CHAPTER XII
In a street of the quarter Giovia the armourer Lupo had his smithy. He had been a notable artisan in a town famous for its steel and niello work; but in his age, as in any, a plethora of fine production must cheapen the value of the individual producer. Therefore when a vengeful caprice blinded him, and his door remained shut and his chimney ceased to smoke, patronage transferred its custom to the next house or street without a qualm; and his achievements in his particular business were forgotten, or confounded with those of fellow-craftsmen, deriving, perhaps, in their art from him. It was a sample of that banal heartlessness of society, which in a moral age breeds collectivists, and desperadoes in an age of lawlessness. And of the two one may pronounce the latter the more logical.
In Milan men came quickly to maturity, whether in the art of forging a blade or using it. Life flamed up and out on swift ideals of passion. Parental love, high education, the intricate cults of beauty and chivalry, were all gambling investments in a speculative market. The odds were always in favour of that old broker Death. Yet the knowledge abated nothing of the zeal. It was strange to be so fastidious of the terms of so hazardous a lease. One might be saving, just, virtuous—one's life-tenancy was not made thereby a whit securer. The ten commandments lay at the mercy of a dagger-point; wherefore men hurried to realise themselves timely, and to cram the stores of years into a rich banquet or two.
Master Lupo, a sincere workman and a conscientious, was flicked in one moment off his green leaf into the dust. There, maimed and helpless, the tears for ever welling in his empty sockets, he cogitated tremulously, fiercely, the one sentiment left to him, revenge—revenge not so primarily on the instrument of his ruin, as on Tassino through the system which had made such a creature possible. He lent his darkened abode to be the nest to one of those conspiracies, which are never far to gather in despotic governments, and which opportunity in his case showed him actually at hand.
Cola Montano, it has been said, had been borne away after his scourging by some women of the people. Grace, or pity, or fear was in their hearts, and they nursed him. Scarcely for his own sake; for, democracy being impersonal, he was at no trouble to be a grateful patient. He took their ministries as conceded to a principle, and individually was as surly and impatient with them as any ill-conditioned cur.
Recovering betimes (the dog had a tough hide), he learned of neighbour Lupo's condition, and walked incontinently into that wretched artificer's existence. He found a blind and hopeless wreck, shelves of rusting armour, a forge of dead embers, and, brooding sullen beside it, a girl too plainly witnessing to her own dishonour. He heard the rain on the roof; he saw the set grey mother creeping about her work; and he sat himself down by the sightless armourer, and peered hungrily into his swathed face.
'Dost know me, Lupo? I am Montano.'
The miserable man groaned.
'Master Collegian? Stands yet thy school of philosophy? A' God's name, lay something of that on this hot bandage!'
'The school stands in its old place, armourer; but its doors, like thine, are shut. What then? Its principles remain open to all.'