In an old Tuscan villa, a chapel ordinarily makes one among the numerous
apartments; though it often happens that the door is permanently closed, the key lost, and the place left to itself, in dusty sanctity, like that chamber in man's heart where he hides his religious awe. This was very much the case with the chapel of Monte Beni. One rainy day, however, in his wanderings through the great, intricate house, Kenyon had unexpectedly found his way into it, and been impressed by its solemn aspect. The arched windows, high upward in the wall, and darkened with dust and cobweb, threw down a dim light that showed the altar, with a picture of a martyrdom above, and some tall tapers ranged before it. They had apparently been lighted, and burned an hour or two, and been extinguished perhaps half a century before. The marble vase at the entrance held some hardened mud at the bottom, accruing from the dust that had settled in it during the gradual evaporation of the holy water; and a spider (being an insect that delights in pointing the moral of desolation and neglect) had taken pains to weave a prodigiously thick tissue across the circular brim. An old family banner, tattered by the moths, drooped from the vaulted roof. In niches there were some mediaeval busts of Donatello's forgotten ancestry; and among them, it might be, the forlorn visage of that hapless knight between whom and the fountain-nymph had occurred such tender love passages.
Throughout all the jovial prosperity of Monte Beni, this one spot within
the domestic walls had kept itself silent, stern, and sad. When the
individual or the family retired from song and mirth, they here sought
those realities which men do not invite their festive associates to
share. And here, on the occasion above referred to, the sculptor had
discovered--accidentally, so far as he was concerned, though with a
purpose on her part--that there was a guest under Donatello's roof, whose presence the Count did not suspect. An interview had since taken place, and he was now summoned to another.
He crossed the chapel, in compliance with Tomaso's instructions, and, passing through the side entrance, found himself in a saloon, of no great size, but more magnificent than he had supposed the villa to contain. As it was vacant, Kenyon had leisure to pace it once or twice, and examine it with a careless sort of scrutiny, before any person appeared.
This beautiful hall was floored with rich marbles, in artistically
arranged figures and compartments. The walls, likewise, were almost
entirely cased in marble of various kinds, the prevalent, variety
being giallo antico, intermixed with verd-antique, and others equally
precious. The splendor of the giallo antico, however, was what gave
character to the saloon; and the large and deep niches, apparently
intended for full length statues, along the walls, were lined with the
same costly material. Without visiting Italy, one can have no idea of
the beauty and magnificence that are produced by these fittings-up of
polished marble. Without such experience, indeed, we do not even know
what marble means, in any sense, save as the white limestone of which
we carve our mantelpieces. This rich hall of Monte Beni, moreover, was
adorned, at its upper end, with two pillars that seemed to consist of
Oriental alabaster; and wherever there was a space vacant of precious
and variegated marble, it was frescoed with ornaments in arabesque. Above, there was a coved and vaulted ceiling, glowing with pictured scenes, which affected Kenyon with a vague sense of splendor, without his twisting his neck to gaze at them.
It is one of the special excellences of such a saloon of polished and
richly colored marble, that decay can never tarnish it. Until the house
crumbles down upon it, it shines indestructibly, and, with a little
dusting, looks just as brilliant in its three hundredth year as the day
after the final slab of giallo antico was fitted into the wall. To the
sculptor, at this first View of it, it seemed a hall where the sun was
magically imprisoned, and must always shine. He anticipated Miriam's
entrance, arrayed in queenly robes, and beaming with even more than the
singular beauty that had heretofore distinguished her.