The Marble Faun V. 1(玉石雕像卷1)

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THE MARBLE FAUN

(or The Romance of Monte Beni)

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Volume I

THE MARBLE FAUN

CHAPTER I

MIRIAM, HILDA, KENYON, DONATELLO

Four individuals, in whose fortunes we should be glad to interest the

reader, happened to be standing in one of the saloons of the sculpture-

gallery in the Capitol at Rome. It was that room (the first, after

ascending the staircase) in the centre of which reclines the noble and most

pathetic figure of the Dying Gladiator, just sinking into his death-swoon.

Around the walls stand the Antinous, the Amazon, the Lycian Apollo, the

Juno; all famous productions of antique sculpture, and still shining in the

undiminished majesty and beauty of their ideal life, although the marble

that embodies them is yellow with time, and perhaps corroded by the

damp earth in which they lay buried for centuries. Here, likewise, is seen

a symbol (as apt at this moment as it was two thousand years ago) of the

Human Soul, with its choice of Innocence or Evil close at hand, in the

pretty figure of a child, clasping a dove to her bosom, but assaulted by a

snake.

From one of the windows of this saloon, we may see a flight of broad

stone steps, descending alongside the antique and massive foundation of

the Capitol, towards the battered triumphal arch of Septimius Severus,

right below. Farther on, the eye skirts along the edge of the desolate

Forum (where Roman washerwomen hang out their linen to the sun),

passing over a shapeless confusion of modern edifices, piled rudely up

with ancient brick and stone, and over the domes of Christian churches,

built on the old pavements of heathen temples, and supported by the very

pillars that once upheld them. At a distance beyond--yet but a little way,

considering how much history is heaped into the intervening space--rises

the great sweep of the Coliseum, with the blue sky brightening through its

upper tier of arches. Far off, the view is shut in by the Alban Mountains,

looking just the same, amid all this decay and change, as when Romulus

gazed thitherward over his half finished wall.

We glance hastily at these things,--at this bright sky, and those blue

distant mountains, and at the ruins, Etruscan, Roman, Christian, venerable

THE MARBLE FAUN

with a threefold antiquity, and at the company of world-famous statues in

the saloon,--in the hope of putting the reader into that state of feeling

which is experienced oftenest at Rome. It is a vague sense of ponderous

remembrances; a perception of such weight and density in a bygone life,

of which this spot was the centre, that the present moment is pressed down

or crowded out, and our individual affairs and interests are but half as real

here as elsewhere. Viewed through this medium, our narrative--into

which are woven some airy and unsubstantial threads, intermixed with

others, twisted out of the commonest stuff of human existence--may seem

not widely different from the texture of all our lives.

Side by side with the massiveness of the Roman Past, all matters that

we handle or dream of nowadays look evanescent and visionary alike.

It might be that the four persons whom we are seeking to introduce

were conscious of this dreamy character of the present, as compared with

the square blocks of granite wherewith the Romans built their lives.

Perhaps it even contributed to the fanciful merriment which was just now

their mood. When we find ourselves fading into shadows and unrealities,

it seems hardly worth while to be sad, but rather to laugh as gayly as we

may, and ask little reason wherefore.

Of these four friends of ours, three were artists, or connected with art;

and, at this moment, they had been simultaneously struck by a

resemblance between one of the antique statues, a well-known masterpiece

of Grecian sculpture, and a young Italian, the fourth member of their party.

"You must needs confess, Kenyon," said a dark-eyed young woman,

whom her friends called Miriam, "that you never chiselled out of marble,

nor wrought in clay, a more vivid likeness than this, cunning a bust-maker

as you think yourself. The portraiture is perfect in character, sentiment,

and feature. If it were a picture, the resemblance might be half illusive

and imaginary; but here, in this Pentelic marble, it is a substantial fact, and

may be tested by absolute touch and measurement. Our friend Donatello

is the very Faun of Praxiteles. Is it not true, Hilda?"

"Not quite--almost--yes, I really think so," replied Hilda, a slender,

brown-haired, New England girl, whose perceptions of form and

expression were wonderfully clear and delicate. "If there is any

THE MARBLE FAUN

difference between the two faces, the reason may be, I suppose, that the

Faun dwelt in woods and fields, and consorted with his like; whereas

Donatello has known cities a little, and such people as ourselves. But the

resemblance is very close, and very strange."

"Not so strange," whispered Miriam mischievously; "for no Faun in

Arcadia was ever a greater simpleton than Donatello. He has hardly a

man's share of wit, small as that may be. It is a pity there are no longer

any of this congenial race of rustic creatures for our friend to consort

with!"

"Hush, naughty one!" returned Hilda. "You are very ungrateful, for

you well know he has wit enough to worship you, at all events."

"Then the greater fool he!" said Miriam so bitterly that Hilda's quiet

eyes were somewhat startled.

"Donatello, my dear friend," said Kenyon, in Italian, "pray gratify us

all by taking the exact attitude of this statue."

The young man laughed, and threw himself into the position in which

the statue has been standing for two or three thousand years. In truth,

allowing for the difference of costume, and if a lion's skin could have been

substituted for his modern talma, and a rustic pipe for his stick, Donatello

might have figured perfectly as the marble Faun, miraculously softened

into flesh and blood.

"Yes; the resemblance is wonderful," observed Kenyon, after

examining the marble and the man with the accuracy of a sculptor's eye.

"There is one point, however, or, rather, two points, in respect to which

our friend Donatello's abundant curls will not permit us to say whether the

likeness is carried into minute detail."

And the sculptor directed the attention of the party to the ears of the

beautiful statue which they were contemplating.

But we must do more than merely refer to this exquisite work of art; it

must be described, however inadequate may be the effort to express its

magic peculiarity in words.

The Faun is the marble image of a young man, leaning his right arm on

the trunk or stump of a tree; one hand hangs carelessly by his side; in the

other he holds the fragment of a pipe, or some such sylvan instrument of

THE MARBLE FAUN

music. His only garment--a lion's skin, with the claws upon his shoulder-

-falls halfway down his back, leaving the limbs and entire front of the

figure nude. The form, thus displayed, is marvellously graceful, but has

a fuller and more rounded outline, more flesh, and less of heroic muscle,

than the old sculptors were wont to assign to their types of masculine

beauty. The character of the face corresponds with the figure; it is most

agreeable in outline and feature, but rounded and somewhat voluptuously

developed, especially about the throat and chin; the nose is almost straight,

but very slightly curves inward, thereby acquiring an indescribable charm

of geniality and humor. The mouth, with its full yet delicate lips, seems

so nearly to smile outright, that it calls forth a responsive smile. The

whole statue--unlike anything else that ever was wrought in that severe

material of marble--conveys the idea of an amiable and sensual creature,

easy, mirthful, apt for jollity, yet not incapable of being touched by pathos.

It is impossible to gaze long at this stone image without conceiving a

kindly sentiment towards it, as if its substance were warm to the touch,

and imbued with actual life. It comes very close to some of our

pleasantest sympathies.

Perhaps it is the very lack of moral severity, of any high and heroic

ingredient in the character of the Faun, that makes it so delightful an

object to the human eye and to the frailty of the human heart. The being

here represented is endowed with no principle of virtue, and would be

incapable of comprehending such; but he would be true and honest by dint

of his simplicity. We should expect from him no sacrifice or effort for an

abstract cause; there is not an atom of martyr's stuff in all that softened

marble; but he has a capacity for strong and warm attachment, and might

act devotedly through its impulse, and even die for it at need. It is

possible, too, that the Faun might be educated through the medium of his

emotions, so that the coarser animal portion of his nature might eventually

be thrown into the background, though never utterly expelled.

The animal nature, indeed, is a most essential part of the Faun's

composition; for the characteristics of the brute creation meet and combine

with those of humanity in this strange yet true and natural conception of

antique poetry and art. Praxiteles has subtly diffused throughout his

THE MARBLE FAUN

work that mute mystery,which so hopelessly perplexes us whenever we

attempt to gain an intellectual or sympathetic knowledge of the lower

orders of creation. The riddle is indicated, however, only by two definite

signs: these are the two ears of the Faun, which are leaf shaped,

terminating in little peaks, like those of some species of animals. Though

not so seen in the marble, they are probably to be considered as clothed in

fine, downy fur. In the coarser representations of this class of

mythological creatures, there is another token of brute kindred,--a certain

caudal appendage; which, if the Faun of Praxiteles must be supposed to

possess it at all, is hidden by the lion's skin that forms his garment. The

pointed and furry ears, therefore, are the sole indications of his wild, forest

nature.

Only a sculptor of the finest imagination, the most delicate taste, the

sweetest feeling, and the rarest artistic skill--in a word, a sculptor and a

poet too--could have first dreamed of a Faun in this guise, and then have

succeeded in imprisoning the sportive and frisky thing in marble. Neither

man nor animal, and yet no monster, but a being in whom both races meet

on friendly ground. The idea grows coarse as we handle it, and hardens

in our grasp. But, if the spectator broods long over the statue, he will be

conscious of its spell; all the pleasantness of sylvan life, all the genial and

happy characteristics of creatures that dwell in woods and fields, will seem

to be mingled and kneaded into one substance, along with the kindred

qualities in the human soul. Trees, grass, flowers, woodland streamlets,

cattle, deer, and unsophisticated man. The essence of all these was

compressed long ago, and still exists, within that discolored marble

surface of the Faun of Praxiteles.

And, after all, the idea may have been no dream, but rather a poet's

reminiscence of a period when man's affinity with nature was more strict,

and his fellowship with every living thing more intimate and dear.

THE MARBLE FAUN

CHAPTER II

THE FAUN

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

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

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

shall like you all the better!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

taking his stand on the other side of the Dying Gladiator, "if you touch my

ears ever so softly. None of my race could endure it. It has always been

a tender point with my forefathers and me."

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

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

chiefly conversant with rural people.

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

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

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

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

English, "with a real and commonplace young man like Donatello; but you

see how this peculiarity defines the position of the Faun; and, while

putting him where he cannot exactly assert his brotherhood, still disposes

us kindly towards the kindred creature. He is not supernatural, but just

on the verge of nature, and yet within it. What is the nameless charm of

this idea, Hilda? You can feel it more delicately than I."

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

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

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

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

THE MARBLE FAUN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

merriment of woods and streams; living as our four-footed kindred do,--as

mankind did in its innocent childhood; before sin, sorrow or morality itself

had ever been thought of! Ah! Kenyon, if Hilda and you and I--if I, at

least--had pointed ears! For I suppose the Faun had no conscience, no

remorse, no burden on the heart, no troublesome recollections of any sort;

no dark future either."

"What a tragic tone was that last, Miriam!" said the sculptor; and,

looking into her face, he was startled to behold it pale and tear-stained.

"How suddenly this mood has come over you!"

"Let it go as it came," said Miriam, "like a thunder-shower in this

Roman sky. All is sunshine again, you see!"

Donatello's refractoriness as regarded his ears had evidently cost him

something, and he now came close to Miriam's side, gazing at her with an

appealing air, as if to solicit forgiveness. His mute, helpless gesture of

entreaty had something pathetic in it, and yet might well enough excite a

laugh, so like it was to what you may see in the aspect of a hound when he

thinks himself in fault or disgrace. It was difficult to make out the

character of this young man. So full of animal life as he was, so joyous

in his deportment, so handsome, so physically well-developed, he made no

impression of incompleteness, of maimed or stinted nature. And yet, in

social intercourse, these familiar friends of his habitually and instinctively

allowed for him, as for a child or some other lawless thing, exacting no

strict obedience to conventional rules, and hardly noticing his

eccentricities enough to pardon them. There was an indefinable

THE MARBLE FAUN

characteristic about Donatello that set him outside of rules.

He caught Miriam's hand, kissed it, and gazed into her eyes without

saying a word. She smiled, and bestowed on him a little careless caress,

singularly like what one would give to a pet dog when he puts himself in

the way to receive it. Not that it was so decided a caress either, but only

the merest touch, somewhere between a pat and a tap of the finger; it

might be a mark of fondness, or perhaps a playful pretence of punishment.

At all events, it appeared to afford Donatello exquisite pleasure; insomuch

that he danced quite round the wooden railing that fences in the Dying

Gladiator.

"It is the very step of the Dancing Faun," said Miriam, apart, to Hilda.

"What a child, or what a simpleton, he is! I continually find myself

treating Donatello as if he were the merest unfledged chicken; and yet he

can claim no such privileges in the right of his tender age, for he is at

least--how old should you think him, Hilda?"

"Twenty years, perhaps," replied Hilda, glancing at Donatello; "but,

indeed, I cannot tell; hardly so old, on second thoughts, or possibly older.

He has nothing to do with time, but has a look of eternal youth in his

face."

"All underwitted people have that look," said Miriam scornfully.

"Donatello has certainly the gift of eternal youth, as Hilda suggests,"

observed Kenyon, laughing; "for, judging by the date of this statue, which,

I am more and more convinced, Praxiteles carved on purpose for him, he

must be at least twenty-five centuries old, and he still looks as young as

ever."

"What age have you, Donatello?" asked Miriam.

"Signorina, I do not know," he answered; "no great age, however; for I

have only lived since I met you."

"Now, what old man of society could have turned a silly compliment

more smartly than that!" exclaimed Miriam. "Nature and art are just at

one sometimes. But what a happy ignorance is this of our friend

Donatello! Not to know his own age! It is equivalent to being immortal

on earth. If I could only forget mine!" "It is too soon to wish that,"

observed the sculptor; "you are scarcely older than Donatello looks."

THE MARBLE FAUN

"I shall be content, then," rejoined Miriam, "if I could only forget one

day of all my life." Then she seemed to repent of this allusion, and hastily

added, "A woman's days are so tedious that it is a boon to leave even one

of them out of the account."

The foregoing conversation had been carried on in a mood in which all

imaginative people, whether artists or poets, love to indulge. In this

frame of mind, they sometimes find their profoundest truths side by side

with the idlest jest, and utter one or the other, apparently without

distinguishing which is the most valuable, or assigning any considerable

value to either. The resemblance between the marble Faun and their

living companion had made a deep, half-serious, half-mirthful impression

on these three friends, and had taken them into a certain airy region, lifting

up, as it is so pleasant to feel them lifted, their heavy earthly feet from the

actual soil of life. The world had been set afloat, as it were, for a

moment, and relieved them, for just so long, of all customary

responsibility for what they thought and said.

It might be under this influence--or, perhaps, because sculptors always

abuse one another's works--that Kenyon threw in a criticism upon the

Dying Gladiator.

"I used to admire this statue exceedingly," he remarked, "but, latterly, I

find myself getting weary and annoyed that the man should be such a

length of time leaning on his arm in the very act of death. If he is so

terribly hurt, why does he not sink down and die without further ado?

Flitting moments, imminent emergencies, imperceptible intervals between

two breaths, ought not to be incrusted with the eternal repose of marble; in

any sculptural subject, there should be a moral standstill, since there must

of necessity be a physical one. Otherwise, it is like flinging a block of

marble up into the air, and, by some trick of enchantment, causing it to

stick there. You feel that it ought to come down, and are dissatisfied that

it does not obey the natural law."

"I see," said Miriam mischievously, "you think that sculpture should

be a sort of fossilizing process. But, in truth, your frozen art has nothing

like the scope and freedom of Hilda's and mine. In painting there is no

similar objection to the representation of brief snatches of time, --perhaps

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THEMARBLEFAUN1THEMARBLEFAUN(orTheRomanceofMonteBeni)NathanielHawthorneVolumeITHEMARBLEFAUN2CHAPTERIMIRIAM,HILDA,KENYON,DONATELLOFourindividuals,inwhosefortunesweshouldbegladtointerestthereader,happenedtobestandinginoneofthesaloonsofthesculpture-galleryintheCapitolatRome.Itwasthatroom(thefirst,aftera...

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