'And I who thought he did not feel!' said Giovanni to himself. 'Yet if he feels, how can he measure and split it up into numbers? Who is he, Messer Giorgio?' he whispered; 'tell me the name of this man?'
'Ha, little monk! is it you?' said Merula turning round; 'I had forgot you. Nay, but it is your idol: can it be that you knew him not? It is Messer Leonardo da Vinci.'
And the historian presented Giovanni to the Master.
VIII
Through the perfect stillness of early morning in the early spring, when the grass shone emerald between the black olive-roots and the blue iris-flowers were motionless on their slender stems, Giovanni and Leonardo, he on horseback, the lad on foot, returned together to Florence.
'Is this really he?' thought Giovanni, watching him and finding his minutest gesture interesting.
He was over forty. When silent and pensive his small, keen, pale-blue eyes, under overhanging golden eyebrows, seemed cold and piercing; yet when he talked they took an expression of great good nature. The long, fair beard and curling and luxuriant hair gave him an air of majesty. He was tall and powerful in build, yet his face had a subtle charm which was almost feminine, and his thin high voice, though pleasant, was not manly. His hand, reining a restive steed, was very strong, yet it also was delicate, with long, slender fingers like a woman's.
They were nearing the town walls; and the misty morning sun shone upon the dome of the cathedral, and the quaint tower of the Palazzo Vecchio.
'This is my opportunity,' thought Boltraffio. 'I must tell him I would fain enter his studio as a pupil.'