Travelling Companions. [November
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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.