Miriam's sadder mood, it might be, had at first an effect on Donatello's

spirits. It checked the joyous ebullition into which they would

otherwise have effervesced when he found himself in her society, not, as

heretofore, in the old gloom of Rome, but under that bright soft sky and

in those Arcadian woods. He was silent for a while; it being, indeed,

seldom Donatello's impulse to express himself copiously in words. His

usual modes of demonstration were by the natural language of gesture,

the instinctive movement of his agile frame, and the unconscious play

of his features, which, within a limited range of thought and emotion,

would speak volumes in a moment.

By and by, his own mood seemed to brighten Miriam's, and was reflected

back upon himself. He began inevitably, as it were, to dance along

the wood-path; flinging himself into attitudes of strange comic grace.

Often, too, he ran a little way in advance of his companion, and then

stood to watch her as she approached along the shadowy and sun-fleckered

path. With every step she took, he expressed his joy at her nearer

and nearer presence by what might be thought an extravagance of

gesticulation, but which doubtless was the language of the natural man,

though laid aside and forgotten by other men, now that words have been

feebly substituted in the place of signs and symbols. He gave Miriam the

idea of a being not precisely man, nor yet a child, but, in a high and

beautiful sense, an animal, a creature in a state of development less

than what mankind has attained, yet the more perfect within itself

for that very deficiency. This idea filled her mobile imagination with

agreeable fantasies, which, after smiling at them herself, she tried to

convey to the young man.

"What are you, my friend?" she exclaimed, always keeping in mind his

singular resemblance to the Faun of the Capitol. "If you are, in good

truth, that wild and pleasant creature whose face you wear, pray make me

known to your kindred. They will be found hereabouts, if anywhere. Knock

at the rough rind of this ilex-tree, and summon forth the Dryad! Ask the

water-nymph to rise dripping from yonder fountain, and exchange a moist

pressure of the hand with me! Do not fear that I shall shrink; even if

one of your rough cousins, a hairy Satyr, should come capering on his

goat-legs out of the haunts of far antiquity, and propose to dance with

me among these lawns! And will not Bacchus,--with whom you consorted so

familiarly of old, and who loved you so well,--will he not meet us here,

and squeeze rich grapes into his cup for you and me?"

Donatello smiled; he laughed heartily, indeed, in sympathy with the

mirth that gleamed out of Miriam's deep, dark eyes. But he did not seem

quite to understand her mirthful talk, nor to be disposed to explain

what kind of creature he was, or to inquire with what divine or poetic

kindred his companion feigned to link him. He appeared only to know that

Miriam was beautiful, and that she smiled graciously upon him; that

the present moment was very sweet, and himself most happy, with the

sunshine, the sylvan scenery, and woman's kindly charm, which it

enclosed within its small circumference. It was delightful to see the

trust which he reposed in Miriam, and his pure joy in her propinquity;

he asked nothing, sought nothing, save to be near the beloved object,

and brimmed over with ecstasy at that simple boon. A creature of the

happy tribes below us sometimes shows the capacity of this enjoyment; a

man, seldom or never.




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