CHAPTER XXVIII
THE OWL TOWER
"Will you not show me your tower?" said the sculptor one day to hisfriend.
"It is plainly enough to be seen, methinks," answered the Count, witha kind of sulkiness that often appeared in him, as one of the littlesymptoms of inward trouble.
"Yes; its exterior is visible far and wide," said Kenyon. "But sucha gray, moss-grown tower as this, however valuable as an object ofscenery, will certainly be quite as interesting inside as out. It cannotbe less than six hundred years old; the foundations and lower story aremuch older than that, I should judge; and traditions probably cling tothe walls within quite as plentifully as the gray and yellow lichenscluster on its face without."
"No doubt," replied Donatello,--"but I know little of such things, andnever could comprehend the interest which some of you Forestieri takein them. A year or two ago an English signore, with a venerable whitebeard--they say he was a magician, too--came hither from as far off asFlorence, just to see my tower."
"Ah, I have seen him at Florence," observed Kenyon. "He is anecromancer, as you say, and dwells in an old mansion of the KnightsTemplars, close by the Ponte Vecchio, with a great many ghostly books,pictures, and antiquities, to make the house gloomy, and one bright-eyedlittle girl, to keep it cheerful!"
"I know him only by his white beard," said Donatello; "but he couldhave told you a great deal about the tower, and the sieges which it hasstood, and the prisoners who have been confined in it. And he gatheredup 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 knownmighty poets, he said, in his earlier life; and the most illustriousof them would have rejoiced to preserve such a legend in immortalrhyme,--especially if he could have had some of our wine of Sunshine tohelp out his inspiration!"
"Any man might be a poet, as well as Byron, with such wine and sucha theme," rejoined the sculptor. "But shall we climb your tower Thethunder-storm gathering yonder among the hills will be a spectacle worthwitnessing."
"Come, then," said the Count, adding, with a sigh, "it has a wearystaircase, and dismal chambers, and it is very lonesome at the summit!"
"Like a man's life, when he has climbed to eminence," remarked thesculptor; "or, let us rather say, with its difficult steps, and the darkprison cells you speak of, your tower resembles the spiritual experienceof many a sinful soul, which, nevertheless, may struggle upward into thepure air and light of Heaven at last!"
Donatello sighed again, and led the way up into the tower.
Mounting the broad staircase that ascended from the entrance hall,they traversed the great wilderness of a house, through some obscurepassages, and came to a low, ancient doorway. It admitted them to anarrow turret stair which zigzagged upward, lighted in its progress byloopholes and iron-barred windows. Reaching the top of the first flight,the Count threw open a door of worm-eaten oak, and disclosed a chamberthat occupied the whole area of the tower. It was most pitiably forlornof aspect, with a brick-paved floor, bare holes through the massivewalls, grated with iron, instead of windows, and for furniture anold stool, which increased the dreariness of the place tenfold, bysuggesting an idea of its having once been tenanted.
"This was a prisoner's cell in the old days," said Donatello; "thewhite-bearded necromancer, of whom I told you, found out that a certainfamous monk was confined here, about five hundred years ago. He was avery holy man, and was afterwards burned at the stake in the Grand-ducalSquare at Firenze. There have always been stories, Tomaso says, ofa hooded monk creeping up and down these stairs, or standing in thedoorway of this chamber. It must needs be the ghost of the ancientprisoner. Do you believe in ghosts?"
"I can hardly tell," replied Kenyon; "on the whole, I think not."
"Neither do I," responded the Count; "for, if spirits ever come back,I should surely have met one within these two months past. Ghosts neverrise! So much I know, and am glad to know it!"
Following the narrow staircase still higher, they came to another roomof similar size and equally forlorn, but inhabited by two personages ofa race which from time immemorial have held proprietorship and occupancyin ruined towers. These were a pair of owls, who, being doubtlessacquainted with Donatello, showed little sign of alarm at the entranceof visitors. They gave a dismal croak or two, and hopped aside into thedarkest corner, since it was not yet their hour to flap duskily abroad.
"They do not desert me, like my other feathered acquaintances," observedthe young Count, with a sad smile, alluding to the scene which Kenyonhad witnessed at the fountain-side. "When I was a wild, playful boy, theowls did not love me half so well."
He made no further pause here, but led his friend up another flight ofsteps--while, at every stage, the windows and narrow loopholes affordedKenyon more extensive eye-shots over hill and valley, and allowed himto taste the cool purity of mid-atmosphere. At length they reached thetopmost 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 ofthe utmost simplicity. It likewise served as an oratory; there beinga crucifix in one corner, and a multitude of holy emblems, such asCatholics judge it necessary to help their devotion withal. Severalugly little prints, representing the sufferings of the Saviour, and themartyrdoms of saints, hung on the wall; and behind the crucifix therewas a good copy of Titian's Magdalen of the Pitti Palace, clad only inthe flow of her golden ringlets. She had a confident look (but it wasTitian's fault, not the penitent woman's), as if expecting to winheaven by the free display of her earthly charms. Inside of a glass caseappeared an image of the sacred Bambino, in the guise of a little waxenboy, very prettily made, reclining among flowers, like a Cupid, andholding up a heart that resembled a bit of red sealing-wax. A small vaseof precious marble was full of holy water.
Beneath the crucifix, on a table, lay a human skull, which looked as ifit might have been dug up out of some old grave. But, examining itmore closely, Kenyon saw that it was carved in gray alabaster; mostskillfully done to the death, with accurate imitation of the teeth,the sutures, the empty eye-caverns, and the fragile little bones of thenose. This hideous emblem rested on a cushion of white marble, so nicelywrought that you seemed to see the impression of the heavy skull in asilken and downy substance.
Donatello dipped his fingers into the holy-water vase, and crossedhimself. 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. "Isthere one that hides no sin?"
"But these blessed emblems make you smile, I fear," resumed the Count,looking askance at his friend. "You heretics, I know, attempt to praywithout even a crucifix to kneel at."
"I, at least, whom you call a heretic, reverence that holy symbol,"answered Kenyon. "What I am most inclined to murmur at is this death'shead. I could laugh, moreover, in its ugly face! It is absurdlymonstrous, my dear friend, thus to fling the dead weight of ourmortality upon our immortal hopes. While we live on earth, 't is 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 tosoar upward! Believe me, it will change the whole aspect of death, ifyou can once disconnect it, in your idea, with that corruption fromwhich it disengages our higher part."
"I do not well understand you," said Donatello; and he took up thealabaster skull, shuddering, and evidently feeling it a kind of penanceto touch it. "I only know that this skull has been in my family forcenturies. Old Tomaso has a story that it was copied by a famoussculptor from the skull of that same unhappy knight who loved thefountain lady, and lost her by a blood-stain. He lived and died with adeep sense of sin upon him, and on his death-bed he ordained that thistoken of him should go down to his posterity. And my forefathers, beinga cheerful race of men in their natural disposition, found it needful tohave the skull of
ten before their eyes, because they dearly loved lifeand its enjoyments, and hated the very thought of death."
"I am afraid," said Kenyon, "they liked it none the better, for seeingits face under this abominable mask."
Without further discussion, the Count led the way up one more flight ofstairs, at the end of which they emerged upon the summit of the tower.The sculptor felt as if his being were suddenly magnified a hundredfold;so wide was the Umbrian valley that suddenly opened before him, set inits grand framework of nearer and more distant hills. It seemed as ifall Italy lay under his eyes in that one picture. For there was thebroad, sunny smile of God, which we fancy to be spread over that favoredland more abundantly than on other regions, and beneath it glowed amost rich and varied fertility. The trim vineyards were there, and thefig-trees, and the mulberries, and the smoky-hued tracts of the oliveorchards; there, too, were fields of every kind of grain, among which,waved the Indian corn, putting Kenyon in mind of the fondly rememberedacres of his father's homestead. White villas, gray convents, churchspires, villages, towns, each with its battlemented walls and toweredgateway, were scattered upon this spacious map; a river gleamed acrossit; and lakes opened their blue eyes in its face, reflecting heaven,lest mortals should forget that better land when they beheld the earthso beautiful.
What made the valley look still wider was the two or three varietiesof weather that were visible on its surface, all at the same instant oftime. Here lay the quiet sunshine; there fell the great black patchesof ominous shadow from the clouds; and behind them, like a giant ofleague-long strides, came hurrying the thunderstorm, which had alreadyswept midway across the plain. In the rear of the approaching tempest,brightened forth again the sunny splendor, which its progress haddarkened with so terrible a frown.
All round this majestic landscape, the bald-peaked or forest-crownedmountains descended boldly upon the plain. On many of their spurs andmidway declivities, and even on their summits, stood cities, some ofthem famous of old; for these had been the seats and nurseries of earlyart, where the flower of beauty sprang out of a rocky soil, and ina high, keen atmosphere, when the richest and most sheltered gardensfailed to nourish it.
"Thank God for letting me again behold this scene!" Said the sculptor, adevout man in his way, reverently taking off his hat. "I have viewed itfrom many points, and never without as full a sensation of gratitudeas my heart seems capable of feeling. How it strengthens the poor humanspirit in its reliance on His providence, to ascend but this little wayabove the common level, and so attain a somewhat wider glimpse of Hisdealings with mankind! He doeth all things right! His will be done!"
"You discern something that is hidden from me," observed Donatellogloomily, yet striving with unwonted grasp to catch the analogieswhich so cheered his friend. "I see sunshine on one spot, and cloud inanother, and no reason for it in either ease. The sun on you; the cloudon me! What comfort can I draw from this?"
"Nay; I cannot preach," said Kenyon, "with a page of heaven and a pageof earth spread wide open before us! Only begin to read it, and youwill find it interpreting itself without the aid of words. It is a greatmistake to try to put our best thoughts into human language. When weascend into the higher regions of emotion and spiritual enjoyment, theyare only expressible by such grand hieroglyphics as these around us."
They stood awhile, contemplating the scene; but, as inevitably happensafter a spiritual flight, it was not long before the sculptor felt hiswings flagging in the rarity of the upper atmosphere. He was glad to lethimself quietly downward out of the mid-sky, as it were, and alight onthe solid platform of the battlemented tower. He looked about him,and beheld growing out of the stone pavement, which formed the roof, alittle shrub, with green and glossy leaves. It was the only green thingthere; and Heaven knows how its seeds had ever been planted, at thatairy height, or how it had found nourishment for its small life in thechinks of the stones; for it had no earth, and nothing more like soilthan the crumbling mortar, which had been crammed into the crevices in along-past age.
Yet the plant seemed fond of its native site; and Donatello said ithad always grown there from his earliest remembrance, and never, hebelieved, any smaller or any larger than they saw it now.
"I wonder if the shrub teaches you any good lesson," said he, observingthe interest with which Kenyon examined it. "If the wide valley has agreat meaning, the plant ought to have at least a little one; and it hasbeen growing on our tower long enough to have learned how to speak it."
"O, certainly!" answered the sculptor; "the shrub has its moral, orit would have perished long ago. And, no doubt, it is for your use andedification, 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 theplant, and perplexing himself with a minute scrutiny. "But here was aworm that would have killed it; an ugly creature, which I will flingover the battlements."