VII
Bernardo Bellincioni called his old ruinous house 'the lizard's hole.' He was the recipient of many munificent gifts, but his life was irregular; he drank, and gambled away whatever he had, so that 'misery,' as he was accustomed to say, 'followed him like a wife, unloved and faithful.'
Lying on a broken couch, of which the fourth leg was replaced by a billet of wood, and the mattress thin as a girdle-cake, he was sipping his third glass of sour wine, and composing an epitaph for Madonna Cecilia's deceased lapdog. Listening to the north wind, and making gloomy prognostications as to the sort of night he was going to spend, he watched the dying-out of the remnant of fire, and vainly tried to warm his thin legs in the moth-eaten squirrel cloak, which he had thrown over them. He had not presented himself at the court ball (where his masque, Paradiso, was to be performed) for other reasons than illness; though indeed he had been ill for some while, and was so lean that, as he said, 'in his body it were possible to study the anatomy of the bones, muscles, and veins of the human subject.' Had he been dying he might still have dragged himself to the festival; more potent than illness was, however, jealousy; he preferred freezing in his kennel to witnessing the triumph of his rival, that interloping and pretentious humbug, Messer Unico, who had turned the heads of all the silly women. The mere thought of Messer Unico overflowed his heart with black bile; he clenched his fist, gnashed his teeth, and jumped frantically from his bed. But the room was so cold that he returned to its inadequate shelter, coughed, shivered, and rolled angrily from side to side.
'The villains!' he grumbled; 'have I not written four sonnets in the best rhyme praying for firewood, and not a stick has come. I shall certainly be reduced to burning my banisters: no one comes to visit me save Jews, and if they break their necks so much the better.'
However, he spared the banisters. His eye fell on the makeshift leg of his bed, and he considered which were the more dangerous, a fireless room or an insecure sleeping-place. The storm swept through the room, blowing in at the chinks and shrieking in the chimney like a witch. With desperate decision Bernardo tore away the support of his couch, chopped it up and cast it on the hearth. The fire blazed up anew, and he sat before it on a stool, putting his blue fingers to the flame, and apostrophising the last warm friend of a lonely poet.
'A dog's life!' he muttered presently; 'and of a truth I merit these castigations less than others. Was it not of my forefather, the Florentine, who lived before the house of Sforza had been heard of, that the divine poet wrote:—
"Bellincion Berti vid' io andar cinto
Di cuoio e d'osso"?
Good Lord, when I came to Milan this herd of creeping animals did not know a sonnet from a strambotto. Who is it has taught them the elegancies of the new poetry? Was it not through my facile fingers that the waters of Hippocrene enriched the Lombard plain, and even threatened an inundation? And this is my reward! To lie like a dog in a kennel! To be neglected by all because, forsooth, I am poor! A poet situated as I am, is unknown as he whose face is hidden by a mask or deformed by the smallpox.'
And he recited certain lines from his epistle to Ludovico, the Duke:—
'I cry for aid to every one,
But each in turn replies, "Begone!"
Ah, wretched poet! for his pains,
Thou generous lord, what meed remains?
The very cap and bells to him denied,
Among the beasts of burden harness thou his pride!'
And he hung his bald head, smiling bitterly; on his stool by the fire, crouching, and very thin, with a long red nose, he looked like some melancholy roosting bird.
Presently a knock was heard at the house-door below; then the sleepy grumbling of the surly old woman who was the poet's sole attendant; and then steps upon the brick floor.
'What, the fiend!' wondered Bellincioni; 'can it be that abominable Jew come again after his money? The infidel hound! Can he not leave me in peace even at night?'
The staircase creaked, the door opened, and into the wretched room came a woman in a sable mantle and a black velvet mask. Astounded and staring, Bernardo sprang to his feet. The lady, without a word, was about to seat herself on a chair.
'For God's love, be careful, madam!' cried the poet, 'the back is broken!' Then in the ceremonious tone of a courtier he added: 'To what good genius am I indebted for the happiness of seeing an illustrious lady in my poor abode?'
'Surely,' he thought, ''tis a customer come to order a madrigal! Well, it brings money, and that brings firewood! Yet the hour is strange for a lonely lady! 'Tis clear my name is not unknown. And if this one, who knows how many more are my admirers?'
With reviving spirits he threw the rest of the wood on the flame, which already had begun to languish.
The fair unknown raised her mask.
'It is I, Bernardo.'
In his astonishment he staggered against the doorpost.
'Jesus! Holy Virgin! Angels and martyrs!' he exclaimed. 'What? Your Excellency! Most shining lady——'
'Bernardo, you can do me a great service,' she looked round uneasily; 'but can any one hear us?'
'Be at ease, madam. No one except the rats and the mice.'
'Listen!' said Beatrice slowly, fixing her piercing eyes on his. 'I am aware that you have composed verses for Madonna Lucrezia; doubtless you have kept the letter of commission from the Duke.'
He turned pale, and observed her silently, consternation in his eyes.
'Fear nothing,' she continued; 'no one shall know. I shall study how to reward you, Bernardo.'
'Your Excellency!' stammered the unlucky poet, whose tongue had lost its glibness, 'do not believe—nay, 'tis all calumny! No letters—before God, I swear there are no letters!'
Her eyes flashed, and her brows contracted in an ominous frown. She rose and drew nearer, still fixing him with her gaze.
'Lie not. I know all. As you value your life, give me the Duke's letters. Give me them! Hear you? Bernardo, be careful, my servants are at the door. Think you I have come to jest with you?'
He fell before her on his knees.
'But, most illustrious lady, I have no letters!'
'You say you have no letters?'
'None.'
Fury overcame her. 'Wait then, accursed pander, till I tear the truth from your lips. Oh, I'll wring confession from you! I'll strangle you with my own hands, you rubbish, you rogue!' she cried: in good sooth driving her slender fingers into his throat with such force that the veins swelled on his forehead. Unresisting, rolling his eyes and hanging his hands helplessly, he more than ever resembled a sick bird.
'She is strangling me!' thought Bellincioni; 'well, it can't be helped. Not for so poor a reason will I betray my lord!'
Dissipated rascal, and venal flatterer the poetaster had always been, but never traitor. In his veins flowed better blood than that of the Sforzas, and the moment had come for showing it.
The Duchess, however, recovered herself. With a gesture of disgust she flung him from her, snatched up the little lamp with its broken sides and charred wick, and made for the adjoining cabinet, which she guessed to be the poet's working studiolo. Bernardo, placing himself against the door, barred the entrance. But the haughty glance of the Duchess awed him, and he withdrew. She swept past and entered the poor refuge of his threadbare muse. A smell of mould came from the books, great patches of damp showed on the plaster walls. The broken glass of the frosted windows was repaired with tow. On the sloping ink-splashed board were quills, gnawed and twisted in the agony of finding rhymes, and papers, doubtless rough copies of poems.
Heedless of the author, Beatrice stood the lamp on a shelf and began to rummage among these sheets. She found sonnets addressed to chamberlains, treasurers, and dispensers, with burlesque complaints and prayers for firewood, clothes, wine, and bread. In one he asked of Messer Pallavicini a roast goose for the due celebration of All Saints' Day. In another, headed 'Del Moro a Cecilia,' the poet recounted how Jupiter, returning from his mistress, had been forced to brave the storm lest jealous Juno should guess his treachery, and tearing the diadem from her brow scatter its pearls like hailstones and raindrops from the sky.
Presently the search brought the Duchess to a dainty case of black wood; she opened it, and saw a carefully tied-up packet of letters. Bernardo, watching her, wrung his hands in dismay. The Duchess looked at him, then at the letters; read the name of Lucrezia, recognised the handwriting of her husband, and knew she had found the thing she sought, his letters—the rough draft of the love-verses he had commanded for Lucrezia. She thrust the packet into the bosom of her dress, flung a bag of ducats at the poet, as one might fling a bone to a dog, and departed.
He heard her descend the stair, heard the bang of the door, and stood motionless in the centre of the room as if thunderstruck, though the floor seemed shaking under him like the deck of a ship in storm. At last, exhausted, he flung himself on the three-legged couch, and sank into a deathlike slumber.