"All that you say is true and wise," Michel replied, "but is the conclusion well drawn? Ought I to pursue the career of art, and at the same time associate exclusively, or at least by preference, with these mechanics among whom fate willed that I should be born? If you reflect, you will see that that is inconsistent, that the great works of art are in the hands of the rich, that they alone own, purchase, and order pictures, statues, urns, carvings, and engravings. To be employed by them, one must needs live with them and as they live; otherwise oblivion, obscurity and poverty are the lot of genius. Our ancestors, the noble artists of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, were artists and artisans at once. Their position was well-defined, and was more or less brilliant according to their talent. To-day all is changed. Artists are more numerous and the rich are less powerful and magnificent. Taste has become corrupted, the Mæcenases are no longer connoisseurs. Fewer palaces are built; for one great collection that is formed, thirty are sold piecemeal to pay debts, or because the heirs of the great families prefer cash to monuments of genius. It is no longer enough, therefore, to be a man of superior talent in order to find employment and honor in one's profession. Chance, and, even more frequently, intrigue, cause some to float, while others, who it may be are of far greater worth, are submerged.
"However, I do not trust to chance, and my pride refuses to stoop to intrigue. What shall I do, then? Shall I wait until some collector's eye is attracted by a decorative figure, broadly conceived, on sized canvas, and he is so impressed by it that he comes next day to the wineshop to hunt me up and order a picture? Such good fortune may occur once in a hundred times; but even then, on the day when it occurs to me, I shall owe my bread to the patronage of the rich man, who is beginning to be interested in me. Sooner or later I must bow before him and beg him to recommend me to others. Would it not be better for me, at the earliest possible moment, as soon as I am sure of myself, to quit the ladder and the apron, to assume the external aspect of a man who does not beg, and to present myself, with my head erect, among the rich? If I go out of the wineshop arm-in-arm with the merry knights of the saw and trowel, it is evident that I cannot enter the palace as a guest, but as a paid workman; and at this moment, if I should venture to accost one of these lovely women and ask her to dance, I should be spat upon and turned out of doors within a quarter of an hour. The time must come, however, when they will make overtures to me, and when my talent will be a title capable of contending on equal terms with that of duke or marquis for the triumphs of this world. But only on condition that my habits and my manners bear the stamp and seal of aristocracy. I must be what they call a man of good breeding; otherwise it would avail me nothing to be a man of genius; no one would believe it.
"I shall not make my way as an artist, therefore, except by destroying the artisan in me. I must succeed in becoming the free possessor of my own works, and in selling them as an owner does, instead of executing them like a day-laborer. Well! for that I must have reputation, and in these days reputation does not go about looking for an artist in his garret; he is obliged to acquire it himself by his own exertions, consorting with those who award it, demanding it as a right and not imploring it as alms. Tell me, Magnani, how I am to escape this dilemma! And yet it pains me terribly, I assure you, to think that I must in some sense deny the race of my fathers, and that I must submit to be accused of idiocy and impudence by men whose brother and friend I feel that I am. You see that I must go away from a country where my father's popularity would make this separation more offensive to others and more painful to myself than elsewhere. I came here to perform a duty—to expiate my heedlessness at Rome; but when my task is done, I must return thither, and from there travel the world over, in the disguise, perhaps premature, of a free man. If I do not do it, farewell to my whole future; I may as well renounce it to-day."
"Yes! yes! I understand," said Magnani; "you must set yourself free at any price. The journeyman's work is slavery; the work of an artist is the title of manhood. You are right, Michel; it is your right, consequently your duty and your destiny. But how dismal and cruel the destiny of an intelligent man is! One must cast off his family, leave his native land, act a sort of comedy to induce strangers to accept him as one of themselves, assume a mask in order to receive the laurel wreath, take up arms against the poor who condemn him and the rich who are loath to receive him! Why, it is horrible! it is enough to disgust one with glory! In God's name, what is glory that one should purchase it at that price?"
"Glory, as it is commonly understood, is nothing at all, I agree," replied Michel, warmly, "if it is nothing more than the trifling noise a man may make in the world. Shame to him who denies his blood and sacrifices his affections to gratify his vanity! But glory, according to my conception, is not that! It is the manifestation and development of the genius one bears within oneself. In default of enlightened judges, warm admirers, stern critics, and even jealous detractors—in default of opportunity to enjoy all the advantages, to receive all the counsels, to undergo all the persecution which follow in the wake of renown—genius withers and dies in discouragement, apathy, doubt or ignorance of itself. Thanks to all the triumphs, all the struggles, all the wounds which await us in a lofty career, we acquire the power to make the most glorious use of our capabilities, and to leave a deep, ineffaceable, forever fruitful trace in the world of thought. Ah! he who truly loves his art desires glory for his works, not in order that his name may live, but that his art may not die. And what would it matter to me that I had not the art of my patron saint Michelangelo, if I should leave to posterity an anonymous work worthy to be compared to the Last Judgment! To make oneself talked about is more often a source of martyrdom than of intoxicating pleasure. The serious-minded artist seeks that martyrdom and endures it patiently. He knows that it is the harsh condition of his success; and his success, not in being applauded and understood by all, but in producing and leaving behind him something in which he himself has faith. But what is the matter, Magnani? You are sad, and you are not listening to me."
XIII
AGATHA
"Yes, I am listening to you, Michel, I am listening attentively," Magnani replied, "and I am sad because I feel the force of your reasoning. You are not the first person with whom I have talked of these matters. I have known more than one young mechanic who aspired to drop his trade, to become a merchant, lawyer, priest or artist; and it is true enough that the number of these deserters increases every year. Whoever feels that he possesses intelligence instantly becomes conscious of ambition; and hitherto I have fought such tendencies vigorously in others and in myself. My parents, who are proud and obstinate like the prudent, hard-working old people that they are, taught me, as a religious precept, to remain true to family traditions—to the customs of my rank; and my heart approved of that strict and simple code of morals. That is why I have resolved not to seek success outside of my trade, though I sometimes have to crush my own impulses. That is why I have always roughly trampled upon the self-love of my young comrades as soon as I saw it sprouting; that is why my first words of sympathy and regard for you were warnings and reproaches. It seems to me now that, until I had you to deal with, I was in the right, because the others were really vain, and their vanity tended to make them selfish and ungrateful. So that I felt fully justified in rebuking them, laughing at them and preaching to them by turns. But with you I feel that I am weak, because you are stronger than I in theory. You depict art in such grand and beautiful colors, you feel so strongly the noble character of your mission, that I dare not oppose you any longer. It seems to me that you have a right to break down every obstacle in order to succeed, even your heart, as I broke mine in order to remain obscure. And yet my conscience is not satisfied with this solution. It does not seem to me to be a solution. Come, Michel, you are more learned than I; tell me which of us is wrong before God!"
"My friend, I believe that we are both right," replied Michel. "I believe that at this moment we represent between us what is taking place, contradictorily but simultaneously, in the minds of the common people in all civilized nations. You plead for sentiment. Your paternal feeling is holy and sacred. It is opposed to my idea; but my idea is grand and true; it is as sacred in its passion for combat, as your sentiment in its theory of renunciation and silence. You are following your duty, I am enforcing my right. Bear with me, Magnani, for I respect you, and each of our ideals is incomplete until it is completed by the other."
"Yes, you speak of abstract ideas," rejoined Magnani, thoughtfully, "and I think that I understand you; but in the concrete the question is not solved. The society of the present day is struggling between two reefs, resignation and resistance. Through love for my class I choose to suffer and protest with it. From the same motive, perhaps, you choose to fight and triumph in its name. These two methods of action seem to exclude and condemn each other. Before the divine tribunal which will prevail, sentiment or idea? You say, both. But on earth, where men are not governed by divine laws, how can we possibly make those two extremes harmonize? I seek in vain a means."
"But why seek it?" said Michel; "it does not exist on earth at this moment. The people may free themselves and make themselves famous as a whole by glorious battles, by good morals, by civic virtues, but each individual of the people has his individual destiny; the destiny of the man who feels that he was born to touch hearts is to live on fraternal terms with the simple; of him who feels that his calling is to enlighten men's minds, to seek light, though it be in solitude, though it be among the enemies of his race. The great masters of art worked, from a material standpoint, for wealth, but, from a moral standpoint, for all mankind; for the poorest of the poor can obtain from their works a revelation and appreciation of the beautiful. Let every man follow his inspiration therefore, and bow to the mysterious designs of Providence with respect to him! My father loves to sing rollicking ballads in taverns; he electrifies his companions with them; the stories that he tells sitting on a bench at a street corner, his cheery humor, and his ardor in singing or in the common toil inspire all those who see and hear him. Heaven has endowed him with the power of acting directly, by the simplest means, on the vital fibres of his brethren, zeal in labor, expansiveness in the hours of rest. For my part, I have a liking for solitary temples, sumptuous, dark old palaces, venerable masterpieces, studious reverie, the refined enjoyments of art. The society of patricians has no terrors for me. I consider them too degenerate to be feared; their names have for me a poesy which makes of them mere figures, ghosts, if you choose, and I love to walk smiling among those ghosts who do not frighten me. I love the dead; I live with the past; and from the past I acquire my idea of the future; but I confess that I have but little notion of the present, that the precise moment of my existence has no existence for me, because I am always delving in the past, and pushing all realities forward. In that way I transform them and idealize them. You see that I should not reach the same ends as my father and you, even if I used the same means. It is not in me to do it."