DONATELLO’S BUST
Kenyon, it will be remembered, had asked Donatello’s permission to model
his bust. The work had now made considerable progress, and necessarily
kept the sculptor’s thoughts brooding much and often upon his host’s
personal characteristics. These it was his difficult office to bring out
from their depths, and interpret them to all men, showing them what they
could not discern for themselves, yet must be compelled to recognize at
a glance, on the surface of a block of marble.
He had never undertaken a portrait-bust which gave him so much trouble
as Donatello’s; not that there was any special difficulty in hitting
the likeness, though even in this respect the grace and harmony of
the features seemed inconsistent with a prominent expression of
individuality; but he was chiefly perplexed how to make this genial and
kind type of countenance the index of the mind within. His acuteness and
his sympathies, indeed, were both somewhat at fault in their efforts
to enlighten him as to the moral phase through which the Count was now
passing. If at one sitting he caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a
genuine and permanent trait, it would probably be less perceptible on
a second occasion, and perhaps have vanished entirely at a third. So
evanescent a show of character threw the sculptor into despair; not
marble or clay, but cloud and vapor, was the material in which it
ought to be represented. Even the ponderous depression which constantly
weighed upon Donatello’s heart could not compel him into the kind of
repose which the plastic art requires.
Hopeless of a good result, Kenyon gave up all preconceptions about the
character of his subject, and let his hands work uncontrolled with the
clay, somewhat as a spiritual medium, while holding a pen, yields it
to an unseen guidance other than that of her own will. Now and then he
fancied that this plan was destined to be the successful one. A skill
and insight beyond his consciousness seemed occasionally to take up the
task. The mystery, the miracle, of imbuing an inanimate substance
with thought, feeling, and all the intangible attributes of the soul,
appeared on the verge of being wrought. And now, as he flattered
himself, the true image of his friend was about to emerge from the
facile material, bringing with it more of Donatello’s character than
the keenest observer could detect at any one moment in the face of the
original Vain expectation!--some touch, whereby the artist thought to
improve or hasten the result, interfered with the design of his unseen
spiritual assistant, and spoilt the whole. There was still the moist,
brown clay, indeed, and the features of Donatello, but without any
semblance of intelligent and sympathetic life.
“The difficulty will drive me mad, I verily believe!” cried the sculptor
nervously. “Look at the wretched piece of work yourself, my dear friend,
and tell me whether you recognize any manner of likeness to your inner
man?”
“None,” replied Donatello, speaking the simple truth. “It is like
looking a stranger in the face.”
This frankly unfavorable testimony so wrought with the sensitive artist,
that he fell into a passion with the stubborn image, and cared not what
might happen to it thenceforward. Wielding that wonderful power which
sculptors possess over moist clay, however refractory it may show itself
in certain respects, he compressed, elongated, widened, and otherwise
altered the features of the bust in mere recklessness, and at every
change inquired of the Count whether the expression became anywise more
satisfactory.
“Stop!” cried Donatello at last, catching the sculptor’s hand. “Let
it remain so!” By some accidental handling of the clay, entirely
independent of his own will, Kenyon had given the countenance a
distorted and violent look, combining animal fierceness with intelligent
hatred. Had Hilda, or had Miriam, seen the bust, with the expression
which it had now assumed, they might have recognized Donatello’s face as
they beheld it at that terrible moment when he held his victim over the
edge of the precipice.
“What have I done?” said the sculptor, shocked at his own casual
production. “It were a sin to let the clay which bears your features
harden into a look like that. Cain never wore an uglier one.”
“For that very reason, let it remain!” answered the Count, who had grown
pale as ashes at the aspect of his crime, thus strangely presented to
him in another of the many guises under which guilt stares the criminal
in the face. “Do not alter it! Chisel it, rather, in eternal marble!
I will set it up in my oratory and keep it continually before my eyes.
Sadder and more horrible is a face like this, alive with my own crime,
than the dead skull which my forefathers handed down to me!”
But, without in the least heeding Donatello’s remonstrances, the
sculptor again applied his artful fingers to the clay, and compelled the
bust to dismiss the expression that had so startled them both.
“Believe me,” said he, turning his eyes upon his friend, full of grave
and tender sympathy, “you know not what is requisite for your spiritual
growth, seeking, as you do, to keep your soul perpetually in the
unwholesome region of remorse. It was needful for you to pass through
that dark valley, but it is infinitely dangerous to linger there too
long; there is poison in the atmosphere, when we sit down and brood in
it, instead of girding up our loins to press onward. Not despondency,
not slothful anguish, is what you now require,--but effort! Has there
been an unalterable evil in your young life? Then crowd it out with
good, or it will lie corrupting there forever, and cause your capacity
for better things to partake its noisome corruption!”
“You stir up many thoughts,” said Donatello, pressing his hand upon his
brow, “but the multitude and the whirl of them make me dizzy.”
They now left the sculptor’s temporary studio, without observing that
his last accidental touches, with which he hurriedly effaced the look of
deadly rage, had given the bust a higher and sweeter expression than it
had hitherto worn. It is to be regretted that Kenyon had not seen
it; for only an artist, perhaps, can conceive the irksomeness, the
irritation of brain, the depression of spirits, that resulted from his
failure to satisfy himself, after so much toil and thought as he had
bestowed on Donatello’s bust. In case of success, indeed, all this
thoughtful toil would have been reckoned, not only as well bestowed,
but as among the happiest hours of his life; whereas, deeming himself to
have failed, it was just so much of life that had better never have
been lived; for thus does the good or ill result of his labor throw back
sunshine or gloom upon the artist’s mind. The sculptor, therefore, would
have done well to glance again at his work; for here were still the
features of the antique Faun, but now illuminated with a higher meaning,
such as the old marble never bore.
Donatello having quitted him, Kenyon spent the rest of the day strolling
about the pleasant precincts of Monte Beni, where the summer was now
so far advanced that it began, indeed, to partake of the ripe wealth of
autumn. Apricots had long been abundant, and had passed away, and plums
and cherries along with them. But now came great, juicy pears, melting
and delicious, and peaches of goodly size and tempting aspect, though
cold and watery to the palate, compared with the sculptor’s rich
reminiscences of that fruit in America. The purple figs had already
enjoyed their day, and the white ones were luscious now. The contadini
(who, by this time, knew Kenyon well) found many clusters of ripe grapes
for him, in every little globe of which was included a fragrant draught
of the sunny Monte Beni wine.
Unexpectedly, in a nook close by the farmhouse, he happened upon a spot
where the vintage had actually commenced. A great heap of early ripened
grapes had been gathered, and thrown into a mighty tub. In the middle
of it stood a lusty and jolly contadino, nor stood, merely, but stamped
with all his might, and danced amain; while the red juice bathed his
feet, and threw its foam midway up his brown and shaggy legs. Here,
then, was the very process that shows so picturesquely in Scripture
and in poetry, of treading out the wine-press and dyeing the feet and
garments with the crimson effusion as with the blood of a battlefield.
The memory of the process does not make the Tuscan wine taste more
deliciously. The contadini hospitably offered Kenyon a sample of the new
liquor, that had already stood fermenting for a day or two. He had tried
a similar draught, however, in years past, and was little inclined to
make proof of it again; for he knew that it would be a sour and bitter
juice, a wine of woe and tribulation, and that the more a man drinks of
such liquor, the sorrier he is likely to be.
The scene reminded the sculptor of our New England vintages, where the
big piles of golden and rosy apples lie under the orchard trees, in the
mild, autumnal sunshine; and the creaking cider-mill, set in motion by
a circumgyratory horse, is all a-gush with the luscious juice. To speak
frankly, the cider-making is the more picturesque sight of the two,
and the new, sweet cider an infinitely better drink than the ordinary,
unripe Tuscan wine. Such as it is, however, the latter fills thousands
upon thousands of small, flat barrels, and, still growing thinner and
sharper, loses the little life it had, as wine, and becomes apotheosized
as a more praiseworthy vinegar.
Yet all these vineyard scenes, and the processes connected with the
culture of the grape, had a flavor of poetry about them. The toil that
produces those kindly gifts of nature which are not the substance of
life, but its luxury, is unlike other toil. We are inclined to fancy
that it does not bend the sturdy frame and stiffen the overwrought
muscles, like the labor that is devoted in sad, hard earnest to
raise grain for sour bread. Certainly, the sunburnt young men and
dark-cheeked, laughing girls, who weeded the rich acres of Monte Beni,
might well enough have passed for inhabitants of an unsophisticated
Arcadia. Later in the season, when the true vintage time should come,
and the wine of Sunshine gush into the vats, it was hardly too wild a
dream that Bacchus himself might revisit the haunts which he loved of
old. But, alas! where now would he find the Faun with whom we see him
consorting in so many an antique group?
Donatello’s remorseful anguish saddened this primitive and delightful
life. Kenyon had a pain of his own, moreover, although not all a pain,
in the never quiet, never satisfied yearning of his heart towards Hilda.
He was authorized to use little freedom towards that shy maiden, even
in his visions; so that he almost reproached himself when sometimes his
imagination pictured in detail the sweet years that they might spend
together, in a retreat like this. It had just that rarest quality of
remoteness from the actual and ordinary world B a remoteness
through which all delights might visit them freely, sifted from all
troubles--which lovers so reasonably insist upon, in their ideal
arrangements for a happy union. It is possible, indeed, that even
Donatello’s grief and Kenyon’s pale, sunless affection lent a charm
to Monte Beni, which it would not have retained amid a more abundant
joyousness. The sculptor strayed amid its vineyards and orchards,
its dells and tangled shrubberies, with somewhat the sensations of an
adventurer who should find his way to the site of ancient Eden, and
behold its loveliness through the transparency of that gloom which has
been brooding over those haunts of innocence ever since the fall. Adam
saw it in a brighter sunshine, but never knew the shade of Pensive
beauty which Eden won from his expulsion.
It was in the decline of the afternoon that Kenyon returned from his
long, musing ramble, Old Tomaso--between whom and himself for some time
past there had been a mysterious understanding,--met him in the entrance
hall, and drew him a little aside.
“The signorina would speak with you,” he whispered.
“In the chapel?” asked the sculptor.
“No; in the saloon beyond it,” answered the butler: “the entrance you
once saw the signorina appear through it is near the altar, hidden
behind the tapestry.”
Kenyon lost no time in obeying the summons.