University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.
A FROLIC OF THE CARNIVAL.

The crowd and confusion, just at that moment, hindered
the sculptor from pursuing these figures, — the
peasant and contadina, — who, indeed, were but two of a
numerous tribe that thronged the Corso, in similar costume.
As soon as he could squeeze a passage, Kenyon
tried to follow in their footsteps, but quickly lost sight of
them, and was thrown off the track by stopping to examine
various groups of masqueraders, in which he
fancied the objects of his search to be included. He
found many a sallow peasant or herdsman of the Campagna,
in such a dress as Donatello wore; many a contadina,
too, brown, broad, and sturdy, in her finery of
scarlet, and decked out with gold or coral beads, a pair of
heavy ear-rings, a curiously wrought cameo or mosaic
brooch, and a silver comb or long stiletto among her
glossy hair. But those shapes of grace and beauty,
which he sought, had vanished.

As soon as the procession of the Senator had passed,
the merry-makers resumed their antics with fresh spirit,
and the artillery of bouquets and sugar-plums, suspended

for a moment, began anew. The sculptor himself being
probably the most anxious and unquiet spectator there,
was especially a mark for missiles from all quarters, and
for the practical jokes which the license of the carnival
permits. In fact, his sad and contracted brow so ill accorded
with the scene, that the revellers might be pardoned
for thus using him as the butt of their idle mirth,
since he evidently could not otherwise contribute to it.

Fantastic figures, with bulbous heads, the circumference
of a bushel, grinned enormously in his face. Harlequins
struck him with their wooden swords, and appeared to expect
his immediate transformation into some jollier shape.
A little, long-tailed, horned fiend sidled up to him, and
suddenly blew at him through a tube, enveloping our
poor friend in a whole harvest of winged seeds. A biped,
with an ass's snout, brayed close to his ear, ending his
discordant uproar with a peal of human laughter. Five
strapping damsels — so, at least, their petticoats bespoke
them, in spite of an awful freedom in the flourish of their
legs — joined hands, and danced around him, inviting him
by their gestures, to perform a hornpipe in the midst.
Released from these gay persecutors, a clown in motley
rapped him on the back with a blown bladder, in which a
handful of dried peas rattled horribly.

Unquestionably, a care-stricken mortal has no business
abroad, when the rest of mankind are at high carnival;
they must either pelt him and absolutely martyr him with
jests, and finally bury him beneath the aggregate heap;
or else the potency of his darker mood, because the tissue
of human life takes a sad dye more readily than a gay

one, will quell their holiday humors, like the aspect of a
death's-head at a banquet. Only that we know Kenyon's
errand, we could hardly forgive him for venturing into the
Corso with that troubled face.

Even yet, his merry martyrdom was not half over.
There came along a gigantic female figure, seven feet
high, at least, and taking up a third of the street's breadth
with the preposterously swelling sphere of her crinoline
skirts. Singling out the sculptor, she began to make
a ponderous assault upon his heart, throwing amorous
glances at him out of her great goggle-eyes, offering him
a vast bouquet of sunflowers and nettles, and soliciting
his pity by all sorts of pathetic and passionate dumb-show.
Her suit meeting no favor, the rejected Titaness
made a gesture of despair and rage; then suddenly drawing
a huge pistol, she took aim right at the obdurate
sculptor's breast, and pulled the trigger. The shot took
effect, for the abominable plaything went off by a spring,
like a boy's popgun, covering Kenyon with a cloud of
lime-dust, under shelter of which the revengeful damsel
strode away.

Hereupon, a whole host of absurd figures surrounded
him, pretending to sympathize in his mishap. Clowns and
parti-colored harlequins; orang-outangs; bear-headed,
bull-headed, and dog-headed individuals; faces that would
have been human, but for their enormous noses; one terrific
creature, with a visage right in the centre of his breast;
and all other imaginable kinds of monstrosity and exaggeration.
These apparitions appeared to be investigating
the case, after the fashion of a coroner's jury, poking

their pasteboard countenances close to the sculptor's with
an unchangeable grin, that gave still more ludicrous effect
to the comic alarm and sorrow of their gestures. Just then,
a figure came by, in a gray wig and rusty gown, with an
inkhorn at his buttonhole, and a pen behind his ear; he
announced himself as a notary, and offered to make the
last will and testament of the assassinated man. This
solemn duty, however, was interrupted by a surgeon, who
brandished a lancet, three feet long, and proposed to him
to let him take blood.

The affair was so like a feverish dream, that Kenyon
resigned himself to let it take its course. Fortunately,
the humors of the carnival pass from one absurdity to
another, without lingering long enough on any, to wear
out even the slightest of them. The passiveness of his
demeanor afforded too little scope for such broad merriment
as the masqueraders sought. In a few moments
they vanished from him, as dreams and spectres do, leaving
him at liberty to pursue his quest, with no impediment
except the crowd that blocked up the footway.

He had not gone far when the peasant and the contadina
met him. They were still hand in hand, and appeared
to be straying through the grotesque and animated
scene, taking as little part in it as himself. It might be
because he recognized them, and knew their solemn
secret, that the sculptor fancied a melancholy emotion to
be expressed by the very movement and attitudes of these
two figures; and even the grasp of their hands, uniting
them so closely, seemed to set them in a sad remoteness
from the world at which they gazed.

“I rejoice to meet you,” said Kenyon.

But they looked at him through the eye-holes of their
black masks, without answering a word.

“Pray give me a little light on the matter which I
have so much at heart,” said he; “if you know anything
of Hilda, for Heaven's sake, speak!”

Still, they were silent; and the sculptor began to imagine
that he must have mistaken the identity of these
figures, there being such a multitude in similar costume.
Yet there was no other Donatello; no other Miriam. He
felt, too, that spiritual certainty which impresses us with
the presence of our friends, apart from any testimony of
the senses.

“You are unkind,” resumed he, — “knowing the anxiety
which oppresses me, — not to relieve it, if in your
power.”

The reproach evidently had its effect; for the contadina
now spoke, and it was Miriam's voice.

“We gave you all the light we could,” said she. “You
are yourself unkind, though you little think how much so,
to come between us at this hour. There may be a sacred
hour, even in carnival time.”

In another state of mind, Kenyon could have been
amused by the impulsiveness of this response, and a sort
of vivacity that he had often noted in Miriam's conversation.
But he was conscious of a profound sadness in her
tone, overpowering its momentary irritation, and assuring
him that a pale, tear-stained face was hidden behind her
mask.

“Forgive me!” said he.

Donatello here extended his hand, — not that which was
clasping Miriam's, — and she, too, put her free one into
the sculptor's left; so that they were a linked circle of
three, with many reminiscences and forebodings flashing
through their hearts. Kenyon knew intuitively that these
once familiar friends were parting with him, now.

“Farewell!” they all three said, in the same breath.

No sooner was the word spoken, than they loosed their
hands; and the uproar of the carnival swept like a tempestuous
sea over the spot, which they had included
within their small circle of isolated feeling.

By this interview, the sculptor had learned nothing in
reference to Hilda; but he understood that he was to
adhere to the instructions already received, and await a
solution of the mystery in some mode that he could not
yet anticipate. Passing his hands over his eyes, and
looking about him, — for the event just described had
made the scene even more dreamlike than before, — he
now found himself approaching that broad piazza bordering
on the Corso, which has for its central object the
sculptured column of Antoninus. It was not far from
this vicinity that Miriam had bid him wait. Struggling
onward, as fast as the tide of merry-makers, setting strong
against him, would permit, he was now beyond the Palazzo
Colonna, and began to count the houses. The fifth was
a palace, with a long front upon the Corso, and of stately
height, but somewhat grim with age.

Over its arched and pillared entrance, there was a balcony,
richly hung with tapestry and damask, and tenanted,
for the time, by a gentleman of venerable aspect, and a

group of ladies. The white hair and whiskers of the
former, and the winter-roses in his cheeks, had an English
look; the ladies, too, showed a fair-haired, Saxon bloom,
and seemed to taste the mirth of the carnival with the
freshness of spectators to whom the scene was new. All
the party, the old gentleman with grave earnestness, as if
he were defending a rampart, and his young companions
with exuberance of frolic, showered confetti inexhaustibly
upon the passers-by.

In the rear of the balcony, a broad-brimmed, ecclesiastical
beaver was visible. An abbate, probably an acquaintance
and cicerone of the English family, was sitting
there, and enjoying the scene, though partially withdrawn
from view, as the decorum of his order dictated.

There seemed no better nor other course for Kenyon,
than to keep watch at this appointed spot, waiting for
whatever should happen next. Clasping his arm round a
lamp-post, to prevent being carried away by the turbulent
stream of wayfarers, he scrutinized every face, with the
idea that some one of them might meet his eyes with a
glance of intelligence. He looked at each mask, — harlequin,
ape, bulbous-headed monster, or anything that was
absurdest, — not knowing but that the messenger might
come, even in such fantastic guise. Or, perhaps, one of
those quaint figures, in the stately ruff, the cloak, tunic,
and trunk-hose, of three centuries ago, might bring him
tidings of Hilda, out of that long-past age. At times, his
disquietude took a hopeful aspect; and he fancied that
Hilda might come by, her own sweet self, in some shy
disguise which the instinct of his love would be sure to

penetrate. Or, she might be borne past on a triumphal
car, like the one just now approaching, its slow-moving
wheels encircled and spoked with foliage, and drawn by
horses that were harnessed and wreathed with flowers.
Being, at best, so far beyond the bounds of reasonable
conjecture, he might anticipate the wildest event, or find
either his hopes or fears disappointed in what appeared
most probable.

The old Englishman and his daughters, in the opposite
balcony, must have seen something unutterably absurd in
the sculptor's deportment, poring into this whirlpool of
nonsense so earnestly, in quest of what was to make his
life dark or bright. Earnest people, who try to get a
reality out of human existence, are necessarily absurd
in the view of the revellers and masqueraders. At all
events, after a good deal of mirth at the expense of his
melancholy visage, the fair occupants of the balcony
favored Kenyon with a salvo of confetti, which came
rattling about him like a hail-storm. Looking up, instinctively,
he was surprised to see the abbate in the
background lean forward and give a courteous sign of
recognition.

It was the same old priest with whom he had seen
Hilda, at the confessional; the same with whom he had
talked of her disappearance, on meeting him in the street.

Yet, whatever might be the reason, Kenyon did not
now associate this ecclesiastical personage with the idea
of Hilda. His eyes lighted on the old man, just for an
instant, and then returned to the eddying throng of the
Corso, on his minute scrutiny of which depended, for

aught he knew, the sole chance of ever finding any trace
of her. There was, about this moment, a bustle on the
other side of the street, the cause of which Kenyon did
not see, nor exert himself to discover. A small party of
soldiers or gendarmes appeared to be concerned in it;
they were perhaps arresting some disorderly character,
who, under the influence of an extra flask of wine, might
have reeled across the mystic limitation of carnival proprieties.

The sculptor heard some people near him, talking of
the incident.

“That contadina, in a black mask, was a fine figure of
a woman.”

“She was not amiss,” replied a female voice; “but
her companion was far the handsomer figure of the two.
Could they be really a peasant and a contadina, do you
imagine?”

“No, no,” said the other. “It is some frolic of the
carnival, carried a little too far.”

This conversation might have excited Kenyon's interest;
only that, just as the last words were spoken, he
was hit by two missiles, both of a kind that were flying
abundantly on that gay battle-field. One, we are ashamed
to say, was a cauliflower, which, flung by a young man
from a passing carriage, came with a prodigious thump
against his shoulder; the other was a single rosebud, so
fresh that it seemed that moment gathered. It flew from
the opposite balcony, smote gently on his lips, and fell
into his hand. He looked upward, and beheld the face
of his lost Hilda!

She was dressed in a white domino, and looked pale
and bewildered, and yet full of tender joy. Moreover,
there was a gleam of delicate mirthfulness in her eyes,
which the sculptor had seen there only two or three times
in the course of their acquaintance, but thought it the
most bewitching and fairylike of all Hilda's expressions.
That soft, mirthful smile caused her to melt, as it were,
into the wild frolic of the carnival, and become not so
strange and alien to the scene, as her unexpected apparition
must otherwise have made her.

Meanwhile, the venerable Englishman and his daughters
were staring at poor Hilda in a way that proved them
altogether astonished, as well as inexpressibly shocked, by
her sudden intrusion into their private balcony. They
looked — as, indeed, English people of respectability
would, if an angel were to alight in their circle, without
due introduction from somebody whom they knew, in the
court above — they looked as if an unpardonable liberty
had been taken, and a suitable apology must be made;
after which, the intruder would be expected to withdraw.

The abbate, however, drew the old gentleman aside,
and whispered a few words that served to mollify him;
he bestowed on Hilda a sufficiently benignant, though still
a perplexed and questioning regard, and invited her, in
dumb show, to put herself at her ease.

But, whoever was in fault, our shy and gentle Hilda
had dreamed of no intrusion. Whence she had come, or
where she had been hidden, during this mysterious interval,
we can but imperfectly surmise, and do not mean, at
present, to make it a matter of formal explanation with

the reader. It is better, perhaps, to fancy that she had
been snatched away to a land of picture; that she had
been straying with Claude in the golden light which he
used to shed over his landscapes, but which he could
never have beheld with his waking eyes, till he awoke in
the better clime. We will imagine that, for the sake of
the true simplicity with which she loved them, Hilda had
been permitted, for a season, to converse with the great,
departed masters of the pencil, and behold the diviner
works which they have painted in heavenly colors. Guido
had shown her another portrait of Beatrice Cenci, done
from the celestial life, in which that forlorn mystery of
the earthly countenance was exchanged for a radiant joy.
Perugino had allowed her a glimpse at his easel, on
which she discerned what seemed a woman's face, but so
divine, by the very depth and softness of its womanhood,
that a gush of happy tears blinded the maiden's eyes,
before she had time to look. Raphael had taken Hilda
by the hand, — that fine, forcible hand which Kenyon
sculptured, — and drawn aside the curtain of gold-fringed
cloud that hung before his latest masterpiece. On earth,
Raphael painted the Transfiguration. What higher scene
may he have since depicted, not from imagination, but as
revealed to his actual sight!

Neither will we retrace the steps by which she returned
to the actual world. For the present be it enough to say
that Hilda had been summoned forth from a secret place,
and led we know not through what mysterious passages,
to a point where the tumult of life burst suddenly upon
her ears. She heard the tramp of footsteps, the rattle of

wheels, and the mingled hum of a multitude of voices,
with strains of music and loud laughter breaking through.
Emerging into a great, gloomy hall, a curtain was drawn
aside; she found herself gently propelled into an open
balcony, whence she looked out upon the festal street,
with gay tapestries flaunting over all the palace fronts,
the windows thronged with merry faces, and a crowd of
maskers rioting upon the pavement below.

Immediately, she seemed to become a portion of the
scene. Her pale, large-eyed, fragile beauty, her wondering
aspect, and bewildered grace, attracted the gaze of
many; and there fell around her a shower of bouquets
and bonbons — freshest blossoms and sweetest sugar-plums,
sweets to the sweet — such as the revellers of the
carnival reserve as tributes to especial loveliness. Hilda
pressed her hand across her brow; she let her eyelids
fall, and, lifting them again, looked through the grotesque
and gorgeous show, the chaos of mad jollity, in quest of
some object by which she might assure herself that the
whole spectacle was not an illusion.

Beneath the balcony, she recognized a familiar and
fondly remembered face. The spirit of the hour and the
scene exercised its influence over her quick and sensitive
nature; she caught up one of the rose-buds that had been
showered upon her, and aimed it at the sculptor. It hit
the mark; he turned his sad eyes upward, and there was
Hilda, in whose gentle presence his own secret sorrow and
the obtrusive uproar of the carnival alike died away from
his perception.

That night, the lamp beneath the Virgin's shrine burned

as brightly as if it had never been extinguished; and
though the one faithful dove had gone to her melancholy
perch, she greeted Hilda rapturously the next morning,
and summoned her less constant companions, whithersoever
they had flown, to renew their homage.