The Marble Faun, Volume II.

N >> Nathaniel Hawthorne >> The Marble Faun, Volume II.

THE MARBLE FAUN,

or The Romance of Monte Beni

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE


Volume II.

In Two Volumes




Contents:

Volume I

I MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO
II THE FAUN
III SUBTERRANEAN REMINISCENCES
IV THE SPECTRE OF THE CATACOMB
V MIRIAM'S STUDIO
VI THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE
VII BEATRICE
VIII THE SUBURBAN VILLA
IX THE FAUN AND NYMPH
X THE SYLVAN DANCE
XI FRAGMENTARY SENTENCES
XII A STROLL ON THE PINCIAN
XIII A SCULPTOR'S STUDIO
XIV CLEOPATRA
XV AN AESTHETIC COMPANY
XVI A MOONLIGHT RAMBLE
XVII MIRIAM'S TROUBLE
XVIII ON THE EDGE OF A PRECIPICE
XIX THE FAUN'S TRANSFORMATION
XX THE BURIAL CHANT
XXI THE DEAD CAPUCHIN
XXII THE MEDICI GARDENS
XXIII MIRIAM AND HILDA


Volume II

XXIV THE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES
XXV SUNSHINE
XXVI THE PEDIGREE OF MONTE BENI
XXVII MYTHS
XXVIII THE OWL TOWER
XXIX ON THE BATTLEMENTS
XXX DONATELLO'S BUST
XXXI THE MARBLE SALOON
XXXII SCENES BY THE WAY
XXXIII PICTURED WINDOWS
XXXIV MARKET-DAY IN PERUGIA
XXXV THE BRONZE PONTIFF'S BENEDICTION
XXXVI HILDA'S TOWER
XXXVII THE EMPTINESS OF PICTURE GALLERIES
XXXVIII ALTARS AND INCENSE
XXXIX THE WORLD'S CATHEDRAL
XL HILDA AND A FRIEND
XLI SNOWDROPS AND MAIDENLY DELIGHTS
XLII REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM
XLIII THE EXTINCTION OF A LAMP
XLIV THE DESERTED SHRINE
XLV THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES
XLVI A WALK ON THE CAMPAGNA
XLVII THE PEASANT AND CONTADINA
XLVIII A SCENE IN THE CORSO
XLIX A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL
L MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO




THE MARBLE FAUN

Volume II




CHAPTER XXIV


THE TOWER AMONG THE APENNINES


It was in June that the sculptor, Kenyon, arrived on horseback at the
gate of an ancient country house (which, from some of its features,
might almost be called a castle) situated in a part of Tuscany somewhat
remote from the ordinary track of tourists. Thither we must now
accompany him, and endeavor to make our story flow onward, like a
streamlet, past a gray tower that rises on the hillside, overlooking a
spacious valley, which is set in the grand framework of the Apennines.

The sculptor had left Rome with the retreating tide of foreign
residents. For, as summer approaches, the Niobe of Nations is made to
bewail anew, and doubtless with sincerity, the loss of that large
part of her population which she derives from other lands, and on whom
depends much of whatever remnant of prosperity she still enjoys. Rome,
at this season, is pervaded and overhung with atmospheric terrors, and
insulated within a charmed and deadly circle. The crowd of wandering
tourists betake themselves to Switzerland, to the Rhine, or, from this
central home of the world, to their native homes in England or America,
which they are apt thenceforward to look upon as provincial, after
once having yielded to the spell of the Eternal City. The artist, who
contemplates an indefinite succession of winters in this home of art
(though his first thought was merely to improve himself by a brief
visit), goes forth, in the summer time, to sketch scenery and costume
among the Tuscan hills, and pour, if he can, the purple air of Italy
over his canvas. He studies the old schools of art in the mountain towns
where they were born, and where they are still to be seen in the faded
frescos of Giotto and Cimabue, on the walls of many a church, or in
the dark chapels, in which the sacristan draws aside the veil from a
treasured picture of Perugino. Thence, the happy painter goes to walk
the long, bright galleries of Florence, or to steal glowing colors from
the miraculous works, which he finds in a score of Venetian palaces.
Such summers as these, spent amid whatever is exquisite in art, or wild
and picturesque in nature, may not inadequately repay him for the chill
neglect and disappointment through which he has probably languished, in
his Roman winter. This sunny, shadowy, breezy, wandering life, in which
he seeks for beauty as his treasure, and gathers for his winter's honey
what is but a passing fragrance to all other men, is worth living for,
come afterwards what may. Even if he die unrecognized, the artist has
had his share of enjoyment and success.

Kenyon had seen, at a distance of many miles, the old villa or castle
towards which his journey lay, looking from its height over a broad
expanse of valley. As he drew nearer, however, it had been hidden among
the inequalities of the hillside, until the winding road brought him
almost to the iron gateway. The sculptor found this substantial barrier
fastened with lock and bolt. There was no bell, nor other instrument
of sound; and, after summoning the invisible garrison with his voice,
instead of a trumpet, he had leisure to take a glance at the exterior of
the fortress.

About thirty yards within the gateway rose a square tower, lofty
enough to be a very prominent object in the landscape, and more than
sufficiently massive in proportion to its height. Its antiquity was
evidently such that, in a climate of more abundant moisture, the ivy
would have mantled it from head to foot in a garment that might, by this
time, have been centuries old, though ever new. In the dry Italian air,
however, Nature had only so far adopted this old pile of stonework as to
cover almost every hand's-breadth of it with close-clinging lichens
and yellow moss; and the immemorial growth of these kindly productions
rendered the general hue of the tower soft and venerable, and took away
the aspect of nakedness which would have made its age drearier than now.

Up and down the height of the tower were scattered three or four
windows, the lower ones grated with iron bars, the upper ones vacant
both of window frames and glass. Besides these larger openings, there
were several loopholes and little square apertures, which might be
supposed to light the staircase, that doubtless climbed the
interior towards the battlemented and machicolated summit. With this
last-mentioned warlike garniture upon its stern old head and brow,
the tower seemed evidently a stronghold of times long past. Many a
crossbowman had shot his shafts from those windows and loop-holes, and
from the vantage height of those gray battlements; many a flight of
arrows, too, had hit all round about the embrasures above, or the
apertures below, where the helmet of a defender had momentarily
glimmered. On festal nights, moreover, a hundred lamps had often gleamed
afar over the valley, suspended from the iron hooks that were ranged for
the purpose beneath the battlements and every window.

Connected with the tower, and extending behind it, there seemed to be
a very spacious residence, chiefly of more modern date. It perhaps owed
much of its fresher appearance, however, to a coat of stucco and
yellow wash, which is a sort of renovation very much in vogue with the
Italians. Kenyon noticed over a doorway, in the portion of the edifice
immediately adjacent to the tower, a cross, which, with a bell suspended
above the roof, indicated that this was a consecrated precinct, and the
chapel of the mansion.

Meanwhile, the hot sun so incommoded the unsheltered traveller, that he
shouted forth another impatient summons. Happening, at the same moment,
to look upward, he saw a figure leaning from an embrasure of the
battlements, and gazing down at him.

"Ho, Signore Count!" cried the sculptor, waving his straw hat, for he
recognized the face, after a moment's doubt. "This is a warm reception,
truly! Pray bid your porter let me in, before the sun shrivels me quite
into a cinder."

"I will come myself," responded Donatello, flinging down his voice out
of the clouds, as it were; "old Tomaso and old Stella are both asleep,
no doubt, and the rest of the people are in the vineyard. But I have
expected you, and you are welcome!"

The young Count--as perhaps we had better designate him in his ancestral
tower--vanished from the battlements; and Kenyon saw his figure
appear successively at each of the windows, as he descended. On every
reappearance, he turned his face towards the sculptor and gave a nod and
smile; for a kindly impulse prompted him thus to assure his visitor of a
welcome, after keeping him so long at an inhospitable threshold.

Kenyon, however (naturally and professionally expert at reading the
expression of the human countenance), had a vague sense that this was
not the young friend whom he had known so familiarly in Rome; not the
sylvan and untutored youth, whom Miriam, Hilda, and himself had liked,
laughed at, and sported with; not the Donatello whose identity they had
so playfully mixed up with that of the Faun of Praxiteles.

Finally, when his host had emerged from a side portal of the mansion,
and approached the gateway, the traveller still felt that there was
something lost, or something gained (he hardly knew which), that set the
Donatello of to-day irreconcilably at odds with him of yesterday. His
very gait showed it, in a certain gravity, a weight and measure of step,
that had nothing in common with the irregular buoyancy which used to
distinguish him. His face was paler and thinner, and the lips less full
and less apart.

"I have looked for you a long while," said Donatello; and, though his
voice sounded differently, and cut out its words more sharply than had
been its wont, still there was a smile shining on his face, that, for
the moment, quite brought back the Faun. "I shall be more cheerful,
perhaps, now that you have come. It is very solitary here."

"I have come slowly along, often lingering, often turning aside,"
replied Kenyon; "for I found a great deal to interest me in the
mediaeval sculpture hidden away in the churches hereabouts. An artist,
whether painter or sculptor, may be pardoned for loitering through such
a region. But what a fine old tower! Its tall front is like a page of
black letter, taken from the history of the Italian republics."

"I know little or nothing of its history," said the Count, glancing
upward at the battlements, where he had just been standing. "But I thank
my forefathers for building it so high. I like the windy summit better
than the world below, and spend much of my time there, nowadays."

"It is a pity you are not a star-gazer," observed Kenyon, also looking
up. "It is higher than Galileo's tower, which I saw, a week or two ago,
outside of the walls of Florence."

"A star-gazer? I am one," replied Donatello. "I sleep in the tower,
and often watch very late on the battlements. There is a dismal old
staircase to climb, however, before reaching the top, and a succession
of dismal chambers, from story to story. Some of them were prison
chambers in times past, as old Tomaso will tell you."

The repugnance intimated in his tone at the idea of this gloomy
staircase and these ghostly, dimly lighted rooms, reminded Kenyon of the
original Donatello, much more than his present custom of midnight vigils
on the battlements.

"I shall be glad to share your watch," said the guest; "especially by
moonlight. The prospect of this broad valley must be very fine. But I
was not aware, my friend, that these were your country habits. I have
fancied you in a sort of Arcadian life, tasting rich figs, and squeezing
the juice out of the sunniest grapes, and sleeping soundly all night,
after a day of simple pleasures."

"I may have known such a life, when I was younger," answered the Count
gravely. "I am not a boy now. Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow
behind."

The sculptor could not but smile at the triteness of the remark, which,
nevertheless, had a kind of originality as coming from Donatello. He had
thought it out from his own experience, and perhaps considered himself
as communicating a new truth to mankind.

They were now advancing up the courtyard; and the long extent of the
villa, with its iron-barred lower windows and balconied upper ones,
became visible, stretching back towards a grove of trees.

"At some period of your family history," observed Kenyon, "the Counts
of Monte Beni must have led a patriarchal life in this vast house. A
great-grandsire and all his descendants might find ample verge here, and
with space, too, for each separate brood of little ones to play within
its own precincts. Is your present household a large one?"

"Only myself," answered Donatello, "and Tomaso, who has been butler
since my grandfather's time, and old Stella, who goes sweeping and
dusting about the chambers, and Girolamo, the cook, who has but an idle
life of it. He shall send you up a chicken forthwith. But, first of all,
I must summon one of the contadini from the farmhouse yonder, to take
your horse to the stable."

Accordingly, the young Count shouted again, and with such effect that,
after several repetitions of the outcry, an old gray woman protruded
her head and a broom-handle from a chamber window; the venerable butler
emerged from a recess in the side of the house, where was a well, or
reservoir, in which he had been cleansing a small wine cask; and
a sunburnt contadino, in his shirt-sleeves, showed himself on the
outskirts of the vineyard, with some kind of a farming tool in his
hand. Donatello found employment for all these retainers in providing
accommodation for his guest and steed, and then ushered the sculptor
into the vestibule of the house.

It was a square and lofty entrance-room, which, by the solidity of its
construction, might have been an Etruscan tomb, being paved and walled
with heavy blocks of stone, and vaulted almost as massively overhead.
On two sides there were doors, opening into long suites of anterooms
and saloons; on the third side, a stone staircase of spacious breadth,
ascending, by dignified degrees and with wide resting-places, to another
floor of similar extent. Through one of the doors, which was ajar,
Kenyon beheld an almost interminable vista of apartments, opening one
beyond the other, and reminding him of the hundred rooms in Blue Beard's
castle, or the countless halls in some palace of the Arabian Nights.

It must have been a numerous family, indeed, that could ever have
sufficed to people with human life so large an abode as this, and impart
social warmth to such a wide world within doors. The sculptor confessed
to himself, that Donatello could allege reason enough for growing
melancholy, having only his own personality to vivify it all.

"How a woman's face would brighten it up!" he ejaculated, not intending
to be overheard.

But, glancing at Donatello, he saw a stern and sorrowful look in his
eyes, which altered his youthful face as if it had seen thirty years of
trouble; and, at the same moment, old Stella showed herself through one
of the doorways, as the only representative of her sex at Monte Beni.





CHAPTER XXV


SUNSHINE


"Come," said the Count, "I see you already find the old house dismal.
So do I, indeed! And yet it was a cheerful place in my boyhood. But, you
see, in my father's days (and the same was true of all my endless line
of grandfathers, as I have heard), there used to be uncles, aunts, and
all manner of kindred, dwelling together as one family. They were
a merry and kindly race of people, for the most part, and kept one
another's hearts warm."

"Two hearts might be enough for warmth," observed the sculptor, "even in
so large a house as this. One solitary heart, it is true, may be apt to
shiver a little. But, I trust, my friend, that the genial blood of your
race still flows in many veins besides your own?"

"I am the last," said Donatello gloomily. "They have all vanished from
me, since my childhood. Old Tomaso will tell you that the air of Monte
Beni is not so favorable to length of days as it used to be. But that is
not the secret of the quick extinction of my kindred."

"Then you are aware of a more satisfactory reason?" suggested Kenyon.

"I thought of one, the other night, while I was gazing at the stars,"
answered Donatello; "but, pardon me, I do not mean to tell it. One
cause, however, of the longer and healthier life of my forefathers was,
that they had many pleasant customs, and means of making themselves
glad, and their guests and friends along with them. Nowadays we have but
one!"

"And what is that?" asked the sculptor.

"You shall see!" said his young host.

By this time, he had ushered the sculptor into one of the numberless
saloons; and, calling for refreshment, old Stella placed a cold fowl
upon the table, and quickly followed it with a savory omelet, which
Girolamo had lost no time in preparing. She also brought some cherries,
plums, and apricots, and a plate full of particularly delicate figs, of
last year's growth. The butler showing his white head at the door, his
master beckoned to him. "Tomaso, bring some Sunshine!" said he. The
readiest method of obeying this order, one might suppose, would have
been to fling wide the green window-blinds, and let the glow of the
summer noon into the carefully shaded room. But, at Monte Beni, with
provident caution against the wintry days, when there is little
sunshine, and the rainy ones, when there is none, it was the hereditary
custom to keep their Sunshine stored away in the cellar. Old Tomaso
quickly produced some of it in a small, straw-covered flask, out of
which he extracted the cork, and inserted a little cotton wool, to
absorb the olive oil that kept the precious liquid from the air.

"This is a wine," observed the Count, "the secret of making which has
been kept in our family for centuries upon centuries; nor would it avail
any man to steal the secret, unless he could also steal the vineyard, in
which alone the Monte Beni grape can be produced. There is little else
left me, save that patch of vines. Taste some of their juice, and tell
me whether it is worthy to be called Sunshine! for that is its name."
"A glorious name, too!" cried the sculptor. "Taste it," said Donatello,
filling his friend's glass, and pouring likewise a little into his own.
"But first smell its fragrance; for the wine is very lavish of it, and
will scatter it all abroad."

"Ah, how exquisite!" said Kenyon. "No other wine has a bouquet like
this. The flavor must be rare, indeed, if it fulfill the promise of this
fragrance, which is like the airy sweetness of youthful hopes, that no
realities will ever satisfy!"

This invaluable liquor was of a pale golden hue, like other of the
rarest Italian wines, and, if carelessly and irreligiously quaffed,
might have been mistaken for a very fine sort of champagne. It was not,
however, an effervescing wine, although its delicate piquancy produced
a somewhat similar effect upon the palate. Sipping, the guest longed
to sip again; but the wine demanded so deliberate a pause, in order to
detect the hidden peculiarities and subtile exquisiteness of its flavor,
that to drink it was really more a moral than a physical enjoyment.
There was a deliciousness in it that eluded analysis, and--like whatever
else is superlatively good--was perhaps better appreciated in the memory
than by present consciousness.

One of its most ethereal charms lay in the transitory life of the wine's
richest qualities; for, while it required a certain leisure and delay,
yet, if you lingered too long upon the draught, it became disenchanted
both of its fragrance and its flavor.

The lustre should not be forgotten, among the other admirable endowments
of the Monte Beni wine; for, as it stood in Kenyon's glass, a little
circle of light glowed on the table round about it, as if it were really
so much golden sunshine.

"I feel myself a better man for that ethereal potation," observed the
sculptor. "The finest Orvieto, or that famous wine, the Est Est Est of
Montefiascone, is vulgar in comparison. This is surely the wine of the
Golden Age, such as Bacchus himself first taught mankind to press from
the choicest of his grapes. My dear Count, why is it not illustrious?
The pale, liquid gold, in every such flask as that, might be solidified
into golden scudi, and would quickly make you a millionaire!"

Tomaso, the old butler, who was standing by the table, and enjoying
the praises of the wine quite as much as if bestowed upon himself, made
answer,--"We have a tradition, Signore," said he, "that this rare wine
of our vineyard would lose all its wonderful qualities, if any of it
were sent to market. The Counts of Monte Beni have never parted with a
single flask of it for gold. At their banquets, in the olden time, they
have entertained princes, cardinals, and once an emperor and once a
pope, with this delicious wine, and always, even to this day, it has
been their custom to let it flow freely, when those whom they love and
honor sit at the board. But the grand duke himself could not drink that
wine, except it were under this very roof!"

"What you tell me, my good friend," replied Kenyon, "makes me venerate
the Sunshine of Monte Beni even more abundantly than before. As I
understand you, it is a sort of consecrated juice, and symbolizes the
holy virtues of hospitality and social kindness?"

"Why, partly so, Signore," said the old butler, with a shrewd twinkle
in his eye; "but, to speak out all the truth, there is another excellent
reason why neither a cask nor a flask of our precious vintage should
ever be sent to market. The wine, Signore, is so fond of its native
home, that a transportation of even a few miles turns it quite sour. And
yet it is a wine that keeps well in the cellar, underneath this floor,
and gathers fragrance, flavor, and brightness, in its dark dungeon. That
very flask of Sunshine, now, has kept itself for you, sir guest (as a
maid reserves her sweetness till her lover comes for it), ever since a
merry vintage-time, when the Signore Count here was a boy!"

"You must not wait for Tomaso to end his discourse about the wine,
before drinking off your glass," observed Donatello. "When once the
flask is uncorked, its finest qualities lose little time in making their
escape. I doubt whether your last sip will be quite so delicious as you
found the first."

And, in truth, the sculptor fancied that the Sunshine became almost
imperceptibly clouded, as he approached the bottom of the flask. The
effect of the wine, however, was a gentle exhilaration, which did not so
speedily pass away.

Being thus refreshed, Kenyon looked around him at the antique saloon
in which they sat. It was constructed in a most ponderous style, with
a stone floor, on which heavy pilasters were planted against the wall,
supporting arches that crossed one another in the vaulted ceiling. The
upright walls, as well as the compartments of the roof, were completely
Covered with frescos, which doubtless had been brilliant when first
executed, and perhaps for generations afterwards. The designs were of
a festive and joyous character, representing Arcadian scenes, where
nymphs, fauns, and satyrs disported themselves among mortal youths and
maidens; and Pan, and the god of wine, and he of sunshine and music,
disdained not to brighten some sylvan merry-making with the scarcely
veiled glory of their presence. A wreath of dancing figures, in
admirable variety of shape and motion, was festooned quite round the
cornice of the room.

In its first splendor, the saloon must have presented an aspect both
gorgeous and enlivening; for it invested some of the cheerfullest ideas
and emotions of which the human mind is susceptible with the external
reality of beautiful form, and rich, harmonious glow and variety of
color. But the frescos were now very ancient. They had been rubbed and
scrubbed by old Stein and many a predecessor, and had been defaced in
one spot, and retouched in another, and had peeled from the wall in
patches, and had hidden some of their brightest portions under dreary
dust, till the joyousness had quite vanished out of them all. It was
often difficult to puzzle out the design; and even where it was more
readily intelligible, the figures showed like the ghosts of dead and
buried joys,--the closer their resemblance to the happy past, the
gloomier now. For it is thus, that with only an inconsiderable change,
the gladdest objects and existences become the saddest; hope fading
into disappointment; joy darkening into grief, and festal splendor into
funereal duskiness; and all evolving, as their moral, a grim identity
between gay things and sorrowful ones. Only give them a little time, and
they turn out to be just alike!

"There has been much festivity in this saloon, if I may judge by the
character of its frescos," remarked Kenyon, whose spirits were still
upheld by the mild potency of the Monte Beni wine. "Your forefathers,
my dear Count, must have been joyous fellows, keeping up the vintage
merriment throughout the year. It does me good to think of them
gladdening the hearts of men and women, with their wine of Sunshine,
even in the Iron Age, as Pan and Bacchus, whom we see yonder, did in the
Golden one!"