“Yes; and perhaps this is to be the punishment of sin,” replied the sculptor; “not that it shall be made evident to the universe, which can profit nothing by such knowledge, but that it shall insulate the sinner from all sweet society by rendering him impermeable to light, and, therefore, unrecognizable in the abode of heavenly simplicity and truth. Then, what remains for him, but the dreariness of infinite and eternal solitude?”
“That would be a horrible destiny, indeed!” said Donatello.
His voice as he spoke the words had a hollow and dreary cadence, as if he anticipated some such frozen solitude for himself. A figure in a dark robe was lurking in the obscurity of a side chapel close by, and made an impulsive movement forward, but hesitated as Donatello spoke again.
“But there might be a more miserable torture than to be solitary forever,” said he. “Think of having a single companion in eternity, and instead of finding any consolation, or at all events variety of torture, to see your own weary, weary sin repeated in that inseparable soul.”
“I think, my dear Count, you have never read Dante,” observed Kenyon. “That idea is somewhat in his style, but I cannot help regretting that it came into your mind just then.”
The dark-robed figure had shrunk back, and was quite lost to sight among the shadows of the chapel.
“There was an English poet,” resumed Kenyon, turning again towards the window, “who speaks of the ‘dim, religious light,’ transmitted through painted glass. I always admired this richly descriptive phrase; but, though he was once in Italy, I question whether Milton ever saw any but the dingy pictures in the dusty windows of English cathedrals, imperfectly shown by the gray English daylight. He would else have illuminated that word ‘dim’ with some epithet that should not chase away the dimness, yet should make it glow like a million of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and topazes. Is it not so with yonder window? The pictures are most brilliant in themselves, yet dim with tenderness and reverence, because God himself is shining through them.”
“The pictures fill me with emotion, but not such as you seem to experience,” said Donatello. “I tremble at those awful saints; and, most of all, at the figure above them. He glows with Divine wrath!”
“My dear friend,” said Kenyon, “how strangely your eyes have transmuted the expression of the figure! It is divine love, not wrath!”
“To my eyes,” said Donatello stubbornly, “it is wrath, not love! Each must interpret for himself.”