III
Ten days before the surrender of the castle, the French marshal, Trivulzio, had made entry into Milan amid the pealing of bells and the acclamation of the populace. The king's entry was fixed for the 6th of October, and the citizens were preparing for his reception. The two great angels which, fifty years earlier in the days of the 'Repubblica Ambrosiana,' had represented the genii of popular liberty, were taken from the cathedral treasury for use in the royal procession. Long disuse had stiffened the springs by which their gilded wings were moved, and they were accordingly sent for repair to the court mechanician, Leonardo da Vinci.
Early one autumnal morning, while it was still dark, Leonardo sat at his desk, busy with his calculations and his geometrical designs. Of late he had resumed his study of aerostatics, and was constructing another flying-machine. Its skeleton was spread across the room, not, like its predecessor, resembling a bat, but rather a gigantic swallow. One of the wings was completed; slender, sharply outlined, beautiful in form and texture, it rose from floor to ceiling, and under its shadow Astro was working at the two wooden angels of the former Milanese Republic. In this latest apparatus Leonardo had determined to follow, as closely as he might, the structure of those winged creatures which nature had provided as models for a flying-machine. He still hoped to solve the problem by close observance of mechanical laws; but though apparently he knew all that could be known, there was still something which eluded his comprehension, and which perhaps lay outside these laws with which he was so familiar. As in his earlier experiments, he found himself brought up against that subtle dividing line which separates the creations of nature from the work of human hands; the structure of the living body from the structure of the lifeless machine; and he began to think he was aiming at the impossible—the irrational.
'Thank God, that is finished!' exclaimed Astro, winding up the springs of the wooden angels.
Their heavy wings moved, and in the resultant waft of air, the delicate wing of the great swallow stirred and rustled. The smith looked at it with inexpressible tenderness.
'The time I have squandered on these stupid monsters!' he exclaimed, pushing the angels away. 'From this out, Master, you may say what you please, but I will not go from this room till I have finished my swallow! Give me, pr'ythee, the design for the tail.'
'It is not ready, Astro. It demands further calculation.'
'But, Master, you promised it to me three days ago!'
'It cannot be helped. The tail of our bird is the rudder. The smallest mistake will ruin the whole.'
'You know best, I suppose! I will get on with the second wing.'
'We had better wait. It may be necessary to introduce some modification.'
The smith very carefully lifted the cane skeleton, overlaid with a network of bullocks' tendons; he turned it round, and contemplated it under every aspect. Then, his voice thick and trembling with excitement, he cried:—
'Master, be not wroth, but hear! If your calculations lead you to the conclusion that this machine also is useless, I swear to you that none the less I intend to fly. Yes, I will fly in spite of all your damnable mechanics. I have no longer patience for waiting, because——'
He stopped short. Leonardo gazed at the wide, irregular, obstinate face, impressed with a single, senseless, all-absorbing idea.
'Messere,' he added, more quietly, 'be so kind as to say plainly, are we going to fly, or are we not?'
Leonardo had not the heart to tell him the naked truth.
'We cannot be quite certain till we have made the experiment,' he replied; 'but I think we shall fly.'
'That is enough; I ask no more,' said the mechanic, clapping his hands. 'If you say we shall fly, then the thing is done.'
He presently burst into a great laugh.
'What the devil amuses you?' asked Leonardo.
'Ah, forgive me, Master! I am always disturbing you. But when I fall a-thinking of the poor folk of Milan, and of the French soldiers, and Il Moro, and the king, I have to laugh because I feel so sorry for them. Poor little creeping worms, poor little jumping grasshoppers! Always on the same plot of earth to which they are chained by their feet, they fight and they bite each other, and they think they are doing some very great thing! How they will stare and gape when they see men alive and flying. I misdoubt that they will believe their eyes. "These be two gods," they will say. Astro, a god! I doubt the whole world will be changed. I doubt wars and laws will be done with, and masters and slaves. We cannot conceive how it will be! Soaring up to heaven like the choirs of angels, all the people will shout Hosanna! O Messer Leonardo, Messer Leonardo! is it true that verily thus it will be?'
He spoke wildly, like one in delirium.
'Poor fool!' thought Leonardo; 'what blind faith! What is to be done? How can I tell him the truth? He will go crazed!'
At this moment there was a great knock at the street door, then a noise of voices and steps, and then a rap at the door of the studio.
'What devil comes at this hour?' growled Astro. 'A pox on him! Who is there? You won't see the Master. He has gone away from Milan.'
'Tis I, Astro—Luca Pacioli, the mathematician! Open, open, for God's sake!'
The smith opened and let the friar enter. His face was blanched with terror. Leonardo asked him hurriedly what had happened.
'To me, Messer Leonardo, nought—or leastways of that I will speak later. I come from the castle. Oh, Messer Leonardo! The Gascon bowmen—in fact the French—I saw it with my own eyes! They are destroying your Cavallo. Let us run! Let us run!'
'Soft!' said the painter, though he also had paled. 'What shall we do by running?'
'But you cannot sit here with folded hands while your masterpiece is perishing? I have a recommendation to Monsieur de la Trémouille. We must implore him——'
'We are too late.'
'No, no! there is still time! We can run by the garden, through the hedge. If we but make haste!'
Dragged along by the monk, Leonardo set forth for the castle. On the way Fra Luca told him of his own misadventure. The lanzknechts had plundered the cellar of the Canonica of San Simpliciano, where he dwelt; and being drunken, had wrought havoc through the house; and in Fra Luca's cell, having chanced on certain geometrical models made in crystal, had taken them for instruments of magic, and smashed them to atoms.
'My poor innocent crystals, which had done them no manner of wrong,' mourned the friar! Reached the piazza before the castle, they saw a young French dandy attended by a numerous suite on the drawbridge.
'Maître Gilles!' cried Fra Luca overjoyed; and he explained to Leonardo that this was a considerable and authoritative personage; his title, 'Whistler to the woodhens,' his office, to teach the finches, magpies, parrots, and thrushes of the most Christian king their feats of singing, talking, dancing, and other performances. Rumour asserted that the 'woodhens' were not the only bipeds who danced to the piping of Maître Gilles; and altogether Fra Luca had long felt that he must be presented with his books (richly bound) De Divina Proportione and Summa Aritmetica.
'Fra Luca,' said Leonardo, 'do not lose your opportunity—attend Maître Gilles. I can manage my own case.'
'No, no,' said the other, somewhat ashamed, 'I can wait; or I will just fly to him for an instant and learn whither he is going, and in a trice I will be back with you—go you on towards Monsieur de la Trémouille.'
And gathering up the skirts of his brown habit, his bare feet shod with clattering wooden pattens, the nimble monk ran after the 'Whistler to the Woodhens'; while Leonardo crossed the drawbridge and entered the inner court of the castle.