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The courtyard and staircase of a palace built three
hundred years ago, are a peculiar feature of modern
Rome, and interest the stranger more than many things
of which he has heard loftier descriptions. You pass
through the grand breadth and height of a squalid entrance-way,
and perhaps see a range of dusky pillars,
forming a sort of cloister round the court, and in the
intervals, from pillar to pillar, are strewn fragments of
antique statues, headless and legless torsos, and busts that
have invariably lost — what it might be well if living
men could lay aside in that unfragrant atmosphere — the
nose. Bas-reliefs, the spoil of some far older palace, are
set in the surrounding walls, every stone of which has
been ravished from the Coliseum, or any other imperial
ruin which earlier barbarism had not already levelled
with the earth. Between two of the pillars, moreover,
stands an old sarcophagus without its lid, and with
all its more prominently projecting sculptures broken
off; perhaps it once held famous dust, and the bony
framework of some historic man, although now only a

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

receptacle for the rubbish of the courtyard, and a half-worn
broom.

In the centre of the court, under the blue Italian sky,
and with the hundred windows of the vast palace gazing
down upon it, from four sides, appears a fountain. It
brims over from one stone basin to another, or gushes
from a Naiad's urn, or spirts its many little jets from
the mouths of nameless monsters, which were merely grotesque
and artificial when Bernini, or whoever was their
unnatural father, first produced them; but now the
patches of moss, the tufts of grass, the trailing maidenhair,
and all sorts of verdant weeds that thrive in the
cracks and crevices of moist marble, tell us that Nature
takes the fountain back into her great heart, and cherishes
it as kindly as if it were a woodland spring. And,
hark, the pleasant murmur, the gurgle, the plash! You
might hear just those tinkling sounds from any tiny waterfall
in the forest, though here they gain a delicious pathos
from the stately echoes that reverberate their natural language.
So the fountain is not altogether glad, after all
its three centuries of play!

In one of the angles of the courtyard, a pillared doorway
gives access to the staircase, with its spacious breadth
of low, marble steps, up which, in former times, have gone
the princes and cardinals of the great Roman family who
built this palace. Or they have come down, with still
grander and loftier mien, on their way to the Vatican or
the Quirinal, there to put off their scarlet hats in exchange
for the triple crown. But, in fine, all these illustrious
personages have gone down their hereditary

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staircase for the last time, leaving it to be the thoroughfare of
ambassadors, English noblemen, American millionnaires,
artists, tradesmen, washerwomen, and people of every
degree; all of whom find such gilded and marble-panelled
saloons as their pomp and luxury demand, or such homely
garrets as their necessity can pay for, within this one
multifarious abode. Only, in not a single nook of the
palace (built for splendor, and the accommodation of a
vast retinue, but with no vision of a happy fireside or
any mode of domestic enjoyment) does the humblest or
the haughtiest occupant find comfort.

Up such a staircase, on the morning after the scene at
the sculpture gallery, sprang the light foot of Donatello.
He ascended from story to story, passing lofty doorways,
set within rich frames of sculptured marble, and climbing
unweariedly upward, until the glories of the first piano
and the elegance of the middle height were exchanged
for a sort of Alpine region, cold and naked in its aspect.
Steps of rough stone, rude wooden balustrades, a brick
pavement in the passages, a dingy whitewash on the walls;
these were here the palatial features. Finally, he paused
before an oaken door, on which was pinned a card, bearing
the name of Miriam Schaefer, artist in oils. Here
Donatello knocked, and the door immediately fell somewhat
ajar; its latch having been pulled up by means of a
string on the inside. Passing through a little anteroom,
he found himself in Miriam's presence.

“Come in, wild Faun,” she said, “and tell me the latest
news from Arcady!”

The artist was not just then at her easel, but was

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

busied with the feminine task of mending a pair of
gloves.

There is something extremely pleasant, and even touching—
at least, of very sweet, soft, and winning effect —
in this peculiarity of needle-work, distinguishing women
from men. Our own sex is incapable of any such by-play
aside from the main business of life; but women — be
they of what earthly rank they may, however gifted with
intellect or genius, or endowed with awful beauty — have
always some little handiwork ready to fill the tiny gap of
every vacant moment. A needle is familiar to the fingers
of them all. A queen, no doubt, plies it on occasion;
the woman-poet can use it as adroitly as her pen; the
woman's eye, that has discovered a new star, turns from
its glory to send the polished little instrument gleaming
along the hem of her kerchief, or to darn a casual fray in
her dress. And they have greatly the advantage of us
in this respect. The slender thread of silk or cotton
keeps them united with the small, familiar, gentle interests
of life, the continually operating influences of which
do so much for the health of the character, and carry off
what would otherwise be a dangerous accumulation of
morbid sensibility. A vast deal of human sympathy runs
along this electric line, stretching from the throne to the
wicker-chair of the humblest seamstress, and keeping high
and low in a species of communion with their kindred
beings. Methinks it is a token of healthy and gentle
characteristics, when women of high thoughts and accomplishments
love to sew; especially as they are never more
at home with their own hearts than while so occupied.

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And when the work falls in a woman's lap, of its own
accord, and the needle involuntarily ceases to fly, it is a
sign of trouble, quite as trustworthy as the throb of the
heart itself. This was what happened to Miriam. Even
while Donatello stood gazing at her, she seemed to have
forgotten his presence, allowing him to drop out of her
thoughts, and the torn glove to fall from her idle fingers.
Simple as he was, the young man knew by his sympathies
that something was amiss.

“Dear lady, you are sad,” said he, drawing close to
her.

“It is nothing, Donatello,” she replied, resuming her
work: “yes; a little sad, perhaps; but that is not strange
for us people of the ordinary world, especially for women.
You are of a cheerfuller race, my friend, and know nothing
of this disease of sadness. But why do you come
into this shadowy room of mine?”

“Why do you make it so shadowy?” asked he.

“We artists purposely exclude sunshine, and all but a
partial light,” said Miriam, “because we think it necessary
to put ourselves at odds with nature before trying to
imitate her. That strikes you very strangely, does it
not? But we make very pretty pictures sometimes, with
our artfully arranged lights and shadows. Amuse yourself
with some of mine, Donatello, and by and by I shall
be in the mood to begin the portrait we were talking
about.”

The room had the customary aspect of a painter's
studio; one of those delightful spots that hardly seem to
belong to the actual world, but rather to be the outward

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type of a poet's haunted imagination, where there are
glimpses, sketches, and half-developed hints of beings and
objects grander and more beautiful than we can anywhere
find in reality. The windows were closed with shutters,
or deeply curtained, except one, which was partly open to
a sunless portion of the sky, admitting only from high
upward that partial light which, with its strongly marked
contrast of shadow, is the first requisite towards seeing
objects pictorially. Pencil-drawings were pinned against
the wall or scattered on the tables. Unframed canvases
turned their backs on the spectator, presenting only a
blank to the eye, and churlishly concealing whatever
riches of scenery or human beauty Miriam's skill had depicted
on the other side.

In the obscurest part of the room Donatello was half
startled at perceiving duskily a woman with long dark
hair, who threw up her arms with a wild gesture of tragic
despair, and appeared to beckon him into the darkness
along with her.

“Do not be afraid, Donatello,” said Miriam, smiling to
see him peering doubtfully into the mysterious dusk.
“She means you no mischief, nor could perpetrate any if
she wished it ever so much. It is a lady of exceedingly
pliable disposition; now a heroine of romance, and now
a rustic maid; yet all for show; being created, indeed,
on purpose to wear rich shawls and other garments in a
becoming fashion. This is the true end of her being,
although she pretends to assume the most varied duties
and perform many parts in life, while really the poor puppet
has nothing on earth to do. Upon my word, I am

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satirical unawares, and seem to be describing nine women
out of ten in the person of my lay-figure. For most
purposes she has the advantage of the sisterhood. Would
I were like her!”

“How it changes her aspect,” exclaimed Donatello,
“to know that she is but a jointed figure. When my
eyes first fell upon her, I thought her arms moved, as if
beckoning me to help her in some direful peril.”

“Are you often troubled with such sinister freaks of
fancy?” asked Miriam. “I should not have supposed it.”

“To tell you the truth, dearest signorina,” answered
the young Italian, “I am apt to be fearful in old, gloomy
houses, and in the dark. I love no dark or dusky corners,
except it be in a grotto, or among the thick green leaves
of an arbor, or in some nook of the woods, such as I
know many in the neighborhood of my home. Even
there, if a stray sunbeam steal in, the shadow is all the
better for its cheerful glimmer.”

“Yes; you are a Faun, you know,” said the fair artist,
laughing at the remembrance of the scene of the day before.
“But the world is sadly changed now-a-days; grievously
changed, poor Donatello, since those happy times
when your race used to dwell in the Arcadian woods,
playing hide-and-seek with the nymphs in grottoes and
nooks of shrubbery. You have reappeared on earth some
centuries too late.”

“I do not understand you now,” answered Donatello,
looking perplexed; “only, signorina, I am glad to have
my lifetime while you live; and where you are, be it in
cities or fields, I would fain be there too.”

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“I wonder whether I ought to allow you to speak in
this way,” said Miriam, looking thoughtfully at him.
“Many young women would think it behoved them to be
offended. Hilda would never let you speak so, I dare
say. But he is a mere boy,” she added, aside, “a simple
boy, putting his boyish heart to the proof on the first
woman whom he chances to meet. If yonder lay-figure
had had the luck to meet him first, she would have smitten
him as deeply as I.”

“Are you angry with me?” asked Donatello, dolorously.

“Not in the least,” answered Miriam, frankly giving
him her hand. “Pray look over some of these sketches
till I have leisure to chat with you a little. I hardly
think I am in spirits enough to begin your portrait to-day.”

Donatello was as gentle and docile as a pet spaniel; as
playful, too, in his general disposition, or saddening with
his mistress's variable mood like that or any other kindly
animal which has the faculty of bestowing its sympathies
more completely than men or women can ever do. Accordingly,
as Miriam bade him, he tried to turn his attention
to a great pile and confusion of pen-and-ink sketches
and pencil-drawings which lay tossed together on a table.
As it chanced, however, they gave the poor youth little
delight.

The first that he took up was a very impressive sketch,
in which the artist had jotted down her rough ideas for a
picture of Jael driving the nail through the temples of
Sisera It was dashed off with remarkable power, and

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

showed a touch or two that were actually life-like and
death-like, as if Miriam had been standing by when Jael
gave the first stroke of her murderous hammer, or as if
she herself were Jael, and felt irresistibly impelled to
make her bloody confession in this guise.

Her first conception of the stern Jewess had evidently
been that of perfect womanhood, a lovely form, and a
high, heroic face of lofty beauty; but, dissatisfied either
with her own work or the terrible story itself, Miriam
had added a certain wayward quirk of her pencil, which
at once converted the heroine into a vulgar murderess.
It was evident that a Jael like this would be sure to
search Sisera's pockets as soon as the breath was out of
his body.

In another sketch she had attempted the story of
Judith, which we see represented by the old masters so
often, and in such various styles. Here, too, beginning
with a passionate and fiery conception of the subject in all
earnestness, she had given the last touches in utter scorn,
as it were, of the feelings which at first took such powerful
possession of her hand. The head of Holofernes
(which by the by had a pair of twisted moustaches, like
those of a certain potentate of the day) being fairly cut
off, was screwing its eyes upward and twirling its features
into a diabolical grin of triumphant malice, which it flung
right in Judith's face. On her part, she had the startled
aspect that might be conceived of a cook if a calf's head
should sneer at her when about to be popped into the
dinner-pot.

Over and over again, there was the idea of woman,

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acting the part of a revengeful mischief towards man.
It was, indeed, very singular to see how the artist's imagination
seemed to run on these stories of bloodshed, in
which woman's hand was crimsoned by the stain; and
how, too, — in one form or another, grotesque or sternly
sad, — she failed not to bring out the moral, that woman
must strike through her own heart to reach a human life,
whatever were the motive that impelled her.

One of the sketches represented the daughter of Herodias
receiving the head of John the Baptist in a charger.
The general conception appeared to be taken from Bernardo
Luini's picture, in the Uffizzi gallery at Florence;
but Miriam had imparted to the saint's face a look of
gentle and heavenly reproach, with sad and blessed eyes
fixed upward at the maiden; by the force of which miraculous
glance, her whole womanhood was at once awakened
to love and endless remorse.

These sketches had a most disagreeable effect on Donatello's
peculiar temperament. He gave a shudder; his
face assumed a look of trouble, fear, and disgust; he
snatched up one sketch after another, as if about to tear
it in pieces. Finally, shoving away the pile of drawings,
he shrank back from the table and clasped his hands over
his eyes.

“What is the matter, Donatello?” asked Miriam, looking
up from a letter which she was now writing. “Ah!
I did not mean you to see those drawings. They are
ugly phantoms that stole out of my mind; not things that
I created, but things that haunt me. See! here are some
trifles that perhaps will please you better.”

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She gave him a portfolio, the sketches in which indicated
a happier mood of mind, and one, it is to be
hoped, more truly characteristic of the artist. Supposing
neither of these classes of subject to show anything of her
own individuality, Miriam had evidently a great scope of
fancy, and a singular faculty of putting what looked like
heart into her productions. The latter sketches were
domestic and common scenes, so finely and subtilely idealized
that they seemed such as we may see at any moment,
and everywhere; while still there was the indefinable
something added, or taken away, which makes all the difference
between sordid life and an earthly paradise. The
feeling and sympathy in all of them were deep and true.
There was the scene, that comes once in every life, of the
lover winning the soft and pure avowal of bashful affection
from the maiden, whose slender form half leans
towards his arm, half shrinks from it, we know not which.
There was wedded affection in its successive stages,
represented in a series of delicately conceived designs,
touched with a holy fire, that burned from youth to age
in those two hearts, and gave one identical beauty to the
faces, throughout all the changes of feature.

There was a drawing of an infant's shoe, half worn
out, with the airy print of the blessed foot within; a thing
that would make a mother smile or weep out of the very
depths of her heart; and yet an actual mother would not
have been likely to appreciate the poetry of the little
shoe, until Miriam revealed it to her. It was wonderful,
the depth and force with which the above, and other kindred
subjects were depicted, and the profound significance

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

which they often acquired. The artist, still in her fresh
youth, could not probably have drawn any of these dear
and rich experiences from her own life; unless, perchance,
that first sketch of all, the avowal of maiden affection,
were a remembered incident, and not a prophecy.
But it is more delightful to believe, that, from first to last,
they were the productions of a beautiful imagination, dealing
with the warm and pure suggestions of a woman's
heart, and thus idealizing a truer and lovelier picture of
the life that belongs to woman, than an actual acquaintance
with some of its hard and dusty facts could have inspired.
So considered, the sketches intimated such a
force and variety of imaginative sympathies as would
enable Miriam to fill her life richly with the bliss and
suffering of womanhood, however barren it might individually
be.

There was one observable point, indeed, betokening
that the artist relinquished, for her personal self, the happiness
which she could so profoundly appreciate for
others. In all those sketches of common life, and the
affections that spiritualize it, a figure was portrayed
apart; now it peeped between the branches of a shrubbery,
amid which two lovers sat; now it was looking
through a frosted window, from the outside, while a young
wedded pair sat at their new fireside, within; and once it
leaned from a chariot, which six horses were whirling onward
in pomp and pride, and gazed at a scene of humble
enjoyment by a cottage-door. Always it was the same
figure, and always depicted with an expression of deep
sadness; and in every instance, slightly as they were

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brought out, the face and form had the traits of Miriam's
own.

“Do you like these sketches better, Donatello?” asked
Miriam.

“Yes,” said Donatello, rather doubtfully.

“Not much, I fear,” responded she, laughing. “And
what should a boy like you — a Faun, too — know about
the joys and sorrows, the intertwining light and shadow,
of human life? I forgot that you were a Faun. You
cannot suffer deeply; therefore you can but half enjoy.
Here, now, is a subject which you can better appreciate.”

The sketch represented merely a rustic dance, but with
such extravagance of fun as was delightful to behold;
and here there was no drawback, except that strange sigh
and sadness which always come when we are merriest.

“I am going to paint the picture in oils,” said the artist;
“and I want you, Donatello, for the wildest dancer
of them all. Will you sit for me, some day? — or, rather,
dance for me?”

“Oh! most gladly, signorina!” exclaimed Donatello.
“See; it shall be like this.”

And forthwith he began to dance, and flit about the
studio, like an incarnate sprite of jollity, pausing at last on
the extremity of one toe, as if that were the only portion
of himself, whereby his frisky nature could come in contact
with the earth. The effect in that shadowy chamber,
whence the artist had so carefully excluded the sunshine,
was as enlivening as if one bright ray had contrived to
shimmer in and frolic around the walls, and finally rest
just in the centre of the floor.

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“That was admirable!” said Miriam, with an approving
smile. “If I can catch you on my canvas, it will be
a glorious picture; only I am afraid you will dance out
of it, by the very truth of the representation, just when I
shall have given it the last touch. We will try it one of
these days. And now, to reward you for that jolly exhibition,
you shall see what has been shown to no one
else.”

She went to her easel, on which was placed a picture
with its back turned towards the spectator. Reversing
the position, there appeared the portrait of a beautiful
woman, such as one sees only two or three, if even so
many times, in all a lifetime; so beautiful, that she seemed
to get into your consciousness and memory, and could
never afterwards be shut out, but haunted your dreams,
for pleasure or for pain; holding your inner realm as a
conquered territory, though without deigning to make herself
at home there.

She was very youthful, and had what was usually
thought to be a Jewish aspect; a complexion in which
there was no roseate bloom, yet neither was it pale; dark
eyes, into which you might look as deeply as your glance
would go, and still be conscious of a depth that you had
not sounded, though it lay open to the day. She had
black, abundant hair, with none of the vulgar glossiness
of other women's sable locks; if she were really of Jewish
blood, then this was Jewish hair, and a dark glory such
as crowns no Christian maiden's head. Gazing at this
portrait, you saw what Rachel might have been, when
Jacob deemed her worth the wooing seven years, and

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seven more; or perchance she might ripen to be what
Judith was, when she vanquished Holofernes with her
beauty, and slew him for too much adoring it.

Miriam watched Donatello's contemplation of the picture,
and seeing his simple rapture, a smile of pleasure
brightened on her face, mixed with a little scorn; at least,
her lips curled and her eyes gleamed, as if she disdained
either his admiration or her own enjoyment of it.

“Then you like the picture, Donatello?” she asked.

“Oh, beyond what I can tell!” he answered. “So
beautiful! — so beautiful!”

“And do you recognize the likeness?”

“Signora,” exclaimed Donatello, turning from the picture
to the artist, in astonishment that she should ask the
question, “the resemblance is as little to be mistaken as
if you had bent over the smooth surface of a fountain, and
possessed the witchcraft to call forth the image that you
made there! It is yourself!”

Donatello said the truth; and we forbore to speak
descriptively of Miriam's beauty earlier in our narrative,
because we foresaw this occasion to bring it perhaps more
forcibly before the reader.

We know not whether the portrait were a flattered
likeness; probably not, regarding it merely as the delineation
of a lovely face; although Miriam, like all self-painters,
may have endowed herself with certain graces which
other eyes might not discern. Artists are fond of painting
their own portraits; and, in Florence, there is a
gallery of hundreds of them, including the most illustrious,
in all of which there are autobiographical characteristics,

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

so to speak; traits, expressions, loftinesses, and amenities,
which would have been invisible, had they not been
painted from within. Yet their reality and truth are
none the less. Miriam, in like manner, had doubtless
conveyed some of the intimate results of her heart-knowledge
into her own portrait, and perhaps wished to try
whether they would be perceptible to so simple and natural
an observer as Donatello.

“Does the expression please you?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Donatello, hesitatingly; “if it would only
smile so like the sunshine as you sometimes do. No, it is
sadder than I thought at first. Cannot you make yourself
smile a little, signorina?”

“A forced smile is uglier than a frown,” said Miriam,
a bright, natural smile breaking out over her face, even
as she spoke.

“Oh! catch it now!” cried Donatello, clapping his
hands. “Let it shine upon the picture! There! it has
vanished already! And you are sad again, very sad;
and the picture gazes sadly forth at me, as if some evil
had befallen it in the little time since I looked last.”

“How perplexed you seem, my friend!” answered
Miriam. “I really half believe you are a Faun, there is
such a mystery and terror for you in these dark moods,
which are just as natural as daylight to us people of ordinary
mould. I advise you, at all events, to look at other
faces with those innocent and happy eyes, and never
more to gaze at mine!”

“You speak in vain,” replied the young man, with a
deeper emphasis than she had ever before heard in his

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

voice; “shroud yourself in what gloom you will, I must
needs follow you.”

“Well, well, well,” said Miriam, impatiently: “but
leave me now; for, to speak plainly, my good friend, you
grow a little wearisome. I walk this afternoon in the
Borghese grounds. Meet me there, if it suits your pleasure.”

p576-074

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