CHAPTER II. The Finding of Apollo

THE FINDING OF APOLLO

(AN ESCAPADE OF BAZZI'S)

Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (called Sodoma) to Giulio Romano, painter and architect at Mantua.

Good Friend and sometime Pot-Comrade:

By the which epithet I would signify that comradeship at Chigi's villa at Rome in orgies of paint pots and brushes, flesh pots and flagons, feasts of reason and of unreason, wherein we were alike insatiable until the light of our revels went out in the death of our adored Raphael.

You write me that in the intervals of your labour you are piecing together memoirs of those glorious Roman days in order to leave to the world some record of the more intimate private life of our friend, and you ask me for any anecdotes or remembered conversations which may fill out this sheaf of tribute.

Faith, you, who have a whole garden of such souvenirs from which to cull, in that you shared his labours, his home, his confidence and his largess, have come to a wild and barren pasture for such sweet flowers; and yet there was love between us, love which ever radiated from him as it were sunshine and caused many a briar-rose to blossom in the thorny tangle of my life. I knew him also before you, in the summer of 1503, at Siena; and it is of certain pranks in that early comradeship that I will now write. Raphael was then a youth of scarce twenty years. He had come fresh from his apprenticeship to that old pietist Perugino, to assist in the decoration of the cathedral library. I was twenty-four, but older far in world-knowledge, and exulting in my first success as a painter, for though the spoiled favourite of the town I stood facile princeps among the Sienese of my craft.

We met first at Cetinale, the villa of our patron, Agostino Chigi. From the first Raphael's honest admiration of my work warmed me to friendship and I strove to enlighten his ignorance. Chigi had placed at our joint disposition a loft in his stables which we fitted up as a studio and bed-chamber, and hither we resorted for work or play as opportunity and inclination moved us.

It was oftener play for me, for I was more interested in my host's horses in those days than in my art. Chigi and I were both amateurs of the race-track and though he spent enormous sums on his stud I had once beaten him at the palio. In spite of this we were good friends. I had the run of his stables and many a reckless ride have we enjoyed together. I was fond of all sports which were spiced with danger, and particularly of hunting. But there was no sport I loved so well as a practical joke, no game that for me had so delicious a flavour as the teasing of my friends and especially the more serious and dignified--though such pranks have frequently cost me dear. From the multitude of which I have been guilty I recall one which had different consequences from those I had foreseen.

I was hunting in the neighbourhood of Siena late one afternoon in the summer of which I speak. Chigi was detained at his villa in the expectation of guests, and I was alone save for the company of my ape, Ciacco, which I had purchased of some strolling Bohemians. I was training the creature to retrieve my game, in which service he was extremely zealous and clever.

We had ridden far and were both parched with thirst, when I paused to rest in the shadow of a ruined tower which crowned a hill and commanded the road to Siena. Two sumpter mules, guarded by armed men, had just passed on in the direction of the city, and following at some distance in the rear two travellers, an elderly man and a young girl, were approaching the tower where at that moment I chanced to be stationed.

In spite of the fact that their horses were jaded they were pushing them to the utmost, anxious, doubtless, to rejoin their convoy and to gain Siena before the closing of the gates.

I doubt not, that, armed as I was, and with wind-disordered hair, I presented in front of that grim barbican a sufficiently sinister appearance. Certain it is they took me for a bandit and their faces blanched. The man retained some vestiges of self-possession, however, and, doffing his hat, craved permission to pass.

Apprehending the situation, the spirit of mischief with which I am at all times possessed moved me to personate the character for which he took me, and I gruffly bade him stand and deliver toll of the valuables he carried.

"My property has preceded me," he replied unsteadily, "but I will blow this whistle and bid the knaves unload it for your worship's choice."

"Nay," I replied, "my merry men are dealing with your servants. I am a robber-knight, it is true, but one not altogether devoid of courtesy. I therefore ask but a kiss from your pretty daughter, and that small melon which dangles in the netted pouch at her saddle-bow, for which my thirsty ape is gibbering."

If the traveller had been pale hitherto he was livid now.

"Not that, not that," he cried; "hold me in ransom if you will, but let my niece pass on unmolested. She will send back whatever sum you demand, for we have wealthy friends in Siena."

"Is it so?" I replied; "then I will forego the kiss, which is doubtless reserved for a wealthier suitor, but the fruit you will not deny, for I have ridden far to-day, and have the thirst of the evil one." The man's only reply was to cut the girl's horse so savagely across the flanks that the frightened creature dashed past while his own horse blocked my pursuit.

But Ciacco, perceiving that the coveted fruit was about to be lost, in three flying leaps overtook the fugitive and clambering up the lady's draperies seized on the swaying pouch, which his sharp teeth managed to unravel, and presently came hopping back, man-like upon his hind feet, the melon clasped within his hairy arms.

My prisoner uttered a wail of anguish. One would have thought the ape's trifling booty an inestimable treasure, for he rode so furiously toward Ciacco that the ape dropped the melon and scampered up a neighbouring tree. But my blood was up. I was not to be defrauded of my prey, and as the traveller was on the point of dismounting, I fired my arquebus in the air, and so terrified his horse that it galloped after the fleeing maiden. Its rider was also well frightened, for, though he drew rein uncertainly when he saw me possess myself of his luncheon, when I fired again (though purposely wide of the mark) both travellers resumed their flight, nor paused until they had gained Siena.

I laughed to myself at the success of my prank, thinking of the added mirth I should enjoy in telling the tale that evening. Meantime I hastened to rescue the melon from my pet, but his strong hands had already rent it asunder, and to my astonishment there rolled from its interior and broke open upon the flinty road a little casket for which the rind had been but the concealing envelope.

I was in very truth a highwayman, for unaware I had stolen the travellers' treasure. The melon had hidden a quantity of jewels, which now besprinkled the dust; rubies, emeralds, pearls, sapphires, beryls, as well as semi-precious stones such as jacinths, onyx, and sardonyx, rendered more costly than their brilliant fellows by the skill with which they had been cut into cameos and intaglios. It needed but a glance at an amethyst incised with a scene from the history of Cupid, and Psyche, and at another larger stone bearing a marvellous Apollo and Marsyas, to realise that they were antiques of inestimable value, the collection of some great prince. I gathered up the gems by handfuls and stuffed them into my wallet. I was sobered by the realisation of the enormity of my crime, for I had possessed myself, vi et armis, of jewels worth a king's ransom; and I had no clue by which I could safely return them.

I sifted the dust with my fingers, explored Ciacco's mouth, and gathered up the fragments of the melon-rind that no stray gem should escape me; but it was with sincere repentance and the gravest apprehensions that I took my way to Villa Cetinale.

Repairing to the stables, I put up my horse and climbed with my booty to my loft. Raphael was not there, and tying Ciacco to my bed-post I again examined the gems, gloating over their beauty and yet wishing with all my heart that they had never come into my possession. I compared them with a list in the box, found none missing, and returning them to the little casket carefully corded and sealed the same, and sat for a long time racking my brains for some issue from the dilemma. I was awakened from my dreams by a servant who announced that dinner was served, and that his master awaited my coming to present me to his guests. While hastily dressing, I resolved at the first opportunity to confide frankly in Chigi and to take his advice in the matter. Having thus lightly shifted the responsibility from my mind, and not being able to think of any better method of concealment, I once more placed the casket within the melon with the intention of returning for it in the course of the evening, and so hastened to my friend's table.

Here what was my astonishment at being presented to the very persons who had figured in my adventure, and who proved to be Messer Bernardo Dovizio, Chancellor of his Eminence Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, and his niece Maria, whose beauty was somewhat lessened by weariness and the traces of recent tears. The Chancellor, also,--who to my relief did not recognise me,--was by no means in good form, nor did he regale us with any of those witty stories for which he is so justly famed, but sighed and groaned between every mouthful. His misfortune had so afflicted him that he could not keep silence, and disregarding my presence, which indeed he hardly noticed, he poured forth the cause of his woe. The gems which he had lost were a part of the famous collection of Lorenzo de' Medici, which his son, the Cardinal Giovanni, had carried with him in his flight from Florence, and was now secretly sending by his Chancellor in the expectation of pledging them to Chigi, in return for bills of exchange which would serve him in good stead during his exile in France.

The faithful Dovizio, devoted to the Cardinal's service, as he had been to that of his father, was in an agony of despair. "I will bring this highwayman to the gallows," he continually repeated. "I will move heaven and earth to discover the villain."

"Have you any guess as to whom he may be?" I asked, for the humour of the matter grew apace upon me.

"Certainly not of his name," replied Chigi, "but the description given by my friend is so exact that he cannot fail to be discovered."

"A man of gigantic stature," repeated the Chancellor, "with eyes of green fire gleaming from under his matted hair, a raucous voice which I could not fail to recognise; and on his croup an enormous baboon, as dangerous and malignant a beast as his master, trained also to like acts of brigandage, for it attacked my niece and robbed her while I held the bandit in play with my sword."

"The baboon will bring him to justice," said Chigi, for it so happened that he had never seen Ciacco; "there is no such creature in Siena. This description shall be sent to every town in the vicinity and the miscreant will be easily identified."

I could scarcely conceal my amusement, but turning to the Signorina I asked her if she could recognise their assailant.

"Of a surety," she rejoined "though I cannot corroborate my uncle's description. The brigand's eyes were not green, for I marked them well, and they were black and merry as your own, nor was his voice harsh, but sweetly cadenced. Indeed now I bethink me you resemble him in other particulars."

"You resemble that villain not at all, young man," interrupted her uncle. "He was twice your weight and bulk. I would know him anywhere and at our next meeting he shall not escape me."

"Truly," I said, "a most lamentable mischance, and to think that you lost not only the jewels but your fruit as well. However, since you have a fondness for melons I may be able to furnish this repast with a desert of your liking, and if our host will excuse my absence I will fetch it."

I ran to my loft bubbling over with appreciation of the exceeding wittiness of my own joke, but on opening my door a cry of dismay escaped me. My window was broken, the cord which had tied Ciacco gnawed through, and both the ape and the casket had disappeared.

Nemesis had now loaded me with a despair identical with that of Bernardo Dovizio's. Like him, I foresaw myself suspected of having stolen the jewels. The amusing joke had assumed the proportions of a dangerous situation, and since I could not restore my ill-gotten gains I rashly determined to make no confession. I reflected that though the Signorina Dovizio might have shrewd suspicions she could bring forward no proofs. Ciacco, my compromising partner in crime, had fled. No one at the villa knew that I had ever owned such a pet. Even Raphael had not seen him, for he had been busy in Siena for a fortnight, and the Bohemians from whom I had bought Ciacco had passed by a week before. In an evil hour I determined to hold my peace for the present, hoping that some happy chance would lead to the discovery of the lost jewels, for which indeed I sought continually with every means at my command.

Chigi too had instituted such search as was possible without putting the matter in the hands of the authorities, which would have brought about awkward complications with the signory of Florence. In the meantime he had invited the Dovizios to remain at the villa as his guests, an invitation which was accepted with much content. The Chancellor gave himself up to the delay with such resignation that I presently perceived that he had business of his own at Cetinale other than procuring funds for his patron, that in fact he had brought his niece in the hope of securing for her husband the banker Chigi, a good match even then in point of fortune. There was in Maria Dovizio such dewy freshness and sweetness, such absolute simplicity and purity as could not fail to appeal to any man with eyes to see; but Chigi was blind, being enamoured of another woman and she of a very different type, the improvisatrice Imperia, accounted the most talented singer in all Italy.

While the Dovizios lingered in this unavailing quest, of which the gentle Maria was in utter ignorance, Raphael returned to the villa, and Love, who is always sharpening his arrows for the unwary, was not idle. It was the lady whom he first wounded, though we suspected it not at the time. Later, in Rome, the Signora Giovanna de Rovere gave me a letter written her by Maria Dovizio when at Cetinale, because forsooth I was mentioned therein, though in no complimentary a wise; and as this letter showeth forth the trend of affairs better than could any words of mine, I enclose it with this memorial.

Virgin and Child, by Sodoma

Pinacoteca, Milan]

Maria Dovizio to the Lady Giovanna Feltra de Rovere (Sister of the Duke of Urbino), Duchess of Sora and Prefectissa of Rome at Urbino.

"SIENA, October, 1504.

"Most magnificent, most beloved, and most sweet Lady:

"For whom my heart longs with true devotion. Truly Madam, since we parted in Urbino most strange adventures have befallen me which I will now relate. On our way to Siena we fell in with a bandit who robbed us, and though my uncle is tarrying here in the hope of the recovery of his property the matter is not altogether simple but presents more complications than I can explain or indeed understand.

"While we are thus delayed we are the guests of the banker Agostino Chigi at his villa of Cetinale. With the exception of our host and of two young painters, also his guests, we see no one, so, for lack of other material, I will describe these young men. The elder is a conceited prankish fop, if no worse, called Giovanni Bazzi, and why his comrade, Raphael Santi, should hold him in affection I can by no means understand, unless the vulgar saying be indeed true that love goes by contraries. In presenting Raphael to us our host assured my uncle that though as a painter he is as yet unknown he is destined to make for himself a great career. But to these eulogies of Chigi's I scarcely listened, my attention being held by the charm of the artist's personality. Though he said but little, his eyes were eloquent, and a smile of heavenly sweetness lighted from time to time the gravity of his thoughtful face.

"At our host's insistence Bazzi showed one of his paintings--a Madonna and Child--which I scarce regarded until Raphael praised its excellencies, boldly defending the painting from my uncle's strictures.

"While he spoke so eloquently I made a feint of examining the picture and was indeed moved by the love which overflowed it, the Madonna caressing her babe and he in turn petting a little lamb; but my uncle pished and poohed, saying that this sentimentality was but a feeble reflection of his master Da Vinci; and our host cut the discussion short by demanding that Raphael should show his own work. This he could not be persuaded to do, modestly persisting that he had naught worthy of our consideration, though he promised later to show us a Sposalizio upon which he was engaged but which was not then finished.

"With all this, I have not related the circumstance which at once put us upon the familiar footing of old acquaintanceship. It was Chigi's chance remark that Raphael was a native of Urbino, where he had been a favourite with all those choice spirits who make your brother's court the most brilliant in Italy.

"And when I demanded of Raphael if he knew you and he told me of your goodness to him, and how you were held in love and admiration of all, then it was that our common affection for your ladyship made us to feel that we had known each other from the time that we first knew you.

"It is true that he did not boast as he might well have done that you had kindly written a letter in his behalf to the Gonfalonier of Florence, whither he intends later to journey. But my uncle learning of this later was duly impressed thereby, and pronounced him a young man of engaging manners who doubtless deserved such distinguished favour.

"Even with this warrant our acquaintance has made no such rapid strides. I meet him rarely except at our host's table where there are often other guests and always that pest Giovanni Bazzi, whom I can in no wise abide, and concerning whose honesty I have of late entertained very grave suspicions. So serious indeed are they that I will not at present divulge them but shall continue to watch the rogue, knowing that the guilty sooner or later accuse themselves. I think he dreads me for he leaves me always to converse with Raphael, with whom my topic is ever Florence, which I knew as a child before the banishment of the Medici.

"He tells me that he longs to see the city on account of the artists there assembled and chiefly the painter Frate, formerly known as Baccio della Porta, who turned monk under the preaching of Savonarola.

"'And truly,' said he, 'I think that art and a monastic life wed well together, and I would willingly retire to some cloistered garden afar from the world if I might carry my box of colours with me, and might sometimes see as in a vision a face like thine to paint from.' Then was I seized with a foolish timidity so that I could in no wise answer--nay, nor so much as lift up my head--but my heart said, 'And why afar from the world? Why not in it making all better and happier?'

"And while I sat thus silent, abashed, he, continuing to gaze upon me, cried: 'Nay, but I must paint thee: for thou art the very embodiment of the ideal which I am striving to shadow forth in my picture. I wish to depict the Virgin at the time of her betrothal to St. Joseph, And to show a soul as pure as any of Fra Angelico's angels shining through a body that shall have all the perfection and charm of Da Vinci's women. It is what my master, Perugino, strove for but never attained. How could he when he had only his beautiful but soulless wife Chiara Fancelli to paint from?'

"'And do I look thus to thee?' I asked in wonder. 'Then, indeed, I would that I might pose for thy painting; but, alas! I fear that to this my uncle would in no wise consent.'

"And so, indeed, it proved. For later, when my uncle fancied that he perceived some likeness to myself in the Sposalizio, though I had given Raphael no sittings, he was vehement in his denunciation of the presumption of all artists.

"My uncle might not have been so vexed but for the ill-timed jesting of this same Bazzi. We had been asked to inspect the picture before it should be sent to the monks for whom it was painted, and while I stood entranced with its exceeding loveliness and my uncle himself was astonished by the skill displayed, the Signor Chigi explained the details of the composition.

"'It is a tradition,' he said, 'that the blessed Virgin was sought in marriage by so many young men that her parents besought the high-priest to aid them in their choice of her husband. He accordingly demanded that her suitors should give their staves into his keeping, to be placed over night before the altar, with the understanding, in which Mary herself meekly acquiesced, that he whose staff budded should become her husband. On the morrow Joseph's staff was found to have put forth blossoms. This legend, as you see, our artist has followed in his painting, for not only is Joseph's staff tipped by a cluster of small flowers, but the young men who accompany him, the disappointed suitors, bear flowerless staves, and one of the rejected is breaking his across his knee in token of his vexation.'

"Of this incident I would make no account, had it not been the occasion for Bazzi's unmannerly trick. For that graceless fellow chancing to spy leaning against his easel, the rod upon which Raphael was wont to rest his hand while painting, he very slyly made fast to it a nosegay of orange blossoms which the Signor Chigi had presented to me on my entrance and which I had carelessly let fall.

"You cannot imagine the coil which this trick occasioned, for its author speedily called our host's attention to the decorated rod, and the signification of its adornment was at once apprehended to be my own approval of the painter.

"Raphael alone retained his senses, for he at once divined that the perpetrator of the jest was his scapegrace friend and extorted from him full confession of his prank, asserting that it was inconceivable that I could have had any part in it.

"My confusion was such that I accepted the explanation with gratitude as an escape from the bantering of the Signor Chigi and the displeasure of my uncle. But as days passed by and Raphael held himself aloof, giving me no opportunity to thank him for his tactful defence, I perceived that it was not so much the meaning of the token which had been imputed to me at which my heart revolted, as the shameless and public way in which it had been thrust upon my friend. In this plight I still remain and turn to you for sympathy in my trouble, to you sweet lady who cannot fail to think me sadly love-sick and bold, but I pray you chide me not, seeing the matter can go no further, for I learn that Raphael has been recalled to Urbino by your ladyship's brother to execute certain commissions. So that your ladyship will soon see him and will have an opportunity of learning from him whether he at all regrets leaving Siena, though I beg that you will ascertain this without so much as suffering him to suspect that I have in any way signified that I have met him. For it is perchance best that he is going, for were I to see him often I do fear me that my heart might become so pitched and set upon him, that I should in time most rashly and inconsiderately fall in love, which were a bold and unmaidenly thing to do, and I mind that you once said that no virtuous woman would allow her affections to conduct themselves thus insubordinately until the Church had by the sacrament of marriage given her good and sufficient license thereto.

"And so Madam, praying Maria Sanctissima and Maria, the sister of Lazarus, my patroness, to keep me constant in this mind, I rest your ladyship's loving friend and devoted servitor

"MARIA DOVIZIO."

It must be understood that this letter came not to my knowledge until long after its writing. I knew not then either the deep affection of the writer for Raphael, or her aversion for myself. By an irony of fate we had begun our acquaintance by loving at cross purposes. The "prankish fop" and "graceless fellow"--whose affection had indeed been hitherto no great compliment to a woman, being lightly caught and as lightly lost--was to his own surprise falling very honestly in love. So accustomed was I to the attraction of false lights that I said to myself often in the earlier stages of the malady, "This will pass like the others," not realising that I was entering upon the one great passion of my life, which all my later experience would but deepen, and death itself, if the soul be immortal, will have no power to quench.

APOLLO PROMISES

Little we see of Nature that is ours.

* * *

It moves us not,--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn, So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn.

W. WORDSWORTH.

Raphael, at the period of which I write, had but one mistress,--his art,--and after finishing the Sposalizio he withdrew from the society of the Dovizios, painting most assiduously. I remember that his model was a pretty maid of seven years, named Margherita, the child of one of Chigi's servants, as playful and as ignorant as a little fawn. The startled look in her eyes, when spoken to by any one but Raphael, reminded me of some wild creature of the woods. But with him she was never shy,--singing and prattling the livelong day with the most charming and naïve affection. While Raphael painted, Bernardo Dovizio, who apparently regretted having wounded him, came from time to time to lend him books, much deploring that one so gifted by nature should be unread in the classics.

His daughter watched them from a distance, and when Raphael left his easel would steal near and study the picture or chat with me and with the little Margherita. On such occasions the child, usually merry and loving, would sulk and scowl unhandsomely, and though Maria Dovizio was sweet and generous to her, she showed an unreasoning prejudice amounting to discourtesy, for which at first I was at a loss to account. I mind me that she was present when I tied the bunch of orange blossoms to Raphael's mahl stick, and after the visitors had left the studio the child, believing that the flowers were the gift of the Signorina Dovizio, tore them from the rod and trampled them beneath her feet.

When I chid her for such savage behaviour Margherita burst into tears and cried out passionately that Raphael was her friend, and that the strange lady had no business to try to steal him from her. Seeing her so unreasoningly jealous at such a tender age I was mightily amused, having no premonition that these two would one day be rivals in good earnest for Raphael's love.

But Margherita's jealousy woke in me a curiosity as to how far it was well-founded, and bantering Raphael thereon I came to the conclusion that he loved Maria Dovizio, but that he had so modest an estimate of his own talent and prospects that he would never tell her of his affection. The knowledge that I had a rival enlivened mightily my own passion, and determined me to lay the matter plainly before the lady and demand that she should choose between us.

Finding my opportunity I argued my friend's cause, as it seemed to me with great magnanimity, but at the same time I neglected not to set forth how superior were my own advantages. To my immense surprise she refused me in such terms as to leave me with no ground for hope,--persisting at the same time that I was mistaken in regard to Raphael's feelings.

In sheer contrariety and because her refusal had temporarily taken away my senses, I maintained that I knew whereof I spoke.

"Would that I had known this before," she said turning from me.

"You would not then have disclaimed sending the message implied by the flowers which I attached to his mahl stick?" I persisted rudely.

"Nay, nay," she cried all of a tremble, "it is best as it is," and she made me swear that I would tell nothing of all this. The oath sat lightly on my conscience, and when my pride had somewhat recovered from the wound which it had received, my better nature asserted itself for I reflected that here were two young creatures whom nature intended for one another and I determined to give these bashful lovers another opportunity in which to understand each other.

Though I prided myself not a little on the rare nobility of soul which I manifested by such unusual procedure, it was not so disinterested as might at first appear. For, I reasoned in my heart, when all comes to be known Maria Dovizio will give me credit for great self-sacrifice and delicacy of feeling, while Raphael cannot fail to be touched by my magnanimity. Back of all this self-laudation there was an ulterior motive hardly confessed to myself. By springing the mine prematurely I would either cement their union or drive them permanently apart, thus clearing my path of a dangerous rival while removing any imputation of underhand dealing upon my part. I dared the risk for I was nearing that point of desperation where uncertainty is worse than the knowledge of absolute defeat.

While I sought for some promising way in which to execute my scheme, Raphael read the translations of the pagan writers which Dovizio had lent him, and this plunge into a bath of the old literature, so new to him, had a tremendous effect upon his susceptible mind. He regretted deeply that Pico della Mirandola, who strove to harmonise Greek mythology with the Christian religion, had been snatched away by death before he could have had the opportunity to converse with him. He read his writings with avidity and listened to what Dovizio remembered of his arguments that the religion of the Greeks was as truly a revelation from God as our own, and he could readily believe the assertion of certain of the humanist's friends that at Pico's death-bed the Virgin and Venus had met, and comforting his dying gaze with their presence, had together borne away his soul to the regions of the blest.

Without being any less Christian, Raphael's soul expanded in the sunshine of these influences, absorbing all that was joyous and beautiful in pagan ideas. Chigi lent him his favourite manuscript, the Myth of Psyche, translated from Apuleius, which he declared Raphael must one day paint for him. But of all the gods of antiquity the one which roused our young enthusiast to deepest admiration was Apollo, whose avatar was the sun, but whose spiritual significance was infinitely more, the light of the soul, the god of music, art, and poetry and all that elevates the spirit of man.

"Listen Giovanni," he said to me one day, "I could pray to such a deity. Think you that it would be sin to utter a prayer like this of Socrates: 'Beloved Pan, and all ye gods who haunt this place, give me beauty of the inward soul, and may the outward and the inward man be at one'?"

Seeing sport in the idea I assured him that such adoration was commendable and would doubtless meet with a response. I had my own idea of what form that response should take. Chigi held revel that night to celebrate a visit from the improvisatrice Imperia, who was on her way to Rome. Raphael could not be induced to join the company, preferring to spend the night devouring some books lately come from Venice. He had striven to tell me of a mysterious experience. A stone bearing the image of Apollo had fallen before him as he read, and he had accepted it as a propitious omen. I laughed rudely and he shrank from me offended.

"I would have shown it to you," he said, "but now you shall not see it."

I repeated this hallucination to Chigi and Imperia, and they also found it amusing.

"He is as drunk with poesy," I insisted, "as ever I have been with wine. If the Signorina would graciously sing some old Greek chant yonder in the garden he would believe that he heard the voice of the gods."

Imperia's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Let us humour this young enthusiast to his bent," she said. "I will hide in the laurel copse at the foot of the garden if Bazzi here will bring him out upon the terrace."

"He could never be content to hear your divine voice," Chigi objected, "without seeking you out, and then--"

"And then, my friend, you would imply that the disillusion would be too cruel. No, I am too evidently a part of this solid earth to pass as a nymph of Apollo."

I remained silent but I looked meaningly at Maria Dovizio, who stood near the window, her slight figure outlined against its darkness. Imperia followed my glance.

"Ah! there is a girl, graceful and ethereal enough to satisfy an artist's ideal."

"What a pity," Chigi said, "that she has not your voice."

"Nay, if the Signora will but deign to sing as she suggested," I persisted, "we will robe the Signorina Dovizio in Greek draperies and pose her in the little pillared temple in front of the laurel thicket and Raphael will not doubt that the voice is hers."

Thus, at last, my scheme was carried out, though we had much difficulty in persuading Maria Dovizio to lend herself to it. Only when Chigi explained that it was an ovation to Raphael, in which she was to crown him with a wreath of laurel and foretell him a glorious future, did she consent. Even then she had no suspicion that I had any ulterior motive in suggesting the little tableau.

It was late at night, or rather early in the morning, when all our arrangements were completed and, returning to the studio, I dragged Raphael from his books on pretence that we both had need to cool our brains.

The view from the terrace was a favourite one with each of us. In the mysterious morning twilight there seemed something supernaturally sentient in the atmosphere, as though it quivered in expectation of the dawn. A soft trill, faint with rapture, filtered through the foliage of the neighbouring wood. It was a solitary nightingale calling his mate; and presently he was answered by flute-like notes which soared above the soft murmur of a viol still strumming in the villa as a skylark cuts the mists. It was not another nightingale as I at first thought, but Imperia's voice from the laurel thicket mocking the melody. As she sang there appeared within the circle of the tiny temple's columns a white-robed figure, outlined against the pale green and lemon yellow of the dawn. It might have been a statue save that as the song of the improvisatrice, a rhapsody to Apollo, thrilled the air with passionate sweetness, it raised its perfect arms in invocation. As though in response to the gesture the clouds flushed through delicate rose to crimson, while the radiance beneath their exquisite arch burned like molten gold, with ever-increasing intensity, until the sun itself blinded our eyes with its intolerable white fire.

Though this was exactly the event which I had planned, I was not prepared for such phenomenal success, and I stole nearer the temple spellbound by my own artifice.

The effect upon Raphael in his exalted mood may readily be imagined. To him my little comedy was a supernatural vision, and kneeling before Maria Dovizio he exclaimed: "Beautiful priestess, beseech Apollo to grant me the power to make the world more beautiful."

Mechanically the Signorina repeated the lines which I had assigned her: "To you it is decreed to find Apollo and to bring back the Golden Age."

Then, as she bent to crown him with the wreath of laurel, the perfume and warmth of her person intoxicating his senses, her bared arms encircling his neck, her soul in her eyes, Raphael awoke to the consciousness that this was no phantom but a woman pulsing with life and love, and that woman Maria Dovizio.

He might have revolted at the trick and have thrust her from him; but look you--it is always the unforeseen which happens. His arms were around her and he drew her to him unresisting till for an instant her lips touched his forehead and his face was buried in her bosom. Then she withdrew herself, pushing him from her very gently and steadying herself tremblingly with her hands upon his shoulders.

"And shall I not find you again, O my beloved?" he cried, springing to his feet.

"Surely," she answered, "surely, when you have found Apollo."

She had turned from him and was hurrying toward the villa, but he followed her, calling her name.

"Claim me not now, not now!" she cried, as he caught her hand.

"When you will," he answered, closing her fingers over some small object, "this is my pledge that when you call me I will keep the tryst."

He passed me a moment later, but so great was his preoccupation that he did not see me. I knew by the exalted look upon his face that I had played and lost. Raphael had awakened from his dreams to love. That instant of mutual enlightenment for two such natures was not alone an ineffaceable memory but a sacred though wordless betrothal.

Through my pain I vaguely heard Chigi calling and returned to the villa. Neither he nor his friends had understood the full significance of what had just happened, and Bernardo Dovizio was demanding of his niece an explanation of the scene.

"He thought me one of the muses," she said, "and begged me to beseech for him the favour of Apollo."

"But he gave you something," said Dovizio. "Show it to me," and he wrenched open his niece's fingers.

For one instant he gazed wonder-stricken at the token, and as I pressed close with the others I also recognised the famous Apollo intaglio, the gem of the collection of Lorenzo the Magnificent, of which for a few hours I had been the unlawful possessor.

Exclamations of wonder and admiration arose on all sides. But Dovizio, recovering his power of speech, seized Chigi by the arm, exclaiming: "We have the thief! Look you Agostino, I have had my suspicions all along. It was Raphael who played the bandit, and robbed me of my jewels. I demand that you arrest the villain."

Maria's look of anguish cut me to the heart. "Nay, listen to me," I cried; "it was not Raphael but I who stole your gems. You shall not burst in upon him and kill him with the shock of your accusations. Listen while I confess the truth." And then and there I did confess it, to the wonder but not to the satisfaction of Dovizio.

"But where are the other gems?" he insisted. "You are a pair of rogues, the two of you. Come with me to your confederate and disgorge your booty."

"Give o'er, my good Dovizio," said Chigi. "I will sift this matter; come with me but keep silence, for I believe in my soul that Bazzi speaks the truth. I will hear Raphael's version of how he came by this intaglio; since a portion of your lost property has been returned, perchance the remainder is on the way."

And so indeed it proved. Raphael had not returned to the studio, but as we opened the door we heard a scampering and chattering, and caught a glimpse of Ciacco leaping to the top of a high cabinet and thence to a rafter where he perched whimpering in fear of punishment.

"Come down, you rogue," I cried, "come down and retrieve your game."

The creature understood and climbing into the hay loft, which joined the studio, returned, hugging to his breast the lost casket.

Dovizio, nearly fainting with excitement, counted his treasures, and compared them with the list. All were there, excepting the Apollo intaglio, which Ciacco, driven by hunger, had that evening restored to Raphael.

As it came so pat with the matter of his reading, it is no wonder that he imagined it had fallen from the skies, and this view of the case even the placated Dovizio took upon reflection.

"It were a pity to rob him of his illusions if they are an inspiration to him," he mused. "Let him think himself favoured by Apollo; and as for my niece, since our business here is now accomplished and we shall leave Siena on the morrow, he will probably never see her again, and it is as well that he should not connect her with his visions."

Thus ended our adventures at the villa of Cetinale for Raphael also presently left us for Urbino and Florence and all things seemed as they had been before our meeting together. But I knew that the day would surely come when he would claim his beloved, and that in the spinning of their fates so slight a thing as the pranking of a fool had twisted itself into the very fibre of their lives, never to be unravelled until the shears of Atropos should cut the cords asunder.

III

APOLLO FULFILS HIS PROMISE

Federigo de Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, gives his views of Raphael

Then why too will he try so many things, Instead of sticking to one single art; He must be studying music, twanging strings, And writing sonnets with their "heart and dart," Lately he's setting up for architect, And planning palaces, and, as I learn, Has made a statue--every art in turn.

W. W. STORY.

Raphael, as I have said, betook himself to Florence, that centre of the arts, and for a matter of four years I saw him not, nor can I, my Giulio, give you any record of his Florentine experiences, vital as they were to the flowering of his character and genius. I saw only the change; he left me a youth, naïve, ignorant, but filled with a divine enthusiasm, inspired as it were by the very spirit of God. In those four years he became instructed, absorbing all that was best from ancient and modern art, but still a mystic, a young archangel in knowledge and power.

He studied first with Fra Bartolommeo in the cloister of San Marco, and the painter-monk yearned over him, as the child of his soul. But he divined also from the mere beholding of Da Vinci's pictures what I had been able to learn only by painful study, the secret of the master's charm.

At the same time the strong undercurrent of the Greek spirit rife in Florence was bearing him irresistibly on to his mission as leader of all that is beautiful, joyous, and noble in classical art. Fra Bartolommeo could not fail to be distressed by these tendencies in his disciple. Raphael came to him one day saying, "Beloved Master, his holiness the Pope has called me to Rome; and I go with joy, for it has been revealed to me that there I shall find Apollo."

"Ah! my son," the pious painter replied in anguished warning, "beware, for whoso findeth Apollo loseth Christ."

And now I come to our Roman life and especially to that familiar intercourse at the Villa Chigi where Raphael and I were nearer of one spirit, for all your opportunities, than were you and he, my Giulio. In Rome, as in Siena, I preceded him, and had the better chance for fortune's favours, which I wilfully threw away. For early in his pontificate, Pope Julius II. made Agostino Chigi his banker and farmer of the alum mines whose yearly revenue was estimated at $100,000. Nor did Chigi with this elevation forget old friends, for in the spring of 1507 he came to Siena to fetch me as a personal favour to Rome, but on our arrival he introduced me to the Pope, and obtained from him my commission to decorate the Stanza della Segnatura. But, fool that I was, I fancied my luck could not desert me, and painted only when it pleased me, ran my horses at all the races in Italy, and played the dandy, the spendthrift, and the roistering spark, until his Holiness in disgust turned me from the Vatican, and called Raphael to take my place, bidding him erase the little work I had done upon the ceiling.

This, however, Raphael refused to do. On the contrary he did me the honour to paint my portrait beside his own, where you may see both of them to-day in that glorious fresco of the School of Athens, the serious inspired face of the young maestro cheek by cheek with the coarser features of his laughing, devil-may-care friend; and I prize more highly that testimony of his esteem than all the other honours of my life.

I lingered on aimlessly at Rome, watching him at his work, fascinated by the superb conceptions with which he glorified the walls of the Vatican, and admiring the daring which enthroned Apollo and his attendant muses there in the very sanctuary of Christendom.

It was his homage to the old worship, his endeavour to bring back Apollo, and that he thought then of Maria Dovizio's promise that he should find her when this was accomplished I had one day convincing proof; for, turning over his sketches, I found scribbled upon the back of a study for the Disputa this sonnet:

"LOVE'S BONDAGE"

"Love, thou hast bound me with a cruel force, The light of her two tender starry eyes, A face like snow flushed rose 'neath sunset skies, With gentle bearing and with chaste discourse. But I would make no plaint, so great my bliss. The more I love, I long to love again. How light the yoke, how sweet the circling chain Of her arms round my neck! And 'neath her kiss Leaps forth the embodied soul in ecstacy. Unloosed those bonds I suffer ceaseless pain, For great joy kills whom it doth wholly move. Though throbbing still with tender thought of thee, My heart is heavy and I speak in vain, But be my silence eloquent of love."

Raphael and Sodoma

Fragment of School of Athens, in the Vatican--Raphael]

I knew that the poem was addressed to Maria, for it was at this time that Bernardo Dovizio, dazzled by the change in Raphael's fortunes and repenting of his hasty action at Cetinale, offered my friend the hand of his niece.

Raphael had told me of this, begging my congratulations. "She is at Urbino," he said, "but has written me confirming our betrothal. She tells me, too, that she has loved me all these years. Such constancy is miraculous, and I am the happiest of men."

It was with a sore heart that I wished my friend joy. He knew not of my trouble, or I think it would have poisoned his happiness, for he sympathised so deeply with all his friends that their sorrows were his own. I mind me that we met Agostino Chigi that day, and that he told us of his prosperity; how he was sole owner of five score banking houses outrivalling those of the Medici and, indeed, every other firm in the world; how he monopolised not alone the alum, but also the wheat and salt industries; how his lakes alone supplied Rome with fish and his stock farms its markets; that his fleet numbered upwards of an hundred merchant vessels, while thousands of men did him service; that, in short, his fortune was now past computation, and his income beyond his power of spending.

He explained all this not in a spirit of boastfulness, but, with an arm about each of us, told how he desired that we should share in his glory. He had determined to build a villa in Lungara upon the Tiber which should excel all of the Roman palaces, and while Peruzzi was his chosen architect, Raphael and I should divide its decoration. "For if I have become a prince of finance," he ended, "you, dear friends, are princes of art, and we will all three join in making this villa a worthy dwelling-place for one whom you knew and admired at Cetinale."

Thinking for the instant that he referred to Imperia, who was now in Rome, Raphael congratulated him warmly and confided his own betrothal to Maria Dovizio. But at that news a sudden transformation was wrought in the demeanour of our old friend. His face became purple and swollen and his arms fell to his sides. Not a word spake he for a full minute, but he drew his breath hard, flinging out at length a bitter sarcasm on the faithlessness of women, and bidding Raphael trust not too much to their promises, he abruptly left us.

Villa Farnesina, Rome]

There was only one construction to be put upon his conduct. Maria's loveliness had apparently made no impression upon him at Cetinale, but the memory of it had lingered in his heart, and when he met her after a lapse of years and saw how her beauty had matured, an affection, of which he himself may not have been conscious, flowered suddenly, just as a rose-tree set in ungrateful soil and long accounted dead may in the fulness of time come to unlooked-for efflorescence.

Sharing his envy, I could only mark it with a laugh, but Raphael said, kindly, "Poor fellow, with all his wealth, I am many times richer than he."

In my heart I knew that of her three lovers Maria had chosen wisely, and Chigi's disappointment would not have added to my own affliction, but for the reflection that in the present turn of affairs he would not be likely to hasten the building of his villa, and my last hope of employment in Rome was fading like a cruel mirage. But Raphael could well afford to waive Chigi's patronage, for him it was but another step in the golden staircase of success which now mounted invitingly before him. The Pope not only overwhelmed him with projects for the decoration of the Vatican but made him curator of all antiques which might be discovered near Rome, with full power to direct excavations.

Returning to the Vatican from the walk during which we had encountered Chigi, Raphael found awaiting him a letter from the Pope, announcing that certain ancient statues had been discovered in the gardens of the villa of Nero at Antium, (now Porto d'Anzio), and desiring him to examine them and arrange for the transportation of the more remarkable to Rome.

"Come with me," Raphael cried, "since you have nothing better to do--pardon me, my friend--since such an excursion is exactly what you would enjoy. We will ride to-morrow morning to Ostia and charter some fishing craft there for the sail to Porto d'Anzio."

I accepted the invitation, glad to visit this favourite seaside resort of the Roman emperors. Even before we landed we could see the ruins of their villas deep in the clear waters of the bay, fish gliding through arches and the seaweed waving its pennons from the walls. The cliff at the back of the town presented a most impressive appearance, being pierced by great arched openings like the portals of a Roman bath. And such, indeed, they were, for on the promontory above had been the gardens of the imperial villa, and from them staircases carven in the rock descended to this subterranean chamber, which at full-tide the sea, rushing through a long canal, once converted into a swimming-pool. The great cavern had been dry for centuries, for the tides had piled their own sandy dykes before it, and the vaulting had fallen bringing with it a portion of the garden of the imperial villa and burying its statues beneath the debris. It was here that excavations had been begun, and as we entered the cave from the beach, our way was bordered by the fragments of many a column and capital, by broken vases and by headless statues.

But none of these attracted us, for in the centre of the chamber, perfectly illumined by a shaft of light which fell upon it slantwise from the chasm in the roof, was the most superb statue which our eyes, nay, which any human vision had ever beheld.

Apollo's very self stood there, god-like in superhuman majesty, as though he were an archangel who had alighted from his flaming chariot to lift a threatening hand against the workers of iniquity.

I cannot describe the profound impression which this discovery made upon Raphael. He was raised to the seventh heaven, as on that memorable night at Siena, and while he gazed at the statue a mysterious voice, clear but freighted with intense emotion, chanted the Hymn to Apollo to which we had listened at Chigi's villa.

At first we could not tell from whence it came but looked about in startled surprise. Presently, however, a branch of laurel fell through the opening in the roof, the song ended in a peal of laughter, and we knew that some one was looking down upon us from the old Roman garden. No one but Imperia could sing like that, and when Raphael exclaimed. "It is the same song, the same singer that we heard at Cetinale." I cried out. "The same, the same. She is celebrating the discovery of Apollo."

"She promised to come to me when I had found Apollo," he said, and bounded up the rude stairway. Even then I did not realise that though Raphael had recognised the voice he still supposed that it was Maria Dovizio who had sung on that evening, and that it was she whom he now believed he was about to meet.

There was no one in the ruined villa. A goatherd at a little distance, of whom I inquired, pointed to the shore, and we saw some pleasure-seekers embarking in a small sailboat.

"It is Chigi's yacht," said Raphael, "that is his pennon which flaps from the mast, and Chigi himself is standing at the stern waving his cap to us. There is a lady with him. He is steadying her with his arm. Your eyes are better than mine, is it she?"

"It is indeed," I replied, "I would know her anywhere. His arm is around her waist and she is clinging to him as of old. The unsteadiness of the vessel is but an excuse. Many times at Cetinale have I seen them standing thus. What else could you expect of such a woman? He is the richest man in Italy."

AN ORGY AT CHIGI'S VILLA

And Chigi made a joyous feast; I never Sat at a costlier; for all round his hall From column on to column, as in a wood, Great garlands swung and blossomed, and beneath Heirlooms and ancient miracles of Art Chalice and salver, wines that Heaven knows when Had sucked the fire of some forgotten sun And kept it through a hundred years of gloom, Yet glowing in a heart of ruby, cups Where nymph and god ran ever round in gold, Others with glass as costly, some with gems Movable and resetable at will, And trebling all the rest in value. Ah! heavens! Why need I tell you all? Suffice! to say That whatsoever boundless wealth like his, And genius high, can compass, rare or fair, Was brought before the guest.

TENNYSON:--Altered.

So I found Raphael and so I left him, successful and apparently happy. Had I comprehended what the incident which I have just related meant to him,--had I even suspected his misconception of the situation,--I might have made him understand that neither at Cetinale nor at Porto d'Anzio had Maria Dovizio sung the Hymn to Apollo, that in both places it was Imperia who had chanted, Imperia who had responded to Chigi's caresses, and so this woful misunderstanding might never have divided these young lovers. Maria, far from being Chigi's guest at the moment of the discovery of the Apollo, was in Urbino, awaiting in ever-increasing wonder and dismay some word of affection from her betrothed. Failing to receive it she came to Rome, but Raphael held himself aloof, pleading the Pope's demands upon his time. He thought that she would understand the cause of his neglect, and herself sunder the engagement, for he would not shame her by any accusation.

One ineffaceable picture of my friend I carried with me into my exile, for going to the Vatican to bid Raphael farewell, I was told that he was in the Pope's villa of the Belvedere superintending the placing of the Apollo, which had just arrived. The guards barred my entrance to the loggia, and indeed I cared not to intrude, for I saw that the Pope was there, gazing at the statue with a grim delight, as though he believed that the god had descended to earth to expel as of old the barbarian Gauls.

Raphael stood entranced, unmindful of the presence of Maria Dovizio, who sat a little apart, heart-sick and bewildered, unable to grope her way through the thick fog of misconception which had drifted between herself and her beloved.

And over all the white form of Apollo gleamed in heartless gladness, untouched by any feeling for his votary's sins of ignorance for which he would cry in vain repentance, "Had I but known, had I but known!"

It was impossible for me to tarry longer in Rome without employment, and I bethought me of the monks of Oliveto, and how they had asked for a series of paintings for their cloister. To this refuge, therefore, I repaired, completing, in two years, thirty-one great frescoes for little more than my sustenance. Yea; and for my belly's sake I might have accepted the life of a cowled monk, had not Chigi in the nick of time drawn me from that slough with the announcement that Peruzzi had completed the building of his villa, and that it was now ready for decoration.

Here accordingly, while painting in the upper rooms, I enjoyed the comradeship of that brotherhood of choice spirits--Giovanni da Udine, Francesco Penni, and the rest--who with thee, my Giulio, wrought so lovingly under Raphael's direction, illuminating the lower loggia with the legend of Cupid and Psyche.

It is true that to my surprise and sorrow Raphael himself came not, but I knew that he was overwhelmed with commissions, and to their demands upon his time I attributed his avoidance of the villa. In the meantime I delayed not to seek him out, and to express my surprise that I found him still a bachelor. But at my first probing of that old wound he winced so perceptibly that I perceived that it was by no means cured, and I made no demand upon his confidence for an explanation of his delay in demanding the consummation of an engagement which had not been publicly dissolved.

Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Sodoma

From the portrait of himself in the Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore]

The world gossiped as to the cause of Raphael's neglect of his affianced. The most part declared him cold, absorbed only in love of his art, and some whispered that the Pope who was insatiable in his demands for his work, feared that marriage would lessen his enthusiasm for art, and had put off indefinitely the wedding-day, promising Raphael the Cardinal's hat if he remained a celibate.

While I could not believe that this was the true explanation of the estrangement between the lovers, I was far from suspecting the truth. Though I called upon Maria Dovizio I got no enlightenment in that quarter, nay, nor encouragement for my own passion, for when I put forth some timid essays, they were promptly crushed by a look of such reproach that I called myself brute as well as fool for my persistency.

Longing to do her service, I determined to haunt my friend until he should voluntarily confide the secret of the trouble, and if it were possible bring them together.

With this end in view, in all my leisure hours I frequented Raphael's studio, where he was painting the most glorious of his Madonnas for the monks of San Sisto. And here, posing for that divine work, I found again our child-model of Cetinale, the little Margherita.

She was no longer a child, for the years which had elapsed had transformed her into a woman; but she had retained her old characteristics of shyness, simplicity, and a worshipful love of Raphael. She had followed him to Rome, so he told me, like some faithful, dumb animal which could not live away from its master, and moved by her great affection he had given her lodging and employment as his model. There lacked not malicious tongues who called her his mistress; but so modest yet unabashed was her demeanour that I can well believe that she deserved to the end the honour which he paid in choosing her face as his ideal of all that is noblest in woman.

Margherita (La Fornarina), Attributed to Raphael

Pitti Gallery, Florence]

While I worked at Chigi's villa my patron gave me much of his company; for though the decorations were unfinished he had established his residence here. Imperia was his guest at this time, and as we sat at table one evening Chigi complained in her presence that Raphael slighted his engagements and avoided his company.

"Have I not heard," Imperia hazarded boldly, "that he is to marry the Maria Dovizio whom I met at Cetinale?"

"If her uncle speaks true," Chigi replied, "Raphael is but a recalcitrant lover, continually putting off the date of the marriage. Bernardo Dovizio admitted to me that his niece's patience is at an end, and that she could be persuaded to accept a more ardent suitor."

Imperia darted a keen look at Chigi, but replied calmly, "It is plain that Raphael has been entangled by some other woman," and she demanded of me suddenly if it were not so.

"It may be," I admitted reluctantly, for this possibility had of late occurred to me, and I told them of Margherita.

Chigi was delighted. "If Maria Dovizio but knew of that liaison," he cried, "she would send her betrothed about his business."

"Have a care, Agostino," Imperia exclaimed. "Let the news reach her through any one but you. She would hardly regard with kindness the man who brought her proof of Raphael's faithlessness."

Chigi looked at me significantly. "You knew her," he said. "It is in your power to serve us both."

"God knows I would give my life to serve her," I cried unguardedly.

Imperia laughed. "You have more than one rival, my Agostino," she said. "Bazzi is a good fellow, but not to be trusted with your love affairs."

"I deny the accusation that I am your honour's rival," I cried hotly. "I had never any hope in that quarter."

Chigi nodded thoughtfully and pressed my hand. "Do not torment yourself, Imperia," he said after a moment, as he left us. "We have neither of us any chance with Maria Dovizio; and you shall be mistress of this villa and of its master so long as you care for your kingdom."

But Imperia was not deceived though she feigned to believe Agostino's protestations. Chigi's information that Maria's hand had been practically offered him by her uncle had wakened the most intense alarm for her own position, and she instantly determined to effect a reconciliation between Maria and Raphael.

"Look you, Bazzi," she said when we were alone, "that hussy, Margherita, must leave our friend's house at once. I can see that you love Maria Dovizio so disinterestedly that you prefer her happiness to your own. Now it is certain that Raphael and Maria love each other; and we must not allow any foolishness to part them. Let us work in concert to bring them together."

I remember that when I heard Imperia say this it struck me as an instance of an angel being served by the machinations of an evil spirit. But I hesitated not to make her my fellow-conspirator, nor did I revolt that Margherita must suffer, nay, that I myself must relinquish any lingering hope of winning my idol's heart if so be that her happiness could be secured.

"I am with you in that business," I assured Imperia, "but how can we effect it?"

"Very easily," Imperia replied. "Margherita is the daughter of Chigi's pastry-cook at Cetinale. Send for him--I will give you money. He shall exercise a father's authority to compel his daughter to return to her home. His mistress once beyond his reach, Raphael will forget her, and imagine that he has never loved any one but his betrothed. I know you men--the nearest is ever the dearest."

Imperia's plot was but partially successful. She brought Margherita's father indeed from Siena and established him as a baker near the villa; but no commands, threats, or bribe of his could induce his daughter to renounce Raphael's protection.

Imperia again took counsel with me. "The fool loves him," she said; "we must act through her love, not against it."

"And how shall we do that?" I asked.

"We must make her understand that her lover, intoxicated by his delight in her company, is disregarding his own advantage in neglecting Chigi's commissions, and that she must reside here in order to induce Raphael to follow her."

The scheme seemed to me likely to succeed, and one morning, when I shrewdly suspected that Raphael would be busied at the Vatican, I took Imperia with me to his studio to try her powers of persuasion upon Margherita.

Even then she could not have succeeded but for my help, for Margherita, trusting in my friendship for Raphael, appealed to me. "It is for his good," I assured her.

"Then I will not refuse," she replied, "but will go with you at once. So write for me to my master that if he wishes to paint from me, he will find me when he is prepared to fulfil his promises to his patron."

Thus, without giving her time to reflect, we carried Margherita in Imperia's carriage to Chigi's villa. I guessed that she had no intention of sending the girl's message to her lover; that she planned to keep Margherita hidden until Raphael, believing her false or losing all hope of finding her, would return to his allegiance to Maria.

But there were other forces at work on which I had not counted, and the first of these was Chigi.

Something like the same chain of reasoning had been started in his mind by my mention of Margherita, but he had reached the conclusion that Raphael's infatuation for his pretty model must be encouraged. He therefore privately requested me to induce her, by exactly the same arguments which we had already employed, to do precisely what she had already done.

The humour of the situation was so great that I burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

This so angered the unsuspecting man that I managed to ejaculate between my paroxysms: "Margherita in this villa! And what pray you would the Signora Imperia say to that?"

At this question Chigi whistled. "I had forgotten Imperia," he admitted, and then to my utter confusion that lady entered the room with her arm about the waist of Margherita.

Never before had I seen Imperia unable to give a plausible account of a situation, but while she hesitated, Margherita did her good service by telling the simple truth. She thanked Chigi warmly for his patronage of Raphael, and explained how Imperia and she had plotted to induce him to complete the frescoes.

"And you did this to give me pleasure?" Chigi asked, regarding Imperia with wonder and admiration. She felt her advantage and found her tongue. "You little know your Imperia," she said, sweetly; and true though the words were he understood them falsely, as she meant he should, and the recording angel gave her credit for a lie.

"I am more grateful than I can express," cried Chigi, "for I have great need of Raphael at this moment, and you, dearest Imperia, shall never regret this kindness."

"We have played into the hands of the enemy," Imperia said to me in a low voice as Chigi darted away to write to Raphael; "nevertheless the game is not yet lost. I know my dear Agostino's cards, and though they are good ones I have some which he recks not of and he shall never wed the fair Maria."

A wonderful woman was this Imperia, as I was beginning to realise, though I had not yet sounded the depths of that strange nature.

Chigi's letter to Raphael was a masterpiece of duplicity. He confided to him as the most sacred secret the information that his engagement to a certain mutual acquaintance of Cetinale days would soon be announced, and he begged his friend, for the sake of the lady, to give his personal and inimitable touch to the frescoes of Cupid and Psyche, and to other decorations in the villa which he was preparing for his bride. Although he also confessed the stratagem by which he had secured the presence of Margherita, it was the news of Chigi's approaching marriage which determined Raphael to accede to his request. Though Agostino had worded his allusions to his betrothed so skilfully that they applied with equal fitness to either Imperia or Maria Dovizio, Raphael never doubted that he referred to the latter. The news simply confirmed the suspicions which he had long entertained, and with characteristic magnanimity, he determined to leave Maria the highest masterpiece of which his hand was capable.

He came at once, and Imperia sat smiling at his side while he painted Margherita as the principal figure in the glorious Triumph of Galatea, Chigi, marking Margherita's look of rapt devotion, drew me aside in ecstacy. "It is plain that they love each other," he said. "When the picture is nearly finished I will invite Bernardo Dovizio and his niece to see it. They will understand the relations of this artist and model. He is cutting his own throat with every stroke of his facile brush, for Maria Dovizio will brook no divided affection."

But when in alarm I reported this conversation to Imperia--"Children!" she cried scornfully; "what children you men are! Can you not see, Giovanni, that, though Margherita worships her painter as a god, he cares for her only as a piece of stuff, a marble column, or a jewel, beautiful truly and therefore serviceable to paint from, but nothing more. Let Agostino bring Maria Dovizio here. I desire nothing more warmly than to compass her meeting with Raphael. But give me a moment with her to prepare her for that meeting, and one in which to withdraw Margherita and all others from the scene, and think you that in the joy of their reconciliation either he or she will give a thought to his picture or to the models who posed for it?"

Pope Leo X,

Giulio de Medici (afterward Pope Clement VII), and

Luigi De Rossi, by Raphael

Pitti Gallery]

Chigi did not at once carry out his intention of inviting the Dovizios to his villa, for another project for the moment eclipsed that design and demands a temporary digression from my story; for if he was to be reckoned with as a lover, in a review of the hidden causes which brought about the catastrophe, he is still less to be neglected in his proper rôle of financier.

Pope Leo X. was to discover this as his predecessor Julius had done, and with more reason, for Leo was the greater borrower, all of his family and the adherents of the Medici descending upon him on his accession to the papacy like a flock of buzzards. Julius had left the papal coffers well filled, but Leo had not only emptied them, but he had anticipated his own revenues and those of his successor. Truly was it said after his death, that upon his family and the building of Saint Peter's he had spent the income of three pontificates. Chigi was not distressed that there was no likelihood that the Pope would ever repay what he owed, for he had not only received ample security through Dovizio at Cetinale, but there were richer spoils in view which made that transaction seem of trifling account. Agostino desired to become the sole manager of the papal finances; and he did indeed inaugurate that system of loans by which the Pope's entire revenue was not sufficient to meet the interest on his debts.

As a means of impressing Leo not only with his friendship but with his boundless wealth, he determined to entertain his Holiness with hospitality so lavish that it would put to shame the very feasts of Lucullus. Leo was in a certain way to blame for this foolish display, for Cardinal Riario was building his palace at this time, and his Holiness piqued Chigi by insinuating that the residence of Riario would rival the one which he was erecting. To this slur Chigi retorted hotly that Riario's palace would not be able to compare with his own stables.

It was no empty boast, but in order to realise it our patron immediately put a stop to the work upon the main villa and, as you, my Giulio, will well remember, set us all to the task of transforming the larger building upon the river bank (originally planned to house his stud of horses) into an immense banqueting-hall. The stalls of inlaid woods were concealed by the Medici tapestries; and by means of stucco, paint, lavish gilding, and innumerable sparkling lights, depending in crystal lustres and silver lamps, we achieved an effect of magnificence unsurpassed by the imaginary creations of oriental enchanters.

In this gorgeous apartment, carpeted by rugs given Chigi by eastern princes and crowded with the costliest works of art, was served a feast for whose menu the scholars of the city ransacked the records of the orgies of the Roman emperors. The cardinals and foreign ambassadors invited were surprised by dainties and wines peculiar to their own countries, timed to arrive in Rome from many distant lands on the very eve of the banquet. Golden beakers richly ornamented in repoussé with bacchanalian subjects, and engraved with the coat of arms of the guest before whom they were placed, were provided with every different wine, and the convives were begged to accept the entire set as trifling mementos. To prove that the plates of solid gold on which the many courses were served were not used twice, they were when changed ostentatiously cast through the open windows into the Tiber.

But here I had contrived to secure my friend the reputation of prodigality without its penalty, for we caused nets to be stretched in the river under the windows so that the service was presently hauled safely in by Chigi's servants, who patrolled the river in small boats.

I was responsible also for another feature, which was in a manner too successful. When the fruit was served I placed before Bernardo Dovizio (now Cardinal Bibbiena) a melon, which upon cutting open he found filled with what he took to be the very gems lost and found at Cetinale in so remarkable a manner, and which he had left in pawn with Chigi. As with trembling fingers he was attempting to transfer them to his pocket, I set free my ape Ciacco, who, previously coached to this performance, descended a rope which depended over the table, seized the melon, and climbing again beyond Dovizio's reach pelted the company with the jewels.

Great was the indignation of the Cardinal as he saw them scrambled for and pocketed as souvenirs by the guests, until our host presented Leo with the casket containing the original intaglios of which the ones placed before Dovizio were but imitations.

The banquet being now concluded, the tapestries concealing the stalls were drawn aside, and a hundred pages, each habited like a prince, led in as many superb horses caparisoned in cloth of gold, and fastened them with silver chains to feeding-racks of the same metal.

Chigi then apologised for having received his Holiness in a stable, saying that he would not have dared to do so had not the great Head of the Church accepted such humble hospitality for his birthplace. Leo graciously admitted that his host had fulfilled his boast, for Riario, with all his extravagance, had never attempted a scene like this.

The tapestries were sent to the Vatican on the morrow, but, in displaying them and returning publicly the Medici jewels, we had over-shot the mark, for the Pope's self-love was wounded by the exposition of the straits to which he must have been reduced, to have accounted for their having been even temporarily in Chigi's possession, and another banker received the patronage which our friend had coveted.

On Bernardo Dovizio, however, this feast made an immense impression, and when Chigi invited him to bring his niece to dine more intimately at his villa, he accepted the invitation with an alacrity which gave color to Agostino's hopes.

Chigi had no intention that Imperia should either preside on this occasion or suspect what he was planning. He had asked a sister-in-law to do the honours of his villa for the day, and had requested me to escort Imperia to the Pope's villa of Magliana, where he had secured her an invitation to sing for a party of sport-loving cardinals whom Leo had asked to enjoy his favourite pastime of hunting.

"And see to it, my dear Bazzi," Agostino had said to me, "that you on no account bring her back until late at night, for Maria Dovizio must not know that Imperia is an inmate of my house."

As in duty bound I secretly took counsel with Imperia, discussing, as we fancied, every phase of the situation.

Chigi, over-confident in the superiority of his own attractions, had not at first deemed it necessary to send Raphael away. It is possible that he even thought that Maria would be shocked at seeing her betrothed apparently domiciled under the same roof with Margherita, and glorifying her charms with such over-appreciation, while Raphael, surprised by Maria's sudden appearance as a willing and familiar guest, would accept the desired construction as to her relations with his patron, and that thus the estrangement between these unhappy lovers would become irremediable.

Imperia admitted that if neither of them were previously warned, and, if no opportunity were afforded them to converse together alone, appearances would be much against Raphael, and Chigi's plot would have a fair chance of succeeding. "Especially," she added, "if Maria Dovizio has any conversation with Margherita will Raphael's chance of placating her be lost, for a woman who loves can not fail to recognise the same affection in another, and Margherita's infatuation is so evident that the blind might see it."

"Then," said I, "our first concern must be to spirit Margherita away, else Maria in her injured pride may accept Agostino."

"'Tis the first step," Imperia replied. "Leave it to me; think you I have not long since foreseen and provided for such an emergency?"

As she spoke there was a look in her set face which frightened me. "I will ask Margherita's father to send for her for the day," I said, uneasy, I knew not why.

"Leave her to me, I tell you," Imperia commanded hastily. "If Raphael and Maria Dovizio are to be reconciled Margherita must drop out of his life--not for one day but for ever."

I liked this still less, though I laughed and reminded her how she herself had said that, when they once understood each other, Margherita would be no more to either of them than a lay-figure on which to hang draperies.

Imperia smiled bitterly. "I may have thought so once, I know better now."

"There is another way to foil Agostino," I suggested. "He will show the Dovizios my painting of the Marriage of Alexander and Roxana, in his own room. Leave such of your jewels on his dressing-case as will prove to Maria that you have recently occupied the apartment--that necklace which she admired so greatly at Cetinale. She would recognise it at once."

Imperia shook her head contemptuously. "Agostino would gather up all such equivocal objects before he showed her the room," she said.

"Then, since we cannot hinder Maria Dovizio from accepting this invitation, would you dare to return earlier than you are expected, and converse with her before she leaves? We might explain to Chigi afterward that we had miscalculated the time, or that our appearance was in some other way unpremeditated."

"He would never forgive me," she said slowly; "nevertheless, if I do not succeed in removing Margherita, I shall return in time to pull the strings of my puppets, for Agostino shall never marry another woman."

I well remember the last evening which we spent together. The air was sultry, and through the arches of the loggia occasional flashes of lightning made fiery crevices in the black heavens. Imperia paced uneasily to and fro.

"We shall have a storm," she said. "I have a mind not to go to Magliana."

Chigi turned pale and rose and walked beside her. He even attempted to put his arm about her waist, but she repulsed him with a savage scowl.

"Do not pretend that you care for me, Agostino," she said angrily; "I will believe it only on one condition, that you accompany me to Magliana."

"I have told you it is impossible, Imperia. Bazzi is an amusing fellow, a hundred times more entertaining than I."

"I am tired of Bazzi. He is an insufferable idiot. I will not go unless you escort me, Agostino."

"Then Raphael shall take you. His Holiness will be delighted to welcome him, as he desires him to plan some decorations for the villa; and you cannot, my Imperia, call Raphael an idiot."

It was Imperia's turn to blanch as Raphael came forward and courteously asked the honour of her company.

But she quickly recovered herself, "Raphael is too charming," she said guilefully, "and were it not that his heart is given to the beautiful Margherita I might be tempted to angle for it."

"Ah!" exclaimed Chigi, well pleased, "that is good news. Margherita is a rare prize, and I am glad to know that the unimpressionable Raphael at last really loves."

The eyes of Imperia and Chigi were intently fixed on Raphael's face, striving to read his true feelings. He felt and resented the scrutiny.

"I doubt if the man lives who has not loved," he said, flushing. "Perhaps it is because I love so deeply that I cannot speak of it."

Imperia softened for an instant, and, taking a lute, sang, Quant'e bella giovinezza. But the pent-up passion that possessed her this evening woke again in the line, Che si fugge tuttavia, and she ended suddenly with a dry choking sob.

An embarrassing silence fell upon us all, broken finally by Imperia. "A little honesty might clear the atmosphere," she said to Raphael; "besides what need is there of such secrecy when we have all guessed the truth. No, you shall not escort me to Magliana. I will be no man's second choice, not even yours, Agostino," and so saying she ungraciously departed from us.

"She is in a devil of a humour," Chigi said to me, uneasily, when Raphael had bidden us good-night. "What can have angered her? Is it possible that she suspects that her reign is over?"

"She suspects nothing," I assured him, truthfully; in my heart I added, "but she knows everything."

"But will she go?" Chigi asked, anxiously; "that is the immediate question. I cannot put her out by force."

"You will never have to do that," I replied. "She will go, never fear. Leave her to herself, her mood will have changed by morning. There is only one thing to be relied upon in women, and that is their inconstancy, not alone to men but to any fixed idea."

In spite of the flippancy with which I had striven to beguile Chigi, I was vaguely but none the less genuinely troubled. Unable to sleep, I strolled toward dawn in the garden. A lamp burned in the tiny room assigned to Margherita, and to my surprise there flitted across the window the shadow of Imperia. What business could she have there at such an hour? Certain expressions, to which I had given no weight at the time of their utterance, came back to me with sinister significance, and especially her declaration that Margherita must disappear, "not for one day, but for ever." I continued my watch until a gust of rain drove me into the house, and I fell asleep to dream that an oubliette lined with the blades of scythes (such as I knew existed in certain old Roman houses) had at Imperia's touch yawned beneath the couch of Margherita; and that the innocent barrier to Raphael's reconciliation with Maria had indeed "dropped from his life."

But I awoke at Chigi's cheery halloo to find that the storms of the previous evening had cleared. Imperia had expressed her readiness to spend the day at Magliana, and my host desired me to select horses for the excursion.

I never saw her gayer than on that day, and when I looked askance as she jested with his Holiness and flirted with Riario, daring him to give a supper in her honour in his new palace, she pressed my foot beneath the table and looked me smilingly in the face, as though striving to assure me that all was well.

But she would not comply with Leo's request for his father's canzone, Quant e bella, which she had sung with such effect the previous evening. She left the gay company while they were all clamoring for more, and insisted that I should urge the horses to the utmost as we dashed back to Rome.

Our common anxiety to know the outcome of Maria Dovizio's visit to Chigi's villa, together with her great longing for sympathy in this crisis of her life, so wrought with the favouring opportunity of that wild drive that Imperia granted me such a revelation of her inmost soul as I believe no other man can boast, and I knew her that night as God knew her.

She had sought Margherita the night before a criminal at heart, for she had determined to sacrifice the girl. Imperia possessed a house in Rome. It was on her lips to tell Margherita that Raphael, who had met with an accident, was lying there at the point of death, and had sent for her to come to him. She had already instructed her servants, and had Margherita once entered that house its doors would never again have been opened for her.

But Imperia's guardian angel was kind. Before the words could be uttered Margherita had poured out her heart in gratitude to the woman whom she believed to be her benefactress. While the girl spoke, Imperia strove to steel herself, repeating mentally the round of cruel reasoning which had been the Ixion's wheel on which her tortured brain had unceasingly revolved:

"If Margherita speaks to Maria Dovizio, Maria will never be reconciled with Raphael. Unless Maria weds Raphael she will surely marry Chigi. Either Margherita or I must perish. Which shall it be?"

But gradually this fiend's chatter grew less insistent and Imperia heard instead Margherita's impassioned protestations. She was happy, blissfully happy, and owed it all to the disinterested kindness of her patroness; for though Raphael had always loved her he had been bound by a hateful engagement to a cold, proud woman, who had cast him aside for a wealthier suitor. Her memory had rankled in the mind of both, poisoning their happiness, for Margherita well realised that she was herself but a peasant, not to be compared in birth and breeding to this high lady. Until lately she had not deemed herself worthy to mate with so exalted a personage as her lover. But since she had known Imperia she had comprehended how such a miracle might be. "For," said she, "you are just like me, and all of the Signor Chigi's wealth and glory does not crush or humiliate you, because when two people really love each other it makes them equal, and neither genius nor riches nor anything else in all the world is worthy of being compared to the love of a true woman."

That shaft went home. The thought of being classed with this single-hearted girl who had sacrificed everything to a great love so humiliated and touched the heart of the venal courtesan that in spite of all she had at stake, she could not prevail upon herself to do Margherita this great wrong. So, finding that she knew not who the great lady was to whom Raphael was betrothed, Imperia told her of Maria Dovizio's expected visit, as of that of an old friend who had been interested in her as a child at Cetinale, and bade her if opportunity offered repeat to Maria the story exactly as she had just told it, for it would surely be to her advantage to do so.

When Imperia told me this I cried out, "But it will kill Maria, and you forget that Raphael is there and will not permit her thus to speak."

"Nay, my friend," Imperia answered. "Raphael is not there, for Agostino, on reflection, wisely decided not to risk the meeting, and gave him a holiday this morning to work in his own house. Never fear that Chigi will not leave Maria Dovizio alone with Margherita, or that her revelations will have any such deadly effect. Agostino is an adept in consolation, and Maria must long since have divined the truth."

My heart beat in a tumult of conflicting emotions. For an instant a wild, unreasoning hope overpowered all the rest. "Imperia," I exclaimed, "you shall not lose Agostino. I will surrender my chances with Maria to no man but Raphael. If in truth he has ceased to love her,--then, for all you think me mad in saying so, we may both, may all be happy yet."

But such joyous ending to lovers' woes is found only in the fictions of romancers. Certes I have often thought I could design a fairer web than that the fates weave for us.

Even as I spoke Imperia caught my arm and I drew rein, for we were nearing the gateway of Chigi's villa. A carriage was leaving the grounds, and as it passed us we saw Maria Dovizio lying in a swoon in her uncle's arms. Chigi was not with them, for she had left his house apparently indifferent to all that she had seen or heard within it, and had succumbed only when beyond his view.

"Poor child," said Imperia, "you are not wounded so deeply as you fancy. No, do not drive in, Giovanni, I have learned all I wished to know. In spite of her present despair Maria will enter those gates ere long a happy bride; but I shall never knock at them again. The end would have come soon in any event, for Agostino had ceased to love me, but he shall never boast that he cast me out."

I took her to her own house, and when Chigi learned that she had not returned with me he but shrugged his shoulders, for she had rightly divined his heart. I never saw her again, but I heard much, for Rome still rings with wild tales of her notoriously evil life. A nature hers that had much of good in it I bear witness, though sadly she mistook her way. She mistook it even when she tried to do a kindness to Margherita. Shame and heart-break was the guerdon which that poor child received in return for her great devotion.

As for me, the glimpse I had caught of Maria's death-struck face so rankled in my soul through the long watches of that sleepless night that on the morrow, in anguished contrition, I confessed all that miserable story to Raphael.

When he knew how cruelly he had misjudged her he was smitten with such remorse that he could never forgive himself or take joy in life. For though he went to her at once and she forgave him freely, nay, strove to comfort him by protesting there was naught to forgive, she had suffered overmuch to endure the great joy of their reconciliation. Prattling of love and happiness and smiling still when she no longer had strength to utter his name, she peacefully died within his arms.

From the painting by Pietro Michis. Permission of Franz Hanfstaengl]

It was Raphael's grief rather than, as reported, a fever taken in superintending archæological excavations which truly caused his death on his thirty-seventh birthday, upon that Good Friday which neither you nor I, my Giulio, can ever forget.

Margherita told me that in his delirium he knew her not, but kissed her hands, calling her "Maria" and begging her forgiveness. To the poor girl he left by will ample support; but, by the same testament, he was buried by the side of Maria Dovizio, beneath whose name he caused to be chiselled the inscription, "The affianced wife of Raphael Santi, whom death deprived of a happy marriage."