"Am I? Perhaps so," said Donatello indifferently; "I never have been ill, and know not what it may be.""Do not make the poor lad fancy-sink," whispered Miriam, pulling the sculptor's sleeve."He is of a nature to lie down and die at once, if he finds himself drawing such melancholy breaths as we ordinary people are enforced to burden our lungs withal.But we must get him away from this old, dreamy and dreary Rome, where nobody but himself ever thought of being gay.Its influences are too heavy to sustain the life of such a creature."The above conversation had passed chiefly on the steps of the Cappuccini; and, having said so much, Miriam lifted the leathern curtain that hangs before all church-doors in italy." Hilda has forgotten her appointment," she observed, "or else her maiden slumbers are very sound this morning. We will wait for her no longer."They entered the nave.The interior of the church was of moderate compass, but of good architecture, with a vaulted roof over the nave, and a row of dusky chapels on either side of it instead of the customary side- aisles.Each chapel had its saintly shrine, hung round with offerings; its picture above the altar, although closely veiled, if by any painter of renown; and its hallowed tapers, burning continually, to set alight the devotion of the worshippers.The pavement of the nave was chiefly ofmarble, and looked old and broken, and was shabbily patched here and there with tiles of brick; it was inlaid, moreover, with tombstones of the mediaeval taste, on which were quaintly sculptured borders, figures, and portraits in bas-relief, and Latin epitaphs, now grown illegible by the tread of footsteps over them.The church appertains to a convent of Capuchin monks; and, as usually happens when a reverend brotherhood have such an edifice in charge, the floor seemed never to have been scrubbed or swept, and had as little the aspect of sanctity as a kennel; whereas, in all churches of nunneries, the maiden sisterhood invariably show the purity of their own hearts by the virgin cleanliness and visible consecration of the walls and pavement.
As our friends entered the church, their eyes rested at once on a remarkable object in the centre of the nave.It was either the actual body, or, as might rather have been supposed at first glance, the cunningly wrought waxen face and suitably draped figure of a dead monk.This image of wax or clay-cold reality, whichever it might be, lay on a slightly elevated bier, with three tall candles burning on each side, another tall candle at the head, and another at the foot.There was music, too; in harmony with so funereal a spectacle.From beneath the pavement of the church came the deep, lugubrious strain of a De Profundis, which sounded like an utterance of the tomb itself; so dismally did it rumble through the burial vaults, and ooze up among the flat gravestones and sad epitaphs, filling the church as with a gloomy mist.
"I must look more closely at that dead monk before we leave the church," remarked the sculptor."In the study of my art, I have gained many a hint from the dead which the living could never have given me.""I can well imagine it," answered Miriam."One clay image is readily copied from another.But let us first see Guido's picture.The light is favorable now."Accordingly, they turned into the first chapel on the right hand, as you enter the nave; and there they beheld,--not the picture, indeed,--but a closely drawn curtain.The churchmen of Italy make no scruple of sacrificing the very purpose for which a work of sacred art has been created; that of opening the way; for religious sentiment through the quickmedium of sight, by bringing angels, saints, and martyrs down visibly upon earth; of sacrificing this high purpose, and, for aught they know, the welfare of many souls along with it, to the hope of a paltry fee.Every work by an artist of celebrity is hidden behind a veil, and seldom revealed, except to Protestants, who scorn it as an object of devotion, and value it only for its artistic merit.
The sacristan was quickly found, however, and lost no time in disclosing the youthful Archangel, setting his divine foot on the head of his fallen adversary.It was an image of that greatest of future events, which we hope for so ardently, at least, while we are young,--but find so very long in coming, the triumph of goodness over the evil principle.
