"It is a delightful story for the hot noon of your Tuscan summer,"
observed the sculptor, at this point. "But the deportment of the watery
lady must have had a most chilling influence in midwinter. Her lover
would find it, very literally, a cold reception!"
"I suppose," said Donatello rather sulkily, "you are making fun of the
story. But I see nothing laughable in the thing itself, nor in what you
say about it."
He went on to relate, that for a long While the knight found infinite
pleasure and comfort in the friendship of the fountain nymph. In his
merriest hours, she gladdened him with her sportive humor. If ever he
was annoyed with earthly trouble, she laid her moist hand upon his brow,
and charmed the fret and fever quite away.
But one day--one fatal noontide--the young knight came rushing with
hasty and irregular steps to the accustomed fountain. He called the
nymph; but--no doubt because there was something unusual and frightful
in his tone she did not appear, nor answer him. He flung himself down,
and washed his hands and bathed his feverish brow in the cool, pure
water. And then there was a sound of woe; it might have been a woman's
voice; it might have been only the sighing of the brook over the
pebbles. The water shrank away from the youth's hands, and left his brow
as dry and feverish as before.
Donatello here came to a dead pause.
"Why did the water shrink from this unhappy knight?" inquired the
sculptor.
"Because he had tried to wash off a bloodstain!" said the young Count,
in a horror-stricken whisper. "The guilty man had polluted the pure
water. The nymph might have comforted him in sorrow, but could not
cleanse his conscience of a crime."
"And did he never behold her more?" asked Kenyon.
"Never but once," replied his friend. "He never beheld her blessed face
but once again, and then there was a blood-stain on the poor nymph's
brow; it was the stain his guilt had left in the fountain where he tried
to wash it off. He mourned for her his whole life long, and employed
the best sculptor of the time to carve this statue of the nymph from his
description of her aspect. But, though my ancestor would fain have had
the image wear her happiest look, the artist, unlike yourself, was so
impressed with the mournfulness of the story, that, in spite of his best
efforts, he made her forlorn, and forever weeping, as you see!"
Kenyon found a certain charm in this simple legend. Whether so intended
or not, he understood it as an apologue, typifying the soothing and
genial effects of an habitual intercourse with nature in all ordinary
cares and griefs; while, on the other hand, her mild influences fall
short in their effect upon the ruder passions, and are altogether
powerless in the dread fever-fit or deadly chill of guilt.