VII.
I knew Raphael's Loggias from copies in l'École des Beaux Arts in Paris. But I was curious to see how they would appear after this, and so, although there was only three-quarters of an hour left of the time allotted to me on my permesso, I went up to look at them. My first impression, as I glanced down the corridor and perceived these small ceiling pictures, barely two feet across, was: "Good gracious! This will be a sorry enjoyment after Michael Angelo!" I looked at the first painting, God creating the animals, and was quite affected: There goes the good old man, saying paternally: "Come up from the earth, all of you, you have no idea how nice it is up here." My next impression was: "How childish!" But my last was: "What genius!" How charming the picture of the Fall, and how lovely Eve! And what grandeur of style despite the smallness of the space. A God a few inches high separates light from darkness, but there is omnipotence in the movement of His arm. Jacob sees the ladder to Heaven in his dream; and this ladder, which altogether has six angels upon it, seems to reach from Earth to Heaven, infinitely long and infinitely peopled; above, we see God the Father, at an immense distance, spread His gigantic embrace (which covers a space the length of two fingers). There was the favourite picture of my childhood, Abraham prostrated before the Angels, even more marvellous in the original than I had fancied it to myself, although it is true that the effect of the picture is chiefly produced by its beauty of line. And there was Lot, departing from Sodom with his daughters, a picture great because of the perfect illusion of movement. They go on and on, against the wind and storm, with Horror behind them and Hope in front, at the back, to the right, the burning city, to the left, a smiling landscape. How unique the landscapes on all these pictures are, how marvellous, for instance, that in which Moses is found on the Nile! This river, within the narrow limits of the picture, looked like a huge stream, losing itself in the distance.
It was half-past five. My back was beginning to ache in the place which had grown tender from lying so long; without a trace of fatigue I had been looking uninterruptedly at pictures for four hours and a half.