'"Pazzia bestialissima, the most brutal of madnesses." A pretty definition, methinks, for the inventor of these engines. Here is your holy man who eats no flesh, who lifts a worm from the path lest a boot should tread on it! Both one and the other simultaneously! to-day a devil, to-morrow a saint. A Janus, with one face toward Christ, the other towards Antichrist. Which is the true Leonardo, which the false! Who can say? And he does it all with a light heart, with a mystic seductive grace. He is at play.'
I listened in silence, a chill like the chill of death piercing my heart.
'Eh? What is the matter, friend Giovanni? Quite chapfallen? You take it overmuch to heart. Oh, you'll soon be used to it, just as I am. And now let us go back to the Tartaruga d'oro, and sing:—
"Dum vinum potamus
Fratelli cantiamo
A Bacco sià onore!
Te deum laudamus."'
I said no word, but fled from him.