The Marble Faun; Or, The Romance of Monte Beni - Volume 1

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

  CHAPTER VI

  THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE

  After Donatello had left the studio, Miriam herself came forth, andtaking her way through some of the intricacies of the city, entered whatmight be called either a widening of a street, or a small piazza. Theneighborhood comprised a baker's oven, emitting the usual fragrance ofsour bread; a shoe shop; a linen-draper's shop; a pipe and cigar shop; alottery office; a station for French soldiers, with a sentinel pacing infront; and a fruit-stand, at which a Roman matron was selling thedried kernels of chestnuts, wretched little figs, and some bouquets ofyesterday. A church, of course, was near at hand, the facade of whichascended into lofty pinnacles, whereon were perched two or three wingedfigures of stone, either angelic or allegorical, blowing stone trumpetsin close vicinity to the upper windows of an old and shabby palace.This palace was distinguished by a feature not very common in thearchitecture of Roman edifices; that is to say, a mediaeval tower,square, massive, lofty, and battlemented and machicolated at the summit.

  At one of the angles of the battlements stood a shrine of the Virgin,such as we see everywhere at the street corners of Rome, but seldom ornever, except in this solitary, instance, at a height above the ordinarylevel of men's views and aspirations. Connected with this old tower andits lofty shrine, there is a legend which we cannot here pause to tell;but for centuries a lamp has been burning before the Virgin's image, atnoon, at midnight, and at all hours of the twenty-four, and must be keptburning forever, as long as the tower shall stand; or else the toweritself, the palace, and whatever estate belongs to it, shall pass fromits hereditary possessor, in accordance with an ancient vow, and becomethe property of the Church.

  As Miriam approached, she looked upward, and saw,--not, indeed, theflame of the never-dying lamp, which was swallowed up in the broadsunlight that brightened the shrine, but a flock of white doves,skimming, fluttering, and wheeling about the topmost height of thetower, their silver wings flashing in the pure transparency of theair. Several of them sat on the ledge of the upper window, pushing oneanother off by their eager struggle for this favorite station, and alltapping their beaks and flapping their wings tumultuously against thepanes; some had alighted in the street, far below, but flew hastilyupward, at the sound of the window being thrust ajar, and opening in themiddle, on rusty hinges, as Roman windows do.

  A fair young girl, dressed in white, showed herself at the aperture fora single instant, and threw forth as much as her two small hands couldhold of some kind of food, for the flock of eleemosynary doves. Itseemed greatly to the taste of the feathered people; for they tried tosnatch beakfuls of it from her grasp, caught it in the air, and rusheddownward after it upon the pavement.

  "What a pretty scene this is," thought Miriam, with a kindly smile, "andhow like a dove she is herself, the fair, pure creature! The other dovesknow her for a sister, I am sure."

  Miriam passed beneath the deep portal of the palace, and turning to theleft, began to mount flight after flight of a staircase, which, for theloftiness of its aspiration, was worthy to be Jacob's ladder, or, at allevents, the staircase of the Tower of Babel. The city bustle, whichis heard even in Rome, the rumble of wheels over the uncomfortablepaving-stones, the hard harsh cries reechoing in the high and narrowstreets, grew faint and died away; as the turmoil of the world willalways die, if we set our faces to climb heavenward. Higher, and higherstill; and now, glancing through the successive windows that threw intheir narrow light upon the stairs, her view stretched across the roofsof the city, unimpeded even by the stateliest palaces. Only the domes ofchurches ascend into this airy region, and hold up their golden crosseson a level with her eye; except that, out of the very heart of Rome,the column of Antoninus thrusts itself upward, with St. Paul upon itssummit, the sole human form that seems to have kept her company.

  Finally, the staircase came to an end; save that, on one side of thelittle entry where it terminated, a flight of a dozen steps gave accessto the roof of the tower and the legendary shrine. On the other side wasa door, at which Miriam knocked, but rather as a friendly announcementof her presence than with any doubt of hospitable welcome; for, awaitingno response, she lifted the latch and entered.

  "What a hermitage you have found for yourself, dear Hilda!" she,exclaimed. "You breathe sweet air, above all the evil scents of Rome;and even so, in your maiden elevation, you dwell above our vanities andpassions, our moral dust and mud, with the doves and the angels for yournearest neighbors. I should not wonder if the Catholics were to make asaint of you, like your namesake of old; especially as you have almostavowed yourself of their religion, by undertaking to keep the lampalight before the Virgin's shrine."

  "No, no, Miriam!" said Hilda, who had come joyfully forward to greether friend. "You must not call me a Catholic. A Christian girl--evena daughter of the Puritans--may surely pay honor to the idea of divineWomanhood, without giving up the faith of her forefathers. But how kindyou are to climb into my dove-cote!"

  "It is no trifling proof of friendship, indeed," answered Miriam; "Ishould think there were three hundred stairs at least."

  "But it will do you good," continued Hilda. "A height of some fifty feetabove the roofs of Rome gives me all the advantages that I could getfrom fifty miles of distance. The air so exhilarates my spirits, thatsometimes I feel half inclined to attempt a flight from the top of mytower, in the faith that I should float upward."

  "O, pray don't try it!" said Miriam, laughing; "If it should turn outthat you are less than an angel, you would find the stones of the Romanpavement very hard; and if an angel, indeed, I am afraid you would nevercome down among us again."

  This young American girl was an example of the freedom of life whichit is possible for a female artist to enjoy at Rome. She dwelt in hertower, as free to descend into the corrupted atmosphere of the citybeneath, as one of her companion doves to fly downward into thestreet;--all alone, perfectly independent, under her own soleguardianship, unless watched over by the Virgin, whose shrine shetended; doing what she liked without a suspicion or a shadow upon thesnowy whiteness of her fame. The customs of artist life bestow suchliberty upon the sex, which is elsewhere restricted within so muchnarrower limits; and it is perhaps an indication that, whenever we admitwomen to a wider scope of pursuits and professions, we must also removethe shackles of our present conventional rules, which would then becomean insufferable restraint on either maid or wife. The system seems towork unexceptionably in Rome; and in many other cases, as in Hilda's,purity of heart and life are allowed to assert themselves, and to betheir own proof and security, to a degree unknown in the society ofother cities.

  Hilda, in her native land, had early shown what was pronounced byconnoisseurs a decided genius for the pictorial art. Even in herschooldays--still not so very distant--she had produced sketches thatwere seized upon by men of taste, and hoarded as among the choicesttreasures of their portfolios; scenes delicately imagined, lacking,perhaps, the reality which comes only from a close acquaintance withlife, but so softly touched with feeling and fancy that you seemed tobe looking at humanity with angels' eyes. With years and experienceshe might be expected to attain a darker and more forcible touch, whichwould impart to her designs the relief they needed. Had Hilda remainedin her own country, it is not improbable that she might have producedoriginal works worthy to hang in that gallery of native art which,we hope, is destined to extend its rich length through many futurecenturies. An orphan, however, without near relatives, and possessed ofa little property, she had found it within her possibilities to cometo Italy; that central clime, whither the eyes and the heart of everyartist turn, as if pictures could not be made to glow in any otheratmosphere, as if statues could not assume grace and expression, save inthat land of whitest marble.

  Hilda's gentle courage had brought her safely over land and sea; hermild, unflagging perseverance had made a place for her in the famouscity, even like a flower that finds a chink for itself, and a littleearth to grow in, on whatever ancient wall its slender roots may fasten.He
re she dwelt, in her tower, possessing a friend or two in Rome, butno home companion except the flock of doves, whose cote was in a ruinouschamber contiguous to her own. They soon became as familiar with thefair-haired Saxon girl as if she were a born sister of their brood; andher customary white robe bore such an analogy to their snowy plumagethat the confraternity of artists called Hilda the Dove, and recognizedher aerial apartment as the Dovecote. And while the other doves flew farand wide in quest of what was good for them, Hilda likewise spreadher wings, and sought such ethereal and imaginative sustenance as Godordains for creatures of her kind.

  We know not whether the result of her Italian studies, so far as itcould yet be seen, will be accepted as a good or desirable one. Certainit is, that since her arrival in the pictorial land, Hilda seemed tohave entirely lost the impulse of original design, which brought herthither. No doubt the girl's early dreams had been of sending forms andhues of beauty into the visible world out of her own mind; of compellingscenes of poetry and history to live before men's eyes, throughconceptions and by methods individual to herself. But more and more, asshe grew familiar with the miracles of art that enrich so many galleriesin Rome, Hilda had ceased to consider herself as an original artist. No,wonder that this change should have befallen her. She was endowed witha deep and sensitive faculty of appreciation she had the gift ofdiscerning and worshipping excellence in a most unusual measure. Noother person, it is probable, recognized so adequately, and enjoyed withsuch deep delight, the pictorial wonders that were here displayed. Shesaw no, not saw, but felt through and through a picture; she bestowedupon it all the warmth and richness of a woman's sympathy; not by anyintellectual effort, but by this strength of heart, and this guidinglight of sympathy, she went straight to the central point, in which themaster had conceived his work. Thus she viewed it, as it were, with hisown eyes, and hence her comprehension of any picture that interested herwas perfect.

  This power and depth of appreciation depended partly upon Hilda'sphysical organization, which was at once healthful and exquisitelydelicate; and, connected with this advantage, she had a command ofhand, a nicety and force of touch, which is an endowment separate frompictorial genius, though indispensable to its exercise.

  It has probably happened in many other instances, as it did in Hilda'scase, that she ceased to aim at original achievement in consequence ofthe very gifts which so exquisitely fitted her to profit by familiaritywith the works of the mighty old masters. Reverencing these wonderfulmen so deeply, she was too grateful for all they bestowed upon her,too loyal, too humble, in their awful presence, to think of enrollingherself in their society. Beholding the miracles of beauty which theyhad achieved, the world seemed already rich enough in original designs,and nothing more was so desirable as to diffuse those self-same beautiesmore widely among mankind. All the youthful hopes and ambitions, thefanciful ideas which she had brought from home, of great pictures to beconceived in her feminine mind, were flung aside, and, so far as thosemost intimate with her could discern, relinquished without a sigh. Allthat she would henceforth attempt and that most reverently, not to sayreligiously was to catch and reflect some of the glory which had beenshed upon canvas from the immortal pencils of old.

  So Hilda became a copyist: in the Pinacotheca of the Vatican, in thegalleries of the Pam-fili-Doria palace, the Borghese, the Corsini, theSciarra, her easel was set up before many a famous picture by Guido,Domenichino, Raphael, and the devout painters of earlier schools thanthese. Other artists and visitors from foreign lands beheld the slender,girlish figure in front of some world-known work, absorbed, unconsciousof everything around her, seeming to live only in what she sought to do.They smiled, no doubt, at the audacity which led her to dream ofcopying those mighty achievements. But, if they paused to look over hershoulder, and had sensibility enough to understand what was before theireyes, they soon felt inclined to believe that the spirits of the oldmasters were hovering over Hilda, and guiding her delicate white hand.In truth, from whatever realm of bliss and many colored beauty thosespirits might descend, it would have been no unworthy errand to help sogentle and pure a worshipper of their genius in giving the last divinetouch to her repetitions of their works.

  Her copies were indeed marvellous. Accuracy was not the phrase for them;a Chinese copy is accurate. Hilda's had that evanescent and ethereallife--that flitting fragrance, as it were, of the originals--which itis as difficult to catch and retain as it would be for a sculptor toget the very movement and varying color of a living man into his marblebust. Only by watching the efforts of the most skilful copyists--men whospend a lifetime, as some of them do, in multiplying copies of asingle picture--and observing how invariably they leave out just theindefinable charm that involves the last, inestimable value, can weunderstand the difficulties of the task which they undertake.

  It was not Hilda's general practice to attempt reproducing the whole ofa great picture, but to select some high, noble, and delicate portionof it, in which the spirit and essence of the picture culminated: theVirgin's celestial sorrow, for example, or a hovering angel, imbuedwith immortal light, or a saint with the glow of heaven in his dyingface,--and these would be rendered with her whole soul. If a picture haddarkened into an indistinct shadow through time and neglect, or had beeninjured by cleaning, or retouched by some profane hand, she seemed topossess the faculty of seeing it in its pristine glory. The copy wouldcome from her hands with what the beholder felt must be the light whichthe old master had left upon the original in bestowing his final andmost ethereal touch. In some instances even (at least, so those believedwho best appreciated Hilda's power and sensibility) she had been enabledto execute what the great master had conceived in his imagination, buthad not so perfectly succeeded in putting upon canvas; a result surelynot impossible when such depth of sympathy as she possessed was assistedby the delicate skill and accuracy of her slender hand. In such casesthe girl was but a finer instrument, a more exquisitely effective pieceof mechanism, by the help of which the spirit of some great departedpainter now first achieved his ideal, centuries after his own earthlyhand, that other tool, had turned to dust.

  Not to describe her as too much a wonder, however, Hilda, or the Dove,as her well-wishers half laughingly delighted to call her, had beenpronounced by good judges incomparably the best copyist in Rome. Afterminute examination of her works, the most skilful artists declared thatshe had been led to her results by following precisely the same processstep by step through which the original painter had trodden to thedevelopment of his idea. Other copyists--if such they are worthy to becalled--attempt only a superficial imitation. Copies of the old mastersin this sense are produced by thousands; there are artists, as we havesaid, who spend their lives in painting the works, or perhaps one singlework, of one illustrious painter over and over again: thus theyconvert themselves into Guido machines, or Raphaelic machines. Theirperformances, it is true, are often wonderfully deceptive to a carelesseye; but working entirely from the outside, and seeking only toreproduce the surface, these men are sure to leave out that indefinablenothing, that inestimable something, that constitutes the life andsoul through which the picture gets its immortality. Hilda was nosuch machine as this; she wrought religiously, and therefore wrought amiracle.

  It strikes us that there is something far higher and nobler in all this,in her thus sacrificing herself to the devout recognition of the highestexcellence in art, than there would have been in cultivating her notinconsiderable share of talent for the production of works from her ownideas. She might have set up for herself, and won no ignoble name; shemight have helped to fill the already crowded and cumbered world withpictures, not destitute of merit, but falling short, if by ever solittle, of the best that has been done; she might thus have gratifiedsome tastes that were incapable of appreciating Raphael. But this couldbe done only by lowering the standard of art to the comprehension ofthe spectator. She chose the better and loftier and more unselfishpart, laying her individual hopes, her fame, her prospects of enduringremembrance, a
t the feet of those great departed ones whom she so lovedand venerated; and therefore the world was the richer for this feeblegirl.

  Since the beauty and glory of a great picture are confined withinitself, she won out that glory by patient faith and self-devotion,and multiplied it for mankind. From the dark, chill corner of agallery,--from some curtained chapel in a church, where the light cameseldom and aslant,--from the prince's carefully guarded cabinet, wherenot one eye in thousands was permitted to behold it, she brought thewondrous picture into daylight, and gave all its magic splendor for theenjoyment of the world. Hilda's faculty of genuine admiration is one ofthe rarest to be found in human nature; and let us try to recompense herin kind by admiring her generous self-surrender, and her brave, humblemagnanimity in choosing to be the handmaid of those old magicians,instead of a minor enchantress within a circle of her own.

  The handmaid of Raphael, whom she loved with a virgin's love! Would ithave been worth Hilda's while to relinquish this office for the sake ofgiving the world a picture or two which it would call original; prettyfancies of snow and moonlight; the counterpart in picture of so manyfeminine achievements in literature!