'Cucurlu! Curlu!
Eagles and cranes,
Up they flew!'
At last it became quite dark, and silence descended upon the house. Out of doors the boughs of the old trees creaked and roared in the storm, and the roar was like the voice of malignant giants. The eerie howling of wolves was heard in the outskirts of the forest. Francesco piled logs on the fire, and Leonardo sat down beside it. The young man played on the lute and could sing very pleasantly. He tried to dispel the Master's melancholy by his music; once he sang him an old song composed by Lorenzo Il Magnifico for the 'Mask of Bacchus and Ariadne,' a favourite with Leonardo, who had known it in his youth:—
'Quant' è bella giovinezza
Ma sen fugge tuttavia?
Chi vuol esser lieto, sia;
Di doman non v'è certezza.'
The Master listened, greatly moved; he remembered the summer night, the dark shadows, the brilliant moonlight in the lonely street, the sounds of the lute from the marble loggia, the same tender love-song. And he remembered, too, his thoughts of La Gioconda. Francesco, sitting at the old man's feet, looked up and saw that tears were falling from the fading eyes.
Sometimes Leonardo would read over his old diaries, and occasionally he still wrote in them, but of the subject which now chiefly occupied his thoughts—Death.