Noufflard had a very alert appreciation of the early Renaissance, especially in sculpture; he was passionately in love with the natural beauties of Italy, from North to South, and he had a kind of national- psychological gift of singling out peculiarly French, Italian or German traits. He did not know the German language, but he was at home in German music, and had studied a great deal of German literature in translation; just then he was reading Hegel’s “Aesthetics,” the abstractions in which veritably alarmed him, and to which he very much preferred modern French Art Philosophy. In English Science, he had studied Darwin, and he was the first to give me a real insight into the Darwinian theory and a general summary of it, for in my younger days I had only heard it attacked, as erroneous, in lectures by Rasmus Nielsen on teleology.
Georges Noufflard was the first Frenchman of my own age with whom I had been intimate and whose character I partly understood and entered into, partly absorbed into my own. If many of the various opinions evident in my first lectures were strikingly emancipated from Danish national prejudices which no one hitherto had attempted to disturb, I owed this in a great measure to him. Our happy, harmonious intimacy in the Sabine Hills and in Naples was responsible, before a year was past, for whole deluges of abuse in Danish newspapers.
VI
One morning, the Consul’s man-servant brought me a _permesso_ for the Collection of Sculpture in the Vatican for the same day, and a future _permesso_ for the Loggias, Stanzas, and the Sistine Chapel. I laid the last in my pocket-book. It was the key of Paradise. I had waited for it so long that I said to myself almost superstitiously: “I wonder whether anything will prevent again?” The anniversary of the day I had left Copenhagen the year before, I drove to the Vatican, went at one o’clock mid-day up the handsome staircase, and through immense, in part magnificently decorated rooms to the Sistine Chapel. I had heard so much about the disappointment it would be that not the very slightest suggestion of disappointment crossed my mind. Only a feeling of supreme happiness shot through me: at last I am here. I stood on the spot which was the real goal of my pilgrimage. I had so often examined reproductions of every figure and I had read so much about the whole, that I knew every note of the music beforehand. Now I heard it.
A voice within me whispered: So here I stand at last, shut in with the mind that of all human minds has spoken most deeply home to my soul. I am outside and above the earth and far from human kind. This is his earth and these are his men, created in his image to people his world. For this one man’s work is a world, which, though that of one man only, can be placed against the productions of a whole nation, even of the most splendid nation that has ever lived, the Greeks. Michael Angelo felt more largely, more lonely, more mightily than any other. He created out of the wealth of a nature that in its essence was more than earthly. Raphael is more human, people say, and that is true; but Michael Angelo is more divine.
After the lapse of about an hour, the figures detached themselves from the throng, to my mental vision, and the whole composition fixed itself in my brain. I saw the ceiling, not merely as it is to-day, but as it was when the colours were fresh, for in places there were patches, the bright yellow, for instance, which showed the depth of colouring in which the whole had been carried out. It was Michael Angelo’s intention to show us the ceiling pierced and the heavens open above it. Up to the central figures, we are to suppose that the walls continue straight up to the ceiling, as though the figures sat upright. Then all confusion disappears, and all becomes one perfect whole.
The principal pictures, such as the creation of Adam, Michael Angelo’s most philosophical and most exquisite painting, I had had before my eyes upon my wall every day for ten years. The expression in Adam’s face was not one of languishing appeal, as I had thought; he smiled faintly, as if calmly confident of the dignity of the life the finger of God is about to bestow upon him. The small, bronze-painted figures, expressed the suspension and repose of the ceiling; they were architectonic symbols. The troops of young heroes round about the central pillars were Michael Angelo’s ideals of Youth, Beauty and Humanity. The one resting silently and thoughtfully on one knee is perhaps the most splendid. There is hardly any difference between his build and that of Adam. Adam is the more spiritual brother of these young and suffering heroes.
I felt the injustice of all the talk about the beginnings of grotesqueness in Michael Angelo’s style. There are a few somewhat distorted figures, Haman, the knot of men and women adoring the snake, Jonas, as he flings himself backwards, but except these, what calm, what grandiose perfection! And which was still more remarkable, what imposing charm! Eve, in the picture of “The Fall,” is perhaps the most adorable figure that Art has ever produced; her beauty, in the picture on the left, was like a revelation of what humanity really ought to have been.
It sounded almost like a lie that one man had created this in twenty-two months. Would the earth ever again produce frescoes of the same order? The 360 years that had passed over it had damaged this, the greatest pictorial work on earth, far less than I had feared.
A large aristocratic English family came in: man, wife, son, daughter, another daughter, the governess, all expensively and fashionably dressed. They stood silent for a moment at the entrance to the hall. Then they came forward as far as about the middle of the hall, looked up and about a little, said to the custodian: “Will you open the door for us?” and went out again very gracefully.
VII
I knew Raphael’s Loggias from copies in _l’Ecole des Beaux Arts_ in Paris. But I was curious to see how they would appear after this, and so, although there was only three-quarters of an hour left of the time allotted to me on my _permesso_, I went up to look at them. My first impression, as I glanced down the corridor and perceived these small ceiling pictures, barely two feet across, was: “Good gracious! This will be a sorry enjoyment after Michael Angelo!” I looked at the first painting, God creating the animals, and was quite affected: There goes the good old man, saying paternally: “Come up from the earth, all of you, you have no idea how nice it is up here.” My next impression was: “How childish!” But my last was: “What genius!” How charming the picture of the Fall, and how lovely Eve! And what grandeur of style despite the smallness of the space. A God a few inches high separates light from darkness, but there is omnipotence in the movement of His arm. Jacob sees the ladder to Heaven in his dream; and this ladder, which altogether has six angels upon it, seems to reach from Earth to Heaven, infinitely long and infinitely peopled; above, we see God the Father, at an immense distance, spread His gigantic embrace (which covers a space the length of two fingers). There was the favourite picture of my childhood, Abraham prostrated before the Angels, even more marvellous in the original than I had fancied it to myself, although it is true that the effect of the picture is chiefly produced by its beauty of line. And there was Lot, departing from Sodom with his daughters, a picture great because of the perfect illusion of movement. They go on and on, against the wind and storm, with Horror behind them and Hope in front, at the back, to the right, the burning city, to the left, a smiling landscape. How unique the landscapes on all these pictures are, how marvellous, for instance, that in which Moses is found on the Nile! This river, within the narrow limits of the picture, looked like a huge stream, losing itself in the distance.
It was half-past five. My back was beginning to ache in the place which had grown tender from lying so long; without a trace of fatigue I had been looking uninterruptedly at pictures for four hours and a half.
VIII
Noufflard’s best friend in Rome was a young lieutenant of the Bersaglieri named Ottavio Cerrotti, with whom we were much together. Although a Roman, he had entered the Italian army very young, and had consequently been, as it were, banished. Now, through the breach at Porta Pia, he had come back. He was twenty-four years of age, and the naivest Don Juan one could possibly meet. He was beloved by the beautiful wife of his captain, and Noufflard, who frequented their house, one day surprised the two lovers in tears. Cerrotti was crying with his lady-love because he had been faithless to her. He had confessed to her his intimacy with four other young ladies; so she was crying, and the end of it was that he cried to keep her company.
At meals, he gave us a full account of his principal romance. He had one day met her by chance in the gardens of the Palazzo Corsini, and since that day, they had had secret meetings. But the captain had now been transferred to Terni, and tragedy had begun. Letters were constantly within an ace of being intercepted, they committed imprudences without count. He read aloud to us, without the least embarrassment, the letters of the lady. The curious thing about them was the moderation she exercised in the expression of her love, while at the same time her plans for meetings were of the most foolhardy, breakneck description.
Another fresh acquaintance that I made in those days was with three French painters, Hammon, Sain and Benner, who had studios adjoining one another. Hammon and Sain both died long since, but Benner, whom I met again in Paris in 1904, died, honoured and respected, in 1905. I was later on at Capri in company with Sain and Benner, but Hammon I saw only during this visit to Rome. His pretty, somewhat sentimental painting, _Ma soeur n’y est pas_, hung, reproduced in engraving, in every shop-window, even in Copenhagen. He was painting just then at his clever picture, _Triste Rivage_.
Hammon was born in Brittany, of humble, orthodox parents, who sent him to a monastery. The Prior, when he surprised him drawing men and women out of his head, told him that painting was a sin. The young man himself then strongly repented his inclination, but, as he felt he could not live without following it, he left the monastery, though with many strong twinges of conscience.
Now that he was older, he was ruining himself by drink, but had manifested true talent and still retained a humorous wit. One day that I was with him, a young man came to the studio and asked for his opinion of a painting; the man talked the whole time of nothing but his mother, of how much he loved her and all that he did for her. Hammon’s patience gave out at last. He broke out: “And do you think, sir, that _I_ have murdered my mother? I love her very much, I assure you, _not enough to marry her_, I grant, but pretty well, all the same.” After that he always spoke of him as “the young man who loves his mother.”
IX
I felt as though this April, this radiant Spring, were the most glorious time in my life, I was assimilating fresh impressions of Art and Nature every hour; the conversations I was enjoying with my Italian and French friends set me day by day pondering over new thoughts; I saw myself restored to life, and a better life. At the beginning of April, moreover, some girls from the North made their triumphal entry into the Scandinavian Club. Without being specially beautiful or remarkable, they absolutely charmed me. It was a full year since the language of home had sounded in my ears from the lips of a girl, since I had seen the smile in the blue eyes and encountered the heart-ensnaring charm, in jest, or earnest, of the young women of the North. I had recently heard the entrancing castrato singing at St. Peter’s, and, on conquering my aversion, could not but admire it. Now I heard once more simple, but natural, Danish and Swedish songs. Merely to speak Danish again with a young woman, was a delight. And there was one who, delicately and unmistakably and defencelessly, showed me that I was not indifferent to her. That melted me, and from that time forth the beauties of Italy were enhanced tenfold in my eyes.
All that I was acquainted with in Rome, all that I saw every day with Georges Noufflard, I could show her and her party, from the most accessible things, which were nevertheless fresh to the newcomers, such as the Pantheon, Acqua Paola, San Pietro in Montorio, the grave of Cecilia Metella, and the grottoes of Egeria, to the great collections of Art in the Vatican, or the Capitol, or in the wonderful Galleria Borghese. All this, that I was accustomed to see alone with Noufflard, acquired new splendour when a blonde girl walked by my side, asking sensible questions, and showing me the gratitude of youth for good instruction. With her nineteen years I suppose she thought me marvellously clever. But the works of Art that lay a little outside the beaten track, I likewise showed to my compatriots. I had never been able to tolerate Guido Reni; but his playing angels in the chapel of San Gregorio excited my profound admiration, and it was a satisfaction to me to pour this into the receptive ear of a girl compatriot. These angels delighted me so that I could hardly tear myself away from them. The fine malice, the mild coquetry, even in the expression of the noblest purity and the loftiest dignity, enchanted us.
I had been in the habit of going out to the environs of Rome with Georges Noufflard, for instance, to the large, handsome gardens of the Villa Doria Pamfili, or the Villa Madama, with its beautiful frescoes and stucco-work, executed by Raphael’s pupils, Giulio Romano and others, from drawings by that master. But it was a new delight to drive over the Campagna with a girl who spoke Danish by my side, and to see her Northern complexion in the sun of the South. With my French friend, I gladly joined the excursions of her party to Nemi, Albano, Tivoli.
Never in my life had I felt so happy as I did then. I was quite recovered. Only a fortnight after I had risen from a sick-bed that had claimed me four months and a half, I was going about, thanks to my youth, as I did before I was ill. For my excursions, I had a comrade after my own heart, well-bred, educated, and noble-minded; I fell in love a little a few times a week; I saw lakes, fields, olive groves, mountains, scenery, exactly to my taste. I had always a _permesso_ for the Vatican collections in my pocket. I felt intoxicated with delight, dizzy with enjoyment.
It seemed to me that of all I had seen in the world, Tivoli was the most lovely. The old “temple of the Sibyl” on the hill stood on consecrated ground, and consecrated the whole neighbourhood. I loved those waterfalls, which impressed me much more than Trollhaettan [Footnote: Trollhaettan, a celebrated waterfall near Goeteborg in Sweden.], had done in my childhood. In one place the water falls down, black and boiling, into a hollow of the rock, and reminded me of the descent into Tartarus; in another the cataract runs, smiling and twinkling with millions of shining pearls, in the strong sunlight. In a third place, the great cascade rushes down over the rocks. There, where it touches the nether rocks, rests the end of the enormous rainbow which, when the sun shines, is always suspended across it. Noufflard told me that Niagara itself impressed one less. We scrambled along the cliff until we stood above the great waterfall, and could see nothing but the roaring, foaming white water, leaping and dashing down; it looked as though the seething and spraying masses of water were springing over each other’s heads in a mad race, and there was such power, such natural persuasion in it, that one seemed drawn with it, and gliding, as it were, dragged into the abyss. It was as though all Nature were disembodied, and flinging herself down.
Like a Latin, Noufflard personified it all; he saw the dance of nymphs in the waves, and their veils in the clouds of spray. My way of regarding Nature was diametrically opposite, and pantheistic. I lost consciousness of my own personality, felt myself one with the falling water and merged myself into Nature, instead of gathering it up into figures. I felt myself an individuality of the North, conscious of my being.
X
One afternoon a large party of us had taken our meal at an inn on the lake of Nemi. The evening was more than earthly. The calm, still, mountain lake, the old, filled-up crater, on the top of the mountain, had a fairy-like effect. I dropped down behind a boulder and lay for a long time alone, lost in ecstasy, out of sight of the others. All at once I saw a blue veil fluttering in the breeze quite near me. It was the young Danish girl, who had sat down with me. The red light of the evening, Nemi and she, merged in one. Not far away some people were setting fire to a blaze of twigs and leaves; one solitary bird warbled across the lake; the cypresses wept; the pines glowered; the olive trees bathed their foliage in the mild warmth; one cloud sailed across the sky, and its reflection glided over the lake. One could not bear to raise the voice.
It was like a muffled, muffled concert. Here were life, reality and dreams. Here were sun, warmth and light. Here were colour, form and line, and in this line, outlined by the mountains against the sky, the artistic background of all the beauty.
Noufflard and I accompanied our Northern friends from Albano to the station; they were going on as far as Naples, and thence returning home. We said good-bye and walked back to Albano in the mild Summer evening. The stars sparkled and shone bright, Cassiopaeia showed itself in its most favourable position, and Charles’s Wain stood, as if in sheer high spirits, on its head, which seemed to be its recreation just about this time.
It, too, was evidently a little dazed this unique, inimitable Spring.
INDEX
Aagesen, Professor
Aarestrup, Emil
About, Edmond
Adam
_Adam Homo_
_Adventures on a Walking Tour_
Aeneid, The
Aeschylus
Agar, Mlle.
_Aladdin_
Alcibiades
Algreen-Ussing, Frederik
Algreen-Ussing, Otto
_Ali and Gulhyndi_
Alibert, Mr.
Andersen, H.C.
_Angelo_
Angelo, Michael
_Antony_
Apel
Aristotle
_Arne_
Arrest, Professor d’
Art, Danish, French, German dramatic Astronomy
Auerbach, Berthold
Augier
Augustenborg, Duke of
Baagoee
Baggesen
Bain
Banville
Barbier, Auguste
Bazaine
Beaumarchais
Bech, Carl
Bendix, Victor
Benner
Bentham
Bergen, Carl von
Bergh, Rudolp
Bergsoee
Bernhardt, Sarah
Bible, The
Bille
Bismarck
Bissen, Wilhelm
Bjoernson
Blanchetti, Costanza
Blicher
Bluhme, Geheimeraad
Borup
Bov
_Boy, A Happy_
_Brand_
Bretteville
Broechner, H.
Brohan, The Sisters
Brussels
Bruun, Emil
_Buch der Lieder_
_Burgraves, Les_
Byron
Caesar
_Caprice, Un_
Caro
Casellini
Catullus
Cerrotti, Ottavio
Chamounix
Chanson de Roland
Chasles, Emile
Chasles, Philarete
Chatterton
Choteau, Marie
Christian VIII.
Christian IX.
Christianity
Cinq-Mars
Claretie, Jules
Clausen
Cologne
Comte
Copenhagen
Coppee
Coquelin
Corday, Charlotte
Correggio
Cousin
Criticisms and Portraits
Crone
Dame aux Camelias, La
Danish Literature
Dante
Darwin
David, C.N.
David, Ludvig
Delacroix
Delisle
Devil, The
Dichtung und Wahrheit
Disraeli,
Divina Commedia
Don Juan
Don Quixote
Doerr, Dr.
Drachmann
Drama, German
Driebein
Dualism in Our Modern Philosophy
Dubbels
Dubois, Mlle.
Dumas
Dumas, The Younger
Eckernfoerde
Edda, The
Edward, Uncle
Either-Or
Esselbach, Madam
Ethica
Euripides
Falkman
Farum
Faust
Favart, Madame
Favre, Jules
Feuerbach, Ludwig
Feuillet, Octave
Fights, Between the
Filomena
Fils de Giboyer, Le
Fisher Girl, The
Flaubert
Florence
Fontane, M.
For Self-Examination
For Sweden and Norway
Fourier
France Nouvelle, La
Frascati
Frederik VII
French Literature
French Philosophers of the Nineteenth Century, The French Revolution
Frithiof’s Saga
Frossard
_Gabrielle_
Gallenga, Antonio
Gambetta
Gautier
_Geneva_
Gerhard
Germany
Gerome
_Gerusalemme liberata_, Tasso’s
_Ghost Letters_
_Ghosts_
Girardin
Gladstone
Gleyre
God
_Gods of the North, The_
Goethe
Goldschmidt, Dr.
Goldschmidt, M.
Goncourt, the brothers; Edmond de
_Government, Representative_
Gram, Professor
Grammont, The Duc de
Gregoire
_Gringoire_
Groenbeck,
Groth, Claus
Grundtvig
Guell y Rente, Don Jose
Guemain, Mademoiselle
Guizot
Hage, Alfred
Hagemeister, Mr.
_Hakon, Earl_
Hall
Hamburg
_Hamilton’s Philosophy, Examination of_ _Hamlet_
Hammerich
Hammon
Hansen, Octavius
Hauch; Rinna
Hebbel
Hegel
Heiberg, Johan Ludvig
Heiberg, Johanne Louise
Heine
Hello, Ernest
Henrietta
Herbart
_Hernani_
_Hero of Our Time, A_
Hertz, Henrik
History, The Philosophy of
_History of English Literature,_
Hobbema
Hohlenberg, Pastor
Holberg
Holst, Professor H.P.
Homer
Hoppe, Mr.
Horace
Hoeyen
Hugo, Victor
Hume
Huysmann
Hvasser
Ibsen
_Indiana_
Ingeborg
Ingemann
Inger
_Inheritance, The_
_Intelligence, De l’_
Jacob, Uncle
_Jacques_
_Jamber_
Janet
Jens.
Jesus.
_Jesus, Life of_.
Jews.
_Joie fait Peur, La_.
Judaism.
_Judith_.
Julius, Uncle.
Jutland.
Kaalund.
Kant.
Kappers.
Karoline.
Key, Ellen.
Kierkegaard, Soeren.
_King Svorre_.
Krieger.
Klareboderne.
Kleist, Heinrich.
_Knowledge and Faith, On_.
Lafontaine, Mr.
Lamartine.
Lange, Julius.
_Laocoon_.
_Last Supper, Leonardo’s_.
Lavaggi.
Law.
_Law, Interpretation of the_.
Leconte.
Lehmann, Orla.
Leman, Lake.
Leonardo.
Leopold of Hohenzollern.
Lermontof.
Lessing.
Leveque.
_Liberty, On_.
_Lion Amoureux, Le_.
Literature;
Danish;
European;
French.
_Literature, History of_, Thortsen’s. Little Red Riding-Hood.
Littre.
Logic of Fundamental Ideas.
Louise, Mademoiselle.
_Love Comedy_.
_Lucrece_.
Ludvig.
Luini.
Lund, Joergen.
Lund, Troels.
M., Mademoiselle Mathilde.
_Macbeth_.
Machiavelli.
Mackeprang.
Macmahon.
_Madvig_.
Malgren.
Manderstroem, Count.
Marat.
Marcelin.
Maren.
Margharita, Princess.
Maria.
_Mariage de Figaro, Le_.
Marmier, Xavier.
Martensen, Bishop.
Martial.
Mary.
Mathilde, Princess.
Maximilian, Emperor.
Merimee.
Meza, General de.
Michelet.
Micromegas.
Milan.
Mill, James.
Mill, John Stuart
_Misanthrope, Le_
Moehl
Moliere
Moeller, Kristian
Moeller, Poul
Moeller, P.L.
Monrad
Mounet-Sully
Muddie
_Musketeers, Les Trois_
Musset, Alfred de
_Nana_
Napoleon III
Nerval, Gerard de
_Niebelungenlied, The_
Niels
Nielsen, Frederik
Nielsen, Rasmus
Nina K.
Nisard
Nodier
Noerregaard
_Notes sur l’Angleterre_
_Notre Dame de Paris_
Noufflard, Georges
Nutzhorn, Frederick
Nybboel
Nycander
Odescalchi, Prince
Odyssey, The
Oehlenschlaeger
Oersted, Anders Sandoee
Olcott
Ollivier, Prime Minister
_Once upon a Time_
_Orientales, Les_
_Over the Hills and Far Away_
Ovid
P.P.
Pagella
Paiva, Madame de
Palikao
Paludan-Mueller, Caspar
Paludan-Mueller, Frederick
Paludan-Mueller, Jens
Pantaleoni, Dr.
Pantheism
Paris
Paris, Gaston
Pascal
Patti, Adelina
Paulsen, Harald
Peer
_Peer Gynt_
Per
Petersen, Emil
Philippe, Louis
Philoctetes
Philosophy
Piedmont, History of
Pilgrimage to Kevlaar
Pindar
Planche
Plato
Plautus
Ploug, Carl
_Poetry, The Infinitely Small and the Infinitely Great in_ Ponsard
Prahl
Prevost-Paradol
Prim, Don Juan
Prose Writings, Heiberg’s
Proudhon
_Rabbi and Knight_
Raphael
Raupach
Ravnkilde, Niels
Realism, Ideal
Ream, Vinnie
Regnault
Regnier
Relling
Rembrandt
Renan
Renan, M., L’Allemagne et l’Atheisme au 19me Siecle Reuter, Fritz
Reventlow, Counts
Ribbing
Richardt, Christian
Ristori
Rochefort
Rode, Gotfred
Rode, Vilhelm
Roman Elegies
Rome
Rosenstand, Vilhelm
Rosette, Aunt
Rosieny, Marc de
Rossi
Rothe, Clara
Rousseau
Rubens
Runeberg, Walter
Ruysdael
Sacy, Silvestre de
Sain
Saint Simon
Saint-Victor
Sainte-Beuve
Sand, George
Sarah, Aunt
Saredo, Giuseppe
Savonarola
Savoy
Scenes from the Lives of the Warriors of the North Schandorph
Schaetzig
Schelling
Schioedte, J.C.
Schleswig
Schmidt, Rudolf
School of Life, The
Scott, Sir Walter
Scribe
Sebastian
Serrano
Shakespeare
Sheridan
Sibbern
Sickness unto Death
Signe’s Story
Sigurd Slembe
Slesvig
Snoilsky, Carl
Snorre
Socrates
Sofus
Sommer, Major
Sophocles
Soul after Death, A
Spang, Pastor
Spang, The Sisters
Spencer, Herbert
Spendthrift, A
Spinoza
Stebbins
Steen, Bookseller
Stockholm
Stuart, Mary
Student, The
Studies in Aesthetics
Style, Le
Subjection of Women
Supplice d’une Femme, Le
Swiss Peasant
Switzerland
Synnoeve
Taine
_Tartuffe_
Tasso
Terence
Testa, Costanza
Theocritus
Thierry, Edmond
Thomsen, Grimur
Thomsen, Wilhelm.
Thoresen, Magdalene
Thortsen
Thorwaldsen
_Tonietta_
Topsoee, V.
_Tragic Fate, The Idea of_
Trepka, Alma
Trier, Ernst
Trochu, General
Ussing, Dean
Valdemar
_Valentine_
_Vanity and Modesty_, Luini’s
Veuillot
Victorine, Aunt
Vigny, Alfred de
Villari, Pasquale
Vilsing
Virgil
Vischer, Fr. Th.
Voltaire
Voltelen
Vries
Wickseil, Knut
Wiehe, Michael
_Wild Duck_
Winckelmann
Winther, Christian
Wirsen
_Without a Center_
Ziegler, Clara
Zola