On one occasion a significant remark was made by a lady friend who came to call. She will undoubtedly remember now when she reads these lines that she said, on leaving the studio: “This is a curiously draughty place. I feel as if it had been blowing hot and cold on me all the time I have been here, and yet you have no windows open.”
At another time my comrade burst out as I was going away one evening about eleven o’clock to a reception at one of the palaces: “I wish you wouldn’t go in for society so much. I can’t go to the café; all the fellows go home about this time of the evening. I don’t like to stay here in this dismal hole, all cooped up by myself. I can’t read, I can’t sleep, and I can’t think.”
It occurred to me that it was a little queer for him to object to being left alone, unless he, like myself, had some disagreeable experiences there, and I remembered that he had usually gone out when I had, and was seldom, if ever, alone in the studio when I returned. His tone was so peevish and impatient that I thought discussion was injudicious, and simply replied, “Oh, you’re bilious; I’ll be home early,” and went away. I have often thought since that it was the one occasion when I could have easily broached the subject of my mental trouble, and I have always regretted I did not do so.
Matters were brought to a climax in this way: My friend was summoned to America by telegraph a little more than two months after we took the studio, and left me at a day’s notice. The amount and kind of moral courage I had to summon up before I could go home alone the first evening after my comrade left me can only be appreciated by those who have undergone some similar torture. It was not like the bracing up a man goes through when he has to face some imminent known danger, but was of a more subtle and complex kind. “There is nothing to fear,” I kept saying to myself, and yet I could not shake off a nameless dread. “You are in your right mind and have all your senses,” I continually argued, “for you see and hear and reason clearly enough. It is a brief hallucination, and you can conquer the mental weakness which causes it by persistent strength of will. If it be a simulacrum, you, as a practical man, with good physical health and sound enough reasoning powers, ought to investigate it to the best of your ability.” In this way I endeavored to nerve myself up, and went home late, as usual. The regular incident of the night occurred. I felt keenly the loss of my friend’s companionship, and suffered accordingly, but in the morning I was no nearer to the solution of the mystery than I was before.
For five weary, torturing nights did I go up to that room alone, and, with no sound of human proximity to cheer me or to break the wretched feeling of utter solitude, I endured the same experience. At last I could bear it no longer, and determined to have a change of air and surroundings. I hastily packed a travelling-bag and my color-box, leaving all my extra clothes in the wardrobes and the bureau drawers, told the landlady I should return in a week or two, and paid her for the remainder of the time in advance. The last thing I did was to take my travelling-cap, which hung near the head of my bed. A break in the wall-paper showed that there was a small door here. Pulling the knob which had held my cap, the door was readily opened, and disclosed a small niche in the wall. Leaning against the back of the niche was a small crucifix with a rude figure of Christ, and suspended from the neck of the image by a small cord was a triangular object covered with faded cloth. While I was examining with some interest the hiding-place of these relics, the landlady entered.
“What are these?” I asked.
“Oh, signore!” she said, half sobbing as she spoke. “These are relics of my poor husband. He was an artist like yourself, signore. He was—he was—ill, very ill—and in mind as well as body, signore. May the Blessed Virgin rest his soul! He hated the crucifix, he hated the scapular, he hated the priests. Signore, he—he died without the sacrament, and cursed the holy water. I have never dared to touch those relics, signore. But he was a good man, and the best of husbands;” and she buried her face in her hands.
I took the first train for Naples, and have never been in Rome since.
* * * * *
Three years later I was making an afternoon call in Boston, and met for the first time since we parted in Rome the friend who had occupied the studio with me there.