The Portrait.
When Tito left the Via de’ Bardi that day in exultant satisfaction at
finding himself thoroughly free from the threatened peril, his
thoughts, no longer claimed by the immediate presence of Romola and her
father, recurred to those futile hours of dread in which he was
conscious of having not only felt but acted as he would not have done
if he had had a truer foresight. He would not have parted with his
ring; for Romola, and others to whom it was a familiar object, would be
a little struck with the apparent sordidness of parting with a gem he
had professedly cherished, unless he feigned as a reason the desire to
make some special gift with the purchase-money; and Tito had at that
moment a nauseating weariness of simulation. He was well out of the
possible consequences that might have fallen on him from that initial
deception, and it was no longer a load on his mind; kind fortune had
brought him immunity, and he thought it was only fair that she should.
Who was hurt by it? The results to Baldassarre were too problematical
to be taken into account. But he wanted now to be free from any hidden
shackles that would gall him, though ever so little, under his ties to
Romola. He was not aware that that very delight in immunity which
prompted resolutions not to entangle himself again, was deadening the
sensibilities which alone could save him from entanglement.
But, after all, the sale of the ring was a slight matter. Was it also a
slight matter that little Tessa was under a delusion which would
doubtless fill her small head with expectations doomed to
disappointment? Should he try to see the little thing alone again and
undeceive her at once, or should he leave the disclosure to time and
chance? Happy dreams are pleasant, and they easily come to an end with
daylight and the stir of life. The sweet, pouting, innocent, round
thing! It was impossible not to think of her. Tito thought he should
like some time to take her a present that would please her, and just
learn if her step-father treated her more cruelly now her mother was
dead. Or, should he at once undeceive Tessa, and then tell Romola about
her, so that they might find some happier lot for the poor thing? No:
that unfortunate little incident of the _cerretano_ and the marriage,
and his allowing Tessa to part from him in delusion, must never be
known to Romola, and since no enlightenment could expel it from Tessa’s
mind, there would always be a risk of betrayal; besides even little
Tessa might have some gall in her when she found herself disappointed
in her love—yes, she _must_ be a little in love with him, and that
might make it well that he should not see her again. Yet it was a
trifling adventure such as a country girl would perhaps ponder on till
some ruddy contadino made acceptable love to her, when she would break
her resolution of secrecy and get at the truth that she was free.
_Dunque_—good-bye, Tessa! kindest wishes! Tito had made up his mind
that the silly little affair of the _cerretano_ should have no further
consequences for himself; and people are apt to think that resolutions
taken on their own behalf will be firm. As for the fifty-five florins,
the purchase-money of the ring, Tito had made up his mind what to do
with some of them; he would carry out a pretty ingenious thought which
would set him more at ease in accounting for the absence of his ring to
Romola, and would also serve him as a means of guarding her mind from
the recurrence of those monkish fancies which were especially repugnant
to him; and with this thought in his mind, he went to the Via Gualfonda
to find Piero di Cosimo, the artist who at that time was pre-eminent in
the fantastic mythological design which Tito’s purpose required.
Entering the court on which Piero’s dwelling opened, Tito found the
heavy iron knocker on the door thickly bound round with wool and
ingeniously fastened with cords. Remembering the painter’s practice of
stuffing his ears against obtrusive noises, Tito was not much surprised
at this mode of defence against visitors’ thunder, and betook himself
first to tapping modestly with his knuckles, and then to a more
importunate attempt to shake the door. In vain! Tito was moving away,
blaming himself for wasting his time on this visit, instead of waiting
till he saw the painter again at Nello’s, when a little girl entered
the court with a basket of eggs on her arm, went up to the door, and
standing on tiptoe, pushed up a small iron plate that ran in grooves,
and putting her mouth to the aperture thus disclosed, called out in a
piping voice, “Messer Piero!”
In a few moments Tito heard the sound of bolts, the door opened, and
Piero presented himself in a red night-cap and a loose brown serge
tunic, with sleeves rolled up to the shoulder. He darted a look of
surprise at Tito, but without further notice of him stretched out his
hand to take the basket from the child, re-entered the house, and
presently returning with the empty basket, said, “How much to pay?”
“Two grossoni, Messer Piero; they are all ready boiled, my mother
says.”
Piero took the coin out of the leathern scarsella at his belt, and the
little maiden trotted away, not without a few upward glances of awed
admiration at the surprising young signor.
Piero’s glance was much less complimentary as he said—
“What do you want at my door, Messer Greco? I saw you this morning at
Nello’s; if you had asked me then, I could have told you that I see no
man in this house without knowing his business and agreeing with him
beforehand.”
“Pardon, Messer Piero,” said Tito, with his imperturbable good-humour;
“I acted without sufficient reflection. I remembered nothing but your
admirable skill in inventing pretty caprices, when a sudden desire for
something of that sort prompted me to come to you.”
The painter’s manners were too notoriously odd to all the world for
this reception to be held a special affront; but even if Tito had
suspected any offensive intention, the impulse to resentment would have
been less strong in him than the desire to conquer goodwill.
Piero made a grimace which was habitual with him when he was spoken to
with flattering suavity. He grinned, stretched out the corners of his
mouth, and pressed down his brows, so as to defy any divination of his
feelings under that kind of stroking.
“And what may that need be?” he said, after a moment’s pause. In his
heart he was tempted by the hinted opportunity of applying his
invention.
“I want a very delicate miniature device taken from certain fables of
the poets, which you will know how to combine for me. It must be
painted on a wooden case—I will show you the size—in the form of a
triptych. The inside may be simple gilding: it is on the outside I want
the device. It is a favourite subject with you Florentines—the triumph
of Bacchus and Ariadne; but I want it treated in a new way. A story in
Ovid will give you the necessary hints. The young Bacchus must be
seated in a ship, his head bound with clusters of grapes, and a spear
entwined with vine-leaves in his hand: dark-berried ivy must wind about
the masts and sails, the oars must be thyrsi, and flowers must wreathe
themselves about the poop; leopards and tigers must be crouching before
him, and dolphins must be sporting round. But I want to have the
fair-haired Ariadne with him, made immortal with her golden crown—that
is not in Ovid’s story, but no matter, you will conceive it all—and
above there must be young Loves, such as you know how to paint,
shooting with roses at the points of their arrows—”
“Say no more!” said Piero. “I have Ovid in the vulgar tongue. Find me
the passage. I love not to be choked with other men’s thoughts. You may
come in.”
Piero led the way through the first room, where a basket of eggs was
deposited on the open hearth, near a heap of broken egg-shells and a
bank of ashes. In strange keeping with that sordid litter, there was a
low bedstead of carved ebony, covered carelessly with a piece of rich
oriental carpet, that looked as if it had served to cover the steps to
a Madonna’s throne; and a carved _cassone_, or large chest, with
painted devices on its sides and lid. There was hardly any other
furniture in the large room, except casts, wooden steps, easels and
rough boxes, all festooned with cobwebs.
The next room was still larger, but it was also much more crowded.
Apparently Piero was keeping the Festa, for the double door underneath
the window which admitted the painter’s light from above, was thrown
open, and showed a garden, or rather thicket, in which fig-trees and
vines grew in tangled trailing wildness among nettles and hemlocks, and
a tall cypress lifted its dark head from a stifling mass of yellowish
mulberry-leaves. It seemed as if that dank luxuriance had begun to
penetrate even within the walls of the wide and lofty room; for in one
corner, amidst a confused heap of carved marble fragments and rusty
armour, tufts of long grass and dark feathery fennel had made their
way, and a large stone vase, tilted on one side, seemed to be pouring
out the ivy that streamed around. All about the walls hung pen and
oil-sketches of fantastic sea-monsters; dances of satyrs and maenads;
Saint Margaret’s resurrection out of the devouring dragon; Madonnas
with the supernal light upon them; studies of plants and grotesque
heads; and on irregular rough shelves a few books were scattered among
great drooping bunches of corn, bullocks’ horns, pieces of dried
honeycomb, stones with patches of rare-coloured lichen, skulls and
bones, peacocks’ feathers, and large birds’ wings. Rising from amongst
the dirty litter of the floor were lay figures: one in the frock of a
Vallombrosan monk, strangely surmounted by a helmet with barred visor,
another smothered with brocade and skins hastily tossed over it.
Amongst this heterogeneous still life, several speckled and white
pigeons were perched or strutting, too tame to fly at the entrance of
men; three corpulent toads were crawling in an intimate friendly way
near the door-stone; and a white rabbit, apparently the model for that
which was frightening Cupid in the picture of Mars and Venus placed on
the central easel, was twitching its nose with much content on a box
full of bran.
“And now, Messer Greco,” said Piero, making a sign to Tito that he
might sit down on a low stool near the door, and then standing over him
with folded arms, “don’t be trying to see everything at once, like
Messer Domeneddio, but let me know how large you would have this same
triptych.”
Tito indicated the required dimensions, and Piero marked them on a
piece of paper.
“And now for the book,” said Piero, reaching down a manuscript volume.
“There’s nothing about the Ariadne there,” said Tito, giving him the
passage; “but you will remember I want the crowned Ariadne by the side
of the young Bacchus: she must have golden hair.”
“Ha!” said Piero, abruptly, pursing up his lips again. “And you want
them to be likenesses, eh?” he added, looking down into Tito’s face.
Tito laughed and blushed. “I know you are great at portraits, Messer
Piero; but I could not ask Ariadne to sit for you, because the painting
is a secret.”
“There it is! I want her to sit to me. Giovanni Vespucci wants me to
paint him a picture of Oedipus and Antigone at Colonos, as he has
expounded it to me: I have a fancy for the subject, and I want Bardo
and his daughter to sit for it. Now, you ask them; and then I’ll put
the likeness into Ariadne.”
“Agreed, if I can prevail with them. And your price for the Bacchus and
Ariadne?”
“_Baie_! If you get them to let me paint them, that will pay me. I’d
rather not have your money: you may pay for the case.”
“And when shall I sit for you?” said Tito; “for if we have one
likeness, we must have two.”
“I don’t want _your_ likeness; I’ve got it already,” said Piero, “only
I’ve made you look frightened. I must take the fright out of it for
Bacchus.”
As he was speaking, Piero laid down the book and went to look among
some paintings, propped with their faces against the wall. He returned
with an oil-sketch in his hand.
“I call this as good a bit of portrait as I ever did,” he said, looking
at it as he advanced. “Yours is a face that expresses fear well,
because it’s naturally a bright one. I noticed it the first time I saw
you. The rest of the picture is hardly sketched; but I’ve painted _you_
in thoroughly.”
Piero turned the sketch, and held it towards Tito’s eyes. He saw
himself with his right-hand uplifted, holding a wine-cup, in the
attitude of triumphant joy, but with his face turned away from the cup
with an expression of such intense fear in the dilated eyes and pallid
lips, that he felt a cold stream through his veins, as if he were being
thrown into sympathy with his imaged self.
“You are beginning to look like it already,” said Piero, with a short
laugh, moving the picture away again. “He’s seeing a ghost—that fine
young man. I shall finish it some day, when I’ve settled what sort of
ghost is the most terrible—whether it should look solid, like a dead
man come to life, or half transparent, like a mist.”
Tito, rather ashamed of himself for a sudden sensitiveness strangely
opposed to his usual easy self-command, said carelessly—
“That is a subject after your own heart, Messer Piero—a revel
interrupted by a ghost. You seem to love the blending of the terrible
with the gay. I suppose that is the reason your shelves are so well
furnished with death’s-heads, while you are painting those roguish
Loves who are running away with the armour of Mars. I begin to think
you are a Cynic philosopher in the pleasant disguise of a cunning
painter.”
“Not I, Messer Greco; a philosopher is the last sort of animal I should
choose to resemble. I find it enough to live, without spinning lies to
account for life. Fowls cackle, asses bray, women chatter, and
philosophers spin false reasons—that’s the effect the sight of the
world brings out of them. Well, I am an animal that paints instead of
cackling, or braying, or spinning lies. And now, I think, our business
is done; you’ll keep to your side of the bargain about the Oedipus and
Antigone?”
“I will do my best,” said Tito—on this strong hint, immediately moving
towards the door.
“And you’ll let me know at Nello’s. No need to come here again.”
“I understand,” said Tito, laughingly, lifting his hand in sign of
friendly parting.