University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.
DONATELLO'S BUST.

Kenyon, it will be remembered, had asked Donatello's
permission to model his bust. The work had now made
considerable progress, and necessarily kept the sculptor's
thoughts brooding much and often upon his host's personal
characteristics. These it was his difficult office
to bring out from their depths, and interpret them to all
men, showing them what they could not discern for
themselves, yet must be compelled to recognize at a
glance, on the surface of a block of marble.

He had never undertaken a portrait-bust which gave
him so much trouble as Donatello's; not that there was
any special difficulty in hitting the likeness, though even
in this respect the grace and harmony of the features
seemed inconsistent with a prominent expression of individuality;
but he was chiefly perplexed how to make
this genial and kind type of countenance the index of
the mind within. His acuteness and his sympathies, indeed,
were both somewhat at fault in their efforts to enlighten
him as to the moral phase through which the
count was now passing. If at one sitting he caught a
glimpse of what appeared to be a genuine and permanent

trait, it would probably be less perceptible on a
second occasion, and perhaps have vanished entirely at
a third. So evanescent a show of character threw the
sculptor into despair; not marble or clay, but cloud and
vapor was the material in which it ought to be represented.
Even the ponderous depression which constantly
weighed upon Donatello's heart could not compel
him into the kind of repose which the plastic art requires.

Hopeless of a good result, Kenyon gave up all preconceptions
about the character of his subject, and let
his hands work uncontrolled with the clay, somewhat as a
spiritual medium, while holding a pen, yields it to an unseen
guidance other than that of her own will. Now and
then he fancied that his plan was destined to be the successful
one. A skill and insight beyond his consciousness
seemed occasionally to take up the task. The mystery,
the miracle, of imbuing an inanimate substance
with thought, feeling, and all the intangible attributes of
the soul, appeared on the verge of being wrought. And
now, as he flattered himself, the true image of his friend
was about to emerge from the facile material, bringing
with it more of Donatello's character than the keenest
observer could detect at any one moment in the face of
the original. Vain expectation! some touch, whereby
the artist thought to improve or hasten the result, interfered
with the design of his unseen spiritual assistant,
and spoilt the whole. There was still the moist, brown
clay, indeed, and the features of Donatello, but without
any semblance of intelligent and sympathetic life.

“The difficulty will drive me mad, I verily believe!”

cried the sculptor, nervously. “Look at the wretched
piece of work yourself, my dear friend, and tell me
whether you recognize any manner of likeness to your
inner man?”

“None,” replied Donatello, speaking the simple truth.
“It is like looking a stranger in the face.”

This frankly unfavorable testimony so wrought with
the sensitive artist, that he fell into a passion with the
stubborn image, and cared not what might happen to it
thenceforward. Wielding that wonderful power which
sculptors possess over moist clay, however refractory
it may show itself in certain respects, he compressed,
elongated, widened, and otherwise altered the features
of the bust in mere recklessness, and at every change
inquired of the Count whether the expression became
anywise more satisfactory.

“Stop!” cried Donatello, at last, catching the sculptor's
hand. “Let it remain so!”

By some accidental handling of the clay, entirely independent
of his own will, Kenyon had given the countenance
a distorted and violent look combining animal
fierceness with intelligent hatred. Had Hilda, or had
Miriam seen the bust, with the expression which it had
now assumed, they might have recognized Donatello's face
as they beheld it at that terrible moment when he held his
victim over the edge of the precipice.

“What have I done?” said the sculptor, shocked at his
own casual production. “It were a sin to let the clay
which bears your features harden into a look like that.
Cain never wore an uglier one.”

“For that very reason, let it remain!” answered the
Count, who had grown pale as ashes at the aspect of his
crime, thus strangely presented to him in another of the
many guises under which guilt stares the criminal in the
face. “Do not alter it! Chisel it, rather, in eternal
marble! I will set it up in my oratory and keep it continually
before my eyes. Sadder and more horrible is a
face like this, alive with my own crime, than the dead
skull which my forefathers handed down to me!”

But, without in the least heeding Donatello's remonstrances,
the sculptor again applied his artful fingers to
the clay, and compelled the bust to dismiss the expression
that had so startled them both.

“Believe me,” said he, turning his eyes upon his friend,
full of grave and tender sympathy, “you know not what
is requisite for your spiritual growth, seeking, as you do,
to keep your soul perpetually in the unwholesome region
of remorse. It was needful for you to pass through that
dark valley, but it is infinitely dangerous to linger there
too long; there is poison in the atmosphere, when we sit
down and brood in it, instead of girding up our loins to
press onward. Not despondency, not slothful anguish, is
what you now require — but effort! Has there been an
unutterable evil in your young life? Then crowd it out
with good, or it will lie corrupting there forever, and
cause your capacity for better things to partake its noisome
corruption!”

“You stir up many thoughts,” said Donatello, pressing
his hand upon his brow, “but the multitude and the
whirl of them make me dizzy.”

They now left the sculptor's temporary studio, without
observing that his last accidental touches, with which he
hurriedly effaced the look of deadly rage, had given the
bust a higher and sweeter expression than it had hitherto
worn. It is to be regretted that Kenyon had not seen it;
for only an artist, perhaps, can conceive the irksomeness,
the irritation of brain, the depression of spirits, that resulted
from his failure to satisfy himself, after so much
toil and thought as he had bestowed on Donatello's bust.
In case of success, indeed, all this thoughtful toil would
have been reckoned, not only as well bestowed, but as
among the happiest hours of his life; whereas, deeming
himself to have failed, it was just so much of life that
had better never have been lived; for thus does the good
or ill result of his labor throw back sunshine or gloom
upon the artist's mind. The sculptor, therefore, would
have done well to glance again at his work; for here
were still the features of the antique Faun, but now
illuminated with a higher meaning, such as the old marble
never bore.

Donatello having quitted him, Kenyon spent the rest
of the day strolling about the pleasant precincts of Monte
Beni, where the summer was now so far advanced that
it began, indeed, to partake of the ripe wealth of autumn.
Apricots had long been abundant, and had passed away,
and plums and cherries along with them. But now came
great, juicy pears, melting and delicious, and peaches of
goodly size and tempting aspect, though cold and watery
to the palate, compared with the sculptor's rich reminiscences
of that fruit in America. The purple figs had

already enjoyed their day, and the white ones were
luscious now. The contadini (who, by this time, knew
Kenyon well) found many clusters of ripe grapes for
him, in every little globe of which was included a fragrant
draught of the sunny Monte Beni wine.

Unexpectedly, in a nook, close by the farm-house, he
happened upon a spot where the vintage had actually
commenced. A great heap of early-ripened grapes had
been gathered, and thrown into a mighty tub. In the
middle of it stood a lusty and jolly contadino, nor stood,
merely, but stamped with all his might, and danced amain;
while the red juice bathed his feet, and threw its foam
midway up his brown and shaggy legs. Here, then, was
the very process that shows so picturesquely in Scripture
and in poetry, of treading out the wine-press and dyeing
the feet and garments with the crimson effusion as with
the blood of a battle-field. The memory of the process
does not make the Tuscan wine taste more deliciously.
The contadini hospitably offered Kenyon a sample of the
new liquor, that had already stood fermenting for a day
or two. He had tried a similar draught, however, in
years past, and was little inclined to make proof of it
again; for he knew that it would be a sour and bitter
juice, a wine of woe and tribulation, and that, the more a
man drinks of such liquor, the sorrier he is likely to be.

The scene reminded the sculptor of our New England
vintages, where the big piles of golden and rosy apples
lie under the orchard trees, in the mild, autumnal sunshine;
and the creaking cider-mill, set in motion by a circumgyratory
horse, is all a-gush with the luscious juice.

To speak frankly, the cider-making is the more picturesque
sight of the two, and the new, sweet cider an
infinitely better drink than the ordinary, unripe Tuscan
wine. Such as it is, however, the latter fills thousands
upon thousands of small, flat barrels, and, still growing
thinner and sharper, loses the little life it had, as wine,
and becomes apotheosized as a more praiseworthy vinegar.

Yet all these vineyard scenes, and the processes connected
with the culture of the grape, had a flavor
of poetry about them. The toil that produces those
kindly gifts of nature which are not the substance of life,
but its luxury, is unlike other toil. We are inclined to
fancy that it does not bend the sturdy frame and stiffen
the overwrought muscles, like the labor that is devoted in
sad, hard earnest to raise grain for sour bread. Certainly,
the sunburnt young men and dark-cheeked laughing girls,
who weeded the rich acres of Monte Beni, might well
enough have passed for inhabitants of an unsophisticated
Arcadia. Later in the season, when the true vintage-time
should come, and the wine of Sunshine gush into the vats,
it was hardly too wild a dream that Bacchus himself
might revisit the haunts which he loved of old. But,
alas, where now would he find the Faun with whom we
see him consorting in so many an antique group?

Donatello's remorseful anguish saddened this primitive
and delightful life. Kenyon had a pain of his own,
moreover, although not all a pain, in the never quiet,
never satisfied yearning of his heart towards Hilda. He
was authorized to use little freedom towards that shy
maiden, even in his visions; so that he almost reproached

himself when sometimes his imagination pictured in detail,
the sweet years that they might spend together, in a
retreat like this. It had just that rarest quality of remoteness
from the actual and ordinary world — a remoteness
through which all delights might visit them freely,
sifted from all troubles — which lovers so reasonably insist
upon, in their ideal arrangements for a happy union. It
is possible, indeed, that even Donatello's grief and Kenyon's
pale, sunless affection, lent a charm to Monte Beni,
which it would not have retained amid a more redundant
joyousness. The sculptor strayed amid its vineyards and
orchards, its dells and tangled shrubberies, with somewhat
the sensations of an adventurer who should find his way
to the sight of ancient Eden, and behold its loveliness
through the transparency of that gloom which has been
brooding over those haunts of innocence ever since the
fall. Adam saw it in a brighter sunshine, but never
knew the shade of pensive beauty which Eden won from
his expulsion.

It was in the decline of the afternoon that Kenyon returned
from his long, musing ramble. Old Tomaso —
between whom and himself for some time past there had
been a mysterious understanding — met him in the entrance
hall, and drew him a little aside.

“The signorina would speak with you,” he whispered.

“In the chapel?” asked the sculptor.

“No; in the saloon beyond it,” answered the butler;
“the entrance — you once saw the signorina appear
through it — is near the altar, hidden behind the tapestry.”

Kenyon lost no time in obeying the summons.