Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-40.djvu/735

Rh Pia seized his hand and kissed it. Then she darted into the chamber beyond, climbed on the stool, clasped the stiffened arm of her father, and cried in his ear,—

"Listen! The Emilia has gone away. Oh, bello! she can never come back, padre mio."

Cesare Tommasi opened his eyes widely, and over the frozen immobility of his features passed the shadow of the glow transfiguring the face of his child.

Surely he had understood.

Dr. Weisener selected another festoon of old lace in the shop, and a tiny tear-bottle taken from an Etruscan tomb.

Pia accompanied him to the gate. She was unchanged. By what mockery of nature had all these trials smitten her without tracing an additional furrow on her face?

"They are all gone, signore," she said, sorrowfully. "Guido lies yonder in the Campo Santo. Sabina, Masolino, and even Marianna Cari, have each left us. The great people never come back to the Villa Margherita."

"Farewell," said the doctor, grasping his stout walking-stick and preparing to depart.

"Addio!" said Pia, and her voice was like the echo of the tall houses and towers.

When he turned back at the angle of the path, her quaint little figure was still visible, framed by the arch of the town gate.

The pedestrian gained the ruined chapel where Masolino and Guido had formerly paused to rest, and seated himself on the step. His thoughts reverted to the statue of the Aurora lost forever.

"May there not be some Valhalla for disappointed artists in a future state, where their works incomplete or destroyed will find a glorious fulfilment?" mused the doctor. "A fitting vestibule would be those inaccessible classical treasures of Herculaneum buried beneath the hill, with the line of mosaic pavement still visible, and all those works of Grecian art destroyed at Rome by the zeal of the early Christians. The walls should be covered with lost cartoons, Leonardo da Vinci's Battle of Niccolò Piccinino facing Michelangelo's soldiers bathing in the Arno. Pope Julius would look down in majesty from his niche above the church door, and Sforza proudly ride his charger. All Verrocchio's altars and reliquaries, adorned with metal-work, his vases covered with animals and foliage in relief, his chased cope-buttons and cups ornamented with groups of dancing children, would be carefully gathered here. Even the two inlaid chests wrought by Benedetto da Majano for King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, and unpacked in the royal presence only to discover that they had dropped to pieces from the effect of sea-damp, would be honored with complete restoration in this paradise of achievement. And our poor Guido Cari of Spina? His Aurora would also be granted a pedestal."

A winged seed, germ of a wayside plant, with gossamer sail full set, alighted on his coat-sleeve.

"What is human fame, after all? Guido Cari may have possessed the soul of a Giovanni da Bologna or a Donatello, and his sole earthly