THE BLACK BOAT DRIVING BOTTOM UPWARDTHE BLACK BOAT DRIVING BOTTOM UPWARD
When they had tumbled along thus a long time, suddenly the friar said quietly: "I touched the ground."
"Impossible, father," said Gerard, "we are more than a hundred yards from shore. Prithee, prithee, leave not our faithful mast."
"My son," said the friar, "you speak prudently. But know that I have business of holy Church on hand, and may not waste time floating when I can walk, in her service. There, I felt it with my toes again; see the benefit of wearing sandals, and not shoon. Again: and sandy. Thy stature is less than mine: keep to the mast! I walk." He left the mast accordingly, and extending his powerful arms, rushed through the water. Gerard soon followed him. At each overpowering wave the monk stood like a tower, and, closing his mouth, threw his head back to encounter it, and was entirely lost under it awhile: then emerged and ploughed lustily on. At last they came close to the shore; but the suction outward baffled all their attempts to land. Then the natives sent stout fishermen into the sea, holding by long spears in a triple chain: and so dragged them ashore.
The friar shook himself, bestowed a short paternal benediction on the natives, and went on to Rome, with eyes bent on earth, according to his rule, and without pausing. He did not even cast a glance back upon that sea, which had so nearly engulfed him, but had no power to harm him, without his master's leave.
While he stalks on alone to Rome without looking back, I who am not in the service of holy Church, stop a moment to say that the reader and I were within six inches of this giant once before: but we escaped him that time. Now, I fear, we are in for him. Gerard grasped every hand upon the beach. They brought him to an enormous fire and with a delicacy he would hardly have encountered in the north, left him to dry himself alone: on this he tookout of his bosom a parchment, and a paper, and dried them carefully. When this was done to his mind, and not till then, he consented to put on a fisherman's dress and leave his own by the fire, and went down to the beach. What he saw may be briefly related.
The captain stuck by the ship, not so much from gallantry, as from a conviction that it was idle to resist Castor or Pollux, whichever it was that had come for him in a ball of fire.
Nevertheless the sea broke up the ship and swept the poop, captain and all, clear of the rest, and took him safe ashore. Gerard had a principal hand in pulling him out of the water. The disconsolate Hebrew landed on another fragment, and on touching earth offered a reward for his bag, which excited little sympathy, but some amusement. Two more were saved on pieces of the wreck. The thirty egotists came ashore, but one at a time, and dead; one breathed still. Him the natives, with excellent intentions, took to a hot fire. So then he too retired from this shifting scene.
As Gerard stood by the sea, watching, with horror and curiosity mixed, his late companions washed ashore, a hand was laid lightly on his shoulder. He turned. It was the Roman matron, burning with womanly gratitude. She took his hand gently, and raising it slowly to her lips, kissed it; but so nobly, she seemed to be conferring an honour on one deserving hand. Then, with face all beaming and moist eyes, she held her child up and made him kiss his preserver.
Gerard kissed the child: more than once. He was fond of children. But he said nothing. He was much moved; for she did not speak at all, except with her eyes, and glowing cheeks, and noble antique gesture, so large and stately. Perhaps she was right. Gratitude is not a thing of words. It was an ancient Roman matron thanking a modern from her heart of hearts.
Next day, towards afternoon, Gerard—twice as old as last year, thrice as learned in human ways, a boy no more, but a man who had shed blood in self-defense, and grazed the grave by land and sea—reached the eternal city;post tot naufragia tutus.
GERARD took a modest lodging on the west bank of the Tiber, and every day went forth in search of work, taking a specimen round to every shop he could hear of that executed such commissions.
They received him coldly. "We make our letter somewhat thinner than this," said one. "How dark your ink is," said another. But the main cry was, "What avails this? Scant is the Latin writ here now. Can ye not write Greek?"
"Ay, but not nigh so well as Latin."
"Then you shall never make your bread at Rome."
Gerard borrowed a beautiful Greek manuscript at a high price, and went home with a sad hole in his purse, but none in his courage.
In a fortnight he had made vast progress with the Greek character; so then, to lose no time, he used to work at it till noon, and hunt customers the rest of the day.
When he carried round a better Greek specimen than any they possessed, the traders informed him that Greek and Latin were alike unsalable; the city was thronged with works from all Europe. He should have come last year.
Gerard bought a psaltery.
His landlady, pleased with his looks and manners, used often to speak a kind word in passing. One day she made him dine with her, and somewhat to his surprise asked him what had dashed his spirits. He told her. She gave him her reading of the matter. "Those sly traders," she would be bound, "had writers in their pay for whose work they received a noble price and paid a sorry one. So no wonder they blow cold on you. Methinks you write too well. How know I that? say you. Marry—marry, because you lock not your door, like the churl Pietro, and women will be curious. Ay, ay, you write too well forthem."
Gerard asked an explanation.
"Why," said she, "your good work might put out the eyes of that they are selling."
Gerard sighed. "Alas! dame, you read folk on the ill side, and you so kind and frank yourself."
"My dear little heart, these Romans are a subtle race. Me? I am a Siennese, thanks to the Virgin."
"My mistake was leaving Augsburg," said Gerard.
"Augsburg?" said she, haughtily; "is that a place to even to Rome? I never heard of it for my part."
She then assured him that he should make his fortune in spite of the booksellers. "Seeing thee a stranger, they lie to thee without sense or discretion. Why all the world knows that our great folk are bitten with the writing spider this many years, and pour out their money like water, and turn good land and houses into writ sheepskins to keep in a chest or a cupboard. God help them, and send them safe through this fury, as he hath through a heap of others; and in sooth hath been somewhat less cutting and stabbing among rival factions, and vindictive eating of their opposites' livers, minced and fried, since Scribbling came in. WhyIcan tell you two. There is his eminence Cardinal Bassarion, and his holiness the Pope himself. There be a pair could keep a score such as thee a writing night and day. But I'll speak to Teresa; she hears the gossip of the court."
The next day she told him she had seen Teresa, and had heard of five more signors who were bitten with the writing spider. Gerard took down their names, and bought parchment, and busied himself for some days in preparing specimens. He left one, with his name and address, at each of these signors' doors, and hopefully awaited the result.
There was none.
Day after day passed and left him heartsick.
And strange to say this was just the time when Margaret was fighting so hard against odds to feed her male dependents at Rotterdam, and arrested for curing without a licence instead of killing with one.
Gerard saw ruin staring him in the face.
He spent the afternoons picking up canzonets and mastering them. He laid in playing cards to colour, and struck off a meal per day.
This last stroke of genius got him into fresh trouble.
In these "camere locande" the landlady dressed all the meals, though the lodgers bought the provisions. So Gerard's hostess speedily detected him, and asked him if he was not ashamed of himself: by which brusque opening, having made him blush and lookscared, she pacified herself all in a moment, and appealed to his good sense whether Adversity was a thing to be overcome on an empty stomach.
"Patienza, my lad! times will mend, meantime I will feed you for the love of heaven" (Italian for "gratis").
"Nay, hostess," said Gerard, "my purse is not yet quite void, and it would add to my trouble an if true folk should lose their due by me."
"Why you are as mad as your neighbour Pietro, with his one bad picture."
"Why, how know you 'tis a bad picture?"
"Because nobody will buy it. There is one that hath no gift. He will have to don casque and glaive, and carry his panel for a shield."
Gerard pricked up his ears at this: so she told him more. Pietro had come from Florence with money in his purse, and an unfinished picture; had taken her one unfurnished room, opposite Gerard's, and furnished it neatly. When his picture was finished, he received visitors and had offers for it: these, though in her opinion liberal ones, he had refused so disdainfully as to make enemies of his customers. Since then he had often taken it out with him to try and sell, but had always brought it back; and, the last month, she had seen one movable after another go out of his room, and now he wore but one suit, and lay at night on a great chest. She had found this out only by peeping through the keyhole, for he locked the door most vigilantly whenever he went out. "Is he afraid we shall steal his chest, or his picture that no soul in all Rome is weak enough to buy?"
"Nay, sweet hostess, see you not 'tis his poverty he would screen from view?"
"And the more fool he! Are all our hearts as ill as his? A might give us a trial first any way."
"How you speak of him. Why his case is mine; and your countryman to boot."
"Oh, we Siennese love strangers. His case yours? nay 'tis just the contrary. You are the comeliest youth ever lodged in this house; hair like gold; he is a dark sour-visaged loon. Besides you know how to take a woman on her better side; but not he. Natheless I wish he would not starve to death in my house, to get me a badname. Any way, one starveling is enough in any house. You are far from home, and it is for me, which am the mistress here, to number your meals—for me and the Dutch wife, your mother, that is far away: we two women shall settle that matter. Mind thou thine own business, being a man, and leave cooking and the like to us, that are in the world for little else that I see but to roast fowls, and suckle men at starting, and sweep their grown-up cobwebs."
"Dear kind dame, in sooth you do often put me in mind of my mother that is far away."
"All the better; I'll put you more in mind of her before I have done with you." And the honest soul beamed with pleasure.
Gerard not being an egotist, nor blinded by female partialities, saw his own grief in poor proud Pietro; and the more he thought of it, the more he resolved to share his humble means with that unlucky artist; Pietro's sympathy would repay him. He tried to waylay him: but without success.
One day he heard a groaning in the room. He knocked at the door, but received no answer. He knocked again. A surly voice bade him enter.
He obeyed somewhat timidly, and entered a garret furnished with a chair, a picture, face to wall, an iron basin, an easel, and a long chest, on which was coiled a haggard young man with a wonderfully bright eye. Anything more like a coiled cobra ripe for striking the first comer was never seen.
"Good Signor Pietro," said Gerard, "forgive me that, weary of my own solitude, I intrude on yours; but I am your nighest neighbour in this house, and methinks your brother in fortune. I am an artist too."
"You are a painter? Welcome, signor. Sit down on my bed."
And Pietro jumped off and waved him into the vacant throne with a magnificent demonstration of courtesy.
Gerard bowed, and smiled; but hesitated a little. "I may not call myself a painter. I am a writer, a caligraph. I copy Greek and Latin manuscripts, when I can get them to copy."
"And you call that an artist?"
"Without offense to your superior merit, Signor Pietro."
"No offence, stranger, none. Only, me seemeth an artist is one who thinks and paints his thought. Now a caligraph but draws in black and white the thoughts of another."
"'Tis well distinguished, signor. But then, a writer can write the thoughts of the great ancients, and matters of pure reason, such as no man may paint: ay, and the thoughts of God, which angels could not paint. But let that pass. I am a painter as well; but a sorry one."
"The better thy luck. They will buy thy work in Rome."
"But seeking to commend myself to one of thy eminence, I thought it well rather to call myself a capable writer than a scurvy painter."
At this moment a step was heard on the stair.
"Ah! 'tis the good dame," cried Gerard. "What ho! hostess, I am here in conversation with Signor Pietro. I dare say he will let me have my humble dinner here."
The Italian bowed gravely.
The landlady brought in Gerard's dinner smoking and savory. She put the dish down on the bed with a face divested of all expression, and went.
Gerard fell to. But ere he had eaten many mouthfuls he stopped, and said: "I am an ill-mannered churl, Signor Pietro. I ne'er eat to my mind, when I eat alone. For our Lady's sake put a spoon into this ragout with me; 'tis not unsavoury, I promise you."
Pietro fixed his glittering eye on him.
"What, good youth, thou a stranger, and offerest me thy dinner?"
"Why, see, there is more than one can eat."
"Well, I accept," said Pietro: and took the dish with some appearance of calmness, and flung the contents out of the window.
Then he turned trembling with mortification and ire, and said: "Let that teach thee to offer alms to an artist thou knowest not, master writer."
Gerard's face flushed with anger, and it cost him a bitter struggle not to box this high-souled creature's ears. And then to go and destroy good food! His mother's milk curdled in his veins with horror at such impiety. Finally, pity at Pietro's petulance and egotism, and a touch of respect for poverty-struck pride, prevailed.
However he said coldly, "Likely what thou hast done might pass in a novel of thy countryman, Signor Boccaccio; but 'twas not honest."
"Make that good!" said the painter sullenly.
"I offered thee half my dinner; no more. But thou hast ta'en it all. Hadst a right to throw away thy share, but not mine. Pride is well, but justice is better."
Pietro stared, then reflected.
"'Tis well. I took thee for a fool, so transparent was thine artifice. Forgive me! And prithee leave me! Thou seest how 'tis with me. The world hath soured me. I hate mankind. I was not always so. Once more excuse that my discourtesy, and fare thee well!"
Gerard sighed and made for the door.
But suddenly a thought struck him. "Signor Pietro," said he, "we Dutchmen are hard bargainers. We are the lads 'een eij scheeren,' that is 'to shave an egg.' Therefore, I, for my lost dinner, do claim to feast mine eyes on your picture, whose face is toward the wall."
"Nay, nay," said the painter hastily, "ask me not that; I have already misconducted myself enough towards thee. I would not shed thy blood."
"Saints forbid! My blood?"
"Stranger," said Pietro sullenly, "irritated by repeated insults to my picture, which is my child, my heart, I did in a moment of rage make a solemn vow to drive my dagger into the next one that should flout it, and the labour and love that I have given to it."
"What, are all to be slain that will not praise this picture?" and he looked at its back with curiosity.
"Nay, nay: if you would but look at it, and hold your parrot tongues. But you will be talking. So I have turned it to the wall for ever. Would I were dead, and buried in it for my coffin!"
Gerard reflected.
"I accept the conditions. Show me the picture! I can but hold my peace."
Pietro went and turned its face, and put it in the best light the room afforded, and coiled himself again on his chest, with his eye, and stiletto, glittering.
The picture represented the Virgin and Christ, flying through the air in a sort of cloud of shadowy cherubic faces; underneath was a landscape, forty or fifty miles in extent, and a purple sky above.
Gerard stood and looked at it in silence. Then he stepped close,and looked. Then he retired as far off as he could, and looked; but said not a word.
When he had been at this game half an hour, Pietro cried out querulously and somewhat inconsistently: "Well, have you not a word to say about it?"
Gerard started. "I cry your mercy; I forgot there were three of us here. Ay, I have much to say." And he drew his sword.
"Alas! alas!" cried Pietro, jumping in terror from his lair. "What wouldst thou?"
"Marry, defend myself against thy bodkin, signor; and at due odds, being, as aforesaid, a Dutchman. Therefore, hold aloof, while I deliver judgment, or I will pin thee to the wall like a cockchafer."
"Oh! is that all," said Pietro greatly relieved. "I feared you were going to stab my poor picture with your sword, stabbed already by so many foul tongues."
Gerard "pursued criticism under difficulties." Put himself in a position of defence, with his sword's point covering Pietro, and one eye glancing aside at the picture. "First, signor, I would have you know that, in the mixing of certain colours, and in the preparation of your oil, you Italians are far behind us Flemings. But let that flea stick. For as small as I am, I can show you certain secrets of the Van Eycks, that you will put to marvellous profit in your next picture. Meantime I see in this one the great qualities of your nation. Verily, ye aresolis filii. If we have colour, you have imagination. Mother of heaven! an he hath not flung his immortal soul upon the panel. One thing I go by is this; it makes other pictures I once admired seem drossy, earth-born things. The drapery here is somewhat short and stiff. Why not let it float freely, the figures being in air and motion?"
"I will! I will!" cried Pietro eagerly. "I will do anything for those who will but see what Ihavedone."
"Humph! This landscape it enlightens me. Henceforth I scorn those little huddled landscapes that did erst content me. Here is Nature's very face: a spacious plain, each distance marked, and every tree, house, figure, field and river smaller and less plain, by exquisite gradation, till vision itself melts into distance. O beautiful! And the cunning rogue hath hung his celestial figure in air out of the way of his little world below. Here, floating saintsbeneath heaven's purple canopy. There, far down, earth and her busy hives. And they let you take this painted poetry, this blooming hymn, through the streets of Rome and bring it home unsold. But I tell thee in Ghent or Bruges, or even in Rotterdam, they would tear it out of thy hands. But 'tis a common saying that a stranger's eye sees clearest. Courage, Pietro Vanucci! I reverence thee, and, though myself a scurvy painter, do forgive thee for being a great one. Forgive thee? I thank God for thee and such rare men as thou art; and bow the knee to thee in just homage. Thy picture is immortal, and thou, that hast but a chest to sit on, art a king in thy most royal art. Viva, il maëstro! Viva!"
At this unexpected burst the painter, with all the abandon of his nation, flung himself on Gerard's neck. "They said it was a maniac's dream," he sobbed.
"Maniacs themselves! no, idiots!" shouted Gerard.
"Generous stranger! I will hate men no more since the world hath such as thee. I was a viper to fling thy poor dinner away; a wretch, a monster."
"Well, monster, wilt be gentle now, and sup with me?"
"Ah! that I will. Whither goest thou?"
"To order supper on the instant. We will have the picture for third man."
"I will invite it whiles thou art gone. My poor picture, child of my heart."
"Ah! master; 'twill look on many a supper after the worms have eaten you and me."
"I hope so," said Pietro.
ABOUT a week after this the two friends sat working together, but not in the same spirit. Pietro dashed fitfully at his, and did wonders in a few minutes, and then did nothing, except abuse it; then presently resumed it in a fury, to lay it down with a groan. Through all which kept calmly working, calmly smiling, the canny Dutchman.
To be plain, Gerard, who never had a friend he did not master,had put his Onagra in harness. The friends were painting playing cards to boil the pot.
When done, the indignant master took up his picture to make his daily tour in search of a customer.
Gerard begged him to take the cards as well, and try and sell them. He looked all the rattlesnake, but eventually embraced Gerard in the Italian fashion, and took them, after first drying the last finished ones in the sun, which was now powerful in that happy clime.
Gerard, left alone, executed a Greek letter or two, and then mended a little rent in his hose. His landlady found him thus employed, and inquired ironically whether there were no women in the house.
"When you have done that," said she, "come and talk to Teresa, my friend I spoke to thee of, that hath a husband not good for much, which brags his acquaintance with the great."
Gerard went down, and who should Teresa be but the Roman matron.
"Ah, madama," said he, "is it you? The good dame told me not that. And the little fair-haired boy, is he well? is he none the worse for his voyage in that strange boat?"
"He is well," said the matron.
"Why, what are you two talking about?" said the landlady, staring at them both in turn; "and why tremble you so, Teresa mia?"
"He saved my child's life," said Teresa, making an effort to compose herself.
"What, my lodger? and he never told me a word of that. Art not ashamed to look me in the face?"
"Alas! speak not harshly to him," said the matron. She then turned to her friend and poured out a glowing description of Gerard's conduct, during which Gerard stood blushing like a girl, and scarce recognizing his own performance, gratitude painted it so fair.
"And to think thou shouldst ask me to serve thy lodger, of whom I knew nought but that he had thy good word, O Fiammina: and that was enough for me. Dear youth, in serving thee I serve myself."
Then ensued an eager description, by the two women, of what had been done, and what should be done, to penetrate the thick wallof fees, commissions, and chicanery, which stood between the patrons of art and an unknown artist in the Eternal city.
Teresa smiled sadly at Gerard's simplicity in leaving specimens of his skill at the doors of the great.
"What!" said she, "without promising the servants a share—without even feeing them, to let the signors see thy merchandize! As well have flung it into Tiber."
"Well-a-day!" sighed Gerard. "Then how is an artist to find a patron? for artists are poor, not rich."
"By going to some city nobler and not so greedy as this," said Teresa. "La corte Romana non vuol' pecora senza lana."
She fell into thought, and said she would come again to-morrow.
The landlady felicitated Gerard. "Teresa has got something in her head," said she.
Teresa was scarce gone when Pietro returned with his picture, looking black as thunder. Gerard exchanged a glance with the landlady, and followed him up stairs to console him.
"What, have they let thee bring home thy masterpiece?"
"As heretofore."
"More fools they, then."
"That is not the worst."
"Why, what is the matter?"
"They have bought the cards," yelled Pietro, and hammered the air furiously right and left.
"All the better," said Gerard cheerfully.
"They flew at me for them. They were enraptured with them. They tried to conceal their longing for them, but could not. I saw, I feigned, I pillaged; curse the boobies."
And he flung down a dozen small silver coins on the floor and jumped on them, and danced on them with basilisk eyes, and then kicked them assiduously, and sent them spinning and flying, and running all abroad. Down went Gerard on his knees and followed the maltreated innocents directly, and transferred them tenderly to his purse.
"Shouldst rather smile at their ignorance, and put it to profit," said he.
"And so I will," said Pietro, with concentrated indignation. "The brutes! We will paint a pack a day; we will set the whole city gambling and ruining itself, while we live like princes on itsvices and stupidity. There was one of the queens, though, I had fain have kept back. 'Twas you limned her, brother. She had lovely red-brown hair and sapphire eyes, and above all, soul."
"Pietro," said Gerard, softly, "I painted that one from my heart."
The quick-witted Italian nodded, and his eyes twinkled.
"You love her so well, yet leave her."
"Pietro, it is because I love her so dear that I have wandered all this dreary road."
This interesting colloquy was interrupted by the landlady crying from below, "Come down, you are wanted." He went down, and there was Teresa again.
"Come with me, Ser Gerard."
GERARD walked silently beside Teresa, wondering in his own mind, after the manner of artists, what she was going to do with him; instead of asking her. So at last she told him of her own accord. A friend had informed her of a working goldsmith's wife who wanted a writer. "Her shop is hard by; you will not have far to go."
Accordingly they soon arrived at the goldsmith's wife.
"Madama," said Teresa, "Leonora tells me you want a writer: I have brought you a beautiful one, he saved my child at sea. Prithee look on him with favour."
The goldsmith's wife complied in one sense. She fixed her eyes on Gerard's comely face, and could hardly take them off again. But her reply was unsatisfactory. "Nay, I have no use for a writer. Ah! I mind now, it is my gossip, Clælia, the sausage-maker, wants one; she told me, and I told Leonora."
Teresa made a courteous speech and withdrew.
Clælia lived at some distance, and when they reached her house she was out. Teresa said calmly, "I will await her return," and sat so still, and dignified, and statuesque, that Gerard was beginning furtively to draw her, when Clælia returned.
"Madama, I hear from the goldsmith's wife, the excellent Olympia, that you need a writer" (here she took Gerard by the hand and led him forward); "I have brought you a beautiful one,he saved my child from the cruel waves. For our Lady's sake look with favour on him."
"My good dame, my fair Ser," said Clælia, "I have no use for a writer; but now you remind me, it was my friend Appia Claudia asked me for one but the other day. She is a tailor, lives in the Via Lepida."
Teresa retired calmly.
"Madama," said Gerard, "this is likely to be a tedious business for you."
Teresa opened her eyes.
"What was ever done without a little patience?" She added mildly, "We will knock at every door at Rome but you shall have justice."
"But madama, I think we are dogged. I noticed a man that follows us, sometimes afar, sometimes close."
"I have seen it," said Teresa, coldly: but her cheek coloured faintly. "It is my poor Lodovico."
She stopped and turned, and beckoned with her finger.
A figure approached them somewhat unwillingly.
When he came up, she gazed him full in the face, and he looked sheepish.
"Lodovico mio," said she, "know this young Ser, of whom I have so often spoken to thee. Know him and love him, for he it was who saved thy wife and child."
At these last words Lodovico, who had been bowing and grinning artificially, suddenly changed to an expression of heartfelt gratitude, and embraced Gerard warmly.
Yet somehow there was something in the man's original manner, and his having followed his wife by stealth, that made Gerard uncomfortable under this caress. However he said, "We shall have your company, Ser Lodovico?"
"No, signor," replied Lodovico, "I go not on that side Tiber."
"Addio, then," said Teresa, significantly.
"When shall you return home, Teresa mia?"
"When I have done mine errand, Lodovico."
They pursued their way in silence. Teresa now wore a sad and almost gloomy air.
To be brief, Appia Claudia was merciful, and did not send themover Tiber again, but only a hundred yards down the street to Lucretia, who kept the glove shop; she it was wanted a writer: but what for Appia Claudia could not conceive. Lucretia was a merry little dame, who received them heartily enough, and told them she wanted no writer, kept all her accounts in her head. "It was for my confessor, Father Colonna; he is mad after them."
"I have heard of his excellency," said Teresa.
"Who has not?"
"But, good dame, he is a friar; he has made vow of poverty. I cannot let the young man write and not be paid. He saved my child at sea."
"Did he now?" And Lucretia cast an approving look on Gerard. "Well, make your mind easy; a Colonna never wants for money. The good father has only to say the word, and the princes of his race will pour a thousand crowns into his lap. And such a confessor, dame! the best in Rome. His head is leagues and leagues away all the while; he never heeds what you are saying. Why I think no more of confessing my sins to him than of telling them to that wall. Once, to try him, I confessed, along with the rest, as how I had killed my lodger's little girl and baked her in a pie. Well, when my voice left off confessing, he started out of his dream, and says he, a mustering up a gloom, 'My erring sister, say three paternosters and three ave Marias kneeling, and eat no butter nor eggs next Wednesday, and pax vobiscum!' and off a went with his hands behind him, looking as if there was no such thing as me in the world."
Teresa waited patiently, then calmly brought this discursive lady back to the point: "Would she be so kind as go with this good youth to the friar and speak for him?"
"Alack! how can I leave my shop? And what need? His door is aye open to writers, and painters, and scholars, and all such cattle. Why, one day he would not receive the Duke d'Urbino, because a learned Greek was closeted with him, and the friar's head and his so close together over a dusty parchment just come in from Greece, as you could put one cowl over the pair. His wench Onesta told me. She mostly looks in here for a chat when she goes an errand."
"This is the man for thee, my friend," said Teresa.
"All you have to do," continued Lucretia, "is to go to his lodgings (my boy shall show them you), and tell Onesta you come fromme, and you are a writer, and she will take you up to him. If you put a piece of silver in the wench's hand, 'twill do you no harm: that stands to reason."
"I have silver," said Teresa, warmly.
"But stay," said Lucretia, "mind one thing. What the young man saieth he can do, that he must be able to do, or let him shun the good friar like poison. He is a very wild beast against all bunglers. Why, 'twas but t'other day, one brought him an ill-carved crucifix. Says he: 'Is this how you present 'Salvator Mundi?' who died for you in mortal agony; and you go and grudge him careful work. This slovenly gimcrack, a crucifix? But that it is a crucifix of some sort, and I am a holy man, I'd dust your jacket with your crucifix,' says he. Onesta heard every word through the keyhole; so mind."
"Have no fears, madama," said Teresa, loftily. "I will answer for his ability; he saved my child."
Gerard was not subtle enough to appreciate this conclusion: and was so far from sharing Teresa's confidence that he begged a respite. He would rather not go to the friar to-day: would not to-morrow do as well?
"Here is a coward for ye," said Lucretia.
"No, he is not a coward," said Teresa, firing up. "He is modest."
"I am afraid of this high-born, fastidious friar," said Gerard. "Consider, he has seen the handywork of all the writers in Italy, dear dame Teresa; if you would but let me prepare a better piece of work than yet I have done, and then to-morrow I will face him with it."
"I consent," said Teresa.
They walked home together.
Not far from his own lodging was a shop that sold vellum. There was a beautiful white skin in the window. Gerard looked at it wistfully; but he knew he could not pay for it; so he went on rather hastily. However, he soon made up his mind where to get vellum: and, parting with Teresa at his own door, ran hastily up stairs, and took the bond he had brought all the way from Sevenbergen, and laid it with a sigh on the table. He then prepared with his chemicals to erase the old writing; but, as this was his last chance of reading it, he now overcame his deadly repugnance to bad writing, and proceeded to decipher the deed in spite of its detestable contractions. It appeared by this deed that Ghysbrecht Van Swieten was to advancesome money to Floris Brandt on a piece of land, and was to repay himself out of the rent.
On this Gerard felt it would be imprudent and improper to destroy the deed. On the contrary he vowed to decipher every word, at his leisure. He went down stairs, determined to buy a small piece of vellum with his half of the card money.
At the bottom of the stairs he found the landlady and Teresa talking. At sight of him the former cried: "Here he is. You are caught, donna mia. See what she has bought you!" And whipped out from under her apron the very skin of vellum Gerard had longed for.
"Why, dame! why, donna Teresa!" And he was speechless, with pleasure and astonishment.
"Dear donna Teresa, there is not a skin in all Rome like it. How ever came you to hit on this one? 'Tis glamour."
"Alas, dear boy, did not thine eye rest on it with desire? and didst thou not sigh in turning away from it? And was it for Teresa to let thee want the thing after that?"
"What sagacity! what goodness, madama! Oh, dame, I never thought I should possess this. What did you pay for it?"
"I forget. Addio, Fiammina. Addio, Ser Gerard. Be happy, be prosperous, as you are good." And the Roman matron glided away, while Gerard was hesitating, and thinking how to offer to pay so stately a creature for her purchase.
The next day in the afternoon he went to Lucretia, and her boy took him to Fra Colonna's lodgings. He announced his business and feed Onesta, and she took him up to the friar. Gerard entered with a beating heart. The room, a large one, was strewed and heaped with objects of art, antiquity, and learning, lying about in rich profusion, and confusion. Manuscripts, pictures, carvings in wood and ivory, musical instruments; and in this glorious chaos sat the friar, poring intently over an Arabian manuscript.
He looked up a little peevishly at the interruption. Onesta whispered in his ear.
"Very well," said he. "Let him be seated. Stay; young man, show me how you write!" And he threw Gerard a piece of paper, and pointed to an inkhorn.
"So please you, reverend father," said Gerard, "my hand, ittrembleth too much at this moment; but last night I wrote a vellum page of Greek, and the Latin version by its side, to show the various character."
"Show it me!"
Gerard brought the work to him in fear and trembling; then stood, heart-sick, awaiting his verdict.
When it came it staggered him. For the verdict was, a Dominican falling on his neck.
HAPPY the man who has two chain-cables; Merit, and Women.
Oh that I, like Gerard, had a "chaine des dames" to pull up by.
I would be prose laureat, or professor of the spasmodic, or something, in no time. En attendant, I will sketch the Fra Colonna.
The true revivers of ancient learning and philosophy, were two writers of fiction—Petrarch, and Boccaccio.
Their labours were not crowned with great, public, and immediate success; but they sowed the good seed; and it never perished, but quickened in the soil, awaiting sunshine.
From their day Italy was never without a native scholar or two, versed in Greek; and each learned Greek who landed there was received fraternally. The fourteenth century, ere its close, saw the birth of Poggio, Valla, and the elder Guarino: and early in the fifteenth Florence under Cosmo de Medici was a nest of Platonists. These, headed by Gemistus Pletho, a born Greek, began abouta. d.1440, to write down Aristotle. For few minds are big enough to be just to great A without being unjust to capital B.
Theodore Gaza defended that great man with moderation; George of Trebizond with acerbity, and retorted on Plato. Then Cardinal Bessarion, another born Greek, resisted the said George, and his idol, in a tract "Adversus calumniatorem Platonis."
Pugnacity, whether wise or not, is a form of vitality. Born without controversial bile in so zealous an epoch, Francesco Colonna, a young nobleman of Florence, lived for the arts. At twenty he turned Dominican friar. His object was quiet study. He retiredfrom idle company, and faction fights, the humming and the stinging of the human hive, to St. Dominic and the Nine Muses.
An eager student of languages, pictures, statues, chronology, coins, and monumental inscriptions. These last loosened his faith in popular histories.
He travelled many years in the East, and returned laden with spoils: master of several choice MSS., and versed in Greek and Latin, Hebrew and Syriac. He found his country had not stood still. Other lettered princes besides Cosmo had sprung up. Alfonso King of Naples, Nicolas d'Este, Lionel d'Este, &c. Above all, his old friend Thomas of Sarzana had been made pope, and had lent a mighty impulse to letters; had accumulated 5,000 MSS. in the library of the Vatican, and had set Poggio to translate Diodorus Siculus and Xenophon's Cyropædia, Laurentius Valla to translate Herodotus and Thucydides, Theodore Gaza, Theophrastus; George of Trebizond, Eusebius, and certain treatises of Plato, etc., etc.
The monk found Plato and Aristotle under armistice, but Poggio and Valla at loggerheads over verbs and nouns, and on fire with odium philologicum. All this was heaven; and he settled down in his native land, his life a rosy dream. None so happy as the versatile, provided they have not their bread to make by it. And Fra Colonna was Versatility. He knew seven or eight languages, and a little mathematics; could write a bit, paint a bit, model a bit, sing a bit, strum a bit; and could relish superior excellence in all these branches. For this last trait he deserved to be as happy as he was. For, gauge the intellects of your acquaintances, and you will find but few whose minds are neither deaf, nor blind, nor dead to some great art or science,
"And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out."
And such of them as are conceited as well as stupid, shall even parade, instead of blushing for, the holes in their intellects.
A zealot in art, the friar was a sceptic in religion.
In every age there are a few men, who hold the opinions of another age; past or future. Being a lump of simplicity, his scepticism was as naïf as his enthusiasm. He affected to look on the religious ceremonies of his day as his models, the heathen philosophers, regarded the worship of gods and departed heroes: mummeries goodfor the populace. But here his mind drew unconsciously a droll distinction. Whatever Christian ceremony his learning taught him was of purely pagan origin, that he respected, out of respect for antiquity; though had he, with his turn of mind, been a pagan and its cotemporary, he would have scorned it from his philosophic heights.
Fra Colonna was charmed with his new artist, and, having the run of half the palaces in Rome, sounded his praises so, that he was soon called upon to resign him. He told Gerard what great princes wanted him. "But I am so happy with you, father," objected Gerard. "Fiddlestick about being happy with me," said Fra Colonna, "you must not be happy; you must be a man of the world; the grand lesson I impress on the young is be a man of the world. Now these Montesini can pay you three times as much as I can, and they shall too—by Jupiter."
And the friar clapped a terrific price on Gerard's pen. It was acceded to without a murmur. Much higher prices were going forcopying, thanauthorshipever obtained for centuries under the printing press.
Gerard had three hundred crowns for Aristotle's treatise on rhetoric.
The great are mighty sweet upon all their pets, while the fancy lasts: and in the rage for Greek MSS. the handsome writer soon became a pet, and nobles of both sexes caressed him like a lap dog. It would have turned a vain fellow's head; but the canny Dutchman saw the steel hand beneath the velvet glove, and did not presume. Nevertheless it was a proud day for him, when he found himself seated with Fra Colonna at the table of his present employer, Cardinal Bessarion. They were about a mile from the top of that table; but, never mind, there they were; and Gerard had the advantage of seeing roast pheasants dished up with all their feathers as if they had just flown out of a coppice instead of off the spit: also chickens cooked in bottles, and tender as peaches. But the grand novelty was the napkins, surpassingly fine, and folded into cocked hats, and birds' wings, and fans, etc., instead of lying flat. This electrified Gerard: though my readers have seen the dazzling phenomenon without tumbling backwards chair and all.
After dinner the tables were split in pieces, and carried away,and lo under each was another table spread with sweetmeats. The signoras, and signorinas, fell upon them and gormandized; but the signors eyed them with reasonable suspicion.
"But, dear father," objected Gerard, "I see not the bifurcal daggers, with which men say his excellency armeth the left hand of a man."
"Nay, 'tis the Cardinal Orsini which hath invented yon peevish instrument for his guests to fumble their meat withal. One, being in haste, did skewer his tongue to his palate with it I hear; O tempora, O mores! The ancients, reclining godlike at their feasts, how have they spurned such pedantries."
As soon as the ladies had disported themselves among the sugar-plums, the tables were suddenly removed, and the guests sat in a row against the wall. Then came in, ducking and scraping, two ecclesiastics with lutes, and kneeled at the cardinal's feet and there sang the service of the day; then retired with a deep obeisance: in answer to which the cardinal fingered his skull cap as our late Iron Duke his hat: the company dispersed, and Gerard had dined with a cardinal, and one that had thrice just missed being pope.
But greater honour was in store.
One day the cardinal sent for him, and after praising the beauty of his work took him in his coach to the Vatican: and up a private stair to a luxurious little room, with a great oriel window. Here were inkstands, sloping frames for writing on, and all the instruments of art. The cardinal whispered a courtier, and presently the Pope's private secretary appeared with a glorious grimy old MS. of Plutarch's Lives. And soon Gerard was seated alone copying it, awestruck, yet half delighted at the thought that his holiness would handle his work and read it.
The papal inkstands were all glorious externally; but within the ink was vile. But Gerard carried ever good ink, home-made, in a dirty little inkhorn: he prayed on his knees for a firm and skilful hand, and set to work.
One side of his room was nearly occupied by a massive curtain divided in the centre: but its ample folds overlapped. After a while, Gerard felt drawn to peep through that curtain. He resisted the impulse. It returned. It overpowered him. He left Plutarch; stole across the matted floor; took the folds of the curtain, and gently gathered them up with his fingers, and putting his nose throughthe chink ran it against a cold steel halbert. Two soldiers armed cap-à-pie, were holding their glittering weapons crossed in a triangle. Gerard drew swiftly back: but in that instant he heard the soft murmur of voices and saw a group of persons cringing before some hidden figure.
He never repeated his attempt to pry through the guarded curtain; but often eyed it. Every hour or so an ecclesiastic peeped in, eyed him, chilled him, and exit. All this was gloomy and mechanical. But the next day a gentleman, richly armed, bounced in, and glared at him. "What is toward here?" said he.
Gerard told him he was writing out Plutarch, with the help of the saints. The spark said he did not know the signor in question. Gerard explained the circumstances of time and space, that had deprived the Signor Plutarch of the advantage of the spark's conversation.
"Oh! one of those old dead Greeks they keep such a coil about."
"Ay, signor, one of them, who, being dead, yet live."
"I understand you not, young man," said the noble, with all the dignity of ignorance. "What did the old fellow write? Love stories?" and his eyes sparkled: "merry tales like Boccaccio."
"Nay lives of heroes, and sages."
"Soldiers, and popes?"
"Soldiers, and princes."
"Wilt read me of them some day?"
"And willingly, signor. But what would they say who employ me, were I to break off work?"
"Oh never heed that; know you not who I am? I am Jacques Bonaventura, nephew to his holiness the Pope, and captain of his guards. And I came here to look after my fellows. I trow they have turned them out of their room for you." Signor Bonaventura then hurried away. This lively companion however having acquired a habit of running into that little room, and finding Gerard good company, often looked in on him, and chatted ephemeralities while Gerard wrote the immortal lives.
One day he came a changed, and moody man, and threw himself into a chair, crying "Ah, traitress! traitress!" Gerard inquired what was his ill? "Traitress! traitress!" was the reply. Whereupon Gerard wrote Plutarch. Then says Bonaventura "I am melancholy; and for our Lady's sake read me a story out of SerPlutarcho, to sooth my bile: in all that Greek is there nought about lovers betrayed?"
Gerard read him the life of Alexander. He got excited, marched about the room, and embracing the reader, vowed to shun "soft delights," that bed of nettles, and follow glory.
Who so happy now as Gerard? His art was honoured, and fabulous prices paid for it; in a year or two he should return by sea to Holland, with good store of money, and set up with his beloved Margaret in Bruges, or Antwerp, or dear Augsburg, and end their days in peace, and love, and healthy, happy labour. His heart never strayed an instant from her.
In his prosperity he did not forget poor Pietro. He took the Fra Colonna to see his picture. The friar inspected it severely and closely, fell on the artist's neck, and carried the picture to one of the Colonnas, who gave a noble price for it.
Pietro descended to the first floor; and lived like a gentleman.
But Gerard remained in his garret. To increase his expenses would have been to postpone his return to Margaret. Luxury had no charms for the single-hearted one, when opposed to love.
Jacques Bonaventura made him acquainted with other gay young fellows. They loved him, and sought to entice him into vice, and other expenses. But he begged humbly to be excused. So he escaped that temptation. But a greater was behind.