The Marble Faun Volume 1 - Page 5/130

"Donatello," playfully cried Miriam, "do not leave us in this perplexity!

Shake aside those brown curls, my friend, and let us see whether this

marvellous resemblance extends to the very tips of the ears. If so, we

shall like you all the better!"

"No, no, dearest signorina," answered Donatello, laughing, but with

a certain earnestness. "I entreat you to take the tips of my ears for

granted." As he spoke, the young Italian made a skip and jump, light

enough for a veritable faun; so as to place himself quite beyond the

reach of the fair hand that was outstretched, as if to settle the matter

by actual examination. "I shall be like a wolf of the Apennines," he

continued, taking his stand on the other side of the Dying Gladiator,

"if you touch my ears ever so softly. None of my race could endure it.

It has always been a tender point with my forefathers and me."

He spoke in Italian, with the Tuscan rusticity of accent, and an

unshaped sort of utterance, betokening that he must heretofore have been

chiefly conversant with rural people.

"Well, well," said Miriam, "your tender point--your two tender points,

if you have them--shall be safe, so far as I am concerned. But how

strange this likeness is, after all! and how delightful, if it really

includes the pointed ears! O, it is impossible, of course," she

continued, in English, "with a real and commonplace young man like

Donatello; but you see how this peculiarity defines the position of

the Faun; and, while putting him where he cannot exactly assert his

brotherhood, still disposes us kindly towards the kindred creature. He

is not supernatural, but just on the verge of nature, and yet within

it. What is the nameless charm of this idea, Hilda? You can feel it more

delicately than I."

"It perplexes me," said Hilda thoughtfully, and shrinking a little;

"neither do I quite like to think about it."

"But, surely," said Kenyon, "you agree with Miriam and me that there is

something very touching and impressive in this statue of the Faun. In

some long-past age, he must really have existed. Nature needed, and

still needs, this beautiful creature; standing betwixt man and animal,

sympathizing with each, comprehending the speech of either race, and

interpreting the whole existence of one to the other. What a pity that

he has forever vanished from the hard and dusty paths of life,--unless,"

added the sculptor, in a sportive whisper, "Donatello be actually he!"

"You cannot conceive how this fantasy takes hold of me," responded

Miriam, between jest and earnest. "Imagine, now, a real being, similar

to this mythic Faun; how happy, how genial, how satisfactory would be

his life, enjoying the warm, sensuous, earthy side of nature; revelling

in the merriment of woods and streams; living as our four-footed kindred

do,--as mankind did in its innocent childhood; before sin, sorrow or

morality itself had ever been thought of! Ah! Kenyon, if Hilda and you

and I--if I, at least--had pointed ears! For I suppose the Faun had

no conscience, no remorse, no burden on the heart, no troublesome

recollections of any sort; no dark future either."