_bambino_!" And she took the lamp and conducted me to the other side of
the room, where on the wall, in a plain black frame, hung a large drawing
in red chalk. Beneath it was fastened a little howl for holy water. The
drawing represented a very young child, entirely naked, half nestling
back against his mother's gown, but with his two little arms
outstretched, as if in the act of benediction. It was executed with
singular freedom and power, and yet seemed vivid with the sacred bloom of
infancy. A sort of dimpled elegance and grace, mingled with its
boldness, recalled the touch of Correggio. "That's what he can do!" said
my hostess. "It's the blessed little boy whom I lost. It's his very
image, and the Signor Teobaldo gave it me as a gift. He has given me
many things besides!"
I looked at the picture for some time and admired it immensely. Turning
back to Theobald I assured him that if it were hung among the drawings in
the Uffizi and labelled with a glorious name it would hold its own. My
praise seemed to give him extreme pleasure; he pressed my hands, and his
eyes filled with tears. It moved him apparently with the desire to
expatiate on the history of the drawing, for he rose and made his adieux
to our companion, kissing her band with the same mild ardour as before.
It occurred to me that the offer of a similar piece of gallantry on my
own part might help me to know what manner of woman she was. When she
perceived my intention she withdrew her hand, dropped her eyes solemnly,
and made me a severe curtsey. Theobald took my arm and led me rapidly
into the street.
"And what do you think of the divine Serafina?" he cried with fervour.
"It is certainly an excellent style of good looks!" I answered.
He eyed me an instant askance, and then seemed hurried along by the
current of remembrance. "You should have seen the mother and the child
together, seen them as I first saw them--the mother with her head draped
in a shawl, a divine trouble in her face, and the bambino pressed to her
bosom. You would have said, I think, that Raphael had found his match in
common chance. I was coming in, one summer night, from a long walk in
the country, when I met this apparition at the city gate. The woman held
out her hand. I hardly knew whether to say, 'What do you want?' or to
fall down and worship. She asked for a little money. I saw that she was
beautiful and pale; she might have stepped out of the stable of
Bethlehem! I gave her money and helped her on her way into the town. I
had guessed her story. She, too, was a maiden mother, and she had been
turned out into the world in her shame. I felt in all my pulses that
here was my subject marvellously realised. I felt like one of the old
monkish artists who had had a vision. I rescued the poor creatures,
cherished them, watched them as I would have done some precious work of
art, some lovely fragment of fresco discovered in a mouldering cloister.
In a month--as if to deepen and sanctify the sadness and sweetness of it
all--the poor little child died. When she felt that he was going she
held him up to me for ten minutes, and I made that sketch. You saw a
feverish haste in it, I suppose; I wanted to spare the poor little mortal
the pain of his position. After that I doubly valued the mother. She is
the simplest, sweetest, most natural creature that ever bloomed in this
brave old land of Italy. She lives in the memory of her child, in her
gratitude for the scanty kindness I have been able to show her, and in
her simple religion! She is not even conscious of her beauty; my
admiration has never made her vain. Heaven knows that I have made no
secret of it. You must have observed the singular transparency of her
expression, the lovely modesty of her glance. And was there ever such a
truly virginal brow, such a natural classic elegance in the wave of the
hair and the arch of the forehead? I have studied her; I may say I know
her. I have absorbed her little by little; my mind is stamped and
imbued, and I have determined now to clinch the impression; I shall at
last invite her to sit for me!"
"'At last--at last'?" I repeated, in much amazement. "Do you mean that
she has never done so yet?"
"I have not really had--a--a sitting," said Theobald, speaking very
slowly. "I have taken notes, you know; I have got my grand fundamental
impression. That's the great thing! But I have not actually had her as
a model, posed and draped and lighted, before my easel."
What had become for the moment of my perception and my tact I am at a
loss to say; in their absence I was unable to repress a headlong
exclamation. I was destined to regret it. We had stopped at a turning,
beneath a lamp. "My poor friend," I exclaimed, laying my hand on his
shoulder, "you have _dawdled_! She's an old, old woman--for a Madonna!"
It was as if I had brutally struck him; I shall never forget the long,
slow, almost ghastly look of pain, with which he answered me.
"Dawdled?--old, old?" he stammered. "Are you joking?"
"Why, my dear fellow, I suppose you don't take her for a woman of
twenty?"
He drew a long breath and leaned against a house, looking at me with
questioning, protesting, reproachful eyes. At last, starting forward,
and grasping my arm--"Answer me solemnly: does she seem to you truly old?
Is she wrinkled, is she faded, am I blind?"
Then at last I understood the immensity of his illusion how, one by one,
the noiseless years had ebbed away and left him brooding in charmed
inaction, for ever preparing for a work for ever deferred. It seemed to
me almost a kindness now to tell him the plain truth. "I should be sorry
to say you are blind," I answered, "but I think you are deceived. You
have lost time in effortless contemplation. Your friend was once young
and fresh and virginal; but, I protest, that was some years ago. Still,
she has _de beaux restes_. By all means make her sit for you!" I broke
down; his face was too horribly reproachful.
He took off his hat and stood passing his handkerchief mechanically over
his forehead. "_De beaux restes_? I thank you for sparing me the plain
English. I must make up my Madonna out of _de beaux restes_! What a
masterpiece she will be! Old--old! Old--old!" he murmured.
"Never mind her age," I cried, revolted at what I had done, "never mind
my impression of her! You have your memory, your notes, your genius.
Finish your picture in a month. I pronounce it beforehand a masterpiece,
and I hereby offer you for it any sum you may choose to ask."
He stared, but he seemed scarcely to understand me. "Old--old!" he kept
stupidly repeating. "If she is old, what am I? If her beauty has faded,
where--where is my strength? Has life been a dream? Have I worshipped
too long--have I loved too well?" The charm, in truth, was broken. That
the chord of illusion should have snapped at my light accidental touch
showed how it had been weakened by excessive tension. The poor fellow's
sense of wasted time, of vanished opportunity, seemed to roll in upon his
soul in waves of darkness. He suddenly dropped his head and burst into
tears.
I led him homeward with all possible tenderness, but I attempted neither
to check his grief, to restore his equanimity, nor to unsay the hard
truth. When we reached my hotel I tried to induce him to come so.
"We will drink a glass of wine," I said, smiling, "to the completion of
the Madonna."
With a violent effort he held up his head, mused for a moment with a
formidably sombre frown, and then giving me his hand, "I will finish it,"
he cried, "in a month! No, in a fortnight! After all, I have it
_here_!" And he tapped his forehead. "Of course she's old! She can
afford to have it said of her--a woman who has made twenty years pass
like a twelvemonth! Old--old! Why, sir, she shall be eternal!"
I wished to see him safely to his own door, but he waved me back and
walked away with an air of resolution, whistling and swinging his cane. I
waited a moment, and then followed him at a distance, and saw him proceed
to cross the Santa Trinita Bridge. When he reached the middle he
suddenly paused, as if his strength had deserted him, and leaned upon the
parapet gazing over into the river. I was careful to keep him in sight;
I confess that I passed ten very nervous minutes. He recovered himself
at last, and went his way, slowly and with hanging head.
That I had really startled poor Theobald into a bolder use of his long-
garnered stores of knowledge and taste, into the vulgar effort and hazard
of production, seemed at first reason enough for his continued silence
and absence; but as day followed day without his either calling or
sending me a line, and without my meeting him in his customary haunts, in
the galleries, in the Chapel at San Lorenzo, or strolling between the
Arno side and the great hedge-screen of verdure which, along the drive of
the Cascine, throws the fair occupants of barouche and phaeton into such
becoming relief--as for more than a week I got neither tidings nor sight
of him, I began to fear that I had fatally offended him, and that,
instead of giving a wholesome impetus to his talent, I had brutally
paralysed it. I had a wretched suspicion that I had made him ill. My
stay at Florence was drawing to a close, and it was important that,
before resuming my journey, I should assure myself of the truth.
Theobald, to the last, had kept his lodging a mystery, and I was
altogether at a loss where to look for him. The simplest course was to
make inquiry of the beauty of the Mercato Vecchio, and I confess that
unsatisfied curiosity as to the lady herself counselled it as well.
Perhaps I had done her injustice, and she was as immortally fresh and
fair as be conceived her. I was, at any rate, anxious to behold once
more the ripe enchantress who had made twenty years pass as a
twelvemonth. I repaired accordingly, one morning, to her abode, climbed
the interminable staircase, and reached her door. It stood ajar, and as
I hesitated whether to enter, a little serving-maid came clattering out
with an empty kettle, as if she had just performed some savoury errand.
The inner door, too, was open; so I crossed the little vestibule and
entered the room in which I had formerly been received. It had not its
evening aspect. The table, or one end of it, was spread for a late
breakfast, and before it sat a gentleman--an individual, at least, of the
male sex--doing execution upon a beefsteak and onions, and a bottle of
wine. At his elbow, in friendly proximity, was placed the lady of the
house. Her attitude, as I entered, was not that of an enchantress. With
one hand she held in her lap a plate of smoking maccaroni; with the other
she had lifted high in air one of the pendulous filaments of this
succulent compound, and was in the act of slipping it gently down her
throat. On the uncovered end of the table, facing her companion, were
ranged half a dozen small statuettes, of some snuff-coloured substance
resembling terra-cotta. He, brandishing his knife with ardour, was
apparently descanting on their merits.
Evidently I darkened the door. My hostess dropped liner maccaroni--into
her mouth, and rose hastily with a harsh exclamation and a flushed face.
I immediately perceived that the Signora Serafina's secret was even
better worth knowing than I had supposed, and that the way to learn it
was to take it for granted. I summoned my best Italian, I smiled and
bowed and apologised for my intrusion; and in a moment, whether or no I
had dispelled the lady's irritation, I had at least stimulated her
prudence. I was welcome, she said; I must take a seat. This was another
friend of hers--also an artist, she declared with a smile which was
almost amiable. Her companion wiped his moustache and bowed with great
civility. I saw at a glance that he was equal to the situation. He was
presumably the author of the statuettes on the table, and he knew a money-
spending _forestiere_ when he saw one. He was a small wiry man, with a
clever, impudent, tossed-up nose, a sharp little black eye, and waxed
ends to his moustache. On the side of his head he wore jauntily a little
crimson velvet smoking-cap, and I observed that his feet were encased in
brilliant slippers. On Serafina's remarking with dignity that I was the
friend of Mr. Theobald, he broke out into that fantastic French of which
certain Italians are so insistently lavish, and declared with fervour
that Mr. Theobald was a magnificent genius.
"I am sure I don't know," I answered with a shrug. "If you are in a
position to affirm it, you have the advantage of me. I have seen nothing
from his hand but the bambino yonder, which certainly is fine."
He declared that the bambino was a masterpiece, a pure Corregio. It was
only a pity, he added with a knowing laugh, that the sketch had not been
made on some good bit of honeycombed old panel. The stately Serafina
hereupon protested that Mr. Theobald was the soul of honour, and that he
would never lend himself to a deceit. "I am not a judge of genius," she
said, "and I know nothing of pictures. I am but a poor simple widow; but
I know that the Signor Teobaldo has the heart of an angel and the virtue
of a saint. He is my benefactor," she added sententiously. The after-
glow of the somewhat sinister flush with which she had greeted me still
lingered in her cheek, and perhaps did not favour her beauty; I could not
but fancy it a wise custom of Theobald's to visit her only by
candle-light. She was coarse, and her pour adorer was a poet.
"I have the greatest esteem for him," I said; "it is for this reason that
I have been uneasy at not seeing him for ten days. Have you seen him? Is
he perhaps ill?"
"Ill! Heaven forbid!" cried Serafina, with genuine vehemence.
Her companion uttered a rapid expletive, and reproached her with not
having been to see him. She hesitated a moment; then she simpered the
least bit and bridled. "He comes to see me--without reproach! But it
would not be the same for me to go to him, though, indeed, you may almost
call him a man of holy life."
"He has the greatest admiration for you," I said. "He would have been
honoured by your visit."
She looked at me a moment sharply. "More admiration than you. Admit
that!" Of course I protested with all the eloquence at my command, and
my mysterious hostess then confessed that she had taken no fancy to me on
my former visit, and that, Theobald not having returned, she believed I
had poisoned his mind against her. "It would be no kindness to the poor
gentleman, I can tell you that," she said. "He has come to see me every
evening for years. It's a long friendship! No one knows him as well as
I."
"I don't pretend to know him or to understand him," I said. "He's a
mystery! Nevertheless, he seems to me a little--" And I touched my
forehead and waved my hand in the air.
Serafina glanced at her companion a moment, as if for inspiration. He
contented himself with shrugging his shoulders as he filled his glass
again. The _padrona_ hereupon gave me a more softly insinuating smile
than would have seemed likely to bloom on so candid a brow. "It's for
that that I love him!" she said. "The world has so little kindness for
such persons. It laughs at them, and despises them, and cheats them. He
is too good for this wicked life! It's his fancy that he finds a little
Paradise up here in my poor apartment. If he thinks so, how can I help
it? He has a strange belief--really, I ought to be ashamed to tell
you--that I resemble the Blessed Virgin: Heaven forgive me! I let him
think what he pleases, so long as it makes him happy. He was very kind
to me once, and I am not one that forgets a favour. So I receive him
every evening civilly, and ask after his health, and let him look at me
on this side and that! For that matter, I may say it without vanity, I
was worth looking at once! And he's not always amusing, poor man! He
sits sometimes for an hour without speaking a word, or else he talks
away, without stopping, on art and nature, and beauty and duty, and fifty
fine things that are all so much Latin to me. I beg you to understand
that he has never said a word to me that I mightn't decently listen to.
He may be a little cracked, but he's one of the blessed saints."
"Eh!" cried the man, "the blessed saints were all a little cracked!"
Serafina, I fancied, left part of her story untold; but she told enough
of it to make poor Theobald's own statement seem intensely pathetic in
its exalted simplicity. "It's a strange fortune, certainly," she went
on, "to have such a friend as this dear man--a friend who is less than a
lover and more than a friend." I glanced at her companion, who preserved
an impenetrable smile, twisted the end of his moustache, and disposed of
a copious mouthful. Was _he_ less than a lover? "But what will you
have?" Serafina pursued. "In this hard world one must not ask too many
questions; one must take what comes and keep what one gets. I have kept
my good friend for twenty years, and I do hope that, at this time of day,
signore, you have not come to turn him against me!"
I assured her that I had no such design, and that I should vastly regret
disturbing Mr. Theobald's habits or convictions. On the contrary, I was
alarmed about him, and I should immediately go in search of him. She
gave me his address, and a florid account of her sufferings at his non-
appearance. She had not been to him for various reasons; chiefly because
she was afraid of displeasing him, as he had always made such a mystery
of his home. "You might have sent this gentleman!" I ventured to
suggest.
"Ah," cried the gentleman, "he admires the Signora Serafina, but he
wouldn't admire me." And then, confidentially, with his finger on his
nose, "He's a purist!"
I was about to withdraw, after having promised that I would inform the
Signora Serafina of my friend's condition, when her companion, who had
risen from table and girded his loins apparently for the onset, grasped
me gently by the arm, and led me before the row of statuettes. "I
perceive by your conversation, signore, that you are a patron of the
arts. Allow me to request your honourable attention for these modest
products of my own ingenuity. They are brand-new, fresh from my atelier,
and have never been exhibited in public. I have brought them here to
receive the verdict of this dear lady, who is a good critic, for all she
may pretend to the contrary. I am the inventor of this peculiar style of
statuette--of subject, manner, material, everything. Touch them, I pray
you; handle them freely--you needn't fear. Delicate as they look, it is
impossible they should break! My various creations have met with great
success. They are especially admired by Americans. I have sent them all
over Europe--to London, Paris, Vienna! You may have observed some little
specimens in Paris, on the Boulevard, in a shop of which they constitute
the specialty. There is always a crowd about the window. They form a
very pleasing ornament for the mantel-shelf of a gay young bachelor, for
the boudoir of a pretty woman. You couldn't make a prettier present to a
person with whom you wished to exchange a harmless joke. It is not
classic art, signore, of course; but, between ourselves, isn't classic
art sometimes rather a bore? Caricature, burlesque, _la charge_, as the
French say, has hitherto been confined to paper, to the pen and pencil.
Now, it has been my inspiration to introduce it into statuary. For this
purpose I have invented a peculiar plastic compound which you will permit
me not to divulge. That's my secret, signore! It's as light, you
perceive, as cork, and yet as firm as alabaster! I frankly confess that
I really pride myself as much on this little stroke of chemical ingenuity
as upon the other element of novelty in my creations--my types. What do
you say to my types, signore? The idea is bold; does it strike you as
happy? Cats and monkeys--monkeys and cats--all human life is there!
Human life, of course, I mean, viewed with the eye of the satirist! To
combine sculpture and satire, signore, has been my unprecedented
ambition. I flatter myself that I have not egregiously failed."
As this jaunty Juvenal of the chimney-piece delivered himself of his
persuasive allocution, he took up his little groups successively from the
table, held them aloft, turned them about, rapped them with his knuckles,
and gazed at them lovingly, with his head on one side. They consisted
each of a cat and a monkey, fantastically draped, in some preposterously
sentimental conjunction. They exhibited a certain sameness of motive,
and illustrated chiefly the different phases of what, in delicate terms,
may be called gallantry and coquetry; but they were strikingly clever and
expressive, and were at once very perfect cats and monkeys and very
natural men and women. I confess, however, that they failed to amuse me.
I was doubtless not in a mood to enjoy them, for they seemed to me
peculiarly cynical and vulgar. Their imitative felicity was revolting.
As I looked askance at the complacent little artist, brandishing them
between finger and thumb and caressing them with an amorous eye, he
seemed to me himself little more than an exceptionally intelligent ape. I
mustered an admiring grin, however, and he blew another blast. "My
figures are studied from life! I have a little menagerie of monkeys
whose frolics I contemplate by the hour. As for the cats, one has only
to look out of one's back window! Since I have begun to examine these
expressive little brutes, I have made many profound observations.
Speaking, signore, to a man of imagination, I may say that my little
designs are not without a philosophy of their own. Truly, I don't know
whether the cats and monkeys imitate us, or whether it's we who imitate
them." I congratulated him on his philosophy, and he resumed: "You will
do use the honour to admit that I have handled my subjects with delicacy.
Eh, it was needed, signore! I have been free, but not too free--eh? Just
a hint, you know! You may see as much or as little as you please. These
little groups, however, are no measure of my invention. If you will
favour me with a call at my studio, I think that you will admit that my
combinations are really infinite. I likewise execute figures to command.
You have perhaps some little motive--the fruit of your philosophy of
life, signore--which you would like to have interpreted. I can promise
to work it up to your satisfaction; it shall be as malicious as you
please! Allow me to present you with my card, and to remind you that my
prices are moderate. Only sixty francs for a little group like that. My
statuettes are as durable as bronze--_aere perennius_, signore--and,
between ourselves, I think they are more amusing!"
As I pocketed his card I glanced at Madonna Serafina, wondering whether
she had an eye for contrasts. She had picked up one of the little
couples and was tenderly dusting it with a feather broom.
What I had just seen and heard had so deepened my compassionate interest
in my deluded friend that I took a summary leave, making my way directly
to the house designated by this remarkable woman. It was in an obscure
corner of the opposite side of the town, and presented a sombre and
squalid appearance. An old woman in the doorway, on my inquiring for
Theobald, ushered me in with a mumbled blessing and an expression of
relief at the poor gentleman having a friend. His lodging seemed to
consist of a single room at the top of the house. On getting no answer
to my knock, I opened the door, supposing that he was absent, so that it
gave me a certain shock to find him sitting there helpless and dumb. He
was seated near the single window, facing an easel which supported a
large canvas. On my entering he looked up at me blankly, without
changing his position, which was that of absolute lassitude and
dejection, his arms loosely folded, his legs stretched before him, his
head hanging on his breast. Advancing into the room I perceived that his
face vividly corresponded with his attitude. He was pale, haggard, and
unshaven, and his dull and sunken eye gazed at me without a spark of
recognition. I had been afraid that he would greet me with fierce
reproaches, as the cruelly officious patron who had turned his
contentment to bitterness, and I was relieved to find that my appearance
awakened no visible resentment. "Don't you know me?" I asked, as I put
out my hand. "Have you already forgotten me?"