XLII.
Vinnie Ream's opinion of me was that I was the most impolitic man that she had ever known. She meant, by that, that I was always falling out with people (for instance, I had at once offended the Danes in Rome by some sharp words about the wretched Danish papers), and in general made fewer friends and more enemies all the time. She herself won the affection of everyone she wished, and made everyone ready to spring to do her bidding. She pointed out to me how politic she had had to be over her art. When she had wished to become a sculptor, everyone in her native place had been shocked at the un-femininity of it, and people fabled behind her back about her depraved instincts. She, for her part, exerted no more strength than just enough to carry her point, let people talk as much as they liked, took no revenge on those who spread calumnies about her, showed the greatest kindliness even towards the evil-disposed, and so, she said, had not an enemy. There was in her a marvellous commingling of determination to progress rapidly, of self- restraint and of real good-heartedness.
On October 20th there was a great festival in Rome to celebrate the first monthly anniversary of the entry of the Italians into the town. Young men went in the evening with flags and music through the streets. Everybody rushed to the windows, and the ladies held out lamps and candles. In the time of the popes this was only done when the Host was being carried in solemn procession to the dying; it was regarded therefore as the greatest honour that could be paid. Everyone clapped hands and uttered shouts of delight at the improvised illumination, while the many beautiful women looked lovely in the flickering lamplight. The 23d again was a gala day, being the anniversary of the death of Enrico Cairoli--one of the celebrated brothers; he fell at Mentana;--and I had promised Vinnie Ream to go to see the fête with her; but she as usual having twenty callers just when we ought to have started, we arrived too late. Vinnie begged of me to go with her instead to the American chapel; she must and would sing hymns, and really did sing them very well.
The chapel was bare. On the walls the ten commandments and a few other quotations from Holy Writ, and above a small altar, "Do this in remembrance of me," in Gothic lettering. I had to endure the hymns, the sermon (awful), and the reading aloud of the ten commandments, with muttered protestations and Amens after each one from the reverent Americans. When we went out I said nothing, as I did not know whether Vinnie might not be somewhat moved, for she sang at the end with great emotion. However, she merely took my arm and exclaimed: "That minister was the most stupid donkey I have ever heard in my life; but it is nice to sing." Then she began a refutation of the sermon, which had hinged chiefly on the words: "Thy sins are forgiven thee," and of the unspeakable delight it should be to hear this. Vinnie thought that no rational being would give a fig for forgiveness, unless there followed with it a complete reinstatement of previous condition. What am I benefitted if ever so many heavenly beings say to me: "I pretend you have not done it" if I know that I have!
The last week in October we saw marvellous Northern Lights in Rome. The northern half of the heavens, about nine o'clock in the evening, turned a flaming crimson, and white streaks traversed the red, against which the stars shone yellow, while every moment bluish flashes shot across the whole. When I discovered it I went up to the Reams' and fetched Vinnie down into the street to see it. It was an incredibly beautiful atmospheric phenomenon. Next evening it manifested itself again, on a background of black clouds, and that was the last beautiful sight upon which Vinnie and I looked together.
Next evening I wrote:
Vinnie Ream leaves to-morrow morning; I said good-bye to her this evening. Unfortunately a great many people were there. She took my hand and said: "I wish you everything good in the world, and I know that you wish me the same." And then: Good-bye. A door opens, and a door closes, and people never meet again on this earth, never again, never--and human language has never been able to discover any distinction between good-bye for an hour, and good-bye forever. People sit and chat, smile and jest. Then you get up, and the story is finished. Over! over! And that is the end of all stories, says Andersen.
All one's life one quarrels with people as dear to one as Ploug is to me. I have a well-founded hope that I may see Rudolph Schmidt's profile again soon, and a hundred times again after that; but Vinnie I shall never see again.
I did not understand her at first; I had a few unpleasant conjectures ready. I had to have many conversations with her before I understood her ingenuousness, her ignorance, her thorough goodness, in short, all her simple healthiness of soul. Over!
When I was teasing her the other day about all the time I had wasted in her company, she replied: "People do not waste time with their friends," and when I exclaimed: "What do I get from you?" she answered, laughing:
"Inspiration." And that was the truth. Those great brown eyes, the firm eyebrows, the ringleted mass of chestnut brown hair and the fresh mouth--all this that I still remember, but perhaps in three months shall no longer be able to recall, the quick little figure, now commanding, now deprecating, is to me a kind of inspiration. I have never been in love with Vinnie; but most people would think so, to hear the expressions I am now using. But I love her as a friend, as a mind akin to my own. There were thoughts of our brains and strings of our hearts, which always beat in unison. Peace be with her! May the cursed world neither rend her nor devour her; may she die at last with the clear forehead she has now! I am grateful to her. She has communicated to me a something good and simple that one cannot see too much of and that one scarcely ever sees at all. Finally, she has shown me again the spectacle of a human being entirely happy, and good because happy, a soul without a trace of bitterness, an intellect whose work is not a labour.
It is not that Vinnie is--or rather was, since she is dead for me--an educated girl in the Copenhagen sense of the word. The verdict of the Danish educational establishments upon her would be that she was a deplorably uneducated girl. She was incomprehensibly dull at languages. She would be childishly amused at a jest or joke or compliment as old as the hills (such as the Italians were fond of using), and think it new, for she knew nothing of the European storehouse of stereotyped remarks and salted drivel. Her own conversation was new; a breath of the independence of the great Republic swept through it. She was no fine lady, she was an American girl, who had not attained her rank by birth, or through inherited riches, but had fought for it herself with a talent that had made its way to the surface without early training, through days and nights of industry, and a mixture of enthusiasm and determination.
She was vain; she certainly was that. But again like a child, delighted at verses in her honour in the American papers, pleased at homage and marks of distinction, but far more ambitious than vain of personal advantages. She laughed when we read in the papers of Vinnie Ream, that, in spite of the ill-fame creative lady artists enjoy, far from being a monster with green eyes, she ventured to be beautiful.
She was a good girl. There was a certain deep note about all that her heart uttered. She had a mind of many colours. And there was the very devil of a rush and Forward! March! about her, always in a hurry.
And now--no Roman elegy--I will hide her away in my memory:
Here lies
VINNIE REAM
Sculptor
of Washington, U.S.A.
Six-and-twenty years of age
This recollection of her is retained by
One who knew her
for seventeen days
and will never forget her.
I have really never seen Vinnie Ream since. We exchanged a few letters after her departure, and the rest was silence.
Her statue of Abraham Lincoln stands now in a rotunda on the Capitol, for which it was ordered. Later, a Congress Committee ordered from her a statue of Admiral Farragut, which is likewise erected in Washington. These are the only two statues that the government of the United States has ever ordered from a woman. Other statues of hers which I have seen mentioned bear the names of Miriam, The West, Sappho, The Spirit of Carnival, etc. Further than this, I only know that she married Richard L. Hoxie, an engineer, and only a few years ago was living in Washington.