"Do not say that, marquis," said the princess, detaining him and looking at him with a clear penetrating glance that sent a thrill through Michel's whole being. "At this solemn moment of my life, that is a stab of which you do not realize the depth. To-morrow, for the first time in the twelve years that we have known without comprehending each other, you will comprehend me perfectly! Come," she added, shaking her lovely head, as if to banish serious thoughts, "let us go and dance! But first let us say good-night to the naiad, so lovely in this light, and to this charming grotto, which will soon be desecrated by the indifferent multitude."
"Was it old Pier-Angelo who decorated it so beautifully?" inquired the marquis, turning toward the naiad.
"No," replied the princess, "it was he!"
And hurrying from the room, as if impelled by a courageous resolution, she suddenly drew the curtain aside and threw it upon Michel, who, by unhoped-for good-fortune, was thus doubly concealed when she passed very near him.
As soon as the disquietude due to his own situation as an interloper was dispelled, he entered the grotto, and finding that he was quite alone there, he sank upon the divan, beside the place the princess had occupied. All that he had heard had agitated him strangely; but all the reflections in which he might have indulged were overshadowed by the last words that extraordinary woman had uttered.
Those words might have been an enigma to an absolutely humble and innocent young man: "No, it was not Pier-Angelo; it was he!" What a mysterious reply, or what extraordinary abstraction! But to Michel it was not abstraction: thathedid not relate to Pier-Angelo, but to himself. To the princess, therefore, he was a person whom it was not necessary to call by name, and she spoke of him in that concise and emphatic way to a man who was in love with her.
That inexplicable sentence, and the reticence which had preceded it, her refusal to admit that she loved the marquis, thatsolemn moment of her lifeto which she had referred, that terrible shock which she said that she had had during the evening, that important confidential communication which she was to make the next day—did all of these relate to Michel?
When he remembered the inexplicable glance she had bestowed upon him when she saw him for the first time before the opening of the ball, he was tempted to give way to the most insane presumptions. It is true that, while she was talking with the marquis, there had been a moment when her dreamy eyes had shone with no less extraordinary brilliancy; but it seemed to Michel that their expression was not the same as when they had looked into his. Glance for glance, he preferred the one that had fallen to him.
Who could describe the marvellous and gorgeous romances which that rash youth's brain developed during the next quarter of an hour? They were all built upon the same foundation, the unheard-of genius of a young artist who was ignorant of his own powers, and who had suddenly revealed them in a brilliant and extensive piece of decorative work. The lovely princess for whom that masterly work was undertaken had come often, by stealth, to observe its progress, and during the week that the artist had spent in the enchanted palace, taking his siesta and eating at certain hours, in certain mysterious rooms, this invisible fairy had come to gaze upon him, sometimes from behind a curtain, sometimes from a rose-window in the wall. She had been smitten with love for his person or with admiration for his talents—at any rate with an infatuation of some sort for him; and that sentiment was so intense that she could not summon the necessary self-possession to manifest it by words. Her glance had revealed everything to him in spite of herself; and how should he, trembling and bewildered as he was, find a way to tell her that he had understood her?
He had reached that point when the Marquis della Serra, the princess's adorer, suddenly reappeared before him and surprised him holding in his hands the fan the princess had left on the divan, and gazing at it without seeing it.
"I beg your pardon, my dear child," said the marquis, saluting him with charming courtesy, "but I am compelled to deprive you of that object, for which a lady has sent me. But if the Chinese pictures on this fan interest you, I can place at your disposal a collection of interesting vases and images from which you will be at liberty to choose."
"You are much too kind, signor marquis," replied Michel, offended by an air of benevolence in which he fancied that he could detect an impertinent assumption of superiority; "the fan does not interest me, and Chinese painting is not to my taste."
The marquis perceived Michel's irritation, and rejoined with a smile:
"Presumably you have seen only coarse specimens of the art of that people; but there are colored drawings, which, despite the elementary simplicity of the process, are worthy to be compared with the Etruscan vases in purity of outline and delightful artlessness of subjects. I shall be happy to show you those that I own. It is a small pleasure which I should be glad to afford you, but which would by no means pay my debt to you, for I have taken very great pleasure in looking at your paintings."
The marquis's tone was so sincere, and his face wore such an unmistakable expression of kindliness, that Michel, attacked on his weak side, could not refrain from saying ingenuously what he felt.
"I fear," he said, "that your lordship desires to encourage me by more indulgence than I deserve; for I cannot suppose that you would stoop to make sport of a young artist at the outset of his career."
"God forbid, my young friend!" replied the marquis, holding out his hand with an irresistibly cordial air. "I know your father too well and esteem him too highly not to be predisposed in your favor; that much I must admit; but I can say to you in all sincerity that your paintings disclose genius and give promise of talent. You see, I do not flatter you; there are still great faults in your work, due to inexperience or to overheated imagination: but there is a stamp of grandeur and originality of conception which can neither be acquired nor lost. Work, work, my young Michelangelo, and you will deserve the noble name you bear."
"Are others of your opinion, signor marquis?" queried Michel, strongly tempted to introduce the princess's name in the conversation.
"I think that everybody shares my opinion. Your defects are criticised indulgently, your good qualities warmly praised; people are not surprised at your brilliant performance when they learn that you are from Catania and the son of Pier-Angelo Lavoratori, an excellent workman, full of fire and spirit. We are loyal compatriots hereabout, Michelangelo! We rejoice at the triumphs won by a child of the country, and everyone generously claims a share in them. We esteem so highly those who are born on our beloved soil, that we forget all distinctions of rank, and nobles and peasants, artists and artisans, mutually overlook their ancient prejudices and unite their prayers in a fervent desire for national unity."
"Oho!" thought Michel, "the marquis is talking politics to me! I don't know his opinions. Perhaps, if he has guessed the princess's feelings, he proposes to try to ruin me! I will not trust him.—Will your lordship tell me," he said aloud, "if the Princess of Palmarosa has deigned to look at my paintings, and if she is not altogether dissatisfied with my work?"
"The princess is enchanted, do not doubt it, my dear fellow," replied the marquis, with extraordinary warmth; "and if she knew that you were here she would come and tell you so herself. But she is too much engaged at this moment for you to obtain speech of her. To-morrow, I doubt not, she will give you the praise that you deserve, and you will lose nothing by waiting. By the way," he said, turning again as he was about to leave the grotto, "will you come and see my Chinese paintings, and some other pictures not altogether without merit? I shall be delighted to see you often. My country house is close at hand."
Michel bowed, as if to thank him and accept his invitation; but, although he could not help being flattered by the marquis's gracious manner toward him, he was depressed, crushed as it were. Evidently the marquis was not jealous of him. He was not even disturbed.
Nothing is so mortifying as to have believed, though it were only for a single hour, in the reality of a romantic, intoxicating adventure, and to discover that you have simply been dreaming an absurd dream. Each new reflection in which our young artist indulged cooled his brain and led him back to the dismal field of probabilities. Upon what foundation had he built so many castles in Spain? Upon a glance which he had doubtless misinterpreted, and upon a remark which he must have misunderstood. All the convincing arguments which offered a flat contradiction to his extravagant conceit stood like a mountain in his path, and he felt that he was falling back from heaven to earth.
"I am very foolish," he said to himself, "to give all my thoughts to a problematical pair of eyes and to unintelligible words from a woman whom I do not know, and whom consequently I do not love, when I have far more important matters on hand. I must go and see if this marquis did not deceive me, and if everybody really considers that my paintings show genius in default of science. And yet," he continued, as he left the grotto, "there is something that savors of mystery at the bottom of all this, none the less. How does this marquis know me, when I never saw him? How does it happen that he accosted me without hesitation, with such familiarity, and called me by my Christian name, as if we were old friends? To be sure, he may have been at some window, or in a church, or on the public square on the day I walked through the city with my father; or when I was looking at the aërial gardens of the Semiramis who employs me, he may have been in one of those boudoirs, apparently so tightly closed, whose windows look in that direction, and where he is allowed, doubtless, to go and sigh hopelessly for her lovely capricious eyes."
Michel walked through the crowd, and attracted no one's attention. His features were not known, although his name had been on many lips, and people talked freely of his work in his very ears.
"That is promising," said some.
"He still has much to learn," said others.
"There is much imagination and good taste; it pleases the eye and interests the mind."
"True, but some of the arms are too long, and the legs too short; the foreshortening shows extreme ignorance; the figures are making impossible gestures."
"Agreed, but graceful, none the less. I tell you that this boy, for they say he is a mere child, will go a long way."
"He is a child of our city."
"Indeed! well, he will go around it and no farther," retorted a Neapolitan.
From first to last Michelangelo Lavoratori heard more kindly praise than bitter criticism; but he felt many thorns while plucking many roses, and he realized that success is a sweetmeat in which there is a plentiful supply of gall. He was depressed at first; then, folding his arms across his breast, and contemplating his work, without listening farther to the opinion of others, he took account of its merits and defects with an impartiality which triumphed over his self-love.
"They are all right," he said. "It promises, but pays nothing in advance. I have already made up my mind to destroy these canvases when I store them in the storerooms of the palace, and I will do better hereafter. I have made an experiment upon myself, which I do not regret, although I am not very well satisfied with it; but I shall know how to profit by it, and whether this undertaking is favorable to my fortunes or not, it shall be to my talent."
Having recovered all his lucidity of thought, and reflecting that he was not one of those patrons who assisted the poor by purchasing a card of admission, Michel determined to abstain from watching the fête and to walk about alone in some quiet corner of the palace until he felt absolutely calm and disposed to go home and to bed. His reason had returned, but the fatigue of the preceding days had left a touch of feverish excitement in his blood and in his nerves. He bent his steps toward the Casino, whence he could go out upon the natural terraces of the mountain.
The whole of that magnificent abode was illuminated and adorned with flowers; the public were allowed free access to every part; but, after once making the tour of the upper floors, the crowd ceased to go thither. The bulk of the spectacle, the dancing, music, bustle, youth and love, were below, in the great temporary ball-room. No one remained in the upper galleries, on the graceful staircases, or in the vast apartments, save an occasional majestic or mysterious group of solemn personages discussing affairs of state, or great coquettes collecting and detaining by their refined conversation certain chosen men around their chairs.
Toward midnight all those who had not a direct interest in the affair, or were not enjoying themselves, took their leave, and, the concourse becoming less numerous, the fête was more enjoyable and more beautiful to the eye.
Michel reached the princess's aërial garden by a small secret staircase. At that elevation the breeze was very cool, and he felt exceedingly refreshed and comfortable as he sat on the top step of that staircase, near a fragrant flower-bed. The garden was deserted. Through the silver gauze curtains he could see the interior of the princess's apartments, also deserted. But Michel was not long alone; Magnani joined him.
Magnani was one of the handsomest young men among the mechanics of the city. He was industrious, intelligent, high-spirited, and honest. Michel did not attempt to combat the friendly feeling he inspired, and in his company forgot the embarrassment and distrust which he had felt from the beginning with all the workmen with whom his father's position had compelled him to associate. He suffered, poor boy, after years of leisure, to be thrown with young men who were inclined to be a little rough and noisy, who reproached him for looking down on them, and whom he made vain efforts to look upon as his equals.
He confessed everything to Magnani, whom he saw to be the most intelligent of them all, and in whose hearty outspokenness there was nothing offensive or tyrannical. He confided to him all the ambitions, all the weaknesses, all the intoxicating emotions, all the sufferings, in a word, all the little secrets of his young heart. Magnani understood him, excused him and talked sensibly to him.
"You are not wrong in my eyes, Michel," he said; "inequality of rank is the law of society; everyone wishes to rise, no one wishes to descend. If it were otherwise the people would remain in the brute stage. But the people aspire to grow, thank God! and they do grow, whatever may be done to prevent them. I myself strive to succeed, to possess something, to reach a point where I shall not always have to obey, in a word, to be free! But whatever happiness I may attain, it seems to me that I ought not to forget the point from which I started. Unjust chance compels many men to remain in poverty who deserve as well as I, perhaps much better, to escape from it. That is why I shall never despise those whom I leave behind me, and shall not cease to love them with all my heart and aid them with all my power.
"I know that you shun your brothers in rank without despising them, without hating them; you do not enjoy yourself with them, and yet you would do them a favor on occasion; but beware! there is a touch of ill-advised pride in this sort of patronizing affection, and, although the day may come when it will be all right, remember that at the present time it may well seem misplaced. You have more intelligence and more knowledge of life than most of us, I agree; but is that a very real superiority? Will not any poor devil who happens to have more wisdom, virtue, or courage than you be entitled to consider himself your equal at least, even if his speech is abrupt and his language vulgar?
"It will happen more than once in your career as an artist that you will have to endure patiently the impertinence of the rich; indeed, if I am not mistaken, an artist's life is likely to be a constant struggle to shelter his individual merit from the contempt of the imaginary merit attached to birth, power, and wealth. However, you are aiming for that social level, without fear or shame; you accept the challenge in advance, you propose to measure strength with the bitter vanity of the great; how does it happen, pray, that that seems less offensive and less unpleasant than the harmless familiarity of the humble? I could more readily excuse the affront of an ignorant man than that of a coxcomb, and I should feel more at ease amid the fisticuffs of my companions, than when exposed to the graceful witticisms of my alleged superiors.
"Is it ennui that drives you away from us? Is it because we have few ideas and little skill in expressing them? But perhaps we have something else which would interest you if you understood it. The simplicity which characterizes us has its noble side, which should arouse respect and emotion in those who have lost it. Is it the faults or the vices that are found among us that make you sick at heart? But are the upper classes exempt from these same vices, which it pains me to see, and which I am constantly on my guard against? Because they conceal them better, or because in them debauchery of the mind colors and quickens that of the body, does it follow that their vices are more estimable? In vain do they, the fortunate ones of the age, cover their tracks; their sins, their crimes become known to us, and often, almost always in fact, they seek their confederates or their victims among us.
"Go on, Michel, work, hope, rise, but let it not be at the expense of the spirit of justice and kindness; for in that case, although you might grow in the opinion of some, you would descend proportionately in the esteem of the majority."
"All that you say is true and wise," Michel replied, "but is the conclusion well drawn? Ought I to pursue the career of art, and at the same time associate exclusively, or at least by preference, with these mechanics among whom fate willed that I should be born? If you reflect, you will see that that is inconsistent, that the great works of art are in the hands of the rich, that they alone own, purchase, and order pictures, statues, urns, carvings, and engravings. To be employed by them, one must needs live with them and as they live; otherwise oblivion, obscurity and poverty are the lot of genius. Our ancestors, the noble artists of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, were artists and artisans at once. Their position was well-defined, and was more or less brilliant according to their talent. To-day all is changed. Artists are more numerous and the rich are less powerful and magnificent. Taste has become corrupted, the Mæcenases are no longer connoisseurs. Fewer palaces are built; for one great collection that is formed, thirty are sold piecemeal to pay debts, or because the heirs of the great families prefer cash to monuments of genius. It is no longer enough, therefore, to be a man of superior talent in order to find employment and honor in one's profession. Chance, and, even more frequently, intrigue, cause some to float, while others, who it may be are of far greater worth, are submerged.
"However, I do not trust to chance, and my pride refuses to stoop to intrigue. What shall I do, then? Shall I wait until some collector's eye is attracted by a decorative figure, broadly conceived, on sized canvas, and he is so impressed by it that he comes next day to the wineshop to hunt me up and order a picture? Such good fortune may occur once in a hundred times; but even then, on the day when it occurs to me, I shall owe my bread to the patronage of the rich man, who is beginning to be interested in me. Sooner or later I must bow before him and beg him to recommend me to others. Would it not be better for me, at the earliest possible moment, as soon as I am sure of myself, to quit the ladder and the apron, to assume the external aspect of a man who does not beg, and to present myself, with my head erect, among the rich? If I go out of the wineshop arm-in-arm with the merry knights of the saw and trowel, it is evident that I cannot enter the palace as a guest, but as a paid workman; and at this moment, if I should venture to accost one of these lovely women and ask her to dance, I should be spat upon and turned out of doors within a quarter of an hour. The time must come, however, when they will make overtures to me, and when my talent will be a title capable of contending on equal terms with that of duke or marquis for the triumphs of this world. But only on condition that my habits and my manners bear the stamp and seal of aristocracy. I must be what they call a man of good breeding; otherwise it would avail me nothing to be a man of genius; no one would believe it.
"I shall not make my way as an artist, therefore, except by destroying the artisan in me. I must succeed in becoming the free possessor of my own works, and in selling them as an owner does, instead of executing them like a day-laborer. Well! for that I must have reputation, and in these days reputation does not go about looking for an artist in his garret; he is obliged to acquire it himself by his own exertions, consorting with those who award it, demanding it as a right and not imploring it as alms. Tell me, Magnani, how I am to escape this dilemma! And yet it pains me terribly, I assure you, to think that I must in some sense deny the race of my fathers, and that I must submit to be accused of idiocy and impudence by men whose brother and friend I feel that I am. You see that I must go away from a country where my father's popularity would make this separation more offensive to others and more painful to myself than elsewhere. I came here to perform a duty—to expiate my heedlessness at Rome; but when my task is done, I must return thither, and from there travel the world over, in the disguise, perhaps premature, of a free man. If I do not do it, farewell to my whole future; I may as well renounce it to-day."
"Yes! yes! I understand," said Magnani; "you must set yourself free at any price. The journeyman's work is slavery; the work of an artist is the title of manhood. You are right, Michel; it is your right, consequently your duty and your destiny. But how dismal and cruel the destiny of an intelligent man is! One must cast off his family, leave his native land, act a sort of comedy to induce strangers to accept him as one of themselves, assume a mask in order to receive the laurel wreath, take up arms against the poor who condemn him and the rich who are loath to receive him! Why, it is horrible! it is enough to disgust one with glory! In God's name, what is glory that one should purchase it at that price?"
"Glory, as it is commonly understood, is nothing at all, I agree," replied Michel, warmly, "if it is nothing more than the trifling noise a man may make in the world. Shame to him who denies his blood and sacrifices his affections to gratify his vanity! But glory, according to my conception, is not that! It is the manifestation and development of the genius one bears within oneself. In default of enlightened judges, warm admirers, stern critics, and even jealous detractors—in default of opportunity to enjoy all the advantages, to receive all the counsels, to undergo all the persecution which follow in the wake of renown—genius withers and dies in discouragement, apathy, doubt or ignorance of itself. Thanks to all the triumphs, all the struggles, all the wounds which await us in a lofty career, we acquire the power to make the most glorious use of our capabilities, and to leave a deep, ineffaceable, forever fruitful trace in the world of thought. Ah! he who truly loves his art desires glory for his works, not in order that his name may live, but that his art may not die. And what would it matter to me that I had not the art of my patron saint Michelangelo, if I should leave to posterity an anonymous work worthy to be compared to theLast Judgment! To make oneself talked about is more often a source of martyrdom than of intoxicating pleasure. The serious-minded artist seeks that martyrdom and endures it patiently. He knows that it is the harsh condition of his success; and his success, not in being applauded and understood by all, but in producing and leaving behind him something in which he himself has faith. But what is the matter, Magnani? You are sad, and you are not listening to me."
"Yes, I am listening to you, Michel, I am listening attentively," Magnani replied, "and I am sad because I feel the force of your reasoning. You are not the first person with whom I have talked of these matters. I have known more than one young mechanic who aspired to drop his trade, to become a merchant, lawyer, priest or artist; and it is true enough that the number of these deserters increases every year. Whoever feels that he possesses intelligence instantly becomes conscious of ambition; and hitherto I have fought such tendencies vigorously in others and in myself. My parents, who are proud and obstinate like the prudent, hard-working old people that they are, taught me, as a religious precept, to remain true to family traditions—to the customs of my rank; and my heart approved of that strict and simple code of morals. That is why I have resolved not to seek success outside of my trade, though I sometimes have to crush my own impulses. That is why I have always roughly trampled upon the self-love of my young comrades as soon as I saw it sprouting; that is why my first words of sympathy and regard for you were warnings and reproaches. It seems to me now that, until I had you to deal with, I was in the right, because the others were really vain, and their vanity tended to make them selfish and ungrateful. So that I felt fully justified in rebuking them, laughing at them and preaching to them by turns. But with you I feel that I am weak, because you are stronger than I in theory. You depict art in such grand and beautiful colors, you feel so strongly the noble character of your mission, that I dare not oppose you any longer. It seems to me that you have a right to break down every obstacle in order to succeed, even your heart, as I broke mine in order to remain obscure. And yet my conscience is not satisfied with this solution. It does not seem to me to be a solution. Come, Michel, you are more learned than I; tell me which of us is wrong before God!"
"My friend, I believe that we are both right," replied Michel. "I believe that at this moment we represent between us what is taking place, contradictorily but simultaneously, in the minds of the common people in all civilized nations. You plead for sentiment. Your paternal feeling is holy and sacred. It is opposed to my idea; but my idea is grand and true; it is as sacred in its passion for combat, as your sentiment in its theory of renunciation and silence. You are following your duty, I am enforcing my right. Bear with me, Magnani, for I respect you, and each of our ideals is incomplete until it is completed by the other."
"Yes, you speak of abstract ideas," rejoined Magnani, thoughtfully, "and I think that I understand you; but in the concrete the question is not solved. The society of the present day is struggling between two reefs, resignation and resistance. Through love for my class I choose to suffer and protest with it. From the same motive, perhaps, you choose to fight and triumph in its name. These two methods of action seem to exclude and condemn each other. Before the divine tribunal which will prevail, sentiment or idea? You say, both. But on earth, where men are not governed by divine laws, how can we possibly make those two extremes harmonize? I seek in vain a means."
"But why seek it?" said Michel; "it does not exist on earth at this moment. The people may free themselves and make themselves famous as a whole by glorious battles, by good morals, by civic virtues, but each individual of the people has his individual destiny; the destiny of the man who feels that he was born to touch hearts is to live on fraternal terms with the simple; of him who feels that his calling is to enlighten men's minds, to seek light, though it be in solitude, though it be among the enemies of his race. The great masters of art worked, from a material standpoint, for wealth, but, from a moral standpoint, for all mankind; for the poorest of the poor can obtain from their works a revelation and appreciation of the beautiful. Let every man follow his inspiration therefore, and bow to the mysterious designs of Providence with respect to him! My father loves to sing rollicking ballads in taverns; he electrifies his companions with them; the stories that he tells sitting on a bench at a street corner, his cheery humor, and his ardor in singing or in the common toil inspire all those who see and hear him. Heaven has endowed him with the power of acting directly, by the simplest means, on the vital fibres of his brethren, zeal in labor, expansiveness in the hours of rest. For my part, I have a liking for solitary temples, sumptuous, dark old palaces, venerable masterpieces, studious reverie, the refined enjoyments of art. The society of patricians has no terrors for me. I consider them too degenerate to be feared; their names have for me a poesy which makes of them mere figures, ghosts, if you choose, and I love to walk smiling among those ghosts who do not frighten me. I love the dead; I live with the past; and from the past I acquire my idea of the future; but I confess that I have but little notion of the present, that the precise moment of my existence has no existence for me, because I am always delving in the past, and pushing all realities forward. In that way I transform them and idealize them. You see that I should not reach the same ends as my father and you, even if I used the same means. It is not in me to do it."
"Michel," said Magnani, striking his forehead, "you have won! I must absolve you and spare you my remonstrances henceforth! But I am suffering, I am suffering terribly! Your words cause me very great pain!"
"How so, my dear Magnani?"
"That is my secret, and yet I tell it to you without betraying its sanctity. Can you possibly suppose that I have not some legitimate ambition, some secret, deep-rooted desire to set myself free from the servitude in which I live? Don't you know that all men have at the bottom of their hearts the desire to be happy? And do you suppose that the consciousness of a joyless duty causes me to wallow in delight?
"Listen and judge of my martyrdom. I have loved madly for five years a woman whose rank in society places her as far above me as heaven is above the earth. Having always considered it impossible that she should ever bestow so much as a compassionate glance upon me, I cultivated a sort of gloomy satisfaction in my suffering, my poverty, my forced nullity among my fellowmen. With a bitter feeling at my heart, I determined not to imitate those who are determined to succeed and who expose themselves to the risk of being scoffed at from above and from below. If I were one of them, I thought, perhaps the day would come when I might gallantly raise to my lips the hand of her whom I adore. But as soon as I opened my mouth to reveal the mystery of my passion, I should undoubtedly be spurned, laughed at, trampled under foot; I prefer to remain lost in the dust of my trade, and never to carry my insane presumption so far as her feet. I prefer that she should continue to believe it impossible that I could ever dream of aspiring to her. At all events, while I wear the livery of the mechanic, she will respect the suffering of which she knows nothing; she will not intensify it by discovering it, by blushing because she inspired it, by deeming it necessary to protect herself from it. Now, she passes me as she passes anything which is of no consequence to her, but which she does not consider that she has the right to spurn and crush. She bows to me, smiles at me, and speaks to me as to a being of a different nature from her own: that instinct is not manifest, but it is in her; I feel it and I understand it. At all events, she does not think of humiliating me, she would not do it; and the less reason I have for priding myself upon the possibility of pleasing her, the less do I fear that she will insult me by her pity. All this would change if I were a painter or a poet, if I could present her with her portrait done by my trembling hand, or with a sonnet indited by me in her honor; she would smile differently, she would speak differently. There would be reserve, mockery, or compassion in her kindness, according as I should have succeeded or failed in my artistic efforts. Oh! how far that would remove me from her, how much lower it would leave me than I now am! I prefer to be the mechanic who renders her a service by selling her the use of his arms, rather than the beginner in art to be patronized as a weakling or pitied as a madman!"
"I approve what you have done," said Michel, who had become pensive in his turn. "I like your pride, and I think that it would be a good example to follow even in my position and with the projects which I entertain, if I were tempted to seek love beyond certain obstacles, which, though absurd, are enormous!"
"Oh! it is very different with you, Michel. The obstacles which would exist between you and a great lady to-day will quickly be surmounted, and, as you yourself have said, the day will come when those women will make advances to you. Those words, which escaped from your heart, seemed to me presumptuous and absurd at first. Now that I understand you they seem perfectly natural and legitimate to me. Yes, you will win the favor of women of the most exalted rank, because you are in the bloom of youth, because your beauty is of a refined and somewhat effeminate type, which gives you a resemblance to the men who are born to a life of idleness; because you are accustomed to fashionable society, because you have the instinct of good manners and seem perfectly at home in the clothes you wear; for all these things, added to genius and success, are essential to induce proud women to overlook the artist's plebeian origin. Yes, you will be able to appear a man in their eyes, while I should disguise myself to no purpose; I should never be anything but a mechanic, and my rough shell would show in spite of me. It is too late for me to begin: I am twenty-six years old! But I thrill with strange emotion when I think that, five years ago, when I was still as pliable as wax, if someone had encouraged and ennobled in my eyes the instincts that were springing to life within me, if someone had spoken to me as you have just done, I might have followed a course not unlike yours, and have started upon a soul-stirring career! My mind was open to the sentiment of the beautiful; I could sing like the nightingale, without understanding my own notes, but with the power of untaught inspiration. I could read, understand, and remember many books; I understood nature, too; I could read in the sky and in the broad expanse of the sea, in the verdure of the forests and the blue-capped mountains. It seems to me that I might have been a musician, or a poet, or a landscape painter. And love was already speaking to my heart; already she had appeared to me from whom I cannot detach my thoughts. What a stimulus for me if I had surrendered to my violent temptations!—But I forced them all back into my heart, fearing to be false to my kindred and friends, fearing to degrade myself in their eyes and my own by seeking to rise. I have inured myself to work; my hands have become callous, and my mind as well. My chest has increased in size, it is true, and my heart has kept pace with it, like a polypus which feeds upon me and absorbs all my vitality; but my brow has retreated, I am sure of it; my imagination has collapsed; poesy is dead within me; I have nothing left except the reasoning power, loyalty, resolution, and self-sacrifice—that is to say, suffering! Ah! Michel, spread your wings and leave this land of sorrows! fly, like a bird, to the domes of palaces and temples, and from that height look down upon this wretched people, grovelling and groaning at your feet. Pity me at least, love me if you can, and never do anything which can lower you in your own eyes."
Magnani was deeply moved; but suddenly his emotion changed its nature; he started, hastily turned his head and put his hand on the branches of a dense clump of rose myrtle, which masked a dark recess in the wall behind him. That curtain of verdure, which he put aside with a convulsive movement, concealed the entrance to a secret passage, which, as it presumably led only to the servants' quarters, was not open to the princess's guests. Michel, surprised at Magnani's movement, glanced into the passage, which was dimly lighted by a dying lamp, the farther end being in total darkness. It seemed to him that he saw a white figure gliding through the shadows, but it was so vague that it was hardly perceptible, and it might have been an illusion caused by the sudden introduction of a brighter light when the bushes were put aside. He was about to enter; but Magnani detained him, saying:
"We have no right to watch what takes place in the reserved portions of this sanctuary. My first curious movement was made without reflection; I thought that I heard a light step close beside me, and—I was dreaming, doubtless!—I fancied that I saw this bush move. But it was an illusion due to the fear that seized upon me at the thought that I was on the point of letting my secret pass my lips. I must leave you, Michel; these outpourings of the heart are dangerous, they upset me; I feel that I must withdraw into myself and give my reason time to allay the tempests raised in my breast by your words and your example."
Magnani hurried away, and Michel returned to the ball. The confession of his young companion, that he was beset by an insane love for a great lady, had reawakened in him an emotion which he thought that he had conquered. He hovered about the dancers, trying to divert his thoughts, for he felt that his folly was as dangerous for the moment as Magnani's. Many years must pass before he could consider that his genius had placed him on the level of the most exalted social ranks; so that he derived an agonizing sort of amusement from watching the youngest of the dancers and dreamily seeking among them one whom he might some day gaze upon with eyes inflamed with love and presumption. Probably he did not discover her, for he transferred his fancy from one to another, and, as one risks nothing by being hard to please in that variety of castles in Spain, he continued to seek, and to discuss with himself the comparative merits of those youthful beauties.
But in the midst of these aberrations of his brain he suddenly saw the Princess of Palmarosa pass. He had been careful hitherto to remain at some distance from the dancing groups, and to keep well out of sight behind the benches of the amphitheatre; now he involuntarily approached; and, although the crowd was not dense enough to justify or conceal his presence, he walked on until he was almost in the front row, among persons each nobler and richer than his neighbor. This time his instinctive pride did not warn him of the perils of his situation. An invincible magnet drew him on and detained him: the princess was dancing.
Doubtless it was for form's sake, to satisfy the proprieties, or from good nature, for she simply walked, and did not seem to take the slightest pleasure in it. But she walked better than the others danced, and, without a thought of striving to be graceful, she displayed every variety of grace. That woman really possessed an extraordinary charm which penetrated like a subtle perfume, and finally dominated or effaced everything about her. One would have said that she was a queen in the midst of her court, in some kingdom where moral and physical perfection reigned.
It was the chastity of the celestial virgins with their omnipotent serenity—a pallor in nowise extreme or sickly—which denoted the absence of intense emotions. People said that the secret of that mysterious life was either systematic abstinence from excitement or extraordinary indifference. And yet her appearance was not that of a lifeless statue. Kindness of heart lent animation to her somewhat absent-minded glance and gave an indescribable sweetness to her faint smile.
In the glare of those countless lights she appeared to Michel an entirely different woman from her he had seen in the grotto an hour earlier, when the peculiar light or his own imagination had made her appear a little terrifying to him. Now her indifference was calm rather than depressed, habitual rather than forced. She had recovered just enough animation to vanquish the heart and leave the passions undisturbed.
If Michel could have removed his eyes from the object of his contemplation, he would have seen his father playing a flageolet in the orchestra a few steps away. Pier-Angelo had a passion for art in any form in which he could assimilate it. He loved and understood music, and played several instruments by instinct in almost perfect tone and time. Having attended to several details of the fête which had been placed under his supervision, and having nothing more to do, he had been unable to resist the desire to mingle with the musicians, who knew him well, and who took pleasure in his gayety, his attractive, kindly face, and the enthusiasm with which he produced from time to time a shrillritornelloon his instrument. When the minstrel whose place he had taken returned from the buffet, Pier-Angelo seized upon the vacant cymbals, and, toward the end of the quadrille, was sawing with great delight the heavy strings of the bass-viol.
He was enchanted above all things to play for the princess, who, having espied his bald head on the platform among the orchestra, bestowed upon him from a distance a smile and an imperceptible friendly nod which the old man stored away in his heart. Michelangelo would have considered perhaps that his father gave his time too lavishly to the service of his dear patroness, and did not maintain strictly enough his dignity as an artisan. But at that moment Michel, who believed that he had forgotten or been cured of the effect of Princess Agatha's glance, had fallen so completely under its influence that he cared for nothing but to encounter it again.
His only fine clothes, which a lingering remnant of ineradicable aristocratic feeling had led him to bring through the gorges of Ætna in a travelling-bag slung over his shoulder, were of fashionable cut and in good taste. His face, too, was so handsome and so noble that there certainly was nothing to which exception could be taken in his person or in his dress. And yet his presence in the circle immediately surrounding the princess had, for some moments past, offended the eyes of Master Barbagallo, the majordomo of the palace.
That individual, ordinarily the mildest and most humane of men, had nevertheless his antipathies and his spasms of comical indignation. He had recognized Michel's talent; but the young man's impatient air when he ventured to address some trivial remark to him, and the small respect he had seemed to entertain for his authority, had caused the majordomo to look upon the painter with distrust and something like aversion. According to his ideas—and he had made a special study of titles and heraldry—nobody was noble but thenobles, and he looked upon all other classes of society with silent but unconquerable disdain. He was shocked and offended, therefore, to see the haughty palace of his masters thrown open to what he called a mob—tradesmen, lawyers, Jewesses, suspicious travellers, students, petty officers; in a word, to anyone who chose to pay a gold-piece for the privilege of dancing in the princess's quadrille. This subscription fête was a new invention, imported from abroad, and it overturned all his notions of decorum.
The retirement in which the princess had always lived had assisted this worthy majordomo to retain all his illusions and all his prejudices touching the excellence of castes. That is why he became more and more distressed, restless and morose as the night advanced. He had seen the princess promise a contra-dance to a young lawyer who had had the audacity to invite her; and when he saw Michelangelo Lavoratori gazing at her at such close quarters with enraptured eyes, he wondered if that dauber of canvas would not also enter the lists to dance with her.
"The world has turned upside down in twenty years, I see," he said to himself; "if such a ball as this had been given here in Prince Dionigi's time, things would have been managed differently. Each class would have kept apart from the rest; they would have formed different groups, and no group would have mingled with its superiors or inferiors. But here all ranks are jumbled together; it's a bazar—an infernal revel!—But, by the way," it occurred to him, "what is that little painter doing here? He didn't pay any money; he has not even the right which anyone can buy to-day, alas! at the door of the noble Palmarosa palace. He is only admitted here as a workman. If he chooses to play the tambourine beside his old father, or look after the lamps, let him stand back from where he is now. I will take down his conceit a peg, and it won't do him any good to play at being a great painter. I'll send him back to his sizing. It's a little lesson that I owe him, as his old madman of a father spoils him and doesn't know how to manage him."
Armed with this noble resolution, Messire Barbagallo, who dared not approach the princess's circle himself, tried to attract Michel's attention from a distance by making innumerable signs, of which the young man remained utterly unconscious. Thereupon the majordomo, seeing that the contra-dance was nearly at an end, and that the princess could not fail to see young Lavoratori, who had planted himself so audaciously in her path, determined to accomplish his purpose by a coup d'état. He glided among the spectators like a hunting-dog in a field of grain, and, gently passing his arm through the young man's, he tried to lead him aside without any noise or disturbance.
At that moment Michel had met the glance from the princess which he had been seeking and awaiting so long.
That glance had thrilled him like an electric shock, veiled though it was by instinctive prudence; and when he felt some one grasp his arm, without deigning to turn his head to ascertain with whom he had to do, he repelled with an energetic dig of the elbow the indiscreet hand that had touched him.
"What are you doing here, Master Michel?" said the indignant majordomo in his ear.
"What business is it of yours?" he replied, turning his back and shrugging his shoulders.
"You ought not to be here," replied Barbagallo, on the point of losing patience, but restraining himself sufficiently to speak in a low tone.
"It is all right for you to be here, I suppose!" replied Michel, glaring at him with eyes inflamed with wrath, hoping to get rid of him by intimidation.
But Barbagallo had a certain courage of his own; he would have submitted to be spat upon rather than fail in the smallest degree in what he conceived to be his duty.
"I am doing my duty," he said; "go and do yours. I am sorry to disturb you; but everyone must keep in his place. Oh! don't be insolent! Where is your card of admission? You haven't one, I know. If you are allowed to see the fête, it is only on condition that you look after the buffet or the lights, like your father; let us see, what were you told to do? Go and find the butler, and he will tell you what to do; and if he doesn't need you, go away, instead of staring ladies out of countenance."
Master Barbagallo continued to speak so low that nobody could hear him save Michel; but his wrathful eyes and his convulsive gestures were eloquent enough, and people were already beginning to look at them. Michel had fully determined to retire, for he knew that he had no way of resisting the order. The idea of striking an old man was most distasteful to him, and yet never before had the blood of the common people itched more fiercely in the hollow of his hand. He would have yielded smilingly to an impertinence couched in polite phraseology; but, not knowing what to do to rescue his dignity from that absurd attack, he felt as if he should die of rage and shame.
Barbagallo was already threatening, under his breath, to call for help to overcome his resistance. The persons who were nearest them glanced with an expression of satirical surprise at this strange young man at odds with the majordomo of the palace. The ladies gathered up their skirts and drew back into the crowd, to be farther away from him. They thought that he might be a pickpocket who had found his way into the ball-room, or some insolent intriguer who was about to cause a scandal.
But just as poor Michel was on the point of swooning with wrath and shame, for the blood was already roaring in his ears, and his legs were giving way, a faint cry, not two yards away, drove all the blood back to his heart. It seemed to him that he had heard that cry before, a cry of grief, surprise and affection, all in one, in the midst of his sleep on the evening of his arrival at the palace. Obeying an instinctive impulse of confidence and hope, which he could not explain to himself, he turned in the direction of that friendly voice and darted forward at random, as if to seek refuge on the breast from which it issued. Suddenly he found himself close beside the princess, with his hand in hers, which pressed it tremblingly but warmly. That movement and that expression of their mutual emotion were as rapid as the lightning flash. The amazed spectators opened a passage for the princess, who walked across the hall, leaning upon Michel, leaving her partner in the middle of his final bow, the majordomo in utter dismay, wishing that he could sink through the floor, and the spectators laughing at the good man's discomfiture, and concluding that Michel was some young foreigner of distinction recently arrived at Catania, to whom the princess made haste to atone, with graceful tact and without useless words, for her majordomo's blunder.