Part 16 (1/2)
”Phaines tells me he wants to marry Anna of Ann.”
”Isn't she foolish now not to marry him?” answered the Mater, putting down her work. ”I am so fond of her, and Phaines and she would make an ideal couple. She could work all day at the art she is fond of and both ought to be as happy, all the year long, as larks in the spring.”
”I have sometimes thought,” said I, wis.h.i.+ng to draw the Mater out, ”that Anna looked sad.”
”Well, she is a genius, and all geniuses look sad sometimes. It seems as though somebody has to be sad in order that others may be happy. Now, I am glad I am a plain farmer's wife and don't have to be sad. And yet,”
she added, taking up her knitting again, ”I love to look at sad things.
Have you ever seen Anna's statue of Bacchus?”
I had seen it and wondered at it until it was explained to me that the better Greek notion of Bacchus as the G.o.d of enthusiasm had been restored to the Dionysan cult. Then I perceived that Anna had given to the wine G.o.d something of the discontent that lends charm to the statues of Antinous.
”Anna's thought doubtless is,” said I, ”that the highest enthusiasm springs from a sense of an unsatisfied need.”
”Well, I like to look at it but I don't care to think about it. I like just to toast my toes by the fire these long winter evenings and know that our storehouse is full and our boys happy. But I do wish Anna would marry Phaines.”
a.s.suredly, thought I, man is a variable thing--constructed upon lines so different that it is surprising one variety of man can at all understand the other. And yet, in view of the variety of occupations in which man must engage if he wants to satisfy his complex needs, how fortunate that the Mater could be happy only on her farm, and Anna happy only in her studio! And for the Mater and Phaines the question of marriage with Anna was one that could tarry for its solution year after year; while for Anna, her love for Ariston tormented her life, intruded into her art, saddened and inspired it.
I was interested, however, to discover that she had escaped from the thraldom of it for the time at any rate; for on the next day, when I peeped into her studio early in the morning, she no longer threw a cloth over her clay, but, on the contrary, beckoned me in.
And I saw dimly growing out of a gigantic ma.s.s of clay the n.o.ble lineaments of an old man with s.h.a.ggy projecting eyebrows and a beard that rivalled that of the Moses of Michael Angelo.
”It is only the bust,” she said. She looked very lovely as with suppressed excitement she explained to me her thought, and her eyes usually dim grew bright. ”It is to be a colossal figure, standing; I think there is something in it that is going to be suggested by the Creator of the Sixtine chapel as he stands creating Eve; but then, too, I see in the clay before me something more kindly, reminding me rather of Prospero; and yet he is to be triumphant; I think one arm will be lifted, half in joy and half in benediction, but his brow will be thoughtful and sad.”
”And you have got rid of Ariston altogether?” asked I.
She blushed and pouted a little.
”You must never speak to me of Ariston again. I am glad to be free from him, in this at any rate--and it is your t.i.thonus that has rescued me.
If I were to put a legend to this sculpture--of course, I won't--but if I were to do so, it should be 'Me only, cruel immortality consumes.'”
”And yet this would express only a small part of the whole thing.”
”And that is why no legend should ever be attached to sculpture; sculpture must tell her own story in her own way--legends belong to literature. Sculpture must owe nothing to any other art than her own.”
She was looking critically at the bust now, as though I were not in the room, but presently becoming conscious of my existence again, she added: ”I value this legend because it started me on a new line of thought unhaunted by the old.”
For days Anna was so gay that I began to wonder whether Ariston had not lost his opportunity, and I wondered so all the more when I saw little advances to Anna on his part unresponded to. One evening when he had felt himself discouraged by her, he said to me:
”I don't think Anna will ever care for anything but her art. I asked her to show me what she is doing and she refused--a little curtly, I thought.”
”My dear Ariston,” answered I, ”do you suppose Anna is going to fall into your arms the moment you open them to her? You have treated her for years as though she did not exist, and now you are disappointed because at a first lordly approach she does not at once fall trembling at your feet.”
”Am I really such a c.o.xcomb as that?” asked Ariston.
”Don't take me too seriously,” said I. ”All I mean to suggest is that if Anna is worth winning she is worth wooing; she is absorbed in her work--her life is quite filled with it--and if you want her life to be filled with you, you must take some little trouble and exercise some little patience.”
Ariston laughed good humoredly, and asked me how Lydia was doing. I had seen little of her. We met at meal-time, but so many sat down to every meal that I seldom found myself near her. I knew that she heard daily from Chairo and wrote daily to him, but more than this no one knew.