CHAPTER XXVI.
The most successful men in life are usually those who, by experience or by instinct, have learned to calculate other people's actions. It is not invariably so, although, at first sight, such ought naturally to be the result. If a man knows and sees all the paths around him clearly, surely he ought to be able to choose that which will lead him to the end he has in view.
But we always forget one element in our calculation of others, namely, self. We omit it altogether, or we do not give it its just value. Yet what an important element it is! We may know--we may calculate, in general or in detail, what will be the course in which each man's mind will lead him; but if we know not ourselves, we can never direct the results; for, take away the main-spring from the watch, and the cogs and wheels are idle.
However that may be, Antonio was one of the keenest and most clear-sighted men at that time in Italy, although his fortunes were still humble, and his prospects not very brilliant. It required no very deep consideration to show a man of his character that Lorenzo would be at his quarters almost as soon as himself. He therefore walked quickly, and had not waited five minutes before his young lord was in the room.
"I wish to Heaven I could help bantering," thought Antonio, as he sat expecting every minute to hear Lorenzo's foot on the stairs; "it is as well to be serious sometimes; but, on my life, the more one lives in this world the less one thinks there is anything serious in it. It is all one great farce from beginning to end, and the only people who cannot look upon it as a joke are infants who have skewers stuck into them by their nurses, men who are going to be broken on the wheel, and young lovers. These are the folks, especially the last, who cannot understand a joke. But here he comes; I must try to be grave."
"Now, Antonio," said Lorenzo, eagerly, "let me hear all about your journey;" and then he added with that sort of dalliance with the desired subject which youth and love are wont to show, "How long were you in getting to Florence?"
"Upon my soul, my lord, I cannot tell," replied Antonio, "unless I were to stay to calculate how many inns I stopped at, how many times my horse cast a shoe, and how often I had to go round to get out of the way of some wild beast or another. But I got there as fast as I could, be sure of that; and even then I was disappointed, for when I got to Madonna Francesca's house I found everything shut up, and nothing but an old custode so deaf that he could not distinguish between Francesca and Ghibellina, for he told me that was the street when I asked for his mistress. I made him comprehend at last by signs, and I then found out that the whole family, servants, pages, etc., had all gone to the villa on the Bolognese road to spend the summer. There, of course, I had to go; but I put it off from the grey of the night, as it then was, till the grey of the next morning; and a fine old place it is. Don't you recollect it, signor, when we were in Florence long ago? just up in the chestnut woods on the second slope of the mountains."
Lorenzo shook his head. "Well," continued Antonio, "it is somewhat like that villa you admired close by Urbino, half castle, half palace. On one side it looks as gloomy as a prison, and on the other as gay and light as a fire-fly; and it has such a beautiful view all over the Val d'Arno, running up to San Miniato, and taking in Heaven knows how much of the country over the hills!"
"Well, well," said Lorenzo, impatiently, "I trust I shall see it ere long."
"Well, my lord, I put up my horse," continued Antonio, "and asked among the servants for the signora. All the people recollected me, and I found she had a habit of sitting out in the garden in the early morning, just as she used to do at the Villa Rovera, which shows how people can be mistaken, for I thought she would have given up that custom when there was no person to sit with her; but they said she would sit there and think for hours."