第59章

Glyndon's mind at that moment had escaped to his art, and the comments and presence of Nicot had been no welcome interruption.

He turned from the landscape of Salvator, and his eye falling on a Nativity by Coreggio, the contrast between the two ranks of genius struck him as a discovery.That exquisite repose, that perfect sense of beauty, that strength without effort, that breathing moral of high art, which speaks to the mind through the eye, and raises the thoughts, by the aid of tenderness and love, to the regions of awe and wonder,--ay! THAT was the true school.

He quitted the gallery with reluctant steps and inspired ideas;he sought his own home.Here, pleased not to find the sober Mervale, he leaned his face on his hands, and endeavoured to recall the words of Zanoni in their last meeting.Yes, he felt Nicot's talk even on art was crime; it debased the imagination itself to mechanism.Could he, who saw nothing in the soul but a combination of matter, prate of schools that should excel a Raphael? Yes, art was magic; and as he owned the truth of the aphorism, he could comprehend that in magic there may be religion, for religion is an essential to art.His old ambition, freeing itself from the frigid prudence with which Mervale sought to desecrate all images less substantial than the golden calf of the world, revived, and stirred, and kindled.The subtle detection of what he conceived to be an error in the school he had hitherto adopted, made more manifest to him by the grinning commentary of Nicot, seemed to open to him a new world of invention.He seized the happy moment,--he placed before him the colours and the canvas.Lost in his conceptions of a fresh ideal, his mind was lifted aloft into the airy realms of beauty;dark thoughts, unhallowed desires, vanished.Zanoni was right:

the material world shrunk from his gaze; he viewed Nature as from a mountain-top afar; and as the waves of his unquiet heart became calm and still, again the angel eyes of Viola beamed on them as a holy star.

Locking himself in his chamber, he refused even the visits of Mervale.Intoxicated with the pure air of his fresh existence, he remained for three days, and almost nights, absorbed in his employment; but on the fourth morning came that reaction to which all labour is exposed.He woke listless and fatigued; and as he cast his eyes on the canvas, the glory seemed to have gone from it.Humiliating recollections of the great masters he aspired to rival forced themselves upon him; defects before unseen magnified themselves to deformities in his languid and discontented eyes.

He touched and retouched, but his hand failed him; he threw down his instruments in despair; he opened his casement: the day without was bright and lovely; the street was crowded with that life which is ever so joyous and affluent in the animated population of Naples.He saw the lover, as he passed, conversing with his mistress by those mute gestures which have survived all changes of languages, the same now as when the Etruscan painted yon vases in the Museo Borbonico.Light from without beckoned his youth to its mirth and its pleasures; and the dull walls within, lately large enough to comprise heaven and earth, seemed now cabined and confined as a felon's prison.He welcomed the step of Mervale at his threshold, and unbarred the door.

"And is that all you have done?" said Mervale, glancing disdainfully at the canvas."Is it for this that you have shut yourself out from the sunny days and moonlit nights of Naples?""While the fit was on me, I basked in a brighter sun, and imbibed the voluptuous luxury of a softer moon.""You own that the fit is over.Well, that is some sign of returning sense.After all, it is better to daub canvas for three days than make a fool of yourself for life.This little siren?""Be dumb! I hate to hear you name her."

Mervale drew his chair nearer to Glyndon's, thrust his hands deep in his breeches-pockets, stretched his legs, and was about to begin a serious strain of expostulation, when a knock was heard at the door, and Nicot, without waiting for leave, obtruded his ugly head.

"Good-day, mon cher confrere.I wished to speak to you.Hein!

you have been at work, I see.This is well,--very well! A bold outline,--great freedom in that right hand.But, hold! is the composition good? You have not got the great pyramidal form.

Don't you think, too, that you have lost the advantage of contrast in this figure; since the right leg is put forward, surely the right arm should be put back? Peste! but that little finger is very fine!"Mervale detested Nicot.For all speculators, Utopians, alterers of the world, and wanderers from the high road, were equally hateful to him; but he could have hugged the Frenchman at that moment.He saw in Glyndon's expressive countenance all the weariness and disgust he endured.After so wrapped a study, to be prated to about pyramidal forms and right arms and right legs, the accidence of the art, the whole conception to be overlooked, and the criticism to end in approval of the little finger!

"Oh," said Glyndon, peevishly, throwing the cloth over his design, "enough of my poor performance.What is it you have to say to me?""In the first place," said Nicot, huddling himself together upon a stool,--"in the first place, this Signor Zanoni,--this second Cagliostro,--who disputes my doctrines! (no doubt a spy of the man Capet) I am not vindictive; as Helvetius says, 'our errors arise from our passions.' I keep mine in order; but it is virtuous to hate in the cause of mankind; I would I had the denouncing and the judging of Signor Zanoni at Paris." And Nicot's small eyes shot fire, and he gnashed his teeth.

"Have you any new cause to hate him?"

"Yes," said Nicot, fiercely."Yes, I hear he is courting the girl I mean to marry.""You! Whom do you speak of?"