CHAPTER VI
IL MATRIMONIO SEGRETO
When the first pale rays of dawn broke upon the glass of the porthole, Pierre rose and went on deck. Dickie Marsh was there already, regarding the sky and the sea with the attentive scrutiny of an old sailor.
"For a Frenchman," he said to the young man, "you surprise me. I have seen a good many of your countrymen upon the Jenny. And yet you are the first that I have seen, so far, who rises at the most delicious hour of the day on sea.—Just breathe the breeze that comes from the open. You could work for ten hours without feeling tired, after taking a supply of such oxygen into your lungs.—The sky makes me a little uneasy," he added. "We have gone too far out of our course. We cannot reach Genoa before eight o'clock and the Jenny may receive a good tossing before that time.—I never had any sympathy for those yachtsmen who invite their friends to enjoy the hospitality of a stateroom in company with a slop-pail!—We could have gone from Cannes to Genoa in four hours, but I thought it better to let you sleep away from the tumult of the port.—The barometer was very high! I have never seen it descend so quickly."
The dome of the heavens, so clear all the preceding day and night, had indeed, little by little, been obscured by big, gray, rock-like clouds. Others were spread along the line of the horizon like changing lines fleeing from each other. Pale rays of sunlight struggled to pierce this curtain of gray vapor. The sea was still all around them, but no longer motionless and glossy. The water was leadlike in hue, opaque, heavy, menacing. The breeze freshened rapidly, and soon a strong gust of wind swept over the sullen sheet of the water. It caused a trembling to run along the surface, as though it shuddered. Then thousands of ripples showed themselves, becoming larger and larger, until they swelled into countless short, choppy waves, curling over and tossing their white crests in the air.
"Are you a good sailor?" Marsh asked Hautefeuille. "However, it does not matter. I was mistaken in my calculations. The Jenny will not get much tossing about, after all.—We're going before the wind and will soon be under the shelter of the coast. Look! There is the Porto-Fino lighthouse. As soon as we have rounded the cape, we shall be out of danger."
The sea, by this time, was completely covered with a scattered mass of bubbling foam through which the yacht ploughed her way easily without rolling much, although she listed alternately to the right and then to the left like a strong swimmer accommodating his stroke to the waves. Close to a ruined convent, some distance ahead, a rocky point projected, bearing a dazzlingly white lighthouse at its extremity. The promontory was covered, as with a fleece, with a thick growth of silvery olive trees, between which could be seen numerous painted villas, while its rocky base was a network of tiny creeks. This was Cape Porto-Fino, a place rendered famous by the captivity there of Francis I. after Pavia. The yacht rounded it so closely that Hautefeuille could hear the roar of the waves breaking upon the rocks. Beyond the promontory again stretched the sullen sheet of water with the long line of the Ligurian coast, which descends from Chiappa and Camogli as far as Genoa by way of Recco, Nervi, and Quinto. Height ascending after height could be seen, the hills forming the advance guard of the Apennines, their valleys planted with figs and chestnuts, their villages of brightly painted cottages, dotting the scene, and with, in the foreground, the narrow strip of sandy soil that serves as seashore. The landscape, at once savage and smiling, impressed the business man and the lover in different ways, for the former said with disdain:—
"They have not been able to make a double track railway along their coast! I suppose the task is too big for these people.—Why, my line from Marionville to Duluth has four tracks—and we had to make tunnels of a different sort from these!"
"But even one line is too much here," replied Hautefeuille, pointing to a locomotive that was slowly skirting the shore, casting out a thick volume of smoke. "What is the good of modern inventions in an old country?—How can one dream of an existence of struggles amid such scenery?" he continued, as though thinking aloud. "How is it possible to contemplate the stern necessities of life upon this Riviera, or upon the other?—Provence and Italy are oases in your desert of workshops and manufactories. Have a little respect for them. Let there be at least a corner of the world left for lovers and poets, for those who yearn for a life of peace and happiness, for those who dream of a solitude shared only by some beloved companion and surrounded by the loveliness of nature and of art.—Ah! how sweet and peaceful this morning is!"
This state of enraptured exaltation, which made the happy lover reply with dreamy poetical reflections to the American's practical remarks, without noticing the comical character of the contrast, lasted all through the day. It even increased as time passed. The Jenny's passengers came up on deck one by one. And then Madame de Carlsberg appeared, pale and languid. In her eyes was the look of tender anxiety that gives such a touching aspect to the expression of a loving woman on the morrow of her first complete surrender. And what a happy revulsion, what rejoicing, when she sees, as Ely de Carlsberg did in her first glance, that the soul of her beloved vibrates in sympathy with her own, that he is as sensitive, as tender, as loving as before! This similarity of nature was so sweet, so deep, so penetrating, for the charming woman, that she could have gone down upon her knees before Pierre. She adored him at this moment for being so closely the image of what she desired him to be. And she felt compelled to speak of it, when they were seated side by side, as upon the night before, watching the gulf growing into life before them, with Genoa the Superb surging from the waves.
"Are you like me?—Were you afraid and yet longing to see me again, just as I longed to see you and yet was afraid? Were you also afraid of being soon called upon to differ for so much happiness? Did you feel as though a catastrophe were close at hand?—When I awoke and saw stretching before me the leaden sea and clouded sky, a shudder of dread ran through me like a presentiment.—I thought all was over, that you were no longer my Prince Beau-Temps"—this was a loving title she had conferred upon Pierre, alleging that the sky had cleared each time she had met him. "How exquisite it is," she continued caressingly, with the irresistible fascination of a loving woman, "to have trembled with apprehension and then to find you just as you were when I left you last night—no, not last night, this morning!"
At the remembrance of the fact that they had parted only so short a time before, she smiled. Her face lit up with an expression in which languor was mingled with such archness, grace with such voluptuous charm, that the young man, at the risk of being seen by the Chésys or Dickie Marsh, printed a kiss upon the hem of the loose Scotch cloak that enveloped her, its long hood streaming behind in the wind. Happily the American and his two guests had eyes for nothing but the beautiful city growing nearer and nearer and more distinct. It towered aloft now, girdled by its encircling mountains. Beyond the two ports, with their forests of masts and spars, could be seen the countless houses of the town, of all shapes and heights, pressed closely one upon the other. Tiny, narrow streets, almost lanes, wound upward, cutting through the mass of dwellings at right angles. The colors of the houses, once bright and gay, were faded and washed out by sun and rain. And yet it seemed still a city of wealth and caprice, with the terraces of its palaces outlined and covered with rare plants and statues. The apparently endless line of scattered villas stretching along the coast were here clustered in groups like little hamlets, forming suburbs outside the suburbs, and further on stood isolated in the luxuriant verdure of gardens and shrubbery. With the simple aid of a field-glass Marsh recognized everything, palaces, villas, suburbs, one after the other.
"There is San Pier d'Arena," he said, handing the glass to Yvonne and her husband, "and there are Cornegliano and Sestri to the left. To the right you can see San Francesco d'Albaro, Quarto, Quinto, San Mario Ligure, the Villa Gropallo, the Villa Croce."
"Why, Commodore, there is another trade you can turn to the day your pockets are empty," said Madame de Chésy, laughingly. "You can become cicerone."
"Oh," said Marsh, "it is the easiest thing in the world. When I see a place that I cannot recognize or that I do not know, I feel as though I were blind."
"Ah! You are not like me," cried Chésy. "I never could understand a map, and yet that has not prevented me getting a lot of amusement out of my travels.—Believe me, my dear fellow, we are right not to trouble about such things; we have sailors on sea and coachmen on land to attend to them!"
While this conversation was going on at the bow, Florence Marsh was aft trying to instil a little courage into Andryana Bonnacorsi. The future Vicomtesse de Corancez would not even glance at the town, but remained with her eyes looking fixedly at the vessel's wake.
"I feel convinced," she said with a sigh, "that Genoa will be fatal to me; 'Genova prende e non rende,' as we Italians say."
"It will take your name, Bonnacorsi, and will not return it, that is all," replied Florence, "and the proverb will be verified!—We have a proverb, too, in the United States, one that Lincoln used to quote. You ought to take note of it, for it will put an end to all your fears. It is not very, very pretty, particularly to apply to a marriage, but it is very expressive. It is, 'Don't trouble how to cross a mud creek before you get to it.'"
"But suppose Lord Bohun has changed his mind and the Dalilah is in the port with my brother on board? Suppose the Chésys want to come with us? Suppose Prince Fregoso at the last minute refuses to lend us his chapel?"
"And suppose Corancez says, 'I will not' at the altar?" interrupted Florence. "Suppose an earthquake engulfs the lot of us?—Don't be uneasy, the Dalilah is riding at anchor in the roadstead at Calvi or Bastia. The Chésys and my uncle have five or six English and American yachts to visit, and it is madness to think that they will sacrifice this arrangement for the sake of going with us to museums and churches. Since the old prince has consented to lend his place to Don Fortunato it is not likely that he has changed his mind—particularly as he and the abbé were companions in prison in 1859. Between Italians anything concerning the Risorgimento is sacred. You know that better than I do. I have only one fear," she added with a gay laugh, "and that is that this Fregoso may have sold some of his finest paintings and his most beautiful statuary to one of my countrymen. Those pirates loot everything, under the plea that they have not only the money but also good taste, and that they are connoisseurs. Would you believe it, when I was at college in Marionville, the professor of archæology taught us the history of Grecian art anterior to Phidias with the aid of photographs of specimens in the collection belonging to this very Fregoso?"
"Well, what did I tell you?" Florence Marsh again asked her friend, a couple of hours later. "Was I right? Have you come to the mud creek?"
The passengers had landed, just as had been prearranged. The Chésys and Dickie Marsh had gone off to visit the fleet of pleasure yachts moored near the pier. The Marchesa had received a telegram from Navagero announcing the arrival of the Dalilah in Corsican waters. And now a hired landau was bearing the tender-hearted woman, in company with Florence, Madame de Carlsberg, and Pierre Hautefeuille, toward the Genoese palace, where Corancez was awaiting them. The carriage climbed up the narrow streets, passing the painted façades of the old marble houses whose columns, all over the city, testify to the pretentious opulence of the old half-noble, half-piratical merchants. All along the route the streets, or rather the corridors, that descended to the port swarmed with a chattering, active, gesticulating people. Although the north wind was now blowing keenly, the three women had insisted upon the carriage being left open, so that they could see the crowd, the crumbling, splendid façades, and the picturesque costumes. The Marchesa smiled, still agitated, but now happy, in reply to Miss Marsh's words of encouragement, as she said:—
"Yes, you were right. I am not afraid now, and begin to think that I am awake and not dreaming.—Yet, if any one had told me that some day I should go with you three along the Piazza delle Fontane Morose to do what I am going to do.—Ah! Jésus Dieu! there is Corancez!—How imprudent he is!"
It was, indeed, the Provençal. He was standing at the corner of the famous square and the ancient via Nuova, now the via Garibaldi, the street which Galéas Alessi, Michael Angelo's pupil, glorified with the palaces of Cambiaso, Serra, Spinola, Doria, Brignole-Sale, and Fregoso, masterpieces of imposing architecture that, by themselves, are sufficient justification for the title of Superb, given to Genoa by its arrogant citizens.
It was certainly ill-advised to venture into the streets, risking a meeting with some French acquaintance. But Corancez had not been able to resist the temptation. He was playing for such high stakes that for once his nervousness had overmastered the natural prudence of the Provençal, ordinarily patient and circumspect, one of those people for whom the Genoese would seem to have invented this maxim: "He who is patient will buy thrushes for a liard each."
By means of a messenger he had been informed of the arrival of the Jenny. He had then left the safe shelter of the palace so as to be sure that his fiancée had arrived. When he saw the beautiful golden hair of Madame Bonnacorsi, a wave of hot blood seemed to course through his veins. He jumped upon the carriage-step gayly, boyishly even, without waiting for the carriage to stop. Without any more delay than was required to kiss his betrothed's hand, to utter a word of welcome to Madame de Carlsberg and Florence, and to greet Hautefeuille gratefully, he began to tell of his two weeks' exile with his usual gayety.
"Don Fortunato and I are already a couple of excellent friends," he said. "Wait till you see what a comical little fellow he is with his knee-breeches and big hat. You know him, Marchesa, so you can imagine. I am already his figlio mio!—As for you, Andryana, he worships you. He has written, specially for you, an epithalamium in fifty-eight cantos!—And yet this religious marriage without the civil ceremony disquiets him.—What would Count Camillo Cavour, whose walking-stick and portrait he piously cherishes, have said of it? Between Cavour and the Marchesa, the Marchesa and Cavour, he has been hard pushed to make a choice. However, he has thrown in his lot with the Marchesa, a decision that I understand very easily. All the same, he is now afraid to even glance at the portrait and the stick, and will not dare to do so until we have complied with all the requirements of the Italian law.—I vowed to him that there would only be a delay of a few days, and then Prince Pierre reassured him.—That is another character.—You will have to visit the museum and see his favorites there.—But, here we are!"
The landau stopped before the imposing door of a palace, having, like its neighbors, a marble peristyle, and brilliantly painted, like the other houses. The balustrade of the balcony upon the first floor bore a huge carved escutcheon, displaying the three stars of the Fregosi, an emblem that was once dreaded all over the Mediterranean when the vessels of the Republic swept the seas of the Pisans, the Venetians, the Catalans, Turks, and French.
The new arrivals were received by a concierge wearing the livery, very much soiled, of the Fregosi, the buttons stamped with armorial bearings. He carried a colossal silver pommelled cane in his hand, and led the visitors into a vaulted vestibule at the foot of a huge staircase.
Beyond they could see an enclosed garden, planted with orange trees. Ripe fruit glowed among the sombre foliage, through which glimpses could be obtained of an artificial grotto peopled with gigantic statuary. Several sarcophagi embellished the entrance, characterized by that air of magnificence and decay common to old Italian mansions. How many generations had mounted that worn staircase since the gifted genius designed the white moulding upon a yellow background that decorated the ceiling! How many visitors had arrived here from the distant colonies with which the great Republic traded! And yet probably no more singular spectacle had been seen for three centuries, than that presented by the noble Venetian lady arriving from Cannes upon the yacht of an American, for the purpose of marrying a ruined would-be gentleman from Barbentane, and accompanied by a young American girl, and the morganatic wife of an Austrian archduke with her lover, one of the most artless, most provincial Frenchmen of the best school of French chivalry.
"You must admit that my wedding cortège is anything but commonplace," said Corancez to Hautefeuille, glancing at the three women behind whom he and his friend were standing.
They had not met since the morning they had visited the Jenny at Cannes. The acute Southerner, the moment of his arrival, had felt that there was a vague embarrassment in Pierre's greeting and in his expression. Upon the boat, the young lover's happiness had not been in the least troubled by the presence of Miss Marsh and of the Marchesa, although he knew they could not be ignorant of his sentiments. But he also knew that they would respect his feelings. With Corancez it was different. A mere glance of Corancez's disturbed him. "All is over," the Provençal had evidently thought. And, with his easy-going instincts of loose morality, Corancez was all the happier for his friend's happiness; he rejoiced in his friend's joy. He therefore bent all his energies upon the task of dispelling Hautefeuille's slight uneasiness, which he had discovered with his infallible tact.
"Yes," he went on in a conciliatory tone, "this staircase is a little more chic than the staircase of some vile mairie.—And it is also delightful to have such a friend as you for my witness! I don't know what life may hold in store for us, and I am not going to make a lot of protestations, but, remember, you can ask me anything, after this proof of your friendship.—There must have been a host of things that were disagreeable to you in this expedition. Don't deny it. I know you so well!—And yet you have faced them all for the sake of your old friend, who is not, for all that, Olivier du Prat.—Isn't my fiancée gloriously beautiful this morning?" he continued. "But, hush! here comes the old Prince in person, and Don Fortunato.—Watch closely, and listen; you'll find it worth your while!"
Two old gentlemen were just issuing from the entrance of a high windowed hall, at the top of the staircase. They might have stepped out of one of the pictures in which Longhi has fixed so accurately, and so unpretentiously, the picturesque humor of ancient Italy. One was the Abbé Lagumina, very thin, very little; with his shrivelled legs, no thicker than skeleton's, buried in knee-breeches, and stockings that came above his knees. His bowed body was wrapped in a long ecclesiastical frock-coat. He rubbed his hands together unceasingly and timidly, bowing all the time. And yet his physiognomy was so acute, so stamped with intelligence, that the ugliness of his huge nose and his toothless gums was forgotten and only the charm of his expression remained.
The other was Prince Paul Fregoso, the most celebrated descendant of that illustrious line, whose doughty deeds are inscribed in the golden book of Genoa's foreign wars, and, alas! in the book of brass devoted to her civil conflicts. The Prince owed his Christian name, Paul, an hereditary one in the family, to the legendary souvenirs of the famous Cardinal Fregoso, who was driven from the city, and ruled the seas for a long time as pirate.
This grandnephew of the curious hero was a veritable giant. His features were massive, and his eyes intensely bright. His feet and hands were distorted by gout. In spite of his faded, sordid costume, in spite of the fact that he was almost bent in two and leaned upon his stick, of which the point was protected from slipping by an india-rubber shield, Prince Paul looked every inch a descendant of the doges by his haughty mien. He spoke with a deep, voluminous, cavernous voice, that indicated great vigor even at his advanced time of life, for he was about seventy-nine years of age.
"Ladies," he said, "I beg you to excuse me for not having descended this diabolical staircase in order to greet you as I ought to have done. Please do not believe the epigram that our Tuscan enemies have made about us: 'At Genoa there are no birds in the air, the sea has no fish, the mountains are woodless, and the men without politeness.'—You see my birds," and he pointed through the window to the gulls that soared above the port in search of food. "I hope, if you do me the honor of lunching with me, that you will find my mullets are as good as those you get at Leghorn.—And, with your permission, we will go at once into another salon, where there is a fireplace. In that fireplace you will see plenty of wood that comes from my estates outside the Roman gate. With such a north wind we need plenty of warmth in these big halls, which in our fathers' time required only a scaldino.—The first greeting is that due to the health of our guests! Madame la baronne! Madame la marquise! Miss Marsh!"—And he bowed to each of the three ladies, although he did not know either of them, with an indescribable air of easy grace and ceremonious courtesy.—"The abbé will lead the way.—I can only follow you like an unfortunate gancio di mare—the deformed, miserable creature you call a crab," he added, addressing Corancez and Hautefeuille. He made them go on before him, and then dragged himself along in their wake with his poor, feeble steps, to a rather smaller salon.
Here a meagre wood fire smouldered, making much smoke in a badly constructed chimney. The floor was formed of a mosaic of precious marbles, and the ceiling decorated with colored stuccoes and frescoes, representing the arrival of Ganymede at the feast of the gods. It was painted lightly and harmoniously with colors whose brilliancy seemed quite fresh. The graceful figures, the exquisite fancifulness of landscape and architecture, all the pagan charm, in fact, in its very delicacy, spoke of some pupil of Raphael. Below the moulding were hung several portraits. The aristocratic touch of Van Dyck was apparent at the first glance. Beneath the huge canvases antique statues were grouped on the floor, and stools that had once been gilded, shaped like the letter X, and without backs, gave the air of a museum to the salon. The three women could not restrain their admiration.
"How beautiful it is! What treasures!" they cried.
"Look at the Prince," said Corancez, in a whisper to Pierre. "Do you see how disgusted he is? You have got a front seat for a comedy that I can guarantee as amusing. I am going to pay a little attention to my fiancée. Don't lose a word; you will find it worth attention."
"You think this is beautiful?" said the Prince to the Baroness and Miss Marsh, who stood beside him, while Corancez and Madame Bonnacorsi chatted in a corner. "Well, the ceiling is not too bad in its way. Giovanni da Udine painted it. The Fregoso of that time was jealous of the Perino del Vagas of the Doria Palace. That particular head of the house was my namesake, Cardinal Paolo, the one you know who was a pirate—before he was a cardinal. He summoned another of Raphael's pupils, the one who had aided the master at the Vatican.—Each of those gods has a history. That Bacchus is the cardinal himself, and that Apollo, whose only garment is his lute, was the cardinal's coadjutor!—Don't be shocked, Don Fortunato.—Ah, I see, he has gone off to prepare for the marriage sacrament; mene malo.—The Van Dycks, also, are not bad as Van Dycks.—They too have their history. Look at that beautiful woman, with her impenetrable, mysterious smile.—The one holding a scarlet carnation against her green robe.—And then look at that young man, with the same smile, his pourpoint made of the same green material, with the same carnation.—They were lovers, and had their portraits painted in the same costume. The young man was a Fregoso, the lady an Alfani, Donna Maria Alfani.—All this was going on during the absence of the husband, who was a prisoner among the Algerians. They both thought he would never return.—'Chi non muore, si revede,' the cardinal used to like to say, 'He who is not dead always returns.'—The husband came back and slew them both.—These portraits were hidden by the family. But I found them and hung them there."
The two immense pictures, preserved in all their brilliancy by a long exile from the light, smiled down upon the visitors with that enigmatical smile of which the old collector had spoken. A voluptuous, culpable grace shone out of the eyes of Donna Maria Alfani, lingered upon her crimson lips, her pale cheeks, and her dark hair. The delicate visage, so mobile, so subtle, preserved a dangerous, fascinating attraction even up there in the stiff outlines of the lofty green frieze. The passionate pride of a daring lover sparkled in the black eyes of the young man. The perfect similarity in the colors of their costumes, in the hue of the carnations they held in their hands, in the pose of the figures, and in the style of the paintings seemed to prolong their criminal liaison even after death. It seemed like a challenge to the avenger. He had killed them, but not separated them, for they were there, upon the same panel of the same wall, proclaiming aloud their undying devotion, glorified by art's magic, looking at each other, speaking to each other, loving each other.
Ely and Pierre could not resist the temptation to exchange a glance, to look at each other with the tenderness evoked by the meeting of two lovers with the relics of a passion long since passed away. In it could be read how keenly they felt the evanescent nature of their present happiness in the face of this vanished past. Ely was moved more deeply still. The cardinal-pirate's threatening adage, "Chi non muore, si revede," had made her shudder again, had thrilled her with the same terror she had felt upon the boat at the sweetest moment of that heavenly hour. But this terror and melancholy were quickly dissipated like an evil dream when Miss Marsh replied to the commentaries of the Genoese prince:—
"My uncle would pay a big price for those two portraits. You know how fond he is of returning from his visits to the Old World laden with knick-knacks of this kind! He calls them his scalps.—But Your Highness values them very highly, I suppose? They are such beautiful works of art!"
"I value them because they descend to me as heirlooms from my family," replied Fregoso. "But don't profane in that way the great name of Art," he added solemnly. "This and that," he continued, pointing to the vaulted dome and to the picture, "can be called anything you like, brilliant decoration, interesting history, curious illustrated legend, the reproduction of customs of a past age, instructive psychology.—But it is not Art.—There has never been any art except in Greece, and once in modern times, in the works of Dante Alighieri. Never forget that, Miss Marsh."
"Then you prefer these statues to the pictures?" asked Madame de Carlsberg, amused by the tone of his sally.
"These statues?" he replied. He looked around at the white figures ranged along the walls, and the grand lines of his visage took on an expression of extreme contempt. "Those who bought these things did not even know what Greek art was. They knew about as little as the ignoramuses who collected the mediocrities of the Tribune or of the Vatican."
"What?" interrupted Madame de Carlsberg. "The Venus de' Medici is at the Tribune and the Apollo and the Ariadne at the Vatican!"
"The Venus de' Medici!" cried Fregoso, angrily, "don't speak to me about the Venus de' Medici!—Look," he went on, pointing to one of the statues with his gouty fingers, "do you recognize it? That is your Venus!—It has the same slender, affected body, the same pose of the arms, the same little cupid at her feet, astride a playful dolphin, and, like the other, it is a base copy made from Praxiteles's masterpiece in the taste of the Roman epoch which brought it into existence.—Would you have in your house one of those reproductions of 'Night' which encumber the shops of the Tuscan statuary dealers?'—Copies, I tell you; they are all copies, and made in such a way!—That is the sort of art you admire in Florence, Rome, Naples.—All those emperors and Roman patricians who stocked their villas with the reproductions of Greek chefs d'œuvre were barbarians, and they have left to us the shadow of a shadow, a parody of the real Greece, the true, the original, the Greece that Pausanias visited!—Why, that Venus is a pretty woman bathing, who takes flight to arouse desire! She is a coquette, she is lascivious!—What has she in common with the Anadyomene, with the Aphrodite who was the incarnation of all the world's passionate energies, and whose temple was forbidden to men, with the goddess that was also called the Apostrophia, the Preserver?—Think of asking this one to resist desire, to tear Love from the dominion of the senses!—And look at this Dromio of your Apollo.—Does it not resemble in a confusing way the Belvedere that Winckelmann admired so much?—It is another Roman copy of a statue by Scopas. But what connection is there between this academic gladiator and the terrible god of the Iliad, such as he is still figured on the pediment at Olympia?—The original was the personification of terrible, mutilating, tragical light. You feel the influence of the East and of Egypt, the irresistible power of the Sun, the torrid breath of the desert.—But here?—It is simply a handsome young man destined to lighten the time of a depraved woman in a secluded chamber, a venereo, such as you can find by the hundred in the houses at Pompeii.—There is not an original touch about these statues; nothing that reveals the hand of the artist, that discloses the eye guiding the hand, the soul guiding the eye, and guiding the soul, the city, the race, all those virtues that make Art a sacred, magisterial thing, that make it the divine blossom of human life!"
The old man spoke with singular exaltation of spirit. His faded visage was transfigured by a noble, intellectual passion. Sudd