"He goes to read in the Library of the Vati- | that it is fine-something like being blind, while can every day, and you can hardly see him except people talk of the sky." by an appointment. Fspecially now. We are about to leave Rome, and he is very busy. He is usually away almost from breakfast till dinner. But I am sure he will wish you to dine with us." Will Ladislaw was struck mute for a few moments. He had never been fond of Mr. Casaubon, and if it had not been for the sense of obligation, would have laughed at him as a Bat of erudition. But the idea of this dried-up pedant, this elaborator of small explanations about as important as the surplus stock of false antiquities kept in a vendor's back chamber, having first got this adorable young creature to marry him, and then passing his honey-moon away from her, groping after his mouldy futilities (Will was given to hyperbole)—this sudden picture stirred him with a sort of comic disgust: he was divided between the impulse to laugh aloud and the equally unseasonable impulse to burst into scornful invective. For an instant he felt that the struggle was causing a queer contortion of his mobile features, but with a good effort he resolved it into nothing more offensive than a merry smile. Dorothea wondered; but the smile was irresistible, and shone back from her face too. Will Ladislaw's smile was delightful unless you were angry with him beforehand: it was a gush of inward light illuminating the transparent skin as well as the eyes, and playing about every curve and line as if some Ariel were touching them with a new charm, and banishing forever the traces of moodiness. The reflection of that smile could not but have a little merriment in it too, even under dark eyelashes still moist, as Dorothea said, inquiringly, "Something amuses you?" "Yes," said Will, quick in finding resources. "I am thinking of the sort of figure I cut the first time I saw you, when you annihilated my poor sketch with your criticism." "My criticism?" said Dorothea, wondering still more. 66 Surely not. I always feel particularly ignorant about painting." "I suspected you of knowing so much that you knew how to say just what was most cutting. You said-I dare say you don't remember it as I do-that the relation of my sketch to nature was quite hidden from you. At least you implied that." Will could laugh now as well as smile. "That was really my ignorance," said Dorothea, admiring Will's good humor. "I must have said so only because I never could see any beauty in the pictures which my uncle told me all judges thought very fine. And I have gone about with just the same ignorance in Rome. There are comparatively few paintings that I can really enjoy. At first when I enter a room where the walls are covered with frescoes or with rare pictures, I feel a kind of awe--like a child present at great ceremonies where there are grand robes and processions; I feel myself in the presence of some higher life than my own. But when I begin to examine the pictures one by one the life goes out of them, or else is something violent and strange to me. It must be my own dullness. I am seeing so much all at once, and not understanding half of it. That always makes one feel stupid. It is painful to be told that any thing is very fine, and not be able to feel "Oh, there is a great deal in the feeling for art which must be acquired," said Will. (It was impossible now to doubt the directness of Dorothea's confession.) "Art is an old language with a great many artificial affected styles, and sometimes the chief pleasure one gets out of knowing them is the mere sense of knowing. I enjoy the art of all sorts here immensely; but I suppose if I could pick my enjoyment to pieces I should find it made up of many different threads. There is something in daubing a little one's self, and having an idea of the process." "You mean perhaps to be a painter ?" said Dorothea, with a new direction of interest. "You mean to make painting your profession. Mr. Casaubon will like to hear that you have chosen a profession." "No, oh no," said Will, with some coldness. "I have quite made up my mind against it. It is too one-sided a life. I have been seeing a great deal of the German artists here: I traveled from Frankfort with one of them. Some are fine, even brilliant fellows-but I should not like to get into their way of looking at the world entirely from the studio point of view." "That I can understand," said Dorothea, cordially. "And in Rome it seems as if there were so many things which are more wanted in the world than pictures. But if you have a genius for painting, would it not be right to take that as a guide? Perhaps you might do better things than these--or different, so that there might not be so many pictures almost all alike in the same place.' There was no mistaking this simplicity, and Will was won by it into frankness. "A man must have a very rare genius to make changes of that sort. I am afraid mine would not carry me even to the pitch of doing well what has been done already, at least not so well as to make it worth while. And I should never succeed in any thing by dint of drudgery. If things don't come easily to me, I never get them." "I have heard Mr. Casaubon say that he regrets your want of patience," said Dorothea, gently. She was rather shocked at this mode of taking all life as a holiday. "Yes, I know Mr. Casaubon's opinion. He and I differ." The slight streak of contempt in this hasty reply offended Dorothea. She was all the more susceptible about Mr. Casaubon because of her morning's trouble. "Certainly you differ," she said, rather proudly. "I did not think of comparing you such power of persevering devoted labor as Mr. Casaubon's is not common.' Will saw that she was offended, but this only gave an additional impulse to the new irritation of his latent dislike toward Mr. Casaubon. It was too intolerable that Dorothea should be worshiping this husband: such weakness in a woman is pleasant to no man but the husband in question. Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbor's buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder. "No, indeed," he answered, promptly. "And therefore it is a pity that it should be thrown away, as so much English scholarship is, for want of knowing what is being done by the rest of the world. If Mr. Casaubon read German he would | looking animated with a newly aroused alarm save himself a great deal of trouble. "I do not understand you,” said Dorothea, startled and anxious. "I merely mean," said Will, in an off-hand way, "that the Germans have taken the lead in historical inquiries, and they laugh at results which are got by groping about in woods with a pocket-compass while they have made good roads. While I was with Mr. Casaubon I saw that he deafened himself in that direction: it was almost against his will that he read a Latin treatise written by a German. I was very sorry. Will only thought of giving a good pinch that would annihilate that vaunted laboriousness, and was unable to imagine the mode in which Dorothea would be wounded. Young Mr. Ladislaw was not at all deep himself in German writers; but very little achievement is required in order to pity another man's short-comings. Poor Dorothea felt a pang at the thought that the labor of her husband's life might be void, which left her no energy to spare for the question whether this young relative who was so much obliged to him ought not to have repressed his observation. She did not even speak, but sat looking at her hands, absorbed in the piteousness of that thought. Will, however, having given that annihilating pinch, was rather ashamed, imagining from Dorothea's silence that he had offended her still more; and having also a conscience about plucking the tail-feathers from a benefactor. 66 "I regretted it especially," he resumed, taking the usual course from detraction to insincere eulogy, because of my gratitude and respect toward my cousin. It would not signify so much in a man whose talents and character were less distinguished." Dorothea raised her eyes, brighter than usual with excited feeling, and said, in her saddest recitative, "How I wish I had learned German when I was at Lausanne! There were plenty of German teachers. But now I can be of no use. There was a new light, but still a mysterious light, for Will in Dorothea's last words. The question how she had come to accept Mr. Casaubon-which he had dismissed when he first saw her by saying that she must be disagreeable in spite of appearances-was not now to be answered on any such short and easy method. Whatever else she might be, she was not disagreeable. She was not coldly clever and indirectly satirical, but adorably simple and full of feeling. She was an angel beguiled. It would be a unique delight to wait and watch for the melodious fragments in which her heart and soul came forth so directly and ingenuously. The Eolian harp again came into his mind. She must have made some original romance for herself in this marriage. And if Mr. Casaubon had been a dragon who had carried her off to his lair with his talons simply and without legal forms, it would have been an unavoidable feat of heroism to release her and fall at her feet. But he was something more unmanageable than a dragon: he was a benefactor with collective society at his back, and he was at that moment entering the room in all the unimpeachable correctness of his demeanor, while Dorothea was and regret, and Will was looking animated with his admiring speculation about her feelings. Mr. Casaubon felt a surprise which was quite unmixed with pleasure, but he did not swerve from his usual politeness of greeting, when Will rose and explained his presence. Mr. Casaubon was less happy than usual, and this perhaps made him look all the dimmer and more faded; else, the effect might easily have been produced by the contrast of his young cousin's appearance. The first impression on seeing Will was one of sunny brightness, which added to the uncertainty of his changing expression. Surely his very features changed their form; his jaw looked sometimes large and sometimes small; and the little ripple in his nose was a preparation for metamorphosis. When he turned his head quickly his hair seemed to shake out light, and some persons thought they saw decided genius in this coruscation. Mr. Casaubon, on the contrary, stood rayless. As Dorothea's eyes were turned anxiously on her husband she was perhaps not insensible to the contrast, but it was only mingled with other causes in making her more conscious of that new alarm on his behalf which was the first stirring of a pitying tenderness fed by the realities of his lot and not by her own dreams. Yet it was a source of greater freedom to her that Will was there; his young equality was agreeable, and also perhaps his openness to conviction. felt an immense need of some one to speak to, and she had never before seen, any one who seemed so quick and pliable, so likely to understand every thing. She Mr. Casaubon gravely hoped that Will was passing his time profitably as well as pleasantly in Rome-had thought his intention was to remain in South Germany-but begged him to come and dine to-morrow, when he could converse more at large: at present he was somewhat weary. Ladislaw understood, and accepting the invitation, immediately took his leave. Dorothea's eyes followed her husband anxiously while he sank down wearily at the end of a sofa, and resting his elbow, supported his head and looked on the floor. A little flushed, and with bright eyes, she seated herself beside him, and said: "Forgive me for speaking so hastily to you this morning. I was wrong. I fear I hurt you, and made the day more burdensome." "I am glad that you feel that, my dear," said Mr. Casaubon. He spoke quietly, and bowed his head a little, but there was still an uneasy feeling in his eyes as he looked at her. 66 But you do forgive me?" said Dorothea, with a quick sob. In her need for some manifestation of feeling she was ready to exaggerate her own fault. Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on its neck and kiss it? "My dear Dorothea, who with repentance is not satisfied is not of heaven nor earth:' you do not think me worthy to be banished by that severe sentence, said Mr. Casaubon, exerting himself to make a strong statement, and also to smile faintly. Dorothea was silent, but a tear which had come up with the sob would insist on falling. "You are excited, my dear. And I also am feeling some unpleasant consequences of too much mental disturbance," said Mr. Casaubon. | of the enjoyment he got out of the very miscelIn fact, he had it in his thought to tell her that she ought not to have received young Ladislaw in his absence; but he abstained, partly from the sense that it would be ungracious to bring a new complaint in the moment of her penitent acknowledgment, partly because he wanted to avoid further agitation of himself by speech, and partly because he was too proud to betray that jealousy of disposition which was not so exhausted on his scholarly compeers that there was none to spare in other directions. There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire: it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism. "I think it is time for us to dress," he added, looking at his watch. They both rose, and there was never any further allusion between them to what had passed on this day. But Dorothea remembered it to the last with the vividness with which we all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born. To-day she had begun to see that she had been under a wild illusion in expecting a response to her feeling from Mr. Casaubon, and she had felt the waking of a presentiment that there might be a sad consciousness in his life which made as great a need on his side as on her own. laneousness of Rome, which made the mind flexible with constant comparison, and saved you from seeing the world's ages as a set of box-like partitions without vital connection. Mr. Casaubon's studies, Will observed, had always been of too broad a kind for that, and he had perhaps never felt any such sudden effect, but for himself he confessed that Rome had given him quite a new sense of history as a whole: the fragments stimulated his imagination, and made him constructive. Then occasionally, but not too often, he appealed to Dorothea, and discussed what she said, as if her sentiment were an item to be considered in the final judgment even of the Madonna di Foligno or the Laocoön. A sense of contributing to form the world's opinion makes conversation particularly cheerful; and Mr. Casaubon, too, was not without his pride in his young wife, who spoke better than most women, as indeed he had perceived in choosing her. Since things were going on so pleasantly, Mr. Casaubon's statement that his labors in the Library would be suspended for a couple of days, and that after a brief renewal he should have no further reason for staying in Rome, encouraged Will to urge that Mrs. Casaubon should not go away without seeing a studio or two. Would not Mr. Casaubon take her? That sort of thing We are all of us born in moral stupidity, tak- ought not to be missed: it was quite special: it ing the world as an udder to feed our supreme was a form of life that grew like a small, fresh selves: Dorothea had early begun to emerge from vegetation with its population of insects on huge that stupidity, but yet it had been easier to her fossils. Will would be happy to conduct them to imagine how she would devote herself to Mr.—not to any thing wearisome, only to a few exCasaubon, and become wise and strong in his strength and wisdom, than to conceive with that distinctness which is no longer reflection but feeling an idea wrought back to the directness of sense, like the solidity of objects-that he had an equivalent centre of self, whence the lights and shadows must always fall with a certain differ ence. CHAPTER XXII. "Nous causâmes longtemps; elle était simple et bonne. amples. Mr. Casaubon, seeing Dorothea look earnestly toward him, could not but ask her if she would be interested in such visits: he was now at her service during the whole day; and it was agreed that Will should come on the morrow and drive with them. Will could not omit Thorwaldsen, a living celebrity about whom even Mr. Casaubon inquired, but before the day was far advanced he led the way to the studio of his friend Adolf Naumann, whom he mentioned as one of the chief renovators of Christian art, one of those who had not only revived but expanded that grand conception of supreme events as mysteries at which the successive ages were spectators, and in relation to which the great souls of all periods became as it were contemporaries. Will added that he had made himself Naumann's pupil for the nonce. WILL LADISLAW was delightfully agreeable at dinner the next day, and gave no opportunity for Mr. Casaubon to show disapprobation. On the contrary, it seemed to Dorothea that Will "I have been making some oil-sketches unhad a happier way of drawing her husband into der him," said Will. "I hate copying. I must conversation, and of deferentially listening to him, put something of my own in. Naumann has than she had ever observed in any one before. been painting the Saints drawing the Car of the To be sure, the listeners about Tipton were not Church, and I have been making a sketch of highly gifted! Will talked a good deal himself, Marlowe's Tamburlaine Driving the Conquered but what he said was thrown in with such rapid- Kings in his Chariot. I am not so ecclesiastical ity, and with such an unimportant air of saying as Naumann, and I sometimes twit him with his something by the way, that it seemed a gay lit- excess of meaning. But this time I mean to tle chime after the great bell. If Will was not outdo him in breadth of intention. I take Tamalways perfect, this was certainly one of his good burlaine in his chariot for the tremendous course days. He described touches of incident among of the world's physical history lashing on the the poor people in Rome, only to be seen by one harnessed dynasties. In my opinion that is a who could move about freely; he found himself good mythical interpretation." Will here looked in agreement with Mr. Casaubon as to the un-at Mr. Casaubon, who received this off-hand sound opinions of Middleton concerning the re-treatment of symbolism very uneasily, and bowed lations of Judaism and Catholicism; and passed with a neutral air. easily to a half-enthusiastic half-playful picture "The sketch must be very grand if it con 1 veys so much," said Dorothea. "I should need some explanation even of the meaning you give. Do you intend Tamburlaine to represent earthquakes and volcanoes?" "Oh yes," said Will, laughing, "and migrations of races and clearings of forests-and America and the steam-engine. Every thing you can imagine!" have been accustomed to regard as of the commonest order, can be of any use to you in furnishing some traits for the angelical doctor, I shall feel honored. That is to say, if the operation will not be a lengthy one; and if Mrs. Casaubon will not object to the delay." As for Dorothea, nothing could have pleased her more, unless it had been a miraculous voice "What a difficult kind of short-hand!" said pronouncing Mr. Casaubon the wisest and worDorothea, smiling toward her husband. "Itthiest among the sons of men. In that case her would require all your knowledge to be able to read it." Mr. Casaubon blinked furtively at Will. He had a suspicion that he was being laughed at. But it was not possible to include Dorothea in the suspicion. tottering faith would have become firm again. Naumann's apparatus was at hand in wonderful completeness, and the sketch went on at once as well as the conversation. Dorothea sat down and subsided into calm silence, feeling happier than she had done for a long while before. Every one about her seemed good, and she said to herself that Rome, if she had only been less ig They found Naumann painting industriously, but no model was present; his pictures were advantageously arranged, and his own plain viva-norant, would have been full of beauty: its sadcious person set off by a dove-colored blouse and a maroon velvet cap, so that every thing was as fortunate as if he had expected the beautiful young English lady exactly at that time. ness would have been winged with hope. No nature could be less suspicious than hers: when she was a child she believed in the gratitude of wasps and the honorable susceptibility of sparrows, and was proportionately indignant when their baseness was made manifest. The adroit artist was asking Mr. Casaubon questions about English politics, which brought long answers, and Will meanwhile had perched himself on some steps in the background overlooking all. The painter in his confident English gave little dissertations on his finished and unfinished subjects, seeming to observe Mr. Casaubon as much as he did Dorothea. Will burst in here and there with ardent words of praise marking out particular merits in his friend's work; and Dorothea felt that she was getting quite new notions as to the significance of Madonnas seated under inex- Presently Naumann said, "Now if I could plicable canopied thrones with the simple country lay this by for half an hour and take it up again as a background, and of saints with architectu--come and look, Ladislaw-I think it is perfect ral models in their hands, or knives accidentally so far." wedged in their skulls. Some things which had seemed monstrous to her were gathering intelligibility and even a natural meaning; but all this was apparently a branch of knowledge in which Mr. Casaubon had not interested himself. "I think I would rather feel that painting is beautiful than have to read it as an enigma; but I should learn to understand these pictures sooner than yours with the very wide meaning," said Dorothea, speaking to Will. "Don't speak of my painting before Naumann," said Will. "He will tell you it is all pfuscherei, which is his most opprobrious word!" "Is that true?" said Dorothea, turning her sincere eyes on Naumann, who made a slight grimace, and said: "Oh, he does not mean it seriously with painting. His walk must be belles-lettres. That is wi-ide." Naumann's pronunciation of the vowel seemed to stretch the word satirically. Will did not half like it, but managed to laugh; and Mr. Casaubon, while he felt some disgust at the artist's German accent, began to entertain a little respect for his judicious severity. The respect was not diminished when Naumann, after drawing Will aside for a moment, and looking first at a large canvas, then at Mr. Casaubon, came forward again and said: "My friend Ladislaw thinks you will pardon me, Sir, if I say that a sketch of your head would be invaluable to me for the St. Thomas Aquinas in my picture there. It is too much to ask; but I so seldom see just what I want-the idealistic in the real." Will vented those adjuring interjections which imply that admiration is too strong for syntax; and Naumann said, in a tone of piteous regret, "Ah-now-if I could but have had morebut you have other engagements-I could not ask it- —or even to come again to-morrow." "Oh, let us stay!" said Dorothea. "We have nothing to do to-day except to go about, have we?" she added, looking entreatingly at Mr. Casaubon. "It would be a pity not to make the head as good as possible. "I am at your service, Sir, in the matter," said Mr. Casaubon, with polite condescension. "Having given up the interior of my head to idleness, it is as well that the exterior should work in this way.' "You are unspeakably good-now I am happy!" said Naumann, and then went on in German to Will, pointing here and there to the sketch as if he were considering that. Putting it aside for a moment, he looked round vaguely, as if seeking some occupation for his visitors, and afterward, turning to Mr. Casaubon, said, "Perhaps the beautiful bride, the gracious lady, would not be unwilling to let me fill up the time by trying to make a slight sketch of hernot, of course, as you see, for that picture—only as a single study.' Mr. Casaubon, bowing, doubted not that Mrs. Casaubon would oblige him, and Dorothea said, at once, "Where shall I put myself?" Naumann was all apologies in asking her to stand, and allow him to adjust her attitude, to which she submitted without any of the affected airs and laughs frequently thought necessary on such occasions, when the painter said, "It is as Santa Clara that I want you to stand-leaning so, with your cheek against your hand-so- to his hearer, but Will himself was thinking of looking at that stool, please, so!" them, and wishing that he could discharge them all by a check. Will was divided between the inclination to fall at the Saint's feet and kiss her robe, and the temptation to knock Naumann down while he was adjusting her arm. All this was impudence and desecration, and he repented that he had brought her. The artist was diligent, and Will, recovering himself, moved about and occupied Mr. Casaubon as ingeniously as he could; but he did not in the end prevent the time from seeming long to that gentleman, as was clear from his expressing a fear that Mrs. Casaubon would be tired. Naumann took the hint, and said, 66 Now, Sir, if you can oblige me again, I will release the lady-wife." Naumann gave a shrug, and said, "It is good they go away soon, my dear. They are spoiling your fine temper.' All Will's hope and contrivance were now concentrated on seeing Dorothea when she was alone. He only wanted her to take more emphatic notice of him; he only wanted to be something more special in her remembrance than he could yet believe himself likely to be. He was rather impatient under that open ardent goodwill, which he saw was her usual state of feeling. The remote worship of a woman throned out of their reach plays a great part in men's lives, but in most cases the worshiper longs for some queenly recognition, some approving sign by which his soul's sovereign may cheer him without descending from her high place. That was precisely what Will wanted. But there were plenty of contradictions in his imaginative demands. It was beautiful to see how Dorothea's eyes turned with wifely anxiety and beseeching to Mr. Casaubon: she would have lost some of her halo if she had been without that duteous preoccupation; and yet at the next moment the husband's sandy absorption of such nectar was too intolerable; and Will's longing to say damaging things about him was perhaps not the less tormenting because he felt the strongest reasons for restraining it. Will had not been invited to dine the next day. Hence he persuaded himself that he was bound to call, and that the only eligible time was the middle of the day, when Mr. Casaubon would not be at home. So Mr. Casaubon's patience held out further, and when after all it turned out that the head of St. Thomas Aquinas would be more perfect if another sitting could be had, it was granted for the morrow. On the morrow Santa Clara too was retouched more than once. The result of all was so far from displeasing to Mr. Casaubon that he arranged for the purchase of the picture in which St. Thomas Aquinas sat among the doctors of the Church in a disputation too abstract to be represented, but listened to with more or less attention by an audience above. The Santa Clara, which was spoken of in the second place, Naumann declared himself to be dissatisfied with-he could not, in conscience, engage to make a worthy picture of it; so about the Santa Clara the arrangement was conditional. I will not dwell on Naumann's jokes at the expense of Mr. Casaubon that evening, or on his dithyrambs about Dorothea's charm, in all which Will joined, but with a difference. No sooner Dorothea, who had not been made aware that did Naumann mention any detail of Dorothea's her former reception of Will had displeased her beauty than Will got exasperated at his pre- husband, had no hesitation about seeing him, èssumption there was grossness in his choice of pecially as he might be come to pay a farewell the most ordinary words, and what business had visit. When he entered she was looking at some he to talk of her lips? She was not a woman to cameos which she had been buying for Celia. be spoken of as other women were. Will could She greeted Will as if his visit were quite a matnot say just what he thought, but he became ir-ter of course, and said at once, having a cameo ritable. And yet, when after some resistance he bracelet in her hand, had consented to take the Casaubons to his friend's studio, he had been allured by the gratification of his pride in being the person who could grant Naumann such an opportunity of studying her loveliness-or rather her divineness, for the ordinary phrases which might apply to mere bodily prettiness were not applicable to her. (Certainly all Tipton and its neighborhood, as well as Dorothea herself, would have been surprised at her beauty being made so much of. In that part of the world Miss Brooke had been only a fine young woman.") "Oblige me by letting the subject drop, Naumann. Mrs. Casaubon is not to be talked of as if she were a model," said Will. Naumann stared at him. "Schön! I will talk of my Aquinas. The head is not a bad type, after all. I dare say the great scholastic himself would have been flattered to have his portrait asked for. Nothing like these starchy doctors for vanity! It was as I thought: he cared much less for her portrait than his own." "He's a cursed white-blooded pedantic coxcomb," said Will, with gnashing impetuosity. His obligations to Mr. Casaubon were not known "I am so glad you are come. Perhaps you understand all about cameos, and can tell me if these are really good. I wished to have you with us in choosing them, but Mr. Casaubon objected: he thought there was not time. He will finish his work to-morrow, and we shall go away in three days. I have been uneasy about these cameos. Pray sit down and look at them." "I am not particularly knowing, but there can be no great mistake about these little Homeric bits: they are exquisitely neat. And the color is fine: it will just suit you." 66 "Oh, they are for my sister, who has quite a different complexion. You saw her with me at Lowick: she is light-haired and very pretty-at least I think so. We were never so long away from each other in our lives before. She is a great pet, and never was naughty in her life. I found out before I came away that she wanted me to buy her some cameos, and I should be sorry for them not to be good-after their kind." Dorothea added the last words with a smile. "You seem not to care about cameos," said Will, seating himself at some distance from her, and observing her while she closed the cases. |