THE STORY OF THE ARCHORGAN
From time to time a breath of Spring passed across the February sky.
"Do you feel the Spring?" said Stelio to his friend, inhaling deep
breaths of the new air.
La Foscarina fell behind him a step or two, because her resolute heart
was weakening; she lifted her face to the sky, now flecked with white
clouds like floating plumes. The raucous shriek of a siren whistle
prolonged itself in the estuary, becoming fainter by degrees until
the sound was as soft as the note of a flute. It seemed to the woman
that something rose from the depths of her heart and escaped with that
prolonged note, as a poignant grief gradually changes into a tender
memory.
"Yes, Spring has already arrived at the Tre Porti."
Once more they floated aimlessly along the lagoon, that water as
familiar to their thoughts as is the web to the weaver.
"Did you say at the Tre Porti?" the young man cried, enthusiastically,
as if his soul were reawakened. "It is there, near the lower bank, at
the setting of the moon, that the sailors take the Wind prisoner, and
bring it, chained, to Dardi Seguso. Some day I will tell you the story
of the Archorgan."
His air of mystery in describing the action of the sailors made La
Foscarina smile.
"What story?" she asked, enticed by his significant tone. "And what
does Seguso do here? Has the story anything to do with the master
glassblower?"
"Yes, but a master of a former day, who knew Latin and Greek, music and
architecture, who was admitted to the Academy of the Pellegrini, whose
gardens are at Murano; he was often invited to sup with Titian in his
house in the Contrada dei Biri; was a friend of Bernardo Cappello, of
Jacopo Zane, and other ancient Petrarchists. At Caterino Zeno's house
he saw the famous organ built for Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary,
and his magnificent idea came to him in the course of a discussion
with that Agostino Amadi who succeeded in adding to his collection of
instruments a true Grecian lyre, a great Lesbian heptachord, rich with
gold and ivory. Ah, imagine it, that relic of the school of Mitylene,
brought to Venice by a galley which, in passing through the waters of
Santa Maura, caught and dragged the body of Sappho as far as Malamocco,
like an armful of dead grass! But that, too, is another tale."
Again the nomad woman recovered her youthful spirits enough to smile,
pleased as a child to whom one shows a picture-book. How many marvelous
stories, how many delightful fancies had not the Visionary conjured
up for her on those waters, during the long hours of the afternoon?
How many enchantments had he not known how to weave for her, to the
rhythm of the oar, in words that made all things seem reality? How
many times, seated beside her beloved in the light boat, had she not
enjoyed that sort of waking dream in which all cares were banished,
carried away on waves of poetry?
"Tell it to me," she begged.
She wished to add:--This story will be the last.--But she restrained
herself, because up to this time she had not spoken to him of her fixed
resolution.
He laughed.
"You are as eager for stories as Sofia."
At that name, as when she heard the name of Spring, she felt her
resolution weaken; the cruelty of her fate pierced her heart, and her
whole being turned with yearning toward her escaping happiness.
"Look!" he said, pointing to the mirror-like lagoon, rippled here and
there by a light breeze. "Do not those infinite lines of silence aspire
to become music?"
Silvery-white in the calm afternoon, the estuary seemed to bear the
islets on its breast as lightly as the softest clouds hung from the sky.
"Well, the master glassblower heard at Zeno's house praises of the
famous organ of the King of Hungary, and cried: '_Corpo di Bacco!_
You shall see what an organ I will build, with my stick, _liquida
musa canente!_ I will make the god of organs! _Dant sonitum glaucæ
per stagna loquacia cannæ._ The waters of the lagoon shall give it
its tone, and in it the stones, the buoys, and the fish also shall
sing. _Multisonum silentium._ You shall see, by the body of Diana!'
All his hearers laughed, save Giulia da Ponte--because she had black
teeth! And the Sansovino gave a dissertation on hydraulic organs.
But the boaster, before taking his leave, invited the company to
hear his new music on the day of the Sensa, and promised that the
Doge on his Bucentaur should halt in the middle of the lagoon to
listen. That evening the news that Dardi Seguso had lost his senses
spread to Venice, and the Council, which had a tender regard for its
famous workmen, sent a messenger to Murano to learn the truth about
the report. The messenger found the artisan with his sweetheart,
Perdilanza, who was very loving to him because she was anxious,
and feared that Dardi was insane. The master, after looking at the
messenger with fiery eyes, burst into a hearty laugh, which reassured
her as to his state of mind; then, quite calm again, Seguso ordered
the messenger to report to the Council that, on the day of the Sensa,
Venice, San Marco, the Grand Canal, and the Palace of the Doges
should possess yet another miracle. On the following day, he made a
formal request for the possession of one of the five little islets
that circled Murano like the satellites of a planet, but have now
disappeared, or have dwindled to mere sandbanks. After exploring the
waters around Temòdia, Trencòre, Galbaia, Mortesina, and La Folèga, he
chose Temòdia as one chooses a bride, and Perdilanza entered the shadow
of affliction. Look, Fosca; perhaps even now we are passing over the
memory of Temòdia. The organ-pipes are sunk deep in the mud, but they
never will decay. There are seven thousand of them. We are passing over
the ruins of a forest of melodious glass. How delicate the seaweed is
here!"
"Tell me the reason why Perdilanza entered the shadow of affliction,"
said La Foscarina, as both leaned over and looked deep into the
beautiful clear waters.
"Because her name had been driven from the lips and the heart of her
lover by the name of Temòdia, which he constantly uttered with vehement
ardor, and because the island was the only place to which she might
not follow him. There he had constructed his new work-rooms, and there
he stayed the greater part of the day, and almost all night, assisted
by his workmen, whom he had bound to silence by a solemn oath before
the altar. The Council, in ordering that the master should be provided
with everything necessary for his tremendous task, had decreed that he
should lose his head should his work prove inferior to his proud boast.
Then Dardi tied a scarlet thread around his bare neck."
La Foscarina felt as if she were in a dream. Stelio seemed to have been
speaking of himself in those strange figures of speech, as on that last
night of September when he had explained the myth of the pomegranate,
and the name of the imaginary woman began with the first two syllables
of the name he had given her in those days! Was any personal
significance veiled behind this story? Why had he, deliberately, in
the vicinity of the place where she had been seized with that terrible
laughter, called up, by that fanciful tale, the memory of the broken
vase? In trying to understand, she made for herself an instrument
of torture, with the dream-fancies of Stelio's brain. She did not
remember that as yet he was ignorant of her approaching departure.
Instinctively she said within herself:--I am going far-away; do not
wound me.--
She wished to hear the remainder of the story, however, for she longed
to understand him fully.
"Well, what happened then to the man with the scarlet thread?" she
inquired.
"More than once he felt his head was insecure on his shoulders," Stelio
replied laughingly. "He had to blow pipes as large as the trunk of a
tree, and he had to do it with his own mouth, unaided by bellows. He
blew and blew with all his might, without ceasing. Fancy it! The lungs
of a Cyclops would hardly be strong enough for that. Ah, some day I
shall describe the fever of that existence hanging between the ax and
the production of a miracle, in colloquy with the elements. He had
Fire, Water, and Earth, but lacked Air--the movement of the Air. But
every day the Council of Ten sent to him a red-haired man to wish him
good morning--you know, that red-haired man, with a cap over his eyes,
who embraces the column in the _Adoration of the Magi_ of the second
Bonifazio. After colossal labors, Seguso had a brilliant idea. He found
a magician, who was said to have power over the Wind in favor of long
navigations. He said to the wizard: 'I need a little wind, not too
light nor too strong, but steady and gentle, which I could manage as I
wish: only a little breeze with which to blow some glass that I have in
my head. _Lenius aspirans aura secunda venit._ Do you understand, old
man?'"
The story-teller burst into a ringing laugh, for he could fancy the
scene with all its details in a house on the Calle della Testa, at San
Zanepolo, where the Schiavone lived with his daughter.
La Foscarina tried to join in his gayety; but his boyish laughter
pained her as it had once before when she was lost in the labyrinth.
"It is a long story," Stelio went on. "Some day I shall use it, but
I am keeping it for a time when I have more leisure. Now fancy! The
magician works the spell. Every night Dardi sent his sailors to the Tre
Porti to spread a snare for the little Wind. At last, one night, or
rather just before dawn, when the moon was about to set, they caught it
asleep on a sandy bank in the midst of a flock of tired swallows it had
borne thither.
"There it lay, on its back, breathing as lightly as a child in the
salty aroma of the waters, almost covered by innumerable little
forked tails. The rising tide rocked it in its slumber, and the
black-and-white travelers fluttered about it, weary with their long
flight."
"What a charming fancy!" exclaimed La Foscarina at this fresh picture.
"Where have you seen that?"
"Here begins the real charm of the story," he answered. "They seize the
sleeping Wind, bind it with osier withes, carry it aboard their boat,
and set sail for Temòdia. The bark is invaded by the flock of swallows,
which will not abandon the leader of their flight."
Stelio paused, because the details of the fantasy crowded his
imagination to such a degree that he knew not which to choose to
relate.
"And then?" urged his companion, with interest.
"I can tell no more now, Fosca. I know too many things.... Well,
imagine that Dardi falls in love with his prisoner. It is called
Ornitio, because it leads flights of migrating birds. A continual
twittering of swallows surrounds Temòdia; nests hang from the posts and
the scaffolding that surround the great structure; wings are singed
in the flames of the furnace, when Ornitio blows through the tube to
create a light and luminous column with that ball of burning paste. But
before he had tamed it and taught it what to do, he had much trouble
with it. The Master of the Flame began by speaking Latin to it, and
reciting lines of Virgil to it, believing it would understand. But the
azure-haired Ornitio spoke Greek, naturally, with a slightly sibilant
accent. It knew Sappho's odes by heart, and while it breathed through
the unequal tubes, it remembered the pipes of Pan."
"And what did it eat?"
"Pollen and salt."
"Who gave it the food?"
"No one. It was sufficient to inhale the pollen and salt scattered on
the breeze."
"And did it never try to escape?"
"Always. But Seguso took infinite precautions, like the lover he was."
"And did Ornitio return his love?"
"Yes, it began to love him after a time, particularly because of the
scarlet thread that the master wore continually around his bare neck."
"And Perdilanza?"
"She was left alone, and languished in her grief. I will tell you more
of her some day. Some day I shall go to the seashore of Palestrina, and
I will write this fable for you in the golden sand."
"But how does the story end?"
"The miracle is accomplished. The Archorgan is raised at Temòdia with
its seven thousand glass pipes, resembling one of those frozen forests
which Ornitio--who was a little inclined to boast of the wonders it had
met in its travels--declared it had seen in the land of the Iporborrei.
At last comes the day of the Sensa. The _Serenissimo_, between the
Patriarch and the Archbishop of Spalatro, goes out of the harbor of San
Marco on the _Bucentaur_. So great is the pomp that Ornitio believes
it must be the triumphal return of the son of Chronos. The fountains
are set playing all around Temòdia; and animated by the eternal silence
of the lagoon, the gigantic organ peals forth, under the magic fingers
of the new musicians, a wave of harmony so vast that it reaches as
far as the mainland and even to the Adriatic. The _Bucentaur_ stops,
because its forty oars have suddenly fallen at its sides, abandoned
by the astonished crew. But suddenly the wave of harmony breaks into
discordant sounds, and at last it dies away in a faint murmur. Dardi
feels the instrument becoming dumb under his fingers, as if his own
soul had failed. What has happened? The master hears only great shouts
of jeers and scorn that come to him through the silent pipes--the sound
of firing and the uproar of the populace. A group embarks from the
_Bucentaur_, bringing the red-haired man, who bears a block and an ax.
The blow is aimed exactly at the scarlet thread; the head falls, and is
thrown into the water, where it floats like the head of Orpheus."
"But what had happened?"
"Perdilanza had thrown herself into the cataract! The water dragged her
into the machinery of the organ. Her body, with its famous hair, lay
across the great delicate instrument, and silenced its musical heart."
"But Ornitio?"
"Ornitio rescued the head from the water and flew away with it toward
the sea. The swallows heard of its flight and followed it, and very
soon a cloud of black wings and white surrounds the fugitive. All the
nests in Venice remain empty after this sudden flight."
"And Dardi's head?"
"Where it is, no one knows," concluded the story-teller, laughing.
The woman bent her head in thoughtful silence.
"Perhaps there is a hidden meaning in your tale," she said, after a
pause. "Perhaps I have understood."
"Alas, yes! if there were any resemblance between my audacity and that
of the master workman. Perhaps I too should wear a scarlet thread
around my neck, as a sort of warning."
"You will have your great destiny. I have no fear for you."
He ceased to laugh.
"Yes, my friend, I must conquer. And you shall help me. Every morning
I too receive my menacing visitor--the expectation of those that love
me and those that hate me. Expectation should wear the dress of the
executioner, for nothing on earth is so pitiless."
"But it is the measure of your power."
He felt the vulture's beak in his breast. Instinctively he straightened
himself up, seized with an impatience of even their slow idling on the
water. Why did he live in such idleness? Every hour and every minute he
ought to be trying, struggling, fortifying himself against destruction,
diminution, violation, contagion. Every hour and every minute his eyes
should be fixed on his aim, and all his energies should be concentrated
upon it.
"Do you know this saying of the great Herodotus: 'The name of the bow
is Bios, and its work is death'? This saying is one that excites our
spirits even before communicating to it its exact meaning. I heard
it continually within myself, that evening last autumn, when I was
sitting at your table--the night of the Epiphany of the Flame. That
night I had an hour of true Dionysian life, an hour of secret though
terrible delight, as if I held in my breast the burning mountain where
the Tiades howl and shriek. Sometimes I could really hear songs and
clamor, and the cries of distant battle. It astonished me that I could
remain motionless, and the sense of my bodily immobility increased my
mental frenzy. I could see only your face, which suddenly appeared
extraordinarily beautiful, revealing all the strength of your soul;
and behind it I could see other countries and other peoples. If I
could only tell you how I saw you! In the tumult, at the passage of
marvelous images, accompanied by floods of music, I called to you as
in the thick of battle; I made appeals which perhaps you heard--not
for love alone, but for glory; not for one thirst, but for two, and
I know not which was the more ardent. And the face of my great work
appeared to me then the same as your face. I saw it, I tell you! And
with incredible rapidity my work took form in words, song, movement,
and symphony, and was so real that if I succeed in infusing a part of
it into that which I wish to express, I shall surely inflame the world.
"To express oneself! That is the necessity. The greatest vision has
no value if it is not manifested and condensed in vital forms. And
I have everything to create. I am not pouring my substance into
hereditary molds. My work is entirely my own invention. I must not,
and I will not, obey anything but my instinct and the genius of my
race. Nevertheless, like Dardi, who saw the famous organ at the house
of Caterino Zeno, I too have another work before my mind--a work
accomplished by a formidable creator, a gigantic work in the eyes of
man."
The image of the barbaric creator reappeared to him: the blue eyes
gleamed under the vast forehead, and he saw once more the white
hair tossed by the wind about that aged neck. He remembered his own
indescribable thrill of joy and fear when he had so unexpectedly felt
beneath his hand the throbbing of that sacred heart.
"I should say not before but around my spirit. Sometimes it is like
a stormy sea trying to draw me down and swallow me. My Temòdia is a
granite rock in the open sea, and I am like an artisan trying to erect
upon it a pure Doric temple. Compelled to defend the order of his
columns from the violence of the waves, his spirit is always strained
in order never to cease to hear, in the midst of the clamor, the secret
rhythm which alone must regulate the intervals between lines and
spaces. And in this sense too my tragedy is a battle."
He took one of his friend's hands.
"Do you hear the song?" he asked.
"Where is it?" she said, raising her face to the sky. "Is it in heaven
or on the earth?"
An infinite melody seemed to be flowing through the peaceful, silvery
atmosphere.
She felt Stelio's hand quiver.
"When Alessandro enters the illuminated chamber where the virgin has
been reading the lament of Antigone," he said, "he tells how he has
come on horseback across the plain of Argos, where the song of the
larks fills the sky. He says that one lark fell at his horse's feet,
like a stone, and lay there silent, overcome by its own frenzy of joy
in its song. He picked it up. 'Here it is.' Then you hold your hand
toward him, you take the bird, and murmur: 'Ah, it is still warm!' And
while you speak the virgin trembles. You can feel her quivering."
The actress felt the mystic chill steal over her once more, as if the
soul of the blind woman reëntered her own soul.
"At the end of the Prelude, the impetuosity of the chromatic
progressions expresses this growing joy, this fever of delight....
Listen, listen!... Ah, what a miracle! This morning, Fosca, this
morning I was at work upon my melody, and now it is developing itself
in the air! Are we not in a state of grace?"
A spirit of life seemed indeed running throughout the solitude; a
vehement inspiration filled the silence with emotion. La Foscarina gave
up her whole soul to it, as a leaf yields itself to the whirlwind,
ravished to the very summit of love and faith.
But a feverish impatience to act, to work, to accomplish seized the
young man. His capacity for work seemed multiplied. He thought of the
plenitude of the hours to come; he saw his work in concrete form--the
pages, the scores, the variety of needs, the richness of material
adaptable to rhythm.
"In a week, Fosca, if grace assists me, my Prelude will be finished,
and I should like to try it immediately with an orchestra. Perhaps I
shall go to Rome to do this. Antimo della Bella is even more impatient
than I; I receive a letter from him almost every day. I believe that
my presence in Rome is necessary for a few days in order to prevent
certain errors that may arise in the building of the theater. Antimo
writes about the possibility of tearing down the old stone stairs
leading from the Corsini Garden to the Janiculum. The street that will
lead to the theater, after one passes the Arch of Septimius, will
continue beside the Palazzo Corsini, cross the garden, and extend
to the foot of the hill. The hill is green and mossy, covered with
cypress, laurel, and flags. The Paulina fountain rises at the left.
A flight of stone steps leads to a terrace from which open two paths
bordered by Apollo-like laurels, and worthy of leading the people
toward Poetry. Can anyone imagine a nobler entrance? Centuries have
wrapped it in mystery; no sound is heard but the song of birds, the
tinkling of fountains, the whisper of the forest. And I believe
that poets and innocents can even hear there the fluttering of the
Hamadryads and the breath of Pan!"
The ugly shores, crumbling stones, decaying roots, traces of ruined
buildings, the odor of dissolution, the funereal cypresses, the black
crosses, in vain recalled to him the words the statues beside the
Brenta had spoken with their marble lips. Only the great song of
victory and liberty, stronger than all other signs, now touched the
heart of him who was to create with joy. "On! on! Higher! ever higher!"
And the heart of Perdita, purified from all cowardice, ready for any
test, betrothed itself once more to Life! As in that distant hour of
the delirious night, she repeated: "Let me serve! Let me serve!"