In such circumstances, Hilda’s gentle reserve must have been stronger than her kindly5 disposition6 permitted, if the friendship between Kenyon and herself had not grown as warm as a maiden’s friendship can ever be, without absolutely and avowedly7 blooming into love. On the sculptor’s side, the amaranthine flower was already in full blow. But it is very beautiful, though the lover’s heart may grow chill at the perception, to see how the snow will sometimes linger in a virgin8’s breast, even after the spring is well advanced. In such alpine9 soils, the summer will not be anticipated; we seek vainly for passionate10 flowers, and blossoms of fervid11 hue12 and spicy13 fragrance14, finding only snowdrops and sunless violets, when it is almost the full season for the crimson15 rose.
With so much tenderness as Hilda had in her nature, it was strange that she so reluctantly admitted the idea of love; especially as, in the sculptor, she found both congeniality and variety of taste, and likenesses and differences of character; these being as essential as those to any poignancy19 of mutual20 emotion.
So Hilda, as far as Kenyon could discern, still did not love him, though she admitted him within the quiet circle of her affections as a dear friend and trusty counsellor. If we knew what is best for us, or could be content with what is reasonably good, the sculptor might well have been satisfied, for a season, with this calm intimacy21, which so sweetly kept him a stranger in her heart, and a ceremonious guest; and yet allowed him the free enjoyment22 of all but its deeper recesses23. The flowers that grow outside of those minor24 sanctities have a wild, hasty charm, which it is well to prove; there may be sweeter ones within the sacred precinct, but none that will die while you are handling them, and bequeath you a delicious legacy25, as these do, in the perception of their evanescence and unreality.
And this may be the reason, after all, why Hilda, like so many other maidens26, lingered on the hither side of passion; her finer instinct and keener sensibility made her enjoy those pale delights in a degree of which men are incapable27. She hesitated to grasp a richer happiness, as possessing already such measure of it as her heart could hold, and of a quality most agreeable to her virgin tastes.
Certainly, they both were very happy. Kenyon’s genius, unconsciously wrought28 upon by Hilda’s influence, took a more delicate character than heretofore. He modelled, among other things, a beautiful little statue of maidenhood29 gathering30 a snowdrop. It was never put into marble, however, because the sculptor soon recognized it as one of those fragile creations which are true only to the moment that produces them, and are wronged if we try to imprison31 their airy excellence32 in a permanent material.
On her part, Hilda returned to her customary Occupations with a fresh love for them, and yet with a deeper look into the heart of things; such as those necessarily acquire who have passed from picture galleries into dungeon33 gloom, and thence come back to the picture gallery again. It is questionable34 whether she was ever so perfect a copyist thenceforth. She could not yield herself up to the painter so unreservedly as in times past; her character had developed a sturdier quality, which made her less pliable36 to the influence of other minds. She saw into the picture as profoundly as ever, and perhaps more so, but not with the devout37 sympathy that had formerly38 given her entire possession of the old master’s idea. She had known such a reality, that it taught her to distinguish inevitably39 the large portion that is unreal, in every work of art. Instructed by sorrow, she felt that there is something beyond almost all which pictorial40 genius has produced; and she never forgot those sad wanderings from gallery to gallery, and from church to church, where she had vainly sought a type of the Virgin Mother, or the Saviour41, or saint, or martyr42, which a soul in extreme need might recognize as the adequate one.
How, indeed, should she have found such? How could holiness be revealed to the artist of an age when the greatest of them put genius and imagination in the place of spiritual insight, and when, from the pope downward, all Christendom was corrupt43?
Meanwhile, months wore away, and Rome received back that large portion of its life-blood which runs in the veins44 of its foreign and temporary population. English visitors established themselves in the hotels, and in all the sunny suites45 of apartments, in the streets convenient to the Piazza46 di Spagna; the English tongue was heard familiarly along the Corso, and English children sported in the Pincian Gardens.
The native Romans, on the other hand, like the butterflies and grasshoppers47, resigned themselves to the short, sharp misery48 which winter brings to a people whose arrangements are made almost exclusively with a view to summer. Keeping no fire within-doors, except possibly a spark or two in the kitchen, they crept out of their cheerless houses into the narrow, sunless, sepulchral49 streets, bringing their firesides along with them, in the shape of little earthen pots, vases, or pipkins, full of lighted charcoal50 and warm ashes, over which they held their tingling51 finger-ends. Even in this half-torpid wretchedness, they still seemed to dread52 a pestilence53 in the sunshine, and kept on the shady side of the piazzas54, as scrupulously55 as in summer. Through the open doorways56 w no need to shut them when the weather within was bleaker57 than without—a glimpse into the interior of their dwellings58 showed the uncarpeted brick floors, as dismal59 as the pavement of a tomb.
They drew their old cloaks about them, nevertheless, and threw the corners over their shoulders, with the dignity of attitude and action that have come down to these modern citizens, as their sole inheritance from the togated nation. Somehow or other, they managed to keep up their poor, frost-bitten hearts against the pitiless atmosphere with a quiet and uncomplaining endurance that really seems the most respectable point in the present Roman character. For in New England, or in Russia, or scarcely in a hut of the Esquimaux, there is no such discomfort60 to be borne as by Romans in wintry weather, when the orange-trees bear icy fruit in the gardens; and when the rims16 of all the fountains are shaggy with icicles, and the Fountain of Trevi skimmed almost across with a glassy surface; and when there is a slide in the piazza of St. Peter’s, and a fringe of brown, frozen foam61 along the eastern shore of the Tiber, and sometimes a fall of great snowflakes into the dreary62 lanes and alleys63 of the miserable64 city. Cold blasts, that bring death with them, now blow upon the shivering invalids65, who came hither in the hope of breathing balmy airs.
Wherever we pass our summers, may all our inclement66 months, from November to April, henceforth be spent in some country that recognizes winter as an integral portion of its year!
Now, too, there was especial discomfort in the stately picture galleries, where nobody, indeed,—not the princely or priestly founders67, nor any who have inherited their cheerless magnificence,—ever dreamed of such an impossibility as fireside warmth, since those great palaces were built. Hilda, therefore, finding her fingers so much benumbed that the spiritual influence could not be transmitted to them, was persuaded to leave her easel before a picture, on one of these wintry days, and pay a visit to Kenyon’s studio. But neither was the studio anything better than a dismal den3, with its marble shapes shivering around the walls, cold as the snow images which the sculptor used to model in his boyhood, and sadly behold68 them weep themselves away at the first thaw69.
Kenyon’s Roman artisans, all this while, had been at work on the Cleopatra. The fierce Egyptian queen had now struggled almost out of the imprisoning70 stone; or, rather, the workmen had found her within the mass of marble, imprisoned71 there by magic, but still fervid to the touch with fiery72 life, the fossil woman of an age that produced statelier, stronger, and more passionate creatures than our own. You already felt her compressed heat, and were aware of a tiger-like character even in her repose73. If Octavius should make his appearance, though the marble still held her within its embrace, it was evident that she would tear herself forth35 in a twinkling, either to spring enraged74 at his throat, or, sinking into his arms, to make one more proof of her rich blandishments, or, falling lowly at his feet, to try the efficacy of a woman’s tears.
“I am ashamed to tell you how much I admire this statue,” said Hilda. “No other sculptor could have done it.”
“This is very sweet for me to hear,” replied Kenyon; “and since your reserve keeps you from saying more, I shall imagine you expressing everything that an artist would wish to hear said about his work.”
“You will not easily go beyond my genuine opinion,” answered Hilda, with a smile.
“Ah, your kind word makes me very happy,” said the sculptor, “and I need it, just now, on behalf of my Cleopatra. That inevitable75 period has come,—for I have found it inevitable, in regard to all my works,—when I look at what I fancied to be a statue, lacking only breath to make it live, and find it a mere76 lump of senseless stone, into which I have not really succeeded in moulding the spiritual part of my idea. I should like, now,—only it would be such shameful77 treatment for a discrowned queen, and my own offspring too,—I should like to hit poor Cleopatra a bitter blow on her Egyptian nose with this mallet78.”
“That is a blow which all statues seem doomed79 to receive, sooner or later, though seldom from the hand that sculptured them,” said Hilda, laughing. “But you must not let yourself be too much disheartened by the decay of your faith in what you produce. I have heard a poet express similar distaste for his own most exquisite80 poem, and I am afraid that this final despair, and sense of short-coming, must always be the reward and punishment of those who try to grapple with a great or beautiful idea. It only proves that you have been able to imagine things too high for mortal faculties81 to execute. The idea leaves you an imperfect image of itself, which you at first mistake for the ethereal reality, but soon find that the latter has escaped out of your closest embrace.”
“And the only consolation82 is,” remarked Kenyon, “that the blurred83 and imperfect image may still make a very respectable appearance in the eyes of those who have not seen the original.”
“More than that,” rejoined Hilda; “for there is a class of spectators whose sympathy will help them to see the perfect through a mist of imperfection. Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.”
“You, Hilda, are yourself the only critic in whom I have much faith,” said Kenyon. “Had you condemned84 Cleopatra, nothing should have saved her.”
“You invest me with such an awful responsibility,” she replied, “that I shall not dare to say a single word about your other works.”
He pointed86 to a bust of Donatello. It was not the one which Kenyon had begun to model at Monte Beni, but a reminiscence of the Count’s face, wrought under the influence of all the sculptor’s knowledge of his history, and of his personal and hereditary87 character. It stood on a wooden pedestal, not nearly finished, but with fine white dust and small chips of marble scattered88 about it, and itself incrusted all round with the white, shapeless substance of the block. In the midst appeared the features, lacking sharpness, and very much resembling a fossil countenance89,—but we have already used this simile90, in reference to Cleopatra, with the accumulations of long-past ages clinging to it.
And yet, strange to say, the face had an expression, and a more recognizable one than Kenyon had succeeded in putting into the clay model at Monte Beni. The reader is probably acquainted with Thorwaldsen’s three-fold analogy,—the clay model, the Life; the plaster cast, the Death; and the sculptured marble, the Resurrection,—and it seemed to be made good by the spirit that was kindling91 up these imperfect features, like a lambent flame.
“I was not quite sure, at first glance, that I knew the face,” observed Hilda; “the likeness18 surely is not a striking one. There is a good deal of external resemblance, still, to the features of the Faun of Praxiteles, between whom and Donatello, you know, we once insisted that there was a perfect twin-brotherhood. But the expression is now so very different!”
“What do you take it to be?” asked the sculptor.
“I hardly know how to define it,” she answered. “But it has an effect as if I could see this countenance gradually brightening while I look at it. It gives the impression of a growing intellectual power and moral sense. Donatello’s face used to evince little more than a genial17, pleasurable sort of vivacity92, and capability93 of enjoyment. But here, a soul is being breathed into him; it is the Faun, but advancing towards a state of higher development.”
“Hilda, do you see all this?” exclaimed Kenyon, in considerable surprise. “I may have had such an idea in my mind, but was quite unaware94 that I had succeeded in conveying it into the marble.”
“Forgive me,” said Hilda, “but I question whether this striking effect has been brought about by any skill or purpose on the sculptor’s part. Is it not, perhaps, the chance result of the bust being just so far shaped out, in the marble, as the process of moral growth had advanced in the original? A few more strokes of the chisel95 might change the whole expression, and so spoil it for what it is now worth.”
“I believe you are right,” answered Kenyon, thoughtfully examining his work; “and, strangely enough, it was the very expression that I tried unsuccessfully to produce in the clay model. Well; not another chip shall be struck from the marble.”
And, accordingly, Donatello’s bust (like that rude, rough mass of the head of Brutus, by Michael Angelo, at Florence) has ever since remained in an unfinished state. Most spectators mistake it for an unsuccessful attempt towards copying the features of the Faun of Praxiteles. One observer in a thousand is conscious of something more, and lingers long over this mysterious face, departing from it reluctantly, and with many a glance thrown backward. What perplexes him is the riddle96 that he sees propounded97 there; the riddle of the soul’s growth, taking its first impulse amid remorse98 and pain, and struggling through the incrustations of the senses. It was the contemplation of this imperfect portrait of Donatello that originally interested us in his history, and impelled99 us to elicit100 from Kenyon what he knew of his friend’s adventures.
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1
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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sculptor
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| n.雕刻家，雕刻家 | |
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den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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avowedly
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| adv.公然地 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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alpine
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| adj.高山的；n.高山植物 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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fervid
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| adj.热情的；炽热的 | |
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hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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spicy
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| adj.加香料的；辛辣的，有风味的 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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rims
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| n.（圆形物体的）边( rim的名词复数 )；缘；轮辋；轮圈 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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poignancy
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| n.辛酸事，尖锐 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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maidenhood
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| n. 处女性, 处女时代 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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imprison
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| vt.监禁，关押，限制，束缚 | |
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excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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dungeon
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| n.地牢，土牢 | |
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questionable
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| adj.可疑的，有问题的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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pliable
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| adj.易受影响的；易弯的；柔顺的，易驾驭的 | |
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devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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pictorial
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| adj.绘画的；图片的；n．画报 | |
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saviour
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| n.拯救者，救星 | |
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martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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suites
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| n.套( suite的名词复数 )；一套房间；一套家具；一套公寓 | |
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piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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grasshoppers
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| n.蚱蜢( grasshopper的名词复数 )；蝗虫；蚂蚱；（孩子）矮小的 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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sepulchral
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| adj.坟墓的，阴深的 | |
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charcoal
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| n.炭，木炭，生物炭 | |
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51
tingling
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| v.有刺痛感( tingle的现在分词 ) | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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pestilence
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| n.瘟疫 | |
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piazzas
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| n.广场，市场( piazza的名词复数 ) | |
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scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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doorways
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| n.门口，门道( doorway的名词复数 ) | |
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bleaker
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| 阴冷的( bleak的比较级 )； （状况）无望的； 没有希望的； 光秃的 | |
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dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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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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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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invalids
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| 病人，残疾者( invalid的名词复数 ) | |
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inclement
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| adj.严酷的，严厉的，恶劣的 | |
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founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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thaw
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| v.（使）融化，（使）变得友善；n.融化，缓和 | |
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imprisoning
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| v.下狱，监禁( imprison的现在分词 ) | |
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imprisoned
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| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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enraged
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| 使暴怒( enrage的过去式和过去分词 )； 歜； 激愤 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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mallet
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| n.槌棒 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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consolation
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| n.安慰，慰问 | |
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blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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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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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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simile
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| n.直喻，明喻 | |
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kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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vivacity
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| n.快活，活泼，精神充沛 | |
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capability
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| n.能力；才能；(pl)可发展的能力或特性等 | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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riddle
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| n.谜，谜语，粗筛；vt.解谜，给…出谜，筛，检查，鉴定，非难，充满于；vi.出谜 | |
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propounded
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| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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remorse
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| n.痛恨，悔恨，自责 | |
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impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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elicit
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| v.引出,抽出,引起 | |
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