Chapter X: Book VIII: The Age of Gold--1496-1497 (2)

Ricciardetto heard the cry and ran to her succour. When he saw his beloved mistress stretched senseless, he too shrieked, rushed away along the dark galleries, where at long intervals sentries stood holding dim lanterns, then into the crowded guest-chambers seeking the Duke, and crying wildly:

'Help! Help!'

It was midnight, and the revelry was at its height. The modish dance called '_Fedeli Amanti_' had just begun. In it lady and cavalier must pass under an arch upon which stood the Genius of Love blowing a trumpet; at its foot were judges; and when true lovers approached, the Genius greeted them with tender strains, and the judges smiled and applauded and let them pass; but the untrue were hindered, and the trumpet stunned them with terrible noise, the judges pelted them with hail of _confetti_, and the luckless couple, loudly bemocked, were forced to turn and flee.

The Duke, to sweetest strains like the cooing of doves, had just made his passage of the arch, when, the crowd parting in dismay to admit his approach, Ricciardetto hurled himself at his master, still shrieking his wild, 'Help! Help!'

Ludovico laid a hand upon his shoulder.

'What is it? What has happened?'

'The Duchess! She is dying! Help!'

'The Duchess is ill? Where? Speak, in the name of God!' cried the Duke.

'In the _Torre della Tesoreria_.'

The Duke rushed from the hall, his golden chain rattling, his hair flying.

The Genius of the arch of true lovers went on blowing his trumpet, but now the dancers left him and he stopped. Some had followed the Duke--in a moment the whole brilliant throng had scattered like a flock of frightened sheep. The arch was overthrown and trampled, the trumpeter nearly fell, was hustled, and sprained his ankle.

Some cried 'Fire!'

'I said it was madness to play with fire,' wailed the lady who had disapproved Leonardo's rotating planets; and others fainted.

'Calm yourselves, ladies. There is no fire!' said the seneschal.

'Then what is it?'

'The Duchess is indisposed.'

'Nay, she is dying! She has been poisoned!'

'Impossible! Her Grace was here but now. She was dancing!'

'But don't you see? Isabella of Arragon, to avenge her lord, has with slow poison----'

'_Oh Dio! Dio!_'

But in the next saloon the music continued, for there nothing was known of the disturbance. The dance 'Venus and Zephyr' was in progress, the smiling ladies leading their cavaliers by golden chains, and when these fell on their knees with lamentable sighs, placing their feet upon their necks. But a chamberlain now entered, waving his hand to the musicians.

'Silence! The Duchess is ill.'

There was an instant hush, save for one viol played by a deaf and purblind old man, which long continued to pour forth its plaintive quiverings.

The servants passed through the hall carrying a bed, long and narrow, with hard stuffing, and bars at sides and ends, kept from time immemorial in the wardrobes of the palace, and _de rigueur_ for the birth of the princes of Milan. Strange and ill-omened seemed this portentous couch in the midst of the festivity, the lights, the crowds of gorgeous ladies. They looked from one to the others mysteriously.

''Tis from a fall or, mayhap, a fright,' said one of mature age. 'She should have swallowed at once the white of an egg in which were lengths of scarlet silk, cut small.'

From the upper room, meantime, (Ricciardetto being stationed in the adjoining closet) came such a terrible cry, that the page seized the arm of one of the women who were passing with warming-pans, baskets of linen, and so forth, and cried in an agony:--

'For God's sake, tell me what is the matter?'

She did not answer, and another, clearly the midwife, ordered him away.

''Tis no place for boys,' she said sternly.

Yet the door was left ajar for a moment, and looking into the disordered room he saw the suffering face of her whom he loved with his hopeless boy's love, her lips parted in a continuous groan.

He turned pale, and hid his face in his hands.

Beside him chattered a group of gossips each with her infallible recipe; snake's skin, a bath in a heated cauldron, decoctions of cochineal and of stag's antlers, the tying of her husband's _berretto_ round the neck of the patient, and so forth.

The Duke entered hurriedly and sank upon a chair, clutching his head with his hands and weeping distractedly.

'Lord God! What torture!' he murmured. 'I cannot support it! I cannot! Ah Bice! Bice! And 'tis all my doing! mine!' Still echoed in his ears the furious cry with which she had greeted his approach.

'Go away! Go away! Go to your Lucrezia!'

One of the busybodies brought him a pewter plate piled with meat.

'Your Excellency will be pleased to eat it.'

'Good Lord, what are you giving me?'

'Wolf's flesh. 'Tis of great benefit to the wife in her labour, if the husband will eat the flesh of wolves.'

The Duke, submissive and self-denying, did his best to swallow the repulsive black substance, which was so hard as to stick in his throat, and the old woman gabbled as she bent over him:--

'Our Father which art in Heaven,
Seven wolves and the mate of one,
Blow the wind from us this even,
Praise Thy name, the storm is done!
Holy, Holy, Holy, in the name of the Trinity, one and eternal.
Let the word stand for ever! Amen.'

She was interrupted by Messer Luigi Marliani, the first of the court physicians, who came from the sick room, followed by his colleagues.

'Well? well?' asked Ludovico.

There was a silence; then Messer Luigi spoke.

'Your Excellency, we have done all that is possible. Now we must put our hope in the clemency of the Lord.'

'No! No!' cried the Duke seizing his hand, 'there must be some means! It is unendurable! Try something!'

The physicians exchanged glances like augurs, hoping thus to reassure him. Then Marliani, knitting his brows, said in Latin to the young doctor beside him:--

'Three ounces of river snails, with nutmeg and red coral,'

'A bleeding, perhaps?' suggested another, an old man, with a gentle and diffident face.

'I had thought of it,' said Marliani; 'but Mars is in Cancer and in the fourth house of the sun. And, further, to-day's date is an uneven number.'

The old man sighed, shook his head and forbore to urge his point. Various other loathsome medicaments were proposed, till the Duke could no longer contain himself. He turned furiously to the doctors.

'To the devil with all your science!' he exclaimed; 'she is dying, do you hear me? She is dying! and you have nothing better to propose than three ounces of snails and a plaster of cow's dung! Rascals, charlatans, fools! I will hang every one of you!'

He paced the room a prey to mortal anguish, listening to the sufferer's unceasing groans. Suddenly his eye fell on Leonardo and he drew him aside.

'Listen,' he cried wildly, 'Leonardo, you are master of great secrets. No, no, deny it not, I _know_. Ah, my God! my God!--that cry! What was I saying? Yes, yes! Help me, Leonardo! Do something! I would give my soul to succour her--even for a short space--only to still that cry!'

Leonardo would have replied; but the Duke, forgetting that he had appealed to him, hurried to meet the chaplain and two monks entering at that moment--

'At last! God be praised. What have you brought? Ah! a particle of the remains of St. Ambrose, the belt of St. Margaret--is she not the patroness of women in childbed?--and a hair of the Blessed Virgin! Ah, how I thank you! And surely your prayers----'

Following the monks he was entering the sick-chamber when the continual low groaning suddenly gave place to shrieks so appalling that, stopping his ears, he turned and fled, passing through the dark galleries like one possessed. He hurried to the chapel and cast himself on his knees before the most revered picture.

'Holy Mother of God,' he implored with clasped hands and streaming eyes, 'I have sinned--I have sinned horribly--I have slain an innocent youth--my lawful sovereign. O thou merciful Mediatress, have mercy upon me! Take my life--take my soul; but in pity, O Holy Mother, save Beatrice!'

Shreds of thoughts and senseless fancies crowded in his brain and stole his attention from his prayers. He remembered a story of a drowning sailor who had thought to buy salvation by the promise of a candle as big as the mast of a ship; and when asked how the wax for this colossus was to be provided, had answered: 'Hold your tongue; our present task is to get saved, and afterwards we'll get the Virgin to be content with a smaller candle.'

'Oh God, where are my thoughts!' cried the Duke bethinking himself. 'I must be going mad! God help me!' And he fell a-praying with renewed fervour; but now visions of Leonardo's crystal globes tormented him, and the tiresome chant of the gilded boy--

'Tornerà l'età dell' oro,
Cantiam tutti: "Viva il Moro!"'

Then all vanished, and he sank in a profound slumber. When he awoke he fancied but two or three minutes had elapsed. He left the chapel, and saw through the frosted window-pane the grey light of the winter's dawn.

X

Il Moro returned to the _Sala della Rocchetta_, where reigned a mournful silence. A woman passing with a basket of swaddling clothes, approached him and said.

'Her Excellency has been delivered.'

'Does she live?' he stammered, very pale.

'Yes, she lives; but the infant is still-born. She is very weak; and she desires to speak with your Highness.'

He went to her room; and there on the pillows he saw a small shrunken face like a child's, pallid and calm, with great eyes surrounded by livid circles, and turbid as if a spider's web were drawn over them; familiar and yet strange. He bent over her silently.

'Send for Isabella! Quickly!' she gasped.

He gave the order; and presently the tall, young, graceful woman with the proud sad look, the widow of Gian Galeazzo, entered the room and approached the dying Beatrice. All retired except Ludovico and the confessor.

For a few minutes the two women whispered together. Then Isabella kissed the other's cold forehead, knelt by the bedside and prayed, covering her face with her hands.

Beatrice signed to her husband.

'Vico, forgive me! Weep not. Remember my spirit will be always with you. I know it was I only--I only whom----'

She could not complete the sentence, but he understood her meaning.

'It was I only whom you loved.' Slowly she turned her eyes to him, eyes already darkening, and murmured:--

'One kiss--on my lips....'

The monk was reciting the last prayers for the dying, and the attendants, who had re-entered, responded in chorus.

The Duke felt the lips beneath his own turn cold and stiff; in that long kiss she had breathed her last faint sigh.

'She is dead,' said Marliani.

All knelt, making the sign of the cross. Il Moro raised himself very slowly, his face rigid, expressive less of grief than of extreme tension of spirit; he breathed heavily and loud like one toiling up the steep hillside. Suddenly he stretched out his arms, gave one wild cry:--

'Bice!' and fell senseless upon the corpse.

Of the spectators Leonardo alone had remained calm; his clear searching eyes were fixed upon the Duke. The look of supreme suffering in a human face, or its expression in the gestures of the body, was to his eyes a rare and beautiful manifestation of nature, an exceptional experience. Not a wrinkle, not the quivering of a muscle escaped his passionless all-seeing eyes. Presently, over-mastered by the desire to draw, he slipped from the room to fetch his sketch-book.

In the lower halls, whither the artist bent his steps, the candles were dying out in black smoke and gutterings of wax. The chariots of Numa and Augustus, and all the pompous allegorical paraphernalia employed to glorify Il Moro and his Beatrice, were unspeakably melancholy and wretched in the morning brilliance. In one room he saw the overthrown and trampled _Arco dell' Amore_.

Standing by the moribund fire he was beginning his sketch, when in the chimney-corner he noticed the boy who had personified the Golden Age. He had fallen asleep, huddled up, his hands clutching his knees, his head dropped upon them. The faint heat from the dying embers had not sufficed to warm the poor little naked and gilded body. Leonardo touched him on the shoulder, but the child did not look up. He moaned piteously and the artist took him in his arms. Then he opened frightened eyes, blue as violets, and wailed.

'Let me go home! Let me go home!'

'What is your name?' asked Leonardo.

'Lippi. Let me go home! Let me go home! I am so cold. I feel so sick.'

His eyelids fell heavily, and he babbled deliriously.--

'Tornerà l'età dell' oro,
Cantiam tutti: "Viva il Moro!"'

Leonardo wrapped the boy in his own cloak, laid him in a chair and roused the servants in the ante-chamber who were sleeping off the effects of their cups. He learned from them about the child: that he was motherless, the son of a tinker in the _Broletto Novo_, who, for twenty scudi, had sold his child to the mumming, though warned that he might die of being gilded. Leonardo returned, wrapped the boy snugly in his furs, and was carrying him out of the palace to the nearest drug shop that the paint might be removed from his skin. Suddenly, however, he paused, for he remembered the drawing he had just commenced, and the interesting look of despair in Ludovico's face.

'Ah, well,' he thought, 'I shall scarce forget it. The chief thing is the wrinkle over the arched eyebrows, and the strange smile which one might think full of serenity, even of enthusiasm. The expression of immense grief is like enough to that of immoderate joy; and truly Plato has said that the two emotions, rising upon different bases, converge at their apex.'

Then feeling the tremble of the frozen child, he added to himself ironically--

'Poor little sick bird--our Age of Gold!'

And he pressed him with such tenderness to his heart that the little lad fancied his mother had risen from her grave, and was comforting him.

XI

Beatrice Sforza d'Este died on Tuesday, the 2nd of January 1497, at six in the morning. The Duke remained by her corpse for twenty-four hours, refusing food and sleep. It was feared his reason would give way. On Thursday morning he called for writing materials and wrote to Isabella d'Este, sister of the dead Duchess, a long letter breathing bitterest grief.

'It had been easier for me to have died myself,' he wrote; 'I pray you send me no condolence nor messenger.'

After writing he was induced to eat a little, not presenting himself at table but being served in solitude by Ricciardetto.

He had proposed to leave the disposing of the funeral to Bartolomeo Calco, his secretary; arranging himself merely the order of the procession. But his interest became aroused, and presently he was planning details of the ceremonial with the same zeal he had shown in ordering the magnificent festival of the Golden Age. He fixed the precise weight of the funeral tapers; the number of _braccia_ of gold brocade and of black cramoisie for the altar cloths; the largess of small coin, pease, and tallow to be distributed among the poor in the name of the deceased. Choosing the cloth for the mourning of the court functionaries, he did not omit to feel its weight with his fingers, and to make sure of its quality by holding it to the light. For himself he ordered a special mourning garb (_abito solenne di lutto profondo_) having holes torn in it to simulate the rendings of despairing frenzy.

A few days later Il Moro caused the tomb of the still-born child to be inscribed with a pompous epitaph composed by himself and translated into Latin by Merula.

'I, unhappy child, have perished before I have seen the light; more unhappy in that, dying, I have ravished life from my mother--from my father his consort. In this adverse fate but one consolation remains to me; that I was born of parents equal unto gods. In the year 1497, the third of the Nones of January.'

Il Moro stood a long time contemplating this inscription, cut in gold letters upon a slab of black marble covering the infant's grave. It was in the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, where Beatrice also slept her last sleep. The Duke shared the naïve enthusiasm of the stone-mason, who having finished his work drew back and admired it from a distance, putting his head on one side, closing one eye, clucking his tongue, and murmuring in an ecstasy of satisfaction:--

'This is no tomb, but a jewel.'

One morning when the snow on the housetops shone white against the rich blue of the sky, and in the crystal air was that freshness like the fragrance of lilies which seems to be the perfume of snow, Leonardo da Vinci passed from the sunlit frost into a dark close chamber hung with black taffeta, where the shutters were rigorously closed, and funeral tapers were still alight--the chamber of Ludovico, who for many days had refused to leave it.

The Duke spoke of the _Cenacolo_ which was to glorify the place where Beatrice was laid. Then he said:--

'Leonardo, they tell me you have taken under your wing that urchin who played the Golden Age at our ill-omened feast. What of him?'

'He is dead, Most Illustrious. He died on the day of Her Grace's funeral.'

'Died!' echoed the Duke. 'Nay, but that is strange!' And he dropped his head on his hands, sighing heavily. Then he stretched his hand to Leonardo.

'Yes! yes!' he cried; ''twas destined to fall out thus. Truly our Golden Age is dead; dead together with my incomparable one, for it could not, it should not, survive her. Is it not a truth, _amico mio_, that here we have a strange coincidence--theme for a tremendous allegory?'

XII

The whole year was passed in the deepest mourning. The Duke did not lay aside his garment of woe, nor did he present himself at table, but ate off a tray held before him by courtiers.

'Since his lady's death,' wrote the Venetian ambassador, Marin Sanuto, 'Il Moro has become very devout, is present at all church ceremonies, fasts, and lives continently (so at least they say), and has in his plans the fear of God constantly before his eyes.'

In the daytime the Duke was able to forget his bereavement in the affairs of state, though even here he felt the lack of Beatrice; during the night the intensity of his grief redoubled. Often in dreams he saw her as she had been when he had married her; sixteen, childish and wilful, slim, dark; almost like a boy; so untamed that sometimes she hid herself in cupboards to avoid assisting at state ceremonials, and for three months after their marriage defended herself with her teeth and her nails from her husband's caresses. One night, five days before the first anniversary of her death, he dreamed of her as she had been one day long ago when there had been a fishing party on the banks of the lake in her favourite country house of Cusnago. Fish had been plentiful, and the buckets were filled to the brim. Having turned up her sleeves, the young Duchess had amused herself throwing the creatures by handfuls back into the water, laughing and delighting in the joy of the released captives, in the flash of their scales as they plunged deep into the clear water. The perch, the roach, the bream wriggled in her bare hands, then catching the sun they glowed like brilliants; and the smooth olive cheek of the beautiful girl glowed too. Upon awaking, Ludovico found his pillow wet with tears. He rose and went to the Convent delle Grazie, and prayed long at his wife's tomb; then he dined with the prior and disputed with him upon the burning theological question of the hour, the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. When it grew dark, Il Moro left the monastery, and went straight to the dwelling of Madonna Lucrezia.

His grief for his wife, his fear of God, in no wise militated against love for his mistresses. On the contrary, he clung to them more closely than before; the more so that of late the Countess Cecilia and Madonna Lucrezia had become bosom friends. Cecilia, though a blue-stocking or _dotta eroina_, as it was then called, and famed as the 'new Sappho,' was at bottom a simple good-hearted creature, somewhat easily run away with by enthusiasms. Upon the death of the Duchess she found opportunity for one of those exploits of love of which she had read in romances; she would make common cause with Lucrezia, her young rival, that together they might comfort the duke! At first Lucrezia was jealous and hard to win, but the magnanimity of the _dotta eroina_ finally disarmed her, and she opened her heart to this anomaly in female friendship.

In the summer Lucrezia bore a son; the Countess desired to be his godmother, and though herself the mother of children by the Duke, lavished on the infant extravagant tendernesses and called herself his grandam. Thus Il Moro's prophetic dream had been realised, and his mistresses were friends. To celebrate the auspicious arrangement, he caused Bellincioni to write a sonnet in which Lucrezia and Cecilia were figured as the Morning and the Evening glow; while he, disconsolate widower, stood between them.

This evening, entering the familiar luxurious chamber of the Palazzo Crivelli, he found the ladies side by side before the fire. Of course, like the rest of the court, they were dressed in the deepest mourning.

'How is your Excellency in his health?' asked the Evening Glow. She was quite unlike her rival, but no less attractive, with her white skin, flame-coloured hair, and hazel eyes clear as the water in a mountain tarn.

The Duke had complained of ill health lately, and though this evening he felt rather better than usual, languidly answered, from force of habit:--

'Ah, madam, you can easily conceive to what condition I am reduced. My mind is occupied but with one subject, how soonest I may be laid to rest beside my dove.'

'Nay, nay, your Excellency must not speak so!' said Cecilia with deprecating hands. 'Think, if Madonna Beatrice could hear you! All sorrow comes from God, and must be accepted even with thankfulness.'

'You speak well,' replied Il Moro, 'I would not murmur. Nay, then, God forbid! Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.'

And he raised his eyes to heaven, pressing closely the hands of the two ladies.

'May the Lord reward you, my dear ones, that you have not abandoned the poor widowed one!'

He wiped his eyes, and then drew two papers from the pocket of his mourning attire. One was a deed of gift by which he gave the rich lands of the Villa Sforzesca to the Monastery delle Grazie.

'But,' said the Countess, astonished, 'I had thought your Highness adored this villa.'

'My love for terrestrial things is dead. And, madam, what need has one man with lands so large?'

Cecilia laid her rosy fingers on his lips with sympathetic reproach. Then she asked curiously:--

'And this other paper, what is it?'

At this his face cleared, and the old, gay, somewhat cunning smile appeared on his lips.

He read the second document aloud, also a deed of gift, with recital of the lands, woods, hamlets, hunting rights, and other advantages which he, Ludovico, Duke of Milan, was conferring on Madonna Lucrezia Crivelli and his natural son Giampaolo. With the rest was included the villa of Cusnago, Beatrice's favourite country house, renowned for its fisheries.

The last words of the document Ludovico read in trembling tones:--

'In the wondrous and rare bonds of great love, this lady has showed unto us entire devotion and displayed such loftiness of sentiment that often in our intercourse with her we have experienced an entrancing and exceptional delight, added to great lightening of our cares.'

Cecilia clapped her hands and fell on her friend's neck, her eyes wet with maternal tenderness.

'Did I not tell you, my sweet sister, that he had a heart of gold? Now my little grandson, Giampaolo, has the richest inheritance in Milan.'

'What date have we?' asked Il Moro.

''Tis the 28th of December,' replied Cecilia.

'The 28th!' he echoed pensively.

It was the day, the hour, when a year ago Beatrice had surprised her husband with his mistress. The room was unchanged; the same winter wind howled in the chimney; the bright fire burned on the hearth, and above it danced the chain of naked cupids or cherubs. On the round table with the green covering stood the same crystal goblet of _Balnea aponitana_; the same mandoline, the same sheets of music littered the floor. The doors opened into the bedroom, and there was the wardrobe in which he had taken refuge.

What would he not give, so he thought, if he might at this moment hear the rap of the knocker on the great door, if the frightened maid should run in with the cry, 'Madonna Beatrice!' Yes, he would gladly once again tremble in the wardrobe like a caught thief, hearing in the distance the indignant voice of the lady of his love. Alas! it could not be, that time had gone by for ever! His head sank and tears filled his eyes.

'Oh, _Santo Iddio_!' said Cecilia, turning to her friend, 'he weeps anew. Rouse yourself! Coax, comfort him! Console him! How can you be so cold?'

And gently she pushed her rival into the Duke's arms.

Lucrezia had long felt sickened by this unnatural friendship. She would have liked to get up and go away; nevertheless she took the Duke's hand. He smiled at her through his tears and laid it upon his heart.

Cecilia took the mandoline, and, assuming the pose in which twelve years ago Leonardo had painted her, sang one of Petrarch's lyrics for Laura:--

'Levommi il mio pensiero in parte ov' era
Quella ch'io cerco e non ritrovo in terra.'

The Duke, much moved, wiped his eyes, and stretching out his hands as to a dissolving vision, he repeated the last line:--

'E compie' mia giornata innanzi sera.'

'Ah, yes, my dove, thou didst indeed finish thy day before the evening!... Ladies, sometimes it seems to me as if she smiled upon us three from heaven. Ah, Bice, Bice, _mia adorata!_'

He drew Lucrezia to him, and presently Cecilia rose and left them together. The 'Evening Glow' was not jealous of the 'Dawn'; from long experience she knew that soon again her turn would come. Her mandoline sounded from the next room.

And above the merry firelight, the naked cupids of Caradosso's moulding prolonged their eternal dance, laughing madly around the nails, the lance, the crown of thorns.