The Storyteller THE SPOT OF DREAMS

New Zealand Tablet, 18 October 1906, Page 3

The Storyteller

THE SPOT OF DREAMS

Joy -and trepidation were upon the school of Conrad the painter, -in the old city>by- the Rhine. His pupils were to furnish designs for one of the cathedral windows— an honor above words, where only artists of note competed— and it was clearly that the -cartoon accepted must equal theirs in beauty arid dignity. High ran the fire" of emulation, and hot and long . were the discussions at night in the inns where the apprentice ""painters-congregated. . - - Uonrad numbered among, his scholars almost "all the art-promise of the country, and now Julius, now Otto, now Albert. _was the name applauded. Had you masked Conrad himself, he would have told you, wi-th clear eyes that had no guile in them, that he hoped, the boy Hans would get the window ; adding, with relit gious discretion, that the prize must, however, go always to the best. Among "the fellow-students 'there was a doubt whether .Hans would compete at all. They were accustomed to look upon him as*" a child, and a child he certainly was at heart. How could he expect— he was nothing but a dreamer— to measure himself with them, the designers, the anatomists', the profoundly versed in composition ? The attempt could only be idle. True, argued another, he would certainly fail ; but his love for Holy Mary, was likely to lead him to the attempt where she was to be the subject, even if strength to achieve should be wanting. Hans passed hy their open-air tables as they spoke —a rather tali youth, slender, with the" soft hair of childhood touching ■ ear and neck under the -round brown cap. He smiled, greeting them, but :would not sit. Often he had. said he did not like their ■ tankards ; and they- had answered, mocking, he was not past the taste of milk. Better than the platz he loved the long, lone country roads in the twilight, the lines of poplars against the fading rose, thedelicate breeze that scarcely spoke. There was, at " the edge of the woods, a chapel dedicated to - the ' Queen of Angels, and here he came almost every night, bringing wild iiowers in his hands. Then he would lie on his back in the grass outside the sanctuary and wait for the stars to appear. That was -Hans' wooing— the Blesst-d Virgin Mary and God's stars.' No wonder Conrad said ' the lad had the soul of a poet.. Yet Hans made large demands upon his master's patience. He was dreamy, he was unpractical ; he had a great way of saying to all demands, f To-morrow.' 1 That very day he said it again. The designs were., coming in fast, and Uonrad had turned to the boy sharply and asked for his. ■ ' • :i ' To-morrow, sir,.' stammered the culprit. ' I would swear you have not even begun it !' ' I had not the idea. 7 ' ' *• ' The idea, you son of mischief,^, when, you have the shape of the window and you know you must fill that simple shape with an Assumption 1 What more jdea would you like to have ?' % <"'-* • ; ' 1 would like much, sir, to have an idea of the Assumption.' * . • - The wizened old teacher lifted his hands in despair. And Hans, much perturbed betook himself to the saying of Hail Marys. It was the only fount of inspiration he had never known to fail. He was sad as he lay down that night in the grass behind the chapel. lJut the wild apple boughs swayed gently above him ; between them the - sister stars pierced the velvet blue, and the crescent moon stole silvery into view at the last glow of the .horizon. Ere he knew it, they had lulled him ito sleep. And then the boy Hans had an extraordinary dream. He was lying in the self-same spot, -made fresh and beautiful in spring-time, at the self-same gloaming hour ; and into that mysterious twilight scene, where the trail of red had been, . grevr a wondrous clear color like the mist and flame of opal. -A. woman with a face of <joy unspeakable stood in the g-lory-'-while, at the edge of the light, angelic forms'wheeled round her ; ' from the shadowy meadow ascended incense of countless flowers— Hans had never guessed how the generous spot ran over with * them ; . and the pulses of viols, beating in some rare melody, .cadenced.a song the sense of which he understood, though it was only the inarticulate - throMnng of stringed instruments swelling to one grand choral : ' Assumpta - estf Maria in coelum ; gaudent laudantes benedicunt Domi- - num -!''"_ "} Hans awakened through excess of , happiness, and went stumbling home, half blind, half dazed. The road was intensely still, the heavens powdered with stars.He took a tallow dip and scratched a design— a mere blot with web-like lines. How he hated to do

it.! How "■ impossible it would be for him ever to paint -what he had . seen ! How his hand would def flower it ! But. she had given it to him, and so 'he, must do his. best. / Qn the- morrow he did not go abroad. All that 'day, --all -.the .-next, he worked in his liitle bare room, 1 £ ca F cc food,: unconscious if there, > was l still" any. material w6rld around him. All he knew was that he had seen -in sleep, smiling upon him, a 1 face coiildi' wait for until- he should be dead. Strange perfumes ,- crossed the air as he labored— the flowers, he thought ' of \hat -wondrous meadow. 'He smiled pityingly at the pot of geraniums, the pot of basil on his window s-HK The old -woman with whom the student lodged wondered what strange tiling the boy was trying to sing over his drawing in that close-shut room But' he traced a scroll at the base and wrote, feeling some agony of -denudation in the words, ' Assumpta est He threw down the pencil when he came to her name. ... The design was placed upon Uonrad's easel . the third day. The old man drew" his 'breath sharply when he saw it, and looked about for the boy • but Hans had fled. Days elapsed before he ' returned • and then it seemed to the master he was sad but neither spoke of the cartoon. A week later oue'of the judges, meeting the painter on the street, congratulated him warmly. Conrad's gladness had been ready long before and now beamed out of him. • Ah ! My Hans ? ' he chuckled. ' Nay, good master ; Ludwig has it.' r J Lu'dwig ? Gott in himmel ! You have given it to Ludwig .' 'It was closely contested. But we do not like th yellow tone of Hans' ; it aumiis too much light and ignores some of the main laws of g-laziery The whole figure would have to be rehandled.' Conrad's head fell. He had not thought of the leading himself. He could well see how the lad would overlook it. And Ludwig had got the window. Loyally the old man tried to toe glad, to be impartial, but the angry tears stung his eyes ; for he knew what quality of vision was in the design of Hans the dreamer, and Ludwig's natural tendency was toward the painting of hams and melons. Ludwig's cartoon was very careful, even elaborate. From life with much correctness, he had drawn Katrina, the innkeepers daughter, in a blue dress, and with her plumD chin upturned. It was well composed and true to nature. Conrad had seen Madonnas done like this before. But even that color-feat ol the boy Hans' painting in the sweat ot his brow, the mist and fire of the opal for St. Mary's glory— even that had told against him. It admitted too much light. Conrad called the lad to him softly and told him as one tells of a death. He got no answer, and asked Hans what he thought. * ' Think, sir ? I think it very natural. The work in it is execrable. But I did my best.' And with that he went back to paint in the background of Conrad's ' Holy Family.' Full soon he heard that the prize had gone to Ludwig and his stout wenoh in the fairing robe. <H did not affect him very much ; his whole soul had craved a share of work and glory in that stupendous Gothic structure he called in- heart's heart the ' spot of dreams 1 ' • but, since that was denied him, he did not care who was preferred. The sorrow that went deepest with him— and it did go to the core and the marrowwas that Ms Lady had refused his service. If she had had any pleasure in him she would have let him work for her: He had thought that she indeed had helped him in his trouble ; but, if she forsook him now, then, he had been in error from the first. Lonely the boy wandered out to the Chapel of Angels, but he found no solace. His Lady and Mistress had repulsed his love. He came in the moonlight to the minster, where day toy day mallet "and :\<M sel tang, and joyous workmen crowded the scaffoldings stark; in the -blue. The flying arches sprang upward ; everywhere the carven stone blossomed into ilpwer and -figure ; and here, in the nether shadow, stood he, Hans, who was* an orphan, whom God had made an artist, -but who never would have a share in that. 'Pephaps,' he said to himself— '/ perhaps lam not .worthy to -work for her.' And so ; he went home, with his head low and his face while with pain- in the-.moonlight. - After that the old -town 'and Jhe school of Conrad saw the lad no more. Loud was the laughter when it was found that this - ohild of -dreams could be smitten with a jealousy of - success so intolerable and unforgiving that! it 'drove him from friends and land. Conrad, who tiest knew the boy's sensitiveness, could but agreethat . ment and humiliation had proved too much 1 for him. At heart he did not wonder that Hans would not en-

■v_J dure the seeing of Ludwig's subject preferred.' : It 'was gall, to his own soul. But the years.: passed, and no ' tidings came , from the wanderer. - Hans himself travelled on foot to the Netherlands v , a P a d ,. ]£ ranee and Italy, studying everywhere as he went. , Once . and he- found- a "patron. Twice tie" set forth < as^.a pilgrim to the holy- spots -of Palestine, and_ at length, having won fame ' in 'the art-loving ncprnm-unes 7)of Italy, he decided that" cthis should. be his .home. From Bergamo a letter went' 'to Conrad - the painter; it brought -no answer,- and- -the, writer realised it must be too late. Then" he turned back resoluteiy to the painting of Mauonnas. By these Giovanni d'Alemagiia had his greatest fame ; though he was also an architect of no mean acquirements, and his designs were frequently prized above those .of . native draughtsmen. . So his skill grew and grew; and to everything he touched a peculiar grace of inimitable beauty was imparted. His was the artistry of -"the soul ,afid< eye and hand. And he had grqwn bluff and : 'jovial ' ■* But there was one subject he could not speak of, and that was his boyhood's ' spot of dreams.' Sometimes he would close his eyes and think about it. He had built cathedrals himself since that ; but there was one irom which, as a lad, he had been excluded, and the old wound would not heal. Travellers " ' occasionally brought. Jnm, in scraps, tales of the solemnity and magnificence ot that place. - ■ One day the ineradicable desire of land and toneue the passion of home-sickness often stifled, laid its spell so potently upon the aged painter he " undertook the long, difficult journey for the first time.' He -could remember, as he passed them smiling, the clear river the meadows breaking into strata of blue mossom or whitening with lilies of the valley. He could smile at the recol ection of the boy Hans, so simple, so deadly in earnest, so tragic-full of childish and unchildish sorrows, lhere was the window in the gray' cabled street-no more geraniums" or basil at the sill,?: but still the window of thai most foolish, perliaps lovable 'boy. There, shrunken surely and "weatlie'r-stained 1 1 id r^ 1 re Conrad the Painter had lived , and And then the old man Giovanni- d'Alemagna— old as Conrad himself by this time-picked out of his memory the old way to the minster. Miles • away Be had seen it ; an arrow of go]d first," a steeple above the haze; next a toy carving, gem-like upon ""Ine ;'. city. 1 hen at the walls he lost it. And here he. was at the door! His oreast tightened in the grip- of ". that old old pain, smoothed almost into silence. The moonlight seemed to have come back over buttress'" and scaftoldings. Strange how this caught his breath » Strange how beneath the noble arch his limbs 'seemed to weaken ! -« A canon hastening to Office paused in the portal are weary, sir. Come within and be seated ; moves °ni ™ eary ' his spot ' not seen since chihfiiood, rriai^gTa^? 11 ' 1 WW * S " com P lcte^he carvings, < Almost completed. I jaiind me, when I left the city, the scholars of Conrad were making a design.' t* • F ° r * window ?' You are keen "of" "memory air It is sixty years, if I err not.' * y> * dow set 7 ? ?aSS quickly> Ludwi S of Bremen-is ,his win- «« H L H. ng • sinee r* hou g h . *&(#&, not Ludwig.'s; was so badly injured in the firing it went perforceSb the ash-heap. Ami as the poor youth .died soon after Conrad pressed forward another ' design. '1 here was some trouble about it at the time. J do not auite recairthe circumstances. The Conrad school we ?e a turbulent element, but Conrad put it to them by have beenVSr!i eaUUfUI W^° W ' ***** f JJ:\^trL^tr "fiS? aw^H? 6 h Jd nnei a dread and a fear to enter. To-morrow nerhaos . hf^r* 0 *^" 00^ Wiil i ihe ,o, oJ d,iegret' so acute ami so bitter on him. So not .even Ludwig had \eot it t SfivJ 1 UdWl? ' de^ d i a^ enty ! have mau-ied someone else. How idly ' he/ Hans' could wonder about it ! How. "HisiMttßrmi^'l^SJ'uc^o* the sharpness of life must have' lost its edge And Conrad had proposed, a new cartoon ! Whose ? The old man's artistic honesty ..was above" false dealing or favohl*t Sm 'rJ? c Schol^ h e .cpmrnended. .wouldr ,be his best. .There was .Otto, whose coloring was so luminous ; and Adolf, who drew so very deirwSe they dead too? How -old -fie- must -be Himself; if of S &on°rad S ShSn 80 ™' ' " *WW**'*W? ihA" T ]?M * painter s ? e .P* tlla * night at a hostelry where the old names evoked no memories; but French mer chants with gpm-ware imade f the house "loify-'"

The Angelus chimes, winging like startled birds from the cathedral tower, wakened the pilgrim at- first blush of morning. He rose more feeble than I'ot wont, aged perhaps with half . a .century of changes weighting his mind. He would- go now, in the Tdawn of, the new -day, fresh, from slumber, and enter bravely.' Was .he so sensitive s.tili '! ' < It caught his breath, this silence, so Jvast and solemn, where in the cool hollows had echoed hammering and the voices of masons. *et how his soul soared and expanded, to embrace at a glance the whole wide genius of the spot ! Long he paused before he could advance one step. The color was toned already to a beginning of sober richness. ,A new de- - coration, of which he had never thought, was added in sculptured tombs. Here, Herman, the Bishop who confirmed him. There, the great lady whose charities had" been a byword. Yonder, the Count Palatarie'; the most warlike man of his day.- Were they all dead ? The whole life of the splendid, populous city lying in the aisles now, or low before the altar, with its efficied features worn by strangers' feet !

Tremulous and stunned, the old man staggered forward. W ? hy was he left ?., His course must be lone finished, if they had air completed theirs. Suddenly the organ pealed forth in thunder and gigantic-fluit-ings, swelled "to an anthem, glad, triumphant. The music lifted him, bore him forward ; his heart beat ' faster, .Life must still be ■ worth living, for he still answered to the song of hope. Then Giovanni d'Alcmagna paused, incredulous No- V thing had prepared him for this. The stained glass ' in the aisles was rich, subdued, tempering- the outer brilliance; but in fche eastern apse shone out a- window that was a flame. me opal shafts of- sunrise volleyed through it— a great golden window stemming the flood of dawn .behind it ; and in the midst of it ' Mary Virgin, ascending heavenward. She was so beautiful, Hans, who had made her, could recognise his dream.—' Aye Maria.' "