CHAPTER VIII
THE SUBURBAN VILLA
Donatello, while it was still a doubtful question betwixt afternoon andmorning, set forth to keep the appointment which Miriam had carelesslytendered him in the grounds of the Villa Borghese. The entrance to thesegrounds (as all my readers know, for everybody nowadays has been inRome) is just outside of the Porta del Popolo. Passing beneath that notvery impressive specimen of Michael Angelo's architecture, a minute'swalk will transport the visitor from the small, uneasy, lava stonesof the Roman pavement into broad, gravelled carriage-drives, whencea little farther stroll brings him to the soft turf of a beautifulseclusion. A seclusion, but seldom a solitude; for priest, noble, andpopulace, stranger and native, all who breathe Roman air, find freeadmission, and come hither to taste the languid enjoyment of theday-dream that they call life.
But Donatello's enjoyment was of a livelier kind. He soon began to drawlong and delightful breaths among those shadowy walks. Judging by thepleasure which the sylvan character of the scene excited in him, itmight be no merely fanciful theory to set him down as the kinsman, notfar remote, of that wild, sweet, playful, rustic creature, to whosemarble image he bore so striking a resemblance. How mirthful a discoverywould it be (and yet with a touch of pathos in it), if the breeze whichsported fondly with his clustering locks were to waft them suddenlyaside, and show a pair of leaf-shaped, furry ears! What an honest strainof wildness would it indicate! and into what regions of rich mysterywould it extend Donatello's sympathies, to be thus linked (and by nomonstrous chain) with what we call the inferior trioes of being, whosesimplicity, mingled with his human intelligence, might partly restorewhat man has lost of the divine!
The scenery amid which the youth now strayed was such as arrays itselfin the imagination when we read the beautiful old myths, and fancy abrighter sky, a softer turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerabletrees, than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the Westernworld. The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-honored were they, seemed tohave lived for ages undisturbed, and to feel no dread of profanation bythe axe any more than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It had alreadypassed out of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago theywere grievously imperilled by the Gaul's last assault upon the walls ofRome. As if confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they assumedattitudes of indolent repose. They leaned over the green turf inponderous grace, throwing abroad their great branches without dangerof interfering with other trees, though other majestic trees grew nearenough for dignified society, but too distant for constraint. Neverwas there a more venerable quietude than that which slept among theirsheltering boughs; never a sweeter sunshine than that now gladdeningthe gentle gloom which these leafy patriarchs strove to diffuse over theswelling and subsiding lawns.
In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lifted their denseclump of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high that theylooked like green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow upon theturf so far off that you hardly knew which tree had made it. Again,there were avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge funeralcandles, which spread dusk and twilight round about them instead ofcheerful radiance. The more open spots were all abloom, even so early inthe season, with anemones of wondrous size, both white and rose-colored,and violets that betrayed themselves by their rich fragrance, even iftheir blue eyes failed to meet your own. Daisies, too, were abundant,but larger than the modest little English flower, and therefore of smallaccount.
These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful than the finestof English park scenery, more touching, more impressive, through theneglect that leaves Nature so much to her own ways and methods. Sinceman seldom interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet wayand makes herself at home. There is enough of human care, it is true,bestowed, long ago and still bestowed, to prevent wildness from growinginto deformity; and the result is an ideal landscape, a woodland scenethat seems to have been projected out of the poet's mind. If the ancientFaun were other than a mere creation of old poetry, and could havereappeared anywhere, it must have been in such a scene as this.
In the openings of the wood there are fountains plashing into marblebasins, the depths of which are shaggy with water-weeds; or they tumblelike natural cascades from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, tomake the quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here and therewith careless artifice, stand old altars bearing Roman inscriptions.Statues, gray with the long corrosion of even that soft atmosphere, halfhide and half reveal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallenand broken on the turf. Terminal figures, columns of marble or graniteporticos, arches, are seen in the vistas of the wood-paths, eitherveritable relics of antiquity, or with so exquisite a touch of artfulruin on them that they are better than if really antique. At all events,grass grows on the tops of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowersroot themselves in the chinks of the massive arches and fronts oftemples, and clamber at large over their pediments, as if this were thethousandth summer since their winged seeds alighted there.
What a strange idea--what a needless labor--to construct artificialruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin! But even these sportiveimitations, wrought by man in emulation of what time has done to templesand palaces, are perhaps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions,have grown to be venerable in sober earnest. The result of all is ascene, pensive, lovely, dreamlike, enjoyable and sad, such as is tobe found nowhere save in these princely villa-residences in theneighborhood of Rome; a scene that must have required generations andages, during which growth, decay, and man's intelligence wrought kindlytogether, to render it so gently wild as we behold it now.
The final charm is bestowed by the malaria. There is a piercing,thrilling, delicious kind of regret in the idea of so much beauty thrownaway, or only enjoyable at its half-development, in winter and earlyspring, and never to be dwelt amongst, as the home scenery of any humanbeing. For if you come hither in summer, and stray through these gladesin the golden sunset, fever walks arm in arm with you, and death awaitsyou at the end of the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in itsloveliness; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it beyondthe scope of man's actual possessions. But Donatello felt nothing ofthis dream-like melancholy that haunts the spot. As he passed among thesunny shadows, his spirit seemed to acquire new elasticity. The flickerof the sunshine, the sparkle of the fountain's gush, the dance of theleaf upon the bough, the woodland fragrance, the green freshness,the old sylvan peace and freedom, were all intermingled in those longbreaths which he drew.
The ancient dust, the mouldiness of Rome, the dead atmosphere in whichhe had wasted so many months, the hard pavements, the smell of ruin anddecaying generations, the chill palaces, the convent bells, the heavyincense of altars, the life that he had led in those dark, narrowstreets, among priests, soldiers, nobles, artists, and women,--all thesense of these things rose from the young man's consciousness like acloud which had darkened over him without his knowing how densely.
He drank in the natural influences of the scene, and was intoxicated asby an exhilarating wine. He ran races with himself along the gleam andshadow of the wood-paths. He leapt up to catch the overhanging bough ofan ilex, and swinging himself by it alighted far onward, as if he hadflown thither through the air. In a sudden rapture he embraced thetrunk of a sturdy tree, and seemed to imagine it a creature worthy ofaffection and capable of a tender response; he clasped it closely in hisarms, as a Faun might have clasped the warm feminine grace of the nymph,whom antiquity supposed to dwell within that rough, encircling rind.Then, in order to bring himself closer to the genial earth, with whichhis kindred instincts linked him so strongly, he threw himself at fulllength on the turf, and pressed down his lips, kissing the violets anddaisies, which kissed him back again, though shyly, in their maidenfashion.
While he lay there, it was pleasant to see how the green and bluelizards, who had beta basking on some rock or on a fallen pillar thatabsorbed the warmth of the sun, scrupled not to scramble over h
im withtheir small feet; and how the birds alighted on the nearest twigs andsang their little roundelays unbroken by any chirrup of alarm; theyrecognized him, it may be, as something akin to themselves, or else theyfancied that he was rooted and grew there; for these wild pets of naturedreaded him no more in his buoyant life than if a mound of soil andgrass and flowers had long since covered his dead body, converting itback to the sympathies from which human existence had estranged it.
All of us, after a long abode in cities, have felt the blood gush morejoyously through our veins with the first breath of rural air; few couldfeel it so much as Donatello, a creature of simple elements, bred inthe sweet sylvan life of Tuscany, and for months back dwelling amid themouldy gloom and dim splendor of old Rome. Nature has been shut out fornumberless centuries from those stony-hearted streets, to which he hadlatterly grown accustomed; there is no trace of her, except for whatblades of grass spring out of the pavements of the less trodden piazzas,or what weeds cluster and tuft themselves on the cornices of ruins.Therefore his joy was like that of a child that had gone astray fromhome, and finds him suddenly in his mother's arms again.
At last, deeming it full time for Miriam to keep her tryst, he climbedto the tiptop of the tallest tree, and thence looked about him, swayingto and fro in the gentle breeze, which was like the respiration of thatgreat leafy, living thing. Donatello saw beneath him the whole circuitof the enchanted ground; the statues and columns pointing upward fromamong the shrubbery, the fountains flashing in the sunlight, the pathswinding hither and thither, and continually finding out some nook of newand ancient pleasantness. He saw the villa, too, with its marble frontincrusted all over with basreliefs, and statues in its many niches. Itwas as beautiful as a fairy palace, and seemed an abode in which thelord and lady of this fair domain might fitly dwell, and come forth eachmorning to enjoy as sweet a life as their happiest dreams of the pastnight could have depicted. All this he saw, but his first glance hadtaken in too wide a sweep, and it was not till his eyes fell almostdirectly beneath him, that Donatello beheld Miriam just turning into thepath that led across the roots of his very tree.
He descended among the foliage, waiting for her to come close to thetrunk, and then suddenly dropped from an impending bough, and alightedat her side. It was as if the swaying of the branches had let a rayof sunlight through. The same ray likewise glimmered among the gloomymeditations that encompassed Miriam, and lit up the pale, dark beauty ofher face, while it responded pleasantly to Donatello's glance.
"I hardly know," said she, smiling, "whether you have sprouted out ofthe earth, or fallen from the clouds. In either case you are welcome."
And they walked onward together.