A Thorny Path | Page 6

painting
something dead had pleased him. His old master had often admired the
exquisite delicacy of the flesh-tones of a recently deceased body. As his
glance fell on the implements that his slave carried after him, he had
drawn himself up with the proud feeling of having before him a noble
task, to which he felt equal. Then the porter, a gray-bearded Gaul, had
opened the door to him, and as he looked into his care-worn face and
received from him a silent permission to step in, he had already become
more serious.
He had heard marvels of the magnificence of the house that he now
entered; and the lofty vestibule into which he was admitted, the mosaic
floor that he trod; the marble statues and high reliefs round the upper
hart of the walls, were well worth careful observation; yet he, whose
eyes usually carried away so vivid an impression of what he had once
seen that he could draw it from memory, gave no attention to any
particular thing among the various objects worthy of admiration. For

already in the anteroom a peculiar sensation had come over him. The
large halls, which were filled with odors of ambergris and incense,
were as still as the grave. And it seemed to him that even the sun,
which had been shining brilliantly a few minutes before in a cloudless
sky, had disappeared behind clouds, for a strange twilight, unlike
anything he had ever seen, surrounded him. Then he perceived that it
came in through the black velarium with which they had closed the
open roof of the room through which he was passing.
In the anteroom a young freedman had hurried silently past him--had
vanished like a shadow through the dusky rooms. His duty must have
been to announce the artist's arrival to the mother of the dead girl; for,
before Alexander had found time to feast his gaze on the luxurious
mass of flowering plants that surrounded the fountain in the middle of
the impluvium, a tall matron, in flowing mourning garments, came
towards him--Korinna's mother.
Without lifting the black veil which enveloped her from head to foot,
she speechlessly signed him to follow her. Till this moment not even a
whisper had met his ear from any human lips in this house of death and
mourning; and the stillness was so oppressive to the light-hearted
young painter, that, merely to hear the sound of his own voice, he
ex-plained to the lady who he was and wherefore he had come. But the
only answer was a dumb assenting bow of the head.
He had not far to go with his stately guide; their walk ended in a
spacious room. It had been made a perfect flower-garden with hundreds
of magnificent plants; piles of garlands strewed the floor, and in the
midst stood the couch on which lay the dead girl. In this hall, too,
reigned the same gloomy twilight which had startled him in the
vestibule.
The dim, shrouded form lying motionless on the couch before him,
with a heavy wreath of lotus-flowers and white roses encircling it from
head to foot, was the subject for his brush. He was to paint here, where
he could scarcely distinguish one plant from another, or make out the
form of the vases which stood round the bed of death. The white
blossoms alone gleamed like pale lights in the gloom, and with a sister

radiance something smooth and round which lay on the couch--the bare
arm of the dead maiden.
His heart began to throb; the artist's love of his art had awaked within
him; he had collected his wits, and explained to the matron that to paint
in the darkness was impossible.
Again she bowed in reply, but at a signal two waiting women, who
were squatting on the floor behind the couch, started up in the twilight,
as if they had sprung from the earth, and approached their mistress.
A fresh shock chilled the painter's blood, for at the same moment the
lady's voice was suddenly audible close to his ear, almost as deep as a
man's but not unmelodious, ordering the girls to draw back the curtain
as far as the painter should desire.
Now, he felt, the spell was broken; curiosity and eagerness took the
place of reverence for death. He quietly gave his orders for the
necessary arrangements, lent the women the help of his stronger arm,
took out his painting implements, and then requested the matron to
unveil the dead girl, that he might see from which side it would be best
to take the portrait. But then again he was near losing his composure,
for the lady raised her veil, and measured him with a glance as though
he had asked something strange and audacious