Voices from the Past

by Paul Alexander Bartlett

Leonardo da Vinci

April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519

Illustrations

The illustrations are originals by the author—interpretations of work by da Vinci.

Leonardo’s self-portrait ................................ 225

Rendering of Leonardo’s signature
in his “mirror handwriting” .................. 225

Silhouette of head ........................................... 227

Head of horse ................................................. 233

Madonna’s hand ............................................. 243

Prisoner ............................................................. 248

Sforza horse ..................................................... 251

Birds in flight ................................................... 261

Plants and designs ........................................... 264

Mona Lisa ......................................................... 278

Christ’s hand .................................................... 283

Bicycle ................................................................ 296

Head of man ................................................... 308

Glider ................................................................. 317

This journal was kept by Leonardo da Vinci during the years 1516 to 1519 while he lived in France as the guest of King Francis I; there, he lived in the small residence of Cloux, near the King’s summer palace at Amboise on the Loire River. Leonardo writes of his boyhood, his mother, his friends, his easel and mural paintings, his dissections, his colossal bronze horse.

He tells of his attempts at flying, his inventions... This is a codex of his mind as he divulges his art and the scope of his interests.

To the end of his life he was painting, map-making, carrying out architectural commissions, arranging his treatises on perspective, anatomy, horses, flight, and the arts. His patron, King Francis, called him “Mon Père.” Da Vinci’s last years, at Cloux, near Paris, were friendly years.

1516

Cloux

December 10, 1516

MEMORY . . .

MEMORY. . .

I

remember that hot, dusty afternoon in Florence. I ordered every­body out of my studio. I got up from my workbench and de­manded that they leave: the tattlers, the oafs, the bores, the faithful. I packed them off. Yelled at them. Stormed. I had work to do, work that would keep me until dawn. I had to have serenity, no ribaldry, no disgrun­tled si­lence, no questions, no interruptions of any sort.

I slammed the doors, bolted them.

A mouse scuttled across the room.

Until I resolved the perfect angles, sheet after sheet went into the making of that pelvic drawing.

Queer how memory is: I can see that messy workshop, easels, clay figures on stands, rags, canvases, frames, chisels, pigments, brushes... I can see the mouse watching me from beneath a basket. Again I sense that long afternoon, that long night... I had dried bread, cheese, and port. I remember the church bells. At dawn I slid my work into a special portfolio, then concealed it. I was often hid­ing things in those days, hiding sketches, hiding determination, hiding frustra­tions, goals.

Memory...it gives you what you want and supplies absurdities as well, like the dream that I had in Florence, recurrent: I was lying on my cot... I was dead... I was carried to a morgue and dumped there, among cadavers...blood and mould satu­rated my drawings and my writings...my canvases were being eaten by termites... how well I remember that dream.

I remember a fat Milanese who used to haunt me while I was decorating the walls and ceiling of the Sala delle Asse: he was a pompous member of the Sforza household, a great nose-picker, who had done nothing at all through his long life. While I worked, he sat, hunched in a princely brocade chair, in elegant clothes, sometimes asleep in spite of my assistants, ladders, and scaffolding.

That Sala delle Asse work was boring. Like many a commission it was com­pulsory. To arrange masses of foliage on walls and ceiling seemed absurd. Designs were refused, at the outset. The employment of immense tree trunks satisfied. As I painted, I mingled knotted cords with the foliage, intermingled branches, established a rhythm. I kept my greens from becoming monotonous. I achieved a kind of helmeted bark on the tree trunks. Before I finished, the Sala’s canopy, the forest umbrella, became more meaningful.

My fat friend slept on and on.

How much did I earn? I have forgotten. Was I ever paid?

I would like to return to the castle and walk through that Sala; I would like to be alone; I would like to try to think as I thought in those days; I would like to sense my aspirations; I would sit on a bench under that deluge of foliage: I would list geology, hydraulics, painting, sculpture, geometry, anatomy, medi­cine...

Cloux

When Michelangelo showed me his cartoon for his mural in the Consejo, I complained that a scene of idling nude bathers was not the best way to depict war. He was critical of my cartoon, saying “you are more concerned with horses than men.”

My objective was to show war’s anguish: pain was to be sixty feet long by twenty feet wide. Twelve hundred square feet of pain. All of my draughts­man­ship went into this Anghiari conflict: I painted rage, rage against war, the rage of dying men, the rage of the wounded, my hate, my affirmation.

All of 1503 and 1504 went into my preliminary sketches. I often rode about the countryside to sketch horses, sketch riders; I sketched in the Sforza stables; the stablemen posed for me; my apprentices posed. Friends had their chance to exhibit their horses in action. Gamin posed. The militia.

So, I did not paint a wall: I painted the smash of steel against steel, the plunge of steel into flesh, the grunting of frightened horse against frightened horse, men stumbling, men falling, dying, their helmets of fear, helmets of pain...yellows, blues, greys, reds.

On Friday, June 6, 1505, I began to paint the Anghiari battle. It was my greatest challenge. Here I could render something more meaning­ful than the madonnas. Not Christ on the cross, but man on the cross. Pigment and light were to come together in harmony. The day that I began to paint was beautiful but the weather changed quickly for the worst. Some of my assistants were called away—they were ordered to attend a trial.

The wind caught me unprepared and ripped the cartoon. In a few minutes the storm took over in earnest. I laid aside my brushes and pigments and dis­missed the remaining apprentices. Half of Florence was inundated that night.

PAZZIA BESTIALISSIMA!

That is man’s disease: he can not refrain from political madness. Again and again he is willing to be duped.

The central group in my Anghiari mural is the struggle for a military flag: I painted life-size horses, life-size men, life-size hatred: the central struggle fans out across the mural, expressing this futility.

I seldom eat at the King’s table although I am always welcome. Sometimes it seems like a long walk to the château, sometimes it is raining. In the evening fif­teen courses are certainly gourmet adventures, but a little late at night.

The King often sends me three or four trays—a retinue of pages brings them to my studio, laughter and ribaldry, and then decorum as they file into the studio. Soufflés, artichokes in cream and butter sauce, crêpes, pastries, glacés, Vouvray. I am partial to grapes and someone on the royal staff hunts them up for me.

Sometimes I find five or six silver dishes with as many kinds of nuts. Francis claims that he could not survive for a month on my vegetarian diet.

Maturina fusses over almost everything the King sends:

“Now, let me see, let me see,” she mutters. “You should eat this first...it’s better for you that way...and these pastries, why they’re much too rich for you!”

She arranges the dishes on the dining table (you must not eat in the studio); she places my chair, lights the candles, unfolds my napkin and spreads it across my lap. What a splendid old ragamuffin she is! Too bad she has lost most of her teeth; her features are leaden, her hair is twisted under a net in lumps, her arms dangle crookedly. She is bones hooked together with shrunken gut. She has been working as a servant for thirty-five years, she tells me. I’ve had her for fifteen years.

Cloux

The French call this place Le Clos-Luce, and it is a bright enclosure. I think of the royalty who have lived here through the years, the many mistresses who came and went. As I look across the lawn of the manor house I can see the little chapel of St. Hubert and the rooftops of the château; it often seems to me that I have been here before! With Francesco, Salai and Giovanni busy in the adjoining studio, I try to believe I am a young man...time is of no importance!

Salai rushed in as I worked at my easel.

“Look, look at this...”

He had found a sketch among my sketches, a sketch he made in Florence long ago, when he was about ten. It shows a bicycle. There it is on a scrap of paper, among pornographic scribbles and graffiti.

“You did pretty well, riding that thing...at first,” I reminded.

“There weren’t any brakes, remember?”

“Well, when I connected the chain drive to the pedals and adjusted the han­dlebars you rode it into the Arno.”

“Some splash!” said Francesco, coming in with Giovanni. “You could have gotten the bicycle out of the river...it floated,” reminded Giovanni.

“I couldn’t get hold of it...the current was too fast!”

“It should have been made of steel, to last.” I said.

“Let’s make a bicycle for the King,” suggested Salai. “I’ll show him my drawing...no, you make one for him. I can see the courtiers riding about...we can improve on the one we made in Florence.”

Cloux

Certainly a bird is an instrument performing according to mathematical laws which are within the capacity of man to understand. How does it climb, dive, spiral, hover? I asked these questions yesterday as I watched a flock of ducks along the Loire; I asked the same questions in Florence, in Milan, in Rome. If we ask questions we can eventually achieve some kind of answer. Persistence then!

Why does the heart pump a certain beat? What starts it pumping? Just when? Why, at that given moment? Does a nerve trigger it? Heart beats in the womb must be automatic.

If we understand the mechanism of the heart we may be able to help when it is damaged.

What are the essential differences between the heart of a squirrel and the heart of a man? Between the heart of a cat and a man? Between the heart of a cow and the heart of a man? Knowing the differences should help.

I must check through my anatomical drawings and compare notes and ana­lyze the results. There is so much to be learned. And it is all there, ready to be apprehended.

Amore sol la mi fa remirare... love only makes me remember; love gives me pleasure...

So it was, long ago, when I loved, when I composed a rebus every day. There was so much to sing about. I played my lira da braccio. Made notations. As a boy, I thought seriously of becoming a musician. Perhaps a troubadour. At Andrea’s shop I created a silver harp, in the shape of a horse’s skull. The fame of that harp took me to Milan—changed my life.

“The song of men is the remedy to pain...”

I almost believed that.

I designed drums, multiple beaters; I could change the pitch of my drums through holes in the sides...I built three portable organs... I designed glissando recorders...I made a lute for Nicolaio del Turco...I made a wind-chest con gomito for the prioress...

Perhaps I should compose some rebuses for the King.

No.

The music I hear now is not that music.

I might have spent my life in the world of music; yet, often, even as I played, I puzzled over the enigmas of ocean and mountain, the enigmas of the body, of sound: why was one sound more resonant than another; why were there echoes; why was a woman’s voice unlike a man’s; why were there changes in the songs of birds?

Ah, those apprentice years!

Those apprentice years!

Getting up at dawn, working before breakfast, working till late, forgetting to eat, going for a swim in the Arno, rushing back to work, forgetting to sleep; work, work, it was a beautiful thing.

I was forever gathering plants, drying them, mounting them, identifying them. I roamed alone. Good to get away from the studio. I was forever dissect­ing animals and birds. With every bird I asked: how does it propel itself? How can man go aloft? Those birds, those caged birds...it was right to hoard money, to buy them, to liberate them. I followed them, I sat with them, I ran with them, studying every possible angle.

I filled sketchbooks with sketches of the hawk in flight, the raven, another with the sparrow.

My glider, based on the studies of the hawk, flew around our workshop. Again and again we tested it, wondering why it flew.

Andrea had me working bronze...there was so much, so much. He was always encouraging. What a fine master. What a fine artist. Now with gold leaf, now with new pigments, now something in the way of a discovery with silverpoint.

He had so little money. Sometimes he went hungry. Sometimes we had to find money for him and his family. Little Lila, little Lila had to have a toy. Tony had to have crayons. Bread, milk.

Writing this journal I am attempting to indicate the important things in my life. However, I am perplexed: I can’t decide what has been significant, I am trapped by small things...little things crowd the important. If life is a mural then every detail is important. As I write I am learning who I was. And the omissions, are they carelessness or are they deliberate? As for important lapses I must make an effort to fill them in, if there is time. If weariness does not overcome.

Looking back at Milan, at my first year there, I remember: no, remember is not the word: I have never forgotten that meeting at the Duke’s festa: I was playing a lute; she was introduced to me; she wanted me to repeat the song; we talked. Love? That is not the right word. But is there better?

Caterina had my mother’s name; that meant something to me.

I wish I could describe her as I saw her at the festa but she has become unreal through the years. I see her in the sunlight, I see her as I sketched her, I see her as she lay dead. There is no easy way to describe our love. I am unable to sepa­rate beauty from tragedy. I wish I could.

Caterina was nineteen. She was my blonde, my Leda. Was our love unique? Maybe it was rather ordinary. That does not matter. It matters that there were long brush strokes in the mind. There is no need to retouch our emotions. Cer­tainly her death and our daughter’s death need no retouching.

I hear her singing one of my songs, a song I composed for her... I hear her laughing and I hear our daughter laughing, as they play together. Laughter—in memory—does not blur as words and faces blur.

Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one...we had three years together: there was money enough: there was time enough: then Milan was besieged. Both were killed by the bombardment. But before they died, Mother visited us and for a while I had two Caterinas, two loving women, two gentlewomen. Our child was learning to walk. Not many people know of those three years.

Cloux

Today, Maturina has served me her special pasta, several kinds of bread, dried figs, camembert, her three-layered pastry, and Moselle wine. She appreciates my fondness for sweets.

I asked her to sit down with me. As usual, she declined.

“I want your company...everyone’s away.”

Boltraffio, Francesco, Salai and others had gone for the day. Another holiday!

“Are you homesick?”

Her sad face became a little sadder. She sat down and clasped her hands in her lap and stared at them.

“I think you should visit your people.”

She nodded.

“...But I couldn’t leave you.”

“For a month or two?”

“It’s a long, long way to Vinci...and alone!”

“Salai is returning to Florence soon...”

“But I can’t...”

“You should see your family. People in Vinci would like to hear about us, how we’re getting along. We have money enough.”

Abruptly, hands to her face, she got up, and shuffled away. “I’m too old,” she said.

Cloux

As we rode along the Loire, following the river road, Francesco and I talked:

“So you received a letter from your mother yesterday? How are things at Vaprio?”

“Quiet...everyone is well. Papa has fully recovered. Mama says that conditions are very bad in Milan...fighting in the streets...hungry mobs...looting.”

“Vaprio continues to escape...I hope nothing changes that!”

“You asked me about the pigments I bought in Paris. We have a good as­sortment. I’ve been grinding them. We’ll have a beautiful green, that laurel green you’re fond of.”

“I’m still partial to green. I suppose you bought the Dutch pigments...”

Our horses, side by side, kept an even pace: both from the same stable, they liked walking together: the road was familiar to them: the afternoon was sunny; shafts of light rebounded from the Loire; a pair of squirrels chittered at us; hunt­ers and their dogs passed—someone saluted us with a playful toot of his horn.

“Mama insists that we stay away from Milan...she warns us...she said that I’m to tell you.”

“I understand. We’re lucky to be here; Cloux is like Vaprio; beautiful coun­tryside; a sketch here, a sketch there.”

“We should ride to Chambord.”

“I prefer the river trip...”

“Shall we go on the river?”

“All right, Cecchino. You arrange the trip. Certainly, there’s no finer château than Chambord. Let’s spend a few days there. We can find new paintings, new marbles and bronzes...from Milan...Athens...Rome...the greatness of stolen art...”

As we left our horses at the stable, Francesco asked:

“Did I mention that the Princess de Lamballe has a son? He’s my age. He wants to study painting. Do you want a Prince for a pupil?”

Cloux

The King and I talked far into the night.

Youth can be so sincere: youth can evaluate and assess: last night, on the part of others, he apologized: the Gascon archers were much on his mind...

“I have thought of them many, many times...those Gascon fools...nothing else to do...made a target of your cavello...our archers...”

Bronze for cannons...he knew about that...he searched about for a solution, as if it might be possible to cast the horse. As he saw it, he felt he had rescued me. Had he? I turned over that thought. Recompense? Was Cloux recompense? He did not say so. I think we both wished to believe it was respect, admiration. His talk made us feel awkward at times.

I had not complained: I had not mentioned the monument. Divulging his sincerity got Francis beyond his scope.

He referred to Amboise and Cloux as my home. Haven, of course. Retreat? Voluntary exile. Those thoughts could be brought in. I tried my best to avoid any embarrassing approach. Presently, he was excusing the battle of man against man. Again we were faltering. His innate shrewdness came to our rescue, and we discussed architectural changes at Amboise...

“We must do everything we can to improve it...it can never be like Chambord ...help me give it a manorial feeling...walk about with me tomorrow...let’s write down some of your ideas...that stairway...the entry...we have to make it less grim...harmony...”

IL CAVELLO...the words haunted us as we said good night.

I lay down under my canopy. The bed seemed to grow immense. On one side I saw a child, a bend in a river, a hill...the bed drifted...the room changed... I saw men pouring bronze into a mould... I saw a great horse in a city square...

SALAI—He is either in studio rags or elegant, foppish; he bursts with energy (has a brisk, haughty walk); he is quick with his pigments; he is as lean-featured as a fox; he is yellow-headed, tall. He has a wonderful laugh, a tooth-spread grin. His brown eyes are spoked with yellow. A girl-chaser. My Salai will never be­come an accomplished artist. I still have to remind him to wash himself. Ai, Salaino! And will he ever quit that foreign habit, the habit of smoking?

Almost everywhere I travel I am troubled by poverty: I talk with the workers and some of them say they are hungry all of the time: I talk with them about their tools, and try to improve them. Shovels. Spades. Rakes. Forks. I have sug­gested a more efficient roasting spit—I have made detailed drawings. I have im­proved a wood-planer and a file-maker. I have designed a textile machine, a bet­ter barrow, a good water-lamp.

For most field laborers, theirs is an ox-life.

Horse, mule, donkey, ox, man...they are inextricable.

Landlord and tenant, the struggle goes on and on: they are as much at log­gerheads as pope and duke. Serfs, beggars, greed, knights, fools—pathos.

At Vaprio, I sometimes ate with a farmer and his wife, in their tiny stone farmhouse. They did not complain, yet they slept on mats, ate meat now and then, worked from dawn to sundown, shivered through the winters, saved flo­rins in a clay pot. Their hands at mealtime were the hands of old people and yet they were not old.

In the Vaprio region the people have to pay exorbitant milling fees, pay to use a common oven or wine press. Fishing rights have been stolen. For a few gentlemen there may be no wood for winter; for many others there may be no wood at all. Some want a civil war to put them on their feet.

At Vaprio, I recall a child of nine or ten: I saw her often on my visits there: she reminded me of that festa, in May, in Florence, when I fell in love with my own Beatrice, when I was eleven or twelve years old. My Beatrice was beautiful, her features delicately formed, her behavior gentle and agreeable, full of candid loveliness... I thought of her as my angel.

In those days, in Firenze, I often passed Dante’s home: his wooden door had a bronze knocker, a simple braided ring. I used to imagine knocking and saying:

“Is Dante Alighieri at home?”

I expected a housekeeper to reply:

“He’s been dead a hundred and fifty years, you fool!”

I would have dashed off, laughing.

Cloux

I suppose I must admit it: I am a parasite of royalty.

During forty years I have had nine royal patrons.

Each one has hindered me; each one has helped.

I could not have survived in my vineyard at San Vittore: I need artists, sculptors, apprentices, courtiers, women, princes, jousting, masques, jewelry, perfume... I need great art. I need antique art. Libraries.

Last night, at Amboise, in the garden, at the pergola, I explained some of my observations of the moon. Courtiers crowded around. A duke was there. A prin­cess. There was an earnest exchange as I passed around lunar drawings, in the lamplight and torchlight.

“The details are as accurate as I could draw them...notice the craters, pits, the rills...you see, if you keep the moon under careful observation over a period of time, you’ll become aware of fixed landmarks. I made those drawings from the Coliseum...in Rome...”

Francesco has copied this. It was written in Florence, in 1508. I thought it rather interesting, so I have included it here:

For several days I have forgotten to hang my notebooks on my belt. I must see to it that I remember. Tomorrow I must write down exactly what I observed when I dissected the pigeon I found dead in front of the church.

Se sarai solo, sarai tutto tuo...

NOTE: when you sever the man’s legs tomorrow afternoon, lay them on the floor beside him: measure length, diameter, muscle curvatures. Dissect each foot, and record differences. Since the man was very fat, try to discover ways of over­coming this problem.

Remember to borrow the lancet from Tomas.

I warned my new assistant: Cosimo, squeal on me and I will see to it that you never become a member of the guild.

He has threatened to write the Pope (or one of the Cardinals), and expose me. He could. He knows how to write. Now I pay him more soldi than any of the others. Blackmailer!

Ah, you Florentines, look, look! I render a skull—yours! You tremble. You are afraid of learning! For centuries you have been afraid. Afraid of yourselves, of others, of God. You are trapped in stupidity and lassitude.

Blood—how it scares you: You whimper at the sight of blood. I remove a man’s guts. You are horrified. But you will batter a man to shreds on the battle­field, and show your gory sword. You will dump boiling oil on him...you will blast him with gunpowder...but you won’t dissect him...you won’t learn how we are made!

Sometimes kids overran my studio; maybe because I never could yell at them. They would sneak in from the street; they had to poke, to see, to talk, to giggle. One afternoon (I remember it was such a fine day, a day to chuck everything and walk out of town), five or six boys and girls came in and before I could figure out what they were up to, they rushed out with two of my models. Two or three ran toward the Arno; others ran off into the countryside. I couldn’t follow both. Whooping and hollering, the kids flew their model over the river. I watched it soar away, dip, glide, plunge into the water.

When I found the other kids, in the country, they had my Red Hawk: they had it launched on a cord, and kite-like, it was climbing, spiraling, staying aloft.

Kids—I miss their laughter, their enthusiasm!

There was a time when I had dirty waifs sleeping on the studio floor. We took in two or three; then others came. Their parents had died in the plague at Santa Maria; I guess it was at Santa Maria. Those were hungry weeks for all of us; yet we somehow managed, managed to feed them, get clothes for them, find homes for them—and kept on working.

Cloux

Copied from my 1504 Florentine notebook:

As soon as we met in the Town Hall there was a big wrangle. Ten or twelve of us, bearded patriarchs and upstarts, were at odds. We must decide where Michelangelo’s David was to be placed. We must situate it where it had shade part of the day, where it was protected from the weather; we must have it mounted on travertine; we must move it carefully; we must see to it...

It was lucky for us that Michelangelo was not around. He would have ex­ploded—and told us off.

We walked around Florence for several hours, fighting the heat (and each other); then, we reached our one and only mutual agreement—to go somewhere and eat.

Later, I went with Francesco to Michelangelo’s studio, and we sat there, the two of us, and talked about his David, sitting on a bench facing his work. We agreed that it equaled any classical masterpiece. It was a little difficult to accept such beauty coming from such a troublemaker.

It required four days for men to move it, by windlass and rollers, to a site alongside the Town Hall: how carefully we worked, the statue suspended in a sling. Sometimes there were thirty of us at the job. A downpour drenched us. As we moved forward over slippery cobbles I thought the figure would topple. Car­gadores bellowed. Michelangelo was on hand and beat one of the cargadores with his fists, screaming at the top of his voice.

When we had David in place we arranged a party. All the Florentine artists. Michelangelo was absent.

A while ago Niccolò Machiavelli wrote me from his Tuscan farm, where he is still exiled from Florence. His disturbing thoughts linger:

“Mornings, weather permitting, I hunt or snare thrushes, reading Dante or Ovid to make the hunts more agreeable. After lunch, I visit an inn and throw dice with the yokels, to taste my malign destiny in their brutish company.

“When evening arrives I go to my library, after I have shed my muddy, every­day clothes. Now I am dressed as if about to appear at court, as an envoy from Florence. Elegantly attired I enjoy the presence of great men of the past. They receive me cordially. I talk with them, speaking confidently; they are at ease. For a few hours I lose myself: I am not afraid of poverty and death.”

Familiar...the thoughts of the exile.

Yesterday, I wrote Niccolò and invited him to Cloux.

“We will be a pair of exiles. Stay with me a month or two. Amboise won’t bore you. There’s a superb library. The King has welcomed you. There will be no expense on your part. I will see to that.”

How he helped in Florence: I remember that I owe my Anghiari commission to him. And that night Cesare strangled my friend...it was Niccolò who provided the horse.

A library.

A library can erase problems.

A library is a kind of stained glass.

Francesco and I enjoy the Cloux library. Handsome room. A fine Mantegna—in an old style frame—hangs on the far wall. Its mythological scene is pleasantly antique. The shelves hold parchments, vellums, velvet-bound books, illuminated manuscripts, scores. Francesco has turned up a score I wrote for the Medici, one I used to play.

There is a white marble table with alabaster legs where I spread out the manuscripts and books.

The librarian, keys at his waspish gut, is a defrocked Jesuit, ashen-headed, ashen-faced; he admits that he has never lifted down half of the books.

A lovely prie dieu holds a Latin volume, its pages ornamented with pastel water­color and gold leaf. The carpet is a mouse-chewed Turkish weave, red on red on red, with colorless, limp fringes.

The unchained books are in Spanish, Latin, French, Greek, Dutch, and Hun­garian—collected by King Francis’ father. He loved this room. He died there.

Sitting under the green pergola at Amboise, King Francis and I sipped apéri­tifs, the afternoon warm, a lazy hunting dog at his feet.

“I don’t understand how your army crossed the Alps in six or seven days.”

“Five days,” he corrected me.

“By the Col d’Argentière?

“Yes...do you know that Pass?”

“I have camped there. I have seen some of it when I was collecting fossils. But for an army to get through, it seems im­possible. You had cannons, horses, mules...”

“We were determined to surprise the Milanese.”

We watched dragonflies circle above lily pads in a small rock-rimmed foun­tain, their orange wings on fire in the afternoon light. Near the fountain men were planting young columnar cypress. Other gardeners were spading paths be­cause the King was re-landscaping. Someone, pushing a barrow, with an enor­mous red wheel, asked the King if he could plant the roses in the circular beds already prepared.

“We had good weather,” Francis said.

“Think of it...it took me almost a month to reach here.”

“But you were in no hurry, Mon Père.”

“Snow...mud...ice...”

“I realize.”

“Did you think of Hannibal?”

“I did.”

“What Pass did he use to invade Italy?”

“Some say the Mount Genevre.”

“He was a great tactical genius.”

“Our army was well led...but there were times when I wished we had some of Hannibal’s elephants...but fog was our worst problem...morning fog, thick as an elephant’s hide...maybe that fog helped us...our scouts encountered shepherds in the fog...stopped them from informing others...”

Most men fail to come to grips with nature’s intricacies. When they find a fossil they are satisfied with a cursory look. As for flowers, insects, animals, birds, they turn away from them if they serve no practical purpose. And because men do not care to probe, they resent or fear my studies. I have been made to feel this through the years.

They accuse me of wizardry...alchemy...vile practices.

My studio door is banged open.

“Help me, Maestro...oh, God, help me!”

And I try... I draw out pus... I patch a hole in a rogue’s leg... I sew up flesh...but the same man, when he is well, whispers lies about me :

“He steals bodies from the morgue! He steals dead men’s legs...he slices men’s skulls in half!”

The body’s secrets, the mind’s secrets...we must unlock them!

In his Amboise armory, facing the Loire, Francis showed me his trophies and gear: his new armor from Cadiz, engraved with floral patterns; his father’s armor inlaid with gold and silver (from Milan); a plumed helmet with the regal sala­mander in brass and copper inlay; a circular shield inscribed AFTER DEFEAT VICTORY.

We spent a morning among spears, pikes, swords, scabbards, helmets, bows and arrows, arquebuses...standards...saddlery. The King admired a Toledo sword and a pair of antique Hungarian spurs. I was taken by an engraved dagger from Greece—Homeric lines along its shaft.

Leaning on a pike staff, Francis spoke excitedly about his conquest of Milan:

“...How we fought! Was it for twenty-eight hours or longer? I thought our cavalry would mow down the Swiss...the Swiss kept rushing toward us...it was our artillery that destroyed them...I fought on my great Conde, the chestnut you admired...he was wounded, badly wounded...I had to leave him...I had my visor smashed...my shoulder was sliced open...it was like your Anghiari... horses...men...smoke and dust...at times I couldn’t see...everybody yelling...drums beating...the Venetian troops saved us...

“By God, it was terrible...sometimes I felt alone...sometimes I thought my own men would kill me.”

“Is it true that 15,000 men died?”

“Yes...yes...15,000...12,000...who can count the dead? Some wounded crawl away to die...peasants began pilfering, killing...maiming...our wounded filled the Maggiore Hospital...you must have heard...the halls and loggias were filled...

“Milan was poorly defended,” I said.

“The walled area of the city? Few tried to stop our entry. News of defeat had spread throughout Milan...little resistance...futile...”

I returned to my studio thoroughly disheartened: it is this repetition: city against city: pope against duke: the stupidity seems endless: what shields protect us against the fools of the world!

Yesterday, I enjoyed the King’s dinner—another hundred or more guests: Cardinal Mercier, De Brosse, Ambassador to Holland, military, priests, courtiers, beautiful women. I sat opposite Francis and enjoyed his scarlet-gold suit, sewn with diamond chips. I believe he was wearing five or six rings; one of them is rather like the stone I gave Mona long ago. Francis personifies youth, hedonism, and royalty. Watching him, listening to him, I forget the tedious round of courses.

Princesse de Lamballe, sitting beside me, a lovely woman in her forties, dressed in blue and nakedness, praised the banquet:

“Francis has such wonderful chefs...the food is fresher here than in Paris...I’m so glad to get away.”

“Tomorrow,” the King said, leaning toward me, “all of us are leaving Am­boise...we’re going to Chambord.” He waved his hand, and smiled. “All of us!”

All of us meant about a thousand people, as the King headed for Chambord. I watched his retinue (I declined the invitation): I estimate that there were four hundred horsemen, two hundred mules, mounted archers, stablemen, the Chamberlain, musicians, clergy, wizards, cooks, doctors...the archers wore black and red, the musicians wore yellow and green; the King wore a hat with a yellow plume and a yellow cloak flecked with white fleur-de-lys. The musicians played oboes, trumpets, tambourines, and drums. Such discord. Away they went, pen­nants, banners, oriflammes.

Suddenly, it was quiet at Amboise.

In my studio I sat at my desk and looked down on the peacocks and some pheasants: Francesco came: we began to work: I dictated pages from my treatise regarding horses.

Francesco Melzi is a proper, thoughtful villa-man, handsome, slight, mid­dle-tall, grey-eyed, blond. He is my patient friend, my gracious friend (gra­cious to everyone): he has his father’s agreeable manners. He is horseman and archer. Flutist. A painter for fifteen years, he handles chiaroscuro like a master: he is best as portraitist. No woman-chaser, he is dedicated to Latin, Greek, He­brew, French...and all of the arts. When he trims my hair and beard he likes to flatter me.

I am searching for a glass that reflects a Florentine face—not a wrinkled, bearded patriarch.

Giovanni Boltraffio—Tony—has always had wealth behind him (like Francesco); here, at Amboise, he wears satins and silks, claims that the King’s tailor is “the best in the world.” Tony is so enormous, so muscular, his satins often split. Blue-eyed, genial, bowing, a little too obsequious, he sometimes dabs perfume on his paint-messed hands. He has big hands, big feet, big skull—topped by curly brown hair. With him decorum comes first. He is always aware of his sedate heritage. He sings beautifully, and is an accomplished lutenist. At home he is devoted to his cathedral choir. In Amboise, he is considered a nota­ble fencer. He’d rather fence than paint. He’d rather eat than paint. He will have nothing to do with dissection. Right now, he is involved with a red-headed hussy who champions sex.

Andrea del Verrochio—tall, with not an ounce of extra meat on him...it seems to me he is still a young man, that we are at work together in his studio. But no, no, the Arno roared throughout that night, as we mourned his death. Many of us. Corpses lodged against supports of the Puente Vecchio. Plagues. Madness. Work. We cherished him, his frailty. Guild-member at twenty. Such kindness, such classic renderings in stone and bronze. We revered his Saint John, his serenity in stone.

We exhibited his sculpture in every corner of his workshop and yard. People. His Dolphin Boy. His Christ. Ghosts from his metal and chisel.

We learned how to use the abacus together; we learned about mixing oils; he taught me silverpoint and charcoal; we worked with pastels, with gold leaf.

Ai, Andrea—what a scalding rain on the night you died. We sat about, we drank wine; then, next week, we returned to our casting, our horses, busts, an­gels.

Most of the years in his studio were tranquil. There were wonderful days, when, like John in the Desert, we detected our own worth—in the mastery of his work. His home was mine. His garden was mine. His florins.

I see him painting a madonna’s drapery...weeks of work, painting delicate, gilded folds...he gave me books...

He said: genius is dedication.

He also said: art and friendship.

1517

Cloux

January 6, 1517

A

fter walking along the Loire, the water grey, swallows passing un­derneath the grey arches of the château bridge, I sat where I could study the supports, estimating their bulk and weight. No notebook. Too many unfinished sketches and treatises. An ancient bridge and my face—ravaged by time.

At the little chapel of Saint Hubert, which I admire so much, so complete in itself, pigeons were flying about. Wings again. What are the correct angles for flying? Which wing structure can lift the most weight? How to estimate the cam­ber?

Rain splattered me as I walked about. A drum roll reminded me of the thun­der at Vinci. I climbed the Tour Hurtault and was a boy again, as I watched the rain, as I had watched it at my mother’s house. Then I used to try to estimate the number of drops, measure them, weigh them.

What a superb château—this Amboise! I admire its bulk, its age. It is no wonder that kings have lived here! Amplitude. Privacy. Gardens. The gardens tempt me to walk on and on. Yesterday, I sketched the Tour des Minimes—emphasizing its massive base line, the skillful masonry; as I sketched a playful squirrel climbed a birch, flipped from branch to branch, nibbled. I must remem­ber to sketch the bronze doors of the chapel. The sculptor stresses texture in his composition. Somehow Florentine!

Wander...

I wander...

I wander alone or with Francesco.

Inside the château, if it is raining or cold or misty, we prowl through the halls and public rooms. Halls, rooms, people. A door opens and there is someone. A door shuts, and you are alone with a dozen doors. Cold windows merge into cold mirrors, a door opens. Here are tapestries from Bruges. Someone coughs. Feminine laughter sounds.

As I walked toward Cloux, lights blinked in window after window; a light ap­peared in my studio; someone passed carrying a torch. Maturina has a fire in my fireplace. She has the table set for Francesco and me. Glaring at me she scolds me for my damp clothes. “Your cough...you know! You never think of yourself. Your supper has been ready a long time. I’ve asked Francesco to look after you but he forgets. Only yesterday I said to him...”

Whenever the Egyptian sultan presented the Florentines with a new animal, I made sketches. At one time, there were several lions in the town’s menagerie. An old lion had a stubby grey mane and a black splotch across his face. Since one of his paws was crippled, he limped badly. As he walked or stretched out in the summer sun, a friendly ibis often pecked about in his fur. Old and wise, he ate only two or three times a week...and outlived younger lions. Bruno, a keeper, let me measure him. Skull. Neck. Spine. Shoulders. Rump. Paws.

I suggested large cages for the menagerie animals but no one listened. When I designed a cage for a lion on two levels, with a tree in a corner, nothing came of it.

One night, in winter, a friar opened a cage and let a sick lion go; for days the young man had tried to cure the female. Running amok through town, she cre­ated quite a scare until she was trapped in a cul-de-sac by some of my appren­tices. Muzzled, growling, she was returned to her cage where she died.

It was only a few blocks from my studio to the menagerie and I often heard the animals roar while I worked.

Cloux.

Cage.

Our incessant feuds, wars, brutalities, our pettiness, have rotted our minds.

For years I have heard men describe roads frozen with sleet and dead, bloody ambuscades, military gear trapped in mud, mules and horses floundering, deso­lated villages. I have seen victory and defeat...Milan... Pisa...Bologna... Perugia...

Surrounded by death, I have known many men who want more and more of it. I have remembered that as I painted my mural, my Anghiari. Some of my war sketches have been aberrations. It would have been wiser had I confined myself to my atelier. Among my drawings, sketches, cartoons, models, among my plants and fossils, I should have gone on and on painting. Who, better than I, through my anatomical studies, know the marvels of life! Now, I shun crossbows, guns, chariots. I have asked Francesco to destroy those sketches.

Once again, as in Florence, as in my youth, I am putting art foremost. I am painting.

Tomorrow, Francesco and I will go along the Loire, sketching. If tomorrow is a rainy day we will try the next day. I think he is overly concerned with the problems of perspective. We will talk about the elimination of detail.

Painter and friend, I am lucky to have Francesco, my Cecchino!

These days, I sleep longer, but, through the years, in Florence, in Milan, I never slept more than three or four hours a night. There were too many plans, sketches, paintings, bronzes, portraits, models, commissions...three or four hours...that was enough...

Lie down, sleep...catch the dawn, the window shutters open. Mist on the Arno. Plunge face in icy water in that old white wash basin. Tie sketch pad onto belt. The town is sleeping; the birds are waking up. Careful, open the door qui­etly. Don’t disturb Andrea. Is that the moon, still hanging in the sky?

I made my way to the Boboli Gardens...passed the David...rows of crooked cypress...marble satyr...pool of frogs...a beggar whined...

A town sleeps a thousand years every night.

Cloux

Occasionally, while playing chess, I imagine there are no pawns; I imagine there are no knights; the good bishop has vanished; the castle has gone; there is no stalemate; instead, we are walking across checkered fields, Caterina and I. Soon, we’ll sit down to supper; then, when candles have burned low and lamps are dying down, we’ll lie in each other’s arms.

I have never been a clever chess player: I have spoiled games by envisioning a spiral staircase, by designing a parachute or estimating the cost of draining a marsh instead of planning my next move. I can cast bronze better than tackle chess strategy.

When King Francis and I play, I know the rules—those unwritten rules—and abide by them: the king must win.

Checkmate...what are the rules in life...checkmate...how to play the final move?

Someday our earth may be burdened with people (but I will not be there).

Numbers cheapen us.

Collective folly weakens us.

Man and art drift apart.

However, who can create man? For that matter, who can create a common pigeon? Or the mangiest dog? Or a horse?

And there is such mystery in this arm, this wrist, these fingers as I write. I would like to be able to trace these impulses: the thought, as it takes place in the brain, the thought as it becomes the letter L, as it becomes da Vinci, as that word connects with another word.

A dot becomes a sketch. A sketch becomes a tree (a tree becomes a sketch). Must there be limitations to the mind’s probings? Experience can shackle us. I resent shackles. I still believe in flying.

I love the horse more than all the animals because he gives me a sense of flying. Racing across a field, half-naked, bareback, I was free as a boy. I was above the earth. Galloping along a road, my cape fluttering, I was outside myself. Trotting underneath the stars I sensed another kind of freedom. The clopping of the horse was a drumbeat for liberty. I was often carried away.

Nuzzling my hand, I stroked his head, thanking him for this ecstasy.

March 2, 1517

Yesterday, a traveler, a Spaniard, a navy officer, a guest of the King, claimed at dinner that a Spanish explorer, Juan Ponce de León, had discovered a land, and named it Florida. He said that Ponce de Leon discovered it four or five years ago.

“Where is Florida? Is it an island?”

I had a page bring my maps but the Spaniard could not locate Florida. He was ill at ease as if he had divulged a state secret. The arrogant officer’s face still bothers me, like the face of a diseased rat. Florida? A Spanish name: does it have a special meaning?

“Mon Capitan was hunting for Bimini...the fountain, the great fountain, that cures all diseases,” the officer said, pushing aside my maps, less like a traveler than a spoiled child.

Travel...

Francesco has never read the Travels of Marco Polo, but he is reading the book to me; he reads in the afternoons, maybe when the warm sun is in our western windows, maybe at the pergola, if it is pleasant. Sometimes, when I am tired, he reads to me by candlelight, beside my ducal bed.

I respect Marco Polo. I believe what he wrote. He was no millioni. He was fortunate to find a Rustichello to record his story. Perhaps Francesco is mine. When I visited Polo’s prison cell in Genoa someone showed me the painstaking calendar he had chiseled into the wall beside his cot...Chinese characters along the top section of the calendar—a dragon underneath.

In Florence, in Andrea’s home, I read Polo’s book and dreamed of crossing the Lop Desert on camelback; I imagined visiting the Khan’s great cities; I dreamed of sketching palaces, temples, courtiers. I wanted to climb lofty moun­tains; I thought of mapping rivers.

I told this to Francesco; he smiled and nodded. India? China? Tibet? For him they are words. He thinks only of his Italy, his Vaprio. I am afraid he considers that I have stolen years from his homeland by keeping him here. He writes his mother and father faithfully; when there are lapses in their correspondence he is troubled.

Alas—Salai and Tony have left me!

At Cloux they have spent less and less time at their painting on their own or under my tutelage. They have become infatuated by the King’s women—the prostitutes. Finally, in desperation, I urged them to return to Florence. Tony has serious family problems and is needed. Salai plans to build a house for himself, on my vineyard property. I will miss them... I will miss them! They have been an important part of my life! Francesco is pleased there will be no more rivalry and friction. Yet, apart from that, ours was a sad farewell, lingering, the wind blowing about us harshly. It was our last good-bye, I know. I know. They promise to write to me. When are letters alive!

NOTE—Baron Sabran visited me last week. We strolled about the château, and he related another of his wild boar stories as he glanced over some of my paintings. I enjoyed his visit, his chattiness, his effort to be friendly.

Today, I hear that he has passed away: Time...today’s friend, tomorrow’s enemy.

Cloux

How well I remember:

I was riding with other horsemen, perhaps a dozen of us, Duke Lorenzo on his favorite mare, both of us a little to the front of the Medici pennants, flags, and jousting gear. As we approached the Duke’s stables at a canter, he leaned toward me, and said:

“He’s yours, Leonardo... I know you like him! Tell the stable boys where you want to have him kept.”

A smile, no more.

Cheppo was a three-year-old, four-gaited, almost as distinguished in bone and muscle as Cermonino, yet wider across the withers. I sketched him, studied him, studied him as I had studied Cermonino. Cheppo had a way of shaking his mane, flopping out his upper lip—nuzzling. He was a competent beggar: if I failed to remember a treat he would squeeze me against the stable wall and regard me sadly. Once I was in the saddle he was obedient, alert.

Cheppo had been Lorenzo’s favorite. Certainly no one else could have given him more competent training than the Duke. I was so pleased to have him and spoiled him, until I left for Milan—never to find another his equal.

My mirror writing came naturally; it began as a boy; I have always been ambi­dextrous; yet my left hand’s skill surpasses that of the right. There were reasons for my mirror writing: for abbreviations and symbols, the prying of idle appren­tices, the intrusion of rivals, the circumvention of blabbers. It also satisfied me personally—esthetically.

Tonight, I am alone, writing: the manor house is still.

It is raining hard, and has been raining hard throughout the day. The fire in the fireplace is comfortable. The lamps are well trimmed.

As I sat at my desk, continuing the journal, someone tried to pry open the door lock. Metal on metal. I waited. Again I heard the intruder. The rain beat on the door; the door shook. I heard the lock give. Picking up a broken easel leg I waited, in case the lock gave way. The man outside coughed. He shuffled about, then left.

Perhaps I should get a dog.

Devotion is the best quality, human devotion and devotion to one’s art. Cer­tainly my devotion to Francesco—trust and affection—has been reciprocated.

And, when I am dead, he will remember me. That is what artists need—men who care. If there are those who care, it is as if one’s atelier continues on and on. And, if the apprentices think along the guidelines already laid down, that is an­other continuation, another defiance.

One of these days, Francesco will return to his Vaprio, to paint. He may set up a studio in Milan. Perhaps there will come a time when he places a canvas and sits on his stool and paints my beard, thinning hair, protruding eyebrows, strange nose and strange eyes.

He will say to himself:

“That’s how the old man looked, at Cloux.

“Shall I paint on open window behind him...shall I paint some rock forma­tions in the distance?”

Although the King and his court go out of their way to befriend me I could not tolerate this voluntary exile, this foreignness, this remoteness, were it not for Francesco. When he is away, at the château, in the village, in Paris, traveling somewhere, I am at a loss. I glance about: where is he? When will he return?

Often, when Cecchino comes back from one of his rambles, he has a gift or two, a plant, a seed, a leaf, a rock...he tells me what happened, details. He’s good at verbal paintings. Excited sometimes. No matter. He may have sketches to show me, charcoal, pencil, chalk.

“This is something you must take a look at, Maestro...here, this face? Isn’t it Greek, the nose, the forehead? And this gypsy woman, what about her? And this fellow...ever see anyone dressed like that? And this fountain...”

He sits on a bench beside my easel.

“We must ride to Paris...we must visit Cluny...the churches...there’s a great Van Eyck...and Chambord...now is the time to visit Chambord, when the court’s away...we ought to see how your canal and irrigation jobs are coming along...remember, Sr. Migliarotti is pretty lazy...”

Francesco hopes to make me feel like I am thirty years old.

It is May and I am in the Amboise garden, soaking up the noon sun, courtiers milling about on the many paths; yet I am alone, with my sketchbook, to write, to think. And I am thinking about Francesco, how he arrived at my studio in the pouring rain. Drenched. He had ridden from Vaprio. I don’t forget that rain, that stormy Florentine afternoon, that eager, wet face of his, his mud-spattered horse, his servants’ horses, how they looked in the street, as Francesco spoke to me. Cold, very cold, even for April. Tiled roofs were choked with rain. Drowned cobbles. Leaves and mud.

But there he was at my door, bowing, smiling.

“Maestro da Vinci...I want to be your pupil.”

That was seventeen years ago. Was he only fifteen? It doesn’t seem possible he was so young. He was my favorite from the start. I love Salai as a son, but this young man, this gracious young man, is friend and ardent disciple. Painter! When I have been his guest at Vaprio, I am honored. Francesco’s father and mother make their villa a place of rest. I know. I have fled there, from the condottieri. I am always protected by the Melzis.

His illness upset the studio.

“Melzi’s sick! Francesco’s sick!”

Fever day after day, hands like ice, coma. Shivering though his apartment was sunny. I thought he might have malaria. The plague. I called in the best doctors; I sent for Francesco’s father. His uncle came instead. Other doctors came. And in his delirium, Francesco painted a large canvas, with a flock of white birds in the sky, carrying a blue tree. October, November—bad months for sickness. But by December he was up, skinny, hungry, forever hungry.

And there was his father’s gratitude to me, his uncle’s gratitude, as if I had been the physician. That summer, as Francesco convalesced at Vaprio, I vaca­tioned there. The family purchased my portrait of A Boy. That rolling land, the swift Adda, those canals, the villa gardens with their Roman statues and roses...roses...the women in the gardens, picking roses. But I have written about this before? ...I am getting forgetful.

We sketched and painted.

I remember a puppy lying in my lap as I dozed in one of the gardens, the one with the apple trees. Good food, good wine, summer, that was Villa Vaprio. I learned about summer there—what summer really means.

Cloux

The King wants me to move to a spacious studio in the château. I prefer a smaller room. Small rooms sometimes discipline the mind. I have explained that my studio, in the manor house, has everything essential to my work: cupboards, cabinets, tables, shelves.

“Do you need pigment...oils...turpentine...brushes?” He is impatient... you must want something!

We have space for our paintings. We have the right amount of light. We have quiet. And on our mantelpiece we have a place for my Greek and Roman antiq­uities—things I collected in Campania (along with malaria): iridescent vases, bronze and alabaster lamps, household figurines, a few coins. I have one with a porpoise leaping. The Greeks were master minters-designers. Francesco says he knows a place in Paris that sells Greek antiquities. If I can ever get there I want to purchase an ivory Venus for my desk. We have not surpassed those ancient artisans.

Such things make a bright enclosure.

I am fortunate...I have had many friends.

I had many friends in Florence, Milan, Rome, Genoa, and Venice. I shall name a few: Marco d’Oggiono, Vitelli, Tomaso Masini, Amalia, Father Pacioli, Ferrera, Machiavelli, Francesco, Mona, Cristofer, Andrea...and now King Francis.

I see them in my sketches as I leaf through them now and then: Benci, in pen and ink, beside a juniper tree; Andrea, at work on a bronze figurine; here is a pastel of Ambrogia, puttering over his careful palette; here is red-headed Filippo Lippi finishing the background for a madonna; here is Cecelia, sipping wine, asking for sweets...Madonna Lisa and her graceful beauty, her soft voice, pa­tience...

She and I had many hours for the gamboa...we ate together...played cards, talked about my Anghiari...when she posed I had singers for her... I loaned her little sums; she lent me money; she sent me baskets of fruit; I gave her sketches and drawings.

If all these friends could be with me, at Cloux, to walk with me, visit the château and its gardens, prowl the mirror hallways, enjoy my studio, my latest paintings...talk...talk...

As an apprentice I longed to fix in my mind every detail: I must look and look, a second and a third time and a fourth. I must fill a notebook. Quickly. I must follow that bearded Corsican and draw his face.

All of us apprentices respected Andrea del Verrochio, as artisan, as teacher. We were at home in his workshop. We were proud of his accomplishments, proud of our own accomplishments; at the same time we were eager, pushy, ready to challenge other artists. Ready to consider a commission, evaluate it, carry it through to perfection.

And what were my best years, the best of my mature years, I ask myself? Those dedicated to my mural, my outcry against war, years that included many paintings? Or was it the time dedicated to the creation of the Sforza horse—IL COLOSSO? If I could have had the metal and cast the statue it would have been that success above others. And the years that went into The Last Supper: Three years. There were also the years of dissection and anatomical studies. Best years? There were the easel paintings. I suppose there have never been any best years. There were discoveries and discovery made another discovery possible...and so the years went along.

Last night, Francesco burst into my bedroom.

“I can’t find them,” he exclaimed.

“What?”

“I have looked everywhere...your letters are missing.”

“What letters, Francesco?”

“I have your list...letters from King Francis...from Duke Lorenzo...from Christopher Columbus...Machiavelli...Father Pacioli...Beatrice d’Este...Ces­are Bor­gia...Salai...”

“Did you open the trunk in the storeroom? They may be in there. Look care­fully. I want to destroy some of them...let’s go over everything together.”

“We had them in Milan...”

“Look again... I’m sure you’ll find them.”

(Yesterday, in the château’s hall of mirrors I saw Caterina: she was talking with a young man, a man her age: she had on a summer gown, with one breast almost bare: she smiled at her companion who was dressed in grey.)

Cloux

June 1, 1517

After I completed my silverpoint of Francis, he ordered his tailor to cut an elegant velvet smock for me. In carnelian. Two pockets. Belt of silver lozenges hooked together on braided silver wires.

Francesco is framing the portrait and it will hang in the château library, along with a Rafael, a de Predis, a Bosch, a Dürer. Francis has his eyes on Francesco’s new canvas, his Columbine, but I tell the King it is not finished.

“Not finished? Of course it is finished, Mon Père.” But Francesco listens to me.

I continue with my drawings of the deluge: I go on with the terror, the falling of buildings, the erosion of life, the force of wind, the weight of torrents... I go on with this feeling... I must express it.

The gloomy air must be beaten by the wind and perpetual hail...there must be ancient trees, uprooted trees, torn to pieces by the fury...the fragments of mountains must spill into valleys...immensity must burst the barrier of rivers.

It is my last judgment...certainly there is nothing that does not have an ending ...twisted forms...fear...puny man...

I hear the resounding air, the lamentations.

Mountains are to be torn open for their minerals...all animals will languish...all will be pursued or destroyed...trees will be laid level...due to man’s malice there will be great losses...how much better for man to go back to hell.

Cloux

It is late.

A fire burned all evening in my studio, and King Francis has sat by the fire with me, talking. He was depressed because bankers have been demanding exor­bitant sums: he plans to sell royal titles to recoup funds.

“All this will take months...there are many hazards...”

Abruptly:

“Do you see something in my face, something ominous?”

“I don’t understand...”

“It seems to me...I feel that the future has something tragic... I’m worried... Do you believe in foretelling?”

He had been jousting: I blamed fatigue. But he would not be put aside by a few casual words.

“Mon Père...tell me...some say that you can foretell? Is that true?”

“I can not.”

“Who can?”

“Nobody.”

“Nobody?”

“Divinations...those occult doings...forget them. You must think clearly, your Majesty. Don’t let men hoodwink you. Nobody knows tomorrow.”

“Tonight, as I walked through the tunnel from the château...tonight I had three guards... I was afraid...like a Borgia...assassinations...pretty bad...”

He laughed at himself.

It has been sunny and cool for several days: I have gone on pleasant walks, along the river, through the château gardens, through the grove that leads into the King’s forest: paths are becoming familiar: I shake hands with old trees. At the château I have watched the King play tennis: they are having a tournament. Francis plays with ugly ferocity. His partners play warily. I see that diplomacy begins on the tennis courts.

Studio

September 3, 1517

My lamp is guttering. Candle stubs are smoking.

Was it thirty years ago, in Milan, that I understood? Windows were open and heat-lightning was flickering beyond my studio. My anatomy drawings were spread on the corner table. Then I saw. Saw clearly. Knew. Saw that man’s blood resembles the tides of the sea; from the seat of the heart it circulated throughout the body. Let an artery or vein burst or suffer injury and blood raced to the in­jured spot. Incessant currents of the blood, passing through the arteries and veins, caused them to thicken and become callous. So, I had additional proof of circulation. Each dissection revealed further confirmation of the system. Why was I slow in grasping the obvious?

I have explained my theory to some but was often rebuffed and yet when I told her—using my drawings—she grasped the significance. She understood many things. And when she lay dying there seemed little left for me... I held her hand. Her eyes were closed. Grey eyes. She never spoke. God, how I stumbled down those rat infested stairs, stairs with a cross gouged in each step. Ah, those flooded streets!

Some men of science and art have copies of my first treatise. Some. They hesitate. Resent. Last year I explained circulation to King Francis. He was not interested; he fondled his diamond-studded belt and stared stupidly at me. I must tell Francesco that the treatise is packed in the third trunk—the one with the smashed lock.

I must sequence my drawings:

1 - Skin

2 - Muscles

3 - Tendons

4 - Bones

Indicate effect of emotions, labor, illness, age.

Cloux

October 15, 1517

Francesco is copying this:

I have been unable to write or work for several days. These days she is in my mind all of the time. Maturina begs me to eat...my appetite has gone. The weather is perfect but I can not go outside. Here, in my studio, I have her por­trait to console me; sometimes I have to turn away from it. I thought that she would live for many years. I thought that she was contented. Her family loved her.

The letter, written by her brother, says nothing about how Mona died. Was she ill a long while? I can’t remember when she wrote me last time...was it as much as a year ago? Why am I confused? Did the plague kill her? Was she with her family? How they will miss her! The letter took four months to reach me—a hundred and twenty days! She died in Genoa, on the 2nd or 3rd of July. I can’t make out the date.

The King knows of her death. Francesco told him, because I can not ride with the hunters... I can not ride... Francis has presented me with a small jeweled hourglass. A note accompanied it.

Life and death...old friends, old enemies.

My face is a cemetery.

Gossips said that Mona was my mistress.

We were friends.

In those days, when I was beginning her portrait, I had Gorgio play for her: she liked his viola da gamba skill. He would usually appear a little late, but always with a smile, a bow. Sometimes a choir boy sang motets; it seems to me he re­cited poetry too. Did he always wear a brown cloak?

Our sittings were often far apart: there was illness in her family: she was away from Florence for months at a time: on her return it was hard to recapture our mood. She was patient with me but I have often stood before her picture quite perplexed...especially if the light had changed...my colors had changed.

I was late for one of our sittings and she put on an apron and scrubbed brushes and mortars, made my apprentices scurry; then laughed at my objec­tions.

“Next time you’re late, I’ll clean your leggio,” she said, and smiled teasingly.

Her smile...I used to think of it as hiding family secrets, feminine secrets, her own loneliness (“Yes, Leonardo...yes...there are times...”)

I could not always arrange for a musician; when she posed during those silences I felt the bonds of our friendship...when we ate together, when she described her travels, it was another aspect of our friendship.

I was welcome at her home. Her distinguished husband bought fine pieces of art. They were happy to share.

At her home and in my studio we often talked about my Anghiari and she was eager to follow its progression.

October 29th

Masculine skies...feminine skies...at this season of the year they are mostly masculine, with snow falling, wind blowing. My feet are cold because of the weather, or is it because my fireplace chimney needs cleaning? Cold, I have moved to the library.

As I mull over my papers I observe the great books around me. I must con­centrate. I must push on. There is so much to be done with the organization of my treatises. So much.

Maturina rouses me.

“You are cold, Maestro...it is chilly in this room.”

So, I am cold!

Perhaps I have cathedral sickness!

It is good to be writing again. My journal suffers when my hand is unsteady.

Francesco is away; that troubles me.

I wish I were young and could bend horseshoes instead of two sheets of paper.

Maturina has found a bird stricken by the cold; we hover over it. A dove. A flyer. Where are my sketches for the glider? The one Francesco and I tested. He must find it for me when he returns.

Interruptions...interruptions...

Francesco has adopted a stray cat, from among the dozens that haunt the château. The cat beds under his easel, among cleaning rags. He always stinks of turpentine and oil.

I have never seen a cat so eager to sleep; perhaps half of his life has gone into carousing. He is bone white, has one orange ear, a twisted nose, one orange foot, and a black-tipped tail. His greenish eyes glare out of skinniness.

Crabby.

Maturina hates him.

Francesco calls him “Michelangelo.”

My four-poster must have been made for a cardinal or bishop, or someone’s mistress. I am tempted to remove the garnet canopy and drapes. But it’s a snug bed when it’s cold. I often lie there and watch the fire playing about. It’s a chance to weigh the past—and plan ahead.

Sometimes, when I am very tired and have turned in early, Francesco rolls his easel into the room, and sits on the side of the bed and we talk brush strokes or ways of grinding the new pigments, how much overpainting is feasible, the dan­gers of black as an under pigment. Shop talk.

Cloux

Andrea Salaino—Why did I adopt him in the first place?

That’s an easy answer: because I loved him!

What a waif Salai was! I took him into my household, my studio, twenty-some years ago. It can’t be possible that so much time has lapsed.

He stole...stole shirts, shoes, brushes, gold leaf. He stole gold leaf and sold it. He took money. I was right to christen him “Salai.” It took months to straighten him out...if I really did. Yellow-headed, curly-headed, tall, foolish, loveable... when he puts his arm around me...

He is a capable artist, incapable of continuous effort; perhaps time can change him but I doubt it.

Now that he is gone...I often think I hear his voice... I think, ah, he has come back for a while...

The King and Queen have asked me how I had hoped to cast Il Cavallo, so I placed my drawings on tables in the salon, and we walked from one to another and I explained them.

“Mon Père,” Francis mumbled, as he examines drawings and sketches, “Mon Père...these are workable.”

I am silent.

“When did you begin actual casting?” the Queen asks. I try to disregard her obvious skepticism.

She is dressed in white and gold; he has on one of his dark cloaks lined with down; he has rings set with emeralds; she reeks of cologne and sweat. Her pinched face is regally ugly—somehow provincial.

“I began casting the horse in December...’93...casting it on its side. I placed the mould in a shallow cavity. I opened it on the left side. I could have com­pleted the casting if there had been sufficient bronze. I am sure you know that cannons had priority at that time.”

They knew, too, about the Gascon bowmen.

I understand they had watched the archers, as they used my clay model for target. Watched my Cavallo disintegrate.

I watched, hating, hating those bowmen. How they cheered as arrows pierced the model.

Now I watched the King and Queen.

“In Milan, in those days, the Sforza stables were at my disposal. I chose a magnificent horse—Cermonino—as my model. Alone, or with a groom, I would ride into the country, where it was pleasant and we were free of gapers. I would dismount and sketch my horse. Or the groom would lead him back and forth, while I sketched, to record a sense of motion.

“Other times I would ride Cermonino, race him, sweat him; then I’d draw his distended mouth, his swollen nostrils, his wild mane...

“Leaning forward in the saddle, baton in hand, the Duke was to symbolize leadership and power...he was pleased...his baton would have been more than thirty feet above the ground.”

Visitors and courtiers annoy me, though I do not show my annoyance. I have learned how to patronize. I pretend I have nothing to do...my life is one of lei­sure. Then, at night, through most of the night, lamps and candles burning, Francesco and I work with my drawings and texts.

Francesco realizes that I am homesick but he does not quite realize that I am homesick for a Florence that does not exist. I don’t admit it but I am also re­membering Vinci, the only home I ever had. I would like to walk into the ram­bling stone house and sit by a front window. I would like...but why go on?

Botteghe or ateliers have their points but they are never home. Guilds, with their rivalries, their rascalities, are continually broiling. Greedy apprentices. Raw apprentices. Rowdiness. So many crowns for this piece of work, so many soldi for this job. Dissension over models. Spats about religion. Muddy sex.

Perhaps I should have lived out my life in my vineyard. Much sun. Quietude. Animals. Olive trees in the sunset. The mistral. Peasants. Fidelity.

What delusions.

Tomorrow I look forward to working again on my Saint John. I have decided to darken the background.

I knew Sandro Botticelli well. Now that he is dead and I am far away, leaving this personal journal to a mere boy, I can write about him. We called Sandro “Our Little Barrel.” He was fat enough, to be sure. Success favored his belly. Drink gave him a pleasant stupor.

I thought his Primavera a piece of ostentation: the picture flaunts showman­ship in many ways. The background is especially weak. I have shied away from gigantic canvases. A painting should not pretend to be a mural or a fresco.

However, Sandro’s illustrations for Dante have a lightness: his lines are right.

Maybe I am not respectful of Sandro. Michelangelo dislikes my work. Who is right?

When my fellow Florentines legally murdered Savonarola I was repelled. Savonarola was reformer, dictator, fanatic. His bigotry alarmed me; all bigotry alarms me. I prefer the Alpine heights and passes to heavenly promises; I prefer rivers and lakes to the Dantesque. Savonarola’s ashes were thrown into the Arno... I anticipate further degradations...ashes... whose ashes were thrown into the river? Ours? No matter what we say in defense of religion there seems to be another road. Some things surpass religion. My mother’s gentleness, for one thing. I say, let us worship beauty. Now, in my old age, I say let us worship beauty.

Thinking of beauty, I hoped for many years to do a bronze of Hercules, Her­cules firing his arrow at the Stymphalian birds, head back, eyes upward, his right arm tensing the cord, fingers ready to let the arrow go: Hercules in the nude, among rocks, one knee cocked at the same angle as his bow arm.

1518

Cloux

February 1, 1518

I

t is snowing again.

The ground is white. Trees are white. About two years ago, on our long ride from Milan, we stayed at the Pericord Monastery; snow was falling. Outside my one-eyed cell lay a deep drift. A path led nowhere through the snow.

While at Pericord, most of us ate in the refectory or the kitchen. Were there thirty monks at the monastery? All of them were dirty and resentful. This her­mitage wanted no outsiders. Although we paid, we were gross intruders. This order had the Biblical fish engraved on its coat-of-arms but these men no longer remembered what that symbol meant.

Bread, cheese, dried fruit, sunflower seeds, eggs, wine, herbal tea—they of­fered us these and we tried to express our thanks.

Each enormous deal table had IHS chiseled in its center. IHS...smoke from cheap table candles mixed with kitchen smoke as we ate with shutters closed against the snow and cold.

Painted black, a large wooden cross leaned against a corner of the refectory.

Fealty far from any hamlet—what is this monastic fealty?

As I stayed there, recovering, troubled, I compared those thirty faces with the faces of the disciples in my Last Supper: I understand more about human nature now than I did twenty years ago. So did the artist who had painted a primitive fresco of demons in the Pericord Library. His demons are Borgian nightmares.

We have more snow this winter than in many winters, I am told. The Loire has frail ice edges and some of that ice traps leaves and twigs and resembles tor­tured stained glass. I like to walk alone, along the river—snow tracking: fox, rab­bit, deer, raccoon, and boar.

Snow crystals in my hand, on my glove, I analyze their geometry.

In the comfort of my studio I sketch from memory: I am able to reproduce plants, birds, people, machines. Years ago I lost an important sketchbook and was able to reproduce more than fifty drawings. Any capable artist should be able to do this.

As the snowfall continues, I shall go on tonight, red chalk and charcoal.

Rome proved to be a harsh experience.

Living in the Vatican was an impoverishment: the roof of my apartment leaked with every rain; the light was bad; sewage odors were frequent. Gamins—so many gamins! Threatened. While others hunted rabbits in the Coliseum, I sought libraries and worked in my own laboratory. But work was difficult be­cause my old kidney complaint afflicted me. For a time I was at the Hospital Spirito. I became as desolate as Hadrian’s Tomb. I ate only fruit and nuts, but fruit is often scarce in Rome at certain seasons.

Rafael was friendly; Paciola was faithful; Bramante was friendly. I blame the city, its somber tufa buildings. Cities, like mistresses, betray. Fleeing Rome, I visited my vineyard; then, again lured by the wrong magnet, I returned for more Roman punishment.

Tibullus and Ovid were there. I opened their pages and read. But my optical experiments were thwarted: a violent quarrel with my optical expert undid the work of months. He smashed all the equipment in my laboratory. As soon as possible, half-recovered, I joined Salai and Francesco in Milan. They had located an apartment for me, Salai lauding its grand style, its perfect studio. But the stu­dio was not for me. Milan was not for me. At Vaprio, I began to recover in the bracing air. My friends helped deceive me: I was not growing old; so, I began a little fresco for the Melzis.

Throughout my life I have been willing to attempt various disciplines. I am alien to most men because they limit their interests. Almost all of my friends thought in terms of a single field of endeavor. Ambrogio cared nothing for geol­ogy. De Predis shunned mathematics. Boltraffio scorns cartography. Fra Luca shrugs off all but church music. Luini favors frescos. Who is interested in ocean­ography? Or flying?

I think men should reach out. A rut can lead to a dead end. The portrait artist need not paint portraits all his life. Andrea was one of those rarities (an inspira­tion!): his world was brush, pastel, oil...marble, bronze, porphyry...cenotaph, altar, sarcophagus...portrait.

Cloux

March 12, 1518

Sleep comes hard: there is frequent pain in my back and legs: insomnia exhausts me: I think of stairways, dikes, weaving machines, cylindrical sails, cadavers, faces...

Many times I have seen Christ’s face—as I painted him in my fresco. I remember him, lying in his ghetto... I remember him so ill he could scarcely walk... I remember taking food to him...there, over there, on the wall, is his face in the candlelight.

Sleepless, I have gotten up and sketched those who have been dead for years. Friends, neighbors, filthy seamen on the coast, mountaineers, shepherds, brig­ands at the Borgia castle.

Here, at Cloux, I have found a girl whose profile is perfect: I have asked her to pose for a silverpoint.

Here, in the heart of France, when I am listening to Francesco talk French I am listening to a clever Frenchman. He could speak the language fairly well before coming—he has perfected his pronunciation, his pauses. He says he learned from a boyhood tutor. I ask him to correct me but he never does. Most of our château friends speak several languages. When I am explaining technical drawings to the King or members of his court I have to have help when it comes to the vocabulary relating to hydraulics, gears, fossils, and such.

March 18, 1518

My journal is in danger.

Time is leaving me.

I go weeks without adding a thought.

If I see a horse riddled with arrows, a mural that is scaling off—where is the joy? Where the beauty?

Let’s go to that valley along the Adda River, in May. We were laughing then: being alive pleased us. Let’s go to Piombino where I sketched the little ships in the harbor, ships and pounding waves. Let’s walk in the castle garden, among the senatorial statues; I played the lute and both of us sang. And Rustici’s! What about Rustici’s and that pet porcupine of his?

In Pavia, I lost my way among narrow lanes; it was dusk; it was summer; it became dark; a lantern appeared, another; I found myself at a house of prostitu­tion: the loveliness of that meeting, those unexpected caresses, that girl... O, sleeper, what is sleep? Sleep resembles death. Yet, there are happy dreams. And actual dreams, such as rolling the Colossus into the square and seeing the Milan populace mill around it. And another...my mother, Caterina, embracing me when last we met.

There have been other dreams: working with wood and silk, to perfect a wing...there was that brief moment of flight...my wing...being aloft...lifted above trees and town... I feel that lift as I write. Joy. Beauty.

There were rows of candles and water-lamps shining in front of my Last Supper; I stepped back to contemplate my work; I looked around; I realized that the fresco was finished. I felt tears of joy, tears that never fell, yet existed. I felt another over­whelming satisfaction in my Anghiari: the horses were alive and came to me as I looked at them... I remembered their names.

Andrea Verrochio came through the refectory door and shook my hand. When I write to him I will remind him...but he is dead.

I have always thought the penis handsome during copulation, otherwise piti­ful. I have never worshipped it as have some men—and women! As a boy it was tantalizing, always there, always a reminder of sex, most often a mystery. I saw copulation enjoyed before I enjoyed it with a girl. It seemed to me that it wasn’t much fun. I had to mature. It seems to me that the penis often has a life of its own, as during the night when it rouses a man, a sentiency of its own perhaps. I note that women like the size of the penis as large as possible, but a man wants the opposite in a woman’s organ.

The Greeks and Romans were penis worshippers. As a fertility symbol it amuses me. I wonder how the Egyptians regarded the penis? They have had centuries to think about it. Young women enjoy dis­playing their breasts; some men want to show their masculinity. There is something quite amusing about these sex thoughts. Juvenile! Life has so many serious problems: hunger, plague, crime. The ecclesiastics laud the cross and crucifixion; I suspect that some of their fervor is part of the penis contemplation. With the penis there can be a kind of holy ecstasy, for certain. I had an ivory penis in my studio in Florence: was it African? Some thought it Babylonian. It does not matter.

Men will always fight among themselves, sexually, politically, socially. I have realized this for years. Can it be that this realization urged me to fly, to escape perversion and mediocrity? Flying can be a celebration of the mind.

Well, sex means little to me now. Silence means more. Friendship. Calm. Hope. Ai, those workshops of my youth were so noisy. On crowded streets. Near alleys. Vendors howling their wares. Mule teams. Horsemen. One of my workshops was close to a smithy. Steel on steel mixed with palavering.

Amboise is my silent bottega, walkways, garden, flowers. Here I have so many of my favorites: nasturtiums, ranunculas, roses, poppies, violets, iris, pansies.

Maturina keeps flowers in my studio and my bedroom.

Writing in the sun along the Loire, remembering, remembering:

I recall details of my dissections of pigeons... Sketching, measuring, I con­centrated on bone structure of the wings, then the tail, the balancing properties of the entire bird. Using those dimensions I calculated wing lengths and wing widths for my glider. I laid out a narrow area for a man to lie on, exactly between the wings.

I constructed the glider with the aid of my apprentices. I launched it at Mount Ceceri. Ceceri seemed the likeliest hill since wind currents had to be strong, and constant. Men lifted, pushed, yelled.

“Now...now!”

I dipped into the wind, slid with the wind, lifted. It seemed to me that I hov­ered for a while above a big willow. Rooftops. Then, in spite of my attempts at balancing, the wing swung down, dropped, spun... I crashed.

That wing measured 15' x 3' x 9'.

I can visualize Milan’s pink and red buildings, its fortress Castello between moats, its drawbridges, the fumbling city walls, the filthy streets. Though not as old as Rome, I often felt Milan’s shabby antiquity. It was a lesson in futility. So many sieges: 1497, 1500, 1512...military engagements that disrupted every fiber of living. (There is nothing like the filth of a city under siege.)

During the last siege, in 1515, the cannonades drove me out of the city. In my absence my apartment—with its view of the Alps—was looted by riffraff.

The city gates...I remember them: Porta Comasina, Porta Romana, Porta Ori­entale. Near the Orientale I found a bronze figurine, on one of my walks. Its small head had been uncovered by a recent rain. A priest, carrying a rice bowl.

How I worked during those Milanese years: apses, loggias, transepts, win­dows, frescos! Survival jobs. “This door needs immediate repair...place that medallion lower...no red marble here...” I could not equal Donato Bramante’s architectural skill. Friend, I wished him well.

Did I spend almost three years in the Castello, in those maddening salas, those perfumed rooms? The only place to avoid the stench of sewage. I urged the Duke to plan a city with upper and lower thoroughfares, a city where there was air space to lessen the danger of plague. Fifty thousand dead in ’09.

Sieges...death...

Milan...all focused on my cenasolo...my Maria delle Grazie...that refectory...that was my world...those faces, those outspread hands, that table...there is more than one way to break bread...more than one cup.

Cloux

It is satisfying to return to my study of curvilateral stars: evenings, after I have had supper, I begin—if there are no royal interruptions. The cat now curls at my feet, as I sit at my desk among my lamps.

Perhaps Michelangelo and I can become friends.

To amuse him I roll balls of paper and snap them across the floor. He responds—with an obvious effort.

I work to reduce a segment of a circle proportionally so I can make any number of identical segments which in sum are equal to a segment subtended by a side of a hexagon inscribed in the circle. I can make any number of curvilateral stars of which the sum of the triangles is equal to the sum of the segments sub­tended by the side of a hexagon inscribed in a given circle.

I much prefer doing this to working on the plans for the château at Romo­rantin.

The point of the center, where there is no movement, suggests peace.

Cloux

April 9th

Today, I had a brief letter from Salai.

I remember the Arno at sunset, the yellow and the gold, the yellow under­neath the gold, the gold identical to gold leaf, a metallic sunset overlaid with misty hues, the bridges silhouetted, the darkest spans cut out of charred steel. The force of sunlight lay between each bridge and turned the river banks violet, the violet merging into cobalt.

Ai, to walk there, to think there, again!

As a boy I used to fish there, but never had much luck. Papa insisted that the tastiest fish came from the Arno. He was a good fisherman and should have known. Maybe fishing was better in his day. I wonder if there are any fish in the Arno now?

Fishing or wading or splashing in the river—that was a half century ago.

April 11th

IL CAVALLO

I solved all the construction problems in 1493. Bronze horse. Bronze rider. Weight of horse: 185,000 pounds. Horse to measure 23 feet from hoof to mane. Total height: 34 feet from hoof to helmet of rider. Total weight of horse and rider: 205,000 pounds.

The Horse:

We began to pour the metal at night, a team of sixteen men. We had metal from salvage. Our caldrons blazed as the metals combined. We had our supply of wood stacked under a thatch, another supply in a shed. As we worked the shed ignited and burned. Shouts. Orders. Warnings.

Shortly before dawn some militiamen arrived—drums, not sunrise. The com­mandante of the city fortresses—on the Duke’s orders—requisitioned all bronze for armament. I read the Duke’s order... I read, and stepped aside.

And the Duke lost his city, and his life. His horse.

Cloux

April 12th

Albiera Amadori—My friend Albiera was as beautiful as her name, beauti­ful to me, beautiful to her family, her friends—all who knew her. In my sketches she appears as an angelic one, an ideal woman. She was delicate. Always. Busy with her large family, her housework, yet stealing time for her lute. There in her garden, among her irises. There in her garden, by her fountain. Singing as she played. Dark hair, dark tint under her eyes. Her voice a little frail. Perhaps she was too good for us, although we loved her dearly.

After she died I used to visit her grave and bring or arrange flowers. Her little bronze bust had a special place in my studio.

“Albiera,” I hear Florentine voices calling.

Somewhere perhaps in the château garden—a bird sings and seems to say: “Al - bi - era.”

Cloux

April 14, ’18

Tomorrow evening, Pietro Papini will play his lira da braccio for us, music I composed in Milan, when friend Atalante and I played and sang. Papini is Court maestro and master of the lira. He’ll be playing his amusing instrument—mous­tached mascherone on the sound box.

Good Francesco has searched through my manuscripts for rebuses and nota­tions, and he and Papini have put together a song that begins:

Amore sol la mi fa remirare, la sol mi fa sollecita.

Tomorrow is my birthday.

Princess d’Arezzo will wear a gold mask I designed for her. Pity to hide beauty behind a mask. The King is wearing my skeleton cloak. Three dwarfs will appear as miniature elephants. I will wear a replica of a camel’s head. Francesco is to impersonate a Hindu seer. Countess Benci—sixteen years old—will be na­ked except for silver slippers and an Etruscan helmet of silver foil.

It will be gala!

Cloux

I did not know it was raining until one of the King’s pages brought me a rain-spattered note, ink and coat-of-arms smudged.

“What is it?” Francesco asked, standing by me protectively, holding the door.

The page grinned and wiped rain off his face. Probably he was perplexed since he could not understand Italian.

“The King is sick,” I said, reading the note. “He wants me to come to the château and talk to him.”

“In this awful rain!”

Water was sluicing off the page’s cap.

“I won’t let you go out...in this cold rain,” protested Maturina. “You have no umbrella...it’s being fixed.”

Francesco tugged my sleeve.

“The tunnel,” he said. “We’ll walk through the tunnel, to the château. It’s been worked on...we’ll keep dry... Shall we?”

So, with torches, the page, and a couple of my servants, we entered the old shaft. Almost at once our torches died out; there was a brisk draft; some of our torches were wet. Somebody went back to the manor house for candles. The passage was difficult for a tall man. I had forgotten there were several curves. Bats annoyed us. We had to wade across rain pools where water was oozing in. I stumbled over bricks and stumbled over a rusty cuirass someone had leaned against the wall.

Holding up my torch I made out crude foreign names and initials and dates... VITELLI...was it really VITELLI? I thought I saw 1502 on the wall. Latin names. Gascon. 1601. 1502 again. Cesare Borgia, that Papal bastard had had Vitelli strangled on December 1, 1502. His name went on and on, as we tramped through the tunnel.

My hatred was everywhere.

The page opened the château door, and we ascended several flights of stairs, walked along halls, were stopped by guards at the King’s suite.

“His Majesty is asleep now,” a guard said.

Borrowing umbrellas and raincoats, we returned to the manor, preferring the paths and the road to the tunnel route.

How fitfully I slept while in Cesare Borgia’s camp...like Alexander the Great I slept with the Iliad and a dagger under my pillow.

It was Niccolò Machiavelli who stole horses for us—made our escape possi­ble...horses...rain...all night the two of us rode through the rain.

Fibonacci’s dog-eared book, Liber Abaci, still interests me: what tattered cov­ers, foxed pages, and scribbled margins! Too many fingers have flipped through this book. No matter... I have tried his famous rabbit problem once more and then once more. I see that each number is the sum of the two preceding num­bers, continuing ad infinitum. And it is true I can divide Fibonacci’s number (after the fourteenth in his sequence) by the next highest in number: it is precisely .618034 to 1.

.618034 is nature’s proportion—her golden mean: it exists in sunflower seeds, shell spirals, spider webs, ferns, the perfect rectangle, in playing cards, the Parthenon’s façade.

Another night of memories, a night for murder. Incessant wind, rain...

Vitelli...

But there was more than this young man’s death. There was Giamina Andres da Ferrara. GAF.

The officials of Milan murdered GAF...the officials!: They had him hung, drawn, and quartered, in the Public Square.

GAF.

I fled to Mantua, as if I could forget in Mantua!

So much of life is fleeing.

So much is trying to forget.

Rain...

Those youthful faces...Vitelli, 24 years old...Ferrara, 33 years old...artists... good men...friends.

Perhaps there is something to be said about this remote château, this little manor house, these woodlands, paths, fields, this Loire; I should be able to put these things together and say something; when I am alone here, or alone with Francesco and Maturina, when I sit in my studio or in the library or walk in the fields or along the Loire, I hear something like wisdom: it seems to suggest greater dedication, calm, calmness, like a stag in a clearing, alert, watching.

August 15, 1518

Another summer at Cloux.

(I have not written my journal for months).

Birds—orioles and finches—are singing along the river. Willows and birds for miles. Old trees, some of them half-drowned by a heavy rain, seem deter­mined to flourish. Where the Loire widens, meadows of water form islands.

Yesterday or the day before, Francesco and I spent most of a morning searching for a species of frog that interests me. We crossed and recrossed the river at shallow points.

Close to the château, by the tenth century bridge, I waded over slippery rock. There I fell. Old shanks!

I’ll just lie here...the pain won’t last...

“Maestro, your sketchbook is ruined...let me help you!”

I was overcome by my own weakness, by the ugliness of my bony legs. It’s true I’m an old man!

August 20, ’18

Sometimes France becomes alive—not in the geographic sense: it comes alive as a fresco of bogged willows, a row of pencil-pointed cypress, a field of yellow rye, a woodland village, a pagan altar, a tired bridge, a flock of charcoal ravens ...these are the enchantment, along with August cicadas and August storms.

Swans and cygnets are also there, and a knight in armor!

I stand at my studio window: there, below me, stretches the garden and the garden leads to the woodland and just inside the first fringe of trees is a stag.

From the château I watch the blue water of the Loire flowing by; the blue water changes to grey: the Seine.

I taste the antique taste of time and illusion: my telescope focuses on wayfar­ers: I see them in mirrors: years of princes, priests, soldiers, artists.

Maturina is Italy: toothless, sickly, yet eager to carry-on! Smiling, smelling of grease and herbs, she offers me her famous soup, her haricot beans, her red jam, her Vinci cheese.

Behind her, as she sets my table for supper, gawks a young Midi apprentice (a possum-faced individual). The Midian is talking about Brussels sprouts, how her mother used to prepare them. When she takes Maturina’s place and her teeth fall out, she will be ready to impart her culinary skills to someone else.

Cloux

September 14

Suddenly, Francis appeared in my studio.

He was dressed entirely in black, his suit sewn with pin stripes of diamonds and pearls. We embraced warmly. We had not seen each other for several weeks...

‘‘What has happened to you?” I asked, shocked by his appearance, for his hair had been scorched and trimmed; his forehead was livid; his cheek was scarred by burns; his chin had been gashed.

“It happened at Romorantin,” he said, laughing loudly at me. “Didn’t you hear about the accident?”

“I heard something about an accident but I didn’t know it was serious. I’ve been in Paris, with Francesco. What happened to you at the château?”

“Come, don’t take it so seriously, Mon Père. I’m all right. The scars will dis­appear. My hair will grow back. I came to talk with you, to get away from the roisterers at the château... I need a little peace and quiet.”

“But what happened to you at Romorantin?”

“Games...we were playing games in the field alongside the château. It was dark. I shoved a wicker basket over my head and one of my cronies set fire to it with his torch... I couldn’t yank off the basket.” Francis showed me his burned fingers. “This is what I get for playing the fool.

“Come...let’s go into the studio, where you keep your fossils from the Alps. I want you to explain again how you have estimated the age of the earth from your shells and ferns. I can’t seem to grasp that the earth is as old as you say it is.

“Look at this rock, Maestro, with the snail imbedded in it. Where did you find it? Did you find it in the Argentière Pass?”

“No, I found it when I climbed Monte Rosa, when I was making notes on the quality of light among the glaciers and snowfields. You see that snail came from the ocean...it’s an ocean snail...”

Today the new barber trimmed my hair and beard.

He is chief barber for the King, a Corsican, red-faced, rotund, about forty; he seems in the prime of life. As he trimmed my beard he ranted about autonomies, puny city against puny city.

“War is a sewer,” he kept repeating. “Man is crap...he is great. But he must stop fighting.” All very private, in his red-carpeted shop, mirrored, hung with dirks. One of many small rooms along a château corridor.

As I was about to leave, he said:

“I sing...you like music, I know... I sing for you... I am an exile too, but I sing.”

His tenor voice was at its prime. He poured out song after song, as others gathered in the corridor and room to hear him.

(Tomorrow, he will extract a molar for Francesco.)

As I write in my studio, rain splashes across leaded glass and sputters on my autumn fire. I dictate. Francesco nods at his desk; it is late, well after midnight.

Fame, in the figure of a bird, should be depicted as covered with little tongues instead of feathers.

Pleasure and pain are best shown as twins, back to back, since they are inseparable.

“No, no,” Francesco objects. “I think we should write down important things.”

I agree.

I pick up a paper and read about heat...fire...vapors...water sucked from the ocean.

Yes, I must discriminate. I have over a hundred treatises to work on...the days are passing quickly.

“Let’s stop for now... I know it’s late. Tomorrow I will arrange fifteen figures, fifteen nudes, in sequence. On the basis of those drawings I will make various comparisons, the horse with man, the legs of frogs with the legs of men.”

Cloux

October 6, 1518

This is my second autumn at the château—cold, cold! Windy. Bundled up, I walk. Maple, oak, chestnut, pine...lightning-scarred oak, crippled pine, friends... I walk alone or with Francesco or the King, paths for every direction. Alone, or with Francesco, I am aware of the past.

Tonight, at supper, by our studio fire, talking with Francesco, I talked about my maestro, Andrea.

“I was twenty, like you, Francesco. And I was always hungry—like you. An­drea was thirty-five then, maybe thirty-six...twenty...thirty-six. I was lucky to have him for maestro.”

His skill with jewelry was something to remember. I remember his setting a fire opal in a gold brooch... I’d been his apprentice for several months, maybe a year. Not a word was said while he worked, an entire afternoon. A smile, a nod...

The opal was rectangular and its blob of fire was at its base—resembling a setting sun—the gem surrounded by finely woven wires.

And there was a day when Andrea’s famous sphere was polished and ready. How it glistened! How proud he was, how proud all of us artists were! We crowded around; we left the workshop to sing a te deum and drink wine as it was hoisted aloft, to embellish the dome of the cathedral.

“Verrochio...Andrea Verrochio,” we yelped.

And the copper sphere is still there, above the red tiles, unharmed by light­ning.

He was a flawless craftsman with the porphyry and marble walls of the Medici sarcophagus. And his beautiful putto, boy and dolphin, are loved by everyone.

F’s drawings of Andrea’s David, and his silverpoint study of Andrea’s great bronze horse are treasures of mine.

Well, his bottega was a place of magic...subtleties in metal and wood.

Again it’s late. Francesco is playing cards at the château—Parisian girls. The cat has disappeared. Lamps need fixing on my table. Will I every finish revising these treatises, re-arranging them?

Di me se mai fu fatta alcuna cosa.

Andrea dead at fifty-three!

Di me se mai...four words...scattered among my mathematical papers, among my drawings: Is anything ever done!

I was twenty...he was thirty-six...genial.

He believed art was the zenith. He asked: What do men respect most? Laws? Writings? They respect the bronze horse, the jeweled necklace...the alabaster vase...the cameo...the bas-relief...great murals...antiquities!

Old thoughts now, but new then, important then.

Andrea often praised such accomplishments. How often we talked in his small garden, trellised with wisteria and grape, his sister, Margharita, looking after us. He had a scar across his right cheek, a special smile because of it. What an aura there was at his home—like nowhere else. Simple, family accord, everyone doing his part.

I remember something Andrea said:

“When I shivered as a child, I knew an angel had passed by.”

Cloux

Manor House

Early morning. Good light. Francesco and I worked at our easels until lunch. Cold.

At lunch, F said:

“I lost again at cards last night... I can’t speak French well enough to win. It’s lucky for me that everyone’s leaving here this weekend...off for Paris.”

We talked about Paris and the King’s departure (how desolate he would leave the château!): we talked about the Alps. I mentioned my climbs and the fossils I found...the caves...with shells on the floor... I showed F my memory-sketch of huge male bison painted on the granite walls of a cave, painted there before any Florentine painted. I tried to find a primitive carving on a piece of bone but couldn’t locate it: I wanted him to realize how clever those ancient artists were.

F was interested in the avalanches, and asked me the best season for a climb. He will ask his father to accompany him on an Alpine trip...he’s eager to return to his beautiful Vaprio. I certainly understand. Last month the Melzis renewed their in­vitation but I lack the strength to make another move; perhaps, in a year or two, I might leave here without offending the King—perhaps I can obtain a commission in Milan; then I could use the Villa Vaprio for my base.

In the afternoon, because it was sunny and inviting, we had our horses sad­dled and rode through the bois...a fox plumed his tail in front of us... I tried to sketch on horseback but my sorrel was very restless. What fascinating shadows in the woodland—when the sun is low! How to blend them.

I am confused, cold.

I wrote in my journal a day or two ago, it seems; yet, tonight, I can’t recall the date; I seem to be in an unknown country, not France, not Switzerland. This place is not my place. I am somewhere by a warm fireplace fire. What confusion. The fire stares at me.

Through the open doorway I see my canvas of St. John...the painting assures me. Ah, the King has gone. F has gone. It is as if I had been asleep.

An assistant and I are making and repairing brushes; we are also grinding pigments (how hard it is to find someone who cares to do quality work); having discovered that my scale is inaccurate I am checking the grinding. It is no won­der my Saint John colors blend poorly. A faulty scale is a great hindrance.

I am troubled by the shading in John’s face: underneath his eyes—so impor­tant.

“Patience,” I say to myself.

I have heard that admonition through the years, hollow, utterly sadistic.

The pleasure in painting is perfection!

I have heard that.

Pleasure and perfection are illusions, friend!

An artist frames his illusions and gilds the frames and people gape at the illu­sions and then foster more illusions.

Years ago, as a youngster, I liked to sit in front of the marble façade of Santa Maria Novella.

In the wintertime it could be a balmy spot.

Girls...but I would sit there and imagine that the twin obelisks in front of the church were being lugged off on the backs of their immense bronze turtles, four turtles for each obelisk. (What mad sculptor designed turtles to hold up obe­lisks!) Ai, the marble columns tottered across the piazza; the monks and priests, with penises dangling, dashed out of church and monastery, shrieking to heaven for help.

Maybe it was helpful to think such ridiculous thoughts; maybe it erased problems; there were always problems...on Sunday no hawkers were permitted in the piazza...pigeons took over, kids, wings, laughter.

Francis, so young, so arrogant, showers me with praise at every opportunity. He introduces me to his friends: “My Leonard!” He introduces me as “Mon Père.” He calls me “Maestro...architect...engineer...he’s designing the main stair­case at Chambord...this is Count de Senlis, a connoisseur of art.” The Count, an old man, is one of Francis’ “oldest friends.” Monsignor Marais admires my paintings. Lingers. Cardinal Chambiges compliments my work with sincerity, makes an offer on behalf of his church in Rheims. There are artisans from Suresnes. There is an Italian group, enroute to Paris. However, it is not so much the visitors, the guests, as the King himself—his fondness for me.

Surely Cloux is everything I need.

Old paths, old benches, newly pollarded trees, beds of flowers, autumn leaves, moonlight...at night I hear the owls talking.

Cloux

Studio

Winter evenings, cold evenings, before a roaring fire in my walk-in fireplace, my lamps lit, I sometimes read aloud two or three of my fables. Guests applaud. We enjoy hors d’oeuvres, sip claret. What lavish trays arrive from the King’s kitch­ens!

The King has a poet in residence who likes to recite female poetry—for the pomades and perfumes! He is a hunchback, with a sharp tongue and tragic grey eyes in his young blond face. Courtiers tell me he has completed an epic poem about my Battle of the Anghieri...

A couple of weeks ago, Galeazzo, a local hunter, dragged a bear cub into my studio. He was quite docile for a while and then became too frisky, and had to be led away. Galeazzo promises to bring him again, and I will sketch him.

Francesco found this fable of mine in an old notebook, one of those I used to keep in Italy:

A stone lay on a mound where an attractive woodland shaded it. Herbs and flowers of many colors grew around. As the stone looked about, at the stones in the road winding below, it wanted to drop down onto the road.

The stone said to itself: “What am I doing, sitting here, among these plants all day long? I want to be with the other stones, my sisters and brothers.”

So, during a heavy rain, it managed to roll down and stop among the rocks of the road. In a short while it began to feel the weight of the cart wheels, the crack of horse and mule hooves, the tramp of cattle, the kick of travelers’ shoes. A man knocked the stone to one side, another spilled trash on it. A cart wheel chipped it. The dung of a cow splattered it. The roadway became very hot.

The stone gazed back at the place it had left—its place of solitude.

This is what happens to those who think they can live tranquilly in cities.

Francesco feels this is my best fable, although he does not think much of any of them:

“Remember, Maestro, you are not Aesop.”

A nut, carried by a raven to the top of a tall campanile, fell into a chink. As it lay there, it asked the wall, by the grace of God and the fine bells in the tower, to help it survive since it had fallen into a chink without any soil. The wall was sympathetic and was glad to help the nut roll into a place where there was soil. After a time, the nut began to split and send out roots. Soon the roots worked their way between the stones of the tower. As it grew stronger it began to destroy the campanile.

The old tower bewailed its destruction, but it was too late!

Tonight, Francesco and I have been working for hours: he sits at his big desk with two water-lamps close to his bearded face, his silhouette on the wall. He is only twenty-two, but appears to be older in the lamplight.

He will be a great painter, when he is free of my influence. He should set up an atelier of his own in Florence or Milan. He comes alive in Milan. He endures this exile out of respect for me: for him I am both maestro and father (in his own father’s eyes the world of art is unimportant). In his patient, almost ecclesi­astical voice, Francesco repeated the outline we have prepared; here are items we have sorted out for further evaluation:

1 - The inequality in the concavity of a ship.

2 - Inequalities in the curves of the sides of ships.

3 - Investigations as to the best positions of the tiller.

4 - The meetings and unions of water coming from different directions.

5 - A study of shoals formed under river sluices.

6 - The configuration of the shores of rivers and their permanency.

These studies should be of value to mariners.

Francesco finds that much of the information I had recorded is spotty.

Tomorrow we will begin with item 1.

October 28, ’18

A lavish autumn!

Gold leaves float on the river, and, as I walk along, admiring them, a hand­some riderless horse crosses, shakes his mane vigorously, plunges wherever the water is deep, then stands on the shore for a few moments, regarding me.

Again and again the fog becomes total master here: blanketed by this Loire curtain, we are obliterated almost nightly: a visitor would have a hard time locating the château. King Francis, and his retinue and parasites, have fled to Paris for the winter.

I have hours to contemplate his Italian plunder: in his salons, his superb col­lection of Mazzoni marbles—twenty-one major pieces.

I study and admire the King’s Bataille tapestries. My private gallery. My autumn sun, as well. Sometimes Francesco makes the gallery a gallery for two. With autumn rain or wind. He sketches a Mazzoni bust; I sketch a Mazzoni fig­ure. I am learning to appreciate the man’s skill: it helps my exile.

Yesterday, as I left the château, the handsome horse re-appeared, trotting along a path that leads into the forest. Bobbing his head as if in recognition, he walked toward the manor house with me. He’s a grey, with mixed mane. It was growing dark and his color blurred into the dusk.

I came to Amboise three, or was it four years ago?

The easel of time totters against invisible walls.

I grow thinner.

Maturina urges me to eat more.

“Give up your vegetarian food. Let me fix you a strong beef soup...let me casserole a chicken!”

A letter from Salai.

He is completing his house on the vineyard property. As usual, his letter is brief—painfully brief. Where is the love we once shared? I know that friendships are like old clothes, they wear out. But we were more than friends.

If we live long enough we may achieve maturity: we will have the past to guide us: we will confront the future more wisely: I write this, wondering about myself: is this something, this saying, that applies to someone else? I know that blind courage sustains me. I know that somehow we must circumvent the Cesares and Savonarolas.

December 2nd

At Vinci, winter, spring, summer, we used to attend early Mass: Mother had her favorite seat, near the altar, close to her Jesus: I remember her somber clothes, her yellow hair in a spiral. Her face was the face of a madonna, and the way she looked at me lit up my face; so, we walked, hand in hand, or with her hand on my shoulder. Through the years I have seen us walking there, at Vinci, a hundred times: were we always alone together? It seems that way. Was the church beautiful? It seems so.

She disapproved of the sermons:

“Latin rote...I can teach you...listen to me.”

I listened.

“There are three things for you to remember. One is gentleness. The other: honesty. The third: beauty. Look...look at this sky, the clouds, the birds, our cypress trees, our church.”

I looked.

December 4th

Alone, walking in the fog along the Loire, in the early morning, I saw him. Magnifico. Crossing. Splashing. Approaching.

That night he appeared in a dream: the Christ of my mural was walking along beside him, His hand buried in Magnifico’s thick mane. Christ was saying something about feeding him: plenty of grain in your stall, we must see to that.

A week or so ago, Judas visited me. In the dream he seemed to be standing at the foot of my bed: he complained about the cold, the falling snow: his face had become scarred; he appeared much older. Feeble.

Alone...I have learned there is something sacred about being alone. I was...

For next Saturday and Sunday

Write to Machiavelli—invite him again

Draw steering armature for bicycle

Collect leaf specimens along Loire

Re-sketch stairway at Romorantin

Invite the King—arrange sketches for him—show him Francesco’s copy of

my Salvator

Cloux

Visiting here, the Parisian architect, Pierre Arconati, admires my canvas of Saint John and my Mona. What a genial man, a student of the masters, devoted to all of the arts, dapper, young, fluent in Italian, he brought a portfolio of exqui­site architectural renderings of Parisian commissions.

I showed him my drawings for the Chambord and Romorantin châteaux. We went over them in detail and he was especially interested in my spiral staircase. He, too, is a vegetarian. We had lunch together and swapped dietary ideas. Of course he can find unique foods in Paris—things we can’t obtain at Amboise.

As I showed him around the château and manor house, he was enthusiastic about living in the country...when the gardeners’ pet fawn ate out of his hand, he turned to me:

“I find the city difficult... I hope Amboise is right for you,” he said. “How did you like Rome?”

Here is my list of drawings and sketches at Cloux, work I wish retained:

Façade of a residence.

Dome of a church, with cupolas.

Lock on a canal.

Motor, with falling weight and ratchet arrangement.

Proportions of man (Vitruvius).

Star of Bethlehem plant and spurge.

Machine for grinding telescopic mirrors.

Life preserver.

Parabolic compass.

Sforza horse (Cermonino).

20 silverpoint drawings of horses.

Sketch of sailboat. Weaving machine.

Pincers for hoisting heavy objects.

Sketch of windmill.

Planetary clock.

Parachute.

Birds in flight—30.

Man in flight.

Gliders.

Helicopter.

Insects.

Drawing of Ginevra Benci.

Crayon of Cecilia Gallerani.

Silverpoints of Boltraffio, Salai, Marco d’Oggiono, Francesco Melzi.

Head of Christ.

Disciples.

Series of Last Supper drawings.

Astronomy: distance of sun and earth.

Anatomy: 60 drawings—

Muscles of upper limbs,

muscles of legs,

muscles of back.

Bone structures,

veins.

Complete skeleton, skull, hands.

Studies of horses for Adoration of the Magi.

Preliminaries for Leda.

Studies for Anne.

Saint John.

Geologic studies.

Deluge drawings.

Châteaux drawings.

Fifty Years of Work:

	Hours of work
12,000 Sketches	20,000
400 Major Drawings	10,000
20 Easel Paintings	20,000
125 Treatises (still incomplete)	16,000
Murals (and their cartoons)	15,000
Bronzes	15,000
Dissections and Anatomy Studies	10,000
Engineering Projects (canals, locks, swamps)	20,000
Architecture, Music, Horology	10,000
Maps, Geometry	5,000
Geometry, Hydraulics	5,000
	146,000

N.B. I have destroyed 188 drawings. I have retained several maps, and I may retain several drawings of people here at Amboise. Francesco is to destroy most of the military sketches and drawings because many are lifted from old books and manu­scripts. It was my intention to compile an encyclopedia of machines of all kinds.

1519

Cloux

January 3, 1519

I

am very tired after a long horseback ride. Francesco and I rode miles along the river—exploring. Where the ground became swampy we road through forest (the King’s Forest), following vague roads and paths. Somewhere, in the thick of the woods, we roused an elk. The animal crashed into a ravine, and disappeared. We saw fox and squirrel, ravens, an owl. The bird was dumbwitted on a stump, too sleepy, too careless to fly. At a clearing we alarmed poachers who raced off, leaving their slaughtered buck, their bows and quivers beside it.

Tired of the thick shade and the monotony of old trees, we headed for Amboise, but soon found out that we were lost. It was a tedious ride before Francesco detected the sound of water; it was good to dismount and drink at the Loire.

Back in our saddles, we trotted along a sandy road, wide enough for a car­riage. Cecchino began to sing and whistle. There was sunlight. Evening clouds built up a sunset. Presently we saw the hulk of Amboise in the distance.

So we began the new year!

“Bonne Année!” Francesco yelled at the château walls.

January 7, 1519

Beatrice d’Este—Painting Beatrice d’Este was troublesome because she seldom kept her sittings. She was moody, flighty. Her sallow features defied changes in light and shade. I wanted to impart a special quality to her portrait, a sense of youth, interest beyond the face itself. I tried animals in her arms, birds, flowers.

“You’re too fussy, Leonard...all this bother...let’s get the ugly thing finished! You don’t remember that I’m busy. When I’m late, you fuss at me. Scowl. To­morrow is the Spring Ball, yes, yes, it’s tomorrow!” And she would babble on, in French, in Italian, stamp her foot, gesture, swear. Child-wife, she was child-model.

She felt I should concentrate on her favorite jewels, her rubies, her pearl snood, her diamond shoulder-pin!

“I insist,” she would storm.

It was Boltraffio who painted her jewelry—when she was away from the stu­dio.

“I hope the paint cracks on her jewels,” he snorted, disliking her.

When she died, in ’96, I tried to visit the Duke, to present the finished por­trait. He refused to see me. Inconsolable, I was told.

Beatrice was twenty-two or twenty-three when she died; she had been mar­ried to Ludovico for seven years. Everyone said the Duke loved her profoundly. He also adored his mistress, Lucrezia. He also adored Cecilia. Love, for Duke Ludovico, was living.

Inconsolable? How long was he inconsolable?

Ginevra de Benci—I painted her in the autumn and painted autumn into her hair, painted it into the juniper trees in the background, in the dress she wore, in her eyes.

I was twenty-two!

She was a sickly person, cold; yet I admired her: she posed with patience, understanding my tedious brush strokes, praising my skill. A woman of scientific inclination, she had learned much from my friend Amerigo, her geographer father.

When I studied geography with Amerigo, at his home, she would appear from time to time, and I would try to memorize the contours of her face, the coloring of her skin in different lights, her bearing. I wanted to appreciate her personality.

Sometimes, in the studio, Ginevra would preach her father’s ideas; I think she was trying to see how much I respected his concepts as cartographer. She could be rude, blunt. She tried to sail to the New World. She wanted to be the first woman to circumnavigate the world. She thought I had no right to discourage her.

“You are no sailor... I have sailed more than you!”

In her boldness, she dictated changes in her father’s maps. This was forty-five years ago, when some of us believed Virtutem Forma Decorat.

Cloux

January 10, 1519

Cecilia Gallerani—It was totally different with Cecilia’s portrait: the painting and the sittings went well.

As Ludovico’s fourth or fifth mistress, she had learned artfulness: she was smiles, warm hands, long, slender fingers, warm embraces, kisses. Always in agreement. Soft-voiced. Fond of poetry. Music. Enjoyed eating, sipping wine, walking, flowers. When we were in bed together, she knew how, when. Her breasts were small. Ivory. Her body was compact, delightful. The shape of her skull was more to my liking than any woman’s.

I like to think that all of my models are still alive...

Here is Cecilia’s ermine, eating from his dish...he’s very much alive...here he comes, trotting across the floor, jumping into her lap, cuddling, ready for another pose.

Cloux

February 2, 1519

Tomorrow there is to be a sumptuous banquet in the château, again royalty. Three hundred guests, I hear: Germans, Dutch, Austrian, Swiss, two or three British, a Greek potentate; the majority will be Parisians and the château people. I will have one of my puppets, dressed as a hunter, in fur cap, etc., relate my fable about the great elk of Scandinavia.

I have constructed a papier-mâché lion—in yellow, black, and pink. He will walk a few steps down the center aisle of the banquet room, growl at the guests, then open his mouth to reveal a bouquet of white lilies.

Last week I was ill (my whole body ached), and I could not attend the masque ball.

At the ball, boxers fought in an arena, sawdust-floored; there were Swiss dancers and yodelers; sword swallowers performed: they are the rage now.

Michelangelo sleeps on my lap.

Cloux

February 11

Outside, as I write, a girl is singing, in the chilly, windy afternoon:

Châtaignes piquantes!

Châtaignes chatouillantes!

Que chatouillent la cuisse,

Mais qui piquent la poche!

Now I hear another child—an Italian, a boy of six or seven, way back in time, singing, as he runs an errand.

When I was a boy...it’s true...I was happy: Mother made me happy: hand in hand we walked, at sunset time...she liked to sing as she worked in her kitchen...we sometimes sang together, “bread songs,” she called them.

I made drawings for her, little gifts, on scraps of paper, a flowering geranium, a lizard, the figure of a clay dog...

Vinci...its hills, its sun, the trees, the caves, the rocks...they made me happy...grapes made me happy, the clairette, pinkish and very sweet; the yellow-green muscats, so fat...grapes, laughter...kindness...

I still taste those grapes on Maturina’s table.

Cloux

In the afternoon heat, it was a long drive to Pliny’s Villa, outside Rome. Enroute, I witnessed some of the wretchedness of Rome’s slums; we were detained by waifs and by a number of mentally retarded. My driver’s glib humor, levelled at the poor, gnawed at me until we reached the villa among its cypress and olive. There I walked through derelict rooms, some with views of the Tyr­rhenian Sea...summer rooms...winter rooms...dining rooms...library. I saw swim­ming pools, fountain, turrets, Numidian columns, Luna marble. The sea boomed and Pliny, the upright Roman, governor, senator, consul, killer of Christians, stood before me in his white toga:

P - I respect your portico mural but it must be finished by the New Year. Our banquet hall will be ready at that time...we are preparing festivities—you understand. Your unicorn motif is overdone in color...several sea creatures are neglected, it seems to me.

LdV - Then you are dissatisfied?

P - I wouldn’t say that, but changes, changes might be made.

LdV - A matter of details, perhaps?

P - Correct. A matter of details. You are to consult with Valerius. He will...

LdV - And your payments? I must remind you...they’re in arrears.

P - You will speak to Antonius, my secretary. This is a bad season...the har­vests are poor... I have obligations...charities. It was exceedingly hot in Rome today...good evening.

And those walls, mosaics, turrets, frescoes, pillars, arches; what sort of luck had their artisans, fifteen hundred years ago? The opulence of Pliny...the opulent sea...millions of sesterces...banquets...Nero...Otho...Titus... Can Rome become an art center?

After exploring the villa, I ate my bread and cheese by the shore, sitting on the sand. Sketchbook on my lap, I sketched seabirds and a torn shoreline tree.

Kicking aside leaves from a mosaic floor, I visioned a mosaic: in my mosaic of green, brown and white were squared circles, spirals, nudes, sea horses.

A pretty girl passed by, selling figs from a shoulder basket. I bought six, three for me, and three for the driver.

Cloux

Was it ten years ago, at Piombino, that green shadows sprawled across the walls of bayside houses, with sun, hot sun, on the bay? Sun on the moat of the town’s doddering fortress, on the plumed helmets of its entry guards.

I made sketches at the harborside inn, made them on a long balcony table; I made harbor maps and drawings for a windmill; I added sketches of a spool-winding machine; I remember I evolved my machine for polishing crystals. My sketchbook filled...my ellipsograph, my new perspectograph, a pair of improved compasses.

Yesterday, as I sorted these sketches, memories came back.

And here at the château, I must see to it that the pale, long-legged, crooked-nosed Frog finishes my brass compass. He has kept me waiting for more than a month—these dilatory French! Can the artist live forever—like a Pope!

At Piombino, a fisherman helped me locate fossils on the beach. A small liz­ard, a multi-veined leaf. What was the fisherman’s name? Giorgio? Paolo? Doesn’t matter. We became friends. Bearded rogue. Fat. In his rowboat, we sailed the harbor, weathering calms and wild gusts, in and out of bays, eating cheese and bread, sipping port, catching fish, his oars a pair of misshapen flip­pers. With his tools, at his home, above the bay, I designed oars, shaped them, edged them with thin copper. When he tested them he found that he rowed with ease.

“Fine...Maestro, fine!”

Blue rowboat, blue bay.

We rigged a sail, a drab hunk but it worked. His name? Not Paolo, but Rimini. Obese fishmonger Rimini. Excellent bread was baked by his young, mute wife. Bread, cheese, wine. Rimini often sang, with his Piombino slurring, sang as we drifted, sang and rowed. We sailed far away from the odious wars, from weaponry, forts, and death.

Rimini’s gulls, black-tipped gulls, followed his boat, ate out of his hands—perched on my shoulders. Ah, those wings! Those flights!

Occasionally, I slept at Rimini’s thatch, where ducks always woke me. It was pleasant to wake to the quackings of Rimini’s pets. His drake had been his pet for years, I won’t guess how many. But I remember his glossy plumage and proud head, and how gluttonous he was.

When Rimini’s pretty wife (woman) became bedridden I prescribed omitting meat. She agreed, through our sign language. Within a week she was out of bed. Rimini had a festa, to honor her recovery. Poor man, he thought me something of a wizard, an ogre, because I could explain to him what the interior of the stomach was like.

February 13

Francesco and I have spent hours at the Château Romorantin, where remod­eling of the old rambling building goes badly. The weather is mean. Cough weather. Stormy. Romorantin is no place to live in February. My drawing papers go limp there.

The King is seldom around; his disreputable workers look as if they had come out of a tenth century nightmare. Some have quit because of the weather; I am told that the head architect is sick.

My supervision nets me nothing, does not help the King.

Francesco groans as we make the rounds of inspection.

Enroute to Cloux the carriage breaks an axle as we near the château and manor house. Rain. A few days later we backtrack to Romorantin on horses. Carriages would not get through. The sun comes out... Francesco and I work in the main salon.

As I work on my rendering of the new staircase, an old pine tree crashes against a window, shattering it. Workers snigger as I jump and drop my pad. The present stair may collapse at any moment.

We eat lunch before a handsome Gothic fireplace. A woodcutter tosses on chunks... I continue working...the King appears...he is gone before I can speak to him.

Romorantin again: the Queen occupies a wing that has been recently reno­vated—she and her court. I have learned that when the King is too preoccupied with his current mistress, the Queen moves in. Up go her tapestries. Up go her pictures. In go her dogs, cats, guards, maids, pages—and favorite chef.

As Francesco and I strolled through corridors, hunting for the illusive archi­tect (now recovered), we find doors open into the Queen’s suites; there is sun; the weather has improved; at one of the open doorways, Francesco grabbed my arm, and exclaimed:

“Maestro...look...look in there!”

“Where?”

“To the right...through the door...on that easel...that’s your painting, your Leda and her swan!”

I can’t believe what I see!

“Yes...yes...” I mumble.

“It’s your painting, your missing canvas. How did the Queen get it?”

“Come...we’ll find out about it...come away...don’t go inside.”

“But it’s yours.”

It was seven or eight years ago that my Leda painting dis­appeared. We blamed this one and that one. We offered a reward. The Duke promised to help...

Back at Cloux we have talked and talked about Leda. What can I say to the King?

Why has he never mentioned the picture? Had he purchased it from some­one? Had his father purchased it? Was it a gift? Or is it a copy? We could ascer­tain that if we could inspect the painting. There were too many questions for the moment. We needed to think. We needed to concentrate on our work for a few days.

We will talk to people at Romorantin...some of the Queen’s girls will talk...perhaps what Francesco saw is an excellent copy.

The weather improves...but I am depressed: I will not return to Romorantin.

In the sun (cold sun), Francesco and I ride slowly along the Loire. I hope to see Magnifico.

Horses...

Francis has some of the finest horses in France. His stables are comparable to those of the Medici’s.

Though I seldom ride now, except to walk the horse or shake my depression, I still visit the stables: I can spend hours there among their warm bodies: I note ears, nostrils, teeth, manes, tails, rumps, shoulders, hides, colors.

Colts.

Mares.

Stallions.

Favorites!

Sickly animals become mine: I feed them, pamper them, talk to them, comb and brush them...hostlers are sometimes irritated... I do not care...in that stabled world I become one with animal life.

I gather grain and fill a trough.

An old girl needs water: how grateful she is! This beautiful pinto needs lini­ment.

Horses...

My drawings show their illustrious qualities, their courage, their stamina.

Cloux

A young Parisian portrait artist visited me; he was wearing a new grey velvet suit (in the King’s honor, he pointed out). With arms crossed on his boyish chest he defended his dedication to portraiture.

He examined my paintings with friendly admiration but bristled when I said that it is not enough to paint one thing well. I said that anyone studying a single aspect of art for a lifetime can attain a measure of perfection! An accomplished artist must paint nudes, seascapes, animals, birds, plants.

Spitting into my fireplace, coughing, the fellow said:

“Do you call your Mona Lisa and your Saint John landscapes?”

I could sense that he was annoyed by my French.

So, his handsome, goateed, disappointed face went out in the rain—rain on his velvet suit.

And I began rethinking: why have I painted few landscapes, seascapes (in the Dutch tradition); why have I painted so many madonnas? I should paint deluge scenes, glaciers, Vinci.

Rain on his velvet suit.

How can I continue my journal when it grows increasingly difficult to write? Left hand or right hand, I am troubled. I am troubled in other ways: I walk into another room and can’t remember why I left my desk. Where is that sable brush Francesco brought me from Paris? I am unable to recall names. And F—sits there, perturbed, as I attempt to remember. I also forget facts, and I am at a seri­ous loss. What is to be the outcome? As I review my treatises, I am aware that they are worthy; it seems to me I have an adequate grasp of language; yet. Writ­ing is not my métier: I prefer a silverpoint or a chalk drawing or the infinite pleas­ure of oil colors. Sitting in the cold window sun, I sip Chablis...

Francesco, wearing his newly tailored suit, continues his portrait of a young woman—progressing nicely. He hates to lay down his brushes. If I have a sug­gestion it is a minor one; he absorbs whatever I say with pleasure.

As I stand in his room, before his easel, watching his brush, appreciating the light, I think:

“We are moderns...we are scientific artists. The face, a. b. c. d., responds to light on opaque pigment, as we have determined. We realize that a shadow can distort; we must estimate the value of each overlay...”

Then, sitting down, aware of the pleasant viridian background in Francesco’s painting, my eyes blur: I feel like I am falling asleep: then, the river horse, my Magnifico, appears inside the pigment.

Yesterday, or the day before, Francesco learned that my Leda is a copy, pur­chased by the King’s father, five or six years ago.

I do not miss the dirt and stink of the botteghe or the sink holes of Florence, Milan, and Rome. Too often they smelled alike. Botteghe was spilled glue, dust, roaches, flies, antique casts (how quickly they got broken), rusted pots, rags, gold leaf (always being stolen), sketches, frames, saws, chalk, nails, rats. Someone was always leaving food around, wine bottles; there were broken bottles, cracked pestles, chunks of clay, mineral samples, stools, grease, brooms (that nobody wanted to use), mauled papers, waste paper...brushes...brushes...brushes.

To paint, to write, to think.

Life’s chiaroscuro!

Under chestnut trees, in the grove near the château, I sat alone on a bench, aware of the evening’s beauty; as I sat there, the sun became a red ball behind a string of pines. I felt that Caterina was beside me, she and Magnifico. I think I
stood and shoved my fingers into Magnifico’s tangled mane as Caterina whis­pered to both of us. It was almost dark but I could outline the oval of her face—her mouth and eyes smiling. Around us, in the grove, the wind was dropping leaves. The night promised to be cold...

Cold.

I looked at the Milky Way, as Caterina and I had in Italy, from our bench in our small garden, while the city slept. She said something to me about our daughter.

“Who will...”

For some reason, a reason I can not understand very well (a fumbling rea­son), I have gone through some of my luggage. I have come across some drawn work Mother made: flowers and angels, in perfection: punto en aria. How white the threads—after all these years! I see no lace like hers. She was first or second at every annual festa.

And my father left me a legacy also: his is a literary legacy of four curt letters, notary letters: our home life, under his coercion, slowly disintegrated. Coercion and promiscuity. Fatal combinations. But why glance at ruins? I glance at them because they are a part of me.

Francesco has repaired my portable bathtub. Soon I will be able to luxuriate again.

I hope there are sunny days ahead... I am reading Aesop... Confused, I feel I am repeating myself in my journal; I must check through my pages. Weariness says I must stop writing and yet as I write I think of the sun in the garden below and the peacocks below and I think of the sun that has burned for me for many years and I think of the shadows I have observed, the shadows of weeping wil­lows, the shadow of a lifted marble arm and hand, the shadows of birds... I think of spring foliage coming...the first spring flowers and there is a wonderful haze in these thoughts tied in with the sun...the haze makes me feel I am young; I am
able to climb hills, ride Magnifico; tomorrow I start a painting of Hercules firing his arrows at the Stymphalian birds. As I put away my journal some of that light blurs in perspective, and I think how light bends at night when lamps are lit.

I seem...

Cloux

The date, does it matter?

My right arm has become paralyzed. Gradually. It has happened gradually. Now I can not manipulate my fingers. For a while I could manipulate one or two. I hoped they would recover. I think this affliction began on the strenuous ride from Milan to Amboise. I think it began in the monastery where I was stricken for a while.

The King’s physicians have tried to help...they are trying to bring back mus­cular control. They have prescribed herbs, poultices, hot concoctions. Strange, very strange, to have a hand that hangs by my side, a hand that does nothing, that is already dead.

Cloux

March 2, 1519

The greater one is, the greater one’s capacity for suffering. It should be that the greater one is, the greater is one’s capacity for courage and understanding. Why do we suffer?

Nec spe nec metu.

Cloux

March 5

Fifty years ago...fifty!

Whether it was chiaroscuro, sfumoto, encaustic, or other technique, I was sincere. Few days were long enough.

Florence, fifty years ago...it was my town. I fitted in. The place is no longer the same. The guilds are different. The workshops are different. Most of my friends are dead or gone. There is another kind of politics.

A half century ago life was adventure: life was new: friends were new, work was new: there was love. When I was accused of homosexuality some of that libel pervaded my thinking for years. A personal plague. How easy it was to brand a man in those days: the “telltale” box hung on the church door. You wrote your accusation and dropped it in the slot and scurried off.

So much of life is focused on sex, is wasted on sex. I have been a masturba­tion man. For long my body has nothing to share with any woman or man. I am immersed in thought. In my bed I have loneliness as mate. I patronize no one.

One of the château gardeners, a Venetian, who has been very friendly with me, has presented me with a caged oriole. In a woven reed cage, painted black.

Black!

I carried the cage outdoors, into the morning mist; I set it down. The bird fluttered, trembled. How long had it been captive? I knelt. I could see where he had chipped off black paint with his beak.

Black!

I opened the door.

A male, he battered the reeds with all his strength, found the opening, and hurtled into the sky.

I have forgotten more than I can recall: perhaps this is true of most of us who have lived a long life. Many of the things I have forgotten I have wished to forget. I find it hard to live and harbor grudges, but it is also lack of wisdom to erase the mind; then it may be necessary to experience our mistakes again: that’s being trapped twice; a fox avoids that.

As for survival, I have survived because I found something to discover: dis­covery is the key: new sinew, new mineral, new color, new face, new canal, new lamp.

In Andrea’s studio I discovered perspective. There is so much about per­spective that eludes one—a continual challenge.

Perspective may be the most important of all the art dis­ciplines. In this branch of science, the beam of light is best explained by mathematics and phys­ics. Since the axioms are long I will abridge them now:

There are three branches of perspective: 1 - The first deals with the reasons for the diminution of objects as they recede, and is known as diminishing per­spective. 2 - The second deals with the way colors vary as they recede. 3 - The third is concerned with the way objects in a picture must be finished in relation to their proximity. I amplify these three in my treatise on perspective.

I have admired hands, respected them for their capabilities. As I dissected, I marveled at their intricacy and perfection... I admire all classes: the feminine, the masculine, children’s hands. I made drawings of my own hands, in the days I could squeeze the crabprongs of a horseshoe with ease. I remember Mother’s loving hands, Caterina’s sensual hands, Andrea’s clever, slender fingers. There have been clay and bronze and marble hands. The hands of beautiful women have appeared in my dreams. I can perceive, as I write, the hands of Christ and those of His disciples.

Perhaps there will be a few, reading this journal, who may care to know some of my thoughts about painting:

a - All colors, when placed in the shade, seem of equal degree of darkness. b - All colors, when placed in full light, seldom vary from their essential hue. c - The eyes, out-of-doors, in a illuminated atmosphere, perceive darkness behind the windows of houses which nevertheless are light. d - The eyes perceive and rec­ognize objects with greater intensity in proportion as the pupil is dilated.

Sleep is a curious thing—resembling death.

Sometimes it is totally blank, as death must be; sometimes we see destruction. Flames rise. Buildings collapse. Sometimes we hear animals talk. Without mov­ing, they run away from us. Sometimes we fall from great heights—without harm. Sometimes we talk to those who are unseen. Sometimes we meet those who can’t speak. If we do not sense death in our sleep we may sense confusion. Confusion in black and white. Or grey. We dream of bucolic scenes in grey, a grey stream, a grey tree, grey boulders. We stroll through grey air, grey birds in the sky.

Now, in color, a great hawk threatens us. Angels appear. There is a cave with a ragged mouth. It wants to swallow us. Now cadavers threaten. Enemies besiege us.

Now, a friend appears—a childhood friend, unchanged by time.

Christ descends from the refectory wall—leaving a terrible hole.

Cloux

March 4, 1519

I am writing very slowly now.

While painting The Last Supper I lived at the Santa Maria delle Grazie some of the time, working day after day, often sleeping on the floor, on a bench. I painted by day and at night, with the help of lamps and candles, placing lights on benches, on tables, on my scaffolding. I was altering forms, changing colors, imparting greater age to a face, lessening the impact of a gesture.

I might stay an hour, or remain for days: Ai, Matthew’s eyes might move; Luke might raise his arm; John might turn his head—or so it seemed. I was always there when the light was good; during inclement weather I might shove my key into the lock, and shut the door. A few grapes, some nuts, bread and wine... I didn’t need much food. With a basket or a bowl beside me on the scaf­folding I would go on painting.

I was forty-three.

When Christ’s model became ill and finally died, I retouched His face, imparting what I had learned while observing the dying man. I remember: to soften the shading I retouched with a lamp in my hand, holding it close to His face.

As I painted there were two dead men watching me.

I discovered Judas when he was drunk. I found him in a borghetto, slumped at a table, a big table sticky with spilled food and wine. Flies. Sipping wine at another table, I sketched him. So it was: I would not have to hunt any longer. That night, although he was drunk and unsteady, I got him to my studio and put a robe over his rags. We talked, we ate. His name: Carlo Macchini.

Carlo came and went. He never accepted a soldi.

Came and went, usually a little drunk. Kindly.

He was an assistant baker. Hated his boss, hated his job. Hated.

When I had completed his face in the fresco, he contemplated it for a while, shrugged, patted me on the shoulder, walked away...not a word... I never saw him again.

Before I finished the fresco, Luke had died. The last I heard about Peter was the news that he had added another child to his big family. Ninth. As for Mark...he was living with a prostitute. Sick. No job.

I made many sketches of each man: filled sketchbooks. I worked them into my cartoon...slowly, slowly. I wanted the faces to express the gravity of life; the clothes that they wore must not distract; the food on the table must not distract. I made the tableware similar to that used by the monks as they ate in the room. It took me almost a month to arrange the food and dishes. Twenty-six hands must tell their story but not overdramatize.

I strove for simplicity: that resolution haunted me. So many times, when rain drummed on the roof of the refectory, as I sat alone, I heard that word: simplic­ity, simplicity of color, design, shadowed by the past.

And while I painted, the beautiful refectory was flooded by a storm: I saw water two feet deep: pigments were washed away, brushes were lost.

Ai, I see it now: at least one of the disciples should have had a scarred face, should have been crippled perhaps. Life, in those Galilean days, did not let one escape unscathed. Out of the twelve, one would have suffered.

But there, there they are, with their Lord.

I had a brief letter from Salai today. If he had remained, we would have made our bicycle.

Tomorrow, I...

On my birthday, my friends, Father Luco Pacioli, Phillip, Donato Bramante, Abbaco Alberti, Peter, Francesco, John, Toscanelli, Andrea, Luini, Credi, friars, priests and many artists, gathered at the Grazie, and we burned lamps and can­dles for the first showing of The Last Supper. Standing on a bench, Father Luco said:

“Milan is indebted to our Leo...to him and Il Moro and the prior and his people. We have watched the fresco come to life. For three years we’ve seen it move along. It has meant something special to each one of us. It is Leonardo da Vinci’s miracle. A symbol of man’s desire for a better life.”

How well I remember those words!

In Milan, my Salvator Mundi attracted crowds when it was exhibited in my studio. King Louis had expressed his public approval of the painting and the curious had to be satisfied. Since General de Galen had come to Milan to deliver the painting to the King, I asked his protection. Onlookers came out of the alleys as well as the palace. Alley folk jeered. They shouted “Christ the Juggler;” they called Him “El Puto”...“the glassy-eyed Gascon.”

Riffraff threw mud and garbage.

I had to cover the painting...but that was yesterday...the jeers and criticism should remain in the past.

Here, at Amboise, at Cloux, all is respect, a respect that originates with King Francis. Courtiers and guests and workers often approach me in the gardens; we pass the time of day. I get along best with the gardeners because there are new plants and flowers to examine and sketch. Sit me on a bench and I am lost by a bed of flowers. An old maestro, toothless, stooped, a man from Padua, knows how to please me with a leaf, a flower, a seed.

“These roses I grew in my own garden...what colors!”

Thinking of Jesus, here in repose, I realize the Savior lacks an aura of gentle mysticism, the aura of my Jesus at the supper table. The globe He holds in His hand lacks the obvious meaning of brotherhood—the great concern of the dis­ciples. My Savior’s eyes are not the eyes of a shepherd from the hills. He has a city man’s face. He is younger than the Christ at the table. His benediction is for all men and yet carries a sense of restraint, perhaps a sense of doubt. Perhaps it is my own doubt, a doubt that I feel keenly at Amboise, a doubt that seems based on my inability to bring together the meaning inherent in my studies, my optics, my hydraulics, my engineering work.

Dreams...dreams...

It is evening, and the kite comes. He grips me in his talons and helps me fly, over the Arno, over the town; he becomes my black-brown-grey kite with wings 18 feet long, wings of wood, cloth, wire. I hear the wind.

Francesco has been amused when I describe my experience with the kite; however, it is too old a dream, or experience, for me to dismiss. How many times it has encouraged me.

As I write, I hear someone calling my name.

April 2, 1519

Again, my health is failing rapidly. I can not continue my work with my trea­tises. I can not write my journal. Sometimes I can not speak. My vision is going. Francesco and I had begun to bring ends together; I had hoped for days ahead because there is so much to accomplish.

At night, in my room, the walls become a mural of Amboise, the manor house, the Loire, old bridges, royalty, paintings, rearing horses, Francesco, wings, rocks, caves, Galilean faces...like maddened bees.

Cloux

April 3

Yes, most of my years were years without sexual intimacy. I experienced ecstasy but it was often bitter later on. So, I comforted myself with sham com­fort. I gained time through my solitary living and lost time that could have made me more human.

Yes, I had a woman for three years.

My own illegitimacy was often slammed at me...bastard da Vinci...that stigma harms the mind.

Dedicate?

Of course, dedication...but I have explained...art, music, sculpture, geology, mechanics...not one is bastard.

DEDICATE:

A priest outlaws distractions. What is an artist but a priest! Joyous children, sick children, they are part of most married lives...that little girl on your lap, sucking her thumb, kissing you, stroking your beard...she...she is dead.

Here, at the château, there are hall mirrors, mirrors in ornate frames: the art­ist observes himself in those mirrors: he also sees a rusty spatula and shredded brushes: sometimes, late afternoons, I see in those mirrors, someone in Milan, I see her smiling, I see the spiral of her yellow hair.

I hear her laughter.

I hear...but that is our staircase creaking. Or is it Francesco working in his studio?

Food has become tasteless.

What is wrong with my château wine?

Maturina scolds.

I think of those hungry days as apprentice, when eating was such a pleasure! I think of our kitchen, at Vinci. Mother’s. Fresh bread. Milk from that blue pitcher.

Paix, paix, Satan, allez, paix!

Machiavelli is here. Unexpected.

He is enroute to Paris to collect a bad debt. A man owes him 600 livres. I have offered money. Niccolò is proud, too proud.

He has malaria and shuffles about in a great coat though it is warm. Last night by a studio fire he huddled in his coat. Perhaps Dr. Pedretti can help him. We’ll see tomorrow. As we sat by the fire, sipping wine, he railed about politics at home—-wretched deceptions. Scoundrels!

Most of his three days have been spent in bed. In his elegant clothes he bowed before the King. The two got along well. Lying and vying. Francis has offered one of his carriages for the trip to Paris.

Niccolò has lost weight. He was always skinny but now he is a shadow of himself. He resents my paralyzed arm...says it is God who is to blame. Then laughed—or was it a sneer?

He thinks Amboise is a true haven.

He is wonderfully clever with his tongue, Latin, French or Italian.

Sometimes loneliness has embittered me.

Last night I asked Francesco to come to my bedroom, though it was late. He came and sat by my bed. He understands my sickness; and he also knows he is going back to his Vaprio.

It was a cold night. A fire burned in my fireplace.

Francesco wore his grey wool gown, stared at me sleepily, flames on his thin cheek bones, on his hands, bringing out their veins.

Cloux was forgotten as I talked of home and my mother and my first days in Florence, at the Verrochio, first days so different from Francesco’s first days when Florence had more patina. I rambled on about Milan and my paintings and the siege and Milan’s bombardment and deaths—pell-mell thoughts. Francesco brought cups of wine. For us this was a father/son relationship. We two had been father and son since we left Italy, since Francesco cared for me during the big snow at the monastery. It pleases him that King Francis often addresses me as “Mon Père.”

Ivory-faced madonnas...regal pomp...commissions that failed, com­missions that succeeded...my flying wing...I was reliving my life! Francesco asked about the men who had posed for The Last Supper. Faces, thoughts, words...flooded. We talked about Peter and James and Matthew; we found drawings of Jesus and He seemed real in the firelight.

Francesco added two or three logs to the fire.

He brought in a wine bottle and refilled our glasses.

Wind gusted smoke into the room.

We talked about Paris and our trip there. I told him that Rome was far more interesting than Paris. I related the story of the mirror-man, at the Vatican apartment: that story involved me in anguish. I stopped talking, to listen to the wind.

We talked of fishing in the Loire...when?

“Tomorrow,” I suggested.

“It’s tomorrow now,” he said, laughing.

“How time gets away from us.”

“Maturina will be rattling the breakfast dishes soon.”

“Then you had better get some sleep.”

“Good night, Mon Père,” Francesco said, and laughed that good laugh of his.

So, you won’t paint again! Where you are going you won’t hear the pestle grinding pigment. How insignificant my sketches, my trees, faces, water...as a boy I thought every sketch would open up the world a little more.

It was only a month ago I made the four small bronze horses, moulded the graceful contours of Andrea’s face...it was only a year ago that...

I hate the body’s frailty, that dead arm! Work was life, but no, there were hours to prowl the hills, to climb the Alps, to sit by the sea. Maturity came dur­ing those hours as well as during the hours of work. I remember, while painting The Supper...

I remember a little plant in the evening light, that frail light that shadowed the corolla. I remember a sorrel leaf, I remember a small fern. Small? What is small versus big? I should know.

A madonna in the evening light—her smile.

And the world shrugs.

Pigments reveal how I have erred...tell me green, tell me saffron, tell me roy­alty, tell me death.

And you, red chalk, speak!

Cloux

We think we are learning how to live but we are only learning how to die.

I, Francesco Melzi, write:

Maestro Leonardo da Vinci is dead.

He died at Cloux, in the manor house,

on May 2, 1619.

He was sixty-seven years old.

Cloux

April 4, 1519

DURING THE LAST WEEKS OF

LEONARDO DA VINCI’S LIFE,

I, FRANCESCO MELZI,

RECORDED THE MAESTRO’S THOUGHTS,

AS HE DICTATED THEM:

“Y

ou ask me what my apartment was like in Milan? It was an apartment of tapestries and antique furniture, paintings, mine and others. Sculptured pieces. I bought many things at the Thieves’ Market. My Camjac tapestries covered three walls. Made the room warmer. My paintings covered the fourth. This was my sala. A large stained glass window faced the street. You remember that street, of course. Lodi Street. Western exposure. Hot in summer. Dusty. But my apartment was on the fourth floor, had a wide, shaded balcony. There was a small courtyard of plants and a pair of little tiled fountains with squirting fish. Sometimes the courtyard was a refuge. Cypress. Old ones.

“With my big iron key, I stepped into my rooms. Five. My studio had good light. Of course I painted the walls black. You would have admired my Roman pieces, heads, busts. You, my friend, were living in Vaprio then.”

We moved his bed into the sun, and pulled open the drapes. He enjoyed lying there. “Spring is beautiful,” he said.

Cloux

April 5, 1519

Da Vinci talks to me with difficulty. However, I go on:

“Perhaps those years in Milan were the busiest years of my life. Irrigation projects, The Last Supper mural, easel paintings, the horse...yes, the horse... cartoons. I tried to interest the authorities in an ideal city. I made models for them. Planned double-decked streets. Vehicles would use the lower level, pedestrians the upper. There would be proper sewage. I wanted to show men that the plague might be avoided through sanitation.”

He has eaten a little fruit, and sipped some wine.

“In Milan, I went on with my anatomical studies, this time working in a clean hospital, with proper light. I had adequate leisure. I dissected male and female ...eight or ten cadavers...over the years. Made my drawings in various media.

“Illness laid me low...

“I never trusted physicians. They know nothing of anatomy and less about illnesses. I suffered alone—with my servants. They fed me, administered my concoctions...my kidneys. Nature cured me. After about six or seven months I was able to get about, to walk, stride along. There was kindness then...but kind­ness is your specialty...your kindness has never failed me.”

Cloux

April 6, 1519

“Remember this—I was forced to work for Cesare Borgia. Remember, Vitelli and I tried to refuse him. Refusal was impossible. We were like hostages in Bor­gia’s camps. Of course we wanted to escape...planned...we were afraid. Pay was high. So...we continued ours jobs as cartographers. Close friends, fellow artists, we looked to each other for support.

“As I sketched Borgia I realized his animosity. Vitelli and I were aware that his soldiers disliked us. They made it pretty obvious most of the time. I talked to Niccolò Machiavelli about this antagonism. He scoffed. Laughed at me.

“Yet Borgia, always demanding, arrogant, worried us. He went out of his way to annoy Vitelli. I tried to play down his swaggering. I tried to play down our apprehensions. Then...then, he had Vitelli strangled. Strangled in Borgia’s tent. Enraged, afraid, I left that night. Niccolò provided my horse. He rode with me. We escaped through the rain. Our horses fast. Solitary roads...hoof beats... I remember. Vitelli murdered. In the tent.

“We said little as we rode.

“At an inn we dismounted, drank, warmed ourselves. Niccolò could not jus­tify his Prince.

“Ai, that murderous rain! His name, his face, that Borgia face, assassination rain!”

It is late as I finish writing down his words. He is in pain. Last night he slept very little.

April 7, 1519

“No, not purgatory and not hell...

“I esteem the horse and the dog because they are free of perversions...no misa, no confessional...

“Animals exact little...make no covenants.

“I can’t forget the Papal wars, the crusades, the Savonarola fanaticisms.

“When did robe and aspergillum exorcise evil?

“I’m still searching...but, in this world of ambiguity, I think there is no answer.”

Today...only these words, as I sat by his bed. Visitors annoyed him. Several times he asked for his mother.

Cloux

April 9, 1519

It is afternoon. The sun is low. Da Vinci speaks:

“When the old French King saw my Last Supper he was determined to remove the entire wall of the refectory, and have it transported to Paris. He discussed it with engineers and architects who said it was impossible.

“What a study...the King is scarlet, pompous, in a very bad humor, his syphi­litic face grey. Flailing his arms, as he stood before my mural, he roared at the men around him, kicked a dog that had wandered in.

“ ‘Your fresco can’t remain in this wretched refectory!’ Everyone was amused.

“Later, when I painted his portrait, he was affable. I painted him in profile, a good study, in good light. He insisted on having a book on his lap. Ovid. I remember he said:

“ ‘In Amboise, I have a collection of fine books...Ovids.’

“He was willing to pay any price for my Madonna of the Yarn Winder. So, he paid...and carried it off to Paris.”

Stroking his beard, da Vinci watched rain streak his windows. Lifting one arm, he said: “No more today, Francesco, no more talk.”

Cloux

April 10, 1519

“Come, let’s get on with it...I have something to say:

“My deluge drawings express weight, gravity, power, fury, terror. The over­turned, whirling chunks of masonry, the enormous waves, defy. This is the end of man. I believe such a cataclysm is going to overcome the earth.

“The drawings were inspired by my visits to the sea, by my trips to the mountains where I saw avalanches. Sound...the crash of falling boulders, the crash of a raging ocean...they warn. Finality—in one form or another—sur­rounds. We can’t escape.

“Rage, rage...much of life is rage...desperate rage.

“Here, far inland, I can hear the tumultuous sea!”

Sometimes I can barely make out his words. I served his supper. He ate very little. He remarked about the pigeons cooing on the roof.

Cloux

April 12, 1519

Royalty have visited us. Alone with me, da Vinci said:

“Yesterday, I dreamed that the sun was coming through my window at Vinci...there were bunches of grapes on our table...bare table, in the sun. Caterina was sitting opposite me, her hands in the sun. I seemed to be about thirty years old. She seemed to be about the same age. Our dog lay on the floor, waiting for me to take him out.

“I felt imprisoned by the sunlight, happily imprisoned... I was imprisoned by the beauty in Caterina’s face. My eyes followed the grain of the table, mixed with the bunches of grapes, went out into the street, returned to her face, her smile.

“...You have asked me about happiness. Does anyone know what happiness is? It is so often illusory. For you, Francesco, it’s a woman...or a swim in the lake. For me it was always work. If a great discipline haunts a man throughout his life...well, he’s lucky. You have seen me happy. You didn’t throw in your lot with a bitter man.

“We see King Francis...we watch him...he is eaten up with regrets...he is scheming, plotting...worrying...battlefields gnaw his guts...if we want sanity there are Vaprios, little rivers, little hills.”

He asked me for another cover.

Cloux

This was our last conversation—on April 23rd.

Melzi - I heard that you created a mirror machine while you were in Rome.

Da Vinci - I tried to amplify the stars—study them.

Melzi - Please explain.

Da Vinci - A series of mirrors and lens.

Melzi - To catch the light?

Da Vinci - I could position the mirrors and the lens. You have to visualize them, in a shallow cradle, some pieces one and two inches square, some pieces two and three inches square, most of them concave, all specially ground, to fit together like an eye, to focus like the eye. They could be raised or lowered, tilted, under a lens which I could also focus.

Melzi - They brought the sky closer?

Da Vinci - All of the mirrors and lens were destroyed by the man who had cut and polished them. He smashed them. Malice...fear...envy...

Melzi - A bitter experience, Maestro!

Da Vinci - That’s how it was...in Rome. The Pope learned of these experi­ments and ousted me from the Vatican.

He fell asleep.

Cloux

May 20, 1519

A

s requested in Maestro Leonardo da Vinci’s will, sixty men, each carrying a lighted taper, accompanied his coffin to St. Hubert’s chapel, on the evening of May the 4th. Royalty, château-pages, soldiers, visitors, servants made up the procession from the manor house to the Amboise chapel. It was a cloudy, threatening evening. The chapel bell tolled.

A bearded priest, in black vestments, performed the requiem. Royalty crammed the chapel. The royal green flag, sewn with hundreds of white sala­manders, blanketed the casket. Wreathes of roses and carnations leaned against wall cabinets where there were lighted candles. Men chanted a Gregorian chant.

The Maestro was buried close to the chapel, under chestnut and cypress, buried by torch and taper light. The chapel doors were wide open as someone played the organ. Six men lowered the coffin.

Leonardo’s death was the saddest moment of my life.

When King Francis returned to Amboise, later in May, I walked with him to the burial place and he laid flowers on “Mon Père’s” grave. Fog filtered the grove and dripped on us. A hard day for the monarch.

King Francis has retained all of da Vinci’s paintings.

I was willed his drawings, sketches, journal, treatises, music, and correspon­dence.

Soldiers accompanied me on my return to Vaprio.

Villa Vaprio

July 13, 1519

My father and mother welcomed me home.

Father gave me a northlight room, on the third floor. I will place my easel near the windows that face the Adda, face the little bridge where the Maestro used to fish for temolo.

I have hung my copy of his Mona Lisa on the entry wall and have laid his red velvet cloak over the back of a chair.

I am arranging some of his drawings on a center table.

There is ample space for his Anghiari cartoon on the inside wall. I have ordered broad shelves for his books and his small bronzes, his drawings and treatises, his brushes and pigments. I will purchase a leather box for his corre­spondence.

I will do what I can to bring order to his writings.

Under this stone are the

remains collected during

excavations outside the

royal chapel of Amboise.

It is surmised these are

the bones of

Leonard da Vincy

1452 – 1519

Author’s note:

This epitaph was placed on da Vinci’s grave in later years.

Shakespeare’s Journal

To my Elizabeth,

for her loyalty, love and genius

Henley Street

January 28, 1615

T

o invent can become an aberration, a mystery, at times a queru­lous searching to remedy an irremediable loss. Shall we say there is a larger purpose? Must there always be a purpose and justifica­tion? I can not believe that. Then, there can be stumbling, burial, burial violets around a grave, an absence. These thoughts must be weighed, re-assessed, subtracted from physical ailment and sickness of mind. Surely the stage was not intended for a single player.

. . .

Stratford

February 2nd, Candlemas – 1615

On Christmas last I sang carols with Ellen and her friends, in her London apartment, candlelight on her frosted windows where trees, like menhirs, lis­tened. Some of her friends were drunk and raucous parasites; some were manikins; some were overly friendly; some, Countess Bardolph, Lord Fenton, Lady Page, were perfumed bores; the Irishmen were troublemakers...

The Captain of the Guard requested a dance, and musicians appeared on a small wreathed stage, a candlelit tree at one side. Sprigs of ribboned mistle­toe decorated the window drapes and the frames of all Ellen’s paintings; she wore a sprig and her Scot mouth met mine under the portrait of a highlander. Caroling and wine went on and on:

Joseph and Mary walked

Through an orchard green,

Where were cherries and berries

As thick as might be seen...

Mummers paid Ellen a call, accompanied by a dancing jester wearing furs. By now it was snowing and the storm sprinkled the jester and the costumes of the torchlit merrymakers with him, as they trailed about, singing. A glass of wine with Ellen... Egypt, it seemed an easy dive to the bottom of the deep, to pluck drowned honor, but there was Ann, pinch-faced, wanting to scourge, and sting with pismires.

Joseph and Mary walked through their orchard bewitched, and Ellen’s thick tree burned with its candles; the Yule log burned and cat-spat; thick-eyed musing came with scalding wassail; then more dancing and then sleep at their side... Later, I’ll tell her about my play, my plans, secrets of the stage, boyhood delights... I’ll reveal the wildness of the world, and beyond this, the tranquility of poetry itself.

She’ll share her Edinburgh, her theatre, her books, her home by the lake, her work for the priory library.

She told me:

“Life is to hold warmly in our hands. It is to be made better for our passing.”

Her intense face considered mine: the fine lines of her mouth, those eyes, lochs, and then there were her dark, dark hair, her perfume, the pressing of her fingers into my sex...necessities and no better...

Carols continued while snow stuck to her window panes and the pine boughs put resin on the air...a day and then another, her hair on her pillow like a fern...and nothing else was needed.

On the blue frozen Thames

skaters zip past people, booths, flags.

A giant ox roasts on a giant spit.

Arm in arm, Shakespeare and Ellen skate:

Over a glassy spot in the ice they peer down

where a blue cloak floats:

fish below.

Singing carolers pass on skates.

Henley Street

February 8, 1615

O

ne year the Thames froze and above London Bridge it became a market, hobbled with ragged booths, stalls, flags and streamers, peopled with courtiers, beggars, soldiers, priests, merchantmen and their families. An ox was roasted—and as it steamed and smoked—walkers clustered around the carcass as if it were Holland. Skaters spun close, stopping to chat or buy and eat, then spun away over the ice.

For days the surface was free of snow and one afternoon I brought Ellen, and we skated arm in arm, the sky unblemished; we swished between ice-bound frigates, toqued sailors leaning over, waving and jeering. It was almost Christmas and carolers sang around bonfires. Royalty had set up tents and we were wel­comed there, the tents and flags reflected in the ice, purple, red, yellow—pen­nants squares gay—men and wenches tippling—musicians trying to keep their feet warm, strumming bravely.

Ellen, in plaid scarf, yellow cloak and jeweled tam, stands alongside a striped purple and gold tent, laughs alongside the scabby hulk of a frigate, warms her hands before a fire. Ellen...your face is real... I can reach out and take your hands...you smile and sway in the wind.

Singing with the carolers, your breath puffs its toadstool alongside my mush­room, and we laugh and hug each other. Inside a carpeted tent, we toast “Was­sail!” and glance at velvet cushions heaped in a corner.

Henley Street

Stratford

Mine was the wish to bind society together, expose the floor of heaven, make immortal real, show man’s folly and labor, extol faith and uphold beauty. Beauty, as I felt it at the outset of my career, is no longer here: it is a long way from Ve­nus and Adonis to Henry VIII: there were grim diversions, rude and costly failures: my goal it seems is beggared: if I had the capacity I would reach back to beauty and carry it forward with greater maturity: I am thinking of poetic beauty.

Farewell! You were too dear for my possessing,

for such riches where is my deserving...?

I lost sensibility and communion in pursuit of plot and character for the rico­chet of horror and death, for the mockery of crime and subterfuge.

At times, I was in sleep a king—but on waking, no such man.

I have been awake to my losses a long while: there was no recouping them in France and Italy, alone with hegemony of rocks, promontories, beaches, hierar­chy of seas assailing nakedness...here in Stratford, here I have illness as exchange.

Sallow yellow:

Men, women and children dying in the streets:

Church bells tolling.

Three men drag a dead youth to the Avon River,

pitch him in.

Church steeple, reflected in the water, sways:

The church registry lists column after column of dead:

Not a sound.

I

n Stratford, the plague moved down Mill Lane, Butt Lane, Rother Street, jumped to Henley and then Church Street. Father and I worked on Mill Lane: finding Charles collapsed by the whipping post, we lugged him out of the sun...shivering...sweating...vomit­ing...and we could not find anything to cover him, and he begged us for a cover.

“Something to cover me, Will...just something?”

“But there’s nothing left for you.”

“Everything used up?”

“All used, Charles.”

“So many of us sick?”

“Lie still. I’ll bring you hot sack. That’ll help you feel better...there’s a rug...”

“I’ll see if I can find something to cover him.”

“No, you’re tired. I’ll bring hot sack and a cover.”

Pigeons swooped low, then rose: were they afraid?

Six people had died that day.

During the week twenty-six died, men, women, and children. Our town heard the bell toll morning and afternoon and evening. At times the tolling seemed to be right in my ears; at times I forgot it, bringing water or food, medicine or cover, anything to help. Father and I worked together as much as possible...his word or nod kept me going.

The Avon seemed blotched and diseased for there, there was the plague’s mucous caulking the water and the water was grey and beaten and unmoving, locked in its own foetidness, dead by the weir, dead by the church and under­neath the bridge.

Stratford

February 14, 1615

I remember the plague, how, with our theatre closed, I worked to aid the sick and cart away the London dead. Appleton...I remember his red beard, his cough, his scared grin. Meerie, talking Irish, blamed us, saying “there’s narra a plague in Ireland—it’s your filthy London—you damn filthy foreigners!” Miller cursed the altar and the saints behind his head, as he struggled to breathe. And that gar­goyle-like fellow, Fackler, crawled off to die or recover, we never learned: he said the open field was the proper place to get well, or die.

The Cheney twins died right outside the Globe: they had been working as stage hands: clever lads from Sussex, faithful, hard-working: they got sick on Tuesday; as the bells tolled on Thursday evening they were dead, dying a few minutes apart, their hands clasped, eighteen years old, flax-headed, tall.

Why did that young woman, with hair to her waist, run about laughing, eating handfuls of earth? Why did that Dorsetshire man stab himself with a dirk? How did the graves of the Boothby children get left open, deserted for days? Was God in the heavenly lectern those days...to save us of our sins!

For days the sun chewed us in Blackwell. It gave us a chance to kill some of the rats. Caesar, don’t let one bite you! Worms crawled out of the earth. Caesar, beware! Whenever I passed our cemetery I smelled new, raw earth—as terrifying as the death smell. ’Sblood, how many deaths does it take to satisfy the earth?

Youth—

What is this vomit, this black gunk pouring out of your mouth? Are you only fourteen...with death on your face?

This is our boy, Slade, who walked to school last week and fished where I fished.

“Papa, let’s carry him into the shade. We’ll cool his hot face and give him water. Our medicine has to make him well. We need him, to grow up and catch perch and pike, and marry Jenny.”

Papa is washing his face. There’s fruit. There’s sleep. There’s tomorrow. There’s kindness. There’s forgetfulness.

Best to cover him.

I’ll cover him. There, that blanket may keep him from shivering. His mother’s sick too. I’ll rub his hands and arms. Water, Papa, give him some. There!

“Papa, you get some rest, while I stay with Slade. You’d better go home and turn in. You didn’t sleep much last night. Things are better now. No. I’m not hungry. I’ll eat later.”

I’ll sit with you, boy, and we’ll deny harsh fortune. Did you ever see a play, boy? The play’s the thing: it takes you out of yourself. Listen...I’ll recite some lines for you...

Farewell! a long farewell, to all this...

This is the state of man: today he puts forth

The tender leaves of hope; tomorrow blossoms,

And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;

And, when he thinks, good easy man, fully surely

His greatness is a ripening, nips his root,

And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders

This many summers in a sea...

Farewell, he’s dead.

Papa, you and I have lost him. He’ll never race across the fields or pack his creel or kiss a girl on the bridge. The plague has killed him.

Was it you who wanted a new cap?

Now you’ll have a cap of dirt.

I throw my heart against the flint of time. O sun, burn your great spheres... I importune death a while. The passing of so small a thing should make a crack at least. Stained with his own blood...

Grey yelping dogs chase a coach through London fog:

Fog drips from coach lamps, from trees, iron railings.

Someone in the fog screams and

a cloaked figure stabs Ellen

as she gets into her coach.

Ellen’s cloak, blood, fog,

Shakespeare’s anguished face.

Henley Street

February 20, 1615

F

og, that old-year-treachery, steals round my house, thief at every window: renegade, despot, carrion-maker.

That night the fog mauled us after we left the theatre, Ellen and I. I thought of throwing my cloak around both of us, as we walked along: dark blue cloak in white fog. Instead of covering both of us I cov­ered her...

The play had been well played, Alleyn up to form, Marlowe’s lines appreci­ated by a better than usual audience, some of them royalty. Tambourlaine usually appeals to royalty. This was Crown night, Christ’s crown, hell’s crown, fog on every thorn, thorns sticking through our laughter, to be remembered, in that cloak, bastard thorns.

Like dogs they followed us as we left the theatre, late, our arms around each other, the cloak flapping, fog leaving us inconspicuous. I saw her carriage ap­proaching, inching the fog, fog through the spokes of her wheels. And then out­cries, and Ellen beside me, falling, and as she fell I turned and saw my cloak slide with her, lantern and dagger on the road, misericord.

Here it is now: yes, here it is: I have it, pricking thing for future pricking, if need be: long, needle-pointed: Toledo steel: the right length to kill her—or me.

Laughter and fog, spines and theatre, the royalty of crime in a London gutter; time doesn’t remove them, can not remove them.

When we could we located guards—trustworthy men—and with a constable informed her servants and posted guards. Later, Jonson and I sat with her doc­tors and learned a little more about pain. I went for Ellen’s brother and he came, a cold young man who resembled Ellen, a slight fellow in handsome black. Hand on sword, he drew himself up, face ashen, mouth trembling...

“I’ll comb London for them...get them...”

Jonson often visited her, his words and thoughts the stuff for those days, my brain run dry, bats coasting out, Enobarbus memories:

Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleases their deities to take a man’s woman from him, it shows the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, that when old robes are worn out, there are members to make new...so grief is crowned with consolation.

Did I write that?

Henley Street

February 26, 1615

I am not able to write poetry and yet I must write, must tell the teller, crush the shards of illness. What is life, the undone and the done, the foolish and the great? I hate drowning in real and invented apprehensions but mine is the stum­bling, after the play, after the com­pliments and the celebration, a mixture more brew than sanity admits.

My pen jerks and my hand wavers and my head aches, and I watch faint light creep into the sky, exacting a promise from me to defy pain.

I hate sleeplessness on a foggy night like this, for there is something in the fog that makes death come alive, that sears the sordid into the mind...what was the cause: contorted memories? Am I afraid to die, be laid in straw or committed to a sulfurous pit?

Give me my rope, put on my crown...

Memory is for me acting in a dissolve, cloud of rain, concatenation of noth­ings, performing yet recalcitrant, ambiguous and poor. Here, in this town, this room smelling of spilled wine, the candles ugly, I see a woman, the filaments of yesterday’s straw tangled in her hair—selling love for a price. Why is love obtuse, ruthless, rain-buried, eerie and demanding, slinking one to the other?

Stratford

March 2, 1615

I write with rain across my oriel, and the fire almost out in my fireplace, and my loneness sniveling in its pot. I am sick of self-pity. I taste with wretched ap­petite, so be it! To be generous, hungry, guiltless, and free...what would I give!

Pincers, pinch harder at the rushes, keep the light burning as long as possible, for each of us.

At my age, I am guilty of longings that I can never realize: dreams hawsered to nowhere. I have been guilty of this all my life. I copulated with commas. I hunted dreams on paper—cheap privateer! I was priest, pharaoh, general, slave, glutton. Paper is a sickness, a sweltering fever, clammy forehead, thudding pulse, ague within ague: so I am a man of paper, elongated, soggy, contorted, multiple of calligraphic speculation: paper bones, paper heart, paper skull, paper blood, paper penis.

Listen, isn’t that time rustling a sheath of paper?

Snow buffets Shakespeare’s cottage:

Snow enters a window.

There are varnished ceiling beams,

varnished furniture,

books and manuscripts.

A stunning woman appears, smiles, fades,

beckons seductively, disappears.

Henley Street

March 5, 1615

Y

esterday it snowed, and during the afternoon I fell asleep and dreamed I saw King Henry and Shallow crossing the fields be­yond my windows.

“O God, that one might read the book of fate,” I heard King Henry say, as I followed, hidden from view. “I wish to see the revolution of the times make mountains level, and the continents, weary of solid firmness, melt itself into the sea and, other times, to see the beach girdle the ocean...”

“There is a history in all men’s lives, figuring the nature of the times de­ceased...”

Was it Shallow who said that?

Though I am confused, I recall the gaunt face of Alleyn as he spoke those lines, that stormy night, when our theatre rattled. He was infirm with fever and yet played on; he seldom let us down.

Winter is here again, to make our beds uneasy. Oh, for a muse of fire that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention, and return me to my youth!

This is a document in madness because pain seldom leaves me...

Oh, to be young and tumble a naked woman on a bed, quarrel desperately and make up, burn the night learning and unlearning lines, defy the elements, dally along the Thames, out-shout the gulls, see a mermaid behind a rock.

Youth has such powers! Youth’s rule rules his own court by championing a hundred causes, ordaining and cancelling, defying and acknowledging, digging canals, raising temples.

Slave of every beautiful woman he meets, he presents her with lasting riches and eternal potency. He conquers every country for her: his grail, his fleet bat­tering an endless Armada to bring her into port, no gale too wild.

Henley Street

Monday, ’15

When I taught school at Snitterfield, Jonson came now and then to prime my Greek and Latin. He used to say, “You should have done a lot less fishing in the Avon, boy! Why, these fellows will never learn, not the way you teach. See, they grin at you. They love you. Call them churls, cane them; make them scat when you appear!”

Away from school, Jonson would slip into theatre talk and urge me to rejoin him: “Your poems are remembered. You have to come back, Will! I’ll find you a patron. Now’s the time to write plays... I’ll help you put them on the stage.”

I told him I was afraid of the London plague. He scorched me with a “haw-haw.” “Teaching’s your plague, man!”

Henley Street

April 20, 1615

Teaching was forgotten at Fair time, good food, acrobats, cockfights, gam­bling—there was something to keep us spellbound spelling laughter! Games and dances went on at all hours. Cinquepace was the fast, new step. How I liked it! There were plenty of pickpockets but I had nothing to pick but my loneliness. When I danced with a red-cheeked girl there was sperm in every movement—those giddy curls and hot hands, the smoke of sizzling fish, howls of the stinking bear baiters.

Stratford

Trumpets blared... I heard them days after the Fair.

I stayed on as long as possible in Snitterfield, to contribute what I could to my family’s upkeep in Stratford. Then came the day when the school board asked me to find another job; so it was back to London again, to Jonson and his half-ass promises, back to city trumpets, strumpets, rattle of carriages, pismire poverty, paunched patrons and perfumed snowballs for the Queen’s masque...

Stratford

While I was at Snitterfield, I had the companionship of a girl whose fourteen years should have been double fourteen to equal her double sight for fox, hawk, raven and snail: she was unreal because she could bring me to the brink of fan­tasy by gesture or word: “Hush, there, over there, in the grass by the stile.” Her flip-smile had the best of both pook and pagan. What she wore seemed a part of her blondeness, a blondeness often eerie with an eeriness that worried me, to be quickly saved by her smile or laughter. Her low voice set the stage for confi­dences—thread between goldenrod, rabbit lying in the entry of its burrow, lark rising.

Faith and I had lingering afternoons and saw the first of fog before dark, heard the last of bird sounds before sleep: her house next door to mine taught me, by window and door, the wretchedness of her life: her father’s drunken beatings, kickings, savagery: so, to escape the village clod we escaped together, to sit by a woodland stream and hear words by leaves as they sifted down. Faith had her legs in the water, up to her knees, or lay on the embankment, the color of her flesh gleaming. Her beauty was not a pair of breasts but a pair of hazel eyes and a dimple in her chin. She was tall, a cathedral figure in caenstone, the stone so alive yet ecclesiastical, erect, her posture one of graceful expectation: repose flowed from her: her thin hands lifted to her thin face: her hair straggled to her shoulders and down her back or was combed into a flaxen haycock. I thought my teaching infinitely poorer than hers and went with her whenever possible, helping her withstand the disgrace at home.

I thought many times of going back to see Faith Stanton but even the changeless changes and woodland jewels, claiming socketless eyes, reflect only images of the mind. Drunkenness outlives beauty—the clod burying haycock, bog and girl.

Henley Street

Goddamn my hair!

My hair, with its copper and red, used to say: This is your world, boy!

Damn my wrinkles! My gallows neck!

My face was once all right.

Now one cheek has begun to cave in under my eye, the wince of lechery, no doubt, and meteors, no less. Lines around my mouth give the impression that I have never had a good time—never laughed. My eyes, when I swivel them in a mirror, warn me that grave changes are taking place inside and that denials will get me no­where: grey hairs, wrinkles, poor vi­sion...they are the roistering gift of time, markings on the stone, to remind myself that I am here, that escape is never, that courage is all that counts, humor with its leg lifted on the monument, peeing on vanity.

The sullen bell called me to school and I went reluctantly, leaving my fishing pole behind the door, pike and trout lost to me. Early morning was almost beyond endur­ance; I rubbed my eyes and stumbled downstairs, to eat amid yappings, survive, survive.

I did not resent school when Hunt read aloud in Latin, reading masterfully, giving us Caesar, Antony, and Cleopatra. When he read, I wandered beside the pyramids, the Nile dotted with boats, ibis, and heron; I tramped battlefields, fought with black spears piercing the hot, dusty air. It was along the Avon that I sensed man’s struggle. I saw. Heard. As the water grew greener and greener and deeper and deeper, the air motionless, the past was there, Hunt’s past, Cleopatra’s...her barge, like a burnished throne, burnt on the water; the poop beaten gold, purple the sails, so perfumed that the winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, which to the time of flutes kept stroke...

When I dared I got away early and went to fish or loafed at the mill pool where I hung my feet in the Avon and counted dragonflies, my line thrown as far as I could throw it. Sitting on a mossy mound, I heard the warblers and lark spell morning into warm sun.

Thirty-five years ago!

Summer:

Naked swimmers, five boys, penis fun, laughter:

Naked girls in bushes along the same river bank:

Church bells in distance:

Behind a copse boy and girl kiss and squirm.

Henley Street

May 4, 1615

G

rowing up, our greatest fun was swimming, our greatest anguish church. From church, as quickly possible, we got into nakedness, rival of summer lightning. We swam the Avon in laughter and row­diness, three, four or five of us, and if others were at our favorite pool we chased them off, our penises flying, rocks and yells going everywhere. We scared them half to death, or, if we were in proper mood, we adopted them, kids like us; we swam and climbed on them and trampled the ooze of plants, and the ooze slicked our bodies over their bodies: I can feel it almost like a lover getting ready to make love: and that’s about what we did: we made love to the day and we made love to the water: we yelled and slapped it and cuffed it into obedience, and orgasmed it, and tore our legs till blood pricked, and then we swam and I was pretty good and I out-swam some though some out-swam me, and we swam until we felt cool and easy, and then lay on the grass by the mill, to watch the swallows and gape and groan, like lovers after their bout in bed: our spirits ebbing for the nonce, then rising to dress and yell and pull and sing and chase each other home.

How I reveled in summer haying.

Usually, I loaded a small wagon pulled by Burt, Burt eying me, snuffling at me as I pitched the hay: he was getting old and the grey of his wooly hide was shedding outrageously; he lifted each black hoof slowly, often fetching a fart. He liked working the field alone but I preferred working with others. Stripped to the waist, hatless, I forked and grunted and Burt pulled and farted. Some of the time I had to sing, the smell of hay and sun inspiring my songs: sometimes, when I worked with others, all of us sang, horses perkier for our merriment.

Mildred was as good at the fork as I: working side by side, we often bumped and her blue eyes would widen and light up: pretty, blonde, barefooted, she wore a blouse, skirt and Dutch apron: our field ended at the river, an apple grove along the other sides. Two or three of us, in teams, harvested Papa’s hay each season: I still smell the timothy and the girl.

Wonderful, wonderful and most wonderful...and yet another.

Henley Street

May 10, 1615

Choir singing was boring—just sucking melancholy out of song—and when­ever I could, I skipped it and went off with Becky. No matter how icy, there was fun, hands linked, our runny noses beatific: Becky, whose giggle alerted every boy, was my girl whenever we could steal away and turtle hunt—that was our joy: tirelessly, we combed the creeks and river, staying long past staying time, scolded but not caring.

I see her giddy black eyes, brown mop, skinny legs, tiny hands and tiny feet—barefooted beside me, wetting herself to the legpits, screeching or silent, often too silent, wading lustily. She loved to steal apples, raspberries, strawberries, turnips, hungry from morning till night. I peeled turnips for her and we munched them on a stile, then raced one another, slithered downstream:

“There’s one, see, on that log. Be quiet!”

“I’ll get ’im.”

“No, let me. It’s my turn. He’s tiny. He’s for me.”

“Go slowly.”

A few times Becky and I rang the church bells for the sexton; together, we stole buns and cookies at home, but best of all we stole happiness, books in running brooks.

She married a seaman and lives in London: I warrant you there are eight chil­dren, a happy family—God bless t’em! I would not change the story.

Henley Street

Mother—memories of you are mostly memories of songs you used to sing when sleep was near, lovingly, patiently, sung in my room, close to the varnished beams, curtains drawn, as you sat or lay beside me or rested in a nearby chair.

Our favorite song was “Happy be thou, heavenly queen...man’s comfort and angel’s bliss...of all women thou hast the prize...”

And I remember each word of Sanctus—and hear each word as you sang it lingeringly; sometimes your hand kept time; sometimes your fingers covered mine.

Stabat Mater Dolorosa...

So many years have lapsed that I have forgotten how you looked, only your eyes and thin figure and voice remain: I hear you when you called us in from play: “Too-lee-looly-loo,” you called, shepherding your six for supper and bed.

I roam about, room to room, stooping for a bedroom doorway, floors creaking, the varnished beams always the same, three floors of thinking about me, windows you used to look out of, beds you used to make—or was that an­other house, another time, another illusion? My house, your house, our house—who owns, who makes traitorous gifts, decisions, contracts, to pile millions of acres of dirt on top of us later?

At the Globe, when I was young, I received quite a visitor! Ben Jonson brought Sir Francis Drake. Ben was a sharer of friends. I was dumbfounded but “El Draque,” contemptuously at ease, sat on my backstage table, his plumed hat and red gloves flung on top of a litter of plays. He and Ben discussed a masque Jonson was to produce.

Young as I was, it took courage to speak to “El Draque” because even his purple hat shocked me. But I managed to ask about his attack on Cadiz. Lines warped his mouth, and he said, stroking his corn husk chin:

“It was a matter of guns...we singed the King’s whiskers through our superior armament. Ah, good winds too. We had great luck! Don’t you believe in luck? When you write a play, isn’t it luck, lucky weather, luck with your players, luck with your attendance, the right kind of royalty attending at the right time?”

I saw him again after the defeat of the Armada, at a crowded Thames an­chorage. Wounded, he looked older, livid scar on his cheek, the fire dead in his eyes, his expression one of cynicism and fatigue. He wore a squat, official hat. No rings. Leaning against a spattered capstan, he seemed smaller than I had remembered him; he did not recognize me.

“Our fire ships forced the Armada out of anchorage, broke up their plan!” he said, talking to a group of officers.

“Put yourself on a fire ship,” he boomed. “You’re at the rudder. She’s aflame—flames are roaring aft! Your whole ship’s blazing but somehow you bugger her against a Spanish hull. You’re beaten off. They’re afraid you have a powder mine in your hold. There’s cannon shot! You dive overboard. It’s a long, icy swim. Most men never make it out of that water...

“What we needed was more gun shot, more ammunition, kegs and kegs of powder; then, by God, we’d have run them clean to Spain, run them, not waited, our guns useless. We had to sit it out, wait—no powder. We didn’t dare take a chance. Think of it, everything to our advantage but we dared not move. We had to bluff.”

I wrote down his words—but I still hear them, it might be five or six years ago, not thirty!

Deceptions of mind bother me: unrehearsed, the brain bedevils and stacks lie on lie...in the lays of time. I turn my glass and am alone, the cuckold of myself reflected in three hundred sixty-five mirrors. My spirits, as in a dream, are bound up, and like the Armada, strewn on shores and still more rocky shores...

Henley Street

May 18, 1615

Memory’s snowfall rattles every door and window in my house. Was it the once lost winter thirty years ago in London? From door to door, I begged for work: my hands blue, legs quaking, face frost-galled. Belly empty, pocket empty, I harried taverns, bakeries, homes. People mistrusted me, that wild-haired kid, goat-bearded—doors slammed in my face. Blinded by snow, I headed for the Thames, for the bridge—shelter there. On the way, I passed a tavern and opened a door: a crowd of young men faced me: I asked for work and was given a scul­lery job, supper and a mat by the stove: I’ll never forget the warmth of that mat by that stove: I wanted nothing more: cherry voices and warmth: it all comes back!

A piece of bread in one hand, I fell contentedly asleep. An elephantine man, with florid face and scraggly beard, wakened me roughly.

“Next time you go to sleep don’t let the rats share your bread,” Falstaff guf­fawed.

Stratford

May 23

Falstaff helped me find an old cloak and helped me borrow boots and gloves. He got me a stagehand job. Later, he showed me where I could purchase stolen things, sharing his room with him: ribaldry, punning, gargantuan laughter, thiev­ery, friends, foolishness, foppery, wit and wine. Little did I think of using him in a play during the weeks I lived with him. In those days, I had never written a line.

Like an umbrella, his character sheltered me from depression: he introduced me to Marlowe, Kyd, Jonson. Years later, I introduced him to Alleyn and Bur­bage; Burbage wanted him on stage but Falstaff had his own stage where he could dupe and bedevil, unmolested by paid gapers. By then, he was getting old and liked puttering and sleeping best.

Those were mad times, those days with Falstaff, and yet, behind every laugh lay the threat of poverty, the knife blade of quarrels, reason gone unreasonable. Night after night we went to sleep hungry. With glue and nail we pieced our shoes together, for one more day. With needle and thread we patched our clothes. Falstaff pulled my wisdom tooth to save the barber’s fee: “Open wide, yell! There, I’ve got it, Will, spit now. Spit, boy.”

In a few ways Falstaff resembled my father: both were unassuming, generous, dilatory: their fat portraits hang side by side in my mind: the last I heard from my friend was a brief word from Dover where he was working for a shipbuilder and lived in a shanty by the sea.

He would have roared at his role in my plays: he would have objected to his cowardice, upheld his zeal, begged me for a thousand pounds, and tried to bribe me for the address of a pretty woman.

Friend...you were eel-fish, bull’s pizzle, dried neat’s tongue and stockfish! When you were born the front of heaven was full of fiery shapes and the goats ran from the mountains.

Henley Street

May 25, 1615

A cockroach creeps about my room, an X on its back, the only roach branded in my roost. I see it in the morning, when I sit down to write. It favors a corner, where there is a deep crack, in case of an intruder or wrath on my part. It has a stiff carriage—much more so than any of the others. Ruler, no doubt, with excessive responsibilities! So I have decided to call it Bill. Certainly all other roaches seem afraid of this Conqueror. When I find it on my table, I make a pass at it and it leaps with a scut. It eats paper—old and new. It munches leftovers, liking cheese best, though I think the cheese is pretty well divided between the roaches and the mice.

Henley Street

May 26, 1615

Why am I disliked in Stratford? Is it because I drive a hard bargain? Is it be­cause I have assumed, at least at times, an actor’s air? They say I stand aloof but is it possible to cross the Avon to their side? My side is Ptolemy’s, Priam’s, Cleo­patra’s, Coriolanus’. We four are difficult to appraise as we walk along Henley Street. The local folk have never heard the creak of chariot wheels.

Lonely...I have been lonely and am lonelier now, but which is lonelier, the pod with one pea or the pod with aliens? True, I have sued for money; true, I have acquired property. And the city man and country man mistrust one another: the writer fits in nowhere: yet, since this is home, I try to accommodate myself, say “yes” to Mr. Combe, and help if I can. “Yes, M.”

I never could introduce Ann to Londoners and she has been unable to intro­duce me to Stratford people. If I were well, if I could write, I would spit on Avon.

Combe is the only person in S. who has seen any of my plays; however, when I talk with him, he confuses scenes and characters; his appreciation is based on pride that says “I can speak of Shakespeare.” A Puritan, he patronizes incoming Puritans more than most, helping them infest this town, making it a sawtooth of moral crud, chair and whip in line, summoning whispered inquisitions.

Monday

What fools we mortals are, for I who wrote of shrews married a shrew who is more shrewful than any Kate from Padua. I laugh at my own defeat, a shrew beside a shrew, players nodding at my marital bewilderment, I, the drunkard drunk on illusions. Shall we list her infidelities—country-man at Fair, con-man, neighbor? Shall we name names?

Shakespeare and Ann, at ruins of Kenilworth castle,

copulating in the grass, happy in their bucolic lust.

The two trudge, hand in hand:

Ann ups her skirt and they flop again, giggling:

“Twins,” she says.

Henley Street

I

married a shrew and yet thirty years ago, Ann and I knew hot jol­lity at Kenilworth, the grass a hide under us, pigeons reconnoitering castle walls, a falcon lawing the sun. Since Ann and I had a few days for ourselves, we had ridden to K. She was Sweet Villain, and when we pastured the horses and unstuffed our knapsacks, we stuffed ourselves, and sacked ourselves, gorging in sun, the horses stomping and snuffling beyond us. Sweet Villain pulled up her skirts after we had drunk more than we should and I was glad I had not married another. She said “Your hair’s redder,” and I said “Your hair’s yellower,” meaning where, and our laughter went bounding.

We sacked that old busky castle from wall to wall, writing on scalded plaster, pushing over abutments, throwing rocks at a fox. From some crater corner, we looked up, our heads dusty, holding each other sexround, our fierceness there while falcons fought, clipping each other, beaking one another, feathers falling. Kenilworth and kings: we smelled unsavory dungeons but pushed our falconry over them, our naked seel better than intercourse of power and time: among the marl, we viewed puffs of smoke from country homes, saw water gleaming, a windmill turning, sheep among sheep, their woolly backs humping toward a rainy sunset.

Soon, soon, time was to tear away our love, but we did not suspect: we were the confidents, our jollity amusing because fastened to laughter, no wrack or confusion: it was slap of hands on bare buttocks, “ah” over breast, mouth suck­ing, suckling, surprising, surfeiting, back again for more: the taste of love’s bite the waist around, the hand up, down, and the grass its hide browner, browner than our flesh, her flesh ignited from within, so burned for me.

Stratford-on-Avon

June 1, 1615

We ate off wooden plates, tulips blooming in the garden, blue and white Chi­nese plates hanging on the wall, and lilacs blooming in the garden...in a dream I confronted him and he was monarch and he said to me: I am Hamnet, come, we’ll go to the guild chapel and hear the sermon...it was a cold sermon but hon­eysuckle was blooming in the garden...orioles were singing above the oriel. Col­umbine, ferns, and lilies were on the cabinet: she said to me: Come, Will, eat! I said to her: listen, I hear the pegs moving inside the beams: that is for integrity. Ivy grew on the east wall of my house in those days.

Henley Street

June 3, 1615

Alone, following the Roman wall, as it girdled London, I used to speculate where the Roman gods had gone; thinking, as well, of those of Egypt and Greece...time with a scroll on his back, asking alms. Smashed bricks, memento mori, along that vast, yellow, unweeded garden, were questions in their own right, broken, to be kicked aside, as are our own questions concerning mortality.

Gazing at the Thames, I hoped for hope from the wide wall, wider river and broader mystery. I went over my plays...Ulysses...Cleopatra...Prospero... The wall, with its imperialism and legion of whispers, said “no, master, no,” speaking in the voice of Lear’s fool.

Ellen and I climbed the castle where Caesar lived, the tallest site in London, the Thames below, flowers and vines crawling over ruins, the walls of yesterday saying “Et tu Brutus.”

Danger knows full well that hate is doubly dangerous: we are two lions lit­tered in a day, and the litter of stones crumbles underfoot, but Ellen cries out to me, and I catch her by the arm.

There is a white sail on the river...

Ay, me, how fine a thing the heart of woman! I thought it then and think it still, the very best of her is gentle subtlety: it is this that takes a man in.

A flock of blackbirds lit below us, covering the fallen stones like black hail.

We went many times to that castle and walked along its ancient yellow walls; she asked me for poetry and I repeated lines: what were they, I wonder?

Now...most noble one...the gods stand friendly today, that we may, lovers in peace, lead on our days to age:

I am constant as the northern star, of whose true-fixed and resting Quality there is no fellow in the firmament...the skies are painted with unnumbered sparks...they are all afire, and every one doth shine; but there’s but one in all doth hold his place: so in the world...

The stars came out, a summer’s night on Caesar’s place, and we heard frogs and the tittering of lovers, ourselves loving that place, our flesh, that empirical wisdom. We went so often we called it “our castle.”

Henley Street

June 5, 1615

At Christmas skirling bagpipers, piping a waulking song, greeted us at Dunira. Ellen’s room, in a squat tower, faced a narrow lake with ragged shore pines and a small island, wild geese and ducks resting on the water, cold, cold, moss blue water.

Sun crossed the bear rugs and tiles of her floor.

Her bed was canopied with green velvet embroidered with golden shields and crossed spears, seen on her coat-of-arms.

She called my attention to the pulls on the heavy drapes, each pull a carved ivory ball enclosing a ball inside another.

Hand in mine, she showed me her collection of silver, gold, and ivory fans, fans from Egypt, Greece and India, arranged on her walls, some open, some in cases, flabellum with bone handles, Venetian lace fans, tomb fans with gold-encrusted ribs, a Greek fan like an acanthus leaf. I can see the movement of her lips as she described them; I can see her hand, pointing.

We often walked around the lake and through the pollarded garden, its cy­presses like stone columns: we walked the moors until Christmas cold sent us shivering to the big fireplaces where we talked and ate and sang and drank.

Someone kept the fire blazing in her fireplace and we would sink down on her bed or lie on the bear rug and make love, the firelight skirling her ivory, her fans and the canopy’s yellow silk lining.

Hugh opened our door one morning very early, while we were busy making love, and with a boisterous laugh he said:

“I just finished with my woman; when you’re done, we’ll go hunting. The horses are saddled. Better lock your door next time!”

Hugh—his huge body on a huge hunter—led us hunting along a loch, where the ocean, squeezed as in a glass case, shuddered, as though resentful of its trap, as though it considered everyone as intruder. I was awed by the water’s dark and the chasms menacing it. Deer eluded us and while we followed the loch, I lost interest in the hunt for the quarry of sea and earth, spirit and well-being.

Hunting, walking, eating, drinking, love-making, this was the happiest time of my life. Her brother’s acceptance amounted to adoption; he often came to my room and talked at length, sharing intimacies; the only misadventure during my stay was an attack of hungry peasants who swarmed the castle court, shrilly de­manding food, some in kilts with silent bagpipes.

Ellen and I visited the ruins of a sprawling Cistercian abbey on her Dunira property; there, under the vaulted archway, where roses climbed, I felt inspired, and, staying on I wrote Cymbeline, scenes and words coming easily, happiness a constant companion: the sweetness of her personality seemed altogether mine. Words and flesh—they were mine, in that sun and cloud world of Dunira.

The weather settled into a steady spell, my room overlooking garden, lake and bluecap forest. London might have been at the bottom of the sea: I could not have cared less. Its dirt and beauty—I never missed them.

Visiting the abbey frequently, we met several of the monks who resided in a section of the refectory; their geniality contented us and we lingered with them, in their herb garden, by a fountain—pigeons about. A marvelously tiny man, spry though old, gave us a parchment book, one he had rubricated, pleased to see us in love.

Hugh accompanied us occasionally to bring food for the brothers, making the short trip with donkeys carrying loaded panniers. He, too, would linger, sharing our mood.

Abbey garden, fountains, vegetables and herbs in rows:

a collection of rare fans on a wall:

Hugh and Shakespeare drink at a refectory table:

a peasant enters and Hugh beats the man

who is asking for alms:

skirl of bagpipes.

O

n the Scottish coast the sunset prowled the lowtide combers, roll­ing cloud into cloud, wave into wave. The clouds absorbed orange with yellow and the yellow took on red, the red brooming low, sweeping shoreward, reaching the sand at our feet.

Is it true that we saw the sunset together, her arms around me, the rocks be­yond us red, the sunset extending for miles? The moon rose out of a rust-colored sky?

Stratford-on-Avon

June 11, 1615

“Darling, ours is a supreme happiness and we must cherish it,” she wrote me long ago.

For years I kept her letters in my desk at Blackfriar’s house, to lose them when the place burned: waxed, ribboned and perfumed letters, from France, Italy, and Scotland. I could rewrite some of them from memory—some.

At the time I received her letters I thought that a number of them had been detained much too long and I thought several of them had been tampered with. I put this aside as fancy for I was willing to be blind. As I think back it’s odd I never suspected censorship. And why was it I never knew till later that she and her family opposed the Queen?

The knife of one’s own stupidity cuts deepest!

A year or two after the attack on her, when she was back in Scotland, she wrote that Hugh was assassinated in Glasgow—an Elizabethan courtesy, some­one said. The shock was more of a shock coming from her: Hugh dead, big Hugh, with his cleft beard, bushy eyebrows, and mop of greying hair: the bigness of his Dunira castle comes to me, along with his hospitality.

For years I was driven half insane by a dream of an enveloping cloak: the cloak swallowed my house, trees, sun, and stars: I heard a woman scream inside this luminous thing. Behind the folds was a bearded face, coming closer and closer.

Henley Street

I was headed for home when I met Ellen and the autumn sun favored us, potentates meeting by a river, our kingdom the leaves along the shore, the ash red, our introduction friends, our hopes instantaneous. I saw beneath her gloves to her veined hands; I saw her veined breasts beneath her dress; I saw beneath her smiles the invitation, rebuffs, wiles...

Yet who dares to know royalty outside the theatre!

Home, I reminded myself, is Stratford; but, who among us remembers home and fidelity?

I loved home once, my Ann, my children, and the sharing of the things a man wants to share. I loved these in my groin and the raves of sweetness summoned me, over and over, till I was worn out and imperious insomnia stalked and kept me at my desk or sent me.

How can it be, in the midst of aged foolishness, Ellen appears, to convince, to distract—those devil eyes of hers and that black hair and her white, white skin begging love. When she speaks, I listen: I turn and listen: I turn and listen again for she is theatre, its hush, its compassion, its folly.

Jonson was right to introduce us; he thought to kill my pen and wit. It was his plot to make me plotless—great jest! He was right, for sleepless nights swept around and the pulsing indirection of sex carried me to her for yet another ren­dezvous.

Did I ever come to my senses: was it a week, month, or year? Was it she who nailed the fog over my soul? Ah, crucifix between her breasts, so soft, so im­paled! What graciousness!

London was too small for us for everyone perceived the unperceivable, im­paired our pairing and yet...but all this is past and the last seat empty.

We thought to escape to Rome, that eternal place for eternal mouths. She of­fered me money and I refused. At the theatre she begged me to accept, for us, for time, for love...and I accepted. On stage I swore to testify but I hugged my testament and my lines faltered.

We have played our parts too often, our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with honey; we bring it to the hive; and, like the bees, are murdered for our pains.

Henley Street

June 18, 1615

For months I kept at the writing of Antony and Cleopatra—Ellen seldom out of my mind. Yet the writing was an abatement of anguish, scenes lifting me out of maelstroms, Antony’s turbulence alleviating mine. Apartment and theatre were all I allowed myself, sharing time with Jonson, dividing mutual crusts.

Rain—rain—when has it rained more! It was well I had the Egyptian sun to keep my bones warm.

Some scenes evolved easily; others fought me, full of sound and fury. I could not visualize certain scenes on the stage and sometimes strange actors walked the boards and stole my lines, fixing them with their own personalities. Alleyn stalked as Caesar, and I had to re-write again and again.

Baxter affronted me with his buffoonery and I had to cross out his lines. Phips—our cheerful homosexual—had Cleopatra in his perfumed arms, jeering at me. Kempe jigged.

On top of all this, insomnia set in and never left me for weeks. March – April – May, it was the warmth of May that unlocked its crossbow and shot me out­doors, to sit and sit for hours.

There, in the sun, my shirt open, shoes off, grass alive, lilacs alive, birds twirping, I knew I could make Antony and Cleopatra successful. There in the sun people and river came alive. The sun’s gnomon wrote. I bowed my head and waited. At my desk, I hurled my sentiency... alive, it must come alive, to hurl aside life’s muddle: alive: these people from the past must speak: nothing is more remote than yesterday: speak to them: make them chroniclers: break their sleep.

The Thames with anchored and sailing ships:

Ellen and Shakespeare on board a coaster,

leaning on the taffrail:

She settles her tam and quotes from Two Gentlemen of Verona.

They talk of Naples as sailors leer at them

from on top a stack of boxes.

Henley Street

June 20, 1615

E

llen and I sailed the Thames, the water stippled with gulls; our hands locked, we stood at the stern and hoped for a smooth voy­age, with love, our rudderbar credulous to us, the wind mild and lasting. In Venetian wine there would be happiness, we promised each other...

But why are you lost to me and I alive?

Ellen—what is this, that reaches round us and never arrives; what is this that promises return?

Ours was a proper departure, landing us on the Italian shore, love in a town of disinterested people.

Perhaps I want the impossible: yes, yes, I want that time when we were there in Naples, when we strolled the seaside; when we sailed the waterlanes and walked Roman streets and her fountains watched us with sleepy eyes, spray beaded on some bronze arm.

I dislike borrowing things and yet I’m borrowing memories, borrowing time, those bronzes, our return, our boat bucking seas, sending us north, ice off the larboard, back to reality, debts, conniving. We said good-bye but our good-bye was postponement. Our wheel became St. Catherine’s. At a gypsy teller’s tent there was a kind of double silence.

I lived for my work, starved for it.

With my pen I quartered the earth and green pastures and made them live for her and the witchcraft of hope, to shake off sadness and burst the anarchies of soul.

Incorrect to heaven, some say.

June 22, 1615

What a cocked up play, my Coriolanus. To fill my pocket! To fob off bad for good, that was it. I leaned on one crutch and fought with another—and fell. Too many of my plays were crutched. I borrowed too much from Plutarch and oth­ers. I worshipped royalty. I was too conventional, too romantic, borrowing plots, borrowing, borrowing, double sure, never sure, cocksure.

Henley

Midsummer-day

And I must guess the identity of her attackers—or why they wanted her life. Christ, we had our list of suspects. And what came of our grim suppositions? Nothing. We said: was it robbery, I prithee? Jealousy? Hatred? Politics? We said. We have said and I go on saying. Thrift, Horatio, thrift...and I have not saved.

Henley Street

June 26, 1615

Hamnet...

Today is your death day.

After you died I went to the shore and the sea’s clods of wood and detritus infused in me a loneliness that nothing has every wiped out: a wrangle of foam goes on and on inside me; the grey that topped the abyss of ocean finds a darker grey in me; the gulls are sleep-flying for you.

Hamnet, my son...

Prince of my house, I loved you. We had such fun. Good day, sweet boy, how dost thou, good boy? May flights of angels sing you on your way. When you died, Stratford teemed with monsters. Your hand in mine, such a cold hand, you said adieu. What God was this to snuff you out at eleven. Grief stiffened me: I feel it today, when there should have been a birthday party not a remembrance. The sea rolls back on me as I sit here, my legs unable to move, pain working in me.

The Queen and her killings...time and its murders...they are alike! The unfair­ness of life, O what angels sing the truth? What angels! Go, fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in’t.

God took him from me...damn the God that steals your son.

King of grief they might have called me. Now, all is mended by many years: ours be your patience, your gentle hand lead us, and take our hearts.

I had thought to leave him something beside my father’s coat-of-arms. I had thought to introduce him to the theatre, have him think about my plays, have him know the better part of London. He would have been a friend of Drake’s; perhaps he might have sailed on Raleigh’s Virginia voyages. Perhaps Jonson might have taught him Latin. Perhaps is my treadmill, and I wear it thin.

He went to a few plays with me and thrilled to them. He respected me. Loved me. What were his thoughts, as he died? To be such a short, short time on stage! Was he resentful, bewildered? I think he was confused because of the great fever. Good God, what was the use of his flowering? It was an error of the moon...it makes men mad.

To thine own self be true, they say, and I, still harping, I ask your credent ear to listen: we shall not look upon his like again?

Speak... I go no further.

Stratford-on-Avon

Flowers in my hand, I thought to visit his grave, but as I limped across the yard, thinking of the bone house and how each of us ends there, remembering those underneath my shoes, under the tree, under the threatening sky, I laid the flowers on another’s grave, and the dove carved on that granite nodded, as it were, pecked me across the grass, among the weeds, reminding me of other men’s grief.

That woman, over there on her knees, isn’t that Nancy Richards? I recognize her shoulders and the back of her head. Her father died last month.

What stupidity, this crawling, mewing, kneeling, this unresurrectable world, with weeds that smell of dust.

I remember a king’s grave in Denmark, with falcons carved on it, falcons of black marble, perched on top a branch, carved black centuries ago.

I walked through the rain, moving as fast as my legs would let me, my soul full of discord and dismay, wishing I had not gone, resolved to confine myself to myself, incarcerate my grief in my writing, or, if I could not write, be ennobled, not afflicted as other men are with contagion.

The fault, dear Brutus...

After his death, the dissentious Judith and Ann used to side against me: “He’s no good, Judith,” Ann preached vehemently. “What does he care for any of us! He’s always away in London. You’ve heard him say that life’s but a walkin’ shadow. We’re just so many shadows to him!”

I would stare at Judith after one of Ann’s outbursts; I would look at her and through some sort of necromancy I would see Hamnet’s face—I would remem­ber our fun, our fishing, our swimming in the Avon.

It was not the constant conspiracy of Ann and Judith that drove the final nail; it was Judith’s resemblance, same color and texture of hair, same blue eyes, same half smile, same propensity to giggles, same way of rubbing her hands on her clothes. I had always favored Hamnet because he and I had shared more. Now, now that Judith lived, I could not accept his death. Of course I never wanted her to die. As long as the twins lived there was accord. If death must steal one of them...but I couldn’t, wouldn’t choose. Yet, in ugliest anger, I had shouted my preference. And she knew I often saw Hamnet when I looked at her: I’ve seen her run when I stared at her: I’ve heard her cry: “Mama, he’s looking at me that way!”

“These are my twins,” I used to say, showing them to people. Twins—for how long!

I bought her a goonhilly pony, an excellent pacer, and taught her to ride. I got her a lamb and a puppy, I brought her gifts from London. I brought her things from France and Italy. There was little chance to get through to her because of Ann. If I won Judith for a while, I lost her when at work in London. She never wrote to me...or Ann destroyed those letters. During my years in the theatre, in London and touring the provinces, all those years, I re­ceived no note. She never expressed a desire to see one of my plays, seemed disinterested in my life in the city—unless it was to suggest I bring something when I came home.

Home?

July 1, 1615

I am that wanderer of night, full many a morning have I seen flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye...

There’s memory, that’s for remembrance; pray, you, love, remember...and there is pansies; that’s for thought...there’s fennel for you, and columbine; there’s rue...you must wear your rue with a difference.

Through the years they mangled those lines! How cold to hear them back­stage! How cold to hear them now, here, in my room, echoing from varnished beams, off-stage in my oriel of yesterday.

But I should not have gotten sick: I should have stayed in London to the end, fought the Puritans, fought the King, the tax collectors, the players of the shrew’s men!

Pain shut me out: the body must have its moments of solace—the mind its soothsayer!

I would give you violets...but they are planted around a gravestone.

I was a young man when I wrote those lines; like Ophelia I ride on bawdy repetitions, error on error.

The table of my memory is dusted with crumbs.

Off-stage, the wind gushes; on-stage, there’s a frenzied pitch of “no!”

Chorus, players!

This love, this royalty by jackanapes brought to earth, the stage to my back: what can a man affirm in such a position: flight? I speak to her and she puts her fingers on my lips and holds her beauty like a whip over me. The curtain came down quickly: fie, the curtain often comes down swiftly, manipulated by fury, a last sound snapped out, muffling resolution, covering courage...

There is a curtain for love and one for hate: there is a curtain for youth and another for age. And when we finally realize these things we are dotards, and our realization laughs.

The executioner’s curtain is no doubt the swiftest. The jig maker’s safest. The priest’s dullest. The mariner’s loneliest. The lover’s saddest.

Henley Street

July 8, ’15

These pages are so unlike my plays and sonnets and yet I have to struggle to get anything down! Here is my mock dukedom; since I can not write any longer I look back across time from the shelf of my memory, longing to improve my existence: I am certain that the old word-chattels gladly deserted me, looking for a young man, no doubt, an upstart from Snitterfield, enroute to London, riding a brood mare, humming...hey, non nonny...

...Heaven mend all!

Henley Street

July 9, 1615

Elsinore has a tongue of land that licks at time, a place that ends with defeat, its castle and its people falling into apparitions.

Usurping night, Elsinore made me face the northern ocean, irresolution. There was no illusion to being there: rain cusped out of sky: the snow fell: it was a bitter time to see the place, a blastment. I had shaken off that incessant pain that stabbed the roof of my skull each time I leaned over, that writhed through my eyes: I would rub my eyes and feel something click in my brain as if it had fallen into place again. But I was still weak from this ailment and tired from long journeys and longer thoughts. I was filled with new dreads, especially here, under the rain. Irresolution: it is wrong to deny it for there is no denying its power.

There is something like death, being alone in a foreign land. With determina­tion grappling, the loneliness and death-sense grip harder. So I felt that I was borrowing from everything around me.

It is a custom for some of us to think and yet I turn against that custom. It is better to live, simply as simple people live. I wanted to live without the paper-world, to shun its distortions, escape its death head, the charnel house of yester­day.

As I stood on that tongue of land, I heard the slobber of the sea: I heard old men whisper: I heard old passions. My blood was young and yet I could not get away. The porches of my ears wanted friendship, I, the kind hand, the kinder mouth.

“If you were here there would be reason enough. Without you, there is no more than walls and sky and food. To be sure, I eat. To be sure, I move about. You understand what I mean. I find that there is so much in life that never gets said. When I am with you I am unable to say it...old plaint. I try to convey with my presence—that is help. You, too, have this desire, and have expressed it. When we were in bed, mating, there was a beauty in that union that suf­ficed...until tomorrow. Then, caught up in time, I sensed the old longing, to share the unshareable, to reach the unreachable. Here, in this cold room, I am trying to make life a little more livable, for you, for me.”

So I wrote her.

Stratford

Years Ago

At Oxford, it is pleasant to recall, I stopped at Duvenant’s inn frequently, the rooms and meals much to my taste. Madame Duvenant, dressing like someone from an Inigo Jones’ masque, her rosy sex refreshing, greeted me with a favor­able eye. Veal, shoulder of mutton, rabbit, green fish...gingerbread...straw­ber­ries...claret: she knew my favorites, sharing my meals and bed. When I arrived, tired by travel, she had someone look after me, prepare my meal; then, we en­joyed each other’s company in the dining room she kept for private use. A Lon­doner and play-goer, she fixed her lusty eyes on me, hand on my arm, and made me feel I had never been away. She asked no promises, required no letter-writing, no payment. “It’s late. Will, shall we go up to bed?” Why are there so few generous women?

Henley Street

July 13, 1615

I’d like one more ferry trip across the Thames, in the morning, the water dark, Sly at the oars, telling me about the latest girl, of the girls he has ferried, girls he wanted to love but could never love, old, old Sly.

“There’s one, Will, you just can’t beat. She’s about this tall, tiny around the waist, and she makes you know, before you know it, that she can be had for very little, very sweetly done too, that’s the game of it...that’s the game of her, that little one, Portia, they call her. Portia, the one with grey eyes and small mouth. When she stands up beside me in the boat to pay her fare, I groan. It’s terrible being old, Will, when you can’t do it any more. And I want to do it to her, to be young again. That Portia, she comes mostly in the evenings, I guess you know why. But she’s not always alone, but when she’s alone, we talk. That she, she is little around the waist but has melon breasts, the kind, you know how they are. I will give you her address, if you want. Shillings, now Will! But she’s not one you’ll forget, I warn ye. That mouth of hers and them eyes of hers. Faggots for her, that’s it, Will, faggots for men who see her...”

The boat shifts, Sly’s oars are cracked, his old face crisped from the sunny crossings, the winds and fogs. He’s been boatman for forty-odd years, he says. He has worn out a dozen boats, which he builds himself, to make them stout enough. Sun on his boat, the water dark...

I’d like to cross once more with him, though he’s been dead a long time, cross with other boats around, small boats and schooners, some with sails un­furled, seaward bound.

St. Swithin’s Day

If I knew where I was going to die I wouldn’t go near the place.

Stratford

July 20, 1615

Today, warm sun and silence were mine and pain alleviated: I hoped for re­covery, hoped to write again, hoped that my memory might outlive death half a year; so shall I progress, ant-wise, day by day: ants, as you creep over the wood­work, stumble against the grain, think of me and the words I summon: convic­tion me to another Rosalind: the Touchstone will unblacken and reveal pure, pure gold: alchemy of ruffians and angels:

Tongues I’ll hang on every tree

For the souls of friend and friend...

The sword in my chimney corner has not been unsheathed for years: when I bought it I thought I had the keenest blade in London, sharper than my rapier: when I carried it I liked to give it a flick now and then, to catch the eye of a woman: I kept it polished: it saved my life in a street fracas: Hamnet liked it: he used to shoulder it and parade about: I thought it would keep me young forever: I thought it would cut across time, loosen parchment and paper, let flood a bevy of immortal words above a sea of faces...

...for Thomas Combe.

The Roebuck on the Atlantic, bucking water,

sailors topmast, Raleigh in his cabin,

one eye on the compass, another on a manuscript:

Books line the walls; a monkey chitters:

the Roebuck pitches:

Raleigh’s jewels flash on his hands:

“Mermaid,” yells a bow sailor.

Henley Street

July 24, 1615

I

had thirty-five days at sea with Raleigh:

How he commands, respected by his seamen, each crewman called by name. There is adequate leisure aboard his frigate. I never saw anything done “on the double” as aboard an Essex ship where the captaincy seemed insecure.

On board the Roebuck I kept at my writing, lolling and writing on deck or passing hours in his cabin where I gave up to his booked walls: volumes in French, English, Italian, Greek, manuscripts in Latin and Hebrew, his literary world broader than mine.

In his cabin, under his table lantern during bad weather, during squalls, I wrote an act and then, at Raleigh’s urg­ing, read it aloud. Feet propped on a mother-of-pearl chest, he listened gravely, smoking his clay pipe, brandy in reach, his comments as mellow as his drink, Oxford accent to my liking.

Ere we were ten days old at sea I had written several scenes—writing in the sun and spray, sitting on coils of rope, a gun lashed in front of me, gulls mewing.

“Mermaid...mermaid,” a sailor yelled aloft, and we scuttled to the starboard rail, to see something break water and then submerge, its pearly back toward us.

She swam and dove, flipping in and out of swells, the bubbles foaming around her, making off at a 40 degree angle from our stern, pearl or green grey, though I never saw her distinctly.

The excited sailor who had spotted her claimed that he had seen her face... “such a beautiful face!”

Raleigh appeared.

“They’re deep swimmers,” he said, as we leaned far over, hoping she might reappear. “She’ll likely stay down a long time. Must have powerful lungs, those mermaids.”

He told of other mermaids: he had heard one call through fog and mist on the Orinoco river; he had seen one off the Cape, near a small island; he said that seeing a mermaid spells luck.

He went on talking of a trip upriver, jungle river, heat, crocodiles, green birds, monkeys with beards, butterflies, solid white butterflies, bigger than your hands: his descriptions sent my brain going: I too was the Queen’s favorite, Shepherd of the Ocean, sailing a Golden Hind: I would find El Dorado in Manoa.

His accent sometimes thickened to a brogue and it was difficult to follow. Talking of his travels, his eyes grew nervous, searching, searching, seeing inside, greying: his arms gestured.

We leaned against the taffrail, as the ship heeled under a wind, white caps racing after.

His Roebuck is splendid, new, well-equipped, faster than others of design. He and his navy draughtsmen spent months on her, and she cost him a fortune.

On this run we fired new cannon, firing them to test their recoil, trying a de­vice designed by his chief gunner: for Mr. Ames the firing took place after dawn, when the ocean was smooth; I was wakened five or six mornings; the great ship rolled in protest and rigging and beams creaked. One morning I was on deck to witness the testing.

Legs spread, soap on him, he rode the swells, while a sailor threw water over him, a sexful man, proud, and that same pride was at dinner in his cabin while being served among his officers and it was there while he read to me at the same table, eatables cleared, read me from the Greek poets, Pindar’s ode on boxing, Simonides and his Perseus imprisoned in a chest at sea, Anakreon: reading the Greek and then translating as if it were his tongues.

It seemed to me he might be fit to govern the new world...a great, wise colo­nist...

On our trip we visited Madeira Island, disembarking at noon, the cambers keeling us into warm, shallow water, the weather perfect. I had a carcanet that I was determined to give a girl, in exchange. The priest, in the town, was very de­termined to detain me: to please him, I had to see the hairs of the Virgin, treas­ured in a box: the coil of hair kept the convent free of famine, he insisted: with his gigantic paunch I felt he might cause a famine of his own: he had a tree-filled, bird-filled cage he wanted me to see, strung with brass wires, where hundreds of birds lived. Negro girls, naked except for the cloth pad underneath the calabash shells they carried on their heads, wandered past the cage to see the birds, and found me most amusing. Their smooth, dark features, slick jet hair, round waists and small breasts were delightful. The priest had to leave—called by the convent bell. I gave the youngest my carcanet: the bushes slid about us, our hands to­gether, the leaves cool, the cool stream cool beside us, giving us water in our hands: birds in the aviary whistled and sang, while she fondled the carcanet and lay with me: I had never had anyone so young, accomplished, kindly, wooing, mouth tasting of fruit: she peeled fruit taken from a bush and we ate together: she filled her calabash at the stream and left me, lying, dreaming of her smiles and stroking hands...

Stay illusion.

I liked sprawling in my bunk, the ocean light illuminating the ceiling, a book or two beside me.

From above came the pad-pad of barefoot sailors, shift of rigging and cord­age, yaw of boom, sough of wind and flap of canvas; from below came the gur­gle of seas and jab of crested rollers that sometimes held the ship suspended for a moment and then permitted her to careen as she drove down inclines steep enough to shake the reaches of the sails.

When I dozed I felt the vastness, ringed vastness, and I was monarch through nearly closed lids: I was ruler of my inconsistencies: I dreamed an island, chained by surf and reef, where life was incredibly carefree, a warmth of flowers, fruit—women.

At night, in the bunk, oil lamp swinging, I imagined the uncharted waters be­neath us, porpoise and whale, creatures that pursued us as we floated across a valley, across a hill where coral studded the top: I saw monsters pass and re-pass, dark blue, grey, orange, fins fluted like fans close to our keel. Streamers of kelp and seaweed tangled crab and shark and I fell asleep, my play forgotten, the lamp burning, burning, burning...

Screaming, a seaman plunged from our topgallant, to die on deck while we were outrunning a storm.

Raleigh had his body wrapped in canvas and tossed overboard. No ceremony. Giant, wind-wracked combers.

“Do you know his name? Is there any record?” I asked.

“Timothy Parkes.”

“Where was he from?”

“Dover. He was wanted there for murdering two women.”

“Was he a good seaman?”

“No. And he was eaten up with scurvy.”

And Raleigh’s face said: “What kind of ship can an officer command sailored by rogues?” But he was all man: I saw him, in his canvas sack, as all men, fal­ling...falling.

There was never another voyage for me after Raleigh’s...nor was there ever another Sir Walter. I should have been his champion. He needed me to fight for him. I have often shut my eyes and seen his books and sensed the cradling lull of his ship and felt the grace and power of him standing beside me: books, beams, a pointed beard, a swinging lamp, smell of oakum and ocean.

To think that I witnessed his trial and made no attempt to defend him...to think that I saw him in prison...to think...cold venison! Cry your mercy!

Henley Street

July 28, 1615

At the Mermaid Tavern, Raleigh laughed over his ale, his lanky body screwed on a rickety chair, the wind and rain howling, people coming and going, their clothes soggy, the wind gusting inside with each arrival. Most newcomers made for the fireplace, stamping and shaking out their coats; boots and leggings steamed.

Grinning, Raleigh lit his pipe, a dozen men around our table, elbowing Ben Jonson and me.

“Come on, Ben, smoke another, and you, too, Will.”

Raleigh’s coat was ripped, where a sword or cutlass had slashed; he pushed a tobacco pouch and pipe toward me.

“I’ll drink with you—but not smoke,” I said.

“Try again. You’ll learn to like it.”

“You experiment,” I said. “Once was enough.”

“But I’m not experimenting. I’ve smoked on the long watches. It settles the blood and calms the mind. The Indians...”

“We know about the Indians,” Jonson said. “Just remember, we’re not Indi­ans!”

“You might better be! Here, lad, bring us more ale! Let’s drink!”

“Here’s to your return! London’s London with you around.”

“Have you seen my new play?”

“What play is it?”

“The Winter’s Tale,” I said.

“What—a chilly play on top of this miserable weather! Why a month ago I was basking in the sun...you and your plays! Is this Denmark and another Ham­let? Tell me, Will, was Hamlet named for your son—are those lines in his honor?”

Jonson interrupted and answered for me:

“When my boy died I wrote something for him. I was in prison then and the jailer grabbed my manuscript and spat on it. Bah, that’s the kind of crassness that shakes you. I’ve forfeited goods in payment of my stupidities but I haven’t for­feited my hatred of injustice! It’s another kind of injustice when a boy, a stripling, dies. Will made Hamnet into Hamlet, an outcry against this world.”

He drank his ale and I saw him examine his thumb, where they had branded it when he was in prison; he nodded to himself; I suppose his thoughts were of his boy, a victim of the plague...

Jonson eats poorly. Prison treatment has hurt him. His hair is greying, par­ticularly on one side, sweeping down, showing when he talks with gusto. Teeth are missing. Today he wears a suit of black wool, his cuffs clean, his collar clean. He hardly seems one of us.

Raleigh’s sword scrapes against the table as he leans forward, talking of his voyages. His is a perpetual struggle with storms and mutinies and his flashing eyes convey a courage one has to take into account. He has sent the idlers pack­ing and smokes with his pipe in the bowl of his palm, its brown the color of his hands, the five or six rings on his fingers blazing: opals and rubies, I am told.

I am also told that if he sold the jewels he wears he could pay for the con­struction of a ship-of-the-line.

Henley Street

July 30, 1615

I came across several old letters this morning. Raleigh’s is hard to decipher:

Portsmouth

March 9, 1608

Will Shakespear—

We have taken an old carrack, the Madre de Dios, and spoils clutter her deck as we lie at anchor in Portsmouth Bay, spoils, things the Queen would grow sullen over, wanting them. Some of them bloody and soaked with spray, they have a cheapness about them, a liar’s eye. You and Ben would know how to laugh and knock them about. Here’s a green gem in a brooch a negro queen must have worn, its horse’s eye staring through a slash of sail canvas. Here’s a rope of skulls carved in brownish ivory; here’s a tiara ornamented with pale yellow gems I can’t iden­tify...a pile of brass bracelets alongside a smashed cutlass. As for me, I’ll take the wind in the rigging and a clear landfall.

How are your plays going this season? Sometimes, when a sea rages, Macbeth howls in my ear, Othello lifts his hand as stars dive below the washed horizon.

Shun the Queen’s condemnations. It is usually her free­dom—seldom ours. Stay clean!

But if I could write like you I would try to destroy political chicanery, though meddling with the Crown may spell my doom.

Well, I will make London late next month, and see you at the Tavern.

Raleigh’s pen dug into the paper, and the signature has almost disappeared for lack of ink.

The Tower

Will Shakespear—

When I scribbled verses on a window, our Queen was pleased. I did not know—my crystal would not divulge that I would become a chemist in the Tower, alchemist of solitude. I thought the compass mine, shrewdly boxed...

London

April 9, 1593

Will—

For years I have been planning an expedition up the Ori­noco, to locate a gold mine. The fabled mine is near Spanish settlements and these may present hazards to any English force. A Spaniard, a Captain Berrio, is entrenched there, along the River. The expedition will tax my resources but I am deter­mined for the sake of the Crown: to carry out my plans I will require several shallow draft frigates and several small boats; there are no accurate maps and the mine is in fever jungle. Cer­tes a month or two will go into exploration, hacking this way and that. The roguish crew of prison perverts will contribute their share of com­plications, no doubt of that, my friend. Con­sole yourself that you will never know such an experience as dealing with deckloads of cutthroats. To be a voyageur you must condone scapegoats, assassins, rapists, thieves...but you know our maritime history. I have been accused of bad voy­ages...who has not made bad voyages who dared voyages? If this expedition can be materialed the victualing will be a matter of months. Wish me well...wish me God’s speed.

I am contributing £3,000, and it seemeth to me this Empire is reserved for Her Majesty and the Nation. I can find the gold King of Cundinamarca: el hombre dorado. Who knows, as in Sergas de Esplandián, we may reach the Island of California, in­habited by Amazon women with passionate hearts and great strength, where there is abundant gold.

There were other letters in this vein, about his future. As explorer he was to the manner born. Thou canst not be false to any man—his letters seemed to say.

The Tower

Like our ship Revenge I am surrounded by an armada of enemies, all my pikes splintered. In the beginning of the fight I had a hundred for me; volleys, boardings, and enterings have done their damage...this composition and exile are the dullest and longest in the history of our Tower; the book I am writing is for Prince Frederick, a slow, slow tacking about; yet you, who respect writing, realize the salvation. Tell me, friend, that I will fare well with my History of the World...

It is still my error that I never assisted him: it was my error to have shut my mind: there are many I could have helped as I went along. But to pass by some­one great—that is great misfortune.

I hear him telling about how he burned the town of San José; I hear him telling about the treachery of the Tarawa Indians; his terrible thirst when his ship ran out of water at sea; he is boarding a Spanish frigate, raiding for guns...

’Sblood, the Spanish are a cruel lot, chaining the caciques, scorching their naked bodies with hot bacon, beating them, starving them, decapitating them...

The Tower

Write to me, lad, before thought’s relicts utterly obsess me and the ghouls remove me in their stinking chains. I have seen and heard them, ghouls and ghosts of this town and tower, seen and heard them cringe and bully, nightlong. Stones multiply their menace. There’s an old seadog from Dublin crumpled in a cell here, a grumbling bag: he claims he used to sail with me; by his own confession he is the murderer of his crippled father. He is to be freed in the Spring. Freed? Free—are we ever free, my lad? When I sniff the brined air I am hard put not to cast myself off the Tower—I still hope to see the sails double-reefed and porpoises rising off the bow...

Later he wrote bread—bread—bread. “Time drives the flocks,” he said: “I am reading the Amoretti... have you read Spenser recently?

“None can call again the passed time,” he wrote. I repeated those seven words. I repeat his bread...bread...bread...it is not bread we want. I did not care. Who cares now?

Henley Street

August 1, ’15

What times we had, Raleigh, Marlowe, Jonson, and I, Marlowe and his wit, Raleigh and his tales of the sea, Jonson and his satirical pomposities in Latin or Greek. Then, then...Marlowe’s murder crept through our veins and left us dumb or feverish, our very gatherings viewed with disapproval.

Hail drubbed our windows, the chill of complicity and duplicity spread over cobbles, the clatter of horses’ hooves meant torture on the spit of tomorrow: these were hitched to our beads of sweat.

We had seen our share of slings and arrows. Was it important who killed Marlowe? We weren’t sure. All threads of evidence were thin threads! We praised Marlowe, shuffled through our worn pockets to bury him—Raleigh at sea now. We excused, blamed, made our exodus.

Ann said, with scorn:

“It’s the company you keep! London! Always London!”

As if our plays could be produced in Stratford!

“It’s men who blaspheme God who find the gutter! Listen to what people say about Raleigh! He’ll have a bad end!” So they prophesied over sour beer.

Chris Marlowe was squat, dark, tousle-headed, many-freckled, with wretched teeth and poor eyes. He weighed far too much for a small man—his clothes were sacks at times—his body lost inside for all its bulk. He had character and a voice that conveyed character—his speech superior to many actors. He could memo­rize lines quickly, and speak them sincerely, interpreting with sound thinking behind them. When nervous he picked his teeth and jogged his foot, when writ­ing or talking, not on the stage. He slumped in his chair habitually, as if he had been on his feet for days. When he spoke, there was Marlowe, bringing you to attention, his eyes serious, the warmth of him coming to you, a piece of cur­rency.

Stratford

Marlowe and I worked throughout the night, troubled by reeky candles, rain and chill. He kept us grinding by saying we’d soon see the sun cross the roof tops.

The sun...where was it?

Our playwriting went badly as we worked at rephrasing, changing, cutting, adding. I would write a scene and he would recompose it, or he would start out and then I would revise. We had to have our three acts finished by noon, for our players.

Red-eyed, Marlowe sipped ale, his quill chronicling, squeaking, or head on his arms, he snatched a fragment of sleep.

Rain over the house, over the mansard, clicking against the glass, sounding colder and colder, dampening our spirits and our paper, making my knees and ankles ache...rain.

I wanted to toss myself on the cot and smother myself with blankets and call it a day. Marlowe said we’d soon see the dawn. God’s bodkins!

In that four-square room, cluttered with Greek and Roman masks, posters, books, and dirt, we wrote Titus over and over. When the manuscripts were ready for the theatre even the rain sounded tired.

In those days, for economy’s sake, we often cut each other’s hair, sitting in the doorway or on the steps, when the weather was good. Draped in sheet or towel, I sat on a chair while Marlowe snipped. Scissors and comb usually put him in a whistling mood. Gently puffing a tune, he scissored away—the slowest bar­ber in London. He liked to complain about the color of my hair, saying he wished it was as black as Othello’s so he could see it easily.

“I’ve cut so many bad lines from your plays this job should be easy.”

Chris was better at barbering than I. He said I didn’t keep my mind on my work.

“If I had the money, I’d certainly excuse you. Come on, no more time out for jotting down lines. Let’s get through this mess. Presently, it will be dark. I never trust you by candlelight.”

In separate crimson frames:

Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare:

A mirage of Armada, sails rattling, guns roaring...

At sea, Sir Francis tells yarn of brave seamanship:

a man stabs another in the eye with a dagger.

Silence.

Stratford

August 5, 1615

S

pelling God backward gets dull after a while: at the clandestine meetings where Raleigh, Greene, Marlowe, Drake, Jonson and others crucified everyone’s beliefs, they gradually dulled their ar­rows, for me: I thought: Lucifer can smell too strongly of sulfur too often. “Am I not a mighty man who bears a hundred souls on his back!”—talk like this was to little purpose, to my way of thinking. How much saner to keep convictions to one’s self: Yet some, surly as a butcher’s dog, paraded their beliefs. Gulled, I never went too often: the suite, in the Duke’s Thames house, had about it an air of trouble brewing, trickery, and the abrupt appearance of men-at-arms. The talkers walked or sat about, under brilliant chandeliers, shad­owing their shadows on the polished floors, starched cuffs thrown back over satin sofas. Whiffs of cologne and perfume over-topped the whiff of garret. Rapiers shimmered. The Queen, if she chose, could do away with each of us: a nod of her wig. I seriously suspected all their pattery, branding it half-hearted conspiracy, mistrust and defamation. The passage of time has confirmed, not denied my feelings: perspective has brought out the folly of guffawings at creeds.

St. Grouse’s Day

1615

For weeks, after Marlowe’s murder, I avoided the Mermaid Tavern. When a courtier from the Queen’s court came to me at my apartment and suggested, with coughs behind his perfumed handkerchief, that I leave London for a while, I agreed... I was rather unaccustomed to such visits!

Meeting Jonson, as I left the city, sensing evasion on his part, I felt ill at ease, suspicion stepping in. Later, he visited me at Stratford, brief visits, but he was aware of my doubts; my reserve must have told him.

Jonson said:

“The Queen has been spying...last week your London apartment was searched...if you’re smart, stay away...she’s making up her mind...”

I turned that over.

What could I pin on the Queen? What could she pin on me? Which play? A broadside? A pamphlet? With Jonson back in London I sent out feelers. When I was convinced that he was loyal I would remember that he had killed two men. Queen? Pawn? Right? Wrong?

September first

1615

Months after Marlowe’s murder, I learned that the Queen had had hirelings kill him. I confided in Raleigh as we stood on a pier, near one of his frigates...the Thames wind whipping our clothes.

How well I recall his expression when I told him. Mouth tense, eyes afire, he grabbed at the hilt of his sword and exclaimed:

“I command nine ships. How many cutthroats do you think I have at my beck and call? In a fortnight, Marlowe’s murderers will be dead. Our Queen will know that she has been out-maneuvered, that there are plotters keener than she. She killed Marlowe because he was too rabid an atheist...”

Those were vain words on Raleigh’s part: he did nothing: I did nothing. How gutter-cheap we are in times of stress, how obliterative, given to expediency, wedded to her and safety!

Next Day

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields

Woods or steepy mountain yields...

And I will make thee a bed of roses

And a thousand fragrant posies...

Chris never knew what it was to have a bed of roses, not even for a fortnight.

He might have gone on to splendid heights. His verses mean much to me. I liked him for his clowning, his patience, his kind words, his persuasive pen. Glover’s son and shoemaker’s boy—we had many a boisterous time. Of his plays I think best of Tambourlaine and Faustus.

From jigging veins of riming mother wits

And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay

We’ll lead you to the stately tent of war...

As we collaborated on our plays, he was constantly fighting debts, his mis­tress riding him hard. Our tankards full we worked in my place or his. I shied away from his association with the School of Atheists, leaving that to him and Raleigh.

No writer could have had a better guide for Titus, Henry and Richard. M__ had learned to smoke and like R__ had to putter with tobacco, pipe and flint.

One afternoon he used a scrap of poetry to light his pipe. Letting the paper burn and then char on the floor, he said:

“That was a poem well used.”

Was it another “Shepherd’s Song”?

I should have collected his works and seen them published. Now I could not track down his pieces. Ah, the shoulds of life...

This is the anniversary of his death, another churlish scruff of day with wretched rain...the rain it raineth every day...true, boy, come bring us to this hovel...the tyranny of the world is too rough at times...give me your hand.

Jonson received a letter from Ellen, Ellen in Edinburgh, writing at home, ex­pressing her friendly concern for me:

“Will has written me but I am worried. Can you look after him?” She was afraid after Marlowe’s death. “Will you write and reassure me?” she asked. “Ed­inburgh is far... I’m sick with a cold...so much rain.”

And it was raining as Jonson read me her letter, in his apartment. I opened a book of his and leafed through it, standing by his window, the rain leaded on the pages, long, grey, thin lines, tracing problems that threatened us, a bond tying in with her concern, lessening that distance between us.

The wall felt damp to my shoulder and I smelled stale bread and stale cheese on Jonson’s desk.

“What came between us?” I asked.

“Are you talking to me...or to her?”

“To you.”

“Bad luck...the thing that comes between most lovers.”

“And what do I do to change it?”

“You know London’s soothsayers...they’re ready to help you. Pay them.”

“How much?”

“Pay...oh, with your life, your work. Pay and she’s yours.”

“It’s stupid to talk like that.”

“It’s stupid to fall in love. Just fuck and go.”

Stratford

September 9, 1615

When Raleigh was brought to trial by the Crown and condemned to life im­prisonment, I began a play, thinking to defend him, troubled by the royal hatred leveled at him, for his loyalty to England was unquestionable.

His trial was pure sham.

SHEPHERD OF THE OCEAN

Scene I: Courtroom, in winter

Raleigh: You claim me guilty, but I am innocent. In no way, at no time, have I conspired against the throne. At sea, I defended our country against all enemies. I supplied ships for the Queen. In Virginia, my colony is dedicated to all that England stands for. Sirs, I protest!

Judge: Damned you are, damning our people with your stinking guilt. You have conspired! We have every proof...there’s not the slightest doubt of your perfidy! You defended Queen Elizabeth against the Earl of Essex but he was the King’s friend, never his adversary. You have every guilt upon you. You are grossly guilty of plotting against our nation and our King. King James sees fit to sentence you...

Maybe the King had secret reasons for Raleigh’s banishment but I doubt it. Some call Sir Walter the “King of Liars.” His letters from prison no longer come and Tower over me, filling me with guilt.

Should I burn his letters: could there be family in­volvement at some unfore­seen time? I should burn many things—many memories!

Ocean Skimmer, you pilloried yourself. We were friends: those were good days but not good enough to last. What lasts?

The oriel outlasts us! Its quarrels outlast ours!

September 11, 1615

In my mind’s eye we meet at the taproom of the Mermaid’s Tavern...

Raleigh: ...At sea, weeks away from port, alone on the deck, rigging and sails creaking, I’ve felt it... I’ve felt it in the smash of waves and moan of beams...felt it in the expanse of sky...that there must be a god.

Marlowe: Should be a god! Put it that way.

Raleigh: No...let it go as I’ve said it. As you ride at the bow, as spray hurls on board, there are certain certainties, rebuffs of personal fancy, declarations of a godhead.

Jonson: The Greek helmsman felt those same declarations, and his god was Zeus.

Marlowe: I don’t go for such thinking on my part, Sir Walter. It shuts me in­side a cage and the cage has a door with four heavy bars: f-e-a-r.

Raleigh: You know that each country has had a godhead.

Marlowe: Each country has its diseases, debts...despots.

Shakespeare: Are you denying your “School of Night”?

Raleigh: I’m not on trial here. I was speaking con­fidentially, no, inti­mately...that’s a better word. I was trying to share an emotion and I ask you to respect it as an emotion.

Jonson: You ask for respect. God be at your table. Everyone’s highly re­spected here—even the waiters. (Laughter)

Marlowe: Ah, shut up!

Shakespeare: We didn’t come here to quarrel.

Raleigh: Maybe we can do better with politics...or is it too hydra-headed to­night? Let’s talk about Essex. Cautiously.

Marlowe: But why cautiously?

Shakespeare: We’ll do better trying something else, not so risky. Supper’s ready. Here it comes.

Jonson: Pour the ale, boy.

Marlowe: Hugger-mugger, my cage lost its bars. The bird of fear has flown ...hunger picked the lock.

That’s how I remember an evening at the Tavern, Raleigh in his finest, wear­ing green velvet cloak, red trousers, black boots, black hat, sword; Jonson, Mar­lowe and me in our snuffbox suits, wearing our swords because of recent street fracases.

The Tower of London...

A cracked stone stairway leads to an open door:

Inside, windowless, Raleigh sits at his prison desk,

with maps, letters, books around him.

He is writing; he coughs:

Frail, he seems to be listening:

An armed guard trudges by and looks in.

Stratford

September 15, 1615

I

n ’10, sometime during the autumn I think it was, I stopped out­side Raleigh’s prison, thinking to visit him: there he was, at his deal table, books, globe, maps and papers piled about him. His door was flung wide: his pen moved: perhaps he was writing his History. Sun lay on the floor of his room. A wren sang. His hand stopped. I stepped for­ward, then faltered. His hands moved over the table: he leaned on his elbows now, coughing. He had on a grubby red woolen cape, sleeves smudged with wax. He coughed again—his shoulders shaking.

He was the one who had dared the wild and secret lands, who had sweated men and ships to reach a goal. Winds luned, storms crashed; yet he had kept on. He had wanted to explore the world for himself, for mankind! Books on board his ships, books in his brain: wind stirred parchment on his table as I stood there and he read. What if he should turn and see me? What if he should get up? Would he recognize me?

I thought: who are his friends? The thought cut me: the Great Lucifer is forgotten. Look around you. The liar is captive, will die behind these walls. They say he concocts an elixir, and gives it to his friends. No, I was not included. He needed his elixir more than I.

His white head was dirty...where was his youth? No, he had concocted hope. People said his rooms would be un­guarded...so they were. But I made no sound. The ugly Tower was still. What has happened to his Elizabeth: is she memory?

I wanted to talk to him about Spenser’s Faerie Queen, and say...Spenser...you know...no, Raleigh sailed to the Canaries, to Florida, Manoa...Hispaniola...cloak-thrower...knight...names...and his map, a large parchment, came out of the wall and stared at me, rebuking me: cloak-thrower...patron...names...John White said that he admired him...John White said...where was White now, now that he’s back from Roanoke?

Pushes hand through hair, coughs... I back away, wanting to put the wall be­tween us. I shuffled down a few steps, disgraced, down to the street, cock­roaches and rats scuttling, ivy blowing in the wind.

Let him finish his History of the World.

I had no right to disturb.

The blue cloak slips from Ellen’s shoulders and through the stabbed hole I see moon, stars, and fog, each flecked with red. Fog soaks the hole and then, then, there’s the face of an attacker, scarred, piratical. Something behind him fades into her face, so white. I see her smile her dazzling lover’s smile and I hear her laughter and the sound of her bracelets.

In the funeral procession

a small black casket is accompanied by Ann, Shakespeare,

his daughter in black, and others.

A flower falls from the casket and Shakespeare

picks it up and puts it in his pocket:

A church bell tolls:

Blue cloak over a tombstone.

I

buried Hamnet, buried father, buried myself... What is this death that eats our lives as if we were pieces of bread on a dirt plate, sacrificed to whim and time? Our crosses top a hill, row on row, a row for each generation, across fog hills, across sunny hills, Ital­ian, French, English, Scot.

Escape with me:

Now at the prow, now in the waist,

the deck, in every cabin, I flamed amazement:

sometimes I’d divide and burn in many places,

on the topmast, the yards, the bowsprit...

Henley Street

September 23, 1615

Now, now thought is closer to death than love: I live in it, longing for her, for intercourse, the ice of this winter-house aging me and the wind, poor wind, scuttling nowhere, nowhere to go.

Go to the oriel, then.

Henley Street

September 24

God, the rain, the rain at its cobble-sop, common rain on cobbles, rising out of them, climbing the ivy, moulding thatch, hurting places of the mind, shivering our secrets, insinuating with lashes, coming again and again, thieving.

The dropping of one drop can absorb a soul: its alchemy traps a man: so, we, reduced, debased, encompassed, are carried to sea, to finality, ourselves made useless, noiseless, like a million others.

I heard rain throughout the night, from lying down to getting up, no sleep, only this endrenchment, intent on obliteration, transforming life into a comedy of errors.

I was twenty-eight or so!

All morning I sawed wood for props; all afternoon I practiced lines; all eve­ning I rehearsed. My costume didn’t fit: the crown was badly torn. At four in the morning, there was no food for us. That was life at the Globe, when I first tried London.

I estimate that I have earned less than a hundred pounds from my thirty-seven plays. When I divide that by thirty years of work, I see what it represents. At least I see that much.

Henley Street

1615

“Small coals! Small coals!”

“Hot peas!”

I wish I could hear those raucous London street hawkers! I’d like to see the Thames crowded with little boats. I’d like to see the people packed in front of St. Paul’s. I’d like to be back at the Exchange, for the armorers and booksellers and glovers. I’d like to stare off-stage at a thousand rapt faces.

I miss Burbage more than anyone. He and I worked hand-in-glove for more than ten years, seeing each other almost every day. He played Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and his was the finest Lear voice-transcending. Lear was Burbage and Burbage was Lear. There were no weaknesses. Weaknesses?

I have mine—so many weaknesses.

Today I have been up and round but last week I was in bed throughout the week. When I am up and about, I freeze. My sight fades. My heart bangs. I must get to the composition of my will, the final act in my play...no applause...no whistles...silence.

Burbage could take my lines and recite them for me, adding, subtracting, modulating. If there must be rewriting I knew, through his skill, what I must do to improve a scene.

What amusing letters he used to write home, when he was traveling with the Company. He and Alleyn were as domesticated as tea.

“Dear Jug,” he would address his wife. “Dear Mouse,” Alleyn wrote his.

“Dear Jug, let my orange-tawny stockings be dyed a good black, against my coming home in the winter,” Alleyn wrote.

He wanted his wife to sow spinach in his parsley bed at the proper season.

“...Sweet Jug, farewell, till All Hallow’s tide, and brook our long journey with patience.”

We brooked many a tedious journey with patience.

October 1, 1615

Gargoyles and ghosts: they are always a part of pain. Here is a prescription: pulverize a gargoyle in a deep mortar, shred one carefully, mix with ample wheat and milk, add salt, bake two hours, serve piping hot. Add surfeit of prunes, against the inevitable her.

Globe Theatre:

Elegant and seedy theatregoers.

Hand bills read Hamlet:

Actor Burbage mounts the stage

behind candles, rushes, torches.

Backstage, actors hustling, yacking.

A soldier outside pisses:

Curtain rises.

Henley Street

October 3, ’15

Evening – late

W

e players, playing in the provinces, walked all day to reach our destination, our horse cart lumbering behind us, stacked with costumes and gear. Sun blazed. Rains soaked. Chewets fol­lowed us. We walked from inn to inn, town to town. At two o’clock we played Tambourlaine, and the soft verse of Marlowe. Then, packed again, we walked until another two o’clock, somewhere along the way. Our com­radeship on the road, sleeping in the same rooms, sleeping on the floor as often as not, eating at the same table—those were our bonds! Burbage, Alleyn, Kempe... I could name a dozen. Week by week, we played our plays, our Lord Chamberlain’s Men, banished by edict and plague, protected from jail by contract, cheered by the Puritans! We worried over money, badgered, confronted, schemed. We placated the constabulary and loved the annuncios—the children!

Sometimes we sickened of one another and quarreled, our masculinity dis­tressing us: men and boys, men and boys—that was our disease! What women would have meant to us, in London especially, where the theatre was spoiled. What it would have meant to have a girl strut across the boards and smile a smutty smile. Chafing would have disappeared.

I longed to see Desdemona as a girl would play her; I wanted to see Cleo­patra acted by a woman, Lady Macbeth by a skilled player—not castrated boys, our sexless wire-sounding temperamentalists.

Who wants boys primping, boys in women’s hats, giggling over skirts and bows? Scratching fleas in baboon areas? Crying for their mamas?

Our groundlings wanted women to go to bed with.

Lords, ladies, and soldiery wanted women.

Everyone is sick of boys!

Soldiers, in their half-armor, jeer at us!

It is afternoon—warm and sunny!

Women, wearing eye masks, are chatting and taking seats at the Globe. Hawkers, bright yellow bands around their waists, are selling books and cakes and ale, passing among the theatre crowd. Dandies are getting settled in an area close to the stage. Swords clatter as soldiers find seats; a captain bows to a Jesuit priest. Someone strums a zither and croaks a bawdy ballad. Workers shove their way past the gate, afraid to miss a word of the beginning.

Popping open the little door of the hut atop the theatre, a trumpeter blows shrill blasts; the play is about to start: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

Henley Street

Sunday afternoon

Theatrical voices—commanding, secretive, beseeching, vituperative—are not voices I want to recall. I prefer the normal and kindly, an intimate Scot voice, a man’s educated speech, someone mouthing thoughtfully, an older person whose words show profound mellowing.

Ann’s voice was once full of witchery, stealing my guts and senses, leaving me hot. Marlowe’s was low and persuasive. Queen Elizabeth’s crisp. Raleigh’s burly. Hamnet’s birdlike. Ellen’s warm.

Not the regal! Not dotards and thieves, but a voice combining generosity, ease, and hope: is the voice I invent when insomnia takes me: for a moment it speaks out of the past.

I never enjoyed the children’s theatre—always wondering how they produced even one creditable play a season since they whipped their boys to force them to learn their parts. Clifton, I recall, was kidnapped and compelled to act. They whaled him, fed him badly, did sexual malice to make him perform—hardly the way to create a star. Clifton’s father had to appeal to the authorities for his boy’s release. I went to see him, at his home, and the tales he told me matched his tear-streaked face. His little hands trembled and his mother had to reassure him he wouldn’t be kidnapped again.

Whippings, threats, nagging—they were the stuff that kept the children’s theatre alive in London, while the council shrugged and patrons furnished subsi­dies for these odious and grossly amateurish entertainments. I talked and fought. Marlowe talked and fought. Alleyn and Jonson used their influence. The cruelty continued.

London was a place of whippings: the public whipping of offenders through the city streets and post whippings repelled... Jim was one of those I saw...and Hardy’s body hanging naked in chains...

Stratford-on-Avon

Wednesday

Damn them in Luddington and Walton, the groundlings who pelted us with fruit and eggs, those smelly coxcombs! That day in Luddington was blazing: the sweat ran down me as I stood on stage: then, the first egg struck, then a rotten orange: I waited, hoping. The play went on, drowned by laughter, and then, as if by prearrangement, a barrage of fruit and eggs hit us: our tragedy was hounded off the boards.

Walton had a couple of hecklers who were supported by the audience and broke up our play: we got eggs from many Waltonites: putrid, smelling a dozen feet away, saved, undoubtedly for our arrival: it was two days before we could play again since we had to wash and press our clothes. What a jangling of nerves that bred.

Why not give up the acting and the writing? Why not go back to Stratford and work with father? Why let these slovenly cruds, these barnyard bastards ruin my life? Days later, humor came slanting through. When we were well-re­ceived and the money tinkled we forgot; we called ourselves ninnies and threatened to arm ourselves with eggs for the next affront. We found goodness and warmth in lines well-delivered. We saw our comradeship, our triumph over slogging days: there was magic flowing through our blood: that fulsomeness, that nothing could tarnish or remove.

Globe Theatre is on fire...bucket brigades,

smoke around men with pails,

smoke around boys with pails,

smoke in trees, smoke in the rain:

Jonson talking and gesturing to Shakespeare:

Burbage screaming orders...

A wall topples...

Inside the conflagration

books and manuscripts burning.

J

onson and I watched the Globe burn—the afternoon cold, with rain falling. People crowded around; there was mud and water underfoot.

“Someone must have set our theatre on fire, Will! Jesus, how it burns!” Jonson cried.

“No. I was inside. I saw the thatch start burning.”

“Wasn’t there anything you could do to stop the blaze?”

“We tried! We got ladders and buckets!”

“Lord, look, now! A wall’s toppling. The hut’s gone. Why it has fallen off. Will, our props are afire. Our scripts! The flames are roaring...”

“Stand back!”

“Stand back or get burned!”

“How long has it been burning?”

“Maybe an hour...”

The flames seemed to meet in a giant peak, a peak that had at the top a great tree of smoke. It was raining harder now; the crowd had moved back.

God, wasn’t it enough to have to fight the plague? One month our doors were closed, next month we were open, next month we were shut again. That was bad enough, but no theatre meant no chance.

“Kemp is sick...the Globe is gone,” I said.

“Let’s go and get drunk!” Jonson said.

Later, Burbage told me it was a cannon, fired during my own play, that set fire to the Globe. We met in the street. Yanking his beard, swearing, he spat on the cobbles, and turned away.

Henley Street

1615 All Souls’ Day

Pain is gross companion, inducing lecherous thoughts, destroying temper­ance, stability, mercy, courage, fortitude. Craving release, I fought all day to re­member better times. At night, with candles lit, blankets around me, I find ease... I remember...

I am in a lemon grove, naked stone pillars stabbing out of the tops of the trees, Greek pilasters by the sea. We are eating on a terrace overlooking the wa­ter, a lazy meal, with old wine. The moon rises, drunkenly, fat, water-distorted, closing in on us, in rhythm to the waves below. We hold hands. The moon spells urgency, urging us to the grove, where we lie side by side.

“Ellen...Ellen...”

The lemons are yellowish in the moonlight: there is something stage-like about their motionlessness: it is rather as though we were in a velvet box, facing the sea. Stars have something to do with the fragrance drifting about us, the only movement apart from the waves and rising moon. I suggest we go down to the beach, so inviting. Ellen says no and I forget everything but her fragrance and the fragrance of the lemons, her whispers, her kisses.

That Scot profile, so chiseled, that bluecap voice, so warm, that hair of hers, softer than Juliet’s... A great rock, a sea boulder, surrounded by waves, glows in the moonlight...her skin is whitened: a ringlet glows on her neck.

Marlowe, Jonson, Raleigh, Spenser have had their days in jail; I have had mine—those county sties where pigs and dust ate my manuscripts and foetid odors ate my skull, jailed by the local thief who deemed each man a thief who thought:

If all the world and love were young...

But Raleigh it never was except in fancy and during the dead reckoning on paper: that is why the five of us stumbled backward in time, learning and escap­ing simultaneously.

We used to play chess, many of us, pawns, varlets, kings, knights, evenings, one play bastinadoed on another, Caesar against Titus, Hamlet against Lear, Portia against Cleopatra—always a gamble, along the stinking alleys, along the nocturnal slugtide Thames, along the turtle sea: stonehenge of concupiscence, murder vs. philandering, octogenarian vs. boy, sex vs. cuirass, check vs. cul-de-sac.

Everyman knows the exquisite desire for a woman; he also knows the raven­ing need...when there is no woman.

With Ann opposite me at supper table, I peered outside at the leaves, beyond the oriel, and denounced myself as I ate, enumerated my festering faults. I tasted little, wishing for sensible words and tranquil mind. But there was no shutting the door.

“Eat, Will,” she said, and I nodded, but dared not glance at her, to find the stranger and myself. I resented her as if her infidelities were yesterday’s, as if my side of life could be ruled out, as if we were young...

Patience has not helped. Only forgiveness can.

Leaves drop from the trees and the kettle bubbles and we feed ourselves, grieving. Our shields are in place but the lances were broken years ago. Our vi­sors are down, our plumes awry. Our horses have been killed in the field. With­out pennons, we move our gauntleted hands in rusty be­wilderment, slow-gaited with many, many abysmal hungers.

Henley Street – ’15

I kept a stray in my London apartment: after feeding him while on one of my strolls along the Thames I could not shake him: Pericles had a soothsayer’s mug dripping with ignominious grey whiskers, a privateer’s baleful eye, a silver-grey hide, a black tail, three white feet, a black-booted foot, and a bark like a tin pot clipping the pavement. When it came to food, Pericles was greedier than Shylock for a pound; piercing me with piratical eyes, he sat up, wagged for pity, then slumped in grief, moaning better than any stage madonna. Pericles and Jonson became the best of friends: pieces of bread or cheese from Ben’s pocket or­dained him lord and master. Along the Thames, Pericles flew after every bird, yapping incessantly; it seemed to me he could run all day and never tire. When left to guard the apartment, he kept to a mat inside the door, gradually sheathing it with a coat of silver-grey hair.

Shakespeare and Ashley meshed in fog:

They duel in a fog meadow.

Fog blows away before Julius Caesar’s ruined castle

among rocks and weeds.

Shakespeare’s dog tangles with Ashley,

caroms against Shakespeare:

Shakespeare falls.

November 7, 1615

F

og sopped the grass and weeds when I fought my duel, by Caesar’s castle. I could barely make out Jonson, Pericles, and friends, among the pines and bush below the castle ruins. Phantasma? I asked myself.

Ashley and I had quarreled over money: as one of the King’s Men he had cheated me roundly; now he faced me, privateer, poet, rich man’s bastard who would defy immortal Caesar: on twelve-foot legs, bearded, cloak over shoulder, rapier in hand, fog creaking against him, he closed in. On stage I had dueled many times; today I must put fakery to test.

As Ashley and I fought I heard Pericles barking and heard voices, saw Ash­ley’s men and my own, now in the fog, now out of it, shifting distorts.

My rapier hilt felt icy; the whip of steel on steel had a ring to it I had never heard. I hated the fog, telling myself I must make it serve me: it was to my ad­vantage as well as his. Our blades spat fire. I drew back. The ruins caught the inserting sun and stood distinctly above us: in my inner sight Caesar’s legions were amused at us. Other watchers appeared—grinning. Death is always grin­ning.

Ashley drove me back, steadily, steadily, forcing me toward the base of the castle where blocks of stone menaced, strewn amidst thick weeds. I fought to keep my footing and tried to beat him off. He was fighting savagely: his blade had a whiteness about it I couldn’t understand. I felt that whiteness slice my white belly: so, stumbling over Caesar’s masonry I was to die.

But I am ’gainst self-slaughter and somehow drove him in front of me and got yards away from the wall, deflecting blow after blow. Ashley was fighting like a privateer with a cutlass, each blow shoulder-down. My wrist felt beaten. I par­ried a series of terrific blows and then staggered.

At that moment, Pericles hurled himself on Ashley, playing, growling, jump­ing joyously; with a bound he leaped at me and before I could call off the dog or beat him off, I fell. As I came to my knees, Ashley was waiting and shoved his blade into my groin.

The fog and woods...they were there in that pain, and Jonson’s voice was there...my rapier, I kept thinking, where is it? Will they pick it up? I felt that months had passed, that I had aged a multitude of years, like the stone, like the battlement: age, that alchemy, filtered through the fog and sun...

I remember them carrying me.

Henley Street

November 8, ’15

Jonson took me to his apartment in his carriage and bragged about his Hol­land duels and the men he had pinked. As I lay in bed, feverish, during the days to come, father appeared, expressing pity—the pity he had shared with the plague-stricken. “You there, you, boy, I’ve something for you. This will help you.” I understood. I cared. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to sit with him underneath our apple tree and feel the summer’s sun.

“The fault, father, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,” I said to someone. “Yours is a fair name, fairer than mine...

“I am singularly moved when the sway of earth shakes like a thing infirm... this is not a dream, father.”

On Jonson’s bed, I went through hellish days—thirst, hunger, the bungling doctor bungling me, cold, cold remembering, sweatful forgetting, spouting de­lirious lines from plays... I accused the world of every crime, and managed to include my own.

I was afraid alone, yet distressed to have others overhear my ranting. The bed boards gaped and between each board I sweated another chill.

“Will, here’s your supper,” Jonson said. “Will, here’s breakfast. Will, I’ve brought you a book.”

Pericles licked my hands. Lying under my bed, he thumped his tail, saying: “Get up, master, there are birds to chase along the Thames.”

–S–

Without asking me, Jonson wrote to Ellen, and she came from Edinburgh. Was it her coming that pulled me through? Her care, beauty, her hands, her smiles of reassurance? Love put on its Oberon and scrubbed the grey out of the windows.

Quintessence.

She found a better doctor, brought me better food, got Bill McFarland to look after me, an old friend of hers, agreeable yawning fatness, eating half our food behind my back, gossiping with Jonson’s neighbors, bobbling and drooling his words, coddling me.

When I improved she took me to the park; later, we sailed the Thames...on shore larks sang... I was grateful and tried to repay too soon...on top of rolls of canvas at the stern.

At court there was a wedding celebration and a mock battle and fireworks spilled across the river: how the fireworks turned water into sky...the guns thun­dered.

“For us,” she said. “For your recovery,” she said. How like a paragon...

The diamond on her velvet blouse winked at me; I put my head on her lap: pain melted: seagulls mewed as our boat rocked gently.

–S–

So, Ashley and I settled our accounts. I saw him years later and we turned our backs on one another. I suppose he was embittered at my recovery.

The best of us is both participant and confusion, but I, I am stranger because estrangements have put a lie to my living, making it stranger still.

Stratford

Monday morning

While recovering from my wound, my brothers, Jim and Dick, paid me a call.

They seemed quite uninclined to sit, skeptical of Ben, afraid of Pericles, con­temptuous of the apartment with its manuscripts and shelves of books. Wearing their farm clothes, they smelled of dung, dirt, and rain-soaked cloth.

Jonson, wanting to be friendly, told how Pericles acted during the duel, winking at me, falsifying his ferocity. Brothers—were those men my brothers? Long ago, they had washed their hands of my life, Pilatewise. Mother praised them when I visited our home, ah me.

“I had heard that ya killed that-tar man, in yer duel,” said Dick, pawing his kneecaps.

Jonson clapped him on the shoulder.

“Wish him better luck next time,” he guffawed.

Jim and Dick had brown, flat faces, flattened by hunger, by defeat, lust, work, illness and sorrow. They had lost their children during the plague. Their teeth were blackened, or missing. Their clothes...what is a bundle of dirty clothes topped by a voice and a dead mind?

The afternoon sun poured through the open door. “Your hair ain’t red like it was,” said Jim.

“You’re getting bald,” said Dick. “The hair’s slipping down your neck.”

Bells of London startled them and helped send them on their way, and I went to sleep, amused by Jonson’s mimicry and laughter, as he sprawled in his chair, head thrown back, one hand on Pericles’ mane.

Stratford

My brothers’ visit reminded me of our hometown Ned.

Ned used to lie on the ground with pads underneath his shoulders: an anvil, weighing two hundred weight, was lowered on his chest by huskies, and three men with sledges bent a bar on it as he lay there. Ned performed at every Fair, girls ogling. The picture of him and his admirers delights me: hero with anvil and hammer. How I used to envy him. Ann thought he was a wonder. He was. And now I wonder what became of him?

Henley Street

November 13, 1615

One night, Pericles and I got into a talk: he squatted by my bed and we went over the business of writing for a living... He said the market was poor. He said my plays were very wordy. He said he had it tough before I took him on and suggested I see if I couldn’t buy stock in a Company, one that was really enduring, he said. “No use getting in with one that is here today and gone tomorrow. Wis­dom,” he snuffed, “is a thing you get when they crowd you off the dock into deep water, or when you grab for a mutton bone and it isn’t there.”

Our talks were not long as a rule. Pericles could drop asleep when I was in the midst of telling him something in­teresting or trying out a few lines on him. If I offered him a chunk of bread his interest quickened, and there was tail action too. He could listen attentively to a stanza, let’s say, if I held the bread (or piece of cheese, preferably cheddar) above his head, just out of his reach. I sometimes did this to improve his mind. However, a week or so later there seemed no sign of improvement. Perhaps dogs, like some people, are impervious to poetry.

Shakespeare, Stratford sleepwalker, walks about his bedroom,

stumbles, tries door handle, raises window:

Ann, in clumsy breasty gown, wakes him angrily:

“What on earth were you trying to do?”

“I was listening to Burbage and Alleyn

recite lines from my plays.”

November 15, 1615

A

gain I sleepwalk, from room to room, standing in doorways, waiting before windows: I wake and there I am, unseeing, win­dow, door or wall in front of me, the crime of myself, the assassi­nation of my past confronting me. All the perfumes...all the words...all the concern defeat their purpose and I ask myself when will I get up next time and walk the floor, to disturb and be disturbed—for what reasons? Reasons for the unreasonable, reasons for the sickness of a mind—how can they be called reasons?

I wake to remember a dream, or wake to find the moment as bare as slate, or I feel that I am somewhere in the past, with my father, bending over people stricken by the plague, the plague bell tolling, the rain streaming over my face, someone weeping.

“Where is my new cap...where’s my new cap?” The dying boy pleads, huddled against the church wall.

Alleyn—on the stage at the Globe—informs me of the plague and warns me in his stentorian voice to leave off helping people, let them die; then, he carries away Puck.

Alleyn stalks across the stage, his voice cutting the dark, my sleep, my sleep­walker’s darkness. Dressed for Tambourlaine, forked beard over red cloak, he swings through lines, a torch gleaming, smoking behind his shoulder.

Henley Street

November 18, 1615

When to the session of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past...

It is not love-making I call to mind but an August afternoon, the paths that led us on and on, underneath giant oaks and elms, the ground wet with sun, our happiness as sure as the trees. We walked through groves and across fields, the pathway winding past cattle and horses at pasture, men at work scything grain. Sitting on a rock fence, we listened to the swish of their scythes, their friendly calls to one another. Wandering, we ate at a farm, the people happy to have us. Butterflies and children were part of that farm: it was as simple as that, and since it was so simple I would like to have that afternoon back again, a small favor to ask of time, just an afternoon and a lunch at someone’s farm, dogs lolling on the ground, a cat on Ellen’s lap.

Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end...

I have not found a way to cheat the end: my glass is broken and the sand has sifted through. I am too much i’ the shadow, it seems.

Confidence diminished as my memory failed: this began in a certain way: during one of my plays I could not speak: power of speech gone, I forgot my lines: this double confusion occurred while I acted in a play by Jonson, given in Bewick, when we were on a summer’s tour. How vividly I remember that smoky inn—the crowd, the torches. In Chester, my lines once more escaped me: utterly perturbed, I gaped at the audience standing and sitting in the August sun: I wiped away sweat: how they stamped and jeered. Confidence might have re­turned, after later successful performances, except for another lapse: memorizing lines for Othello, I began to speak them, alone in my London apartment: again there was nothing, no sound, no memory: I had been emptied, as a rapier can take care of a wine sack: only the sound of rainfall, as I stood in my apartment: in my writing, too, lapses sweated me: there was no one to help: I told no one: soon, I thought, I’ll suckle fools and chronicle small beer.

How easily I memorized, as a youngster, swallowing the lines of a play in a night or two. Now I know that impotence can assume many forms, between the legs and between the eyes.

Henley Street

December 4, 1615

So the plays evolved, week by week, line by line, the crabbed scrawl, poem and song, comedy and tragedy; so the characters came into being: Agrippa, Iago, Ophelia, Troilus, Falstaff, King Henry, bearded and beardless, slut and angel, lady and commoner: they gawked across my sheets of paper: I see them here, about me, crowding my candle’s niggard flame.

But look, they have become phantoms!

Never again, king or coward, never Romeo and Juliet, never a pair of lovers to kiss and die beside a tomb. It was the nightingale and not the lark that pierced the fearful hollow of my ear...

Phantoms.

Let me be taken, let me be put to death, and not wait here, await the hand of tyranny, the slow grasp of this town’s sod. I am to lie inside the church. The bell will toll. They will carry me. On my grave they’ll cut these words: I decree:

Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear

To dig the dust enclosed here:

Blessed be the man that spares these stones

And cursed be he that moves my bones.

Youth—

Was there youth?

I sometimes think of the Avon that summer, thunderstorms booming, the river very high. Cousin Will was trying to yank a calf out of the water, when the river sucked him under. Kathlene Hamlett played at Ophelia—letting defeat suck her down. That was a summer of defeats for most of us, the loss of my father’s property, theatres closed because of official disapproval, weeks of suffocating heat, the sun caught in the trees, frying our brains, flies buzzing...

Cousin Will was a cheery, responsible boy, with a pitiful limp. Good at lots of jobs, he was thinking of marrying. Fishing was his love...poaching too. Kathlene was good and capable but tried making love before she was old enough...

I miss their smiling faces.

Ben writes such an elegant hand: he has that Italian influence to perfection: his scripts are damnatory of my provincial scrawl, I who can’t remember whether to write Willm, Will or William...thank God for copyists, those drones, our skull-down, penny-quill calligraphists. Too bad someone is not dotting this.

Stratford

Gossip hangs over me, leaving me naked as vulgar air: home gossip, precipi­tated by Ann, when Philip drops by, then Blanch, then Longworth, then Melun, then Peter, then Elinor, then Pembroke: Elinor has had a severe cold; Long­worth has lost his mare; Melun’s wife is down with pleurisy. Philip’s face is so emaciated he can’t carry a rose over his ear; Elinor has to be helped with a pick-up. “When is another doctor coming to practice here?” Pembroke asks. Ann knows—and tells. Ann thinks there’s a possible rape of the church, no less. Blanch’s face puckers in disgust. Longworth asks for a glass of water. Peter talks genealogy. Their arrows are carefully wrapped in leaves: all afternoon they talk in the shade, under the apple, trotting in and out of the house, moodily conferring in knots or pairs, then sauntering back to leafy conference. There is a consensus of opinion that the bridge over the Avon may be too poorly built... “it can’t last... Sheriff Grimes has been appropriating tax money...he must go...”

Someone objects but when Ann objects he objects and she objects to his objection and the objections because I object are more objectionable and this objectionable quality leads to further objections...on a summer’s afternoon.

Henley Street

December 7, 1615

Not long after Hamnet’s death, Ann removed Judith from school, against my wishes. Though fond of school, Judith became slaved at home. Later—in a year or so—Ann needed Susanna, another home puppet. She further alienated us by this decision. I still say that ignorance, like horse piss, stinks, cankering the mind. Example: Ann.

I have had more visitors, five Stratford puritans, who attacked my play writ­ing. I got very angry yet tried to conceal my anger; remembering the smallness of my town I said little to the women; as if in the wings I waited, remembering:

“How unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play on me; you would seem to know my stops; you’d pluck out the heart of my mystery; you’d sound me from my lowest notes to the top of my compass...there’s music in this little organ and yet you can’t make it speak. Why?”

I talked to them as best I could and then a fat wench bleated, jerking at her gloves:

“You talk in riddles, sir. Your plays ridicule us. You disesteem our monarchs, King Richard for one. Your plays attract the vulgar. You praise the rotten...”

By standing, I asked them to leave: perhaps they felt the pain I felt; then my sickness grew worse after their visit.

An apple tree shakes out a boy:

The boy, Linnus, performs acrobatics in the branches:

He’s fourteen.

Laughter:

Then King Lear’s voice:

“Never, never, never, never...”

Henley Street

Stratford

L

innus, whose gypsy father is an acrobat, visits me these days; with his father in jail he has to wait for his release. Dumpy, leather-skinned and wild-eyed, Linnus is fourteen, and has a four-year-old brother, Peter. Their mother is dead.

My old apple tree is Linnus’ home, when he is here; I sit outside while he per­forms tricks he has learned from his father, tricks I have never seen. Peter yawns on the grass or stands between my legs or pods my lap, thrilled by his brother’s arm and leg cleverness...the sun warms the three of us.

His tricks done, glad to rest, Linnus stretches on the ground, to incline me a little of his wanderings, the hunger, always the hunger: it’s as if he never had a full meal. They are scourged out of town, thrown into jail, entertained at castles, fed on cakes and ale, left to starve on a farm. Linnus points to Peter, asleep on my lap.

“Why do you like him? He’s ugly.”

“He’s ugly but he may change and grow to be handsome, perhaps become an explorer, like Drake.” And I talk to Linnus about Drake and the Armada and as I talk it seems to me I’m talking to Hamnet, or is this Hamnet on my lap?

It doesn’t matter.

Linnus and Peter matter, and after a while we rig fishing gear and go to the river and fish, dawdle all afternoon, Linnus croaking gypsy songs, Peter in and out of the water, dashing after magpies and crows, gabbling berries, every prob­lem forgotten.

Home late, Linnus prepared supper for us (Ann away for a few days): he was quick and clever in the kitchen, reminding me of an actor familiar with his part.

Henley Street

Stratford

December 11, ’15

Linnus described a play he saw last summer and I was reminded of the first play I saw, as a boy, performed by gypsies who told a tale of Scottish intrigue and murder that ended with the beautiful heroine’s suicidal plunge into a loch. Those swarthy actors seldom left my mind for weeks, waking me, haunting school and play. I can yet see the sheriff torturing the girl accused of stealing: words have gone but not the actions.

That evening, Papa and I walked home together. He would not talk about the play. Mama disliked plays and never attended, damning them as “lucifers.” I suppose the gypsy play was a “lucifer.”

Henley Street

Stratford

December 12, 1615

One of my bitterest experiences was seeing Pericles killed by a sheep herder. On the outskirts of London, Pericles burst into joyous yappings and began to frolic and nip sheep, an immense herd, stretching for blocks. I saw him tangle with a black ram. The herder, rushing at Pericles, mistaking his fun, struck him with his crook and beat him to the street; then, before I could shove my way through the herd, flailed him over the head with the butt. Yelling, pushing, I knocked down the man but reached Pericles too late... I wanted to leave the city; I wanted to spit on mankind. I wish I could have my friend to talk to, eat meat from my hand: there’s plenty of meat for you now, boy.

Midnight

What is it that has embittered me?

I felt the bitterness long before someone tried to kill Ellen. Did the bitterness come about through attempting the impossible in my acts of creation, losing life in work? A tree is tree now. Once it was wonderful. My spleen stems from the sleepwalker’s for I am sleepwalker-without-taper, from Romeo to Shylock, king to clown, hero to villain. I can see distinctly: there’s no mirage about cottage, family, friends, and Avon. Stratford is Act 5. I wait my cue! Go to, what are your lines, Yorik?

Caesar’s battleground kept me from a sane life. Drinking stronger than ale I kept company with the bloody horde...rape in my heart...thief at hand...deceit as friend...murder as bed...

Someone beats on my door; that’s Burbage: “Let’s go, Will,” he yells. “It’s almost one o’clock; you have to be at the Globe in half an hour.”

The hour, the play, the scene, the glass running out, faster, faster, faster!

Henley Street

Stratford

December 20, 1615 Evening – late

Most of all I shall miss a beautiful woman, her smile, the eyelids and features faintly powdered, the white of her hands and arms, the sense of longing, her voice’s mystery, the carefully rounded breasts, their softness, her light gait, her voluptuary whispers making slave, the weight of her at night, her softness un­derneath in the morning...

So I never saw her again...writing was my coition...my fake living...no, I never saw her again; that was fate, or...to never see the wanted is that phenomenal blindness; to never have the beauty is pismire.

Our old friend sits on her throne, above marble steps, wearing blazoned robe, her crown straight—and neck straight, too, the lidded concern apt, antique scepter beside her: her awareness is aware of certainties, watching earl and cap­tain, bawd and bugler.

We are to love her, do collective obeisance, beseech her favors. And she, with her rufescence, shall free us of every plague, down to smallest poverty, and, like Merlin, give us castles for cots, hope for despair, money for thought.

Sleeve lifts pontifical hand and blesses with its kissing ring. Rays of sun, through lozenged windows, fold leaded shadows over troubled brows.

Ah, Queen, your majesty is unparalleled, you are our patron of the arts, gen­erous in every particular, particular to man’s freedom, eschewing stock, pillory and scaffold.

As she rises, sequins and braid tremble, every motion capsuled in scarlet, the very velvet of confidence—the robe quite long, ruffs and ruffles fresh, the jewels paying their worth: she walks, our Queen walks: we remember her mother scaf­folded for adultery.

Henley Street

Shylock was less persistent than I to own, fief vs. chattel, clown vs. crown, thoughts vs. dreams: with such a goal, a man stoops, a man batters, a man as­tonishes himself with crudities that some might call vitality: this is the sighing, buying, signing: and when I began to own more land and houses I owned less and less time: that was my mortgage, paid over and over by less writing.

Henley Street

December 24, 1615

Scene: Seashore

Lord Thomas	Was it yesterday?
Philo	No—it was the day before—at night.
Thomas	When...when was it?
Philo	Speak lower...they’ll overhear us! Sssh!
Thomas	I didn’t bury her the day before. No man buries love at night, only hate. You saw me carry her to her room—lay her down tenderly. You share the secrets of our lives...and now the secret of her death. ’Sblood, that is that remains for each of us, hide carefully, forgetting intrigue, forgetting Scot­land...

But I can no longer write!

Snow beats on the windows and winter chills me, cold hands on my throat. Where are my faithful players? Where is Alleyn—speaking divinely? If I could talk to him I might be able to write again. If this storm did not batter this house so treacherously!

Green lozenges of light penetrate the oriel,

green drinking mugs,

green on table decanter,

Shakespeare and Jonson drinking.

Stratford streets in the late afternoon sun,

sounds of a carriage,

sounds of kids coming home from school.

Jonson quotes a line,

Shakespeare quotes a line.

Henley Street

January third, 1616

I

t does no good to rage at my impotence and yet I rage...come bird, come...come, heart, perform your art.

Yesterday, I was carried out of my private madness by Ben Jon­son’s visit: we drank and laughed, his thick cloak thrown off, his broad shoulders broader, voice kindly, eyes the eyes of one acting well-remem­bered lines, hands relaxed on his lap or gesturing easily.

“Now that the night begins with sable wings to overcloud the brightness of the sun, and that in darkness pleasures may be done...let us to the bower and pass a pleasant hour...”

He said those lines years ago, and that night Ellen came to me, and waited backstage, there, with the dusty props and dirt. Ah, her beauty: I saw it against the sticks and pricks of make-believe! I felt its warmth. I asked her how she was but she wanted kisses, not civilities.

(Vapid lines out of the Spanish Tragedy seemed foolish there backstage and could not matter less as Ellen and I drove to her apartment—in her red carriage, swaying through the rain.

Her fireplace was stacked with flame. Her servants withdrew and she leaned against her marble mantel, breast leaning forward, her dress low, shoulders and neck bare, such ivory.

Her cousin had accompanied us in the carriage; now we could talk:

“I hadn’t expected you in London tonight,” I said.

“I came from Dover, yesterday, late yesterday” she said.

“From your brother’s place at St. Cloud?”

“Yes. A hard trip across the channel and hard to be away so long from you... My dear, this play’s better than the last. How you make those Venetians live! They’re like so many I’ve known... You must have known them too...”

“Darling, I like your hair this way. French? Your hairdresser really knows...”

“Will, tell me that you love me. I love you.”

“Should I?”

“Your letters tell me but now, you tell me.”

“With hands and mouth...”

It was like that—her gown letting me—but it was also fear, remembering that Ben had warned us that we had been followed by another carriage as we left the theatre...twice now.

Ellen and I hoped our purse of hope would lose all counterfeit coins...foreign exchange no...no cheating, no niggardly luck...could I foresee with gypsy insight?

Our goblets touched.)

But I prolonged Ben’s New Year visit: we sat on chairs in the oriel, and talked and talked, and the talking of him brought out the talking in me, and there was no bothersome time: I suppose we ate by candlelight; I suppose we went to bed, but our talking was not bedded, and I hear it now in the sound of his re­treating horses: I hear hope retreating, hoof on cobble, hoof on brain: for he will not come again. Or should I ask him, being thought-sick?

Twelfth Day

In the fall I went across the fields to the poplar trees under which Ann and I used to make love; I sat in the sun and let it drench me. The trees were nobler though limbs had fallen off; one tree was rotted at the top; another...but no matter.

I sat and remembered how it was before our twins were born, sat with el­bows on my knees, gaping. I tried to see that pair of lovers loving on the grass. That love had never happened. No. The thing that was real was my gaping lone­liness...

I walked home and took up a packet of her letters; this one was lying on top:

Dear Red,

I am glad that people like your play, that Romeo and Juliet play. That was the one we saw at the Globe, I think. The Capu­lets frightened me much. What is the name of your new play that you are writing at? I can’t remember. Is it the Merchant play?

You should write a play about your papa and his glove-making. The twins are sick again. Hamnet is the worst, sick at night, and all that. Judith has a flushed face and she coughs and coughs, and I keep her in bed.

Write soon.

Love,

Ann

I try to forget the casualness and say it belongs to a buried past and then I say to myself, if this is dead then all life is equally dead, including myself.

I opened another letter and a dried flower fell out of the yellowed paper. I had to hold the sheet to the window before I could read it, meantime trying to harden myself, half remembering. My wits are diseased, I thought.

Dear Red,

So you have made twenty-two pounds at the theatre from all the good attendance. That will help take care of the clothes we need, and winter right against us. What is this play they are playing at the Globe, the Othella thing? I have heard Mama talk about a woman like that—some foreign woman. Is Othella your leading person? Is she pretty? Is it true you fought a duel? That will not help you get ahead in London. You said that people talk.

You should see Hamnet. How well he does with his school work, better than anyone at school, I hear. He takes after you, his master tells me.

Our bedroom window was broken in the storm last week, but Tom has put in new glass, and leaded and puttied it nicely. It was the window by the good chair.

Love,

Ann

Like roses, red roses on a stalk, or was it, coral is far more red than her lips’ red...love is my sin...my love is longing still!

I put away her letters and closed the shutters and lit the candles and the rush lamp, and, settling in my chair, I read of another past, to palliate myself, Virgil’s.

Stratford

I have been thinking of Merlin and his magic ways, the thrall of his immense dabbling: this island should have been named Clas Myrddin: Merlin’s Enclosure. Perhaps Gawain and Lancelot would have enclosed us and the grail might not have become the great illusion among illusions.

I am reading Spenser’s Amoretti now: now I read what Raleigh read in prison; the coincidence is appropriate enough. There are not too many coincidences in life but there are many kinds of prisons. Perhaps the worst is the prison impris­oning the prisoner against his will; the other prison, self-germinated, self-main­tained, can be as ascetic, as impassioned in its tortures, and yet it has its rush lamp for the outcast state:

Pour soul, the center of my sinful earth,

Thrall to these rebel powers that thee array.

Why dost thou pine...such a mistaken canister

Of words that I would not put them down once more.

January 15, 1616

Stratford—Henley Street

Viola bows rasped and recorders piped and rain hit the door and windows at Hall’s, the quartet playing before his fireplace, the men sitting with their backs to the blaze, instruments fired.

“More ale?”

“How about canary?”

“Cake, eh, Will?”

Cakes and rain perpetually, the strings for a throat, garroting the night...the rain, it raineth every night. Admit no impediments, listen:

Never say that I was false of heart...the poison left her stunned, as if beneath an avalanche of men. Mad slanderers, no, Ann deserved the slander but what could slander accomplish? Like incessant rain, or that repeated low note on the fiddle, what good? A flooding melancholy, and Ann unchanged.

Love was my sin but now my sin is breathing. And tonight it is a multiple sin for I am listening, hoping these instruments and players have a message for my soul. The shattered rain on windows is everyman’s storm, the gutter thief, the pimp, the king—all of us hunkered under pain.

The good Dr. Hall bends over me:

“Feeling better tonight, Will? I hope so.”

I chuckle and say I am.

Put on your cloak and hurry, Hall. There’s someone sicker than I who needs you. Eat a crocodile. I’ll be going home soon. I should be there now, going over my accounts.

Music has unstopped my ears but no grapple of sound holds tonight, not with the scrofula of rain, the wink of time on cavernous faces beefed by the fire.

See that wizened face, that’s Hall, tall and thin, and next to him my frump, belly puddinged, hair screwed at angles, lines and then more lines lining the half-open mouth, the missing teeth... Ann, dear Ann, was it to you I wrote the sonnet beginning? Ah, no, the errors snare us, bare us to the quick of lime. The arith­metic of memory multiplies fantasy.

Poetry, succor me in this hour of need, help me as you have: I have given you my life; now, you must lend argument to my folly. Dry the rain on my skull! Be youth: be Ellen, outcast, incast, what is your substance, whereof you are made, that millions of strange shadows on you tend? Is this my memory? Or do the lines remember me?

The notes of the quartet confuse the shadows, the fire’s instrument, the tank­ards on the table, one for you, Marlowe...

I am to wait, though waiting be as hell—

And we walked home together through the rain, she who has never met Touchstone or Polonius or Othello...

And so to a cold bed.

–S–

On some of Dr. Hall’s visits, he urged me to discontinue my journal, wanting me to rest. I told him that the language I used was hardly playwriting, requiring the barest effort on my part. I explained that I need something. He huffed and rumbled, with professional sincerity, like the good neighbor he is, and I under­stand now that my resurrected fears may, like a Greek chorus, pervade and an­nul. But what do they pervade and annul, this corner, precharnel, prepaid house in Hell? Am I to talk with trees? Am I to forget manhood? Am I to cheer old age? Infirmity? Hall is such a knotted creature I wonder my Susanna married him: such a sultry woman for such a cadaver! His contorted body, pinched here, pinched there, sewed here, unsewed there, his starvation face, with zealot eyes in bald skull, leaves me lacking in confidence; yet, I listen and he prescribes and we talk and play chess. I am his medical pawn, gulping doses for him, bleeding for him: is the final move his or mine?

Home

January 18, 1616

Dr. Hall, when you found your woman in my Susanna, you found bed-woman, kitchen wench and apothecary girl. Your shop, shelved, bottled, oint­mented, reeks of balm and poison. Long before you married my Susanna, I got to know that smell when I came to you to help me battle pain. You were never too ill or busy to help me check pain’s unkindness.

But underneath your skin you are another Timon, another hater of mankind, concocting health to make more health to make more pain to make money. Pestel in hand, you measure alleviants, the richer your patient, the cleverer your compound. How you worry on behalf of the young countess. How you thumb your books for the Lord Chamberlain’s gout.

Drum bottles—

Beat shelves—

Smash glass—

See, his shingle in the wind, JOHN HALL – PHYSICIAN, weeps rain, and I sit waiting, with vapors, losses, pangs, venoms in my blood, anticipating pre­scriptions—or epitaph.

His face grimaces his thanks, his hand extended, his pox is to “rob one another. There’s more gold! Cut throats...all that you meet are thieves!” All this is patiently and subtly withheld by the good doctor since frightening the patient frightens money. Only dear friends discover the true Timon...

Oh, God, how pain strangles me today! It paves my skull! I am on fire! Such useless misery! Pain is the greatest cheat. Pain, your friendship is much too cov­etous! Pain—you old prostitute—swallow your own hemlock for a change!

Henley Street, Stratford

January 20

I am too hard on friend Hall!

I’ve spent hours there, puttering, talking, laughing, entertained by his curious, Indian cow’s tail, stones cut from men’s bladders, uterine balls of hair, paw of a bear, and skeleton of a pigmy.

This year, he is publishing a treatise on the Wounds of the Abdomen. He’s as clever with his scalpel as his concoctions of wormwood, rosarum and menthol. Around Stratford, he is best known for his treatment of dropsy.

Stratford

January 23, 1616

Logs burn in my fireplace and I have a book on my lap: I have a kingdom: a crown: crackling of wood becomes voices, stuff of dreams, friends, stages, plays, quarrels, hopes, changes, beginnings, endings, the pen scratching paper, pigeons chuckling, laughter, death, Hamnet’s face, father’s, the cloak, the whisper, the plague, the rain, fog, losses, waves against rocks: a log totters and the upended section spurts into a pennant...shake-scene!

I have no picture—no drawing—to help me remember Hamnet. Inago Jones could have done one. I should tear apart pieces of paper and fold them until they become his face, or, with scissors, cut out his silhouette. Damn the weak mind that makes such simple wishes impossible!

There was no artist in Stratford. Stratford had no skills to offer except death’s skill...death for all of us along with that triumvirate, love, marriage, children; with fornication for pallbearer, adultery for sexton, rape for choirmaster...

How weary and stale and flat are the uses of this world. Bring hebenon for O...

Youth’s falcon on his glove, Hamnet stands with his friends around him, most of them young, their well-groomed horses held by pages.

On the distant shore of a lake, a castle breaks through a grove of beech.

Hamnet is laughing at his unhooded bird.

“Have you unseeled him?” someone asks.

“He can fly,” Hamnet says. “Now.”

“See...he’s looking for game!”

“Hamnet, is it true your father writes plays for our Queen? London plays?”

“You should see his Macbeth! That’s a play for you! Duel and all! We’ll go to London and see one of his plays. There’s one at the Palace soon.”

How I would like to rearrange life, bring happiness, bestow wealth, fix love, make well, foil crime, reverse ill luck. But only the stage can accomplish miracles and there custom stales the plot and disharmonies garble intention.

But, as evening galls, and candles go on, I hear Hamnet’s footsteps...he wants new gloves, new hood, new leash...

What’s past is prologue:

At Blackfriars, the chandeliers of candles are hugely lit and light streams upon Alleyn, who is speaking on stage; the boards are clean and shine; all actors are in their places; the seats are almost filled; I see a woman, in dark green velvet; ac­companied by her maid, she takes a seat; rows of faces beseech the stage: oh kingdom, place of tempest and calm, engulf us again!

Henley Street

Stratford

February 1

Suum—nun—nonny, the wind said, as my father and I worked in his glover’s shop, quiet hours, among the many kinds of leather, sheepskin, goat, kid, lamb, pigskin, coltskin, doeskin, buckskin. In his tiers of drawers were the pontifical gloves, liturgical gloves, gloves for dignitaries, ladies’ gloves, wedding gloves...

A bird sang in its cage by the door.

Between the opening and closing of the shop we talked pleasantly or waited on customers with consideration:

We talked of Rocco Bonetti, the great London fencing master, and his fenc­ing school; we talked of the snail and how it shrinks in its house when hit, or sits in the shade of its shell; we chatted about spears and helmets and mottos like Non Sanz Droict, his favorite; we talked of great castles, like Kenilworth, and their ghosts; we talked of kings and how to catch larks with a mirror and scraps of red cloth...the buzz of our talk was a good buzz.

So, another memory!

Candlemas

I wrote The Tempest at Stratford, the only play I wrote at home. For the first time I had leisure to write, in my garden, the summer warm: this was an island for an island: time faded: I remembered scenari I had seen at the commedia dell’arte: I remembered the wreck of the Sea Adventure in Bermuda: a drunk sailor stopped me and described that grievous storm, described the bewitched island, and I began:

On ship at sea:

Captain:	Boatswain!
Boatswain:	Here, Master, what cheer?
Captain:	Good fellow, talk to the sailors, warn them, fall to it quickly or we’ll run aground!

Enter sailors:

Boatswain:

Quickly, my fellows! Take in the topsail speedily! That’s the captain’s warning whistle!

Then the shipwreck followed.

It was pleasant to invent without pressure: I wanted a lively yet serene play, with a mixture of philosophy, humor and fantasy: I wanted a play to fit the new mode, free of symbolism.

I walked about my garden and my peace trees, and there, over there was Caliban, a savage slave; I took another turn, and there was Ariel; I heard the wind blow hollowly across an uninhabited island...

“Safely in harbor is the king’s ship; in the deep nook where once you called me at midnight... Go, make yourself a nymph of the sea... Where should this music be? In the air, or the earth? Delicate Ariel, sea nymphs ring the knell...in the dark backward and abysm of time...”

Discs of spinning yellow, pink, lavender:

A hundred Kemps are jigging,

each in yellow clown suit,

grinning, clowning, enroute to the Globe.

Kemp jigs onto the stage:

Applause.

Home

S

o it went...

As I left the Globe, near the end of a play, I found Will Kemp, slumped on the steps, by the street, head on his arms, sobbing: he would never clown for us again: he said he was too old, that he embarrassed us, that times had changed: as I stood beside him, he glanced away.

I had watched him a hundred times and thought him better than Summers, or any clown: Kemp was legend, for jig and bawdy tale, for the laugh at the end of the play. Londoners flocked to see him—had flocked to see him for years.

His make-up streaked by the rain, his yellow suit soaked, he tottered to his feet, as if drunk. Last summer he had danced his way across country, from place to place, enthusiastically received by villagers and townsmen—carried aloft on their shoulders.

His wrinkled face was drunken-lined, shining in the rain. He yanked his hat lower: was he remembering his fustian scenes, hard-drinking, quarrelling? He was famous for his winnings at primero—stubby, rock-muscled, little, knotted—he wavered, seemed about to collapse.

The play was over and the theatre crowd vomited out and milled around Kemp, encircled him, caught him up, hoisted him and bore him, through the streets, howling, cheering: KEMP...KEMP...KEMP!

Home

A number of years before we dismissed Kemp at the Globe, I visited him at his Thames River home—a home in the Sir Walter style. Kemp’s carriage brought me. I strolled about his extensive garden for a few luxurious moments, viewing the river below, thinking how well it paid to invest in land and play primero. His doormen showed me in, for I had been invited to dinner.

Mrs. Kemp, dressed in pale green, came toward me, to greet me, a charming young woman: like a clap of thunder, Kemp came at her, caned her, lashed her with fierce blows, and dragged her to her room. I didn’t wait for an explanation of his violence...

I do my best on the pot and think of my sex and think I’ll be rotting soon, and I hear pegs moving in the beams, and I hear old time and new time—outside the church bells strike. Outside of what?

Henley Street

Stratford

February 8, 1616

Why do I write?

All day Ann has sat by the windows, embroidering, soak­ing sun, her rheu­matic fingers paining her, her silence and disdain evident.

Her stooped shoulders anger me because they remind me of my age, and I rant at time’s disdain and irreparable devastations: a plague on time’s house, a plague on mine—sickly wife and sickly husband.

Egypt—it is well you aren’t here, to be contorted, cheated, frailed or paunched. To nourish an illusion is hard and grows harder through the years. The only wisdom is the quiet heart, born of the smile of heaven, seeking nature, not the wild sea of conscience.

But that is for the wise! Today, there is no Orpheus. The trees are not our sanctuary. The seas don’t hang their heads; I hang mine. Where’s the lute, the player? I travel round and round the dial, to Ellen and the cloak, the fog and loneliest of men. Time should cure all, they say. But time—as I see time—does not oblige.

My last will...my last walk...my last play. I never thought of a last play. Henry VIII was to have another and yet another...creeping on but creeping to be sure...other sonnets...other songs...to sleep, to die, to sleep...

O shit on death.

Home

February 10, ’16

I used to wake with anticipation. I wake these mornings and know that I may not wake in another twenty days. When I lie down to sleep I think I may fall asleep and from that sleep never wake. I consider the worried faces about me and realize they will not have to endure me for long. Jonson visits me and I think this is his last visit.

Cheat, your door, as it swings open, opens onto a cave; no shepherd’s note signals to watery star...cuckold...bastard...my tale will end and my small cubicle will be filled. Have I put down man’s spirit with enough spirit? Beauteous youth, have I recorded you? I never wanted to write love’s epitaph... Antony was my tongue in praise.

I am certain that love is the best, love that is closest to beauty and the kindest of affections. Sensation surpasses thought. Imagination is well enough but it is not love. Between earth and heaven, imagination compares with no warm arms and legs.

Feb. 11, ’16

Stunned by poverty—how hard it was to write during those early years. Belly gnawing, I kept at it: I lay down, I got up, sat at the big table. Storms hunkered over the roof tops, the sun licked at the roofs, snow bundled them, and I was cold, cold. Smoke puffed from chimneys, bent in the icy mornings like hearse plumes. Chimneys—I never wanted to count them; broken, dying chimneys, strewed the city below me. One brick stack leaned far over, yet belched smoke.

Pimps lived on one side of me, prostitutes on the other; I could not move without paying my rent. My place was never warm: my hands cracked because of the cold. I kept my legs wound in rags, coughing.

Because of pleurisy I had to sell all of my books: Mary sold them for me, one by one, maybe two or three at a time. How old was Mary? Twenty? I was about twenty-five. It would take another twenty-five years to dim her memory: the stalk of her body, her restless, weightless feet. She bent a little to the left, as if injured, the arms also restless, the eyes inward. Did she ever laugh? Her smile always seemed something pushed into being, only a little jolt got it there.

She sold my books and bought my food and fed me, the hell of pleurisy rid­ing me: tears in my eyes I attempted to eat: tears of many kinds crushed me. The roofs, the cold, the sorrow, how they come back to me! The anguish in my side went on for weeks but Mary never failed or complained: she fucked men at night and succored me during the day: sometimes she slept on the floor beside my bed or lay across the foot of the bed, a blanket around her. Her black hair might unpin itself and lie about her.

“Let’s keep a bird, when it’s Spring,” I suggested.

“How can you feed it, w-w-w-without money?” she asked.

“My father is sending money.”

“When? Soon?”

“Has someone written to him? You must see to it, Mary. Make someone write.”

“I think s-s-s-so. I’ll try again, ton-n-n-night.”

I managed to eat more when the money came and Mary ate well: I ate for those who were poor, I ate for my father, for the starving waifs, for the sick, those in prison, fighting in wars. I ate because it would soon be Spring. I ate because I must write.

Wrens built a nest above my window. Day after day, they fluttered in and out; day after day it got warmer; I was able to take care of myself; Mary and I were planning to picnic beside the river; she never came; I waited and waited; I asked those who knew her; no one had seen her.

I asked for her many times. There was absolutely no trace of her. She simply disappeared. Some criminal? Some man? Death? I never knew.

Ave Maria!

Home

Over the years I have read Ellen’s letters, hearing them almost. Those lines of hers, when I was dismal and lonely, shook off the curse of disillusionment. Even now, after these years, lines come to me:

Surely the greatness of a play lies in its mystery: we are taken inside a private world that is tragic or amusing or sentimental; things that are a part of this world must be judiciously hinted at.

Your plays take life apart because your poetry is so pro­found. It’s the finest poetry I know. Knowing you gives your work added profundity...

The theatre gives man breadth: it’s his second life. A country without a theatre is a poor, barren country.

Spring is the best part of the year...we decided: our lochs take on a greenness that must originate in deep, moss-covered rock. I think that water has a definite temperament, a personal­ity, if you like... I like to walk when the sting of spray mingles with fog and underfoot, like a blanket, are the tiny flowers... I want you...

My brother is fond of you. He laughs and asks what is it that makes me take to that man? You must come back to Scotland, Will. Write me seriously about a possible visit... Love finds a way...

I wish you could be here, the castle is so beautiful, spring­time is so evident, so unlike Scotland, full of gay things, white lilies and pansies along the paths, tulips and agnus-castus, roses around our statues and ramblers on the arbors. Only the biggest roses are in full flower: you should see the yellow ones. You know, I think yellow is my favorite color, and it’s because the sun is yellow, for what would this earth of ours be without the sun? We wouldn’t even have love, would we? And I wouldn’t even be able to dream of your kisses and your arms about me. And that’s what the sun is for, for dreaming, springtime dreaming...and I wish for you, to walk with me, and love me. I will pick a pansy and wear it for you. I will pick a rose and put it in my room, for you. Will, when can we see each other? Can’t you come here?...

Her letters were like that...

Stratford

February – 1616

Queen Elizabeth came on our stage at the Palace as I played the role of king, the afternoon stainglass bangling her jewels. I was shocked at seeing her galled face and yet had the guts to continue my lines, adding improvisations as well, to force her to wait. While she waited, she dropped her glove (playing her part), and as I arranged my robe, talking as I stood there, I picked up her glove and slowly faced the audience and said:

“Yet we stoop to pick up our Cousin’s glove.”

How that amused her. “Such propriety!” she said.

“Such folly,” I wanted to say.

This is high class prostitution commonly called “purse penury,” our coldest-oldest art. The art is especially susceptible to jewels and the brazenness of crowns. Men have been hung for their inability to kowtow, with poverty in the wings, snivelling or prancing jubilantly.

King James—

Now that you are our new friend, sceptering this Brittic island with careful gaze, ours is the homage! We see that your awareness is aware of considerations, a King James version of Sleeves and Ruff duly pressed. You surely press prom­ises without guilt for gilt. Through narrow lozenged glass the sun administers your ceremonials.

Oh, king, your uniqueness Towers over us: you are our stiller of war, our buffer of hate, our unbiased protestant.

You rise—and London rises.

You walk—and London walks, for we are your guardians.

If your latest diamond is somewhat small, speak to us and it will be remem­bered in moors, fens, and locks. If your crown, coming from a woman’s head, needs adjusting our adjusters are sure hands, toward continuity.

Henley Street

Stratford

When Susanna visited me in London we ate at the Swann: she loved the rich and badly seasoned food, the purpled windows and painted scripture walls. “Oh, Papa, this is a wonderful Inn... Oh, Papa, isn’t that a beautiful house by the river? Think of living there! Those people must be awful rich! Will we get that rich? ...Papa, I’ve never seen such beautiful books... And look, look at the Thames in the sun; the sun seems squashed right into the water. And can we really ride in a boat again, down toward the ocean?”

Enthusiasm was her best quality. And very little perturbed her. Trash strewn in the street, a dead cat, brawling seamen...she drew back in disgust but soon found something exciting or beautiful. When I sleepwalked and stumbled against a table and broke the rush lamp, she was undisturbed. She kissed me, and we talked about what we’d do tomorrow. She was fifteen, then. Fifteen—what an age! She wanted to remain with me in London and I would have permitted it if I could have looked after her. There was no budging Ann to the city. Some thought Susanna a hussy.

Fun-loving, keen at games, she outplayed her friends. While she played I would be at my writing. In the midst of her fun, she might pop up and say: “Papa, you’re working too hard: you never have fun.” Her consideration brought me to my senses and I remembered growing up with six kids: none of them had her brightness. Of course the years changed her: her copper hair darkened: her enthusiasm faded: marriage ruined her figure: marriage made her a business woman: her hussiness became sexmate: Dr. Hall her all! How clearly I can re­member today...a warning. And why do I write?

Shakespeare discovers Ellen’s blue cloak

in a heap of theatre crud in his Stratford closet:

Puzzled, he sits on the floor, holds up the cloak,

checks the fabric, his face sickly:

Fog at the door of his house.

Henley Street

Stratford

February 24, 1616

R

ummaging in my storeroom, I found forgotten things, things I had supposed lost or destroyed, a velvet jacket faced with grubby ermine, a pair of crimson trousers, a leather breastplate and brass helmet ornamented with a dragon’s crest. It annoyed me that none of these things had deteriorated. For some unfathomable reason—Caesaria ego—I put on the breastplate and helmet and gaped at myself. How now, that sickly face and stupidity: my stupid room, some of it visible in the same glass: the odious German etchings Judith gave me, Papa’s cracked leather chest, the un­polished table, seamed plaster and varnished beams.

Tossing breastplate and helmet into the storeroom, I noticed something. A cloak? Lifting it out of a box, unfold­ing it, I thought it was her blue theatre cloak. How could it be, after having disappeared years ago, in the street? But, holding it higher, I searched for the slash and the blood stains. Of course it had been cleverly cleaned and mended! I was too disturbed to go over it carefully. No...no...I dropped it and put out the light and went to bed.

Lying there, I watched sky, clouds floating, white over stars and then the stars dazzlingly near and then the cloud-cloak covering them once more, drowning.

Fear sifts through my fingers and mind.

What am I—a lie? Was she a lie? Was life? The cloak?

Why haven’t I, if I am sure of my­self, seen to it that my plays have been published? I leave nothing. Nothing! Antony, Hamlet, Macbeth, Winter’s Tale, Ro­meo...not one. I must speak to Jonson and Alleyn. I must write to them at once!

Fog lay about in pieces like pieces of my life. Ground fog.

In the starlight I glared at my hands and saw that they were swollen, as they have often been lately.

Wasn’t that snow falling, flakes of morning?

I tried to remember Ellen’s face, tried to feel her presence.

When Ann brought me breakfast I could not look at her though she spoke to me kindly.

I write with costly effort—hands worse. I am cold. My mind staggers.

To the oriel—to look outside.

Thinking makes poverty.

Religion as we came to regard it in London was a glib and soiled art.

Eclipses of our mental sun and moon betray us; so I beseech you, brain, do not regress as time shows time’s ending: old and reverend, think straight.

Eater of broken meats I seem to be: knave, rascal, ruffian. Reverence to self...

Perhaps this cold world will turn us all to fools and madmen...

Stratford

Why is it I grimace so much? Alone I mug, pull my beard, rub flat of hand over my eyes, crack knuckles, shrug, sigh. Is this my sane monologue with self? What’s its purpose? Perhaps I must convince myself that I am alive and battling: grimace at the window, grimace on the pot, grimace at bed. Grimace is my horn­book. For the best of self-conviction I prefer knuckle cracking—such skeletal speech.

Stratford

February 26, 1616

So I’ll never know who attacked Ellen?

Is it because I am sick that I care?

Could it be that someone stepped from his stage of bitterness and struck her that night the fog drowned her carriage? Did he resent my luck? The harder poverty knocked the keener he felt my good luck: was that how it was? Was hunger a knife in his belly? Did he run away from London afterward? His hun­gry, motherless kids asked him to kill for money? Was that how it was?

“Your brother Fred is here, bending over you...”

“Was that Ann, who said that yesterday? Or was it Hall, bending over me, who said that Fred had come by?”

Ellen, could you come? Or Hamlet? Othello? Marlowe?

Stratford

March 5, 1616

Years ago I wrote this:

Can honor set a leg? Or set an arm? Or take away the pain of a wound? What is honor? A word? What is that word? Air? What has it? The fellow who died on Wednesday, does he feel it? Does he hear it?

But I still hear it...honor lives for me, in my memories of my father, for all those who have worked before I came into being, for the cathedral spire, the ship, the cut gem, the book, the play, the figure standing in sun and snow...

13th

Very sick for three days. Dr. Hall. Others.

Pain.

Can’t get to the oriel.

Wouldn’t know a hawk from a handsaw.

15th

I go before my darling,

I go before...

Follow to the bower in the close alley,

There we will together sweetly kiss

And like two wantons, dally—dally—dally...

Sing it again—sing to me before I die—the candles are dying—the wind is dying—I suffocate in my room—I want to be with you—sing our song—oh, to dally once more—sing—

March 18, 1616

Judith married early because I felt I could not last much longer... Judith, will a hundred and fifty pounds help you, with that husband who doesn’t want to work? A fine son-in-law...but...ah, the trouble I have caused. She could have waited...but, at that time...she thought... My will is insufficient...

Illness is such folly

I still remember names

Alleyn was here to see me...

Burbage won’t come...the man you care most to see, cares less for thee.

March 19

My affection remains, blazes as it were: there were winnings: good things strive to help us: come unto the yellow sands for their beneficence: hark: a pox against pain: who has pain! No. Defy the monsters, prod the phoenix, bury pig­nuts, come forward magical, fecundate freedom, build, levy songs.

I need Raleigh’s elixir! If men concoct an elixir of youth it is too late for me.

Then, that elixir of elixir of elixirs, hebenon!

Sprinkle it.

March 21, 1616

Now that I am sick, it seems so rare a thing I once climbed elms for rook’s nest and slashed all afternoon, in the August sun, to scythe the timothy in rows. I was fifteen, I think it was. Larks flew and sang. I liked the click-a-click of my scythe as it bladed. Crickets chirped. Magpies and jackdaws took the air. There was a kingfisher diving.

I long to dive where I used to swim, at Gray’s pool, alongside the burned mill; I used to strip and plunge off the sluice, after working in the field. Or we used to swim there—five or six of us—and test who could stay under longest, test—what was it I wanted to test?

Cowslips grew cap-a-pie on two sides of that pool and their cinque-spotted faces got trampled underfoot as we dashed nakedly about, lewdly knuckling each other’s penis. Banks of violets were thick on the shady side of the mill, thickest among heaps of smashed and rotting shingles...her favorite flower! Hers!

Home

Suppertime

Getting ready to die is looking across a stage through semi-darkness; it is muffing one’s lines; it is listening to incomprehensible promptings; it is taking the wrong exit. It is tampering with the plot, eliminating the star from the best scenes, substituting a beginner. Getting ready to die is watching the candle gut­ter, hearing the rooster before dawn, saying love’s good-bye; it is the footstep on the stair, the reveled, sleeved and broken sword.

Getting ready to die is no man’s business!

O, that this too, too solid flesh...

Home – Evening

March 27, 1616

For several days my eyesight has failed and I have been unable to write. I have less pain but I can not eat. They talk to me and I lie here, restless, hearing, hearing... I want to hear something like a promise, an echo of things hoped for.

That knocking at the door!

Rain over the house.

To sleep, to sleep...

March 28, 1616

When I was twenty, splendid, strong, I thought it would be noble to die in the Spring: ah, noble death I praised you childishly. This is springtime, and I see no signs of nobility.

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry—

how like a poem those lines read, and lie! At that time, when I wrote that sonnet, I was never more in love with life.

For days the rain has been falling over the town, fine rain, grey rain that is determined to shatter the last of my courage...for days.

Ann stands by my bedside, a plate of food in her hands, urging me to eat: “Take something...it will help you, Will.”

Susanna sits by my side and sighs, “Papa, Papa.”

Alleyn visits me, his voice warming my room, in the beaten way of friendship.

March 30, ’16

Again I am reminded I must complete my will—and so I must.

Tomorrow I’ll dictate...how will it go?

In the name of God, I, William Shakespeare, gentleman, in perfect health and memory, make and ordain this last will and testament...

How can I say perfect health and memory?

I commend my soul into the hands of God, hoping and believing to be made a partaker of life everlasting, and my body to the earth thereof it is made... Custom...

Item: I bequeath to my daughter, Judith, a hundred and fifty pounds (shall I make it more?); in addition, I grant her my estate in Warr County—I like that place...

To Joan—I leave my clothes. Why?

To Elizabeth Hall, I leave my silverware...

To Thomas Combe, my sword. (I liked that sword...its inlaid hilt!)

To Richard Burbage (good friend), money for a ring.

For daughter, Susanna Hall, my home, barns, stables, orchards, gardens, lands, tenements...my new house in Blackfriars.

To Ben Jonson—fifty pounds and this journal. Short-changed again, Ben.

Item: to my wife, my second best bed and our furniture. (It should be more. What shall it be?)

To Dr. John Hall, all settlements after the payment of debts...there is no more...

I must remember to speak in a clear voice.

In two sepia rectangles, the renowned Droeshout portrait of Shakespeare and the famous Gerard bust...

The bust revolves slowly as a voice intones Shakespeare’s last will.

The talking portrait speaks from the Stratford church wall: through the open door of the church a blue cloak half conceals the Non Sanz Droict coat-of-arms.

Lincoln’s Journal

For Freedom

All of the quotations of Abraham Lincoln’s writings are in the public domain:

Pages

521 lines 9-10

522 entire page

523 lines 1-4 and 22-24

524 lines 2-5

528 lines 1-3

534 lines 11-12

537 lines 25-30

538 lines 1-26 and 30

539 lines 1-21 and 26-33

544 lines 10-14

548 lines 18-20

556 lines 29-30

557 lines 1-4

560 lines 3-11

563 line 15

568 lines 5-7 and 12-20

572 lines 14-17

575 lines 17-20

579 line 3

585 lines 18-25

586 lines 1-6

588 lines 22-29: Diary quotation, Doneway & Evans, A Treasury of the World’s Great Diaries

589 lines 1-2: ibid.

591 lines 5-16: quotation from Ohn Quincy, President of

Harvard, Harvard Record

591 lines 19-23

592 lines 1-2

598 line 26: song, “Tenting Tonight”

603 lines 15-23

605 lines 23-26

606 lines 9-15

607 lines 24-28

610 lines 15-19: Shiloh quotation, Doneway & Evans

1

Executive Mansion

May 4, 1863

N

ot long after my inauguration I made a resolution to write something about my life. Writing, late at night, I hoped to escape the pressures of the war and go back into time.

April 12, 1861 — at 4:30 a.m., the war began.

Thirty-nine days after my inauguration!

When I called for 75,000 volunteers, I thought hostilities would end soon. I thought of many things in those trying days. There was the terrible summer of ’82, when wheat fields were swept by gunfire, 20,000 Confederates died, the Union lost 16,000. Boys, mostly boys. Which General woke me during the night? Dark days, dark nights. The Army of the Potomac had 100,000 soldiers. Their losses and gains are part of me. Deserters, absentees, spies—each is part of me. The wounded, the sick, the dying, the dead—they are part of me.

Oh, Traveler, why did you bring this war?

And Wall Street remembers this war! Fears it!

There seemed to be panic in rooms of this building.

The two years I have been here have taught me a great deal about men and self.

Yet, now, now I will record my life though life surges around Washington, though each one of us is sorely tried; we have read anew life’s “great tragic vol­ume,” as John Adams called it. The pages lie open as drums thud along the Po­tomac.

Executive Mansion

May 7, 1863

North versus South, we have a population of 18 million fighting a popula­tion of 5 million, folly vs. folly, brother vs. brother, Commander Lee vs. General Lee, Major Crittenden vs. General Crittenden.

Europeans assure me that my cause is a lost cause. They say I will never eradicate slavery. The South says I will never end slavery because it is an honor­able way of life. Our Indian brothers have sided with the South. But it is the cause of the Union that gives us strength, gives us right.

Union forever...flags...they wave yet do not heal...they acclaim patriotism. But patriotism can blind us. It is a “whirlwind,” as Emerson reminds us. For my part, it is my oath to preserve and protect this government of freedom for all men.

My convictions do not wane as cabinet members fail me. I am firmly con­vinced that tact can win against men who oppose, who are selfish or temporarily deaf. I believe the citizenry understands me as I understand them, as they pour into my office and talk with me.

May 19, 1863

I reaffirm myself.

I wish to tell that I was a man of the wilderness; I wish to write about my mother, about my village of New Salem, my home in Springfield with its maple trees. I see the sunlight in my office windows and it is also the sunlight of my boyhood and youth.

Tomorrow night, with my lamps lit and candles on my desk, I will begin to find out who I am.

I will begin to go back twenty years, thirty years, forty years. Snow storms will batter our log cabin. I will recall what it was to go hungry. I will try to fit to­gether hours, days, nights. I’ll open the prairie schooner of my brain.

I had requested the telegraph office: NO TELEGRAMS between one and 5 a.m.

To commence my diary I will use lines I wrote a few years ago for an Illinois newspaper.

May 20, 1863

I am six feet four inches tall and weigh one hundred and eighty pounds. I am lean, muscular, have dark skin, coarse black hair and grey eyes. My legs and arms are long; my hands are large; I wear a size 12 shoe.

I was put to work when I was about eight or nine—farmed out for 13 cents a day. I cut wood, mended fences, herded cattle, dug ditches. At home, I milked our cow, lugged pails of water, cleaned slop, fed the stove. Weather meant al­most nothing to my family; we lived exactly like Indians in our 3-sided cabin. We ate like Indians—when we could. At times we said nothing to each other for days on end that could be in any way construed as interesting.

Executive Mansion

May 22, 1863

I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were born in Virginia, of undistinguished families—second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks...

My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Virginia to Kentucky about 1781, where a year or two later he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest.

My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he grew up literally without education. When I was eight he removed from Kentucky to Indiana; we reached our new home about the time the state came into the Un­ion. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods...

My father settled in an unbroken forest, and the clearing away of surplus wood was the great task ahead. Though very young I had an ax put in my hands...and from that, till within my twenty-third year, I was constantly handling that useful instrument.

...A few days before the completion of my eighth year, in my father’s absence, a flock of wild turkey approached our new log cabin. Standing inside, I shot through a crack and killed one of them. I have never since pulled a trigger on larger game.

I think that the aggregate of all my schooling did not amount to one year. I was never in a college or academy as a student, and never inside of a college or academy building till I had a law license. After I was twenty-three and had sepa­rated from my father, I studied English grammar. I have studied and nearly mastered the six books of Euclid since I became a member of Congress.

Executive Mansion

June 1, 1863

In the wilderness there were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond “readin’, writin’ and cipherin’ ” to the rule of three. If a straggler, supposed to understand Latin, happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three... The little advance I now have upon this store of education I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.

My father lived in Knob Creek, Kentucky; from this place he removed to Spencer County, Indiana, in the autumn of 1816; I was eight. The removal was partly on account of his resentment of slavery, but chiefly on account of the dif­ficulty in acquiring legal land titles.

I became a sort of clerk in New Salem; I served as postmaster; then came the Black Hawk War; I was elected a Captain of volunteers, a success which gave me more freedom than any I have had since.

I went on the campaign, a campaign that led nowhere, except to the dead, that row of eleven men, lying in the sun, each head neatly scalped. I ran for leg­islature the same year (1832), and was beaten. It is the only time I ever have been beaten by the people. The next and three succeeding biennial elections I was elected to the state legislature.

As I rode horseback along the county roads something rode with me, an in­ner person. Beside the road, my horse browsing, I read a book. I remember sit­ting by a creek, listening to the frogs in the chill spring air; there was that person, that inner force.

I knew that there was little or no chance for advancement in this rural com­munity unless it came through politics. So, politics had to shine my shoes and buy my trousers. I would prove that honesty was appreciated here. I would fit it into the crown of my hat.

June 5, 1863

It is a great piece of folly to attempt to make anything out of my early life. It can be all condensed into a simple sentence, and that sentence you will find in Grey’s Elegy: “The short and simple annals of the poor.”

And I add Grey’s lines for myself :

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learned to stray;

Along the cool sequestered vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

One more thought:

My mother was the illegitimate daughter of Lucy Hawks, and a well-bred Vir­ginia farmer. God bless her; all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to her. I be­lieve that I in­herited extra drive from her unfortunate background. That drive stands me in good stead.

Executive Mansion

June 10, 1863

I have experienced death many times. My aunt, my uncle, my brother’s death. Then my mother’s death of milk sickness. Such suffering. I whittled the pegs for her coffin. I can see her grave outside our cabin. I could see it each time we opened the door. In the spring and often during the summer I placed flowers on her grave. She loved lilacs and roses. Her kindness lingers on. Friends called her a woodland madonna.

Later, when my step-mother came, her love was felt by each one of us.

“Let me help you, Abe. Let me strain the milk tonight...you’re tired. What a big stack of wood you’ve cut for us, son. That should last a while!”

She could handle an ax. She could lug a sack of flour. When wolves howled, she’d lean over me and say a few words or kiss my forehead. When my shoulders ached she rubbed them with bear grease.

“If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take,” is a prayer she taught me.

Sometimes we planted pumpkin seeds together, on a nearby slope. She was faster than I. Again and again, she urged me to attend school. Each time we moved, she located the nearest schoolhouse. “You’ve got to go, Abe.” I used to read to her.

She liked Aesop’s Fables best. We’d sit in the evening sun and lean against the side of the cabin and I would read. We learned the fables quickly. Her favorite fable was “The Wolf and the Crane.” In those days, my favorite was “The Snake and a File.”

The White House

June 12, 1863

Often, when I am alone and tired, I remember the hot sun of the prairie summer, how it seems to hold down everything as far as the eye can see. I re­member how it climbed almost every morning—like a wheel.

I remember the squeaking of leather as my horse pulled his plow; there was small corn growing nearby, in field after field. There were birds.

There is a biting sense of loss, looking into the past: we know this is some­thing that can never take place again. We know, too, that we can resurrect our­selves, sometimes pleasurably. Today, I esteem those glimpses that reassure me, in spite of their passing. Without them I think life would be so overcome by the present it would be difficult to continue living.

The better life should be everyman’s goal, a life that is not eaten up by toil, a life where there is freedom for thought, freedom for action. Men should be able to draw from the past; men should be able to construct for the present, a plan. Man should have time to evolve for himself and posterity—a heritage evoking pride leading to achievement that makes life worth living.

The White House

June 20, 1863

Some of my happy days were passed in East Salem, when I was an Illinois postmaster. Since the mail arrived only twice a week, I could peruse the Louisville Journal and the Intelligencer. I think there were about twenty-five families living in Salem in those days. I enjoyed delivering the mail personally; there was ample time to be friendly. So, I stuffed the letters inside my hat and walked from house to house. I got to know everybody that way. Summers were easy times. Remem­bering those summers they seem to stretch in a long line, with groves and fishing spots here and there.

I remember a huge boulder where I used to sit. Probably I had delivered my last letter. A rabbit liked to sit near me. I would shut my eyes and appreciate the greatness of life in the rabbit, in the trees around me, in the wind—the greatness that existed in my mother’s life.

June 24, 1863

At the Burkes’ home, not far from the post office, I rented a room. The Burkes, who are Quakers, a family of two, put themselves out for me, and gave me an upstairs room with a lamp. At night I got out needle and thread and mended my clothes, or, sitting in a leather chair, I read. Charles Burke and I fashioned that chair.

He lent me pen and ink, and I was able to practice penmanship—copying from a spelling book; it seemed great fun to me to spell out words, so much easier than working with an ax. Mrs. Burke’s tabby, grey and fat, liked to keep me company, flipping a paw at the M’s and L’s.

In Salem I fell into debt.

When my partner died, my partner in the grocery business, I assumed his in­debtedness—$1,000. It took me years to wipe out that sum, as huge as the na­tional debt. I shucked corn, cradled wheat, chopped wood, ferryboated, clerked...$2.00 here, $5.00 here, $7.00 here. My debit column required all of my scheming. While I struggled to pay that thousand dollars I resolved to lay aside something as a cushion, but it was many years before I could carry out that resolution. Those were pinching times.

Executive Mansion

June 25, 1863

At Number 4, Hoffman’s Row, we had our law office, second floor, a narrow room with a pair of elegant brass spittoons, a Pennsylvania wood burning stove. High on the wall, above my desk, hung an engraving of Benjamin Franklin. Our rough center table was usually overloaded with documents—like some outland­ish mule. Legal books and newspapers filled shelves. A narrow window faced the street; another window let in sunlight. The elements washed them. The floor was bare oak but we had a fine assortment of chairs. There was a lounge near the sunny window and I liked to stretch out there, on the shaggy buffalo hide.

Billy Herndon and I had that shingle, good natured Billy. Here we talked business, cockfights, women, and horse races. For sixteen years we kept at it, learning, unlearning. For every stick of wood we burned in that Pennsylvania stove we had an ardent opinion.

Billy and I earned about $3,000 or $4,000, good for a town that already had eleven lawyers. Springfield, in those days, offered better legal services than side­walks. Pigs in the streets, mud on our boots—so it went. We offered our services at all hours of the day. Often I never walked home for lunch. When I rode cir­cuit, Billy kept house. The wren that lived in a box outside our door had a neater establishment than ours, but, she was not a member of the state legislature.

The White House

July 3rd, 1863

During my political career, I have striven to be astute where slavery is con­cerned. The issue of slavery has been a sensitive one, always difficult. Anti-slavery sentiment has been in existence no matter where I lived, usually undercover. The Baptist preacher I listened to as a boy was anti-slavery. I be­lieved him. I saw blacks in chains, men and women. I soon learned about the cruelty that menaced their lives, destroyed their lives; I felt that I could, if I lived long enough, thwart slavery, perhaps abolish it, make our great nation a free na­tion. Patience, I repeated again and again to myself. I knew about Linda Mae. She was bound to William Wison for ninety-nine years. She was nineteen when that legal document was signed. When she reached 118 years she would be free. Patience?

Slavery was an old institution in Illinois, winked at in the 30’s and 40’s. The first governor of the state possessed slaves. I have seen human beings herded and treated like animals. Our family moved from Kentucky, troubled by the ways of slavery. My black clients sometimes confided in me, described, underlined, the devious trickeries of the whites. Billy, my Springfield barber, had tales to tell. I have heard them as he shaved me or trimmed my hair.

I am slow to learn, and slow to forget. My mind is like a piece of steel—very hard to scratch anything on it, and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out.

Memories...it wasn’t so long ago I tramped at the head of the ox team, as we moved from one place to another, one beginning that had not really ended, to another beginning that might not end. The oxen were faithful. They meant much to me. I will not forget. They ate from my hands, they blew their breaths on my fingers, they regarded me intently. It rained on us. The sun shone on us.

July 11, 1863

Was it twenty or thirty years ago, we drifted down the Mississippi, three of us on a loaded flatboat? She was well overloaded because all of us wanted to get rich quick. The second or third day on the river, a tornado-like storm struck us; I thought we would lose more than our cargo. Down went the stern, down went the bow. I thought lightning would strike us. My friends, John H___ and John J___ , were experienced river men. With luck we made it. In New Orleans, we sold both cargo and flatboat, and returned home by sternwheeler.

Memories—one of the most vivid is the New Orleans’ slave auction: men and women for the highest bidder. How much is my mother worth? I asked my­self. How much is my father? My Uncle James? Two women were sold while I watched at the corner of a busy street. Two women, then three men were sold. Were they friends, relatives? Did they speak our language? Where were they taken? One of the men in New Orleans left the auction stand in handcuffs. The women rode away in fancy buggies—faces haggard.

I have never had to summon a jury in defense of freedom. No court can de­fend slavery if men are honorable.

Tuesday evening

Late

As the months pass, as troubles increase, I hunt for moments from yesterday, moments that may strengthen me, moments that may prove I was once young. There is my Ann Rutledge. I see her auburn hair, blue eyes and delicate face—more than ephemera. My love for her is real, apart, unrelated to the man I am, yet remembered—a contradiction. Although it is a lie I feel that Ann is alive.

I allowed my burden of debts to turn me away from marriage. I believed that frontier hardships were to remain my lot; I could not see harnessing her to a life of animal drudgery. Debts...they were like bars in a gate; I peered through those bars at her beautiful face.

We buried her among currant bushes, in the wind, in the sun. I left the cemetery to wander through hungry woodlands, woodlands I never saw again, that extended...I don’t know how far they extended. Hunger and sorrow...they were mine.

All that remains of our brief relationship is the memory of her voice, as she spoke, as she sang. She loved to sing hymns and frontier songs—her voice so feminine.

The touch of her hand, the touch of her voice...in the midst of war, under desperate commitments.

Evening

We were to enroll. Ann was to enroll at Jacksonville Academy. I was to enroll at Illinois College.

That year I called on her at the Rutledge farm, several times. We worked to­gether in the fields. When she worked at Jim Short’s farm, I rode over to be with her. I helped her with the chores. Swampy place.

August came, hot, dry August. Corn was stunted that year. Few martins and swallows were around. But malaria was around and put me down, a day, two days, three. I sipped Peruvian bark—jalap. Late that month, her father sent for me.

Valued brother, come, Ann is very ill.

D. H. Rutledge.

I still have that message.

She lay on her bed, feverish; the log house seemed to be claiming her; she put her small hands in mine; her corn silk hair was around her face. In two days she was gone. We buried her in Concord, seven miles away, seven miles to walk be­hind her coffin.

It was many weeks, many weeks and miles of walking, before I recovered, out of that grey mystery.

I still write to her family. I want to know how the Rutledges are faring.

White House

In wagons, on foot, on horseback, they stream west, for the gold rush, for the promises. Ours is a migratory urge. Flux of men, women, children, reapers, sowers, which comes first? Which the most important? We Americans expropri­ate, accomplish, destroy. The rough rock becomes polished by time, but do we? Can such migrations achieve a true union?

I realize there is a power larger than self, more powerful than leadership. It is this mysterious power that causes this human wave. It is not destiny. It is an interchange of ideas, a wave or waves of emotion, a desire for betterment—and beyond that! The pioneer has this in his mind, as he hacks at timber, removes stumps, sprouts corn. Deep inside me, like a blue pool, I am in accord with these frontiersmen.

White House

window wide open

August 1st, 1863

In Springfield, when problems got under my skin, I sometimes woke at night, puzzled, thinking where am I? I’d find myself sitting up in bed, gesturing, talking to myself. Alarmed, I would dress and lay a fire and sit by it the remainder of the night, sit by the stove or go out into the backyard, if it was summer or autumn.

Melancholia has always dogged me. It seems to sit inside of me and peer out. It catches me, involves me, at the most unexpected moments. Melancholy influ­ences my decisions, legal decisions or those at home, even while I am playing with the children. Like any physical handicap I try to live with it, minimize it.

Springfield problems were largely legal problems, problems for Billy and me, problems about horse thieves, mortgage foreclosures, defaults in payment, land titles. I lost a manslaughter case but won my defense of the nine women in­volved in rioting. I had a bevy of widows trail after me when I won the case of the man accused of robbing the mail of $15,000.

Such problems create a backwash over the years; I see now that on my circuit I avoided home very frequently, staying away two or three weeks at a time. Marital bliss and melancholia are known to be mates.

Executive Mansion

8/9/63

For years I was haunted by a great number of things. First, it was essential to learn to read. Then to write. To find work that would support me. I wished to help others. I felt that there was more to life than brute labor. I found friends. Honesty appealed. I was not impressed by rowdies. Serving as Captain in the Black Hawk War taught me that causes are not always good causes. Scalped men are not helpful men.

I can not forget those men lying in the bush, lying in a row, red sunlight on them.

My father was a slave to ignorance.

My mother was a slave to the wilderness.

I longed to abolish all kinds of slavery.

Some of my black friends were slaves; I wanted to abolish their kind of slav­ery. There is the slavery of poverty. Men and women eating potatoes day after day.

So, I was haunted.

Could I become man’s benefactor?

Lying in my attic, on my bed of corn shocks, I confronted log walls—- strong log walls.

August 9, 1863

On my circuit rides, when weather favored, when there was enough time, I stopped at a grove, dismounted, walked to a tree deep in the grove, a tree I had blazed when county surveying; I walked on to the second blaze that marked a green pool. It was a small shallow pool rimmed with short grass. Dragonflies came there. Crickets lived near there. Standing there, sitting there, I found meaning, a meaning I still respect.

Tell me, ye winged winds

That round my pathway roar,

Do ye not know some spot

Where mortals weep no more?

The White House

August 12, 1863

I suppose I may as well confess: I have always envied my partner his marital luck: Billy Herndon married Nancy Maxcy, back in ’40, a quiet beauty, a gentle beauty, blonde as corn silk, ready with dreamy smiles. She gave Billy rare personal happiness, made it easier for him after annoying legal squabbles, after long circuit rides. She gave him six healthy children. She was a giver in so many ways—alms for all. Theirs has been a continual romance.

The mind does tricks. I am back in my boyhood cabin. A prairie schooner stands outside. A man and woman have unhitched their oxen team, their little girl is made to feel at home by my mother. She is eight; I am eight or nine, I can’t remember. I remember that she was pretty. We played together all day. Then, came sunup, the ox team hauled away the schooner...my love was gone. I dreamed about her for weeks, happy dreams; in one of those repeated dreams we eloped, we went to California, we built a beautiful home...

My love for her has never gone away.

August 14, 1863

Many times Jenny plodded my rural circuit.

Usually, I gave her the reins. Every stopping place, store, tavern, church, sa­loon, school, was fixed in her brain. If I had to check her it was for some wash­out, new ruts in the road, a downhill run, a flooded creek. As we plodded along I read my law books or played the harmonica. June, July, August...January and February, we rocked in that black buggy with its scarlet spokes. I kept it in good shape but I never did eliminate the squeaks in the right rear spring.

In those days prosperity was slow in arriving. I settled my cases under trees, in churches, in schools and stores—for barter and for cash.

Mary never neglected my food hamper; always something tasty, with an apple or a carrot or two tossed in for Jenny. We would stop in a patch of woods on a hot day; I would yank off my boots and rest my corns. Thunderstorms often fell on us; at the nearest stable I would rub Jenny until she was dry, and she would look and look at me as I rubbed her.

Willie liked to accompany me on our summer jaunts; he got to know the lone dead pine; the maple grove at Dobson’s Creek; he knew the roosting place of the red hawk, the place of the squirrels. We often saw fox and deer. I might read Fennimore Cooper to him as we rode along.

“...Papa, look at those pigeons...a whole cloud of them.”

Willie’s favorite topic was the railroad, the locomotives. He knew every type of engine, their speed, their horsepower. “Wonder horses,” he called them.

“All aboard,” he would shout, as we got into our buggy. “Let’s go...the Indi­ans are comin’.”

Who owns Jenny now?

Where is she?

She’s about eleven years old.

The White House

August 29, 1863

Glancing through a Greek history, I found something Euripides said in one of his plays:

Slavery, that thing of evil, by its nature evil,

forcing submission from man to what no man should yield to.

To set men free—that is the greatest goal any man could achieve.

But slavery is part of our issue. This is essentially a people’s contest. On the side of the Union is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and sub­stance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.

Tuesday

I like to forget East Salem’s juvenility, sparring, boxing, wrestling. Pranks could be alarmingly stupid. There was Ike and his pony. He was fool enough to try to ride his piebald through a bonfire of shavings and cornstalks—to settle a bet. He raced across a field toward the blaze; just as he reached it, the pony bucked and pitched Ike into the fire. The onlookers stomped and roared and whistled. I was angry and took Ike to Dr. Samuel’s office, where the doctor shaved his head and salved his scorched face and hands.

I saw no profit, no form of progress in Salem’s rowdies. I preferred the simple things in life, a job, a long walk, hills, sun. As county surveyor I commu­nicated through transit and tapes, through timberland acreage. They arranged life in useable proportions. This was a function beyond the village. To measure land was to measure the future. Precision spelled confidence.

September 1, 1863

To give the victory to the right, not through bloody bullets but through peaceful ballots—this is essential. Our constitution proves that the ballot can rule. Right-thinking men shall go to the polls, without fear or prejudice.

I think these thoughts, I write these words, as men attack, counterattack, re­treat, die. Hate and bitterness are in control. I raise my spyglass and look through my window. A small sailboat moves along the Potomac. It is possible for a man to provision a boat, set sail, dis­appear. It is possible for a man to work with other men and achieve.

September 2, 1863

A drum corps passes the White House.

I listen.

I must ask myself some questions this evening: must civilization be influ­enced by greedy politicians, connivers, self-promoters, toadies? Is there such a thing as common sense where the bulk of mankind is concerned? Is Christianity a bulwark to be counted on, or is it cleverly concocted pretension? Must tragedy dog man’s footsteps? Does a lie have a more lasting influence than the truth? Do the echoes of John Brown end? Is the Dred Scott case on trial, decade after dec­ade?

These and other questions flog my mind.

Men say I am moody, they say I am a man of mystery. If I am mysterious at times it is because I seek answers. I demand answers. Only fools accept the face of things. Men weary of my tales and my humor as I hunt for enlightenment for this troubled country. It is my duty to care more than anyone, and humor and satire have an influence not to be scorned.

The White House

September 15, 1863

If I were home my fat Filibuster would shove his whiskers into my face and meow. He loved to be scratched...he was Robert’s pet but when I lay on the floor of the parlor to read he would stretch out beside me. I’d scratch him and try to go on with my reading.

I would like to have supper tonight in my shirt sleeves, and answer the door­bell in my carpet slippers.

I would like to hear Mary scolding the iceman, as he tries, once more, to over­charge her.

How well she managed our house, penny-wise always. How well she attended the children. She found time to help the poor; was never too busy to chat with a neighbor.

“Let’s see a play tonight. There’s that new one, A For­tune to Share. Shall we go?”

I see myself puttering in the yard. There was time to prune the trees, to cut wood, plant flowers. The horse and cow were part of our lives. I was another man then.

I wonder what happened to my grey hat; it had a wide band inside, fine for stuffing letters and checks. Maybe Billy has it, hanging on the tree, at the back of our office.

The White House

Evening

Throughout that long, dry summer, Stephen Douglas and I battled our verbal battles. There was a noble pertinacity in the “Little Giant.” I called him a “slan­derer” and a “sneak.” He dubbed me a “fraud,” and alluded to pro-slavery con­spiracies. He attacked my “house divided” stand... I insisted that a nation could not endure half-free, half-slave.

Douglas had his private car, bannered and flagged. A handsome brass cannon boomed from a flatcar coupled to his train, boomed his entry into every town and city. Often our debates were veritable picnics, fireworks, bands. I rode on a Conestoga drawn by six white horses...bunting... flowers...pretty girls. Sometimes a secretary recorded our speeches.

As the summer wore on, I began to stress the moral issues with great empha­sis. I had little hope that I would win the senate seat; my voice, pitched higher than his, also lacked accomplished delivery. The silent artillery of time was firing at us. I heard the country’s slaves crying out. I remembered that John Randolph said that slavery was “a volcano in full eruption.”

Votes...but it is not altogether a matter of votes.

Yet the day of reckoning arrived.

Douglas – 54. Lincoln – 46.

So I lost.

It will be hard to die and leave the country no better than if I had never lived.

September 29th, 1863

My Desk

I may remark that having in my life heard many arguments—or strings of words meant to pass for arguments—intended to show that the negro ought to be a slave—if he shall now fight in the Confederate Army to keep himself a slave, it will be a far better argument why he should remain a slave than I have ever heard before.

Perhaps he ought to be a slave if he desires it ardently enough to fight for it. Or, if one out of four will, for his own freedom, fight to keep the other three in slavery, he ought to be a slaver for his selfish meanness.

I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

Once again, we ask: what is freedom?

Individually, it is a chance to worship or not worship, it is a chance to earn a living, to raise a family, examine the past, improve one’s intellect, guard one’s health. It is also an opportunity to perfect national and international law. Cer­tainly, freedom should not be a code but should emphasize, in every respect, human values. Millions in our land lack freedom. This condition must not con­tinue. Education is the sure route toward freedom.

Thursday

My Desk

If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B, why may not B snatch the same argument and prove equally, that he may enslave A? You say A is white and B is black. It is color then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule you are to be a slave to the first man you meet with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the supe­riors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule you are to be the slave to the first man you meet with an in­tellect superior to your own. But, say you, it is a question of interest; and if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.

I hear rifle fire in the night.

October 4, 1863

This rainy evening I take up my pen again.

There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the fu­ture. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the infinite to the finite.

Probably it is to be my lot to go on in a twilight, feeling and reasoning my way through life, as questioning, doubting Thomas did. But in my poor, maimed, withered way bear with me as I go on seeking for a faith that was with him of olden times, who exclaimed “Help thou my unbelief.”

I do not see that I am more astray—though perhaps in a different direc­tion—than others whose points of view differ widely from each other in the sectarian denominations. They all claim to be Christians, and interpret their sev­eral creeds as infallible ones. I doubt the possibility, or propriety, of settling the religion of Jesus Christ in the models of man-man creeds and dogmas.

It was a spirit in the life that He laid stress on and taught, if I read aright. I know I see it to be so with me... The fundamental truths reported in the four Gospels as from the lips of Jesus, and that I first heard from the lips of my mother, are settled and fixed moral precepts with me. I have concluded to dis­miss from my mind the debatable wrangles that once perplexed me with distrac­tions that stirred up but never absolutely settled anything. I have tossed them aside with the doubtful differences which divide denominations. I have ceased to follow such discussions or be interested in them. I cannot without mental reser­vations assent to long and complicated creeds and catechisms.

The White House

I had a visitor this morning who needed to be reassured. He is a trembling old man from Arkansas, a local politician. After spelling out some good news for his benefit I told him this anecdote... I think it worked very well...

An eccentric old bachelor lived in the Hoosier state and was famous for see­ing big bugaboos in everything. He lived with an elder brother and one day went out hunting. His brother heard him firing back in the cornfield and went out to see what was the matter. He found him loading and firing into the top of a tree. Not being able to dis­cover anything in the tree, he asked his brother what he was firing at. “A squirrel,” the man said, and kept on firing. His brother thought there was some humbug about the matter and looked him over carefully and found a big louse crawling about on one of his eyelashes.

Executive Mansion

October 12, 1863

After my nomination Springfield filled with ox carts, wagons, buggies, horsemen, trainloads of folk. Fifty-thousand poured into my little town. Hordes jammed the street in front of my house, yelling “Speech...speech!”

I greeted them, said a few words, joked.

Reporters swarmed around me. Friends came and went. I forgot to stable the horse, forgot to milk the cow. Mary scolded me for forgetting my supper.

Tad got lost in the crowd.

Wind blew, dust blew.

It seems very amusing to me now. Unreal.

Streets were lit with burning tar barrels and torches. People sang, paraded the streets.

“ Ole Abe Lincoln came out of the wilderness,

Out of the wilderness, out of the wilderness...”

I turned in mighty late that night, yet singers were still singing, singing “Gen­tle Annie” and other favorites.

October 13, 1863

Before leaving for Washington, I went to my office to say good-bye to Billy Herndon. It wasn’t easy climbing that stair. It was difficult to say good-bye to my old partner and friend. I gathered up some books and papers and laid them on the big table. I stretched out on the old couch, with the buffalo robe under me.

“How long have we been working together, Billy?”

“Over sixteen years,” he replied.

“We’ve never had a cross word all that time, have we?”

He nodded.

“That’s right.”

I asked him to retain our old shingle, on its rusty hinges.

“If I live, I’ll be coming back, and then we’ll go on as if nothing had ever happened.”

At the bottom of the stairs, we shook hands.

In keeping with my philosophy I felt certain that I would never return to Springfield.

October 21, 1863

White House

Library

The unfinished dome on the White House continues to trouble me. The in­completion has become a symbol. I peer through its maw and it seems a war wound. When will it be finished? And when it has been completed will the union of the North and South begin? A carpenter tips his hat: “Good morning, Mr. President.” Throughout the morning I have heard hammers and saws. Patience, I tell myself. A wise man invented patience. The emancipation of man will re­quire great patience.

It is pleasant writing in the library. I will return again.

Here is a book, on my desk, entitled Sparta. I be­lieve that the Spartans were often respected for their courage.

What is it men fear most? Death?

Ten men will have ten answers.

From the days of the Spartans men have floundered over freedom—spelling it a hundred different ways! The Iroquois had their idea of freedom. The Pilgrim had his. The blacks. The list can go on and on.

Freedom and death... I see they have an ugly affinity.

Nov 1st – 63

The Library

As far back as I can remember I have always watched over my dollars. In Springfield I knew what each month’s expenses amounted to. During my sixteen-year partnership with Billy Herndon, our agreement was fifty-fifty. There never were any problems. Though it is miles to Springfield, I can summon fig­ures. Our last year together, Billy and I earned $2,300 each. We had 63 cases at $10.00 each; we had 20 at $15.00 each, etc. Twenty or twenty-five brought in $5.00. Apart from these combined earnings I added about $1,200 on my prairie circuits. This is a singular improvement over 31¢ a day at farm labor. As farm hand I earned about $100.00 a year, eliminating thunder and lightning, hail, sore muscles, broken ax handles, corns, a chronic failure on the part of farmers to pay their promised payments. City lamplighters do better.

Few in this capitol have ever enjoyed the intimacy old Jenny and I shared, buggy-sharing, spelled out with faithful grunts, special ear signals and soft nuz­zlings. No, it wasn’t always money-concern for me. Another asset was Billy’s library—his Kant, Locke, Spencer, Volney, and Emerson.

Another virtue, one that is very difficult to spell out, Billy kept my inkwell full.

November 12, 1863

Evening

Today has been a day of war problems. Telegrams contradict telegrams. In my bedroom I opened my Shakespeare to Julius Caesar:

There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat,

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.

Where is there finer counsel for me?

Foremost in my mind is the termination of this war, the abolishing of black servitude, the welding of our statehood. A triple goal!

Saturday

I used to wash in an iron keeler, scrubbing hard after plowing or splitting rails. Saturday was scrub night.

Here, at the Executive Mansion, the pretentious bathrooms trouble me. There are thousands of neglected, hungry folk. It is a president’s obligation to assist those in need.

For all concerned there have been more favored times; as a people we are trapped between violence and the mending of that violence; in spite of our be­wilderment we reach out.

I can not say grace any longer. I have tried. I stumble. I can not express my thanks for food when men are hungry. When whole communities are hungry, when death stalks our nation. If I am fortunate I may be fortunate at another’s expense, another’s disadvantage.

Tomorrow, I will saddle Old Abe. I will shove my new Wordsworth book into my saddlebag and ride into the country, along the Potomac. I will eat dry corn bread. I will lie in deep grass and read, all day.

Nov 20, ’63

Early

I prefer art that pictures a Niagara or a lofty mountain range at sunset or a tall vase full of flowers. I don’t go for the painting of faces—portraits. The painting done by Francis Carpenter troubles me; for one thing I wish he would remove it from the dining room where he has excellent chandelier light. Of course I can not find time to sit for him during the day. And all those faces on his canvas are so dull, such solemn faces; seven dull men surround me as I sign the Emancipa­tion Proclamation. People, looking at those men, will think ill of us. At dinner, if the painting is still in the dining room, I face away from it. Carpenter says he will take the picture on a national tour. I believe that is an error.

Monday evening

Fireplace fire

Where are sexual malpractices focused?

Let me indicate:

In 1850 there were 405,523 mulattoes. Very few of these are the offspring of white and free blacks; nearly all have sprung from black slaves and white mas­ters. In the same year, there were 56,649 mulattoes in the free states; but for the most part they were not born there—they came from the slave states. During this year, the slave states had 348,847 mulattoes, all of home production.

The White House

Since no man is born president of his country, he must cross a difficult bridge between home and capitol. Crossing it, he is involved in national issues and problems he could not anticipate. About him is a sea of new faces; he must remember each; he must remember names; he must define personalities as quickly and as intelligently as possible.

Following my inauguration, Fort Sumter, at Charleston, was bombarded; within six weeks state secession had begun. “Secession is revolution,” I reminded my dissatisfied fellow countrymen. Grim cabinet meetings took place; telegram followed telegram; I soon realized that months of decision and indecision lay ahead. I saw it would be months before I could control my own house.

Needing friends, I reached out and found a few; needing wisdom, I made mistakes. My office window showed me an alien river; there were more than thirty rooms in the White House, rooms and sounds. And the sounds were more often drum beats, slow beats, suggesting caution, intimating death.

FORT SUMTER FALLEN. Commander Anderson Surren­ders. April 14, 1861, Fort Sumter, located in the harbor of Charleston, S. C., surrendered yesterday, after 34 hours of Confederate bombardment. The 100 survivors, without food and ammunition... 75,000 Union men called up...

I have lost that newspaper clipping but I can repeat the tragic news word-for-word, words that shocked our entire country! That left us embattled! Now, I can not, will not, review in detail the war’s progress. Must each battle fought on the battlefield be fought again here? I want this diary more man than history. If that is possible.

W. H.

November 29, 1863

Last year, on May second, I began the banishment of international slave trade. Congress appropriated the sum of $900,000 to aid in its suppression. Five ships have been captured at sea and the slaves on board those vessels have been returned to Liberia.

Now, an American ship, the Erie, out of Portland, has been captured off the West African coast, and 893 slaves have been liberated. Captain Gordon has been hung for his crime. To bring even greater pressure and afford greater suc­cess, my Secretary of State has negotiated a successful Anti-Slave Treaty with England. On April 24th, 1862, this treaty was ratified by the Senate. It was a dis­tinct pleasure to have the Secretary congratulate me warmly. Our eradication of slave trade has been a marked success.

Henceforth, the blackbirders will find slave trade dangerous and unprosper­ous, with both the United States and England patrolling the seas.

If I accomplish nothing more than this, my White House term will be worthwhile. Although it is 2 a.m. and chilly—I must celebrate. I have rung the kitchen for a bowl of soup and some crackers.

November 30

Late

It has been difficult to find a few hours alone. To sit in my chair by the fireplace...that privilege comes only now and then. I think I will write an item for the papers, to increase morale, to lessen the influence of detractors. I will begin it...

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith dare to do our duty...

White House

December 5

Tonight I wish I could eat an apple but there does not seem to be one in the White House. Peaches and apples—they are my favorites, eaten in front of a fireplace. What an appetite I used to have. I used to think that the best food in the world was bread and honey—honey in the comb on plain bread.

I rang the kitchen for a bowl of popcorn.

Pretty soon that Greek goddess of the Potomac, little Miss Rosie, who is the perfect mulatto, traipsed in, holding the green bowl she loves, balancing it on a silver tray, the tray she thinks belonged to George Washington.

“Heah you is, Mistaaaa President...popcohnnnn, wid plenty a fresh-churned buttaaaah.”

Miss Rosie did a curtsy and smiled and that smile of hers made me happier than the popcorn because it told me that before long the war would be over and people like Rosie would be treated like any white woman.

Sunday

1863

A president is not permitted to have smallpox but I have a mild case, nonetheless. Bed is a poor spot to keep up a diary. What can I say, this Wednesday? That I have been reading Shakespeare? I have not. That I have read the newspapers? I have not. During bouts of fever I let myself return to other days; I see a woman in a log cabin bending over an open fire. I smell bacon frying. Deep in the night I hear a hermit thrush. Its sorrowful sound assumes great beauty. I have a feeling I am in the wilderness, that wilderness almost Christ-like, benefi­cent.

December 12, ’63

Desk

Documents. My pigeonholes are bulging.

In a few days I will feel all right.

I miss our green-shuttered house in Springfield. It seems much farther than 1700 miles away, and it seems more than nineteen years since we bought it—back in ’44. We Lincolns were proud of that home. I liked the fireplace in the parlor on snowy nights. I liked the comfortable rockers and the black hair settee. Mary worked hard to sew and tailor the drapes. Her touches were everywhere. Yet, when we moved to Washington, she ruled out everything that was personal.

“Leave things...till we return.” Then we rented our place. What will it be when we do return?

And she threw away a pair of my old boots.

Willie, Bob and Ted packed their toys, kites, drums, bats. How Willie stormed when he was told he could not take every single toy.

When Mary and I married, I had three words engraved on her wedding rings: Love is Eternal.

I had not reckoned with death.

Evening

I would like to have opportunities for meditation. Surely the bettering of life has to come from within. I would like to steal an hour or two every day. The only time I can steal is at night, when the White House is wrapped in memories. Then, candle or lamp beside, a fire in the fireplace, I hunt for inner balance. Per­haps the candles go out. Perhaps the fire goes out. I wait for connections, maybe wilderness connections or connections with the prairie, connections with perceptions that can become new. I may be able to use those perceptions in my day-to-day.

Library

This evening I have re-read some Volney, that old French scholar and trav­eler; this analysis strikes me forcibly:

Man in his blindness has riveted his own chains, and surrendered himself forever, without defense, to the sport of his ignorance and passions. To dis­solve such fatal chains, a miraculous concurrence of happy circumstances would be necessary: a whole nation, cured of the delirium of super­stition, must be inaccessible to the impulse of fanaticism...this people should be cou­rageous and prudent...

Sound advice for these times! When are we prudent? What, beside the pas­sage of time, years of peace, will evolve prudence? Is war a kind of superstition? I have thought so. Certainly it is a delirium.

I see the Library has a copy of Volney’s Travels in Syria and Egypt. I have asked for a copy.

Evening

In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it.

The Anns and the boys with their Bibles.

The White House

As I study the office wall map of the war zones I am afflicted by partial blindness. The name Fredericksburg blurs. I hear myself saying: I have made a covent to free the slaves. I hear General McClellan say: “We must declare a truce to bury our dead.” Alexandria, Fairfax, Sharpsburg, Harper’s Ferry, Spotsylvania. That peculiar blindness continues, focuses now on faces I have loved, her face, the face of a friend in Springfield, the stairway leading to my law office, my children playing on the street in front of my home, riding in their little red wagon...

I am not a cartographer of war; however I surpass some of my gallant mili­tary officers. Their logistics have led to useless slaughter. Hellish bungling, I call it. But that blindness intrudes: I am surveying a piece of property near Salem, it seems.

What if this was a map of the entire world? What if I were in command? What then?

I hear my mother speak to me:

“Abe, shall we go out now and plant those squash seeds?”

W.H.

How are we to establish labor relations in the North and in the South? I am glad to see that a system of labor prevails under which laborers can strike when they want to, where they are not obliged to work under all circumstances, and are not tied down and obliged to labor whether you pay them or not! I like the system which lets a man quit when he wants to, and wish it might prevail every­where. In mill and cottonfield there has to be a leveling, hours, pay, conditions. We have to regulate a work week.

The White House

December 16, 1863

Thomas Jefferson was a great man, but no great American keeps slaves, and Jefferson had two hundred. Call it custom, excuse it as custom; yet not every wealthy man kept slaves.

I admire the Adams family: their racial integrity stands out, their intelligent diplomacy. The relationship with foreign nations is often a delicate one; the Adams succeeded—their statesmanship stands out.

Recently men have asked me to comment about George Washington. I declined. I sympathize with his problems but I can not get deeper into the man. History does not always afford us ample means for fair judgment.

Thirty-three states oppose eleven states in this conflict. If I were to ask a citi­zen of Europe which entity he might support I think the answer would be the state group with the largest population and greatest wealth, surmising that these advantages would bring about a definite resolution. However, in this conflict, the gamble is also a moral gamble. With this moral issue in mind we must pursue a sane course of action for everyone in this country, a course of action that must embody prolonged patience.

The White House

December 29, ’63

I met Harriet Beecher Stowe the other day, and liked her. We sat in front of my white fireplace and she said she loved a fireplace, and I said I liked one too—that we had a couple of them at home. She said she wrote a lot of her Uncle Tom in front of her fireplace; then she asked me friendly questions about Springfield, the people, the town.

I shared my conviction that writing has a lasting influence. I tried to make her realize what books have meant to me. I am afraid I reminisced too much about what I had read. She nodded very pleasantly and did not say much; wrapped in a blue shawl she seemed more like a tired housewife than a person dedicated to writing and the rights of man.

I told her how I used to do my three r’s before our cabin fireplace. Silence came between us. In spite of myself I forgot my guest; I could see a long road in summertime; I was walking along that road; I had borrowed Weems and stopped to read; I sat down on a culvert; a frog appeared; there were trees, fields of grass, yet I was in the midst of history.

When she rose to say “good-bye” I was startled.

2

January 4th, 1864

T

oday I visited the stables and talked to Old Abe. As usual, he was pleased to see me. I offered him a handful of oats, and he bobbed his head. The sun was warm in the stall. I stood by, as Abe munched. I could believe that he knew I was thanking him for my escape yesterday.

My hat is lying on my bed—a bullet hole right through the crown. A good hat. If Abe hadn’t bolted someone might have shot again. We were lucky it was growing dark, Abe and I.

I offered him more oats.

Stablemen were arriving. Bill Slade appeared.

“Good mawnin’, Mistah President. How is you this mawnin’?”

A fine person, Bill Slade—from Kentucky.

I must give away that telltale hat. It cost me eight dollars. Certainly, Mary must never find it; that would mean severe hysteria.

I have been considering the purchase of a taller horse. No, Old Abe will serve me. I must shorten the stirrups. I appreciate his easy gaits. Gentleness—something hard to come by these days.

Desk

William Seward—I wanted to call him Will, wanted to bridge the gap that exists between us, a gap some three years wide. As my Secretary of State he has assisted the government through his foreign diplomacy; as an ardent anti‑slave man he has successfully blocked the Confederacy through foreign influence. As governor of New York he left an enviable record; as senator he is above re­proach. With his friendly Irish spirit, he has favored Irish immigration. With his eye on the presidency he has not spared me.

As friend of Jefferson Davis and his wife, I have had to work to allay suspi­cions, suspicions that have proved ungrounded. Seward’s eye on the presidency will continue beyond my stay in the White House. He has an intense desire to improve our nation, to push on; I admire his faith in tomorrow. Unfortunately, he has not always manifested political balance. When he suggested an all-out war with Europe, to force an amalgamation of North and South, I was utterly non­plussed.

Trainer of Arabian horses, owner of Arabian horses, breeder of Arabians, Seward is many things. He is sixty, has white hair, slouches, swears, smokes ci­gars. When asked by an hysterical officer, when Washington was threatened with invasion at the time I took office, “What shall I fire at?,” Seward responded coolly: “Fire at the crisis!”

One winter’s afternoon, Louis Agassiz drove up to the White House, with his brilliant wife, Elizabeth. A Swiss-American, he speaks English with a marked but dis­tinguished accent. We three had a long walk through the December garden and our conservatory, and he emphasized the value of studying from nature. Bustling to his carriage, parked on the driveway, he returned with his four-volume study, Natural History of the United States. He was pleased to present it to me—and inscribed the first volume. Elizabeth did her best to enlighten me on scientific points since I have never studied the sciences, a brief elementary course, I might call it. I found the two remarkable. When I can, I dip into his History.

Later, he sent his Recherches sur les poissons fossiles, this study in French. I have bequeathed it to the Library.

The visit of this pair has shown me depths that lie in Europe—depths I must explore.

Executive Mansion

1/14/64

I reviewed my Emancipation Proclamation to the best of my ability. Lights were on, the house quiet. Rain streaked the windows. I wanted to re-test each word, wholly for myself. In these troubled times I must rescue something for myself.

Thus:

...I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, order and de­clare that all persons held as slaves are forever free. The Executive Government, including the military and naval authority, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons...

I enjoin all people to abstain from violence. I evoke the considerate judgment of mankind...

Forever free.

Those words still ring in my mind.

As I signed, I remembered slaves, slaves in a slave depot, slaves on a barge, slaves on a Kentucky plantation; I remembered the dead and the dying, brother against brother; I thought about pillaged homes, families in rags. I saw. I stared at the Proclamation and saw.

Now, as I sit at my desk, it seems to me that I have been guided by experi­ence. My presidency has been justified. It seems to me, in all calmness, in objec­tivity, I have placed a permanent seal on the ages.

Later

In Boston there have been two mammoth celebrations. Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson and politicos attended. Harriet Beecher Stowe came. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony was played.

Throughout the nation, in small towns and hamlets there were schoolhouse ceremonies, church ceremonies, to honor the Proclamation. Hymns and prayers.

In Norfolk, two thousand former slaves paraded.

I have gone through many newspapers to read of the rejoicing.

A black is quoted:

“Freedom are an unbroke filly...but I gwine to mount her.”

Hundreds of thousands of copies of my Emancipation have been printed and distributed.

To preserve the union.

Office

Surrounded by war I try to remember what Washington was like when I first came here about eighteen years ago. What a bedraggled place it was! I stayed at Brown’s Hotel. And Washington is again a bedraggled place, in a different way now, with tents, troops, cavalry, guns, death.

In ’47, I leased my house in Springfield for $90.00 a year. This time I have leased it for double. My tenants were neglectful in ’47; I expect neglect again.

In the wilderness each Christmas was a day for sober thoughts. Easter was a day of inner conflict. When was time both gentle and kind? Underneath the stars on a summer’s night? Perhaps. Even then we might hear a wildcat scream. Wild­cats were more numerous than books.

There was that winter when the cold and the snow killed many of us, us and our livestock. Drifts hung lean-tos on our cabin. Papa shot a deer. Wolves used the crust to raid cattle. We cut wood, lugged frozen water. A fire burned day and night.

I lived ten years in that cabin.

One day, in town, I met a man who offered to sell me a barrel for 50¢. I bought it. In the bottom, buried under straw, I found a book: Blackstone’s Com­mentaries. 1753. It was warm at the blacksmith’s and I began to study the com­mentaries there.

It is very late, perhaps two or three in the morning. I forgot to wind my watch. I hear men on the street, men and horses; this city never rests; there is weather here but I do not think of weather. The climate of dread has assumed a reality beyond all else. When you control men and control armies you lack inner core.

White House

January 15, 1864

In spite of myself, I recall the meals I had as a boy, the meals when there was nothing to eat but potatoes. There were better times, when we had perch or cat­fish, wild pig, grouse, or venison. But, eating potatoes, here in the White House, brings to mind that struggle. Memory. How constant, how untrustworthy, how valuable. Here, my Shakespearean-aside, will, like a juggler, toss up thoughts, three or four at a time, potatoes.

In those Illinois days I was lucky when I earned 30 cents a day, working on a farm. Walk to the farm, walk home. At dark I climbed my peg ladder to the cabin loft and slept on corn husks, my grizzly bear rug not always warm enough. Lying among the husks and the squeaky mice I puzzled, knowing that soon I must leave. I determined I must get away. Living there I lived like an Indian, an Illinois Indian, barefooted all summer, moccasined during the winter. Like an Indian, I knew the meaning of silence, the dread of silence and its comfort. My father taught me to work but he never taught me to love drudgery.

Some of those pioneers used to say:

“Don’t see all you see; don’t hear all you hear.”

That is sound advice. It applies here in Washington. Many aspects of my life have assumed ridiculous proportions among these people. The fact that I was a wrestler affronts some; that I could plow with oxen annoys others. My humor shocks many. My lizard joke, that I thought very amusing, is now in bad taste. If I said: “Spit against the wind and you spit in your own face” ...well, certain politi­cians might understand and appreciate that.

I see people and more people. My office is often crowded. I am criticized for the amount of time I devote to the public. My secretaries try to restrain me.

I’ll do the very best I can, the very best I know how. And I mean to keep doing so to the end. If the end brings me out all right what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.

People have asked me how it feels to be president, and I sometimes say, if there is an appropriate moment:

You have heard about the man tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail? A man in the crowd asked him how he liked it, and his reply was that if it wasn’t for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.

W. H.

January 20

The other night I had a dream and in that dream I observed myself in a huge mirror; my face had two distinct images, one more or less superimposed on the other, the underneath face much paler than the upper face. The dream has per­plexed me; something about it, its shadowiness maybe, seems part of my wilder­ness life, the shadowiness of those star-roofed nights. Mary was disturbed by my dream. She interpreted it, saying that it meant that I would be re-elected for a second term. The pale image meant I would not finish that term. As she talked about the dream I remembered how emphatically I felt that I would never return to Springfield, an emotion that nearly overwhelmed me as I waved from the train.

W. H.

1864

It was only a few years ago that John Quincy Adams was swimming in the Potomac with his son. Adams used to rise at five, to read the Bible, Commen­tary, and then read the newspapers. He was about fifty-seven when he was President. I recall his vivid description of abolitionist Lovejoy’s printing press tragedy, in Alton, in ’37, how the mob destroyed the man’s press and murdered him, such a fate for a truly conscientious man! A martyr to the cause of freedom! Adams recounts preacher Joseph Cartwright’s plea for money, for $450 to buy the freedom of his own three grandchildren. What a meaningful exemplification of slavery!

JQA—fine President!

White House

January 24, ’64

Job seekers have besieged me. It must be the new year that sends so many. They come from every part of our nation, even the deep South. Some of the job seekers feel they have every right to storm my office; some are pitifully humble. Some bring recommendations; some have prepared a little speech; some have no credentials. Yesterday an elderly woman burst into tears as she pled for a job. I helped her to sit down. I offered her a drink of water. I did my best to console her. In her case there seemed to be no job available; I asked her to return in a few days; I had to ask my secretary to show her out. I am resolved to permit my countrymen access to my office. I can understand my country through these seekers. If some are loath to leave, I can sit up later over my important docu­ments. Of course there are not enough oats for all these hosses.

February 2, ’64

The howitzers and the rifles and the bayonets and the ammunition and the sandbags are gone from our public buildings. The invasion crisis is forgotten. Some say that 10,000 men guard Washington, perhaps 8,000; I am wary of sta­tistics today.

There is a hint of spring in the air today.

I stand on the steps of the White House and shout for a boy to bring me the morning paper.

How do I obtain accurate information?

I learn that two million dollars have disappeared from our national treasury.

I learn that General Grant is seriously ill.

I learn that the Confederate forces plan to invade Wilmington tomorrow at noon.

I learn that I have assumed dictatorial powers.

I read that the Confederacy has 220,000 men under arms.

Tomorrow the Cabinet meets... I will point out some of these items to my Secretary of War, my Secretary of State, my Secretary of the Treasury.

February 5, 1864

I think that my strength as wrestler, ox driver, and rail splitter helps me. I channel it into my cabinet meetings, office hours, discussions, late hours. Chase, Sumner, Seward, Trumbul, Usher—each receives some of that energy. I repeat that the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present. I re-affirm that we must act anew. We must continually disenthrall ourselves.

Fellow citizens...we of this Congress...ours is a mutual concern at this time...

And at all times there is someone who wishes to enter by the back door, who has a special message or a letter of prime importance...

Some of my friends predict a final cataclysm; some believe that by wheedling we can conquer; some voice the old voice of the abolitionists; some offer a packet of new tricks; theirs is a jack-in-the-box credibility.

White House

February 8th, 1864

This morning, early, I heard a low rap-rap on my office door. S. O. S.

The Morse code... S. O. S.

Tad, still in his nightgown, climbed onto my lap.

Together, we figured out how many bales of hay we should order for his pony, and Willie’s pony. How many bushels of grain. We decided that the pony’s halter should be re-adjusted, a new strap over the nose, or a new buckle. We also puzzled over what should be done about the small hole in the new red saddle.

If these were not matters of state, we made them as important—until I showed Tad my pile of correspondence; then, with a wild kiss, he rushed off, banging the door.

February 18, 1864

I suppose that Willie and Tad—although strictly forbidden—will rig another toy cannon on the roof of the White House. That flat roof is an ideal playground for those scoundrels. With their cannon in place the boys fire invisible bullets at invisible enemy ships and troops.

How I laughed when Tad gobbled all the fresh strawberries intended for a state dinner last June. Pranks such as that annoy the kitchen staff—and I am blamed. They cannot possibly understand that when my boys go berserk I am relieved of war anxiety for the moment. When Willie and Tad ambush me in some room or corridor, that tumbled mass of arms and legs and heads is my medal for the day. As we tumble, Jip growls and barks and joins in.

Their doll, Jack, a long-legged, blue-jacketed Zouave, has been put on trial re­cently. Because he fell asleep while on picket duty the boys sentenced him to death, and he was to be buried under a bush in the garden.

“Jack is pardoned. By order of the President,” I wrote, and signed my name.

However, if I am away, Jack may be accused again and they may destroy him.

Tad’s Birthday

Tad received a pair of snow-white kittens, toys, a wooden box of stick candy, and then a boat ride on the Potomac. The spring afternoon was calm and beauti­ful. Tad loved every moment—especially when the skipper allowed him to steer the sloop. He dashed about the cabin, hung over the bow, waved a flag at the stern. His grinning face is unforgettable.

Back in the White House, he became the devoted master of his kittens. With them lying on his bed, he stuck each toy in front of a nose, saying :

“Isn’t that a nice one! Look at this little frog, kitty!”

Tad met a woman in the hall, a woman in homespun. She told Tad that her girls and boys were hungry and sick, because their father was in prison in Washington. Tad believed her; taking in every word she said he ran to me. I was at my desk; I had been hearing bad news of deserters; deserters present a grave problem; often there are complications that make judgment difficult.

Tad’s tear-streaked face shocked me, and, little by little, as he sat on my lap, as I cuddled him, we put together the woman’s story. He kissed me and clasped me around the neck and begged me to intercede. I promised I would.

Dashing into the hall, he knelt by the woman, and cried that she was to have her husband back, that her children were going to have something to eat.

“Papa promised,” I heard him say. “Papa promised.”

March 3rd

Many object to Tad, to his vivacity, his dashing into my office, throwing his arms around me, staying or dashing off. There are those who think I, in my of­fice, my high office, should be above love. Some of those same people object to my rural humor.

I carry Tad to his bed. I tell him stories. I linger, linger until he falls asleep. Young as he is he knows that death is around the city. I ask his fate: shall he ex­perience an early death, live to be old and wise, remembering some of these days in Washington, some of the war stories? A father can ask questions.

Make a noise, Tad, dash into my office tomorrow, jump on me, kiss me.

I remember the presidential chair vilified, pilloried. I see the grim cartoons lampooning me. A child offsets those.

Tuesday evening

This morning I visited one of the hospitals, a tent hospital by the river. Rain was everywhere. The wounded felt it, that was easy to see. I went among them, shaking hands, enquiring; this was not my first visit; I knew some of the men by name.

“Abraham,” I heard a man whisper to his cot mate.

Can a name influence a life?

Abraham—“father of a multitude.”

Through the centuries, thousands of infants have been christened Abraham. What has it meant? And what kind of father am I? In the deep of the night, or during a cabinet meeting, or while playing with my sons, I ask. Which of the wounded, which of the dead, was my responsibility?

Now and then the candle beside my bed does not want to go out.

Mid-afternoon

Rain

In Springfield, Billy de Fleurville’s barbershop was my favorite barbershop. We were friends, Billy and I. Billy is a Haitian. His English is a remarkable mix­ture of soft, sometimes incomprehensible sounds. A stable person, he has raised a family and has been a civic influence for fifteen years or more. He initiated a committee that brought about a school for blacks. He loves his rabbit paws and his jokes; while he shaves you or trims your hair, he entertains. Since Billy loves gumbo and fricasseed chicken I saw to it that he had more than his share through the years.

At the depot, as the train pulled out for Washington, he was there, handing me a farewell note, to read on the train.

He writes me that tenants are taking proper care of my house and yard.

“Filibuster has kittens,” he adds, in a postscript. “One brown, two yellows.”

Evening

Desk

I treasure a letter from a child named Grace Bedell. Grace wrote me :

“I have four brothers and part of them will vote for you anyway, and if you let your whiskers grow, I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better, for your face is so thin.”

Grace’s suggestion amused me...and I might glean those two votes! So, I let my beard grow, and Billy de Fleurville trimmed it for my inaugural. In Westfield, at the depot, my train was on a siding. While it was there I asked the crowd:

“Is Grace Bedell here?”

She came running to the train, and I was able to hug and kiss her.

The White House

Sunday

They were good days in Springfield, our children growing, bursting with en­ergy, up to antics day in and day out. They helped and hindered boisterously, helped pitch-fork the cow’s stall, water the horse, carry in the wood for the stove; they hindered by being unreliable, off somewhere when needed.

I liked pulling the little ones in their red wagon, up and down our street, the kids yelping or fussing happily. It would be pleasant to be in Springfield, but not the same, with Robert away at school. But, I would stretch my legs onto a foot­stool and lie back on the old horsehair sofa.

No, a thousand slaves are throwing up fortifications in Richmond, in Charleston, in Atlanta....fortifications to enslave more enslavement.

Someone, in the south, has written me:

“I warn you... I will kill you before long. You are destroying the nation. You have no right to be President...”

March 24th, 1864

Here is another anonymous letter:

“Dear Mr. President—

“In addressing you, I am prompted by the kindest motives. I wish to warn you of the peril you are facing if you remain in office. The South has strong motives for desiring your death and has resolved to take your life in the event of your not relinquishing your office. The blacks are dis­illusioned by your presidency. The whites can not, without endangering more lives, allow you to remain in the seat of government...”

So another letter, with “kindest motives,” has reached me. How many have, though both secretaries screen my mail. There is no doubt that anonymity makes a man courageous.

April 2, 1864

Evening

The North commits atrocities. The South commits atrocities. War is, without the shadow of a doubt, a form of insanity. As Commander-in-Chief I can order troops to attack; with the cessation of military activities I can not order 50,000 men to reconstruct a devastated area. The legality of such an order has never been questioned, as far as I know, by any victorious power. Perhaps, during my second term in office, I can weigh the consequences of such an official directive.

Think of Libby Prison, consider Andersonville. They are collective atrocities.

Was it two years ago a man handed me two red apples at a depot in Ohio, bowing, and wishing me well?

I insist that the United States form a strictly federal community, that the states are essential to its welfare as is the central government, and North must never dominate the South or the South dominate the North. I also insist that the Chief Executive remain as center of the government. If the President uses his power justly, the people will justify him; if he abuses it, he is in their hands to be dealt with by all the modes they have reserved to themselves under the constitu­tion. This is essentially a people’s contest, I repeat. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government where the leading object is to elevate the condition of man...can I repeat this too often?

The White House

Library

There is room enough for all of us to be free, and that it not only does not wrong the white man that the negro should be free, but it positively wrongs the mass of the white man that the negro should be enslaved.

Here among a heap of newspapers I pause...

April 6th

White House

(windows open)

When brought to my final reckoning, may I have to answer for robbing no man of his goods; yet, more tolerable even this, than for robbing one of himself and all that was his. When, a year or two ago, professedly holy men of the South met in the semblance of prayer and devotion, and, in the name of Him who said, “As ye would all men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them,” appealed to the Christian world to aid them in doing to a whole race of men as they would have no man do unto themselves, to my thinking they contemned and insulted God and His church...but let me forebear, remembering it is also written, “Judge not lest ye be judged.”

My words, my record, this diary, seem obtuse at times; I attempt to write down what I think and the writing evolves another way.

In pensive mood I realize that President Jefferson Davis sits at his desk in his White House. I sit at my desk in my White House. He orders his army to move across the chessboard of war. I order my army to move across the same chess­board. His men fight for their homeland. My men fight for a nation. It seems to me that this is an ancient form of puppetry, a puppetry that came into being in days before the time of Christ. It is obvious, then, that we have gained nothing in the realm of diplomacy.

The cause of slavery has little to do with puppetry; it has much to do with man’s future. The nation must have freedom as its base, a living freedom, a worker’s freedom, a thinker’s freedom.

Executive Mansion

Desk

April 16, 1864

Some folk still call me “Old Abe,” “Honest Abe,” “The Backwoods­man,” “Rail Splitter.” I like those names; they come out of my wilderness; they can be warm. They helped me through those stormy debate days and still help me in this prolonged struggle to save our country.

Lincoln: 1,866,452 votes

Douglas: 1,376,957 votes

Those numbers are printed in my mind’s eye. I am proud that I beat Stephen Douglas, a great man, who, often impartial, said good things about me as we contested, as we debated. How was he able to carry on so valiantly? A sick man—I’ve seen him stagger from fatigue. I’ve seen him fall asleep, on the plat­form, after final arguments. Yet, next day he was on his feet again:

1,866,452

I saw those figures as I walked along Pennsylvania Avenue after the inauguration ceremony, as I walked through the White House garden. That was my lucky number, my lottery number. Destiny, hard work, luck, time—they dovetail.

I felt the loss keenly, when Douglas died in ’61. He wore himself out in his effort to save the union.

The White House

April 24, 1864

At the outset of this war, we had a military force of about 16,000 men. Few of these men could be classed as professionals. After the loss of Fort Sumter, I called for 75,000 volunteers. Moving into combat, in those early days, men fought with antiquated guns and poor equipment; however, our artillery, at least, was superior.

Our soldiers were fortunate to have field tents. They bivouacked in mule yards. Uniforms were issued willy-nilly. Hats had to be stuffed with newspapers. Some men had to survive on desiccated vegetables—cakes of them. On the march their knapsacks fell apart.

I see that war is fought on folly. I half-believe there were sane men who could have steered us without conflict. Day after day, hour after hour, I walk through this tragedy. I question my judgment and the judgment of others. I study a war map and realize I am studying a map of corpses, men, women, and children.

I wake in the middle of the night. There’s a bell, a drum.

The White House

We have 3,200,000 slaves in our country.

What man would not want to set them free?

Among them there must be many a man and woman who is among the fin­est. Among them there must be inventors, lawyers, doctors, preachers, teachers—men who never had a chance. It is my duty, my dedication, to liberate them as soon as possible. The world can not be a better place until they are freed.

Three million men and women and children, bound in irons, what a world! I will do my best to strike those irons, take away every shackle, so these people can look at the sun and say: this is my world to make something of, it is my chance to get something out of life.

The White House

Desk

May 1, 1864

Three or four times I have hidden (incognito?), in the wings of a theatre to hear an opera. Tales of Hoffman was performed last week, and I sat in a red leather chair behind the curtains. Back home I used to watch magic lantern shows; they were fine antidotes to melancholy; the Tales of Hoffman minimized the Washing­ton volcano.

I escape some of our war tragedy by reading Spencer. In my bedroom I read till sunup. Every man must skin his own skunk and I skin mine through books. At sunup I can lay down my book and sleep, until someone wakes me.

Tonight I would like to bowl at Caspari’s but bowling, because of the war, is off-limits for me. Somebody’s afraid a strike might make me laugh. I had a few good strikes before the war.

The White House is asleep. Perhaps I should find a ruler and compass and attempt to square the circle.

And so to bed...

My wife is one of the loneliest women in Washington. Her hospitality, her lavish entertainments, have bred enemies and have engendered no rewarding friendships. Because Mary exceeded her Congressional allotment for essential White House expenditures, the press has attacked her. I have volunteered to pay the bills out of my salary. I have cautioned her against ostentation: “War is no time for preening.”

Elizabeth Keckley, her seamstress, a former slave, is her confidante. With three brothers fighting in the Confederate army there are those who accuse Mary of treason. Injustice can strike. And the sad face, the sad thoughts continue. Poor Mary. Sharing intimate emotions with Elizabeth Keckley is a mistake. I do not dare reproach her.

Today’s cabinet meeting was a bitter one.

Yes, it is true Mary has relatives fighting for the Southern cause. So has Gen­eral Grant and other officers. Does this imply some form of subterfuge? I am well aware of my wife’s integrity. I respect her family sympathies. To impugn the loyalty of my spouse is tantamount to accusing me of treason.

When I learned that a secret committee had been formed to investigate the loyalty of my wife I made a point of appearing dramatically, by a seldom used door to the committee room. I stepped inside without a word—hat in hand.

A dozen men were sitting around a long table. Rain was streaking the win­dows. No one spoke. I waited. I stared at first one and then the other, searching the faces. I knew most of the men well.

I said:

“I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, appear of my own voli­tion before this Senate Committee to say that I, of my own knowledge, know that it is untrue that any member of my family holds treasonable communication with the enemy.”

I walked out.

I have heard no more from that committee or any other; however, my re­sentment lingers, sticks in my craw. Who could forget such calumny?

I have attended lectures at the Smithsonian Institute, where Horace Greeley has been outspoken on the abuse of slavery in our nation. His influence, through his lectures and his associates, through his editorials in the New York Tribune, is an influence I intend to curry.

At the Smithsonian he drew me aside and thought it important to inform me that he is a vegetarian, a teetotaler—that he would never stoop to smoking a ci­gar. He seemed to be sounding me out by cataloging his qualities. Grasping my arm, he grinned and said: “I want to share this one...since you like stories. I have loaned considerable sums to the son of Commodore Vanderbilt. Last week the Commodore burst into my office and rapped on my desk with his cane. When I glanced up, he said: ‘I will not be responsible for my son’s borrowing money from you.’ I said to the Commodore: ‘Who the Hell asked you to.’ ”

At another Smithsonian lecture, I met George Bancroft, our distinguished elder historian. Obviously disgruntled and tired, he wanted to know: Why is General McClellan living in an aristocratic style in an aristocratic mansion? Is it true that John Jacob Aster pays his salary?

When I introduced Bancroft to McClellan, he questioned Mac about the condition of the cavalry: Is it true that half the horses purchased for the army are unfit for service? Was it true that in the District of Columbia, horses have been chained to trees, where they gnawed bark, leaves and branches until they died?

McClellan was not happy with Bancroft. I was not happy with Bancroft and McClellan. Since the General has become known in Washington as the “general most gifted at masterly inactivity,” I am seriously considering taking to the field as Commander-in-Chief. My qualification: integrity.

I can not sleep.

In Chicago, one windy night, I attended my first symphony concert. I was in the city working on the McCormick lawsuit. The concert was all Italian. Verdi. I recognized, as I listened to the rich outpouring, how much I had missed during my prairie years. There were no available seats in the theatre, but that was unim­portant; I leaned against a wall, in the foyer, hat in hand. Mama would have rejoiced over such music! Why must so many die young and deprived?

Drums passing.

The White House

Library

May 5th, 1864

De Tocqueville wrote that there are few calm spots in this country for medi­tation; yet, in this library, there is a spot. This afternoon it seems to me that these ancient books, with their ancient wisdom, ask what is freedom? Is it something nailed in pain against the morning sky? I think not. Surely freedom is not to limit mankind; it is to share life’s values. I remember these lines, learned as a boy, “What avail the plow or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?” It is our duty to know and analyze freedom, however illusive. I hear it is a flame. Then, if that is true, we must keep it burning in our minds. The altar of freedom is an expres­sion that illustrates how sacred freedom is. Freedom, if we can say it briefly, is the dignity of man.

White House

May 9

Can a truly religious person support war, I query?

I am my brother’s keeper, I am instructed.

In the core of night, knowing that my countrymen are waging fratricidal car­nage, I perceive that I have been nurtured on violence: I countenance war.

As Commander of the military forces, whose intention is victory, I am begin­ning to see that war is a form of slavery. Generals Grant and Sherman, Generals Johnson and Lee confirm this. So, we, the people, with our armies, fight slavery with slavery.

No doubt others have mulled over these or similar tenets. But I return to the cost, the human cost, the countless lives lost, the shattered families, shattered homes. Our lintels are hung with crepe.

The White House

Desk

Surely, I should kneel in prayer each night, but for years I have not been able to pray, not even the simple prayers my mother taught me. Now, with the war pressing down on mind and country, prayer is needed. But this war, this tragedy and my part in that tragedy, controls me.

Mary has taught Tad to pray. His little prayers, as he lies in bed or kneels be­side it, trouble me because of my lacks.

Dear God —

The White House

Office

May 14th, ’64

He, too, has to die.

I see an old man and this thought occurs. I see a child playing: he, too, has to die. I see a beautiful woman, and I hear the same words. We are doomed. Let us be brothers.

In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity. Nobody has ever expected me to be president. In my poor, lean lank face nobody has ever seen that cabbages were sprouting.

Executive Mansion

June 1, 1864

It has been a couple of weeks since I have written here. No matter. Some of the things I write are as thin as the homoeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death.

Tonight the ticking of my watch is audible—it is meaningful following a long day listening to men and women express their desires. As I sit in my bedroom, my watch my companion, I feel that time is not on my side. Time is slow at bringing the war to an end. Time cares nothing for us. In the garden I have studied the sundial on sunny and cloudy days. We are also time pieces.

For years I wished to own a watch and chain, a gold one with a gold chain. It is time to pick up the key and wind my watch again.

Willie’s Birthday

In our dining room our dining table was festive—for Willie. His friend, Charlie Mathers, was special guest, Charlie, so splendid in his freckles and red hair. Both boys were dressed in their Sunday togs.

I gave Willie a Zeiss field glass, an antique ship’s compass from Italy, I be­lieve; also a red handkerchief and books.

Mary gave him a British belt buckle with lion and unicorn, a set of brushes and tubes of pigment...

Charlie brought a box of candy.

Willie, at the head of the table, opened his gifts sedately, barely commenting, shy, rather like a little prince, not a kid from Illinois.

Tad pleased him with a checker set, board and pieces handmade.

(Today’s war casualties are shocking.)

The White House

June 21, ’64

During the last year I have had several consultations with White House and Washington physicians. They are encouraging about Tad. They believe that he may be able to speak normally as he grows older, that he may be able to learn to read and write, that his frenzied actions may diminish as he matures. I had a White House doctor observe Tad for over a month; he is quite optimistic.

Dear Tad—Mary and I love you.

When I hold him in my arms he has no defects. I think his ponies and goats and dogs and cats have helped him. He is always kind to his little friends. The soldiers love him. He’s their Illinois Lieutenant. The blacks, too, are fond of him.

Mary loves to cradle him in her arms, in the peace of her bedroom. Some­times he sleeps with me. Of course we spoil him. We spoil Willie too. When I am in conference and Tad dashes in it is amazing how intolerant some people can be over his effusiveness.

Well...when I am with Tad I forget the war.

July 20, 1864

Office

What does my old freckle-faced pastor think of me, now that I am in Wash­ington? He never writes. Does he think I have forgotten Springfield?

He forgave Tad for whittling on a pew; he tolerated my long absences when I rode circuit; he preached directly, discreetly from the Bible, eager to please his congregation. Today he is probably sermonizing from Job: the war must weigh on him because he is a just and careful man. I imagine he remembers that Tho­mas Jefferson kept slaves. Does he know that there are some 200,000 blacks serving in our army? I would like to sound him out. How does he feel about the importance of a country united? If I could drop by...listen...if I could ride circuit for a fortnight I would learn much.

I notice that I have not written here for about a month. Pressures. Here, as I write, I seem to coordinate myself.

July 24, 1864

Executive Mansion

—office—

I believe it was arson.

Someone set fire to the White House stables. I rushed out when I saw the flames and heard men shouting. Our fire engine crew arrived too late. Willie’s pony died. Tad’s pony died. Four horses died, three survived, among them Old Abe. The fire occurred at night, while Willie and Tad slept. How much more disastrous it would have been if they had been awake. A number of us worked for five or six hours, to calm the surviving horses, to drag away the ponies on a sledge, for later burial. In the morning it was a very hard task to inform the boys.

With Tad sprawled on the bedroom floor, and Willie slumped in a chair, Mary and I attempted to comfort them. They were not to be comforted. We promised replacement ponies. They wailed and cringed at “replacements.” The day was lost.

Arson, yes, everyone thinks it was arson. Some of the stable hands feel that the fire was set to bring me to the stables at night—a possible assassination at­tempt.

The White House

The Library

I have sought sanctuary in the library.

Willie is dead.

He was thirteen, handsome, intelligent, gentle, fond of each of us. For two weeks he battled for survival, his doctors helping little or not at all. When his doctor left him, when I was alone with him, I felt his cold face and held his cold hands. I thought, he’s not really dead. It must be an error. He isn’t dead because I feel his presence in the room, hear his voice.

Typhoid killed him.

Mary, hysterical, suffered grave headaches at his death. She is unable to com­fort Tad. She is unable to speak coherently. She sometimes fancies that he is not dead: she wants to go into the bedroom and speak to him. She says she hopes to communicate with him through a séance. Only I have a chance at comforting Tad. Sitting on my lap, his head against my shoulder, he sleeps. Certainly he knows the sleeve of care, the worn sleeve.

Today we buried our Willie. Mary and Robert and Tad and I stood side by side at the grave.

It was like burying a part of my own body... I felt the earth strike my hands, my arms, my face, my mouth.

Cabinet members attended, military men, friends, White House staff. Tad held Jip in his arms. It rained some.

I’m a tired man. Sometimes I’m the tiredest man on earth.

August ’64

Mary has passed days in her darkened bedroom, wracked by headaches, scarcely able to communicate, hardly able to eat. Her faithful Mrs. Keckley looks after her. There is little or no response when I attempt to comfort her. God, she claims, has deserted her.

I return to my office.

Now the war is my distraction. There is a hellish healing power in the roll of drums, the rumble of caissons, the tramp of a regiment. Washington’s armed camp is always on the move.

Willie...

Maybe he is fortunate. At least he has been spared the confrontation of brother against brother.

I return to Mary’s bedroom.

I offer coffee. She declines.

Robert came and knelt by her. He will go back to Harvard next week. Tad lay asleep at the foot of Mary’s bed. Sometimes, when the four of us are in the bed­room I feel that grief is fourfold.

I retreated.

Jip comes.

August

After Willie’s death I received a warm and understanding letter from Billy Herndon, my Billy. Each word weighed carefully.

Through the years he was much more patient than I; when I read aloud, back in the back of the office, he overlooked the nuisance. He tolerated my kids when they burst in on me. They sometimes wrecked havoc. He never brought his kids, never permitted them to come to the office...or if he did, they were no problem.

Billy could prepare his cases faster than I.

“Abe, are you still lingerin’ over that Moffit suit?”

When he stood before a jury he was accurate and his accuracy taught me to prepare my cases with care.

Billy liked Willie. Well, he liked all my chil­dren.

How often we spread ourselves in my parlor and talked. Billy is like a cedar post, deeply imbedded.

Maybe he misses the buffalo stampede of my kids.

Summer

Personal tragedy strikes most of us. At this time personal loss is the fabric of this country.

What does a man do, does he sit in his chair, in the middle of a room, and wait?

I have not adjusted to Willie’s death. Just a few days ago he was alive, riding on his pony; then, then the four of us stood around his grave.

The night he died I sat up all night; I worked with letters, documents, senate papers, proposals for a rail west, telegrams reporting the war. Someone brought me coffee.

Jip came in, and sat on my lap.

It is one thing to encounter personal loss in the theatre, another to read a tragedy; certainly it is another emotion to face it yourself, to realize that no power can reinstate.

The disciples had their hands full when their Lord and Master was crucified. I do not measure my little boy as any kind of lord but he was my son, a promise. The father in me does not go away.

I go, now, to curry Old Abe.

I would like to chop wood a while.

White House

Summer

Again I am besieged by office seekers. I can name a hundred: Whitney, Schurz, Collaman, Blair, Wallace. They seek posts as consuls, envoys, inspectors, paymasters, commissioners, postmas­ters. Although I now have fixed hours, they intrude. Favors, all wish favors! I am accused of nepotism by the press, by staff and cabinet mem­bers. How would they shuffle the cards? Respon­sible positions are wrestled over by Vermonters and New Yorkers vying with Missourians and Ohioans.

Note:

Speak to Capt. Dobson about balloon obser­vations. Work out telegraphic communication with the balloon observer.

August 20th

I woke early. It is already hot. No breeze.

I look out of the windows at the tents of the wounded. Behind the tents is the river, flattened by the heat. I have been inside of each tent several times. I have seen inside some of those men; I listen; I wait and listen. There are men with letters from home, men with Bibles beside them. Men or boys. Perhaps there is no essential difference when one is wounded. Man or boy is lost. There is no catching up for him. His trip home will show him a different world; if he goes home in a coffin—his homecoming makes that home unreal forever. One boy shows me a minié ball extracted from his leg. One man tells me how much we need a balloon corps. Another grasps my hand but can’t say a word. At the very back of the tent someone is playing a harmonica, the “Camp Town Races”...or so it was yesterday.

The White House

Summer

Today I have been able to pardon two boys accused of dereliction of duty, Company K, while on guard near Washington. Regardless of reports I feel that they had carried the Union on their bayonets. Cramer and Phillips will have a second chance.

The heat of the afternoon has been oppressive; to cool me off, my mulatto brought me a cool drink on her famous tray; then a chaplain and a private spun stories of regimental pets. Once again I heard of the eagle in the 8th Wisconsin Volunteers. He is still alive after being in battles in seven states. His six-and-a-half-foot wingspread has been crippled by bullets; they say he screams when his Corps sees action.

A Minnesota unit manages to keep a half-grown bear; they swear he is the best picket-duty man. A black and white dog, named Jacko, has been dubbed a “brave soldier dog,” because he has been wounded twice, while his men were in action.

I have also learned that there are gamecocks, a coon, and several badgers in the field. Mascots all.

Militiamen, who visit me, talk a language I understand: jaggers, hardtack, barbed wire, pup tents, canteens, bivouacs, sutlers, coffee...

There are stories about dysentery: one boy said, “I jus’ cut out the bottom of my trousers!”

The Library

Summer

Mary’s kindness resumes. She visits the hospitals, the injured, taking flowers, food. The men are delighted to have her. People bring her newspapers and magazines, and she distributes them...she has made a little friend of a one-armed boy; sitting beside him, she becomes his mother.

Last week she brought about the abolishment of a death sentence. Due to her perseverance there will be no firing squad for Richard Miller, a youngster who fell asleep on duty. My “Lady President” obtained a reprieve from General McClellan.

The Press wars against Mary. Reporters ridicule her when she goes shopping in New York or Philadelphia, in her attempts to refurbish the White Rouse. If she visits Robert at Harvard, that too is criticized. Her letters to relatives are sometimes confiscated. I am aware that there are spies in the White House, but not Mary!

Is this why I assumed the Presidency! It is very difficult to curb my resent­ment.

Tonight, I will be spending a while with Frank Carpenter, watching him paint his Emancipation scene. He is a quiet, serious fellow, and I enjoy his company. I appreciate his skill, as he slowly brings his figures to life. He is still working in the dining room. He’ll bring me a rocker and I will stretch out.

The White House

—My desk—

I have little admiration for Napoleon; I have less for my little Napoleons who believe or half-believe this is a war of conquest. Again and again I remind them of emancipation. They nod. The negro? The slave? Can it be that there is a moral issue? It is possible that our government can wipe out slavery and free thousands of blacks? A few are astute enough to understand the potential here. A few are astute enough to project themselves in time, asking how are we to repair the devastation caused by General Grant and General Sherman. How long did it take for our men to burn Atlanta? How long does a city burn? Some say that Rome is still burning.

Andersonville—a prison... Libby—a prison. Thousands of men are incarcer­ated. Who pays for these criminal acts? All of us pay. We pay as though we were buying sugar at $12.00 a pound. A man weighs about 160 pounds. If he loses weight while he is imprisoned do we pay less?

Summer

With my watch lying on the desk, the seconds seem to move all too swiftly. Nine, ten, twelve...each second a life around Washington...cabinet mem­bers...family...friends. Here at 9:58 is Willie’s birth; here at 4:00 is Tad’s birth. A few more seconds pass and I am delivering my inaugural address. The war is threatening, the war has overcome us.

I put away the watch.

When Billy Herndon presented me with that watch I thought I would spend the rest of my life in Springfield. I thought our partnership would go on and on. I was lying on the old sofa, tired after a circuit ride.

Billy handed me the watch; I opened its box; then he said :

“We’ve been working together for ten years.”

He brushed his fingers through his shaggy beard and sat down at his desk.

A gold watch —

Executive Mansion

September 1st, 1864

“This is a beautiful country,” said John Brown, as the hangman hung him.

He was no black Christ: no gentle Uncle Tom; yet, he is becoming a black Christ as we continue this civil war, as we become more and more harassed by casualties. We will need black Christs if we are to free the negro. Uncle Tom’s Cabin must add space—room by room, year by year.

All the powers of earth seem to be combining against the chattel slave. Mammon is after him, ambition follows, philosophy follows, and the theology of the day is joining the cry. They have him in his prison house; they have searched his person, and left no prying instrument with him. One after another they have closed the heavy iron doors upon him; and now they have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of every key—the keys in the hands of a hundred different men, and they scattered to a hundred different and distance places; and they stand musing as to what invention, in all the dominions of mind and matter, can be produced to make the impossibility of his escape more complete than it is.

This evening I heard negroes singing, as I worked at my desk, the windows open. I heard that song in New Orleans on my first visit; I heard it later when on the Mississippi, when we were on our cargo-raft, when we tied up at a wharf. That was quite a scrap. The blacks almost threw us off our raft.

Oh, was you ev – er in Mo – bile Bay,

Low – lands, low – lands, A – way, –

My John, – A – screw – ing cot – ton –

By the day, My dol – lar and a half a day.

Poverty...those days were poverty days.

And after this war is over we will have greater poverty in the South. Poverty will be a pestilence in the South. It will require years of work to wipe it out. Pov­erty will breed treachery and crime. What police force will be able to contend with it? I will urge Congress to pass an aid bill. I will propose groups of citizenry who can advise.

The White House

Saturday evening

Here are some interesting figures I encountered:

Less than one-half a day’s cost of this war could pay for the slaves in the State of Delaware, at $400 per person.

All slaves by 1860 census:	1,798
Cost of these slaves:	$719,200
One day’s cost of the war:	$2,000,000

Less than 87 days’ cost of this war could, at the same $400 figure, pay for the slaves in the States of Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia, Kentucky, and Missouri:

Cost of the slaves:	$173,048,800
87 days of war:	$174,000,000

Would compensation to all the slave owners satisfy them? Of course not. Their honor is at stake. If we do not make common cause to save the good old ship of the Union on this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her on an­other voyage.

Note:

Write General Grant regarding the improve­ment of all military telegraph service. Suggest a military Telegraphic Corps.

The White House

September 8, 1864

When I reviewed the Army of the Potomac, when the greatest cavalry in the world rode past, I felt no pride, only sorrow, for the military pomp. To those of pensive turn, the military implies death, men in uniform are death-men, dealers and receivers. They work in the counting house of death.

Tad rode with the cavalry, his little shoulders wrapped in a grey cloak.

Dear Tad, what do you know of pain? You will sit on my lap and babble and then ride horseback, and imagine yourself a great general.

There are no great generals, Tad.

I salute the officers but take off my hat to the men in the ranks. They are the great men. There are no victors—not if there is heart and memory among men, consideration for the maimed, the widows, the orphans, the deceased.

Some men war for glory. No...peace is the glory.

There is only one cause: the country, its flag, a united people from coast to coast. I know that of thousands of men, chosen from the ranks, there would be a thousand reasons why they fought. Perhaps that is not quite right.

The men in review, the thousands who rode and walked past, were soon to retreat. Mishandled by General Hooker, 20,000 were killed, died in a wilderness of trees and thickets.

Wilderness of trees and thickets...so is much of my concept of this war, due largely to inadequate reports or reports that arrive too late to be of any use.

My colored pins, on the fields of battle, designate more than battle lines, regiments, infantry, artillery, cavalry, fortifications...those pins are men, my men, my country.

I understand that some of the New Englanders dumped their Bibles on their long marches—their knapsacks too heavy. I can see those Bibles, dropped beside a fence post, left under­neath a tree, regretfully placed on the side of a corncrib.

For my dear Son, Charles—

love, Mother

I read most of my mother’s Bible. It was a solace and a threat; it was a puz­zlement because I could not disentangle legend from fact.

Was there such a city as Zidon?

Was there a Goliath?

My mother’s Bible had a few maps—they led me to travel by camelback, through Egypt and Assyria. At night, in my attic, I imagined the sacred taberna­cle, the pyramids. I repeated some of the Song of Songs.

September 20, 1864

The Library

To a great extent, this war is capitalism versus a kind of feudalism. On one hand we have free labor and on the other slave labor. The North boasts more millionaires than the South, in normal times. New York City probably has more millionaires than the entire South. John J. Astor is an example of an individual who has amassed wealth by canny manipulations—his kind is unseen in the South. As I understand it, Northern labor practices are questionable at times, shackling the workers; this must be leveled out in years to come.

Strange, seeing beggars on Northern streets; yet none in the South.

As the war continues I learn that Southern railroad cars lack windows for lack of factory labor. House glass can not be replaced; conventional glassware for the table can not be replaced. If a man wishes a prescription filled he must furnish his own bottle or packet. Needles, pins, scissors, knives are smuggled in and sold on the black market. Drugs have vanished from pharmacopoeia.

The White House

October, 1864

Tonight my watch lies on my chest of drawers. Ah yes, the seconds are pass­ing, the minutes are passing. Jim Maitland is dead. Colonel James Maitland, Mas­sachusetts man. His handsome face, his humor, leadership, bravery, gone. I thought him my protégé and friend. I was to grant him a Major’s commission.

The seconds, the minutes, ran out too quickly for Maitland. As I stare down at the second hand, in its small circle, I see his face; I see him dressed in his Zouave uniform.

Tad will miss him.

For a moment he held the enemy flag in his hands, then a shotgun blast.

Executive Mansion

October 2, 1864

An officer has given me a war diary kept by a Southern soldier, Fred Parker, corporal. Rain has soaked its pages; pages are missing. Here are four entries, written during the Wilderness Campaign:

May 6, 1864. Face-to-face fighting all day. Rifles. Pistols. No help from our cavalry or artillery. Pine woods surround. Trees close together. Weather poor. Fred died beside me at midday. Jeffrey has had his leg shot at the knee; knee shattered; men carried him away. We hide, shoot, duck, lie down.

May 7. Not much to eat. Awful hungry. Rifle fire constant.

May 8. Grant’s forces surround us. 120,000 men.

May 9. Dead and wounded everywhere, behind trees, under bushes. I see pieces of a sweater. Shoes. Boots. A hat. Bayonets. Broken musket. A brass belt buckle.

The diary tells me that life must be more than a belt buckle.

Executive Mansion

October 15, 1864

Hamlet’s thoughts, his moods, fit the conflict that assails our country.

...We defy augury; there is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all; since no man has aught of what he leaves what is it to leave betimes? Let be.

Let be. Do we?

Little Tad heard Mary speaking about Maitland’s shotgun death; he climbed onto Mary’s bed and talked about our friend’s funeral—tearful details about the White House ceremony, details bitter for childish emphasis.

Perhaps it is repugnant to write here when men are dying. Perhaps my diary should not have been written; perhaps I should have been attending the wounded in the hospitals. But that confusion, that confusion of pain and sorrow, would not, could not, carry me forward.

Executive Mansion

October 21st, ’64

My desk

How vividly I summon up the hundreds of exhausted soldiers in the streets of Washington.

I watched them from the White House, a stream of muddy, rain-soaked men, walking through a downpour, going nowhere. Men without guns, without knap­sacks; some men covered with blankets. Some staggered. Some fell, lay on the street. Women brought coffee. There were Michigan men, New York men, Minnesota men—defeated, defeated at Bull Run. The broken regiments strug­gled all along Pennsylvania Avenue. Victims of panic—defeat. Not a drum sounded. All took place in rain-washed silence. Men without shoes, men leaning on one another.

I ordered the White House staff and military guard to provide coffee, food, blankets, shelter.

Hundreds passed...all day long.

For a long while after this there were conferences, men realizing that Wash­ington could be attacked. A long time before the city was protected.

Defeat, I am told, is a particular kind of crucifixion. I know. I have thought—

October 24, ’64

I wish I could go bowling, swap yarns.

When I bowl I really never care whether I win. When I make a good score it is luck. It is talk I enjoy. It gives me an uplift. It’s an exchange, maybe, if I relate one of my circuit stories.

I can not go bowling when men are dying. There is no escape. I should not look for an escape. I want cessation of conflict. Enduring peace. I wish to com­mand a strong nation, a great nation that can stand before the world as an exam­ple of what men can achieve.

A sadness pervades our White House gardens, a more than autumn sadness.

Mary and I tried to make a haven of our garden whenever possible. Sunsets have been Potomac sunsets, wilderness and prairie sunsets. Nevertheless, that great stillness intrudes as we walk and talk about our family and obligations. Flowers lie in Mary’s lap, as we sit on a bench. She smiles.

Now four years have come and gone.

We measure those years, wanting to understand. We no longer speculate about the future, our future. Life, for the moment, is held in balance like an up­raised oar.

Was it yesterday, after the rain, with a faint rainbow, that the sentries paced along the far side of the gardens, and a white duck waddled toward us?

The White House

November 3rd, 1864

“We have seen our courthouse in chains, two battalions of dragoons, eight companies of artillery, twelve companies of infantry, the whole constabulary force of the city police, the entire disposable marine of the United States, with its artillery loaded for action, all marching in support of a Praetorian band, consist­ing of 120 friends and associates of the United States Marshall, with loaded pis­tols and drawn swords, and in military costume and array—for what purpose? To escort and conduct a poor trembling slave from a Boston courthouse to the fetters and lash of his master! This display of military force the mayor of this city officially declared to be necessary,” so wrote our Harvard University friend, old Josiah Quincy. He also added, that summer in ’54, “Slaveholders have multiplied their black cattle by the million; and are every day increasing their numbers, and extending their cattle field into the wilderness...”

I respond to those impressive words with mine, since the slave issue dies hard.

The ant who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest will furiously defend the fruit of his labor against whatever robber assails him. So plain that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master does constantly know that he is wronged. So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume after volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it by being a slave himself.

Certainly, though a man may escape death and injury in the front lines, changes brought about by the war may alienate him at home, after he leaves the army, if he still has a home. The black who has fought for the North may find his Southern neighbors have become enemies. The black who has found a meas­ure of recognition while serving will find a lack of recognition after the war.

We have made little or no provision for the wounded. Our hospitals are in­adequate. Southerners will return to their farms with little more than the horse that saw combat. Custom dictates that he reject the negro.

As a nation, we are in a maelstrom of change. It is my hope that the church may help democratize. As I study the Washington archive I learn essential facts, but these facts are not disseminated. How are we to coordinate these state laws? Missouri hardly comprehends the laws of Massachusetts.

Justice—many strive for justice. Efforts must be doubled. I hope it may be said that I was just.

There are nights when I can not sleep. I get up and pace the floor of my bed­room or go into my office.

Many continue to threaten my life; so I do not walk the streets of Washing­ton. If I were home again I could walk freely. In Springfield, it is pleasant to imagine, I would shake off the war trauma. I think old skies would reassure me. But days in Springfield will not return. I have lost more than half my life here—but it was not the ax that cut me down. What was it, in all truth? Craving for glory? For power? I accept those weaknesses but above them is my desire to help my country, to balance the welfare of our people.

The White House

—cold, rainy—

Very often my commanding officers prove to be inadequate and I have to substitute one for another. Most officers, I find, shun advice or suggestions. Grant and Sherman are the best listeners. Ours is a mutual respect. Grant has the essential military skill to control the entire armed force. He also has ample cour­age for his job (it takes courage to fling men into battle; I also send men to death).

Sleep continues to be difficult to come by...peace is difficult to come by we know by now...hope is hard to come by.

It is curious and amusing to look at life across time: man knows his detours: it is incredible how he has fumbled his way through the centuries. In spite of the fumbling, I believe in mankind.

Executive Mansion

Christmas

CHRISTMAS—1864.

Mary and Robert and I have exchanged gifts.

We have given many presents to Tad.

Late in the afternoon, we placed a wreath on Willie’s grave.

This evening I received this telegram from General Sherman:

“I beg to present you, as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah.

– William T. Sherman”

Wintry

Rain beats on the White House, rain mixed with snow.

Old newspaper clippings remind me that six thousand soldiers died in an hour at the battle of Cold Harbor.

Another clipping reminds me of Gettysburg.

Another...

I have been reading the fifth chapter of Isaiah. It does not help. It seems there are days when nothing helps.

If re-elected, how shall I live through a second term? But I must; there is work to be done; I am the best to carry out honesty for all. I want no recrimina­tions.

Perhaps I can find peace, someday, in Europe. My son, Robert, is ill-disposed toward me. There is Tad, poor little wounded Tad.

Mary is ill, seriously ill.

Now, I shall open the Bible once more.

3

Late

S

ince many of our soldiers are fifteen or sixteen years old, I am aware that discipline is wanting, both discipline and stamina. Yet they fight furiously, build bridges, lay rails. They fight with their muzzle-loaders, cannon, mortar, bayonet. Most of them had never heard a gun fired except while out hunting. In a grim sense we are witnessing a youth crusade against injustice. For $13.00 a month they are fighting a man’s war. And dying is a man’s job. Poor children, crawling out of some entrench­ment, they fraternize during a lull—swap tobacco for coffee. They soon learn that our hospitals are dangerous places. Tents. Barns. Churches. Sheds.

We accepted this war for a worthy objective, and the war will end when that goal has been attained. We must succeed. This war has taken four years! It was begun or accepted to restore national authority over the whole national domain. Yes, we must succeed.

The White House

Office

The pigeonholes of my desk contain reports of disgraced militiamen, unfor­tunate prisoners of war, civilian and military spies, reports that demand that ul­timate yes or no. I study these reports, I weigh each one carefully; some two thousand reach me every month. Across the Potomac River, as I write, I hear gunfire, Virginia gunfire. Perhaps this is Butcher Day—our men are facing a Confederate firing squad.

I am reprimanded. Officers protest I weaken army morale when I commute a death sentence. Yesterday I pardoned William Scott, Vermonter, Company L, who fell asleep while on sentinel duty at a Potomac bridge. Nineteen years old, a farm boy, he was undoubtedly accustomed to going to bed at dusk. I rode to the Potomac River Camp and found Scott handcuffed in his tent.

“Boy,” I said, “I’m going to send you back to Company L.”

Boys can do us more good above ground. If a man had more than one life to live, I believe a little hanging would not hurt him too much...but he has one life.

Nothing exhausts me more than death sentences, death warrants, death. Young life is priceless. There are thirty million people involved in this war. Youth must be considered, if we are to survive.

I want to write something about my old friend, the Virginian, Ward Hill Lamon, of Danville days. Hill is my volunteer guardian, spy, Rabelaisian crony, scribe. Time and again he bundles up and sleeps all night in the hall outside my bedroom door, a derringer at hand. He is constantly alarmed I may be assassi­nated. He upbraids me when I ride alone in the White House carriage.

“That stupid coachman can’t look after you... I want a dozen or half-dozen cavalrymen to attend you.”

Evenings, Hill may appear and size me up, and sing a sad little song or a bobtail-nag melody, thrumming his banjo. Husky, courageous, he befriends me every day. Breakfasting together, he has a kernel of advice for me, I’m sure.

I have borrowed his hat, borrowed his cloak, but not his boots.

“As President, it is incumbent on you to look after your own boots and your own umbrellas,” he says.

As warden he has problems with both North and South; it aggravates him when he has to confer with me; he wants to be the little eagle. On our frequent visits to the hospitals he is always sympathetic. “Somebody’s Wallace,” he says, remembering one of my stories. Playing his banjo he will sing “Picayune Butler,” his southern accent warm and beautiful, delighting the sick and wounded.

Often, late at night, we talk of Danville, circuit friends, horses; he is adept at driving off my melancholia.

“The war is going to end soon,” he prophesizes. “It has to end soon...it’s hard to get hold of new banjo strings.”

The White House

January 5, 1865

So, another year has come into being.

“Many are the hearts that are weary tonight, waiting for the war to cease...”

For days I have been remembering that song. Yesterday, as I rode in the ba­rouche, the melody kept time to the trotting of the horses.

Wind and sun helped, as we rode.

Alone, I was able to commune with nature, able to consider the Potomac, the trees along its banks, the finished dome of the capitol, the monument to George Washington. For a while I was able to survey the property, measure it, plan a city layout.

The barouche horses are bays, a young pair, well-trained, handsomely har­nessed. My driver is a stalwart from Rhode Island; he says he used to work in a cotton mill; now, he looks forward to a job in a warmer climate.

We talk about the chestnuts and the oaks; for a mill worker he is well-informed about trees; suddenly, our drive is over.

Late

Nightmares occur.

I sit up in bed and recall in vivid detail scenes I have never witnessed, men dying under artillery and rifle fire, tent amputations, men struggling across a muddy, swollen river, a firing squad where men are shot down as I sit in a rock­ing chair.

I say nothing to anyone about these dreams but they are a weight to my world.

Lately, it is difficult to eat; I forget or refuse my lunch on its tray; coffee helps. I long to get away for a week or ten days.

Sunday

—windy and cool—

A heavy hog to hold, this war.

Sometimes people in Kentucky are loyal to the Union; sometimes not; it de­pends on whether General Lee has lost or won a battle.

Men find me lacking as the nation’s attorney. Some demand that I plot the future. I remember that the pilots on our western rivers steer from point to point—as they call it—setting the course of the boat no farther than they can see. That is how I propose to handle some of the problems set before me.

I seldom forget that it is a momentous thing to be the instrument for the lib­eration of a race.

I look out of the window, at the statue of Thomas Jefferson on the lawn; it puts me in mind of that lonely bronze figure atop the White House dome, a woman, symbol of liberty, visible for miles—cast by slave labor.

Was Jefferson’s statue cast by slaves?

Monday

—windy and cool—

There are something like a thousand deserters every month, Northern men and Southern men. I see them being marched through the city, all kinds, bareheaded, with caps, hats, with bandaged heads, with bandanas, handsome fellows, sickly fellows, wounded men, dirty, most of them in worn-out uniforms—miles of men mixed with leather, steel, horses, guns, wagons, riders, guards.

450,000 widows and mothers have lost their men.

White House

January 10, 1865

How well some officers understand one another, with a hem and a haw, with a nod or lifted hand. They are masters of military deception, just as politicians are masters of ambiguity. The colonels have their lingo; the majors have theirs.

I confront them with a plan of action. They bow over a map. Immediately, I sense that their secret codes are in operation. They guess that I am suspicious; I see that when a lieutenant touches the general’s knee. I decline the general’s offer of a cigar; he has forgotten I do not smoke. The men light up. Smoke hovers over the map. Brady appears. He wants to take some photographs. Some men sit, some stand. All the time the subtle deceptions continue. It is my job, as Commander-in-Chief, to ferret out honesty and promote it.

Troops are marching by.

Drums.

There is no room for humor.

The White House

January 12, 1865

Behind a hospital, the other day, I saw a wheelbarrow filled with amputated hands, arms, and legs.

I walked up close to the barrow, uncertain what I saw there. A hand reached out for my hand.

I held that hand. The stiff fingers were those of a farmer—a man from Ten­nessee or Illinois, a corn-husker’s hand.

I saw a boy’s hand next to the farmer’s.

I wanted to put those amputated pieces back in their proper world. All those pieces, the hands, legs, feet, wanted to return to the woods, the prairie, the barns, the canoes, the plantations.

As I write down these words my hands are not steady.

The White House

January 20, 1865

A month or so ago, I wrote General Grant on behalf of Robert. Now that Robert has graduated from Harvard, he insists on joining the army. I agree. Grant has replied and has given him a captain’s commission, and he is to be­come a member of Grant’s personal staff. Robert has not written me; perhaps he had learned of his mother’s parental concern and has included me as an obstruc­tionist. Now he is less likely to be bayoneted or blown to shreds while on the General’s staff.

Another of Mary’s brothers has been killed in action. Her fears for Robert are understandable.

I must impress her that fewer White House levees are in order. I realize it was proper to honor Prince Napoleon but there are few such obligations. I shun os­tentation. We have no right to ostentation these war times. That money that goes into ostentation can go into blankets for the soldiers.

A calm evening

Late

“Devoutly to be wished”...to have a woman, enjoy her physically; yet preserve essential private values.

A helpmeet, yes, but it has been my misfortune to never encounter such a woman who was also a woman.

Early in life, at East Salem, I learned about the unhappiness of others.

Misguided lives are powerful guideposts.

In the wilderness I found something mystic, something out of self for self. It taught me to be legally self.

In Springfield, I studied its citizens, its girls and women; I found that being an outsider was wise.

My wisdom is indeed my misfortune.

The White House

2/15/65

Yesterday a woman came to me, crying, sobbing, pleading for the release of one of her sons from service, since her husband and three sons were in the army.

I wrote a discharge for one of her sons and gave her instructions where to go and what to say, to get her lad released.

She found the military camp, regiment, company; she found her son wounded, dying in a nearby hospital. After his death she begged:

“Mr. President, will you give me the next one of my boys?” Again she pro­duced official papers.

“I have just lost a son... I have another,” I managed to say. As she stood be­side my chair I wrote a release; as I wrote she placed her hand on my head and smoothed my hair with a mother’s touch.

When I gave her the document she ran sobbing, crying her thanks.

The White House

2/18/65

Again I admit that dreams have perplexed me. I also think them significant if we can interpret them properly.

Last week I had a dream that has haunted me ever since. After it occurred I opened the Bible. Strange as it may seem, it was at the 28th chapter of Genesis, which relates the wonderful dream of Jacob. I turned to other passages... I seemed to encounter a vision wherever I looked.

I should not have related the dream to Mary but the thing got possession of me, and, like Banquo’s ghost, it would not down.

As I told her I felt something grabbing at my throat.

About ten days ago I went to bed late. I had been waiting for important dis­patches from the front. I was very weary and fell asleep as soon as I lay down. Then I began to dream.

There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me; then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wan­dered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same sobbing, but any mourners were invisible. I walked from room to room; every object was familiar. I was puzzled, alarmed. I kept on until I arrived at the East Room. There I met a sickening surprise.

Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse, in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers acting as guards. Beyond the soldiers was a crowd.

“Who is dead in the White House?” I asked one of the soldiers.

“The President,” he replied. “He was killed by an assassin.”

An outburst of grief came from the crowd.

I woke...

Mary was very disturbed by my dream; I gained nothing by telling her; in tears she threw herself on her bed.

“Don’t repeat your dream to anyone,” she said.

2/21/65

How blustery, more like December or January; it will be raining soon.

This morning, when it was more pleasant, I visited the Potomac Book Shop where Willie and I used to buy books. Here and there were a few soldiers. I was pleased, especially when one of them asked me if I would recommend a book of

poetry.

On my last visit I bought Pope’s Essay on Man. I noticed a British copy bound in morocco. At the Potomac I have acquired some Emerson, Wordsworth, Longfellow. I picked up a copy of Leaves of Grass, but it did not appeal to me. The shop reminds me of one in Boston; I told the owner; he laughed: “The shop you mention belongs to my brother... I furnished this one with Boston pieces.”

I hope I can get Tad to take an interest in learning to read. Willie’s enthusi­asm did not rub off on him.

Returning to the White House, one of our horses threw a shoe.

February 27, ’65

Hill tells me we have imprisoned a Confederate citizen who was delivering a £40,000 draft to the Southern forces. He also jailed a M. Louis de Bedian, who had letters of credit ($39,000), for the Confederate army. He has apprehended Charles Kopperl, Washington resident, who boasts that he killed Union soldiers. Obviously, Washington has strange, determined men.

Some countrymen objected to Hill’s political imprisonments, and I am criti­cized, in turn. Again nepotism ghosts.

Billy Herndon has walked into my office. Our get-together seemed as though we were in Springfield, in the old office. I threw out questions about friends; he had the answers. The weather favored us as we rambled around Washington, in the presidential coach. Together we explored the White House—Billy’s high­point. We had dinner, with Tad at our table.

Billy gave Tad a hand-carved pony express rider, in walnut. My books inter­ested Billy. He thought my walnut bed a world’s wonder. “Is it really nine feet long!” The carvings on the headboard amused him, and the wooden nest with its walnut eggs, under my side table. We parted reluctantly.

I wish I had ten men of his caliber to work with here. He went away quite shaken by the cost of the war. “How could it be...$2,000,000 every single day... Can our country recover such an outlay?”

March 9th

The Library

We can not escape history. We, of this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the last generation.

The great books in this room confirm this. The sun in the windows has promise.

Spring is with us along the Potomac. Through my open windows I hear it.

I wish I could place a sprig of lilacs on my mother’s grave.

Tomorrow we will visit Willie’s grave, but we will leave Tad with friends. His new pony is coming in a day or two; that will make him happy. I bought a Shet­land, brown and white.

Mallards mix with small craft. There’s not a breath of air moving; life is making a turn.

Wednesday

After reviewing troops on Monday I had that dream. I was staring at myself in a mirror, a full length mirror. I was seeing myself double—double vision. This time I seemed to perceive myself as traitor. Traitor to what?

Reviewing troops is an experience that shatters satis­faction. How can a man, a thoughtful man, watch men on parade and minimize the fact that some or all of those men will soon be dead or wounded? Or will maim or kill other men?

Last Monday the troops slogged past in heavy rain.

White House

Monday morning

The signs look better. Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that among free men there can be no suc­cessful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case to pay the cost.

And then there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation, while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they strove to hinder it.

The White House

Saturday

Again I have visited the Patent Office, this time in the evening, after a tedious meeting. I was accompanied by my escort, cavalrymen with rattling sabers, spir­ited horses. At the Office I was struck by a vivid recollection of how it used to be, before the war, the rows of cabinets and cases, each containing models of inventions.

Now cases and cabinets have been pushed aside or removed. Flush along the walls are row after row of wounded, as many as four rows deep, the wounded and their beds and cots reflected in dull glass doors.

Lamps and candles gleamed and smoked among the soldiers. I shook hands, passing from row to row. I talked, sat down. Here were signs of resignation, flashes of courage and hope.

Patent Office, I thought, you have a patent on suffering and death. As I stood, talking with doctors and nurses, they carried a man away.

“There’s such a shortage of medical supplies,” a beautiful nurse exclaimed. “Isn’t there something you can do to help? Did you know there are 12,000 wounded in and around the city?”

Note—

Check telegrams at T. Office. See Seward and Blain.

The White House

March 20, ’65

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

That is my prayer.

Something resembling peace came as I wrote.

7 a.m.

Office

A lieutenant visited my office one afternoon last week, a thin ghost of a man. Sitting in a chair alongside my desk, he seemed to totter, to lean toward the sun coming in the window.

He showed me pieces of bone that had been removed from a shoulder wound, laying them on my desk, in the sun.

I talked with him for about an hour, questioning about his army experiences, his home...he is mustered out. Back to Albany.

A soldier bumped into me on the White House grounds, swearing because he had not been able to get his pay; his crutch poked at the ground, his leg-stump jerked, as he talked to me.

“Let me see your papers? Remember, I’ve been a lawyer and maybe I can help.”

Jip is dead.

March 28th, ’65

Someone is singing outside my office, singing that old favorite, “Massa’s in de cole, cole ground.”

Memories.

I see the newspaper heading:

5,000 COTTON BALES BURNED.

Baton Rouge, last week bales were piled in the Commons, soaked with alco­hol, and burned. At this date, bales are valued at $100.00 per bale.

Another item, by the same reporter:

Two flatboats, loaded with cotton bales, were floated down the Mississippi, at New Orleans. Soaked with alcohol, they were set afire...

My little mulatto brings me my lunch; she bows and says:

“Good day, mistaaaaa President...cawnbread...thais cawnbread on my tray...”

March 29th

I have gone through my desk today, weeding out.

I have had a pigeonhole marked: A.

That’s for assassination.

I think there were about eighty ’nonymous threats in that pigeonhole. I have thrown them into the fireplace. I should have done this long ago. Some of the threats were made by persons who had never been to Washington, whose geo­graphical knowledge would have led them to the stables rather than the White House. Some seemed to think I resided in the Washington monument. One per­son proposed that he assassinate me on the Presidential yacht. No doubt he felt that would please the press and general public.

It is uncommonly chilly this afternoon; I think I will have a fire in the fire­place. We can have some oak logs to burn up the ashes of the assassins.

General Grant and I have been on friendly terms for a long while. He likes to talk about his farming days in Missouri. He used to haul wood ten or twelve miles into St. Louis. $10.00 a cord. He is proud of his log cabin, which he de­signed and built, a two-story.

At his HQ we sat under a tent flap and talked. He unfolded a letter from his wife and showed me his baby’s smudge print. Wife and son are two thousand miles away.

I talked about my courtship days, and Grant said:

“...Let me tell you how I got hitched. We were buggy riding and had to cross a flooded creek. As the buggy sank into the water and the water poured in, she yelled: ‘I’m gonna hold onto you no matter what happens.’ After we crossed I asked her: ‘Would you like to cling to me the rest of your life?’ Or something like that.”

We got to talking horses. I described some of my nags and some of my faith­fuls. He talked about his West Point horses, thoroughbreds... Wilma could out-hurdle any other...six foot six inches...then he talked about Mexican horses and Mexican saddles...you should see the one I got as booty...silver ornaments...

It was good to get away from Washington.

When I reviewed Grant’s troops, I rode his Cincinnati, a huge bay. The sol­diers are always pleased by my visits. I remove my hat and bow. Men clamor around me, huzzahing. They stroke Cincinnati. They kiss my hand: these are the blacks who are willing to fight for the union. Grant singled out a corps: recently, they had captured six cannons, under fire all the time.

Cincinnati whuffs and bobs his splendid head, as Grant and I ride along, a woodland around us.

After lunch in his tent, he gave me a lieutenant’s diary, written at Shiloh.

Our General Grant sat on his horse and watched the enemy try to capture a hill. Men fought from tree to tree. A man near me has been shot while aiming his rifle, one eye is closed, one eye is still open. A corporal has been disemboweled by a cannon ball. Riderless horses are running wild. Trees are plugged with lead bullets. I counted sixty bullets in a small tree.

I plan to collect personal accounts of the war; men must know.

Mary Mitchell, a volunteer nurse, has written:

The wounded filled every building and overflowed into the country around, into farm houses, barns, corncribs, cabins. Six churches were full, the Odd Fellows’ Hall, the Freemasons’, the Town Council room, the school. I saw men with cloths about their heads, about their feet, men with arms in slings, men without arms, men in ambulances, carts, wheelbarrows.

At the center of this autumn harvest stood the little white Dunker church, where the teaching on Sundays was that war is a sin. There the dead lay in gray and blue. In the fields lay thousands. Corn leaves over some of them were spattered with blood.

Grant and I ride. There is mud on the horses. His officers crowd round. Grant helps me dismount. We talk. Grant speaks favorably of yesterday’s battle, speaks with a rasping voice, hand to his throat. Behind his chair lies a muddy saddle. It is cloudy, cold. A private brings a dispatch. Grant reads it and nods. I respect this man.

Cabinet members reveal their excitement. Rumors. But the rumors may have solid foundations. Grant, they say. Sherman, he left to rejoin his army. His army will move. My secretaries believe in the rumors. Seward is optimistic. Hill waves his arms. Of course. At the telegraph office the men say “yes.” It is a kind of yes that could mean almost anything. The newspapers are reporting this same news.

Mary has spent $2,000 for a gown. She has spent $3,000 for earrings. $5,000 for a lace shawl.

She thinks I do not know about these extravagances. My previous efforts at control produce hysteria, hysteria that lasted for days.

I remember Ann Rutledge.

I order the brougham and drive.

The April weather is fine.

As the war draws to a close I remember that four million people have been involved in this struggle.

I have heard from Robert but he reports that his mother’s letters are unbal­anced. He has offered to bring them to the White House when he has leave. He says that her letters have been distraught for months. He is deeply concerned over her condition.

Evening

Desk

Details are coming in.

General William T. Sherman, with his 60,000 men, has cut a swath across in­surgent territory, a swath twenty to forty miles wide, and three hundred miles long.

All day the news comes.

All items confirm the success of his march.

Sherman’s men have foraged off the country; their devastation of property has been extreme; miles of railroad track have been ripped up; rolling stock has been captured; his forces advanced ten or twelve miles a day. The Confederate press refers to his march as a scourge.

Savannah—that was Sherman’s gift on Christmas.

Now, across the nation, a million and a half slaves have been freed.

Wednesday we went to Richmond by boat, a party of us, the day clear. Most of Richmond is gutted. Smoke is rising from burned buildings, buildings burned by the retreating Southern army. I walked a main street, holding Tad’s hand, our escort with us. Along both sides of the street were derelict people, blacks and whites, hungry people, uncertain what our presence meant to them.

I walked into the capitol building, sat hesitantly at the desk of President Jef­ferson Davis. Sitting there, the escort nearby, I remembered a pubic statement made by Davis, that blacks are children, that slavery is their training school.

In the streets we were met by cheering blacks; they wished to crowd around, realizing we meant no harm.

I sent men to that hellhole, Libby Prison, where thousands of our men have died of starvation and disease and torture; they are to be freed from that tobacco warehouse cesspool.

Riding in a carriage we saw the devastation of the city, ashes and memories. Five years ago today there were three million slaves.

Palm Sunday

1865

In the salon of the River Queen I met with my guests as we sailed up the Po­tomac, the river calm and the air fresh. We talked of the ruins of Richmond, the looters, the burned buildings, the wounded in tent hospitals. I saw a general feeling of sympathy.

During the afternoon, a military band played for us—the “Marseillaise” for my special guest, the Marquis de Chambrun; we had “Dixie” and Foster melo­dies for the congressmen and their wives.

As we sailed by Mount Vernon someone asked me about Springfield: did I think of returning after my second term? I thought it proper to say that my home was no Mount Vernon but I looked forward to returning.

The meals on our flagship were excellent. Tad was always hungry. Mary did not relish the food, or enjoy some of the guests. All of us know the war is wind­ing down. General Lee has lost 19,000 men, as prisoners to Grant.

I can’t remember when I have felt so encouraged.

As I lay in my bunk I could see in my mind a tree that reminded me of great trees I saw as a boy, trees with great shadows. It is worth a man’s time to hold communion with trees. The trunk of this tree, seen on the river bank, supported layers of outgoing branches.

Next morning I read to guests in the salon. I read from Macbeth. I always find it relaxing to read aloud, though my glasses sometimes bother me. I explained how Macbeth suffered mentally after becoming king. I helped my listeners visu­alize the murderer. I read from the quarto, graciously given me by Dr. Bancroft.

With Tad sitting at my feet, I read:

...After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;

Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing

Can touch him further.

The White House

Library

Here I attempt to find sanctuary, among the poets.

Now I realize that Mary is going insane.

Only imbalance could bring about such reactions; no one can forget her in­sults to Grant, to officers and friends at his headquarters. All this distress cen­tered on an innocent pretty woman.

For years I have detected imbalance in Mary. It has come into focus follow­ing Willie’s death. Hysteria, illnesses, doctors.

I am puzzled why I have persisted in this diary. For a time it seemed fitting to write it for my sons; for a while I considered Mary. As President, I thought of posterity. However posterity should have a solid record, objective, and this re­cord, written at odd moments, emotional, leaves much to be desired.

While with Grant at the front lines, seeing men dead in the field, a man with­out hands dying, after seeing lifeless boys in the woods, I asked and I ask again, why do I add to these pages?

For a while it seemed to me I was learning about myself and others through these jottings. With Mary’s decline I find more question marks here, question marks beyond war’s great question marks; these question marks began with Ann Rutledge, resumed in East Salem, continued along the Mississippi and on my legal circuits. For years they lay dormant in Springfield, in the Lincoln house with the green shutters.

Executive Mansion

April 4, 1865

The capitol is decorated from dome to portico.

Victory!

Flags are everywhere.

The weather is fine.

The Treasury building has a huge bond picked out in lights. Cooke’s Bank has GLORY TO GOD spelled out in golden stars. Hotels, shops, restaurants are festive, I am told. Bands play “Dixie” and “Yankee Doodle,” Irish tunes, Fos­ter’s songs. Fireworks and rockets explode over the Potomac. Cannon boom.

Horsemen, carriages, wagons, buggies, pedestrians...there isn’t a quiet corner in Washington!

This morning, General Grant shook my hand sadly, hardly a victory gesture. I did not try to penetrate his mood.

Tomorrow I am to speak to a crowd in front of the White House. I will try to envision a sane future. Rain is forecast. It will not matter, nothing is going to diminish the enthusiasm.

Robert is due here tomorrow.

Mary remains in her bedroom.

General Lee has surrendered his forces at the McLean House, at Appomat­tox. Grant has permitted Lee and his men to return to their homes; they may retain their mounts. Lee pointed out that his army was holding a thousand Union prisoners, prisoners who have nothing to eat but parched corn. His own men amply supplied, Grant has turned over 25,000 rations to Lee’s men and fed the Union prisoners.

As I write, fire engines roar, whistles blow, church bells ring.

This morning there was a salute of a hundred guns.

I spoke to a throng in front of the White House. The newspapers will carry my words but I also add them here, thinking to improve the text.

Mary is ill...all very unreal.

An end like a beginning can have a bitter edge.

Let us think as brothers. The great rebellion, which we have endured to­gether, must be forgotten. Now, starting at once, each state must be granted full privileges of the Union as soon as state governments can organize and as soon as 10% of its citizens have taken the oath of allegiance. It is our national goal to offer clemency and pardon as we attain peace, peace for our democracy. I will at once lift the naval blockade. I will urge Congress to appropriate $400,000,000 to assist the South in its economic recovery. Ours is no longer a nation within a nation; ours is a victory for all mankind.

April 10, 1865

Evening

Beautiful sunset

Now that the war is over, Grant thinks we can reduce army expenditures by at least a half a million per day. We can reduce navy costs at the same time; this will bring down our national debt to something like normal proportions.

I am cheered by such prospects.

Peace is ahead and I will be exploring its possibilities intensively. It will be a pleasure to convene a cabinet meeting, to discuss economic changes, foreign relations, amnesty, rail expansion, and state laws. I find a new amicability in sen­ate and house.

In another two or three months it may be possible to have a week or so in the Adirondacks, the three of us.

The White House

Sunday—late

Many have come to congratulate me on the cessation of the war, warm praise now that the union is preserved. Telegrams flood the telegraph office. Boys are always seeking me out, with their hands full of messages. I read newspapers with pleasure. Letters are piling up on my desk; my secretaries are complaining hap­pily.

Everyone in Washington is celebrating. There are parties in homes, in churches, schools, hospitals and public buildings. The White House has sched­uled a gala. I am happier than I have been in years.

I look forward to attending a play at Ford’s Theatre. I am told that it is a play full of puns. I am in a mood for something light.

I am also told that we are having corn bread at supper.

Note—

Estimates:	North – 360,000 killed in action
	South — 260,000 killed in action

The White House

April 14, 1865

—rain—

Mary invited Laura Keene, the British actress, to tea. She is in her forties—rather pretty. Dressed in dark green velvet she suggested something of quality in the theatre. She has her own playhouse in New York City. Her talk was mostly about her acting days in London where she produced and acted in foreign and American plays.

She said that she is a friend of Taylor, the author of Our American Cousin. “He has written over a hundred plays,” she told us.

I spun a frontier story or two; she listened rather absently, her hands in her lap; Mary queried her about forthcoming New York productions; very abruptly Miss Keene exclaimed that she hated war; she said that slavery could have been abolished without destroying lives.

When Tad bounced in she made over him. He took to her, laughing hilari­ously over her British accent as she asked him to solve a riddle.

“Say it again, pretty lady,” he urged her.

“I’ve heard good things about Our American Cousin,” I said. “I guess you al­ready know that we’ll be seeing the play tomorrow night.”

About the Author

P

aul Alexander Bartlett (1909-1990) was a writer and artist, born in Moberly, Missouri, and educated at Oberlin College, the University of Arizona, the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City, and the Instituto de Bellas Artes in Guadalajara. His work can be divided into three categories: He is the author of many novels, short stories, and poems; second, as a fine artist, his drawings, illustrations, and paintings have been ex­hibited in more than forty one-man shows in leading galleries, including the Los Angeles County Museum, the Atlanta Art Museum, the Bancroft Library, the Richmond Art Institute, the Brooks Museum, the Instituto-Mexicano-Norteamericano in Mexico City, and many other galleries; and, third, he devoted much of his life to the most comprehensive study of the haciendas of Mexico that has been undertaken. More than 350 of his pen-and-ink illustrations of the haciendas and more than one thousand hacienda photographs make up the Paul Alexander Bartlett Collection held by the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection of the University of Texas, and form part of a second diversified col­lection held by the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming, which also includes an archive of Bartlett’s literary work, fine art, and letters.

Paul Alexander Bartlett’s fiction has been commended by many authors, among them Pearl Buck, Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, James Michener, Upton Sinclair, Evelyn Eaton, and many others. He was the recipient of many grants, awards, and fellowships, from such organizations as the Leopold Schepp Foundation, the Edward MacDowell Association, the New School for Social Research, the Huntington Hartford Foundation, the Montalvo Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation.

His wife, Elizabeth Bartlett, a widely published poet, is the author of seven­teen published books of poetry, numerous poems, short stories, and essays pub­lished in leading literary quarterlies and anthologies, and, as the founder of Literary Olympics, Inc., is the editor of a series of multi-language volumes of international poetry that honor the work of outstanding contemporary poets.

Paul and Elizabeth’s son, Steven, edited and designed this volume.

Voices from the Past

was set in Garamond type by Autograph Editions. The typeface is named after Claude Garamond (c. 1480-1561), a French type designer and publisher and the world’s first commercial typefounder. Garamond’s contribution to the history of typesetting was substantial. He perfected the design of Roman type: The fonts that he cut beginning in 1531 were recognized as possessing a superior grace and clarity, so much so that Garamond’s fonts influenced European printing for the next cen­tury and a half.

It is interesting to note that Garamond type is the evolutionary ancestor of the type used to print the first official copies of the Declaration of Independence. In the 1730s, Englishman William Caslon refined Garamond’s version of Aldine roman, the well-balanced typeface became popular, and was introduced to the American colonies by Benjamin Franklin.

Despite his considerable contribution to the evolution of typography, Garamond was not a successful businessman and he died in poverty.

During the past five centuries, so many variations of Garamond’s type designs have been created that the phrase ‘Garamond type’ has come to be used loosely, with little memory remaining of its history.