"A Modern Hercules," The Tale of a Sculptress/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
A PREACHER'S PASSION.
The departure of the editor, politician and broker left Ouida in a very reflective mood. Strange to say, her mind wandered to Paul, the model, as it had often done of late. "I'll soon call my Herculean model forth. Paul, the perfect brute! Yet, often when he thinks I am not observing, there comes into his eyes a look that makes me tremble, though I know not why. Can it be that I, who have a dozen mighty men, as this world goes, crawling at my feet, am falling captive to a coarse-grained beast, that sleeps and feeds from day to day throughout the year, without a thought or hope beyond the common cattle of the field?"
At this moment a card was handed Ouida, the reading of which filled her eyes with an almost devilish gleam of satisfaction.
"Show the gentleman up," was her swift command.
It was but a moment when Horatio Nugent, the great preacher, appeared before the sculptress!
"By admitting me to your presence, may I hope there is a truce between us?" he almost humbly said.
"Neither peace nor courtesy moved me to see you," was her unsatisfactory answer.
"Then why your apparent graciousness?"
"I desire," said Ouida, "to declare a never-ending war."
"Will you not," appealed the preacher, "even listen to what I have to say?"
"No. Your course admits of no explanation. Let me tell you now, you can never creep again within the circle of my friendship."
"If you could but dig beneath the surface," he audibly sighed, "and see why I preached my sermon against the nude in art, 'twould be you, not I, seeking pardon."
"I seek your pardon after that which you have done? Listen," said the woman, "you played the part of a friend. You sought me out. To you I unfolded my dreams, my conceptions. You said they were divine, and yet when I attended your church, you thundered forth invectives against my art, and hold me up to public ridicule. You would attempt to win a public applause as fleeting as the dew upon the morning rose. If I had loved you, I would hate you for this act."
"I will explain," he said, with vehemence and commanding power before which, even for a moment, this imperious creature quailed. "I am not like the vain flatterers that follow in your train. I will speak, even if the hate in you, like a dagger, shall stab me in a vital spot."
"Speak then," said she, with resignation. "Courtesy compels me to listen to one who has honored my humble roof with his august presence."
"Ah, hear me Ouida. The knowledge, sudden and fierce, has forced itself upon me, that I love you with all the strength of my nature!"
"And you have selected this novel way of showing it!"
As Ouida said this, she laughed with such chilling scorn, that it made the preacher shudder with agony.
"That we will not discuss," said he, as the echo of her scorn died away. "Your life, your Bohemian instincts, your defiance of social laws, has maddened me. I would drive you from this unreal existence, so that in your despair you would turn to me. Then I should uplift you to my grand sphere."
The idea of Horatio Nugent's condescension struck Ouida with wondrous merriment, and she laughed again, the laughter growing more intense each moment, until it developed into an indignation almost boundless.
"Your own grand sphere!" she cried. "Drive back the Atlantic surf; lift valleys over mountain tops; throttle Vesuvius, and then come to me with a hope of tearing me and my art apart. I would not exchange an eternity in hell and my work for Paradise with the crude, narrow, dogmatic officialism of your hypocritically pious life."
"I have less quarrel with your art than with your life," continued he. "These Bacchanalian revels, this freedom with men so maddening to me. These are the things from which I would save you."
"Sir," said she, with supreme dignity, "my life is my own. Society did nothing for me. I have with these hands carved out my fame. You and your kind no more understand art, than you do the voice of Nature. I have sat nude beneath a master's brush, without an impure thought. I have painted men as naked as the new-born babe, without a quicker pulse beat, wrapped in a dream. My art shall live when churches shall crumble, and preachers' bones shall mingle with the dust. Divinity touches the brow of genius, and art becomes the heritage of generations yet unborn."
A goddess could not have looked more divine than this woman did, as she poured forth the inspiration of her swelling, throbbing soul. There was silence again between them. But he at length recovered speech, and renewed the attack.
"Ah, Ouida, you are noble and good; why not economize this worth for grander and purer aspirations?"
"Purer aspirations?" she echoed. "Ah, sir, I am bursting with the fullness of rage. Who are you, that gives you the almost divine right to preach against a thing you know not of? You have not looked on life; you have tasted no agony; you have not walked through the blazing furnace of passion."
"God alone knows what my battle has been since the knowledge came to me that I loved you."
"Your passion, sir preacher, moves me not."
"Then, pitilessly, you will send me out into the gloomy world without a ray of hope?"
"Did you not seek to make the earth for me a place without sun or light?"
"But I have made my atonement, and come now to crave pardon for my sin."
"You cannot think thus to move me," said the woman, firmly.
"Can nothing soften your heart of stone?" he appealed.
"Nothing, sir. I hate you strongly. If these were the days of Lucretia Borgia, without compunction I would have you killed. The world can do without you."
"And yet," said he, softly, as though consoled by the thought, "I have given up all for you."
"I have seen nothing that you have done," she said, sternly, "and more, I ask nothing of you, save that you walk your way, and leave me in peace to go mine."
"You know, Ouida," said the man of strength, "that I, too, am ambitious; that men and women showered upon me their plaudits; that I had won a strong place in this great city. I have given up my church!"
She started in breathless amazement! "Sacrificed your wondrous future, and for me?"
And simply he said: "The price of my sin to you."
Then a deeper silence than ever before fell upon these two, and again there was no speech between them.
"Now," at length, he said, "I am ready to be sent forth with your cruel scorn, following me even to the end of time."
"I cannot bid you go thus," she said, moved to pity. "Does the world know of this?"
"Of the resignation, yes; of the reason, no."
"Then I abjure you, reveal nothing. Leave me!" she cried.
"And may I come again?" eagerly he pleaded.
"Yes," she said, the power of resistance gone, "when I have had time to think."
He left with a sense of mighty triumph in his soul.