CHAPTER XX
THE BURIAL CHANT
The Church of the Capuchins (where, as the reader may remember, some ofour acquaintances had made an engagement to meet) stands a little asidefrom the Piazza Barberini. Thither, at the hour agreed upon, on themorning after the scenes last described, Miriam and Donatello directedtheir steps. At no time are people so sedulously careful to keep theirtrifling appointments, attend to their ordinary occupations, and thusput a commonplace aspect on life, as when conscious of some secret thatif suspected would make them look monstrous in the general eye.
Yet how tame and wearisome is the impression of all ordinary things inthe contrast with such a fact! How sick and tremulous, the next morning,is the spirit that has dared so much only the night before! How icy coldis the heart, when the fervor, the wild ecstasy of passion has fadedaway, and sunk down among the dead ashes of the fire that blazed sofiercely, and was fed by the very substance of its life! How faintlydoes the criminal stagger onward, lacking the impulse of that strongmadness that hurried him into guilt, and treacherously deserts him inthe midst of it!
When Miriam and Donatello drew near the church, they found only Kenyonawaiting them on the steps. Hilda had likewise promised to be of theparty, but had not yet appeared. Meeting the sculptor, Miriam put aforce upon herself and succeeded in creating an artificial flowof spirits, which, to any but the nicest observation, was quite aseffective as a natural one. She spoke sympathizingly to the sculptor onthe subject of Hilda's absence, and somewhat annoyed him by alluding inDonatello's hearing to an attachment which had never been openly avowed,though perhaps plainly enough betrayed. He fancied that Miriam did notquite recognize the limits of the strictest delicacy; he even went sofar as to generalize, and conclude within himself, that this deficiencyis a more general failing in woman than in man, the highest refinementbeing a masculine attribute.
But the idea was unjust to the sex at large, and especially so to thispoor Miriam, who was hardly responsible for her frantic efforts to begay. Possibly, moreover, the nice action of the mind is set ajar by anyviolent shock, as of great misfortune or great crime, so that the finerperceptions may be blurred thenceforth, and the effect be traceable inall the minutest conduct of life.
"Did you see anything of the dear child after you left us?" askedMiriam, still keeping Hilda as her topic of conversation. "I missed hersadly on my way homeward; for nothing insures me such delightful andinnocent dreams (I have experienced it twenty times) as a talk late inthe evening with Hilda."
"So I should imagine," said the sculptor gravely; "but it is anadvantage that I have little or no opportunity of enjoying. I know notwhat became of Hilda after my parting from you. She was not especiallymy companion in any part of our walk. The last I saw of her shewas hastening back to rejoin you in the courtyard of the PalazzoCaffarelli."
"Impossible!" cried Miriam, starting.
"Then did you not see her again?" inquired Kenyon, in some alarm.
"Not there," answered Miriam quietly; "indeed, I followed pretty closelyon the heels of the rest of the party. But do not be alarmed on Hilda'saccount; the Virgin is bound to watch over the good child, for the sakeof the piety with which she keeps the lamp alight at her shrine. Andbesides, I have always felt that Hilda is just as safe in these evilstreets of Rome as her white doves when they fly downwards from thetower top, and run to and fro among the horses' feet. There is certainlya providence on purpose for Hilda, if for no other human creature."
"I religiously believe it," rejoined the sculptor; "and yet my mindwould be the easier, if I knew that she had returned safely to hertower."
"Then make yourself quite easy," answered Miriam. "I saw her (and itis the last sweet sight that I remember) leaning from her window midwaybetween earth and sky!"
Kenyon now looked at Donatello.
"You seem out of spirits, my dear friend," he observed. "This languidRoman atmosphere is not the airy wine that you were accustomed tobreathe at home. I have not forgotten your hospitable invitation tomeet you this summer at your castle among the Apennines. It is my fixedpurpose to come, I assure you. We shall both be the better for some deepdraughts of the mountain breezes."
"It may he," said Donatello, with unwonted sombreness; "the old houseseemed joyous when I was a child. But as I remember it now it was a grimplace, too."
The sculptor looked more attentively at the young man, and was surprisedand alarmed to observe how entirely the fine, fresh glow of animalspirits had departed out of his face. Hitherto, moreover, even while hewas standing perfectly still, there had been a kind of possible gambolindicated in his aspect. It was quite gone now. All his youthful gayety,and with it his simplicity of manner, was eclipsed, if not utterlyextinct.
"You are surely ill, my dear fellow," exclaimed Kenyon.
"Am I? Perhaps so," said Donatello indifferently; "I never have beenill, and know not what it may be."
"Do not make the poor lad fancy-sink," whispered Miriam, pulling thesculptor's sleeve. "He is of a nature to lie down and die at once, if hefinds himself drawing such melancholy breaths as we ordinary people areenforced to burden our lungs withal. But we must get him away from thisold, dreamy and dreary Rome, where nobody but himself ever thought ofbeing gay. Its influences are too heavy to sustain the life of such acreature."
The above conversation had passed chiefly on the steps of theCappuccini; and, having said so much, Miriam lifted the leathern curtainthat hangs before all church-doors in italy. "Hilda has forgotten herappointment," she observed, "or else her maiden slumbers are very soundthis morning. We will wait for her no longer."
They entered the nave. The interior of the church was of moderatecompass, but of good architecture, with a vaulted roof over the nave,and a row of dusky chapels on either side of it instead of the customaryside-aisles. Each chapel had its saintly shrine, hung round withofferings; its picture above the altar, although closely veiled, if byany painter of renown; and its hallowed tapers, burning continually, toset alight the devotion of the worshippers. The pavement of the nave waschiefly of marble, and looked old and broken, and was shabbily patchedhere and there with tiles of brick; it was inlaid, moreover, withtombstones of the mediaeval taste, on which were quaintly sculpturedborders, figures, and portraits in bas-relief, and Latin epitaphs,now grown illegible by the tread of footsteps over them. The churchappertains to a convent of Capuchin monks; and, as usually happens whena reverend brotherhood have such an edifice in charge, the floor seemednever to have been scrubbed or swept, and had as little the aspect ofsanctity as a kennel; whereas, in all churches of nunneries, the maidensisterhood invariably show the purity of their own hearts by the virgincleanliness and visible consecration of the walls and pavement.
As our friends entered the church, their eyes rested at once on aremarkable object in the centre of the nave. It was either the actualbody, or, as might rather have been supposed at first glance, thecunningly wrought waxen face and suitably draped figure of a dead monk.This image of wax or clay-cold reality, whichever it might be, lay ona slightly elevated bier, with three tall candles burning on each side,another tall candle at the head, and another at the foot. There wasmusic, too; in harmony with so funereal a spectacle. From beneaththe pavement of the church came the deep, lugubrious strain of a DeProfundis, which sounded like an utterance of the tomb itself; sodismally did it rumble through the burial vaults, and ooze up among theflat gravestones and sad epitaphs, filling the church as with a gloomymist.
"I must look more closely at that dead monk before we leave the church,"remarked the sculptor. "In the study of my art, I have gained many ahint from the dead which the living could never have given me."
"I can well imagine it," answered Miriam. "One clay image is readilycopied from another. But let us first see Guido's picture. The light isfavorable now."
Accordingly, they turned into the first chapel on the right hand, as youenter the nave; and there they beheld,--not the picture, indeed,--buta closely drawn curtain. The churchmen of Ital
y make no scruple ofsacrificing the very purpose for which a work of sacred art has beencreated; that of opening the way; for religious sentiment through thequick medium of sight, by bringing angels, saints, and martyrs downvisibly upon earth; of sacrificing this high purpose, and, for aughtthey know, the welfare of many souls along with it, to the hope of apaltry fee. Every work by an artist of celebrity is hidden behind aveil, and seldom revealed, except to Protestants, who scorn it as anobject of devotion, and value it only for its artistic merit.
The sacristan was quickly found, however, and lost no time in disclosingthe youthful Archangel, setting his divine foot on the head of hisfallen adversary. It was an image of that greatest of future events,which we hope for so ardently, at least, while we are young,--but findso very long in coming, the triumph of goodness over the evil principle.
"Where can Hilda be?" exclaimed Kenyon. "It is not her custom ever tofail in an engagement; and the present one was made entirely onher account. Except herself, you know, we were all agreed in ourrecollection of the picture."
"But we were wrong, and Hilda right, as you perceive," said Miriam,directing his attention to the point on which their dispute of the nightbefore had arisen. "It is not easy to detect her astray as regards anypicture on which those clear, soft eyes of hers have ever rested."
"And she has studied and admired few pictures so much as this," observedthe sculptor. "No wonder; for there is hardly another so beautiful inthe world. What an expression of heavenly severity in the Archangel'sface! There is a degree of pain, trouble, and disgust at being broughtin contact with sin, even for the purpose of quelling and punishing it;and yet a celestial tranquillity pervades his whole being."
"I have never been able," said Miriam, "to admire this picture nearly somuch as Hilda does, in its moral and intellectual aspect. If it cost hermore trouble to be good, if her soul were less white and pure, she wouldbe a more competent critic of this picture, and would estimate it nothalf so high. I see its defects today more clearly than ever before."
"What are some of them?" asked Kenyon.
"That Archangel, now," Miriam continued; "how fair he looks, with hisunruffled wings, with his unhacked sword, and clad in his brightarmor, and that exquisitely fitting sky-blue tunic, cut in the latestParadisiacal mode! What a dainty air of the first celestial society!With what half-scornful delicacy he sets his prettily sandalled footon the head of his prostrate foe! But, is it thus that virtue looks themoment after its death struggle with evil? No, no; I could have toldGuido better. A full third of the Archangel's feathers should have beentorn from his wings; the rest all ruffled, till they looked like Satan'sown! His sword should be streaming with blood, and perhaps brokenhalfway to the hilt; his armor crushed, his robes rent, his breast gory;a bleeding gash on his brow, cutting right across the stern scowl ofbattle! He should press his foot hard down upon the old serpent, asif his very soul depended upon it, feeling him squirm mightily, anddoubting whether the fight were half over yet, and how the victory mightturn! And, with all this fierceness, this grimness, this unutterablehorror, there should still be something high, tender, and holy inMichael's eyes, and around his mouth. But the battle never was such achild's play as Guido's dapper Archangel seems to have found it."
"For Heaven's sake, Miriam," cried Kenyon, astonished at the wild energyof her talk; "paint the picture of man's struggle against sin accordingto your own idea! I think it will be a masterpiece."
"The picture would have its share of truth, I assure you," she answered;"but I am sadly afraid the victory would fail on the wrong side. Justfancy a smoke-blackened, fiery-eyed demon bestriding that nice youngangel, clutching his white throat with one of his hinder claws; andgiving a triumphant whisk of his scaly tail, with a poisonous dart atthe end of it! That is what they risk, poor souls, who do battle withMichael's enemy."
It now, perhaps, struck Miriam that her mental disquietude was impellingher to an undue vivacity; for she paused, and turned away from thepicture, without saying a word more about it. All this while, moreover,Donatello had been very ill at ease, casting awe-stricken and inquiringglances at the dead monk; as if he could look nowhere but at thatghastly object, merely because it shocked him. Death has probably apeculiar horror and ugliness, when forced upon the contemplation of aperson so naturally joyous as Donatello, who lived with completeness inthe present moment, and was able to form but vague images of the future.
"What is the matter, Donatello?" whispered Miriam soothingly. "You arequite in a tremble, my poor friend! What is it?"
"This awful chant from beneath the church," answered Donatello; "itoppresses me; the air is so heavy with it that I can scarcely draw mybreath. And yonder dead monk! I feel as if he were lying right across myheart."
"Take courage!" whispered she again "come, we will approach close tothe dead monk. The only way, in such cases, is to stare the ugly horrorright in the face; never a sidelong glance, nor half-look, for those arewhat show a frightfull thing in its frightfullest aspect. Lean on me,dearest friend! My heart is very strong for both of us. Be brave; andall is well."
Donatello hung back for a moment, but then pressed close to Miriam'sside, and suffered her to lead him up to the bier. The sculptorfollowed. A number of persons, chiefly women, with several childrenamong them, were standing about the corpse; and as our three friendsdrew nigh, a mother knelt down, and caused her little boy to kneel,both kissing the beads and crucifix that hung from the monk's girdle.Possibly he had died in the odor of sanctity; or, at all events, deathand his brown frock and cowl made a sacred image of this reverendfather.