MASSINELLO'S VESTA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume 21, Issue 216, 21 March 1872, Page 7

MASSINELLO'S VESTA.

Maesinello, a young artist of Florence, sat before an unfinished picture lost in deep reverie. The last golden rays of the declining sun, entering at a window from which, the curtain had been removed, fell upon his face, revealing a wealth of manly beauty that had made him the envied of his sex. A placid intellectual beauty it was ; spiritual and sublime. And yet his heart was warm, and his inspiration of art did not lift him from the sphere of human love. He was the talk of Florence, not only because he had painted a successful picture, but because be was a stranger in the city, and none knew whence be came. -

The Count Michel Fontani, an old nobleman of Florence, and one of the most wealthy and powerful, had commissioned Massinello to paint for him the Goddess Vesta, the deity of the domestic hearth; and, at the suggestion of a friend, the Count's fair ward, Zillab, bad been sent to the studio of of the artist, clad in the drapery which had been chosen, there to give such help of copy as her face and figure might afford.

"A dangerous experiment;," said some of the more thoughtful of those who knew the circumstance. But Michael Fontani did not think of it, or, if he did think, he did not fear. Zillah was the child of one of the noblest houses of Tuscany, an orphan, left in his guardianship only till she should reach her majority, when she would take into her own hands one of the grandest estates that adorned the Valley of the Arno. As for the Count himself, with the frost-work of age upon his brow, and the burden of sorrow upon his memory, he took little heed of the possibilities of youthful hearts. He wanted a picture of the Goddess Vesta, and it pleased him to think that the same canvas should bear an impress of the form and features of his beloved ward.

While Massinello sat before his unfinished pictnre, the door of his studio was opened, and a female entered — a maiden of nineteen —enrobed in a drapery of silver gauze, and beautiful as an angel.

" I trust, Signor Massinello, that I have not kept you waiting." The artist started from his seat, and turned towards his visitor. His face flushed, and then grew pale, and his hands were clutched as though a mighty struggle were going on within. " Lady Zillah ? " he said speaking with difficulty, " I shall paint no more — no more of this."

" How, Signor ? Was it only a whim that led you< to ask me to come to you when I could sit iv a golden light of the setting sun ? " "No lady, it is an inspiration. But it may not be. You will come no more to the studio of the poor artist." "No more, Massinello ? Will you drive me hence ? "

The artist turned away, and leaned his head upon bis hands. A little while so, and then he looked upon his visitor again.

" Yes, Zillab, I shall drive you from me. I cannot be false to those who trust me, nor can I change my heart to adamant. The instincts and impulses of that heart are beyond my control. Man may fashion his outer act*, but he cannot put a chajn upon the uprising of his soul. The celestial sweetness of the hours that have borne to me the blessing of your companionship can-, not endure. The awakening must come ; and I would have it come while I have strength for the task ! "

" Massinello !" Zillab trembled like an aspen, and put out her hand as though for support. The painter took the extended haud, and raised it to his lips. " Thus," he murmured, " do I tell my secret. Zillah, we must not meet again ; for, as my heart notv holds thee, I dare not tempt the inevitable fate. Let me, the poor, and the unknown, tell to the daughter of Sabbiano this one sweet word of Love, and then ." •' Signor ! Massinello !" " You despise me ?" "Oh, no! no! no! I-r-1 — love thee, Massinello !"

A moment later Count Michael Fontani entered the studio, springing forward with a cry of alarm when he' saw nis beloved ward in the arms of the painter. "IVfercy! What has happened? Signor, one is ill!" Zillah started up, and turned towards her guardian. " tyy dear child ! What is it ?" She sank upon his bosom, but could not answer him. " Signpr Massjnello — " "■My lord, she ir not ill. Bear her hence, and she will tell you all. j Away ! Tarry ijojk. Pardon ! lam! speechless!" The artist aan.k into a chair, and > covered bis face ' with his hands. Zillah saw him, and leaving her guardian's bosom she flew jbo his aide. She wound her arms around his neck> and, while her fast-flowing tears bedewed his cheek, she cried* " Farewell, Massinello ! Zillah goes, but she leaves her heart behind?" The truth now flashed upon the aged Count., and like one affright**! he grasped the maiden by<fih4i'£tto, and led her from the Apartment Early on the following tfay (Michael .Fontani visited tlfrafcudfo agaifi. He found the artist pale and iad, and his

own face gave token of kindred feelings.

" Massinello," he said, " I have not come to upbraid. Zillah .has told me all; and there let it will end. She will come no more. And now of the picture — can you finish it !" " Not this one, my lord. I dare not dwell longer even upon the painted features of the Lady Zillah; but I have an ideal which I will place upon the canvas for you. I painted it once in a Madonna, for the Convent of. Saint Stefano; but it will make a better Vestal "Saint Stefano?" repeated the Count visibly affected. " Yes. Do you know the place ?" "It is among the mountains of Modena."

" Tae same."

" I have been there. But let it pass. Youwill paint the picture." " I will."

Massinello selected a new canvas, and commenced a new picture ; and the face which he painted was a face that had been with him since the early morning of his life—a face that had smiled upon him in his dreams, and beamed upon him from the mystic realms of the memories that linked the present with the forgotten past. When the picture was finished, the artist Ludovico came to see it.

" Massinello," he said, " this is not a goddess — it is an angel." " You forgot," replied the painter, " that the goddess of the Domestic Circle must needs be an ange 1 ." " You are right. .My soul ! it is very beautiful. It is beyond criticism. It is the type of no earthly baautj. It is spiritual — it is angelic — it is divine !"

And in time the Count Michael Fontani was summoned to see the picture. He stood alone with the painter in the studio, and the curtain was withdrawn from the canvas. The old man looked, and a cry escaped his lips. He gazed again, and his frame was convulsed. He shaded his eyes with his hand, and finally he sank down upon a seat, entirely overcome by bis emotions.

" My lord," said the artist, who had witnessed the scene with wonder, ".what do you see in my picture — " "Massinello," cried the Count breaking in upon him, "where did you get it?— Who is it?— Whence those features? O ! my soul! — whence came they ?"

"My lord," replied the painter, still wondering, "are they familiar to you?"

"Familiar. Is my own life familiar? Is my own heart familiar ? But tell pie — for the love of Heaven, tell me — is it all fancy on your part?" " No,, my lord. The ideal of my Vesta has been with me since my earliest recollection. That face was the first that ever beamed upon me in love — the first to wear a smile for me." " You knew her, then ?" "Yes— No. I knew her— and I knew her not."

"Signor, you trifle. What mean you ?"

"My lord, why do you question me ? Do you know my Vesta ? Did you ever see a face like that before ?"

" Aye, young man But speak yo.. first. In Heaven's name, speak f" " The story is very simple, and can be told in few words," said the painter, seating himself. "I have never yet told it in Florence ; but I will tell it to you. I was a mere in faut — not more than a year old — when the monks of Saint Stefano found me in one of the wild upper passes of the Apennines. It was in mid-winter, and I had been saved from freezing by the woman who had covered- me with her own garments. We were taken to the convent — the woman and myself, and were nursed. I lived ; but the woman died. She called me her child — she made a sign that she was my mother — but she spoke no other word. ' I grew and thrived, my patron being the good Father Paulus ; and when I had manifested a love for Art I was assisted and encouraged. And so I became a painter. Before I" left Saint Stefano, Paulas wished me to paint a Madonna for their chapel. One sweet face had haunted me all my life — had been with me in my walking and in my Bleeping dreams— and that face I gave to the Madonna. The monks, when they saw it, declared that it was the face of the woman in whose arms they had found me — the woman who had called me her child. But they told me nothing new ; . for, in my deepest heart, I had known that it was my mother's face that I thus treasured up in the sacred keeping of my soul."

" And this," whispered Fontani — " this face of the Vesta— "

" It is tlie same."

" Signor, you have not told me how you came to be lost upon the mountains. Did you never know ?" " As I have told you, my lord, my mother, when found., was too faint and exhausted to tell her story ; and she did not recover. But several years afterwards one of the monks confessed a dying brigand, who related that, a few days previous to the finding of that woman and child by the monks, his bajod bad attacked and robbed a party of travellers in one of the T>«ssfs pf.tbs Tfdno di Monte, atid that they had take* a young and bdtutiful woman, with her child, a prisoner, intending to, hold, her for ransom:: _I>ttt one- stormy nigbt, when near Saint Steltoo, ehY escape* from them, and"

they could not find her. The brigand described the dress of the woman, and the monks knew it was the same they had found," M Ar\d that dress — W as it preserved?" . " Yea ; the monks have it at the convent." " I must see it !" " My lord !" "O! Lucetta! Lucetta! My own — my loved-— my lost!" And thus crying, the Count sank upon his knees before the picture, and the warm tears rolled over his cheeks in a flood. The painter started to his feet, and moved to the nobleman's side. " My lord !" Michael Fontani arose, and looked into the young man's face.

" I need not seek the convent," he said. "The truth is revealed. It is though the* Vesta had become an angel, and -had spoken,. It was I who travelled in the passes of the Novo di Monte in that far-gone year — it was I whom the brigands attacked — it was my wife and child who were snatched away from me; and though I spent long and weary years in the search, I found them not. And now — now — I find my wife come back to me in this picture ; and thou— thou — my child ! 0, 1 need not that the monks should tell me : for I know it very well !"

And the old man fell upon the painter's bosom, and wept afresh.

After all, before making the discovery public, the Count concluded- to visit the convent Saint Stefano ; and he took Massinello with him. He found the dress, and a few articles of jewellery, which had been taken from the dead woman, and he knew that it was his wife who had died within those grey old walls. But God had been merciful : for his child had been spared to him — a child now grown to be a man of whom the world might be proud. And he took his son to his bosom, and together they knelt upon the grave, no longer nameless, and mingled their prayers and their blessings.

And when they returned to Florence the old Count relinquished bis guardianship of Zillah, and she gave her hand where she had left her heart months before.

The Count Joseph Fontani continued to paint ; but his pictures all bear the imprint of the name which was made famous by the painting of the Groddess of the Hearth stone, and whjch is still preserved in the collection of the Pitti Palace, and known as " Massinello's Vesta."