In truth, Donatello's countenance indicated a healthier spirit than
while he was brooding in his melancholy tower. The change of scene, the
breaking up of custom, the fresh flow of incidents, the sense of being
homeless, and therefore free, had done something for our poor Faun;
these circumstances had at least promoted a reaction, which might else
have been slower in its progress. Then, no doubt, the bright day, the
gay spectacle of the market place, and the sympathetic exhilaration
of so many people's cheerfulness, had each their suitable effect on a
temper naturally prone to be glad. Perhaps, too, he was magnetically
conscious of a presence that formerly sufficed to make him happy. Be the
cause what it might, Donatello's eyes shone with a serene and hopeful
expression while looking upward at the bronze pope, to whose widely
diffused blessing, it may be, he attributed all this good influence.
"Yes, my dear friend," said he, in reply to the sculptor's remark, "I
feel the blessing upon my spirit."
"It is wonderful," said Kenyon, with a smile, "wonderful and delightful
to think how long a good man's beneficence may be potent, even after his
death. How great, then, must have been the efficacy of this excellent
pontiff's blessing while he was alive!"
"I have heard," remarked the Count, "that there was a brazen image set
up in the wilderness, the sight of which healed the Israelites of their
poisonous and rankling wounds. If it be the Blessed Virgin's pleasure,
why should not this holy image before us do me equal good? A wound has
long been rankling in my soul, and filling it with poison."
"I did wrong to smile," answered Kenyon. "It is not for me to limit
Providence in its operations on man's spirit."
While they stood talking, the clock in the neighboring cathedral told
the hour, with twelve reverberating strokes, which it flung down upon
the crowded market place, as if warning one and all to take advantage
of the bronze pontiff's benediction, or of Heaven's blessing, however
proffered, before the opportunity were lost.
"High noon," said the sculptor. "It is Miriam's hour!"