The Marble Faun Volume 1 - Page 97/130

"Donatello," said Miriam, coming close to the young man, and speaking

low, but still the almost insanity of the moment vibrating in her voice,

"if you love yourself; if you desire those earthly blessings, such as

you, of all men, were made for; if you would come to a good old age

among your olive orchards and your Tuscan vines, as your forefathers

did; if you would leave children to enjoy the same peaceful, happy,

innocent life, then flee from me. Look not behind you! Get you gone

without another word." He gazed sadly at her, but did not stir. "I tell

you," Miriam went on, "there is a great evil hanging over me! I know

it; I see it in the sky; I feel it in the air! It will overwhelm me

as utterly as if this arch should crumble down upon our heads! It will

crush you, too, if you stand at my side! Depart, then; and make the sign

of the cross, as your faith bids you, when an evil spirit is nigh. Cast

me off, or you are lost forever."

A higher sentiment brightened upon Donatello's face than had hitherto

seemed to belong to its simple expression and sensuous beauty.

"I will never quit you," he said; "you cannot drive me from you."

"Poor Donatello!" said Miriam in a changed tone, and rather to herself

than him. "Is there no other that seeks me out, follows me,--is

obstinate to share my affliction and my doom,--but only you! They call

me beautiful; and I used to fancy that, at my need, I could bring the

whole world to my feet. And lo! here is my utmost need; and my beauty

and my gifts have brought me only this poor, simple boy. Half-witted,

they call him; and surely fit for nothing but to be happy. And I accept

his aid! To-morrow, to-morrow, I will tell him all! Ah! what a sin to

stain his joyous nature with the blackness of a woe like mine!"

She held out her hand to him, and smiled sadly as Donatello pressed it

to his lips. They were now about to emerge from the depth of the arch;

but just then the kneeling pilgrim, in his revolution round the orbit of

the shrines, had reached the one on the steps of which Miriam had been

sitting. There, as at the other shrines, he prayed, or seemed to

pray. It struck Kenyon, however,--who sat close by, and saw his face

distinctly, that the suppliant was merely performing an enjoined

penance, and without the penitence that ought to have given it effectual

life. Even as he knelt, his eyes wandered, and Miriam soon felt that

he had detected her, half hidden as she was within the obscurity of the

arch.