CHAPTER XII
A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN
Hilda, after giving the last touches to the picture of Beatrice Cenci,had flown down from her dove-cote, late in the afternoon, and gone tothe Pincian Hill, in the hope of hearing a strain or two of exhilaratingmusic. There, as it happened, she met the sculptor, for, to say thetruth, Kenyon had well noted the fair artist's ordinary way of life,and was accustomed to shape his own movements so as to bring him oftenwithin her sphere.
The Pincian Hill is the favorite promenade of the Roman aristocracy. Atthe present day, however, like most other Roman possessions, it belongsless to the native inhabitants than to the barbarians from Gaul, GreatBritain, anti beyond the sea, who have established a peaceful usurpationover whatever is enjoyable or memorable in the Eternal City. Theseforeign guests are indeed ungrateful, if they do not breathe a prayerfor Pope Clement, or whatever Holy Father it may have been, who levelledthe summit of the mount so skilfully, and bounded it with the parapet ofthe city wall; who laid out those broad walks and drives, and overhungthem with the deepening shade of many kinds of tree; who scattered theflowers, of all seasons and of every clime, abundantly over those green,central lawns; who scooped out hollows in fit places, and, setting greatbasins of marble in them, caused ever-gushing fountains to fill them tothe brim; who reared up the immemorial obelisk out of the soil that hadlong hidden it; who placed pedestals along the borders of the avenues,and crowned them with busts of that multitude of worthies--statesmen,heroes, artists, men of letters and of song--whom the whole world claimsas its chief ornaments, though Italy produced them all. In a word, thePincian garden is one of the things that reconcile the stranger (sincehe fully appreciates the enjoyment, and feels nothing of the cost) tothe rule of an irresponsible dynasty of Holy Fathers, who seem to haveaimed at making life as agreeable an affair as it can well be.
In this pleasant spot, the red-trousered French soldiers are always tobe seen; bearded and grizzled veterans, perhaps with medals of Algiersor the Crimea on their breasts. To them is assigned the peaceful duty ofseeing that children do not trample on the flower beds, nor any youthfullover rifle them of their fragrant blossoms to stick in the belovedone's hair. Here sits (drooping upon some marble bench, in thetreacherous sunshine) the consumptive girl, whose friends have broughther, for cure, to a climate that instils poison into its very purestbreath. Here, all day, come nursery-maids, burdened with rosy Englishbabies, or guiding the footsteps of little travellers from the farWestern world. Here, in the sunny afternoons, roll and rumble all kindsof equipages, from the cardinal's old-fashioned and gorgeous purplecarriage to the gay barouche of modern date. Here horsemen gallop onthoroughbred steeds. Here, in short, all the transitory population ofRome, the world's great watering-place, rides, drives, or promenades!Here are beautiful sunsets; and here, whichever way you turn your eyes,are scenes as well worth gazing at, both in themselves and for theirhistoric interest, as any that the sun ever rose and set upon. Here,too, on certain afternoons of the week, a French military band flingsout rich music over the poor old city, floating her with strains as loudas those of her own echoless triumphs.
Hilda and the sculptor (by the contrivance of the latter, who loved bestto be alone with his young countrywoman) had wandered beyond the throngof promenaders, whom they left in a dense cluster around the music. Theystrayed, indeed, to the farthest point of the Pincian Hill, and leanedover the parapet, looking down upon the Muro Torto, a massive fragmentof the oldest Roman wall, which juts over, as if ready to tumble downby its own weight, yet seems still the most indestructible piece of workthat men's hands ever piled together. In the blue distance rose Soracte,and other heights, which have gleamed afar, to our imaginations, butlook scarcely real to our bodily eyes, because, being dreamed about somuch, they have taken the aerial tints which belong only to a dream.These, nevertheless, are the solid framework of hills that shut in Rome,and its wide surrounding Campagna,--no land of dreams, but the broadestpage of history, crowded so full with memorable events that oneobliterates another; as if Time had crossed and recrossed his ownrecords till they grew illegible.
But, not to meddle with history,--with which our narrative is nootherwise concerned, than that the very dust of Rome is historic, andinevitably settles on our page and mingles with our ink,--we will returnto our two friends, who were still leaning over the wall. Beneath themlay the broad sweep of the Borghese grounds, covered with trees, amidwhich appeared the white gleam of pillars and statues, and the flash ofan upspringing fountain, all to be overshadowed at a later period of theyear by the thicker growth of foliage.
The advance of vegetation, in this softer climate, is less abrupt thanthe inhabitant of the cold North is accustomed to observe. Beginningearlier,--even in February,--Spring is not compelled to burst intoSummer with such headlong haste; there is time to dwell upon eachopening beauty, and to enjoy the budding leaf, the tender green, thesweet youth and freshness of the year; it gives us its maiden charm,before, settling into the married Summer, which, again, does not so soonsober itself into matronly Autumn. In our own country, the virgin Springhastens to its bridal too abruptly. But here, after a month or two ofkindly growth, the leaves of the young trees, which cover that portionof the Borghese grounds nearest the city wall, were still in theirtender half-development.
In the remoter depths, among the old groves of ilex-trees, Hilda andKenyon heard the faint sound of music, laughter, and mingling voices. Itwas probably the uproar--spreading even so far as the walls of Rome,and growing faded and melancholy in its passage--of that wild sylvanmerriment, which we have already attempted to describe. By and by itceased--although the two listeners still tried to distinguish it betweenthe bursts of nearer music from the military band. But there was norenewal of that distant mirth. Soon afterwards they saw a solitaryfigure advancing along one of the paths that lead from the obscurer partof the ground towards the gateway.
"Look! is it not Donatello?" said Hilda.
"He it is, beyond a doubt," replied the sculptor. "But how gravely hewalks, and with what long looks behind him! He seems either very weary,or very sad. I should not hesitate to call it sadness, if Donatello werea creature capable of the sin and folly of low spirits. In all thesehundred paces, while we have been watching him, he has not made oneof those little caprioles in the air which are characteristic of hisnatural gait. I begin to doubt whether he is a veritable Faun."
"Then," said Hilda, with perfect simplicity, "you have thought him--anddo think him--one of that strange, wild, happy race of creatures, thatused to laugh and sport in the woods, in the old, old times? So doI, indeed! But I never quite believed, till now, that fauns existedanywhere but in poetry."
The sculptor at first merely smiled. Then, as the idea took furtherpossession of his mind, he laughed outright, and wished from the bottomof his heart (being in love with Hilda, though he had never told herso) that he could have rewarded or punished her for its pretty absurditywith a kiss.
"O Hilda, what a treasure of sweet faith and pure imagination you hideunder that little straw hat!" cried he, at length. "A Faun! a Faun!Great Pan is not dead, then, after all! The whole tribe of mythicalcreatures yet live in the moonlit seclusion of a young girl's fancy,and find it a lovelier abode and play-place, I doubt not, than theirArcadian haunts of yore. What bliss, if a man of marble, like myself,could stray thither, too!"
"Why do you laugh so?" asked Hilda, reddening; for she was a littledisturbed at Kenyon's ridicule, however kindly expressed. "What can Ihave said, that you think so very foolish?"
"Well, not foolish, then," rejoined the sculptor, "but wiser, it maybe, than I can fathom. Really, however, the idea does strike one asdelightfully fresh, when we consider Donatello's position and externalenvironment. Why, my dear Hilda, he is a Tuscan born, of an old noblerace in that part of Italy; and he has a moss-grown tower among theApennines, where he and his forefathers have dwelt, under their ownvines and fig-trees, from an unknown antiquity. His boyish passionfor Miriam has introduced
him familiarly to our little circle; and ourrepublican and artistic simplicity of intercourse has included thisyoung Italian, on the same terms as one of ourselves. But, if wepaid due respect to rank and title, we should bend reverentially toDonatello, and salute him as his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni."
"That is a droll idea, much droller than his being a Faun!" saidHilda, laughing in her turn. "This does not quite satisfy me, however,especially as you yourself recognized and acknowledged his wonderfulresemblance to the statue."
"Except as regards the pointed ears," said Kenyon adding, aside, "andone other little peculiarity, generally observable in the statues offauns."
"As for his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni's ears," replied Hilda,smiling again at the dignity with which this title invested theirplayful friend, "you know we could never see their shape, on account ofhis clustering curls. Nay, I remember, he once started back, as shyly asa wild deer, when Miriam made a pretence of examining them. How do youexplain that?"
"O, I certainly shall not contend against such a weight of evidence,the fact of his faunship being otherwise so probable," answered thesculptor, still hardly retaining his gravity. "Faun or not, Donatello orthe Count di Monte Beni--is a singularly wild creature, and, as I haveremarked on other occasions, though very gentle, does not love to betouched. Speaking in no harsh sense, there is a great deal of animalnature in him, as if he had been born in the woods, and had run wild allhis childhood, and were as yet but imperfectly domesticated. Life, evenin our day, is very simple and unsophisticated in some of the shaggynooks of the Apennines."
"It annoys me very much," said Hilda, "this inclination, whichmost people have, to explain away the wonder and the mystery outof everything. Why could not you allow me--and yourself, too--thesatisfaction of thinking him a Faun?"
"Pray keep your belief, dear Hilda, if it makes you any happier," saidthe sculptor; "and I shall do my best to become a convert. Donatello hasasked me to spend the summer with him, in his ancestral tower, whereI purpose investigating the pedigree of these sylvan counts, hisforefathers; and if their shadows beckon me into dreamland, I shallwillingly follow. By the bye, speaking of Donatello, there is a point onwhich I should like to be enlightened."
"Can I help you, then?" said Hilda, in answer to his look.
"Is there the slightest chance of his winning Miriam's affections?"suggested Kenyon.
"Miriam! she, so accomplished and gifted!" exclaimed Hilda; "and he, arude, uncultivated boy! No, no, no!"
"It would seem impossible," said the sculptor. "But, on the other hand,a gifted woman flings away her affections so unaccountably, sometimes!Miriam of late has been very morbid and miserable, as we both know.Young as she is, the morning light seems already to have faded out ofher life; and now comes Donatello, with natural sunshine enough forhimself and her, and offers her the opportunity of making her heart andlife all new and cheery again. People of high intellectual endowments donot require similar ones in those they love. They are just the personsto appreciate the wholesome gush of natural feeling, the honestaffection, the simple joy, the fulness of contentment with whathe loves, which Miriam sees in Donatello. True; she may call him asimpleton. It is a necessity of the case; for a man loses the capacityfor this kind of affection, in proportion as he cultivates and refineshimself."
"Dear me!" said Hilda, drawing imperceptibly away from her companion."Is this the penalty of refinement? Pardon me; I do not believe it.It is because you are a sculptor, that you think nothing can be finelywrought except it be cold and hard, like the marble in which your ideastake shape. I am a painter, and know that the most delicate beauty maybe softened and warmed throughout."
"I said a foolish thing, indeed," answered the sculptor. "It surprisesme, for I might have drawn a wiser knowledge out of my own experience.It is the surest test of genuine love, that it brings back our earlysimplicity to the worldliest of us."
Thus talking, they loitered slowly along beside the parapet whichborders the level summit of the Pincian with its irregular sweep. Atintervals they looked through the lattice-work of their thoughts at thevaried prospects that lay before and beneath them.
From the terrace where they now stood there is an abrupt descent towardsthe Piazza del Popolo; and looking down into its broad space theybeheld the tall palatial edifices, the church domes, and the ornamentedgateway, which grew and were consolidated out of the thought of MichaelAngelo. They saw, too, the red granite obelisk, oldest of things,even in Rome, which rises in the centre of the piazza, with a fourfoldfountain at its base. All Roman works and ruins (whether of theempire, the far-off republic, or the still more distant kings) assume atransient, visionary, and impalpable character when we think that thisindestructible monument supplied one of the recollections which Mosesand the Israelites bore from Egypt into the desert. Perchance, onbeholding the cloudy pillar and the fiery column, they whisperedawestricken to one another, "In its shape it is like that old obeliskwhich we and our fathers have so often seen on the borders of the Nile."And now that very obelisk, with hardly a trace of decay upon it, is thefirst thing that the modern traveller sees after entering the FlaminianGate!
Lifting their eyes, Hilda and her companion gazed westward, and sawbeyond the invisible Tiber the Castle of St. Angelo; that immense tombof a pagan emperor, with the archangel at its summit.
Still farther off appeared a mighty pile of buildings, surmounted by thevast dome, which all of us have shaped and swelled outward, like a hugebubble, to the utmost Scope of our imaginations, long before we see itfloating over the worship of the city. It may be most worthily seenfrom precisely the point where our two friends were now standing. Atany nearer view the grandeur of St. Peter's hides itself behind theimmensity of its separate parts,--so that we see only the front, onlythe sides, only the pillared length and loftiness of the portico, andnot the mighty whole. But at this distance the entire outline of theworld's cathedral, as well as that of the palace of the world'schief priest, is taken in at once. In such remoteness, moreover, theimagination is not debarred from lending its assistance, even whilewe have the reality before our eyes, and helping the weakness of humansense to do justice to so grand an object. It requires both faith andfancy to enable us to feel, what is nevertheless so true, that yonder,in front of the purple outline of hills, is the grandest edifice everbuilt by man, painted against God's loveliest sky.
After contemplating a little while a scene which their long residence inRome had made familiar to them, Kenyon and Hilda again let their glancesfall into the piazza at their feet. They there beheld Miriam, who hadjust entered the Porta del Popolo, and was standing by the obelisk andfountain. With a gesture that impressed Kenyon as at once suppliant andimperious, she seemed to intimate to a figure which had attended herthus far, that it was now her desire to be left alone. The pertinaciousmodel, however, remained immovable.
And the sculptor here noted a circumstance, which, according to theinterpretation he might put upon it, was either too trivial to bementioned, or else so mysteriously significant that he found itdifficult to believe his eyes. Miriam knelt down on the steps of thefountain; so far there could be no question of the fact. To otherobservers, if any there were, she probably appeared to take thisattitude merely for the convenience of dipping her fingers into the gushof water from the mouth of one of the stone lions. But as she claspedher hands together after thus bathing them, and glanced upward at themodel, an idea took strong possession of Kenyon's mind that Miriam waskneeling to this dark follower there in the world's face!
"Do you see it?" he said to Hilda.
"See what?" asked she, surprised at the emotion of his tone. "I seeMiriam, who has just bathed her hands in that delightfully cool water. Ioften dip my fingers into a Roman fountain, and think of the brook thatused to be one of my playmates in my New England village."
"I fancied I saw something else," said Kenyon "but it was doubtless amistake."
But, allowing that he had caught a true glimpse into the hiddensignificance of Mi
riam's gesture, what a terrible thraldom did itsuggest! Free as she seemed to be,--beggar as he looked,--the namelessvagrant must then be dragging the beautiful Miriam through the streetsof Rome, fettered and shackled more cruelly than any captive queen ofyore following in an emperor's triumph. And was it conceivable thatshe would have been thus enthralled unless some great error--how greatKenyon dared not think--or some fatal weakness had given this darkadversary a vantage ground?
"Hilda," said he abruptly, "who and what is Miriam? Pardon me; but areyou sure of her?"
"Sure of her!" repeated Hilda, with an angry blush, for her friend'ssake. "I am sure that she is kind, good, and generous; a true andfaithful friend, whom I love dearly, and who loves me as well! What morethan this need I be sure of?"
"And your delicate instincts say all this in her favor?--nothing againsther?" continued the sculptor, without heeding the irritation of Hilda'stone. "These are my own impressions, too. But she is such a mystery!We do not even know whether she is a countrywoman of ours, or anEnglishwoman, or a German. There is Anglo-Saxon blood in her veins, onewould say, and a right English accent on her tongue, but much that isnot English breeding, nor American. Nowhere else but in Rome, and as anartist, could she hold a place in society without giving some clew toher past life."
"I love her dearly," said Hilda, still with displeasure in her tone,"and trust her most entirely."
"My heart trusts her at least, whatever my head may do," replied Kenyon"and Rome is not like one of our New England villages, where we need thepermission of each individual neighbor for every act that we do, everyword that we utter, and every friend that we make or keep. In theseparticulars the papal despotism allows us freer breath than our nativeair; and if we like to take generous views of our associates, we can doso, to a reasonable extent, without ruining ourselves."
"The music has ceased," said Hilda; "I am going now."
There are three streets that, beginning close beside each other, divergefrom the Piazza del Popolo towards the heart of Rome: on the left, theVia del Babuino; on the right, the Via della Ripetta; and between thesetwo that world-famous avenue, the Corso. It appeared that Miriam and herstrange companion were passing up the first mentioned of these three,and were soon hidden from Hilda and the sculptor.
The two latter left the Pincian by the broad and stately walk thatskirts along its brow. Beneath them, from the base of the abruptdescent, the city spread wide away in a close contiguity of red-earthenroofs, above which rose eminent the domes of a hundred churches, besidehere and there a tower, and the upper windows of some taller or highersituated palace, looking down on a multitude of palatial abodes. At adistance, ascending out of the central mass of edifices, they could seethe top of the Antonine column, and near it the circular roof of thePantheon looking heavenward with its ever-open eye.
Except these two objects, almost everything that they beheld wasmediaeval, though built, indeed, of the massive old stones andindestructible bricks of imperial Rome; for the ruins of the Coliseum,the Golden House, and innumerable temples of Roman gods, and mansions ofCaesars and senators, had supplied the material for all those gigantichovels, and their walls were cemented with mortar of inestimable cost,being made of precious antique statues, burnt long ago for this pettypurpose.
Rome, as it now exists, has grown up under the Popes, and seems likenothing but a heap of broken rubbish, thrown into the great chasmbetween our own days and the Empire, merely to fill it up; and, for thebetter part of two thousand years, its annals of obscure policies,and wars, and continually recurring misfortunes, seem also but brokenrubbish, as compared with its classic history.
If we consider the present city as at all connected with the famous oneof old, it is only because we find it built over its grave. A depth ofthirty feet of soil has covered up the Rome of ancient days, so that itlies like the dead corpse of a giant, decaying for centuries, with nosurvivor mighty enough even to bury it, until the dust of all thoseyears has gathered slowly over its recumbent form and made a casualsepulchre.
We know not how to characterize, in any accordant and compatibleterms, the Rome that lies before us; its sunless alleys, and streetsof palaces; its churches, lined with the gorgeous marbles that wereoriginally polished for the adornment of pagan temples; its thousands ofevil smells, mixed up with fragrance of rich incense, diffused from asmany censers; its little life, deriving feeble nutriment from whathas long been dead. Everywhere, some fragment of ruin suggesting themagnificence of a former epoch; everywhere, moreover, a Cross,--andnastiness at the foot of it. As the sum of all, there are recollectionsthat kindle the soul, and a gloom and languor that depress it beyond anydepth of melancholic sentiment that can be elsewhere known.
Yet how is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential word of Rome?The city of all time, and of all the world! The spot for which man'sgreat life and deeds have done so much, and for which decay has donewhatever glory and dominion could not do! At this moment, the eveningsunshine is flinging its golden mantle over it, making all that wethought mean magnificent; the bells of all the churches suddenly ringout, as if it were a peal of triumph because Rome is still imperial.
"I sometimes fancy," said Hilda, on whose susceptibility the scenealways made a strong impression, "that Rome--mere Rome--will crowdeverything else out of my heart."
"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated the sculptor. They had now reached the grandstairs that ascend from the Piazza di Spagna to the hither brow of thePincian Hill. Old Beppo, the millionnaire of his ragged fraternity,it is a wonder that no artist paints him as the cripple whom St. Peterheals at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple,--was just mounting his donkeyto depart, laden with the rich spoil of the day's beggary.
Up the stairs, drawing his tattered cloak about his face, came themodel, at whom Beppo looked askance, jealous of an encroacher on hisrightful domain. The figure passed away, however, up the Via Sistina. Inthe piazza below, near the foot of the magnificent steps, stood Miriam,with her eyes bent on the ground, as if she were counting thoselittle, square, uncomfortable paving-stones, that make it a penitentialpilgrimage to walk in Rome. She kept this attitude for several minutes,and when, at last, the importunities of a beggar disturbed her from it,she seemed bewildered and pressed her hand upon her brow.
"She has been in some sad dream or other, poor thing!" said Kenyonsympathizingly; "and even now she is imprisoned there in a kind of cage,the iron bars of which are made of her own thoughts."
"I fear she is not well," said Hilda. "I am going down the stairs, andwill join Miriam."
"Farewell, then," said the sculptor. "Dear Hilda, this is a perplexedand troubled world! It soothes me inexpressibly to think of you in yourtower, with white doves and white thoughts for your companions, so highabove us all, and With the Virgin for your household friend. You knownot how far it throws its light, that lamp which you keep burning at hershrine! I passed beneath the tower last night, and the ray cheered me,because you lighted it."
"It has for me a religious significance," replied Hilda quietly, "andyet I am no Catholic."
They parted, and Kenyon made haste along the Via Sistina, in the hopeof overtaking the model, whose haunts and character he was anxious toinvestigate, for Miriam's sake. He fancied that he saw him a long wayin advance, but before he reached the Fountain of the Triton the duskyfigure had vanished.