The marble faun; or, The romance of Monte Beni

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

GIFT OF

Mrs. Edwin Grabhorn

THE MARBLE FAUN:

OB, THE

ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL

THE MARBLE FAUN:

OB, THE

EOMANCE OF MONTE BENI

BY

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE,

AUTHOR OF " THE SCARLET LETTER," ETC., ETC.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. H.

BOSTON:
TICKNOR AND FIELDS.

M DCCC LX.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year I860, by

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BT

H. 0. HOOGHTON AND COMPANY.

CONTENTS

OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

CHAP. PAGB

I. THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI ... 7
II. MYTHS . 21

III. THE OWL TOWER 33

IV. ON THE BATTLEMENTS . . . . . 43
V. DONATELLO'S BUST 56

VI. THE MARBLE SALOON 64

VII. SCENES BY THE WAY 77

VIII. PICTURED WINDOWS 91

IX. MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA . . . .102

X. THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION . . 110

xi. HILDA'S TOWER . . . . . .120

XII. THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES . 129
XIII. ALTARS AND INCENSE . . . . . 142

xiv. THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL . . . .153

XV. HILDA AND A FRIEND 164

XVI. SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS . 177

XVII. REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM . . . .188

XVIII. THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP . . .198

XIX. THE DESERTED SHRINE 209

XX. THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES . . . 221

XXI. A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA . . . .231

XXII. THIS PEASANT AND CONTADINA . . . 240

XXIII. A SCENE IN THE CORSO '. 252

XXIV. A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL . . .262
XXV. MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO . .275

THE ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL

CHAPTER I.

THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI.

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
genealogist would have found delight in tracing out, link
by link, and authenticating by records and documentary
evidences. It would have been as difficult, however, to
foUow up the stream of Donatello's ancestry to its dim
source, as travellers have found it to reach the mysterious
fountains 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

8 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

antique paths, now overgrown with tangled and riotous
vegetation, the wanderer must needs follow his own guid-
ance, 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 nourish, on their half-decayed roots, of-
tener than in England or France. It came down hi a
broad track from the Middle Ages ; but, at epochs an-
terior 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, in 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 in 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-
scriptions. There, or thereabouts, the line was supposed
to have had its origin in the sylvan life 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

THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI. 9

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, witn 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
Greece ; the same happy and poetic kindred who dwelt in
Arcadia, and — whether they ever lived such life or not
— enriched the world with dreams, at least, and fables,
lovely, if unsubstantial, of a Golden Age. In those de-
licious times, when deities 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 lineage
of Monte Beni had its rise. Its progenitor was a being

10 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 sunshine, passionate as the tornado. Their lives
were rendered blissful by an unsought harmony with
nature.

But, as centuries 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 with which Italy was plagued, by the dissen-

THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI. 11

sions of her petty states and republics, there was a de-
mand for native hardihood.

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 genera-
tions, 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
dt its own pleasure along the line, and, latent for hah0 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 at-
tributed to the original founder of the race. Some traditions
even went so far as to enumerate the ears, covered with a
delicate 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

12 KOMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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
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

THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BEXI. 13

ashamed of these legends ; but whatever part of them
they might consent to incorporate into their ancestral his-
tory, 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, however, be considered as typifying some such
assemblage of qualities — in this case, chiefly remarka-
ble for their simplicity and naturalness — as, when they
reappear in successive generations, constitute what we
call family character. The sculptor found, moreover, on
the evidence of some old portraits, that the physical fea-
tures 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 playfulness.

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
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.

14 ROMANCE OF MONTE BEXI.

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 peas-
antry 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 particulars
of this latter mode of companionship, they could remember
little more than a few anecdotes of a pet fox, which used
to growl and snap at everybody save Donatello himself.

But they enlarged — and never were weary of the
theme — upon the blithesome effects of Donatello's pres-
ence 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

THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI. 15

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, sufficed to impart a
pleasant flavor to a whole cask of wine. The -race of
Monte Beni — so these rustic chroniclers .assured the
sculptor — had possessed the gift from the oldest of old
times of expressing good wine from ordinary grapes, and
a ravishing liquor from the choice growth of their vine-
yard.

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-
ceedingly 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

1C ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 think 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 ! 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 will not make oath upon the holy crucifix
that my grandsire lived in his time — who 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-
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 wrorld is sadder
now ! "

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

THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BEM. 17

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 wretch-
ed 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 adding 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 strenu-
ous a resolution 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

18 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

with nature, and brotherhood with all that breathed
around them. Nature, in beast, fowl, and tree, and earth,
flood, and sky, is what it was 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 communicate
some, fact, which, on second thoughts, he resolved to keep
concealed in his own breast. He now took his departure
cellar ward, shaking his white head and muttering to him-
self, and did not' reappear till dinner-time, when he fa-
vored Kenyon, whom he had taken far into his good

THE PEDIGREE OF MOXTE BENI. 10

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
of a bagpipe. Improvvisatori 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
Beni. 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

20 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

footstep 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 Bern 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 sit and brood.

MYTHS. 21

CHAPTER H.

MYTHS.

AFTER the sculptor's arrival, however, the young count
sometimes came down from his forlorn elevation, and
rambled with him among the neighboring woods and hills.
He led his friend to many enchanting nooks, with 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, tune a^d nature came, and wrought
hand hi 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

22 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 Avhich 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
tressed of the maidenhair had done what they could in
the poor thing's behalf, by hanging themselves about her
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

MYTHS. 23

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 powerful
charm when least artfully told."

So the young count narrated a myth of one of his pro-
genitors, — he might have lived a century ago, or a thou-
sand years, or before the Christian epoch, for anything
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

24 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 JDonatello called him, — for,
according 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 rain-
drops, with a rainbow glancing through them, and forth-
with gather herself up into the likeness of a beautiful girl,
laughing — or was it the warble of the rill over the peb-
bles ? — 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!

MYTHS. 25

" 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,
very 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."

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 trouble, 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

VOL. II. 2

26 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 employed
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 hap-
piest look, the artist, unlike yourself, was so impressed with
the mournfulness of the story, that, in spite of his best
efforts, he made her forlorn, and forever weeping, as you
see ! "

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
griefs ; while, on the other hand, her mild influences fall
short in their effect 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 ftice has
never since been shown to any mortal ? Methinks, you,
by your native qualities, are as well entitled tg 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

MYTHS. 27

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 li% ! " rejoined the count. " No, my
dear friend, I have not seen the 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
teh1 ; 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

28 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

ears. Any idle boy, it should seem, singing to himself,
and setting his wordless song to no other or more definite
tune than the play of his own pulses, might produce a
sound almost identical with this ; a^id 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.

Do'jatello 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

MYTHS. 29

the sculptor's hope and imagination deceived him, — soft
treads were audible upon the fallen leaves. There was a
rustling among the 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 thicket 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)
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

30 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

to his friend's efforts to console him, he murmured word?
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.
fi 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 scene, my dear friend. In your eyes, it must look
verv absurd. It is a grief, I presume, to all men, to find
the pleasant privileges and properties of early life depart-

MYTHS. 31

ing from tnem. 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 usual-
ly 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 inevitable
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 reacL an antique
edition of Dante, which he had found among some old
volumes of Catholic devotion, in a seldom-visited room.

32 KOMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 but-
ler, " 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."

" Women, you would say, my good friend, are better,"
said the sculptor, struck by an intelligence in the butler's
face. " That is possible ! But it depends."

" Ah ; we will wait a little longer," said- Tomaso, with
the customary shake of his head.

THE OWL TOWER. 33

CHAPTER in.

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 than
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.

2*

34 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" 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 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 preserve 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 poefr, 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
difficult 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 ! "

THE OWL TOWER. 35

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 iron-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 dreari-
ness of the place tenfold, by suggesting an idea of its
having once been tenanted.

" This was a prisoner's cell in the old days," said Do-
natello ; " the white-bearded necromancer, of whom I
told you, found out that a certain famous monk was con-
fined here, about five hundred years ago. He was a very
holy man, and was afterwards burned at the stake in the
Grand-ducal Square at Firenze. There have always
been stories, Tomaso says, of a hooded monk creeping up
and down these stairs, or standing in the door-way of this
chamber. It must needs be the ghost of the ancient pris-
oner. 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

36 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

these two months past. Ghosts never rise ! So much I
know, and am glad to know it ! "

Following 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 dp 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 in one corner,
and a multitude of holy emblems, such as Catholics judge
it necessary to help their devotion withal. Several ugly

THE OWL TOWER. 37

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
golden ringlets. She had a confident look, (but it was
Titian's fault, not the penitent 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, v.ery 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, Kenybn saw
that it was carved in gray alabaster, most skilfully done
*o 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 ! " he said.

" 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

38 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 ! 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
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
cheerful race of men in their natural disposition, found it
needful 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."

THE OWL TOWER. 39

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 in its grand framework of nearer
and more distant 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 grain, among which waved the Indian corn, putting
Kenyon in mind of the fondly-remembered acres of his
father's homestead. White villas, gray convents, church-
spires, villages, towns, 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 in its face, reflecting heaven, lest mortals should
forget that better land, when they beheld the earth so
beautiful.

What made the valley look still 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 hurrying the thunderstorm,
which had already swept midway across the plain. In

40 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

the rear of the approaching tempest, brightened forth
again the sunny splendor, which its progress had dark-
ened 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 interpret-
ing itself without the aid of words. It is a great mistake

THE OWL TOWER. 41

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 hieroglyphics as these around us."

They stood awhile, contemplating the scene ; but, as
inevitably happens after a spiritual 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,
which formed the roof, a little 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 site; and
Donatello said it had always grown 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

42 ROMANCE OF MONTE BEXT.

doubt, it is for your use and edification, since you have
had it before 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 with a
minute scrutiny. " But here was a worm that would
have killed it ; an ugly creature, which I will fling over
the battlements."

ON THE BATTLEMENTS. 43

CHAPTER IV.

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 depth
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 Donatello, shrinking from the battle-
men ted 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

44 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 Donatelfo, 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
vras 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 ! "

ON THE BATTLEMENTS. 45

Donatello had hidden his face in his hands, and was
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
sculptor 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's
simplicity, since their intercourse in Rome. He now
showed a far deeper sense, and an intelligence that began

46 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 ludicrous,
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 with
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,

ON THE BATTLEMENTS. 47

above the roofs of distant Rome. Then rose tumultu-
ously into liis 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 again, 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,
that distil many passionate avowals into one gleam of
richly-colored light. Even these should be weighed
rigorously, at the instant ; for, in another instant, the
imagination seizes on them as its property, and stamps
them with its own arbitrary value. But Hilda's maidenly
vc had given her lover no such tokens, to be inter-
preted either by his hopes or fears.

48 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" Yonder, over mountain and valley, lies Rome," said
the sculptor; "shall you return thither in the au-
tumn ? "

"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 climbing 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

ON THE BATTLEMENTS. 49

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
d ornain 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 drawing 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 in His hand, and
modelled it.

"What a magic is in mist and vapor among the
mountains ! " 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
sculpturesque groups, figures, and attitudes ; they are espe-
cially 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 ! "

50 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" 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, u we can hardly be
gazing 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 the clouds, the
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 Mor te
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

ON THE BATTLEMENTS. 51

our own 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-rid-
den 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 ! "

" True," said Donatello sighing. " Therefore, if at all,
I purpose doing it."

52 EOMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" 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-offering 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 through the twilight, the sculptor's remembrance
went back to that scene in the Capitol, where, both in

ON THE BATTLEMENTS. 53

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 spir-
itualized. 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 Donatel-
lo's face. The idea of life-long and unselfish effort was
too high to be received bj him with more than a momen-
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
propitiating 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 own more energetic benevo-
lence is apt to do, upon sharing in the counsels of Provi-
dence and kindly helping 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

54 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

lay beneath them, a woman's voice was heard, singing 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 dis-
tinguished, were German, and therefore unintelligible to
the count, and hardly less so to the sculptor ; being soft-
ened and molten, as it were, into the melancholy richness
of the voice that sung them. It was as the murmur of a
soul bewildered amid the sinful gloom of earth, and re-
taining 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 the
anguish that he found unutterable, and giving it the ex-
pression which he vaguely sought.

But, when the emotion was at its profouncfest depth,
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.

OX THE BATTLEMENTS. 55

" 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
with 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.

ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

CHAPTER V.

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 pei-
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 then* 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-

DONATELLO'S BUST. 57

nent trait, it would probably 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 con-
stantly 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 un-
seen guidance other than that of her own will. Now and
then he fancied that his plan was destined to be the suc-
cessful 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 ! "

3*

58 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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,
elongated, widened, and otherwise altered the features
of the bust in mere recklessness, and at every change
inquired of the Count whether the expression became
anywise 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 hi;'
victim over the edge of the precipice.

" What have I done ? " said the sculptor, shocked at JLIS
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."

DONATELLO'S BUST. 59

" For that very reason, let it remain ! " answered the.
Count, who had grown pale as ashes at the aspect of his
crime, thus strangely 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 in 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 in the atmosphere, when we sit
down and brood in it, instead of girding up our loins Jo
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
with good, or it will lie corrupting there forever, and
cause your capacity for better things 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."

GO ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 than 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
illuminated with a higher meaning, such as the old mar-
ble 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

DONATELLO'S BUST. 61

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 farm-house, he
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 very 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 wTith
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, hi
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.

G2 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 overwrought muscles, like the labor that is devoted in
sad, hard earnest to raise grain 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
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

DONATELLO'S BUST. G3

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, with 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 pensiye 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 himself 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.

G4 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MARBLE 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 hah0 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

THE MARBLE SALOON. 65

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 tenler
love passages.

Throughout all the jovial prosperity of Monte Beni, this
one spot within the domestic walls had kept itself silent,
stern and sad. When the individual or the family retired
from song and mirth, they here sought those realities
which men do not invite then" festive associates to share.
And here, on the occasion above referred to, the sculptor
had discovered — accidentally, so far as he was 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
himself in a saloon, of no great size, but more magnificent
than he had supposed the villa to contain. As 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-

66 ROMANCE OF MOXTE BEXI.

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 wherever there was a
space vacant of precious and variegated marble, it was
frescoed with ornaments in arabesque. Above, there was
a coved and vaulted ceiling, glowing with pictured scenes,
which affected Kehyon 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
robe?, 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

THE MABBLE SALOON. G7

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 support
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,
adding 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, Miriam," said Kenyon.

" Ay, indeed ; I fancy so," she replied, with a short,
unnatural laugh.

68 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" With all your activity of mind," resumed he, " so
fertile in plans as I have known you — can you imag-
ine 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
behalf. 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 Mir-
iam's rich, ill-regulated nature impelled her to fling her-
self, conscience and all, on one passion, the object of which
intellectually 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,
merely ; 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

1'HE MARBLE SALOON. G9

— and in yourself, Miriam — endows me with any true
insight, 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 !
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

70 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

of sharp self-torture, and finds, of course, no other so effi-
cacious 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 dewy 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, writh 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 ele-
vate, to enrich his mind with the wealth that would flow
in upon me, had I such a motive for acquiring it! who

THE MARBLE SALOON. J I

else can perform the task ? Who else has the tender
sympathy which he requires? Who else, save only
me, — a woman, a sharer in the same dread secret, a
partaker in one identical 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, methmks,
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 difficulty 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

72. KOMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

Heaven, in this case, at least, but — shall I confess it ? I
am greatly in dread of Donatello. Once, he shuddered at
m y 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
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-

THE MARBLE SALOON. 73

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 profoftnd 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
responsibility of this office to yourself," answered the
sculptor. " I do not pretend to be the guide and coun-
sellor 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
intimate 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

VOL. II. 4

74 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

have told you that I cannot do what you suggest, because
I dare not."

" Well, then," rejoined the sculptor, " see if there 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 »
larger hand in it than either of us."

" It is not a hopeful plan," said Miriam, 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 Pe-
rugia ? 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 supersti-
tion, — you will call it foolish, but sad and ill-fated per-
sons 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 Miri-
am's eyes, in bidding farewell, he was surprised at the
new, tender gladness that beamed out of them, and at the

THE MARBLE SALOON. 75

appearance 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 has been revived by the hopes you
give me. . Do you, then, think me beautiful ? I rejoice,
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 magnificent 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 i» 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 Miriam, mournfully, and with no
resentment. " What remains of my finer nature would

76 ROMANCE OF MONTE BEXI.

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 womanhood 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 between her and yourself, — I feel — and let
the noble frankness of your disposition forgive me, if I
say so — I feel thai 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."

" 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."

SCENES BY THE WAY. Y7

CHAPTER VII.

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 de-
lightful 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 his depart-
ure, 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 ac-
complished, 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 resist-
ance, however, not an active one, to his friend's schemes.;

78 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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-towns of that picturesque and lovely
region. Save to keep the appointment with Miriam, a
fortnight thereafter, in the great square of Perugia, there
was nothing more definite in the sculptor's plan, than that
they should let themselves be 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 unimaginable 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 in fragments.

The travellers set forth on horseback, and purposed to
perform much of their aimless journeyings, 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

SCENES BY THE WAY. 79

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
venerable ladies kept spinning yarn with that elsewhere
forgotten contrivance, the distaff; and so wrinkled and
stain-looking were they, that you might have taken them
for the Parcaa, spinning the threads of human destiny.
In contrast with their great grandmothers were 'the chil-
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

80 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

otherwise manlike, toiling side by side with male laborers,
in 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-?
tomaiy 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 twigs and shrubs, or grass, intermixed
with scarlet poppies and blue flowers ; the verdant b'urden
being sometimes of such size as to hide the bearer's
figure, and seem a self-moving mass of fragrant bloom
and verdure. Oftener, however, the bundle reached only
half-way down the back of the rustic nymph, leaving in
sight her well-developed lower limbs, and the crooked
knife, hanging behind her, with which she had been reap-
ing this strange harvest sheaf. A pre-Raphaelite artist
(he, for instance, who painted 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.

SCENES BY THE WAY. 81

Though mixed up with what was rude and earthlike,
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 vines, clambering on fig-trees, or other sturdy
trunks;- they wreathed themselves, in huge and rich
fustoons, from one tree to anothe'r, 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 ten-
der 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 enjoy-
ment 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

4*

82 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

aside. The little town, such as we see in our mind's
would have its gate and its surrounding walls, so ancient
and massive that ages had not sufficed 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 trunks and twisted boughs, the
olives. Houses have been built upon the ramparts, or
burrowed out of their ponderous foundation. Even the
gray, martial towers crowned with ruined turrets, have
been converted into rustic habitations, from the 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 winnowing
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 sfrange 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 roughnesses 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

SCENES BY THE WAY. 83

sunshine of the afternoon to behold the warlike precinci
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 town,
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 town. Na-
ture, 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 swarming 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,
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-

84 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

tain, which gushes into a marble basin that resembles an
antique 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 ; women 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 sweet,
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
political 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 have existed, and within
such narrow precincts, these little walled towns are brought
into a closeness of society that makes them but a larger
household. 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 fit-
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,

SCENES BY THE WAY. 85

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-
while, Donatello has ridden onward, but alights where a
shrine, with 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, an<J 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-

86 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

tile a portion of Mother Earth's bosom, should have filled
them, one and all. But, possibly, the peasant inhabitants
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 home-
stead an ornament to the grassy and elm-shadowed
wayside. In Italy there are no neat doorsteps and
thresholds ; no pleasant, vine-sheltered porches ; none
of those grass-plots or smoothly-shorn lawns, which hos-
pitably 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 immediate neighborhood of an Ital-
ian 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 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 becomes fascinating either in the
poet's imagination or the painter's eye.

As usual, on Italian waysides, the wanderers passed

SCENES BY THE WAY. 87

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 benefi-
cence of Ihe 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. Be-
holding these consecrated 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 invaria-
bly, 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 benignly 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 nicliee, or in little penthouses with
a brick tiled roof, just large enough to shelter them ; 01

88 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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
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 awfulness 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 wreath 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

SCENES BY THE WAY. 89

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 himself, 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 in-
cense. We do ourselves wrong, and too meanly estimate
the Holiness above us, when we deem that any act or
enjoyment, good in itself, is not good to do religiously.

Whatever may be the iniquities of the papal system, it
was a wise and lovely sentiment, that set up the frequent
shrine 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

90 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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
Boul, because she is a woman."

PICTURED WINDOWS. 91

CHAPTER

PICTURED WINDOWS.

AFTER wide wanderings through 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 smiling 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 down 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 grimly 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

92 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 down.
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
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 origin. 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

PICTURED WINDOWS. 93

retain a squalid grandeur. But, gazing at them, we rec-
ognize 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 generations.

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 apartjfrom 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
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
influences."

94 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

"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, wrhen 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

PICTURED WINDOWS. 95

it retained a genuine life ; they filled the transepts with 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
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 phase 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

96 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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
to the universe, which can profit nothing by such knowl-
edge, but that it shall insulate the sinner from all sweet
society by rendering him impermeable to light, and, there-
fore, unrecognizable in the abode of heavenly simplicity
and truth. Then, what remains for him, but the dreari-
ness of infinite and eternal solitude."

" That would be a horrible destiny, indeed ! " 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

PICTURED WINDOWS. 97

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 sin-
gle companion in eternity, and instead of finding any
consolation, or at all events variety of torture, to see
your own weary, weary sin repeated in that inseparable
soul."

" I think, my dear Count, you have never read Dante,"
observed Kenyon. " That idea is somewhat in his style,
but I cannot help regretting that it came into your mind
just then."

The dark-robed figure had shrunk 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 always admired this richly descriptive phrase ; but,
though he was once in Italy, I question whether Milton
ever saw any but the dingy pictures in the dusty windows
of English 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
with yonder window ? The pictures are most brilliant in
themselves, yet dim with tenderness and reverence, be-
cause God himself is shining through them."

" The pictures fill me with emotion, but not such as
you seem to experience," said Donatello. " I tremble at

98 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

those awful saints ; and, most of all, at the figure above
them. He glows with Divine wrath ! "

" My dear friend," exclaimed Kenyon, " how strangelg
your eyes have transmuted the expression of the figure :
It is divine love, not wrath."

" To my eyes," said Donatello, stubbornly, '• it is wratli,
not love ! Each must interpret for himself"

The friends left the church, and, looking up from the
exterior, at the window 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 incomprehensible obscurity, with-
out a gleam of beauty to induce the beholder to attempt
unravelling 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 beh'fe,
or from its cold and dreary outside. Christian faith is a
grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Stand-
ing without, you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine
any ; standing within, every ray of li&ht 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

PICTURED WINDOWS. 99

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 grafldames
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
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, in 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 rising 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-

100 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 a*nd play, and turn 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 hi
whatever other form.

In accordance with his nature, Donatello was always
exceedingly charitable to these ragged battalions, and
appeared to derive a certain consolation from the pray-
ers which many of them put up in his behalf. In Italy a
copper coin of minute value will often make all the differ-
ence between a vindictive curse — death by apoplexy being
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 puff 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 some rea-
sonable amount in the purchase of the former. Do-
natello invariably did so; and as he distributed his
alms under the pictured window, of which we have been
speaking, no less than seven ancient women lifted their
hands and besought blessings on his head.

PICTURED WINDOWS. 101

"Come," said the sculptor, rejoicing at the happier
expression 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 stand-
ing by the Pope's statue in the great square of Perugia."

102 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL

CHAPTER IX.

MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA.

PERUGIA, on its lofty hill-top, was reached by the two
travellers before the sun had quite kissed away the early
freshness of the morning. Since midnight, there had
been a heavy rain, bringing 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

MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA. 103

the time it was paintwd — such magnificence and beauty
as the world had not elsewhere to show."

" It depresses me to look at old frescoes," responded
the Count ; " it is a pain, yet not enough of a pain to
answer as a penance."

" Will you look at some pictures by Fra 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 shown me some of Fra 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 find 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 Fra 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 cav-
erns, being arched all over, and plunging down abruptly
towards an unknown 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,

104 EOMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

some of whom guided children in Reading-strings through
those dim and antique tlioroughfares, where a hundred
generations had passed before the little feet of to-day
began to tread them. Thence they climbed upward
again, and came to the level plateau, on the summit of
the hill, where are situated the grand piazza and the prin-
cipal public edifices.

It happened to be market-day in Perugia. The great
square, therefore, presented a far more vivacious specta-
cle 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
structures — seeking shelter from the sunshine that fell
across 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 oveispread them with scanty awnings,
beneath which they stood, vociferously crying their mer-
chandise ; 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 panniers 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

MAKKET-DAY IN PERUGIA. 105

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. Their small uproar, however, was nearly
drowned by the multitudinous voices of the people, bar-
gaining, quarrelling, 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
to public purposes, with an antique gallery, and a range
of arched and stone-mullioned windows, running along its
front ; and by way of entrance it had a central Gothic
arch, elaborately wreathed around with sculptured semi-
5*

106 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

circles, within which the spectator was aware of a stately
and impressive gloom. Though merely the municipal
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 pli-
ant material, and then had hardened it into stone again.
The whole was a vast, black-letter page of the richest and
quaintest poetry. In fit keeping with all this old magnifi-
cence, 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 as old a
date, rising story above story, and adorned with balconies,
whence, hundreds of years ago, the princely occupants
had been accustomed to gaze down at the sports, business,
and popular assemblages of the piazza. And, beyond all
question, they thus witnessed the erection of a bronze
statue, which, three centuries since, was placed on the
pedestal that it still occupies.

MAEKET-DAY IN PERUGIA. 107

" 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 something which we do not
get from the antique. Will you look at it?

" Willingly," replied the Count, " for I see, even so far
off, that the statue is bestowing a benediction, and there is
a feeling in my heart that I may be permitted to share
it."

Remembering the similar idea which 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

108 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 there-
fore free, had done something for our poor Faun ; these
circumstances had at least promoted a reaction, which
might else have been slower in its progress. 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 nat-
urally prone to be glad. Perhaps, too, he was magneti-
cally conscious of a presence thaf formerly sufficed to
make him happy. Be the cause what it might, Dona-
tello's eyes shone with a serene and hopeful expression,
while looking upward at the bronze pope, to whose widely
diffused blessing, it may be, he attributed all this good
influence.

MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA. 109

" 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 efficacy of this exceUent
pontiff's blessing while he was 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 filling 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 down 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'?
hour ! '•

110 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

CHAPTER X.

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 hi the crowd. He looked next tow-
ards 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.

THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION. Ill

" 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
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 bids 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 a:?k-
ed, 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 inestimable good is lost forever."

112 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" True ; it will be lost forever ! " repeated Miriam,
sadly. " But, dear friend, will it be my fault ? I wiU
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
will 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, with 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, without attracting 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 obtrusive than
that of Germans, French, or Anglo-Saxons might have
been. It is not improbable that Miriam had planned this
momentous interview, 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-

THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION. 113

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 emfttion, 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

114 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 but 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 haa
awakened in you."

" I will go to Rome ! " said the sculptor, in great emo-
tion. " Hilda has never allowed me to manifest more
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 infinite 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 wild 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.

THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION. 115

" 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, sorrowful 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
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 darkness
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.

116 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" 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 up-
right."

" 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."

THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION. 117

"Ah; he has spoken the truth!" cried Donatello,
grasping Miriam's hand.

" 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 with 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."

u 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."

118 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" Have you no more to say ? " asked Miriam, earnestly.
" There is matter of sorrow and lofty consolation strangely
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 shrinking. 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 uncon-
sciously assumed a dignity, which, elevating his former
beauty, accorded with the change that had long been
taking place in his interior self. He was a man, revolv-
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
partners 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
happiness."

THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION. 119

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 engrossing thought and deep absorption, we sud-
denly 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, ah1 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 auspices.

120 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

CHAPTER XL

WHEN 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 lit-
tle squares of lava that to tread over them is a penitential
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

HILDA'S TOWER. 121

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 evil 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 myriads
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 aston-
ished by the discovery, by-and-by, that our heartstrings
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 in 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

122 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 besieg-
ing foe, and nightly haunts those beautiful lawns and
woodlands, around the suburban villas, just at the season
when they most resemble Paradise. What the naming
sword was to the first 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 gleam-
ing waters and shadowy foliage in a desert.

But Rome, within the walls, at this dreaded season, en-
joys 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 summer,
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 to pass the
summer days in the galleries of Roman palaces, and her
nights in that aerial chamber, whither the heavy breath of
the city and its suburbs could not aspire. It would prob-

HILDA'S TOWER. 123

ably harm her no 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 likewise 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 twice, and with 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 own 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 heart-
sickness, which, it is to be hoped, we may all of us have
been pure enough to feel, once in our lives, but the

121 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

capacity for which is usually exhausted early, and per-
haps 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.

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
beloved one having invested itself with all the attributes
of right, — that one friend being to us the symbol and
representative 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 needfully 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

HILDA'S TOWER. 125

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 own 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 flung 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
look ; a chill dungeon, which kept her in its gray twilight
and fed her writh its unwholesome air, fit only for a crim-
inal to breathe and pine in ! She could not escape from
it. In the effort 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

126 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

its sweet atmosphere with the scent of crime and ugly
death !

The strange sorrow 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
before 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 connoisseurs, 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 ! "

" Your picture, Signor Panini, does you credit," re-
marked the picture-dealer, who had bought it of the

HILDA'S TOWER. 127

young man for fifteen scudi, and afterwards sold it for ten
times the sum ; " but it would be worth a better price if
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 innocent 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 accidentally 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
washer-woman ? No, no, my dear Panini. The picture
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

128 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL

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-
sponding to her gaze. If she knelt, if she prayed, if her
oppressed heart besought the sympathy of divine woman-
hood afar in bliss, but not remote, because forever hu-
manized by the memory of mortal griefs, was Hilda to
be blamed ? It was not a Catholic kneeling at an idola-
trous shrine, but a child lifting its tear-stained face to
seek comfort from a mother.

THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES. 129

CHAPTER XII.

THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES.

HILDA descended, day by day, from her dove-cote, and
went t ) one or another of the great, old palaces, — the
Pamfili Doria, the Corsini, the Sciarra, the Borghese,
the Colonna, — where the door-keepers knew her well,
and ofl'ered 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 stair-
cases. 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 delight-
ful toil.

An old German artist, whom she often met in the
galleries, once laid a paternal hand on Hilda's head, and
bade her go back to her own country.

" Go back soon," he said, with kindly freedom and di-
rectness, " or you will go never more. And, if you go
not, why, at least, do you spend the whole summer-time
6*

130 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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, shak-
ing his head. " They are a tyrannous race ! 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
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 con-
sume 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 Pina *otheca
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 Madonna da Fo-
ligno ! 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

THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES. 131

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 influence.
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 trem-
bled lest it should have departed forever — the faculty of
appreciating those great works of art, which heretofore
had made so large a portion of her happiness. It was
no wonder.

A picture, however admirable the painter's art, and
wonderful his power, requires of the spectator a surrender
of himself, in due proportion with the miracle which has
been Avrought. Let the canvas glow as it may, you must
look with 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

132 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 mood,
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 own dreaming, 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 acquaint-
ed with that icy demon of weariness, who haunts gre/it
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 any-
thing, it will be some such matter as an earthen pipkin,
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

THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES. 133

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
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. Hah0 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 wofully lacking
the accompaniments .which the artist had in view.

The remainder of the gallery comprises mythological
bubjects, such as nude Venuses, Ledas, Graces, and, in
short, a general apotheosis of nudity, once fresh and rosy
perhaps, but yellow and clingy in our day, and retaining

134 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 agorhave 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 feelings, 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-
shipped, not figuratively as a mortal, but by religious souls
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-innocence could only have been nursed in

THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES. 135

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
inevitable hollowness in their works, because, in the most
renowned of them, they essayed to express to the world
what they had not in their own 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
holiest places. A deficiency of earnestness and absolute
truth is generally discoverable in Italian pictures, after

13G ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 inexpressibly

THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES. 137

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
still divine. The great and reverent painter has not
suffered the Son of God to be merely an object of pity,
though depicting him in 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 relig-
ious truth ; involving, as it does, deeper mysteries of rev-
elation, 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

138 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

Rome or elsewhere, are made up, but of productions
immeasurably below them, and requiring to be appre-
ciated by a very different frame of mind. Few ama-
teurs are endowed with a tender susceptibility to the
sentiment of a picture ; they are not won from an evil
life, nor anywise 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 worshippers, in even a more ex-
quisite degree than the contemplation 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 involuntarily 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
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 EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES. 139

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 drear-
ier 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
Donas 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 an<] 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
seek 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,

140 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENT.

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 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 sepulchres of hot and dusty Rome, with the
muddy Tiber eddying through the midst, instead of the
gold-brown rivulet ! 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 re-
membered smell of dead blossoms ; 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

THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE-GALLERIES. 141

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 towards the distant
mountains, 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.

142 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

CHAPTER

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 jresist 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

ALTARS AND INCENSE. 143

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 admi-
rable 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.

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 pictures. 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
workmanship. 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 perspec-
tive, 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 tran-

144 ROMANCE OF MONTE I5EXI.

septs, 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 noticed 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 itself 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 unfrequent periods. But here,
whenever the hunger for divine nutriment came upon the
soul, it could on the instant be appeased. At one or an-
other altar, the incense was forever ascending ; the mass
always being performed, and carrying upward with it the

ALTARS AND INCENSE. 145

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 audi-
tors had not always been divine, but kept, within their
heavenly memories, the tender humility of a human ex-
perience. 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 shrine of some
saint of their own 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 unworthiness, they asked the mediation
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 with 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 his saint. He stood before a
shrine, writhing, 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

146 ROMANCE OF MONTE BEXI.

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
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 downward. 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 Saviour into

ALTARS AND INCENSE. 147

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 withheld 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 faithful
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 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

148 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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
Titanic 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 fragmentary
process that you get an idea of the cathedral.

ALTARS AND INCENSE. 149

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 of your shadowy 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 intervals 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 Hilda 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 into the vast, sunny breadth, and were of no sepa-
rate account. 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 then- marble hands ; nor a single frozen sister

150 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 illimitably, 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
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 aspirations 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 shaking 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 Puri-

ALTARS AND INCENSE. 151

tan forefathers, and weeping to behold her ensnared by
these gaudy superstitions. 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 pur-
pose, 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 again 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 charac-
ter. 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 irresist-
ible might against ugly Evil, appealed as much to Puri-
tans as Catholics.

Suddenly, and as if it were done in a dream, Hilda
found herself kneeling 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
the altar, and sobbed out a prayer ; she hardly knew to

152 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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, aM 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 teH. 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 cathedral,
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.

THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL. 153

CHAPTER XIV.

THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL,

STILL gliding onward, Hilda now looked up into the
dome, where the sunshine came through the 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
had risen into the middle dome. It was to Hilda as if
she beheld the worship of the priest and people ascending
heavenward, purified from its alloy of earth, and acquir-
ing celestial substance in the golden atmosphere to which
it aspired. She wondered if angels did not sometimes
hover within the dome, and show themselves, in brief
glimpses, floating amid the sunshine and the glorified
vapor, to those who devoutly worshipped on the pave-
ment.

She had now come into the southern transept. Around
this portion of the church are ranged a number of confes-
sionals. They are small tabernacles of carved wood,
with a closet for the priest in the centre ; and, on either

154 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 familiar
to her, our poor Hilda was anew impressed -with the in-
finite 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 interior, fra-
grant of rich and soothing incense, they may hold con-
verse with some saint, their awful, kindly friend. And
most precious privilege of all, whatever perplexity, sor-
row, 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 inno-
cence.

" 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.

THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL. 155

« 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 speaking to her.

" You look very happy ! " said she. " Is it so sweet,
then, to 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 saints, and this
good father, there is no more trouble for poor Teresa ! "

" I am glad for your sake," said Hilda, sighing for her

156 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 ITALI.CA LINGUA ; on
another, PRO FLANDRICA LINGUA; on a third, PRO
POLONICA LINGUA ; on a fourth, PRO ILLYRICA LIN-
GUA ; on a fifth, PRO HISPANIC A LINGUA. In this vast
and hospitable cathedral, worthy to be the religious heart
of the whole world, there was room for all nations ; there
was access to the Divine Grace for every Christian soul ;
there was an ear for what the overburdened heart might
have to murmur, speak in what native tongue it would.

When 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 have
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 innocent life.

THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL. 157

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
interview, 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 se-
cret ! 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
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.

158 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" 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 observe
iii 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 with 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 !
And are you reconciled to the Church ? "

" Never, father," said Hilda.

THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL. 159

" And, that being the case," demanded the old man,
" on what ground, my daughter, have you sought to avail
yourself of these blessed privileges, confined exclusively
to members of the one true Church, of confession and
absolution ? "

" 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 iii his tone, " wherefore, I ask again, have
you taken possession, as I may term it, of this holy or-
dinance; 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- 1 groped for Him in the darkness, as it
were, and found Him not — found nothing 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

160 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 mis-
take! — 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 have been confided to its keeping in a certain pre-
scribed 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 confes-
sion, 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

THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL. 161

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 beh'eve, 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-
h'eve 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-

162 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 children.
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.

THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL.

163

Do not let it grieve you, therefore, if I never return to
the confessional ; never dip my fingers in holy water ;
never sign my bosom 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
it, 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-
tion, Hilda knelt down and received the blessing with as
devout a simplicity as any Catholic of them all.

1G4 ROMANCE OF MOXTE BEXI.

CHAPTER XV.

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."

HILDA AND A FRIEND. 165

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 diffused
through the transept, and showered down 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 the
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

166 ROMANCE OF MONTE BEXI.

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 Wiat 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 conies 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
for it ! It was a blessed hour — a blessed impulse — that
brought me to this beautiful and glorious cathedral. I
shall hold it in loving remembrance while I live, as the
epot where I found infinite peace after infinite trouble."

HILDA AND A FRIEND. 1G7

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-biimming 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-

1G8 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

tects, — 1 see but one or two criticisms to make. One
is, that it needs painted windows."

" Oh, no ! " said Hilda. « They would be quite in-
consistent 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 requhts
a gorgeous dimness."

" Nevertheless," continued the sculptor, " yonder square
apertures, filled with ordinary panes of glass, are quite
out of keeping with the superabundant splendor of every-
thing about them. They remind me of that 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 illu-
mination 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

HILDA AND A FRIEND. 169

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 recti-
tude of thought, and something deeper, more reh'able,
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 sufficient 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.

"Ah, well, my dear friend," replied Hilda, casting
dDwn 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
made me very happy. Had you been here yesterday, I
would have confessed to you."

" Would to Heaven I had ! " ejaculated Kenyon.

"I think," Hilda resumed, "I shall never go to the
confessional again ; 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

170 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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
en-or, 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 wisdom from on
high."

" It may be so," said Hilda ; " but I meant no sarcasm."

Thus conversing, the two friends went together down
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.

HILDA AND A FRIEND. 171

" Thank Heaven for having 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-
proportionate and misapplied veneration far 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 to-
gether in 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

172 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

share my tomb with me ? ' and, winning her soft "consent,
he would lead her to the altar, and thence to yonder
sepulchre of Pope Gregory, which should be their nup-
tial 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 forth, like the gush of a streamlet that has
been 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 dullness 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
go 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 intellectual activity, she
derived an exquisite pleasure from the use of her facul-
ties, which were set in motion by causes that seemed in-

HILDA AND A FRIEND. 173

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 finding
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 convince the " Emperor Hadrian,
that where a warlike despot is sown 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 Constantino'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 illumination

174 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 going 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, flung 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

HILDA AND A FRIEND. 175

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, in 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.

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 ! "

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-

176 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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.

SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS. 177

CHAPTER XVI.

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
ner^er 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-
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

8*

178 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 con-
geniality and variety of taste, and likenesses and differ-
ences 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
outside 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

SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS. 179

her enjoy those pale delights in a degree of which men
are incapable. She hesitated to grasp a richer happiness,
as possessing already such 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, unconsciously wrought upon by Hilda's influence, took
a more delicate character than heretofore. He modelled,
among other things, a beautiful little statue of maiden-
hood gathering 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 minds. She saw into the
picture as profoundly as ever, and perhaps more so, but
not with 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 something be-

180 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

yond almost all which pictorial genius has produced ; 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 which runs in the
veins of its foreign and temporary population. English
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

SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS. 181

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
shov/ed the uncarpeted brick-floors, as dismal as the
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 hi the piazza
of St. Peter's, and a fringe of brown, 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,
now blow "upon the shivering invalids, who came hither
hi the hope of breathing balmy airs.

Wherever we pass our summers, may all our inclem-
ent months, from November to April, henceforth be

182 ROMANCE OF MONTE BEXI.

spent in some country that recognizes winter as an inte-
gral portion of its year !

Now, too, there was especial discomfort in the stately
picture-galleries, where 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
repose. 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 twinkling, either to
spring enraged at his throat, or, sinking into his arms, to
make one more proof of her rich blandishments, or fall-

SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS. 183

ing lowly at his feet, to try the efficacy 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."

" 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-

184 EOMANCE OF MONTE BENL

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
suggestiveness."

" You, Hilda, are yourself the only critic in whom I
have much faith," said Kenyon. " Had you condemned
Cleopatra, nothing should have saved her."

" 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

SNOWDKOPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS. 185

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, iu
reference to Cleopatra — with the accumulations 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
hi putting into the clay model at Monte Beni. The
reader is probably acquainted with Thorwaldsen's three-
fold 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 DonateUo, you know, we once insisted that
there was a perfect twin-brotherhood. But the expression
is now so very different ! "

" 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

186 KOMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

face used to evince little more than a genial, pleasurable
sort of vrvacity, 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."

" 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 ij for an unsuccessful attempt to-
wards 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

SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS. 187

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.

188 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

CHAPTER XVH.

REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM.

WHEN 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
peculiar 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
forgetfulness ; but, once enabled to relieve herself of the
ponderous 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-

REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM. 18S

prise ; for he had long suspected that Hilda had a painful
knowledge of events which 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 ! 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 terrible
consequences ! "

" My dear Hilda ! " exclaimed Kenyon, regarding her
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 sug-
gested 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

190 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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-point, 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
God keep me from ever understanding, how two things
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 astray, if you could persuade me to give
it up."

REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM. 191

" 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

192 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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
subsequently detect in our friend. For, in these unions
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

REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM.. 193

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 unhesitatingly 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 ac-
cording to its address. Hilda had forgotten it ; or, rather,
she had kept the thought of this commission in the back-
ground of her consciousness, with all other thoughts re-
ferring to Miriam.

But now, the recollection of this packet, and the evident
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.

VOL,. II. 9

194 ROMANCE OF MONTE BEXI.

" 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 blind. 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 grown, innocence

REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM. 195

continues to make a paradise around itself, and keep it
still unfallen.

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 rums 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
iheir 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

106 ROMANCE OF MONTE HE XI.

in their history ; an inherited 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 Cresar may have trod narrower and filthier ways in
his path to the Capitol, than even those of modern
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-
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 wray.
• " No," said Hilda ; " I seek the Palazzo Cenci."

" Yonder it is, fair signorina," replied the Roman ma-
tron. " 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

REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM. 107

portal, and gazed at the brown-haired, fair-cheeked Anglo-
Saxon girl, with approving glances, but not indecorously.
Hilda began to ascend the staircase, three lofty nights of
which were to be surmounted, before reaching the door
whither she was bound.

198 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

CHAPTER XVIH.

THE EXTINCTION OF 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 meeting 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 pre-occupation 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
vitality 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

THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP. 199

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
tunes before, and more perfectly than now.

In the chilj. 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 Belvidere 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
Laocoon, 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,

200 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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-
pose, which is essential to it, in the very acme of turbu-
lent effort ; but, in truth, it was his mood of unwonted
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 the 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 tjieir custom to ask alms, and perhaps to measure the

THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP. 201

duration of their 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 own souls is, in a manner, linked with a good done,
or intended, 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.

" All is well," answered Kenyon. " And with you ? "

But the masked penitent returned no answer, being
borne away by the 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

9*

202 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL

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-
nied 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'* 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, in his stead, there was only one other morbid and
remorseful man, among millions that were cast in the same
indistinguishable 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
resentment which endeavors to wreak itself on the be-
loved object, and on one's own heart, in requital of mis-

THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP. 203

haps for which neither are in fault, Kenyon might at once
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 with
the day 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 interview in the galleries of
the Vatican. Straying 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 in vil-
lage-lanes, in wood-paths, on seaside sands, hi 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 fra-
grance of her disposition, which other friends might share
as largely as himself. He would try if it were possible to
take this shy, yet frank, and innocently fearless creature,
captive, and imprison her in his heart, and make her sen-
sible of a wider freedom there, than in all the world

204 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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.

Li a case like this, it is doubtful whether Kenyon could
have done a much better thing than he actually did, by
going to dine at the Cafe Nuovo, and drinking a flask of
Montefiascone ; longing, the while, for a beaker or two of
Donatello's Sunshine. It would have been just the wine
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 examine
and reject them.

No decided improvement resulting from the draught of
Montefiascone, he went to the Teatro Argentine, 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

THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP. 205

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 ; not
a diamond, but something that glimmered with a clear,
red lustre, like the stars in a southern sky. Sc mehow 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

206 ROMANCE OF MONTE BEXI.

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 man-
ner, which impressed him more than he conceived it possi-
ble to be affected by so external a thing. He remembered
the gossip so prevalent in Rome on Miriam's first ap-
pearance ; how that she was no real artist, but the daugh-
ter of an illustrious or golden lineage, who was merely
playing at necessity; mingling with human struggle for
her pastime ; stepping 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, impatiently ;
for nothing causes a more disagreeable vibration of the
nerves than this perception of ambiguousness in famil-
iar persons or affairs. " Speak ; for my spirits and pa-
tience 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, with a sallow Italian face,

THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP. 207

which the sculptor distinguished but imperfectly, and
did not recognize.

" I can tell you nothing," 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
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
Miriam in 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 definite 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, with
its ftiassivo tower rising into the clouded night; obscured

208 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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, remembering 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 in 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 ceased to
burn.

THE DESERTED SHRINE. 209

CHAPTER XIX.

THE 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, wnen 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 undimin-
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 inpene-
trable mist brooding about the tower's gray old head, and
obscuring it from the lower world. But no ! For right

210 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 la*mp, signor ? " 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 riot be burning now ? "

" But look ! " 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

THE DESERTED SHRINE. 211

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,
as 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-
ions. 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
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

212 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENT.

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 ill to-morrow's day-
light 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 down 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 — cataeshooting down, and
made a feint of alighting on his shoui^erTliut, though
they evidently 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, hah0-

THE DESERTED SHRINK. 213

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 down upon him, mid-
way 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
reality ; nor, in truth, were the eager, unquiet flutterings
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 de-
spondency with him, feeling their sunny and airy lives
darkeneiLand 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,
wfam, if any slumberers heard the clamor that he made,
theyhad-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

214 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

suggestions, 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 eager-
ness 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 young 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 affair it was, to see
that the faithful votary of her lamp received no harm.

In a great Parisian domicile, multifarious as its inhab-
4taafejnight 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,
therefore, could hope to find information about Hilda's
movements 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 wa? four
days since there had been a trace of her ; but an Eng-
lish lady, in tire second piano of the palace, was rather
of opinion that she had met her, the morning before, with
a drawing-book in her hand. Having no acquaintance
with the young person, she had taken little notice, and

THE DESERTED SHRIXE. 21o

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 he 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 as 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

216 . ROMANCE OF MONTH BENI.

paused. Within, there was a bed, covered with white
drapery, enclosed with snowy curtains, like a tent, and of
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.

u 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 intercede
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 !
Wiu^yoiTTnottftt^signor, to the battlements, and see if she
have left any trace ofSierself 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.

THE DESERTED SHRINE. 217

" 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.
All! 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 Kenyou's breast. " The dear little maiden, as we see,
has decked yonder blessed shrine as devoutly as I myself,
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
to-day. Her own doves have often been missing for a day
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 hi this
desk, as well as other little objects of which she wished to
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

VOL. II. 10

218 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

little disturbed. " Does the signer 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 ! " 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 unex-
pectedly, 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,
since 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
fact, however true they may chance to be, have no wit-
ness of their truth in 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,

THE DESERTED SHR1XE. 21S

like 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
cj6k ! Repeated Kenyon, looking the woman in the
face.

" Very strange, indeed, signer," 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

220 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

who readily undertook the task, and expressed strong
confidence of success. But the Roman police has very
little efficacy, 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.

Remembering the mystic words which Miriam had ad-
dressed to him, he was anxious to meet her, but knew
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 shrine ; 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!

THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES. '221

CHAPTER XX.

THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'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 wax,
burning 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.

222 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 mul-
titudinous bricks, of its material decay.

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 Caesars. 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

THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES. 225

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 earliest 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 infinite To-come !

Man of marble though he was, the sculptor grieved for
the Irrevocable. Looking back upon Hilda's way of life,
he marvelled at his own blind stupidity, which had kept
him from remonstrating — as a friend, if with no stronger
right — against the 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

224 KOMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

Roman streets, and that there was no redeeming element,
such as exists in 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 beings, 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 virtue ; 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, where the crime of departed ages used to be
ai 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

THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES. 225

Tiber ever rose against the acclivities of the seven hills.
To Kenyon's morbid view, there appeared to be a con-
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 princely
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 kepf
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 ;
she had taken her way amid the grime and corruption
Which Paganism had left there, and a perverted Christi-
anity had made more noisome ; walking saint-like through
it all, with white, innocent feet ; until, in some dark pit-
fall that lay right across her path, she had vanished out
of sight. It was terrible to imagine what hideous outrage
might have thrust her into that abyss !

Then the lover tried to comfort himself with 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

10*

226 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 curling above her jead !
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 an
eternity before the great circle of its scheme shall bring
*us the superabundant recompense for all these sorrows !
But what the lover asked was such prompt consolation
as might consist with the brief span of mortal life ; the
assurance 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 circum-
stance, most important to be known, and, perhaps, easily
discoverable, had hitherto 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

THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES. 227

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 returned
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, be-
took themselves to other dove-cotes. Only a single dove
remained, 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 lin-
gered, and looked so wretched — was it a Hope, or
already a Despair ?

In the street, one day, the sculptor met a priest of mild
and venerable aspect ; and as his mind dwelt continually
upon Hilda, and was especially active in bringing up all
incidents that had ever been connected with her, it imme-
diately struck him that this was the very father with

228 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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
remembered, 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-

THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES. 229

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
her soul ! Perhaps, when you next behold her, she will
be clad in the shining white robe of the true faith."

This latter suggestion did not convey all the comfort
which the 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-

230 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI. *

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 uncertainty, that almost bewildered his
reason, could have led him for a moment to entertain. A
communication reached him by an unknown hand, in con-
sequence of which, and within an hour after receiving it,
he took his way through one of the gates of Rome.

A WALK.ON THE CAMPAGNA. 231

CHAPTER XXI.

A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA

IT was a bright forenoon of February ; a nonth in
which the brief severity of a Roman winter is already
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 country. 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 them-

232 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

selves 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-
ing remains to the dishonored sepulchres, except their
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 born,
and successive lives been spent, undisturbed by the ghost
of the stern Roman whose ashes were so preposterously
burdened. Other sepulchres wear a crown of grass,
shrubbery, and forest-trees, which throw out a broad

A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA. 233

sweep of branches, having had time, twice over, to be a
thousand years of age. On one of them stands a tower,
which, though imrnemorially 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 to 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 his
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 hewn 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
state of preservation than they. On its broad summit
rose the battlements of a mediaeval fortress, out of the
midst of which (so long since had time begun to crumble
the supplemental structure, and cover it with soil, by

234 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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, hi spite of a hundred vagaries, his
general course was in the right direction, and along by

A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA. 235

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
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 New England-
ers recognize in our idea of spring. But there was an in-
describable something, sweet, fresh, and remotely affection-
ate, 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 delight. 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,

236 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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
Home, 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 into 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-
shine 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

A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA. 237

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. Pine-
• 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 modes t
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-
ei^d 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

238 ROMANCE OF MONTE BEXI.

that still hung upon the exquisitely graceful limbs, and
even filled the lovely crevice of the lips. Kenyon cleared
it away from between them, and almost deemed himself
rewarded with a living 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 lying 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 cabinet 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 difficult to fix his

A WALK ON THE CAMPAGXA. 239

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 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.

240 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

CHAPTER XXII.

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 his friends, indeed, even before
their disguised figures came between him and the sun-
light. Donatello was the peasant; the contadina, with
the airy smile, half mirthful, though it shone out of mel-
ancholy eyes, — was Miriam.

They both greeted the sculptor with a familiar kindness
which reminded him of the days when Hilda and they
and he had lived so happily together, before the mys-
terious adventure of the catacomb. What a succession
of sinister events had followed one spectral figure out of
that gloomy labyrinth.

THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA. 241

" It is carnival time, you know," said Miriam, as if in ex-
planation 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 ! "

When 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
topic, until they stand face to face with the time point of
interest. Miriam 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,

VOL. II. 11

242 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

chiefly 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. " Imagination
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 round this
matter a little wrhile, and cover it with fanciful thoughts,
as we strew a grave with flowers."

" A grave ! '.' exclaimed 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, Dona-
tello ! let us live a little longer the life of these last few
days ! It is so bright, so airy, so childlike, so without
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."

THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA. 243

" 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."

0

" 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,

2 14 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 ! "

" A little patience. Do not press me so," said Miriam ;
and again Kenyon was struck by the spritelike, fitful char-
acteristic 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 with a mysteri-
ous 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 innocent," replied the sculptor. " I

THE PEASANT AND CONTADTXA. 245

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,
— 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, when she revealed her
name ; an event, the frightful and mysterious circum-

246 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENT.

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 per-
petrate ! "

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
of the catacomb. The spectral figure which she encoun-

THE PEASANT AND COXTADIXA. 247

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 monks.

" 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 inter-
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 innocent."

248 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" 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."

" And Hilda ! " resumed the sculptor. " What can
have been her connection with these dark incidents ? "

" She will, 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 Miriam, 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, Miriam," said Kenyon.

" No matter," she replied ; " you will understand here-
after. But could you think it ? Here is Donatello
haunted with strange remorse, and an unmitigable resolve
to obtain what he deems justice upon himself. He fan-

THE PEASANT AND CONTAD1NA. 249

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 thing 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 Donatello,
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 playful-
ness came out of his heart and glimmered like fire-light in
his actions, alternating, or even closely intermingled, with
profound sympathy and serious thought.

"Is he not beautiful?" said Miriam, watching the
sculptor's eye as it dwelt admiringly on Donatello. " So
thanged, 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
ll *

250 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

an inestimable treasure of improvement won from an
experience of pain. How wonderful is this ! 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 ! 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
precipitated himself and all his race — was it the destined
means by which, over a Iqng pathway of toil and sorrow,
we are to attain a higher, brighter, and profounder happi-
ness, 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
beneficently handled by omniscience and omnipotence,
that, whereas our dark enemy sought to destroy us by it,

THE PEASANT AND CONTABINA. zM

it has really become an instrument most effective in the
education of intellect and soul."

Miriam paused a little longer among these meditations,
which the sculptor rightly felt to be so perilous ; she theu
pressed his hand, in token of farewell.

"The day after to-morrow," said she, "an hour befce
sunset, go to the Corso, and stand in 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 finger 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 companion, 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.

ROMANCE OF MONTE KENI.

CHAPTER XXIII.

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 manner 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
generation's 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, when compared with the pro-
lific originality of former times, in productions of a scenic
and ceremonial character, whether grave or gay. To

A SCENE IN THE CORSO. 253

cnvn 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 har e
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 ex-
tending 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 with staid composure ; the
nobility and priesthood take little or no part in the mat-
ter ; and, but for the hordes of Anglo-Saxons who annu-
ally take up the flagging mirth, the carnival might long
ago have been swept away, with the snow-drifts of con-
fetti that whiten all the pavement.

No doubt, however, the worn-out festival is still new to
the youthful and light-hearted, who 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

254 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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, Kenyon 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 part
with wonderful felicity of execution, and revealing furry
ears which looked absolutely real ; and Miriam had been
alternately, a lady of the antique regime, 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,

A SCENE IN THE CORSO. 255

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 sunny 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 mirth-
ful 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, scat-
tering forth their laughter, shrill, yet sweet, and the mu-
sical babble of their voices, to thicken into an airy tumult
over the heads of common mortals.

All these innumerable eyes looked down 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

2/)G ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

never-ending procession of all the vehicles in Rome,
from the ducal carriage, with 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 equi-
page, or bustling to and fro afoot, there was a sympathy
of nonsense ; a true and genial brotherhood and sister-
hood, based on the honest purpose — and a wise one,
too — of being foolish, all together. The sport of man-
kind, 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 suffering 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

A SCENE IN THE CORSO. 257

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*
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 the pastime and the earnest of a more inno-
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
"Tmd flown hither and thither through two or three carnival
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, dtfiled as they all are with the wicked filth of
Rome.

Such are the flowery favors — the fragrant bunches
ot sentiment — that fly between cavalier and dame, and
back again, from one end of the Corso to the other. Per-
haps they may symbolize, more aptly than was intended,
the poor, battered, wilted hearts of those who fling them ;
hearts which — crumpled and crushed by former posses-

258 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

sors, and stained with various mishap — 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
government seemed to imagine that there might be ex-
citement 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 impos-
ing 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 ex-
tremity of the course, and before the palace of the
Austrian embassy, at the other, and by the column of
Antoninus, midway between. Had that chained tiger-cat,
the Roman populace, shown 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-

A SCENE IN THE CORSO. 259

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 law-
less ; 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
AVC breathe at home. Not that, after all, we like the fine
Italian spirit better than our own ; popular rudeness is
sometimes the symptom 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
carriages, 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
substantial 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
masquerading throng.

It was, first and foremost, a full band of martial music,
reverberating, in that narrow and confined, though stately

2 GO ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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, —
proceeding 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 pow-
dered 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 crumbling into ruin, and
that the dust of it now filled his nostrils ; though, in fact,
it would hardly be distinguished from the official powder
with which he was already plentifully bestrewn.

A SCENE IN THE CORSO. 261

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.

262 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL.

THE crowd and confusion, just at that moment, hin-
dered the sculptor from pursuing these figures, — the
peasant 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, Kenjon
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 con
tadina, 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 fcomb 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

A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL. 263

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 license of the carnival
permits. In fact, his sad and contracted br*ow so ill ac-
corded with the scene, that the revellers might be par-
doned for 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,
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 finally 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

2G-1 ROMANCE OF MONTE BEXL

one, will quell their holiday humors, like the aspect of a
death's-head at a banquet. Only that we know Kenyon'a
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, offering 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, a"nd dog-headed individuals ; faces that would
have been human, but for their enormous noses ; one terrific
creature, with a visage right in the centre of his breast ;
and all other imaginable kinds of monstrosity and exag-
geration. These apparitions appeared to be investigating
the case, after the fashion of a coroner's jury, poking

A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL. 205

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 mak e 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 yanished from him, as dreams and spectres do, leav-
ing him at liberty to pursue his quest, with no impediment
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.

VOL. II. 12

266 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" 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.
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, — " knowing 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
iiim that a pale, tear-stained face was hidden behind her
mask.

" Forgive me ! " said he.

A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL. 267

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
sculptured column of Antoninus. It was not far from
this vicinity that Miriam 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
Colon na, 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

268 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENL

group of ladies. The white hair and whiskers of the
former, and the winter-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 carnival with 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 inexhaustibly
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 prevent 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 own sweet self, in some shy
disguise which the instinct of his love would be sure to

A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL. 269

penetrate. 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
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

270 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

aught he knew, the sole chance of ever finding 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 figure of
a woman."

" She was not amiss," replied a female voice ; " but
her companion was far the handsomer figure of the two.
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 inter-
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 !

A FROLIC OF THK CARNIVAL. 271

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 smile 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 inexpressibly shocked, by
her sudden intrusion into their private balcony. They
looked — as, indeed, English people of respectability
would, if an angel were to alight in 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
had dreamed of no intrusion. Whence she had come, or
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

272 EOMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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
divine, 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 drawn 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 imagination, 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 where the tumult of life burst suddenly upon
her ears. She heard the tramp of footsteps, the rattle of

A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL. 273

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
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

12 *

274 KOMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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.

MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO. 275

CHAPTER XXV.

MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, 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 insist upon
looking closely at the wrong side of the tapestry, after the
right one has been sufficiently 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
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 distinguished,
will long ago have taught him that any narrative of
human action and adventure — whether we call it history
or romance — is certain to be a fragile handiwork, more
easily rent than mended. The actual experience of even
•',he most ordinary life is full of events that never explain
themselves, either as regards their origin or their ten-
dency.

27 b ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 hi her
communications 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 per-
son. What has chiefly perplexed us, however, among
Hilda's adventures, is the mode of her release, in which
some inscrutable tyranny or other seemed to tak$ 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 des-
perate — had arranged this incident, and made it the con-
dition 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
;?culptor 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
bewildered stranger when he is in search of other objects.
Hilda, looking up, proposed that they should enter.

MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO. 277

" I never pass it without going in," she said, " to pay
my homage at the tomb of Raphael."

" Nor I," said Kenyon, " without 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 twelve centuries gone by.
The world has nothing 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 dinginess 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
down into the interior of this place of worship, left unim-
peded for prayers 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

278 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 tomb-
stones in a damp English churchyard."

" I like better," replied Hilda, " to look at the bright,
blue sky, roofing the edifice where the builders [eft 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 hover-
ing there, partly in and partly out, with genial, heavenly
faces, not intercepting the light, but only transmuting it
into beautiful colors ? Look at that broad, golden beam

— a sloping cataract of sunlight — which comes down
from the aperture and rests upon the shrine, at the right
hand of the entrance ! "

" 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 footsteps 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

MIRIAM, HILDA, KEXYOX, DOXATELLO. 279

of the feline race that has ever set herself up as an ob-
ject 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 ! 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 prayeis 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 Catho-
lics so delight in the worship of saints ; they can bring
up all their little worldly wants and whims, their in-
dividualities, 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 tempt-
ing!"

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
invisible, behind a veil or mask, which formed a part of
the garb.

280 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" It cannot be ! " whispered Hilda, with emotion. " No ;
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 ! " repeated Hilda.

Her voice was still tremulous, however, and she seem.ed
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 business 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
threir existence, a more summer-like atmosphere than
ours."

MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO. 281

" 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 the
Donatello whom we knew."

" 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
education, 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 beh'eve 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 ! "

282 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

" 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.

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

MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO. 283

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,
comprising the imaginary 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.

284 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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
soul, and saw sunlight on the mountain-tops.

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 Faun, for example, loses all
the poetry and beauty which the Author fancied in it, and
becomes nothing 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, in so many

CONCLUSION. 285

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.
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 individual and Miriam.

286 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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 mean time, the
municipal authorities had become aAvare of the murder of
the Capuchin ; and from many preceding circumstances,
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

CONCLUSION. _ 7

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 in 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 bird 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 Trinita 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 forever.

" My entanglement with Miriam's misfortunes, and the
good Abbate's mistaken hope of a proselyte, seem to me
a sufficient clue to the whole mystery."

" The atmosphere is getting delightfully lucid," ob-

288 ROMANCE OF MONTE BENI.

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."

LEAMINGTON. March 14, 1860.

THE END.

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