The Marble Faun Volume 1 - Page 23/130

"How it changes her aspect," exclaimed Donatello, "to know that she is

but a jointed figure! When my eyes first fell upon her, I thought her

arms moved, as if beckoning me to help her in some direful peril."

"Are you often troubled with such sinister freaks of fancy?" asked

Miriam. "I should not have supposed it."

"To tell you the truth, dearest signorina," answered the young Italian,

"I am apt to be fearful in old, gloomy houses, and in the dark. I love

no dark or dusky corners, except it be in a grotto, or among the thick

green leaves of an arbor, or in some nook of the woods, such as I know

many in the neighborhood of my home. Even there, if a stray sunbeam

steal in, the shadow is all the better for its cheerful glimmer."

"Yes; you are a Faun, you know," said the fair artist, laughing at the

remembrance of the scene of the day before. "But the world is sadly

changed nowadays; grievously changed, poor Donatello, since those happy

times when your race used to dwell in the Arcadian woods, playing hide

and seek with the nymphs in grottoes and nooks of shrubbery. You have

reappeared on earth some centuries too late."

"I do not understand you now," answered Donatello, looking perplexed;

"only, signorina, I am glad to have my lifetime while you live; and

where you are, be it in cities or fields, I would fain be there too."

"I wonder whether I ought to allow you to speak in this way," said

Miriam, looking thoughtfully at him. "Many young women would think it

behooved them to be offended. Hilda would never let you speak so, I dare

say. But he is a mere boy," she added, aside, "a simple boy, putting his

boyish heart to the proof on the first woman whom he chances to meet.

If yonder lay-figure had had the luck to meet him first, she would have

smitten him as deeply as I."

"Are you angry with me?" asked Donatello dolorously.

"Not in the least," answered Miriam, frankly giving him her hand. "Pray

look over some of these sketches till I have leisure to chat with you

a little. I hardly think I am in spirits enough to begin your portrait

to-day."

Donatello was as gentle and docile as a pet spaniel; as playful, too, in

his general disposition, or saddening with his mistress's variable mood

like that or any other kindly animal which has the faculty of

bestowing its sympathies more completely than men or women can ever do.

Accordingly, as Miriam bade him, he tried to turn his attention to a

great pile and confusion of pen and ink sketches and pencil drawings

which lay tossed together on a table. As it chanced, however, they gave

the poor youth little delight.