Travelling Companions. [November

60o Travelling Companions. [November,

TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.

I.

HE most strictly impressive picture Here also, besides the official who T in Italy is incontestably the Last takes your tributary franc, sat a long- Supper of Leonardo at Milan. A part haired copyist, wooing back the silent of its immense solemnity is doubtless secrets of the great fresco into the due to its being one of the first of the cheerfullest commonplaces of yellow great Italian masterworks that you en- and blue. The gentleman was ear- counter in coming down from the North. nestly watching this ingenious opera- Another secondary source of interest tion ; the young lady sat with her eyes resides in the very completeness of its fixed on the picture, from which she decay. The mind finds a rare delight failed to move them when I took my in filling each of its vacant spaces, effa- place on a line with her. I too, how- cing its rank defilement, and repairing, ever, speedily became as unconscious as far as possible, its sad disorder. Of of her presence as she of mine, and the essential power and beauty of the lost myself in the study of the work work there can be no better evidence before us. A single glance had as- than this fact that, having lost so much, sured me that she was an American. it has yet retained so much. An un- Since that day, I have seen all the quenchable elegance lingers in those great art treasures of Italy : I have vague outlines and incurable scars ; seen Tintoretto at Venice, Michael enough remains to place you in sym- Angelo at Florence and Rome, Correg- pathy with the unfathomable wisdom gio at Parma ; but I have looked at of the painter. The fresco covers a no other picture with an emotion equal wall, the reader will remember, at to that which rose within me as this the end of the former refectory of a great creation of Leonardo slowly be- monastery now suppressed, the pre- gan to dawn upon my intelligence front cinct of which is occupied by a regi- the tragical twilight of its ruin. A ment of cavalry. Horses stamp, sol- work so nobly conceived can never diers rattle their oaths, in the cloisters utterly die, so long as the half-dozen, which once echoed to the sober tread main lines of its design remain. Neg- of monastic sandals and the pious greet- lect and malice are less cunning than ings of meek-voiced friars. the genius of the great painter. It has It was the middle of August, and stored away with masterly skill such a summer sat brooding fiercely over the wealth of beauty as only perfect love streets of Milan. The great brick- and sympathy can fully detect. So, wrought dome of the church of St. under my eyes, the restless ghost of Mary of the Graces rose black with the the dead fresco returned to its mortal heat against the brazen sky. As my abode. From the beautiful central fiacre drew up in front of the church, I image of Christ I perceived its radia- found another vehicle in possession of tion right and left along the sadly the little square of shade which car- broken line of the disciples. One by peted the glaring pavement before the one, out of the depths of their grim, adjoining convent. I left the two driv- dismemberment, the figures trembled ers to share this advantage as they into meaning and life, and the vast, could, and made haste to enter the cool- serious beauty of the work stood re- er presence of the Cenacolo. Here I vealed. What is the ruling force of found the occupants of the fiacre with- this magnificent design ? Is it art ? is. out, a young lady and an elderly man. it science ? is it sentiment ? is it knowl- 187o.] Travelling Companions. 6or

edge ? I am sure I can't say ; but in better dressed than is common with moments of doubt and depression I the typical American citizen, in a blue find it of excellent use to recall the necktie, a white waistcoat, and a pair great picture with all possible distinct- of gray trousers. As his daughter still ness. Of all the works of man's hands lingered, he looked at me with an eye it is the least superficial. of sagacious conjecture. The young lady's companion fin- " Ah, that beautiful, beautiful, beauti- ished his survey of the copyist's work ful Christ," said the young lady, in a and came and stood behind his chair. tone which betrayed her words in spite The reader will remember that a door of its softness. " 0 father, what a pic- has been rudely cut in the wall, a part ture ! " of it entering the fresco. " Hum ! " said her father, " I don't " He has n't got in that door," said see it." the old gentleman, speaking apparently " I must get a photograph," the of the copyist. young girl rejoined. She turned away The young lady was silent. " Well, and walked to the farther end of the my dear," he continued. " What do hall, where the custodian presides at you think of it ? " a table of photographs and prints. The young girl gave a sigh. " I see Meanwhile her father had perceived it," she said. my Murray. "You see it, eh ? Well, I suppose "English, sir ?" he demanded. there is nothing more to be done." " No, I 'm an American, like your- The young lady rose slowly, drawing self, I fancy." on her glove. As her eyes were still on " Glad to make your acquaintance, the fresco, I was able to observe her. sir. From New York ? " Beyond doubt she was American. Her " From New York. I have been ab- age I fancied to be twenty-two. She sent from home, however, for a num- was of middle stature, with a charming ber of years." slender figure. Her hair was brown, " Residing in this part of the world ? " her complexion fresh and clear. She " No. I have been living in Ger- wore a white piqué dress and a black many. I have only just come into lace shawl, and on her thick dark braids Italy." a hat with a purple feather. She was "Ah, so have we. The young lady largely characterized by that physical is my daughter. She is crazy about delicacy and that personal elegance Italy. We were very nicely fixed at (each of them sometimes excessive) Interlaken, when suddenly she read in which seldom fail to betray my young some confounded book or other that countrywomen in Europe. The gen- Italy should be seen in summer. So tleman, who was obviously her father, she dragged me over the mountains bore the national stamp as plainly as into this fiery furnace. I'm actually she. A shrewd, firm, generous face, melting away. I have lost five pounds which told of many dealings with many in three days." men, of stocks and shares and current I replied that the heat was indeed prices, — a face, moreover, in which intense, but that I agreed with his there lingered the mellow afterglow of daughter that Italy should be seen in a sense of excellent claret. He was summer. What could be pleasanter bald and grizzled, this perfect Ameri- than the temperature of that vast cool can, and he wore a short-bristled white hall ? moustache between the two hard wrin- "Ah, yes," said my friend; " I sup- kles forming the sides of a triangle pose we shall have plenty of this kind of which his mouth was the base and of thing. It makes no odds to me, the ridge of his nose, where his eye- so long as my poor girl has a good glass sat, the apex. In deference per- time." haps to this exotic growth, he was " She seems," I remarked, " to be 602 Travelling Companions. [November, having a pretty good time with the of this Italian pilgrimage, and, after photographs." In fact, she was com- much waiting and working and plan- paring photographs with a great deal ning, I had at last undertaken it in a of apparent energy, while the sales- spirit of fervent devotion. There had man lauded his wares in the Italian been moments in Germany when I manner. We strolled over to the table. fancied myself a clever man ; but it now The young girl was seemingly in seemed to me that for the first time I treaty for a large photograph of the really fell my intellect. Imagination, head of Christ, in which the blurred panting and exhausted, withdrew from and fragmentary character of the origi- the game ; and Observation stepped in- nal was largely intensified, though to her place, trembling and glowing with much of its exquisite pathetic beauty open-eyed desire. was also preserved. "They '11 not I had already been twice to the think much of that at home," said the Cathedral, and had wandered through old gentleman. the clustering inner darkness of the " So much the worse for them," said high arcades which support those light- his daughter, with an accent of delicate defying pinnacles and spires. Towards pity. With the photograph in her hand, the close of the afternoon I found my- she walked back to the fresco. Her self strolling once more over the great father engaged in an English dialogue column - planted, altar - studded pave- with the custodian. In the course of ment, with the view of ascending to five minutes, wishing likewise to com- the roof. On presenting myself at the pare the copy and the original, I re- little door in the right transept, through turned to the great picture. As I which you gain admission to the up- drew near it the young lady turned per regions, I perceived my late fel- away. Her eyes then for the first time low-visitors of the fresco preparing ap- met my own. They were deep and dark parently for an upward movement, but and luminous, — I fancied streaming not without some reluctance on the with tears. I watched her as she re- paternal side. The poor gentleman turned to the table. Her walk seemed had been accommodated with a chair, to me peculiarly graceful ; light, and on which he sat fanning himself with rapid, and yet full of decision and dig- his hat and looking painfully apoplectic. nity. A thrill of delight passed through The sacristan meanwhile held open my heart as I guessed at her mois- the door with an air of invitation. But tened lids. my corpulent friend, with his thumb " Sweet fellow - countrywoman," I in his Murray, balked at the ascent. cried in silence, "you have the divine Recognizing me, his face expressed a gift of feeling." And I returned to the sudden sense of vague relief. fresco with a deepened sense of its vir- " Have you been up, sir ? " he in- tue. When I turned around, my com- quired, groaningly. panions had left the room. I answered that I was about to as- In spite of the great heat, I was pre- cend ; and recalling then the fact, which pared thoroughly to "do " Milan. ha I possessed rather as information than fact, I rather enjoyed the heat ; it experience, that young American ladies seemed to my Northern senses to deep- may not improperly detach themselves en the Italian, the Southern, the local on occasion from the parental side, I character of things. On that blazing ventured to declare that, if my friend afternoon, I have not forgotten, I went was unwilling to encounter the fatigue to the church of St. Ambrose, to the of mounting to the roof in person, I Ambrosian Library, to a dozen minor should be most happy, as a fellow-coun- churches. Every step distilled a richer tryman, qualified already perhaps to drop into the wholesome cup of pleas- claim a traveller's acquaintance, to ac- ure. From my earliest manhood, be- company and assist his daughter. neath a German sky, I had dreamed " You 're very good, sir," said the 1870.] Travelling Companions. 603 poor man ; " I confess that I 'm about Lord. Among all the jewelled shrines played out. I'd far rather sit here and and overwrought tabernacles of Italy, watch these pretty Italian ladies say- I have seen no such magnificent waste ing their prayers. Charlotte, what do of labor, no such glorious synthesis you say ?" of cunning secrets. As you wander, "Of course if you 're tired I should sweating and blinking, over the chang- be sorry to have you make the effort," ing levels of the edifice, your eye catches said Charlotte. "But I believe the at a hundred points the little profile of great thing is to see the view from the a little saint, looking out into the dizzy roof. I 'm much obliged to the gentle- air, a pair of folded hands praying to man." the bright immediate heavens, a san- It was arranged accordingly that we dalled monkish foot planted on the should ascend together. " Good luck edge of the white abyss. And then, to you," cried my friend, "and mind besides this mighty world of the great you take good care of her." Cathedral itself, you possess the view Those who have rambled among the of all green Lombardy, — vast, lazy marble immensities of the summit of Lombardy, resting from its Alpine up- Milan Cathedral will hardly expect me, heavals. to describe them. It is only when they My companion carried a little white have been seen as a complete concentric umbrella, with a violet lining. Thus whole that they can be properly appre- protected from the sun, she climbed ciated. It was not as a whole that I and gazed with abundant courage and saw them ; a week in Italy had assured spirit. Her movements, her glance, me that I have not the architectural her voice, were full of intelligent pleas- coup d'oeil.In looking back on the ure. Now that I could observe her scene into which we emerged from the closely, I saw that, though perhaps with- stifling spiral of the ascent, I have out regular beauty, she was yet, for chiefly a confused sense of an immense youth, summer, and Italy, more than skyward elevation and a fierce blind- pretty enough. Owing to my residence ing efflorescence of fantastic forms of in Germany, among Germans, in a marble. There, reared for the action small university town, Americans had of the sun, you find a vast marble come to have for me, in a large de- world. The solid whiteness lies in gree, the interest of novelty and re- mighty slabs along the iridescent moteness. Of the charm of American slopes of nave and transept, like the women, in especial, I had formed a lonely snow-fields of the higher Alps. very high estimate, and I was more than It leaps and climbs and shoots and ready to be led captive by the far- attacks the unsheltered blue with a famed graces of their frankness and keen and joyous incision. It meets freedom. I already felt that in the the pitiless sun with a more than equal young girl beside me there was a differ- glow ; the day falters, declines, expires, ent quality of womanhood from any but the marble shines forever, unmelted that I had recently known ; a keen- and unintermittent. You will know ness, a maturity, a conscience, which what I mean if you have looked up- •deeply stirred my curiosity. It was ward from the Piazza at midnight. positive, not negative maidenhood. With confounding frequency too, on " You 're an American," I said, as some uttermost point of a pinnacle, its we stepped to look at the distance. plastic force explodes into satisfied "Yes ; and you ? " In her voice rest in some perfect flower of a figure. alone the charm faltered. It was high, A myriad carven statues, known only thin, and nervous. to the circling air, are poised and niched " 0, happily, I 'm also one." beyond reach of human vision, the " I should n't have thought so. I loss of which to mortal eyes is, I sup- should have taken you for a German." pose, the gain of the Church and the " By education I am a German. I 604 Travelling Companions. [November, knew you were an American the mo- ing range of his desire. " That is Monte ment I looked at you." Rosa," I said ; "that is the Simplon " I suppose so. It seems that Amer- pass ; there is the triple glitter of those ican women are easily recognized. But lovely lakes." don't talk about America." She paused "Poor Monte Rosa," said my com- and swept her dark eye over the whole panion. immensity of prospect. "This is It- " I'm sure I never thought of Monte aly," she cried, " Italy, Italy ! " Rosa as an object of pity." " Italy indeed. What do you think "You don't know what she repre- of the Leonardo." sents. She represents the genius of " I fancy there can be only one feel- the North. There she stands, frozen ing about it. It must be the saddest and fixed, resting her head upon that and finest of all pictures. But I know mountain wall, looking over at this love- nothing of art. I have seen nothing ly southern world and yearning towards yet but that lovely Raphael in the it forever in vain." Brera." " It is very well she can't come over. "You have a vast deal before you. She would melt." You 're going southward, I suppose." " Very true. She is beautiful, too, " Yes, we are going directly to Ven- in her own way. I mean to fancy that ice. There I shall see Titian." I am her chosen envoy, and that I "Titian and Paul Veronese." have come up here to receive her "Yes, I can hardly believe it. Have blessing." you ever been in a gondola ? " I made an attempt to point out a few " No ; this is my first visit to Italy." localities. "Yonder lies Venice, out "Ah, this is all new, then, to you as of sight. In the interval are a dozen well." divine little towns. I hope to visit " Divinely new," said I, with fervor. them all. I shall ramble all day in She glanced at me, with a smile, — a their streets and churches, their little ray of friendly pleasure in my pleasure. museums, and their great palaces. In "And you are not disappointed ! " the evening I shall sit at the door of a " Not a jot. I 'm too good a Ger- café in the little piazza, scanning some man." lovely civic edifice in the moonlight, " I 'm too good an American. I live and saying, Ah ! this is Italy ! ' " at Araminta, New Jersey !" "You gentlemen are certainly very We thoroughly " did " the high happy. I 'm afraid we must go straight places of the church, concluding with to Venice." an ascent into the little gallery of the "Your father insists upon it ? " central spire. The view from this spot " He wishes it. Poor father ! in early is beyond all words, especially the view life he formed the habit of being in a toward the long mountain line which hurry, and he can't break it even now, shuts out the North. The sun was when, being out of business, he has sinking : clear and serene upon their nothing on earth to do." blue foundations, the snow-peaks sat "But in America I thought daugh- clustered and scattered, and shrouded ters insisted as well as fathers." in silence and light. To the south the The young girl looked at me, half long shadows fused and multiplied, and serious, half smiling. " Have you a the bosky Lombard flats melted away mother ?" she asked ; and then, blush- into perfect Italy. This prospect offers ing the least bit at her directness and a great emotion to the Northern travel- without waiting for an answer, " This ler. A vague, delicious impulse of con- is not America," she said. " I should quest stirs in his heart. From his dizzy like to think I might become for a vantage-point, as he looks down at her, while a creature of Italy." beautiful, historic, exposed, he em- Somehow I felt a certain contagion braces the whole land in the far-reach- in her momentary flash of frankness. 1870.] Travelling Companions. 605

" I strongly suspect," I said, " that kept repeating, — " the South in nature, you are American to the depths of your in man, in manners." It was a bright- soul, and that you 'II never be anything er world. " It 's the South," I said to else ; I hope not." my companion. "Don't you feel it in In this hope of mine there was per- all your nerves ? " haps a little impertinence ; but my com- "0, it 's very pleasant," she said. panion looked at me with a gentle smile, " We must forget all our cares and which seemed to hint that she forgave duties and sorrows. We must go in it. "You, on the other hand," she for the beautiful. Think of this great said, " are a perfect German, I fancy ; trap for the sunbeams, in this city of and you '11 never be anything else." yellows and russets and crimsons, of " I am sure I wish with all my heart," liquid vowels and glancing smiles being, I answered, " to be a good American. like one of our Northern cathedrals, a I'm open to conversion. Try me." temple to Morality and Conscience. It " Thank you ; I have n't the ardor ; does n't belong to heaven, but to earth, I '11 make you over to my father. We — to love and light and pleasure." must n't forget, by the way, that he is My friend was silent a moment. waiting for us." " I 'm glad I 'm not a Catholic," she We did forget it, however, awhile said at last. " Come, we must go longer. We came down from the tower down." and made our way to the balustrade We found the interior of the Cathedral which edges the front of the edifice, and delightfully cool and shadowy. The looked down on the city and the piazza young lady's father was not at our place below. Milan hid, to my sense, a pecu- of ingress, and we began to walk through liar charm of temperate gayety, — the the church in search of him. We met softness of the South without its laxity ; a number of Milanese ladies, who and I felt as if I could gladly spend charmed us with their sombre elegance a month there. The common life of and the Spanish romance of their veils. the streets was beginning to stir and With these pale penitents and postu- murmur again, with the subsiding heat lants my companion had a lingering and the approaching night. There sisterly sympathy. came up into our faces a delicious " Don't you wish you were a Catholic emanation as from the sweetness of now ? " I asked. " It would be so Transalpine life. At the little bal- pleasant to wear one of those lovely conies of the windows, beneath the mantillas." sloping awnings, with their feet among " The mantillas are certainly becom- the crowded flower-pots and their plump ing," she said. "But who knows what bare arms on the iron rails, lazy, dow- horrible old-world sorrows and fears dy Italian beauties would appear, still and remorses they cover ? Look at drowsy with the broken siesta. Beau- this person." We were standing near tiful, slim young officers had begun to the great altar. As she spoke, a woman dot the pavement, glorious with their rose from her knees, and as she drew clanking swords, their brown mous- the folds of her lace mantle across her taches, and their legs of azure. In gen- bosom, fixed her large dark eyes on us tle harmony with these, various ladies with a peculiar significant intensity. of Milan were issuing forth to enjoy he was of less than middle age, with a the cool ; elegant, romantic, provoking, tale, haggard face, a certain tarnished in short black dresses and lace mantillas elegance of dress, and a remarkable depending from their chignons, with a nobleness of gesture and carriage. She little cloud of powder artfully enhan- came towards us, with an odd mixture, cing the darkness of their hair and eyes. in her whole expression, of decency How it all was n't Germany ! how it and defiance. " Are you English ? " could n't have been Araminta, New Jer- she said in Italian. " You are very sey! " It 's the South, the South," I pretty. Is he a brother or a lover ? " 6o6 Travelling Companions. [November, " He is neither," said I, affecting a St. Charles Borromeus. It was thus tone of rebuke. that I learned his name to be Mr. Mark " Neither ? only a friend ! You are Evans. very happy to have a friend, Signorina. " Take a few notes for us !" said Ah, you are pretty! You were watch- Miss Evans, as I shook her hand in ing me at my prayers just now ; you farewell. thought me very curious, apparently. I spent the evening, after dinner, I don't care. You may see me here strolling among the crowded streets of any day. But I devoutly hope you may the city, tasting of Milanese humanity. never have to pray such bitter, bitter At the door of a cafe I perceived Mr. prayers as mine. A thousand excuses." Evans seated at a little round table. And she went her way. He seemed to have discovered the " What in the world does she mean ?" merits of absinthe. I wondered where said my companion. he had left his daughter. She was in " Monte Rosa," said I, " was the her room, I fancied, writing her journal. genius of the North. This poor wo- The fortnight which followed my de- man is the genius of the Picturesque. parture from Milan was in all respects She shows us the essential misery that memorable and delightful. With an lies behind it. It 's not an unwhole- interest that hourly deepened as I read, some lesson to receive at the outset. I turned the early pages of the enchant- Look at her sweeping down the aisle. ing romance of Italy. I carried out in What a poise of the head ! The pic- detail the programme which I had turesque is handsome, all the same." sketched for Miss Evans. Those few " I do wonder what is her trouble," brief days, as I look back on them, murmured the young girl. "She has seem to me the sweetest, fullest, calm- swept away an illusion in the folds of est of my life. All personal passions, those black garments." all restless egotism, all worldly hopes, " Well," said I, " here is a solid fact regrets, and fears were stilled and ab- to replace it." My eyes had just lighted sorbed in the steady perception of the upon the object of our search. He sat material present. It exhaled the pure in a chair, half tilted back against a essence of romance. What words can pillar. His chin rested on his shirt- reproduce the picture which these bosom, and his hands were folded to- Northern Italian towns project upon a gether over his waistcoat, where it most sympathetic retina ? They are shabby, protruded. Shirt and waistcoat rose deserted, dreary, decayed, unclean. In and fell with visible, audible regularity. those August days the southern sun I wandered apart and left his daughter poured into them with a fierceness to deal with him. When she had fairly which might have seemed fatal to any aroused him, he thanked me heartily lurking shadow of picturesque mystery. for my care of the young lady, and ex- But taking them as cruel time had pressed the wish that we might meet made them and left them, I found in again. "We start to-morrow for Ven- them an immeasurable instruction and ice," he said. "I want awfully to get a charm. My perception seemed for the whiff of the sea-breeze and to see if first time to live a sturdy creative life there is anything to be got out of a of its own. How it fed upon the mouldy gondola." crumbs of the festal past ! I have al- As I expected also to be in Venice ways thought the observant faculty a before many days, I had little doubt of windy impostor, so long as it refuses our meeting. In consideration of this to pocket pride and doff its bravery circumstance, my friend proposed hat and crawl on all-fours, if need be, into we should exchange cards ; which we the unillumined corners and crannies accordingly did, then and there, before of life. In these dead cities of Verona, the high altar, above the gorgeous Mantua, Padua, how life had revelled chapel which enshrines the relics of and postured in its strength ! How 1870.] Travelling Companions. 607 sentiment and passion had blossomed Through these tarnished halls lean and and flowered ! How much of history patient abbes led their youthful virgi- had been performed ! What a wealth nal pupils. Have you read StendahPs of mortality had ripened and decayed ! Chartreuse de Parme 2 There was such I have never elsewhere got so deep an a gallery in the palace of the Duchess impression of the social secrets of man- of San Severino. After a long day of kind. In England, even, in those ver- strolling, lounging, and staring, I found dure-stifled haunts of domestic peace a singularly perfect pleasure in sitting which muffle the sounding chords of at the door of a café in the warm star- British civilization, one has a fainter light, eating an ice and making an occa- sense of the possible movement and sional experiment in the way of talk fruition of individual character. Be- with my neighbors. I recall with pecu- yond a certain point you fancy it merged liar fondness and delight three sweet in the general medium of duty, business, sessions in the delicious Piazza die Sig- and politics. In Italy, in spite of your nori at Verona. The Piazza is small, knowledge of the strenuous public con- compact, private almost, accessible only science which once inflamed these com- to pedestrians, paved with great slabs pact little states, the unapplied, spon- which have known none but a gentle taneous moral life of society seems to human tread. On one side of it rises have been more active and more subtle. in elaborate elegance and grace, above I walked about with a volume of Sten- its light arched loggia, the image-bor- dahl in my pocket ; at every step I dered mass of the ancient palace of the gathered some lingering testimony to Council ; facing this stand two sterner, the exquisite vanity of ambition. heavier buildings, dedicated to muni- But the great emotion, after all, was cipal offices and to the lodgement of sol- to feel myself among scenes in which diers. Step through the archway which art had ranged so freely. It had often leads out of the Piazza and you will find enough been bad, but it had never a vast quadrangle with a staircase ceased to be art. An invincible instinct climbing sunward, along the wall, a row of beauty had presided at life, — an in- of gendarmes sitting in the shade, a stinct often ludicrously crude and prim- group of soldiers cleaning their mus- itive. Wherever I turned I found a kets, a dozen persons of either sex vital principle of grace, — from the smile leaning downward from the open win- of a chambermaid to the curve of an dows. At one end of the little square arch. My memory reverts with an es- rose into the pale darkness the high pecial tenderness to certain hours in slender shaft of a brick campanile ; in the dusky, faded saloons of those va- the centre glittered steadily a colossal cant, ruinous palaces which boast of white statue of Dante. Behind this "collections." The pictures are fre- statue was the Caffe Dante, where on quently poor, but the visitor's impres- three successive days I sat till midnight, sion is generally rich. The brick-tiled feeling the scene, learning its sovereign floors are bare ; the doors lack paint ; " distinction." But of Verona I shall the great windows, curtains ; the chairs not pretend to speak. As I drew near and tables have lost their gilding and Venice I began to feel a soft impatience, their damask drapery ; but the ghost an expectant tremor of the heart. The of a graceful aristocracy treads at your day before reaching it I spent at Vi- side and does the melancholy honors cenza. I wandered all day through the of the abode with a dignity that brooks streets, of course, looking at Palladio's no sarcasm. You feel that art and piety palaces and enjoying them in defiance here have been blind, generous instincts. of reason and Ruskin. They seemed You are reminded in persuasive accents to me essentially rich and palatial. In of the old personal regimen in human the evening I resorted, as usual, to the affairs. Certain pictures are veiled city's generous heart, the decayed ex- and curtained virginibus .puerisque. glorious Piazza. This spot at Vicenza. 608 Travelling Companions. [November,

affords you a really soul-stirring premo- gaudy half-palazzo which rejoiced in nition of Venice. There is no Byzantine a vague Palladian air. In the base- Basilica and no Ducal Palace ; but ment, looking on the court, lived my there is an immense impressive hall of friend ; with his mother, he informed council, and a soaring campanile, and me, and his sister. He ushered me there are two discrowned columns tell- in, through a dark antechamber, ing of defeated Venetian dominion. into which, through a gaping kitchen Here I seated myself before a cafe door, there gushed a sudden aroma of door, in a group of gossiping votaries of onions. I found myself in a high, half- the Southern night. The tables being darkened saloon. One of the windows mostly occupied, I had some difficulty was open into the court, from which in finding one. In a short time I per- the light entered verdantly through a ceived a young man walking through row of flowering plants. In an arm- the crowd, seeking where he might chair near the window sat a young bestow himself. Passing near me, he girl in a dressing-gown, empty-handed, stopped and asked me with irresistible pale, with wonderful eyes, apparently grace if he might share my table. I an invalid. At her side stood a large cordially assented : he sat down and elderly woman in a rusty black silk ordered a glass of sugar and water. He gown, with an agreeable face, flushed a was of about my own age, apparently, little, apparently with the expectation and full of the opulent beauty of the of seeing me. The young man intro- greater number of young Italians. His duced them as his mother and his dress was simple even to shabbiness : sister. On a table near the window, he might have been a young prince in propped upright in such a way as to disguise, a Haroun-al-Raschid. With catch the light, was a small picture in small delay we engaged in conversa- a heavy frame. I proceeded to exam- tion. My companion was boyish, mod- ine it. It represented in simple com- est, and gracious ; he nevertheless dis- position a Madonna and Child ; the coursed freely on the things of Vicenza. mother facing you, pressing the infant He was so good as to regret that we to her bosom, faintly smiling, and lad not met earlier in the day ; it would looking out of the picture with a lave given him such pleasure to accom- solemn sweetness. It was pretty, it pany me on my tour of the city. He was good ; but it was not Correggio. was passionately fond of art : he was in There was indeed a certain suggestion fact an artist. Was I fond of pictures ? of his exquisite touch ; but it was a Was I inclined to purchase ? I answered likeness merely, and not the precious that I had no desire to purchase modern reality. One fact, however, struck pictures, that in fact I had small means swiftly home to my consciousness : the to purchase any. He informed me that face of the Madonna bore a singular he had a beautiful ancient work which, resemblance to that of Miss Evans. to his great regret, he found himself The lines, the character, the expres- compelled to sell ; a most divine little sion, were the same ; the faint half- Correggio. Would I do him the favor thoughtful smile was hers, the feminine to look at it ? I had small belief in the frankness and gentle confidence of the value of this unrenowned masterpiece ; brow, from which the dark hair waved but I felt a kindness for the young back with the same even abundance. painter. I consented to have him call All this, in the Madonna's face, was for me the next morning and take me meant for heaven ; and on Miss Evans's to his house, where for two hundred in a fair degree, probably, for earth. years, he assured me, the work had But the mutual likeness was, neverthe- been jealously preserved. less, perfect, and it quickened my in- He came punctually, beautiful, smil- terest in the picture to a point which ing, shabby, as before. After a ten the intrinsic merit of the work would minutes' walk we stopped before a doubtless have failed to justify ; al- 1870.] Travelling Companions. 609 though I confess that I was now not she was ill was equally apparent. She slow to discover a great deal of agree- was still remarkable indeed for a touch- able painting in it. ing, hungry, unsatisfied grace. She re- " But I doubt of its being a Correg- mained silent and motionless, with her gio," said I. eyes fastened upon my face. I again " A Correggio, I give you my word examined the pretended Correggio. It of honor, sir ! " cried my young man. was wonderfully like Miss Evans. The " Ecco ! my son's word of honor," young American rose up in my mind cried his mother. with irresistible vividness and grace. " I don't deny," I said, " that it is a How she seemed to glow with strength, very pretty work. It is perhaps Par- freedom, and joy, beside this sombre, migianino." fading, Southern sister ! It was a hap- " 0 no, sir," the elder insisted, "a py thought that, under the benediction true Correggio ! We have had it two of her image, I might cause a ray of hundred years ! Try another light ; healing sunshine to fall at this poor you will see. A true Correggio ! Is n't girl's feet. it so, my daughter ? " " Have you ever tried to sell the pic- The young man put his arm in mine, ture before ? " played his fingers airily over the picture, " Never !" said the old lady, proud- and whispered of a dozen beauties. ly. " My husband had it from his "0, I grant you," said I, " it 's a father. If we have made up our minds very pretty picture." As I looked at it to part with it now, — most blessed lit- I felt the dark eyes of the young girl tle Madonna ! — it is because we have in the arm-chair fixed upon me with had an intimation from heaven." almost unpleasant intensity. I met " From heaven ? " her gaze for a moment : I found in it a " From heaven, Signore. My daugh- strange union of defiant pride and sad ter had a dream. She dreamed that a despondent urgency. young stranger came to Vicenza, and " What do you ask for the picture ? " that he wandered about the streets say- I said. ing, ' Where, ah where, is my blessed There was a silence. Lady ?' Some told him in one church, " Speak, madre mia," said the young and some told him in another. He man. went into all the churches and lifted " La senta ! " and the lady played all the curtains, giving great fees to with her broken fan. " We should like the sacristans ! But he always came you to name a price." out shaking his head and repeating his " 0, if I named a price, it would not question, ' Where is my blessed La- be as for a Correggio. I can't afford to dy ? I have come from over the sea, buy Correggios. If this were a real Cor- I have come to Italy to find her ! ' " reggio, you would be rich. You should The woman delivered herself of this go to a duke, a prince, not to me." recital with a noble florid unction and " We would be rich ! Do you hear, a vast redundancy, to my Northern my children ? We are very poor, sir. ear, of delightful liquid sounds. As You have only to look at us. Look at she paused momentarily, her daughter my poor daughter. She was once spoke for the first time. beautiful, fresh, gay. A year ago she " And then I fancied," said the fell ill : a long story, sir, and a sad young girl, "that I heard his voice one. We have had doctors ; they pausing under my window at night. have ordered five thousand things. ' His blessed Lady is here,' I said, My daughter gets no better. There it we must not let him lose her.' So I is, sir. We are very poor." called my brother and bade him go The young girl's look confirmed her forth in search of you. I dreamed mother's story. That she had been that he brought you back. We made beautiful I could easily believe ; that an altar with candles and lace and VOL. XXVI. - NO. 1 57.. 39 610 Travelling Companions. [November, flowers, and on it we placed the little the calmer presence of my bright picture. The stranger had light hair, American friend. I have no space to light eyes, a flowing beard like you. tell the story of my arrival in Venice He kneeled down before the little Ma- and my first impressions. Mr. Evans donna and worshipped her. We left had not mentioned his hotel. He was him at his devotions and went away. not at the Hotel de l'Europe, whither When we came back the candles on I myself repaired. If he was still in the altar were out : the Madonna was Venice, however, I foresaw that we gone, too ; but in its place there burned should not fail to meet. The day suc- a bright pure light. It was a purse of ceeding my arrival I spent in a restless gold !" fever of curiosity and delight, now lost " What a very pretty story !" said I. in the sensuous ease of my gondola, " How many pieces were there in the now lingering in charmed devotion be- purse ? " fore a canvas of Tintoretto or Paul The young man burst into a laugh. Veronese. I exhausted three gondo- " Twenty thousand !" he said. liers and saw all Venice in a passionate I made my offer for the picture. It fury and haste. I wished to probe its was esteemed generous apparently ; fulness and learn at once the best — or I was cordially thanked. As it was the worst. Late in the afternoon I dis- inconvenient, however, to take posses- embarked at the Piazzetta and took my sion of the work at that moment, I way haltingly and gazingly to the many- agreed to pay down but half the sum, domed Basilica, — that shell of silver reserving the other half to the time of with a lining of marble. It was that delivery. When I prepared to take enchanting Venetian hour when the my departure the young girl rose from ocean - touching sun sits melting to her chair and enabled me to measure death, and the whole still air seems to at once her weakness and her beauty. glow with the soft effusion of his gold- " Will you come back for the picture en substance. Within the church, the yourself ? " she asked. deep brown shadow-masses, the heavy " Possibly. I should like to see you thick-tinted air, the gorgeous composite again. You must get better." darkness, reigned in richer, quainter, " 0, I shall never get better." more fantastic gloom than my feeble " I can't believe that. I shall per- pen can reproduce the likeness of. haps have a dream to tell you! " From those rude concavities of dome " I shall soon be in heaven. I shall and semi-dome, where the multitudi- send you one." nous facets of pictorial mosaic shimmer " Listen to her ! " cried the mother. and twinkle in their own dull bright- " But she is already an angel." ness ; from the vast antiquity of innu- With a farewell glance at my pic- merable marbles, incrusting the walls tured Madonna I departed. My visit in roughly mated slabs, cracked and to this little Vicenza household had polished and triple-tinted with eternal filled me with a painful, indefinable service ; from the wavy carpet of com- sadness. So beautiful they all were, pacted stone, where a thousand once- so civil, so charming, and yet so men- bright fragments glimmer through the dacious and miserable ! As I hurried long attrition of idle feet and devoted along in the train toward the briny knees ; from sombre gold and mellow cincture of Venice, my heart was heavy alabaster, from porphyry and mala- with the image of that sombre, dying chite, from long dead crystal and the Italian maiden. Her face haunted me. sparkle of undying lamps, — there pro- What fatal wrong had she suffered ? ceeds a dense rich atmosphere of splen- What hidden sorrow had blasted the dor and sanctity which transports the freshness of her youth ? As I began half-stupefied traveller to the age of a to smell the nearing Adriatic, my fancy simpler and more awful faith. I wan- bounded forward to claim asylum in dered for half an hour beneath those 1870 Travelling Companions. 611 reverted cups of scintillating darkness, who only the other day was thanking stumbling on the great stony swells Heaven that she was not a Catholic." of the pavement as I gazed upward "Half-prayers are no prayers. I'm at the long mosaic saints who curve not a Catholic yet." gigantically with the curves of dome Her father, she told me, had brought and ceiling. I had left Europe ; I her to the church, but had returned on was in the East. An overwhelming foot to the hotel for his pocket-book. sense of the sadness of man's spiritual They were to dine at one of the res- history took possession of my heart. taurants in the Piazza. Mr. Evans was The clustering picturesque shadows vastly contented with Venice, and spent about me seemed to represent the dark- his days and nights in gondolas.' ness of a past from which he had slow- Awaiting his return, we wandered over ly and painfully struggled. The great the church. Yes, incontestably, Miss mosaic images, hideous, grotesque, Evans resembled my little Vicenza pic- inhuman, glimmered like the cruel ture. She looked a little pale with the spectres of early superstitions and ter- heat and the constant nervous tension rors. There came over me, too, a of sight-seeing ; but she pleased me poignant conviction of the ludicrous now as effectually as she had pleased folly of the idle spirit of travel. How me before. There was an even deeper with Murray and an opera-glass it sweetness in the freedom and breadth strolls and stares where omniscient of her utterance and carriage. I felt angels stand diffident and sad ! How more even than before that she• was blunted and stupid are its senses an example of woman active, not of How trivial and superficial its imagin- woman passive. We strolled through ings ! To this builded sepulchre of the great Basilica in serious, charmed trembling hope and dread, this monu- silence. Miss Evans told me that she ment of mighty passions, I had wan- had been there much : she seemed to dered in search of pictorial effects. 0 know it well. We went into the dark vulgarity ! Of course I remained, nev- Baptistery and sat down on a bench ertheless, still curious of effects. Sud- against the wall, trying to discriminate denly I perceived a very agreeable one. in the vaulted dimness the harsh Kneeling on a low prie-dieu, with her mediaeval reliefs behind the altar and the hands clasped, a lady was gazing up- mosaic Crucifixion above it. ward at the great mosaic Christ in the " Well," said I, " what has Venice dome of the choir. She wore a black done for you ? " lace shawl and a purple hat. She was " Many things. Tired me a little, Miss Evans. Her attitude slightly saddened me, charmed me." puzzled me. Was she really at her "How have you spent your time ?" devotions, or was she only playing "As people spend it. After break- at prayer ? I walked to a distance, fast we get into our gondola and re- so that she might have time to main in it pretty well till bedtime. I move before I addressed her. Five believe I know every canal, every cana- minutes afterwards, however, she was letto, in Venice. You must have in the same position. I walked slowly learned already how sweet it is to lean towards her, and as I approached her back under the awning, to feel beneath attracted her attention. She immedi- you that steady, liquid lapse, to look ately recognized me and smiled and out at all this bright, sad elegance of bowed, without moving from her place. ruin. I have been reading two or three " I saw you five minutes ago," I said, of George Sand's novels. Do you know "but I was afraid of interrupting your La Derniere Aldini? I fancy a ro- prayers." mance in every palace." " 0, they were only half- prayers," " The reality of Venice seems to me she said. to exceed all romance. It 's romance " Half-prayers are pretty well for one enough simply to be here." 6 1 2 Travelling Companions. [November,

" Yes ; but how brief and transient life I felt the magic of sympathy. Af- a romance ! " ter dinner we went down into the Piaz- "Well," said I, "we shall certainly za and established ourselves at one of cease to be here, but we shall never Florian's tables. Night had become cease to have been here. You are not perfect ; the music was magnificent. to leave directly, I hope." At a neighboring table was a group of " In the course of ten days or a fort- young Venetian gentlemen, splendid in night we go to Florence." dress, after the manner of their kind, " And then to Rome ? " and glorious with the wondrous phys- "To Rome and Naples, and then by ical glory of the Italian race. sea, probably, to Genoa, and thence to " They only need velvet and satin Nice and Paris. We must be at home and plumes," I said, " to be subjects by the new year. And you ? " for Titian and Paul Veronese." " I hope to spend the winter in They sat rolling their dark eyes and Italy." kissing their white hands at passing "Are you never coming home again ?" friends, with smiles that were like the " By no means. I shall probably re- moon-flashes on the Adriatic. turn in the spring. But I wish you, "They are beautiful exceedingly," too, were going to remain." said Miss Evans ; "the most beautiful " You are very good. My father creatures in the world, except — " pronounces it impossible. I have only " Except, you mean, this other gen- to make the most of it while I 'm here." tleman." " Are you going back to Araminta ? " She assented. The person of whom Miss Evans was silent a moment. I had spoken was a young man who " 0, don't ask ! " she said. was just preparing to seat himself at a "What kind of a place is Araminta ?" vacant table. A lady and gentleman, I asked, maliciously. elderly persons, had passed near him Again she was silent. " That is John and recognized him, and he had uncov- the Baptist on the cover of the basin," ered himself and now stood smiling she said, at last, rising to her feet, with and talking. They were all genuine a light laugh. Anglo-Saxons. The young man was On emerging from the Baptistery we rather short of stature, but firm and found Mr. Evans, who greeted me cor- compact. His hair was light and crisp, dially and insisted on my coming to his eye a clear blue, his face and neck dine with them. I think most fondly violently tanned by exposure to the of our little dinner. We went to the sun. He wore a pair of small blond Caffe Quadri and occupied a table be- whiskers. side an open window, looking out into " Do you call him beautiful ? " de- the Piazza, which was beginning to fill manded Mr. Evans. " He reminds me with evening loungers and listeners to of myself when I was his age. Indeed, the great band of music in the centre. he looks like you, sir." Miss Evans took off her hat and sat " He 's not beautiful," said Miss facing me in friendly silence. Her Evans, "but he is handsome." father sustained the larger burden of The young man's face was full of conversation. He seemed to feel its decision and spirit ; his whole figure weight, however, as the dinner pro- had been moulded by action, tempered ceeded and when he had attacked his by effort. He looked simple and keen, second bottle of wine. Miss Evans upright, downright. then questioned me about my journey " Is he English ? " asked Miss Ev- from Milan. I told her the whole story, ans, " or American ? " and felt that I infused into it a great " He is both," I said, "or either. He deal of color and heat. She sat charm- is made of that precious clay that is ing me forward with her steady, listen- common to the whole English-speaking ing smile. For the first time in my race." 187o.] Travelling Companions. 6 1:3

" He 's American." and the great painters and builders. " Very possibly," said I ; and in- But when my mind had executed one deed we never learned. I repeat the of these great passages of appreciation, incident because I think it has a cer- it turned with a sudden sense of soli- tain value in my recital. Before we tude and lassitude to those gentle separated I expressed the hope that" hopes, those fragrant hints of intima- we might meet again on the morrow. cy, which clustered about the person " It 's very kind of you to propose of my friend. She remained modestly it," said Miss Evans ; " but you '11 uneclipsed by the women of Titian. thank us for refusing. Take my advice, She was as deeply a woman as they, as for an old Venetian, and spend the and yet so much more of a person ; as coming three days alone. How can fit as the broadest and blondest to be you enjoy Tintoretto and Bellini, when loved for herself, yet full of serene su- you are racking your brains for small periority as an active friend. To the talk for me ? " old, old sentiment what an exquisite " With you, Miss Evans, I should n't modern turn she might give ! I so talk small. But you shape my pro- far overruled her advice as that, with gramme with a liberal hand. At the end her father, we made a trio every even- of three days, pray, where will you be ? " ing, after the day's labors, at one of They would still be in Venice, Mr. Florian's tables. Mr. Evans drank Evans declared. It was a capital hotel, absinthe and discoursed upon the and then those jolly gondolas ! I was glories of our common country, of unable to impeach the wisdom of the which he declared it was high time I young girl's proposition. To be so should make the acquaintance. He wise, it seemed to me, was to be ex- was not the least of a bore : I relished tremely charming. him vastly. He was in many ways For three days, accordingly, I wan- an excellent representative American. dered about alone. I often thought of Without taste, without culture or pol- Miss Evans and I often fancied I should ish, he nevertheless produced an im- enjoy certain great pictures none the pression of substance in character, less for that deep associated contem- keenness in perception, and intensity plation and those fine emanations of in will, which effectually redeemed him assent and dissent which I should from vulgarity. It often seemed to me, have known in her society. I wan- in fact, that his good-humored toler- dered far ; I penetrated deep, it seemed ance and easy morality, his rank self- to me, into the heart of Venetian pow- confidence, his nervous decision and er. I shook myself free of the sad and vivacity, his fearlessness of either gods sordid present, and embarked on that or men, combined in proportions of silent contemplative sea whose irresist- which the union might have been very ible tides expire at the base of the fairly termed aristocratic. His voice, mighty canvases in the Scuola di San I admit, was of the nose, nasal ; but Rocco. But on my return to the hither possibly, in the matter of utterance, shore, I always found my sweet young one eccentricity is as good as another. countrywoman waiting to receive me. At all events, with his clear, cold gray If Miss Evans had been an immense eye, with that just faintly impudent, coquette, she could not have proceeded more than level poise of his ample more cunningly than by this injunction chin, with those two hard lines which of a three days' absence. During this flanked the bristling wings of his gray period, in my imagination, she in- moustache, with his general expression creased tenfold in value. I don't mean of unchallenged security and practical to say that there were not hours togeth- aptitude and incurious scorn of tradi- er when I quite forgot her, and when I tion, he impressed the sensitive be- had no heart but for Venice and the holder as a man of incontestable lessons of Venice, for the sea and sky force. He was entertaining, too, partly 614 The Intellectual Influence of Music. [November, by wit and partly by position. He was gas-tempered starlight. We had in- weak only in his love of absinthe. Af- finite talk. Without question, she had ter his first glass he left his chair and an admirable feminine taste : she was strolled about the piazza, looking for worthy to know Venice. I remember possible friends and superbly uncon- telling her so in a sudden explosion scious of possible enemies. His daugh- of homage. " You are really worthy to ter sat back in her chair, her arms know Venice, Miss Evans. We must folded, her ungloved hands sustaining learn to know it together. Who knows them, her prettiness half defined, her what hidden treasures we may help voice enhanced and subdued by the each other to find ? " H. James, Jr.

THE INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE OF MUSIC.

HATEVER doubt exists con- thing which distinguishes the utterances W cerning the intellectual influence of genius in its high hour, in whatsoever of music is chiefly due either to its form, is analogous to music and sets alleged vagueness in comparison with the fine chords vibrating in somewhat speech, or to its emotional and sensuous the same way. The higher ranges of qualities so seemingly opposed to the Coleridge's conversation are described calm temper and "pale hue " of thought. by his nephew, in the Preface to the What does it mean ? (Sonate, que " Table - Talk," in terms which one veux-tu ?) is asked after a fine sonata, might use who had been sitting under symphony, or song without words, the spell of Mendelssohn or Chopin : " I commonly by some one who has not have seen him at times when you could enjoyed it, and who is not musical. It not incarnate him, — when he shook would be hard to tell him, and the in- aside your petty questions or doubts, terpretations of a dozen really sincere and burst with some impatience through enthusiasts, stirred by it to the bottom the obstacles of common conversation. of their hearts and fed as with heavenly Then, escaped from the flesh, he would manna, would be widely apart. The soar upwards into an atmosphere al- truth is, the meaning of music lies hid- most too rare to breathe, but which den in those deep, mysterious springs of seemed proper to him, and there he every-day experience, which it were as would float at ease. Like enough, what vain to ignore as it is impossible to Coleridge then said his subtlest listen- render into words. Music is finer than er would not understand as a man un- speech, and makes its appeal to a derstands a newspaper ; but upon such deeper somewhat in us underlying all a listener there would steal an influence, thoughts of the understanding. Music and an impression, and a sympathy ; expresses that part of our best and in- there would be a gradual attempering most consciousness, which needs such of his body and spirit, till his total sympathetic, fluid, one might almost being vibrated with one pulse alone, say electric, language as its tones alone and thought became merged in con- afford. For it begins where speech templation: leaves off; through it the inmost spirit " And so, his senses gradually wrapt all that is inexpressible and yet of In a half-sleep, he 'd dream of better worlds, most account in us — can give sign of And dreaming hear thee still, 0 singing lark, itself. Hence the loftiest poetry, the That sangest like an angel in the clouds ! " most inspired and subtile charm of con- Did you never step within the portal versation, in short, that magical some- of a vast and crowded church in the 684 Travelling Companions. [December,

the head Krooman to be very cart which I had heard. This latter, when ful. found, I discovered to be a muddy little "O daddy," confidently spoke out creek, fenced on either side with man- Sea Breeze, " no be 'fraid. Sea hay groves, and here and there a large tree plenty sass, it be true, but I be old branching over. Here I saw several Krooman, sea know dat ; he no fit sas of the ugly creatures lazily enjoying a old Sea Breeze." The assured tone nap in the sun. I wondered if there this modern Canute established th were anything on earth too repulsive heart of our fearful friend, and, whethe for man to select as an object of wor- or no old Ocean acknowledged the ski ship. This West African Coast has a of this boastful darky, we rode safel long list of deities that include, at over wave after wave, and, after being one place monkeys, at another snakes, as usual carried to the beach on th at another the insignificant little insect shoulders of the men, walked among called mantis, and here the horrible the scenes of the previous day. Bu crocodile. The people come to feed how changed ! The day of drinking them, so that they are not at all shy, and the day of recovering from drip: being well acquainted with the human are widely different from each other. countenance;. but what they thought No dancing, no procession, no shout of a white face I do not know. One ing was there to attract us. Dix Cove of our fellow-travellers, fond of sport, was in doors to-day, as yesterday it wa proposed shooting one of them, but out. I had come, however, more wit] the outcry was so fierce at the mention a desire to get acquainted with the of such a thing, that for the safety of place than the people ; and with sketch his own life he spared that of the croco- book in hand I sauntered up the hi] dile. to take a view, and then to seek ou We returned again to the vessel, and the stream of the sacred crocodiles, of the next day we saw only sea and sky.

TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.

IL

T the end of my three days' proba- reflected light from the green lagoon A tion, I spent a week constantly playing up into her face. And if I had with my friends. Our mornings were, wished to sketch a Venetian scene, I of course, devoted to churches and gal- should have painted it from an open leries, and in the late afternoon we window, with a woman leaning against passed and repassed along the Grand the casement, — as I had often seen Canal or betook ourselves to the Lido. her lean from a window in her hotel. By this time Miss Evans and I had At 'the end of a week we went one become thoroughly intimate ; we had afternoon to the Lido, timing our de- learned to know Venice together, and parture so as to allow us to return at the knowledge had helped us to know sunset. We went over in silence, Mr. each other. In my own mind, Charlotte Evans sitting with reverted head, blow- Evans and Venice had played the game ing his cigar-smoke against the dazzling most effectively into each other's hands. sky, which told so fiercely of sea and If my fancy had been called upon to summer ; his daughter motionless and paint her portrait, my fancy would have thickly veiled ; I facing them, feeling sketched her with a background of the broken swerve of our gondola, and sunset-flushed palace wall, with a faint watching Venice grow level and rosy 8 7o. ] Travelling Companions. 68 5 beyond the liquid interval. Near the market-gardens and breeze-twisted or- landing - place on the hither side of chards, and a hint of hedges and lanes the Lido is a small trattoria for the and inland greenery. At one end is refreshment of visitors. An arbor out- a series of low fortifications duly em- side the door, a horizontal vine check- banked and moated and sentinelled. ering still further a dirty table-cloth, a Still beyond these, half over-drifted pungent odor of frittata, an admiring with sand and over-clambered with rank circle of gondoliers and beggars, are grasses and coarse thick shrubbery, are the chief attractions of this suburban certain quaintly lettered funereal slabs, house of entertainment, —,attractions tombs of former Jews of Venice. To- sufficient, however, to have arrested ward these we slowly wandered and the inquisitive steps of an elderly sat down in the grass. Between the American gentleman, in whom Mr. sand-heaps, which shut out the beach, Evans speedily recognized a friend of we saw in a dozen places the blue agi- early years, a comrade in affairs. A tation of the sea. Over all the scene hearty greeting ensued. This worthy there brooded the deep bright sad- man had ordered dinner : he besought ness of early autumn. I lay at my Mr. Evans at least to sit down and companion s feet and wondered wheth- partake of a bottle of wine. My friend er I was in love. It seemed to me that vacillated between his duties as a fa- I had never been so happy in my life. ther and the prospect of a rich old-boy- They say, I know, that to be in love is ish revival of the delectable interests not pure happiness ; that in the mood of of home ; but his daughter graciously the unconfessed, unaccepted lover there came to his assistance. " Sit down is an element ofpoignant doubt and pain. with Mr. Munson, talk till you are tired, Should I at once confess myself and and then walk over to the beach and taste of the perfection of bliss ? It find us. We shall not wander beyond seemed to me that I cared very little call." for the meaning of her reply. I only She and I accordingly started slowly wanted to talk of love ; I wanted in for a stroll along the barren strand some manner to enjoy in that atmos- which averts its shining side from phere of romance the woman who was Venice and takes the tides of the Adri- so blessedly fair and wise. It seemed atic. The Lido has for me a peculiar to me that all the agitation of fancy, melancholy charm, and I have often the excited sense of beauty, the fervor wondered that I should have felt the and joy and sadness begotten by my presence of beauty in a spot so des- Italian wanderings, had suddenly re- titute of any exceptional elements of solved themselves into a potent de- beauty. For beyond the fact that it mand for expression. Miss Evans was knows the changing moods and hues sitting on one of the Hebrew tombs, of the Adriatic, this narrow strip of her chin on her hand, her elbow on her sand-stifled verdure has no very rare knee, watching the broken horizon. I distinction. In my own country I was stretched on the grass on my side, know many a sandy beach, and many a leaning on my elbow and on my hand, stunted copse, and many a tremulous with my eyes on her face. She bent ocean line of little less purity and her own eyes and encountered mine ; breadth of composition, with far less we neither of us spoke or moved, but magical interest. The secret of the exchanged a long steady regard ; after Lido is simply your sense of adjacent which her eyes returned to the dis- Venice. It is the salt-sown garden of tance. What was her feeling toward the city of the sea. Hither came short- me ? Had she any sense of my emotion paced Venetians for a meagre taste of or of any answering trouble in her own terra firma, or for a wider glimpse of wonderful heart ? Suppose she should their parent ocean. Along a narrow deny me : should I suffer, would I per- line in the middle of the island are sist ? At any rate, I should have struck 686 Travelling Companions. [December, a blow for love. Suppose she were to " With you, course. With whom accept me ; would my joy be any greater else ? " than in the mere translation of my heart- " Has it only just now occurred to beats ? Did I in truth long merely for you ? " a bliss which should be of that hour " It has just occurred to me to say it." and that hour alone ? I was conscious Her blush had deepened a little ; but of an immense respect for the woman a genuine smile came to its relief. beside me. I was unconscious of the " Poor Mr. Brooke ! " she said. least desire even to touch the hem of " Poor Mr. Brooke indeed, if you her garment as it lay on the grass, take it in that way." touching my own. After all, it was but " You must forgive me if I doubt ten days that I had known her. How of your love." little I really knew of her ! how little " Why should you doubt ?" else than her beauty and her wit ! How " Love, I fancy, does n't come in just little she knew of me, of my vast out- this way." lying, unsentimental, spiritual self ! We " It comes as it can. This is surely knew hardly more of each other than a very good way." had appeared in this narrow circle of " I know it 's a very pretty way, Mr. our common impressions of Venice. Brooke ; Venice behind us, the Adri- And yet if into such a circle Love atic before us, these old Hebrew tombs! had forced his way, let him take his Its very prettiness makes me distrust way ! Let him widen the circle ! Tran- it." scendent Venice ! I rose to my feet " Do you believe only in the love with a violent movement, and walked that is born in darkness and pain ? ten steps away. I came back and Poor love ! it has trouble enough, first flung myself again on the grass. and last. Allow it a little ease." "The other day at Vicenza," I said, " Listen," said Miss Evans, after a " I bought a picture." pause. " It 's not with me you 're in " Ah ? an original ' ? " love, but with that painted picture. All " No, a copy." this Italian beauty and delight has " From whom ?" thrown you into a romantic state of " From you!" mind. You wish to make it perfect. I She blushed. "What do you mean ?" happen to be at hand, so you say, Go " I t was a little pretended Correggio ; to, I'll fall in love' And you fancy mg, a Madonna and Child." for the purpose, a dozen fine things " Is it good ?" that I 'm not." "No, it 's rather poor." " I fancy you beautiful and good. "Why, then, did you buy it ? " I 'm sorry to find you so dogmatic." "Because the Madonna looked sin- "You must n't abuse me, or we shall gularly like you." be getting serious." " I 'm sorry, Mr. Brooke, you had n't " Well," said I, " you can't prevent a better reason. I hope the picture me from adoring you." was cheap." " I should be very sorry to. So long " It was quite reason enough. I ad- as you `adore' me, we 're safe ! I mire you more than any woman in the can tell you better things than that I 'm world." in love with you." She looked at me a moment, blush- I looked at her impatiently. " For ing again. "You don't know me." instance ?" " I have a suspicion of you. It's She held out her hand. " I like you ground enough for admiration." immensely. As for love, I'm in love " 0, don't talk about admiration. with Venice." I 'm tired of it all beforehand." " Well, I like Venice immensely, but " Well, then," said I, " I 'm in love." I'm in love with you." " Not with me, I hope." " In that way I am willing to leave I 8 70.] Travelling Companions. 687 it. Pray don't speak of it again to-day. which I had already made several vain But my poor father is probably wan- attempts to obtain access. At the door dering up to his knees in the sand." in the little bustling campowhich ad- I had been happy before, but I joins the church I found her standing think I was still happier for the words expectant. A little boy, she told me, I had spoken. I had cast them abroad had gone for the sacristan and his key. at all events ; my heart was richer by Her father, she proceeded to explain, a sense of their possible fruition. We had suddenly been summoned to Milan walked far along the beach. Mr. Evans by a telegram from Mr. Munson, the was still with his friend. friend whom he had met at the Lido, " What is beyond that horizon ?" who had suddenly been taken ill. said my companion. " And so you 're going about alone ? "Greece, among other things." Do you think that's altogether proper ? "Greece ! only think of it ! Shall Why did n't you send for me ?" I stood you never go there ?" lost in wonder and admiration at the I stopped short. "If you will be- exquisite dignity of her self-support. I lieve what I say, Miss Evans, we may had heard of American girls doing such both go there." But for all answer she things; but I had yet to see them done. repeated her request that I should for- " Do you think it less proper for me bear. Before long, retracing our steps, to go about alone than to send for you ? we met Mr. Evans, who had parted Venice has seen so many worse impro- with his friend, the latter having re- prieties that she '11 forgive me mine." turned to Venice. He had arranged to The little boy arrived with the sacris- start the next morning for Milan. We tan and his key, and we were ushered went back over the lagoon in the glow into the presence of Tintoretto's Cruci- of the sunset, in a golden silence which fixion. This great picture is one of suffered us to hear the far-off ripple in the greatest of the Venetian school. the wake of other gondolas, a golden Tintoretto, the travelled reader will re- clearness so perfect that the rosy flush member, has painted two masterpieces on the marble palaces seemed as light on this tremendous theme. The larger and pure as the life-blood on the fore- and more complex work is at the Scuo- head of a sleeping child. There is no la di San Rocco ; the one of which I Venice like the Venice of that magical speak is small, simple, and sublime. It hour. For that brief period her ancient occupies the left side of the narrow glory returns. The sky arches over choir of the shabby little church which her like a vast imperial canopy crowded we had entered, and is remarkable as with its clustering mysteries of light. being, with two or three exceptions, Her whole aspect is one of unspotted the best preserved work of its incom- splendor. No other city takes the parable author. Never, in the whole crimson evanescence of day with such range of art, I imagine, has so powerful magnificent effect. The lagoon is an effect been produced by means so sheeted with a carpet of fire. All tor- simple and select ; never has the intel- pid, pallid hues of marble are trans- ligent choice of means to an effect been muted to a golden glow. The dead pursued with such a refinement of per- Venetian tone brightens and quickens ception. The picture offers to our sight into life and lustre, and the spectator's the very central essence of the great enchanted vision seems to rest on an tragedy which it depicts. There is no embodied dream of the great painter swooning Madonna, no consoling Mag- who wrought his immortal reveries dalen, no mockery of contrast, no cru- into the ceilings of the Ducal Palace. elty of an assembled host.. We behold It was not till the second day after the silent summit of Calvary. To the this that I again saw Miss Evans. I right are the three crosses, that of the went to the little church of San Cas- Saviour foremost. A ladder pitched siano, to see a famous Tintoretto, to against it supports a turbaned execu- 688 Travelling Companions. [December,

tioner, who bends downward to receive verdure, the rosy-footed, pearl-circled, the sponge offered him by a comrade. nymph-flattered victim of a divine delu- Above the crest of the hill the helmets sion rustles her lustrous satin against and spears of a line of soldiery complete the ambrosial hide of bovine Jove. " It the grimness of the scene. The reality makes one think more agreeably of life," of the picture is beyond all words : it I said to my friend, "that such visions is hard to say which is more impressive, have blessed the eyes of men of mortal the naked horror of the fact repre- mould. What has been may be again. sented, or the sensible power of the We may yet dream as brightly, and artist. You breathe a silent prayer of some few of us translate our dreams as thanks that you, for your part, are freely." without the terrible clairvoyance of " This, I think, is the brighter dream genius. We sat and looked at the pic- of the two," she answered, indicating ture in silence. The sacristan loitered the Bacchus and Ariadne. Miss Evans, about ; but finally, weary of waiting, he on the whole, was perhaps right. In retired to the campo without. I ob- Tintoretto's picture there is no shim- served my companion : pale, motion- mer of drapery, no splendor of flowers less, oppressed, she evidently felt with and gems ; nothing but the broad, poignant sympathy the commanding bright glory of deep-toned sea and sky, force of the work. At last I spoke to and the shining purity and symmetry her ; receiving no answer, I repeated of deified human flesh. " What do you my question. She rose to her feet and think," asked my companion, " of the turned her face upon me, illumined with painter of that tragedy at San Cassiano a vivid ecstasy of pity. Then passing being also the painter of this dazzling me rapidly, she descended into the idyl ; of the great painter of darkness aisle of the church, dropped into a being also the great painter of light ? " chair, and, burying her face in her hands, " He was a colorist ! Let us thank burst into an agony of sobs. Having the great man, and be colorists too. allowed time for her feeling to expend To understand this Bacchus and Ari- itself, I went to her and recommended adne we ought to spend a long day on her not to let the day close on this the lagoon, beyond sight of Venice. painful emotion. "Come with me to Will you come to-morrow to Torcello?" the Ducal Palace," I said ; " let us The proposition seemed to me auda- look at the Rape of Europa." But be- cious ; I was conscious of blushing a fore departing we went back to 'our little as I made it. Miss Evans looked Tintoretto, and gave it another solemn at me and pondered. She then replied half-hour. Miss Evans repeated aloud with .great calmness that she preferred a dozen verses from St. Mark's Gospel. to wait for her father, the excursion " What is it here," I asked, " that being one that he would probably enjoy. has moved you most, the painter or "Will you come, then, — somewhere ?" the subject ? " I asked. " I suppose it 's the subject. And Again she pondered. Suddenly her you ? " face brightened. " I should very much " I 'm afraid it 's the painter." like to go to Padua. It would bore We went to the Ducal Palace, and my poor father to go. I fancy he immediately made our way to that would thank you for taking me. I transcendent shrine of light and grace, should be almost willing," she said the room which contains the master- with a smile, "to go alone." piece of Paul Veronese, and the Bac- It was easily arranged that on the chus and Ariadne of his solemn com- morrow we should go for the day to rade. I steeped myself with unprotest- Padua. Miss Evans was certainly an ing joy in the gorgeous glow and salu- American to perfection. Nothing re- brity of that radiant scene, wherein, mained for me, as the good American against her bosky screen of immortal which I aspired to be, but implicitly to 1870.] Travelling Companions. 689 respect her confidence. To Padua, by slowly approached her, and bent a an early train, we accordingly went. single knee at her side. When presently The day stands out in my memory de- they rose to their feet, she passed her lightfully curious and rich. Padua is a arm into his with a beautiful, unsup- wonderful little city. Miss Evans was pressed lovingness. As they passed us, an excellent walker, and, thanks to the looking at us from the clear darkness broad arcades which cover the foot- of their Italian brows, I keenly envied ways in the streets, we rambled for them. "They are better off than we," hours in perpetual shade. We spent I said. " Be they husband and wife, an hour at the famous church of St. or lovers, or simply friends, we, I think, Anthony, which boasts one of the rich- are rather vulgar beside them." est and holiest shrines in all church- " My dear Mr. Brooke," said Miss burdened Italy. The whole edifice is Evans, "go by all means and say your nobly and darkly ornate and pictu- prayers." And she walked away to the resque, but the chapel of its patron other side of the church. Whether I saint — a wondrous combination of obeyed her injunction or not, I feel un- chiselled gold and silver and alabaster der no obligation to report. I rejoined and perpetual flame — splendidly out- her at the beautiful frescoed chapel in shines and outshadows the rest. In the opposite transept. She was sitting all Italy, I think, the idea of palpable, listlessly turning over the leaves of her material sanctity is nowhere more po- Murray. " I suppose," she said, after tently enforced. a few moments, " that nothing is more " O the Church, the Church ! " mur- vulgar than to make a noise about hav- mured Miss Evans, as we stood con- ing been called vulgar. But really, Mr. templating. Brooke, don't call me so again. I have " What a real pity," I said, "that we been of late so fondly fancying I am not are not Catholics ; that that dazzling vulgar." monument is not something more to us " My dear Miss Evans, you are — " than a mere splendid show ! What a " Come, nothing vulgar !" different thing this visiting of churches " You 're divine ! " would be for us, if we occasionally felt "A la bonne heure ! Divinities the prompting to fall on our knees. I need n't pray. They are prayed to." begin to grow ashamed of this perpet- I have no space and little power to ual attitude of bald curiosity. What a enumerate and describe the various pleasant thing it must be, in such a curiosities of Padua. I think we saw church as this, for two good friends them all. We left the best, however, to say their prayers together !" for the last, and repaired in the late " Ecco !" said Miss Evans. Two afternoon, after dining fraternally at a persons had approached the glittering restaurant, to the Chapel of Giotto. shrine, —a young woman of the middle This little empty church, standing un- class and a man of her own rank, some shaded and forlorn in the homely mar- ten years older, dressed with a good ket-garden which was once a Roman deal of cheap elegance. The woman arena, offers one of the deepest lessons dropped on her knees ; her companion of Italian travel. Its four walls are fell back a few steps, and stood gazing covered, almost from base to ceiling, idly at the chapel. " Poor girl!" said with that wonderful series of dramatic my friend, "she believes ; he doubts." paintings which usher in the golden "He does n't look like a doubter. prime of Italian art. I had been so He 's a vulgar fellow. They 're a be- ill-informed as to fancy that to talk trothed pair, I imagine. She is very about Giotto was to make more or less pretty." She had turned round and of a fool of one's self, and that he was flung at her companion a liquid glance the especial property of the mere sen- of entreaty. He appeared not to ob- timentalists of criticism. But you no serve it ; but in a few moments he sooner cross the threshold of that little 690 Travelling Companions. [December,

ruinous temple —a mere empty shell, nificantly to the door-post : we lingered but coated as with the priceless sub- for a farewell glance. stance of fine pearls and vocal with a '• Mr. Brooke," said my companion, murmured eloquence as from the infi- we ought to learn from all this to be nite of art — than you perceive with real; real even as Giotto is real ; to whom you have to deal : a complete discriminate between genuine and fac- painter of the very strongest sort. In titious sentiment ; between the sub- one respect, assuredly, Giotto has stantial and the trivial ; between the never been surpassed, — in the art of essential and the superfluous ; senti- presenting a story. The amount of ment and sentimentality." dramatic expression compressed into " You speak," said I, "with appall- those quaint little scenic squares would ing wisdom and truth. You strike a equip a thousand later masters. How, chill to my heart of hearts." beside him, they seem to fumble and She spoke unsmiling, with a slightly 'grope and trifle ! And he, beside them, contracted brow and an apparent sense how direct he seems, how essential, of effort. She blushed as I gazed at how masculine ! What a solid sim- her. plicity, what an immediate purity and " Well," she said, " I'm extremely grace ! The exhibition suggested to glad to have been here. Good, wise my friend and me more wise reflections Giotto ! I should have liked to know than we had the skill to utter. " Hap- you. — Nay, let me pay the boy." I py, happy art," we said, as we seemed saw the piece, she put into his hand ; to see it beneath Giotto's hand trem- he was stupefied by its magnitude ble and thrill and sparkle, almost, with " We shall not have done Padua," I a presentiment of its immense career, said, as we left the garden, " unless " for the next two hundred years what we have been to the Caffè Pedrocchi. a glorious felicity will be yours !" The Come to the Caffe Pedrocchi. We chapel door stood open into the sun- have more than an hour before our ny corn-field, and the lazy litter of ver- train, —time to eat an ice." So we dure enclosed by the crumbling oval drove to the Caffe Pedrocchi, the most of Roman masonry. A loutish boy respectable café in the world ; a cafe who had come with the key lounged on monumental, scholastic, classical. a bench, awaiting tribute, and gazing We sat down at one of the tables on at us as we gazed. The ample light the cheerful external platform, which is flooded the inner precinct, and lay hot washed by the gentle tide of Paduan upon the coarse, pale surface of the life. When we had finished our ices, painted wall. There seemed an irre- Miss Evans graciously allowed me a sistible pathos in such a combination cigar. How it came about I hardly of shabbiness and beauty. I thought remember, but, prompted by some hap- of this subsequently at the beautiful py accident of talk, and gently encour- Museum at Bologna, where mediocrity aged perhaps by my smoke-wreathed is so richly enshrined. Nothing that quietude, she lapsed, with an exquisite we had yet seen together had filled us feminine reserve, into a delicate auto- with so deep a sense of enjoyment. biographical strain. For a moment We stared, we laughed, we wept al- she became egotistical ; but with a most, we raved with a decent delight. modesty, a dignity, a lightness of touch We went over the little compartments which filled my eyes with admiring one by one : we lingered and returned tears. She spoke of her home, her and compared ; we studied ; we melted family, and the few events of her life. together in unanimous homage. At She had lost her mother in her early last the Tight began to fade and the years ; her two sisters had married little saintly figures to grow quaint and young ; she and her father were equal- terrible in the gathering dusk. The ly united by affection and habit. Upon loutish boy had transferred himself sig- one theme she touched, in regard to 1870.] Travelling Companions. 69 I which I should be at loss to say Evans's calmness might not be the whether her treatment told more, by simple calmness of despair. The mis- its frankness, of our friendship, or, by erable words rose to my lips, " Is she its reticence, of her modesty. She Compromised ?" If she were, of course, spoke of having been engaged, and of as far as I was concerned, there was having lost her betrothed in the Civil but one possible sequel to our situa- War She made no story of it ; but I tion. felt from her words that she had tasted We met the next morning at break- of sorrow. Having finished my cigar, fast. She assured me that she had I was proceeding to light another. She slept, but I doubted it. I myself had drew out her watch. Our train was to not closed my eyes, — not from the ex- leave at eight o'clock. It was now a citement of vanity. Owing partly, I sup- quarter past. There was no later even- pose, to a natural reaction against our ing train. continuous talk on the foregoing day, The reader will understand that I our return to Venice was attended with tell the simple truth when I say that a good deal of silence. I wondered our situation was most disagreeable whether it was a mere fancy that Miss and that we were deeply annoyed. " Of Evans was pensive, appealing, sombre. course," said I, "you are utterly dis- As we entered the gondola to go from gusted." the railway station to the Hotel Dan- She was silent. " I am extremely ieli, she asked me to request the gon- sorry," she said, at last, just vanquish- doliers to pass along the Canalezzo ing a slight tremor in her voice. rather than through the short cuts of " Murray says the hotel is good," I the smaller canals. "I feel as if I were suggested. coming home," she said, as we floated She made no answer. Then, rising beneath the lovely facade of the Ca' to her feet, " Let us go immediately," Doro. Suddenly she laid her hand on she said. We drove to the principal my arm. " It seems to me," she said, inn and bespoke our rooms. Our want " that I should like to stop for Mrs. of luggage provoked, of course, a cer- L—,' and she mentioned the wife of tain amount of visible surprise. This, the American Consul. " I have prom- however, I fancy, was speedily merged ised to show her some jewelry. This in a more flattering emotion, when my is a particularly good time. I shall companion, having communed with the ask her to come home with me." We chambermaid, sent her forth with a list stopped accordingly at the American of purchases. Consulate. Here we found, on inqui- We separated early. " I hope," said ry, to my great regret, that the Consul I, as I bade her good night, "that you and his wife had gone for a week to will be fairly comfortable." the Lake of Como. For a moment my She had recovered her equanimity. companion meditated. Then, " To " I have no doubt of it." the hotel," she said with decision. "Good night." Our arrival attracted apparently little " Good night." Thank God, I si- notice. I went with Miss Evans to lently added, for the dignity of Amer- the door of her father's sitting-room, ican women. Knowing to what suf- where we met a servant, who informed fering a similar accident would have us with inscrutable gravity that Mon- subjected a young girl of the ortho- sieur had returned the evening before, dox European training, I felt devoutly but that he had gone out after break- grateful that among my own people a fast and had not reappeared. woman and her reputation are more " Poor father, • she said. " It was indissolubly one. And yet I was un- very stupid of me not to have left a able to detach myself from my Old- note for him." I urged that our ab- World associations effectually enough sence for the night was not to have not to wonder whether, after all, Miss been foreseen, and that Mr. Evans had 692 Travelling Companions. [December,

in all likelihood very plausibly ex- father had again gone out, but she had plained it. I withdrew with a hand- told him of my coming, and he was shake and permission to return in the soon to return. He had not been pain- evening. fully alarmed at her absence, having I went to my hotel and slept, a learned through a chambermaid, to long, sound, dreamless sleep. In the whom she had happened to mention afternoon I called my gondola, and her intention, that she had gone for the went over to the Lido. I crossed to day to Padua. the outer shore and sought the spot "And what have you been doing all where a few days before I had lain day ? " I asked. at the feet of Charlotte Evans. I " Writing letters, — long, tiresome, stretched myself on the grass and descriptive letters. I have also found fancied her present. To say that I a volume of Hawthorne, and have been thought would be to say at once more reading Rappacini's Daughter.' You and less than the literal truth. I was know the scene is laid in Padua." in a tremulous glow of feeling. I lis- And what had I been doing ? tened to the muffled rupture of the tide, Whether I was in a passion of love vaguely conscious of my beating heart. or not, I was enough in love to be very Was I or was I not in love ? I was illogical. I was disappointed, Heaven able to settle nothing. I wandered knows why ! that she should have musingly further and further from the been able to spend her time in this point. Every now and then, with a wholesome fashion. " I have been at deeper pulsation of the heart, I would the Lido, at the Hebrew tombs, where return to it, but only to start afresh we sat the other day, thinking of what and follow some wire-drawn thread of you told me there." fancy to a nebulous goal of doubt. " What I told you ?" That she was a most lovely woman "That you liked me immensely." seemed to me of all truths the truest, She smiled ; but now that she smiled, but it was a hard-featured fact of the I fancied I saw in the movement of senses rather than a radiant mystery her face an undercurrent of pain. Had of faith. I felt that I was not pos- the peace of her heart been troubled ? sessed by a passion ; perhaps I was " You need n't have gone so far away incapable of passion. At last, weary to think of it." of self-bewilderment, I left the spot " It 's very possible," I said, " that I and wandered beside the sea. It shall have to think of it, in days to come, seemed to speak more musingly than farther away still." ever of the rapture of motion and free- " Other places, Mr. Brooke, will dom. Beyond the horizon was Greece, bring other thoughts." beyond and below was the wondrous "Possibly. This place has brought Southern world which blooms about that one." At what prompting it was the margin of the Midland Sea. To that I continued I hardly know ; I marry, somehow, meant to abjure all would tell her that I loved her. " I this, and in the prime of youth and value it beyond all other thoughts.'' manhood to sink into obscurity and " I do like you, Mr. Brooke. Let it care. For a moment there stirred in rest there." my heart a feeling of anger and pain. "It may rest there for you. It can't Perhaps, after all, I was in love ! for me. It begins there ! Don't re- I went straight across the lagoon fuse to understand me." to the Hotel Danieli, and as I ap- She was silent. Then, bending her proached it I became singularly calm eyes on me, " Perhaps," she said, "I and collected. From below I saw understand you too well." Miss Evans alone on her balcony, " 0, in Heaven's name, don't play at watching the sunset. She received me coldness and scepticism ! " with perfect friendly composure. Her She dropped her eyes gravely on a 1870.] Travelling Companions• 693 bracelet which she locked and un- " Miss Evans," I said, at last, " will locked on her wrist. " I think," she you be my wife ? " said, without raising them, "you had She looked at me with a certain firm better leave Venice." I was about to resignation. " Do you feel that, Mr. reply, but the door opened and Mr. Brooke ? Do you know what you Evans came in. From his hard, griz- ask ?" zled brow he looked at us in turn ; " Most assuredly." then, greeting me with an extended " Will you rest content with my an- hand, he spoke to his daughter. swer ? " " I have forgotten my cigar-case. " It depends on what your answer Be so good as to fetch it from my is." dressing-table." She was silent. For a moment Miss Evans hesitated " I should like to know what my and cast upon him a faint protesting father said to you in my absence." glance. Then she lightly left the room. " You had better learn from him- He stood holding my hand, with a very self." sensible firmness, with his eyes on " I think I know. Poor father ! " mine. Then, laying his other hand " But you give me no answer," I heavily on my shoulder, " Mr. Brooke," rejoined, after a pause. he said, " I believe you are an honest She frowned a little. " Mr. Brooke," man." she said, "you disappoint me." " I hope so," I answered. " Well, I 'm sorry. Don't revenge He paused, and I felt his steady yourself by disappointing me." gray eyes. " How the devil," he said, " I fancied that I had answered your " came you to be left at Padua ? " proposal ; that I had, at least, antici- " The explanation is a very simple pated it, the other day at the Lido." one. Your daughter must have told " 0, that was very good for the you." other day ; but do give me something " I have thought best to talk very different now." little to my daughter about it." " I doubt of your being more in " Do you regard it, Mr. Evans," I earnest to-day than then." asked, "as a very serious calamity ? " " It seems to suit you wonderfully " I regard it as an infernally dis- well to doubt ! " agreeable thing. It seems that the " I thank you for the honor of your whole hotel is talking about it. There proposal : but I can't be your wife, Mr. is a little beast of an Italian down Brooke." stairs —" " That 's the answer with which you " Your daughter, I think, was not ask me to remain satisfied ! " seriously discomposed." Let me repeat what I said just " My daughter is a d—d proud wo- now. You had better leave Venice, man ! " otherwise we must leave it." " I can assure you that my esteem " Ah, that 's easy to say ! " for her is quite equal to your own." " You must n't think me unkind or "What does that mean, Mr. Brooke ?" cynical. You have done your duty." I was about to answer, but Miss Evans " My duty, — what duty ? " reappeared. Her father, as he took his "Come," she said, with a beautiful cigar-case from her, looked at her in- blush and the least attempt at a smile, tently, as if he were on the point of "you imagine that I have suffered an speaking, but the words remained on injury by my being left with you at his lips, and, declaring that he would Padua. I don't believe in such inju- be back in half an hour, he left the ries." room. " No more do I." His departure was followed by a "Then there is even less wisdom long silence. than before in your proposal. But I 694 Travelling Companions. [December, strongly suspect that if we had not " Some time in the spring." missed the train at Padua, you would " Very well. If a year hence, in not have made it. There is an idea of America, you are still of your present reparation in it.— 0 Sir !" And she mind, I shall not decline to see you. shook her head with a deepening smile. I feel very safe ! If you are not of " If I had flattered myself that it lay your present mind, of course I shall in my power to do you an injury," I be still more happy. Farewell." She replied, " I should now be rarely dis- put out her hand ; I took it. enchanted. As little almost as to do " Beautiful, wonderful woman ! " I you a benefit !" murmured. " You have loaded me with benefits. " That 's rank poetry ! Farewell !" I thank you from the bottom of my I raised her hand to my lips and re- heart. I may be very unreasonable, leased it in silence. At this point Mr. but if I had doubted of my having to Evans reappeared, considering appar- decline your offer three days ago, I ently that his half-hour was up. " Are should have quite ceased to doubt this you going ? " he asked. evening." " Yes. I start to-morrow for Rome." " You are an excessively proud wo- " The deuce ! Daughter, when are man. I can tell you that." we to go ?" " Possibly. But I 'm not as proud She moved her hand over her fore- as you think. I believe in my corn- head, and a sort of nervous tremor mon sense." seemed to pass through her limbs. " I wish that for five minutes you had "O, you must take me home ! " she a grain of imagination ! " said. " I'm horribly home-sick !" She " If only for the same five minutes flung her arms round his neck and you were without it. You have too buried her head on his shoulder. Mr. much, Mr. Brooke. You imagine you Evans with a movement of his head love me." dismissed me. " Poor fool that I am ! " At the top of the staircase, however, he "You imagine that I'm charming. overtook me. "You made your offer ! " I assure you I 'm not in the least. And he passed his arm into mine. Here in Venice I have not been myself " Yes !" at all. You should see me at home." " And she refused you ?" I nodded. "Upon my word, Miss Evans, you He looked at me, squeezing my arm. remind me of a German philosopher. " By Jove, sir, if she had accepted —" I have not the least objection to seeing " Well !" said I, stopping. you at home." " Why, it would n't in the least have " Don't fancy that I think lightly of suited me ! Not that I don't esteem your offer. But we have been living, you. The whole house shall see it." Mr. Brooke, in poetry. Marriage is With his arm in mine we passed down stern prose. Do let me bid you fare- stairs, through the hall, to the landing- well !" place, where he called his own gondola I took up my hat. " I shall go from and requested me to use it. He bade here to Rome and Naples," I said. "I me farewell with a kindly hand-shake, must leave Florence for the last. I and the assurance that I was too "nice shall write you from Rome and of a fellow not to keep as a.friend." course see you there." I think, on the whole, that my upper- " I hope not. I had rather not meet most feeling was a sense of freedom you again in Italy. It perverts our and relief. It seemed to me on my dear good old American truth ! " journey to Florence that I had started " Do you really propose to bid me a afresh, and was regarding things with final farewell ? " less of nervous rapture than before, She hesitated a moment. " When but more of sober insight. Of Miss do you return home?" Evans I forbade myself to think. In 1870.] Travelling Companions. 695 my deepest heart I admitted the truth, Evans, about the statues in the Mu- the partial truth at least, of her asser- seum, without a word of wooing, but tion of the unreality of my love. The received no answer. It seemed to me reality I believed would come. The that I returned to Rome a wiser man. way to hasten its approach was, mean- It was the middle of October when I while, to study, to watch, to observe, reached it. Unless Mr. Evans had al- — doubtless even to enjoy. I certainly tered his programme, he would at this enjoyed Florence and the three days I moment be passing down to Naples. spent there. But I shall not attempt A fortnight elapsed without my hear- to deal with Florence in a parenthesis. ing of him, during which I was in the I subsequently saw that divine little full fever of initiation into Roman won- city under circumstances which pecu- ders. I had been introduced to an old liarly colored and shaped it. In Rome, German arch aeologist, with whom I to begin with, I spent a week and went spent a series of memorable days in down to Naples, dragging the heavy the exploration of ruins and the study Roman chain which she rivets about of the classical topography. I thought, your limbs forever. In Naples I dis- I lived, I ate and drank, in Latin, and covered the real South — the Southern German Latin at that. But I remem- South, — in art, in nature, in man, and ber with especial delight certain long the least bit in woman. A German lonely rides on the Campagna. The lady, an old kind friend, had given me weather was perfect. Nature seemed a letter to a Neapolitan lady whom she only to slumber, ready to wake far on assured me she held in high esteem. the hither side of wintry death. From The Signora B— was at Sorrento, time to time, after a passionate gallop, where I presented my letter. It seemed I would pull up my horse on the slope to me that "esteem" was not exactly of some pregnant mound and embrace the word ; but the Signora B— was with the ecstasy of quickened senses charming. She assured me on my the tragical beauty of the scene ; strain first visit that she was a " true Nea- my ear to the soft low silence, pity the politan," and I think, on the whole, she dark dishonored plain, watch the heav- was right. She told me that I was a ens come rolling down in tides of true German, but in this she was alto- light, and breaking in waves of fire gether wrong. I spent four days in her against the massive stillness of temples house ; on one of them we went to Capri, and tombs. The aspect of all this where the Signora had an infant— her sunny solitude and haunted vacancy only one—at nurse. We saw the Blue used to fill me with a mingled sense Grotto, the Tiberian ruins, the taran- of exaltation and dread. There were tella and the infant, and returned late moments when my fancy swept that in the evening by moonlight. The vast funereal desert with passionate Signora sang on the water in a magnifi- curiosity and desire, moments when it cent contralto. As I looked upward at felt only its potent sweetness and its Northern. Italy, it seemed, in contrast, high historic charm. But there were a cold, dark hyperborean clime, a land other times when the air seemed so of order, conscience, and virtue. How heavy with the exhalation of unburied my heart went out to that brave, rich, death, so bright with sheeted ghosts, compact little Verona ! How there that I turned short about and galloped Nature seemed to have mixed her back to the city. One afternoon after colors with potent oil, instead of as I had indulged in one of these super- here with crystalline water, drawn sensitive flights on the Campagna, I though it was from the Neapolitan Bay ! betook myself to St. Peter's. It was But in Naples, too, I pursued my plan shortly before the opening of the recent of vigilance and study. I spent long Council, and the city was filled with mornings at the Museum and learned foreign ecclesiastics, the increase being to know Pompei ; I wrote once to Miss of course especially noticeable in the 696 Travelling Companions. [December, churches. At St. Peter's they were day, and had remained unconscious present in vast numbers ; great armies from first to last. The American phy- encamped in prayer on the marble sician had been extremely kind, and plains of its pavement : an inexhausti- had relieved her of all care and respon- ble physiognomical study. Scattered sibility. His wife had strongly urged among them were squads of little ton- her to come and stay in their house, sured neophytes, clad in scarlet, march- until she should have determined what ing and counter-marching, and ducking to do ; but she had preferred to remain and flapping, like poor little raw recruits at her hotel. She had immediately fur- for the heavenly host. I had never nished herself with an attendant in the before, I think, received an equal im- person of a French maid, who had pression of the greatness of this church come with her to the church and was of churches, or, standing beneath the now at confession. At first she had dome, beheld such a vision of erected wished greatly to leave Rome, but now altitude, — of the builded sublime. I that the first shock of grief had passed lingered awhile near the brazen image away she found it suited her mood to of St. Peter, observing the steady pro- linger on from day to day. " On the cession of his devotees. Near me whole," she said, with a sober smile, stood a lady in mourning, watching "I have got through it all rather easily with a weary droop of the head the than otherwise. The common cares grotesque deposition of kisses. A and necessities of life operate strongly peasant-woman advanced with the file to interrupt and dissipate one's grief. of the faithful and lifted up her little girl I shall feel my loss more when I get to the well-worn toe. With a sudden home again." Looking at her while movement of impatience the lady turned she talked, I found a pitiful difference away, so that I saw her face to face. between her words and her aspect. She was strikingly pale, but as her Her pale face, her wilful smile, her eyes met mine the blood rushed into spiritless gestures, spoke most forcibly her cheeks. This lonely mourner was of loneliness and weakness. Over this Miss Evans. I advanced to her with gentle weakness and dependence I an outstretched hand. Before she spoke secretly rejoiced ; I felt in my heart an I had guessed at the truth. immense uprising of pity, — of the pity " You 're in sorrow and trouble ! " that goes hand in hand with love. At She nodded, with a look of simple its bidding I hastily, vaguely sketched gravity. a magnificent scheme of devotion and " Why in the world have n't you protection. written to me ? " " When I think of what you have "There was no use. I seem to have been through," I said, " my heart stands sufficed to myself." still for very tenderness. Have you "Indeed, you have not sufficed to made any plans ? " She shook her yourself. You are pale and worn ; you head with such a perfection of helpless- look wretchedly." She stood silent, ness that I broke into a sort of rage looking about her with an air of vague of compassion : " One of the last things unrest. " I have as yet heard noth- your father said to me was that you ing," I said. " Can you speak of it ? " are a very proud woman." " 0 Mr. Brooke " she said with a She colored faintly. " I may have simple sadness that went to my heart. been ! But there is not among the I drew her hand through my arm and most abject peasants who stand kissing led her to the extremity of the left St. Peter's foot a creature more bowed transept of the church. We sat down in humility than I." together, and she told me of her father's " How did you expect to make that death. It had happened ten days be- weary journey home ? " fore, in consequence of a severe apoplec- She was silent a moment and her tic stroke. He had been ill but a single eyes filled with tears. " 0 don't cross- 1870.] Travelling Companions. 697 question me, Mr. Brooke ! " she softly unites the charm of an air of latent cried ; " I expected nothing. I was symbolism with a steadfast splendor waiting for my stronger self." and solid perfection of design. Beside a " Perhaps your stronger self has low sculptured well sit two young and come." She rose to her feet as if she beautiful women : one richly clad, and had not heard me, and went forward to full of mild dignity and repose ; the meet her maid. This was a decent, other with unbound hair, naked, capable-looking person, with a great ungirdled by a great reverted mantle of deal of apparent deference of manner. Venetian purple, and radiant with the As I rejoined them, Miss Evans pre- frankest physical sweetness and grace. pared to bid me farewell. " You have Between them a little winged cherub n't yet asked me to come and see you," bends forward and thrusts his chubby I said. arm into the well. The picture glows " Come, but not too soon ? " with the inscrutable chemistry of the " What do you call too soon? This prince of colorists. evening ? " " Does it remind you of Venice ? " I " Come to-morrow." She refused to said, breaking a long silence, during allow me to go with her to her carriage. which she had not noticed me. I followed her, however, at a short in- She turned and her face seemed terval, and went as usual to my restau- bright with reflected color. We spoke rant to dine. I remember that my din- awhile of common things ; she had ner cost me ten francs, — it usually come alone. " What an emotion, for cost me five. Afterwards, as usual, I one who has loved Venice," she said, adjourned to the Caffe Greco, where I "to meet a Titian in other lands." met my German archaeologist. He dis- " They call it," I answered, — and as coursed with even more than his wonted I spoke my heart was in my throat, — sagacity and eloquence ; but at the end " a representation of Sacred and Pro- of half an hour he rapped his fist on fane Love. The name perhaps roughly the table and asked me what the deuce expresses its meaning. The serious, was the matter ; he would wager I stately woman is the likeness, one may had n't heard a word of what he said. say, of love as an experience, — the I went forth the next morning into gracious, impudent goddess of love as the Roman streets, doubting heavily of a sentiment ; this of the passion that my being able to exist until evening fancies, the other of the passion that without seeing Miss Evans. I felt, how- knows." And as I spoke I passed my ever, that it was due to her to make arm, in its strength, around her waist. the effort. To help myself through the She let her head sink on my shoulders morning, I went into the Borghese Gal- and looked up into my eyes. lery. The great treasure of this collec- " One may stand for .the love I de- tion is a certain masterpiece of Titian. nied," she said ; " and the other—" I entered the room in which it hangs " The other," I murmured, " for the by the door facing the picture. The love which, with this kiss, you accept." room was empty, save that before the I drew her arm into mine, and before great Titian, beside the easel of an ab- the envious eyes that watched us from sent copyist, stood a young woman in gilded casements we passed through mourning. This time, in spite of her the gallery and left the palace. We averted head, I immediately knew her went that afternoon to the and noiselessly approached her. The Pamfili-Doria Villa. Saying just now that my picture is one of the finest of its ad- stay in Florence was peculiarly colored mirable author, — rich and simple and by circumstances, I meant that I was brilliant with the true Venetian fire. It there with my wife. H. James Jr.