CHAPTER XLVII
THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA
They descended into the excavation: a young peasant, in the short bluejacket, the small-clothes buttoned at the knee, and buckled shoes, thatcompose one of the ugliest dresses ever worn by man, except the wearer'sform 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, inone of those brilliant costumes largely kindled up with scarlet, anddecorated with gold embroidery, in which the contadinas array themselveson feast-days. But Kenyon was not deceived; he had recognized the voicesof his friends, indeed, even before their disguised figures came betweenhim and the sunlight. Donatello was the peasant; the contadina, with theairy smile, half mirthful, though it shone out of melancholy eyes,--wasMiriam.
They both greeted the sculptor with a familiar kindness which remindedhim of the days when Hilda and they and he had lived so happilytogether, before the mysterious adventure of the catacomb. What asuccession of sinister events had followed one spectral figure out ofthat gloomy labyrinth.
"It is carnival time, you know," said Miriam, as if in explanation ofDonatello's and her own costume. "Do you remember how merrily we spentthe Carnival, last year?"
"It seems many years ago," replied Kenyon. "We are all so changed!"
When individuals approach one another with deep purposes 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 naturalimpulse leads them to steal gradually onward, hiding themselves, as itwere, behind a closer, and still a closer topic, until they stand faceto face with the true point of interest. Miriam was conscious of thisimpulse, and partially obeyed it.
"So your instincts as a sculptor have brought you into the presence ofour newly discovered statue," she observed. "Is it not beautiful? Afar truer image of immortal womanhood than the poor little damsel atFlorence, world famous though she be."
"Most beautiful," said Kenyon, casting an indifferent glance at theVenus. "The time has been when the sight of this statue would have beenenough 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 isDonatello's prize. We were sitting here together, planning an interviewwith you, when his keen eyes detected the fallen goddess, almostentirely buried under that heap of earth, which the clumsy excavatorsshowered down upon her, I suppose. We congratulated ourselves, chieflyfor your sake. The eyes of us three are the only ones to which shehas yet revealed herself. Does it not frighten you a little, like theapparition of a lovely woman that livid of old, and has long lain in thegrave?"
"Ah, Miriam! I cannot respond to you," said the sculptor, withirrepressible impatience. "Imagination and the love of art have bothdied out of me."
"Miriam," interposed Donatello with gentle gravity, "why should we keepour friend in suspense? We know what anxiety he feels. Let us give himwhat intelligence we can."
"You are so direct and immediate, my beloved friend!" answered Miriamwith an unquiet smile. "There are several reasons why I should liketo play round this matter a little while, and cover it with fancifulthoughts, 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 nosuch calamity to dread. But I linger and hesitate, because every word Ispeak brings me nearer to a crisis from which I shrink. Ah, Donatello!let us live a little longer the life of these last few days! It is sobright, 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 irresponsiblelife which you inherited from your mythic ancestry, the Fauns of MonteBeni. Our stern and black reality will come upon us speedily enough.But, first, a brief time more of this strange happiness."
"I dare not linger upon it," answered Donatello, with an expressionthat reminded the sculptor of the gloomiest days of his remorse at MonteBeni. "I dare to be so happy as you have seen me, only because I havefelt the time to be so brief."
"One day, then!" pleaded Miriam. "One more day in the wild freedom ofthis sweet-scented air."
"Well, one more day," said Donatello, smiling; and his smile touchedKenyon with a pathos beyond words, there being gayety and sadness bothmelted 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 yourpower."
"Ah, surely he might endure his pangs a little longer!" cried Miriam,turning to Kenyon with a tricksy, fitful kind of mirth, that served tohide some solemn necessity, too sad and serious to be looked at in itsnaked aspect. "You love us both, I think, and will be content to sufferfor our sakes, one other day. Do I ask too much?"
"Tell me of Hilda," replied the sculptor; "tell me only that she issafe, and keep back what else you will."
"Hilda is safe," said Miriam. "There is a Providence purposely forHilda, as I remember to have told you long ago. But a great trouble--anevil deed, let us acknowledge it has spread out its dark branches sowidely, that the shadow falls on innocence as well as guilt. There wasone slight link that connected your sweet Hilda with a crime which itwas her unhappy fortune to witness, but of which I need not say she wasas guiltless as the angels that looked out of heaven, and saw it too.No matter, now, what the consequence has been. You shall have your lostHilda 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 Kenyonwas struck by the sprite-like, fitful characteristic of her manner, anda sort of hysteric gayety, which seemed to be a will-o'-the-wisp froma 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 byand by."
Then Miriam spoke of her own life, and told facts that threw a gleamof light over many things which had perplexed the sculptor in all hisprevious knowledge of her. She described herself as springing fromEnglish parentage, on the mother's side, but with a vein, likewise, ofJewish blood; yet connected, through her father, with one of those fewprincely families of Southern Italy, which still retain great wealth andinfluence. And she revealed a name at which her auditor started and grewpale; for it was one that, only a few years before, had been familiarto the world in connection with a mysterious and terrible event.The reader, if he think it worth while to recall some of the strangeincidents which have been talked of, and forgotten, within no long timepast, will remember Miriam's name.
"You shudder at me, I perceive," said Miriam, suddenly interrupting hernarrative.
"No; you were innocent," replied the sculptor. "I shudder at thefatality that seems to haunt your footsteps, and throws a shadow ofcrime about your path, you being guiltless."
"There was such a fatality," said Miriam; "yes; the shadow fell uponme, innocent, but I went astray in it, and wandered--as Hilda could tellyou--into crime."
She went on to say that, while yet a child, she had lost her Englishmother. From a very early period of her life, there had been a contractof betrothal between herself and a certain marchese, the representativeof another branch of her paternal house,--a family arrangement betweentwo persons of disproportioned ages, and in which feeling went fornothing. Most Italian girls of noble rank would have yielded themselvesto such a marriage as an affair of course. But there was somethingin Miriam's blood, in her mixed race, in her recollections of hermother,--some characteristic, finally, in her own nature,--whichhad given her freedom of thought, and force of will, and made thisprearranged connection odious to her. Moreover, the character of herdestined husband would have been a sufficient and insuperable objection;for it betrayed traits so evil, so treacherous, so vile, and yet sostrangely subtle, as could only be accounted for by the insanity whichoften develops itself in old, close-kept races of men, wh
en long unmixedwith newer blood. Reaching the age when the marriage contract shouldhave been fulfilled, Miriam had utterly repudiated it.
Some time afterwards had occurred that terrible event to which Miriamhad alluded when she revealed her name; an event, the frightful andmysterious circumstances of which will recur to many minds, but of whichfew or none can have found for themselves a satisfactory explanation. Itonly concerns the present narrative, inasmuch as the suspicion of beingat least an accomplice in the crime fell darkly and directly upon Miriamherself.
"But you know that I am innocent!" she cried, interrupting herselfagain, and looking Kenyon in the face.
"I know it by my deepest consciousness," he answered; "and I know it byHilda's trust and entire affection, which you never could have won hadyou been capable of guilt."
"That is sure ground, indeed, for pronouncing me innocent," said Miriam,with the tears gushing into her eyes. "Yet I have since become a horrorto your saint-like Hilda, by a crime which she herself saw me help toperpetrate!"
She proceeded with her story. The great influence of her familyconnections had shielded her from some of the consequences of herimputed guilt. But, in her despair, she had fled from home, and hadsurrounded her flight with such circumstances as rendered it the mostprobable conclusion that she had committed suicide. Miriam, however, wasnot of the feeble nature which takes advantage of that obvious and poorresource in earthly difficulties. She flung herself upon the world,and speedily created a new sphere, in which Hilda's gentle purity,the sculptor's sensibility, clear thought, and genius, and Donatello'sgenial simplicity had given her almost her first experience ofhappiness. Then came that ill-omened adventure of the catacomb, Thespectral figure which she encountered there was the evil fate that hadhaunted her through life.
Looking back upon what had happened, Miriam observed, she now consideredhim a madman. Insanity must have been mixed up with his originalcomposition, and developed by those very acts of depravity which itsuggested, and still more intensified, by the remorse that ultimatelyfollowed them. Nothing was stranger in his dark career than thepenitence which often seemed to go hand in hand with crime. Since hisdeath she had ascertained that it finally led him to a convent,where his severe and self-inflicted penance had even acquired him thereputation of unusual sanctity, and had been the cause of his enjoyinggreater freedom than is commonly allowed to monks.
"Need I tell you more?" asked Miriam, after proceeding thus far. "Itis still a dim and dreary mystery, a gloomy twilight into which I guideyou; but possibly you may catch a glimpse of much that I myself canexplain only by conjecture. At all events, you can comprehend what mysituation must have been, after that fatal interview in the catacomb.My persecutor had gone thither for penance, but followed me forth withfresh impulses to crime. He had me in his power. Mad as he was, andwicked as he was, with one word he could have blasted me in the beliefof all the world. In your belief too, and Hilda's! Even Donatello wouldhave shrunk from me with horror!"
"Never," said Donatello, "my instinct would have known you innocent."
"Hilda and Donatello and myself,--we three would have acquitted you,"said Kenyon, "let the world say what it might. Ah, Miriam, you shouldhave told us this sad story sooner!"
"I thought often of revealing it to you," answered Miriam; "on oneoccasion, 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. Butfinding you cold to accept my confidence, I thrust it back again. Had Iobeyed my first impulse, all would have turned out differently."
"And Hilda!" resumed the sculptor. "What can have been her connectionwith these dark incidents?"
"She will, doubtless, tell you with her own lips," replied Miriam."Through sources of information which I possess in Rome, I can assureyou of her safety. In two days more--by the help of the specialProvidence that, as I love to tell you, watches over Hilda--she shallrejoin 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 thanonce 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 hereafter. But couldyou think it? Here is Donatello haunted with strange remorse, and anunmitigable resolve to obtain what he deems justice upon himself. Hefancies, with a kind of direct simplicity, which I have vainly tried tocombat, that, when a wrong has been done, the doer is bound to submithimself to whatsoever tribunal takes cognizance of such things, andabide its judgment. I have assured him that there is no such thingas earthly justice, and especially none here, under the head ofChristendom."
"We will not argue the point again," said Donatello, smiling. "I have nohead 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 makeus sorrowful? There are still two days more. Let us be happy!"
It appeared to Kenyon that since he last saw Donatello, some of thesweet and delightful characteristics of the antique Faun had returnedto him. There were slight, careless graces, pleasant and simplepeculiarities, that had been obliterated by the heavy grief throughwhich he was passing at Monte Beni, and out of which he had hardlyemerged when the sculptor parted with Miriam and him beneath the bronzepontiffs outstretched hand. These happy blossoms had now reappeared. Aplayfulness came out of his heart, and glimmered like firelight inhis actions, alternating, or even closely intermingled, with profoundsympathy and serious thought.
"Is he not beautiful?" said Miriam, watching the sculptor's eye asit dwelt admiringly on Donatello. "So changed, yet still, in a deepersense, so much the same! He has travelled in a circle, as all thingsheavenly and earthly do, and now comes back to his original self, withan inestimable treasure of improvement won from an experience of pain.How wonderful is this! I tremble at my own thoughts, yet must needsprobe them to their depths. Was the crime--in which he and I werewedded--was it a blessing, in that strange disguise? Was it a means ofeducation, bringing a simple and imperfect nature to a point of feelingand intelligence which it could have reached under no other discipline?"
"You stir up deep and perilous matter, Miriam," replied Kenyon. "I darenot follow you into the unfathomable abysses whither you are tending."
"Yet there is a pleasure in them! I delight to brood on the verge ofthis great mystery," returned she. "The story of the fall of man! Is itnot repeated in our romance of Monte Beni? And may we follow the analogyyet further? Was that very sin,--into which Adam precipitated himselfand all his race, was it the destined means by which, over a longpathway of toil and sorrow, we are to attain a higher, brighter, andprofounder happiness, than our lost birthright gave? Will not this ideaaccount for the permitted existence of sin, as no other theory can?"
"It is too dangerous, Miriam! I cannot follow you!" repeated thesculptor. "Mortal man has no right to tread on the ground where you nowset 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 ofgood--has been so beneficently handled by omniscience and omnipotence,that, whereas our dark enemy sought to destroy us by it, it has reallybecome an instrument most effective in the education of intellect andsoul."
Miriam paused a little longer among these meditations, which thesculptor rightly felt to be so perilous; she then pressed his hand, intoken of farewell.
"The day after to-morrow," said she, "an hour before sunset, go to theCorso, and stand in front of the fifth house on your left, beyond theAntonine column. You will learn tidings of a friend."
Kenyon would have besought her for more definite intelligence, but sheshook her head, put her finger on her lips, and turned away with anillusive smile. The fancy impressed him that she too, like Donatello,had reached a wayside paradise, in their mysterious life journey, wherethey both threw down the burden of the
before and after, and, except forthis interview with himself, were happy in the flitting moment. To-dayDonatello 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 aninevitable goal.