Marzios Crucifix and Zoroaster

Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster, by F.
Marion Crawford
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster
Author: F. Marion Crawford

Release Date: September 18, 2005 [eBook #16720]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARZIO'S
CRUCIFIX AND ZOROASTER***
E-text prepared by John Hagerson, Kevin Handy, Graeme Mackreth,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net/)

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which

includes the original illustrations. See 16720-h.htm or 16720-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/7/2/16720/16720-h/16720-h.htm) or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/7/2/16720/16720-h.zip)

The Novels of F. Marion Crawford In Twenty-five Volumes,
Authorized Edition
MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX
and
ZOROASTER
by
F. MARION CRAWFORD
With Frontispiece
P.F. Collier & Son New York
1887

[Illustration: HE MOVED NOT THROUGH THE LONG HOURS OF
DAY. --Zoroaster.]

[Illustration]

MARZIO'S CRUCIFIX
CHAPTER I
"The whole of this modern fabric of existence is a living lie!" cried

Marzio Pandolfi, striking his little hammer upon the heavy table with
an impatient rap. Then he dropped it and turning on his stool rested one
elbow upon the board while he clasped his long, nervous fingers
together and stared hard at his handsome apprentice. Gianbattista
Bordogni looked up from his work without relinquishing his tools,
nodded gravely, stared up at the high window, and then went on
hammering gently upon his little chisel, guiding the point carefully
among the delicate arabesques traced upon the silver.
"Yes," he said quietly, after a few seconds, "it is all a lie. But what do
you expect, Maestro Marzio? You might as well talk to a stone wall as
preach liberty to these cowards."
"Nevertheless, there are some--there are half a dozen--" muttered
Marzio, relapsing into sullen discontent and slowly turning the body of
the chalice beneath the cord stretched by the pedal on which he pressed
his foot. Having brought under his hand a round boss which was to
become the head of a cherub under his chisel, he rubbed his fingers
over the smooth silver, mechanically, while he contemplated the red
wax model before him. Then there was silence for a space, broken only
by the quick, irregular striking of the two little hammers upon the heads
of the chisels.
Maestro Marzio Pandolfi was a skilled workman and an artist. He was
one of the last of those workers in metals who once sent their
masterpieces from Rome to the great cathedrals of the world; one of the
last of the artistic descendants of Caradosso, of Benvenuto Cellini, of
Claude Ballin, and of all their successors; one of those men of rare
talent who unite the imagination of the artist with the executive skill of
the practised workman. They are hard to find nowadays. Of all the
twenty chisellers of various ages who hammered from morning till
night in the rooms outside, one only--Gianbattista Bordogni--had been
thought worthy by his master to share the privacy of the inner studio.
The lad had talent, said Maestro Marzio, and, what was more, the lad
had ideas--ideas about life, about the future of Italy, about the future of
the world's society. Marzio found in him a pupil, an artist and a
follower of his own political creed.

It was a small room in which they worked together. Plain wooden
shelves lined two of the walls from the floor to the ceiling. The third
was occupied by tables and a door, and in the fourth high grated
windows were situated, from which the clear light fell upon the long
bench before which the two men sat upon high stools. Upon the shelves
were numerous models in red wax, of chalices, monstrances,
marvellous ewers and embossed basins for the ablution of the priests'
hands, crucifixes, crowns, palm and olive branches--in a word, models
of all those things which pertain to the service and decoration of the
church, and upon which it has been the privilege of the silversmith to
expend his art and labour from time immemorial until the present day.
There were some few casts in plaster, but almost all were of that deep
red, strong-smelling wax which is the most fit medium for the
temporary expression and study of very fine and intricate designs.
There is something in the very colour which, to one acquainted with the
art, suggests beautiful fancies. It is the red of the Pompeian walls, and
the rich tint seems to call up the matchless traceries of the ancients. Old
chisellers say that no one can model anything wholly bad in red wax,
and there is