In a Gondola.
And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new land which is the old.
—Tennyson.
GRAND CANAL AND RIALTO, VENICE.
Lucile Sherman, accompanied by her friends, had arrived in Venice, and though not at the same hotel, yet she spent all the time she could with Mrs. Douglas, and wished to join her in many excursions. She had found it very wearisome to tarry so long in Rome, but there had been no sufficient reason for following the party to Florence and on to Venice; therefore it had seemed the only thing to do.
Now that she was again with them she watched Mr. Sumner and Barbara most zealously. Her quick eyes had noted the altered condition of affairs during the latter days of the Naples journey, and she was feverishly anxious to understand the cause. Her intuition told her that there was some peculiar underlying interest for each in the other, and when this exists between a man and woman, some sequel may always be expected. One thing was certain; Mr. Sumner covertly watched Barbara, and Barbara avoided meeting his eye. She could only wait, while putting forth every effort to gain the interest in herself she so coveted.
And Barbara, of course, was trying to determine whether there was any ground for the suspicions, or rather suggestions, that Malcom gave voice to on that dreadful ride to Sorrento.
And Bettina watched all three; and so did Malcom, after a fashion, but he was less keenly interested than the others. He sometimes tried to talk with Bettina about the studio incident, but never could he begin to discuss Barbara in the slightest way without encountering her sister's indignation.
Mrs. Douglas, who had outlived her former wish concerning her brother and Lucile Sherman, and Margery were the only ones who had nothing to hide, and so gave themselves simply to the enjoyment of the occurrences of each hour.
"We must begin to see Tintoretto's paintings," said Mr. Sumner at breakfast one fine morning; "and, since the sun shines brightly, I suggest that we go at once to the Scuola di San Rocco, for the only time to see the pictures there is the early morning of a bright day."
"We must not forget Lucile," said Mrs. Douglas, with an inquiring look at her brother, "for she asked particularly to go there with us."
"Then we must call for her of course," quietly answered he, as all rose from the table. "We will start at once."
"I do not believe," said Bettina, as she and Barbara were in their room putting on their hats a moment afterward, "that Mr. Sumner cares one bit more for Lucile Sherman than for anybody else."
"Why don't you think so?" asked Barbara, as she turned aside to find her gloves, which search kept her busy for a minute or two.
"Because he never seems to take any pains to be where she is—he does not watch for the expression of her eyes—his voice never changes when he speaks to her," answered Bettina, slowly, enumerating some of the signs she had observed in Mr. Sumner with respect to Barbara.
Neither of the girls stopped to think how singular it was that Bettina should have watched Mr. Sumner closely enough to make such a positive assertion as this, which, perhaps, is a sufficient commentary on the state of their minds at this time.
After a delightful half hour of gliding through broad and narrow canals, they landed in front of the Church of San Rocco, and passed into the alleyway from which is the entrance of the famous Scuola. As they stepped into its sumptuous hall, Miss Sherman remarked:—
"I see that Mr. Ruskin says whatever the traveller may miss in Venice, he should give much time and thought to this building."
"Mr. Ruskin has championed Tintoretto with the same fervor that he has expended upon Turner," replied Mr. Sumner, smiling. "I think we should season his judgments concerning both artists with the 'grain of salt'.
"But," continued he, as he saw all were waiting for something further, "there can be no doubt that Tintoretto was a great painter and a notable man. To read the story of his life,—his struggles to learn the art,—his assurance of the worth of his own work, and his colossal ambitions, is as interesting as any romance."
"I was delighted," interpolated Malcom, "with the story of his first painting for this building, and the audacity that gained for him the commission to paint one picture for it every year of his remaining life.
"And here are about fifty of them," resumed Mr. Sumner, "in which we may study both his strength and his weakness. No painter was ever more uneven than he. No painter ever produced works that present such wide contrasts as do his. He could use color as consummately as Titian himself, as we see in his masterpiece, The Miracle of St. Mark, in the Academy; yet many of his pictures are almost destitute of it. He could vie with the greatest masters in composition; yet there are many instances where he seems to have thrown the elements of his pictures wildly together without a single thought of artistic proportions and relations. In some works he has shown himself a thorough master of technique; in others his rendering is so careless that we are ashamed for him. But all this cannot alter the fact that he is surpassingly great in originality, in nobility of conception, and in a certain poetic feeling,—and these are qualities that set the royal insignia upon any artist."
"I cannot help feeling the motion, the action, of all these wild figures," exclaimed Bettina, as she stood looking about in a helpless way. "I seem to be buffetted on all sides, and the pictures mix themselves with each other."
"It is no wonder. No painter was ever so extravagant as he could be. There is a headlong dash, an impetuous action in his figures when he wills, that remind us of Michael Angelo; but Tintoretto's imagination far outran that of the great Florentine master. Yet there is a singular sense of reality in his most imaginative works, and it is this, I think, that is sometimes so confusing and overwhelming. His paintings here are so many that I cannot talk long about any particular one. I will only try to tell you what qualities to look for—then you must, for yourselves, endeavor to understand and come under the spell of the personality of the artist.
"In the first place," he continued, "look for power—power of conception, of invention, and of execution. For instance, give your entire attention for a few minutes to this Massacre of the Innocents. See the perfect delirium of feeling and action—the frenzy of men, women, and children. Look also for originality of invention. Combinations and situations unthought of by other painters are here. There is never even a hint of plagiarism in Tintoretto's work. In his own native strength he seizes our imagination and, at will, plays upon it. We shudder, yet are fascinated."
"Oh, uncle! I don't like it!" cried Margery, almost tearfully. "I don't wish to see any more of his pictures, if all are like these."
"Madge—puss," said Malcom, "this is a horrible subject. Not all will be like this."
"No, dear," said her mother, sympathizingly, "I don't like it either. You and I will choose the pictures we are to look at long. There are many of Tintoretto's that you will enjoy, I know,—many from which you can learn about the artist, as well as from such as these."
"We cannot doubt the dramatic power of Tintoretto, can we?" asked Mr. Sumner, with a suppressed twinkle of the eye. "What shall we look for next? Let us ascend this beautiful staircase. Now look at this Visitation. Is it not truly fine, charming in composition, graceful in action, agreeable in color, and true and noble in expression?"
All agreed most eagerly with Mr. Sumner's opinion of the picture. Then, turning, Bettina caught sight of an Annunciation, and cried:—
"How thoroughly exquisite! See those lovely angels tumbling over each other in their haste to tell the news to Mary! How brilliant! Surely Tintoretto did not paint this!"
"No. This is by Titian; and it is one of his most happy religious pictures too. I thought of it as we were coming, and am glad to have you see it. The whole expression is admirable; and the fulness of life and joy—the jubilation—is perfect. You can in no way more vividly feel the difference between fourteenth-century painting in Florence, and the sixteenth-century or High Renaissance work in Venice, than by recalling Fra Angelico's sweet, calm, staid Annunciations, and contrasting them with this one."
"But why do I feel that, after all, I love Fra Angelico's better, and should care to look at them oftener?" rather timidly asked Barbara.
"I think," replied Mr. Sumner, after a little pause, "that it is because, in them, the spiritual expression dominates the physical. We recognize the fact that the artist has not the power to picture all that he desires to express. His art language is weak; therefore there is something left unsaid, and this compels our attention. We wish to understand his full meaning, so come to his pictures again and again.
"It is this quality of the fourteenth-century painting that impelled the Pre-Raphaelites, German and English, to discard the chief motif of the High Renaissance, which was to picture everything in its outward perfection. They thought that this very perfection of artistic expression led to the elimination of spiritual feeling."
"But how can artists go back now and paint as those did five centuries ago?" queried Malcom. "Of course, if they study methods of the present day, they must know all the principles underlying a true and artistic representation—and it would be wrong not to practise them."
"You have at once found the weak point in the Pre-Raphaelites' principle of work, Malcom. It is forced and artificial to do that in the nineteenth century which was natural and charming in the fourteenth. That which our artists of to-day must do if they desire any reform is to so fill themselves with the comprehension of spiritual things—so strive to understand the hidden beauty and harmony and truth of nature—that their works may be revelations to those who do not see so clearly as do they. To do this perfectly they must ever, in my opinion, give more thought to the thing to be expressed than to the manner of its expression; yet they must render this expression as perfectly as the present conditions allow. But I think I have talked before of just this thing. And we must turn again to Tintoretto."
Not only this forenoon, but many others, were spent in the Scuola di San Rocco in the study of Tintoretto's paintings. At first they shuddered at his most vivid representations of poor, sick, wretched beings that cover these immense canvases dedicated to the memory of St. Roch, whose life was devoted to hospital work; then were fascinated by the power that had so ruthlessly portrayed reality. They studied his great Crucifixion,—as a whole, in detailed groups, and then its separate figures,—until they began to realize the magnitude of its conception and rendering. Mr. Sumner had said that nowhere save in Venice can Tintoretto be studied, and all were anxious to understand his work.
At the Academy, close by Titian's great Assumption of the Virgin, they found Tintoretto's Miracle of St. Mark, and saw how noble could be, at their best, his composition and drawing, and how marvellous his coloring of sky, architecture, costume, and flesh. They went to the various churches, notably, Santa Maria del Orto, to see good examples of his religious painting; and to the Ducal Palace for his many mythological pictures, and his immense Paradiso. Finally they were happy in feeling that they could comprehend, in some little degree, the spirit of this strange, powerful artist and his work.
One rainy evening, toward the close of their stay in Venice, all sat in the parlor, discussing a most popular novel recently published. It was written in an exceedingly clever manner; indeed, possessed an unusual degree of literary merit. But like many other books then being sent forth, the tale was very sad.
The hero, Richard,—poor, proud, and painfully morbid,—would not believe it possible that the woman whom he passionately loved,—a woman whose life was filled with luxury, and who was surrounded by admirers,—could ever love him; and so he went out from her and all the possibilities of happiness, never to know that her heart was his and might have been had for the asking. The happiness of both lives was wrecked.
"I think no author ought to write such a story," said Mrs. Douglas, emphatically. "Life holds too much that is sad for us all to justify the expenditure of so much unavailing sympathy. The emotion that cannot work itself out in action takes from moral strength instead of adding to it. It is a pity to use so great literary talent in this way."
"But do not such things sometimes happen, and is it not a literary virtue to describe real life?" queried Barbara, from her corner amidst the shadows.
"Is it an especially artistic virtue to picture deformity and suffering just because they exist? I acknowledge that a picture or a book may be fine, even great, with such subjects; but is it either as helpful or wholesome as it might have been?" argued Mrs. Douglas.
"Yet in this book the characters of both hero and heroine grow stronger because of their suffering," suggested Bettina.
"But such an unnecessary suffering!" rather impatiently asserted Malcom. "If either had died, then the other might have borne it patiently and been just as noble. But such a blunder! I threw the book aside in disgust, for the author had absorbed me with interest, and I was so utterly disappointed."
Mr. Sumner had been reading, and had not joined in the conversation, but Bettina thought she saw some evidence that he had heard it; and when, throwing aside his paper, he stepped outside on the balcony, she obeyed an impulse she could never afterward explain to herself, and followed him. Quickly putting her hand on his, she said, with a fluttering heart, but with a steady voice:—
"Dear Mr. Sumner, do not do as Richard did."
Then drawing back in consternation as she realized what she had done, she gasped:—
"Oh, forgive me! Forget what I have said!"
She tried to escape, but her hand was in a grip of iron. "What do you mean? Tell me, Betty. Barbara—" His voice failed, but the passion of love that blazed in his eyes reassured her.
"I will not say another word. Please let me go and never, never tell Barbara what I said;" and as she wrenched her hand from him, and vanished from the balcony, her smiling face, white amidst the darkness, looked to Robert Sumner like an angel of hope. Could it be that she intended to give him hope of Barbara's love—that sweet young girl—when he was so much older? When she knew that he had once before loved? But what else could Betty have meant? Had he been blind all this time, and had Betty seen it? A hundred circumstances sprang into his remembrance, that, looked at in the light of her message, took on possible meanings.
Robert Sumner was a man of action. As soon as his sister retired to her own room, he followed, and then and there fully opened his heart to her. He told her all, from the first moment when Barbara began to monopolize his thoughts, and confessed his struggles against her usurpation of the place Margaret had so long held.
To say that Mrs. Douglas was astonished does not begin to express the truth. She listened in helpless wonder. As he went on, and it became evident to her what a strong hold on his affections Barbara had gained, the fear arose lest he might be on the brink of a direful disappointment. At last, when he ended, saying, "I shall tell her all to-morrow," she could only falter:—
"Is it best so soon, Robert?"
"Soon!" he cried. "It seems as if I have waited years! Say not one word against it, sister. My mind is made up!"
But he could not tell her the hope Bettina had given, which was singing joyfully in his heart all the time. And so Mrs. Douglas was tortured all through the night with miserable forebodings.
The next morning Bettina was troubled at the look of resolve she understood in Mr. Sumner's face, and almost trembled at the thought of what she had done. "But I am sure—I am sure," she kept repeating, to reassure herself.
A last visit to the Academy had been planned for the afternoon. They walked thither, as they often loved to do, through the narrow, still streets and across the little foot-bridges. Mrs. Douglas, with Margery and Miss Sherman, arrived first, and, after a few minutes' delay, Bettina and Malcom appeared.
"Uncle Robert has taken a gondola to the banker's to get our letters, mother," said Malcom, in such a peculiar voice that his mother gave him a quick look of interrogation.
"Where is your sister?" asked Miss Sherman, sharply, turning to Bettina as Mrs. Douglas passed into an adjoining room.
"Mr. Sumner asked her to help him get the letters," replied she, demurely.
Miss Sherman reddened, and Malcom's eyes danced.
"How strange!" said Margery, innocently.
The pictures were, unfortunately, of secondary interest to all the group save Margery; and, as Mr. Sumner and Barbara did not return, they, before very long, declared themselves tired, and returned home. The truth was, each one was longing for private thought.
Meanwhile Barbara and Mr. Sumner were on the Grand Canal. The sun shone brightly, and Mr. Sumner drew the curtains a little closer together to shield Barbara's face and, perhaps, his own. The gondolier rowed slowly. "Where to?" he had asked, and was answered only by a gesture to go on. So on they floated.
Barbara had obeyed without thought Mr. Sumner's sudden request to accompany him. But no sooner had they stepped into the gondola than she wished, oh, so earnestly! that she had made some excuse.
As Mr. Sumner did not speak, she tried to make some commonplace remark, but her voice would not reach her lips; so she sat, flushed and wondering, timid and silent.
At last he spoke, gravely and tenderly, of his early life, when she, a little girl, had known him; of his love and hope; of his sorrow and the years of lonely work in foreign lands; of his sister's coming; of his meeting with them all, and of how much they had brought into his life. But, as he looked up, he could not wait to finish the story as he had planned. He saw the sweet, flushed face so near him, the downcast eyes, the little hand that tried to keep from trembling but could not, and his voice grew sharp with longing:—
"Barbara! oh, little Barbara! you have made me love you as I never have dreamed of love. Can you love me a little, Barbara? Will you be my wife?" And he held out his hands, but dared not touch her.
Would she never answer? Would she never lift the eyelids that seemed to droop more and more closely upon the crimson cheeks? Had he frightened her? Was she only so sorry for him? Was Betty mistaken, after all?
But when, with a voice already quivering with apprehension, he again spoke her name, what a revelation!
With head thrown back and with smiling, though quivering, lips, Barbara looked at him, her eyes glowing with the unutterable tenderness he had sometimes dreamed of. She did not utter a word, but there was no need. The whole flood of her love, so long repressed, spoke straight to his heart.
The gondola curtains flapped closer in the breeze. The gondolier hummed a musical love-ditty, while his oars moved in slow rhythm. It was Venice and June.