Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
eae aaa
THE YELLOW Macx.
Ho
**This—that my present project is to try if I can’t make my fortune
ty siting asa model for Minerva in the studio of the best sculptor in
tsa.” :
‘And who is he? (Unwind me a yard or two of that black lace.)”
“The master sculptor, Luca Lomi, an old family, once noble, but down
in the world now. The master is obliged to make statues to get a living
for lis daughter and himself.”
** More of the lace—double it over the bosom of the dress. And how
is sitting to this needy sculptor to make your fortune?”
“Wait a minute. There are other sculptors besides him in the studio.
There is, first, his brother, the priest—Father Rocco, who passes all his
spare time with the master. He is a good sculptor in his way—has cast
statues and made a font for his church—a holy man, who devotes all his
work in the studio to the cause of piety.”
“Ah, bah! we’ should think him a droll priest in France. (More
pins.) You don’t expect him to put money in your pocket, surely?”
** Wait, [say again. There is a third seulptor in the studio—actually
anobleman! His namo is Fabio d’Ascoli. He is rich, young, handsome,
an only clild, and little better than a fool. Fancy his Working at sculp-
ture, as if he had his bread to get by 1t—and thinking that an amuse-
ment! Imagine a man belonging to one of the best families in Pisa mad
enough to want to make a reputation as an artist! Wait! wait! the best
is tocome. is father and mother are dead—he has uo near relations
in the world to exercise authority over him—he is a bachelor, and his for-
tune is allat his own disposal; going a-begging, my friend, absolutely
going a-begging for want of a clever woman to hold out her hand and take
it from him.”
“Yes, yes—now I understand. Tho goddess Minerva is a clever
woman,and she will hold out her hand and take his fortune trom him
with the utmost docility.”
“The first thing is to get him to offer it. I must tell you that I am not
going tosit to him, but to his master, Luca Lomi, who is doing the statue of
imerva. e face is modelled from his daughter; and now he wants
somebody to sit for the bust and arms. Maddalena Lomi and I are as
nearly as possible the same height, I hear—the difference between us being
that I have a good figure and she has a bad one. have offered to sit,
through a friend who is employed in the studio. Ifthe master accepts, I
am sure of an introduction to our rich young gentlemen, and then leave
it to my good looks, my various accomplishments, and my ready tongue,
to do the rest.”
“Stop! I won’t have the lace doubled, on second thought. Ill
have it single, and running all round the dress in curyes—so.
Well, and who is this friend of yours employed in the studio? <A fourth
8¢!
* ‘No, no; the strangest, simplest little creature—”
Just then a faint tap was audible at the door of the room.
Brigida laid her fingers on her lips, and called impatiently to the per-
son guiside to come in, 1 a ly b 1
The door opened gently, and a young girl, poor ut very neatly
dressed, entered the room. She was rather thineand Yinder the average
height; but her head and figure were in perfect proportion. Her hair
was of that gorgeous auburn color, her eyes of that deep violet blue,
which the portraits of Giorgione and Titian have made famous as the
type of Venetian beauty. Her features possessed the definiteness and reg-
ularity, the ‘good modelling” (to use an artist’s term), which is the
rarest of all womanly charms, in Italy as elsewhere. The one serious
defect of her face was its paleness. Her cheeks, wanting nothing in
form, wanted everything in color. That look of health, which is the
essential crowning-point of beauty, was the one attraction which her face
did not possess.
She came into the room with a sad and weary expression in her eyes,
which changed, however, the moment she observed the magnificently
dressed French forewoman, into a look of astonishment, and almost of
awe. Her manner became shy and embarrassed; and after an instant of
hesitation she turned back silently to the door.
mks stop, Nanina,” said Brigida, in Italian. ‘‘ Don’t be afraid
of that lady. She is our new forewoman; and she has it in her
power to do all sorts of kind things for you. Look up and tell us what
you want. You were sixteen last birth-day, Nanina, and you behave like
a baby of two years old!”
‘*T only came to know if there was any work for me to-day,”’ said the
gil, in a very sweet voice, that trembled a little as she tried to face the
fashionable French forewoman again.
“*No work, child, that is easy enough for you to do,” said Brigida.
** Are you going to the studio to-day ?”
Some of the color that Nanina’s cheeks wanted began to steal over
them as she answered “ Yes.”
‘** Don’t forget my message, darling. And if Master Luca Lomi asks
where I live, answer that you are ready to deliver a letter to me, but that
you are forbidden to enter into any particulars at first, about who I am,
or where I live.”
** Why am I forbidden?” inquired Nanina, innocently.
** Don’t ask questions, baby! Doas you are told. Bring me back a
nice note or message to-morrow from the studio, and I will intercede with
this lady to get you some work. You are a foolish child to want it, when
you might make more money here and at Florence, by sitting to painters
and sculptors; though what they can see to paint or model in you, I
never could understand.”
“T like working at home better than going abroad to sit,” said Nani-
na, looking very much abashed as she. faltered out the answer, and es-
eaping from the rvom with a terrified tarewell obeisance, which was an
eccentric compound of a start, a bow, and a curtsy.
“That awkward child would be pretty,” said Mademoiselle Virginie,
making rapid progress with the cutting out of her dress, ‘‘1f she knew
how tu give hersclf acomplexion, and had a presentable gown on her
back. Who is she?” . :
“The friend who is to get me into Master Luca Lomi’s studio,”
replied Bngida, laughing. ‘‘ Rather a curious ally for me to take up
with, isn’t she?”
“Where did you meet with her?” \
“Here, to be sure; she hangs about this placo for any plain work . she
can get to do, and takes it home to the oddest little room in a street near
the Campo Santo. I had the curiosity to follow her one day, and knocked
at her door soon after she had gone in, as ifI was visitor. She an-
swered my knock ina great flurry and fright, as you may imagine.
made myself agreeable, affected immense interest in her affairs, and so
gotinto her room, Such a place! A mere corner of it curtained off to
make a bedroom. One chair, one stool, one saucepan on the fire. Be-
fore the hearth, the most grotesquely hideous, unshaven poodle. dog you
ever saw; and on the stool a fair little girl plaiting dinner-mats. Such
yes {be houschold—furniture and all included. ‘ Where 1s your father ??
asked.
little friend who has just left the room, spealang in that simple way cf
hers, with all the composure in the world. ‘And your mother? *--
‘Dead.’—She went up to the little mat-plaiting girl, as she gave that an-
swer, and began playing with her long flaxen hair. ‘Your sister, I sup-
pose,’said I.‘ What is her name ? °—‘ They call me La Biondella,’ says
the child, looking up from her mat (La Biondella, Virginie, means The
Fair).—‘ And why do you let that great, shaggy, ill-looking brute lie be-
for: your fireplace?’ I asked.—‘ Oh!’ cried the little mat-plaiter, ‘that
is ar dear old dog, Scarammuccia. He takes care of the house when
Na.ina is not athome. He dances on his hind legs, and jumps through
a hoop, and tumbles down when I cry bang! Scarammuccia followed us
home one night, years ago, and he has lived with us ever since. He goes
out every day by himself, we can’t tell where, and. generally returns
licking his chops, which makes us afraid that he is a thief; but nobody
@
finds him out, because he is the cleverest dog that ever lived!? Th
child ran on this way about the great beast by the fireplace, till I was
obliged to stop her, while that simpleton, Nanina, stood by, langhing and
ercouraging her. Jaskedthema few more questions, which produced
some strange answers. They did not scem to know of any relations
of theirs in the world. The neighbors in the house had helped them,
after their father ran away, until they were old enough to help them-
selves; and they did not seem to think there was anything in the least
wretched or pitiable in their way of living. The last thing I heard when
I left that day, was La Biondella crying ‘ Bang!’—then a ‘bark, a thum
on the floor, and a scream of laughter. If it was not for their dog t
should go and see them oftener. But tho ill conditioned beast has taken
a dislike to me, and growls and shows his teeth whenever I come near
b pabe girl looked sickly when she came in here. Is she always like
at?” :
“No. She has altered within the lastmonth. .I suspect our interesting
young nobleman has produced an impression, The oftener the girl has
sat to him lately, the paler and more out of spirits she has become.”
‘‘Oh! she has sat to him, has she?” .
“She is sitting to him now. | He 1s doing a bust of some Pagan nymph
or other, and prevailed on Nanina to let him copy fromher head and! face.
According to her own account, the little fool was trightened at first, and
gave him all the trouble in the world before she would consent.”
nd now she has consented, don’t you think it likely she may turn
out rather a dangerous rival? Men are such fools, and take such fancies
into their heads——”
+
‘Ridiculous! A thread-paper of a girl like that, who has no manner, .
no talk, no intelligence; who has nothing to recommend her but an awk-
ward babyish-prettiness!—Dangerous to me? No! no! If thereis danger
at all, I have to dread it from the sculptor’s daughter. I don’t mind con-
fessing that I am anxious tosee Maddalena Lomi. But as for Nanina, she
will simply be of use to me, All I know already about the studio and the
artists in it, I know through her. She will deliver my message, and pro-
cure me my introduction; and when we have got so far, I shall give her
an old gown and a shake of the hand; and then, good-bye to our little
Innocent! ”
“Well, well, for your sake I hope you are the wiser of the two in this
matter. For my pat. I always distrust innocence. Wait one moment
and I shall have the body and sleeves of this dress ready for the needle-
woman. ere, ring the bell, and order thent up; for I have directions
to give, and you must interpret for me.”
While Brigida went to the bell, the energetic Frenchwoman began
planning out the skirt of the new dress. She laughed as she measured
off yard after yard of the silk.
‘What are you laughing about?” asked Brigids, opening the door and
ringing a hand-bell in the passage.
“JT can’t help fancying, dear, in spite of her innocent face and her
artless ways, that your young friend is a hypocrite.”
** And Iam quite certain, love, that she 1s only a simpleton.”
CHAPTER II.
Tue studio of the Haster-Seulptor, Luca Lomi, was composed of two
large rooms, unequally divided by a wooden partition, with an arched
doorway cut in the middle of it.
While the milliners of the Grifoni_ establishment were industriously
shaping dresses, the sculptorsin Luca Lomi’s workshop were, in their way,
quite as hard at work shaping marble and clay. In the smaller of the
two rooms the young nobleman (only addressed in the studio by his Chris-
tian name of Fabio) was busily engaged on his bust, with Nanina sittin
before him as a model. His was not one of those traditional Italian faces
from which subtlety and suspicion are always supposed to look out darkly
on the world at large. Both countenance and expression proclaimed his
character frankly and freely to all who saw him. Quick intelligence looked
brightly from his eyes; and easy good-humor laughed out pleasantly in
the rather quaint curve of his lips. For the rest, his face expressed the
defects as well as the merits of his character, showing that he wanted
resolution and perseverance just as plainly ay it showed also that he pos-
sessed amiability and intelligence.
At the end of the large room, nearest to the street door, Luca Lomi
was standing by his life-size statue of Minerva, and was issuing direc-
tions, from time to time, to some of his workmen, who were roughly chis-
elling the drapery of another figure. At the opposite side of the room,
nearest to the partition, his brother, Father Rocco, was taking a cast from
a statuette of the Madonna; while Maddalena Lomi, the sculptor’s
daughter, released from sitting for Minerva’s face, walked about the two
rooms, and watched what was going on in them. :
ere was a strong family likeness of a certain kind between father,
brother and daughter. All three wero tall, handsome, dark-haired, al
dark-eyed; nevertheless, they differed in expression, strikingly as they
:
‘
-
‘He ran away and left us years ago,’ answers my awkward .
A>
—)
ah
~~
