'No.'
'Shall I tell you?'
And he fondled her soft wild curls with his delicate, almost womanish, hand. 'Come here then! Let us sit down! Wait a minute, though, I think I have some nice cakes also, as you won't try my golden apple!' And he turned out his pockets. A young woman now appeared, looked at Maia and at the stranger, nodded approvingly, and seated herself with her distaff. Then came also the grandmother, a bent old woman with eyes like Maia's. She, too, looked at Leonardo; but suddenly, as if recognising him, she made a sign with her hands and whispered to her daughter, who sprang up saying:—
'Maia! Maia! Come away at once!'
The child hesitated.
'Come, run, naughty one; unless you wish——'
The little girl was frightened and fled to the grandmother, who snatched the orange from her and flung it over the wall to the pigs. The child cried, but the old woman whispered something in her ear which at once checked her sobs, and she sat gazing at Leonardo with wide eyes full of terror. The painter turned away, well understanding. The old woman thought him a sorcerer capable of bewitching the child. A sad smile on his lips, still mechanically searching for the cakes no longer needed, pained at heart by the little one's needless fear, he felt himself more of an outcast than in face of the crowd which had sought to kill him, the learned men who fancied his truths the ravings of a madman. He felt himself as far removed from his fellows as was that solitary star shining in the still undarkened sky.
He went home and shut himself into his study. With its dusty scientific instruments and its dull books, it seemed to him gloomy as a prison. However, he lighted a candle, seated himself, and became immersed in his latest research, in inquiry into the laws of the motion of bodies travelling on an inclined plane. Like music, mathematics had ever for him a soothing influence; and to-night, they brought him the hoped-for consolation. Having finished his calculations, he took his diary, and writing with his left hand, and from right to left, so that reading must be in a mirror, he recorded a few thoughts roused by the scientific disputation.
'The disciples of Aristotle, men of words and of books, because I am not a letterato like themselves, think me incapable of speech on my own subjects. They perceive not that my matters are to be expounded rather by experience than by words; experience, which truly was mistress of all those who have written well; which I will take for my mistress, by which, in all cases, I will stand or fall.'
The candle had burned low; and the cat, faithful comrade of his sleepless nights, sprang on the table, purring and rubbing herself against him. The solitary star, seen through the undusted windows, seemed still farther away, still less attainable. He remembered Maia's frightened eyes, but he had vanquished his melancholy. He was solitary, yes, but undaunted and serene. Nevertheless, unknown to himself, there was bitterness in the secret depth of his heart like a hot spring beneath the ice of a frozen river; there was almost remorse, as if, verily, he were guilty concerning Maia; as if there were something for which he was unable entirely to forgive himself.