CHAPTER XVI.
"Bring lights," said Lorenzo to a girl who appeared as the song concluded; and he sighed as if some sweet dream had been broken and passed away. "Oh! music--music such as that is indeed divine."
"Ay," answered the singer "music is divine and so is poetry--so sculpture, painting, architecture. Every art, every science that raises man from his primitive brutality has a portion of divinity about it; for it elevates toward the Creator. Christ has said, 'Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect;' and though we cannot reach perfection, we may strain for it.
"Nor, as some have supposed, do the arts render effeminate. They may soften the manners, as the old Roman says, but not the character. On the contrary, all that tends to exercise tends to strengthen. It is idleness, it is luxury which enfeebles. Athens in her highest pride of art was in her highest pride of power, and her artists learned by the pencil or the chisel to put on the buckler and to grasp the sword. And what does the combination of art and science do? What has it done, and what will it not do?"
He gazed up for a moment like one inspired, and then added, "God knows, for in extent and majesty the results are beyond even our dreams. But I ever see the times afar when the yet undeveloped powers of man and nature shall work miracles--when mountains shall be moved or forced from side to side to smooth the path of our race, and bring nation closer to nation--when the very elements shall become subservient to the will of man, and when the energies of his nature, directed by science, shall no longer be squandered in war and bloodshed, but shall render war impossible, and bloodshed, under whatever name, a crime.
"Oh peace, how beautiful art thou! Oh goodness, how wide and comprehensive ought to be thy reign! Angel of love, thou art the seraphim nearest to the throne of God! So help me Heaven, I would not kill the smallest bird that flutters from spray to spray, nor tread upon a beetle in my path!"
There was something so exquisitely sweet in his voice, so sublime in his look, so marvellously graceful in his manner, that the two young lovers, while they gazed and listened, could almost have fancied him the angel of love whom he apostrophized. They sat silent when he paused, listening eagerly for more; but when he began to speak again, all was changed except that captivating power which seemed to command the assent or overrule the judgment of all who heard him. His mood was now changed, and nothing could be more light and playful than his talk, till the door was opened and another mood came over him.
"Ah, Catarina," he said to the girl who tardily brought in the lights, "if the world waits upon you for illumination, we shall have another dark age upon us. Now see what it is: this little candle in a moment brings out of obscurity a thousand things which would not be discerned before. Thus it is in this world, Catarina; we grope our twilight way among things unseen till comes some light of science, and we find ourselves surrounded by multitudes of beautiful things we could not before discern. Do you understand me, Catarina?"
"No, signor," answered the girl, opening her great black eyes, "but I love to hear you speak, even when I know not what you are speaking of."
"How can she understand such things?" asked Leonora. "Probably she has never been out of the village."
"And she is wise not to go," answered the stranger. "What would she gain by going, to what she might lose? Do you love the cultivation of flowers, sweet lady? If so, you will know that there be some which love the shade and will not bear transplanting. That poor girl, right happy here, with youth, and health, and a sufficiency of all things, might be very miserable in a wider scene. Oh no, God's will is best. We should never pray for anything but grace and peace, I cannot but think that prayers--importunate, short-sighted prayers--are sometimes granted in chastisement. There is one eye alone which sees the consequence; of all things. There may be poison in a cup of nectar; but you cannot so well conceal the venom in a draught of pure water from the well. Let the poor girl stay here. Now sit you still, and I will draw you both, one for the other; but talk at will; I would not have you dull and silent. Any bungler can draw the body. I want to sketch the spirit likewise. Eyes, nose, and mouth are easily drawn; the heart and the soul require a better pencil. Ay, now you are smiling again. You were all too grave just now."
"But your discourse has been very serious," replied Lorenzo. "Some things might well puzzle, some sadden us."
"'Tis well," said the artist gravely, "to prompt thought, and I sought to do it. You two were dreaming when first I saw you. I have but awakened you. I know not your names nor your history; but you are both very young; and when the Jove-born goddess took on bodily the part of Mentor, she knew that youth and inexperience require an almost superhuman monitor. I can give no such counsels, but every man can bring a little cool water where he sees a fire. Ah! lady, would I had my colours here to catch that rosy blush before it flies."
"Fie! fie!" she answered, "or you will make me fly also. You cannot suppose that either Lorenzo or I would wish or do aught that is wrong. Your admonitions were cast away upon us, for we needed them not."
"God knows," said the artist, laughing, "but neither you nor I, young lady. Your speech is not Florentine, but his is: how comes that? Is he carrying home a bride?"
"The difference of our speech is soon explained," said Lorenzo, "though we are both of the same land. But she has ever lived in Lombardy. I have travelled far and wide, but my youth was all spent in Florence. I came there when I was very young, and remained till the death of Lorenzo de Medici, whose godson I am."
"Then you are Lorenzo Visconti," said the artist; "but who is this?" and he pointed toward Leonora with the end of his pencil.
"You divine," answered the young man without noticing his question; "are you skilled in the black art among all your other learning, signor?"
"I am really skilled in very little," replied their companion. "In a life neither very long nor very short, but one of much labour and much study, I have never produced one work--nay, done one thing with which I was wholly satisfied. The man who places his estimate of excellence very high may surpass his contemporaries, and yet fall far short of his own conceptions. Hereafter men may speak of me well or ill, as they please. If ill, their censure will not hurt me: if well, their faintest applause will go beyond my own. As to the black art, Signor Lorenzo, the blackest arts are not those of the magician; yet many things seem magical which are very simple. Lorenzo de Medici had but one Lombard godson; and I remember you well, now, when you were a little boy in Florence. The only marvel is that I ever forgot you. But you have not introduced me to this lady."
"Nay, I know not whom to introduce," answered the young man.
"Ah! you have entangled me in my own net," said the artist. "Well it is right you should both know who it is gives counsels unsought, and teaches lessons perhaps unneeded. A good many years ago there lived in Florence a poor gentleman named Ser Pietro da Vinci. His means were small, but he had great capacity, though he turned it to but little account. His taste for art was great, however, and he frequented the houses of the best painters and sculptors in Italy.
"Well, he had a son, a wild, fitful boy, who studied everything, attempted much, and perfected little. He plunged into arithmetic, mathematics, geometry, and used to find a good deal of fun in puzzling his masters with hard questions. Again, he would work untaught in clay, and make heads of children and of laughing women; and again he would sing his own rude verses to the lute, or sketch the figures and faces of all who came near him.
"This was all when he was very young--a mere boy, indeed; but among his father's friends was the well-known Andrea Verrocchio, the great painter; and in his bottega was soon found the boy, studying hard, and only now and then giving way to his wild moods by darting away from his painting, sometimes to some sister art, sometimes to something directly opposite. He drew plans for houses, churches, fortresses; he devised instruments of war, projected canals, laid out new roads, sung to his lute, danced at the village festivals, studied medicine and anatomy.
"But his fancies and designs went beyond the common notions of the day; men treated them as whims impossible of execution, projects beyond the strength of man to complete. His drawings, and his paintings, and his sculpture, however, they admired, patted him on the head, and called him the young genius.
"At length he was set to paint part of a picture which his master had commenced, and the result was that Verrocchio threw away his pallet, declaring he would never paint more, as he had been excelled by a boy. That boy went on to win money and fame till people began to call him Maestro, and the wild little boy became Maestro Leonardo da Vinci, who, some say, is a great painter. By that name, Signor Lorenzo, you may introduce me to the lady, for my sketches are now finished."
The love for art in Italy at that time approached adoration: the name of Leonardo da Vinci was famous from the foot of the Alps to the Straits of Messina, and Leonora took the great painter's hand and kissed it with as much veneration as if he had been her patron saint.
"Ah! and so this is the fair Signora d'Orco?" said Leonardo. "Now I understand it all. You are travelling to join your father. I met with him at Bologna as I passed."
"How, long ago was that, Maestro Leonardo?" asked Leonora, with some surprise.
"It was some days since," replied the painter, "and he must be in Rome by this time."
The lovers looked inquiringly into each other's faces, and after a moment's thought, Lorenzo said:
"We expected to overtake him at Bologna. His letters led us to believe we should find him there; but doubtless he has left directions for our guidance."
"Perhaps so," replied Leonardo, in a somewhat sombre and doubtful tone; "but, if you do not find such directions, what will you do?"
"We can but go on, I suppose," answered Leonora; "Lorenzo must march with the French army, which directs its course to Rome, and I cannot be left without some one to protect me."
The painter shook his head gravely.
"Far better, my child," he said, "that you should remain in Bologna. The ways are dangerous; Rome is no fit place for you. Besides, your father has gone thither, I am told, on affairs of much importance, and you would be but a burden to him. He goes, they told me, to hold a conference with Cardinal Cæsar Borgia, who seeks a man of great skill and resolution to hold in check the somewhat turbulent and discontented inhabitants of the territories in Romagna, bestowed upon him by his father, Pope Alexander. Go not after him to Rome, but by his express desire. I will give you a letter to the Abbess Manzuoli, in Bologna, who will be a mother to you for the time you have to stay."
"All must be decided by my father's will," replied Leonora; "but I thank you much, Signor da Vinci, for the promised letter, which cannot but be of service to me in case of need."
"Well, then," replied the great painter, changing his tone, "come round here, and look over my shoulder. Here are the two portraits. 'Did you ever see two uglier people? Is he not frightful, Signora Leonora? and as to her face and figure, they are, of course, hideous, Lorenzo."
Leonora took the rapid sketch, which represented Lorenzo with a drawn sword in one hand and a banner in the other, looking up to a cloudy sky, through which broke a brighter gleam of light, gazed at it a moment with what may well be called ecstasy, and then placed it in the scarf which covered her bosom, while he pressed his lips upon the other paper in silent delight.
"You need not do that, Lorenzo," said the painter, with a quiet smile; "your lips will soil my picture--my picture will soil your lips. There are others near where the paint will not come off, for they are limned by a hand divine. But are you both satisfied?"
"Oh, yes," exclaimed Leonora, joyfully; but Lorenzo answered at once, "No, unless you will promise me, Signor da Vinci, to paint me a portrait of her, as you can only paint, I cannot be satisfied."
"When she is your wife," answered Leonardo, "you have but to write to me that Mona Leonora Visconti will sit, and be I at the distance of two hundred leagues, I will come. But now, I will hie me to the little chamber they have given me, and write the letter I spoke of, and then return. Perchance the lady may have retired ere then, but I shall find you here, Lorenzo. Is it not so?"
"Assuredly," replied the young man; "I have to visit the guards, and see that all is rightly disposed in the town; but I will not go till you return."
I will not follow the indiscreet example of Leonardo, and try to sketch them as they sat alone after his departure. Indeed, it were not an easy task. They were very happy, and happiness is like the chameleon, ever changing its hues. An hour and a half, or a moment; for such it seemed to them, had passed when old Mona Mariana, on whose discreet and reasonable forbearance be a benediction, put her head into the room, and said, in a sleepy tone:
"Is it not time for rest, dear lady?"
"You seem to think so Mariana, for you are half asleep already."
"Ah, young hearts! young hearts!" said the old lady, who had slept for several hours; "they have thoughts enough to keep them waking, and strength to bear it. Old people have only to pray and sleep. But, indeed, you had better come to rest; we have all to rise betimes."
After a word or two more, Leonora parted from her lover, and soon seeking her bed, lay down and dreamed, but not asleep.
As if the painter had heard her light foot on the stairs, she had not been gone a minute when Leonardo appeared. He took Lorenzo's hand eagerly in his, and said, in a low, earnest tone:
"Let her not go to Rome, I beseech you, young gentleman--let her not go to Rome."
"And why are you so eager she should not go there?" asked Lorenzo, somewhat surprised, and even alarmed by his new friend's manner. "Is there any danger?"
"Every danger," answered Da Vinci.
"Why?"
"For a thousand reasons, but they are difficult to explain. Yet stay; I remember rapping a fellow student's knuckles to prevent his putting his profane hand on a bunch of beautiful grapes, all covered with their vineyard bloom, when I was about to paint them. This young lovely girl--this Signora d'Orco, is like one of those grapes, rich in the bloom of innocence. There is the sweet fruit within--there is, or is to come the ardent wine of love and passion, but the bloom is there still. Oh, let it not be brushed away too soon, Lorenzo! Now listen: Rome is a place of horror and vice. In the chair of the Apostle sits the incarnation of every sin and crime. The example is too widely, too eagerly followed by people ever ready to learn. The very air is pollution. The very ground in foul. Would you take her into a pest-house? But more, still more--nay, what shall I say? How shall I say it? Her father--her very father has been gained by the foulest of the foul offspring of Borgia. Ramiro d'Orco is now the bosom counsellor of Cæsar, who, in a shorter space of time than it took his great namesake to make himself master of the Roman State, has accumulated more vices,--committed more crimes, than any man now living, or that ever lived."
"But how have they gained him? Why have they sought him?" asked Lorenzo. "He is himself wealthy; his daughter is more so. They cannot approach him by mercenary means: and then, why should they seek a man who has no political power?"
"A tale long to tell, an intrigue difficult to explain," replied Da Vinci. "I can show you why and how, in a few words indeed; but if you must seek proofs of what I say, you may have to buy them dearly. Listen then to them, Lorenzo Visconti. Men seek that which they have not. Money might not tempt Ramiro d'Orco. The prospect of that political power which he does not possess has tempted him. They have promised him what I may well call prefectal power in one half of Romagna, and he has yielded. What would he not sacrifice for that? His own honour--perhaps his child's. Thus your first question is answered. Thus they have approached and gained him.
"Now to your second question, Why they have sought him? The first motive was to control, or, rather to restrain and mollify the bitterest and now most powerful enemy of the house of Borgia. Do you know that he is nearly related to the family of Rovera? that he is not only first cousin, but schoolfellow and playmate of that famous cardinal, Julian de Rovera, whose enmity to Alexander and to Cæsar is so strong that, were it at the peril of his own life and the disorder of all Christendom, he would attempt to hurl the present pontiff from his seat, and has already branded the head of the Church with all the infamies that can disgrace a man, much more a priest--ambition, avarice, fraud, heresy, adultery, murder?
"With him, who now journeys with the King of France, Alexander and his bastard hope to negotiate, and to mollify him through the intercession of Ramiro d'Orco, the only one on earth who has influence worth consideration with the stern Cardinal Julian. This is why they seek him. There are many other motives, but this is enough. Take her not to Rome, young man. Listen to the counsel of one who can have no object but your good and hers. If you do not listen, you are responsible for all the results."
"I fear not that anything can make her aught but what she is," replied Lorenzo, with all the proud enthusiasm of young love. "Better, nobler she cannot be, and as the foulest breath cannot sully the diamond, so can no foul atmosphere tarnish her purity."
A faint smile fluttered for a single instant round the lips of Da Vinci; but he resumed his serious aspect instantly--nay, his countenance was more grave and stern than before.
"Doubtless," he said, "doubtless; for they who study much the human face, learn to read it as a book; and hers is a beautiful page--clear, and pure, and bright. But there are arts, young man, you know not of--drugs of terrible power, which lull the spirit into a sleep like that of death, and leave the body impotent for resistance or defence. Nay, violence itself--coarse, brutal violence, may be dreaded in a place--"
"They dare not!" exclaimed Lorenzo, fiercely, "they dare not!"
"What dare not a Borgia do?" asked Leonardo. "When they have set at nought every tie, moral and religious--when they have made crime their pastime, vice their solace, poison and murder their means--provoked to the utmost, without a fear, the wrath of man and the vengeance of God--what dare not the Borgias do? And what could be your vengeance, that they should fear it?"
"But her father," said Lorenzo, "her father!"
An expression almost sublime came upon the great painter's countenance, and he answered, in a tone of stern warning.
"Trust not to her father. His God is not our God! There are things so abhorrent to the first pure, honest principles which Nature has planted in the hearts of the young, that it is too dreadful a task to open innocent eyes to their existence. But mark me, Lorenzo Visconti, there have been men who have sold their children for money. Ambition is a still fiercer passion than avarice. I have done. My task is performed, and I may say no more than this: take her not to Rome: let her not set foot in it, if you can prevent it."
"I will not--no, I will not," replied the young man, thoughtfully. "I will prevent it--nay, it might be wise to acquire a right to prevent it."
"Never do a wrong to attain what you judge right," answered Da Vinci. "And now good-night. You have your posts to look to; a calm walk beneath the moon, with thought for your companion, will do you good."
Lorenzo pressed his hand and they parted.