XI

One November evening, after a day spent in soliciting the munificent Gaspare Visconti, and Arnoldo the usurer, and in coming to terms with the hangman—who demanded payment for two corpses (used by the artist for studies), threatening in default to denounce the purchaser to the Holy Inquisition—Leonardo came home greatly wearied and out of heart. Having dried his clothes by the kitchen fire, and received the key of his workshop from Astro, he was proceeding thither when he was surprised by the sound of voices behind the door.

'What?' he said, 'is it not locked? Can it be thieves?'

Recognising the tones of his pupils, Giovanni and Cesare, he suspected them of prying into his private papers. About to throw open the door, he was arrested by a vivid imagination of their confusion, and the wide eyes of terror with which they would greet him. He felt ashamed for them, and went away, walking on tiptoe as if himself the culprit; presently he called from the studio:—

'Astro! Astro! Bring me a light! Where have you all got to? Andrea! Marco! Giovanni! Cesare!'

The voices in his room were silenced, some glass thing fell with a crash, there was a shutting of windows. Leonardo still hesitated, unable to resolve upon entry. In his heart was not so much anger as disgust.

His suspicions were not amiss. Having entered by the courtyard window, Giovanni and Cesare had searched his drawers and opened his papers, drawings, and diaries. Boltraffio, very pale, held a mirror, and Cesare read the master's inverted writing:—

'Laude del Sole. I cannot but blame Epicurus, who maintained that the sun's magnitude is no other than it seemeth. Socrates astounds me, who, depreciating so great a light, calls it but a molten stone. And would I had vocables strong enough to confound those who prefer the apotheosis of man to the apotheosis of the sun!'

'Shall we pass on?' asked Cesare.

'Read to the end,' said Giovanni.

'Those who worship men for gods,' continued the reader, 'are greatly in error; for man, though he were of the magnitude of the earth, would appear smaller than the smallest star, a scarce visible spot upon the universe; and seeing, further, that men in their sepulture are subject to putridity and decay—'

'Strange,' observed Cesare, 'that he can reverence the sun, but appears not to recognise Him who, dying, was the vanquisher of death.'

He turned the page. 'Let us try this.'

'In all parts of Europe, by great peoples, will be bewailed this day the death of a man who died in Asia—'

'You don't understand, Giovanni. I will explain: he treats of Good Friday. Shall I go on?'

'O mathematicians, throw light upon this error! Spirit exists not without body, and where is no flesh, nor blood, nerves, tongue, bone, and muscle, can be neither voice nor movement.'

'I can't make it out; the next lines are erased. We will pass to the end.'

'Other definitions of spirit I leave to the Holy Fathers, who know the secrets of Nature by revelation from above.'

'H'm, I would not be Messer Leonardo if these lucubrations should fall into the hands of the Holy Fathers! Here we have another of his prophecies.'

'Enough shall there be, who, leaving the ascesis of labour and poverty, think to serve God by living luxuriously in buildings like palaces, and in amassing visible wealth at the expense of the wealth invisible.'

'I conclude he here treats of Indulgences. Quite in Savonarola's vein! A stone slung at the pope.'

'Those who have been dead a thousand years will be the food of the living.'

'That passes me! Nay, though, the thousand-year dead must be the saints in whose name the monks collect money. A pretty riddle!'

'They shall adore those who do not hear; they shall burn lamps before those who do not see.'

'Images of saints.'

'Women shall disclose to men their passions, their secret and shameful deeds.'

'The confessional! How does it like you, Giovanni? A strange man, is he not? But there is no real malice in these riddles. It is only jest—sporting with blasphemy.'

'Many who cozen the simple by dealing in pretended miracles, punish those who unmask their deceits.'

'The trial by fire, of which the reckless Savonarola was the victim.'

He laid down the book and looked at his companion.

'Well, is it enough? or do you want further proof?'

Boltraffio shook his head: 'No, Cesare, it is not enough. Could we but find a place where he speaks plainly!'

'Plainly? Ask not for that. Such is his disposition. He deals ever double, conceals himself, feigns like a woman. Riddles are his nature. Nor does he know himself. He is his own greatest enigma.'

'Cesare is right,' thought Giovanni. 'Better open blasphemy than these mockings—this smile as of the unbelieving Thomas, who thrust his fingers into the wounds of the Lord.'

Then Cesare showed a drawing in red chalk, tossed carelessly among the machines and the tables of calculations—the Virgin with the Child in the desert; seated on a stone, she was drawing triangles and circles with her finger on the sand—the Mother of God teaching the Divine Son geometry, the principle of all knowledge.

Giovanni gazed long at this strange drawing; then he held it to the mirror that they might decipher the inscription. Cesare had scarce read the first words, 'Necessity, the eternal teacher,' when Leonardo's call was heard:—

'Astro! Bring me a light! Andrea! Marco! Giovanni! Cesare!' Then Giovanni turned pale. The mirror fell from his hands, breaking into pieces.

'An evil omen,' said Cesare with a smile.

Like thieves caught in the act they pushed the papers into their places, picked up the fragments of the mirror, opened the window, sprang to the ledge and, clinging to the water-pipe and the branches of the vine, dropped into the court. Cesare missed his hold, fell, and sprained his foot.