'Be of good cheer, lad. I'll take you to the next feast at the castle. Meantime, shall I tell you a fable?'
Andrea clapped his hands like a child, and threw himself at the Master's feet, all attention. Leonardo began:—
'Once upon a time a large stone, lately washed up by the stream, lay in a retired place high up above the road and surrounded by trees, moss, flowers, and grasses. Looking down on his road he saw a number of stones like himself, and he said, "What profit have I here among these short-lived plants? I will descend among my kinsmen and live with stones like myself." Thereupon he rolled himself down to the road, and took a place amongst his brothers. And the wheels of heavy wains ground him, and the hoof of the ass, and the nailed boot of the pedestrian. Then he lifted himself a little, and thought he should breathe more freely; but, lo! became bespattered with mud, and the droppings of animals; and his former fair retreat in the garden of flowers seemed to him a paradise. Thus it is, Andrea, with those who leave their meditation and plunge into city disquiet.'
The master permits harm to no living creatures, not even to plants. Zoroastro tells me that from an early age he has abjured meat, and says that the time shall come when all men such as he will be content with a vegetable diet, and will think on the murder of animals as now they think on the murder of men.
To-day we passed by a butcher's shop, and he pointed to the dead carcases of calves and oxen and pigs, and said with disgust:—'Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs.' And then added sorrowfully: 'We live by the death of others. We are burial-places.'
God forgive me, I have again been with Cesare to that accursed tavern! We spoke of the Master's compassionateness for animals.
'You refer, Giovanni, to his eating no flesh?'