Marzios Crucifix and Zoroaster | Page 8

will see!" she protested under her breath.
"What do I care!" whispered the apprentice, as he kissed her cheek in
the dusky passage. Then they followed the rest.
CHAPTER II
That evening Marzio finished the last cherub's head on the ewer before
he left the shop. He had sent Gianbattista home, and had dismissed the
men who were working at a huge gilded grating ordered by a Roman
prince for a church he was decorating. Marzio worked on by the light
of a strong lamp until the features were all finished and he had
indicated the pupils of the eyes with the fine-pointed punch. Then he
sat some time at his bench with the beautiful piece of workmanship
under his fingers, looking hard at it and straining his eyes to find
imperfections that did not exist. At last he laid it down tenderly upon
the stuffed leather pad and stared at the green shade of the lamp, deep
in thought.
The man's nature was in eternal conflict with itself, and he felt as
though he were the battle-ground of forces he could neither understand
nor control. A true artist in feeling, in the profound cultivation of his
tastes, in the laborious patience with which he executed his designs,
there was an element in his character and mind which was in direct

contradiction with the essence of what art is. If art can be said to
depend upon anything except itself, that something is religion. The arts
began in religious surroundings, in treating religious subjects, and the
history of the world from the time of the early Egyptians has shown
that where genius has lost faith in the supernatural, its efforts to
produce great works of lasting beauty in the sensual and material
atmosphere of another century have produced comparatively
insignificant results. The science of silver-chiselling began, so far as
this age is concerned, in the church. The tastes of Francis the First
directed the attention of the masters of the art to the making of
ornaments for his mistresses, and for a time the men who had made
chalices for the Vatican succeeded in making jewelry for Madame de
Chateaubriand, Madame d'Etampes, and Diane de Poitiers. But the art
itself remained in the church, and the marvels of _repoussé_ gold and
silver to be seen in the church of Notre Dame des Victoires, the
masterpieces of Ossani of Rome, could not have been produced by any
goldsmith who made jewelry for a living.
Marzio Pandolfi knew all this better than any one, and he could no
more have separated himself from his passion for making chalices and
crucifixes than he could have changed the height of his stature or the
colour of his eyes. But at the same time he hated the church, the priests,
and every one who was to use the beautiful things over which he spent
so much time and labour. Had he been indifferent, a careless,
good-natured sceptic, he would have been a bad artist. As it was, the
very violence of his hatred lent spirit and vigour to his eye and hand.
He was willing to work upon the figure, perfecting every detail of
expression, until he fancied he could feel and see the silver limbs of the
dead Christ suffering upon the cross under the diabolical skill of his
long fingers. The monstrous horror of the thought made him work
marvels, and the fancied realisation of an idea that would startle even a
hardened unbeliever, lent a feverish impulse to this strange man's
genius.
As for the angels on the chalices, he did not hate them; on the contrary,
he saw in them the reflection of those vague images of loveliness and
innocence which haunt every artist's soul at times, and the mere manual

skill necessary to produce expression in things so minute, fascinated a
mind accustomed to cope with difficulties, and so inured to them as
almost to love them.
Nevertheless, when a man is constantly a prey to strong emotions, his
nature cannot long remain unchanged. The conviction had been
growing in Marzio's mind that it was his duty, for the sake of
consistency, to abandon his trade. The thought saddened him, but the
conclusion seemed inevitable. It was absurd, he repeated to himself,
that one who hated the priests should work for them. Marzio was a
fanatic in his theories, but he had something of the artist's simplicity in
his idea of the way they should be carried out. He would have thought
it no harm to kill a priest, but it seemed to him contemptible to receive
a priest's money for providing the church with vessels which were to
serve in a worship he despised.
Moreover, he was not poor. Indeed, he was richer than any one knew,
and the large sums