Miriam was glad to find the Dove in
her turret-home; for being endowed with an infinite
activity, and taking exquisite delight in the sweet
labor of which her life was full, it was Hilda’s
practice to flee abroad betimes, and haunt the galleries
till dusk. Happy were those (but they were very
few) whom she ever chose to be the companions of her
day; they saw the art treasures of Rome, under her
guidance, as they had never seen them before.
Not that Hilda could dissertate, or talk learnedly
about pictures; she would probably have been puzzled
by the technical terms of her own art. Not that
she had much to say about what she most profoundly
admired; but even her silent sympathy was so powerful
that it drew your own along with it, endowing you
with a second-sight that enabled you to see excellences
with almost the depth and delicacy of her own perceptions.
All the Anglo-Saxon denizens of Rome,
by this time, knew Hilda by sight. Unconsciously,
the poor child had become one of the spectacles of
the Eternal City, and was often pointed out to strangers,
sitting at her easel among the wild-bearded young
men, the white-haired old ones, and the shabbily dressed,
painfully plain women, who make up the throng of copyists.
The old custodes knew her well, and watched over
her as their own child. Sometimes a young artist,
instead of going on with a copy of the picture before
which he had placed his easel, would enrich his canvas
with an original portrait of Hilda at her work.
A lovelier subject could not have been selected, nor
one which required nicer skill and insight in doing
it anything like justice. She was pretty at all
times, in our native New England style, with her light-brown
ringlets, her delicately tinged, but healthful cheek,
her sensitive, intelligent, yet most feminine and
kindly face. But, every few moments, this pretty
and girlish face grew beautiful and striking, as some
inward thought and feeling brightened, rose to the
surface, and then, as it were, passed out of sight
again; so that, taking into view this constantly recurring
change, it really seemed as if Hilda were only visible
by the sunshine of her soul.
In other respects, she was a good
subject for a portrait, being distinguished by a gentle
picturesqueness, which was perhaps unconsciously bestowed
by some minute peculiarity of dress, such as artists
seldom fail to assume. The effect was to make
her appear like an inhabitant of pictureland, a partly
ideal creature, not to be handled, nor even approached
too closely. In her feminine self, Hilda was
natural, and of pleasant deportment, endowed with a
mild cheerfulness of temper, not overflowing with
animal spirits, but never long despondent. There
was a certain simplicity that made every one her friend,
but it was combined with a subtile attribute of reserve,
that insensibly kept those at a distance who were
not suited to her sphere.
Miriam was the dearest friend whom
she had ever known. Being a year or two the elder,
of longer acquaintance with Italy, and better fitted
to deal with its crafty and selfish inhabitants, she
had helped Hilda to arrange her way of life, and had
encouraged her through those first weeks, when Rome
is so dreary to every newcomer.
“But how lucky that you are
at home today,” said Miriam, continuing the
conversation which was begun, many pages back.
“I hardly hoped to find you, though I had a
favor to ask, a commission to put into your
charge. But what picture is this?”
“See!” said Hilda, taking
her friend’s hand, and leading her in front of
the easel. “I wanted your opinion of it.”
“If you have really succeeded,”
observed Miriam, recognizing the picture at the first
glance, “it will be the greatest miracle you
have yet achieved.”
The picture represented simply a female
head; a very youthful, girlish, perfectly beautiful
face, enveloped in white drapery, from beneath which
strayed a lock or two of what seemed a rich, though
hidden luxuriance of auburn hair. The eyes were
large and brown, and met those of the spectator, but
evidently with a strange, ineffectual effort to escape.
There was a little redness about the eyes, very slightly
indicated, so that you would question whether or no
the girl had been weeping. The whole face was
quiet; there was no distortion or disturbance of any
single feature; nor was it easy to see why the expression
was not cheerful, or why a single touch of the artist’s
pencil should not brighten it into joyousness.
But, in fact, it was the very saddest picture ever
painted or conceived; it involved an unfathomable depth
of sorrow, the sense of which came to the observer
by a sort of intuition. It was a sorrow that
removed this beautiful girl out of the sphere of humanity,
and set her in a far-off region, the remoteness of
which while yet her face is so close before
us makes us shiver as at a spectre.
“Yes, Hilda,” said her
friend, after closely examining the picture, “you
have done nothing else so wonderful as this. But
by what unheard-of solicitations or secret interest
have you obtained leave to copy Guido’s Beatrice
Cenci? It is an unexampled favor; and the impossibility
of getting a genuine copy has filled the Roman picture
shops with Beatrices, gay, grievous, or coquettish,
but never a true one among them.”
“There has been one exquisite
copy, I have heard,” said Hilda, “by an
artist capable of appreciating the spirit of the picture.
It was Thompson, who brought it away piecemeal, being
forbidden (like the rest of us) to set up his easel
before it. As for me, I knew the Prince Barberini
would be deaf to all entreaties; so I had no resource
but to sit down before the picture, day after day,
and let it sink into my heart. I do believe it
is now photographed there. It is a sad face to
keep so close to one’s heart; only what is so
very beautiful can never be quite a pain. Well;
after studying it in this way, I know not how many
times, I came home, and have done my best to transfer
the image to canvas.”
“Here it is, then,” said
Miriam, contemplating Hilda’s work with great
interest and delight, mixed with the painful sympathy
that the picture excited. “Everywhere we
see oil-paintings, crayon sketches, cameos, engravings,
lithographs, pretending to be Beatrice, and representing
the poor girl with blubbered eyes, a leer of coquetry,
a merry look as if she were dancing, a piteous look
as if she were beaten, and twenty other modes of fantastic
mistake. But here is Guido’s very Beatrice;
she that slept in the dungeon, and awoke, betimes,
to ascend the scaffold, And now that you have done
it, Hilda, can you interpret what the feeling is,
that gives this picture such a mysterious force?
For my part, though deeply sensible of its influence,
I cannot seize it.”
“Nor can I, in words,”
replied her friend. “But while I was painting
her, I felt all the time as if she were trying to escape
from my gaze. She knows that her sorrow is so
strange and so immense, that she ought to be solitary
forever, both for the world’s sake and her own;
and this is the reason we feel such a distance between
Beatrice and ourselves, even when our eyes meet hers.
It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet her glance,
and to feel that nothing can be done to help or comfort
her; neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing
the hopelessness of her case better than we do.
She is a fallen angel, fallen, and yet sinless;
and it is only this depth of sorrow, with its weight
and darkness, that keeps her down upon earth, and
brings her within our view even while it sets her
beyond our reach.”
“You deem her sinless?”
asked Miriam; “that is not so plain to me.
If I can pretend to see at all into that dim region,
whence she gazes so strangely and sadly at us, Beatrice’s
own conscience does not acquit her of something evil,
and never to be forgiven!”
“Sorrow so black as hers oppresses
her very nearly as sin would,” said Hilda.
“Then,” inquired Miriam,
“do you think that there was no sin in the deed
for which she suffered?”
“Ah!” replied Hilda, shuddering,
“I really had quite forgotten Beatrice’s
history, and was thinking of her only as the picture
seems to reveal her character. Yes, yes; it was
terrible guilt, an inexpiable crime, and she feels
it to be so. Therefore it is that the forlorn
creature so longs to elude our eyes, and forever vanish
away into nothingness! Her doom is just!”
“O Hilda, your innocence is
like a sharp steel sword!” exclaimed her friend.
“Your judgments are often terribly severe, though
you seem all made up of gentleness and mercy.
Beatrice’s sin may not have been so great:
perhaps it was no sin at all, but the best virtue possible
in the circumstances. If she viewed it as a sin,
it may have been because her nature was too feeble
for the fate imposed upon her. Ah!” continued
Miriam passionately, “if I could only get within
her consciousness! if I could but clasp
Beatrice Cenci’s ghost, and draw it into myself!
I would give my life to know whether she thought herself
innocent, or the one great criminal since time began.”
As Miriam gave utterance to these
words, Hilda looked from the picture into her face,
and was startled to observe that her friend’s
expression had become almost exactly that of the portrait;
as if her passionate wish and struggle to penetrate
poor Beatrice’s mystery had been successful.
“O, for Heaven’s sake,
Miriam, do not look so!” she cried. “What
an actress you are! And I never guessed it before.
Ah! now you are yourself again!” she added,
kissing her. “Leave Beatrice to me in future.”
“Cover up your magical picture,
then,” replied her friend, “else I never
can look away from it. It is strange, dear Hilda,
how an innocent, delicate, white soul like yours has
been able to seize the subtle mystery of this portrait;
as you surely must, in order to reproduce it so perfectly.
Well; we will not talk of it any more. Do you
know, I have come to you this morning on a small matter
of business. Will you undertake it for me?”
“O, certainly,” said Hilda,
laughing; “if you choose to trust me with business.”
“Nay, it is not a matter of
any difficulty,” answered Miriam; “merely
to take charge of this packet, and keep it for me
awhile.”
“But why not keep it yourself?” asked
Hilda.
“Partly because it will be safer
in your charge,” said her friend. “I
am a careless sort of person in ordinary things; while
you, for all you dwell so high above the world, have
certain little housewifely ways of accuracy and order.
The packet is of some slight importance; and yet, it
may be, I shall not ask you for it again. In a
week or two, you know, I am leaving Rome. You,
setting at defiance the malarial fever, mean to stay
here and haunt your beloved galleries through the summer.
Now, four months hence, unless you hear more from
me, I would have you deliver the packet according
to its address.”
Hilda read the direction; it was to
Signore Luca Barboni, at the Plazzo Cenci,
third piano.
“I will deliver it with my own
hand,” said she, “precisely four months
from to-day, unless you bid me to the contrary.
Perhaps I shall meet the ghost of Beatrice in that
grim old palace of her forefathers.”
“In that case,” rejoined
Miriam, “do not fail to speak to her, and try
to win her confidence. Poor thing! she would be
all the better for pouring her heart out freely, and
would be glad to do it, if she were sure of sympathy.
It irks my brain and heart to think of her, all shut
up within herself.” She withdrew the cloth
that Hilda had drawn over the picture, and took another
long look at it. “Poor sister Beatrice!
for she was still a woman, Hilda, still a sister,
be her sin or sorrow what they might. How well
you have done it, Hilda! I knot not whether Guido
will thank you, or be jealous of your rivalship.”
“Jealous, indeed!” exclaimed
Hilda. “If Guido had not wrought through
me, my pains would have been thrown away.”
“After all,” resumed Miriam,
“if a woman had painted the original picture,
there might have been something in it which we miss
now. I have a great mind to undertake a copy
myself; and try to give it what it lacks. Well;
goodby. But, stay! I am going for a little
airing to the grounds of the Villa Borghese this afternoon.
You will think it very foolish, but I always feel
the safer in your company, Hilda, slender little maiden
as you are. Will you come?”
“Ah, not to-day, dearest Miriam,”
she replied; “I have set my heart on giving
another touch or two to this picture, and shall not
stir abroad till nearly sunset.”
“Farewell, then,” said
her visitor. “I leave you in your dove-cote.
What a sweet, strange life you lead here; conversing
with the souls of the old masters, feeding and fondling
your sister doves, and trimming the Virgin’s
lamp! Hilda, do you ever pray to the Virgin while
you tend her shrine?”
“Sometimes I have been moved
to do so,” replied the Dove, blushing, and lowering
her eyes; “she was a woman once. Do you
think it would be wrong?”
“Nay, that is for you to judge,”
said Miriam; “but when you pray next, dear friend,
remember me!”
She went down the long descent of
the lower staircase, and just as she reached the street
the flock of doves again took their hurried flight
from the pavement to the topmost window. She threw
her eyes upward and beheld them hovering about Hilda’s
head; for, after her friend’s departure, the
girl had been more impressed than before by something
very sad and troubled in her manner. She was,
therefore, leaning forth from her airy abode, and
flinging down a kind, maidenly kiss, and a gesture
of farewell, in the hope that these might alight upon
Miriam’s heart, and comfort its unknown sorrow
a little. Kenyon the sculptor, who chanced to
be passing the head of the street, took note of that
ethereal kiss, and wished that he could have caught
it in the air and got Hilda’s leave to keep
it.