The torches smoked and flared. In their scarlet light the lonely moon grew pale, and the quiet stars trembled in the heavens.
X
Leonardo in his quiet workshop was occupied with the machine for the elevation of the Holy Nail. Zoroastro was making a casket, all glass and gold, in which the relic was to be displayed. Giovanni Boltraffio was sitting in a dark corner watching the Master.
Gradually, however, Leonardo had forgotten his machine, his thoughts having wandered to theories as to the transmission of force by means of blocks and levers. He had made a complicated calculation in which the mathematical law (the inner principle of reason) had explained to him the mechanical law (the outer principle of nature); two great secrets were thus fused into one still greater secret.
'Man,' thought he, 'will never invent anything so perfect, as doth Nature, which of necessity so disposeth her laws that every effect is straitly bound up with its cause.'
In face of the infinite abyss into which he was directing his penetrating gaze, his soul was filled with that sense of overwhelming wonder which has no likeness to the other sentiments of men. On the margin of the paper, covered with the calculations for the simple machinery required for the elevation of the Holy Nail, he wrote these words which echoed in his heart like a prayer:——
'O mirabile giustizia di te, Primo Motore! tu non hai voluto mancare a nessuna potenza l'ordine e qualità de suoi necessari effetti!' (O admirable justice of Thee, Prime Mover! To no force hast Thou permitted lack of the order and quality of its necessary effects!)
But the artist's meditations were interrupted by a furious knocking at the outer door, together with chanting of psalms, and the objurgations and yells of an inflamed rabble. Giovanni and Zoroastro were rushing to see what had happened, when Maturina the cook, with dishevelled hair, burst half dressed into the room, crying:—
'Thieves! Robbers! Murderers! Holy Mother of God have mercy on us!'