Four Phases of Love Part 12

A pa.s.sionate flush pa.s.sed over Bianchi's haggard features, as he recognized Theodore's footsteps without. He raised himself and gazed eagerly and fully at him as he entered--taller and more manly than he had appeared to him the evening before. Theodore went to him and said, "You have rallied, Bianchi, and the doctor is satisfied. Keep quiet, I entreat you; you must let me walk up and down a little, my ideas are in a whirl, and my thoughts will not allow me to rest."

He told him not from whence he came, nor that within the last few hours he had bound his fate to a woman; but there lay a glory on him, from which Bianchi could not turn away his eyes. He had laid aside his hat, and thrown his cloak over one shoulder, his head sprang freely from the broad chest--the short curled hair was a little disordered--his forehead ma.s.sive and n.o.ble; and thus, with an absent look, and his arms folded across his cloak, he seemed almost to have forgotten the purpose of his visit As he paced up and down, he struck his foot against the burning logs, and gazed at the fire. At last he turned, and said--

"Tell me about yourself, Bianchi!"

"What would you know?"

The tone of this question, doubtful, almost distrustful, and yet submissive and compliant, struck Theodore's delicate ear. He drew a stool near the couch, seized Bianchi's hand and said--

"I wish to know nothing, except how you feel now; and if you are in no humour to talk, make a sign with your hand, which now betrays but slight remains of your fever."

He felt the pressure of the hand, which then withdrew itself hesitatingly from his.

"You will soon be so well that we shall be able to part without the necessity of meeting again. For the present you must resign yourself to my intrusiveness; for you must know that I have made up my mind not to let the carelessness of a stupid boy be the destruction of such an artist as you are."

"As _I_ am!" and he laughed sadly. "Do _you_ know what I am? Who knows it not? A day labourer am I, cutting sh.e.l.ls for women, with a woman's patience, whose stout arms are ashamed of him when they encounter a piece of marble. Well, perhaps, yesterday the matter was arranged so that the poor cripples will have nothing to reproach themselves for in future!"

"You talk strangely--as if there were not room enough within a circle of two inches for a soul that can at times express itself in two words."

"For the idea, possibly, but hardly for the execution."

"You must have experienced that," said Theodore. "But are you _obliged_ to do what is so disagreeable to you?"

The sick man cast a quiet look around the four bare walls, and said--

"I have got so used to the amount of luxury you see about you; I did, indeed, once think of beginning a large work without there in the square, eating my artichoke by the fountain at noon, and sleeping at night at the foot of my work. But one is effeminate and fears the weather, and cowardly, and afraid of the gossipping. Besides, I cannot do without the wine or--"

"But if you had an opportunity of working in marble without any discomfort to yourself," interrupted Theodore.

The sick man started up excitedly.

"Do you know what you are doing with your thoughtless questions?" he cried, and his eyes sparkled. "Look in that corner; there have I cast one on the top of the other, all that used to come to me with such questions. The dust is burying these impertinent babblers day by day, and my eyes know already that it is an unpardonable sin for them to wander towards them. And yet I was fool enough to allow myself to hope again when they said that models were to be sent in for the monument to the last Pope. For a couple of weeks I thought and dreamt of nothing else, and worked it out with energy, and was myself satisfied with my work. Fool that I was, to be deluded by such fancies. That was yesterday. I wrapped the model in a cloth, and bore it myself all the way to the Cardinal Secretary of State,--for my soul hung upon it, and I thought another might let it fall. And then I was obliged to give the rascally servants civil words and my last scudo before they would even permit me to enter. Inside it was all black and red and violet, with their reverences' stockings, and they stared at me from head to foot, because I had run out of my studio without thinking of taking off my old working-jacket. I thought, 'Let them stare;' took courage, and stepped with a bow and my work before his eminence. I saw at once that he was in a bad temper, and that his neighbour had already tasted some of its effects. I told him shortly why I was there, and begged to be permitted to show my sketch. The old fellow nodded, after his custom, cast a glance over the figures, which looked doubly n.o.ble amongst all those rogues, and said, 'Not bad. But 'twont do, 'twont do; wants n.o.blesse, my son, and more direct reference to the holy church. Take it home and beat it up. The clay is wet still.' I stood like a man in a madhouse. Beat it up! as if my loftiest ideas were broth. Whilst I stood there, unable to utter a word, up stepped the monsignori, stuck their learned spectacles on their noses, and abused it before and behind till they did not leave a nail's breadth without a spot of blame, just as when the old wolf half kills a sheep, and then hands it over to her whelps to worry and whet their milk-teeth upon. If I could only have spoken and described all that had pa.s.sed through my brain whilst I was at work on the model, perhaps the old man might have looked at it differently, for they say that he has a good-enough head.

But just at this unlucky moment he was full of ill temper, and poured it all out over me. So at last I got tired of this chattering, this whizzing of children's painted bird-bolts, not one of which hit the matter, and every one the man, for they p.r.i.c.ked me like needles.

Another would have shaken himself laughingly, and perhaps have won the day. But I--how was I to do it? My father did not make much talk over his cameos, and when he died, Rome was neither more agitated nor stiller, and I have ever kept out of the way of your learned men; so I stole away from them this time too, and swore never to have aught to do with them again. As I pa.s.sed along the Repelta I got into a rage, and threw my model into the Tiber. 'Let it melt there,' said I to myself; and I felt relieved, and took a fancy to go and walk about the campagna. There you found me."

"You must not abuse the _savant_," said Theodore, laughingly, after a pause, in order to bring the other, who had sunk into a reverie, back to the subject. "Your instinct did not deceive you when you felt an antipathy to my being near you. For I am here in Rome for the purpose of poking about old parchments, and digging out long-buried matters, about which but few are interested. Histories of the old Italian towers, state papers, and judicial reports. And so we are doubly-separated individuals."

"_You_ may be, and do what you like," said Bianchi, quickly, and half aside. "You are good and handsome, and a German."

"You little know German learning. It is even more horrible than the Roman. I myself have a secret terror of it. It has a power of glaring at feeble souls, that turns them into stone, like those poor rogues who gazed on the face of the Medusa."

"The Medusa?"

"You must know her better than I do. Have you not thrown her away there in the corner and left her, half begun and half ended, cut upon the sh.e.l.ls on your work-table?"

"I do not know much about it. When I was quite a boy, my father gave me a part of it to work at. I loved the head, for I had but little pleasure, and the dark death in the beautiful woman's face fascinated me. Afterwards I saw the circular one in the villa Ludovisi, and never rested until I had made a copy of it as well as I could at home. It is more human and pa.s.sionate there, than in the Grecian one, where it is reduced to a mere mask. I have never asked what they meant by it, and reading annoys me."

"If you like, I will read the story to you, as told by one of the old poets?"

"Do--and soon and--when do you return?" he asked, as Theodore arose.

"To-night," said the young man; "but not to read to you, for you are not well enough yet. I will not listen. I know what you are going say.

But a sick man must not have a will of his own."

When he returned in the evening, he found wine upon the table, and a comfortable cus.h.i.+oned chair placed by the hearth. Bianchi slept, and the boy whispered that he had made him buy the wine and borrow the chair from a neighbour, and that he had not been quiet or slept until he had seen all done as he wished.

CHAPTER III.

The next evening Theodore read, from an old Italian "Ovid," the fable of the Medusa, as he had promised. He looked from time to time over his book towards Bianchi, whose eyes were fixed upon the ceiling.

Theodore's calm voice seemed to bind him with a spell; the tale which he read, to move his innermost soul--so the other read on. When he arose, Bianchi drew a deep breath, and cried, "You are going!--you do not know how I have enjoyed it! These tales were to me but mutilated old statues, the limbs scattered about, the head far from the trunk, and all weather-beaten and decayed. As you read it, all drew itself together again, and now stands entire before me. Oh! that my arms were but sound again--my fingers tremble at the thought of kneading a piece of clay--but that is not to be--and you go--you smile! I can guess where you are going! well--enjoy your youth. But now I think for the first time of the nights I have made you pa.s.s."

"They would have been more lonely than they have been here--and you cannot guess where I go, Bianchi. I am going to pay court to two old people, and only now and then the soft hand of their daughter touches my arm in secret. All my enjoyment is seeing--hoping."

"And you can confess that so quietly, and not gnash your teeth with impatience and longing? I fear that I, too, once pa.s.sed such a fruitless lovetime. Like a worm I grovelled on the ground, and cursed the eyes which had played me so bitter a trick."

"I bless them! And when I suspect such madness in my blood, I refresh my dull soul in the free air, up and down the Forum, or roam away to the Capucines, where now the snow is resting against the stem of the palm-tree; it must struggle through the winter, too, however warm its heart may be."

"Can you deny that it plagues and worries you more than the whole affair is worth? It makes one idle and womanly, and that is the worst of all. If we were not fools, longing for the impossible, all were well, one as good as another, if she were pretty and kind."

"I think not. I require something more than _any one_ can give me, unless I am to leave her for the sake of some other."

"Who spoke of that?"--"Both of us, I think."

"Not I," said Bianchi. "I never could dream that you know your own advantages so little--with your face and your years."

He said no more, seemingly out of humour. "Let it be as it may." said Theodore, earnestly, "and let each one care for himself, and be glad that the other can be happy after his own fas.h.i.+on."

They never touched upon this subject again. Bianchi seemed to have entirely forgotten it, and Theodore did not agitate it. The old bitterness and fierceness of the sick man returned more and more as his wounds healed, and those rare touches of gentleness which he had shown to his friend disappeared for ever. He avoided giving him his hand; he never spoke of himself nor his feelings, never asked Theodore about his plans nor his past life, and hardly ever called him by his name; yet he never avoided Theodore's frequent visits, nor refused the little comforts which he brought him. Only once, when he saw some fruit in a basket, arranged beneath a layer of the earliest violets, with that delicate taste which belongs to a woman's hand alone, he placed the present coldly, and without saying a word, upon the mantelpiece.

Theodore was silent; when he went he took the basket with him as he had brought it.

Still he continued to read to him--old poets, extracts from Dante and Ta.s.so, and, at last, Machiavelli. The old deities, whose statues, scattered about Rome, had hitherto been to him merely fine carvings, semi-vivified by indistinct ideas, now became clear and living. It seemed as if he now for the first time saw with his waking eyes the world in which he had so long wandered in dreams. And the desire to go abroad awoke in him, and he longed to visit, personally, all that his imagination had clearly, and for the first time, thoroughly grasped.

The almond-trees blossomed crimson in the gardens of Monte Pincio, when he first stood on the parapet and looked over broad Rome towards the hills. Below him lay the town, noisy and sunny; the river glimmered brightly. On St. Angelo fluttered the broad folds of the standard in the wind that breathed softly from the sea, and overhead stretched the soft, delicate blue of the Roman March sky. Bianchi supported himself upon his staff, and looked darkly from under his eyebrows, as was his wont when he struggled against the promptings of his own heart.

Theodore also stood buried in thought; at last he turned his gaze from the distance, looked seriously at Bianchi, and said, "You are recovered; in a few days more you will be below there in your new studio and I think that we shall still find a little time to spend together, even though I, too, shall be obliged to keep closer to my work, and must somewhat curtail the pleasure of being with you. It so happens that I shall have a reason for visiting you much oftener than you might otherwise permit--that is, if you will consecrate the new studio by undertaking a work in which I am personally much interested.

The matter is this: a family with whom I am intimate has settled here, perhaps permanently. The man, a German, formerly lived in England, and married an Englishwoman, who brought him two children, a son and a daughter. The son, who was attacked by consumption, tried the climate of Rome as his last chance of recovery, and so the whole family emigrated with him. I loved him well, as did every one who knew him, and can hardly believe that I saw so much worth and n.o.bleness sink into the earth--there, by the Pyramid of Cestus. That was last winter. His parents wish to erect a monument to him, with a relief which may shadow forth his character and honour his memory. I know no one to whom I would so willingly intrust this work as yourself."

"You may depend upon me, Theodore," said the sculptor; "I will do what within me lies."

"Would you not like to know his parents, and learn from them the idea which they wish to be carried out on the monument?"

The other was silent for a while. "No," he said, quietly: "I wish for no acquaintances, and love not tears. You loved him--that is enough: I will do it for _you_. You must not misunderstand me," he continued, after a pause. "I should be of no use there. Whoever wants me must attack me like a bear in his den. If I cannot escape, I can manage to get upon my hind legs almost politely, and growl my word with them.

But even that is tiresome. I will say nothing and show nothing until the model is so far advanced that even the laity may see what it means--then they may come."

They spoke of other matters. Bianchi grew even brighter and almost joyous, whilst a shadow lay on Theodore's face. So they remained all the day together, and they both felt it like a leave-taking. For the first time the open, common-place day was around them--the rattle of carriages, and the whirl of laughing pa.s.sengers. Bianchi did not take Theodore's arm. Slowly he walked near him, glancing at the women and the girls, many of whom seemed to know him, and here and there nodding to an acquaintance without stopping to speak to him. When he had pa.s.sed, people stood still, whispering, pointing towards him, and following him with glances in which pity, respect, and a certain kind of fear, seemed mingled. He himself appeared not to observe it. He looked straight before him, often over the heads of the people, towards the villas without the walls, and the broad campagna, and his eyes glittered. "What are you thinking of?" asked Theodore.