“It is plainly enough to be seen, methinks,” answered the Count, with a kind of sulkiness that often appeared in him, as one of the little symptoms of inward trouble.
“Yes; its exterior2 is visible far and wide,” said Kenyon. “But such a gray, moss-grown tower as this, however valuable as an object of scenery, will certainly be quite as interesting inside as out. It cannot be less than six hundred years old; the foundations and lower story are much older than that, I should judge; and traditions probably cling to the walls within quite as plentifully3 as the gray and yellow lichens4 cluster on its face without.”
“No doubt,” replied Donatello,—“but I know little of such things, and never could comprehend the interest which some of you Forestieri take in them. A year or two ago an English signore, with a venerable white beard—they say he was a magician, too—came hither from as far off as Florence, just to see my tower.”
“Ah, I have seen him at Florence,” observed Kenyon. “He is a necromancer5, as you say, and dwells in an old mansion6 of the Knights7 Templars, close by the Ponte Vecchio, with a great many ghostly books, pictures, and antiquities9, to make the house gloomy, and one bright-eyed little girl, to keep it cheerful!”
“I know him only by his white beard,” said Donatello; “but he could have told you a great deal about the tower, and the sieges which it has stood, and the prisoners who have been confined in it. And he gathered up all the traditions of the Monte Beni family, and, among the rest, the sad one which I told you at the fountain the other day. He had known mighty10 poets, he said, in his earlier life; and the most illustrious of them would have rejoiced to preserve such a legend in immortal11 rhyme,—especially if he could have had some of our wine of Sunshine to help out his inspiration!”
“Any man might be a poet, as well as Byron, with such wine and such a theme,” rejoined the sculptor. “But shall we climb your tower The thunder-storm gathering12 yonder among the hills will be a spectacle worth witnessing.”
“Come, then,” said the Count, adding, with a sigh, “it has a weary staircase, and dismal13 chambers14, and it is very lonesome at the summit!”
“Like a man’s life, when he has climbed to eminence,” remarked the sculptor; “or, let us rather say, with its difficult steps, and the dark prison cells you speak of, your tower resembles the spiritual experience of many a sinful soul, which, nevertheless, may struggle upward into the pure air and light of Heaven at last!”
Donatello sighed again, and led the way up into the tower.
Mounting the broad staircase that ascended17 from the entrance hall, they traversed the great wilderness18 of a house, through some obscure passages, and came to a low, ancient doorway19. It admitted them to a narrow turret20 stair which zigzagged21 upward, lighted in its progress by loopholes and iron-barred windows. Reaching the top of the first flight, the Count threw open a door of worm-eaten oak, and disclosed a chamber15 that occupied the whole area of the tower. It was most pitiably forlorn of aspect, with a brick-paved floor, bare holes through the massive walls, grated with iron, instead of windows, and for furniture an old stool, which increased the dreariness22 of the place tenfold, by suggesting an idea of its having once been tenanted.
“This was a prisoner’s cell in the old days,” said Donatello; “the white-bearded necromancer, of whom I told you, found out that a certain famous monk23 was confined here, about five hundred years ago. He was a very holy man, and was afterwards burned at the stake in the Grand-ducal Square at Firenze. There have always been stories, Tomaso says, of a hooded24 monk creeping up and down these stairs, or standing25 in the doorway of this chamber. It must needs be the ghost of the ancient prisoner. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“I can hardly tell,” replied Kenyon; “on the whole, I think not.”
“Neither do I,” responded the Count; “for, if spirits ever come back, I should surely have met one within these two months past. Ghosts never rise! So much I know, and am glad to know it!”
Following the narrow staircase still higher, they came to another room of similar size and equally forlorn, but inhabited by two personages of a race which from time immemorial have held proprietorship26 and occupancy in ruined towers. These were a pair of owls27, who, being doubtless acquainted with Donatello, showed little sign of alarm at the entrance of visitors. They gave a dismal croak28 or two, and hopped29 aside into the darkest corner, since it was not yet their hour to flap duskily abroad.
“They do not desert me, like my other feathered acquaintances,” observed the young Count, with a sad smile, alluding30 to the scene which Kenyon had witnessed at the fountain-side. “When I was a wild, playful boy, the owls did not love me half so well.”
He made no further pause here, but led his friend up another flight of steps—while, at every stage, the windows and narrow loopholes afforded Kenyon more extensive eye-shots over hill and valley, and allowed him to taste the cool purity of mid-atmosphere. At length they reached the topmost chamber, directly beneath the roof of the tower.
“This is my own abode,” said Donatello; “my own owl’s nest.”
In fact, the room was fitted up as a bedchamber, though in a style of the utmost simplicity31. It likewise served as an oratory32; there being a crucifix in one corner, and a multitude of holy emblems33, such as Catholics judge it necessary to help their devotion withal. Several ugly little prints, representing the sufferings of the Saviour35, and the martyrdoms of saints, hung on the wall; and behind the crucifix there was a good copy of Titian’s Magdalen of the Pitti Palace, clad only in the flow of her golden ringlets. She had a confident look (but it was Titian’s fault, not the penitent36 woman’s), as if expecting to win heaven by the free display of her earthly charms. Inside of a glass case appeared an image of the sacred Bambino, in the guise37 of a little waxen boy, very prettily38 made, reclining among flowers, like a Cupid, and holding up a heart that resembled a bit of red sealing-wax. A small vase of precious marble was full of holy water.
Beneath the crucifix, on a table, lay a human skull39, which looked as if it might have been dug up out of some old grave. But, examining it more closely, Kenyon saw that it was carved in gray alabaster40; most skillfully done to the death, with accurate imitation of the teeth, the sutures, the empty eye-caverns, and the fragile little bones of the nose. This hideous41 emblem34 rested on a cushion of white marble, so nicely wrought42 that you seemed to see the impression of the heavy skull in a silken and downy substance.
Donatello dipped his fingers into the holy-water vase, and crossed himself. After doing so he trembled.
“I have no right to make the sacred symbol on a sinful breast!” he said.
“On what mortal breast can it be made, then?” asked the sculptor. “Is there one that hides no sin?”
“But these blessed emblems make you smile, I fear,” resumed the Count, looking askance at his friend. “You heretics, I know, attempt to pray without even a crucifix to kneel at.”
“I, at least, whom you call a heretic, reverence43 that holy symbol,” answered Kenyon. “What I am most inclined to murmur44 at is this death’s head. I could laugh, moreover, in its ugly face! It is absurdly monstrous45, my dear friend, thus to fling the dead weight of our mortality upon our immortal hopes. While we live on earth, ‘t is true, we must needs carry our skeletons about with us; but, for Heaven’s sake, do not let us burden our spirits with them, in our feeble efforts to soar upward! Believe me, it will change the whole aspect of death, if you can once disconnect it, in your idea, with that corruption46 from which it disengages our higher part.”
“I do not well understand you,” said Donatello; and he took up the alabaster skull, shuddering47, and evidently feeling it a kind of penance48 to touch it. “I only know that this skull has been in my family for centuries. Old Tomaso has a story that it was copied by a famous sculptor from the skull of that same unhappy knight8 who loved the fountain lady, and lost her by a blood-stain. He lived and died with a deep sense of sin upon him, and on his death-bed he ordained49 that this token of him should go down to his posterity50. And my forefathers51, being a cheerful race of men in their natural disposition52, found it needful to have the skull often before their eyes, because they dearly loved life and its enjoyments53, and hated the very thought of death.”
“I am afraid,” said Kenyon, “they liked it none the better, for seeing its face under this abominable55 mask.”
Without further discussion, the Count led the way up one more flight of stairs, at the end of which they emerged upon the summit of the tower. The sculptor felt as if his being were suddenly magnified a hundredfold; so wide was the Umbrian valley that suddenly opened before him, set in its grand framework of nearer and more distant hills. It seemed as if all Italy lay under his eyes in that one picture. For there was the broad, sunny smile of God, which we fancy to be spread over that favored land more abundantly than on other regions, and beneath it glowed a most rich and varied56 fertility. The trim vineyards were there, and the fig-trees, and the mulberries, and the smoky-hued tracts57 of the olive orchards58; there, too, were fields of every kind of grain, among which, waved the Indian corn, putting Kenyon in mind of the fondly remembered acres of his father’s homestead. White villas59, gray convents, church spires60, villages, towns, each with its battlemented walls and towered gateway61, were scattered62 upon this spacious63 map; a river gleamed across it; and lakes opened their blue eyes in its face, reflecting heaven, lest mortals should forget that better land when they beheld64 the earth so beautiful.
What made the valley look still wider was the two or three varieties of weather that were visible on its surface, all at the same instant of time. Here lay the quiet sunshine; there fell the great black patches of ominous65 shadow from the clouds; and behind them, like a giant of league-long strides, came hurrying the thunderstorm, which had already swept midway across the plain. In the rear of the approaching tempest, brightened forth66 again the sunny splendor67, which its progress had darkened with so terrible a frown.
All round this majestic68 landscape, the bald-peaked or forest-crowned mountains descended69 boldly upon the plain. On many of their spurs and midway declivities, and even on their summits, stood cities, some of them famous of old; for these had been the seats and nurseries of early art, where the flower of beauty sprang out of a rocky soil, and in a high, keen atmosphere, when the richest and most sheltered gardens failed to nourish it.
“Thank God for letting me again behold70 this scene!” Said the sculptor, a devout71 man in his way, reverently72 taking off his hat. “I have viewed it from many points, and never without as full a sensation of gratitude73 as my heart seems capable of feeling. How it strengthens the poor human spirit in its reliance on His providence74, to ascend16 but this little way above the common level, and so attain75 a somewhat wider glimpse of His dealings with mankind! He doeth all things right! His will be done!”
“You discern something that is hidden from me,” observed Donatello gloomily, yet striving with unwonted grasp to catch the analogies which so cheered his friend. “I see sunshine on one spot, and cloud in another, and no reason for it in either ease. The sun on you; the cloud on me! What comfort can I draw from this?”
“Nay; I cannot preach,” said Kenyon, “with a page of heaven and a page of earth spread wide open before us! Only begin to read it, and you will find it interpreting itself without the aid of words. It is a great mistake to try to put our best thoughts into human language. When we ascend into the higher regions of emotion and spiritual enjoyment54, they are only expressible by such grand hieroglyphics76 as these around us.”
They stood awhile, contemplating77 the scene; but, as inevitably78 happens after a spiritual flight, it was not long before the sculptor felt his wings flagging in the rarity of the upper atmosphere. He was glad to let himself quietly downward out of the mid-sky, as it were, and alight on the solid platform of the battlemented tower. He looked about him, and beheld growing out of the stone pavement, which formed the roof, a little shrub79, with green and glossy80 leaves. It was the only green thing there; and Heaven knows how its seeds had ever been planted, at that airy height, or how it had found nourishment81 for its small life in the chinks of the stones; for it had no earth, and nothing more like soil than the crumbling82 mortar83, which had been crammed84 into the crevices85 in a long-past age.
Yet the plant seemed fond of its native site; and Donatello said it had always grown there from his earliest remembrance, and never, he believed, any smaller or any larger than they saw it now.
“I wonder if the shrub teaches you any good lesson,” said he, observing the interest with which Kenyon examined it. “If the wide valley has a great meaning, the plant ought to have at least a little one; and it has been growing on our tower long enough to have learned how to speak it.”
“O, certainly!” answered the sculptor; “the shrub has its moral, or it would have perished long ago. And, no doubt, it is for your use and edification, since you have had it before your eyes all your lifetime, and now are moved to ask what may be its lesson.”
“It teaches me nothing,” said the simple Donatello, stooping over the plant, and perplexing himself with a minute scrutiny86. “But here was a worm that would have killed it; an ugly creature, which I will fling over the battlements.”
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1
sculptor
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| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
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exterior
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| adj.外部的，外在的；表面的 | |
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plentifully
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| adv. 许多地，丰饶地 | |
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lichens
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| n.地衣( lichen的名词复数 ) | |
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necromancer
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| n. 巫师 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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7
knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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antiquities
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| n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯 | |
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10
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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16
ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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turret
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| n.塔楼，角塔 | |
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zigzagged
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| adj.呈之字形移动的v.弯弯曲曲地走路，曲折地前进( zigzag的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dreariness
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| 沉寂，可怕，凄凉 | |
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monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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proprietorship
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| n.所有（权）；所有权 | |
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owls
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| n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 ) | |
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croak
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| vi.嘎嘎叫，发牢骚 | |
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hopped
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| 跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花 | |
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30
alluding
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| 提及，暗指( allude的现在分词 ) | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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oratory
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| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
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emblems
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| n.象征，标记( emblem的名词复数 ) | |
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emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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penitent
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| adj.后悔的；n.后悔者；忏悔者 | |
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guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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alabaster
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| adj.雪白的；n.雪花石膏；条纹大理石 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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42
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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44
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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45
monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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46
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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47
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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48
penance
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| n.（赎罪的）惩罪 | |
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49
ordained
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| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
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50
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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51
forefathers
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| n.祖先，先人；祖先，祖宗( forefather的名词复数 )；列祖列宗；前人 | |
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52
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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53
enjoyments
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| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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54
enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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55
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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56
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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spires
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| n.（教堂的） 塔尖，尖顶( spire的名词复数 ) | |
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gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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64
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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65
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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70
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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71
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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72
reverently
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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73
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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74
providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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75
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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76
hieroglyphics
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| n.pl.象形文字 | |
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77
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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78
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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79
shrub
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| n.灌木，灌木丛 | |
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80
glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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81
nourishment
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| n.食物，营养品；营养情况 | |
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82
crumbling
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| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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83
mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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84
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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85
crevices
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| n.（尤指岩石的）裂缝，缺口( crevice的名词复数 ) | |
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86
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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