CHAPTER IX
THE FAUN AND NYMPH
Miriam's sadder mood, it might be, had at first an effect on Donatello'sspirits. It checked the joyous ebullition into which they wouldotherwise have effervesced when he found himself in her society, not, asheretofore, in the old gloom of Rome, but under that bright soft sky andin those Arcadian woods. He was silent for a while; it being, indeed,seldom Donatello's impulse to express himself copiously in words. Hisusual modes of demonstration were by the natural language of gesture,the instinctive movement of his agile frame, and the unconscious playof his features, which, within a limited range of thought and emotion,would speak volumes in a moment.
By and by, his own mood seemed to brighten Miriam's, and was reflectedback upon himself. He began inevitably, as it were, to dance alongthe wood-path; flinging himself into attitudes of strange comic grace.Often, too, he ran a little way in advance of his companion, and thenstood to watch her as she approached along the shadowy and sun-fleckeredpath. With every step she took, he expressed his joy at her nearerand nearer presence by what might be thought an extravagance ofgesticulation, but which doubtless was the language of the natural man,though laid aside and forgotten by other men, now that words have beenfeebly substituted in the place of signs and symbols. He gave Miriam theidea of a being not precisely man, nor yet a child, but, in a high andbeautiful sense, an animal, a creature in a state of development lessthan what mankind has attained, yet the more perfect within itselffor that very deficiency. This idea filled her mobile imagination withagreeable fantasies, which, after smiling at them herself, she tried toconvey to the young man.
"What are you, my friend?" she exclaimed, always keeping in mind hissingular resemblance to the Faun of the Capitol. "If you are, in goodtruth, that wild and pleasant creature whose face you wear, pray make meknown to your kindred. They will be found hereabouts, if anywhere. Knockat the rough rind of this ilex-tree, and summon forth the Dryad! Ask thewater-nymph to rise dripping from yonder fountain, and exchange a moistpressure of the hand with me! Do not fear that I shall shrink; even ifone of your rough cousins, a hairy Satyr, should come capering on hisgoat-legs out of the haunts of far antiquity, and propose to dance withme among these lawns! And will not Bacchus,--with whom you consorted sofamiliarly of old, and who loved you so well,--will he not meet us here,and squeeze rich grapes into his cup for you and me?"
Donatello smiled; he laughed heartily, indeed, in sympathy with themirth that gleamed out of Miriam's deep, dark eyes. But he did not seemquite to understand her mirthful talk, nor to be disposed to explainwhat kind of creature he was, or to inquire with what divine or poetickindred his companion feigned to link him. He appeared only to know thatMiriam was beautiful, and that she smiled graciously upon him; thatthe present moment was very sweet, and himself most happy, with thesunshine, the sylvan scenery, and woman's kindly charm, which itenclosed within its small circumference. It was delightful to see thetrust which he reposed in Miriam, and his pure joy in her propinquity;he asked nothing, sought nothing, save to be near the beloved object,and brimmed over with ecstasy at that simple boon. A creature of thehappy tribes below us sometimes shows the capacity of this enjoyment; aman, seldom or never.
"Donatello," said Miriam, looking at him thoughtfully, but amused, yetnot without a shade of sorrow, "you seem very happy; what makes you so?"
"Because I love you!" answered Donatello.
He made this momentous confession as if it were the most naturalthing in the world; and on her part,--such was the contagion of hissimplicity,--Miriam heard it without anger or disturbance, though withno responding emotion. It was as if they had strayed across the limitsof Arcadia; and come under a civil polity where young men might avowtheir passion with as little restraint as a bird pipes its note to asimilar purpose.
"Why should you love me, foolish boy?" said she. "We have no points ofsympathy at all. There are not two creatures more unlike, in this wideworld, than you and I!"
"You are yourself, and I am Donatello," replied he. "Therefore I loveyou! There needs no other reason."
Certainly, there was no better or more explicable reason. It mighthave been imagined that Donatello's unsophisticated heart would be morereadily attracted to a feminine nature of clear simplicity like his own,than to one already turbid with grief or wrong, as Miriam's seemed tobe. Perhaps, On the other hand, his character needed the dark element,which it found in her. The force and energy of will, that sometimesflashed through her eyes, may have taken him captive; or, notimprobably, the varying lights and shadows of her temper, now somirthful, and anon so sad with mysterious gloom, had bewitched theyouth. Analyze the matter as we may, the reason assigned by Donatellohimself was as satisfactory as we are likely to attain.
Miriam could not think seriously of the avowal that had passed. He heldout his love so freely, in his open palm, that she felt it could benothing but a toy, which she might play with for an instant, and giveback again. And yet Donatello's heart was so fresh a fountain, that,had Miriam been more world-worn than she was, she might have foundit exquisite to slake her thirst with the feelings that welled up andbrimmed over from it. She was far, very far, from the dusty mediaevalepoch, when some women have a taste for such refreshment. Even forher, however, there was an inexpressible charm in the simplicity thatprompted Donatello's words and deeds; though, unless she caught themin precisely the true light, they seemed but folly, the offspring ofa maimed or imperfectly developed intellect. Alternately, she almostadmired, or wholly scorned him, and knew not which estimate resultedfrom the deeper appreciation. But it could not, she decided for herself,be other than an innocent pastime, if they two--sure to be separated bytheir different paths in life, to-morrow--were to gather up some of thelittle pleasures that chanced to grow about their feet, like the violetsand wood-anemones, to-day.
Yet an impulse of rectitude impelled Miriam to give him what she stillheld to be a needless warning against an imaginary peril.
"If you were wiser, Donatello, you would think me a dangerous person,"said she, "If you follow my footsteps, they will lead you to no good.You ought to be afraid of me."
"I would as soon think of fearing the air we breathe," he replied.
"And well you may, for it is full of malaria," said Miriam; she went on,hinting at an intangible confession, such as persons with overburdenedhearts often make to children or dumb animals, or to holes in the earth,where they think their secrets may be at once revealed and buried."Those who come too near me are in danger of great mischiefs, I doassure you. Take warning, therefore! It is a sad fatality that hasbrought you from your home among the Apennines,--some rusty old castle,I suppose, with a village at its foot, and an Arcadian environment ofvineyards, fig-trees, and olive orchards,--a sad mischance, I say, thathas transported you to my side. You have had a happy life hitherto, haveyou not, Donatello?"
"O, yes," answered the young man; and, though not of a retrospectiveturn, he made the best effort he could to send his mind back into thepast. "I remember thinking it happiness to dance with the contadinas ata village feast; to taste the new, sweet wine at vintage-time, and theold, ripened wine, which our podere is famous for, in the cold winterevenings; and to devour great, luscious figs, and apricots, peaches,cherries, and melons. I was often happy in the woods, too, with houndsand horses, and very happy in watching all sorts, of creatures and birdsthat haunt the leafy solitudes. But never half so happy as now!"
"In these delightful groves?" she asked.
"Here, and with you," answered Donatello. "Just as we are now."
"What a fulness of content in him! How silly, and how delightful!" saidMiriam to herself. Then addressing him again: "But, Donatello, how longwill this happiness last?"
"How long!" he exclaimed; for it perplexed him even more to think of thefuture than to remember the past. "Why should it have any end? How long!Forever! forever! forever!"
"The child! the simpleton!" said Miriam, with sudden laughter, andchecking it as suddenly. "But is he a simpleto
n indeed? Here, in thosefew natural words, he has expressed that deep sense, that profoundconviction of its own immortality, which genuine love never fails tobring. He perplexes me,--yes, and bewitches me,--wild, gentle, beautifulcreature that he is! It is like playing with a young greyhound!"
Her eyes filled with tears, at the same time that a smile shone out ofthem. Then first she became sensible of a delight and grief at once, infeeling this zephyr of a new affection, with its untainted freshness,blow over her weary, stifled heart, which had no right to be revived byit. The very exquisiteness of the enjoyment made her know that it oughtto be a forbidden one.
"Donatello," she hastily exclaimed, "for your own sake, leave me! It isnot such a happy thing as you imagine it, to wander in these woods withme, a girl from another land, burdened with a doom that she tells tonone. I might make you dread me,--perhaps hate me,--if I chose; and Imust choose, if I find you loving me too well!"
"I fear nothing!" said Donatello, looking into her unfathomable eyeswith perfect trust. "I love always!"
"I speak in vain," thought Miriam within herself.
"Well, then, for this one hour, let me be such as he imagines me.To-morrow will be time enough to come back to my reality. My reality!what is it? Is the past so indestructible? the future so immitigable?Is the dark dream, in which I walk, of such solid, stony substance, thatthere can be no escape out of its dungeon? Be it so! There is, atleast, that ethereal quality in my spirit, that it can make me as gay asDonatello himself,--for this one hour!"
And immediately she brightened up, as if an inward flame, heretoforestifled, were now permitted to fill her with its happy lustre, glowingthrough her cheeks and dancing in her eye-beams.
Donatello, brisk and cheerful as he seemed before, showed a sensibilityto Miriam's gladdened mood by breaking into still wilder andever-varying activity. He frisked around her, bubbling over with joy,which clothed itself in words that had little individual meaning, andin snatches of song that seemed as natural as bird notes. Then they bothlaughed together, and heard their own laughter returning in the echoes,and laughed again at the response, so that the ancient and solemn grovebecame full of merriment for these two blithe spirits. A bird happeningto sing cheerily, Donatello gave a peculiar call, and the littlefeathered creature came fluttering about his head, as if it had knownhim through many summers.
"How close he stands to nature!" said Miriam, observing this pleasantfamiliarity between her companion and the bird. "He shall make me asnatural as himself for this one hour."
As they strayed through that sweet wilderness, she felt more and morethe influence of his elastic temperament. Miriam was an impressibleand impulsive creature, as unlike herself, in different moods, as if amelancholy maiden and a glad one were both bound within the girdle abouther waist, and kept in magic thraldom by the brooch that clasped it.Naturally, it is true, she was the more inclined to melancholy,yet fully capable of that high frolic of the spirits which richlycompensates for many gloomy hours; if her soul was apt to lurk in thedarkness of a cavern, she could sport madly in the sunshine beforethe cavern's mouth. Except the freshest mirth of animal spirits, likeDonatello's, there is no merriment, no wild exhilaration, comparable tothat of melancholy people escaping from the dark region in which it istheir custom to keep themselves imprisoned.
So the shadowy Miriam almost outdid Donatello on his own ground. Theyran races with each other, side by side, with shouts and laughter; theypelted one another with early flowers, and gathering them up twinedthem with green leaves into garlands for both their heads. They playedtogether like children, or creatures of immortal youth. So much had theyflung aside the sombre habitudes of daily life, that they seemed bornto be sportive forever, and endowed with eternal mirthfulness insteadof any deeper joy. It was a glimpse far backward into Arcadian life, or,further still, into the Golden Age, before mankind was burdened withsin and sorrow, and before pleasure had been darkened with those shadowsthat bring it into high relief, and make it happiness.
"Hark!" cried Donatello, stopping short, as he was about to bindMiriam's fair hands with flowers, and lead her along in triumph, "thereis music somewhere in the grove!"
"It is your kinsman, Pan, most likely," said Miriam, "playing on hispipe. Let us go seek him, and make him puff out his rough cheeks andpipe his merriest air! Come; the strain of music will guide us onwardlike a gayly colored thread of silk."
"Or like a chain of flowers," responded Donatello, drawing her along bythat which he had twined. "This way!--Come!"