VII
It was a long bare hall, whitewashed, and with a roof of wooden rafters. There was a smell of damp, of incense, and of fast-day fare. The Father Superior had his dining-board in the recess by the entrance; on either side were the long narrow tables for the monks. So still was it that the buzz of the flies was audible in the windows, glazed with small, yellow, and dusty panes, and hollowed like the cells of a honeycomb. Now and then voices came from the kitchen with a clatter of iron saucepans.
Opposite the prior's table, at the end of the hall, there rose a scaffolding of wood covered with coarse grey linen; Giovanni divined that behind it was the magnum opus, upon which the Master had already laboured for twelve years; the Cenacolo, the Last Supper.
Leonardo having ascended the scaffold and opened a wooden case which contained his sketches, cartoons, paints, etc., took a small, well-worn, much-annotated Latin book, and handing it to Giovanni, bade him read the thirteenth chapter of St. John. Then he removed the covering from the fresco.
Giovanni's first impression was that he saw not a painting but a prolongation of the room itself against an actual background of air. Another chamber seemed to have opened out behind the withdrawn curtain; the beams of the ceiling passed on into it, contracting in the distance, and the light of day was blended in the quiet evening light above the hills of Zion, which glowed through the triple window. This second supper-room was little less austere and bare than the convent refectory. Though more solemn, the sacred table, with its cups, plates, knives, and flagons, was like the board at which the monks nightly supped; the cloth with its narrow stripes, its knotted corners, its unsmoothed folds, seemed still damp, as if but just taken from the convent linen room.
Giovanni opened the Gospel and read:—
'Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, ... and supper being ended, the devil having put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him....
'Jesus was troubled in spirit, and testified and said, Verily verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved.'
Giovanni again raised his eyes to the fresco. The faces of the apostles were so animated that he seemed to hear their speech, to look into the depths of their souls, confounded as they were by the most mysterious, the most terrible of all catastrophes that have ever taken place—the birth of that sin by which God was to die.
Specially was he impressed by Judas, by St. Peter, and St. John. The head of Judas was not yet painted, and the body, bent backward, but dimly outlined. Clutching desperately at the bag with convulsive fingers, he had overturned the salt-cellar, and the salt was spilled. Peter, impetuous in his wrath, was starting up from behind, a knife still in his right hand, his left on the shoulder of John, as if asking the beloved disciple 'of whom doth He speak?' With his silver hair, with his splendid resentment, his whole frame showed that fiery zeal, that thirst for great deeds, with which, upon understanding the ineluctable sufferings of his Master he was to cry 'Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake!' John, on the contrary, with his long silken tresses, his eyelids lowered as if in the peace of sleep, his folded hands, the long oval of his face—seemed the ideal of calm and heavenly serenity. Alone among the disciples he knew no suffering, no fear, no wrath.
Giovanni saw, and he said to himself, 'Here is the true Leonardo! And I had doubted and wellnigh believed the calumnies. The man impious who created that? Nay, who among men is closer to Christ than he?'
The painter, meantime, having completed the face of John with delicate touches of the brush, began the charcoal outline of the head of Jesus. Vainly, however; he had meditated upon that head for ten years, yet still he could not accomplish even the first sketch. Always when confronted by that emptiness where the divine countenance should appear, the artist trembled with mortal anguish and the sense of his own impotence. Throwing the charcoal aside, passing a cloth over the few lines he had lightly traced, he fell into one of those reveries which sometimes lasted for entire hours. Giovanni ventured to approach him, and saw his face as it were aged, severe, wearing the imprint of unremitting tension, of silent despair.
Yet, his eyes falling on those of his pupil, Leonardo said kindly—
'Well, then, amico mio, what say you of it?'
'What words have I, Master? It is beautiful, with a beauty beyond aught in this world. None other has so understood that scene! But nay, I will not speak—I cannot.'
His voice shook with tears; but presently he added in a low voice, 'One thing I would ask. Among such faces, what can be the face of Judas?'
The master, without answering, handed him a paper sketch. It showed a face terrible but not repulsive, not wicked even, but big with infinite grief, with the profound bitterness of great knowledge.
Giovanni compared it with that of St. John. 'Yes,' he exclaimed awestruck; 'it is he! He of whom it is said, Satan entered into him; who perhaps knew more than any of them, but who would not accept the cry, that 'all may be one!' because he desired to be an one by himself.'
He was interrupted by Cesare da Sesto, who burst into the refectory, followed by a man in the court livery.
'At last! at last!' he cried; 'Master, we have sought you in every place! The duchess requires you—on a grave matter.'
'Your Worship will have the kindness to come with me to the palace,' said the servant.
'What is the cause?'
'A disaster, Messer Leonardo. The water pipes do not work; and this morning when Her Excellence was pleased to get into her bath, and her woman had gone to the adjoining chamber for linen, the tap broke, so that Her Excellence was nearly scalded. She is pleased to be very wroth; and Messer Ambrogio Ferrari, the steward, complains greatly, and saith he hath more than once warned your Worship about these pipes.'
'What puerility is this?' replied Leonardo; 'can you not see I am at work? Go to Zoroastro. In half an hour he will repair everything.'
'Messere, I was told not to return without your Worship.'
Leonardo, however, went back to his picture. But when his eye fell on the blank space destined for the Saviour's head, his brows knit with discouragement, and, realising fresh failure, he descended from the easel.
'Well, we will go. You, Giovanni, come for me to the outer courtyard of the castle, Cesare will show you the way; I will expect you by the Cavallo.'
By this name he spoke of his great equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza.
And to Giovanni's amazement, without another glance at the Cenacolo, the Master followed the scullion to mend the pipes of the ducal bath.
'So you can't take your eyes off the thing?' said Cesare mockingly to Boltraffio; 'certes, 'tis a wonderful work; at least until one sees through it.'
'What is your meaning?'
'Ask me not. I won't spoil your faith. Mayhap in the end you will discover for yourself. Meanwhile, admire.'
'Cesare, tell me your thought.'
'Good, then. Only be not wroth at the truth. I know all you will find to say and I will not dispute with you. In good sooth, it is wonderful. No master hath so much anatomy, such perspective, such science of chiaroscuro. I challenge it not. All is direct from nature, the face wrinkles, the folds in the cloth, everything. But the living spirit, where is that? the God is absent; and will absent Himself for ever. At bottom, in the soul, all is ice and death! Look, Giovanni! use your eyes! See the geometrical regularity; four triangles, two contemplative, two active; and their centre is Christ. Look narrowly. On the right you have perfect goodness in John, perfect badness in Judas, the dividing of good and evil (that is, justice) in Peter. Beside them the active triad, Andrew, James, and Bartholomew. Now turn to the left; another contemplative triangle; the love of Philip, the faith of James, the wisdom of Thomas; then again, activity in another triad. Not inspiration, Giovanni, but geometry; mathematics in the seat of beauty. All calculated, reasoned ad nauseam, tested to repulsion, weighed in the balance, measured by the compasses. Under the holy things—contempt.'
'Cesare, Cesare!' cried Giovanni with gentle reproof. 'How little you know the Master! Why do you hate him?'
'And you think perchance you know him, and therefore you love him?' returned Cesare quickly, turning to his companion with a bitter smile. In his eyes blazed such unextinguishable malice that Giovanni instinctively averted his own.
'You are unjust, Cesare,' he resumed after a pause; 'the picture is incomplete; the Christ is not yet there.'
'And will He be there? Do you expect it? Well, we shall see. Only mark you my words. I say Messer Leonardo will never finish the Cenacolo; never paint the Judas, nor the Christ! For, see you, my friend, one may do much by mathematics and by experiments in science; but not everything. More is needed. There is a limit which he, with all his learning, can never pass.'
They left the monastery and moved towards the Castello di Porta Giovia. Boltraffio was long silent, then he said:—
'In one point, Cesare, you certainly are in error. The Judas exists already; I have seen it.'
'When? Where?'
'Just now—in the convent. He showed me the drawing.'
'You?'
Cesare stared, then said slowly, and as if by an effort.
'How was it? Good?'
Giovanni nodded; and Cesare after this kept silence.