The Serapion Brethren Volume Ii Part 26

"Ha!" cried Cyprian, getting up from his chair and looking round him with a smile, "I find I have spoken out, aloud, the conclusion of the mental process which has been going on within me in silence. After I have emptied this gla.s.s of punch and duly lauded Theodore's art of preparing that liquid after its mystic proportions, and due relations of the hot, strong and sweet, I will simply point out that there is a certain amount of insanity, a certain dose of crackiness, so deeply rooted in human nature, that there is no better mode of getting at the knowledge of it than by carefully studying it in those madmen and eccentrics whom we by no means have to go to madhouses to come across, but whom we may meet with every hour of the day in our daily course; and, in fact, best of all in the study of our own selves, in each of whom these is present a sufficient quantum of that 'precipitate resulting from the chemical process of life.'"

"What has brought you back to the subject of insanity and the insane?"

asked Lothair, in a tone of vexation.

"Do not lose your temper, dear Lothair," said Cyprian, "we were talking on the subject of society conversation; and then I thought of two mutually antagonistic cla.s.ses of characters which are often fatal to social talking. There are people who find it impossible to get away from ideas which have come to occupy their minds; who go on repeating the same things over and over again, for hours, no matter what turn the conversation may have taken. All efforts to carry them along with the stream of the conversation are vain; when one at last flatters oneself that one has got them into the current of the talk, lo and behold, they return _a leurs moutons_ again, just as before, and consequently dam up the beautiful, rus.h.i.+ng stream of conversation. In contradistinction to them are those who forget one second what they said in the immediately preceding one; who ask a question, and, without waiting for an answer, introduce something completely irrelevant and heterogeneous; to whom everything suggests everything else, and consequently nothing which has any connection with the subject of the talk--who, in a few words, throw together a many-tinted lumber of ideas in which nothing that can be called distinct is discoverable. Those latter destroy everything like agreeable conversation and drive us to a state of despair, and the former produce intolerable tedium and annoyance. But, don't you think there lies in those people the germ of real insanity in the one case, and in the other of _folie_, whose character is very much, if not exactly, what the psychological doctors term 'looseness' or 'incoherence' of ideas?"

"There is no doubt," said Theodore, "that I should like to say a great deal concerning the art of _relating_ in society, for there is much which is mysterious about it, depending, as it does, on place, time, and individual relations.h.i.+ps, and difficult to be ranged under special heads. But it seems to me that this matter might carry us too far, and be opposed to the real tendency of the Serapion Club."

"Most certainly," said Lothair. "We want to tranquillise ourselves with the thought that we--neither madmen nor fools--are, on the contrary, the most delightful companions to each other; who not only can talk, but can listen; more than that, each of us can listen quite patiently when another reads aloud, and that is saying a good deal. Friend Ottmar told me a day or two ago that he had written a story in which the celebrated poet-painter Salvator Rosa played a leading part. I hope he will read it to us now."

"I am a little afraid," said Ottmar, as he took the ma.n.u.script from his pocket, "that you won't think my story Serapiontic. I had it in mind to imitate that ease and genial liberty of breadth which predominates in the 'Novelli' of the old Italians, particularly of Boccaccio; and over this endeavour I acknowledge that I have grown prolix. Also you will say, with justice, that it is only here and there that I have hit upon the true 'Novella' tone--perhaps only in the headings of the chapters.

After this n.o.ble and candid confession I am sure you will not deal too hardly with me, but think chiefly of anything which you may find entertaining and lively."

"What prefaces!" cried Lothair. "An unnecessary _Capitatio Benevolentiae_; read us your Novella, my good friend Ottmar, and if you succeed in vividly portraying to us your Salvator Rosa in verisimilitude before our eyes, we will recognise you as a true Serapion brother, and leave everything else to the grumbling, fault-finding critics. Shall it not be so, my eminent Serapion Brethren?"

The friends acquiesced, and Ottmar began.

SIGNOR FORMICA.

_A NOVELLA._

The renowned painter, Salvator Rosa, comes to Rome, and is attacked by a dangerous malady.--What happened to him during this malady.

People of renown generally have much evil spoken of them, whether truthfully or otherwise, and this was the case with the doughty painter Salvator Rosa, whose vivid, living pictures you, dear reader, have certainly never looked upon without a most special and heartfelt enjoyment.

When his fame had pervaded and resounded through Rome, Naples, Tuscany, nay, all Italy; when other painters, if they would please, were obliged to imitate his peculiar style--just then, malignant men, envious of him, invented all sorts of wicked reports concerning him, with the view of casting foul spots of shadow upon the s.h.i.+ning auriole of his artistic fame. Salvator, they said, had, at an earlier time of his life, belonged to a band of robbers, and it was to his experiences at that time that he was indebted for all the wild, gloomy, strangely-attired figures which he introduced into his pictures, just as he copied into his landscape those darksome deserts, compounded of lonesomeness, mystery, and terror--the _Selve Selvagge_ of Dante--where he had been driven to lurk. The worst accusation brought against him was that he had been involved in that terrible, b.l.o.o.d.y conspiracy which "Mas' Aniello" of evil fame had set afoot in Naples. People told all about that, with the minutest details.

Aniello Falcone, the battle-painter (as he was called), blazed up in fury and bloodthirsty revenge when the Spanish soldiers killed one of his relations in a skirmish. On the spot he collected together a crowd of desperate and foolhardy young men, princ.i.p.ally painters, provided them with arms, and styled them "the death-company"; and, in verity, this band spread abroad a full measure of the terror and alarm which its name indicated. Those young men pervaded Naples, in troop form, all day long, killing every Spaniard they came across. More than this, they stormed their way into all the sacred places of sanctuary, and there, without compunction, murdered their wretched enemies who had taken refuge there, driven by fear of death. At night they betook themselves to their chief, the mad, bloodthirsty Mas' Aniello, and they painted pictures of him by torchlight, so that in a short time hundreds of those pictures of him were spread about Naples and the surrounding neighbourhood.

Now it was said that Salvator Rosa had been a member of this band, robbing and murdering all day, but painting with equal a.s.siduity all night. What a celebrated art-critic--Tailla.s.son, I think--said of our master is true: "His works bear the impress of a wild haughtiness and arrogance, of a bizarre energy, of the ideas and of their execution.

Nature displays herself to him not in the lovely peacefulness of green meadows, flowery fields, perfumed groves, murmuring streams, but in the awfulness of mighty up-towering cliffs, or sea-coasts, and wild, inhospitable forests; the voice to which he listens is not the whispering of the evening breeze, or the rustling of the leaves, but the roar of the hurricane, the thunder of the cataract. When we look at his deserts and the people of strange, wild appearance, who, sometimes singly, sometimes in troops, prowl about them, the weirdest fancies come to us of their own accord. Here there happened a terrible murder, there the bleeding corpse was thrown hurriedly over the cliff, &c., &c."

Now this may all be the case, and although Tailla.s.son may not be far wrong when he says that Salvator's "Plato," and even his "St. John in the Wilderness announcing the Birth of the Saviour," look just the least little bit like brigands, still it is unfair to base any conclusions drawn from the works upon the painter himself, and to suppose that, though he represents the wild and the terrible in such perfection, he must have been a wild and terrible person himself. He who talks most of the sword often wields it the worst; he who so feels in his heart the terror of b.l.o.o.d.y deeds that he is able to call them into existence with palette, pencil or pen, may be the least capable of practising them. Enough! of all the wicked calumnies which would represent the doughty Salvator to have been a remorseless robber and murderer, I do not believe a single word, and I hope you, dear reader, maybe of the same opinion, or I should have to cherish a certain amount of doubt whether you would quite believe what I am going to tell you about him.

For--as I hope--my Salvator will appear to you as a man burning and coruscating with life and fire, but also endowed with the most charming and delightful nature, and often capable of controlling that bitter irony which--in him, as in all men of depth of character--takes form of itself from observation of life. Moreover, it is known that Salvator was as good a poet and musician as a painter, his inward genius displaying itself in rays thrown in various directions. I repeat that I have no belief in his having had anything to do with the crimes of Mas'

Aniello; I rather hold to the opinion that he was driven from Naples to Rome by the terror of the time, and arrived there as a fugitive at the very time of Mas' Aniello's fall.

There was nothing very remarkable about his dress, and, with a little purse containing a few zecchini in his pocket, he slipped in at the gate just as night was falling. Without exactly knowing how, he came to the Piazza Navoni, where, in happier days, he had formerly lived in a fine house close to the Palazzo Pamphili. Looking up at the great s.h.i.+ning windows, glittering and sparkling in the moonbeams, he cried, with some humour, "Ha! it will cost many a canva.s.s ere I can establish my studio there again." Just as he said so he suddenly felt as if paralysed in all his limbs, and, at the same time, feeble and powerless in a manner which he had never before experienced in all his life. As he sank down on the stone steps of the portico of the house he murmured between his teeth, "Shall I ever want canva.s.ses? It seems to me that _I_ have done with them."

A cold, cutting night-wind was blowing through the streets; Salvator felt he must try and get a shelter. He rose with difficulty, tottered painfully forward, reached the Corso, and turned into Strada Vergognona. There he stopped before a small house, only two windows wide, where lived a widow with two daughters. They had taken him as a lodger for a small sum when first he came to Rome, known and cared for by n.o.body, and he hoped he would find a lodging with them now suited to his reduced circ.u.mstances.

He knocked familiarly at the door, and called his name in at it time after time. At last he heard the old woman rousing herself with difficulty from sleep. She came, dragging along her slippers, to the window, scolding violently at the scoundrel who was disturbing her in the middle of the night--her house not being an inn, &c. Then it took a deal of up and down talking ere she recognised her former lodger by his voice; and on Salvator's complaining that he had been obliged to flee from Naples and could find no roof to cover him in Rome, she cried out, "Ah! Christ and all the saints! Is it you, Signor Salvator? Your room upstairs, looking upon the courtyard, is empty still, and the old fig-tree has stretched its leaves and branches right into the window, so that you can sit and work as if you were in a beautiful cool arbour.

Ah! how delighted my girls will be that you are here again, Signor Salvator. But I must tell you Margerita has grown a big girl, and a very _pretty_ girl--it won't do to take her on your knee now! Your cat, only fancy, died three months ago--a fish bone stuck in its throat.

Aye, aye, poor thing! the grave is the common lot. And what do you think? Our fat neighbour woman--she whom you so often laughed at and drew the funny caricatures of--she has gone and got married to that young lad, Signor Luigi. Well, well! _Nozze e magistrati sono da dio destinati!_ Marriages are made in heaven, they say."

"But, Signora Caterina," interrupted Salvator, "I implore you by all the saints let me in to begin with, and then tell all about your fig-tree, your daughters, the kitten, and the fat woman. I am dying of cold and weariness."

"Now, just see how impatient he is!" cried the old woman. "_Chi va piano va sano; chi va presto muore lesto._ The more haste the less speed, is what I always say. But you're tired, you're s.h.i.+vering; so quick with the key, quick with the key."

Before getting hold of the key, however, she had to awaken her daughters, and then slowly, slowly strike a light. Ultimately she opened the door to the exhausted Salvator; but as soon as he crossed the threshold he fell down like a dead man, overcome by exhaustion and illness. Fortunately the widow's son, who lived at Tivoli, happened to have just come home, and he was at once turned out of his bed, which he willingly gave up to this sick family friend.

The old lady had a great fondness for Salvator, rated him, as regarded his art, above all the painters in the world, and had the utmost delight in everything he did. Therefore she was much distressed at his deplorable condition, and wanted to run off at once to the neighbouring monastery and bring her own Father Confessor, that he might do battle with the powers of evil at once, with consecrated tapers, or some powerful amulet or other. But the son thought it would be better almost to send for a good doctor, and he set off on the instant to the Piazza di Spagna, where he knew the celebrated doctor, Splendiano Accoramboni, lived. As soon as he heard that the great painter Salvator Rosa was lying sick in Strada Vergognona, he prepared to pay him a professional visit. Salvator was lying unconscious in the most violent fever. The old woman had hung up one or two images of saints over his bed, and was praying fervently. The daughters, bathed in tears, were trying to get him now and then to swallow a few drops of the cooling lemonade which they had made, whilst the son, who had taken his station at the bed-head, wiped the cold perspiration from his brow. In these circ.u.mstances the morning had come, when the door opened with much noise, and the celebrated doctor, Signor Splendiano Accoramboni, entered.

If it had not been for the great heart-sorrow over Salvator's mortal sickness, the two girls, petulant and merry as they were, would have laughed loud and long at the doctor's marvellous appearance. As it was, they drew away into corners, frightened and shy. It is worth while to describe the aspect of this extraordinary little fellow as he came into Dame Caterina's in the grey of the morning. Although he had, apparently, given early promise of reaching a most distinguished stature, Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni had not managed to get beyond the alt.i.tude of four feet. At the same time he had, in his early years, been of most delicate formation as regarded his members--and, before the head (which had always been somewhat shapeless) had acquired too much increment of matter in the shape of his fat cheeks and his stately double chin--ere the nose had a.s.sumed too much of a lateral development, in consequence of being stuffed with Spanish snuff--ere the stomach had a.s.sumed too great a rotundity by dint of maccaroni fodder--the dress of an Abbate, which he had worn in those early days, became him very well. He had a right to be styled a nice little fellow, and the Roman ladies accordingly did speak of him as their _caro puppazetto_.

But now those days were over, and a German painter, who saw him crossing the Piazza di Spagna, said of him, not without reason, that he looked as if some stalwart fellow of six feet high had run away from his own head and it had fallen on to the shoulders of a little marionette Pulcinello, who had now to go about with it as his own. This strange little figure had thrust itself into a great ma.s.s of Venetian damask, all over great flowers, made into a dressing-gown, and girt itself about, right under the breast, with a broad leather girdle, in which was stuck a rapier three ells long; and above his snow-white periwig there clung a high-peaked head-dress, not much unlike the obelisk in the Piazza San Pietro. As the periwig went meandering like a tangled web, thick and broad, over his back and shoulders, it might well have been taken for the coc.o.o.n out of which the beautiful insect had issued.

The worthy Splendiano Accoramboni glared through his spectacles, first at the sick Salvator, and then on Dame Caterina, whom he drew to one side. "There," he said, in a scarce audible whisper, "lies the great painter Salvator Rosa sick unto death in your house, Dame Caterina, and nothing but my skill can save him! Tell me, though, how long it is since he came to you? Has he plenty of grand, beautiful pictures with him?"

"Ah! dear Signor Dottore," answered the old woman, "this dear boy of mine only came to-night, and, as concerns the pictures, I know nothing about them as yet. But there's a large box downstairs, which he told me, before he got to be unconscious as he is now, to take the greatest care of. I should suppose there is a grand picture in it which he has painted in Naples."

Now this was a fib which Dame Caterina told; but we shall soon see what good reason she had for telling it to the doctor.

"Ah, ah! Yes, yes!" said the doctor, stroking his beard. Then he solemnly strode up as close to the patient as his long rapier, which banged against and entangled itself with the chairs and tables, admitted of his doing, took his hand and felt his pulse, sighing and groaning as he did so in a manner which sounded wonderful enough in the deep silence of reverential awe which prevailed. He then named a hundred and twenty diseases, in Latin and Greek, which Salvator had not, then about the same number which he might possibly have contracted, and ended by saying that although he could not just at that moment exactly name the malady which Salvator was suffering from, he would hit upon a name for it in a short time, and also the proper remedies and treatment for its cure. He then took his departure with the same amount of solemnity with which he had entered, leaving all hands in the due condition of anxiety and alarm. He asked to see Salvator's box downstairs, and Dame Caterina showed him a box, in which were some old clothes of her deceased husband's, and some old boots and shoes. He tapped the box with his hand here and there, saying, with a smile, "We shall see! We shall see!" In an hour or two he came back with a very grand name for what was the matter with Salvator, and several large bottles of a potion with an evil smell, which he directed that the patient should keep on swallowing. That was not such an easy matter, for the patient resisted with might and main, and expressed, as well as he could, his utter abhorrence of this stuff, which seemed to be a brew from the very pit of Acheron. But whether it was that the malady, now that it had got a name, exerted itself more powerfully, or that Splendiano and medicine were working too energetically--enough, with every day and nearly every hour, one might say, Salvator grew weaker and weaker, so that, although Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni a.s.severated that, the processes of life having come to a complete standstill, he had given the machine an impetus towards renewed activity (as if it had been the pendulum of a clock), all the by-standers doubted of Salvator's recovery, and were disposed to think that the Signor Dottore might, perhaps, have given the pendulum such a rough impulse that it was put out of gear.

But one day it happened that Salvator, who seemed scarcely able to move a muscle, suddenly got into a paroxysm of tremendous fever, and, regaining strength in an instant, jumped out of bed, seized all the bottles of medicine, and in a fury sent the whole collection flying out of the window. Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni was just in the act to come into the house to pay a visit, and, as Fate would have it, two or three of the phials. .h.i.t him on the head, and breaking, sent the brown liquid within them flowing in dark streams over his face, his periwig, and his neckerchief. The doctor sprang nimbly into the house, and cried, like a man possessed, "Signor Salvator is off his head! Delirium has evidently set in--nothing can save him. He'll be a dead man in ten minutes. Here with the picture, Dame Caterina; it belongs to me--all I shall get for my services! Here with the picture, I tell you."

But when Dame Caterina opened the box, and Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni saw the old cloaks and the burst and tattered boots and shoes which it contained, his eyes rolled in his head like fire wheels, he gnashed his teeth, stamped with his feet, devoted Salvator, the widow, and all the inmates of the house, to the demons of h.e.l.l, and bolted out of the door as if discharged from a cannon.

When the paroxysm of excitement was over, Salvator again fell into a deathlike condition, and Dame Caterina thought his last hour was certainly come. So she ran as quickly as she could to the convent, and brought Father Bonifazio to administer the sacraments to the dying man.

When Father Bonifazio came, he looked at the patient, said he very well knew the peculiar signs which death imprints upon the face of one whom he is going to carry off; but there was nothing of the sort to be seen on the face of the unconscious Salvator in his faint, and that help was still possible, and he himself would procure or bestow; only Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni, with his Greek names and diabolical phials, must never cross the doorstep again. The good father set to work, and we shall find that he kept his word.

Salvator came to his senses, and it seemed to him that he was lying in a delightful, sweet-smelling arbour, for green branches and leaves were stretching over him. He felt a delightful salutary warmth of life permeating him, only, apparently, his left arm was fettered.

"Where am I?" he cried, in a faint voice. Then a young man of handsome appearance, whom he had not observed before, though he was standing by his bed, fell down on his knees, seized Salvator's right hand, bathing it in tears, and cried over and over again, "Oh, my beloved Signor, my grand master! all is well now! You are saved; you will recover!"

"Well," began Salvator, "but tell me----"

The young man interrupted him, begging him not to talk in his weak condition, and promising to tell him all that had been happening. "You must know, my dear and great master, that you must have been exceedingly ill when you arrived in Naples here; but your condition was not probably very dangerous, and moderate measures, considering the strength of your const.i.tution, would doubtless have set you on your legs again in a short time, if it had not happened, through Carlo's well-meant mischance--as he ran for the nearest doctor at once--that you fell into the clutches of the abominable Pyramid Doctor, who did his very best to put you under the sod."

"The Pyramid Doctor?" said Salvator, laughing most heartily, weak as he was. "Yes, yes; ill as I was, I saw him well enough, the little damasky creature, who condemned me to swallow all that diabolical stuff--h.e.l.l broth as it was--and had the obelisk of the Piazza San Pietro on the top of his head, which is the reason you call him the Pyramid Doctor."

"Oh, heavens!" cried the young man, laughing loudly too. "Yes, it was Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni who appeared to you in that mysterious high-pointed nightcap of his, in which he gleams out of his window in the Piazza di Spagna every morning like some meteor of evil omen. But it is not on account of the cap that he is called the Pyramid Doctor; there is a very different reason for that. Doctor Splendiano is very fond of pictures, and has a very fine collection, which he has got together through a peculiar piece of technical practice. He keeps a close and watchful eye upon painters and their illnesses, and particularly he manages to throw his nets over stranger masters.

Suppose they have swallowed a little too much macaroni, or taken a cup or two more syracuse than is good for them, he succeeds in throwing his noose over them, and labels them with this or that disease, which he christens by some monstrous name, and then sets to work to cure. As fee he makes them promise him a picture, which, as it is only the strongest const.i.tutions which can resist the powerful drugs he administers, he generally selects from the effects of the deceased, deposited at the Pyramid of Cestius. He takes the best of them, and others into the bargain. The refuse heap at the Pyramid of Cestius is the seedfield of Doctor Splendiano Accoramboni, and he cultivates, dresses, and manures it most a.s.siduously. And that is why he is called the Pyramid Doctor.

Now Dame Caterina, with the best intentions, had given the doctor to understand that you had brought a fine picture with you, and you can imagine the ardour with which he set to work to brew potions for you.

It was lucky for you that in your paroxysm of fever you threw the stuff at his head, that he left you in a fury, that Dame Caterina sent for Father Bonifazio to administer the sacraments, believing you at death's door. Father Bonifazio knows a great deal about doctoring; he formed a correct opinion as to your condition, sent for me, and----"

"Then you are a doctor too," said Salvator, in a faint, melancholy tone.

"No," answered the young gentleman, while a bright colour came to his cheek, "my dear, renowned master, I am not a doctor like Signor Splendiano Accoramboni; I am a surgeon. I thought I should have sunk into the ground with terror--with joy--when Father Bonifazio told me Salvator Rosa was lying sick to death in Strada Vergognona and requiring my a.s.sistance. I hastened here, opened a vein in your left arm, and you were saved. We brought you here to this cool, airy room, where you used to live before. Look around you; there is the easel which you left behind you; there are one or two sketches still, preserved, like holy relics, by Dame Caterina. Your illness has had its back broken. Simple remedies, which Father Bonifazio will give you, and careful nursing will set you on your legs again. And now, permit me once more to kiss this creative hand, which calls forth, as by magic, the most hidden secrets of nature. Permit the poor Antonio Scacciati to allow all his heart to stream forth in delight and fervent grat.i.tude that heaven vouchsafed to him the good fortune to save the life of the glorious and renowned master, Salvator Rosa."

He again knelt, seized Salvator's hand, kissed it, and bedewed it with hot tears as before.

"I cannot tell, dear Antonio," said Salvator, raising himself up a little, "what strange spirit inspires you to exhibit such a profound veneration for me. You say you are a surgeon, and that is a calling which does not usually pair itself readily with art."

"When you have got some strength back, dear master," answered Antonio, "there are many matters lying heavy at my heart which I will tell you of."