XII
It was at Vaprio that Leonardo finished a picture begun long ago at Florence. In a cavern, surrounded by great rocks, the Mother of God was folding one arm round the infant John the Baptist, with the other clasping her Son, as if she desired to unite the Human and the Divine in the indissoluble embrace of a single love. John, devoutly joining his little hands, bent his knee before Jesus, who blessed him with two fingers raised. The attitude of the infant Saviour, sitting naked on the naked earth, one plump dimpled leg tucked under the other, while he leaned on a plump hand, all its fingers outspread upon the sand—suggested the baby still unable to walk; yet already on his face, perfect wisdom was blent with the simplicity of infancy. A kneeling angel supporting the little Jesus, and pointing at the Precursor, turned to the spectator a face instinct with mournful foreboding, yet illumined by a strange and tender smile. Behind the rocks a pale sun shone through drizzling rain, and blue mountains rose into the sky, their sharp peaks weird and unearthly; the rocks, smoothed and polished as if by the action of salt water, suggested some dried-up ocean bed; and in the cavern was most profound shadow, almost concealing a bubbling spring, leaves of water-plants, pale dim cups of purple iris-flowers. One could fancy slow tricklings and droppings from the overhanging arch of black dolomite; and the creeping weeds and grasses were heavy with the continuous ooze of the ground and the damp saturation of the air. The face of the Madonna alone shone with the delicate brilliance of alabaster within which glows a light. Queen of Heaven, she was shown to men in the gloom of twilight, in a subterranean cavern, in the most secret of the recesses of nature, perhaps the last refuge of ancient Pan and the wood nymphs—she, the mystery of mysteries, the mother of the God-man, in the very bosom of mother earth.
It was the creation at once of a great artist and of a great student; the play of light and of shadow, the laws of vegetable life, the anatomy of the human body, the science of drapery, the spirals of a woman's curls (which he had compared to the circling of a whirlpool), all that the natural philosopher had searched into with 'unrelenting severity,' had measured with mathematical accuracy, had dissected as one dissects a corpse—all this the artist had recombined into a new creation, living beauty, a silent melody; into a mystic hymn to the Holy Virgin, the Mother of God. With knowledge equalled by love he had depicted the veins in the iris petals, the dimples in the baby's elbow, the ancient cleft in the dolomite rock, the quiver of the water in the secret spring; the quiver of infinite grief in the angel's smile. He knew all and loved all. Great love is the daughter of great knowledge.
XIII
One day the alchemist, Messer Galeotto Sacrobosco, undertook to experiment with the 'Rod of Mercury,' under which name were known all those staves of myrtle, almond, tamarind, or other 'astrological' woods, which were supposed to have a kinship with metals, and the property of discovering veins of gold, silver, and copper in the rocks. Accompanied by Messer Gerolamo, he went to the east side of the lake of Lecco, known to be rich in ores; and Leonardo joined the company, though he had no faith in the 'Rod of Mercury,' and mocked at it no less than at the other delusions of the alchemists.
Near the village of Mandello, at the foot of Monte Campione, there was an abandoned iron mine. Some years before the ground had fallen in and buried a number of the miners; and it was reported that sulphurous exhalations rose from a rent in the lowest depths of the mine, into which, if a stone were thrown, it fell, and fell, and fell, but was never heard to strike the bottom, for the sufficient reason that the pit was bottomless. Leonardo's curiosity was excited by these tales, and he determined to explore the mine while his companions were busied with the magic rod. Not without difficulty, for the peasants believed the mine to be the dwelling-place of a devil, he obtained the services of an old man as guide. A subterranean passage, very steep and dark, and with broken and slippery stairs, led to the central shaft. The guide walked stolidly in front with a lantern, and Leonardo followed, carrying Francesco, who had insisted on accompanying his friend. They descended more than two hundred steps, and were still going down, the passage becoming ever narrower and more steep. A stifling smell of subterranean damp assailed the nostrils. Leonardo struck the wall with a spade, listened to the sound it made, and examined the piece of rock he had detached, the nature and layers of the soil, and the bright mica sparkling in the veins of granite.
He felt the child clinging to him very tightly, and he asked with a smile whether his little comrade were afraid.
'With you, I am never afraid,' said Francesco; presently he added shyly, 'is it true what my babbo says, that you are going to leave us?'
'Yes, Francesco.'