"so, for a few hours at least, the rhythm of art and the pulse of life have again throbbed in unison in venice," said daniele glauro, raising from the table an exquisite chalice, to which only the sacred host was wanting. "allow me to express, for myself and also for the many that are absent, the gratitude and fervor that blend in one single image of beauty the three persons to whom we owe this miracle: the mistress of the feast, the daughter of lorenzo arvale, and the poet of persephone."
"and why the mistress of the feast, glauro?" asked la foscarina, smiling in graceful surprise. "i, like you, have not given joy, but have received it. donatella and the master of the flame: they alone merit the crown; and to them alone the glory must be given."
"but, a short time ago, in the hall of the greater council," said the mystic doctor, "your silent presence beside the celestial sphere was not less eloquent than the words of stelio, nor less musical than the song of ariadne. once again you have divinely carved your own statue in silence, and it will live in our memories blended with the music and the words."
stelio shuddered as he recalled to mind the ephemeral flexible monster from the side of which had emerged the tragic muse above the sphere of constellations.
"that is true, very true," said francesco de lizo. "i, too, had the same thought. as we looked at you, we all realized that you were the soul of that ideal world which each of us forms for himself, according to his own aspirations and thoughts when listening to the mystic word, the song, the symphony."
"and each of us," said fabio molza, "felt that in your presence, dominating the throng, before the poet, dwelt a great and rare significance."
"one might almost have said that you alone were about to assist at the mysterious birth of a new idea," said antimo della bella. "everything around us seemed awakening itself to produce it—that idea which must soon be revealed to us, as a reward for the profound faith with which we have awaited it."
the animator, with another trembling of the heart, felt the work that he cherished within him leap once more, formless yet, but already living; and his whole soul, as if impelled by a lyric breath, suddenly felt drawn toward the fertile and enlightening power that emanated from the dionysian woman to whom these fervent spirits addressed their praise.
suddenly she had become very beautiful: a nocturnal creature, fashioned by dreams and passion on a golden anvil, living embodiment of immortal fate and eternal enigmas. she might remain motionless and silent, but her famous accents and her memorable gestures seemed to live around her, vibrating indefinitely, as melodies seem to hover over the cords accustomed to sound them, as rhymes seem to breathe from the poet's closed book, wherein love and sorrow seek comfort and intoxication. the heroic fidelity of antigone, the oracular fury of cassandra, the devouring fever of ph?dre, the cruelty of medea, the sacrifice of iphigenia, myrrha before her father, polyxenes and alceste before the face of death, cleopatra, fitful as the wind and the fires of the world, lady macbeth, the dreamy murderess with the little hands; and those great, fair lilies empearled with dew and tears—imogen, juliet, miranda, rosalind, jessica, and perdita—the tenderest, most terrible, and most magnificent souls dwelt within her, inhabited her body, shone from her eyes, breathed through her lips, which knew both honey and poison, the jeweled chalice and the cup of wormwood. thus, through unlimited space, and endless, the outlines of human life and substance appeared to perpetuate themselves; and from the simple movement of a muscle, a sign, a start, a quiver of the eyelids, a slight change of color, an almost imperceptible inclination of the head, a fugitive play of light and shade, a lightning-like virtue of expression radiating from that frail and slender body, infinite worlds of imperishable beauty were continually generated.
the genii of the places consecrated by poetry hovered around her, and encircled her with changing visions: the dusty plain of thebes, the arid argolide, the parched myrtles of trezene, the sacred olives of colonus, the triumphant cydnus, the pale country of dunsinane, prospero's cavern, the forest of arden, land dampened with blood, toiled upon with pain, transfigured by a dream or illumined by an inextinguishable smile, seemed to appear, to recede, then to vanish behind her head. and a vision of countries still more remote—regions of mists, northern lands, and, far across the ocean, the immense continent where she had appeared like an unknown force amid astonished multitudes, bearer of the mystic word and the flame of genius—vanished behind her head: the throngs, the mountains, rivers and gulfs, the impure cities, the ancient, enfeebled, savage race, the strong people aspiring to dominate the world, the new nation that wrests from nature her most secret energies to make them serve an all-powerful work in erecting edifices of iron and of crystal; the bastard colonies that ferment and grow corrupt on virgin soil; all the barbarous crowds she had visited as the messenger of latin genius; all the ignorant masses to whom she had spoken the sublime language of dante; all the human herds from which had mounted toward her, on a wave of confused anxieties and desires, the aspiration to beauty.
she stood there, a creature of perishable flesh, subject to the sad laws of time, but an illimitable mass of reality and poetry weighed upon her, surged around her, palpitated with the rhythm of her breath. and not upon the stage alone had she uttered her cries and suppressed her sobs: this had entered into her daily life. she had loved, fought and suffered violently, in her soul and in her body. what loves? what combats? what pangs? from what abysses of melancholy had she drawn the exaltations of her tragic force? at what springs of bitterness had she watered her free genius? she had certainly witnessed the crudest misery, the darkest ruin; she had known heroic effort, pity, horror, and the threshold of death. all her thirst had burned in the delirium of ph?dre, and in the submissiveness of imogen had trembled all her tenderness. thus life and art, the irrevocable past and the eternal present, had made her profound, many-souled, and mysterious, had magnified her ambiguous destiny beyond human limits, and rendered her equal to great temples and natural forests.
nevertheless, she stood there, a living, breathing woman, under the gaze of the poets, each of whom saw her, and yet in her many others.
"ah! i will embrace you as in some mad revelry; i will clasp you, shake you; from your ripe experience, i will draw all the divine and abnormal secrets that weigh upon you—the things you have already done, and those on which you still meditate in the mysterious depths of your soul," sang the lyric demon in the ear of the poet, who recognized in the mystery of this woman the surviving power of primitive myth, the renewed initiation of the god that had concentrated in one single ferment all the energies of nature, and, by a variety of rhythms, had raised, in an enthusiastic worship of himself, the senses and the spirit of man to the highest summits of joy and of pain.
"i have done well, i have done wisely, to wait!" said stelio to himself. "the passing of years, the tumult of dreams, the agitation of struggle and the swiftness of triumph, the experience of many loves, the enchantment of poets, the acclamations of the people; the marvels of earth, the patience and the fury, the steps in the mud, the blind flight, all evil, all good, that which i know and do not know, that which you know, as well as that which you are ignorant of—all this had to be to prepare the fulness of this night, which belongs to me!"
he felt himself suffocate and turn pale. a wild impulse seized him by the throat, and would not relax its hold. his heart swelled with the same keen emotion that had possessed both in the twilight, as they floated over the water.
and, as the exaggerated radiance of the city and the event had suddenly disappeared, the glory of this woman of the night reappeared to his mind still more closely blended with the city of the wonderful necklaces and the thousand emerald girdles. in the city and in the woman, the poet now saw a power of expression that he never had seen before: each glowed in the autumn night; the same feverish fire that coursed through the canals ran also in her veins.
the stars sparkled, the trees waved their branches behind perdita's head, back of which were the shadows of a garden. through the open balconies the sweet air of heaven entered the room; shook the flames of the candelabra and the chalices of flowers; swept through the doorways, making the draperies wave to and fro, animating that old house of the capello, wherein the last great daughter of san marco whom the people had covered with gold and glory had gathered relics of republican magnificence. galleon lamps, turkish targets, bronze helmets, leathern quivers, and velvet scabbards ornamented the apartments inhabited by the last descendant of that marvelous cesare darbes who maintained the art of comedy against the goldonian reform, and changed the agony of the most serene republic into a burst of laughter.
"i only ask that i may be the humble servitor of that idea," was la foscarina's reply to antimo della bella's words. her voice trembled a little, her eyes had met stelio's gaze.
"you alone could make it triumphant," said francesco de lizo. "the soul of the people is yours forever."
"the drama can only be a rite or a message," declared glauro sententiously. "acting should again become as solemn as a religious ceremony, since it embraces the two constituent elements of all worship: the living person, in whom, on the stage as before an altar, the word of the revealer is made incarnate, before a multitude as silent as if in a temple"—
"bayreuth!" interrupted prince hoditz.
"no; the janiculum!" exclaimed stelio, suddenly breaking his silence of blissful dizziness. "a roman hill. we do not need the wood and brick of upper franconia; we will have a marble theater on a roman hill."
the sudden opposition of his words seemed to spring from a light, good-natured disdain.
"do you not admire the work of richard wagner?" donatella arvale inquired, with a slight frown that for a moment made her hermes-like face look almost hard.
stelio looked deep into her eyes; he felt that there was something obscurely hostile in the young girl's manner, and also that he himself experienced against her an indistinct suggestion of enmity. at this moment he again saw her living her own isolated life, fixed in some deep, secret thought, strange and inviolable.
"the work of richard wagner," he replied, "is founded in the german spirit, and its essence is purely northern. his reform is not without analogy with that attempted by luther; his drama is the supreme flower of the genius of a race, the extraordinarily powerful summary of the aspirations that have stirred the souls of the symphonists and national poets, from bach to beethoven, from wieland to goethe. if you could imagine his work on the mediterranean shores, amid our pale olive-trees, our slender laurels, under the glorious light of the latin sky, you would see it grow pale and dissolve. since, according to his own words, it is given to the artist to behold a world as yet unformed resplendent in its future perfection, and to enjoy it prophetically through desire and through hope, i announce to you the coming of a new, or rather a renewed, art which, by the strong, sincere simplicity of its lines, by its vigorous grace, by its ardor of inspiration, by the pure power of its harmonies, will continue and crown the immense ideal edifice of our elect race. i glory in being latin, and—will you pardon me, most exquisite lady myrta, and you, my delicate hoditz?—in every man of different blood i see a barbarian."
"but wagner, too," said, baldassare stampa, who, having just returned from bayreuth, was still full of ecstasy, "when he first unwound the thread of his theories, departed from the greeks."
"it was an uneven and a tangled thread," the poet replied. "nothing is further from the orestiades than the tetralogy of the ring. the florentines of the casa bardi have penetrated much deeper into the true meaning of greek tragedy. all honor to the camerata of the conte di vernio!"
"i have always thought that the camerata was only an idle reunion of scholars and rhetoricians," said baldassare stampa.
"did you hear that, daniele?" exclaimed stelio, addressing the mystic doctor. "when was there in the world a more fervid intelligence? they sought the spirit of life in grecian antiquity; they tried to develop harmoniously all human energies, to manifest man in his integrity by every method of art. giulio caccini taught that that, which contributed to the excellence of the musician is not only the study of particular things, but of everything in general; the tawny hair of jacopo peri and of zazzerino flamed in their song like that of apollo. in the discourse that serves as a preface to the rappresentazione di anima et di corpo, emilio del cavaliere presents the same ideas on the organization of the new theater that have since been realized at bayreuth, comprising the rules of perfect silence, an invisible orchestra, and appropriate darkness. marco da gagliano, in celebrating a festal performance, eulogizes all the arts that contributed to it 'in such a way that through the intellect all the noblest sentiments are flattered at the same time by the most delightful art that the human mind has discovered.' that is sufficient, i think."
"bermino," resumed francesco de lizo, "presented an opera in rome, for which he himself built the theater, painted the decorations, carved the ornamental statues, invented the machinery, wrote the words, composed the music, arranged the dances, rehearsed the actors, and in which he, too, danced, sang, and acted."
"enough! enough!" cried prince hoditz, laughing. "the barbarian is vanquished."
"no, that is not yet enough," said antimo della bella; "it remains to us to glorify the greatest of all these innovators; him that was consecrated a venetian by his passion and death, him whose tomb is in the church of the frari, and is worthy of a pilgrimage—the divine claudio monteverde."
"there was a heroic soul, of pure italian essence," warmly acceded daniele glauro.
"he accomplished his work in the tempest, loving, suffering, struggling, alone with his faith, his passion, and his genius," said la foscarina slowly, as if absorbed in a vision of that sad and courageous life that had nourished the creations of its art with its warmest blood. "tell us about him, effrena."
stelio thrilled as if she had suddenly touched him. again her expressive mouth called up an ideal figure, which rose as if from a sepulcher before the eyes of the poets, with the color and the breath of life. the ancient viola-player, bereaved, ardent, and sorrowful, like the orpheus of his own fable, seemed to appear before them.
it was a fiery apparition, more fervid and dazzling than that which had glowed in the harbor of san marco; a flaming force of life, expelled from the deepest recesses of nature toward the expectant multitude; a vehement zone of light, flashing out from an interior sky to illumine the most secret depths of human will and desire; an unheard word emerging from original silence to say that which is eternal and eternally ineffable in the heart of the world.
"who could speak of him, even if he himself should speak to us?" said the inspirer, agitated, unable to conceal the wave of emotion surging in his soul like the troubled waters of a stormy sea.
he looked at the singer, and beheld her as she had appeared during the pauses, when she stood amid the forest of instruments, white and inanimate as a statue.
but the spirit of beauty they had called up was to manifest itself through her.
"ariadne!" stelio murmured, as if to awaken her from a dream.
she arose without speaking, reached the door, and entered the adjoining room. the light sweep of her skirts and her soft footfall were audible; then they heard the sound of the piano being opened. all were silent and expectant. a musical silence filled the vacant place in the supper-room. a sudden gust of wind shook the flames of the candles and swayed the flowers. then all became motionless in the anxiety of anticipation.
lasciatemi morire!
suddenly their souls were ravished by a power comparable to the strength of the eagle which, in dante's dream, bore the poet to the region of flame. they burned together in eternal truth; they heard the melody of the world pass through their luminous ecstasy:
lasciatemi morire!
was it ariadne, still ariadne, weeping in some new grief, still rising to higher martyrdom?
e che volete
che mi conforte
in cosa dure sorte,
in cosi gran martire?
lasciatemi morire!
the voice ceased; the singer did not reappear. the aria of claudio monteverde composed itself in the auditors' memories like an immutable lineament.
"is there any greek marble that has a perfection of style more sure and simple?" said daniele glauro softly, as if he feared to break the musical silence.
"but what sorrow on earth ever has wept like that?" stammered lady myrta, her eyes full of tears, that ran down her poor, pale cheeks, which she wiped with her trembling hands, misshaped by gout.
the austere intellect of the ascetic and the sweet, sensitive soul shut within the old, infirm body bore witness to the same power. in the same way, nearly three centuries before, at mantua, in the famous theater, six thousand spectators had been unable to repress their sobs; and the poets had believed in the living presence of apollo on the new stage.
"see, baldassare," said stelio, "here is an artist of our own race who by the simplest means succeeded in attaining the highest degree of that beauty which the german but rarely approached in his confused aspirations toward the land of sophocles."
"do you know the lament of the ailing king?" asked the young man with the sunny locks, which he wore long as a heritage from the venetian sappho, the "high gaspara," unfortunate friend of collalto.
"all the agony of amfortas is contained in a mottetto that i know: peccantem me quotidie, but with what lyric impetus, what powerful simplicity! all the forces of tragedy are there, sublimated, so to speak, like the instincts of a multitude in a heroic heart. the language of palestrina, much more ancient, appears to me still purer and more virile.
"but the contrast between kundry and parsifal, in the second act, the herzeleide motif, the impetuous figure, that figure of pain drawn from the word of the sacred feast, the motif of kundry's aspiration, the prophetic theme of the promise, the kiss on the lips of the 'pure fool,' all that rending and intoxicating contrast of desire and horror.... 'the wound, the wound! now it burns, now it bleeds within me!' and above the despairing frenzy of the temptress, the melody of submission: 'let me weep on thy breast! let me unite myself with thee for one hour; then, even if god repel me, through thee i shall be redeemed and saved.' and parsifal's response, in which the motif of the 'pure fool,' now transfigured into the promised hero, returns with lofty solemnity: 'hell would be our fate for all eternity if for one single hour i should permit thee to clasp me in thy arms.' then the wild ecstasy of kundry: 'since my kiss has made thee a prophet, embrace me wholly, and my love will render thee divine! one hour, one single hour with thee, and i shall be saved!' and the last effort of her demoniac will, the last gesture of enticement, the entreaty and the furious words: 'only thy love can save me! oh, let me love thee! mine for a single hour! thine for a single hour!'"
perdita and stelio, entranced, gazed into each other's eyes; for an instant their spirits rushed together and mingled, in all the joy of an actual embrace.
la marangona, the largest bell of san marco, sounded midnight, and, as at the eventide, the two enamored ones felt the reverberation of the bronze bell in the roots of their hair, almost like a quiver of their own flesh. once more they felt, hovering over them, the whirlwind of sound, in the midst of which, in the twilight, they had suddenly become aware of the rising apparition of consoling beauty, evoked by unanimous prayer. all the beauty of the waters, the timidity of concealed longing, the anxiety, the promise, the parting, the festival, the formidable, many-headed monster, the great, starry sphere, the clamor, the music, the song, and the wonders of the miraculous flame, the return through the echoing canal, the song of brief youth, the mental struggle and silent agitation in the gondola, the sudden shadow over their three destinies, the banquet illumined by beautiful thought, the presentiments, hopes, pride, all the strongest pulsations of life were renewed between those two, quickened, became a thousand, and again one. they felt that in that one moment they had lived beyond all human limits, and that before them was opening a vast unknown, which they might absorb as the ocean absorbs, for, though they had lived so much, they felt their hearts were empty; though they had drunk so deep, they were still athirst. an overmastering illusion seized upon these rich natures, and each seemed to grow immeasurably more desirable in the other's eyes. the young girl had disappeared. the expression of the despairing, nomadic actress seemed to repeat: "embrace me wholly, and my love will render thee divine! one hour, one single hour with thee, and i shall be saved! mine for a single hour! thine for a single hour!"
the eloquent commentary of the enthusiast still dwelt upon the sacred tragedy. kundry, the mad temptress, the slave of desire, the rose of hell, the original perdition, the accursed, now reappeared in the spring dawn; she reappeared humble and pale in her messenger's attire, her head bent, her eyes cast down; and her harsh, broken voice spoke only the single phrase: "let me serve! let me serve!"
the melodies of solitude, of submission, of purification prepared around her humility the enchantment of good friday. and behold parsifal, in black armor and closed helmet, his spear lowered, lost in an infinite dream: "i have come by perilous paths, but perhaps this day i shall be saved, since i hear the murmur of the sacred forest." ... hope, pain, remorse, memory, the promise, faith panting for the soul's health, and the sacred, mysterious melodies wove the ideal mantle that should cover the simple one, the pure, the promised hero sent to heal the incurable wound. "wilt thou take me to amfortas to-day?" he languished and fainted in the old man's arms. "let me serve! let me serve!" the melody of submission rose again from the orchestra, drowning the original impetuous motif. "let me serve!" the faithful woman brings water, kneels humbly and eagerly, and washes the feet of her beloved. the faithful one drew from her bosom a vase of balm, anointed the beloved feet, and wiped them with her flowing hair. "let me serve!" the pure one bent over the sinner, sprinkling water on her wild head: "thus i accomplish my first office; receive this baptism and believe in the redeemer!" kundry burst into tears, and knelt with her brow in the dust, freed from impurity, freed from the curse. and then, from the profound final harmonies of the prayer to the redeemer, rose and spread with superhuman sweetness the melody of the flowery fields: "how beautiful to-day is the meadow! once i was entwined with marvelous flowers; but never before were the grass and wild blossoms so fragrant!" in ecstasy, parsifal contemplated the fields and forests, dewy and smiling in the light of morn.
"ah! who could forget that sublime moment?" cried the fair-haired enthusiast, whose thin face seemed to reflect the light of that joy. "all, in the darkness of the theater, remained motionless, like one solid, compact mass. one would have said that, in order to listen to that marvelous music, the blood had ceased to flow in our veins. from the mystic gulf, the symphony rose like a shaft of light, the notes transformed into rays of sunshine, born with the same joy as the blade of grass that pierces the earth, the opening flower, the budding branch, the insect unfolding its wings. and all the innocence of new-born things entered into us, and our souls lived over again i know not what dream of our far-away childhood.... infantia, the device of carpaccio! ah, stelio! how well you brought it back to our riper age! how well you knew how to inspire us with regret for all that we have lost, and with hope of recovering it by means of an art that shall be indissolubly reunited to life!"
stelio effrena was silent, oppressed by the thought of the gigantic work accomplished by the barbaric creator, which the enthusiasm of baldassare stampa had evoked as a contrast to the fervid poet of orpheus and of ariadne. a kind of instinctive rancor, an obscure hostility that did not spring from the intellect, sustained him against the tenacious german who had succeeded, by his own unaided effort, in inflaming the world. to achieve his victory over men and things, he, too, had exalted his own image and magnified his own dreams of dominating beauty. he, too, had approached the multitude as if it were his chosen prey; he, too, had imposed upon himself, as if it were a discipline, an unceasing effort to surpass himself. and now he had the temple of his creed on the bavarian hill.
"art alone can lead men back to unity," said daniele glauro. "let us honor the nobler master that has proclaimed this dogma for all time. his festival theater, though built of bricks and wood, though narrow and imperfect, has none the less a sublime significance, for within it art appears as a religion in a living form; the drama there becomes a rite."
"yes, let us honor richard wagner," said antimo della bella, "but, if this hour is to be memorable by an announcement and a promise from him who this night has shown the mysterious ship to the people, let us invoke once more the heroic soul that has spoken to us through the voice of donatella arvale. in laying the corner-stone of his festival theater, the poet of siegfried consecrated it to the hopes and victories of germany. the apollo theater, which is now rising rapidly on the janiculum, where eagles once descended, bearing their prophecies, must be the monumental revelation of the idea toward which our race is led by its genius. let us reaffirm the privilege with which nature has ennobled our latin blood."
still stelio remained silent, deeply stirred by turbulent forces that worked within his soul with a sort of blind fury, like the subterranean energies that swell, rend, and transform volcanic regions for the creation of new mountains and new chasms. all the elements of his inner life, assailed by this violence, seemed to dissolve and multiply at the same time. images of grandeur and of terror passed through this tumult, accompanied by strange harmonies. swift concentrations and dispersions of thought succeeded one another, like electric flashes in a tempest. at certain moments, it seemed to him that he could hear songs and wild clamors through a doorway that was opened and closed incessantly; sounds as if a tempestuous wind bore to his ears the alternate cries of a massacre and an apotheosis.
suddenly, with the intensity of a feverish vision, he saw the scorched and fatal spot of earth whereon he wished to create the souls of his great tragedy; he felt all its parching thirst within himself. he saw the mythical fountain which alone could quench the burning aridity; and in the bubbling of its springs the purity of the maiden that must die there. he saw on perdita's face the mask of the heroine, quiescent in the beauty of an extraordinarily calm sorrow. then the ancient dryness of the plain of argos converted itself into flames; the fountain of perseia flowed with the swiftness of a stream. the fire and the water, the two primitive elements, rushed over all things, effaced all other traces, spread and wandered, struggled, triumphed, acquired a word, a language wherewith to unveil their inner essence and to reveal the innumerable myths born of their eternity. the symphony expressed the drama of the two elementary souls on the stage of the universe, the pathetic struggle of two great living and moving beings, two cosmic wills, such as the shepherd arya fancied it when he contemplated the spectacle from the high plateau with his pure eyes. and, of a sudden, from the very center of the musical mystery, from the depths of the symphonic ocean, arose the ode, brought by the human voice, and attaining the loftiest heights.
the miracle of beethoven renewed itself. the winged ode, the hymn, sprang from the midst of the orchestra to proclaim, in phrases absolute and imperious, the joy and the sorrow of man. it was not the chorus, as in the ninth symphony, but the voice, alone and dominating, the interpreter, the messenger to the multitude. "her voice! her voice! she has disappeared. her song seemed to move the heart of the world, and she was beyond the veil," said the animator, who in mental vision saw again the crystal statue within which he had watched the mounting wave of melody. "i will seek thee, i shall find thee again; i will possess myself of thy secret. thou shalt sing my hymns, towering at the summit of my music!" freed now from all earthly desire, he thought of that maiden form as the receptacle of a divine gift. he heard the disembodied voice surge from the depths of the orchestra to reveal the part of eternal truth that exists in ephemeral fact. the ode crowned the episode with light. then, as if to lead back to the play of imagery his ravished spirit from "beyond the veil," a dancing figure stood out against the rhythm of the dying ode. between the lines of a parallelogram drawn beneath the arch of the stage, as within the limits of a strophe, the mute dancer, with her body seemingly free for a moment from the sad laws of gravity, imitated the fire, the whirlwind, the revolutions of the stars. "la tanagra, flower of syracuse, made of wings, as a flower is made of petals!" thus he invoked the image of the already famous sicilian who had re-discovered the ancient orchestic art as it had been in the days when phrynichus boasted that he had within himself as many figures of the dance as there were waves on the ocean on a stormy winter night. the actress, the singer, the dancer—the three dionysian women—appeared to him like perfect and almost divine instruments of his creations. with an incredible rapidity, in word, song, gesture and symphony, his work should crystallize itself and live an all-powerful life before the conquered multitude.
he was still silent, lost in an ideal world, waiting to measure the effort necessary to manifest it. the voices surrounding him seemed to come from a long distance.
"wagner declares that the only creator of a work of art is the people," said baldassare stampa, "and that the sole function of the artist is to gather and express the creation of the unconscious multitude."
the extraordinary emotion that had stirred stelio when, from the throne of the doges, he had spoken to the throng seized on him once more. in that communion between his soul and the soul of the people an almost divine mystery had existed; something greater and more exalted was added to the habitual feeling he had for his own person; he had felt that an unknown power converged within him, abolishing the limits of his earthly being and conferring upon his solitary voice the full harmony of a chorus.
there was, then, in the multitude a secret beauty, in which only the poet and the hero could kindle a spark. whenever that beauty revealed itself by the sudden outburst from a theater, a public square, or an entrenchment, a torrent of joy must swell the heart of him who had known how to inspire it by his verse, his harangue, or a signal from his sword. thus, the word of the poet, when communicated to the people, was an act comparable to the deed of a hero—an act that brought to birth in the great composite soul of the multitude a sudden comprehension of beauty, as a master sculptor, from the mere touch of his plastic thumb upon a mass of clay, creates a divine statue. then the silence that had spread like a sacred veil over the completed poem would cease. the material part of life would no longer be typified by immaterial symbols: life itself would be manifested in its perfection by the poet; the word would become flesh, rhythm would quicken in breathing, palpitating form, the idea would be embodied with all the fulness of its force and freedom.
"but," said fabio molza, "richard wagner believes that the real heart of the people is composed only of those that experience grief in common—you understand, grief in common."
"toward joy—still toward eternal joy," stelio reflected. "the real heart of the people is composed of those that feel vaguely the necessity of raising themselves, by means of fiction, poetry, the ideal, out of the daily prison in which they serve and suffer."
in his waking dream he beheld the disappearance of the small theaters of the city, where, amid suffocating air heavy with impurities, before a crowd of rakes and courtesans, the actors make public prostitution of their talents. and then, on the steps of the new theater, his mental vision beheld the true people, the great, unanimous multitude, whose human odor he had inhaled, whose clamor he had listened to in the great marble shell, under the stars. by the mysterious power of rhythm, his art, imperfectly understood though it was, had stirred the rude and ignorant ones with a profound emotion, penetrating as that felt by a prisoner about to be released from his chains. little by little, the sensation of joy at their deliverance had crept over the most abject; the deep-lined brows cleared; lips accustomed to brutal vociferation had parted in amazement; and, above all, the hands—the rough hands enslaved by instruments of toil—had stretched out in one unanimous gesture of adoration toward the heroine who in their presence had wafted toward the stars the spirit of immortal sorrow.
"in the life of a people like ours," said daniele glauro, "a great manifestation of art has much more weight than a treaty of alliance or a tributary law. that which never dies is more prized than that which is ephemeral. the astuteness and audacity of a malatesta are crystallized for all time in a medal of pisanello's. of machiavelli's politics nothing survives but the power of his prose."
"that is true, most true!" thought stelio; "the fortunes of italy are inseparable from the fate of the beauty of which she is the mother." this sovereign truth now appeared to him the rising sun of that divine, ideal land through which wandered the great dante. "italy! italy!" throughout his being, like a call to arms, seemed to thrill that name, that name which intoxicates the world. from its ruins, bathed in so much heroic blood, should not the new art, robust in root and branch, arise and flourish? should it not become a determining and constructive force in the third rome, reawakening all the latent power possessed by the hereditary substance of the nation, indicating to her statesmen the primitive truths that are the necessary bases of new institutions? faithful to the oldest instincts of his race, richard wagner had foreseen, and had fostered by his own efforts, the aspiration of the german states to the heroic grandeur of the empire. he had evoked the noble figure of henry the fowler, standing erect beneath the ancient oak: "let warriors arise from every german land!" and at sadowa and at sedan these warriors had won. with the same impulse, the same tenacity, people and artist had achieved their glorious aim. the same degree of victory had crowned the work of the sword and the work of melody. like the hero, the poet had accomplished an act of deliverance. like the will of the iron chancelor, like the blood of his soldiers, the master's musical numbers had contributed toward the exalting and perpetuating of the soul of his race.
"he has been here only a few days, at the palazzo vendramin-calergi," said prince hoditz.
and suddenly the image of the barbaric creator seemed to stelio to approach him; the lines of his face became visible, the blue eyes gleamed under the wide brow, the lips closed tight above the powerful chin, armed with sensuousness, pride, and disdain. the slight body, bent with the weight of age and glory, straightened itself, appeared almost as gigantic as his work, took on the aspect of a god. the blood coursed like a swift mountain torrent, its breath sighed like a forest breeze. suddenly the youth of siegfried filled the figure and permeated it, radiant as the dawn shining through a cloud. "to follow the impulse of my heart, to obey my instinct, to listen to the voice of nature within myself—that is my supreme law!" the heroic, resounding words, springing from the depths, expressed the young and healthy will that had triumphed over all obstacles and all evil, always in accord with the law of the universe. and the flames, called forth from the rock by the wand of wotan, arose in the magic circle: "on the flaming sea a way has opened! to plunge into that fire, oh, ineffable joy! to find my bride within that flaming circle!" all the phantoms of the myth seemed to blaze anew and then vanish.
then the winged helmet of brunehilde gleamed in the sunlight: "glory to the sun! glory to the light! glory to the radiant day! my sleep was long. who has awakened me?" the phantoms fled in tumult, and dispersed. then arose from the dark shadows the maiden of the song, donatella arvale, as she had appeared to him amid the purple and gold of the immense hall in a commanding attitude and holding a fiery flower in her hand: "dost thou not see me, then? do not my burning gaze and ardent blood make thee tremble. dost thou not feel this wild ardor?" though she was absent, she seemed to resume her power over his dream. infinite music seemed to rise from the silent, empty place in the supper-room. her hermes-like face seemed to retain an inviolable secret: "do not touch me; do not trouble my repose, and i will reflect forever thy luminous image. love only thyself and renounce all thought of me!" and again, as on the feverish water, a passionate impatience tortured the animator, and again he fancied the absent one like a beautiful bow to be drawn by a strong hand that would know how to use it as an instrument to achieve some great conquest: "awake, virgin, awake! live and laugh! be mine!"
stelio's spirit was drawn violently into the orbit of the magic world created by the german god; its visions and harmonies overwhelmed him; the figures of the northern myth towered above those of his own art and passion, obscuring them. his own desire and his own hope spoke the language of the barbarian: "i must love thee, blindly, and laughing: and, laughing, we must unite and lose ourselves, each in the other. o radiant love! o smiling death!" the joyousness of the warrior-virgin on the flame-circled summit reached the loftiest height; her cry of love and liberty mounted to the heart of the sun. ah, what heights and what depths had he not touched, that formidable master of human souls! what effort could ever equal his? what eagle could ever hope to soar higher? his gigantic work was there, finished, amidst men. throughout the world swelled the last mighty chorus of the grail, the canticle of thanksgiving: "glory to the miracle! redemption to the redeemer!"
"he is tired," said prince hoditz, "very tired and feeble. that is the reason why we did not see him at the doge's palace. his heart is affected." ...
once more the giant became a man: the slight body, bent with age and glory, consumed by passion, slowly dying. and stelio heard again in his heart perdita's words, which had called up the image of another stricken artist—the father of donatella arvale. "the name of the bow is bios ("life"), and its work is death!"
the young man saw his pathway blazed before him by victory—the long art, the short life. "forward, still forward! higher, ever higher!" every hour, every second, he must strive, struggle, fortify himself against destruction, diminution, oppression, contagion. every hour, every second, his eye must be fixed on his aim, concentrating and directing all his energies, without truce, without relaxation. he felt that victory was as necessary to his soul as air to his lungs. at the contact with the german barbarian, a furious thirst for conflict awoke in his latin blood. "to you now belongs the will to do!" wagner had declared, on the day of the opening of the new theater: "in the work of art of the future, the source of invention will never run dry." art was infinite, like the beauty of the world. there are no limits to courage or to power. man must seek and find, further and still further. "forward, still forward!"
then a single wave, vast and shapeless, embodying all the aspirations and all the agitations of that delirium, whirling itself into a maelstrom, seemed to take on the qualities of plastic matter, obeying the same inexhaustible energy that forms all animals and all things under the sun. an extraordinary image, beautiful and pure, was born of this travail, lived and glowed with unbearable intensity. the poet saw it, absorbed it with a pure gaze, felt that it took root in the very depths of his being. "ah, to express it, to manifest it to the world, to fix it in perfection for all eternity!" sublime moment that never would return! all visions vanished. around him flowed the current of daily life; fleeting words sounded; expectation palpitated, desire still lived.
he looked at the woman. the stars sparkled; the trees waved, and the dark garden spread out behind perdita, and her eyes still said: "let me serve! let me serve!"
