"'The portrait, then, is now in your nephew's possession?' he at last inquired.
"'My nephew's! No, no! He tried it, but could stand it no better than your humble servant. Assuredly the spirit of the old usurer has transmigrated into the picture. My nephew declares that he walks out of the frame, glides about the room; in short the things he tells me, pass human understanding and belief. I should have taken him for a madman, if I had not partly experienced the thing myself. He sold the picture to some dealer or other; and the dealer could not stand it either, and got it off his hands.'
"This narrative made a deep impression upon my father. About this time he became subject to long fits of abstraction, and incessant reveries, which gradually turned to hypochondria. At last, he was firmly convinced that his pencil had served as an instrument to the evil spirit; that a portion of the usurer's vitality had actually passed into the picture, which thus continued to torment and persecute its possessors, inspiring them with evil passions, tempting them from the paths of virtue and religion, rousing in their breasts feelings of envy and malice and all uncharitableness. A great misfortune which afflicted him shortly after, the loss, by a contagious disorder, of his wife, daughter, and infant son, he accounted a judgment of heaven upon his sin. He determined to quit the world, and devote himself to religion and prayer. I was then nine years of age. He placed me in the Academy of Arts, wound up his affairs, and retired to a remote convent, where he shortly afterwards assumed the tonsure. There, by the severity of his life, and by the unwearied punctuality with which he fulfilled the rules of his order, he struck the whole brotherhood with surprise and admiration. The superior of the monastery, hearing of his skill as a painter, requested him to execute an altar-piece for the convent chapel. But the devout brother declared that his pencil had been polluted by a great sin, and that he must purify himself by mortification and long penance, before he could dare apply it to a holy purpose. He then, of his own accord, gradually increased the austerity of his monastic life. At last, the utmost privations he could inflict on himself appearing to him insufficient, he retired, with the blessing of the superior, to court solitude in the desert. There he built himself a hermitage out of the branches of trees, lived on uncooked roots, dragged a heavy stone with him wherever he went, and stood from sunrise to sunset with his hands uplifted to heaven, fervently praying. His penances and mortifications were such as we find examples of only in the lives of the saints. For many years he followed this austere manner of life, and his brethren at the convent had given up all hopes of again seeing him, when one day he suddenly appeared amongst them. 'I am ready,' he said, firmly and calmly to the superior: 'with the help of God, I will begin my task.' The subject he selected was the Birth of Christ. For a whole year he laboured incessantly at his picture, without leaving his cell, nourishing himself with the coarsest food, and rigid in the fulfilment of his religious duties. At the end of that time the picture was completed. It was a miracle of art. Neither the brethren nor the superior were profound critics of painting, but they were awe-struck by the extraordinary sublimity of the figures. The sentiment of divine tranquillity and mildness in the Holy Mother, bending over the Infant Jesus—the profound and celestial intelligence in the eyes of the Babe—the solemn silence and dignified humility of the three Wise Men prostrate at His feet—the holy, unspeakable calm breathed over the whole work—the combined impression of all this was magical. The brethren bowed the knee before the picture, and the superior, deeply affected, pronounced a blessing on the artist. 'No mere human art,' he said, 'could have produced a picture like this. A power from on high has guided thy pencil, my son, and the blessing of heaven has descended on the work of thy hands.'
"About this time I finished my education in the Academy; I received the gold medal, and at the same time saw realised the delicious hope of being sent to Italy—the cherished dream of the boy-artist. Before departing, I wished to take leave of my father, whom I had not seen for twelve years. I had heard divers reports of the extreme austerity of his life, and expected to see the withered figure of a hermit, worn-out, exhausted, macerated with fast and vigil. My astonishment was great when I beheld my father. No trace of exhaustion was on his countenance, which beamed with a joy whose source was not of this world. A beard as white as snow, and long thin hair of silvery hue floated picturesquely down his breast and along the folds of his black robe, and descended even to the cord girding his monastic gown. Before we parted, I received from his lips precepts and counsels for the conduct of my life and for my guidance in art—precepts I have religiously remembered, and which will ever remain indelibly engraven on my soul. Three days I abode near him; on the third, I went to ask his blessing before my departure for the artist's home, the distant and much-desired shores of Italy. Already, in the course of our long communings, he had told me the story of his life, especially dwelling on the remarkable passage I have just related. 'My son, these were his last words, 'my conscience, tranquillised in great measure by years of prayer and penitence, has yet its uneasy moments, when I recall the circumstances connected with that portrait. I have been told that it still passes from hand to hand, occasioning misery to many, exciting feelings of envy and hatred, fostering unlawful desires and unholy thoughts. By the memory of thy mother, and by the love thou bearest me, I entreat thee, my son, truly and faithfully to perform my last request. Seek out that portrait; sooner or later you must find it; you cannot fail to recognise it by the strange expression, and by the extraordinary fire and vividness of the eyes. Purchase it, at whatever cost, and commit it to the flames! So shall my blessing prosper thee, and thy days be long in the land.'
"How could I refuse the pledge thus touchingly required by the venerable old man? Throwing myself into his arms, I swore by the silver locks that flowed over his breast, faithfully to do his bidding. We live in a positive age, and believers in any thing bordering on the supernatural grow each day rarer. But my path was plain before me; I had promised, and must perform. For fifteen years I have devoted a certain portion of each, to a search for the mysterious picture, with constant ill-success, until to-day—at this auction."
Here the artist, suspending his sentence, turned towards the wall where the portrait had hung. His movement was imitated by his hearers, who, looked round in search of the wonderful picture, concerning which they had just been told so strange a tale. But the portrait was no longer there. A murmur of surprise, almost of consternation, ran through the throng.
"Stolen!" at last exclaimed a voice. And stolen the picture doubtless had been. Some dexterous thief, profiting by the profound attention with which the eyes of all were fixed upon the narrator, whilst all ears, drank in his singular story, had managed to take down and carry off the portrait. The company remained plunged in perplexity, almost doubting whether they had really seen those extraordinary eyes, or whether the whole thing were not a fantasy, a vision, the phantom of a brain heated and fatigued by the long examination of a gallery of old pictures.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] A kind of bazaar or perpetual market, where second-hand furniture, old books and pictures, earthenware, and other cheap commodities, are exposed for sale in small open booths.
[25] A personage who figures, like two or three others afterwards alluded to, in the popular legends and fairy tales of Russia.