CHAPTER XIII.

THE PICTURE GALLERY. A MORE PRECISE EXPLANATION. — THE TURNING POINT OF MY HISTORY.

I

EASTER.

T was to me quite a peculiar feeling to conduct Annunciata to where I had played as a boy-where the Signora had shown to me the pictures, and had amused herself with my naïve inquiries and remarks. I knew every piece, but Annunciata knew them better than I did; her observations were most apposite; with an accustomed eye, and natural taste, she detected every beauty. We stood before that celebrated piece of Gerardo del Notti, Lot and his Daughters. I praised it for its great effect Lot's strong countenance, and the lifeenjoying daughter who offered him wine, and the red evening heaven which shone through the dark trees.

"It is painted with soul and flame!" exclaimed she. "I admire the pencil of this artist, as regards coloring and expression; but the subjects which he has chosen do not please me. I require, even in pictures, a kind of fitness, a noble purity in the selection of the subject; therefore Correggio's Danaë pleases me less than it might do; beautiful is she, divine is the little angel with the bright wings, which sits upon the couch, and helps her to collect together the gold, but the subject is to me ignoble, it wounds, so to say, my heart's feeling of beauty. For this reason is Raphael so great in my judgment; in everything that I have seen of his, he is the apostle of innocence, and he, therefore, alone has been able to give us the Madonna!"

"But beauty, as a work of art," interrupted I, "can, however, make us overlook the want of nobility in subject."

"Never!" replied Annunciata. "Art in every one of its branches is high and holy; and purity in spirit is more attractive than purity of form; and therefore the naïve representa

tions of the Madonna by the olden masters excite us so deeply, although, with their rough forms, they often seem more like Chinese pictures, where all is so stiff and hard. The spirit must be pure in the pictures of the painter, as well as in the song of the poet; some extravagances I can forgive, call them something startling, and lament that the painter has fallen into such, but I can, nevertheless, please myself with the whole."

"But," I exclaimed, "variety in subject is interesting; to see always

"You mistake me!" she returned. "I do not desire that people should always paint Madonnas! no; I am delighted with a glorious landscape, a living scene out of the life of the people, a ship in a storm, and the robber scenes of Salvator Rosa! But I will not have anything revolting in the region of art, and so I call even Scidoni's well-painted sketch in the Sciara Palazzo. You have not forgotten it? Two peasants upon asses ride past a stone wall, upon which lies a death's head, within which sit a mouse, a gadfly, and a worm, and on the wall these words are to be read, 'Et ego in Arcadia !'" "I know it," replied I; "it hangs by the side of Raphael's charming violin-player.”

"Yes," returned Annunciata; "would that the inscription was placed under this, and not upon the other hateful picture!"

We now stood before Francesco Albani's Four Seasons. I told her what an impression the little Loves had made upon me as a child, when I had lived and played about in this gallery.

"You enjoyed happy life-points in your childhood!" said she, repressing a sigh, which perhaps had reference to her

own.

"You, doubtless, no less so,” replied I: "you stood, the first time I saw you, like a happy, admired child, and, when we met the second time, you captivated the whole of Rome, and - seemed happy. Were you so really at heart?"

I had bowed myself half down to her. She looked directly into my face with an expression of singular melancholy, and said, "The admired, happy child was fatherless and mother

less - a homeless bird upon the leafless twig; it might have perished of hunger, but the despised Jew gave it shelter and food till it could flutter forth over the wild, restless sea!"

She ceased, and then, shaking her head, added, "But these are not adventures which could interest a stranger; and I cannot tell how I have been induced to gossip about it."

She would have moved on, but I seized. her hand, whilst I inquired, "Am I, then, such a stranger to you?"

She gazed for a moment before her in silence, and said, with a pensive smile, "Yes, I, too, have also had beautiful moments in life. And," added she, with her accustomed gayety, "I will only think on these!" Our meeting as children - your strange dreaming about that which is past, infected me also, and made the heart turn to its own pictures, instead of the works of art which surround us here!"

When we left the gallery and had returned to her hotel, we found that Bernardo had been there to pay his respects to her. They told him that she and the old lady had driven out, and that I had accompanied them. His displeasure at the knowledge of this I had foreseen already; but instead of grieving over this, as I should have done formerly, my love for Annunciata had awoke defiance and bitterness towards him. He had so often wished that I was possessed of character and determination, even if it made me unjust to him; now he would see that I had both.

Forever rung in my ear Annunciata's words about the despised Jew who took the homeless bird under his wings; she must then be the same whom Bernardo had seen at the old Hanoch's. This interested me infinitely; but I could not again induce her to renew the subject.

When I made my appearance the next day, I found her in her chamber, studying a new piece. I entertained myself for a long time with the old lady, who was more deaf than I had imagined, and who seemed right thankful that I would talk with her. It had occurred to me that she had seemed kindly disposed to me since my first improvisation; and from that I had imagined that she had heard it.

"And so I have done," she assured me; "from the expression of your countenance, and from some few words which

reached me, I understood the whole. And it was beautiful! It is in this way that I understand all Annunciata's recitative, and that alone by the expression; my eye has become acuter as my ear has become duller."

She questioned me about Bernardo, who had called yesterday when we were out, and lamented that he was not with us. She expressed an extraordinary good-will towards him, and great interest. "Yes," said she, as I assented to it, "he has a noble character! I know one trait of him. May the God of the Jew and the Christian defend him for it!"

By degrees she became more eloquent. Her affection for Annunciata was touching and strong. Thus much became clear to me out of the many broken and half-darkly expressed communications which she made. Annunciata was born in Spain, of Spanish parents. In her early childhood she came to Rome and when she became there suddenly fatherless and motherless, the old Hanoch, who, in his youth, had been in her native land, and had known her parents, was the only one who befriended her. Afterwards, whilst yet a child, she was sent back to her native country, to a lady who cultivated her voice and her dramatic talent. A man of great influence had fallen in love with the beautiful girl; but her coldness towards him had awoke in him bitterness, and a desire to obtain her by craft. The old woman seemed unwilling to lift the mysterious veil which covered this terrible time. Annunciata's life was in danger; she secretly fled to Italy, where it would be difficult to discover her, with her old foster-father, in the Jews' quarter in Rome. It was only a year and a half since this happened; and during this time it was that Bernardo had seen her, and when she had presented him with the wine of which he had spoken so much. How indiscreet it seemed to me to show herself thus to a stranger, when she might have expected an assassin in every one of them. Yes, she knew indeed that Bernardo was not such a one; she had heard nothing, indeed, but the praises of his boldness and of his noble conduct. Shortly after this, they heard that her persecutor was dead. She flew forth, therefore, inspired by her sacred art, and enraptured the people by it and her beauty. The old lady accompanied her to Naples, saw her gather her first laurels, and had not yet left her.

"Yes," continued the eloquent old lady, "she is also an angel of God! Pious is she in her faith, as a woman ought to be; and understanding has she as much as one could wish for the best heart."

I left the house just as the joy-firing commenced. In all the streets, in the squares, from balconies and windows, people stood with small cannons and pistols, which was a sign that Lent was now at an end. The dark curtains with which, for seven long weeks, the pictures in churches and chapels had been covered, fell off at the same moment. All was Easter gladness. The time of sorrow was over; to-morrow was Easter, the day of joy, and of twofold joy for me; for I was invited to accompany Annunciata to the church festival and the illumination of the dome.

The bells of Easter rang; the cardinals rolled abroad in their gay carriages, loaded with servants behind; the equipages of rich foreigners, the crowd of foot passengers, filled the whole narrow streets. From the castle of St. Angelo waved the great flag on which were the papal arms and the Madonna's holy image. In the square of St. Peter's there was music, and round about garlands of roses, and wood-cuts, representing the Pope distributing his blessing, were to be purchased. The fountains threw up their gigantic columns of water, and all around by the colonnades were loges and benches, which already, like the square itself, were almost filled.

Anon, and almost as great a throng proceeded from the church, where processions and singing, exhibitions of holy relics, fragments of food, nails, etc., had refreshed many a pious mind. The immense square seemed a sea of human beings; head moved itself to head; the line of carriages drew itself closer together; peasants and boys climbed up the pedestals of the saints. It seemed as if all Rome at this moment lived and breathed only here.

The Pope was borne in procession out of church. He sat aloft on the shoulders of six priests appareled in lilaccolored robes, upon a magnificent throne-chair; two younger priests waved before him colossal peacocks' tails on long staves; priests preceded him swinging the vessels of incense, and cardinals followed after, singing hymns.