But Mr. Farebrother met him with the same friendliness as before.The character of the publican and sinner is not always practicallyincompatible with that of the modern Pharisee, for the majority of usscarcely see more distinctly the faultiness of our own conduct than thefaultiness of our own arguments, or the dulness of our own jokes. Butthe Vicar of St. Botolph's had certainly escaped the slightest tincture ofthe Pharisee, and by dint of admitting to himself that he was too muchas other men were, he had become remarkably unlike them in this—thathe could excuse others for thinking slightly of him, and could judgeimpartially of their conduct even when it told against him.
"The world has been to strong for me, I know," he said one day toLydgate. "But then I am not a mighty man—I shall never be a man ofrenown. The choice of Hercules is a pretty fable; but Prodicus makes iteasy work for the hero, as if the first resolves were enough. Anotherstory says that he came to hold the distaff, and at last wore the Nessusshirt. I suppose one good resolve might keep a man right if everybodyelse's resolve helped him."
The Vicar's talk was not always inspiriting: he had escaped being aPharisee, but he had not escaped that low estimate of possibilities whichwe rather hastily arrive at as an inference from our own failure. Lydgatethought that there was a pitiable infirmity of will in Mr. Farebrother.
CHAPTER XIX.
"L' altra vedete ch'ha fatto alla guancia
Della sua palma, sospirando, letto."
—Purgatorio, vii.
When George the Fourth was still reigning over the privacies ofWindsor, when the Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister, and Mr.Vincy was mayor of the old corporation in Middlemarch, Mrs. Casaubon,born Dorothea Brooke, had taken her wedding journey to Rome. In thosedays the world in general was more ignorant of good and evil by fortyyears than it is at present. Travellers did not often carry full informationon Christian art either in their heads or their pockets; and even the mostbrilliant English critic of the day mistook the flower-flushed tomb of theascended Virgin for an ornamental vase due to the painter's fancy.Romanticism, which has helped to fill some dull blanks with love andknowledge, had not yet penetrated the times with its leaven and enteredinto everybody's food; it was fermenting still as a distinguishablevigorous enthusiasm in certain long-haired German artists at Rome, andthe youth of other nations who worked or idled near them weresometimes caught in the spreading movement.
One fine morning a young man whose hair was not immoderatelylong, but abundant and curly, and who was otherwise English in hisequipment, had just turned his back on the Belvedere Torso in theVatican and was looking out on the magnificent view of the mountainsfrom the adjoining round vestibule. He was sufficiently absorbed not tonotice the approach of a dark-eyed, animated German who came up tohim and placing a hand on his shoulder, said with a strong accent,"Come here, quick! else she will have changed her pose."
Quickness was ready at the call, and the two figures passed lightlyalong by the Meleager, towards the hall where the reclining Ariadne,then called the Cleopatra, lies in the marble voluptuousness of herbeauty, the drapery folding around her with a petal-like ease andtenderness. They were just in time to see another figure standing againsta pedestal near the reclining marble: a breathing blooming girl, whoseform, not shamed by the Ariadne, was clad in Quakerish gray drapery;her long cloak, fastened at the neck, was thrown backward from herarms, and one beautiful ungloved hand pillowed her cheek, pushingsomewhat backward the white beaver bonnet which made a sort of haloto her face around the simply braided dark-brown hair. She was notlooking at the sculpture, probably not thinking of it: her large eyes werefixed dreamily on a streak of sunlight which fell across the floor. But shebecame conscious of the two strangers who suddenly paused as if tocontemplate the Cleopatra, and, without looking at them, immediatelyturned away to join a maid-servant and courier who were loitering alongthe hall at a little distance off.
"What do you think of that for a fine bit of antithesis?" said theGerman, searching in his friend's face for responding admiration, butgoing on volubly without waiting for any other answer. "There liesantique beauty, not corpse-like even in death, but arrested in thecomplete contentment of its sensuous perfection: and here stands beautyin its breathing life, with the consciousness of Christian centuries in itsbosom. But she should be dressed as a nun; I think she looks almostwhat you call a Quaker; I would dress her as a nun in my picture.However, she is married; I saw her wedding-ring on that wonderful lefthand, otherwise I should have thought the sallow Geistlicher was herfather. I saw him parting from her a good while ago, and just now Ifound her in that magnificent pose. Only think! he is perhaps rich, andwould like to have her portrait taken. Ah! it is no use looking after her—there she goes! Let us follow her home!"
"No, no," said his companion, with a little frown.
"You are singular, Ladislaw. You look struck together. Do you knowher?"
"I know that she is married to my cousin," said Will Ladislaw,sauntering down the hall with a preoccupied air, while his German friendkept at his side and watched him eagerly.
"What! the Geistlicher? He looks more like an uncle—a more usefulsort of relation."
"He is not my uncle. I tell you he is my second cousin," saidLadislaw, with some irritation.
"Schon, schon. Don't be snappish. You are not angry with me forthinking Mrs. Second-Cousin the most perfect young Madonna I eversaw?"
"Angry? nonsense. I have only seen her once before, for a couple ofminutes, when my cousin introduced her to me, just before I leftEngland. They were not married then. I didn't know they were coming toRome."
"But you will go to see them now—you will find out what they havefor an address—since you know the name. Shall we go to the post? Andyou could speak about the portrait."
"Confound you, Naumann! I don't know what I shall do. I am not sobrazen as you."
"Bah! that is because you are dilettantish and amateurish. If youwere an artist, you would think of Mistress Second-Cousin as antiqueform animated by Christian sentiment—a sort of Christian Antigone—sensuous force controlled by spiritual passion."
"Yes, and that your painting her was the chief outcome of herexistence—the divinity passing into higher completeness and all butexhausted in the act of covering your bit of canvas. I am amateurish ifyou like: I do not think that all the universe is straining towards theobscure significance of your pictures."
"But it is, my dear!—so far as it is straining through me, AdolfNaumann: that stands firm," said the good-natured painter, putting ahand on Ladislaw's shoulder, and not in the least disturbed by theunaccountable touch of ill-humor in his tone. "See now! My existencepresupposes the existence of the whole universe—does it not? and myfunction is to paint—and as a painter I have a conception which isaltogether genialisch, of your great-aunt or second grandmother as asubject for a picture; therefore, the universe is straining towards thatpicture through that particular hook or claw which it puts forth in theshape of me—not true?"
"But how if another claw in the shape of me is straining to thwartit?—the case is a little less simple then."
"Not at all: the result of the struggle is the same thing—picture or nopicture—logically."
Will could not resist this imperturbable temper, and the cloud in hisface broke into sunshiny laughter.
"Come now, my friend—you will help?" said Naumann, in a hopefultone.
"No; nonsense, Naumann! English ladies are not at everybody'sservice as models. And you want to express too much with your painting.You would only have made a better or worse portrait with a backgroundwhich every connoisseur would give a different reason for or against.And what is a portrait of a woman? Your painting and Plastik are poorstuff after all. They perturb and dull conceptions instead of raising them.Language is a finer medium."
"Yes, for those who can't paint," said Naumann. "There you haveperfect right. I did not recommend you to paint, my friend."
The amiable artist carried his sting, but Ladislaw did not choose toappear stung. He went on as if he had not heard.
"Language gives a fuller image, which is all the better for beingsvague. After all, the true seeing is within; and painting stares at you withan insistent imperfection. I feel that especially about representations ofwomen. As if a woman were a mere colored superficies! You must waitfor movement and tone. There is a difference in their very breathing:they change from moment to moment.—This woman whom you have justseen, for example: how would you paint her voice, pray? But her voice ismuch diviner than anything you have seen of her."
"I see, I see. You are jealous. No man must presume to think that hecan paint your ideal. This is serious, my friend! Your great-aunt! 'DerNeffe als Onkel' in a tragic sense—ungeheuer!"
"You and I shall quarrel, Naumann, if you call that lady my auntagain."
"How is she to be called then?"
"Mrs. Casaubon."
"Good. Suppose I get acquainted with her in spite of you, and findthat she very much wishes to be painted?"
"Yes, suppose!" said Will Ladislaw, in a contemptuous undertone,intended to dismiss the subject. He was conscious of being irritated byridiculously small causes, which were half of his own creation. Why washe making any fuss about Mrs. Casaubon? And yet he felt as ifsomething had happened to him with regard to her. There are characterswhich are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves indramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their susceptibilitieswill clash against objects that remain innocently quiet.
CHAPTER XX.
"A child forsaken, waking suddenly,
Whose gaze afeard on all things round doth rove,
And seeth only that it cannot see
The meeting eyes of love."
Two hours later, Dorothea was seated in an inner room or boudoir ofa handsome apartment in the Via Sistina.
I am sorry to add that she was sobbing bitterly, with suchabandonment to this relief of an oppressed heart as a woman habituallycontrolled by pride on her own account and thoughtfulness for otherswill sometimes allow herself when she feels securely alone. And Mr.Casaubon was certain to remain away for some time at the Vatican.
Yet Dorothea had no distinctly shapen grievance that she could stateeven to herself; and in the midst of her confused thought and passion,the mental act that was struggling forth into clearness was a self-accusing cry that her feeling of desolation was the fault of her ownspiritual poverty. She had married the man of her choice, and with theadvantage over most girls that she had contemplated her marriage chieflyas the beginning of new duties: from the very first she had thought ofMr. Casaubon as having a mind so much above her own, that he mustoften be claimed by studies which she could not entirely share;moreover, after the brief narrow experience of her girlhood she wasbeholding Rome, the city of visible history, where the past of a wholehemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestralimages and trophies gathered from afar.
But this stupendous fragmentariness heightened the dreamlikestrangeness of her bridal life. Dorothea had now been five weeks inRome, and in the kindly mornings when autumn and winter seemed togo hand in hand like a happy aged couple one of whom would presentlysurvive in chiller loneliness, she had driven about at first with Mr.Casaubon, but of late chiefly with Tantripp and their experiencedcourier. She had been led through the best galleries, had been taken tothe chief points of view, had been shown the grandest ruins and themost glorious churches, and she had ended by oftenest choosing to driveout to the Campagna where she could feel alone with the earth and sky,away-from the oppressive masquerade of ages, in which her own life tooseemed to become a masque with enigmatical costumes.
To those who have looked at Rome with the quickening power of aknowledge which breathes a growing soul into all historic shapes, andtraces out the suppressed transitions which unite all contrasts, Romemay still be the spiritual centre and interpreter of the world. But letthem conceive one more historical contrast: the gigantic brokenrevelations of that Imperial and Papal city thrust abruptly on the notionsof a girl who had been brought up in English and Swiss Puritanism, fedon meagre Protestant histories and on art chiefly of the hand-screen sort;a girl whose ardent nature turned all her small allowance of knowledgeinto principles, fusing her actions into their mould, and whose quickemotions gave the most abstract things the quality of a pleasure or apain; a girl who had lately become a wife, and from the enthusiasticacceptance of untried duty found herself plunged in tumultuouspreoccupation with her personal lot. The weight of unintelligible Romemight lie easily on bright nymphs to whom it formed a background forthe brilliant picnic of Anglo-foreign society; but Dorothea had no suchdefence against deep impressions. Ruins and basilicas, palaces andcolossi, set in the midst of a sordid present, where all that was living andwarm-blooded seemed sunk in the deep degeneracy of a superstitiondivorced from reverence; the dimmer but yet eager Titanic life gazing andstruggling on walls and ceilings; the long vistas of white forms whosemarble eyes seemed to hold the monotonous light of an alien world: allthis vast wreck of ambitious ideals, sensuous and spiritual, mixedconfusedly with the signs of breathing forgetfulness and degradation, atfirst jarred her as with an electric shock, and then urged themselves onher with that ache belonging to a glut of confused ideas which check theflow of emotion. Forms both pale and glowing took possession of heryoung sense, and fixed themselves in her memory even when she was notthinking of them, preparing strange associations which remained throughher after-years. Our moods are apt to bring with them images whichsucceed each other like the magic-lantern pictures of a doze; and incertain states of dull forlornness Dorothea all her life continued to seethe vastness of St. Peter's, the huge bronze canopy, the excited intentionin the attitudes and garments of the prophets and evangelists in themosaics above, and the red drapery which was being hung for Christmasspreading itself everywhere like a disease of the retina.
