Traynor saw at once the mood of mind he was in, and stole noiselessly away to his room.
CHAPTER XXXII. THE PAVILION IN THE GARDEN
Charles Massy, dressed in the blouse of his daily labor, and with the tools of his craft in his hand, set out early in search of the garden indicated by Billy Traynor. A sense of hope that it was for the last time he was to exercise his art, that a new and more stirring existence was now about to open before him, made his step lighter and his spirits higher as he went. “Once amid the deep woods, and on the wide plains of the New World, I shall dream no more of what judgment men may pass upon my efforts. There, if I suffice to myself, I have no other ordeal to meet. Perils may try me, but not the whims and tastes of other men.”
Thus, fancying an existence of unbounded freedom and unfettered action, he speedily traversed the olive wood, and almost ere he knew it found himself within the garden. The gorgeous profusion of beautiful flowers, the graceful grouping of shrubs, the richly perfumed air, laden with a thousand odors, first awoke him from his day dream, and he stood amazed in the midst of a scene surpassing all that he had ever conceived of loveliness. From the terrace, where under a vine trellis he was standing, he could perceive others above him rising on the mountain side, while some beneath descended towards the sea, which, blue as a turquoise, lay basking and glittering below. A stray white sail or so was to be seen, but there was barely wind to shake the olive leaves, and waft the odors of the orange and the oleander. It was yet too early for the hum of insect life, and the tricklings of the tiny fountains that sprinkled the flower-beds were the only sounds in the stillness. It was in color, outline, effect, and shadow, a scene such as only Italy can present, and Massy drank in all its influences with an eager delight.
“Were I a rich man,” said he, “I would buy this paradise. What in all the splendor of man's invention can compare with the gorgeous glory of this flowery carpet? What frescoed ceiling could vie with these wide-leaved palms, interlaced with these twining acacias, glimpses of the blue sky breaking through? And for a mirror, there lies Nature's own,—the great blue ocean! What a life were it, to linger days and hours here, amid such objects of beauty, having one's thoughts ever upwards, and making in imagination a world of which these should be the types. The faintest fancies that could float across the mind in such an existence would be pleasures more real, more tangible, than ever were felt in the tamer life of the actual world.”
Loitering along, he at length came upon the little temple which served as a studio, on entering which, he found his own statue enshrined in the place of honor. Whether it was the frame of mind in which he chanced to be, or that place and light had some share in the result, for the first time the figure struck him as good, and he stood long gazing at his own work with the calm eye of a critic. At length, detecting, as he deemed, some defects in design, he drew nigh, and began to correct them. There are moments in which the mind attains the highest and clearest perception,—seasons in which, whatever the nature of the mental operation, the faculties address themselves readily to the task, and labor becomes less a toil than an actual pleasure. This was such. Massy worked on for hours; his conceptions grew rapidly under his hand into bold realities, and he saw that he was succeeding. It was not alone that he had imparted a more graceful and lighter beauty to his statue, but he felt within himself the promptings of a spirit that grew with each new suggestion of its own. Efforts that before had seemed above him he now essayed boldly; difficulties that once had appeared insurmountable he now encountered with courageous daring. Thus striving, he lost all sense of fatigue. Hunger and exhaustion were alike unremembered, and it was already late in the afternoon, as, overcome by continued toil, he threw himself heavily down, and sank off into a deep sleep.
It was nigh sunset as he awoke. The distant bell of a monastery was ringing the hour of evening prayer, the solemn chime of the “Venti quattro,” as he leaned on his arm and gazed in astonishment around him. The whole seemed like a dream. On every side were objects new and strange to, his eyes,—casts and models he had never seen before busts and statues and studies all unknown to him. At last his eyes rested on the Faun, and he remembered at once where he was. The languor of excessive fatigue, however, still oppressed him, and he was about to lie back again in sleep, when, bending gently over him, a young girl, with a low, soft accent, asked if he felt ill, or only tired.
Massy gazed, without speaking, at features regular as the most classic model, and whose paleness almost gave them the calm beauty of the marble. His steady stare slightly colored her cheek, and made her voice falter a little as she repeated her question.
“I scarcely know,” said he, sighing heavily. “I feel as though this were a dream, and I am afraid to awaken from it.”