Christ—Infant and yet Christ—with the globe of the earth in his hand. You, painter of the Vision of St. Jerome and of St. Guiseppe, the Blessed Virgin, and the Angels—works at which the soul thrills, and prayers rise unbidden from our hearts. You, of whom they say at Rome that the spirit of the dead Raffaello has passed into your body, Francesco.”
“Do they say that?” asked Francesco, trembling, and pressing his hands upon his heart. “Such words are as exquisite music to the ear. Once they would have made me glad—how glad!”
“Why not now, cousin?”
“Now?” and his wild laugh broke out again. “Now I have a nobler mistress than art.”
“What mistress can be nobler?”
“Alchemy!” cried Francesco. “Look here,” and with a hurry and eagerness that approached violence, he dragged Geronimo to the furnace. “Look—nay, shrink not from the heat, it is nothing. Watch with me the mystic changes of the crucible, and you shall see the frothing liquid change into dolphin hues; the black crow, the plumed swan, the peacock’s tail, the green lion, the pale citron, the scarlet dragon! No pigments can render those tints, Geronimo. By them your brightest palette is but dull, and drab, and dead. Stay with me, and share my studies. All my discoveries shall be yours. You shall halve my wealth—I have found the powder of projection for producing gold, the blacker than black; I have found the congelation of mercury, the flower of the sun, the perfect ruby, the universal remedy that shall make us live for ever, young, and rich, and noble, and beautiful.”
“You have found these, cousin?”
“Ay, or shall find them, boy, ’tis the same. I will initiate you, Geronimo, in the sublime mysteries. You shall know the secrets of Jason’s helm, Pandora’s box, the dragon’s teeth, the pelican, the crosslet. We will together break the glassy seal of Hermes. Oh, Geronimo, you will love with me this glorious science. It is nobler than art, for it absorbs it; it is universal, it is all-pervading. The whole world is but an allegory of science. See here,” and he hurried again to the pictures, turning them over with trembling hands. “What call you this?”
“The Conflict of the Archangel and the Evil One.”
“’Tis more than that—a parable, the sage subduing science, winning the philosopher’s stone, the stone of two substances, the fixed and the volatile. The throat of the dragon is the fixed salt, the tail a symbol of the volatile element. Here again,” and he pointed to another picture, “the Five Virgins receive from above the ingredients for making gold, the foolish scoffers at wisdom are these with their lamps untrimmed. Here the Magi bring gold, and frankincense, and myrrh—types of sol, and sulphur, and mercury. Why turn away, Geronimo?” asked the painter, panting for breath and trembling with weakness and excitement.
“These are sinful words, Francesco,” said the young man, gravely; “perversions of our faith. What would the holy brotherhood of the Staccata say to such speech as this?”
“Ha!” cried Francesco, wildly, “they beat me for less, flung me into prison, bound me with chains—see where the rust bit into my wrists!”
“And why was this?”
“I was to adorn their church of Santa Maria with frescoes. I toiled for them a long while. I painted the Madonna borne up by Angels, gazing in devotion at a glittering cross cased in a crystal urn. The eyes of Catarina suddenly looked upon me from the eyes of the Blessed Virgin, and I paused. Then the monks poured gold into my hands. I turned again to my crucibles and my furnace. They called me cheat and robber, and imprisoned me. I escaped from them. I am free again, Geronimo—before my furnace again!”
“And the frescoes are finished now?”
Francesco shook his head. His cousin seemed pained at this recital, and turned his eyes to the window.
“You shall stay here and study with me, Geronimo. Soon the glory of the science will dawn upon you. Listen, now. It is all more simple than you deem it. All metals are of like components—earth and water; all metals would be gold were their components purely and fittingly mingled; of the water comes mercury, of the earth sulphur—they are the male and female of mineral creation. Purge these metals in the hottest fire, rectify them by more or less sulphur, by more or less mercury, and gold must come. I say it must, Geronimo. That step gained, we mount to other marvels. We go on—”
“Peace, cousin! these are thoughts to you, perhaps; they are but words to me.”
“You will not hear me? You will not grow rich with me?”
“No; I want not your gold! your elixir! your long life—”
“Say that again. You want not gold? You—a poor painter?”
“Oh, Francesco! turn from these pursuits which will but madden and kill you; quit this heated room, poisonous with charcoal fumes, and come out into God’s pure air; close your books, and fling away your crucibles, enter the church of S. Stefano, and pray for pardon and for strength to resume the profession you have degraded—the noble art you have trampled under foot. Be worthy of the spirit of the dead Raffaello. Paint again as you once painted, as you alone of living men can paint.”
Moved by these words, Francesco cowered before his fire, hiding his face in his hands. Geronimo wiped the heat drops from his forehead. The room seemed to be unbearably hot. He moved to the door again.
“Don’t leave me, Geronimo, I am very weak and sinking—don’t leave me. I can pardon your words, you know nothing of the great science you despise, but when you see the yellow gold forming in the crucible—when you see the commonest metal transmuted into gold—when wealth unbounded lies at your feet—”
“I have said, cousin, I want not your wealth; and you are wrong, believe me, Francesco, to squander what is nobler than gold—your genius—upon so vain a quest.”
“How! a vain quest?”
