VIII
Arrived at the castle gates, they crossed the drawbridge to the Torre del Filarete, which looked to the south, and was deeply moated. Here even at noon it was dark; and the air was laden with an undefinable odour of barracks—the smell of stables, straw, and sour bread. Under the resounding arches came echoes of the laughter and curses of the hired foreign soldiery.
Cesare had the pass; but Giovanni was regarded with mistrust, and his name entered in the guard-book. Crossing a second drawbridge, where they submitted to a second examination, they reached the deserted inner court of the castle called the Piazza d'Arme. Straight before them was the stern Torre di Bona; to the right, the entrance to the Corte Ducale; to the left, the Rocchetta, a veritable eagle's nest, the part of the castle most difficult of access. In the centre of the square, surrounded by ill-made wooden fences, which were already moss-grown and weather-stained, rose an unfinished colossal equestrian statue in greenish clay; Il Cavallo, the bold achievement of Leonardo da Vinci, no less than twenty braccia in altitude. The tremendous horse, dark against the watery sky, was rearing; a fallen warrior was beneath his hoofs; on his back, Francesco Sforza, the great condottiere, half-soldier, half brigand, wholly adventurer, who had served with his sword and his blood for money. The son of a peasant, strong as a lion, astute as a fox, he attained by sagacity, by crime, and by great exploits, the summit of power, and died on the throne of the Dukes of Milan. Pale sunshine fell full on the colossal figure, and in the grossness of the double chin, in the rapacity of the fierce and vigilant eye, Giovanni saw the calm of the gorged wild beast. Leonardo himself had inscribed the clay with this distich:—
'Expectant animi molemque futuram
Suscipiunt; fluat aes; vox erit; Ecce Deus.'
The last two words were astounding to Giovanni. 'Behold the god.'
'A god?' he repeated, looking at the colossal clay, at the victim trampled by the violent conqueror. He remembered the quiet convent refectory of 'Our Lady of Grace,' the hills of Zion, the celestial beauty of St. John, the stillness of the Last Supper: and that God, of whom it was said, 'Behold the Man!'
At this moment Leonardo himself appeared.
'Let us hurry,' he said; 'it seems that the kitchen chimneys are smoking; and if we do not flee they will be calling me back to mend them.'
Giovanni could not answer him; he stood downcast and pallid.
'Master,' he said presently, 'I crave your pardon; but I have thought long, and still I comprehend not how you were able to create the Cavallo and the Cenacolo at one and the same time.'
Leonardo looked at his disciple in quiet surprise.
'Oh, Messer Leonardo! do you not feel yourself that they are impossible together?'
'No, Giovanni. To my thinking, one helps out the other. My best ideas for the Cenacolo come to me when I am working at the Colossus; and in that convent refectory yonder, I love to think upon this monument of Duke Francesco. The works are twins. I began them together, and together I shall finish them.'
'Together! Christ, and this man? It is impossible!' And ignorant how to express his thought, yet feeling his heart on fire, he repeated passionately, 'It is impossible!'
'And why?' asked the master with his quiet smile.
Giovanni would have tried to reply; but meeting those calm uncomprehending eyes, the words died upon his lips, for Leonardo would not have understood them. So he held his peace and thought within himself.
'Strange! An hour ago, looking at his picture, I fancied that I knew him. And now I find I do not know him at all. Of which of those twain does he say in his heart: 'Behold the god?''