself and the correspond-
ing passion in another breast. This, we suspect, was what
Miriam had thought of, in coming to the thronged piazza ;
partly this, and partly, as she said, her superstition that
the benign statue held good influences in store.
But Donatello remained leaning against the balustrade.
She dared not glance towards him, to see whether he were
pale and agitated, or calm as ice. Only, she knew that
the moments were fleetly lapsing away, and that his heart
must call her soon, or the voice would never reach her.
She turned quite away from him and spoke again to the
sculptor,
" I have wished to meet you," said she, " for more than
one reason. News have come to me respecting a dear
friend of ours. Nay, not of mine ! I dare not call her a
friend of mine, though once the dearest."
" Do you speak of Hilda ? " exclaimed Kenyon, with
quick alarm. "Has anything befallen her? When I
last heard of her, she was still in Rome, and well."
"Hilda remains in Rome," replied Miriam, "nor is
she ill as regards physical health, though much depressed
in spirits. She lives quite alone in her dove-cote ; not a
friend near her, not one in Rome, which, you know, is
deserted by all iDut its native inhabitants. I fear for her
health, if she continue long in such solitude, with de-
spondency preying on her mind. I tell you this, knowing
the interest which the rare beauty of her character hab
awakened in you."
" I will go to Rome ! " said the sculptor, in great emo-
tion. " Hilda has never allowed me to manifest more
260 THE MARBLE FAUN.
than a friendly regard ; but, at least, she cannot prevent
my watching over her at a humble distance. I will set
out this very hour."
" Do not leave us now ! " whispered Miriam, implor-
ingly, and laying her hand on his arm. " One moment
more ! Ah ; he has no word for me ! "
" Miriam ! " said Donatello.
Though but a single word, and the first that he had
spoken, its tone was a warrant of the sad and tender depth
from which it came. It told Miriam things of mfinite im-
portance, and, first of all, that he still loved her. The
sense of their mutual crime had stunned, but not destroyed
the vitality of his affection ; it was therefore indestructi-
ble. That tone, too, bespoke an altered and deepened
character ; it told of a vivified intellect, and of spiritual
instruction that had come through sorrow and remorse ; so
that instead of the ^vild boy, the thing of sportive, animal
nature, the sylvan Faun here was now the man of feel-
ing and intelligence.
She turned towards him, while his voice still reverber-
ated in the depths of her soul.
" You have called me ! " said she.
" Because my deepest heart has need of you ! " he re-
plied. "Forgive, Miriam, the coldness, the hardness
with which I parted from you ! I was bewildered with
strange horror and gloom."
" Alas ! and it was I that brought it on you," said she.
" What repentance, what self-sacrifice, can atone for that
infinite wrong ? There was something so sacred in the
innocent and joyous life which you were leading ! A
happy person is such an unaccustomed and holy creature,
in this sad world ! And, encountering so rare a being,
and gifted with the power of sympathy with his sunny
life, it was my doom, mine, to bring him within the limits
of sinful, sorroAvful mortality ! Bid me depart, Dona-
tello ! Fling me off ! No good, through my agency, can
follow upon such a mighty evil ! "
" Miriam," said he, " our lot lies together. Is it not so ?
Tell me, in Heaven's name, if it be otherwise ? "
Donatello's conscience was evidently perplexed with
doubt, whether the communion of a crime, such as they
two were jointly stained with, ought not to stifle all the
THE MARBLE FAUN. 261
Instinctive motions of their hearts, impelling them one
towards the other, Miriam, on the other hand, remorse-
fully questioned with herself, whether the misery, already
accruing from her influence, should not warn her to with-
draw from his path. In this momentous interview there-
fore, two souls were groping for each other in the dark-
ness of guilt and sorrow, and hardly were bold enough to
grasp the cold hands that they found.
The sculptor stood watching the scene with earnest
sympathy.
" It seems irreverent," said he, at length ; " intrusive,
if not irreverent, for a third person to thrust himself
between the two solely concerned in a crisis like the
present. Yet, possibly as a bystander, though a deeply
interested one, I may discern somewhat of truth that is
hidden from you both ; nay, at least interpret or suggest
some ideas which you might not so readily convey to
each other."
" Speak ! " said Miriam ; " we confide in you."
Speak ! " said Donatello. " You are true and upright."
I well know," rejoined Kenyon, " that I shall not suc-
ceed in uttering the few, deep words which, in this matter,
as in all others, include the absolute truth. But, here,
Miriam, is one whom a terrible misfortune has begun to
educate ; it has taken him, and through your agency, out
of a wild and happy state, which, within circumscribed
limits, gave him joys that he cannot elsewhere find on
earth. On his behalf, you have incurred a responsibility
which you cannot fling aside. And here, Donatello, is one
whom Providence marks out as intimately connected with
your destiny. The mysterious process, by which our
earthly life instructs us for another state of being, was
begun for you by her. She has rich gifts of heart and
mind, a suggestive power, a magnetic influence, a sympa-
thetic knowledge, which, wisely and religiously exercised,
are what your condition needs. She possesses what you
require, and, with utter self-devotion, will use it for your
good. The bond betwixt you, therefore, is a true one,
and never except by Heaven's own act should be rent
asunder."
Ah ; he has spoken the truth 1 " cried Donatello,
grasping Miriam's hand.
262 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" The very truth, dear friend," cried Miriam.
" But take heed," resumed the sculptor, anxious not to
violate the integrity of his own conscience. " Take heed ;
for you love one another, and yet your bond is twined
with such black threads, that you must never look upon
it as identical ^vith the ties that unite other loving souls.
It is for mutual support ; it is for one another's final
good ; it is for effort, for sacrifice, but not for earthly
happiness. If such be your motive, believe me, friends,
it were better to relinquish each other's hands at this sad
moment. There would be no holy sanction on your
wedded life."
"None," said Donatello, shuddering. "We know it
well."
" None," repeated Miriam, also shuddering. " United
miserably entangled with me, rather by a bond of
guilt, our union might be for eternity, indeed, and most
intimate ; but, through all that endless duration, I should
be conscious of his horror."
" Not for earthly bliss, therefore," said Kenyon, " but
for mutual elevation, and encouragement towards a
severe and painful life, you take each other's hands. And
if, out of toil, sacrifice, prayer, penitence, and earnest
effort towards right things, there comes, at length, a
sombre and thoughtful happiness, taste it, and thank
Heaven ! So that you live not for it^ so that it be a
wayside flower, springing along a path that leads to higher
ends it will be Heaven's gracious gift, and a token that
it recognizes your union here below."
" Have you no more to say ? " asked Miriam, earnestly.
" There is matter of sorrow and lofty consolation strange-
ly mingled in your words."
" Only this, dear Miriam," said the sculptor ; " If ever
in your lives, the highest duty should require from either
of you the sacrifice of the other, meet the occasion with-
out shrinkmg. This is all."
While Kenyon spoke, Donatello had evidently taken
in the ideas which he propounded, and had ennobled
them by the sincerity of his reception. His aspect un-
consciously assumed a dignity, which, elevating his for-
mer beauty, accorded -with the change that had long been
taking place in his interior self. He was a man, revolv-
THE MARBLE FAUN. 263
ing grave and deep thoughts in his breast. He still held
Miriam's hand ; and there they stood, the beautiful man,
the beautiful woman, united forever, as they felt, in the
presence of these thousand eye-witnesses, who gazed so
curiously at the unintelligible scene. Doubtless, the
crowd recognized them as lovers, and fancied this a be-
trothal that was destined to result in life-long happiness.
And, possibly, it might be so. Who can tell where hap-
piness may come ; or where, though an expected guest, it
may never show its face ? Perhaps shy, subtle thing -
it had crept into this sad marriage-bond, when the part-
ners would have trembled at its presence as a crime.
" Farewell ! " said Kenyon, " I go to Rome."
" Farewell, true friend ! " said Miriam.
" Farewell ! " said Donatello too. " May you be happy.
You have no guilt to make you shrink from happmess."
At this moment it so chanced that all the three friends
by one impulse glanced upward at the statue of Pope Ju-
lius ; and there was the majestic figure stretching out the
hand of benediction over them, and bending down upon
this guilty and repentant pair its visage of grand benig-
nity. There is a singular effect oftentimes when, out of
the midst of engrossmg thought and deep absorption, we
suddenly look up, and catch a glimpse of external objects.
We seem at such moments to look farther and deeper
into them, than by any premeditated observation ; it is
as if they met our eyes alive, and with all their hidden
meaning on the surface, but grew again inanimate and
inscrutable the instant that they became aware of our
glances. So now at that unexpected glimpse, Miriam,
Donatello, and the sculptor, all three imagined that they
beheld the bronze pontiff endowed with spiritual life. A
blessing was felt descending upon them from his out-
stretched hand; he approved by look and gesture the
pledge of a deep union that had passed under his aus-
pices.
264 THE MARBLE FAUN,
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Hilda's tower.
Whek we have once known Rome, and left her where
she lies, like a long decaying corpse, retaining a trace of
the noble shape it was, but with accumulated dust and a
fungous growth overspreading all its more admirable feat-
ures left her in utter weariness, no doubt, of her narrow,
crooked, intricate streets, so uncomfortably paved with
little squares of lava that to tread over them is a pen-
itential pilgrimage, so indescribably ugly, moreover, so
cold, so alley-like, into which the sun never falls, and
where a chill wind forces its deadly breath into our
lungs left her, tired of the sight of those immense seven-
storied, yellow- washed hovels, or call them palaces, where
all that is dreary in domestic life seems magnified and
multiplied, and weary of climbing those staircases, which
ascend from a ground-floor of cook-shops, cobblers' stalls,
stables, and regiments of cavalry, to a middle region of
princes, cardinals, and ambassadors, and an upper tier of
artists, just beneath the unattainable sky left her, worn
out with shivering at the cheerless and smoky fireside by
day, and feasting with our own substance the ravenous
little populace of a Roman bed at night left her, sick at
heart of Italian trickery, which has uprooted whatever
faith in man's integrity had endured till now, and sick at
stomach of sour bread, sour wine, rancid butter, and bad
cookery, needlessly bestowed on evU meats left her,
disgusted with the pretence of holiness and the reality of
nastiness, each equally omnipresent left her, half life-
less from the languid atmosphere, the vital principle of
which has been used up long ago, or corrupted by my-
riads of slaughters left her, crushed down in spirit with
the desolation of her ruin, and the hopelessness of her
future left her, in short, hating her with all our might,
and adding our individual curse to the infinite anathema
which her old crimes have unmistakably brought down,
when we have left Rome in such mood as this, we are
astonished by the discovery, by-aud-by, that our heart-
THE MARBLE FAUN. 265
strings have mysteriously attached themselves to the
Eternal City, and are drawing us thitherward again, as if
it were more familiar, more intimately our home, than
even the spot where we were born.
It is with a kindred sentiment, that we now follow the
course of our story back through the Flaminian Gate,
and, treading our way to the Via Portoghese, climb the
staircase to the upper chamber of the tower, where we
last saw Hilda.
Hilda all along intended to pass the summer m Rome ;
for she had laid out many high and delightful tasks,
which she could the better complete while her favorite
haunts were deserted by the multitude that thronged
them, throughout the winter and early spring. Nor did
she dread the summer atmosphere, although generally
held to be so pestilential. She had already made trial of
it, two years before, and found no worse effect than a
kind of dreamy languor, which was dissipated by the
first cool breezes that came with autumn. The thickly
populated centre of the city, indeed, is never affected by
the feverish influence that lies in wait in the Campagna,
like a besieging foe, and nightly haunts those beautiful
lawns and woodlands, around the suburban villas, just at
the season when they most resemble Paradise. What
the flaming sword was to the flrst Eden, such is the
malaria to these sweet gardens and groves. We may
wander through them, of an afternoon, it is true, but
they cannot be made a home and a reality, and to sleep
among them is death. They are but illusions, therefore,
like the show of gleaming waters and shadowy foliage in
a desert.
But Rome, within the walls, at this dreaded season,
enjoys its festal days, and makes itself merry with char-
acteristic and hereditary pastimes, for which its broad
piazzas afford abundant room. It leads its own life with
a freer spirit, now that the artists and foreign visitors
are scattered abroad. No bloom, perhaps, would be visible
in a cheek that should be unvisited, throughout the sum-
mer, by more invigorating winds than any within fifty
miles of the city ; no bloom, but yet, if the mind kept its
healthy energy, a subdued and colorless well-being.
There was consequently little risk in Hilda's purpose
266 THE MARBLE FAUN.
to pass the summer days in the galleries of Ro-
man palaces, and her nights in that aerial chamber,
whether the hea\'y breath of the city and its suburbs
could not aspire. It would probably harm her on more
than it did the white doves, who sought the same high
atmosphere at sunset, and when morning came, flew down
into the narrow streets, about their daily business, as
Hilda like\\ase did.
With the Virgin's aid and blessing, which might be
hoped for even by a heretic, who so religiously lit the
lamp before her shrine, the New England girl would
sleep securely in her old Roman tower, and go forth on her
pictorial pilgrimages without dread or peril. In view of
such a summer, Hilda had anticipated many months of
lonely, but unalloyed enjoyment. Not that she had a
churlish disinclination to society, or needed to be told that
we taste one intellectual pleasure t"\vice, and mth double
the result, when we taste it with a friend. But, keeping
a maiden heart within her bosom, she rejoiced in the
freedom that enabled her still to choose her o\vn sphere,
and dwell in it, if she pleased, without another inmate.
Her expectation, however, of a delightful summer was
wofully disappointed. Even had she formed no previous
plan of remaining there, it is improbable that Hilda
would have gathered energy to stir from Rome. A tor-
por, heretofore unknown to her vivacious though quiet
temperament, had possessed itself of the poor girl, like a
half- dead serpent knotting its cold, inextricable wreaths
about her limbs. It was that peculiar despair, that chill
and heavy misery, which only the innocent can experi-
ence, although it possesses many of the gloomy charac-
teristics that mark a sense of guilt. It was that hearts
sickness, which, it is to be hoped, we may all of us have
been pure enough to feel, once in our lives, but the capa-
city for which is usually exhausted early, and perhaps
with a single agony. It was that dismal certainty of the
existence of evil in the world, which, though we may
fancy ourselves fully assured of the sad mystery long
before, never becomes a portion of our practical belief
until it takes substance and reality from the sin of some
guide, whom we have deeply trusted and revered, or
some friend whom we have dearly loved.
I
THE MARBLE FAUN. 267
When that knowledge comes, it is as if a cloud had
suddenly gathered over the morning light ; so dark a
cloud, that there seems to be no longer any sunshine be-
hind it or above it. The character of our individual be-
loved one having invested itself with all the attributes
of right, that one friend being to us the symbol and rep-
resentative of whatever is good and true, when he
falls, the effect is almost as if the sky fell with him,
bringing down in chaotic ruin the columns that upheld
our faith. We struggle forth again, no doubt, bruised
and bewildered. We stare wildly about us, and discover
or, it may be, we never make the discovery that it was
not actually the sky that has tumbled down, but merely
a frail structure of our own rearing, which never rose
higher than the house-tops, and has fallen because we
founded it on nothing. But the crash, and the affright
and trouble, are as overwhelming, for the time, as if the
catastrophe involved the whole moral world. Remem-
bering these things, let them suggest one generous motive
for walking heedfully amid the defilement of earthly
ways ! Let us reflect, that the highest path is pointed
out by the pure Ideal of those who look up to us, and
who, if we tread, less loftily, may never look so high
again.
Hilda's situation was made infinitely more wretched by
the necessity of confining all her trouble within her own
consciousness. To this innocent girl, holding the knowl-
edge of Miriam's crime within her tender and delicate
soul, the effect was almost the same as if she herself had
participated in the guilt. Indeed, partaking the human
nature of those who could perpetrate such deeds, she felt
her ovn^i spotlessness impugned.
Had there been but a single friend or, not a friend,
since friends were no longer to be confided in, after
Miriam had betrayed her trust but, had there been any
calm, wise mind, any sympathizing intelligence ; or, if
not these, any dull, half-listening ear into which she might
have fiung the dreadful secret, as into an echoless cavern
what a relief would have ensued ! But this awful
loneliness! It enveloped her whithersoever she went.
It was a shadow in the sunshine of festal days ; a mist
between her eyes and the pictures at which she strove to
268 THE MARBLE FAUN.
look ; a chill dungeon, which kept her in its gray twilight
and fed her with its unwholesome air, fit only for a crim-
inal to breathe and pine in ! She could not escape from
it. In the efort to do so, straying farther into the in-
tricate passages of our nature, she stumbled, ever and
again, over this deadly idea of mortal guilt.
Poor sufferer for another's sin ! Poor wellspring of a
virgin's heart, into which a murdered corpse had casually
fallen, and whence it could not be drawn forth again,
but lay there, day after day, night after night, tainting
its sweet atmosphere with the scent of crime and ugly
death !
The strange shadow that had befallen Hilda did not
fail to impress its mysterious seal upon her face, and to
make itself perceptible to sensitive observers in her man-
ner and carriage. A young Italian artist, who frequented
the same galleries which Hilda haunted, grew deeply in-
terested in her expression. One day, while she stood be-
fore Leonardo da Vinci's picture of Joanna of Arragon,
but evidently without seeing it, for, though it had at-
tracted her eyes, a fancied resemblance to Miriam had
immediately drawn away her thoughts, this artist drew
a hasty sketch which he afterwards elaborated into a
finished portrait. It represented Hilda as gazing with
sad and earnest horror at a blood- spot which she seemed
just then to have discovered on her white robe. The
picture attracted considerable notice. Copies of an en-
graving from it may still be found in the print-shops
along the Corso. By many coimoisseurs, the idea of the
face was supposed to have been suggested by the portrait
of Beatrice Cenci ; and, in fact, there was a look some-
what similar to poor Beatrice's forlorn gaze out of the
dreary isolation and remoteness, in which a terrible doom
had involved a tender soul. But the modern artist
strenuously upheld the originality of his own picture, as
well as the stainless purity of its subject, and chose to
call it and was laughed at for his pains " Innocence,
dying of a blood-stain 1 "
" Your picture, Signor Panini, does you credit," re-
marked the picture-dealer, who had bought it of the
young man for fifteen scudi, and afterwards sold it for ten
times the sum j " but it would be worth a better price if
THE MARBLE FAUN. 269
you had given it a more intelligible title. Looking at
the face and expression of this fair signorina, we seem to
comprehend readily enough, that she is undergoing one
or another of those troubles of the heart to which young
ladies are but too liable. But what is this blood-stain ?
And what has innocence to do with it ? Has she stabbed
her perfidious lover with a bodkin ? "
" She ! she commit a crime ! " cried the young artist.
" Can you look at the imiocent anguish in her face, and
ask that question ? No ; but, as I read the mystery, a
man has been slain in her presence, and the blood, spirt-
ing accidently on her white robe, has made a stain which
eats into her life."
" Then, in the name of her patron saint," exclaimed
the picture-dealer, " why don't she get the robe made
white again at the expense of a few baiocchi to her
washerwoman ? No, no, my dear Panini. The pictui-e
being now my property, I shall call it ' The Signorina's
Vengeance.' She has stabbed her lover overnight, and is
repenting it betimes the next morning. So interpreted,
the picture becomes an intelligible and very natural rep-
resentation of a not uncommon fact."
Thus coarsely does the world translate all finer griefs
that meet its eye. It is more a coarse world than an un-
kind one.
But Hilda sought nothing either from the world's deli-
cacy or its pity, and never dreamed of its misinterpreta-
tions. Her doves often flew in through the windows of
the tower, winged messengers, bringing her what sym-
pathy they could, and uttering soft, tender, and complain-
ing sounds, deep in their bosoms, which soothed the girl
more than a distincter utterance might. And sometimes
Hilda moaned quietly among the doves, teaching her
voice to accord with theirs, and thus finding a temporary
relief from the burden of her incommunicable sorrow, as
if a little portion of it, at least, had been told to these
innocent friends, and been understood and pitied.
When she trimmed the lamp before the Virgin's shrine,
Hilda gazed at the sacred image, and, rude as was the
workmanship, beheld, or fancied, expressed with the
quaint, powerful simplicity which sculptors sometimes
had five hundred years ago, a woman's tenderness re-
270 THE MARBLE FAUN.
spending to her gaze. If she knelt, if she prayed, if her
oppressed heart besought the sympathy of divine woman-
hood afar in bhss, but not remote, because forever human-
ized by the memory of mortal griefs, was Hilda to be
blamed ? It was not a Catholic kneeling at an idolatrous
shrine, but a child lifting its tear-stained face to seek
comfort from a mother.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES.
Hilda descended, day by day, from her dove-cote, and
went to one or another of the great, old palaces, the
Pamflli Doria, the Corsini, the Sciarra, the Borghese, the
Colonna, where the door-keepers knew her well, and
offered her a kindly greeting. But they shook their
heads and sighed, on observing the languid step with
which the poor girl toiled up the grand marble staircases.
There was no more of that cheery alacrity with which she
used to flit upward, as if her doves had lent her their
wings, nor of that glow of happy spirits which had been
wont to set the tarnished gilding of the picture-frames
and the shabby splendor of the furniture all a-glimmer, as
she hastened to her congenial and delightful toil.
An old German artist, whom she often met in the gal-
leries, once laid a paternal hand on Hilda's head, and bade
her go back to her owai country.
" Go back soon," he said, with kindly freedom and
directness, " or you will go never more. And, if you go
not, why, at least, do you spend the whole summer-time
in Rome ? The air has been breathed too often, in so
many thousand years, and is not wholesome for a little
foreign flower like you, my child, a delicate wood-anemone
from the western forest-land."
" I have no task nor duty anywhere but here," replied
Hilda. " The old masters will not set me free ! "
" Ah, those old masters ! " cried the veteran artist,
shaking his head. " They are a tyrannous race 1 You
will find them of too mighty a spirit to be dealt with, for
long together, by the slender hand, the fragile mind, and
THE MARBLE FAUN. 271
the delicate heart, of a young girl. Remember that
Raphael's genius wore out that divinest painter before
half his life was lived. Since you feel his influence
powerfully enough to reproduce his miracles so well, it
will assuredly consume you like a flame."
" That might have been my peril once," answered
Hilda. " It is not so now."
" Yes, fair maiden, you stand in that peril now ! " in-
sisted the kind old man ; and he added, smiling, yet in a
melancholy vein, and with a German grotesqueness of
idea, " Some fine morning, I shall come to the Pinacotheca
of the Vatican, with my palette and my brushes, and shall
look for my little American artist that sees into the very
heart of the grand pictures ! And what shall I behold ?
A heap of white ashes on the marble floor, just in front
of the divine Raphael's picture of the Madomia da Fo-
ligno I Nothing more, upon my word ! The fire, which
the poor child feels so fervently, will have gone into her
innermost, and burnt her quite up ! "
" It would be a happy martyrdom ! " said Hilda, faintly
smiling. " But I am far from being worthy of it. What
troubles me much, among other troubles, is quite the re-
verse of what you think. The old masters hold me here,
it is true, but they no longer warm me with their influ-
ence. It is not flame consuming, but torpor chilling me,
that helps to make me wretched."
" Perchance, then," said the German, looking keenly
at her, " Raphael has a rival in your heart ? He was
your first-love ; but young maidens are not always con-
stant, and one flame is sometimes extinguished by an-
other ! "
Hilda shook her head, and turned away.
She had spoken the truth, however, in alleging that
torpor, rather than fire, was what she had now to dread.
In those gloomy days that had befallen her, it was a great
additional calamity that she felt conscious of the present
dimness of an insight, which she once possessed in more
than ordinary measure. She had lost and she trembled
lest it should have departed forever the faculty of ap-
preciating those great works of art, which heretofore had
made so large a portion of her happiness. It was no
wonder.
272 THE MARBLE FAUN.
A picture, however admirable the pamter's art, and
wonderful his power, requires of the spectator a surrender
of himself, in due proportion with the miracle which has
been wrought. Let the canvas glow as it may, you must
look \vith the eye of faith, or its highest excellence es-
capes you. There is always the necessity of helping out
the painter's art with your own resources of sensibility
and imagination. Not that these qualities shall really
add anything to what the master has effected ; but they
must be put so entirely under his control, and work along
with him to such an extent, that, in a different moodj
when you are cold and critical, instead of sympathetic,
you will be apt to fancy that the loftier merits of the
picture were of your o^vn dreammg, not of his creating.
Like all revelations of the better life, the adequate per-
ception of a great work of art demands a gifted simplicity
of vision. In this, and in her self-surrender, and the
depth and tenderness of her sympathy, had lain Hilda's
remarkable power as a copyist of the old masters. And
now that her capacity of emotion was choked up with a
horrible experience, it inevitably followed that she should
seek in vain, among those friends so venerated and be-
loved, for the marvels which they had heretofore shown
her. In spite of a reverence that lingered longer than
her recognition, their poor worshipper became almost an
infidel, and sometimes doubted whether the pictorial art
be not altogether a delusion.
For the first time in her life, Hilda now grew acquainted
with that icy demon of weariness, who haunts great
picture-galleries. He is a plausible Mephistopheles, and
possesses the magic that is the destruction of all other
magic. He annihilates color, warmth, and, more espe-
cially, sentiment and passion, at a touch. If he spare
anything, it will be some such matter as an earthen pip-
kin, or a bunch of herrings by Teniers ; a brass kettle, in
which you can see your face, by Gerard Douw ; a furred
robe, or the silken texture of a mantle, or a straw hat by
Van Mieris ; or a long-stalked wineglass, transparent and
full of shifting reflection, or a bit of bread and cheese, or
an over-ripe peach, with a fly upon it, truer than reality
itself, by the school of Dutch conjurers. These men, and
a few Flemings, whispers the wicked demon, were the
THE MARBLE FAlJl^. 27^
only painters. The mighty Italian masters, as you deem
them, were not human, nor addressed their work to hu-
man sympathies, but to a false intellectual taste, which
they themselves were the first to create. Well might
they call their doings " art," for they substituted art in-
stead of nature. Their fashion is past, and ought, indeed,
to have died and been buried along with them.
Then there is such a terrible lack of variety in their
subjects. The churchmen, their great patrons, suggested
most of their themes, and a dead mythology the rest. A
quarter-part, probably, of any large collection of pictures,
consists of Virgins and infant Christs, repeated over and
over again in pretty much an identical spirit, and gener-
ally with no more mixture of the Divine than just enough
to spoil them as representations of maternity and child-
hood, with which everybody's heart might have some-
thing to do. Half of the other pictures are Magdalens,
Flights into Egypt, Crucifixions, Depositions from the
Cross, Pietas, Noli-me-tangeres, or the Sacrifice of Abra-
ham, or martyrdoms of saints, originally painted as altar-
pieces, or for the shrines of chapels, and wofuUy lacking
the accompaniments which the artist had in view.
The remainder of the gallery comprises mythological
subjects, such as nude Venuses, Ledas, Graces, and, in
short, a general apotheosis of nudity, once fresh and rosy
perhaps, but yellow and dingy in our day, and retaining
only a traditionary charm. These impure pictures are
from the same illustrious and impious hands that ad-
ventured to call before us the august forms of Apostles
and Saints, the Blessed Mother of the Redeemer, and
her Son, at his death, and in his glory, and even the
awfulness of Him to whom the martyrs, dead a thousand
years ago, have not yet dared to raise their eyes. They
seem to take up one task or the other the disrobed
woman whom they call Venus, or the type of highest and
tenderest womanhood in the mother of their Saviour
with equal readiness, but to achieve the former with far
more satisfactory success. If an artist sometimes pro-
duced a picture of the Virgin, possessing warmth enough
to excite devotional feehngs, it was probably the object
of his earthly love to whom he thus paid the stupendous
and fearful homage of setting up her portrait to be wor-
i8
274 THE MARBLE FAUK.
shipped, not figuratively as a mortal, but by religious soulg
in their earnest aspirations towards Divinity. And who
can trust the religious sentiment of Raphael, or receive
any of his Virgins as heaven-descended likenesses, after
seeing, for example, the Fornarina of the Barberini pal-
ace, and feeling how sensual the artist must have been to
paint such a brazen trollop of his own accord, and lov-
ingly ? Would the Blessed Mary reveal herself to his
spiritual vision, and favor him with sittings alternately
with that type of glowing earthliness, the Fornarina ?
But no sooner have we given expression to this irrev-
erent criticism, than a throng of spiritual faces look re-
proachfully upon us. We see cherubs by Raphael,
whose baby-imiocence could only have been nursed in
paradise ; angels by Raphael as innocent as they, but
whose serene intelligence embraces both earthly and
celestial things ; madonnas by Raphael, on whose lips
he has impressed a holy and delicate reserve, implying
sanctity on earth, and into whose soft eyes he has thrown
a light which he never could have imagined except by
raising his own eyes with a pure aspiration heavenward.
We remember, too, that divinest countenance in the
Transfiguration, and withdraw all that we have said.
Poor Hilda, however, in her gloomiest moments, was
never guilty of the high treason suggested in the above
remarks against her beloved and honored Raphael. She
had a faculty (which, fortunately for themselves, pure
women often have) of ignoring all moral blotches in a
character that won her admiration. She purified the ob-
jects of her regard by the mere act of turning such spot-
less eyes upon them.
Hilda's despondency, nevertheless, while it dulled her
perceptions in one respect, had deepened them in an-
other ; she saw beauty less vividly, but felt truth, or the
lack of it, more profoundly. She began to suspect that
some, at least, of her venerated painters, had left an in-
evitable hollowness in their works, because, in the most
renowned of them, they essayed to express to the world
what they had not in their o^vn souls. They deified their
light and wandering affections, and were continually play-
ing off the tremendous jest, alluded to above, of offering
the features of some venal beauty to be enshrined in the
THE MARBLE FAUN. 275
holiest places. A deficiency of earnestness and absolute
truth is generally discoverable in Italian pictures, after
the art had become consummate. When you demand
what is deepest, these painters have not wherewithal to
respond. They substituted a keen intellectual percep-
tion, and a marvellous knack of external arrangement,
instead of the live sympathy and sentiment which should
have been their inspiration. And hence it happens, that
shallow and worldly men are among the best critics of
their works ; a taste for pictorial art is often no more
than a polish upon the hard enamel of an artificial char-
acter. Hilda had lavished her whole heart upon it, and
found (just as if she had lavished it upon a human idol)
that the greater part was thrown away.
For some of the earlier painters, however, she still
retained much of her former reverence. Fra Angelico,
she felt, must have breathed a humble aspiration be-
tween every two touches of his brush, in order to have
made the finished picture such a visible prayer as we
behold it, in the guise of a prim angel, or a saint without
the human nature. Through all these dusky centuries,
his works may still help a struggling heart to pray.
Perugino was evidently a devout man ; and the Virgin
therefore revealed herself to him in loftier and sweeter
faces of celestial womanhood, and yet with a kind of
homeliness in their human mould, than even the genius
of Raphael could imagine. Sodoma, beyond a question,
both prayed and wept, while painting his fresco, at Siena,
of Christ bound to a pillar.
In her present need and hunger for a spiritual reve-
lation, Hilda felt a vast and weary longing to see this
last-mentioned picture once again. It is expressibly
touching. So weary is the Saviour, and utterly worn
out with agony, that his lips have fallen apart from mere
exhaustion ; his eyes seem to be set ; he tries to lean his
head against the pillar, but is kept from sinking down
upon the ground only by the cords that bind him. One
of the most striking effects produced, is the sense of
loneliness. You behold Christ deserted both in heaven
and earth ; that despair is in him which wrung forth the
saddest utterance man ever made, " Why hast Thou for-
saken me?" Even in this extremity, however, he is
276 THE MARBLE FAUN.
still divine. The great and reverent painter has not
sujffered the Son of God to be merely an object of pity,
though depicting him m a state so profoundly pitiful.
He is rescued from it, we know not how, by nothing
less than miracle, by a celestial majesty and beauty,
and some quality of which these are the outward garni-
ture. He is as much, and as visibly, our Redeemer, there
bound, there fainting, and bleeding from the scourge, with
the cross in view, as if he sat on his throne of glory in
the heavens ! Sodoma, in this matchless picture, has
done more towards reconciling the incongruity of Divine
Omnipotence and outraged, suffering Humanity, com-
bined in one person, than the theologians ever did.
This hallowed work of genius shows what pictorial
art, devoutly exercised, might effect in behalf of religious
truth ; involving, as it does, deeper mysteries of revela-
tion, and bringing them closer to man's heart, and making
him tenderer to be impressed by them, than the most
eloquent words of preacher or prophet.
It is not of pictures like the above, that galleries, in
Rome or elsewhere, are made up, but of productions
immeasurably below them, and requiring to be appreciated
by a very different frame of mind. Few amateurs are
endowed with a tender susceptibility to the sentiment of
a picture ; they are not won from an evil life, nor anyAvise
morally improved by it. The love of art, therefore, differs
widely in its influence from the love of nature ; whereas,
if art had not strayed away from its legitimate paths and
aims, it ought to soften and sweeten the lives of its wor-
shippers, in even a more exquisite degree than the con-
templation of natural objects. But, of its own potency
it has no such effect ; and it fails, likewise, in that other
test of its moral value which poor Hilda was now involun-
tarily trying upon it. It cannot comfort the heart in
affliction ; it grows dim when the shadow is upon us.
So the melancholy girl wandered through those long
galleries, and over the mosaic pavements of vast, solitary
saloons, wondering what had become of the splendor that
used to beam upon her from the walls. She grew sadly
critical, and condemned almost everything that she was
wont to admire. Heretofore, her sympathy went deeply
into a picture, yet seemed to leave a depth which it was
THE MARBLE FAUN. 277
inadequate to sound , now, on the contrary, her perceptive
faculty penetrated the canvas like a steel probe, and
found but a crust of paint over an emptiness. Not that
she gave up all art as worthless ; only it had lost its con-
secration. One picture in ten thousand, perhaps, ought to
live in the applause of mankind, from generation to gen-
eration, until the colors fade and blacken out of sight, or
the canvas rot entirely away. For the rest, let them be
piled in garrets, just as the tolerable poets are shelved,
when their little day is over. Is a painter more sacred
than a poet ?
And as for these galleries of Roman palaces, they were
to Hilda though she still trod them with the forlorn
hope of getting back her sympathies they were dreariw*
than the whitewashed walls of a prison corridor. If a
magnificent palace were founded, as was generally the
case, on hardened guilt and a stony conscience if the
prince or cardinal who stole the marble of his vast man-
sion from the Coliseum, or some Roman temple, had per-
petrated still deadlier crimes, as probably he did there
could be no fitter punishment for his ghost than to wander
perpetually through these long suites of rooms, over the
cold marble or mosaic of the floors, growing chiller at
every eternal footstep. Fancy the progenitor of the
Dorias thus haunting those heavy halls where his pos-
terity reside! Nor would it assuage his monotonous
misery, but increase it manifold, to be compelled to scru-
tinize those masterpieces of art, which he collected with
so much cost and care, and gazing at them unintelligently,
still leave a further portion of his vital warmth at every
one.
Such, or of a similar kind, is the torment of those who
geek to enjoy pictures in an uncongenial mood. Every
haunter of picture-galleries, we should imagine, must have
experienced it, in greater or less degree ; Hilda never till
now, but now most bitterly.
And now, for the first time in her lengthened absence,
comprising so many years of her young life, she began to
be acquainted with the exile's pain. Her pictorial imag-
ination brought up vivid scenes of her native village, with
its great, old elm-trees ; and the neat, comfortable houses,
scattered along the wide, grassy margin of its street, and
278 THE MARBLE FAUN.
the white meeting-house, and her mother's very door, and
the stream of gold-brown water, which her taste for color
had kept flowing, all this while, through her remembrance.
Oh, dreary streets, palaces, churches, and imperial sep-
ulchres of hot and dusty Rome, with the muddy Tiber
eddying through the midst, instead of the gold-brown
rivulet I How she pined under this crumbly magnificence,
as if it were piled all upon her human heart ! How she
yearned for that native homeliness, those familiar sights,
those faces which she had known always, those days that
never brought any strange event ; that life of sober week-
days, and a solemn sabbath at the close ! The peculiar
fragrance of a flower-bed, which Hilda used to cultivate,
came freshly to her memory, across the windy sea, and
through the long years since the flowers had withered.
Her heart grew faint at the hundred reminiscences that
were awakened by that remembered smell of dead blos-
soms ; it was like opening a drawer, where many things
were laid away, and every one of them scented with
lavender and dried rose-leaves.
We ought not to betray Hilda's secret; but it is the
truth, that being so sad, and so utterly alone, and in such
great need of sympathy, her thoughts sometimes recurred
to the sculptor. Had she met him now, her heart, indeed,
might not have been won, but her confidence would have
flown to him like a bird to its nest. One summer after-
noon, especially, Hilda leaned upon the battlements of her
tower, and looked over Rome toAvards the distant moun-
tains, whither Kenyon had told her that he was going.
" Oh, that he were here," she sighed ; " I perish under
this terrible secret ; and he might help me to endure it.
Oh, that he were here ! "
That very afternoon, as the reader may remember,
Kenyon felt Hilda's hand pulling at the silken cord that
was connected with his heartstrings, as he stood looking
towards Rome from the battlements of Monte Beni.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 279
CHAPTER XXXYIII.
ALTARS AND INCENSE.
Rome has a certain species of consolation readier at
hand, for all the necessitous, than any other spot under
the sky ; and Hilda's despondent state made her pecu-
liarly liable to the peril, if peril it can justly be termed,
of seeking, or consenting, to be thus consoled.
Had the Jesuits known the situation of this troubled
heart, her inheritance of New England Puritanism would
hardly have protected the poor girl from the pious strat-
egy of those good fathers. Knowing, as they do, how to
work each proper engine, it would have been ultimately
impossible for Hilda to resist the attractions of a faith,
which so marvellously adapts itself to every human need.
Not, indeed, that it can satisfy the soul's cravings, but, at
least, it can sometimes help the soul towards a higher
satisfaction than the faith contains within itself. It sup-
plies a multitude of external forms, in which the spiritual
may be clothed and manifested ; it has many painted win-
dows, as it were, through which the celestial sunshine, else
disregarded, may make itself gloriously perceptible in
visions of beauty and splendor. There is no one want or
weakness of human nature, for which Catholicism will
own itself without a remedy ; cordials, certainly, it pos-
sesses in abundance, and sedatives in inexhaustible vari-
ety, and what may once have been genuine medicaments,
though a little the worse for long keeping.
To do it justice, Catholicism is such a miracle of fitness
for its own ends, many of which might seem to be admir-
able ones, that it is difficult to imagine it a contrivance
of mere man. Its mighty machinery was forged and put
together, not on middle earth, but either above or below.
If there were but angels to work it, instead of the very
different class of engineers who now manage its cranks
and safety-valves, the system would soon vindicate the
dignity and holiness of its origin.
2i^ THE MARBLE FAUN.
Hilda had heretofore made many pilgrimages among
the churches of Rome, for the sake of wondering at their
gorgeousness. Without a glimpse at these palaces of
worship, it is impossible to imagine the magnificence of
the religion that reared them. Many of them shine with
burnished gold. They glow with pictvires. Their walls,
columns, and arches, seem a quarry of precious stones, so
beautiful and costly are the marbles with which they are
inlaid. Their pavements are often a mosaic of rare work-
manship. Around their lofty cornices, hover flights of
sculptured angels ; and within the vault of the ceiling and
the swelling interior of the dome, there are frescoes of
such brilliancy, and wrought with so artful a perspective,
that the sky, peopled with sainted forms, appears to be
opened, only a little way above the spectator. Then there
are chapels, opening from the side-aisles and transepts,
decorated by princes for their own burial-places, and as
shrines for their especial saints. In these, the splendor
of the entire edifice is intensified and gathered to a focus.
Unless words were gems, that would flame with many-
colored light upon the page, and throw thence a tremulous
glimmer into the reader's eyes, it were vain to attempt a
description of a princely chapel.
Restless with her trouble, Hilda now entered upon an-
other pilgrimage among these altars and shrines. She
climbed the hundred steps of the Ara Cceli ; she trod the
broad, silent nave of St. John Lateran ; she stood in the
Pantheon, under the round opening in the dome, through
which the blue, sunny sky still gazes down, as it used to
gaze when there were Roman deities in the antique niches.
She went into every church that rose before her, but not
now to wonder at its magnificence, which she hardly no-
ticed more than if it had been the pine-built interior of a
New England meeting-house.
She went and it was a dangerous errand to observe
how closely and comfortingly the Popish faith applied it-
self to all human occasions. It was impossible to doubt
that multitudes of people found their spiritual advantage
in it, who would find none at all in our own formless
mode of worship ; which, besides, so far as the sympathy
of prayerful souls is concerned, can be enjoyed only at
stated and too mifrequent periods. But here, whenever
THE MARBLE FAUN. 281
the hunger for divine nutriment came upon the soul, it
could on the instant be appeased. At one or another altar,
the incense was forever ascending ; the mass always being
performed, and carrying upward with it the devotion of
such as had not words for their own prayer. And yet,
if the worshipper had his individual petition to offer, his
own heart-secret to whisper below his breath, there were
divine auditors ever ready to receive it from his lips ;
and what encouraged him still more, these auditors had
not always been divine, but kept, within their heavenly
memories, the tender humility of a human experience.
Now a saint in heaven, but once a man on earth.
Hilda saw peasants, citizens, soldiers, nobles, women
with bare heads, ladies in their silks, entering the churches
individually, kneeling for moments, or for hours, and di-
recting their inaudible devotions to the shrme of some
saint of their o^vn choice. In his hallowed person, they
felt themselves possessed of an own friend in heaven.
They were too humble to approach the Deity directly.
Conscious of their un worthiness, they asked the media-
tion of their sympathizing patron, who, on the score of his
ancient martyrdom, and after many ages of celestial life,
might venture to talk with the Divine Presence, almost
as friend ^vith friend. Though dumb before its Judge,
even despair could speak, and pour out the misery of its
soul like water, to an advocate so wise to comprehend the
case, and eloquent to plead it, and powerful to win par-
don, whatever were the guilt. Hilda witnessed what she
deemed to be an example of this species of confidence
between a young man and a saint. He stood before a
shrine, win thing, wringing his hands, contorting his whole
frame in an agony of remorseful recollection, but finally
knelt down to weep and pray. If this youth had been a
Protestant, he would have kept all that torture pent up in
his heart, and let it burn there till it seared him into
indifference.
Often, and long, Hilda lingered before the shrines and
chapels of the Virgin, and departed from them with reluc-
tant steps. Here, perhaps, strange as it may seem, her
delicate appreciation of art stood her in good stead, and
lost Catholicism a convert. If the painter had represent-
ed Mary with a heavenly face, poor Hilda was now in.
282 THE MARBLE FAUN.
the very mood to worship her, and adopt the faith in
which she held so elevated a position. But she saw that
it was merely the flattered portrait of an earthly beauty ;
the wife, at best, of the artist ; or, it might be, a peasant
girl of the Campagna, or some Roman Princess, to whom
he desired to pay his court. For love, or some even less
justifiable motive, the old painter had apotheosized these
women ; he thus gained for them, as far as his skill would
go, not only the meed of immortality, but the privilege of
presiding over Christian altars, and of being worshipped
with far holier fervors than while they dwelt on earth.
Hilda's fine sense of the fit and decorous could not be
betrayed into kneeling at such a shrine.
She never found just the virgin mother whom she
needed. Here, it was an earthly mother, worshipping the
earthly baby in her lap, as any and every mother does,
from Eve's time doAvnward. In another picture, there
was a dim sense, shown in the mother's face, of some
divine quality in the child. In a third, the artist seemed
to have had a higher perception, and had striven hard to
shadow out the Virgin's joy at bringing the Sa\iour into
the world, and her awe and love, inextricably mingled, of
the little form which she pressed against her bosom. So
far was good. But still, Hilda looked for something
more ; a face of celestial beauty, but human as well as
heavenly, and with the shadow of past grief upon it;
bright with immortal youth, yet matronly and motherly ;
and endowed with a queenly dignity, but infinitely tender,
as the highest and deepest attribute of her divinity.
" Ah," thought Hilda to herself, " why should not
there be a woman to listen to the prayers of women ? a
mother in heaven for all motherless girls like me ? In
all God's thought and care for us, can He have Avithheld
this boon, which our weakness so much needs ? "
Oftener than to the other churches, she wandered into
Saint Peter's. Within its vast limits, she thought, and be-
neath the sweep of its great dome, there should be space
for all forms of Christian truth ; room both for the faith-
ful and the heretic to kneel ; due help for every creature's
spiritual want.
Hilda had not always been adequately impressed by the
grandeur of this mighty cathedral. When she first lifted
THE MARBLE FAUN. 283
the heavy leathern curtain, at one of the doors, a shadowy
edifice in her imagination had been dazzled out of sight
by the reality. Her preconception of Saint Peter's was
a structure of no definite outline, misty in its architecture
dim and gray and huge, stretching into an interminable
perspective, and overarched by a dome like the cloudy
firmament. Beneath that vast breadth and height as she
had fancied them, the personal man might feel his little-
ness, and the soul triumph in its immensity. So, in her
earlier visits, when the compassed splendor of the actual
interior glowed before her eyes, she had profanely called
it a great prettiness ; a gay piece of cabinet-work, on a
Titantic scale ; a jewel casket, marvellously magnified.
This latter image best pleased her fancy ; a casket, all
inlaid,in the inside, with precious stones of various hue
so that there should not be a hair's-breadth of the small
interior unadorned with its resplendent gem. Then, con-
ceive this minute wonder of a mosaic box, increased to
the magnitude of a cathedral, without losing the intense
lustre of its littleness, but all its petty glory striving to be
sublime. The magic transformation from the minute to
the vast has not been so cunningly effected but that the
rich adornment still counteracts the impression of space
and loftiness. The spectator is more sensible of its limits
than of its extent.
Until after many visits, Hilda continued to mourn for
that dim, illimitable interior, which with her eyes shut she
had seen from childhood, but which vanished at her first
glimpse through the actual door. Her childish vision
seemed preferable to the cathedral, which Michael Angelo,
and all the great architects, had built ; because, of the
dream edifice, she had said, " How vast it is ! " while of
the real Saint Peter's she could only say, " After all it
is not so immense ! " Besides, such as the church is it
can nowhere be made visible at one glance. It stands in
its own way. You see an aisle or a transept ; you see
the nave, or the tribune ; but, on account of its ponderous
piers and other obstructions, it is only by this fragmen-
tary process that you get an idea of the cathedral.
There is no answering such objections. The great
church smiles calmly upon its critics, and, for all response,
says, " Look at me ! " and if you still murmur for the loss
284 THE MARBLE FAUN.
of your sha(io^vy perspective, there comes no reply, save,
" Look at me ! " in endless repetition, as the one thing to
be said. And, after looking many times, with long in-
tervals between, you discover that the cathedral has
gradually extended itself over the whole compass of your
idea ; it covers all the site of your visionary temple, and
has room for its cloudy pinnacles beneath the dome.
One afternoon, as Plilda entered Saint Peter's in som-
bre mood, its interior beamed upon her with all the effect
of a new creation. It seemed an embodiment of what-
ever the imagination could conceive, or the heart desire,
as a magnificent, comprehensive, majestic symbol of relig-
ious faith. All splendor was included within its verge,
and there was space for all. She gazed with delight even
at the multiplicity of ornament. She was glad at the
cherubim that fluttered upon the pilasters, and of the
marble doves, hovering, unexpectedly, with green olive-
branches of precious stones. She could spare nothing,
now, of the manifold magnificence that had been lavished,
in a hundred places, richly enough to have made world-
famous shrines in any other church, but which here melted
away mto the vast, sumiy breath, and were of no sepa-
rate accomit. Yet each contributed its little all towards
the grandeur of the whole.
She would not have banished one of those grim popes,
who sit each over his own tomb, scattering cold benedic-
tions out of their marble hands ; nor a single frozen sister
of the Allegoric family, to whom as, like hired mourn-
ers at an English funeral, it costs them no wear and tear
of heart is assigned the office of weeping for the dead.
If you choose to see these things, they present them-
selves ; if you deem them unsuitable and out of place,
they vanish, individually, but leave their life upon the
walls.
The pavement ! it stretched out inimitably, a plain of
many-colored marble, where thousands of worshippers
might kneel together, and shadowless angels tread among
them without brushing their heavenly garments against
those earthly ones. The roof ! the dome ! Rich, gor-
geous, filled with sunshine, cheerfully sublime, and fade-
less after centuries, those lofty depths seemed to translate
the heavens to mortal comprehension, and help the spirit
THE MARBLE FAUl!T. 285
upward to a yet higher and wider sphere. Must not the
faith, that built this matchless edifice, and warmed, illu-
minated, and overflowed from it, include whatever can
satisfy human asi)irations at the loftiest, or minister to
human necessity at the sorest? If Religion had a mate-
rial home, was it not here ?
As the scene which we but faintly suggest shone calmly
before the New England maiden at her entrance, she
moved, as if by very instinct, to one of the vases of holy
water, upborne against a column by two mighty cherubs.
Hilda dipped her fingers, and had almost signed the cross
upon her breast, but forbore, and trembled, while shakmg
the water from her finger-tips. She felt as if her mother's
spirit, somewhere within the dome, were looking down
upon her child, the daughter of Puritan forefathers, and
weeping to behold her ensnared by these gaudy supersti-
tions. So she strayed sadly onward, up the nave, and
towards the hundred golden lights that swarm before the
high altar. Seeing a woman, a priest, and a soldier, kneel
to kiss the toe of the brazen St. Peter, who protrudes it
beyond his pedestal, for the purpose, polished bright with
former salutations, while a child stood on tiptoe to do the
same, the glory of the church was darkened before Hilda's
eyes. But agam she went onward into remoter regions.
She turned into the right transept, and thence found her
way to a shrine, in the extreme corner of the edifice,
which is adorned with a mosaic copy of Guido's beautiful
Archangel, treading on the prostrate fiend.
This was one of the few pictures, which, in these dreary
days, had not faded nor deteriorated in Hilda's estimation ;
not that it was better than many in which she no longer
took an interest ; but the subtile delicacy of the painter's
genius was peculiarly adapted to her character. She felt,
while gazing at it, that the artist had done a great thing,
not merely for the Church of Rome, but for the cause of
Good. The moral of the picture, the immortal youth and
loveliness of Virtue, and its irresistible might against ugly
Evil, appealed as much to Puritans as Catholics.
Suddenly, and as if it were done in a dream, Hilda
found herself kneelmg before the shrine ; under the ever-
burning lamp that throws its ray upon the Archangel's
face. She laid her forehead on the marble steps before
286 THE MARBLE FAUK.
the altar, and sobbed out a prayer ; she hardly knew to
whom, whether Michael, the Virgin, or the Father; she
hardly knew for what, save only a vague longing, that
thus the burden of her spirit might be lightened a little.
In an instant she snatched herself up, as it were, from
her knees, all a- throb with the emotions which were strug-
gling to force their way out of her heart by the avenue
that had so nearly been opened for them. Yet there was
a strange sense of relief won by that momentary, pas-
sionate prayer; a strange joy, moreover, whether from
what she had done, or for what she had escaped doing,
Hilda could not tell. But she felt as one half stifled, who
has stolen a breath of air.
Next to the shrine where she had knelt, there is an-
other, adorned with a picture by Guercino, representing
a maiden's body in the jaws of the sepulchre, and her
lover weeping over it; while her beatified spirit looks
down upon the scene, in the society of the Saviour and a
throng of saints. Hilda wondered if it were not possible,
by some miracle of faith, so to rise above her present
despondency that she might look down upon what she
was, just as Petronilla in the picture looked at her own
corpse. A hope, born of hysteric trouble, fluttered in her
heart. A presentiment, or what she fancied such, whispered
her, that, before she had finished the circuit of the cathe-
dral, relief would come.
The unhappy are continually tantalized by similar de-
lusions of succor near at hand ; at least, the despair is very
dark that has no such will-o'-the-wisp to glimmer in it.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE world's cathedral.
Still gliding onward, Hilda now looked up into the
dome, where the sunshine came through ^-he western
windows, and threw across long shafts of light. They
rested upon the mosaic figures of two evangelists above
the cornice. These great beams of radiance, traversing
what seemed the empty space, were made visible in misty
glory, by the holy cloud of incense, else unseen, which
rr
THE MARBLE FAUN'. 287
had risen into the middle dome. It was to Hilda as if
she beheld the worship of the priest and people ascend-
ing heavenward, purified from its alloy of earth, and ac-
quiring celestial substance in the golden atmosphere to
which it aspired. She wondered if angels did not some-
times hover within the dome, and show themselves, in
brief glimpses, floating amid the sunshine and the glori-
fied vapor, to those who devoutly worshipped on the
pavement.
She had now come into the southern transept. Around
this portion of the church are ranged a number of con-
fessionals. They are small tabernacles of carved wood,
with a closet for the priest in the center ; and, on either
side, a space for a penitent to kneel, and breathe his con-
fession through a perforated auricle into the good father's
ear. Observing this arrangement, though already famil-
iar to her, our poor Hilda was anew impressed with the
infinite convenience if we may use so poor a phrase of
the Catholic religion to its devout believers.
Who, in truth, that considers the matter, can resist a
similar impression ! In the hottest fever-fit of life, they
can always find, ready for their need, a cool, quiet, beau-
tiful place of worship. They may enter its sacred pre-
cincts at any hour, leaving the fret and trouble of the
world behind them, and purifying themselves with a
touch of holy water at the threshold. In the calm in-
terior, fragrant of rich and soothing incense, they may
hold converse with some saint, their awful, kindly friend.
And most precious privilege of all, whatever perplexity,
sorrow, guilt, may weigh upon their souls, they can fling
down the dark burden at the foot of the cross, and go
forth to sin no more, nor be any longer disquieted ; but
to live again in the freshness and elasticity of innocence.
" Do not these inestimable advantages," thought Hilda,
" or some of them, at least, belong to Christianity itself ?
Are they not a part of the blessings which the system
was meant to bestow upon mankind ? Can the faith in
which I was born and bred be perfect, if it leave a weak
girl like me to wander, desolate, with this great trouble
crushing me down ? "
A poignant anguish thrilled within her breast ; it was
like a thing that had life, and was struggling to get out.
288 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" Oh, help ! Oh, help ! " cried Hilda ; " I cannot, can.
not bear it ! "
Only by the reverberations that followed arch echo-
ing the sound to arch, and a pope of bronze repeating it
to a pope of marble, as each sat enthroned over his tomb
did Hilda become aware that she had really spoken
above her breath. But, in that great space, there is no
need to hush up the heart within one's own bosom, so
carefully as elsewhere ; and, if the cry reached any dis-
tant auditor, it came broken into many fragments, and
from various quarters of the church.
Approaching one of the confessionals, she saw a woman
kneeling within. Just as Hilda drew near, the penitent
rose, came forth, and kissed the hand of the priest, who
regarded her with a look of paternal benignity, and ap-
peared to be giving her some spiritual counsel, in a low
voice. She then knelt to receive his blessing, which was
fervently bestowed. Hilda was so struck with the peace
and joy in the woman's face, that, as the latter retired,
she could not help speaki-ng to her.
" You look very happy ! " she said. " Is it so sweet,
then, t-o go to the confessional ? "
" Oh, very sweet, my dear signorina ! " answered the
woman, with moistened eyes and an affectionate smile ;
for she was so thoroughly softened with what she had
been doing, that she felt as if Hilda were her younger
sister. "My heart is at rest now. Thanks be to the
Saviour, and the blessed Virgin and the samts, and
this good father, there is no more trouble for poor
Teresa ! "
" I am glad for your sake," said Hilda, sighing for her
own. " I am a poor heretic, but a human sister ; and I
rejoice for you ! "
She went from one to another of the confessionals, and,
looking at each, perceived that they were inscribed with
gilt letters : on one. Pro Italica Lingua ; on another,
Peo Flandrica Lingua ; on a third, Pro Polonica Lin-
gua ; on a fourth. Pro Illyrica Lingua ; on a fifth. Pro
HisPANicA Lingua. In this vast and hospitable cathe-
dral, worthy to be the religious heart of the whole world,
there was room for all nations ; liiere was access to the
Divine Grace for every Christian soul ; there was an ear
THE MARBLE FAUN. 289
for what the overburdened heart might have to murmur,
speak in what native tongue it would.
AVlien Hilda had almost completed the circuit of the
transept, she came to a confessional the central part was
closed, but a mystic rod protruded from it, indicating the
presence of a priest within on which was inscribed, Pro
Anglica Lingua.
It was the word in season ! If she had heard her
mother's voice from within the tabernacle, calling her, in
her own mother- tongue, to come and lay her poor head in
her lap, and sob out all her troubles, Hilda could not havo
responded with a more inevitable obedience. She did not
think ; she only felt. Within her heart was a great
need. Close at hand, within the veil of the confessional,
was the relief. She flung herself down in the penitent's
place ; and, tremulously, passionately, with sobs, tears,
and the turbulent overflow of emotion too long repressed,
she poured out the dark story which had infused its
poison into her imiocent life.
Hilda had not seen, nor could she now see, the visage
of the priest. But, at intervals, in the pauses of that
strange confession, half choked by the struggle of her
feelings towards an outlet, she heard a mild, calm voice,
somewhat mellowed by age. It spoke soothingly ; it en-
couraged her ; it led her on by apposite questions that
seemed to be suggested by a great and tender interest,
and acted like magnetism in attracting the girl's confi-
dence to this unseen friend. The priest's share in the in-
terview, indeed, resembled that of one who removes the
stones, clustered branches, or whatever entanglements
impede the current of a swollen stream. Hilda could
have imagined so much to the purpose were his in-
quiries that he was already acquainted with some out-
line of what she strove to tell him.
Thus assisted, she revealed the whole of her terrible
secret ! The whole, except that no name escaped her lips.
And, ah, what a relief ! When the hysteric gasp, the
strife between words and sobs, had subsided, what a tor-
ture had passed away from her soul ! It was all gone ;
her bosom was as pure now as in her childhood. She
was a girl again ; she was Hilda of the dove-cote ; not
that doubtful creature whom her own doves had hardly
19
290 THE MARBLE FAUN.
recognized as their mistress and playmate, by reason of
the death- scent that clung to her garments !
After she had ceased to speak, Hilda heard the priest
bestir himself with an old man's reluctant movement.
He stepped out of the confessional ; and as the girl was
still kneeling in the penitential corner, he summoned her
forth.
" Stand up, my daughter," said the mild voice of the
confessor ; " what we have further to say must be spoken
face to face."
Hilda did his bidding, and stood before him with a
downcast visage, which flushed and grew pale again.
But it had the wonderful beauty which we may often ob-
serve in those who have recently gone through a great
struggle, and won the peace that lies just on the other
side. We see it in a new mother's face ; we see it in the
faces of the dead ; and in Hilda's countenance which had
always a rare natural charm for her friends this glory
of peace made her as lovely as an angel.
On her part, Hilda beheld a venerable figure with hair
as white as snow, and a face strikingly characterized by
benevolence. It bore marks of thought, however, and
penetrative insight ; although the keen glances of the
eyes were now somewhat bedimmed Avith tears, which the
aged shed, or almost shed, on lighter stress of emotion
than would elicit them from younger men.
" It has not escaped my observation, daughter,"
said the priest, " that this is your first acquaintance with
the confessional. How is this ? "
" Father," replied Hilda, raising her eyes, and again
letting them fall, " I am of New England birth, and was
bred as what you call a heretic."
" From New England ! " exclaimed the priest, " It
was my own birthplace, likewise ; nor have fifty years of
absence made me cease to love it. But, a heretic 1 And
are you reconciled to the Church ? "
" Never, father," said Hilda.
" And, that being the case," demanded the old man,
" on what ground, my daughter, have you sought to avail
yourself of these blessed pri\ileges, confined exclusively
to members of the one true Church, of confession and ab-
solution ? "
I
THE MARBLE FAUN". 291
" Absolution, father ? " exclaimed Hilda, shrinking back.
** Oh, no, no ! I never dreamed of that ! Only our Heav-
enly Father can forgive my sins ; and it is only by sin-
cere repentance of whatever wrong I may have done, and
by my own best efforts towards a higher life, that I
can hope for His forgiveness ! God forbid that I should
ask absolution from mortal man ! "
" Then, wherefore," rejoined the priest, with somewhat
less mildness in his tone, " wherefore, I ask again, have
you taken possession, as I may term it, of this holy ordi-
nance ; being a heretic, and neither seeking to share, nor
having faith in, the unspeakable advantages which the
Church offers to its penitents ? "
" Father," answered Hilda, trying to tell the old man
the simple truth, " I am a motherless girl, and a stranger
here in Italy. I had only God to take care of me, and
be my closest friend ; and the terrible, terrible crime,
which I have revealed to you, thrust itself between Him
and me ; so that I groped for Him in the darkness, as it
were, and found Him not found nothmg but a dreadful
solitude, and this crime in the midst of it ! I could not
bear it. It seemed as if I made the awful guilt my own,
by keeping it hidden in my heart. I grew a fearful thing
to myself. I was going mad ! "
" It was a grievous trial, my poor child ! " observed the
confessor. " Your relief, I trust, will prove to be greater
than you yet know ! "
" I feel already how immense it is ! " said Hilda, look-
ing gratefully in his face. " Surely, father, it was the
hand of Providence that led me hither, and made me feel
that this vast temple of Christianity, this great home of
religion, must needs contain some cure, some ease, at least,
for my unutterable anguish. And it has proved so. I
have told the hideous secret ; told it under the sacred
seal of the confessional ; and now it will burden my poor
heart no more ! "
" But, daughter," answered the venerable priest, not
unmoved by what Hilda said, " you forget ! you mistake 1
you claim a privilege to which you have not entitled
yourself ! The seal of the confessional, do you say ?
God forbid that it should ever be broken, where it has
been fairly impressed ; but it applies only to matters that
292 THE MARBLE FAUN.
have been confided to its keeping in a certain prescribed
method, and by persons, moreover, who have faith in the
sanctity of the ordinance. I hold myself, and any learned
casuist of the Church would hold me, as free to disclose
all the particulars of what you term your confession, as
if they had come to my knowledge in a secular way."
" This is not right, father ! " said Hilda, fixing her eyes
on the old man's.
" Do not you see, child," he rejoined, with some little
heat " with all your nicety of conscience, cannot you
recognize it as my duty to make the story known to the
proper authorities ; a great crime against public justice
being involved, and further evil consequences likely to
ensue ? "
" No, father, no ! " answered Hilda, courageously, her
cheeks flushing and her eyes brightening as she spoke.
" Trust a girl's simple heart sooner than any casuist of
your Church, however learned he may be. Trust your
own heart, too ! I came to your confessional, father, as I
devoutly believe, by the direct impulse of Heaven, which
also brought you hither to-day, in its mercy and love, to
relieve me of a torture that I could no longer bear. I
trusted in the pledge which your Church has always held
sacred between the priest and the human soul, which,
through his medium, is struggling towards its Father
above. What I have confided to you lies sacredly be-
tween God and yourself. Let it rest there, father ; for
this is right, and if you do otherwise, you will perpetrate
a great wrong, both as a priest and a man ! And, be-
lieve me, no question, no torture, shall ever force my lips
to utter what would be necessary, in order to make my
confession available towards the punishment of the guilty
ones. Leave Providence to deal with them ! "
" My quiet little countrywoman," said the priest, with
half a smile on his kindly old face, " you can pluck up a
spirit, I perceive, when you fancy an occasion for one."
" I have spirit only to do what I think right," replied
Hilda, simply. " In other respects, I am timorous."
" But you confuse yourself between right feelings and
very foolish inferences," continued the priest, " as is the
wont of women so much I have learnt by long experi-
ence in the confessional be they young or old. How-
J
THE MARBLE FAUN. 293
ever, to set your heart at rest, there is no probable need
for me to reveal the matter. What you have told, if I
mistake not, and perhaps more, is already known in the
quarter which it most concerns."
Known ! " exclaimed Hilda. " Known to the authori-
ties of Rome ! And what will be the consequence ? "
" Hush," answered the confessor, laying his finger on
his lips. " I tell you my supposition mind, it is no as-
sertion of the fact in order that you may go the more
cheerfully on your way, not deeming yourself burdened
with any responsibility as concerns this dark deed. And
now, daughter, what have you to give in return for an
old man's kindness and sympathy ? "
" My grateful remembrance," said Hilda, fervently, " as
long as I live ! "
" And nothing more ? " the priest inquired, with a per-
suasive smile. " Will you not reward him with a great
joy ; one of the last joys that he may know on earth,
and a fit one to take with him into the better world ? In
a. word, will you not allow him to bring you, as a stray
lamb, into the true fold ? You have experienced some
little taste of the relief and comfort which the Church
keeps abundantly in store for all its faithful chilcb-en.
Come home, dear child, poor wanderer, who hast caught
a glimpse of the heavenly light, come home, and be at
rest."
" Father," said Hilda, much moved by his kindly
earnestness ; in which, however, genuine as it was, there
might still be a leaven of professional craft. "I dare
not come a step farther than Providence shall guide me.
Do not let it grieve you, therefore, if I never return to
the confessional ; never dip my fingers in holy water ;
never sign my laosom with the cross. I am a daughter
of the Puritans. But, in spite of my heresy," she added,
with a sweet, tearful smile, " you may one day see the
poor girl, to whom you have done this great Christian
kindness, coming to remind you of it, and thank you for
jt, in the Better Land."
The old priest shook his head. But, as he stretched
out his hands at the same moment, in the act of benedic-
tJe^i, Hilda knelt down and received the blessing with as
d^ fout a simplicity as any Catholic of them all.
294 THE MARBLE FAUN.
CHAPTER XL.
HILDA AND A FRIEND.
"When Hilda knelt to receive the priest's benediction,
the act was witnessed by a person who stood leaning
against the marble balustrade that surrounds the hundred
golden lights, before the high altar. He had stood there,
indeed, from the moment of the girl's entrance into the
confessional. His start of surprise, at first beholding her,
and the anxious gloom that afterwards settled on his face,
sufficiently betokened that he felt a deep and sad interest
in what was going forward.
After Hilda had bidden the priest farewell, she came
slowly towards the high altar. The individual, to whom
we have alluded, seemed irresolute whether to advance or
retire. His hesitation lasted so long, that the maiden,
straying through a happy reverie, had crossed the wide
extent of the pavement between the confessional and the
altar, before he had decided whether to meet her. At
last, when within a pace or two, she raised her eyes and
recognized Kenyon.
" It is you ! " she exclaimed, with joyful surprise. " I
am so happy."
In truth, the sculptor had never before seen, nor hardly
imagined, such a figure of peaceful beatitude as Hilda
now presented. While coming towards him in the
solemn radiance which, at that period of the day, is dif-
fused through the transept, and showered do^vTi beneath
the dome, she seemed of the same substance as the atmos-
phere that enveloped her. He could scarcely tell whether
she was imbued with sunshine, or whether it was a glow
of happiness that shone out of her.
At all events, it was a marvellous change from the sad
girl, who had entered the confessional bewildered with
anguish, to this bright, yet softened image of religious
consolation that emerged from it. It was as if one of the
throng of angelic people, who might be hovering in th
THE MARBLE FAUN. 295
sunny depths of the dome, had alighted on the pavement.
Indeed, this capability of transfiguration, which we often
see wrought by inward delight on persons far less capable
of it than Hilda, suggests how angels come by their
beauty. It grows out of their happiness, and lasts forever
only because that is immortal.
She held out her hand, and Kenyon was glad to take it
in his own, if only to assure himself that she was made
of earthly material.
" Yes, Hilda, I see that you are very happy," he re-
plied, gloomily, and withdrawing his hand after a single
pressure. " For me, I never was less so than at this
moment."
" Has any misfortune befallen you ? " asked Hilda, with
earnestness. " Pray tell me ; and you shall have my
sympathy, though I must still be very happy. Now, I
know how it is, that the saints above are touched by the
sorrows of distressed people on earth, and yet are never
made wretched by them. Not that I profess to be a saint,
you know," she added, smiling radiantly. "But the
heart grows so large, and so rich, and so variously en-
dowed, when it has a great sense of bliss, that it can give
smiles to some, and tears to others, with equal sincerity,
and enjoy its own peace throughout all."
" Do not say you are no saint ! " answered Kenyon,
with a smile, though he felt that the tears stood in his
eyes. " You will still be Saint Hilda, whatever Church
may canonize you."
" Ah ! you would not have said so, had you seen me
but an hour ago ! " murmured she. " I was so wretched,
that there seemed a grievous sin in it."
" And what has made you so suddenly happy ? " in-
quired the sculptor. " But first, Hilda, will you not tell
me why you were so wretched ? "
" Had I met you yesterday, I might have told you
that," she replied. " To-day, there is no need."
" Your happiness, then ? " said the sculptor, as sadly as
before. " Whence comes it ? "
" A great burden has been lifted from my heart,
from my conscience, I had almost said," answered Hilda,
without shunning the glance that he fixed upon her. " I
am a new creature, since this morning. Heaven be praised
296 THE MARBLE FAUN.
for it! It was a blessed hour a blessed impulse thlt
brought me to this beautiful and glorious cathedral, I
shall hold it in loving remembrance while I live, as the
spot where I found infinite peace after infinite trouble."
Her heart seemed so full, that it spilt its new gush of
happiness, as it were, like rich and sunny wine out of an
over-brimming goblet. Kenyon saw that she was in one
of those moods of elevated feeling, when the soul is up-
held by a strange tranquillity, which is really more pas-
sionate, and less controllable, than emotions far exceeding
it in violence. He felt that there would be indelicacy, if
he ought not rather to call it impiety, in his stealing
upon Hilda, while she was thus beyond her own guardian-
ship, and surprising her out of secrets which she might
afterwards bitterly regret betraying to him. Therefore,
though yearning to know what had happened, he resolved
to forbear further question.
Simple and earnest people, however, being accustomed
to speak from their genuine impulses, cannot easily, as
craftier men do, avoid the subject which they have at
heart. As often as the sculptor unclosed his lips, such
words as these were ready to burst out :
" Hilda, have you flung your angelic purity into that
mass of unspeakable corruption, the Roman Church ? "
"What were you saying?" she asked, as Kenyon
forced back an almost uttered exclamation of this kind.
" I was thinking of what you have just remarked about
the cathedral," said he, looking up into the mighty hollow
of the dome. " It is indeed a magnificent structure, and
an adequate expression of the Faith which built it.
When I behold it in a proper mood, that is to say,
when I bring my mind into a fair relation with the
minds and purposes of its spiritual and material archi-
tects, I see but one or two criticisms to make. One is,
that it needs painted windows."
" Oh, no ! " said Hilda. " They would be quite incon-
sistent with so much richness of color in the interior of
the church. Besides, it is a Gothic ornament, and only
suited to that style of architecture, which requires a
gorgeous dimness."
" Nevertheless," continued the sculptor, " yonder square
apertures, filled with ordinary panes of glass, are quito
THE MARBLE FAUN. 297
out of keeping with the superabundant splendor of every-
thing about them. They remind me of tliat portion of
Aladdin's palace which he left unfinished, in order that
his royal father-in-law might put the finishing touch.
Daylight, in its natural state, ought not to be admitted
here. It should stream through a brilliant illusion of
saints and hierarchies, and old scriptural images, and
symbolized dogmas, purple, blue, golden, and a broad flame
of scarlet. Then, it would be just such an illumination
as the Catholic faith allows to its believers. But, give
me to live and die in the pure, white light of heaven ! "
" Why do you look so sorrowfully at me ? " asked
Hilda, quietly meeting his disturbed gaze. " What would
you say to me ? I love the white light too ! "
" I fancied so," answered Kenyon. " Forgive me,
Hilda ; but I must needs speak. You seemed to me a
rare mixture of impressibility, sympathy, sensitiveness
to many influences, with a certain quality of common
sense ; no, not that, but a higher and finer attribute, for
which I find no better word. However tremulously you
might vibrate, this quality, I supposed, would always
bring you back to the equipoise. You were a creature of
imagination, and yet as truly a New England girl as any
with whom you grew up in your native village. If there
were one person in the world, whose native rectitude of
thought, and something deeper, more reliable, than
thought, I would have trusted against all the arts of a
priesthood, whose taste alone, so exquisite and sincere
that it rose to be a moral virtue, I would have rested upon
as a suflicient safeguard it was yourself ! "
" I am conscious of no such high and delicate qualities
as you allow me," answered Hilda. " But what have I
done that a girl of New England birth and culture, with
the right sense that her mother taught her, and the con-
science that she developed in her, should not do ! "
" Hilda, I saw you at the confessional ! " said Kenyon.
"All, well, my dear friend," replied Hilda, casting
down her eyes, and looking somewhat confused, yet not
ashamed, " you must try to forgive me for that, if you
deem it wrong, because it has saved my reason, and
make me very happy. Had you been here yesterday, I
would have confessed to you."
298 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" Would to Heaven I had ! " ejaculated Kenyon.
" I thiiik," Hilda resumed, " I shall never go to the
confessional agam ; for there can scarcely come such a
sore trial twice in my life. If I had been a wiser girl, a
stronger, and a more sensible, very likely I might not
have gone to the confessional at all. It was the sin of
others that drove me thither ; not my own, though it
almost seemed so. Being what I am, I must either have
done what you saw me doing, or have gone mad. "Would
that have been better ? "
" Then you are not a Catholic ? " asked the sculptor,
earnestly,
" Really, I do not quite know what I am," replied
Hilda, encountering his eyes with a frank and simple
gaze. " I have a great deal of faith, and Catholicism
seems to have a great deal of good. Why should not I
be a Catholic, if I find there what I need, and what I
cannot find elsewhere ? The more I see of this worship,
the more I wonder at the exuberance with which it
adapts itself to all the demands of human infirmity. If
its ministers were but a little more than human, above
all error, pure from all iniquity, what a religion would it
be!"
" I need not fear your perversion to the Catholic faith,"
remarked Kenyon, " if you are at all aware of the bitter
sarcasm implied in your last observation. It is very just.
Only, the exceeding ingenuity of the system stamps it
as the contrivance of man, or some worse author ; not an
emanation of the broad and simple \visdom from on
high."
" It may be so," said Hilda ; " but I meant no sarcasm."
Thus conversing, the two friends went together doA\Ti
the grand extent of the nave. Before leaving the church,
they turned to admire again its mighty breadth, the re-
moteness of the glory behind the altar, and the effect of
visionary splendor and magnificence imparted by the long
bars of smoky sunshine, which travelled so far before ar-
riving at a place of rest.
" Thank Heaven for havmg brought me hither ! " said
Hilda, fervently.
Kenyon's mind was deeply disturbed by his idea of her
Catholic propensities ; and now what he deemed her dis-
THE MARBLE FAUN. 299
proportionate and misapplied veneration for the sublime
edifice, stung him into irreverence.
" The best thing I know of St. Peter's," observed he,
" is its equable temperature. We are now enjoying the
coolness of last winter, which, a few months hence, will
be the warmth of the present summer. It has no cure, I
suspect, in all its length and breadth, for a sick soul, but
it would make an admirable atmospheric hospital for sick
bodies. What a delightful shelter would it be for the in-
valids who throng to Rome, where the sirocco steals
away their strength, and the tramontana stabs them
through and through, like cold steel with a poisoned
point ! But, within these walls, the thermometer never
varies. Winter and summer are married at the high
altar and dwell together m perfect harmony."
" Yes," said Hilda ; " and I have always felt this soft,
unchanging climate of Saint Peter's to be another mani-
festation of its sanctity."
" That is not precisely my idea," replied Kenyon.
" But what a delicious life it would be, if a colony of
people with delicate lungs or merely with delicate
fancies could take up their abode in this ever-mild and
tranquil air. These architectural tombs of the popes
might serve for dwellings, and each brazen sepulchral
doorway would become a domestic threshold. Then the
lover, if he dared, might say to his mistress, ' Will you
share my tomb with me ? ' and, wimiing her soft consent
he would lead her to the altar, and thence to yonder sepul-
chre of Pope Gregory, which should be their nuptial
home. What a life would be theirs, Hilda, in their
marble Eden ! "
" It is not kind, nor like yourself," said Hilda, gently,
" to throw ridicule on emotions which are genuine. I
revere this glorious church for itself and its purposes ;
and love it, moreover, because here I have found sweet
peace, after a great anguish."
" Forgive me," answered the sculptor, " and I will do
so no more. My heart is not so irreverent as my words."
They went through the piazza of Saint Peter's and the
adjacent streets, silently at first; but, before reaching
the bridge of St. Angelo, Hilda's flow of spirits began to
bubble fortli, like the gush of a streamlet that has been
800 THE MARBLE FAUN.
shut up by frost, or by a heavy stone over its source.
Kenyon had never found her so delightful as now ; so
softened out of the chillness of her virgin pride ; so full
of fresh thoughts, at which he was often moved to smile,
although, on turning them over a little more, he some-
times discovered that they looked fanciful only because
so absolutely true.
But, indeed, she was not quite in a normal state.
Emerging from gloom into sudden cheerfulness, the effect
upon Hilda was as if she were just now created. After
long torpor, receiving back her mtellectual activity, she
derived an exquisite pleasure from the use of her facul-
ties, which were set in motion by causes that seemed in-
adequate. She continually brought to Kenyon's mind
the image of a child, making its plaything of every ob-
ject, but sporting in good faith, and with a kind of seri-
ousness. Looking up, for example, at the statue of St.
Michael, on the top of Hadrian's castellated tomb, Hilda
fancied an interview between the Archangel and the old
emperor's ghost, who was naturally displeased at find-
ing his mausoleum, which he had ordained for the stately
and solemn repose of his ashes, converted to its present
purposes.
" But St. Michael, no doubt," she thoughtfully re-
marked, " would finally convmce the Emperor Hadrian,
that where a warlike despot is soAvn as the seed, a for-
tress and a prison are the only possible crop."
They stopped on the bridge to look into the swift eddy-
ing flow of the yellow Tiber, a mud-puddle in strenuous
motion ; and Hilda wondered whether the seven-branched
golden candlestick, the holy candlestick of the Jews
which was lost at the Ponte Molle, in Constantine's time
had yet been swept as far down the river as this.
" It probably stuck where it fell," said the sculptor ;
" and by this time, is imbedded thirty feet deep in the
mud of the Tiber. Nothing will ever bring it to light
again."
" I fancy you are mistaken," replied Hilda, smiling.
" There was a meaning and purpose in each of its seven
branches, and such a candlestick cannot be lost forever.
When it is found again, and seven lights are kindled and
burning in it, the whole world will gain the illuminatioii
THE MARBLE FAUN. 301
which, it needs. Would not this be an admirable idea
for a mystic story or parable, or seven -branched alle-
gory, full of poetry, art, philosophy, and religion? It
shall be called 'The Recovery of the Sacred Candle-
stick.' As each branch is lighted, it shall have a differ-
ently colored lustre from the other six; and when all
the seven are kindled, their radiance shall combine into
the intense white light of truth."
"Positively, Hilda, this is a magnificent conception,"
cried Kenyon. " The more I look at it, the brighter it
burns."
" I think so too," said Hilda, enjoying a childlike pleas-
ure in her own idea. " The theme is better suited for
verse than prose ; and when I go home to America, I
will suggest it to one of our poets. Or, seven poets might
write the poem together, each lighting a separate branch
of the Sacred Candlestick."
" Then you think of gomg home ? " Kenyon asked.
Only yesterday," she replied, " I longed to flee away.
Now, all is changed, and, being happy again, I should feel
deep regret at leaving the Pictorial Land. But, I cannot
tell. In Rome, there is something dreary and awful,
which we can never quite escape. At least, I thought so
yesterday."
When they reached the Via Portoghese, and ap-
proached Hilda's tower, the doves, who were waiting
aloft, llung themselves upon the air, and came floating
down about her head. The girl caressed them, and re-
sponded to their cooings with similar sounds from her
own lips, and with words of endearment ; and their
joyful flutterings and airy little flights, evidently im-
pelled by pure exuberance of spirits, seemed to show that
the doves had a real sympathy with their mistress's
state of mind. For peace had descended upon her like a
dove.
Bidding the sculptor farewell, Hilda climbed her tower,
and came forth upon its summit to trim the Virgin's lamp.
The doves, well knowing her custom, had flown up thither
to meet her, and again hovered about her head ; and very
lovely was her aspect, m the evening sunlight, which had
little further to do with the world, just then, save to fling
a golden glory on Hilda's hair and vanish.
802 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Turning her eyes down into the dusky street which she
had just quitted, Hilda saw the sculptor still there, and
waved her hand to him.
" How sad and dim he looks, down there in that dreary
street ! " she said to herself. " Something weighs upon
his spirits. Would I could comfort him."
" How like a spirit she looks, aloft there, with the even-
ing glory round her head, and those winged creatures
claiming her as akin to them ! " thought Kenyon, on his
part. " How far above me ! how unattainable ! Ah, if I
could lift myself to her region ! Or if it be not a sin
to wish it would that I might draw her down to an
earthly fireside I "
What a sweet reverence is that, when a young man
deems his mistress a little more than mortal, and almost
chides himself for longing to bring her close to his heart !
A trifling circumstance, but such as lovers make much of,
gave him hope. One of the doves, which had been rest-
ing on Hilda's shoulder, suddenly flew downward, as if
recognizing him as its mistress's dear friend ; and perhaps
commissioned with an errand of regard, brushed his up-
turned face with its wings, and again soared aloft.
The sculptor watched the bird's return, and saw Hilda
greet it with a smile.
CHAPTER XLI.
SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS.
It being still considerably earlier than the period at
which artists and tourists are accustomed to assemble in
Rome, the sculptor and Hilda found themselves compara-
tively alone there. The dense mass of native Roman
life, in the midst of which they were, served to press them
nearer to one another. It was as if they had been thrown
together on a desert island. Or, they seemed to have
wandered, by some strange chance, out of the common
world, and encountered each other in a depopulated city,
where there were streets of lonely palaces, and unreckon-
THE MARBLE FAUN. 803
able treasures of beautiful and admirable things, of which
they two became the sole inheritors.
In such circumstances, Hilda's gentle reserve must have
been stronger than her kindly disposition permitted, if the
friendship between Kenyon and herself had not grown as
warm as a maiden's friendship can ever be, without abso-
lutely and avowedly blooming into love. On the sculp-
tor's side, the amaranthine flower was already in full blow.
But it is very beautiful, though the lover's heart may grow
chill at the perception, to see how the snow will sometimes
linger in a virgin's breast, even after the spring is well
advanced. In such alpine soils, the summer will not be
anticipated ; we seek vainly for passionate flowers, and
blossoms of fervid hue and spicy fragrance, finding only
snowdrops and sunless violets, when it is almost the full
season for the crimson rose.
With so much tenderness as Hilda had in her nature,
it was strange that she so reluctantly admitted the idea
of love ; especially as, in the sculptor, she found both
congeniality and variety of taste, and likenesses and dif-
ferences of character ; these being as essential as those to
any poignancy of mutual emotion.
So Hilda, as far as Kenyon could discern, still did not
love him, though she admitted him within the quiet circle
of her affections as a dear friend and trusty counsellor.
If we knew what is best for us, or could be content with
what is reasonably good, the sculptor might well have
been satisfied, for a season, with this calm intimacy, which
so sweetly kept him a stranger in her heart, and a cere-
monious guest ; and yet allowed him the free enjoyment
of all but its deeper recesses. The flowers that grow out-
side of those inner sanctities have a wild, hasty charm,
which it is well to prove ; there may be sweeter ones
within the sacred precinct, but none that will die while
you are handling them, and bequeathe you a delicious
legacy, as these do, in the perception of their evanescence
and unreality.
And this may be the reason, after all, why Hilda, like
so many other maidens, lingered on the hither side of
passion ; her finer instinct and keener sensibility made
her enjoy those pale delights in a degree of which men
axe incapable. She hesitated to grasp a richer happiness
804 THE MARBLE FAUN.
as possessing already sucli measure of it as her heart
could hold, and of a quality most agreeable to her virgin
tastes.
Certainly, they both were very happy. Kenyon's gen-
ius, unconsciousl)^ -s^Tought upon by Hilda's influence, took
a more delicate character than heretofore. He modelled,
among other things, a beautiful little statue of maiden-
hood gathermg a snowdrop. It was never put into mar-
ble, however, because the sculptor soon recognized it as
one of those fragile creations which are true only to the
moment that produces them, and are wronged if we try to
imprison their airy excellence in a permanent material.
On her part, Hilda returned to her customary occupa-
tions with a fresh love for them, and yet with a deeper
look into the heart of things ; such as those necessarily
acquire, who have passed from picture-galleries into dun-
geon gloom, and thence come back to the picture-gallery
again. It is questionable whether she was ever so perfect
a copyist thenceforth. She could not yield herself up to
the painter so unreservedly as in times past ; her charac-
ter had developed a sturdier quality, which made her less
pliable to the influence of other mmds. She saw into the
picture as profoundly as ever, and perhaps more so, but
not Avith the devout sympathy that had formerly given
her entire possession of the old master's idea. She had
known such a reality, that it taught her to distinguish
inevitably the large portion that is unreal, in every work
of art. Instructed by sorrow, she felt that there is some-
thing beyond almost all which pictorial genius has pro-
duced ; and she never forgot those sad wanderings from
gallery to gallery, and from church to church, where she
had vainly sought a type of the virgin mother, or the
Saviour, or saint, or martyr, which a soul in extreme need
might recognize as the adequate one.
How, indeed, should she have found such ? How could
holiness be revealed to the artist of an age when the
greatest of them put genius and imagination in the place
of spiritual insight, and when, from the pope downward,
all Christendom was corrupt ?
Meanwhile, months wore away, and Rome received
back that large portion of its lifeblood A^hich runs in the
veins of its foreign and temporary population English
THE MARBLE FAUN". 305
visitors established themselves in the hotels, and in all
the sunny suites of apartments, in the streets convenient
to the Piazza di Spagna ; the English tongue was heard
familiarly along the Corso, and English children sported
in the Pincian Gardens.
The native Romans, on the other hand, like the butter-
flies and grasshoppers, resigned themselves to the short,
sharp misery which winter brings to a people whose ar-
rangements are made almost exclusively with a view to
summer. Keeping no fire within-doors, except possibly a
spark or two in the kitchen, they crept out of their cheer-
less houses into the narrow, sunless, sepulchral streets,
bringing their firesides along with them, in the shape of
little earthen pots, vases, or pipkins, full of lighted char-
coal and warm ashes, over which they held their tingling
finger-ends. Even in this half-torpid wretchedness, they
still seemed to dread a pestilence in the sunshine, and
kept on the shady side of the piazzas, as scrupulously as
in summer. Through the open door- ways no need to
shut them when the weather within was bleaker than
without a glimpse into the interior of their dwellings
showed the uncarpeted brick-floors, as dismal as tha
pavement of a tomb.
They drew their old cloaks about them, nevertheless,
and threw the corners over their shoulders, with the
dignity of attitude and action that have come down to
these modern citizens, as their sole inheritance from the
togaed nation. Somehow or other, they managed to keep
up their poor, frostbitten hearts against the pitiless atmos-
phere with a quiet and uncomplaining endurance that
really seems the most respectable point in the present
Roman character. For, in New England, or in Russia,
or scarcely in a hut of the Esquimaux, there is no such
discomfort to be borne as by Romans in wintry weather,
when the orange-trees bear icy fruit in the gardens ; and
when the rims of all the fountains are shaggy with icicles,
and the fountain of Trevi skimmed almost across with a
glassy surface ; and when there is a slide in the piazza
of St. Peter's, and a fringe of bro^vn, frozen foam along
the eastern shore of the Tiber, and sometimes a fall of
great snow-flakes into the dreary lanes and alleys of the
miserable city. Cold blasts, that bring death with them,
20
306 THE MARBLE FAUN.
now blow upon the shivering invalids, who came hither
in the hope of breathing balmy airs.
Wherever we pass our summers, may all our inclement
months, from November to April, henceforth be spent in
some country that recognizes winter as an integral portion
of its year !
Now, too, there was especial discomfort in the stately
picture-galleries, when nobody, indeed, not the princely
or priestly founders, nor any who have inherited their
cheerless magnificence, ever dreamed of such an impos-
sibility as fireside warmth, since those great palaces were
built. Hilda, therefore, finding her fingers so much be-
numbed that the spiritual influence could not be trans-
mitted to them, was persuaded to leave her easel before a
picture, on one of these wintry days, and pay a visit to
Kenyon's studio. But neither was the studio anything
better than a dismal den, with its marble shapes shivering
around the walls, cold as the snow-images which the
sculptor used to model, in his boyhood, and sadly behold
them weep themselves away at the first thaw,
Kenyon's Roman artisans, all this while, had been at
work on the Cleopatra. The fierce Egyptian queen had
now struggled almost out of the imprisoning stone ; or,
rather, the workmen had found her within the mass of
marble, imprisoned there by magic, but still fervid to the
touch with fiery life, the fossil woman of an age that pro-
duced statelier, stronger, and more passionate creatures
than our own. You already felt her compressed heat,
and were aware of a tiger-like character even in her re-
pose. If Octavius should make his appearance, though
the marble still held her within its embrace, it was evident
that she would tear herself forth in a twinlding, either to
spring enraged at his throat, or, sinking into his arms, to
make one more proof of her rich blandishments, or fall-
mg lowly at his feet, to try the efiicacy of a woman's tears.
" I am ashamed to tell you how much I admire this
statue," said Hilda. " No other sculptor could have done
it."
" This is very sweet for me to hear," replied Kenyon ;
" and since your reserve keeps you from saying more, I
shall imagine you expressing everything that an artist
would wish to hear said about his work."
THE MARBLE FAUN. 307
" You will not easily go beyond my genuine opinion,"
answered Hilda, with a smile.
" Ah, your kind word makes me very happy," said the
sculptor, " and I need it, just now, on behalf of my Cleo-
patra. That inevitable period has come for I have
found it inevitable, in regard to all my works when I
look at what I fancied to be a statue, lacking only breath
to make it live, and find it a mere lump of senseless stone,
into which I have not really succeeded in moulding the
spiritual part of my idea. I should like, now only it
would be such shameful treatment for a discrowned queen,
and my own offspring, too I should like to hit poor
Cleopatra a bitter blow on her Egyptian nose with this
mallet."
" That is a blow which all statues seem doomed to
receive, sooner or later, though seldom from the hand that
sculptured them," said Hilda, laughing. " But you must
not let yourself be too much disheartened by the decay of
your faith in what you produce. I have heard a poet ex-
press similar distaste for his own most exquisite poems,
and I am afraid that this final despair, and sense of short-
coming, must always be the reward and punishment of
those who try to grapple with a great or beautiful idea.
It only proves that you have been able to imagine things
too high for mortal faculties to execute. The idea leaves
you an imperfect image of itself, which you at first mis-
take for the ethereal reality, but soon find that the latter
has escaped out of your closest embrace."
" And the only consolation is," remarked Kenyon,
" that the blurred and imperfect image may still make
a very respectable appearance in the eyes of those who
have not seen the original."
" More than that," rejoined Hilda ; " for there is a class
of spectators whose sympathy will help them to see the
perfect through a mist of imperfection. Nobody, I think,
ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who
cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or
artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is
sugge sti vene ss . "
" You, Hilda, are yourself the only critic in whom I
have much faith," said Kenyon. " Had you condemned
Cleopatra, nothing should have saved her."
308 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" You invest me with such an awful responsibility," she
replied, " that I shall not dare to say a single word about
your other works."
" At least," said the sculptor, " tell me whether you
recognize this bust."
He pointed to a bust of Donatello. It was not the one
which Kenyon had begun to model at Monte Beni, but a
reminiscence of the Count's face, wrought under the influ-
ence of all the sculptor's knowledge of his history, and of
his personal and hereditary character. It stood on a
wooden pedestal, not nearly finished, but with fine, white
dust and small chips of marble scattered about it, and it-
self incrusted all round with the white, shapeless sub-
stance of the block. In the midst appeared the features,
lacking sharpness, and very much resembling a fossil
countenance but we have already used this simile, in
reference to Cleopatra with the accamulations of long-
past ages clinging to it.
And yet, strange to say, the face had an expression, and
a more recognizable one than Kenyon had succeeded in
putting into the clay model at Monte Beni. The reader
is probably acquainted with Thorwaldsen's threefold
analogy, the clay model, the Life ; the plaster cast, the
Death ; and the sculptured marble, the Resurrection,
and it seemed to be made good by the spirit that was
kindling up these imperfect features, like a lambent flame.
" I was not quite sure, at first glance, that I knew the
face," observed Hilda ; " the likeness surely is not a strik-
ing one. There is a good deal of external resemblance,
still, to the features of the Faun of Praxiteles, between
whom and Donatello, you know, we once insisted that
there was a perfect twin-brotherhood. But the expression
is now so very different 1 "
What do you take it to be ? " asked the sculptor.
" I hardly know how to define it," she answered. " But
it has an effect as if I could see this countenance gradually
brightening while I look at it. It gives the impression of
a growing intellectual power and moral sense. Donatello's
face used to evince little more than a genial, pleasurable
sort of vivacity, and capability of enjoyment. But, here,
a soul is being breathed into him ; it is the Faun, but ad-
vancing towards a state of higher development."
THE MARBLE FAUN. 309
"Hilda, do you see all this?" exclaimed Kenyon, in
considerable surprise. " I may have had such an idea in
my mind, but was quite unaware that I had succeeded in
conveying it into the marble."
" Forgive me," said Hilda, " but I question whether this
striking effect has been brought about by any skill or
purpose on the sculptor's part. Is it not, perhaps, the
chance result of the bust being just so far shaped out, in
the marble, as the process of moral growth had advanced
in the original ? A few more strokes of the chisel might
change the whole expression, and so spoil it for what it is
now worth."
" I believe you are right," answered Kenyon, thought-
fully examining his work ; " and, strangely enough, it
was the very expression that I tried unsuccessfully to
produce in the clay model. Well ; not another chip shall
be struck from the marble."
And, accordingly, Donatello's bust (like that rude, rough
mass of the head of Brutus, by Michael Angelo, at Flor-
ence) has ever since remained in an unfinished state.
Most spectators mistake it for an unsuccessful attempt
towards copying the features of the Faun of Praxiteles.
One observer in a thousand is conscious of something
more, and lingers long over this mysterious face, depart-
ing from it reluctantly, and with many a glance thrown
backward. What perplexes him is the riddle that he sees
propounded there ; the riddle of the soul's growth, taking
its first impulse amid remorse and pain, and struggling
through the incrustations of the senses. It was the con-
templation of this imperfect portrait of Donatello that
originally interested us in his history, and impelled us to
elicit from Kenyon what he knew of his friend's ad"
ventures.
810 THE MARBLE FAUN.
CHAPTER XLII
" EBMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM.
vVhen Hilda and himself turned away from the un-
finished bust, the sculptor's mind still dwelt upon the
reminiscences which it suggested.
" You have not seen Donatello recently," he remarked,
and therefore cannot be aware how sadly he is changed."
" No wonder ! " exclaimed Hilda, growing pale.
The terrible scene which she had witnessed, when
Donatello's face gleamed out in so fierce a light, came
back upon her memory, almost for the first time since she
knelt at the confessional. Hilda, as is sometimes the case
with persons whose delicate organization requires a pe-
culiar safeguard, had an elastic faculty of throwing off such
recollections as would be too painful for endurance. The
first shock of Donatello's and Miriam's crime had, indeed,
broken through the frail defence of this voluntary forget-
fulness ; but, once enabled to relieve herself of the pon-
derous anguish over which she had so long brooded, she
had practised a subtile watchfulness in preventing its
return.
" No wonder, do you say ? " repeated the sculptor,
looking at her with interest, but not exactly with sur-
prise ; for he had long suspected that Hilda had a painful
knowledge of events Avhich he himself little more than
surmised. " Then you know ! you have heard ! But
what can you possibly have heard, and through what
channel ? "
" Nothing ! " replied Hilda, faintly. " Not one word
has reached my ears from the lips of any human being.
Let us never speak of it again 1 No, no ! never again ! "
" And Miriam ! " said Kenyon, with irrepressible inter-
est. " Is it also forbidden to speak of her ? "
" Hush ! do not even utter her name ! Try not to
think of it ! " Hilda whispered. " It may bring terribile
consequences I "
" My dear Hilda ! " exclaimed Kenyon, regarding her
THE MARBLE FAUN. 3H
with wonder and deep sympathy. "My sweet friend,
have you had this secret hidden in your delicate, maidenly
heart, through all these many months ! No wonder that
your life was withering out of you."
" It was so, indeed ! " said Hilda, shuddering. " Even
now, I sicken at the recollection."
" And how could it have come to your knowledge ? "
continued the sculptor. " But, no matter ! Do not tor-
ture yourself with referring to the subject. Only, if at
any time it should be a relief to you, remember that we
can speak freely together, for Miriam has herself suggested
a confidence between us."
" Miriam has suggested this ! " exclaimed Hilda.
"Yes, I remember, now, her advising that the secret
should be shared with you. But I have survived the
death-struggle that it cost me, and need make no further
revelations. And Miriam has spoken to you ! What
manner of woman can she be, who after sharing in such
a deed, can make it a topic of conversation with her
friends ? "
" Ah, Hilda," replied Kenyon, " you do not know, for
you could never learn it from your own heart, which is
all purity and rectitude, what a mixture of good there
may be in things evil ; and how the greatest criminal, if
you look at his conduct from his own point of view, or
from any side-pomt, may seem not so unquestionably
guilty, after all. So with Miriam ; so with Donatello.
They are, perhaps, partners in what we must call awful
guilt ; and yet, I will own to you, when I think of the
original cause, the motives, the feelings, the sudden con-
currence of circumstances thrusting them onward, the
urgency of the moment, and the sublime unselfishness on
either part, I know not well how to distinguish it from
much that the world calls heroism. Might we not render
some such verdict as this ? ' Worthy of Death, but not
unworthy of Love ! ' "
" Never ! " answered Hilda, looking at the matter
through the clear crystal medium of her own integrity.
" This thing, as regards its causes, is all a mystery to me,
and must remain so. But there is, I believe, only one
right and one wrong ; and I do not understand, and may
Grod keep me from ever understanding, how two things
312 THE MARBLE FAUN".
so totally unlike can be mistaken for one another ; nor how
two mortal foes, as Right and Wrong surely are, can work
together in the same deed. This is my faith ; and I should
be led Lstray, if you could persuade me to give it up."
" Alas for poor human nature, then ! " said Kenyon,
sadly, and yet half smiling at Hilda's unworldly and im-
practicable theory. " I always felt you, my dear friend,
a terribly severe judge, and have been perplexed to
conceive how such tender sympathy could coexist with
the remorselessness of a steel blade. You need no
mercy, and therefore know not how to show any."
" That sounds like a bitter gibe," said Hilda, with the
tears springing into her eyes. " But I cannot help it. It
does not alter my perception of the truth. If there be
any such dreadful mixture of good and evil as you affirm,
and which appears to me almost more shocking than
pure evil, then the good is turned to poison, not the evil
to wholesomeness."
The sculptor seemed disposed to say something more,
but yielded to the gentle steadfastness with which Hilda
declined to listen. She grew very sad ; for a reference to
this one dismal topic had set, as it were, a prison-door
ajar, and allowed a throng of torturing recollections to
escape from their dungeons into the pure air and white
radiance of her soul. She bade Kenyon a briefer fare-
well than ordinary, and went homeward to her tower.
In spite of her efforts to withdraw them to other sub-
jects, her thoughts dwelt upon Miriam ; and, as had not
heretofore happened, they brought with them a painful
doubt whether a wrong had not been committed, on Hil-
da's part, towards the friend once so beloved. Something
that Miriam had said, in their final conversation, recurred
to her memory, and seemed now to deserve more weight
than Hilda had assigned to it, in her horror at the crime
just perpetrated. It was not that the deed looked less
wicked and terrible in the retrospect ; but she asked her-
self whether there were not other questions to be con-
sidered, aside from that single one of Miriam's guilt or
innocence ; as, for example, whether a close bond of
friendship, in which we once voluntarily engage, ought
to be severed on account of any unworthiness, which we
subsecLuently detect in our friend. For, in these unions
THE MARBLE FAUN. 313
of hearts, call them marriage, or whatever else, we
take each other for better for worse. Availing ourselves
of our friend's intimate affection, we pledge our own, as
to be relied upon in every emergency. And what sadder,
more desperate emergency could there be, than had be-
fallen Miriam ? Who more need the tender succor of the
innocent, than wretches stained with guilt? And must a
selfish care for the spotlessness of our own garments keep
us from pressing the guilty ones close to our hearts,
wherein, for the very reason that we are innocent, lies
their securest refuge from further ill ?
It was a sad thing for Hilda to find this moral enigma
propounded to her conscience ; and to feel that, whichever
way she might settle it, there would be a cry of wrong on
the other side. Still the idea stubbornly came back, that
the tie between Miriam and herself had been real, the
affection true, and that therefore the implied compact was
not to be shaken off.
Miriam loved me well," thought Hilda, remorsefully,
" and I failed her at her sorest need."
Miriam loved her well ; and not less ardent had been
the affection which Miriam's warm, tender, and generous
characteristics had excited in Hilda's more reserved and
quiet nature. It had never been extinguished ; for, in
part, the wretchedness which Hilda had since endured
was but the struggle and writhing of her sensibility, still
yearning towards her friend. And now, at the earliest
encouragement, it awoke again, and cried out piteously,
complaining of the violence that had been done it.
Recurring to the delinquencies of which she fancied
(we say " fancied," because we do not unliesitatingly adopt
Hilda's present view, but rather suppose her misled by
her feelings) of which she fancied herself guilty towards
her friend, she suddenly remembered a sealed packet
that Miriam had confided to her. It had been put into
her hands with earnest injunctions of secrecy and care,
and if unclaimed after a certain period, was to be delivered
according to its address. Hilda had forgotten it ; or,
rather, she had kept the thought of this commission in
the background of her consciousness, with all other
thoughts referring to Miriam.
But now, the recollection of this packet, and the evi
314 THE MARBLE FAUN".
dent stress which Miriam laid upon its delivery at the
specified time, impelled Hilda to hurry up the staircase
of her tower, dreading lest the period should already have
elapsed.
No ; the hour had not gone by, but was on the very
point of passing. Hilda read the brief note of instruction,
on a corner of the envelope, and discovered, that, in case
of Miriam's absence from Rome, the packet was to be
taken to its destination that very day.
" How nearly I had violated my promise ! " said Hilda.
" And, since we are separated forever, it has the sacred-
ness of an injunction from a dead friend. There is no
time to be lost."
So Hilda set forth in the decline of the afternoon, and
pursued her way towards the quarter of the city in which
stands the Palazzo Cenci. Her habit of self-reliance was
so simply strong, so natural, and now so well established
by long use, that the idea of peril seldom or never oc-
curred to Hilda, in her lonely life.
She differed, in this particular, from the generality of
her sex ; although the customs and character of her native
land often produce women who meet the world with gen-
tle fearlessness, and discover that its terrors have been
absurdly exaggerated by the tradition of mankind. In
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the apprehensiveness
of women is quite gratuitous. Even as matters now
stand, they are really safer in perilous situations and
emergencies, than men ; and might be still more so, if
they trusted themselves more confidingly to the chivalry
of manhood. In all her wanderings about Rome, Hilda
had gone and returned as securely as she had been ac-
customed to tread the familiar street of her New England
village, where every face wore a look of recognition.
With respect to whatever was evil, foul, and ugly, in this
populous and corrupt city, she trod as if invisible, and
not only so, but blmd. She was altogether unconscious
of anything wicked that went along the same pathway,
but without jostling or impeding her, any more than gross
substance hinders the wanderings of a spirit. Thus it is,
that, bad as the world is said to have gro^vai, innocence
continues to make a paradise around itself, and keep it
atill unfallen.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 315
Hilda's present expedition led her into what was
physically, at least the foulest and ugliest part of
Rome. In that vicinity lies the Ghetto, where thousands
of Jews are crowded within a narrow compass, and lead
a close, unclean, and multitudinous life, resembling that
of maggots when they over-populate a decaying cheese.
Hilda passed on the borders of this region, but had no
occasion to step within it. Its neighborhood, however,
naturally partook of characteristics like its own. There
was a confusion of black and hideous houses, piled mas-
sively out of the ruins of former ages ; rude and desti-
tute of plan, as a pauper would build his hovel, and yet
displaying here and there an arched gateway, a cornice, a
pillar, or a broken arcade, that might have adorned a
palace. Many of the houses, indeed, as they stood, might
once have been palaces, and possessed still a squalid kind
of grandeur. Dirt was everywhere, strewing the narrow
streets, and incrusting the tall shabbiness of the edifices,
from the foundations to the roofs ; it lay upon the thresh-
olds, and looked out of the windows, and assumed the
guise of human life in the children, that seemed to be
engendered out of it. Their father was the sun, and
their mother a heap of Roman mud.
It is a question of speculative interest, whether the an-
cient Romans were as unclean a people as we everywhere
find those who have succeeded them. There appears to
be a kind of malignant spell in the spots that have been
inhabited by these masters of the world, or made famous
in their history ; an mherited and inalienable curse, im-
pelling their successors to fling dirt and defilement upon
whatever temple, column, ruined palace, or triumphal
arch, may be nearest at hand ; and on every monument
that the old Romans built. It is most probably a classic
trait, regularly transmitted downward, and perhaps a
little modified by the better civilization of Christianity ;
so that Caesar may have trod narrower and filthier ways
in his path to the Capitol, than even those of modem
Rome.
As the paternal abode of Beatrice, the gloomy old
palace of the Cencis had an interest for Hilda, although
not sufficiently strong, hitherto, to overcome the disheart-
ening effect of the exterior, and draw her over its thresh-
316 THE MARBLE FAUN.
old. The adjacent piazza, of poor aspect contained
only an old woman selling roasted chestnuts and baked
squash-seeds ; she looked sharply at Hilda, and inquired
whether she had lost her way.
" No," said Hilda ; " I seek the Palazzo Cenci."
" Yonder it is, fair signorina," replied the Roman ma-
tion. " If you -wish that packet delivered, which I see
in your hand, my grandson Pietro shall run with it for a
baiocco. The Cenci palace is a spot of ill-omen for
young maidens."
Hilda thanked the old dame, but alleged the necessity
of doing her errand in person. She approached the front
of the palace, which, with all its immensity, had but a
mean appearance, and seemed an abode which the lovely
shade of Beatrice would not be apt to haunt, unless her
doom made it inevitable. Some soldiers stood about the
portal, and gazed at the brown-haired, fair-cheeked An-
glo-Saxon girl, with approving glances, but not indeco-
rously. Hilda began to ascend the staircase, three lofty
flights of which were to be surmounted, before reaching
the door whither she was bound.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE EXTINCTION OP A LAMP.
"Between Hilda and the sculptor there had been a
kind of half-expressed understanding, that both were to
visit the galleries of the Vatican the day subsequent to
their meetmg at the studio. Kenyon, accordingly, failed
not to be there, and wandered through the vast ranges
of apartments, but saw nothing of his expected friend.
The marble faces, which stand innumerable along the
walls, and have kept themselves so calm through the
vicissitudes of twenty centuries, had no sympathy for his
disappointment ; and he, on the other hand, strode past
these treasures and marvels of antique art, with the indif-
ference which any preoccupation of the feelings is apt
to produce, in reference to objects of sculpture. Being
of so cold and pure a substance, and mostly deriving their
THE MARBLE FAUN. 317
^tality more from thought than passion, they require to
be seen through a perfectly transparent medium.
And, moreover, Kenyon had counted so much upon
Hilda's delicate perceptions in enabling him to look at
two or three of the statues, about which they had talked
together, that the entire purpose of his visit was defeated
by her absence. It is a delicious sort of mutual aid, when
the united power of two sympathetic, yet dissimilar intel-
ligences, is brought to bear upon a poem by reading it
aloud, or upon a picture or statue, by viewing it in each
other's company. Even if not a word of criticism be
uttered, the insight of either party is wonderfully deep-
ened, and the comprehension broadened ; so that the inner
mystery of a work of genius, hidden from one, will often
reveal itself to two. Missing such help, Kenyon saw
nothing at the Vatican which he had not seen a thousand
times before, and more perfectly than now.
In the chill of his disappointment, he suspected that it
was a very cold art to which he had devoted himself.
He questioned, at that moment, whether sculpture really
ever softens and warms the material which it handles ;
whether carved marble is anything but limestone, after
all ; and whether the Apollo Belvedere itself possesses
any merit above its physical beauty, or is beyond criti-
cism even in that generally acknowledged excellence.
In flitting glances, heretofore, he had seemed to behold
this statue as something ethereal and godlike, but not now.
Nothing pleased him, unless it were the group of the
Laocodn, which, in its immortal agony, impressed Kenyon
as a type of the long, fierce struggle of man, involved in
the knotted entanglements of Error and Evil, those two
snakes, which, if no divine help intervene, will be sure
to strangle him and his children in the end. What he
most admired was the strange calmness diffused through
this bitter strife ; so that it resembled the rage of the sea,
made calm by its immensity, or the tumult of Niagara
which ceases to be tumult because it lasts forever. Thus,
in the Laocoon, the horror of a moment grew to be the
fate of interminable ages. Kenyon looked upon the
group as the one triumph of sculpture, creating the re-
wose, which is essential to it, in the very acme of turbu-
liint effort ; but, in truth, it was his mood of unwonted
318 THE MARBLE FAUN".
despondency that made him so sensitive to the terrible
magnificence, as well as to the sad moral of this work,
Hilda herself could not have helped him to see it with
nearly such intelligence.
A good deal more depressed than the nature of the
disappointment warranted, Kenyon went to his studio,
and took in hand a great lump of clay. He soon found,
however, that his plastic cunning had departed from him
for the time. So he wandered forth again into the un-
easy streets of Rome, and walked up and down tlie Corso,
where, at that period of the day, a throng of passers-by
and loiterers choked up the narrow sidewalk. A penitent
was thus brought in contact with the sculptor.
It was a figure in a white robe, with a kind of feature-
less mask over the face, through the apertures of which
the eyes threw an unintelligible light. Such odd, ques-
tionable shapes are often seen gliding through the streets
of Italian cities, and are understood to be usually persons
of rank, who quit their palaces, their gayeties, their pomp
and pride, and assume the penitential garb for a season,
with a view of thus expiating some crime, or atoning for
the aggregate of petty sins that make up a worldly life.
It is their custom to ask alms, and perhaps to measure the
duration of tlieir penance by the time requisite to accu-
mulate a sum of money out of the little droppings of in-
dividual charity. The avails are devoted to some benefi-
cent or religious purpose ; so that the benefit accruing to
their o^vn souls is, in a manner, linked wdth a good done,
or mtended, to their fellow-men. These figures have a
ghastly and startling effect, not so much from any very
impressive peculiarity in the garb, as from the mystery
which they bear about with them, and the sense that there
is an acknowledged sinfulness as the nucleus of it.
In the present instance, however, the penitent asked no
alms of Kenyon ; although, for the space of a minute or
two, they stood face to face, the hollow eyes of the mask
encountering the sculptor's gaze. But, just as the crowd
was about to separate them, the former spoke, in a voice
not unfamiliar to Kenyon, though rendered remote and
strange by the guilty veil through which it penetrated.
" Is all well with you, signor ? " inquired the penitent,
out of the cloud in which he walked.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 819
All is well," answered Kenyon. " And with you ? "
But the masked penitent returned no answer, being
borne away by tlie pressure of the throng.
The sculptor stood watching the figure, and was almost
of a mind to hurry after him and follow up the conversa-
tion that had been begun ; but it occurred to him that
there is a sanctity (or as we might rather term it, an in-
violable etiquette) which prohibits the recognition of
persons who choose to walk under the veil of peni-
tence,
" How strange ! " thought Kenyon to himself. " It was
surely Donatello ! What can bring him to Rome, where
his recollections must be so painful, and his presence not
without peril? And Miriam! Can she have accompa-
panied him ? "
He walked on, thinking of the vast change in Dona-
tello, since those days of gayety and innocence, when the
young Italian was new in Rome, and was just beginning
to be sensible of a more poignant felicity than he had yet
experienced, in the sunny warmth of Miriam's smile.
The growth of a soul, which the sculptor half imagined
that he had witnessed in his friend, seemed hardly worth
the heavy price that it had cost, in the sacrifice of those
simple enjoyments that were gone forever. A creature
of antique healthfulness had vanished from the earth ;
and, hi his stead, there was only one other morbid and
remorseful man, among millions that were cast in the same
indistmguishable mould.
The accident of thus meeting Donatello the glad
Faun of his imagination and memory, now transformed
into a gloomy penitent contributed to deepen the cloud
that had fallen over Kenyon's spirits. It caused him to
fancy, as we generally do, in the petty troubles which
extend not a hand's breadth beyond our own sphere, that
the whole world was saddening around him. It took the
sinister aspect of an omen, although he could not distinctly
see what trouble it might forebode.
If it had not been for a peculiar sort of pique, with
which lovers are much conversant, a preposterous kind of
^sentment which endeavors to wreak itself on the be-
loved object, and on one's own heart, in requital of mis-
haps for which neither are in fault, Kenyon might at once
320 THE MARBLE FAUN.
have betaken himself to Hilda's studio, and asked why
the appointment was not kept. But the interview of to-
day was to have been so rich in present joy, and its re-
sults so important to his future life, that the bleak failure
was too much for his equanimity. He was angry with
poor Hilda, and censured her without a hearing ; angry
with himself, too, and therefore inflicted on this latter
criminal the severest penalty in his power ; angry Avith
the diiy that was passing over him, and would not permit
its latter hours to redeem the disappointment of the
morning.
To confess the truth, it had been the sculptor's purpose
to stake all his hopes on that mterview m the galleries of
the Vatican. Strayhig with Hilda through those long
vistas of ideal beauty, he meant, at last, to utter himself
upon that theme which lovers are fain to discuss m vil-
lage-lanes, in wood-paths, on seaside sands, in crowded
streets ; it little matters where, indeed, since roses are
sure to blush along the way, and daisies and violets to
spring beneath the feet, if the spoken word be graciously
received. He was resolved to make proof whether the
kindness, that Hilda evinced for him, was the precious
token of an individual preference, or merely the sweet
fragrance of her disposition, which other friends might
share as largely as himself. He would try if it were pos-
sible to take this shy, yet frank, and innocently fearless
creature, captive, and imprison her in his heart, and
make her sensible of a wider freedom there, than in all
the world besides.
It was hard, we must allow, to see the shadow of a
wintry sunset falling upon a day that was to have been so
bright, and to find himself just where yesterday had left
him, only with a sense of being drearily balked, and de-
feated without an opportunity for struggle. So much
had been anticipated from these now vanished hours, that
it seemed as if no other day could bring back the same
golden hopes.
In a case like this, it is doubtful whether Kenyon could
have done a much better thing than he actually did, by
gomg to dine at the Cafe Kuovo, and drinkmg a flask of
Montefiascone ; longing, the while, for a beaker or two of
Bonatello's Sunsliine. It would have been just the wme
THE MAEBLE faun. 321
to cure a lover's melancholy, by illuminating his heart
with tender light and warmth, and suggestions of unde-
fined hopes, too ethereal for his morbid humor to exam-
ine and reject them.
No decided improvement resulting from the draught of
Montefiascone, he went to the Teatro Argentino, and sat
gloomily to see an Italian comedy, which ought to have
cheered him somewhat, being full of glancing merriment,
and effective over everybody's risibilities except his own.
The sculptor came out, however, before the close of the
performance, as disconsolate as he went in.
As he made his way through the complication of nar-
row streets, which perplex that portion of the city, a car-
riage passed him. It was driven rapidly, but not too fast
for the light of a gas-lamp to flare upon a face within ;
especially as it was bent forward, appearing to recognize
him, while a beckoning hand was protruded from the
window. On his part, Kenyon at once knew the face,
and hastened to the carriage, which had now stopped.
" Miriam ! you in Rome ? " he exclaimed. " And your
friends know nothing of it ? "
" Is all well with you ? " she asked.
This inquiry, in the identical words which Donatello
had so recently addressed to him, from beneath the peni-
tent's mask, startled the sculptor. Either the previous
disquietude of his mind, or some tone in Miriam's voice,
or the unaccountableness of beholding her there at all,
made it seem ominous.
All is well, I believe," answered he, doubtfully, " I
am aware of no misfortune. Have you any to an-
nounce ? "
He looked still more earnestly at Miriam, and felt a
dreamy uncertainty whether it was really herself to whom
he spoke. True ; there were those beautiful features, the
contour of which he had studied too often, and with a
sculptor's accuracy of perception, to be in any doubt that
it was Miriam's identical face. But he was conscious of
a change, the nature of which he could not satisfactorily
define ; it might be merely her dress, which, imperfect as
the light was, he saw to be richer than the simple garb
that she had usually worn. The effect, he fancied, was
partly owing to a gem which she had on her bosom j not
21
322 THE MARBLE FAUN
a diamond, but something that glimmered with a clear,
red lustre, like the stars in a southern sky. Somehow or
other, this colored light seemed an emanation of herself,
as if all that was passionate and glowing, in her native
disposition, had crystallized upon her breast, and were
just now scintillating more brilliantly than ever, in sym-
pathy with some emotion of her heart.
Of course there could be no real doubt that it was
Miriam, his artist friend, with whom and Hilda he had
spent so many pleasant and familiar hours, and whom he
had last seen at Perugia, bending with Donatello beneath
the bronze pope's benediction. It must be that selfsame
Miriam ; but the sensitive sculptor felt a difference of
manner, which impressed him more than he conceived it
possible to be affected by so external a thing. He re-
membered the gossip so prevalent m Rome on Miriam's
first appearance ; how that she was no real artist, but the
daughter of an illustrious or golden lineage, who was
merely playing at necessity ; mingling with human
struggle for her pastime ; steppmg out of her native
sphere only for an interlude, just as a princess might
alight from her gilded equipage to go on foot through a
rustic lane. And now, after a mask in which love and
death had performed their several parts, she had resumed
her proper character.
" Have you anything to tell me ? " cried he, impatient-
ly ; for nothing causes a more disagreeable vibration of
the nerves than this perception of ambiguousness in
familiar persons or affairs. " Speak ; for my spirits and
patience have been much tried to-day."
Miriam put her finger on her lips, and seemed desirous
that Kenyon should know of the presence of a third per-
son. He now saw, indeed, that there was some one be-
side her in the carriage, hitherto concealed by her atti-
tude ; a man, it appeared, ^\^th a sallow Italian face,
which the sculptor distinguished but imperfectly, and
did not recognize.
" I can tell you nothmg," she replied ; and leaning to-
wards him, she whispered appearing then more like the
Miriam whom he knew, than in what had before passed
" Only, when the lamp goes out do not despair."
The carriage drove on, leaving Kenyon to muse over
THE MARBLE FAUN. 323
this unsatisfactory interview, which seemed to have served
no better purpose than to fill his mind with more omin-
ous forebodings than before. Why were Donatello and
Mu-iam m Rome, where both, in all likelihood, might
have much to dread ? And why had one and the other
addressed him with a question that seemed prompted by
a knowledge of some calamity, either already fallen on
his unconscious head, or impending closely over him ? "
"I am sluggish," muttered Kenyon, to himself; "a
weak, nerveless fool, devoid of energy and promptitude ;
or neither Donatello nor Miriam could have escaped me
thus ! They are aware of some misfortune that concerns
me deeply. How soon am I to know it too ? "
There seemed but a single calamity possible to happen
within so narrow a sphere as that with which the sculp-
tor was connected ; and even to that one mode of evil he
could assign no defuiite shape, but only felt that it must
have some reference to Hilda.
Flinging aside the morbid hesitation, and the dallyings
with his own wishes, which he had permitted to influence
his mind throughout the day, he now hastened to the Via
Portoghese. Soon the old palace stood before him, Avith
its massive tower rising into the clouded night ; obscured
from view at its midmost elevation, but revealed again,
higher upward, by the Virgin's lamp that twinkled on the
summit. Feeble as it was, in the broad, surrounding
gloom, that little ray made no inconsiderable illumination
among Kenyon's sombre thoughts ; for, remembermg Mir-
iam's last words, a fantasy had seized him that he should
find the sacred lamp extinguished.
And, even while he stood gazing, as a mariner at the
star m which he puts his trust, the light quivered, sank,
gleamed up again, and finally went out, leaving the bat-
tlements of Hilda's tower in utter darkness. For the
first time in centuries, the consecrated and legendary
flame, before the loftiest shrine in Rome, had cesed to
burn.
824 THE MARBLE FAUN.
CHAPTER XLIV.
THU DESERTED SHRINE.
Kenyon knew the sanctity which Hilda (faithful Pro-
testant, and daughter of the Puritans, as the girl was)
imputed to this shrine. He was aware of the profound
feeling of responsibility, as well earthly as religious, with
which her conscience had been impressed, when she be-
came the occupant of her aerial chamber, and undertook
the task of keeping the consecrated lamp alight. There
was an accuracy and a certainty about Hilda's movements,
as regarded all matters that lay deep enough to have their
roots in right or wrong, which made it as possible and safe
to rely upon the timely and careful trimming of this lamp
(if she were in life, and able to creep up the steps), as
upon the rising of to-morrow's sun, with lustre imdimin-
ished from to-day.
The sculptor could scarcely believe his eyes, therefore,
when he saw the flame flicker and expire. His sight had
surely deceived him. And now, since the light did not
reappear, there must be some smoke- wreath or impene-
trable mist brooding about the tower's gray old head, and
obscuring it from the lower Avorld. But no ! For right
over the dim battlements, as the wind chased away a mass
of clouds, he beheld a star, and, moreover, by an earnest
concentration of his sight, was soon able to discern even
the darkened shrine itself. There was no obscurity
around the tower ; no infirmity of his own vision. The
flame had exhausted its supply of oil, and become extinct.
But where was Hilda ?
A man in a cloak happened to be passing ; and Ken-
yon anxious to distrust the testimony of his senses, if
he could get more acceptable evidence on the other side
appealed to him.
" Do me the favor, signer," said he, * to look at the top
of yonder tower, and tell me whether you see the lamp
burning at the Virgin's shrine."
THE MARBLE FAUN. 325
" The lamp, signer ? " answered the man, without at
first troubling himself to look up. " The lamp that has
burned these four hundred years ! how is it possible,
signor, that it should not be burning now ? "
But look 1 " said the sculptor, impatiently.
With good-natured indulgence for what he seemed to
consider as the whim of an eccentric Forestiero, the
Italian carelessly threw his eyes upwards ; but, as soon
as he perceived that there was really no light, he lifted his
hands with a vivid expression of wonder and alarm.
" The lamp is extinguished ! " cried he. " The lamp
that has been burning these four hundred years ! This
surely must portend some great misfortune ; and, by my
advice, signor, you will hasten hence, lest the tower tumble
on our heads. A priest once told me, that, if the Virgin
withdrew her blessing, and the light went out, the old
Palazzo del Torre would sink into the earth, with all that
dwell in it. There will be a terrible crash before morn-
ing!"
The stranger made the best of his way from the doomed
premises; while Kenyon, who would willingly have
seen the tower crumble down before his eyes, on condition
of Hilda's safety, determined, late as it was, to attempt
ascertaining if she were in her dove-cote.
Passing through the arched entrance, which, as is
often the case with Roman entrances, was as accessible at
midnight as at noon, he groped his way to the broad
staircase, and, lighting his wax taper, went glimmering up
the multitude of steps that led to Hilda's door. The hour
being so unseasonable, he intended merely to knock, and,
OS soon as her voice from within should reassure him, to
retire, keeping his explanations and apologies for a fitter
time. Accordingly, reaching the lofty height where the
maiden, as he trusted, lay asleep, with angels watching
over her, though the Virgin seemed to have suspended
her care, he tapped lightly at the door-panels then
knocked more forcibly then thundered an impatient sum-
mons. No answer came ; Hilda evidently was not there.
After assuring himself that this must be the fact, Ken-
yon descended the stairs, but made a pause at every suc-
cessive stage, and knocked at the door of its apartment,
regardless whose slumbers he might disturb, in his anxiety
326 THE MARBLE FAUN.
to learn where the girl had last been seen. But, at each
closed entrance, there came those hollow echoes, which a
chamber, or any dwelling, great or small, never sends out,
in response to human knuckles or iron hammer, as long
as there is life within to keep its heart from getting
dreary.
Once, indeed, on the lower landing-place, the sculptor
fancied that there was a momentary stir, inside the door,
as if somebody were listening at the threshold. He
hoped, at least, that the small, iron-barred aperture would
be unclosed, through which Roman housekeepers are wont
to take careful cognizance of applicants for admission,
from a traditionary dread, perhaps, of letting in a robber
or assassin. But it remained shut ; neither was the sound
repeated ; and Kenyon concluded that his excited nerves
had played a trick upon his senses, as they are apt to do
when we most wish for the clear evidence of the latter.
There was nothing to be done, save to go heavily away,
and await whatever good or Ul to-morrow's daylight
might disclose.
Betimes in the morning, therefore, Kenyon went back
to the Via Portoghese, before the slant rays of the sun
had descended half-way do^\'n the gray front of Hilda's
tower. As he drew near its base, he saw the doves
perched in full session, on the sunny height of the battle-
ments, and a pair of them who were probably their
mistress's especial pets, and the confidants of her bosom-
secrets, if Hilda had any came shooting down, and
made a feint of alighting on his shoulder. But, though
they e\'idently recognized him, their shyness would not
yet allow so decided a demonstration. Kenyon's eyes
followed them as they flew upward, hoping that they
might have come as joyful messengers of the girl's safety,
and that he should discern her slender form, half-hidden
by the parapet, trimming the extinguished lamp at the
Virgin's shrine, just as other maidens set about the little
duties of a household. Or, perhaps, he might see her
gentle and sweet face smiling do^vn upon him, midway
towards heaven, as if she had flown hither for a day or two,
just to visit her kindred, but had been drawn earthward
again by the spell of unacknowledged love.
But his eyes were blessed by no such fair vision or
THE MARBLE FAITN. 327
reality ; nor, in truth, were the eager, unquiet mutterings
of the doves indicative of any joyful intelligence, which
they longed to share with Hilda's friend, but of anxious
inquiries that they knew not how to utter. They could
not tell, any more than he, whither their lost companion
had withdrawn herself, but were in the same void despon-
dency with him, feeling their sunny and airy lives darkened
and grown imperfect, now that her sweet society was taken
out of it.
In the brisk morning air, Kenyon found it much easier
to pursue his researches than at the preceding midnight,
when, if any slumberers heard the clamor that he made,
they had responded only with sullen and drowsy maledic-
tions, and turned to sleep again. It must be a very dear
and intimate reality for which people will be content to
give up a dream. When the sun was fairly up, however,
it was quite another thing. The heterogeneous popula-
tion, inhabiting the lower floor of the old tower, and the
other extensive regions of the palace, were now willing to
tell all they knew, and imagine a great deal more. The
amiability of these Italians, assisted by their sharp and
nimble wits, caused them to overflow with plausible sug-
gestions, and to be very bounteous in their avowals of
interest for the lost Hilda. In a less demonstrative people,
such expressions would have implied an eagerness to
search land and sea, and never rest till she were found.
In the mouths that uttered them, they meant good wishes,
and were, so far, better than indifference. There was
little doubt that many of them felt a genuine kindness
for the shy, brown-haired, delicate yomig foreign maiden,
who had flown from some distant land to alight upon
their tower, where she consorted only with the doves.
But their energy expended itself in exclamation, and they
were content to leave all more active measures to Kenyon,
and to the Virgin, whose afi'air it was, to see that the
faithful votary of her lamp received no harm.
In a great Parisian domicile, multifarious as its inhab-
itants might be, the concierge under the archway would
be cognizant of all their incomings and issuings forth.
But, except in rare cases, the general entrance and main
staircase of a Roman house are left as free as the street,
of which they form a sort of by-lane. The sculptor, there-
328 THE MARBLE FAUN.
fore, could hope to find information about Hilda's move-
ments only from casual observers.
On probing the knowledge of these people to the bot-
tom, there was various testimony as to the period when
the girl had last been seen. Some said that it was four
days since there had been a trace of her ; but an English
lady, in the second piano of the palace, was rather
of opinion that she had met her, the morning before, with
a drawdng-book in her hand. Having no acquaintance
with the yomig person, she had taken little notice, and
might have been mistaken. A Count, on the piano next
above, was very certain that he had lifted his hat to Hilda,
under the archway, two afternoons ago. An old woman,
who had formerly tended the shrine, threw some light
upon the matter, by testifying that the lamp required to
be replenished once, at least, in three days, though its
reservoir of oil was exceedingly capacious.
On the whole, though there was other evidence enough
to create some perplexity, Kenyon could not satisfy him-
self that she had been visible since the afternoon of the
third preceding day, when a fruit-seller remembered her
coming out of the arched passage, with a sealed packet
in her hand. As nearly as lie could ascertain, this was
within an hour after Hilda had taken leave of the sculp-
tor, at his own studio, with the understanding that they
were to meet at the Vatican the next day. Two nights,
therefore, had intervened, during which the lost maiden
was unaccounted for.
The door of Hilda's apartments was still locked, as on
the preceding night ; but Kenyon sought out the wife of
the person who sublet them, and prevailed on her to give
him admittance by means of the duplicate key, which the
good woman had in her possession. On entering, the
maidenly neatness and simple grace, recognizable in all
the arrangements, made him visibly sensible that this was
the daily haunt of a pure soul, in whom religion and the
love of beauty were at one.
Thence, the sturdy Roman matron led the sculptor
across a narrow passage, and threw open the door of a
small chamber, on the threshold of which he reverently
paused. Within, there was a bed, covered with white
drapery, enclosed with snowy curtains, like a tent, and of
THE MARBLE FAUN. 829
barely width enough for a slender figure to repose upon it.
The sight of this cool, airy, and secluded bower, caused
the lover's heart to stir, as if enough of Hilda's gentle
dreams were lingering there to make him happy for a
single instant. But then came the closer consciousness of
her loss, bringing along with it a sharp sting of anguish.
" Behold, signor," said the matron ; " here is the little
staircase by which the signorina used to ascend and trim
the blessed Virgin's lamp. She was worthy to be a
Catholic, such pains the good child bestowed to keep it
burning ; and doubtless the blessed Mary will mtercede
for her, in consideration of her pious offices, heretic though
she was. What will become of the old palazzo, now that
the lamp is extinguished, the saints above us only know !
Will you mount, signor, to the battlements, and see if she
have left any trace of herself there ? "
The sculptor stepped across the chamber and ascended
the little staircase, which gave him access to the breezy
summit of the tower. It affected him inexpressibly to see
a bouquet of beautiful flowers beneath the shrine, and to
recognize in them an offering of his own to Hilda, who
had put them in a vase of water and dedicated them to
the Virgin, in a spirit partly fanciful, perhaps, but still
partaking of the religious sentiment which so profoundly
influenced her character. One rose-bud, indeed, she had
selected for herself from the rich mass of flowers ; for
Kenyon well remembered recognizing it in her bosom,
when he last saw her at his studio.
" That little part of my great love she took," said he
to himself. " The remainder she would have devoted to
heaven ; but has left it withering in the sun and wind.
Ah ! Hilda, Hilda, had you given me a right to watch
over you, this evil had not come ! "
Be not downcast, signorino mio," said the Roman
matron, in response to the deep sigh which struggled out
of Kenyon's breast. " The dear little maiden, as we see,
has decked yonder blessed shrine as devoutly as I my-
self, or any other good Catholic woman, could have done.
It is a religious act, and has more than the efficacy of a
prayer. The signorina will as surely come back as the
sun will fall through the window to-morrow no less than
ix)-day. Her own doves have often been missing for a day
330 THE MARBLE FAUN.
or two, but they were sure to come fluttering about her
head again, when she least expected them. So will it be
with this dovelike child."
" It might be so," thought Kenyon, with yearning anx-
iety, " if a pure maiden were as safe as a dove, in this evil
world of ours."
As they returned through the studio, with the furniture
and arrangements of which the sculptor was familiar, he
missed a small, ebony writing-desk that he remembered
as having always been placed on a table there. He knew
that it was Hilda's custom to deposit her letters in this
desk, as well as other little objects of which she wished
be specially careful.
" What has become of it ? " he suddenly inquired, lay-
ing his hand on the table.
" Become of what, pray ? " exclaimed the woman, a
little disturbed. "Does the signor suspect a robbery,
then?"
" The signorina's writing-desk is gone," replied Ken-
yon ; " it always stood on this table, and I myself saw it
there only a few days ago."
" Ah, well I " said the woman, recovering her com-
posure, which she seemed partly to have lost. " The
signorina has doubtless taken it away with her. The fact
is of good omen ; for it proves that she did not go un-
expectedly, and is likely to return when it may best suit
her convenience."
" This is very singular," observed Kenyon. " Have
the rooms been entered by yourself, or any other person,
smce the signorina's disappearance ? "
" Not by me, signor, so help me Heaven and the saints ! "
said the matron. " And I question whether there are*
more than two keys in Rome, that will suit this strange^
old lock. Here is one ; and as for the other, the signorina
carries it in her pocket."
The sculptor had no reason to doubt the word of
this respectable dame. She appeared to be well-mean-
ing and kind-hearted, as Roman matrons generally are ;
except when a fit of passion incites them to shower hor-
rible curses on an obnoxious individual, or perhaps to
stab him with the steel stiletto that serves them for a
hair-pin. But Italian asseverations of any questionable
THE MARBLE FAUN. 331
fact, however true they may chance to be, have no wit-
ness of then- truth m the faces of those who utter them.
Their words are spoken with strange earnestness, and yet
do not vouch for themselves as coming from any depth,
lil5:e roots drawn out of the substance of the soul, with
some of the soil clinging to them. There is always a
something inscrutable, instead of frankness, in their eyes.
In short, they lie so much like truth, and speak truth so
much as if they were telling a lie, that their auditor sus-
pects himself in the wrong, whether he believes or dis-
believes them ; it being the one thing certain, that false-
hood is seldom an intolerable burden to the tenderest of
Italian consciences.
"It is very strange what can have become of the
desk ! " repeated Kenyon, looking the woman in the face.
"Very strange, indeed, signor," she replied, meekly,
without turning away her eyes in the least, but check-
ing his insight of them at about half-an-inch below the
surface. " I think the signorina must have taken it with
her."
It seemed idle to linger here any longer. Kenyon
therefore departed, after making an arrangement with the
woman, by the terms of which she was to allow the apart-
ments to remain in their present state, on his assuming
the responsibility for the rent.
He spent the day in making such further search and
investigation as he found practicable ; and, though at first
trammelled by an unwillingness to draw public attention
to Hilda's affairs, the urgency of the circumstances soon
compelled him to be thoroughly in earnest. In the course
of a week, he tried all conceivable modes of fathoming
the mystery, not merely by his personal efforts and those
of his brother-artists and friends, but through the police
who readily undertook the task, and expressed strong
confidence of success. But the Roman police has very
little efiicacy, except in the interest of the despotism of
which it is a tool. With their cocked hats, shoulder-belts,
and swords, they wear a sufficiently imposing aspect, and
doubtless keep their eyes open wide enough to track a
political offender, but are too often blind to private out-
rage, be it murder or any lesser crime. Kenyon counted
little upon their assistance, and profited by it not at all.
832 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Remembering the mystic words which Mriam had ad-
dressed to him, he was anxious to meet her, but kne^r
not whither she had gone, nor how to obtain an interview
either with herself or Donatello. The days wore away,
and still there were no tidings of the lost one ; no lamp
rekindled before the Virgin's shrme ; no light shining
into the lover's heart ; no star of Hope he was ready
to say, as he turned his eyes almost reproachfully up-
ward in heaven itself I
CHAPTER XLV.
THE FLIGHT OF HLLDa's DOVES.
Along with the lamp on Hilda's tower, the sculptor
now felt that a light had gone out, or at least, was omi-
nously obscured, to which he owed whatever cheerfulness
had heretofore illuminated his cold, artistic life. The
idea of this girl had been like a taper of virgin war,
burnmg with a pure and steady flame, and chasing away
the evil spirits out of the magic circle of its beams. It
had darted its rays afar, and modified the whole sphere in
which Kenyon had his being. Beholding it no more, he
at once found himself in darkness and astray.
This was the time, perhaps, when Kenyon first became
sensible what a dreary city is Rome, and what a terrible
weight is there imposed on human life, when any gloom
within the heart corresponds to the spell of ruin, that has
been thrown over the site of ancient empire. He wan-
dered, as it were, and stumbled over the fallen columns,
and among the tombs, and groped his way into the sepul-
chral darkness of the catacombs, and found no path
emerging from them. The happy may well enough
continue to be such, beneath the brilliant sky of Rome.
But, if you go thither in melancholy mood if you go
with a ruin in your heart, or with a vacant site there,
where once stood the airy fabric of happiness, now van-
ished all the ponderous gloom of the Roman Past will
pile itself upon that spot, and crush you down as with
the heaped-up marble and granite, the earth- mounds, and
multitudinous bricks, of its material decay.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 333
It might be supposed that a melancholy man would
here make acquaintance with a grim philosophy. He
should learn to bear patiently his individual griefs, that
endure only for one little lifetime, when here are the
tokens of such infinite misfortune on an imperial scale,
and when so many far landmarks of time, all around him,
are bringing the remoteness of a thousand years ago into
the sphere of yesterday. But it is in vain that you seek
this shrub of bitter sweetness among the plants that root
themselves on the roughness of massive walls, or trail
downward from the capitals of pillars, or spring out of
the green turf in the palace of the Csesars. It does not
grow in Rome ; not even among the five hundred various
weeds which deck the grassy arches of the Coliseum.
You look through a vista of century beyond century
through much shadow, and a little sunshine through
barbarism and civilization, alternating with one another,
like actors that have pre-arranged their parts through
a broad pathway of progressive generations bordered by
palaces and temples, and bestridden by old, triumphal
arches, until, in the distance, you behold the obelisks,
with their unintelligible inscriptions, hinting at a past
infinitely more remote than history can define. Your
own life is as nothing, when compared with that immeas-
urable distance ; but still you demand, none the less ear-
nestly, a gleam of sunshine, instead of a speck of shadow,
on the step or two that will bring you to your quiet rest.
How exceedingly absurd ! All men, from the date of
the earUest obelisk and of the whole world, moreover,
since that far epoch, and before have made a similar
demand, and seldom had their wish. If they had it, what
are they the better, now? But, even while you taunt
yourself with this sad lesson, your heart cries out ob-
streperously for its small share of earthly happiness, and
will not be appeased by the myriads of dead hopes that
lie crushed into the soil of Rome. How wonderful that
this our narrow foothold of the Present should hold its
own so constantly, and, while every moment changing,
should still be like a rock betwixt the encountering tides
of the long Past, and the uifinite To-come !
Man of marble though he was, the sculptor grieved for
the Irrevocable. Looking back upon Hilda's way of life,
B34 THE MARBLE FAUN.
he marvelled at his ovm. blind stupidity, which had kept
him from remonstrating as a friend, if mth no stronger
right against tlie risks that she continually encountered.
Being so innocent, she had no means of estimating those
risks, nor even a possibility of suspecting their existence.
But he who had spent years in Rome, with a man's far
wider scope of observation and experience knew things
that made him shudder. It seemed to Kenyon, looking
through the darkly-colored medium of his fears, that all
modes of crime were crowded into the close intricacy of
Roman streets, and that there was no redeeming element,
such as exists m other dissolute and wicked cities.
For here was a priesthood, pampered, sensual, with
red and bloated cheeks, and carnal eyes. With ap-
parently a grosser development of animal life than most
men, they were placed in an unnatural relation with
woman, and thereby lost the healthy, human conscience
that pertains to other human bemgs, who own the sweet
household ties connecting them with wife and daughter.
And here was an indolent nobility, with no high aims or
opportunities, but cultivating a vicious way of life, as if it
were an art, and the only one which they cared to learn.
Here was a population, high and low, that had no genu-
ine belief in \'irtue ; and if they recognized any act as
criminal, they might throw off all care, remorse, and
memory of it, by kneeling a little while at the confes-
sional, and rising unburdened, active, elastic, and incited
by fresh appetite for the next ensuing sin. Here was a
soldiery, who felt Rome to be their conquered city, and
doubtless considered themselves the legal inheritors of
the foul license which Gaul, Goth, and Vandal have here
exercised in days gone by.
And what localities for new crime existed in those
guilty sites, wiiere the crime of departed ages used to be
at home, and had its long, hereditary haunt ! what street
in Rome, what ancient ruin, what one place where man
had standing-room, what fallen stone was there, unstained
with one or another kind of guilt ! In some of the vicis-
situdes of the city's pride, or its calamity, the dark tide
of human evil had swelled over it, far higher than the
Tiber ever rose against the acclivities of the seven hills.
To Kenyon's morbid \iew, there appeared to be a con-
THE MARBLE FAUN. 335
tagious element, rising fog-like from the ancient depravity
of Rome, and brooding over the dead and half-rotten
city, as nowhere else on earth. It prolonged the tendency
to crime, and developed an instantaneous growth of it,
whenever an opportunity was found. And where could
it be found so readily as here ! In those vast palaces,
there were a hundred remote nooks where Innocence
might shriek in vain. Beneath meaner houses there
were unsuspected dungeons that had once been prmcely
chambers, and open to the daylight ; but, on account of
some wickedness there perpetrated, each passing age had
thrown its handful of dust upon the spot, and buried it
from sight. Only ruffians knew of its existence, and kept
it for murder, and worse crime.
Such was the city through which Hilda, for three years
past, had been wandering without a protector or a guide.
She had trodden lightly over the crumble of old crimes ;
sh3 had taken her way amid the grime and corruption
which Paganism had left there, and a perverted Christi-
anity had made more noisome ; walking samt-like
through it all, with white, innocent feet ; until, in some
dark pitfall that lay right across her path, she had van-
ished out of sight. It was terrible to imagine what hid-
eous outrage might have thrust her mto that abyss !
Then the lover tried to comfort himself Avith the idea
that Hilda's sanctity was a sufficient safeguard. Ah, yes ;
she was so pure ! The angels, that were of the same
sisterhood, would never let Hilda come to harm. A
miracle would be wrought on her behalf, as naturally as
a father would stretch out his hand to save a best-beloved
child. Providence would keep a little area and atmos-
phere about her, as safe and wholesome as heaven itself,
although the flood of perilous iniquity might hem her
round, and its black waves hang curlmg above her head !
But these reflections were of slight avail. No doubt they
were the religious truth. Yet the ways of Providence
are utterly inscrutable ; and many a murder has been
done, and many an innocent virgin has lifted her white
arms, beseeching its aid in her extremity, and all in vain ;
so that, though Providence is infinitely good and wise,
and perhaps for that very reason, it may be half aij
eternity before the great circle of its scheme shall bring
836 THE MARBLE FAUN.
us the superabundant recompense for all these sorrows \
But what the lover asked was such prompt consolatioQ
as might consist with the brief span of mortal life ; the
assm-ance of Hilda's present safety, and her restoration
within that very hour.
An imaginative man, he suffered the penalty of his en-
dowment in the hundred-fold variety of gloomily tinted
scenes that it presented to him, in which Hilda was always
a central figure. The sculptor forgot his marble. Rome
ceased to be anything, for him, but a labyrinth of dismal
streets, in one or another of which the lost girl had disap-
peared. He was haunted with the idea, that some cu-
eumstance, most important to be known, and, perhaps,
easily discoverable, had hither been overlooked, and that,
if he could lay hold of this one clue, it would guide him
directly in the track of Hilda's footsteps. With this
purpose in view, he went, every morning, to the Via
Portoghese, and made it the starting point of fresh inves-
tigations. After nightfall, too, he invariably retui-ned
thither, with a faint hope fluttering at his heart, that the
lamp might again be shining on the summit of the tower,
and would dispel this ugly mystery out of the circle con-
secrated by its rays. There being no point of which he
could take firm hold, his mind was filled with unsubstan-
tial hopes and fears. Once, Kenyon had seemed to cut
his life in marble ; now he vaguely clutched at it, and
found it vapor.
In his unstrung and despondent mood, one trifling cir-
cumstance affected him with an idle pang. The doves
had at first been faithful to their lost mistress. They
failed not to sit in a row upon her window-sill, or to
alight on the shrine, or the church-angels, and on the
roofs and portals of the neighboring houses, in evident
expectation of her reappearance. After the second week,
however, they began to take flight, and dropping off by
pairs, betook themselves to other dove-cotes. Only a
single dove remamed, and brooded drearily beneath the
shrine. The flock, that had departed, were like the many
hopes that had vanished from Kenyon's heart ; the one
that still lingered, and looked so wretched was it a
Hope, or already a Despair ?
In the street, one day, the sculptor met a priest of mild
THE MARBLE FAUN. 337
and venerable aspect ; and as his mind dwelt continually
upon Hilda, and was especially active in bringing up aU
incidents that had ever been connected with her, it imme-
diately struck him that this was the very father with
whom he had seen her at the confessional. Such trust
did Hilda inspire in him, that Kenyon had never asked
what was the subject of the communication between her-
self and this old priest. He had no reason for imagining
that it could have any relation with her disappearance, so
long subsequently ; but, being thus brought face to face
with a personage, mysteriously associated, as he now re-
membered, with her whom he had lost, an impulse ran
before his thoughts and led the sculptor to address him.
It might be that the reverend kindliness of the old
man's expression took Kenyon's heart by surprise ; at all
events, he spoke as if there were a recognized acquaint-
anceship, and an object of mutual interest between them.
" She has gone from me, father," said he.
" Of whom do you speak, my son ? " inquired the priest.
" Of that sweet girl," answered Kenyon, " who knelt to
you at the confessional. Surely, you remember her,
among all the mortals to whose confessions you have
listened ! For she alone could have had no sins to reveal."
" Yes ; I remember," said the priest, with a gleam of
recollection in his eyes. " She was made to bear a
miraculous testimony to the efficacy of the divine ordi-
nances of the Church, by seizing forcibly upon one of
them and finding immediate relief from it, heretic though
she was. It is my purpose to publish a brief narrative
of this miracle, for the edification of mankind, in Latin,
Italian, and English, from the printing-press of the Prop-
aganda. Poor child ! Setting apart her heresy, she was
spotless, as you say. And is she dead ? "
" Heaven forbid, father ! " exclaimed Kenyon, shrink-
ing back. " But she has gone from me, I know not
whither. It may be yes, the idea seizes upon my mind
that what she revealed to you will suggest some clue
to the mystery of her disappearance."
" None my son, none," answered the priest, shaking his
head ; " nevertheless, I bid you be of good cheer. That
young maiden is not doomed to die a heretic. Who knows
what the blessed Virgin may at this moment be doing for
22
B38 THE MARBLE FAUN.
her soul ! Perhaps, when you next hehold her, she will
be clad m the shining white robe of the true faith."
This latter suggestion did not convey all the comfort
which tbe old priest possibly intended by it ; but he im-
parted it to the sculptor, along with his blessing, as the
two best things that he could bestow, and said nothing
further, except to bid him farewell.
When they had parted, however, the idea of Hilda's
conversion to Catholicism recurred to her lover's mind,
bringing with it certain reflections, that gave a new turn
to his surmises about the mystery into which she had
vanished. Not that he seriously apprehended although
the superabundance of her religious sentiment might mis-
lead her for a moment that the New England girl
would permanently succumb to the scarlet superstitions
which surrounded her in Italy. But the incident of the
confessional if known, as probably it was, to the eager
propagandists who prowl about for souls, as cats to catch
a mouse would surely inspire the most confident ex-
pectations of bringing her over to the faith. With so
pious an end in view, would Jesuitical morality be shocked
at the thought of kidnapping the mortal body for the sake
of the immortal spirit that might otherwise be lost for-
ever ? Would not the kind old priest, himself, deem this
to be infinitely the kindest service that he could perform
for the stray lamb, who had so strangely sought his aid ?
If these suppositions were well founded, Hilda was
most likely a prisoner in one of the religious establish-
ments that are so numerous in Rome. The idea, accord-
ing to the aspect in which it was viewed, brought now a
degree of comfort, and now an additional perplexity. On
the one hand, Hilda was safe from any but spiritual as-
saults ; on the other, where was the possibility of break-
ing through all those barred portals, and searching a
thousand convent- cells, to set her free.
Kenyon, however, as it happened, was prevented from
endeavoring to follow out this surmise, which only the
state of hopeless uncertainly, that almost bewildered his
reason, could have led him for a moment to entertain. A
communication reached him by an unkno^vn hand, in con-
sequence of which, and witliin an hour after receiving it
he took his way through one of the gates of Rome.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 339
CHAPTER XLYI.
A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA.
It was a bright forenoon of February ; a month in
which the brief severity of a Roman winter is ah-eady
past, and when violets and daisies begin to show them-
selves in spots favored by the sun. The sculptor came
out of the city by the gate of San Sebastiano, and walked
briskly along the Appian Way.
For the space of a mile or two beyond the gate, this
ancient and famous road is as desolate and disagreeable as
most of the other Roman avenues. It extends over small
uncomfortable paving-stones, between brick and plastered
walls, which are very solidly constructed, and so high as
almost to exclude a view of the surrounding covmtry. The
houses are of most uninviting aspect, neither picturesque,
nor homelike and social ; they have seldom or never a
door opening on the wayside, but are accessible only
from the rear, and frown inhospitably upon the traveller
through iron-grated windows. Here and there appears a
dreary inn, or a wine- shop, designated by the withered
bush beside the entrance, within which you discern a
stone-built and sepulchral interior, where guests refresh
themselves with sour bread and goats' milk cheese,
washed down with wine of dolorous acerbity.
At frequent intervals along the roadside, uprises the
ruin of an ancient tomb. As they stand now, these struc-
tures are immensely high and broken mounds of con-
glomerated brick, stone, pebbles, and earth, all molten by
time into a mass as solid and indestructible as if each,
tomb were composed of a single boulder of granite.
When first erected, they were cased externally, no doubt,
with slabs of polished marble, artfully wrought bas-reliefs,
and all such suitable adornments, and were rendered ma-
jestically beautiful by grand architectural designs. This
antique splendor has long since been stolen from the dead,
to decorate the palaces and churches of the living. Noth-
340 THE MARBLE FAUN.
ing remains to the dishonored sepulchres, except thdr
massiveness.
Even the pyramids form hardly a stranger spectacle, or
are more alien from human sympathies, than the tombs of
the Appian Way, with their gigantic height, breadth, and
solidity, defying time and the elements, and far too mighty
to be demolished by an ordinary earthquake. Here you
may see a modern dwelling, and a garden with its vines
and olive-trees, perched on the lofty dilapidation of a
tomb, which forms a precipice of fifty feet in depth on
each of the four sides. There is a home on that funereal
mound, where generations of children have been bom,
and successive lives been spent, undisturbed by the ghost
of the stern Roman whose ashes were so prei)osterously
burdened. Other sepulchres wear a crown of grass,
shrubbery, and forest-trees, which throw out a broad
sweep of branches, having had time, twice over, to be a
thousand years of age. On one of them stands a tower,
which, though immemorially more modern than the tomb,
was itself built by immemorial hands, and is now rifted
quite from top to bottom by a vast fissure of decay ; the
tomb-hillock, its foundation, being still as firm as ever, and
likely to endure until the last trump shall rend it wide
asunder, and summon forth its unknown dead.
Yes ; its unknown dead ! For, except in one or two
doubtful instances, these mountainous sepulchral edifices
have not availed txD keep so much as the bare name of
an individual or a family from oblivion. Ambitious of
everlasting remembrance, as they were, the slumberers
might just as well have gone quietly to rest, each in hia
pigeon-hole of a columbaria, or under his little green
hillock, in a graveyard, without a headstone to mark the
spot. It is rather satisfactory than otherwise, to think
that all these idle pains have turned out so utterly abor-
tive.
About two miles, or more, from the city -gate, and right
upon the roadside, Kenyon passed an immense round pile,
sepulchral in its original purposes, like those already men-
tioned. It was built of great blocks of he-^Ti stone, on a
vast, square foundation of rough, agglomerated material,
such as composes the mass of all the other ruinous tombs.
But whatever might be the cause, it was in a far better
THE MARBLE FAUN. 341
state of preservation than they. On its broad summit
rose the battlements of a medipeval fortress, out of the
midst of which (so long since had time begun to crumble
the supplemental structure, and cover it with soil, by-
means of wayside dust) grew trees, bushes, and thick
festoons of ivy. This tomb of a woman had become the
citadel and donjon-keep of a castle ; and all the care that
Cecilia Metella's husband could bestow, to secure endless
peace for her beloved relics, had only sufficed to make
that handful of precious ashes the nucleus of battles, long
ages after her death.
A little beyond this point, the sculptor turned aside
from the Appian Way, and directed his course across the
Campagna, guided by tokens that were obvious only to
himself. On one side of him, but at a distance, the Clau-
dian aqueduct was striding over fields and watercourses.
Before him, many miles away, with a blue atmosphere
between, rose the Alban hills, brilliantly silvered with
snow and sunshine.
He was not without a companion, A buffalo-calf, that
seemed shy and sociable by the selfsame impulse, had
begun to make acquaintance with him, from the moment
when he left the road. This frolicsome creature gam-
bolled along, now before, now behind ; standing a moment
to gaze at him, with wild, curious eyes, he leaped aside
and shook his shaggy head, as Kenyon advanced too nigh ;
then, after loitering in the rear, he came galloping up, like
a charge of cavalry, but halted, all of a sudden, when the
sculptor turned to look, and bolted across the Campagna,
at the slightest signal of nearer approach. The young,
sportive thing, Kenyon half fancied, was serving him as a
guide, like the heifer that led Cadmus to the site of his
destined city; for, m spite of a hundred vagaries, his
general course was in the right direction, and along by
several objects which the sculptor had noted as landmarks
of his way.
In this natural intercourse with a rude and healthy
form of animal life, there was something that wonderfully
revived Kenyon's spirits. The warm rays of the sun,
too, were wholesome for him in body and soul ; and so
was a breeze that bestirred itself occasionally, as if for the
sole purpose of breathing upon his cheek, and dying softly
342 THE MARBLE FAUN.
away, when he would fain have felt a little more decided
kiss. This shy, but loving breeze reminded him strangely
of what Hilda's deportment had sometimes been towards
himself.
The weather had very much to do, no doubt, with these
genial and delightful sensations, that made the sculptor so
happy with mere life, in spite of a head and heart full of
doleful thoughts, anxieties, and fears, which ought in all
reason to have depressed him. It was like no weather
that exists anywhere, save in Paradise and in Italy ; cer-
tainly not in America, where it is always too strenuous on
the side either of heat or cold. Young as the season was,
and wintry as it would have been under a more rigid sky,
it resembled summer rather than what we Xcav England-
ers recognize in our idea of spring. But there was an in-
describable something, sweet, fresh, and remotely affec-
tionate, which the matronly summer loses, and which
thrilled, and, as it were, tickled Kenyon's heart with a
feeling partly of the senses, yet far more a spiritual de-
light. In a word, it was as if Hilda's delicate breath
were on his cheek.
After walking at a brisk pace for about half an hour,
he reached a spot where an excavation appeared to have
been begun, at some not very distant period. There was
a hollow space in the earth, looking exceedingly like
a deserted cellar, being enclosed within old subterranean
walls, constructed of thin Roman bricks, and made acces-
sible by a narrow flight of stone steps. A suburban villa
had probably stood over this site, in the imperial days of
Rome, and these might have been the ruins of a bath-
room, or some other apartment that was required to be
wholly or partly under ground. A spade can scarcely
be put into that soil, so rich in lost and forgotten things,
without hitting upon some discovery which would attract
all eyes, in any other land. If you dig but a little way,
you gather bits of precious marble, coins, rings, and en-
graved gems ; if you go deeper, you break into colum-
baria, or into sculptured and richly frescoed apartments
that look like festive halls, but were only sepulchres.
The sculptor descended mto the cellar-like cavity, and
sat down on a block of stone. His eagerness had brought
him thither sooner than the appointed hour. The sun-
THE MARBLE FAUN. 343
sMne fell slantwise into the hollow, and happened to be
resting on what Kenyon at first took to be a shapeless
fragment of stone, possibly marble, which was partly con-
cealed by the crumbling down of earth.
But his practised eye was soon aware of something
artistic in this rude object. To relieve the anxious tedium
of his situation, he cleared away some of the soil, which
seemed to have fallen very recently, and discovered a
headless figure of marble. It was earth-stained, as well
it might be, and had a slightly corroded surface, but at
once impressed the sculptor as a Greek production, and
wonderfully delicate and beautiful. The head was gone ;
both arms were broken off at the elbows. Protruding
from the loose earth, however, Kenyon beheld the fingers
of a marble hand ; it was still appended to its arm, and a
little farther search enabled him to find the other. Plac-
ing these limbs in what the nice adjustment of the frac-
tures proved to be their true position, the poor, fragmen-
tary woman forthwith showed that she retained her
modest instincts to the last. She had perished with them,
and snatched them back at the moment of revival. For
these long-buried hands immediately disposed themselves
in the manner that nature prompts, as the antique artist
knew, and as all the world has seen, in the Venus de'
Medici.
" What a discovery is here ! " thought Kenyon to him-
self. " I seek for Hilda, and find a marble woman ! Is
the omen good or ill ? "
In a corner of the excavation, lay a small round block
of stone, much incrusted with earth that had dried and
hardened upon it. So, at least, you would have described
this object, until the sculptor lifted it, turned it hither
and thither in his hands, brushed off the clinging soil, and
finally placed it on the slender neck of the newly discov-
ered statue. The effect was magical. It immediately
lighted up and vivified the whole figure, endowing it with
personality, soul, and intelligence. The beautiful Idea at
once asserted its immortality, and converted that heap of
forlorn fragments into a whole, as perfect to the mind, if
not to the eye, as when the new marble gleamed with
snowy lustre ; nor was the impression marred by the earth
that still hung upon the exquisitely graceful limbs, and
844 THE MARBLE FAUN.
even filled the lovely crevice of the lips. Kenyon cleared
it away from between them, and almost deemed himself
rewarded with a livmg smile.
It was either the prototype or a better repetition of the
Venus of the Tribune. But those who have been dissat-
isfied with the small head, the narrow, soulless face, the
buttonhole eyelids, of that famous statue, and its mouth
such as nature never moulded, should see the genial
breadth of this far nobler and sweeter countenance. It is
one of the few works of antique sculpture in which we
recognize womanhood, and that, moreover, without preju-
dice to its divinity.
Here, then, was a treasure for the sculptor to have
found ! How happened it to be lymg there, beside its
grave of twenty centuries ? Why were not the tidings
of its discovery already noised abroad ? The world was
richer than yesterday, by something far more precious
than gold. Forgotten beauty had come back, as beauti-
ful as ever ; a goddess had risen from her long slumber,
and was a goddess still. Another cabmet in the Vatican
was destined to shine as lustrously as that of the Apollo
Belvedere ; or, if the aged pope should resign his claim,
an emperor would woo this tender marble, and win her as
proudly as an imperial bride !
Such were the thoughts, with which Kenyon exagger-
ated to himself the importance of the newly-discovered
statue, and strove to feel at least a portion of the interest
which this event would have inspired in him, a little
while before. But, in reality, he found it difiicult to fix
his mind upon the subject. He could hardly, we fear, be
reckoned a consummate artist, because there was some-
thing dearer to him than his art ; and, by the greater
strength of a human affection, the divine statue seemed
to fall asunder again, and become only a heap of worth-
less fragments.
While the sculptor sat listlessly gazing at it, there was
a sound of small hoofs, clumsily galloping on the Cam-
pagna; and, soon, his frisky acquaintance, the buffalo-
calf, came and peeped over the edge of the excavation.
Almost at the same moment, he heard voices, which ap-
proached nearer and nearer ; a man's voice, and a fem-
inine one, talking the musical tongue of Italy. Besides
THE MARBLE FAUN. 345
the hairy visage of his four-footed friend, Kenyon now
saw the figures of a peasant and a contadina, making ges-
tures of salutation to him, on the opposite verge of the
hollow space.
CHAPTER XLVIL
THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA.
They descended into the excavation ; a young peasant^
in the short blue jacket, the smallclothes buttoned at the
knee, and buckled shoes, that compose one of the ugliest
dresses ever worn by man, except- the wearer's form have
a grace which any garb, or the nudity of an antique
statue, would equally set off; and, hand in hand with
him, a village girl, in one of those brilliant costumes
largely kindled up with scarlet, and decorated with gold
embroidery, in which the contadinas array themselves on
feast-days. But Kenyon was not deceived ; he had rec-
ognized the voices of Ms friends, indeed, even before their
disguised figures came between him and the sunlight.
Donatello was the peasant ; the contadina, with the airy
smile, half mirthful, though it shone out of melancholy
eyes, ^was IMiriam.
They both greeted the sculptor with a familiar kindness
which remmded him of the days when Hilda and they
and he had lived so happily together, before the myster-
ious adventure of the catacomb. What a succession of
sinister events had followed one spectral figure out of that
gloom labyrinth.
" It is carnival time, you know," said Miriam, as if in
explanation of Donatello's and her own costume. " Do you
remember how merrily we spent the carnival, last year ? "
"It seems many years ago," replied Kenyon. "We
are all so changed 1 "
Wlien individuals approach one another with deep pur-
poses on both sides, they seldom come at once to the
matter which they have most at heart. They dread the
electric shock of a too sudden contact with it. A natural
impulse leads them to steal gradually onward, hiding
themselves, as it were, behind a closer, and still a closer
846 THE MARBLE FAUN.
topic, until they stand face to face vnth the true point of
interest. IMiriam was conscious of this impulse and par-
tially obeyed it,
" So, your instincts as a sculptor have brought you into
the presence of our newly discovered statue," she observed.
Is it not beautiful ? A far truer image of immortal
womanhood than the poor little damsel at Florence, world-
famous though she be."
" Most beautiful," said Kenyon, casting an indifferent
glance at the Venus. " The time has been when the
sight of this statue would have been enough to make the
day memorable."
And will it not do so, now ? " Miriam asked. " I
fancied so, indeed, when we discovered it two days ago.
It is Donatello's prize. We were sitting here together,
planning an interview with you, when his keen eyes de-
tected the fallen goddess, almost entirely buried under
that heap of earth, which the clumsy excavators showered
down upon her, I suppose. We congratulated ourselves,
cliiefly for your sake. The eyes of us three are the only
ones to which she has yet revealed herself. Does it not
frighten you a little, like the apparition of a lovely woman
that lived of old, and has long lain in the grave ? "
Ah, Miriam ! I cannot respond to you," said the
sculptor, with irrepressible impatience. " Imaguiation
and the love of art have both died out of me."
" Miriam," interposed Donatello, with gentle gravity,
"why should we keep our friend in suspense? We
know what anxiety he feels. Let us give him what in-
telligence we can."
You are so direct and immediate, my beloved friend ! "
answered Miriam with an unquiet smile. " There are
several reasons why I should like to play around this
matter a little while, and cover it with fanciful thoughts,
as we strew a grave with flowers."
" A grave ! " exclauned the sculptor.
" No grave in which your heart need be buried," she
replied ; " you have no such calamity to dread. But I
linger and hesitate, because every word I speak brings
me nearer to a crisis from which I shrink. Ah, Pona-
tello I let us live a little longer ftie life of these last few
days I It is so bright, so airy, so childlike, so without
THE MARBLE FAUN. 347
either past or future ! Here, on the wild Campagna, you
seem to have found, both for yourself and me, the life
that belonged to you in early youth ; the sweet, irre-
sponsible life which you inherited from your mythic an-
cestry, the Fauns of Monte Beni. Our stern and black
reality will come upon us speedily enough. But, first, a
brief time more of this strange happiness."
" I dare not linger upon it," answered Donatello, with
an expression that reminded the sculptor of the gloomiest
days of his remorse at Monte Beni. "I dare to be so
happy as you have seen me, only because I have felt the
time to be so brief."
One day, then ! " pleaded Miriam. " One more day in
the wild freedom of this sweet-scented air."
" Well, one more day," said Donatello, smiling ; and
his smile touched Kenyon with a pathos beyond words,
there being gayety and sadness both melted into it ; " but
here is Hilda's friend, and our own. Comfort him, at
least, and set his heart at rest, since you have it partly in
your power."
" Ah, surely he might endure his pangs a little longer ! '*
cried Miriam, turning to Kenyon with a tricksy, fitful
kind of mirth, that served to hide some solemn necessity,
too sad and serious to be looked at in its naked aspect.
" You love us both, I think, and will be content to suffer
for our sakes, one other day. Do I ask too much ? "
" Tell me of Hilda," replied the sculptor ; " tell me only
that she is safe, and keep back what else you will."
" Hilda is safe," said Miriam. " There is a Providence
purposely for Hilda, as I remember to have told you long
ago. But a great trouble an evil deed, let us acknowl-
edge it has spread out its dark branches so widely, that
the shadow falls on innocence as well as guilt. There
was one slight link that connected your sweet Hilda with
a crime which it was her unhappy fortune to witness, but
of which I need not say she was as guiltless as the angels
that looked out of heaven, and saw it too. No matter,
now, what the consequence has been. You shall have
your lost Hilda back, and who knows ? perhaps tenderer
than she was."
" But when will she return ? " persisted the sculptor ;
** tell me the when, and where, and how ! "
848 THE MARBLE FAUN.
" A little patience. Do not press me so," said Miriam ;
and again Kenyon was struck by the spritelike, fitful
characteristic of her manner, and a sort of hysteric gayety,
which seemed to be a will-o'-the-wisp from a sorrow
stagnant at her heart. " You have more time to spare
than I. First, listen to something that I have to tell.
"We will talk of Hilda by-and-by."
Then Miriam spoke of her own life, and told facts that
threw a gleam of light over many things which had per-
plexed the sculptor in all his previous knowledge of her.
She described herself as springing from English parent-
age, on the mother's side, but with a vein, likewise, of
Jewish blood ; yet connected, through her father, with
one of those few princely families of southern Italy,
which still retain a great wealth and influence. And she
revealed a name, at which her auditor started, and grew
pale ; for it was one that, only a few years before, had
been familiar to the world, in connection mth a mys-
terious and terrible event. The reader if he think it
worth while to recall some of the strange incidents which
have been talked of, and forgotten, within no long time
past will remember Miriam's name.
"You shudder at me, I perceive," said Miriam, sud-
denly interrupting her narrative.
" No ; you were imiocent," replied the sculptor. " I
shudder at the fatality that seems to haunt your footsteps,
and throws a shadow of crime about your path, you being
guiltless."
" There was such a fatality," said Miriam ; " yes ; the
shadow fell upon me, innocent, but I went astray in it,
and wandered as Hilda could tell you into crime."
She went on to say, that, while yet a child, she had lost
her English mother. From a very early period of her
life, there had been a contract of betrothal between her-
self and a certain marchese, the representative of another
branch of her paternal house, a family arrangement
between two persons of disproportioned ages, and in which
feeling went for nothing. Most Italian girls of noble rank
would have yielded themselves to such a marriage, as an
affair of course. But there was something in Miriam's
blood, in her mixed race, in her recollections of her
mother, some characteristic, finally, in her own nature^
THE MARBLE FAUN. 849
. which had given her freedom of thought, and force of
will, and made this pre-arranged connection odious to her.
Moreover, the character of her destined husband would
have been a sufficient and insuperable objection ; for it
betrayed traits so evil, so treacherous, so wild, and yet so
strangely subtle, as could only be accounted for by the
insanity which often develops itself in old, close-kept
races of men, when long unmixed with newer blood.
Reaching the age when the marriage contract should have
been fulfilled, Miriam had utterly repudiated it.
Some time afterwards had occurred that terrible event
to which Miriam had alluded, Avhen she revealed her
name ; an event, the frightful and mysterious circum-
stances of which will recur to many minds, but of which
few or none can have found for themselves a satisfactory
explanation. It only concerns the present narrative, inas-
much as the suspicion of being at least an accomplice in
the crime fell darkly and directly upon Miriam herself.
" But you know that I am innocent ! " she cried, inter-
rupting herself again, and looking Kenyon in the face.
" I know it by my deepest consciousness," he answered ;
"and I know it by Hilda's trust and entire affection,
which you never could have won had you been capable
of guilt."
"That is sure ground, indeed, for pronouncing me inno-
cent," said Miriam, with the tears gushing into her eyes.
" Yet I have since become a horror to your saintlike Hilda,
by a crime which she herself saw me help to perpe-
trate ! "
She proceeded with her story. The great influence of
her family connections had shielded her from some of the
consequences of her imputed guilt. But, in her despair,
she had fled from home, and had surrounded her flight
with such circumstances as rendered it the most probable
conclusion that she had committed suicide. Miriam, how-
ever, was not of the feeble nature which takes advantage
of that obvious and poor resource in earthly difficulties.
She flung herself upon the world, and speedily created a
new sphere, in which Hilda's gentle purity, the sculp-
tor's sensibility, clear thought, and genius, and Donatello's
genial simplicity, had given her almost her first experi-
ence of happiness. Then came that ill-omened adventure
850 THE MARBLE FAUN.
of the catacomb. The spectral figure which she encoun-
tered there was the evil fate that had haunted her through
life.
Looking back upon what had happened, Miriam ob-
served, she now considered him a madman. Insanity
must have been mixed up with his original composition,
and developed by those very acts of depravity which it
suggested, and still more intensified by the remorse that
ultimately followed them. Nothing was stranger in his
dark career, than the penitence which often seemed to go
hand in hand with crime. Since his death, she had as-
certained that it finally led him to a convent, where his
severe and self-inflicted penance had even acquired him
the reputation of unusual sanctity, and had been the
cause of his enjoying greater freedom than is commonly
allowed to moiiks.
" Need I tell you more ? " asked Miriam, after proceed-
ing thus far. " It is still a dim and dreary mystery, a
gloomy twilight into which I guide you ; but possibly you
may catch a glimpse of much that I myself can explain
only by conjecture. At all events, you can comprehend
what my situation must have been, after that fatal mter-
view in the catacomb. My persecutor had gone thither
for penance, but followed me forth with fresh impulses to
crime. He had me in his power. Mad as he was, and
wicked as he was, with one word he could have blasted
me in the belief of all the world. In your belief too, and
Hilda's! Even Donatello would have shrunk from me
with horror ! "
" Never," said Donatello ; " my instinct would have
known you mnocent."
" Hilda and Donatello and myself we three would
have acquitted you," said Kenyon, " let the world say
what it might. Ah, Miriam, you should have told us this
sad story sooner ! "
"I thought often of revealing it to you," answered
Miriam ; " on one occasion, especially, it was after you
had shown me your Cleopatra ; it seemed to leap out of
my heart, and got as far as my very lips. But finding
you cold to accept my confidence, I thrust it back again.
Had I obeyed my first impulse, all would have turned out
differently.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 351
" And Hilda ! " resumed the sculptor. " Wliat can
have been her connection with these dark incidents ? "
" She w'ill, doubtless, tell you with her own lips," re-
plied Miriam. " Through sources of information which I
possess in Rome, I can assure you of her safety. In two
days more by the help of the special Providence that,
as I love to tell you, watches over Hilda she shall re-
join you."
" Still two days more ! " murmured the sculptor.
" Ah, you are cruel now ! More cruel than you know ! '*
exclaimed ]\Iiriam, with another gleam of that fantastic,
fitful gayety, which had more than once marked her
manner, during this interview. " Spare your poor
friends ! "
" I know not what you mean, Muiam," said Kenyon.
" No matter," she replied ; " you will understand here-
after. But could you think it ? Plere is Donatello haunted
with strange remorse, and an unmitigable resolve to
obtain what he deems justice upon himself. He fan-
cies, with a kind of direct simplicity, which I have vainly
tried to combat, that, when a wrong has been done, the
doer is bound to submit himself to whatsoever tribunal
takes cognizance of such things, and abide its judgment.
I have assured him that there is no such thmg as earthly
justice, and especially none here, under the head of
Christendom."
" We will not argue the point again," said Donatello,
smiling. "I have no head for argument, but only a
sense, an impulse, an instinct, I believe, which sometimes
leads me right. But why do we talk now of what may
make us sorrowful ? There are still two days more. Let
us be happy ! "
It appeared to Kenyon that since he last saw Dona-
tello, some of the sweet and delightful characteristics of
the antique Faun had returned to him. There were
slight, careless graces, pleasant and simple peculiarities,
that had been obliterated by the heavy grief through
which he was passing, at Monte Beni, and out of which
he had hardly emerged, when the sculptor parted with
Miriam and him beneath the bronze pontiff's outstretched
hand. These happy blossoms had now reappeared. A
playfulness came out of his heart and glimmered like fire-
352 THE MARBLE FAUN.
light in his actions, alternating, or even closely inter,
mingled, with profound sympathy and serious thought.
" Is he not beautiful '? " said Miriam, watching the
sculptor's eye as it dwelt admiringly on Donatello. " So
changed, yet still, in a deeper sense, so much the same !
He has travelled in a circle, as all things heavenly and
earthly do, and now comes back to his original self, with
an inestimable treasure of improvement won from an ex-
perience of pain. How wonderful is this I I tremble at
my own thoughts, yet must needs probe them to their
depths. Was the crime in which he and I were wed-
ded was it a blessing, in that strange disguise ? Was it
a means of education, bringing a simple and imperfect
nature to a point of feeling and intelligence which it could
have reached under no other discipline ? "
" You stir up deep and perilous matter, Miriam," re-
plied Kenyon. " I dare not follow you into the unfath-
omable abysses whither you are tending."
" Yet there is a pleasure in them 1 I delight to brood
on the verge of this great mystery," returned she " The
story of the fall of man ! Is it not repeated in our ro-
mance of Monte Beni? And may we follow the analogy
yet farther ? Was that very sin into which Adam pre-
cipitated himself and all his race was it the destined
means by which, over a long pathway of toil and sorrow,
we are to attain a higher, brighter, and profounder hap-
piness, than our last birthright gave ? Will not this idea
account for the permitted existence of sin, as no other
theory can ? "
" It is too dangerous, Miriam ! I cannot follow you ! "
repeated the sculptor. "Mortal man has no right to
tread on the ground where you now set your feet,"
" Ask Hilda what she thinks of it," said Miriam, with
a thoughtful smile. " At least, she might conclude that
sin which man chose instead of good has been so ben-
eficently handled by omniscience and omnipotence, that,
whereas our dark enemy sought to destroy us by it, it has
really become an instrument most effective in the educa-
tion of intellect and soul."
Miriam paused a little longer among these meditations,
which the sculptor rightly felt to be so perilous ; she then
pressed his hand, in token of farewell.
THE MARBLE FAUN. 358
" The day after to-morrow," said she, " an hour before
sunset, go to the Corso, and stand m front of the fifth
house on your left, beyond the Antonine column. You
will learn tidings of a friend."
Kenyon would have besought her for more definite in-
telligence, but she shook her head, put her fmger on her
lips, and turned away with an illusive smile. The fancy
impressed him, that she, too, like Donatello, had reached
a wayside paradise, in their mysterious life-journey,
where they both threw down the burden of the before
and after, and, except for this interview with himself,
were happy in the flitting moment. To-day, Donatello
was the sylvan Faun ; to-day, Miriam was his fit com-
panion, a Nymph of grove or fountain; to-morrow, a
remorseful man and woman, linked by a marriage-bond
of crime, they would set forth towards an inevitable
goal.
CHAPTER XL VIII.
A SCENE IN THE CORSO.
On the appointed afternoon, Kenyon failed not to make
his appearance in the Corso, and at an hour much earlier
than Miriam had named.
It was carnival time. The merriment of this famous
festival was in full progress ; and the stately avenue of
the Corso was peopled with hundreds of fantastic shapes,
some of which probably represented the mirth of ancient
times, surviving through all mamier of calamity, ever
since the days of the Roman empire. For a few after-
noons of early spring, this mouldy gayety strays into the
sunshine ; all the remainder of the year, it seems to be
shut up in the catacombs or some other sepulchral store-
house of the past.
Besides these hereditary forms, at which a hundred
generations have laughed, there were others of modern
date, the humorous effluence of the day that was now
passing. It is a day, however, and an age, that appears
to be remarkably barren, wlien compared with the pro-
lific originality of former times, in productions of a scenic
23
854 THE MARBLE FAUN,
and ceremonial character, whether grave or gay. To
own the truth, the carnival is alive, this present year,
only because it has existed through centuries gone by.
It is traditionary, not actual. If decrepit and melancholy
Rome smiles, and laughs broadly, indeed, at carnival time,
it is not in the old simplicity of real mirth, but with a half-
conscious effort, like our self-deceptive pretence of jollity
at a threadbare joke. Whatever it may once have been,
it is now but a narrow stream of merriment, noisy of set
purpose, running along the middle of the Corso, through
the solemn heart of the decayed city, without extending
its shallow influence on either side. Nor, even within
its own limits, does it affect the mass of spectators, but
only a comparatively few, in street and balcony, who
carry on the warfare of nosegays and counterfeit sugar-
plums. The populace look on ^vith staid composure;
the nobility and priesthood take little or no part in the
matter ; and, but for the hordes of Anglo-Saxons who
annually take up the flagging mirth, the carnival might
long ago have been swept away, with the snow-drifts of
confetti that whiten all the pavement.
No doubt, however, the worn-out festival is still new to
the youthful and light-hearted, ^^ho make the worn-out
world itself as fresh as Adam found it on his first fore-
noon in Paradise. It may be only age and care that chill
the life out of its grotesque and airy riot, with the im-
pertinence of their cold criticism.
Kenyon, though young, had care enough within his
breast to render the carnival the emptiest of mockeries.
Contrasting the stern anxiety of his present mood with
the frolic spirit of the preceding year, he fancied that so
much trouble had, at all events, brought wisdom in its
train. But there is a wisdom that looks grave, and
sneers at merriment ; and again a deeper wisdom, that
stoops to be gay as often as occasion serves, and oftenest
avails itself of shallow and trifling grounds of mirth;
because, if we wait for more substantial ones, we seldom
can be gay at all. Therefore, had it been possible, Ken-
yon would have done well to mask himself in some wild,
hairy visage, and plunge into the throng of other maskers,
as at the carnival before. Then, Donatello had danced
along the Corso in all the equipment of a Faun, doing
THE MARBLE FAUN. 355
the part with wonderful fehcity of execution, and re-
veahng furry ears which looked absolutely real ; and
Miriam had been alternately, a lady of the antique re-
gime, in powder and brocade, and the prettiest peasant-
girl of the Campagna, in the gayest of costumes ; while
Hilda, sitting demurely in a balcony, had hit the sculptor
with a single rosebud, so sweet and fresh a bud that
he knew at once whose hand had flung it.
These were all gone; all those dear friends whose
sympathetic mirth had made him gay. Kenyon felt as
if an interval of many years had passed since the last
carnival. He had grown old, the nimble jollity was
tame, and the maskers dull and heavy ; the Corso was
but a narrow and shabby street of decaying palaces ; and
even the long, blue streamer of Italian sky, above it, not
half so brightly blue as formerly.
Yet, if he could have beheld the scene with his clear,
natural eyesight, he might still have found both merri-
ment and splendor in it. Everywhere, and all day long,
there had been tokens of the festival, in the baskets brim-
ming over with bouquets, for sale at the street-corners,
or borne about on people's heads ; while bushels upon
bushels of variously colored confetti were displayed, look-
ing just like veritable sugar-plums ; so that a stranger
would have imagined that the whole commerce and busi-
ness of stern old Rome lay in flowers and sweets. And,
now, in the sumiy afternoon, there could hardly be a
spectacle more picturesque than the vista of that noble
street, stretching into the interminable distance between
two rows of lofty edifices, from every window of which,
and many a balcony, flaunted gay and gorgeous carpets,
bright silks, scarlet cloths with rich golden fringes, and
Gobelin tapestry, still lustrous with varied hues, though
the product of antique looms. Each separate palace had
put on a gala-dress, and looked festive for the occasion,
whatever sad or guilty secret it might hide within.
Every window, moreover, was alive with the faces of
women, rosy girls, and children, all kindled into brisk
and mirthful expression by the incidents in the street
below. In the balconies that projected along the palace
fronts, stood groups of ladies, some beautiful, all richly
dressed, scattering forth their laughter, shrill, yet sweety
856 THE MARBLE FAUN.
and the musical babble of their voices, to thicken into an
airy tumult over the heads of common mortals.
All these innumerable eyes looked do^vn into the street,
the whole capacity of which was thronged with festal
figures, in such fantastic variety that it had taken cen-
turies to contrive them ; and through the midst of the
mad, merry stream of human life, rolled slowly onward a
never-ending procession of all the vehicles in Rome,
from the ducal carriage, ^vith the powdered coachman
high in front, and the three golden lackeys clinging in
the rear, down to the rustic cart drawn by its single
donkey. Among this various crowd, at windows and in
balconies, in cart, cab, barouche, or gorgeous equipage, or
bustling to and fro afoot, there was a sympathy of non-
sense; a true and genial brotherhood and sisterhood,
based on the honest purpose and a wise one, too of
being foolish, all together. The sport of mankind, like
its deepest earnest, is a battle ; so these festive people
fought one another with an ammunition of sugar-plums
and flowers.
Not that they were veritable sugar-plums, however,
but something that resembled them only as the apples
of Sodom look like better fruit. They were concocted
mostly of lime, with a grain of oat or some other worth-
less kernel in the midst. Besides the hail-storm of con-
fetti, the combatants threw handfuls of flour or lime into
the air, where it hung like smoke over a battle-field, or,
descending, whitened a black coat or priestly robe, and
made the curly locks of youth irreverently hoary.
At the same time with this acrid contest of quicklime,
which caused much effusion of tears from suffermg eyes,
a gentler warfare of flowers was carried on, principally
between knights and ladies. Originally, no doubt, when
this pretty custom was first instituted, it may have had a
sincere and modest import. Each youth and damsel,
gathering bouquets of field flowers, or the sweetest and
fairest that grew in their own gardens, all fresh and virgin
blossoms, flung them, with true aim, at the one, or few,
whom they regarded with a sentiment of shy partiality at
least, if not with love. Often, the lover in the Corso may
thus have received from his bright mistress, in her father's
princely balcony, the first sweet intimation that his pas-
THE MARBLE FAUN. 857
sionate glances had not struck against a heart of marble.
What more appropriate mode of suggesting her tender
secret could a maiden find, than by the soft hit of a rose-
bud against a young man's cheek.
This was tlie pastime and the earnest of a more iimo-
cent and homelier age. Now-a-days, the nosegays are
gathered and tied up by sordid hands, chiefly of the most
ordinary flowers, and are sold along the Corso, at mean
price, yet more than such venal things are worth. Buy-
ing a basketful, you find them miserably wilted, as if they
had flown hither and thither through two or three carni-
val days already ; muddy, too, having been fished up from
the pavement, where a hundred feet have trampled on
them. You may see throngs of men and boys who thrust
themselves beneath the horses' hoofs to gather up bou-
quets that were aimed amiss from balcony and carriage ;
these they sell again, and yet once more, and ten times
over, defiled as they all are with the wicked filth of
Rome.
Such are the flowery favors the fragrant bunches of
sentiment that fly between cavalier and dame, and back
again, from one end of the Corso to the other. Perhaps
they may symbolize, more aptly than Avas intended, the
poor, battered, wilted hearts of those who fling them ;
hearts which crumpled and crushed by former possessors,
and stained with various mishaps have been passed from
hand to hand, along the muddy street- way of life, instead
of being treasured in one faithful bosom.
These venal and polluted flowers, therefore, and those
deceptive bonbons, are types of the small reality that still
subsists in the observance of the carnival. Yet the govern-
ment seemed to imagine that there might be excitement
enough wild mirth, perchance, following its antics beyond
law, and frisking from frolic into earnest to render it
expedient to guard the Corso with an imposing show of
military power. Besides the ordinary force of gendarmes,
a strong patrol of Papal dragoons, in steel helmets and
white cloaks, were stationed at all the street- corners.
Detachments of French infantry stood by their stacked
muskets in the Piazza del Popolo, at one extremity of
the course, and before the palace of the Austrian embassy,
at the other, and by tlie column of Antonuius, midway
868 THE MARBLE FAUN.
between. Had that chained tiger-cat, the Roman populace,
Bhown only so much as the tips of his claws, the sabres
would have been flashing and the bullets whistling, in
right earnest, among the combatants who now pelted one
another with mock sugar-plums and wilted flowers.
But, to do the Roman people justice, they were re-
strained by a better safeguard than the sabre or the bayo-
net : it was their own gentle courtesy, which imparted a
sort of sacredness to the hereditary festival. At first
sight of a spectacle so fantastic and extravagant, a cool
observer might have imagined the whole town gone mad ;
but, in the end, he would see that all this apparently un-
bounded license is kept strictly within a limit of its own ;
he would admire a people who can so freely let loose their
mirthful propensities, while muzzling those fiercer ones
that tend to mischief. Everybody seemed lawless ; nobody
was rude. If any reveller overstepped the mark, it was
sure to be no Roman, but an Englishman or an American ;
and even the rougher play of this Gothic race was still
softened by the insensible influence of a moral atmosphere
more delicate, in some respects, than we breathe at home.
Not that, after all, we like the fine Italian spirit better
than our o^vn ; popular rudeness is sometimes the symp-
tom of rude moral health. But, where a carnival is in
question, it would probably pass off more decorously, as
well as more airily and delightfully, in Rome, than in any
Anglo-Saxon city.
When Kenyon emerged from a side-lane into the Corso,
the mirth was at its height. Out of the seclusion of his
own feelings, he looked forth at the tapestried and damask-
curtained palaces, the slow-moving, double line of car-
riages, and the motley maskers that swarmed on foot, as
if he were gazing through the iron lattice of a prison-
window. So remote from the scene were his sympathies,
that it affected him like a thin dream, through the dim,
extravagant material of which he could discern more sub-
stantial objects, while too much under its control to start
forth broad awake. Just at that moment, too, there came
another spectacle, making its way right through the mas-
querading throng.
It was, first and foremost, a full band of martial music,
reverberating, in that narrow and confined, though stately
THE MARBLE FAUI^. u5&
avenue, between the walls of the lofty palaces, and roar-
ing upward to the sky, with melody so powerful that it
almost grew to discord. Next came a body of cavalry
and mounted gendarmes, with great display of military
pomp. They were escorting a long train of equipages,
each and all of which shone as gorgeously as Cinderella's
coach, with paint and gilding. Like that, too, they were
provided with coachmen, of mighty breadth, and enor-
mously tall footmen, in immense, powdered wigs, and all
the splendor of gold-laced, three-cornered hats, and em-
broidered silk coats and breeches. By the old-fashioned
magnificence of this procession, it might worthily have
included his Holiness in person, with a suite of attendant
Cardinals, if those sacred dignitaries would kindly have
lent their aid to heighten the frolic of the carnival. But,
for all its show of a martial escort, and its antique splen-
dor of costume, it was but a train of the municipal au-
thorities of Rome, illusive shadows, every one, and
among them a phantom, styled the Roman Senator, pro-
ceeding to the Capitol.
The riotous interchange of nosegays and confetti was
partially suspended, while the procession passed. One
well-directed shot, however, it was a double handful of
powdered lime, flung by an impious New Englander, hit
the coachman of the Roman Senator full in the face, and
hurt his dignity amazingly. It appeared to be his opin-
ion, that the Republic was again crumblmg into ruin, and
that the dust of it now filled his nostrils ; though, in fact, it
would hardly be distinguished from the ofificial powder
with which he was already plentifully bestrewn.
While the sculptor, with his dreamy eyes, was taking
idle note of this trifling circumstance, two figures passed
before him, hand in hand. The countenance of each was
covered with an impenetrable black mask ; but one
seemed a peasant of the Campagna ; the other, a con-
tadina in her holiday costume.
860 THE MARBLE FAUN.
CHAPTER XLIX.
A FROLIC OF THE CAENIVAL.
The crowd and confusion, just at that moment, hin-
dered the sculptor from pursuing these figures, the
peasants and contadina, who, indeed, were but two of a
numerous tribe that thronged the Corso, in similar cos-
tume. As soon as he could squeeze a passage, Kenyon
tried to follow in their footsteps, but quickly lost sight of
them, and was thrown off the track by stopping to ex-
amine various groups of masqueraders, in which he
fancied the objects of his search to be included. He
found many a sallow peasant or herdsman of the Cam-
pagna, in such a dress as Donatello wore ; many a conta-
dina, too, brown, broad, and sturdy, in her finery of scarlet,
and decked out with gold or coral beads, a pair of heavy
ear-rings, a curiously wrought cameo or mosaic brooch,
and a silver comb or long stiletto among her glossy hair.
But those shapes of grace and beauty, which he sought,
had vanished.
As soon as the procession of the Senator had passed,
the merry-makers resumed their antics with fresh spirit,
and the artillery of bouquets and sugar-plums, suspended
for a moment, began anew. The sculptor himself being
probably the most anxious and unquiet spectator there,
was especially a mark for missiles from all quarters, and
for the practical jokes which the hcense of the carnival
permits. In fact, his sad and contracted brow so ill ac-
corded mth the scene, that the revellers might be par-
doned fcr thus using him as the butt of their idle mirth,
since he evidently could not otherwise contribute to it.
Fantastic figures, with bulbous heads, the circumference
of a bushel, grinned enormously in his face. Harlequins
struck him with their wooden swords, and appeared to ex-
pect his immediate transformation into some jollier shape.
A little, long- tailed, horned fiend sidled up to him, and
suddenly blew at him through a tube, enveloping our
poor friend in a whole harvest of winged seeds. A biped,
THE MARBLE FAUN". 361
with an ass's snout, brayed close to his ear, ending his
discordant uproar with a peal of human laughter. Five
strapping damsels so, at least, their petticoats bespoke
them, in spite of an awful freedom in the flourish of their
legs joined hands, and danced around him, inviting him
by their gestures, to perform a hornpipe in the midst.
Released from these gay persecutors, a clown in motley
rapped him on the back with a blown bladder, in which a
handful of dried peas rattled horribly.
Unquestionably, a care-stricken mortal has no business
abroad, when the rest of mankind are at high carnival ;
they must either pelt him and absolutely martyr him with
jests, and fuially bury him beneath the aggregate heap ;
or else the potency of his darker mood, because the tissue
of human life takes a sad dye more readily than a gay
one, will quell their holiday humors, like the aspect of a
death's-head at a banquet. Only that we know Kenyon's
errand, we could hardly forgive him for venturing into the
Corso with that troubled face.
Even yet, his merry martyrdom was not half over.
There came along a gigantic female figure, seven feet
high, at least, and taking up a third of the street's breadth
with the preposterously swelling sphere of her crinoline
skirts. Singling out the sculptor, she began to make
a ponderous assault upon his heart, throwing amorous
glances at him out of her great goggle-eyes, oftering him
a vast bouquet of sunflowers and nettles, and soliciting
his pity by all sorts of pathetic and passionate dumb-
show. Her suit meeting no favor, the rejected Titaness
made a gesture of despair and rage ; then suddenly draw-
ing a huge pistol, she took aim right at the obdurate
sculptor's breast, and pulled the trigger. The shot took
effect, for the abominable plaything went off by a spring,
like a boy's popgun, covering Kenyon with a cloud of
lime-dust, under shelter of which the revengeful damsel
strode away.
Hereupon, a whole host of absurd figures surrounded
him, pretending to sympathize in his mishap. Clowns and
parti-colored harlequins ; orang-outangs ; bear-headed,
bull-headed, and dog-headed individuals ; faces that would
have been human, but for their enormous noses ; one terrific
creature, with a visage right in the center of his breast
362 THE MARBLE FAUN.
and all other imaginable kinds of monstrosity and exag-
geration. These apparitions appeared to be nivestigating
the case, after the fashion of a coroner's jury, poking
their pasteboard countenances close to the sculptor's with
an unchangeable grin, that gave still more ludicrous effect
to the comic alarm and sorrow of their gestures. Just
then, a figure came by, in a gray wig and rusty gown,
with an inkhorn at his buttonhole, and a pen behind his
ear ; he announced himself as a notary, and offered to
make the last will and testament of the assassinated man.
This solemn duty, however, was interrupted by a surgeon,
who brandished a lancet, three feet long, and proposed
to him to let him take blood.
The affair was so like a feverish dream, that Kenyon
resigned himself to let it take its course. Fortunately,
the humors of the carnival pass from one absurdity to
another, without lingering long enough on any, to wear
out even the slightest of them. The passiveness of his
demeanor afforded too little scope for such broad merri-
ment as the masqueraders sought. In a few moments
they vanished from him, as dreams and spectres do, leav-
ing him at liberty to pursue his quest, with no impedi-
ment except the crowd that blocked up the footway.
He had not gone far when the peasant and the conta-
dina met him. They were still hand in hand, and ap-
peared to be straying through the grotesque and animated
scene, taking as little part in it as himself. It might be
because he recognized them, and knew their solemn secret,
that the sculptor fancied a melancholy emotion to be
expressed by the very movement and attitudes of these two
figures ; and even the grasp of their hands, uniting them
so closely, seemed to set them in a sad remoteness from
the world at which they gazed.
" I rejoice to meet you," said Kenyon.
But they looked at him through the eye-holes of their
black masks, without answering a word.
" Pray give me a little light on the matter which I
have so much at heart," said he ; "if you know anything
of Hilda, for Heaven's sake, speak ! "
Still, they were silent ; and the sculptor began to im-
agine that he must have mistaken the identity of these
figures, there being such a multitude in similar costume
THE MARBLE FAUN. 363
Yet there was no other Donatello ; no other Miriam. He
felt, too, that spiritual certainty which impresses us with
the presence of our friends, apart from any testimony of
the senses.
"You are unkind," resumed he, "knowmg the anx-
iety which oppresses me, not to relieve it, if in your
power."
The reproach evidently had its effect ; for the conta-
dina now spoke, and it was Miriam's voice.
" We gave you all the light we could," said she. " You
are yourself unkind, though you little think how much
so, to come between us at this hour. There may be a
sacred hour, even in carnival time."
In another state of mind, Kenyon could have been
amused by the impulsiveness of this response, and a sort
of vivacity that he had often noted in Miriam's conversa-
tion. But he was conscious of a profound sadness in her
tone, overpowering its momentary irritation, and assuring
him that a pale, tear-stained face was hidden behind her
mask.
" Forgive me ! " said he.
Donatello here extended his hand, not that which was
clasping Miriam's, and she, too, put her free one into
the sculptor's left ; so that they were a linked circle of
three, with many reminiscences and forebodings flashing
through their hearts. Kenyon knew intuitively that these
once familiar friends were parting with him, now.
" Farewell ! " they all three said, in the same breath.
No sooner was the word spoken, than they loosed their
hands ; and the uproar of the carnival swept like a tem-
pestuous sea over the spot, which they had included
within their small circle of isolated feeling.
By this interview, the sculptor had learned nothing in
reference to Hilda; but he understood that he was to
adhere to the instructions already received, and await a
solution of the mystery in some mode that he could not
yet anticipate. Passing his hands over his eyes, and
looking about him, for the event just described had
made the scene even more dreamlike than before, he
now found himself approaching that broad piazza border-
ing on the Corso, which has for its central object the
eculptured column of Antoninus. It was not far from
364 THE MARBLE FAUN.
this vicinity that IMiriam had bid him wait. Struggling
onward, as fast as the tide of merry-makers, setting strong
against him, would permit, he was now beyond the Palazzo
Colonna, and began to count the houses. The fifth was
a palace, with a long front upon the Corso, and of stately
height, but somewhat grim with age.
Over its arched and pillared entrance, there was a bal-
cony, richly hung with tapestry and damask, and tenanted,
for the time, by a gentleman of venerable aspect, and a
group of ladies. The white hair and whiskers of the
former, and the mnter-roses in his cheeks, had an English
look ; the ladies, too, showed a fair-haired, Saxon bloom,
and seemed to taste the mirth of the cainival Avith the
freshness of spectators to whom the scene was new. All
the party, the old gentleman with grave earnestness, as if
he were defending a rampart, and his young companions
with exuberance of frolic, showered confetti mexhaustibly
upon the passers-by.
In the rear of the balcony, a broad-brimmed, ecclesi-
astical beaver was visible. An abbate, probably an ac-
quaintance and cicerone of the English family, was sitting
there, and enjoying the scene, though partially withdrawn
from view, as the decorum of his order dictated.
There seemed no better nor other course for Kenyon,
than to keep watch at this appointed spot, waiting for
whatever should happen next. Clasping his arm round a
lamp-post, to j)revent being carried away by the turbulent
stream of wayfarers, he scrutinized every face, with the
idea that some one of them might meet his eyes with a
glance of intelligence. He looked at each mask, har-
lequin, ape, bulbous-headed monster, or anything that was
absurdest, not knowing but that the messenger might
come, even in such fantastic guise. Or, perhaps, one of
those quaint figures, in the stately ruff, the cloak, tunic,
and trunk-hose, of three centuries ago, might bring him
tidings of Hilda, out of that long-past age. At times, his
disquietude took a hopeful aspect ; and he fancied that
Hilda might come by, her OAvn sweet self, in some shy
disguise which the instinct of his love would be sure to
renetrate. Or, she might be borne past on a triumphal
car, like the one just now approaching, its slow-moving
wheels encircled and spoked with foliage, and drawn by
THE MARBLE FAUN. 365
horses that were harnessed and wreathed with flowers.
Being, at best, so far beyond the bounds of reasonable
conjecture, he might anticipate the wildest event, or find
either his hopes or fears disappointed in what appeared
most probable.
The old Englishman and his daughters, in the opposite
balcony, must have seen something unutterably absurd in
the sculptor's deportment, poring into this whirlpool of
nonsense so earnestly, in quest of what was to make his
life dark or bright. Earnest people, who try to get a
reality out of human existence, are necessarily absurd
in the view of the revellers and masqueraders. At all
events, after a good deal of mirth at the expense of his
melancholy visage, the fair occupants of the balcony
favored Kenyon with a salvo of confetti, which came
rattling about him like a hail-storm. Looking up, in-
stinctively, he was surprised to see the abbate in the
background lean forward and give a courteous sign of
recognition.
It was the same old priest with whom he had seen
Hilda, at the confessional ; the same with whom he had
talked of her disappearance, on meeting him in the street.
Yet, whatever might be the reason, Kenyon did not
now associate this ecclesiastical personage with the idea
of Hilda. His eyes lighted on the old man, just for an
instant, and then returned to the eddying throng of the
Corso, on his minute scrutiny of which depended, for
aught he knew, the sole chance of ever findmg any trace
of her. There was, about this moment, a bustle on the
other side of the street, the cause of which Kenyon did
not see, nor exert himself to discover. A small party of
soldiers or gendarmes appeared to be concerned in it ;
they were perhaps arresting some disorderly character
who, under the influence of an extra flask of wine, might
have reeled across the mystic limitation of carnival pro-
prieties.
The sculptor heard some people near him, talking of
the incident.
" That contadina, in a black mask, was a fine fissure of
a woman."
" She was not amiss," replied a f emaJe voice ; " but
her companion was far the handsomer figure of the two
366 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Could they be really a peasant and a contadina, do you
imagine ? "
"No, no," said the other. "It is some frolic of the
carnival, carried a little too far."
This conversation might have excited Kenyon's niter-
est ; only that just as the last words were spoken, he
was hit by two missiles, both of a kind that were flying
abundantly on that gay battle-field. One, we are ashamed
to say, was a cauliflower, which, flung by a young man
from a passing carriage, came with a prodigious thump
against his shoulder; the other was a single rosebud, so
fresh that it seemed that moment gathered. It flew from
the opposite balcony, smote gently on his lips, and fell
into his hand. He looked upward, and beheld the face of
his lost Hilda !
She was dressed in a white domino, and looked pale
and bewildered, and yet full of tender joy. Moreover,
there was a gleam of delicate mirthfulness in her eyes,
which the sculptor had seen there only two or three times
in the course of their acquaintance, but thought it the
most bewitching and fairylike of all Hilda's expressions.
That soft, mirthful smUe caused her to melt, as it were,
into the wild frolic of the carnival, and become not so
strange and alien to the scene, as her unexpected appa-
rition must otherwise have made her.
Meanwhile, the venerable Englishman and his daugh-
ters were staring at poor Hilda in a way that proved them
altogether astonished, as well as mexpressibly shocked, by
her sudden intrusion into their private balcony. They
looked as, indeed, English people of respectability
would, if an angel were to alight m their circle, without
due introduction from somebody whom they knew, in the
court above they looked as if an unpardonable liberty
had been taken, and a suitable apology must be made ;
after which, the intruder would be expected to withdraw.
The abbate, however, drew the old gentleman aside,
and whispered a few words that served to mollify him ;
he bestowed on Hilda a sufficiently benignant, though still
a perplexed and questioning regard, and invited her, in
dumb show, to put herself at her ease.
But whoever was in fault, our shy and gentle Hilda
bad dreamed of no intrusion. Whence she had come, or
THE MARBLE FAUN. 367
where she had been hidden, during this mysterious inter-
val, we can but imperfectly surmise, and do not mean, at
present, to make it a matter of formal explanation with
the reader. It is better, perhaps, to fancy that she had
been snatched away to a land of picture; that she had
been straying with Claude in the golden light which he
used to shed over his landscapes, but which he could
never have beheld with his waking eyes, till he awoke in
the better clime. We will imagine that, for the sake of
the true simplicity with which she loved them, Hilda had
been permitted, for a season, to converse with the great,
departed masters of the pencil, and behold the diviner
works which they have painted in heavenly colors.
Guido had shown her another portrait of Beatrice Cenci,
done from the celestial life, in which that forlorn mystery
of the earthly countenance was exchanged for a radiant
joy. Perugino had allowed her a glimpse at his easel, on
which she discerned what seemed a woman's face, but so
divuie, by the very depth and softness of its womanhood,
that a gush of happy tears blinded the maiden's eyes,
before she had time to look. Raphael had taken Hilda
by the hand, that fine, forcible hand which Kenyon
sculptured, and dra^vn aside the curtain of gold-fringed
cloud that hung before his latest masterpiece. On earth
Raphael painted the Transfiguration. What higher scene
may he have since depicted, not from hnagination, but as
revealed to his actual sight !
Neither will we retrace the steps by which she returned
to the actual world. For the present be it enough to say
that Hilda had been summoned forth from a secret place,
and led we know not through what mysterious passages,
to a point when the tumult of life burst suddenly upon
her ears. She heard the tramp of footsteps, the rattle of
wheels, and the mingled hum of a multitude of voices,
with strains of music and loud laughter breaking through.
Emerging into a great, gloomy hall, a curtain was drawn
aside ; she found herself gently propelled into an open
balcony, whence she looked out upon the festal street,
with gay tapestries flaunting over all the palace fronts,
the windows thronged with merry faces, and a crowd of
maskers rioting upon the pavement below.
Immediately, she seemed to become a portion of the
868 THE MARBLE FAUN.
scene. Her pale, large-eyed, fragile beauty, her wonder-
ing aspect, and bewildered grace, attracted the gaze of
many ; and there fell around her a shower of bouquets
and bonbons freshest blossoms and sweetest sugar-
plums, sweets to the sweet such as the revellers of the
carnival reserve as tributes to especial loveliness. Hilda
pressed her hand across her brow ; she let her eyelids
fall, and lifting them again, looked through the grotesque
and gorgeous show, the chaos of mad jollity, in quest of
some object by which she might assure herself that the
whole spectacle was not an illusion.
Beneath the balcony, she recognized a familiar and
fondly remembered face. The spirit of the hour and the
scene exercised its influence over her quick and sensitive
nature ; she caught up one of the rose-buds that had been
showered upon her, and aimed it at the sculptor. It hit
the mark ; he turned his sad eyes upward, and there was
Hilda, in whose gentle presence his own secret sorrow
and the obtrusive uproar of the carnival alike died away
from his perception.
That night, the lamp beneath the Virgin's shrine burned
as brightly as if it had never been extinguished ; and
though the one faithful dove had gone to her melancholy
perch, she greeted Hilda rapturously the next morning,
and summoned her less constant companions, whitherso-
ever they had flown, to renew their homage.
CHAPTER L.
MIRIAM, HILDA, KEIfYON, DONATELLO.
The gentle reader, we trust, would not thank us for
one of those minute elucidations, which are so tedious,
and, after all, so unsatisfactory, in clearing up the roman-
tic mysteries of a story. He is too wise to uisist upon
looking closely at the wrong side of the tapestry, after
the right one has been sufiiciently displayed to him, woven
with the best of the artist's skill, and cunningly arranged
with a view to the harmonious exhibition of its colors.
If any brilliant, or beautiful, or even tolerable effect have
been produced, this pattern of kindly readers will accept
THE MAEBLE FAUN. 869
it at its worth, without tearing its web apart, with the
idle purpose of discovering how the threads have been
knit together ; for the sagacity by which he is distin-
guished, will long ago have taught him that any narrative
of human action and adventure whether we call it his-
tory or romance is certain to be a fragile handiwork,
more easily rent than mended. The actual experience of
even the most ordinary life is full of events that never
explain themselves, either as regards their origin or their
tendency.
It would be easy, from conversations which we have
held with the sculptor, to suggest a clue to the mystery
of Hilda's disappearance ; although as long as she re-
mained in Italy there was a remarkable reserve in her
commmiications upon this subject, even to her most inti-
mate friends. Either a pledge of secrecy had been ex-
acted, or a prudential motive warned her not to reveal
the stratagems of a religious body, or the secret acts of a
despotic government whichever might be responsible in
the present instance while still within the scope of their
jurisdiction. Possibly, she might not herself be fully
aware what power had laid its grasp upon her person.
What has chiefly perplexed us, however, among Hilda's
adventures, is the mode of her release, in which some in-
scrutable tyranny or other seemed to take part in the
frolic of the carnival. We can only account for it, by
supposing that the fitful and fantastic imagination of a
woman sportive, because she must otherwise be desper-
ate had arranged this incident, and made it the condi-
tion of a step which her conscience, or the conscience of
another, required her to take.
A few days after Hilda's reappearance, she and the
sculptor were straying together through the streets of
Rome. Being deep in talk, it so happened that they
found themselves near the majestic, pillared portico, and
huge, black rotundity of the Pantheon. It stands almost
at the central point of the labyrinthine intricacies of the
modern city, and often presents itself before the bewild-
ered stranger when he is in search of other objects.
Hilda, looking up, proposed that they should enter.
" I never pass it without going in," she said, " to pay
my homage at the tomb of Raphael."
24
870 THE MARBLE FAUN.
Nor I," said Kenyon, " ^vithout stopping to admire
the noblest edifice which the barbarism of the early ages,
and the more barbarous pontiffs and princes of later ones,
have spared to us."
They went in, accordingly, and stood in the free space
of that great circle, around which are ranged the arched
recesses and stately altars, formerly dedicated to heathen
gods, but Christianized through tAvelve centuries gone by.
The world has nothmg else like the Pantheon. So grand
it is, that the pasteboard statues over the lofty cornice do
not disturb the effect, any more than the tin crowns and
hearts, the dusty artificial flowers, and all manner of
trumpery gewgaws, hanging at the saintly shrines. The
rust and dingmess that have dimmed the precious marble
on the walls ; the pavement, with its great squares and
rounds of porphyry and granite, cracked crosswise and in
a hundred directions, showing how roughly the trouble-
some ages have trampled here ; the gray dome above,
with its opening to the sky, as if heaven were looking
doAvn into the interior of this place of worship, left unim-
peded for prayer to ascend the more freely : all these
things make an impression of solemnity, which Saint
Peter's itself fails to produce.
" I think," said the sculptor, " it is to the aperture in
the dome that great Eye, gazing heavenward that the
Pantheon owes the peculiarity of its effect. It is so
heathenish, as it were so unlike all the snugness of our
modern civilization ! Look, too, at the pavement directly
beneath the open space ! So much rain has fallen there,
in the last two thousand years, that it is green with small,
fine moss, such as grows over tombstones in a damp Eng-
lish churchyard."
" I like better," replied Hilda, " to look at the bright,
blue sky, roofing the edifice where tlie builders left it open.
It is very delightful, in a breezy day, to see the masses of
white cloud float over the opening, and then the sunshine
fall through it again, fitfully, as it does now. Would it
be any wonder if we were to see angels hovering there,
partly in and partly out, with genial, heavenly faces, not
intercepting the light, but only transmuting it into beauti-
ful colors ? Look at that broad, golden beam a sloping
cataract of sunlight which comes do^Aoi from the aperture
THE MARBLE FAUN. 371
and rests upon the shrine, at the right hand of the en-
trance ! "
" There is a dusky picture over that altar," observed
the sculptor, " Let us go and see if this strong illumina-
tion brings out any merit in it."
Approaching the shrine, they found the picture little
worth looking at, but could not forbear smiling, to see
that a very plump and comfortable tabby-cat whom we
ourselves have often observed haunting the Pantheon
had established herself on the altar, in the genial sunbeam,
and was fast asleep among the holy tapers. Their foot-
steps disturbing her, she awoke, raised herself, and sat
blinking in the sun, yet with a certain dignity and self-
possession, as if conscious of representing a saint.
I presume," remarked Kenyon, " that this is the first
of the feline race that has ever set herself up as an object
of worship, in the Pantheon or elsewhere, since the days
of ancient Egypt. See ; there is a peasant from the
neighboring market, actually kneeling to her 1 She seems
a gracious and benignant saint enough."
"Do not make me laugh," said Hilda, reproachfully,
" but help me to drive the creature away. It distresses
me to see that poor man, or any human being, directing
his prayers so much amiss."
"Then, Hilda," answered the sculptor, more seriously,
" the only place in the Pantheon for you and me to kneel,
is on the pavement beneath the central aperture. If we
pray at a saint's shrine, we shall give utterance to earthly
wishes ; but if we pray face to face with the Deity, we
shall feel it impious to petition for aught that is narrow
and selfish. Methinks, it is this that makes the Catholics
so delight in the worship of saints ; they can bring up all
their little worldly wants and whims, their individualities,
and human weaknesses, not as things to be repented of,
but to be humored by the canonized humanity to which
they pray. Indeed, it is very tempting ! "
What Hilda might have answered, must be left to con-
jecture ; for as she turned from the shrine, her eyes were
attracted to the figure of a female penitent, kneeling on
the pavement just beneath the great central eye, in the
very spot which Kenyon had designated as the only one
whence prayers should ascend. The upturned face was
372 THE MARBLE FAUN.
invisible, behind a veil or mask, which formed a part of
the garb.
" It cannot be 1 " whispered Hilda, with emotion. No j
it cannot be ! "
What disturbs you ? " asked Kenyon. " "Why do you
tremble so ? "
" If it were possible," she replied, " I should fancy that
kneeling figure to be Miriam ! "
"As you say, it is impossible," rejoined the sculptor.
" We know too well what has befallen both her and Do-
natello."
" Yes ; it is impossible 1 " repeated Hilda.
Her voice was still tremulous, however, and she seemed
unable to withdraw her attention from the kneeling figure.
Suddenly, and as if the idea of Miriam had opened the
whole volume of Hilda's reminiscences, she put this ques-
tion to the sculptor :
"Was Donatello really a Faun? "
" If you had ever studied the pedigree of the far-de-
scended heir of Monte Beni. as I did," answered Kenyon,
with an irrepressible smile, " you would have retained few
doubts on that point. Faun or not, he had a genial
nature, which, had the rest of mankind been in accord-
ance with it, would have made earth a paradise to our
poor friend. It seems the moral of his story, that human
beings of Donatello's character, compounded especially for
happiness, have no longer any busmess on earth, or else-
where. Life has grown so sadly serious, that such men
must change their nature, or else perish, like the an-
tediluvian creatures, that required, as the condition of
their existence, a more summer-like atmosphere than
ours."
" I will not accept your moral ! " replied the hopeful
and happy-natured Hilda.
" Then here is another ; take your choice ! " said the
sculptor, remembering what Miriam had recently sug-
gested, in reference to the same point. " He perpetrated
a great crime ; and his remorse, gnawing into his soul,
has awakened it ; developing a thousand high capabilities,
moral and intellectual, which we never should have
dreamed of asking for, within the scanty compass of tho
Donatello whom we knew."
THE MARBLE FAUN". 373
" I know not whether this is so," said Hilda. " But
what then ? "
" Here comes my perplexity," continued Kenyon. " Sin
has educated Donatello, and elevated him. Is sin, then
which we deem such a dreadful blackness in the universe
is it, like sorrow, merely an element of human educa-
tion, through which we struggle to a higher and purer
state than we could otherwise have attained ? Did Adam
fall, that we might ultimately rise to a far loftier paradise
than his ? "
" Oh, hush ! " cried Hilda, shrinking from him with an
expression of horror which wounded the poor, speculative
sculptor to the soul. " This is terrible ; and I could weep
for you, if you indeed believe it. Do not you perceive
what a mockery your creed makes, not only of all relig-
ious sentiments, but of moral law ? and how it annuls
and obliterates whatever precepts of Heaven are written
deepest within us? You have shocked me beyond
words ! "
" Forgive me, Hilda ! " exclaimed the sculptor, startled
by her agitation ; " I never did believe it ! But the mind
wanders wild and wide ; and, so lonely as I live and work,
I have neither polestar above, nor light of cottage- win-
dows here below, to bring me home. Were you my
guide, my counsellor, my inmost friend, with that white
wisdom which clothes you as a celestial garment, all
would go well. Oh, Hilda, guide me home ! "
" We are both lonely ; both far from home ! " said
Hilda, her eyes filling with tears. " I am a poor, weak
girl, and have no such wisdom as you fancy in me."
What further may have passed between these lovers,
while standing before the pillared shrine, and the marble
Madonna that marks Raphael's tomb, whither they had
now wandered, we are unable to record. But when the
kneeling figure, beneath the open eye of the Pantheon
arose, she looked towards the pair, and extended her
hands with a gesture of benediction. Then they knew
that it was Miriam. They suffered her to glide out of
the portal, however, without a greeting ; for those ex-
tended hands, even while they blessed, seemed to repel,
as if Miriam stood on the other side of a fathomless
abyss, and warned them from its verge.
874 THE MARBLE FAUN.
So Kenyon won the gentle Hilda's shy affection, and
her consent to be his bride. Another hand must hence-
forth trim the lamp before the Virgin's shrine ; for Hilda
was coming down from her old tower, to be herself en-
shrined and worshipped as a household saint, in the light
of her husband's fireside. And, now that life had so much
human promise in it, they resolved to go back to their own
land ; because the years, after all, have a kind of emptiness,
when we spend too many of them on a foreign shore. We
defer the reality of life, in such cases, until a future mo-
ment, when we shall again breathe our native air ; but,
by-and-by, there are no future moments ; or, if we do re-
turn, we find that the native air has lost its invigorating
quality, and that life has shifted its reality to the spot
where we have deemed ourselves only temporary resi-
dents. Thus, between two countries, we have none at all,
or only that little space of either, in which we finally lay
down our discontented bones. It is wise, therefore, to
come back betimes, or never.
Before they quitted Rome, a bridal gift was laid on
Hilda's table. It was a bracelet, evidently of great cost,
being composed of seven ancient Etruscan gems, dug out
of seven sepulchres, and each one of them the signet of
some princely personage, who had lived an immemorial
time ago. Hilda remembered this precious ornament.
It had been Miriam's ; and once, with the exuberance of
fancy that distinguished her, she had amused herself with
telling a mythical and magic legend for each gem, com-
prising the imagmary adventures and catastrophe of its
former wearer. Thus, the Etruscan bracelet became the
connecting bond of a series of seven wondrous tales, all
of which, as they were dug out of seven sepulchres, were
characterized by a sevenfold sepulchral gloom ; such as
Miriam's imagination, shadowed by her own misfortunes,
was wont to fling over its most sportive flights.
And now, happy as Hilda was, the bracelet brought the
tears into her eyes, as being, in its entire circle, the sym-
bol of as sad a mystery as any that Miriam had attached
to the separate gems. For, what was Miriam's life to be ?
And where was Donatello? But Hilda had a hopeful
Boul, and saw sunlight on the mountain-tops.
THE MARBLE FAUK. 375
CONCLUSION.
There comes to the author from many readers of the
foregoing pages, a demand for further elucidations re-
specting the mysteries of the story.
He reluctantly avails himself of the opportunity af-
forded by a new edition, to explain such incidents and
passages as may have been left too much in the dark ;
reluctantly, he repeats, because the necessity makes him
sensible that he can have succeeded but imperfectly, at
best, in throwing about this Romance the kind of atmos-
phere essential to the effect at which he aimed.
He designed the story and the characters to bear, of
course, a certain relation to human nature and human
life, but still to be so artfully and airily removed from our
mundane sphere, that some laws and proprieties of their
own should be implicitly and insensibly acknowledged.
The idea of the modern Fami, for example, loses all
the poetry and beauty which the Author fancied in it, and
becomes nothmg better than a grotesque absurdity, if we
bring it into the actual light of day. He had hoped to
mystify this anomalous creature between the Real and the
Fantastic, in such a manner that the reader's sympathies
might be excited to a certain pleasurable degree, without
impelling him to ask how Cuvier would have classified
poor Donatello, or to insist upon being told, m so many
words, whether he had furry ears or no. As respects all
who ask such questions, the book is, to that extent, a
failure.
Nevertheless, the Author fortunately has it in his
power to throw light upon several matters in which some
of his readers appear to feel an interest. To confess the
truth, he was himself troubled with a curiosity similar to
that which he has just deprecated on the part of his read-
ers, and once took occasion to cross-examine his friends,
Hilda and the sculptor, and to pry into several dark re-
cesses of the story, with which they had heretofore imper-
fectly acquainted him.
We three had climbed to the top of Saint Peter's,
and were looking down upon the Rome we were soon
to leave, but which (having already sinned sufficiently
in that way) it is not my purpose further to describe.
876 THE MARBLE FAUN.
It occurred to me, that, being so remote in the upper
air, my friends might safely utter, here, the secrets which
it would be perilous even to whisper, on lower earth,
"Hilda," I began, "can you tell me the contents of
that mysterious packet which Miriam intrusted to your
charge, and which was addressed to Signore Luca Bar-
boni, at the Palazzo Cenci ? "
"I never had any further knowledge of it," replied
Hilda, " nor felt it right to let myself be curious upon
the subject."
" As to its precise contents," interposed Kenyon, " it
is impossible to speak. But Miriam, isolated as she
seemed, had family connections in Rome, one of whom,
there is reason to believe, occupied a position in the
Papal government.
" This Signore Luca Barboni was either the assumed
name of the personage in question, or the medium of
communication between that mdividual and Miriara.
Now under such a government as that of Rome, it is
obvious that Miriam's privacy and isolated life could
only be maintained through the connivance and support
of some influential person connected with the admin-
istration of affairs. Free and self-controlled as she
appeared, her every movement was watched and inves-
tigated far more thoroughly by the priestly rulers than
by her dearest friends.
" Miriam, if I mistake not, had a purpose to withdraw
herself from this irksome scrutiny, and to seek real ob-
scurity in another land ; and the packet, to be delivered
long after her departure, contained a reference to this
design, besides certain family documents, which were to
be imparted to her relative as from one dead and gone."
" Yes, it is clear as a London fog," I remarked. " On
this head no further elucidation can be desired. But
when Hilda went quietly to deliver the packet, why did
she so mysteriously vanish ? "
" You must recollect," replied Kenyon, with a glance
of friendly commiseration at my obtuseness, " that Mir-
iam had utterly disappeared, leaving no trace by which
her whereabouts could be known. In the meantime, the
municipal authorities had become aware of the murder of
the Capuchin ; and from many precedmg circumstances,
THE MARBLE FAUN. 377
such as his persecution of Miriam, they must have seen
an obvious connection between herself and that tragical
event. Furthermore, there is reason to believe that Mir-
iam was suspected of connection with some plot, or polit-
ical intrigue, of which there may have been tokens in the
packet. And when Hilda appeared, as the bearer of this
missive, it was really quite a matter of course, under a
despotic government, that she should be detained."
"Ah, quite a matter of course, as you say," answered
I. " How excessively stupid in me not to have seen it
sooner ! But there are other riddles. On the night of
the extinction of the lamp, you met Donatello in a peni-
tent's garb, and afterwards saw and spoke to Miriam, in a
coach, with a gem glowing on her bosom. What was the
business of these two guilty ones m Rome, and who was
Miriam's companion ? "
" Who ! " repeated Kenyon, " why her official relative,
to be sure; and as to their business, Donatello's still
gnawing remorse had brought him hitherward, in spite
of Miriam's entreaties, and kept him lingering in the
neighborhood of Rome, with the ultimate purpose of
delivering himself up to justice. Hilda's disappearance,
which took place the day before, was known to them
through a secret channel, and had brought them into the
city, where Miriam, as I surmise, began to make arrange-
ments, even then, for that sad frolic of the Carnival."
" And where was Hilda all that dreary time between ? '*
inquired I.
" Where were you, Hilda ? " asked Kenyon, smiling.
Hilda threw her eyes on all sides, and seeing that
there was not even a Ijird of the air to fly away with the
secret, nor any human being nearer than the loiterers
by the obelisk, in the piazza below, she told us about her
mysterious abode.
" I was a prisoner in the Convent of the Sacre Coeur,
in the Trinite de' Monte," said she, " but in such kindly
custody of pious maidens, and watched over by such a
dear old priest, that had it not been for one or two dis-
turbing recollections, and also because I am a daughter of
the Puritans I could willingly have dwelt there for-
ever,
** My entanglement with Miriam's misfortunes, and the
878 THE MARBLE FAUN.
good Abbate's mistaken hope of a proselyte, seem to me
a suflQcient clue to the whole mystery."
" The atmosphere is getting delightfully lucid," ob-
served I, "but there are one or two things that still
puzzle me. Could you tell me and it shall be kept a
profound secret, I assure you what were Miriam's real
name and rank, and precisely the nature of the troubles
that led to all those direful consequences ? "
" Is it possible that you need an answer to those ques-
tions ? " exclaimed Kenyon, with an aspect of vast sur-
prise. "Have you not even surmised Miriam's name?
Think awhile, and you will assuredly remember it. If
not, I congratulate you most sincerely ; for it indicates
that your feelings have never been harrowed by one of
the most dreadful and mysterious events that have oc-
curred within the present century ! "
" Well," resumed I, after an interval of deep considera-
tion, " I have but few things more to ask. Where, at
this moment, is Donatello ? "
"The Castle of Saint Angelo," said Kenyon sadly,
turning his face towards that sepulchral fortress, " is no
longer a prison ; but there are others which have dun-
geons as deep, and in one of them, I fear, lies our poor
Faun."
And why, then, is Miriam at large ? " I asked.
Call it cruelty if you like, not mercy," answered
Kenyon. "But, after all, her crime lay merely in a
glance. She did no murder ! "
" Only one question more," said I, with intense earnest-
ness. " Did Donatello's ears resemble those of the Faun
of Praxiteles ? "
I know, but may not tell," replied Kenyon, smiling
mysteriously. " On that point, at all events, there shall
be not one word of explanation."