Children of the Market Place Part 22

Isabel took me directly to the suite which was decorated by Pinturicchio for Alexander VI. We looked at the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Magi, and the Resurrection. Somehow I was more moved by these paintings than by anything I had yet seen in Rome. The soul of this painter took possession of me. Then recalling what Isabel had said I asked her: "Where is the face, Isabel, you wished to show me?" "There," she said.

"Turn around." I did and saw a bronze bust on a pedestal. "That, you mean?" Isabel nodded. I walked closer to it. It was Pinturicchio.

A deeper emotion than I had ever before felt before a work of art took possession of me. Such wisdom, benignity, genius! What a soul belonged to this man! I looked about to see if we were watched by guards. As we were alone I put up my hands to caress this face, moved by some unknown impulse. Touching the silken surface of the bronze my whole imaginative power seemed to awake; my life spread out before me. I know not what it was; memories of so many things; not least of all Isabel's presence understanding what I felt. My eyes blinded; my shoulders shook a little.

Isabel came to me and gently put her hand on my arm. We walked away.

"Who was Pinturicchio?" I asked of Isabel. And she told me. I took a guide-book out of my pocket and began to read. "There is a story," it said, "that Pinturicchio was starved by his wife during his last illness." I closed the book. After all had not Douglas been starved in the finer part of his genius by the life to which he was wedded? How would his face look in bronze, ridged with reason and controversy; what could ever bring him out of the dust and noise of the levels where he was battling, even to the plateaus to which poor Serafino had climbed?

After that I looked at everything of Pinturicchio's I could find in Rome. We found his Coronation of the Virgin, his frescoes of St.

Antonio. But Isabel, who had already been to the Villa d'Este with Uncle Tom, began now day by day to plan another excursion there. She had not gone up to Tivoli, nor seen the cataracts; we could do all of this in an afternoon if we did not stop to wander through Hadrian's Villa. This time Serafino went with us; but Uncle Tom was again indisposed, and laughingly bade us to go on and leave him to an afternoon at Canape's with his cronies.

Serafino rode on the box with the driver, and that left Isabel and me to something like a privacy, as we drove by the quarries of travertine where the slaves of old Rome went blind and died hewing out the stone that went to the building of the Coliseum and the theaters of Marcellus and Pompey. We pa.s.sed the little stream whose waters were blue with sulphur, filling the air with its odor. The gra.s.ses and herbs were green; here and there an almond tree was in blossom. The dark cypresses of Hadrian's Villa stood like spires of thunder clouds against the wonderful azures of this uplifting sky. Before us were the mountains, pine-clad, vineyard-clad; and far up the gleam of a cascade shone like a bent sword in the sun.

Serafino took us through the room of the d'Este Palace telling the driver to meet us at one of the entrances to the grounds. When we emerged and descended to the Hundred Fountains he turned away giving us the directions to reach the carriage. He knew that this was a place where lovers would wish to dispense with a guide.

We walked through the avenues of great cypress trees and came to the farther end of the pools whose curbs were decorated with flowering urns.

There we looked at the palace and listened to the song of the merles.

Beside this all was silence, only the stir of the wind against the soft strings of the trees--the most melodious harp in the world! We climbed to an eminence, stood by an iron fence and gazed down upon the fisheries surrounded by graceful bushes and trees. Then we found the Fontana dell'

Ovato, and a seat before it. It was a semicircle of stone perforated by arches over which the water musically poured. Here we rested, listening to the merles, the falling water, the whispering of the wind. Ghosts of dead delight seemed to pa.s.s us; unseen presences of pa.s.sionate gallants and capricious loveliness, hungering hearts wounded by life, by beauty, by desire, spoke to us through the murmuring water, the stir of the wind, the intense silence when all sounds were turned away by the veering of the delicious air.

And Uncle Tom was in Rome at Canape's drinking with his American cronies! Only myself knew my starved heart, but surely he knew the heart of Isabel. What was the att.i.tude of mind in allowing this free a.s.sociation between Isabel and me? Does the heart of age become deadened? Does it understand; does it but partly divine these secrets; does it for any of these reasons cease to be sensitive?

Then suddenly, as Isabel and I sat there in these enchanting surroundings, an uncontrollable emotion seized me, one that had no regard for a future, that sought only to realize wholly and at once an ecstatic present. For what could be between us? I could not marry Isabel; and what could be? Blindly, without a thought of any of these things, I took Isabel's hands and drew her to me frightened and trembling. Instantly I saw what I had done. Our life of frank companionship fell away from us. A new birth was ours; but of what wonder and terror and danger! Isabel exclaimed: "Oh, my friend!" Then she lost her voice and whispered, "My friend!" She became relaxed, leaned back her head, closed her eyes. Tears crept down her cheeks. And I was silent, in a kind of madness of fear, pa.s.sion, regret, nameless sorrow. What could I say, to what could she listen? There was a long silence. Then Isabel began to speak.

"Help me, my friend," she said. "How can I tell you how to be my friend?

Still it must be. I care for you so deeply. Let me speak, but understand me as I try to speak, and help me. You are young and strong. You are so companionable; I never grow tired of you--but you must know that I am not different from you in all impulses, imaginings. But be my friend.

Take into your being the beauty we have together; these flowers of friendship attend and keep for our garden--our Villa d'Este. Let it be open to the sky and wind as this is, a place where innocence and kindness may come, where children may play and the old rest. Ah, my friend, you have lived and now be strong for me. Uncle Tom is so fond of you. Think of all you have. You have had a wife, and you have a son. Be n.o.ble, be understanding, for really you see I am poor and you are rich.

If possible these hands of pa.s.sion which you have placed on mine must change, and my hands must forget what you have done. Otherwise what is the future to be?"

Isabel began to sob, between her words crying: "Oh, be my friend!" How could I comfort her? The very comfort that her heart craved was that which her sorrow strove to deny me the giving. I drew out my watch; we had long overstayed our time, for we were to lunch at the Sibylla in Tivoli. We walked slowly to the entrance where Serafino waited for us with the carriage. He was smoking a pipe, calm and happy, and in companionable conversation with the driver.

At a table near the Temple of Vesta here on the Castro Vetere, the waterfalls below us, Horace's Villa above us, we dined and became happy again.

When we got back to the pension Uncle Tom was there to greet us and to receive Isabel's kiss upon a mischievously yielded cheek, and to hear her rapturous account of the afternoon.

And I went forth with little Reverdy in the Borghese Gardens; afterwards to continue my studies of the etchings of Piranesi.

CHAPTER LIV

Isabel now took Reverdy into her heart with an ardor that could not be mistaken. She often went to bring him from school to the pension. She took him in walks about the broken columns of the Forum. They clambered together over the galleries of the Coliseum and to the heights of the Palatine, exploring the ruins of the palaces of the Cesar's. They had walked out to the Appian Way, and gone to listen to the merles and the golden wrens among the cypresses of the Protestant cemetery.

Reverdy had begun to call Isabel "Mamma Isabel" and Isabel addressed him as "son." Uncle Tom fell into the same way. The kinship between us was strengthened by these endearments.

But I observed something of deeper, more mystical import; Reverdy was attached to Isabel with an intense and curious filial pa.s.sion. He would rush into the room and kiss Isabel, flinging his arms about her with ecstatic joy. She evoked this demonstration in some secret, maternal way. And now as I tried to remember I could not recall that Dorothy had ever caressed Reverdy--not that she was cold toward him. She was the soul of kindness. But whenever had she held him to her breast with demonstrative heart-hunger and expression; whenever had she played with him, walked with him, entered into his life of game or studies? She had never done so. Perhaps Reverdy had never had a mother after all. Now he had one in Isabel, who seemed to direct something of the energy that she had channeled into art and into travel to this boy of mine. But she did not in any way withdraw her interest from me.

I was wondering after our day at the Villa d'Este if she would place herself again in a like intimacy with me, if we should go about together as before. No, there was no change as to program; but her eyes were so clear, so innocently bright, her smile and laugh so gentle, yet free of direct invitation, above all her devotion to Uncle Tom was so n.o.ble, that I felt loath to make my approach more intimate. What I craved and what I was glad to keep was our daily a.s.sociation. And now while she always invited Uncle Tom to be with us and he more and more went his own way, Isabel turned to Reverdy and arranged for him to accompany us about Rome and into the country, once to Hadrian's Villa, once to Ostia where we looked upon the sea. It did not seem to me that Isabel sought to keep me at a distance and to bring in Reverdy as an influence to that end.

She took such great delight in having him with us. It seemed only to happen that he went with us. It was not always so. And it was all quite natural.

We had thus become friends in the profoundest sense. Once she referred to Pinturicchio saying: "If you feel that you could have loved that man, don't you see that the same feeling can exist between a man and a woman? I am talking of that unity of two minds out of which the finest emotions come; and in the case of artists the n.o.blest works. Love is not just pa.s.sional love, just this flame that burns so brightly and then dies. It may be a flame that has no material sustenance, or so slight that we are not subtle enough to discern it; a flame that feeds on flame, unites with another flame and grows brighter for the union; and finds in the flame a subst.i.tute for oil. Friendship is what I mean--or love may be a better word. Here in Rome among the old shrines and temples where the anemones and violets bloom so profusely, before the sculptured faces of Zeus and Aphrodite and Apollo and Bacchus, one dreams one's self into intuitions of the old G.o.ds, and the lovely faiths of the ancient world. And I go sometimes alone with a book to the Borghese or to the Capitoline and there let my imagination wander in re-creation of the visions of life and the soul that came as interpretations to the ancients. I have lately been reading a book on the cult of Orpheus, the Pagan Christ, one of the loveliest figures of the Greeks. It made me believe somehow that Christ never lived, that he is only a creation of the anonymous imagination of a hungering world.

For surely Orpheus did not live, and how closely he resembles Christ as an embodiment of the heart's aspiration to free itself from the material and to rise into a realm of pure beauty, understanding, devotion--all lovely things. My friend, I was thinking of you all the while. And if you could have been a friend of Pinturicchio in the n.o.blest sense, why not of me? I am not trying to play with words or with ideas, or to perplex you, or to excite your doubts or your desires. I think you have never had a friend. What, after all, could you find in a soul so masculine, so lacking in intuition as Douglas; upon whom you have poured your admiration for all these years? Has it not been for lack of some one better to whom you could give your heart? That is why I wish that you and I could find an enduring and inspiring union in a mutual interest in great things. Forgive me, I grieve that all this seems a cruel waste to me--all these years of your life."

"Is your life not a waste?" I asked before I could check the words.

"No," Isabel replied calmly, in no way offended. "After all there is a feeling in my heart for Uncle Tom such as you might have felt for Pinturicchio. What does one derive from love? There are riches in admiration, grat.i.tude, sympathy, filial tenderness, in desire for devotion; yes, even in pity; in the bestowal of comforting hands; in solace given in hours of fatigue and illness; in care for declining vitality. All these expressions I have. And now, my friend, I would be a help to you. I would give you eyes to understand your past; and a vision to choose a better future. If you have ever been Dionysius, which you have not, you are yet an unawakened soul. I would have you become Orpheus, attended by the Muses of all this loveliness with which we are surrounded here. By contrast it makes me think of America, so vast but so without a soul. By soul I do not mean that energy which enforces righteousness, the dream of the fanatic, the ideal of the law fabricator; but the soul of high freedoms, delights, n.o.bilities. For there is just as much difference between those things as there is between Douglas and Pinturicchio. All of this goes without saying, of course; but I am thinking of the application of these things to you. I am your friend, you know."

Was there reality in Isabel's words? Was she not sublimating the materials of our thwarted relationship? Turning to Douglas I tried to tell her what character of thinker he was and how, in spite of any deficiency that he had, he was a brave heart and a thinking mind and a needed builder in America.

"It may be," said Isabel. We were sitting in the Gardens of Adonis once occupied in part by the golden house of Nero, here where St. Sebastian was bound to a tree and pierced with arrows. What material symbols for our thoughts! Ruins of walls, columns and capitols lay about us; and on the air was borne the music of bells and the low murmur of Rome. In this pause of our conversation I heard a cry and looking up saw Reverdy running toward us, throwing up his arms in delight and falling upon the breast of Isabel. She embraced him with all tenderness; then arose and began to run with him about the garden. In a little while we saw Uncle Tom approaching slowly. He was much out of breath and looked definitely ill. How had they found us? Isabel had told Uncle Tom that we might stroll here; and Reverdy had prevailed upon Uncle Tom to drive this way.

In a few days there was to be a service at St. Peter's which Isabel was eager to see. She was talking to Uncle Tom about it, begging him to go, and he was half consenting though reluctant. Reverdy was all delight over the prospect, and it was an opportunity for me to be with Isabel.

She had never become a communicant of any church. But she abhorred atheism. It denied the love that she saw in nature, the divinity that permeated the human mind; the law she sensed in growth and decay; the spirit of beauty that reigned everywhere to her imagination. We were at one on this matter of denying a G.o.d, but the repugnance that I had had to imperial Catholicism had been increased by Serafino's recitals of Italy's sufferings under the Church and Austria. And in Rome one saw the settled dominance of clericalism. Perhaps the Church was like negro slavery. If the Church ministered to beauty and spirituality, was it not a.s.serted in favor of slavery that it afforded leisure; did it not correspond to the fertilization which enriches the roots of a gorgeous flower? I could see Isabel turning to the esthetics in the Catholic service. "What can you say," she asked, "against a faith that surrounds itself with pictures, sculpture, music, incense, the rhythm of rich Latin, the appeal in words to life renewal, eternal life, purity, glory, tenderness? Say what you will of it; condemn its external sovereignty, of guns and poison and machinations--condemn these as you will--its ritual calls to purer dreams. And perhaps in all our life there must be oppression and particular injustice in order to produce the finest blossom."

Uncle Tom seemed to be falling into more frequent indisposition. He often lay in bed for the greater part of the morning. There were days when he did not leave his room. Again he would go forth to Canape's; and while he was rarely in anything like a stagger, he was often saturated with wine, heavy and sleepy from its influence. Isabel through it all treated him with unfailing kindness; and some of our excursions were interrupted because of Uncle Tom's taking to bed after returning from Canape's; or because he could not arise before noon after an evening with his friends. She would not desert his side. Was there something in my presence with his life with Isabel, our friendship for each other, that woke nerves to suffering which only drink could dull?

The day of the service in St. Peter's we all set forth in one carriage, Reverdy riding on the box, and Isabel, Uncle Tom, and I in the seat. I noticed that Uncle Tom was more than usually self-absorbed. Isabel patted his hand or held it, and talked to him of the objects of interest along the way.

The service was about to begin when we entered. We walked as far as the bronze plate which marks the comparative length of the Cathedral of Milan, and I was looking toward the bronze pavilion with its twisted columns which tents the tomb of St. Peter, through and around these columns at the candles on the altar. Chanting voices echoed, soared in hollow reverberations up and about the arches, the domes; an organ was giving forth soft thunder in some hidden quarter.

Suddenly Uncle Tom steps back, sways, coughs. Isabel utters a slight cry; I look at Uncle Tom and take him by the arm. Bystanders help me support him. He has turned very pale, blue at the lips. With the a.s.sistance of two men we take him to a carriage, drive to the pension.

We put him to bed and send for a physician.

Reverdy is sent away, and Isabel and I watch. For Uncle Tom is dying.

The doctor says it is only a matter of a few hours. Uncle Tom wishes to make a will. Will I write it out for him? His thoughts are clear. He remembers his possessions, his relations. To brothers and sisters he gives handsome purses, all the rest to Isabel.

"Isabel," he says with difficulty. "Yes, my dear," she replies in a voice of great tenderness. "Isabel, I want to give Jimmy something--ten thousand dollars." Before she can speak I interject: "I do not need it, Uncle Tom." He rolled his head in a negative, turned his hand feebly. "I give it to you that you may do something for her. Then it will be from you and from me too." Isabel stifles a sob by placing her hands tightly over her mouth. "Write," says Uncle Tom; and I write.

The will is written. The doctor has come again. Uncle Tom signs the will in our presence. Then he asks the doctor for medicine for his lungs. "I seem to have a cough," he says. But it is not his lungs but his heart.

We are standing by the bed. Uncle Tom takes our hands and puts them together. Instantly his head sinks upon the pillow. He is dead. The doctor walks from the room. Isabel and I stand by the bed with closed eyes, holding hands.

CHAPTER LV

Standing beside the dead body of this man a future with Isabel took form in my heart. Love is a great solemnity itself. And in this moment I felt that Isabel shared my vision.

We buried Uncle Tom. Then Isabel began to prepare to sail for America.

Of course no trip now around the world. She must go back to Connecticut, but she must go alone. That was her wish. It was understood that I should follow her later. This much was definite between us. Many plans filled her mind. She had a large estate to put in order. There were lawyers and agents to consult. I really wished to return with her in order to a.s.sist her. But she said: "It is best for you to stay here for a while. We shall write to each other. Later I wish you to come."

The question in my mind was not shall we be married, but when shall we be married. But Isabel's mood was too serious, too majestic for me to broach these definite subjects now. I looked into her eyes. It seemed to me that my thoughts were silently communicated to her. She pressed my hand gently. And so after some days of packing, in which I helped her constantly, she sailed away and left me in Rome.

I tried to work but the time would not pa.s.s. All my drawings and etchings were failures. What after all was art to me except a diversion?

Too late! The only art that I ever could achieve was that of giving happiness to Isabel and being worthy of her devotion. Her letters came frequently, always so full of wise observations, striking fancies and imagery; so many with thanks for what I had been to her. She wrote me that Uncle Tom's will, as he had dictated it, had been probated and acquiesced in by every one.

Six months went by. I had gone with Reverdy to Lake Maggiore to escape the heat in Rome. While I was there a letter came from Isabel asking me to come to her. In three weeks I was by her side, having first placed Reverdy in Phillips Exeter. We were together in the great homestead which had belonged to Uncle Tom's father, there in Connecticut. It was full of the treasures of old times. Priceless things gathered on Isabel's travels--a great house set in a wonderful expanse of grounds about a mile from a pretty village. It was October. The earth was aflame with the fires of the forest. Jays cried from the maples. The air was subtle with a delicate scent of pine needles and fallen leaves.