Presently he stood in bewilderment before the dead Leonardo's picture of St. John the Baptist. The appearance of the Forerunner was almost that of a woman; yet he carried the reed cross, and was clothed with camel's hair. He was not like the Winged Precursor familiar to the painter of icons; but his charm was irresistible. What was the significance of the subtle smile with which he pointed to the cross of Golgotha?
Eutychius stood spell-bound, scarce listening to the animadversions of his fellows. 'What? this beardless, naked, effeminate youth, the Precursor? Not of Christ, then, but of Antichrist—accursed for ever!'
Eutychius heard without heeding; and when he came away the mysterious figure of the wingless one, fair as a woman, with flowing locks like Dionysus, pointing to the cross—haunted him like a vision.
The young Russian painter was lodged in an attic beside the dove-cot; and had arranged his working place in the recess of the dormer-window.
He busied himself with the painting of the icon, already nearly completed, of St. John the Baptist. The saint stood on a sunburnt hill, round, like the edge of a globe. It was bordered by the purple sea, and canopied by the blue vault of heaven. The figure carried in its hand a head, which was the duplicate of his own, but seemed that of a corpse. Thus Eutychius had tried to show that the man who has slain in himself all that is human may attain to a more than human flight. His face was terrible and strange; his gaze like the gaze of an eagle, fixed upon the sun. His hair and beard floated on the blast, his raiment was like the plumage of a bird. His limbs were long and gave an impression of singular lightness. On his shoulder were set great swan-like wings, extended over the tawny earth and the purple sea.
To-night Eutychius had little more to do than to touch the inner side of the plumes with gold. But his attention wandered, he thought of Dædalus and of Leonardo; he remembered the face of the wingless youth in the Master's last picture, and found it eclipsing that of the winged one which he had drawn himself. His hand grew heavy and uncertain; the brush fell; his strength failed. He left his room and wandered for hours along the banks of the silent river.
The sun had set; the pale green sky, the evening stars were reflected in the water, but in the east clouds were rising, and summer lightning quivered in the air as if waving fiery wings.
Returning, he lit the lamp before the icon of the Virgin, and threw himself on his bed. He could not sleep, but lay tossing and shivering feverishly for hour after hour, fancying weird rustlings and whispers in the stillness, and remembering all the eerie tales of the Russian folk-lore.
Wearied and wakeful, Eutychius tried to read. He selected an old book at random, and the familiar Russian legend of the 'Crown of the Kingdom of Babylon,' and of the world-wide sovereignty destined by God for the land of Russia. Then Eutychius turned a page and read another legend, that of 'The White Hood.'
In days of yore Constantine the emperor, having accepted the Christian faith and received absolution for his sins from Sylvester the pope, desired to give the pontiff a kingly crown. But an angel, appearing unto him, bade him give a crown not of earthly but of spiritual supremacy—a White Hood like unto a monkish cowl. Nevertheless the Roman Church laid claim to temporal no less than to spiritual power; wherefore the angel appeared to the pope and commanded him to send the Hood to Philotheus, the Patriarch of Constantinople; and when he would have retained it, there appeared unto the Patriarch another vision: Constantine the emperor and Sylvester the pope, bidding him send on the Hood yet further, into the country of Russia, to Novgorod the Great.