W W FENN
A bye-street off the Hampstead Road, not a promising locality for poetry and romance, but rather suggestive, perhaps, of grime and squalor, and more grimy and squalid thirty years ago than now.
Yet here Carlo Juliano Rossi had his studio, and Carlo Juliano Rossi was, at the age of four-and-twenty, one of the most imaginative and poetically-minded young sculptors that you might meet with in a long day’s march. But in the face of high aspirations he had to contend with poverty, and whilst filled with an intense desire to devote himself to the production of work which should live for the benefit of mankind through all time, he had to earn his daily bread in a stonemason’s yard, and this from the age of fourteen.
Charley Rossi, as he was familiarly called by his English friends, was very English also, in spite of his name and descent, having been born and brought up in London. There was some tradition about his being of noble family, albeit his father, like himself, worked with mallet and chisel in the neighbouring Euston, then the New Road. My acquaintance with him began when he was not above seventeen. Then I went abroad, and lost sight of him for a time. Meanwhile I heard from a friend of the death of his father. He had been deeply affected by the event, said my correspondent — so deeply, indeed, that for a while fears were expressed lest his reason should give way. He fell into a state of gloom and melancholy from which nothing could rouse him, and which was due, the rumour ran, to his having become possessed of some terrible secret, confided to him by the poor stonemason on his death-bed.
Well, after a long residence in Rome, I returned to find him steadily triumphing over all obstacles, and established, as I have said, in a studio in the unpromising region aforesaid. Still labouring with mallet and chisel at monumental urns and prosaic effigies of impossible animals, he, nevertheless, had contrived to produce several notable groups, busts, and medallions on his own account. To do this he had hired from a sculptor who had gone on his travels the lofty, capacious, but barn-like room in which I found him. Its owner, an unsuccessful man, had left in it a great number of his somewhat gigantic failures in plaster, and these statues, with busts and casts of all descriptions, considerably encumbered the apartment, and formed a ghostly array beneath the high, broad window, particularly at night, and when the moonlight streamed in from above, as it was doing when I first looked up my old young friend.
‘The place suits me for the present,’ he said, when our hearty greetings were over, and we came to discuss his prospects and mine. ‘You see I sleep here. There, in yonder corner, is my crib behind the screen — a bedroom quite sufficient for my wants. Besides, I like to sleep in the midst of my work, it makes me dream of it; and often when I wake with a new thought I spring up, as Goëthe used, and capture it. This moonlight, now is it not very suggestive? I always let in as much of it as I can through the farther window. Does it not stir the heart of an artist and a poet? See how wondrously the shadows fall from that group of poor Smithson’s. It even gives an air of poetry to the ‘Sibyl’, as he calls that tall, strangely-imagined figure; and the ‘Dancing Fawn’ yonder — in this light it almost looks well modelled.’
Carlo was pointing about the room with an eager enthusiasm whilst speaking, as we sat smoking our pipes in the winter evening by the glimmer of a dim light near the stove.
‘Ah! talking of modelling,’ said I, ‘that reminds me. I have brought you a trifling present which I think you will like. I picked it up at a sale that was going on in an old palazzo when I was in Rome. It is a little damaged, for it is very old, though, of course, not an antique. The notion is very quaint, and pleased me, besides being exquisitely beautiful in execution.’
Carlo’s dark eyes sparkled with delight, as he caught the idea that I had brought him some work of art, and his curiosity grew so amusing that I refused to tell him any more as to the nature of my offering.
‘No, no,’ I went on; ‘have patience; it has not arrived yet. It was too heavy to bring as personal baggage, and is coming round by sea.’
‘Then I can guess,’ he cried. It is a piece of sculpture. Oh! my dear fellow, how good of you! Yes, you have brought me some exquisite gem, no doubt. When — when will it come?’
‘It should be here in a couple of days now,’ I said; ‘and directly —’
‘Yes,’ he interrupted, gleefully, with the quiet apprehension of his race, ‘you will bring it up here. But remember, I am away all day; you will not get in unless you let me know — or, stay — yes — I have a duplicate key of this room; you shall have that, and then you can superintend the arrival, and I shall come home some night and find it standing, say here — place it here, do you see? I must see it first by moonlight.’
‘I also heard,’ I said to him, ‘a strange story in connection with — well, with what I am going to give you, but I shall not tell you even that now.’
I hardly know what possessed me to adopt this tantalizing method of announcing my gift. Say it was a freak due to a foolish impulse of the moment; or perhaps, because, Charley Rossi appearing to be a little gloomy and grave on my first arrival, I wished to communicate some of my high spirits to him. In this I thoroughly succeeded, and we parted for the night with much of the old, cordial, jovial camaraderie which had always existed in our set.
Three days later Rossi’s wishes were carried out. The exquisite gem of art was placed in the precise spot he had indicated, and I awaited the result of his fanciful notion of getting the first sight of it by moonlight with some curiosity. I was not prepared, however, for the effect it seemed to have produced, and was startled beyond measure by the wild, scared, and haggard expression of the young fellow when he burst into my room the following morning while I was at breakfast. I never beheld such a sudden alteration in a man in my life. He looked years older; his usual pallor was intensified a thousand fold; his face was as white as the marble in which he wrought; whilst his black hair and eyes by contrast appeared quite unnatural, and gave him a most ghastly aspect. As he sank exhausted into a chair, his broad forehead was heavily bedewed with the moisture of some mental agony, and for many minutes he could not answer, save with a gasp, my earnest inquiries as to the cause of this alarming appearance and manner. Only after some time was it that he grew sufficiently calm to give me anything like a coherent account of himself. Even when he did so, it was so interrupted by wild ejaculations of bewilderment and terror, and by my own expressions of astonishment at what he told me, that in order to make his statement intelligible I must endeavour to reduce it to a far more matter-of-fact narrative than that which actually fell from his lips. In substance, then, what he said was this:
‘With high anticipations,’ he began, ‘I returned unavoidably later to my studio last night than usual; and although this was a trial to my impatient curiosity, I did not regret it, because the moon, I thought, would be shedding her light with more power the later the hour. The side window of the room, not always unshuttered, allows her at her full, as she is just now, to penetrate more clearly, and earlier of course, than the window to the north. This, therefore, I had opened before leaving home in the morning, because in such clear frosty weather and bright nights as we are now experiencing I always look to getting my fancy stimulated, as I have told you. I prepare for it — look forward to it; besides, it is almost the only natural light which comes into the studio in the winter — at least, that is of much use to me. My heart beat loudly as the key turned in the lock. Full of joyful wonder, I peeped round the screen which shields the door and my bed, and, delighted as I knew I should be with what your friendship had devised for me, I nevertheless did not expect such a dream of beauty as that which met my gaze. My dear fellow,’ continued Rossi, ‘my whole soul went out to you in gratitude for the rare and exquisite treat which you had prepared. I could not have expected, great as my anticipations were, that you would have brought me such an important and valuable treasure of art as the statue appeared to be at that first glance. Little could I think it was to vanish like a dream, although I have likened it to one. It is all a mystery and a marvel, yet it seems to have had a meaning — must have had — as you will say when you hear all.’
What the poor young fellow could be alluding to at this point I was quite unable to divine. Was it possible that the reports which had reached me concerning his mental condition were only too well founded?
‘Statue!’ I cried, looking at him in amazement.
‘Yes, a statue,’ he repeated, as an additional dazed and puzzled expression came over his face. ‘I saw it plainly, as palpably as I ever saw anything in my life: the figure in marble of a kneeling woman, life-size, at prayer, her hands crossed on the top of the prie-dieu chair, with face, drapery, and all details chiselled with rare and masterly power. I examined it, passed round it again and again. The flood of moonlight in which it stood was so ample as to show it me clearly without any other aid. True, I did not touch it; I wish to heaven I had! for then I could have brought another sense, another witness in proof that I was not deceived — that it was not some ocular illusion or mental hallucination. Further — in the calm and beautiful features I could trace a likeness to that unhappy ancestress of ours, whose story and whose dreadful fate, although I have never talked about it to anyone, has been a tradition to me since I was a child, and which, from the first moment I heard it, impressed me with a wondering terror which I have never forgotten, and which was revived with startling vividness as I stood in the presence of this lovely statue. I seemed to recognise the likeness instantly, as I knew it in the picture — a miniature — which my father left me — gave me on his death-bed, and which had passed down to him through many generations of our family. I have it still, and will show it to you.’
It is very difficult on paper to give an adequate idea of what I may call — to use a theatrical expression — the business of this strange scene between my romantic, and, as I thought, demented young friend and myself. Moreover, so far I could not make head or tail of what he was driving at, and I said so repeatedly. But in spite of his intense excitement and mental distress, and the unintelligible nature of his speech, it produced a strange impression on me. His words seemed in a mysterious manner to be leading up to some fact or circumstance with which I also was acquainted.
‘Go on, my dear Carlo,’ I said at length, endeavouring to soothe and comfort him. ‘Try and quiet yourself, and be more explicit.’
He made a strong effort to do so, and steadying himself, continued after a while with greater deliberation and calm.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘there, where we had settled you should place your gift, I found it last night, as I have said — a beautiful kneeling statue of a woman, and, although much disturbed and overcome by the remembrance which the face provoked, it did not lessen my admiration of it as a work of art, or make me forgetful of my gratitude to you. For a long time I was absorbed by emotions of wonder, delight, pleasure, and pain. Finally, having moved aside the screen the better to watch the play of light around the statue, I threw myself upon my narrow bed without undressing, just as the neighbouring clocks were tolling midnight. Their clangour boomed with unnatural loudness in my ears, and added another element of confusion to the whirl already in my brain. I lay there for I know not how long, regarding your gift with a dreamy sense of amazement and awe. As the shadows changed and fell in weird mysterious shapes across the floor, or mingled with the other objects in the room, and as the moon gradually passed away, leaving only the dim reflection of her light upon the walls, my fancy, as it is my pleasure to indulge it, and as it has often done before, led me into a dreamy belief that the place was peopled. The statues standing around became for me endowed with life, slowly moving to and fro, and posing themselves in divers ways suggestive of new and valuable combinations and compositions. Unless you can bear with me and understand this vagary of mine, and accept it as a common habit, you will think it silly, childish, useless; but, as I said before, I have owed to it much of the poor success I have hitherto attained in my art. Be this as it may, however, I was in the full indulgence of the practice, and may have been, as often occurs, on the point of falling asleep in its midst, when I fancied suddenly that the figure of the woman had disappeared, and that the marble chair on which she had been kneeling was empty. A gloom had fallen over that part of the room, only leaving a dim outline of the vacant seat visible.
‘Assuredly the figure was no longer there! But this circumstance produced for the moment little or no surprise, for have I not said that in the mood I then was, I could imagine, nay, I believed, that the statues lived. Certainly then, at first, I was neither terrified nor amazed, and might still have fallen asleep in the conviction that the effect was only one of the phenomena with which dreamland and the border-land which separates it from consciousness is filled. I might, in short, have looked upon it but as one of the dreams it is my pleasure to encourage, had it not been that I suddenly beheld the figure — the marble statue — kneeling now close to me beside the bed, in precisely the same attitude as it had when on the chair, but now without the hands, and by some strange and terrible paradox, blood was issuing from the wrists, there, where the hands had been cut off! Now, truly a great panic seized me. Half paralyzed, I continued to glare in frantic amazement at this awful spectacle. My horror was increased as I saw the cold, white stone gradually warm into tones of life — the marble turned to flesh and blood — the blood no longer being a matter of astonishment to me, for had not the hands been cut off, as I have said? It was a living, breathing figure of a woman that I was looking at! Her hair was brown and soft, her eyelids quivered, whilst the folds of the drapery, like the flesh, became real, and assumed the pliant look and colour of human garments. Before I could reassure myself that my senses were not playing me false I fainted, or slept, I know not which, but I became unconscious, yet still aware of what had happened, for in this horrible circumstance of the handless arms, I recognized the crowning tragedy of our family tradition, and the link which binds the portrait with the statue.’
Fully convinced by this time that the poor fellow, in addition to some return of his mental malady, was suffering from the effects of a horrible nightmare or dream, I nevertheless felt that his words now had a strong significance in them. They were developing a very remarkable coincidence with what I had to tell him of the legend associated with my poor present, but of which, as yet, he could know nothing. Before I could speak, however, he was proceeding with his story, with more wild excitement and gesticulation than ever.
‘I know what you would say,’ he urged, holding up his hand in deprecation of any interruption; ‘you would say I had simply been dreaming — that is what most people would say. I might have said so myself, perhaps, but for what follows. Hear me out, and then you will see as plainly as I do that it was no dream. The proof that it was not is there — in my studio. When at length I awoke from my trance, or whatever state it was into which I fell, and recovered my senses sufficiently once more to remember the horrible sight I had witnessed, I started up with a feeling of depression indescribable. The pale feeble dawn of the winter’s morning was just creeping in, and then for a moment I admit I thought I had been dreaming, but as my eyes turned towards the spot where you placed the statue, and I saw that it had disappeared — that nothing remained but the empty chair, with merely the hands in marble as before, crossed on the top — cut off as it were by the wrists — when, I say, I saw this, I knew it could be no dream. You may see the hands and chair for yourself, if you will go back with me to the studio; but what the meaning of it all can be, heaven alone knows.’
‘The meaning, my dear boy,’ I broke in, as the young sculptor sank back on his seat exhausted, and trembling from head to foot, ‘the meaning is just what I expected. However much you may doubt, and however strange the coincidence may be, your fancy and imagination have played you a sad trick this time, whether in dreamland or not; for I brought you no statue — nothing more than the quaint device you have just described: a pair of most beautiful woman’s hands resting on the top of a prie-dieu chair, the whole exquisitely wrought out of one block of the purest marble. When you can calmly examine it, and look at the strange composition in its integrity, and without any of your wild imaginings, you will see that it is merely an odd original idea on the part of the artist, whoever he was, which tickled my fancy. I bought it for a song, and brought it to you because I thought you would like it. That it may have had a meaning is possible, and that it is associated with a tradition similar to that at which you have hinted is also true, perhaps; but that you ever saw in your studio the statue — the figure belonging to the hands — is impossible, simply because I did not bring it — it never was there!’
Rossi remained silent, and for a minute appeared surprised, and somewhat relieved by this statement; but presently the old look of terror and bewilderment returned to his face as he said:
‘You explain one fact, perhaps, but you do not explain what strange fate it was which induced you to bring this horrible device to me — to me of all men in the world! Nothing that you have selected throughout the whole of Rome’s antiquities could have had such a terrifying effect upon me as these armless hands have. Even now as I think of them I shudder, and can see the figure of the suffering woman, first as she appeared kneeling in the chair, and then in life at my bedside. A phantom of the brain, or vivid dream I suppose I must admit it was, after what you tell me; but anything more real and palpable you cannot conceive. Strong imagination may play us all tricks at times, but nothing in the whole world, I repeat, could have so stirred mine as this gift of yours.’
‘My dear Carlo,’ I began, ‘it grieves me beyond measure to think I should have been the cause of such distress; but pray believe I am your friend, and, as such, tell me how and why you are so moved. Can it be that because, by a marvellous coincidence, this family tradition of yours is identical with that which was told me of the origin of this work of art, and which at the most, I treated as a mere idle story — can it, after all, be that there is any truth in it, and that it is actually the same as that to which you have alluded? If it be, why then, indeed, no such unlucky fate ever befell a friendly act.’
Although I could not, except upon the hypothesis that Rossi’s mind was deranged again, conceive that he would take the matter so much to heart, I deemed it wise to humour him by this conciliatory tone.
He seemed to pass through some mental struggle before he answered me, but at last he said: ‘Well, tell me exactly what legend there was connected with this fanciful creation, as you imagine it to be, and if your supposition is correct, and the story be that of my family, you will see, I think, that the device is no mere idle whim of the sculptor, but the outcome of a more terrible tragedy.’
‘Surely,’ I answered, as I took out my pocketbook. ‘Here is what was told me by the auctioneer’s clerk when I bought the piece of sculpture; I noted it down at the time. Then I read as follows:
‘In Rome, ages ago, a heartless, unscrupulous libertine of noble birth, but who at the same time had a great genius as a sculptor, professed to have fallen in love with a model who sat to him for her hands, which were very beautiful. He was betrothed, however, to a girl of his own rank, and never contemplated marrying the model. Finding after a while that she was growing troublesome, and was likely to interfere with his matrimonial prospects, he determined to put her out of the way. Through his instrumentality she was denounced to the Inquisition as a heretic, and that infernal tribunal condemned her to have her hands, of which she was very proud, cut off. The hellish cruelty of this act was increased by the fact that she was near her confinement, which it brought on prematurely, together with her death. Years afterwards, a strange piece of sculpture, a woman’s hands crossed on a prie-dieu chair, was found in the noble villain’s studio, but under what precise conditions it had been executed is not known, nor is it known whether his child lived.’
‘Yes, it did live!’ suddenly shrieked poor Carlo in my ear, as I finished reading. ‘Yes, it did live, and that hapless baby boy was my great ancestor — the ancestor from whom my family sprang — and from whom has descended through many generations such talent as its members have from time to time shown in the sculptor’s art. Great God! what an inheritance!’ added the poor young fellow, as he cast a despairing glance upwards. ‘And to think that it should thus have been brought home to me by the possession of the actual monument — the hideous record of that miscreant’s act, wrought probably by his own despicable hands.’
Here is the romance of that bye street off the Hampstead Road, and to which, with an ill-luck unparalleled, I was the innocent means of putting the finishing scene. Were it not that I am assured by the highest opinions among the faculty that the confirmed melancholia into which Carlo Juliano Rossi sank after that sad time would in all probability have come about under any circumstances sooner or later, I might almost have fallen into the same condition myself from the dreadful reflection that it was due to my unfortunate gift.
As it is, at the worst, I must endeavour to think I only accelerated the catastrophe. The hateful cause of it all has been shivered into a thousand fragments this many a day.