THE BRONZE PONTIFF’S BENEDICTION
When the last of the twelve strokes had fallen from the cathedral clock,
Kenyon threw his eyes over the busy scene of the market place, expecting
to discern Miriam somewhere in the ‘crowd. He looked next towards the
cathedral itself, where it was reasonable to imagine that she might have
taken shelter, while awaiting her appointed time. Seeing no trace of
her in either direction, his eyes came back from their quest somewhat
disappointed, and rested on a figure which was leaning, like Donatello
and himself, on the iron balustrade that surrounded the statue. Only a
moment before, they two had been alone.
It was the figure of a woman, with her head bowed on her hands, as if
she deeply felt--what we have been endeavoring to convey into our feeble
description--the benign and awe-inspiring influence which the pontiff’s
statue exercises upon a sensitive spectator. No matter though it were
modelled for a Catholic chief priest, the desolate heart, whatever be
its religion, recognizes in that image the likeness of a father.
“Miriam,” said the sculptor, with a tremor in his voice, “is it
yourself?”
“It is I,” she replied; “I am faithful to my engagement, though with
many fears.” She lifted her head, and revealed to Kenyon--revealed to
Donatello likewise--the well-remembered features of Miriam. They were
pale and worn, but distinguished even now, though less gorgeously, by
a beauty that might be imagined bright enough to glimmer with its own
light in a dim cathedral aisle, and had no need to shrink from the
severer test of the mid-day sun. But she seemed tremulous, and hardly
able to go through with a scene which at a distance she had found
courage to undertake.
“You are most welcome, Miriam!” said the sculptor, seeking to afford
her the encouragement which he saw she so greatly required. “I have
a hopeful trust that the result of this interview will be propitious.
Come; let me lead you to Donatello.”
“No, Kenyon, no!” whispered Miriam, shrinking back; “unless of his own
accord he speaks my name,--unless he bids me stay,--no word shall ever
pass between him and me. It is not that I take upon me to be proud at
this late hour. Among other feminine qualities, I threw away my pride
when Hilda cast me off.”
“If not pride, what else restrains you?” Kenyon asked, a little angry at
her unseasonable scruples, and also at this half-complaining reference
to Hilda’s just severity. “After daring so much, it is no time for fear!
If we let him part from you without a word, your opportunity of doing
him inestimable good is lost forever.”
“True; it will be lost forever!” repeated Miriam sadly. “But, dear
friend, will it be my fault? I willingly fling my woman’s pride at his
feet. But--do you not see?--his heart must be left freely to its own
decision whether to recognize me, because on his voluntary choice
depends the whole question whether my devotion will do him good or
harm. Except he feel an infinite need of me, I am a burden and fatal
obstruction to him!”
“Take your own course, then, Miriam,” said Kenyon; “and, doubtless,
the crisis being what it is, your spirit is better instructed for its
emergencies than mine.”
While the foregoing words passed between them they had withdrawn a
little from the immediate vicinity of the statue, so as to be out of
Donatello’s hearing. Still, however, they were beneath the pontiff’s
outstretched hand; and Miriam, with her beauty and her sorrow, looked up
into his benignant face, as if she had come thither for his pardon and
paternal affection, and despaired of so vast a boon.
Meanwhile, she had not stood thus long in the public square of Perugia,
without attracting the observation of many eyes. With their quick sense
of beauty, these Italians had recognized her loveliness, and spared not
to take their fill of gazing at it; though their native gentleness and
courtesy made their homage far less obtrusive than that of Germans,
French, or Anglo-Saxons might have been. It is not improbable that
Miriam had planned this momentous interview, on so public a spot and at
high noon, with an eye to the sort of protection that would be thrown
over it by a multitude of eye-witnesses. In circumstances of profound
feeling and passion, there is often a sense that too great a seclusion
cannot be endured; there is an indefinite dread of being quite alone
with the object of our deepest interest. The species of solitude that
a crowd harbors within itself is felt to be preferable, in certain
conditions of the heart, to the remoteness of a desert or the depths
of an untrodden wood. Hatred, love, or whatever kind of too
intense emotion, or even indifference, where emotion has once been,
instinctively seeks to interpose some barrier between itself and the
corresponding passion in another breast. This, we suspect, was what
Miriam had thought of, in coming to the thronged piazza; partly this,
and partly, as she said, her superstition that the benign statue held
good influences in store.
But Donatello remained leaning against the balustrade. She dared not
glance towards him, to see whether he were pale and agitated, or calm as
ice. Only, she knew that the moments were fleetly lapsing away, and that
his heart must call her soon, or the voice would never reach her. She
turned quite away from him and spoke again to the sculptor.
“I have wished to meet you,” said she, “for more than one reason. News
has come to me respecting a dear friend of ours. Nay, not of mine! I
dare not call her a friend of mine, though once the dearest.”
“Do you speak of Hilda?” exclaimed Kenyon, with quick alarm. “Has
anything befallen her? When I last heard of her, she was still in Rome,
and well.”
“Hilda remains in Rome,” replied Miriam, “nor is she ill as regards
physical health, though much depressed in spirits. She lives quite alone
in her dove-cote; not a friend near her, not one in Rome, which, you
know, is deserted by all but its native inhabitants. I fear for her
health, if she continue long in such solitude, with despondency preying
on her mind. I tell you this, knowing the interest which the rare beauty
of her character has awakened in you.”
“I will go to Rome!” said the sculptor, in great emotion. “Hilda has
never allowed me to manifest more than a friendly regard; but, at least,
she cannot prevent my watching over her at a humble distance. I will set
out this very hour.”
“Do not leave us now!” whispered Miriam imploringly, and laying her hand
on his arm. “One moment more! Ah; he has no word for me!”
“Miriam!” said Donatello.
Though but a single word, and the first that he had spoken, its tone was
a warrant of the sad and tender depth from which it came. It told Miriam
things of infinite importance, and, first of all, that he still loved
her. The sense of their mutual crime had stunned, but not destroyed, the
vitality of his affection; it was therefore indestructible. That tone,
too, bespoke an altered and deepened character; it told of a vivified
intellect, and of spiritual instruction that had come through sorrow and
remorse; so that instead of the wild boy, the thing of sportive,
animal nature, the sylvan Faun, here was now the man of feeling and
intelligence.
She turned towards him, while his voice still reverberated in the depths
of her soul.
“You have called me!” said she.
“Because my deepest heart has need of you!” he replied. “Forgive,
Miriam, the coldness, the hardness with which I parted from you! I was
bewildered with strange horror and gloom.”
“Alas! and it was I that brought it on you,” said she. “What repentance,
what self-sacrifice, can atone for that infinite wrong? There was
something so sacred in the innocent and joyous life which you were
leading! A happy person is such an unaccustomed and holy creature in
this sad world! And, encountering so rare a being, and gifted with the
power of sympathy with his sunny life, it was my doom, mine, to bring
him within the limits of sinful, sorrowful mortality! Bid me depart,
Donatello! Fling me off! No good, through my agency, can follow upon
such a mighty evil!”
“Miriam,” said he, “our lot lies together. Is it not so? Tell me, in
Heaven’s name, if it be otherwise.”
Donatello’s conscience was evidently perplexed with doubt, whether the
communion of a crime, such as they two were jointly stained with, ought
not to stifle all the instinctive motions of their hearts, impelling
them one towards the other. Miriam, on the other hand, remorsefully
questioned with herself whether the misery, already accruing from
her influence, should not warn her to withdraw from his path. In this
momentous interview, therefore, two souls were groping for each other in
the darkness of guilt and sorrow, and hardly were bold enough to grasp
the cold hands that they found.
The sculptor stood watching the scene with earnest sympathy.
“It seems irreverent,” said he, at length; “intrusive, if not
irreverent, for a third person to thrust himself between the two solely
concerned in a crisis like the present. Yet, possibly as a bystander,
though a deeply interested one, I may discern somewhat of truth that
is hidden from you both; nay, at least interpret or suggest some ideas
which you might not so readily convey to each other.”
“Speak!” said Miriam. “We confide in you.” “Speak!” said Donatello. “You
are true and upright.”
“I well know,” rejoined Kenyon, “that I shall not succeed in uttering
the few, deep words which, in this matter, as in all others, include the
absolute truth. But here, Miriam, is one whom a terrible misfortune has
begun to educate; it has taken him, and through your agency, out of a
wild and happy state, which, within circumscribed limits, gave him joys
that he cannot elsewhere find on earth. On his behalf, you have incurred
a responsibility which you cannot fling aside. And here, Donatello, is
one whom Providence marks out as intimately connected with your destiny.
The mysterious process, by which our earthly life instructs us for
another state of being, was begun for you by her. She has rich gifts of
heart and mind, a suggestive power, a magnetic influence, a sympathetic
knowledge, which, wisely and religiously exercised, are what your
condition needs. She possesses what you require, and, with utter self
devotion, will use it for your good. The bond betwixt you, therefore,
is a true one, and never--except by Heaven’s own act--should be rent
asunder.”
“Ah; he has spoken the truth!” cried Donatello, grasping Miriam’s hand.
“The very truth, dear friend,” cried Miriam.
“But take heed,” resumed the sculptor, anxious not to violate the
integrity of his own conscience, “take heed; for you love one another,
and yet your bond is twined with such black threads that you must never
look upon it as identical with the ties that unite other loving souls.
It is for mutual support; it is for one another’s final good; it is for
effort, for sacrifice, but not for earthly happiness. If such be your
motive, believe me, friends, it were better to relinquish each other’s
hands at this sad moment. There would be no holy sanction on your wedded
life.”
“None,” said Donatello, shuddering. “We know it well.”
“None,” repeated Miriam, also shuddering. “United--miserably entangled
with me, rather--by a bond of guilt, our union might be for eternity,
indeed, and most intimate;--but, through all that endless duration, I
should be conscious of his horror.”
“Not for earthly bliss, therefore,” said Kenyon, “but for mutual
elevation, and encouragement towards a severe and painful life, you take
each other’s hands. And if, out of toil, sacrifice, prayer, penitence,
and earnest effort towards right things, there comes at length a sombre
and thoughtful, happiness, taste it, and thank Heaven! So that you live
not for it,--so that it be a wayside flower, springing along a path that
leads to higher ends,--it will be Heaven’s gracious gift, and a token
that it recognizes your union here below.”
“Have you no more to say?” asked Miriam earnestly. “There is matter of
sorrow and lofty consolation strangely mingled in your words.”
“Only this, dear Miriam,” said the sculptor; “if ever in your lives
the highest duty should require from either of you the sacrifice of the
other, meet the occasion without shrinking. This is all.”
While Kenyon spoke, Donatello had evidently taken in the ideas which he
propounded, and had ennobled them by the sincerity of his reception.
His aspect unconsciously assumed a dignity, which, elevating his former
beauty, accorded with the change that had long been taking place in his
interior self. He was a man, revolving grave and deep thoughts in his
breast. He still held Miriam’s hand; and there they stood, the beautiful
man, the beautiful woman, united forever, as they felt, in the
presence of these thousand eye-witnesses, who gazed so curiously at the
unintelligible scene. Doubtless the crowd recognized them as lovers,
and fancied this a betrothal that was destined to result in lifelong
happiness. And possibly it might be so. Who can tell where happiness may
come; or where, though an expected guest, it may never show its face?
Perhaps--shy, subtle thing--it had crept into this sad marriage bond,
when the partners would have trembled at its presence as a crime.
“Farewell!” said Kenyon; “I go to Rome.”
“Farewell, true friend!” said Miriam.
“Farewell!” said Donatello too. “May you be happy. You have no guilt to
make you shrink from happiness.”
At this moment it so chanced that all the three friends by one impulse
glanced upward at the statue of Pope Julius; and there was the majestic
figure stretching out the hand of benediction over them, and bending
down upon this guilty and repentant pair its visage of grand benignity.
There is a singular effect oftentimes when, out of the midst of
engrossing thought and deep absorption, we suddenly look up, and catch a
glimpse of external objects. We seem at such moments to look farther and
deeper into them, than by any premeditated observation; it is as if they
met our eyes alive, and with all their hidden meaning on the surface,
but grew again inanimate and inscrutable the instant that they became
aware of our glances. So now, at that unexpected glimpse, Miriam,
Donatello, and the sculptor, all three imagined that they beheld the
bronze pontiff endowed with spiritual life. A blessing was felt
descending upon them from his outstretched hand; he approved by look and
gesture the pledge of a deep union that had passed under his auspices.