VII

In the restored calm of the villa, where the goddess lay on her golden bed, Giorgio Merula went up to the stranger who was still measuring.

'You are studying the proportions of divinity?' said the scholar patronisingly: 'You would reduce beauty to mathematics?'

The other raised his eyes for an instant; then silently, as if he had not heard the question, continued his work. The compasses contracted and expanded, describing geometrical figures; quietly and firmly the stranger put the angle measure to the fair lips of Aphrodite—lips whose smile had struck terror into Giovanni's heart—reckoned the result, and set it in a note-book.

'Pardon my curiosity,' insisted Merula, 'how many divisions are there?'

'This is a rough measurement,' said the unknown, unwillingly; 'generally I divide the human face into degrees, minutes, seconds and thirds, each division being the twelfth part of the preceding one.'

'Say you so?' cried Merula, 'meseems the last subdivision must be less than the finest hair.'

'A third,' explained the other still grudgingly, 'is ¹/₄₈₈₂₃ of the whole face.'

Merula lifted his eyebrows with an incredulous smile. 'Well, we live and learn. I never thought it were possible to reach such accuracy.'

'The more accurate the better,' returned his companion.

'Truly it may be so; yet, you know, in Art, in Beauty, all these mathematical calculations—What artist in the glow of enthusiasm, of fiery inspiration, breathed upon by God——'

'Yes, yes,' assented the unknown, evidently wearied; 'none the less I am anxious to know——'

And stooping he measured the distance from the roots of the hair to the chin.

'To know?' thought Giovanni. 'Can one know these matters? Folly! Does he not feel? understand?'

Merula, anxious to probe the other to the quick, talked on of the ancients, and how they should be imitated. The stranger waited till he had concluded, then said, smiling into his long golden beard:—

'He who can drink from the fountain will not drink from the cup.'

'By your leave!' shouted the scholar, 'if you call the ancients a cup, whom do you call the fountain?'

'Nature,' said the unknown quietly.

And Merula presumptuously and provokingly continuing to prate, he disputed no further, but assented with evasive politeness. Only in his cold eyes weariness and reserve became more manifest. At last Messer Giorgio, having come to the end of his argument, was reduced to silence. Then the other pointed out certain depressions in the marble, which in no light could be detected by the sight, yet were plain to the touch as the hand moved over the smooth surface. 'Moltissime dolcezze,' he called them; and then his eye travelled over the figure, as if in one look he would possess himself of its sum.

'And I who thought he did not feel!' said Giovanni to himself. 'Yet if he feels, how can he measure and split it up into numbers? Who is he, Messer Giorgio?' he whispered; 'tell me the name of this man?'

'Ha, little monk! is it you?' said Merula turning round; 'I had forgot you. Nay, but it is your idol: can it be that you knew him not? It is Messer Leonardo da Vinci.'

And the historian presented Giovanni to the Master.