CHAPTER XXII
THE MEDICI GARDENS
"Donatello," said Miriam anxiously, as they came through the PiazzaBarberini, "what can I do for you, my beloved friend? You are shaking aswith the cold fit of the Roman fever." "Yes," said Donatello; "my heartshivers." As soon as she could collect her thoughts, Miriam led theyoung man to the gardens of the Villa Medici, hoping that the quietshade and sunshine of that delightful retreat would a little revive hisspirits. The grounds are there laid out in the old fashion of straightpaths, with borders of box, which form hedges of great height anddensity, and are shorn and trimmed to the evenness of a wall ofstone, at the top and sides. There are green alleys, with long vistasovershadowed by ilex-trees; and at each intersection of the paths, thevisitor finds seats of lichen-covered stone to repose upon, and marblestatues that look forlornly at him, regretful of their lost noses. Inthe more open portions of the garden, before the sculptured front ofthe villa, you see fountains and flower-beds, and in their seasona profusion of roses, from which the genial sun of Italy distils afragrance, to be scattered abroad by the no less genial breeze.
But Donatello drew no delight from these things. He walked onward insilent apathy, and looked at Miriam with strangely half-awakened andbewildered eyes, when she sought to bring his mind into sympathy withhers, and so relieve his heart of the burden that lay lumpishly upon it.
She made him sit down on a stone bench, where two embowered alleyscrossed each other; so that they could discern the approach of anycasual intruder a long way down the path.
"My sweet friend," she said, taking one of his passive hands in both ofhers, "what can I say to comfort you?"
"Nothing!" replied Donatello, with sombre reserve. "Nothing will evercomfort me."
"I accept my own misery," continued Miriam, "my own guilt, if guilt itbe; and, whether guilt or misery, I shall know how to deal with it. Butyou, dearest friend, that were the rarest creature in all this world,and seemed a being to whom sorrow could not cling,--you, whom Ihalf fancied to belong to a race that had vanished forever, you onlysurviving, to show mankind how genial and how joyous life used to be, insome long-gone age,--what had you to do with grief or crime?"
"They came to me as to other men," said Donatello broodingly. "DoubtlessI was born to them."
"No, no; they came with me," replied Miriam. "Mine is theresponsibility! Alas! wherefore was I born? Why did we ever meet? Whydid I not drive you from me, knowing for my heart foreboded it--that thecloud in which I walked would likewise envelop you!"
Donatello stirred uneasily, with the irritable impatience that is oftencombined With a mood of leaden despondency. A brown lizard with twotails--a monster often engendered by the Roman sunshine--ran across hisfoot, and made him start. Then he sat silent awhile, and so did Miriam,trying to dissolve her whole heart into sympathy, and lavish it all uponhim, were it only for a moment's cordial.
The young man lifted his hand to his breast, and, unintentionally, asMiriam's hand was within his, he lifted that along with it. "I have agreat weight here!" said he. The fancy struck Miriam (but she drove itresolutely down) that Donatello almost imperceptibly shuddered, while,in pressing his own hand against his heart, he pressed hers there too.
"Rest your heart on me, dearest one!" she resumed. "Let me bear all itsweight; I am well able to bear it; for I am a woman, and I love you! Ilove you, Donatello! Is there no comfort for you in this avowal? Lookat me! Heretofore you have found me pleasant to your sight. Gaze into myeyes! Gaze into my soul! Search as deeply as you may, you can never seehalf the tenderness and devotion that I henceforth cherish for you. Allthat I ask is your acceptance of the utter self-sacrifice (but it shallbe no sacrifice, to my great love) with which I seek to remedy the evilyou have incurred for my sake!"
All this fervor on Miriam's part; on Donatello's, a heavy silence.
"O, speak to me!" she exclaimed. "Only promise me to be, by and by, alittle happy!"
"Happy?" murmured Donatello. "Ah, never again! never again!"
"Never? Ah, that is a terrible word to say to me!" answered Miriam. "Aterrible word to let fall upon a woman's heart, when she loves you, andis conscious of having caused your misery! If you love me, Donatello,speak it not again. And surely you did love me?"
"I did," replied Donatello gloomily and absently.
Miriam released the young man's hand, but suffered one of her own tolie close to his, and waited a moment to see whether he would makeany effort to retain it. There was much depending upon that simpleexperiment.
With a deep sigh--as when, sometimes, a slumberer turns over in atroubled dream Donatello changed his position, and clasped both hishands over his forehead. The genial warmth of a Roman April kindlinginto May was in the atmosphere around them; but when Miriam sawthat involuntary movement and heard that sigh of relief (for so sheinterpreted it), a shiver ran through her frame, as if the iciest windof the Apennines were blowing over her.
"He has done himself a greater wrong than I dreamed of," thought she,with unutterable compassion. "Alas! it was a sad mistake! He mighthave had a kind of bliss in the consequences of this deed, had he beenimpelled to it by a love vital enough to survive the frenzy of thatterrible moment, mighty enough to make its own law, and justify itselfagainst the natural remorse. But to have perpetrated a dreadful murder(and such was his crime, unless love, annihilating moral distinctions,made it otherwise) on no better warrant than a boy's idle fantasy! Ipity him from the very depths of my soul! As for myself, I am past myown or other's pity."
She arose from the young man's side, and stood before him with a sad,commiserating aspect; it was the look of a ruined soul, bewailing,in him, a grief less than what her profounder sympathies imposed uponherself.
"Donatello, we must part," she said, with melancholy firmness. "Yes;leave me! Go back to your old tower, which overlooks the green valleyyou have told me of among the Apennines. Then, all that has passed willbe recognized as but an ugly dream. For in dreams the conscience sleeps,and we often stain ourselves with guilt of which we should be incapablein our waking moments. The deed you seemed to do, last night, wasno more than such a dream; there was as little substance in what youfancied yourself doing. Go; and forget it all!"
"Ah, that terrible face!" said Donatello, pressing his hands over hiseyes. "Do you call that unreal?"
"Yes; for you beheld it with dreaming eyes," replied Miriam. "It wasunreal; and, that you may feel it so, it is requisite that you see thisface of mine no more. Once, you may have thought it beautiful; now, ithas lost its charm. Yet it would still retain a miserable potency' tobring back the past illusion, and, in its train, the remorse and anguishthat would darken all your life. Leave me, therefore, and forget me."
"Forget you, Miriam!" said Donatello, roused somewhat from his apathy ofdespair.
"If I could remember you, and behold you, apart from that frightfulvisage which stares at me over your shoulder, that were a consolation,at least, if not a joy."
"But since that visage haunts you along with mine," rejoined Miriam,glancing behind her, "we needs must part. Farewell, then! But ifever--in distress, peril, shame, poverty, or whatever anguish is mostpoignant, whatever burden heaviest--you should require a life to begiven wholly, only to make your own a little easier, then summon me! Asthe case now stands between us, you have bought me dear, and find me oflittle worth. Fling me away, therefore! May you never need me more! But,if otherwise, a wish--almost an unuttered wish will bring me to you!"
She stood a moment, expecting a reply. But Donatello's eyes had againfallen on the ground, and he had not, in his bewildered mind andoverburdened heart, a word to respond.
"That hour I speak of may never come," said Miriam. "Sofarewell--farewell forever."
"Farewell," said Donatello.
His voice hardly made its way through the environment of unaccustomedthoughts and emotions which had settled over him like a dense and darkcloud. Not improbably, he beheld Miriam through so dim a medium that shelooked visionary; heard her sp
eak only in a thin, faint echo.
She turned from the young man, and, much as her heart yearned towardshim, she would not profane that heavy parting by an embrace, or even apressure of the hand. So soon after the semblance of such mighty love,and after it had been the impulse to so terrible a deed, they parted,in all outward show, as coldly as people part whose whole mutualintercourse has been encircled within a single hour.
And Donatello, when Miriam had departed, stretched himself at fulllength on the stone bench, and drew his hat over his eyes, as the idleand light-hearted youths of dreamy Italy are accustomed to do, when theylie down in the first convenient shade, and snatch a noonday slumber.A stupor was upon him, which he mistook for such drowsiness as he hadknown in his innocent past life. But, by and by, he raised himselfslowly and left the garden. Sometimes poor Donatello started, as ifhe heard a shriek; sometimes he shrank back, as if a face, fearful tobehold, were thrust close to his own. In this dismal mood, bewilderedwith the novelty of sin and grief, he had little left of that singularresemblance, on account of which, and for their sport, his three friendshad fantastically recognized him as the veritable Faun of Praxiteles.