Gherardi started from his stupor, and rushed to his assistance, ringing the bell violently which summoned the valet from the antechamber,—and Moretti, with a fierce oath, pushing Manuel aside, rushed to the chair in which the Pope's fainting figure lay,—all was confusion;—and in the excitement and terror which had overwhelmed Cardinal Bonpre at the unprecedented scene, Manuel suddenly touched him on the arm.
"Follow me!" he said, "We are no longer needed here! Come!—let us go hence!"
Hardly knowing what he did the old man obeyed, trembling in every limb as Manuel, grasping him firmly by the hand, led him from the apartment, and on through the winding corridors of the huge building, out into the open air. No one questioned them,—no one interfered with their progress. Benediction was being sung in one of the many chapels of St. Peter's, and the solemn sound of the organ reached them, softened and mellowed by distance, as they stood on the steps of the Vatican, where the Cardinal, pausing to recover breath and equanimity, gazed at his strange foundling in alarm and bewilderment.
"Manuel!" he murmured feebly, "Child!—what have you done!"
"Only what I am bound to do!" replied Manuel simply, "I have said no more than it is right to say, if Christ's words are true! Dear friend, be at peace! You will not suffer misjudgment long!"
The music stealing out from the distant chapel, floated round them in large circles of solemn melody,—and the glow of sunset lit the clear sky with a warm red radiance, flecked with golden clouds of glory.
"He would not come with me!" said Manuel, with a slight gesture backward to the sombre portals they had just passed, "And he will never come! But YOU will!"
And smiling,—with his fair face turned to the radiant sky,—he rested his hand lightly on the Cardinal's arm as they descended the broad marble steps, and left the great Palace of the Popes together.
XXIX.
While the foregoing scene was taking place at the Vatican, Angela Sovrani, left to herself for some hours, took the opportunity to set her great picture "on view" for the coming morrow. Locking both doors of her studio, she began to arrange the room; her huge canvas was already on a movable easel supplied with wheels, which ran lightly and easily over the polished floor without making any sound. At its summit a brass rod was attached, and on this a curtain of golden-coloured silk was hung, the folds of which at present concealed the painting from view. The top-light of the studio was particularly good on this special afternoon, as the weather was clear, and the Roman sky translucent and bright as an opal, and Angela, as she wheeled her "great work" into position, sang for pure lightness of heart and thankfulness that all was done. In her soul she had the consciousness that what she had produced from her brain and hand was not altogether unworthy. For, though to the true artist, no actual result can ever attain to the beauty of the first thought or ideal of the thing to be performed, there is always the consolation that if one's best and truest feeling has been earnestly put into the work, some touch, however slight, of that ideal beauty must remain. The poet's poem is never so fine as the poet's thought. The thought is from the immortal and invincible soul,—the poem has to be conveyed through the grosser body, clothed in language which must always be narrow and inadequate. Hence the artist's many and grievous limitations. To the eyes of the spirit all things appear transfigured, because lifted out of the sphere of material vision. But when we try to put these "beautiful things made new, for the delight of the sky-children" on paper or canvas, in motionless marble or flexible rhyme,—we are weighted by grosser air and the density of bodily feeling. So it was with Angela Sovrani, iwhose compact little head were folded the splendid dreams of genius like sleeping fairies in a magic cave;—and thoughtful and brilliant though she was, she could not, in her great tenderness for her affianced lover Florian Varillo, foresee that daily contact with his weaker and smaller nature, would kill those dreams as surely as a frost-wind kills the buds of the rose,—and that gradually, very gradually, the coarser fibre of his intelligence mingling with hers, would make a paltry and rough weaving of the web of life, instead of a free and gracious pattern. She never thought of such possibilities—she would have rejected the very idea of them with scorn and indignation. She would have declared that her love for Florian was the very root and source of her art,—that for him she worked—for him she lived. So indeed she believed, in her finely-fervent self-delusion,—but it was not ordained that this glamour should last,—for hers was a nature too rare and valuable to be sacrificed, and the Higher destinies had begun to approve her as precious. Therefore, as is the case with all precious things, the furnace was preparing for the shaping of the gold,—the appointed Angel of her Fate was already hovering near, holding ready the cup of bitterness which all must drain to the dregs, before knowing what it is to drink of "the new wine in the Kingdom of God."