interests the mind."
"True, but some of the arms are too long, and the legs too short; the
foreshortening shows extreme ignorance; the figures are making
impossible gestures."
"Agreed, but graceful, none the less. I tell you that this boy, for they
say he is a mere child, will go a long way."
"He is a child of our city."
"Indeed! well, he will go around it and no farther," retorted a
Neapolitan.
From first to last Michelangelo Lavoratori heard more kindly praise than
bitter criticism; but he felt many thorns while plucking many roses, and
he realized that success is a sweetmeat in which there is a plentiful
supply of gall. He was depressed at first; then, folding his arms across
his breast, and contemplating his work, without listening farther to the
opinion of others, he took account of its merits and defects with an
impartiality which triumphed over his self-love.
"They are all right," he said. "It promises, but pays nothing in
advance. I have already made up my mind to destroy these canvases when I
store them in the storerooms of the palace, and I will do better
hereafter. I have made an experiment upon myself, which I do not regret,
although I am not very well satisfied with it; but I shall know how to
profit by it, and whether this undertaking is favorable to my fortunes
or not, it shall be to my talent."
Having recovered all his lucidity of thought, and reflecting that he was
not one of those patrons who assisted the poor by purchasing a card of
admission, Michel determined to abstain from watching the fête and to
walk about alone in some quiet corner of the palace until he felt
absolutely calm and disposed to go home and to bed. His reason had
returned, but the fatigue of the preceding days had left a touch of
feverish excitement in his blood and in his nerves. He bent his steps
toward the Casino, whence he could go out upon the natural terraces of
the mountain.
The whole of that magnificent abode was illuminated and adorned with
flowers; the public were allowed free access to every part; but, after
once making the tour of the upper floors, the crowd ceased to go
thither. The bulk of the spectacle, the dancing, music, bustle, youth
and love, were below, in the great temporary ball-room. No one remained
in the upper galleries, on the graceful staircases, or in the vast
apartments, save an occasional majestic or mysterious group of solemn
personages discussing affairs of state, or great coquettes collecting
and detaining by their refined conversation certain chosen men around
their chairs.
Toward midnight all those who had not a direct interest in the affair,
or were not enjoying themselves, took their leave, and, the concourse
becoming less numerous, the fête was more enjoyable and more beautiful
to the eye.
Michel reached the princess's aërial garden by a small secret
staircase. At that elevation the breeze was very cool, and he felt
exceedingly refreshed and comfortable as he sat on the top step of that
staircase, near a fragrant flower-bed. The garden was deserted. Through
the silver gauze curtains he could see the interior of the princess's
apartments, also deserted. But Michel was not long alone; Magnani joined
him.
Magnani was one of the handsomest young men among the mechanics of the
city. He was industrious, intelligent, high-spirited, and honest. Michel
did not attempt to combat the friendly feeling he inspired, and in his
company forgot the embarrassment and distrust which he had felt from the
beginning with all the workmen with whom his father's position had
compelled him to associate. He suffered, poor boy, after years of
leisure, to be thrown with young men who were inclined to be a little
rough and noisy, who reproached him for looking down on them, and whom
he made vain efforts to look upon as his equals.
He confessed everything to Magnani, whom he saw to be the most
intelligent of them all, and in whose hearty outspokenness there was
nothing offensive or tyrannical. He confided to him all the ambitions,
all the weaknesses, all the intoxicating emotions, all the sufferings,
in a word, all the little secrets of his young heart. Magnani understood
him, excused him and talked sensibly to him.
"You are not wrong in my eyes, Michel," he said; "inequality of rank is
the law of society; everyone wishes to rise, no one wishes to descend.
If it were otherwise the people would remain in the brute stage. But the
people aspire to grow, thank God! and they do grow, whatever may be done
to prevent them. I myself strive to succeed, to possess something, to
reach a point where I shall not always have to obey, in a word, to be
free! But whatever happiness I may attain, it seems to me that I ought
not to forget the point from which I started. Unjust chance compels many
men to remain in poverty who deserve as well as I, perhaps much better,
to escape from it. That is why I shall never despise those whom I leave
behind me, and shall not cease to love them with all my heart and aid
them with all my power.
"I know that you shun your brothers in rank without despising them,
without hating them; you do not enjoy yourself with them, and yet you
would do them a favor on occasion; but beware! there is a touch of
ill-advised pride in this sort of patronizing affection, and, although
the day may come when it will be all right, remember that at the present
time it may well seem misplaced. You have more intelligence and more
knowledge of life than most of us, I agree; but is that a very real
superiority? Will not any poor devil who happens to have more wisdom,
virtue, or courage than you be entitled to consider himself your equal
at least, even if his speech is abrupt and his language vulgar?
"It will happen more than once in your career as an artist that you will
have to endure patiently the impertinence of the rich; indeed, if I am
not mistaken, an artist's life is likely to be a constant struggle to
shelter his individual merit from the contempt of the imaginary merit
attached to birth, power, and wealth. However, you are aiming for that
social level, without fear or shame; you accept the challenge in
advance, you propose to measure strength with the bitter vanity of the
great; how does it happen, pray, that that seems less offensive and less
unpleasant than the harmless familiarity of the humble? I could more
readily excuse the affront of an ignorant man than that of a coxcomb,
and I should feel more at ease amid the fisticuffs of my companions,
than when exposed to the graceful witticisms of my alleged superiors.
"Is it ennui that drives you away from us? Is it because we have few
ideas and little skill in expressing them? But perhaps we have something
else which would interest you if you understood it. The simplicity which
characterizes us has its noble side, which should arouse respect and
emotion in those who have lost it. Is it the faults or the vices that
are found among us that make you sick at heart? But are the upper
classes exempt from these same vices, which it pains me to see, and
which I am constantly on my guard against? Because they conceal them
better, or because in them debauchery of the mind colors and quickens
that of the body, does it follow that their vices are more estimable? In
vain do they, the fortunate ones of the age, cover their tracks; their
sins, their crimes become known to us, and often, almost always in fact,
they seek their confederates or their victims among us.
"Go on, Michel, work, hope, rise, but let it not be at the expense of
the spirit of justice and kindness; for in that case, although you might
grow in the opinion of some, you would descend proportionately in the
esteem of the majority."
"All that you say is true and wise," Michel replied, "but is the
conclusion well drawn? Ought I to pursue the career of art, and at the
same time associate exclusively, or at least by preference, with these
mechanics among whom fate willed that I should be born? If you reflect,
you will see that that is inconsistent, that the great works of art are
in the hands of the rich, that they alone own, purchase, and order
pictures, statues, urns, carvings, and engravings. To be employed by
them, one must needs live with them and as they live; otherwise
oblivion, obscurity and poverty are the lot of genius. Our ancestors,
the noble artists of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, were artists
and artisans at once. Their position was well-defined, and was more or
less brilliant according to their talent. To-day all is changed. Artists
are more numerous and the rich are less powerful and magnificent. Taste
has become corrupted, the Mæcenases are no longer connoisseurs. Fewer
palaces are built; for one great collection that is formed, thirty are
sold piecemeal to pay debts, or because the heirs of the great families
prefer cash to monuments of genius. It is no longer enough, therefore,
to be a man of superior talent in order to find employment and honor in
one's profession. Chance, and, even more frequently, intrigue, cause
some to float, while others, who it may be are of far greater worth, are
submerged.
"However, I do not trust to chance, and my pride refuses to stoop to
intrigue. What shall I do, then? Shall I wait until some collector's eye
is attracted by a decorative figure, broadly conceived, on sized canvas,
and he is so impressed by it that he comes next day to the wineshop to
hunt me up and order a picture? Such good fortune may occur once in a
hundred times; but even then, on the day when it occurs to me, I shall
owe my bread to the patronage of the rich man, who is beginning to be
interested in me. Sooner or later I must bow before him and beg him to
recommend me to others. Would it not be better for me, at the earliest
possible moment, as soon as I am sure of myself, to quit the ladder and
the apron, to assume the external aspect of a man who does not beg, and
to present myself, with my head erect, among the rich? If I go out of
the wineshop arm-in-arm with the merry knights of the saw and trowel, it
is evident that I cannot enter the palace as a guest, but as a paid
workman; and at this moment, if I should venture to accost one of these
lovely women and ask her to dance, I should be spat upon and turned out
of doors within a quarter of an hour. The time must come, however, when
they will make overtures to me, and when my talent will be a title
capable of contending on equal terms with that of duke or marquis for
the triumphs of this world. But only on condition that my habits and my
manners bear the stamp and seal of aristocracy. I must be what they call
a man of good breeding; otherwise it would avail me nothing to be a man
of genius; no one would believe it.
"I shall not make my way as an artist, therefore, except by destroying
the artisan in me. I must succeed in becoming the free possessor of my
own works, and in selling them as an owner does, instead of executing
them like a day-laborer. Well! for that I must have reputation, and in
these days reputation does not go about looking for an artist in his
garret; he is obliged to acquire it himself by his own exertions,
consorting with those who award it, demanding it as a right and not
imploring it as alms. Tell me, Magnani, how I am to escape this dilemma!
And yet it pains me terribly, I assure you, to think that I must in some
sense deny the race of my fathers, and that I must submit to be accused
of idiocy and impudence by men whose brother and friend I feel that I
am. You see that I must go away from a country where my father's
popularity would make this separation more offensive to others and more
painful to myself than elsewhere. I came here to perform a duty--to
expiate my heedlessness at Rome; but when my task is done, I must return
thither, and from there travel the world over, in the disguise, perhaps
premature, of a free man. If I do not do it, farewell to my whole
future; I may as well renounce it to-day."
"Yes! yes! I understand," said Magnani; "you must set yourself free at
any price. The journeyman's work is slavery; the work of an artist is
the title of manhood. You are right, Michel; it is your right,
consequently your duty and your destiny. But how dismal and cruel the
destiny of an intelligent man is! One must cast off his family, leave
his native land, act a sort of comedy to induce strangers to accept him
as one of themselves, assume a mask in order to receive the laurel
wreath, take up arms against the poor who condemn him and the rich who
are loath to receive him! Why, it is horrible! it is enough to disgust
one with glory! In God's name, what is glory that one should purchase it
at that price?"
"Glory, as it is commonly understood, is nothing at all, I agree,"
replied Michel, warmly, "if it is nothing more than the trifling noise a
man may make in the world. Shame to him who denies his blood and
sacrifices his affections to gratify his vanity! But glory, according to
my conception, is not that! It is the manifestation and development of
the genius one bears within oneself. In default of enlightened judges,
warm admirers, stern critics, and even jealous detractors--in default of
opportunity to enjoy all the advantages, to receive all the counsels, to
undergo all the persecution which follow in the wake of renown--genius
withers and dies in discouragement, apathy, doubt or ignorance of
itself. Thanks to all the triumphs, all the struggles, all the wounds
which await us in a lofty career, we acquire the power to make the most
glorious use of our capabilities, and to leave a deep, ineffaceable,
forever fruitful trace in the world of thought. Ah! he who truly loves
his art desires glory for his works, not in order that his name may
live, but that his art may not die. And what would it matter to me that
I had not the art of my patron saint Michelangelo, if I should leave to
posterity an anonymous work worthy to be compared to the _Last
Judgment_! To make oneself talked about is more often a source of
martyrdom than of intoxicating pleasure. The serious-minded artist seeks
that martyrdom and endures it patiently. He knows that it is the harsh
condition of his success; and his success, not in being applauded and
understood by all, but in producing and leaving behind him something in
which he himself has faith. But what is the matter, Magnani? You are
sad, and you are not listening to me."
XIII
AGATHA
"Yes, I am listening to you, Michel, I am listening attentively,"
Magnani replied, "and I am sad because I feel the force of your
reasoning. You are not the first person with whom I have talked of these
matters. I have known more than one young mechanic who aspired to drop
his trade, to become a merchant, lawyer, priest or artist; and it is
true enough that the number of these deserters increases every year.
Whoever feels that he possesses intelligence instantly becomes conscious
of ambition; and hitherto I have fought such tendencies vigorously in
others and in myself. My parents, who are proud and obstinate like the
prudent, hard-working old people that they are, taught me, as a
religious precept, to remain true to family traditions--to the customs
of my rank; and my heart approved of that strict and simple code of
morals. That is why I have resolved not to seek success outside of my
trade, though I sometimes have to crush my own impulses. That is why I
have always roughly trampled upon the self-love of my young comrades as
soon as I saw it sprouting; that is why my first words of sympathy and
regard for you were warnings and reproaches. It seems to me now that,
until I had you to deal with, I was in the right, because the others
were really vain, and their vanity tended to make them selfish and
ungrateful. So that I felt fully justified in rebuking them, laughing at
them and preaching to them by turns. But with you I feel that I am weak,
because you are stronger than I in theory. You depict art in such grand
and beautiful colors, you feel so strongly the noble character of your
mission, that I dare not oppose you any longer. It seems to me that you
have a right to break down every obstacle in order to succeed, even your
heart, as I broke mine in order to remain obscure. And yet my conscience
is not satisfied with this solution. It does not seem to me to be a
solution. Come, Michel, you are more learned than I; tell me which of us
is wrong before God!"
"My friend, I believe that we are both right," replied Michel. "I
believe that at this moment we represent between us what is taking
place, contradictorily but simultaneously, in the minds of the common
people in all civilized nations. You plead for sentiment. Your paternal
feeling is holy and sacred. It is opposed to my idea; but my idea is
grand and true; it is as sacred in its passion for combat, as your
sentiment in its theory of renunciation and silence. You are following
your duty, I am enforcing my right. Bear with me, Magnani, for I respect
you, and each of our ideals is incomplete until it is completed by the
other."
"Yes, you speak of abstract ideas," rejoined Magnani, thoughtfully, "and
I think that I understand you; but in the concrete the question is not
solved. The society of the present day is struggling between two reefs,
resignation and resistance. Through love for my class I choose to suffer
and protest with it. From the same motive, perhaps, you choose to fight
and triumph in its name. These two methods of action seem to exclude and
condemn each other. Before the divine tribunal which will prevail,
sentiment or idea? You say, both. But on earth, where men are not
governed by divine laws, how can we possibly make those two extremes
harmonize? I seek in vain a means."
"But why seek it?" said Michel; "it does not exist on earth at this
moment. The people may free themselves and make themselves famous as a
whole by glorious battles, by good morals, by civic virtues, but each
individual of the people has his individual destiny; the destiny of the
man who feels that he was born to touch hearts is to live on fraternal
terms with the simple; of him who feels that his calling is to enlighten
men's minds, to seek light, though it be in solitude, though it be among
the enemies of his race. The great masters of art worked, from a
material standpoint, for wealth, but, from a moral standpoint, for all
mankind; for the poorest of the poor can obtain from their works a
revelation and appreciation of the beautiful. Let every man follow his
inspiration therefore, and bow to the mysterious designs of Providence
with respect to him! My father loves to sing rollicking ballads in
taverns; he electrifies his companions with them; the stories that he
tells sitting on a bench at a street corner, his cheery humor, and his
ardor in singing or in the common toil inspire all those who see and
hear him. Heaven has endowed him with the power of acting directly, by
the simplest means, on the vital fibres of his brethren, zeal in labor,
expansiveness in the hours of rest. For my part, I have a liking for
solitary temples, sumptuous, dark old palaces, venerable masterpieces,
studious reverie, the refined enjoyments of art. The society of
patricians has no terrors for me. I consider them too degenerate to be
feared; their names have for me a poesy which makes of them mere
figures, ghosts, if you choose, and I love to walk smiling among those
ghosts who do not frighten me. I love the dead; I live with the past;
and from the past I acquire my idea of the future; but I confess that I
have but little notion of the present, that the precise moment of my
existence has no existence for me, because I am always delving in the
past, and pushing all realities forward. In that way I transform them
and idealize them. You see that I should not reach the same ends as my
father and you, even if I used the same means. It is not in me to do
it."
"Michel," said Magnani, striking his forehead, "you have won! I must
absolve you and spare you my remonstrances henceforth! But I am
suffering, I am suffering terribly! Your words cause me very great
pain!"
"How so, my dear Magnani?"
"That is my secret, and yet I tell it to you without betraying its
sanctity. Can you possibly suppose that I have not some legitimate
ambition, some secret, deep-rooted desire to set myself free from the
servitude in which I live? Don't you know that all men have at the
bottom of their hearts the desire to be happy? And do you suppose that
the consciousness of a joyless duty causes me to wallow in delight?
"Listen and judge of my martyrdom. I have loved madly for five years a
woman whose rank in society places her as far above me as heaven is
above the earth. Having always considered it impossible that she should
ever bestow so much as a compassionate glance upon me, I cultivated a
sort of gloomy satisfaction in my suffering, my poverty, my forced
nullity among my fellowmen. With a bitter feeling at my heart, I
determined not to imitate those who are determined to succeed and who
expose themselves to the risk of being scoffed at from above and from
below. If I were one of them, I thought, perhaps the day would come when
I might gallantly raise to my lips the hand of her whom I adore. But as
soon as I opened my mouth to reveal the mystery of my passion, I should
undoubtedly be spurned, laughed at, trampled under foot; I prefer to
remain lost in the dust of my trade, and never to carry my insane
presumption so far as her feet. I prefer that she should continue to
believe it impossible that I could ever dream of aspiring to her. At all
events, while I wear the livery of the mechanic, she will respect the
suffering of which she knows nothing; she will not intensify it by
discovering it, by blushing because she inspired it, by deeming it
necessary to protect herself from it. Now, she passes me as she passes
anything which is of no consequence to her, but which she does not
consider that she has the right to spurn and crush. She bows to me,
smiles at me, and speaks to me as to a being of a different nature from
her own: that instinct is not manifest, but it is in her; I feel it and
I understand it. At all events, she does not think of humiliating me,
she would not do it; and the less reason I have for priding myself upon
the possibility of pleasing her, the less do I fear that she will insult
me by her pity. All this would change if I were a painter or a poet, if
I could present her with her portrait done by my trembling hand, or with
a sonnet indited by me in her honor; she would smile differently, she
would speak differently. There would be reserve, mockery, or compassion
in her kindness, according as I should have succeeded or failed in my
artistic efforts. Oh! how far that would remove me from her, how much
lower it would leave me than I now am! I prefer to be the mechanic who
renders her a service by selling her the use of his arms, rather than
the beginner in art to be patronized as a weakling or pitied as a
madman!"
"I approve what you have done," said Michel, who had become pensive in
his turn. "I like your pride, and I think that it would be a good
example to follow even in my position and with the projects which I
entertain, if I were tempted to seek love beyond certain obstacles,
which, though absurd, are enormous!"