University of Virginia Library

11. CHAPTER XI.

A Few days after this, Monaldi received a message
from the worker in mosaic, requesting to speak
with him.

“You will excuse my freedom,” said Romero,
as Monaldi entered the shop, “but I wished to
have your opinion of a work I have lately begun.
You may give me a hint, perhaps, that will be of
service. 'T is a miniature copy of that Magdalen
by Guido.”

Monaldi examined the copy, and comparing it
with the original, commended the general fidelity,
but pointed out several parts which he thought
might be improved.

Romero thanked him with an air of pique, and
observed, “I should not have troubled you for your
opinion, had not the work been for a friend of
yours — the count Fialto.”

“My friend!” said Monaldi, with some surprise
— “the most — You are mistaken, sir;
I have no acquaintance with him.”

“I beg pardon,” replied Romero; “but I concluded
that he was so from seeing him come out
of your house.”

“My house!” repeated Monaldi.

“Or, perhaps 't was another person; for since
you don't know him no doubt I was mistaken.
Indeed now, I rather wonder how I came to suppose
him your friend; for the Count's character is
none of the best. But that's nothing to me, or he
should not be so free of my shop; for he comes
here three or four times a week to see how my
work gets on; in faith, so often, that, to say the
truth, had I a pretty daughter, or — a wife, I
should n't much relish it.”

Monaldi looked up at the word wife, and saw a
meaning in Romero's eye not to be mistaken. But
the look was unnecessary; his shaft had already
reached the mark.

“Well, I am much obliged to you, signor Monaldi,”
concluded Romero, returning to his work,
and shall be careful in future how I call the Count
your friend.”

When Monaldi left the shop the houses seemed
to reel and the ground to bend beneath him. A
sickening faintness had come over him, and he felt
as if it were impossible to cross the street; but,
making an effort, he reached his gateway, and

leaned against it for support. His strength, however,
soon returned; sooner than his memory, for
it was some time before he could fix on the cause
of his agitation, only recollecting that some dreadful
truth had suddenly glanced on his brain, and
as quickly vanished. But a slight incident will
often do more in recovering what is lost in the
mind than its most intense efforts. Rosalia was
singing a new polacca, which was then popular,
but of which Monaldi had often expressed his dislike.
It was the only instance in which their tastes
differed. This difference, at another time too
slight even to be noticed, now startled his imagination.
The hair-line which divided them now
opened to a frightful chasm. He turned for a
moment towards the court of his house, then, pressing
his hand to his brain, rushed from the gate.
Whither he was going he knew not; yet it seemed
as if motion gave him the power of enduring what
he could not bear at rest; and he continued to
traverse street after street, till, quitting the city,
he had reached Ponte Molle, where, exhausted by
heat and fatigue, he was at length compelled to
stop.

It was one of those evenings never to be forgotten
by a painter — but one too which must come
upon him in misery as a gorgeous mockery. The

sun was yet up, and resting on the highest peak
of a ridge of mountain-shaped clouds, that seemed
to make a part of the distance; suddenly he disappeared,
and the landscape was overspread with
a cold, lurid hue; then, as if molten in a furnace,
the fictitious mountains began to glow; in a moment
more they tumbled asunder; in another he
was seen again, piercing their fragments, and darting
his shafts to the remotest east, till, reaching the
horizon, he appeared to recall them, and with a
parting flash to wrap the whole heavens in flame.

Monaldi groaned aloud. “No, thou art nothing
to me now, thou glorious sun — nothing. To me
thou art dead, buried — and forever, — in her
darkness; her's, whose own glory once made me
to love thee; who clothed me with a brightness
even more than thine; who followed me like a
spirit, in sleep even, visiting my dreams, as if to
fill up the blank of night — to give a continuous
splendor to my existence. Oh, idiot, driveller! so
to cling to a shadow — a cheat of the senses! —
What is she to me now? what can she ever be?
— she that is — that ever was” — He could
not utter the word.

A desolate vacancy now spread over him, and,
leaning over the bridge, he seemed to lose himself
in the deepening gloom of the scene, till the black

river that moved beneath him appeared almost a
part of his mind, and its imageless waters but the
visible current of his own dark thoughts.

But the mind unused to suffering has a difficulty
in admitting calamity not to be easily overcome;
one evidence is seldom enough; for though it may
perplex and torture for a time, the very sense of
pain will soon force the faculties to return to their
wonted action, to pursue again their plans of peace
and hope.

Misery was new to Monaldi; he had now endured
it for more than two hours; and the intense
longing for relief brought on a reaction. “No,”
said he, starting up, “some fiend has tempted me,
and I have mocked myself with monsters only in
my brain — she is pure — she must be!”