"Here," said the goodman, handing him a large purse of Tunisian silk, filled with gold pieces; "here is the pay for your beautiful ceiling."
"It is too much by half," said Michel, examining the beautifully embroidered and shaded purse with much more interest than its contents. "Our debt to the princess is not yet discharged, and I propose that it shall be this very day."
"It is, my child."
"Then it must have been paid out of your wages, not out of mine. For if I know how to estimate the contents of a purse, there is more here than I propose to accept. Father, I do not propose that you shall work for me. No, I swear by your gray hairs that you shall never work for your son again, for it is his turn to work for you. Nor do I intend to accept alms from Princess Agatha; I have had enough of such patronage and generosity."
"You know me well enough," replied Pier-Angelo, with a smile, "to believe that, far from interfering with your pride and your dutiful sentiments, I shall always encourage them. Take my advice, therefore, and accept this money. It is honestly yours; it costs me nothing, and the person who gives it to you is at liberty to place what estimate she pleases on the merits of your work. That is the difference that there will always be between you and your father, Michel. An artist has no fixed price. A single day of inspiration may make him rich. Whereas, a deal of hard work is not enough to raise us mechanics out of the slough of poverty. But God, in His mercy, has given us compensations. The artist conceives and brings forth his works with much pain. The mechanic performs his task with laughter and a song. I am so accustomed to that, that I wouldn't exchange my trade for yours."
"Let me at least derive from mine such pleasure as it is capable of affording me," said Michel. "Take this purse, father, and let nothing ever be taken from it for my use. It is my sister's marriage portion; it is the interest on the money she lent me when I was at Rome; and if I never earn enough to make her richer, let her at least have the benefit of my day of success. O father!" he cried, seeing that Pier-Angelo was unwilling to accept his sacrifice, "do not refuse me; you will break my heart! Your blind affection has almost corrupted my nature. Help me to cease to be the selfish creature that you would have made me. Encourage my good impulses, instead of robbing me of their fruit. It comes only too late."
"True, my boy, I ought to do it," said Pier-Angelo, deeply touched; "but consider that this is no mere commonplace sacrifice of money that you propose to make. If it were simply a matter of depriving yourself of some little pleasure, it would be of little consequence, and I should not hesitate. But your artistic future, the cultivation of your intellect, the very essence of your life, are contained in this little silk net! It means a year of study in Rome! And who knows when you will be able to earn as much more? Perhaps the princess won't give any more balls. The other nobles are neither so rich nor so generous as she. Such opportunities are not often met with, and are very likely not to happen twice in a lifetime. I am growing old; I may fall from my ladder to-morrow and cripple myself; then how would you resume the life of an artist? Aren't you at all alarmed at the idea that, for the pleasure of giving your sister a marriage portion, you run the risk of becoming a mechanic again, and remaining a mechanic all your life?"
"So be it!" exclaimed Michel; "that no longer frightens me, father. I have reflected. It seems to me that there is as much honor and pleasure in being a mechanic as in being rich and proud. I love Sicily! Is it not my native land? I do not propose to leave my sister again. She needs a protector until she is married, and I propose that she shall be able to make her choice deliberately. You are old, you say! you may be crippled to-morrow! Well then! who would take care of you, pray,—who would support you, who would comfort you,—if I were away? Would it be possible for my sister to do it when she has a family of her own? A son-in-law? but why should I leave it for another to fulfill my duties? Why should he steal my honor and my glory? for this is wherein I choose to establish them henceforth, and my chimeras have given place to reality. Tell me, father, am not I, too, in a cheerful mood this morning? Would you like me to sing a second to the old ballad you were singing just now? Do I seem to you to have the despairing look of a man who is sacrificing himself? Do you not love me, I pray to know, that you refuse to be my employer?"
"Very well!" replied Pier-Angelo, gazing at him with glistening eyes, and with a trembling of the hands that indicated extraordinary emotion. "You are a man of heart! and I shall never regret what I have done for you!"
As he spoke, Pier-Angelo removed his cap, uncovering his bald head, and stood erect in the attitude, at once proud and respectful, of an old soldier before his young officer. It was the first time in his life that he had adopted the more formal mode of address with Michel,[7] and that change, which might have seemed to denote coldness and dissatisfaction in other fathers, assumed in his mouth a peculiarly affectionate and majestic meaning. It seemed to the young painter that he had been hailed as a man by his father at last, and that that form of address—that uncovered head and those few calm and serious words—rewarded and honored him more abundantly than the most eloquent academic eulogy.