A couple of weeks ago, Galeazzo, a local hunter, dragged a bear cub into my studio. He was quite docile for a while and then became too frisky, and had to be led away. Galeazzo promises to bring him again, and I will sketch him.
Francesco found this fable of mine in an old notebook, one of those I used to keep in Italy:
A stone lay on a mound where an attractive woodland shaded it. Herbs and flowers of many colors grew around. As the stone looked about, at the stones in the road winding below, it wanted to drop down onto the road.
The stone said to itself: “What am I doing, sitting here, among these plants all day long? I want to be with the other stones, my sisters and brothers.”
So, during a heavy rain, it managed to roll down and stop among the rocks of the road. In a short while it began to feel the weight of the cart wheels, the crack of horse and mule hooves, the tramp of cattle, the kick of travelers’ shoes. A man knocked the stone to one side, another spilled trash on it. A cart wheel chipped it. The dung of a cow splattered it. The roadway became very hot.
The stone gazed back at the place it had left—its place of solitude.
This is what happens to those who think they can live tranquilly in cities.
Francesco feels this is my best fable, although he does not think much of any of them:
“Remember, Maestro, you are not Aesop.”