Chapter I
" O Beata Solitudo 1 " Paolo Fasoli wrote the words beneath the picture with his brush and stood back to con template it. Across the slender shafts of the miniature pillars and the arches of the cloister the hot sun-rays struck on the pavement and on the ancient well in the centre of the space. Beyond, a flush of many-shaded roses and a strip of sapphire sky were framed in by an open doorway. Across the threshold floated the honeyed scent of the cypresses borne on the faint, hot breeze, and all on a sudden the odour, sweet and aromatic, made Paolo put his hand to his head, feeling faint and giddy. The crimson glow of the rose garden, the deep shadows, the glare of the sun on the pavement, all whirled together in a wild dance. Then colour, light, sky faded suddenly, and he seemed to fall into a deep black gulf.
A How long he lay at the bottom of that black pit he could not tell ; but a confused sound of voices roused him, though the sense of the words did not touch his exhausted brain. " Poverino, it is hunger, signore. What would you ? We see it too often not to know the signs." A gleam of light struggled into the gulf, and a stream of something warm and life-giving seemed to flow through all his veins. The light grew brighter, then dazzling, the little slender pillars stood out against it, and three pairs of compas sionate eyes looked into Paolo's as he struggled to rise, and his head fell back against the knee of the Franciscan who was supporting him. A piece of bread soaked in wine was gently put between his lips, and, too weak to resist, he ate it. After a moment or two the horrors of the gulf melted away, and he sat up, and, with the monk's assistance, rose to his feet.
" I have been working in the sun and forgot to eat this morning," he said, passing his hand across his eyes as he leaned against one of the pillars. " When one has the idea one cannot let it go till one has fixed it ; the signore under stands." The elder stranger looked at him with grave in terest as he stood there ; a slender, even emaciated figure, with dark eyes, unnaturally large, and pale cheeks, hunger-hollowed. " Nevertheless, it is foolish to try and drive the engine without fuel," he said with a smile. He moved towards the easel as he spoke and stood beside his companion, contemplating the picture. Paolo watched them with a faint, feverish slush colouring his thin cheeks, partly weakness, partly nervous fear lest the strangers should guess he had other reasons for his fast than devotion to art.
The monk had vanished, but returned in a few moments with a bowl of soup, which he pressed on the young man, saying that since he had come unprovided with food he must accept the hospitality of St. Francis. Paolo took the bowl gratefully, and the monk approached the two strangers. "It is the very image of Padre Anselmo; he has just that look when he says the Mass," he said. The stranger glanced at Paolo. " It is the look that Angelico and Raphael saw," he said to his friend. " Is it chance or genius that has made that starving youth catch it ? " asked the younger man. " There is no chance in art, and genius is often starved. He paints as they painted ; from a contemplation of the beautiful things of God," said the other. He turned to the picture again. The sunlight, the colours of the old brickwork, the rosy glimpse of garden, the deep blue shadows beneath the arches were all there on the canvas, a rich and glowing background to the figure of the Franciscan, whose thin brown face, upturned to where against the blue a silver-winged dove hovered, had in it the expression one sees in the eyes of Pre- Raphaelite Saints — "the evidence of things not seen."
The parted lips seemed to murmur the words that greet the stranger from above the door of San Francesco del Deserto. " O beata solitudo ! " A blessed solitude indeed, ringed round by shining waters in murmuring music that whispers of God ; a solitude ennobled by works of charity and where simple faith seems to say to the restless questioning of a godless age : " Peace, be still." Paolo approached and stood beside the easel. The elder of the two men turned to him suddenly. " Your picture pleases me. Is it for sale ? " he asked. The painter slushed. He seldom sold anything ; even those little sketches of odd corners of Venice which he disposed of for a few lire to the shops on the Piazza San Marco had not been much in request of late. The forestieri preferred the tinted photographs. Pictures like the one on the easel were not likely to be popular.
Spirituality in art was out of date. Italy prefers it on the walls of her public galleries, not rebuking her from niches in her drawing-rooms. " I will give you five hundred lire for it," said the stranger tentatively. " But perhaps you prefer not to part with it." Paolo's heart beat fast. He would, indeed, have preferred not to part with the picture. But five hundred lire ! It was a sum beyond his wildest dreams, and he was penniless, thanks to the coloured photographs. "The signore is too generous," he said modestly. The stranger laughed. " And you are too unlike your countrymen to bargain," he said. " Never mind, time will im prove or spoil you in that respect. Your picture is probably worth more than I have offered. Will you accept a hundred lire now, and allow me to visit your studio to-morrow ?
Till then, perhaps, you would prefer to keep your offspring." He took out his pocket-book and drew out the sum in notes. Paolo hesitated and grew red. " I have no studio, and my room is a poor place to invite the signore to visit. Shall I not take the picture to his hotel ? " "You have other sketches, no doubt, that I should like to see. When you have a studio and a palace on the Grand Canal I shall like to think of my first visit to you." " Ah, signore, that will never be," said Paolo with a smile and a sigh, as he wrote his address on the leaf of the gentleman's pocket-book and took the card he held out. " Perhaps not. The world has a way of starving its best men. Or it may be that the palace will be the price of your soul." He looked again at the picture — a long look, and then he and his companion turned away, followed by the monk.
Paolo stood gazing after them, crushing the notes in his hand. He had not looked at the card as the stranger handed it to him, but as they passed out of sight he glanced at it. The name was printed in square letters, " Mr. Rupert Delmane," and the address of the hotel was written below it. To Paolo the name said nothing, but to cultured English ears it would have spoken of one of the greatest writers on mediæval art. He thrust the card into his pocket and then smoothed out the notes. There they lay on the palm of his hand, witnesses that he had not awakened from a feverish dream born of hunger and the hot October sun. Five hun dred lire ! It seemed incredible. But it was less of the money he thought than of the stranger's words. The world had had so many kicks for him. Like all on whom a spark of the sacred fire has fallen, he felt so keenly the impossibility of giving full expression to his dreams that his efforts seemed to him often but one long series of failures.
Had not the artist who taught at the Accademia told him roughly when he ventured to show him a picture, that he had mooned about churches and galleries till he had lost all origi nality, if, indeed, he had ever possessed any, and that he had become a mere copyist ? Copyist, indeed, if to see with the same eyes with which the old painters saw is to copy ; to see not merely the outward perfection of form, but the beauty of the spirit burning steadfast behind the veil of flesh ; to see colour as they saw it ; to paint with the same simple faiths, unquestioning and childlike, human in their reality, divine in their sympathy. Paolo gathered his painting materials together, and set the easel in a shadowy corner of the cloister. Then he passed through the building into the open air. The gondola in which were the two Englishmen was already far from the landing-place, a slender black shape upon the water.
The golden light of the afternoon was deepening over the lagunes ; the walls of Burano shimmered in it like those of a city of mirage, and against the shadowy blue outlines of the Alps, snow-tipped, ethereal as dreams, the tower of old Torcello stood lonely and dark. Paolo stood gazing over the shining waters till the rustle of a monk's frock on the grass made him look round. The Franciscan who approached him bore a certain faint resemblance to the young man. Yet, though alike to a certain extent in features, the resemblance was not very apparent when they stood beside each other, and especially when Paolo spoke. The artist's nervously sensi tive face, not without beauty of a delicate, almost effeminate type, had none of the peace that was stamped on the thin face of Padre Anselmo, and which gave him in his brown frock that look of a mediæval saint which Paolo had fixed on his canvas.
" You must return this evening, Polo ? " said the monk, interrogatively, giving Fasoli's name the soft contraction of the dialect in which he spoke. "Yes," replied Paolo. "She will expect me, and the Englishman who wished to see my pictures said he would come to-morrow. I made a bargain with old Beppe Masin, who was taking wine over to Burano, to bring me here and take me back again. He will be here soon. The sun is getting low now." " Yes, yes, your mother will be waiting for you, and you have news for her. May this be the beginning of good fortune to you, my nephew," said the monk. He laid a hand on Paolo's head as he spoke. The young man looked up from the bank where he had thrown himself down. " Sometimes I wonder if I should not be better there," he said, stretching out one hand towards the monastery.
" I am afraid of the world when I think. To five a life like Angelico, that would be a dream of heaven." Padre Anselmo looked at his nephew. He was a good man ; in his simple, uneducated way more than half a saint. He had seen suffering enough — yes, and sin and tragedy too — amongst those islands that shimmered in the golden afternoon light. He knew the value of peace and solitude ; but he looked at his nephew's face doubtfully. With all its delicate refinement, so strangely con trasted with his shabby and threadbare garments, there was something that made Padre Anselmo doubt whether the peace of a religious life would satisfy the young man ; something, too, that made him vaguely fear that the life he spoke of might indeed have perils for him. " A pure heart need not fear the world, figho mio; you have that now.
Keep it, and the beautiful things you see will be dreams of Heaven, and will give those dreams to others," he said. " Those great men who lived long ago painted for the glory of God. Paint like that ; your pictures may be as good as prayers." " The world has not time to listen to prayers," said Paolo, rising as the sound of an oar drew near. " But pray for me, padre mio. I do not know why, but this evening I seem to stand at the entrance of a new life. I have thought too much of the Englishman's words, perhaps, but they are the first that have ever been spoken to me like that, and I tremble lest they should not come true. I am afraid of the world, but I long for it. I want to live — I want my pictures to live. Perhaps one day I shall be glad to come here and rest." There was a flush on his pale cheek as he spoke.
Father Anselmo smiled. " You are not for our life, Polo. I have seen no more of the world than the want and sorrow of the people have shown me, but I know that." The sound of the oar grew louder, and a crazy old gondola glided into the creek. The boatman hailed Paolo somewhat impatiently, for it was growing late. The young man hastily returned to the cloisters for his picture, and taking leave of his uncle sprang into the boat. The sun was sinking rapidly. In the flood of golden light that rippled along the waters the islands floated vision-like and mysterious, the walls and towers of Burano taking shimmering hues as of mother-of-pearl in the misty radiance reflected from the heavens and the shining lagunes. Paolo gazed back as the sun sank out of sight, and against the violet night-shadows rising from the Adriatic the spires of San Francesco's cypresses grew black above the walls.
Blessed solitude ! Perhaps, after all, it was the best. Was not to live to suffer, and for every throb of human joy did not man pay with a hundred pangs ? There behind him lay peace. He turned and gazed westwards where the domes and bell-towers of Venice rose purple against the wondrous after glow that was spreading upwards, changing with all the fires that burn in the heart of a great opal. Before him was life. For the first time words had been spoken to him that had awakened his slumbering ambitions ; that had told him his dreams might not be all vain. He had known all life's bitterness. Now as each dip of the oar broke the water into liquid jewels, and before him Venice hung as between two heavens, he let himself slip into a dream of the future. Life seemed to him suddenly to grow full and sweet, and as the bells of the Angelus rang out across the water they seemed to call to him to hope and to live.
Chapter II
Paolo's reflections were uninterrupted till the gondola slid into the black shadow beneath the city. It was dusk when they stopped at the Campo San Canciano, and, after paying his fare, he turned away and plunged into the labyrinth of calli that lie beyond. It was quite dark in those narrow ways. Work was over for the day, and the sound of footsteps and the echo of laughter filled the air. From beneath some low-browed, black-beamed doorway gleamed redly the light of an oil lamp shed on dark faces gathered round a flask of wine, or behind the iron tracery of an ancient window a woman's shadow moved to and fro. Here in a narrow arch gleamed a brass worker's wares ; there, behind cobwebbed panes, some fragment of old brocade, gold-woven and gorgeous, hung amidst a heap of dusty antique rubbish, and high above all the old, old houses rose, leaning together with but the narrowest bestarred riband of sky dividing them.
Paolo was used to it all— so used that, artist though he was, the picturesque glimpses through those open doors did not appeal to him. He knew, perhaps, too much of the squalor that underlay it all ; of the struggles, and the miseries, and the sins. Idealism was strong in him, and it made realities often repulsive and robbed them of their latent poetry. So he hurried past without giving more than a passing glance to the Rem brandt-like heads and brown hands gesticulating over the wine. After many turns and twists he reached a very narrow passage where there was scarcely room for two persons to pass each other. It was very dark, and no ray of light showed along it or in the courtyard into which he turned through an open archway, long since deprived of the door which had once closed it. Crossing the open space he passed under another arch and into a passage, where a faint gleam of lamplight fell on the broken pavement, shiny with ooze.
A scuttle and a flop in the water announced a stampede of rats as he approached the worn stone staircase, from which in places the balusters were broken away. The rays of light came from a door which opened close to the low arched water-entrance. Paolo paused and glanced that way, but after a moment's hesitation he went forward and began to climb the staircase. Up and up he went, past doors whence came shrill female voices raised in dispute, or on whose thresholds played children, dirty, half-naked, but revelling in their picturesque squalor. The house, once the palace of some merchant prince of Venice, old as the days of Petrarch, who, perchance, during his sojourn there had feasted within its walls, was now occupied only by people of the poorest class. Up and up he went till he reached the highest floor of all and stopped before a door, iron clamped and worm-eaten, that seemed scarcely able to hang by its rusty hinges.
He pushed it open and entered. A flood of light poured across the floor. Through the small window that met the eaves the newly-risen moon shone in, lighting with a radiance almost of day the bare attic, and sharply outlined against the light a woman's figure bent over some work with which her hands were busy. Paolo set down the easel quickly and crossed the room as she turned and looked at him. "You are not trying to work by moonlight, mother ? " he said. She held up a string of coloured beads that glistened in the moonbeams. " It is not difficult to do this work, one could string them in the dark," she replied. Paolo knelt down beside the window and put his arms on the sill. "Mother, I have had luck to-day," he said, turning his head slowly and taking her thin hand. " I have sold my picture for five hundred lire."
The glass beads slipped from his mother's hands and fell on the floor, some rolling away into the corners of the room. "Five hundred lire/" she exclaimed breathlessly. "You shall work no more, madre mia," he said, and with a sudden movement he took the wooden bowl which held the unstrung beads and let them fall in a glittering shower into the canal below. His mother seized his wrist. " My son, you are mad ! " she exclaimed, looking at him with frightened eyes. And, indeed, he seemed nothing less to her. All her poor little earnings for that day and for the morrow flung into the black water below, and every bead to be accounted for to her employer. Her son laughed, and pulling the notes out of his pocket he threw them in her lap. " Let me be mad for once, mother. There is more than enough to pay for those glass balls and to keep us for weeks, the rest will come to morrow."
She took up the notes and looked at them one by one, as if she still could hardly believe her eyes or ears. " Five hundred lire ! " she repeated. " It is not possible. But, Polo, you should not have thrown the beads away, the good God knows we cannot afford to waste a centesimo, and luck does not come twice over." Paolo rose to his feet, chilled and rebuffed. She did not understand. She thought only of the few soldi thrown away. She did not enter into the feelings that had caused his impulsive action. "No, you are right, mother," he said. "Good fortune does not come twice over ; the first taste of it has turned my head, as you see." He spoke coldly, so coldly that his mother could not fail to see that in some way she had hurt him. She rose and laid a hand on his arm. " Polo, do not speak like that," she said.
" I did not mean to hurt you, but good fortune has kept away from us for so long " She broke off suddenly as a voice sounded on the staircase — a round young baritone singing, " O Venezia benedetta," in the soft dialect. The singer broke off suddenly as he reached the top of the stairs, and the door was pushed open after a knock that shook the old woodwork in every panel. " Dreaming as usual, Polo ! " exclaimed the young man. " And supping on moonbeams ; a poor fare, caro mio, that will put your odd soul to flight one day." Lucia Fasoli had retreated to the far end of the room, and was busy trying to light a lamp. As the wick flamed up the new-comer turned quickly and begged her pardon for entering with such unceremonious haste. "You are always welcome, Bastian," she replied with a smile, as she lifted the lamp and carried it to the table.
" Polo has some news for you." Sebastiano — or to give him the Venetian version of his Christian name — Bastian Zanelli, let his hand fall on his friend's shoulder. " Good news, I see by your face, Siora Fasoli," he said. " What is it, Polo mio ? " For answer Paolo led him to the easel and gave him a rapid description of the events of the after noon. Bastian listened in a silence the more impressive that it was so unusual. When Paolo had finished he seized the lamp and held it above his head, allowing the rays to fall on the picture. " Per Bacco ! " he exclaimed, resting his arm on Paolo's shoulder. Lucia glanced at the two young men as they stood together, and, indeed, on Zanelli's face the eyes of any woman, old or young, were apt to linger. It was a face of uncommon beauty and of the true Italian type, with brown eyes that could smile as those of Francesca's lover smiled on that fatal day when they together closed the book, and read no more save what each other's glances taught.
He was taller by a head and shoulders than Paolo, and he made a strange contrast to the pallid artist as he stood with the lamplight flickering on the short, close waves of his black hair, on his warm brown skin, and his lithe figure, straight as the oar he could use as well as any gondolier on the lagunes. When he had looked in silence at the picture for a full minute he set the lamp down and said : " Per Bacco ! " again. Then he seized Paolo's hand and wrung it till the artist's slight fingers cracked in his strong grasp. "You will be a great painter one day, Polo. When the tide has once turned it must raise till it touches its highest mark. I know the English man. He was buying things at old Dinelli's the other day, and I heard his name. He is a great writer of some kind, and he is often in Venice, Jacopo told me." ■7 Paolo's eyes brightened.
In Bastian's warm sympathy he tasted the first sweets of success, and the chill which his mother's reception of his news had given him passed away. Zanelli had always believed in him, and if he had sometimes laughed, and recommended him to take some buxom work-girl and paint her with a knot of flaming tulips or carnations in her hands, instead of evolving mysterious-eyed Madonnas out of his head, he had laughed in a kindly manner, and had only given his advice with a view to bringing Paolo's art more in harmony with popular taste. " One could kneel and say an Ave to Polo's Madonnas," he often said. "But they do not want to say their prayers now, they want warm slesh and blood and to see it on canvas too." Bastian took up the lamp again and looked at the picture. The sentiment expressed in the painting was beyond him, and as for solitude being blessed, to his genial soul it seemed the most terrible thing on earth.
He had artistic appreciation enough to recognise the beauty of colour and perfection of detail which almost equalled the pictures in the galleries ; but he would have preferred a damask-cheeked lace worker with a string of coral round her throat to a brown-frocked monk with visionary yearnings in his uplifted eyes. He could not understand that the somewhat full-blown charms of the models he suggested disgusted Paolo and made his art seem an illustration of a life that appeared to him too often coarse and squalid. To Bastian B life was worthy of illustration, and to his warm and vivid southern temperament it was far more interesting than religious abstractions. So, while he acknowledged the inspiring influence of the Madonnas, he was often inclined to be impatient with Paolo for the utter lack of the qualities that push a man in the world.
Being a generous soul he took the artist under his protection as he took everything weak, from the little cripple on the floor below to the cat which eked out a precarious existence by keeping the rats at as respectful a distance as its unaided efforts would permit. He regarded Paolo somewhat in the same light as the cat — as a creature against whom every man's hand was turned and who was incapable of pro tecting himself. Therefore, in spite of the fact that the artist was some two years his senior, he took him under his wing and gave him the benefit of much worldly advice, which was entirely wasted, and the consolation of much sympathy, which poor Paolo sadly needed. As he set down the lamp he turned to Lucia. " He has been painting solitude all day, will you spare him to-night ? There is music on the Piazza, and we will have supper and drink a flask of wine to his good fortune."
Lucia looked at her son quickly. " Yes, go, Polo," she said. " You were so late I had my meal long ago. Go with Bastian." Paolo hesitated a moment, then took three of the notes and placed them in her hands, the fourth he put in his pocket as he turned to his friend. "You will sup with me to-night, Bastian," he said, " and drink what wine you like to my health." The young man did not refuse the invitation. He knew that Paolo wished to make a return for many an occasion when he had stood between him and something like starvation, and he had too much delicacy to raise any objection to being treated. He was a rich man compared to his friend. His father did a good business in wood carving for the shops, and also dealt in old, as well as modern, metal-work, and Bastian himself was no mean executant of his father's designs.
It is true that business was not always very good ; but still they could live in a certain rough comfort almost unknown to the other occupants of the vast old house, who were chiefly of the poorest class. " Come then, Polo. It is growing late," said the young man, drawing his friend's arm through his. " It will be good for him, Siora, to see some life to-night." Lucia Fasoli listened as the sound of Zanelli's rich voice echoed up the staircase singing "Venezia benedetta " in the musical accent that softens even the softest language in the world. She sat gazing out of the window with her hands lying idle in her lap. Roof beyond roof, and angle beyond angle, gleaming white where the moonbeams slanted, or standing black in sharp contrast, the countless houses stretched away, with here and there a dome melting into shadowy roundness as the rays poured across it and glittered on its gilded fane.
The poetry and the mystery of Venice were all about her in that attic room, and glided below in the dark water on which no moon-ray fell. But she felt nothing of it all. She was only conscious that in some way she had hurt Paolo. Into his dreams and ambitions she could not enter ; the life of toil and privation she had led for so many years had ground the fine edge off her sympathies. The world had been harsh and cruel to her ; it had killed even hope. She could not guess how her words had frozen her son's feelings at their source. She did not know the nature of an artist — that temperament so often cruel by very excess of sensitiveness. She sat there with that vague, jealous pain at her heart, listening as Zanelli's mellow notes echoed fainter and fainter, and then ceased. She could not understand. She only felt in a dull, miserable way that she had failed in something, and that he had turned to his friend for sympathy and left her there alone.
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