On great occasions Peppo could quit his board and straddle upon an ass. And now he came upon his ass, set Antonio before him, and carried him off to his home or den. The boy was put into a small recess contiguous to the apartment which his uncle occupied with some of his guests. He overheard this conversation: "Can the boy do any thing?" asked one; "Has he any sort of hurt?"
"No; the Madonna has not been so kind to him," said Peppo; "he is slender and well formed, like a nobleman's child."
"That is a great misfortune," said they all; and some suggestions were added, that he could have some little hurt to help him to get his earthly bread until the Madonna gave him the heavenly. Conversation such as this filled him with alarm; he crept through the aperture which served for window to his dormitory; slid down the wall, and made his escape. He ran as fast as he could, and found himself at length in the Coliseum.
Antonio, at this time, is a poor boy about nine or ten years old; we have seen from what sort of guardian the terrified lad was making his escape. Now, observe the exquisite appropriateness, taste, and judgment of what follows. It is precisely here that the author makes parade of the knowledge he has lately gained in the grammar-school of Slagelse—precisely here that he throws his Antonio into a classical dream or vision!
"Behind one of the many wooden altars which stand not far apart within the ruins, and indicate the resting-points of the Saviour's progress to the cross,3 I seated myself upon a fallen capital, which lay in the grass. The stone was as cold as ice, my head burned, there was fever in my blood; I could not sleep, and there occurred to my mind all that people had related to me of this old building; of the captive Jews who had been made to raise these huge blocks of stone for the mighty Roman Cæsar; of the wild beasts which, within this space, had fought with each other, nay, even with men also, while the people sat upon stone benches, which ascended step-like from the ground to the loftiest colonnade.
"There was a rustling in the bushes above me; I looked up, and fancied that I saw something moving. Oh, yes! my imagination showed to me pale dark shapes, which hewed and builded around me; I heard distinctly every stroke that fell, saw the meagre black-bearded Jews tear away grass and shrubs to pile stone upon stone, till the whole monstrous building stood there newly erected; and now all was one throng of human beings, head above head, and the whole seemed one infinitely vast living giant body.
"I saw the vestals in their long white garments; the magnificent court of the Cæsar; the naked bleeding gladiators; then I heard how there was a roaring and a howling round about, in the lowest colonnades; from various sides sprang in whole herds of tigers and hyænas; they sped close past the spot where I lay; I felt their burning breath; saw their red fiery glances, and held myself fast upon the stone upon which I was seated, whilst I prayed the Madonna to save me. But wilder still grew the tumult around me; yet I could see in the midst of all the holy cross as it still stands, and which, whenever I had passed it, I had piously kissed. I exerted all my strength, and perceived distinctly that I had thrown my arms around it; but every thing that surrounded me trembled violently together,—walls, men, beasts. Consciousness had left me,—I perceived nothing more. When I again opened my eyes, my fever was over."
Sadder trash than this it were almost impossible to write. It is necessary to make some quotations to justify the terms of censure, as well as of praise, which we have bestowed upon Andersen; but our readers will willingly excuse the infliction of many such quotations; they might be made abundantly enough, we can assure them.
On awaking from this vision, Antonio finds himself in the presence of some worthy monks. They take charge of him, and ultimately give him over to the protection of an old woman, a relative, Dominica, who is living the most solitary life imaginable, in one of the tombs of the Campagna. Here there is a striking picture presented to the imagination—of the old woman and the little boy, shut up in the ruined tomb, in the almost tropical heat, or the heavy rains, that visit the Campagna. He who erewhile had visions of vestals and captive Jews, Cæsar and the gladiators, is more naturally represented as amusing himself by floating sticks and reeds upon the little canal dug to carry the water from their dwelling;—"they were his boats which were to sail to Rome."
One day a young nobleman, pursued by an enraged buffalo, takes refuge in this tomb, and thus becomes acquainted with Antonio. He is a member of the Borghese family, and proves to be the very nobleman whose carriage had accidentally occasioned the death of his mother. Antonio becomes the protégé of the Borghese, returns to Rome, receives an education, and is raised into the high and cultivated ranks of society. He is put under the learned discipline of Habbas Dahdah—an excellent name, we confess, for a fool—in whose person, we presume, he takes a sly revenge upon his late rector of Slagelse. But he has not been fortunate in the invention of parallel absurdities in his Italian pedagogue to those which he may have remembered of some German prototype. He describes him as animated with a sort of insane aversion to the poet Dante, whom he decries on every occasion in order to exalt Petrarch. A Habbas Dahdah would be much more more likely to feign an excessive admiration for the idol and glory of Italy. However, his pupil stealthily procures a Dante; reads him, of course dreams of him; in short, there is an intolerable farago about the great poet.
But the time now comes when the great business of all novels—love—is brought upon the scene. And here we have an observation to make which we think may be deserving of attention.
Antonio, the Improvisatore, is made, in the novel, to love in the strangest fashion imaginable. He loves and he does not love; he never knows himself, nor the reader either, whether, or with whom, to pronounce him in love. Annunciata, the first object of this uncertain passion, behaves herself, it must be confessed, in a very extraordinary manner. We suppose the exigencies of the novel must excuse her; it was necessary that her lover should be plunged in despair, and therefore she could not be permitted to behave as any other woman would have done in the same circumstances. She has a real affection for Antonio; yet at the critical moment—the last moment he will be able to learn the truth, the last time he will see her unless her response be favourable—she behaves in such a manner as to lead him inevitably to the conclusion that his rival is preferred to him. This Annunciata, the most celebrated singer of her day, loses her voice, loses her beauty,—a fever deprives her of both;—and not till her death does Antonio learn that he, and not another, was the person really beloved. Meanwhile, in his travels, Antonio meets with a blind girl, whom he does or does not love, on whom at least he poetises, and whose forehead, because she was blind, he had kissed. He is afterwards introduced, at Venice, to a young lady, (Maria) who bears a striking resemblance to this blind girl. She is, in fact, the same person, restored to sight, though he is not aware of it. Maria loves the Improvisatore; he says, he believes that his affection is not love. He quits Venice—he returns—he is ill. Then follows one of those miserable scenes which novelists will inflict upon us—of dream, or delirium—what you will,—and, in this state, he fancies Maria is dead; he finds then that he really loved; and, in his sleep or trance, he expresses aloud his affection. His declaration is overheard by Maria and her sister, who are watching over his couch. He wakes, and Maria is there, alive before him. In his sleep he has become aware of the true condition of his own heart; nay, he has leapt the Rubicon,—he has declared it. He becomes a married man.
Now, in the confused and contradictory account of Antonio's passion, we see a truth which the author drew from his own nature and experience,—a truth which, if he had fully appreciated, or had manfully adhered to, would have enabled him to draw a striking, consistent, and original portrait. In such natures as Andersen's, there is often found a modesty more than a woman's, combined with a vivid feeling of beauty, and a yearning for affection. Modesty is no exclusive property of the female sex, and there may be so much of it in a youth as to be the impediment, perhaps the unconscious impediment, to all the natural outpouring of his heart. The coyness of the virgin, the suitor, by his prayers and wooing, does all he can to overcome;