The Cloister and the Hearth Part 101

For some time past, too, it appeared as if the fairies had watched over him. Baskets of choice provisions and fruits were brought to his door by porters, who knew not who had employed them, or affected ignorance; and one day came a jewel in a letter, but no words.

At this point the suspicions of his landlady broke out. "This is none of thy patrons, silly boy; this is some lady that hath fallen in love with thy sweet face. Marry, I blame her not."

CHAPTER LXIII

THE Princess Claelia ordered a full-length portrait of herself. Gerard advised her to employ his friend Pietro Vanucci.

But she declined. "'Twill be time to put a slight on the Gerardo, when his work discontents me." Then Gerard, who knew he was an excellent draughtsman, but not so good a colourist, begged her to stand to him as a Roman statue. He showed her how closely he could mimic marble on paper. She consented at first; but demurred when this enthusiast explained to her that she must wear the tunic, toga, and sandals of the ancients.

"Why, I had as lieve be presented in my smock," said she, with mediaeval frankness.

"Alack! signorina," said Gerard, "you have surely never noted the ancient habit; so free, so ample, so simple, yet so n.o.ble; and most becoming your highness, to whom Heaven hath given the Roman features, and eke a shapely arm and hand, hid in modern guise."

"What, can you flatter, like the rest, Gerardo? Well, give me time to think on't. Come o' Sat.u.r.day, and then I will say ay or nay."

The respite thus gained was pa.s.sed in making the tunic and toga, &c., and trying them on in her chamber, to see whether they suited her style of beauty well enough to compensate their being a thousand years out of date.

Gerard, hurrying along to this interview, was suddenly arrested, and rooted to earth at a shop window.

His quick eye had discerned in that window a copy of Lactantius, lying open. "That is fairly writ, any way," thought he.

He eyed it a moment more with all his eyes.

It was not written at all. It was printed.

Gerard groaned. "I am sped; mine enemy is at the door. The press is in Rome."

He went into the shop, and, affecting nonchalance, inquired how long the printing-press had been in Rome. The man said he believed there was no such thing in the city. "Oh, the Lactantius; that was printed on the top of the Apennines."

"What, did the printing-press fall down there out o' the moon?"

"Nay, messer," said the trader, laughing, "it shot up there out of Germany. See the t.i.tle-page!"

Gerard took the Lactantius eagerly, and saw the following:--

Opera et impensis Sweynheim et Pannartz Alumnorum Joannis Fust.

Impressum Subiacis. A.D. 1465.

"Will ye buy, messer? See how fair and even be the letters. Few are left can write like that; and scarce a quarter of the price."

"I would fain have it," said Gerard, sadly; "but my heart will not let me. Know that I am a caligraph, and these disciples of Fust run after me round the world a-taking the bread out of my mouth. But I wish them no ill. Heaven forbid!" And he hurried from the shop.

"Dear Margaret," said he to himself, "we must lose no time; we must make our hay while s.h.i.+nes the sun. One month more and an avalanche of printer's type shall roll down on Rome from those Apennines, and lay us waste that writers be."

And he almost ran to the princess Claelia.

He was ushered into an apartment new to him. It was not very large, but most luxurious; a fountain played in the centre, and the floor was covered with the skins of panthers, dressed with the hair, so that no footfall could be heard. The room was an antechamber to the princess's boudoir, for on one side there was no door, but an ample curtain of gorgeous tapestry.

Here Gerard was left alone till he became quite uneasy, and doubted whether the maid had not shown him to the wrong place.

These doubts were agreeably dissipated.

A light step came swiftly behind the curtain; it parted in the middle, and there stood a figure the heathens might have wors.h.i.+pped. It was not quite Venus, nor quite Minerva; but between the two; n.o.bler than Venus, more womanly than Jupiter's daughter. Toga, tunic, sandals; nothing was modern. And as for beauty, that is of all times.

Gerard started up, and all the artist in him flushed with pleasure.

"Oh!" he cried, innocently, and gazed in rapture.

This added the last charm to his model: a light blush tinted her cheeks, and her eyes brightened, and her mouth smiled with delicious complacency at this genuine tribute to her charms.

When they had looked at one another so some time, and she saw Gerard's eloquence was confined to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. and gazing, she spoke. "Well, Gerardo, thou seest I have made myself an antique monster for thee."

"A monster? I doubt Fra Colonna would fall down and adore your highness, seeing you so habited."

"Nay, I care not to be adored by an old man. I would liever be loved by a young one: of my own choosing."

Gerard took out his pencils, arranged his canvas, which he had covered with stout paper, and set to work; and so absorbed was he that he had no mercy on his model. At last, after near an hour in one posture, "Gerardo," said she, faintly, "I can stand so no more, even for thee."

"Sit down and rest awhile, signora."

"I thank thee," said she; and sinking into a chair turned pale and sighed.

Gerard was alarmed, and saw also he had been inconsiderate. He took water from the fountain and was about to throw it in her face; but she put up a white hand deprecatingly: "Nay, hold it to my brow with thine hand; prithee, do not fling it at me!"

Gerard timidly and hesitating applied his wet hand to her brow.

"Ah!" she sighed, "that is reviving. Again."

He applied it again. She thanked him, and asked him to ring a little hand-bell on the table. He did so, and a maid came, and was sent to Floretta with orders to bring a large fan.

Floretta speedily came with the fan.

She no sooner came near the princess, than that lady's high-bred nostrils suddenly expanded like a blood horse's. "Wretch!" said she; and rising up with a sudden return to vigour, seized Floretta with her left hand, twisted it in her hair, and with the right hand boxed her ears severely three times.

Floretta screamed and blubbered; but obtained no mercy.

The antique toga left quite disengaged a bare arm, that now seemed as powerful as it was beautiful: it rose and fell like the piston of a modern steam-engine, and heavy slaps resounded one after another on Floretta's shoulders; the last one drove her sobbing and screaming through the curtain, and there she was heard crying bitterly for some time after.

"Saints of heaven!" cried Gerard, "what is amiss? what hath she done?"

"She knows right well. 'Tis not the first time. The nasty toad! I'll learn her to come to me stinking of the musk-cat."

"Alas! signora, 'twas a small fault, methinks."

"A small fault? Nay, 'twas a foul fault." She added with an amazing sudden descent to humility and sweetness, "Are you wroth with me for beating her, Gerar-do?"