The Marble Faun Volume 1 - Page 38/130

"Here it is, then," said Miriam, contemplating Hilda's work with great

interest and delight, mixed with the painful sympathy that the picture

excited. "Everywhere we see oil-paintings, crayon sketches, cameos,

engravings, lithographs, pretending to be Beatrice, and representing the

poor girl with blubbered eyes, a leer of coquetry, a merry look as if

she were dancing, a piteous look as if she were beaten, and twenty other

modes of fantastic mistake. But here is Guido's very Beatrice; she that

slept in the dungeon, and awoke, betimes, to ascend the scaffold, And

now that you have done it, Hilda, can you interpret what the feeling

is, that gives this picture such a mysterious force? For my part, though

deeply sensible of its influence, I cannot seize it."

"Nor can I, in words," replied her friend. "But while I was painting

her, I felt all the time as if she were trying to escape from my gaze.

She knows that her sorrow is so strange and so immense, that she ought

to be solitary forever, both for the world's sake and her own; and this

is the reason we feel such a distance between Beatrice and ourselves,

even when our eyes meet hers. It is infinitely heart-breaking to meet

her glance, and to feel that nothing can be done to help or comfort her;

neither does she ask help or comfort, knowing the hopelessness of her

case better than we do. She is a fallen angel,--fallen, and yet sinless;

and it is only this depth of sorrow, with its weight and darkness, that

keeps her down upon earth, and brings her within our view even while it

sets her beyond our reach."

"You deem her sinless?" asked Miriam; "that is not so plain to me. If

I can pretend to see at all into that dim region, whence she gazes so

strangely and sadly at us, Beatrice's own conscience does not acquit her

of something evil, and never to be forgiven!"

"Sorrow so black as hers oppresses her very nearly as sin would," said

Hilda.

"Then," inquired Miriam, "do you think that there was no sin in the deed

for which she suffered?"

"Ah!" replied Hilda, shuddering, "I really had quite forgotten

Beatrice's history, and was thinking of her only as the picture seems

to reveal her character. Yes, yes; it was terrible guilt, an inexpiable

crime, and she feels it to be so. Therefore it is that the forlorn

creature so longs to elude our eyes, and forever vanish away into

nothingness! Her doom is just!"

"O Hilda, your innocence is like a sharp steel sword!" exclaimed her

friend. "Your judgments are often terribly severe, though you seem all

made up of gentleness and mercy. Beatrice's sin may not have been so

great: perhaps it was no sin at all, but the best virtue possible in the

circumstances. If she viewed it as a sin, it may have been because her

nature was too feeble for the fate imposed upon her. Ah!" continued

Miriam passionately, "if I could only get within her consciousness!--if

I could but clasp Beatrice Cenci's ghost, and draw it into myself! I

would give my life to know whether she thought herself innocent, or the

one great criminal since time began."