Chapter IX: Book VIII: The Age of Gold--1496-1497 (1)

_'Tornerà l'età dell' oro
Cantiam tutti: "Viva il Moro!"'_
BELLINCIONI.

[The Age of Gold shall brighten as of yore,
And all exulting sing, 'Long live the Moor!']

I

Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, sat in her boudoir writing a letter to her sister Isabella, wife of the Marchese Francesco Gonzaga, lord of Mantua:--

'Most excellent madonna and well-beloved Sister, I and _il Signor_ Ludovico, my spouse, desire your good health, and that of _il Signor_ Francesco, your illustrious consort.

'In obedience to your desire I send you the portrait of Massimiliano, my Son, only I pray you not to conceive of him as of the smallness here indicated. I would send you the precise measurements of how tall he is, but that I am afraid, for the nurse tells me such measurement would impede his growth. He grows _amazingly_. If I see him not for a couple of days, I find him so greatly enlarged that I jump for joy.

'Here at court we have a great grief: the little Fool Nannino hath died. You, my sister, knew him and loved him well; you will therefore comprehend that while I might have replaced any other loss, Nature herself could not fill the void left by Nannino, since in this Being, formed expressly for the delight of princes, she had united the perfection of imbecility with the most entrancing hideousness. Bellincioni has composed a most elegant Elegy, declaring that if Nannino is in Heaven then all paradise must laugh, if he is in hell even Cerberus grinneth. We have buried him, with many tears, in our family tomb in St. Maria delle Grazie, beside my favourite falcon, and the memorable bitch Puttina. Death shall not wholly separate me from so delightful a possession. I have wept for two entire nights, and Ludovico, my lord, in the hope to console me, has promised me for a Christmas gift a magnificent silver bedside Seat, ornamented with a relief of the fight between the Centaurs and the Lapithæ. Its interior will be of pure gold, very massive, and it hath a Baldachin of velvet, embroidered with our ducal arms. A similar seat has no other prince, neither the Pope, nor the Emperor, nor the grand Turk. It will excel in beauty that one famed by Martial in his epigram. My lord, Ludovico, had wished Leonardo da Vinci to contrive a musical-organ in its Interior, but he hath excused himself on some flimsy pretext, such as the finishing of his Colossus, or his _Cenacolo_. You prayed me, beloved Sister, to lend you this Painter for a time. With pleasure would I accede to your request, and verily not lend but give him to you for ever; but my lord, Ludovico, for what reason I cannot say, is exceeding well-disposed toward this man, and would not consent to his removal for all the gold in the world. Be not disappointed overmuch, for verily this Leonardo is occupied to such a degree with alchemy, mechanics, Magic, and other such like follies, that he scarce attends to his painting; secondly, he executes all commissions with a slowness that would lose an Angel his patience; thirdly, he is an infidel.

'Of late we have had a wolf-hunt. They do not permit me to mount on horseback, for I am now advanced in my fifth month; but I watched the hunt from the high platform of a conveyance made expressly for me, in form like a pulpit. I assure you that in this box I was rather tortured than diverted. When the Wolf made his escape into the forest I wept with rage. Had I been upon my horse I swear he should not thus have got away, though I had broken my collar-bone.

'My little sister, do you recall how we used to leap our horses? And how Penthesilea fell in the Ditch and almost destroyed herself? And the boar-hunt at Cusnago? And the tennis? and the angling? What fine times were those!

'Here we amuse ourselves as best we can. We play at cards, and we skate, which is a most pleasing diversion, introduced among us by a Flemish gentleman, for the winter is very severe, and not only the lakes but likewise the rivers are completely frozen. In the park Leonardo hath built out of snow a most elegant Leda embraced by the swan. Pity 'tis that in the spring it will melt!

'And you, delightful sister, how fare you? And has your breed of cats with long hair succeeded well? If you have a male Kitten with tawny hair and blue eyes, I pray you to send him with the young Negress you have promised me; I will give you in exchange my little bitch's next litter.

'Pray you, do not omit to send the model of the Wrapper of azure satin, with the cross-cut collar and the trimming of sables. I asked for it in my last letter. Pray you, despatch it at once; 'twere best to-morrow at day-break, and by a mounted messenger. And send me also a vessel of your boasted ointment for the king's evil, and some of that foreign wood for the finger-nails.

'Our astrologer predicts a very hot summer, and War. What saith your prophet? One's faith jumps always with the astrologer belonging to somebody else.

'I and Ludovico, my lord, commend ourselves to your gracious remembrance, beloved sister, and that of your illustrious consort, the Signor Marchese Francesco.

BEATRICE SFORZA.'

II

Notwithstanding the frank tone of this letter, it was full of finished policy. Beatrice concealed from her sister her private anxieties and annoyances, for, as matter of fact, peace was very far from reigning between husband and wife. The lady hated Leonardo neither for heresy nor atheism, but because he had painted the portrait of Cecilia Bergamini, the Duchess's most detested rival. Of late, also, she had suspected an intrigue with one of her ladies, Madonna Lucrezia Crivelli.

At this time Ludovico was at the zenith of his power. Son of Francesco Sforza--that daring mercenary from the Romagna, half soldier, half brigand--he dreamed of making himself lord of an united Italy.

'The Pope,' he boasted, 'shall be my chaplain, the Emperor my captain, Venice my treasury, and the King of France my courier.'

He signed himself '_Ludovicus Maria Sfortia Anglus Dux Mediolani_,' deducing his descent from Anglus the Trojan, companion of Æneas. The Colossus, monument to his father Francesco, with the inscription _Ecce Deus_, was designed as a testimony to the divine origin of the Sforzas. For all his external prosperity, however, the Duke was tortured by anxiety and secret fear. He knew himself unloved by the people, and reckoned a usurper. Once in the Piazza dell' Arrengo the people, seeing the widow of Gian Galeazzo with her eldest son, had shouted, 'Long live Francesco, our rightful Duke!'

The boy was eight years old, and famed for his intelligence and beauty. Marin Sanuto, the Venetian, wrote of him: 'The people desire him for their prince, even as they desire God.' Beatrice and her husband had recognised that the death of Gian Galeazzo had not been sufficient to make them lords of Milan, since in this child the shade of his father was rising from the tomb.

There was talk in the city of mysterious portents. At night, above the castle towers, a strange glow had appeared as that of a conflagration. In the palace chambers agonising groans had been heard. It was remembered that when Gian Galeazzo had lain dead it had been impossible to shut his left eye, omen of the imminent death of one of his near kinsmen; the eyelids of the Madonna dell' Albore had quivered; outside the Porta Ticinese an old woman's cow had dropped a double-headed calf. The Duchess herself had seen an apparition in the Sala della Rocchetta, had fainted with terror, and refused to discuss it with any one, even her husband. She had altogether lost that vivacity and grace which had been so attractive to her spouse, and, filled with the gloomiest prognostications, was awaiting the approaching birth of her child.

III

On a melancholy December evening, while snowflakes were slowly falling on the streets of Milan, Il Moro sat in the little detached apartment of the palace in which he had installed his new love, Madonna Lucrezia Crivelli. The flames from the fire on the open hearth lighted up the polished doors with their inlaid views of the ancient buildings in Rome, the moulded and chequered lacework of the ceiling touched up with gold, the walls covered with Cordovan leather and gold hangings, the tall black chairs and settles, the round table, the novel by Boiardo lying open, the sheets of music, the mother-o'-pearl mandoline, and the crystal goblet of _Balnea aponitana_, a spa water, at that time greatly in fashion. On the wall hung the lady's portrait painted by Leonardo. Caradosso had carved the marble reliefs of the chimney-piece--curled serpents gnawing a vine, and naked children, half cherubs, half cupids, playing with the sacred instruments of the Lord's Passion; nails, sponge, lance, and crown of thorns.

The fierce wind howled in the chimney, but within the dainty _studiolo_ all was comfort and luxury. Madonna Lucrezia, seated on a cushion at the Duke's feet, was sorrowful, for he had chided her, the ground of his complaint being that she did not visit Beatrice, his duchess.

'Your Excellency!' cried the girl, with drooping eyelids, 'I beseech you, constrain me not! I am incapable of lying.'

'Lying?' echoed Il Moro; 'but this is concealment, not lying! Did not the Thunderer himself hide his pranks from his jealous spouse? And Theseus? and Phædra? and Medea? All the gods and heroes of antiquity! We, poor mortals, cannot resist the might of the god of Love. But would it be well to have the evil flagrant? Then you lead your neighbour into temptation, which is contrary to all Christian charity. And charity, you know, covers a multitude of sins.'

He laughed; but Lucrezia shook her head and looked at him with her large eyes, innocent and pensive as a child's.

'You know, my lord, I am happy in your love; but sometimes I fall into such a remorse, remembering that I am deceiving Madonna Beatrice, who loves me as a sister, that I know not how to endure it.'

'Enough, enough, my child!' cried the Duke, and drew her to his knee, throwing one arm round her waist, and with the other hand caressing her smooth raven tresses, which were confined by the _ferroniera_, a thread of gold fastened over the brow by a diamond, which glistened like a tear. Lowering her eyelashes she permitted his caresses coldly, and without returning them.

'Ah, if you knew how I loved thee, my gentle one! so sweet, so modest! Thee only!' he sighed, breathing again that odour of violet and musk.

The door opened, and a frightened maid-servant rushed in.

'Madonna! madonna!' she cried; 'there! down by the great door! O Lord, have pity on us sinners!'

'Speak!' said the Duke, 'who is at the great door?'

'Beatrice, the Duchess.'

Il Moro turned pale.

'The key! Quick, the key of the little door! I will go through the courtyard. Give me the key--at once.'

'But the cavaliers of Madonna Beatrice are surrounding the house!' cried the servant, wringing her hands.

'Then it's a trap,' said the Duke rubbing his brow. But how has she come by the knowledge? Who can have told her?'

'Surely Monna Sidonia, the accursed witch who creeps in to vex us with her unguents and her phials. I warned you, Madonna, to beware of her.'

'What's to be done? _Dio mio!_ What's to be done?' muttered the Duke, ever paler.

From the street came a violent knocking on the great door and the servant rushed to the staircase.

'Hide me, Lucrezia. Hide me!'

'Most Excellent, if Madonna Beatrice suspects, she will search the house. Were it not better that you went straight up to her?'

'God forbid! You know not the manner of woman she is. Good Lord, to think what may come of this! Remember her state--the danger to the infant! Hide me; hide me at once--no matter where.'

At this moment the Duke more nearly resembled a thief detected than a descendant of Anglus, the companion of Æneas.

Lucrezia took him to her dressing-chamber and hid him in the wardrobe, a large press let into the wall, with white doors inlaid with gold; here he effaced himself in a corner among the dresses.

'What a position!' he said to himself. 'Exactly like the ridiculous heroes of Boccaccio or Sacchetti.'

Il Moro was, however, in no mood to appreciate the ridiculous side of the adventure. He drew from his bosom a small case with relics of St. Christopher; another containing a morsel of Egyptian mummy, a talisman much in vogue. In the dark he could not distinguish which was which of these treasures, so he kissed them both, crossing himself and praying.

Hearing the voices of his wife and his mistress entering the closet together, he turned cold with fear. But they were talking amicably as though nothing were amiss. Lucrezia was showing the Duchess her new house, at her own urgent request. Probably Beatrice had no clear proofs of her case, and therefore was dissembling her suspicion. It was a duel of feminine cunning.

'What! gowns here, too?' said the Duchess indifferently, as she approached the press in which her husband had settled himself down half dead with fear.

'Yes, old gowns. What I wear at home. Would your Excellence like to look?' said Lucrezia, also indifferently, and she partly opened the door.

'Hearken, my dear. Where do you keep that robe I was so fond of--don't you remember?--which you wore at the Pallavicini fête last summer? Little golden caterpillars sparking like fireflies on a purple ground.'

'I don't remember,' said Lucrezia. 'Oh, yes, though--it must be here,' and she moved away from her lover's hiding-place, leaving its door ajar, and drew the Duchess to the other wardrobe.

'And she declared she could not deceive!' thought the duke, pleased notwithstanding his terror. 'What presence of mind! Oh, women! 'tis from you princes should learn diplomacy.'

Presently the ladies moved away into the adjoining apartment, and Il Moro breathed more freely, though he still convulsively clutched at the relics of St. Christopher and the morsel of mummy.

'Two hundred imperial ducats to the monastery of St. Maria delle Grazie for oil and candles, if it ends well!' he vowed.

At last the maid came running, opened the press, and with an air both respectful and sly let the prisoner out, telling him the danger was passed, and the most excellent Madonna Beatrice had been pleased to retire, after taking a gracious leave of Madonna Lucrezia.

Having crossed himself, he returned to the _studiolo_, drank a glass of the _Balnea aponitana_ water, looked at Lucrezia, who sat by the fireplace as before, her head drooping, and smiled. Then he stepped cautiously to her side, bent down and took her in his arms. The girl shuddered.

'Leave me! Leave me, I pray you. I beseech you to go away. How can you do this after what has happened?'

But the Duke unheeding, covered her face and neck and hair with ardent kisses. He had found a new charm in her unsuspected talent for deception, and never had she seemed to him more lovely.

The December storm still howled in the chimney; but the glow of the fire illuminated the chain of laughing naked children who, among the vine-branches of Bacchus brandished nail, hammer, spear, and crown of thorns.

IV

For three months, under the direction of Bramante, Caradosso, and Leonardo da Vinci, preparation had been making for the great ball, decreed by the Duke for New Year's Day. No less than two thousand persons had been invited. On the appointed day, at about five o'clock in the afternoon, the guests assembled at the palace. A snowstorm had damaged the roads; the castle towers and battlemented walls with the loop-holes for the mouths of cannon showed with ghastly whiteness against the heavy clouds. Fires had been kindled in the wide courtyard, and round these were assembled noisy groups of equerries, palanquin-bearers, grooms, couriers, outriders, and their like. Gilded chariots and coaches, very cumbrous, and drawn by cart-horses, were setting down fur-wrapped ladies and cavaliers at the entrance of the palace, or crossing the drawbridge which led to the inner court of the Rocchetta. The frosted windows glittered in the festal illuminations within.

Entering the vestibule, the guests passed between two long rows of ducal guards, Turkish _mamelukes_, Greek _stradiotes_, Scotch bowmen, Swiss _lanzknechts_, all in armour, and bearing heavy halberts. In front of them stood the pages, pretty as maidens, in parti-coloured liveries, the right side pink velvet, the left blue satin, trimmed with swan's-down, and silver-embroidered with the arms of Sforza and Visconti. Their garments were so tight as to display every outline of their lithe and graceful bodies; and in their hands these charming candlebearers held torches of red and yellow wax, such as were used in the churches. As each guest entered the great hall, a herald, attended by two trumpeters, proclaimed his style and titles; then a vista opened before him of vast dazzlingly-lighted saloons: 'the hall of the white doves on a red field'; 'the hall of gold,' with the ducal hunting trophies; 'the hall of purple,' hung with gold-embroidered purple satin, adorned with buckets and firebrands (the insignia of the Dukes of Milan, who at pleasure could blow up the fire of war, or quench it with the waters of peace). Last was the small and exquisite 'black saloon,' designed by Bramante, and adorned on walls and ceiling with frescoes by Leonardo, still unfinished.

The richly-dressed crowd buzzed like a swarm of bees. Their attire was iridescent, gorgeous, not seldom tasteless through over-richness, in fashions borrowed from many lands, so that a witty writer of the day said that he read the invasion of foreigners, and the enslavement of Italy, in the garb of his own countrymen. The robes of the ladies, hanging in heavy folds, and stiff with gold and jewels, suggested ecclesiastical vestments. Many were heirlooms handed down from long-forgotten grandmothers. There was ample display of fair shoulders and bosoms, and hair was confined in golden nets, and plaited in thick strands, artificially lengthened by ribbons and false hair. Fashion proscribed eyebrows; therefore ladies whom nature had disfigured by those superfluities carefully removed them, hair by hair, with steel tweezers called '_pelatoio_.' Rouge, and heavy perfumes such as musk, amber, viverra, and cypress powder, were regarded as mere necessary decencies.

Here and there in the crowd might be seen girls and women inheritors of that peculiar charm only seen in Lombardy, that beauty, as it were, of vaporous shadows, melting like mist into the transparent pallor of the skin; of oval faces, and delicate chiselling of features such as Leonardo delighted to paint.

Madonna Violante Borromeo was by universal consent acclaimed queen of the festival, with her black and brilliant eyes, her tresses dark as night, her triumphant beauty patent to all. Her dress was embroidered with moths burning their wings in flames--a warning to all heedless admirers. Yet it was not Madonna Violante who attracted the eyes of veritable connoisseurs in female loveliness so much as the graceful Diana Pallavicino. Her eyes were clear and cold as ice, her fair hair was almost colourless, her smile calm, her voice slow, melodious, and thrilling as the strings of a viol. She wore a simple dress of white damask with long floating lines, trimmed with ribbons of palest green: amid the noise and splendour of the feast she seemed a being apart, alien, solitary, like a water-lily slumbering on some silent moonlit pool.

Suddenly the horns and trumpets sounded, and all the guests moved to the great Hall of the Tennis Court. Here waxlights burned in fiery clusters upon huge candelabra, and woke sparkles in the golden stars which strewed the azure ceiling-vault. The balcony, in which the choir was concealed, was hung with silken carpets, and with garlands of evergreens.

Punctual to the moment prescribed by the astrologers (for the Duke never moved a step nor, as the wits had it, changed his shirt nor kissed his wife, without first consulting the stars), Il Moro and Beatrice made their entry, robed in ermine-lined brocaded mantles, followed by pages, chamberlains, and lords-in-waiting. On the breast of the Duke, set as a brooch, glowed a ruby of extraordinary brilliance and size, taken from the treasure of Gian Galeazzo.

As for Beatrice, she had of late greatly declined in beauty; her unformed still girlish expression and manner had a strange pathos, contrasted with the state of her health and evident sufferings.

The Duke gave the signal, the seneschal raised his staff, the music struck up, and the guests took their allotted seats at the splendid banquet.

V

And now a commotion arose. The ambassador of the Grand Duke of Muscovy, Danilo Mamiroff, refused to sit below the envoy of the Most Serene Republic of St. Mark. To all explanations, persuasions and entreaties the old man was obstinate, and only repeated:--

'I will not sit down. I will not sit down. 'Tis an affront!' Nor recked he of curious looks and ironical smiles turned on him from every side.

'What's the matter? More trouble with the Muscovites? Good Lord, what barbarians they show themselves! They always expect the best places, and won't listen to reason. They are for ever in the way. Mere savages! And such a language! They might as well be Turks! A nation of wild beasts!'

Messer Boccalino, the interpreter, a Mantuan of great resource, hurried to the ambassador:--

'But Messer Daniele, Messer Daniele!' he cried in broken Russian, bowing low, and making gestures of perfect servility, 'Messer Daniele, you really must sit! 'Tis a mere Milanese custom. Sit down, I beseech you, or his Highness will be offended.'

Nikita Karachiarov, Mamiroff's young secretary, had come likewise to the old man.

'Danilo Kusmitch, little father, do not, I pray you, be wroth. No one can keep his own rule in a strange monastery! What would you have? These foreigners are ignorant of our usages. Pray you beware lest they take you by the arms and exclude you from the banquet. Think what a figure we should cut!'

'Nikita, hold your tongue. 'Tis not for you to teach a man of my years. I know very well what I am about. I am not going to give in. I will never sit below that man from Venice. I represent my sovereign; and my sovereign is the Autocrat of all the Russias....'

'Messer Daniele! Messer Daniele!' stammered Boccalino.

'Leave me alone, you monkey-face. What are you squeaking about? Get away. I have said I will not sit down, and sit down I will not!'

The old man's small eyes, gleaming like those of a bear under his frowning brows, flashed fires of pride, fury, and indomitable obstinacy. His emerald-studded staff trembled in the tight grasp of his nervous fingers. It was clear that he was not to be subdued by any human force. The Duke summoned the Venetian envoy, and with that happy courtesy which was his characteristic, he begged as a personal favour to himself that the Italian guest would consent to the change in his seat. He added that no one attached the slightest importance to the childish arrogance of these utter barbarians. Yet in point of fact Ludovico greatly prized the favour of the Grand Duke of Muscovy; he reckoned on his countenance to conclude an advantageous treaty with the Sultan. The Venetian looked at Mamiroff, contemptuously shrugged his shoulders, remarked that his Excellency spoke well, and quarrels over precedence were unworthy of educated persons; then calmly seated himself in the chair allotted. Danilo Kusmitch had not understood the conversation, nor would it have altered his sense of his own importance. Unconcerned at the fire of hostile eyes, complacently stroking his beard and adjusting the sash and the sable-trimmed satin pelisse upon his corpulent person, Danilo seated himself heavily and majestically upon the chair he had conquered; while Nikita and Boccalino retired to the lower table, and sat beside Leonardo da Vinci.

The boastful Mantuan told tales, half fact, half fiction, of the wonders he had seen in Muscovy; but Leonardo, desiring more dependable information about the far-off land which, like all things vast and mysterious, excited his immediate interest, addressed himself to Karachiarov, asking questions about its boundless plains, its immense rivers and forests, the flood-tide in its Hyperborean ocean and its Hyrcanian sea, the sunlit northern nights; finally about certain of his friends who had gone thither--Pietro Solari, who was engaged in the building of the Granite Palace in Moscow, and Fioravanti of Bologna, who was putting up certain fine edifices in the square of the Kremlin.

'Messere,' said the lovely Madonna Ermellina to the interpreter at her side, 'I have heard that astonishing country of which you speak called "Rossia" because of its wondrous abounding in roses. Pray you, is this to be credited?'

Boccalino laughed, and assured her that in 'Rossia' there was, on the contrary, sad lack of the queen of flowers, on account of the intolerable cold; and he told the following tale:--

'Certain Florentine merchants once went to Poland, but were not allowed further into 'Rossia' because of the state of war between Poland and the Grand Duke of Muscovy. The Florentines, desirous of buying sables, invited Russian merchants to the bank of the Borysthenes, which flowed between the two countries; and bargaining began across the river, each party shouting their loudest. But so great was the cold that the words froze in the air and reached not the opposite bank. Certain ingenious peasants then made a huge fire on the midmost point of the ice-bound river; and presently, lo! the words which had remained a whole hour in mid-river air unable to move, began to thaw and to drip, gurgling and clattering like the droppings in the melting time of spring; and at last they were distinctly heard on the far shore by the Florentines, notwithstanding the fact that the Muscovites who had uttered them had long since left the opposite bank.'

After listening to this anecdote, the ladies looked with great compassion at Nikita, the inhabitant of so unpleasing a country. Nikita, however, did not respond to their glances, for his attention had been arrested by a wondrous dish just served; a naked Andromeda, made of the breasts of capons, bound to a rock of cream-cheese, and about to be loosed by a winged Perseus of veal.

The meat courses had all been served on plates of gold, but the fish was eaten off silver, as more appropriate to the watery element; silvered bread and silvered lemons were handed round, and then among oysters, lampreys, and trout appeared Amphitrite herself, made of the white flesh of eels, riding in a mother-o'-pearl chariot drawn by dolphins over an ocean of quivering blue jelly.

After this came the sweets, marchpane, pistachios, cedar-cones, almonds, and burnt sugar, edifices designed by Bramante and Leonardo--Hercules in the garden of the Hesperides, Hippolytus and Phædra, Bacchus and Ariadne, Danae and Zeus--a whole Olympus of resuscitated gods.

Nikita stared with childish enjoyment, but Danilo was so much shocked that he lost his appetite, and growled between his teeth--

'Antichristian abominations! Horrible paganism! Horrible!'

VI

Dancing began; slow and stately measures known as 'Venus and Zephyr,' 'Cruel Destiny,' 'Cupid,' etc.; the dresses of the ladies, being long and heavy, did not admit of rapid motion. The music was tender and soft, full of passionate languor like the sonnets of Petrarch, and to it moved dames and cavaliers, meeting and parting with bows, sighs, and smiles, all the perfection of dignity and grace.

Messer Galeazzo Sanseverino, the young commandant of Il Moro's guards, was the cynosure of the ladies' eyes; he was attired in white, with open-work sleeves upon a pink lining; his white shoes had diamond buckles, and his face was handsome, but fatigued, dissipated, and effeminate. An approving murmur ran through the crowd when in the dance, '_Sorte crudele_' he dropped (of course accidentally), first his shoe, and then his mantle, but continued gliding and circling with that air of saddened negligence which was considered the mark of breeding. Danilo Mamiroff watched him in astonishment, spat contemptuously, and exclaimed--

'Good Lord, what a fool!'

The Duchess was not dancing; her heart was heavy, and only long practice enabled her to play her part of amiable hostess, to receive the New-Year's congratulations, and to respond with suitable banalities to the fine speeches of the courtiers. At times she felt unable to carry the business through; she longed to escape into some corner where she could burst into sobs.

Presently she entered a small and secluded apartment, where by a fire certain young ladies and courtiers were talking in a close ring. She asked them of what they spoke.

'Of platonic love, your Excellency,' replied one of the ladies. 'Messer Antoniotto Fregoso maintains that a lady does no violence to her modesty by kissing a man on the lips so it be by the way of ideal love.'

'And how does he prove that?' asked the Duchess absently.

Messer Antoniotto answered eagerly himself.

'With your Grace's permission, I maintain that the lips are the gates of the soul, and when they meet in a platonic salutation the souls of the lovers rise as to their natural outlet. Plato condemns not a kiss; and Solomon, in the Song of Songs, typifying the mystical union of the soul with God, says, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth."'

An old baron, a country knight, with a blunt and honest face, objected from the point of view of a husband; but the pretty lady, Fiordiligi, shrugging her graceful bare shoulders, reproved his barbarism.

'_Dio mio!_ we speak of love, not of marriage! Would you profane the sacred names "Lover" and "Beloved" with those ignoble, rude, shameless titles, "husband" and "wife"?'

The baron would have answered her, but Messer Antoniotto interrupted with further descant; the Duchess, however, was tired, and moved away.

In the next saloon, verses were being recited by a noted poet from Rome, Serafino d'Aquila, surnamed the Unique; a little man very carefully washed, shaved, curled, and scented, with pink cheeks and a languishing smile, irregular teeth, and wily eyes.

Seeing Lucrezia in the circle of ladies surrounding this servant of the Muses, Beatrice paled, but instantly recovering herself, she advanced and kissed her with her usual graciousness. Before she could speak, however, an interruption occurred in the entry of a stout and gorgeous lady, who was suffering from bleeding of the nose.

''Tis an event upon which even Messer Unico himself could scarce make love-verses,' observed one of the courtiers contemptuously, for the sufferer was old and ugly.

Messer Unico, feeling his reputation at stake, sprang to his feet, passed his hand through his hair, threw back his head, and raised his eyes to heaven.

'Hush! hush!' murmured the ladies. 'Messer Unico composes! If your Excellency would move a little further she would hear better!'

Madonna Ermellina took a lute and ran her fingers over the strings; thus softly accompanied, the poet, in a voice guttural and majestic as that of a ventriloquist, declaimed his lines. They were to the effect that Love, moved by a lover to shoot at the heart of a fair one, had, owing to the bandage over his eyes, shot awry, and wounded not the heart but the nose of the unfortunate lady.

The audience applauded.

'Most beautiful! Stupendous! Unsurpassable! What conceits! What facility! Not like our Bellincioni who melts away under the exertion of putting a sonnet together! Truly, when he raised his eyes I felt the very wind of his inspiration making me wellnigh afraid!'

One lady offered him wine, another cooling tablets of mint; another placed him in an armchair and fanned him. He drooped and languished and blinked his eyes like a gorged cat in the afternoon sunshine.

Then he produced another sonnet in praise of the Duchess, which told how the snow, put to shame by the whiteness of her skin, had in vengeance turned itself to ice, and caused her to slip and wellnigh to fall upon the courtyard pavement.

Then he celebrated a lady who had lost a front tooth; 'twas the device of Love, who, dwelling in her mouth, required a loophole for the shooting of his arrows.

'But this man is a genius!' cried the ladies; 'his name will go down to posterity linked with that of Dante!'

'Nay, higher than Dante's. Where in the verses of Dante will you find these subtleties of our Unique one?'

'Ladies,' said the poet humbly, 'methinks you go too far. Dante has his special merits. Every one has his own qualities! As for me, I would give Dante's glory for your applause.'

He began another sonnet; but the Duchess had lost patience, and went away.

Returning to the main saloon, she commanded her page, Ricciardetto, a faithful lad, enamoured of her she sometimes fancied, to attend with a torch at the door of her bedchamber. Then she hurried through the long line of brilliant and crowded rooms, passed along a distant and deserted gallery, and ascended the winding stair. The immense vaulted apartment, now used as the ducal bedchamber, lay in the rectangular northern tower of the castle; she entered, took a candle, and went to a small oaken cupboard let into the thickness of the wall, in which the Duke kept important papers and his private letters. She had stolen the key from her husband, and now, nervous and agitated, fitted it to the lock. However, the attempt showed the lock to be broken, and she tore open the brass fastenings, only to find that the shelves had been emptied of their contents. Obviously Il Moro, noting the loss of his key, had transported his letters elsewhere. Beatrice stood motionless.

Snowflakes were fleeting past the window like white phantoms. The wind whistled, and howled, and moaned, and the lady shuddered as she listened, for these voices of the storm and of the night recalled to her mind a something terrible which she was never able to forget for long.

Her eye fell on the round lid of iron which covered the aperture to the Dionysius ear, the hearing-tube which Leonardo had run from the lower chambers of the palace to the Duke's bedchamber. She put her ear to it now and listened. Waves of sound reached her like the rolling of the sea heard in shells. She listened to the festal cries of the company, the laughter, the revels, the passionate sighing of the music, but with it mingled the whistle and roar of the storm.

Suddenly it seemed to her that, close by her side, some one murmured 'Bellincioni! Bellincioni!'

She gave a cry, the colour leaving her cheeks.

'Bellincioni! Of course! Why did I never think of him before? He is the one who will tell me everything. I must go to him this minute. Only so that no one shall notice me! Yet, truly, I care not if I am seen. I must _know_! I can endure this atmosphere of deceit no longer.'

She remembered that Bellincioni, on the pretext of indisposition, had not come to the ball. At this hour he would be at home, and alone!

So she called Ricciardetto, who was at the door.

'Tell two runners, with a litter, to await me below at the private gate. Despatch. Only see, if you desire my favour, that the matter is not known. Hear you? It must be known to none.'

He kissed her hand and set off with the message.

Beatrice threw on a sable pelisse and a mask of black velvet. A few minutes more and she was in the litter, being carried toward the Porta Ticinese, where the court poet had his lodging.

VII

Bernardo Bellincioni called his old ruinous house 'the lizard's hole.' He was the recipient of many munificent gifts, but his life was irregular; he drank, and gambled away whatever he had, so that 'misery,' as he was accustomed to say, 'followed him like a wife, unloved and faithful.'

Lying on a broken couch, of which the fourth leg was replaced by a billet of wood, and the mattress thin as a girdle-cake, he was sipping his third glass of sour wine, and composing an epitaph for Madonna Cecilia's deceased lapdog. Listening to the north wind, and making gloomy prognostications as to the sort of night he was going to spend, he watched the dying-out of the remnant of fire, and vainly tried to warm his thin legs in the moth-eaten squirrel cloak, which he had thrown over them. He had not presented himself at the court ball (where his masque, _Paradiso_, was to be performed) for other reasons than illness; though indeed he had been ill for some while, and was so lean that, as he said, 'in his body it were possible to study the anatomy of the bones, muscles, and veins of the human subject.' Had he been dying he might still have dragged himself to the festival; more potent than illness was, however, jealousy; he preferred freezing in his kennel to witnessing the triumph of his rival, that interloping and pretentious humbug, Messer Unico, who had turned the heads of all the silly women. The mere thought of Messer Unico overflowed his heart with black bile; he clenched his fist, gnashed his teeth, and jumped frantically from his bed. But the room was so cold that he returned to its inadequate shelter, coughed, shivered, and rolled angrily from side to side.

'The villains!' he grumbled; 'have I not written four sonnets in the best rhyme praying for firewood, and not a stick has come. I shall certainly be reduced to burning my banisters: no one comes to visit me save Jews, and if they break their necks so much the better.'

However, he spared the banisters. His eye fell on the makeshift leg of his bed, and he considered which were the more dangerous, a fireless room or an insecure sleeping-place. The storm swept through the room, blowing in at the chinks and shrieking in the chimney like a witch. With desperate decision Bernardo tore away the support of his couch, chopped it up and cast it on the hearth. The fire blazed up anew, and he sat before it on a stool, putting his blue fingers to the flame, and apostrophising the last warm friend of a lonely poet.

'A dog's life!' he muttered presently; 'and of a truth I merit these castigations less than others. Was it not of my forefather, the Florentine, who lived before the house of Sforza had been heard of, that the divine poet wrote:--

"Bellincion Berti vid' io andar cinto
Di cuoio e d'osso"?

Good Lord, when I came to Milan this herd of creeping animals did not know a sonnet from a _strambotto_. Who is it has taught them the elegancies of the new poetry? Was it not through my facile fingers that the waters of Hippocrene enriched the Lombard plain, and even threatened an inundation? And this is my reward! To lie like a dog in a kennel! To be neglected by all because, forsooth, I am poor! A poet situated as I am, is unknown as he whose face is hidden by a mask or deformed by the smallpox.'

And he recited certain lines from his epistle to Ludovico, the Duke:--

'I cry for aid to every one,
But each in turn replies, "Begone!"
Ah, wretched poet! for his pains,
Thou generous lord, what meed remains?
The very cap and bells to him denied,
Among the beasts of burden harness thou his pride!'

And he hung his bald head, smiling bitterly; on his stool by the fire, crouching, and very thin, with a long red nose, he looked like some melancholy roosting bird.

Presently a knock was heard at the house-door below; then the sleepy grumbling of the surly old woman who was the poet's sole attendant; and then steps upon the brick floor.

'What, the fiend!' wondered Bellincioni; 'can it be that abominable Jew come again after his money? The infidel hound! Can he not leave me in peace even at night?'

The staircase creaked, the door opened, and into the wretched room came a woman in a sable mantle and a black velvet mask. Astounded and staring, Bernardo sprang to his feet. The lady, without a word, was about to seat herself on a chair.

'For God's love, be careful, madam!' cried the poet, 'the back is broken!' Then in the ceremonious tone of a courtier he added: 'To what good genius am I indebted for the happiness of seeing an illustrious lady in my poor abode?'

'Surely,' he thought, ''tis a customer come to order a madrigal! Well, it brings money, and that brings firewood! Yet the hour is strange for a lonely lady! 'Tis clear my name is not unknown. And if this one, who knows how many more are my admirers?'

With reviving spirits he threw the rest of the wood on the flame, which already had begun to languish.

The fair unknown raised her mask.

'It is I, Bernardo.'

In his astonishment he staggered against the doorpost.

'Jesus! Holy Virgin! Angels and martyrs!' he exclaimed. 'What? Your Excellency! Most shining lady----'

'Bernardo, you can do me a great service,' she looked round uneasily; 'but can any one hear us?'

'Be at ease, madam. No one except the rats and the mice.'

'Listen!' said Beatrice slowly, fixing her piercing eyes on his. 'I am aware that you have composed verses for Madonna Lucrezia; doubtless you have kept the letter of commission from the Duke.'

He turned pale, and observed her silently, consternation in his eyes.

'Fear nothing,' she continued; 'no one shall know. I shall study how to reward you, Bernardo.'

'Your Excellency!' stammered the unlucky poet, whose tongue had lost its glibness, 'do not believe--nay, 'tis all calumny! No letters--before God, I swear there are no letters!'

Her eyes flashed, and her brows contracted in an ominous frown. She rose and drew nearer, still fixing him with her gaze.

'Lie not. I know all. As you value your life, give me the Duke's letters. Give me them! Hear you? Bernardo, be careful, my servants are at the door. Think you I have come to jest with you?'

He fell before her on his knees.

'But, most illustrious lady, I have no letters!'

'You say you have no letters?'

'None.'

Fury overcame her. 'Wait then, accursed pander, till I tear the truth from your lips. Oh, I'll wring confession from you! I'll strangle you with my own hands, you rubbish, you rogue!' she cried: in good sooth driving her slender fingers into his throat with such force that the veins swelled on his forehead. Unresisting, rolling his eyes and hanging his hands helplessly, he more than ever resembled a sick bird.

'She is strangling me!' thought Bellincioni; 'well, it can't be helped. Not for so poor a reason will I betray my lord!'

Dissipated rascal, and venal flatterer the poetaster had always been, but never traitor. In his veins flowed better blood than that of the Sforzas, and the moment had come for showing it.

The Duchess, however, recovered herself. With a gesture of disgust she flung him from her, snatched up the little lamp with its broken sides and charred wick, and made for the adjoining cabinet, which she guessed to be the poet's working _studiolo_. Bernardo, placing himself against the door, barred the entrance. But the haughty glance of the Duchess awed him, and he withdrew. She swept past and entered the poor refuge of his threadbare muse. A smell of mould came from the books, great patches of damp showed on the plaster walls. The broken glass of the frosted windows was repaired with tow. On the sloping ink-splashed board were quills, gnawed and twisted in the agony of finding rhymes, and papers, doubtless rough copies of poems.

Heedless of the author, Beatrice stood the lamp on a shelf and began to rummage among these sheets. She found sonnets addressed to chamberlains, treasurers, and dispensers, with burlesque complaints and prayers for firewood, clothes, wine, and bread. In one he asked of Messer Pallavicini a roast goose for the due celebration of All Saints' Day. In another, headed '_Del Moro a Cecilia_,' the poet recounted how Jupiter, returning from his mistress, had been forced to brave the storm lest _jealous Juno_ should guess his treachery, and tearing the diadem from her brow scatter its pearls like hailstones and raindrops from the sky.

Presently the search brought the Duchess to a dainty case of black wood; she opened it, and saw a carefully tied-up packet of letters. Bernardo, watching her, wrung his hands in dismay. The Duchess looked at him, then at the letters; read the name of Lucrezia, recognised the handwriting of her husband, and knew she had found the thing she sought, his letters--the rough draft of the love-verses he had commanded for Lucrezia. She thrust the packet into the bosom of her dress, flung a bag of ducats at the poet, as one might fling a bone to a dog, and departed.

He heard her descend the stair, heard the bang of the door, and stood motionless in the centre of the room as if thunderstruck, though the floor seemed shaking under him like the deck of a ship in storm. At last, exhausted, he flung himself on the three-legged couch, and sank into a deathlike slumber.

VIII

The Duchess returned to the castle, where the guests had noticed her absence with surprise, and the Duke himself become alarmed. He met her in the hall, and she accosted him, her face somewhat blanched, and explained that having felt fatigued after the banquet she had gone into an inner room to snatch some repose.

'Bice!' cried the Duke, taking her hand, which was trembling and cold, 'you are ill! Tell me, for pity's sake, what is the matter. Shall we put off the second part of this entertainment? Dear one, did I not arrange it solely to give pleasure to thee?'

'There is nothing the matter,' replied Beatrice. 'Why this anxiety, Vico? I have not felt so well this many a day. I wish to see the _Paradiso_. I intend to dance.'

Il Moro was partly reassured.

'God be thanked, beloved,' he said, kissing her hand.

The guests now streamed into the _Sala del giuoco alla palla_, which had been arranged for the representation of the _Paradiso_, by Leonardo da Vinci, the court mechanician. When every one was seated, and the lights had been extinguished, it was his voice which cried 'Ready!' Then a train of powder exploded, and crystalline globes, like planets, were seen disposed in a circle, filled with water, and illumined by a myriad of living fires sparkling with rainbow colours.

'See!' said the lively Madonna Ermellina, pointing out Leonardo to her neighbour; 'see that face! He is a wizard capable of carrying away the castle bodily, as one reads in the romances.'

'I mislike this playing with fire,' replied the other. 'Heaven grant we have not a real fire presently!'

Presently, from a black chest concealed behind the fiery globes, a white-winged angel arose and recited the prologue. At the line--

'The great King makes his spheres revolve'--

he pointed to the Duke, as if indicating that he governed his people with the same wisdom shown by the monarch of heaven in turning his celestial spheres. At the same moment the crystal globes began to turn to the accompaniment of a low strange music, representing the celestial harmony told of by Pythagoras. Again the planets stood still; upon each appeared its presiding deity, and each one recited a hymn in praise of Beatrice.

Mercury said:--

'Thou Nature's miracle! Diviner Sun!
Lightning, by whom the clouds are overrun!
Thou Lamp, by whom the stars are all outshone!
The pride and glory of a future race!

In that angelic figure, half concealed,
The secret of the higher world lies sealed,
And all of heaven's glory is revealed
In that fair face.'

And again Venus, kneeling before the Duchess, exclaimed:--

'O Jove! whose justice never errs,
And at whose voice all nature stirs
And quickens to a goodly heritage,
I bless thee for thy coming unto earth,
Since thus fair Beatrice was given birth,
Whose fruit is nurtured by the Hesperides,
My beauty at her feet in ashes lies,
Despoilèd Venus none shall recognise.'

And Diana prayed that she might be given as a slave to Beatrice the beauteous, since never had a star like her shone in the heavenly firmament. Then came the epilogue, in which Jove presented to Beatrice the three Hellenic graces and the seven Christian virtues; and the whole Olympus and Paradise, under the shadow of the radiant angelic plumes, and of a cross gleaming with green lamps, symbols of hope, once more began to revolve, while gods and goddesses sang hymns in praise of Beatrice, accompanied by the music of the spheres and by the acclamations of the spectators.

'And why,' asked the Duchess of Messer Gaspare Visconti who sat at her side; 'why is there here no jealous Juno to tear the diadem from her brow, and to rain pearls upon the earth in the form of hailstones and raindrops?'

On hearing these words Il Moro turned quickly and looked at her. She laughed a laugh so wild and forced that the Duke felt ice fall round his heart; but immediately Beatrice composed herself, and turned the conversation; Only she pressed the incriminating letters more closely to her bosom, intoxicated by the hope of revenge, strong, calm, almost gay, in her mood of triumph.

The masque ended, the guests passed into another hall where a new spectacle awaited them. The triumphant chariots of Numa Pompilius, Cæsar, Augustus, and Trajan crossed the stage, drawn by negroes, leopards, griffons, centaurs, dragons, and adorned with allegorical pictures and inscriptions, which set forth that all these heroes were but precursors of Ludovico of Milan. Then a chariot came alone, drawn by unicorns, and bearing an immense globe representing the earth, upon which was stretched a warrior in a cuirass of rusty iron; a naked and gilded child, holding a branch of mulberry (_moro_) in his hand, issued from a cleft in the cuirass, to signify the death of the Age of Iron and the birth of the Age of Gold under the sage rule of Ludovico. To the delight of the spectators the Golden Age proved to be a living child; he was, however, in great discomfort from the plaster of gold which covered his little body, and tears shone in his frightened eyes. In a tremulous and miserable voice he whined a _canzonetta_, praising the Duke, with the monotonous and lugubrious refrain:--

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

(The age of gold shall brighten as of yore,
And all exulting sing, 'Long live the Moor.')

Around the chariot of the Golden Age the dancing was renewed, and though no one heeded him any longer, the unhappy golden child still sobbed out his piteous song:--

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

Beatrice was dancing with Gaspare Visconti. At times she laughed and sobbed hysterically, and her throat convulsively contracted. With unsupportable agony the blood throbbed at her temples, and a mist rolled before her eyes; yet her face was calm, and she even smiled.

At the dance's conclusion she again slipped unnoticed from the revelling crowd, and sought seclusion in her private apartments.

IX

She went to the retired _Torre della Tesoreria_, where no one ever came save the Duke and herself. Taking the candle from Ricciardetto and bidding him await her at the entrance, she passed into a lofty hall, dark and cold as a cellar, sat down, drew forth the packet of letters and was about to read. But suddenly a strange and eerie gust of wind swept shrieking round the tower, howled in the chimney, invaded the room with an icy breath almost extinguishing the candle. There was a great hush; it seemed to her she could hear the distant music of the ball, the murmur of voices, the patter of dancing feet, the sound of iron fetters from the vaults below, where was the prison.

And at the same moment she felt a presence in the room with her: there, in the dark angle of the wall, with eyes fixed upon hers. An anguish of terror seized her soul. She felt she must not move, must not look. But it was unendurable, and she did look. He stood there, as once she had seen him before, a long, long, black figure, blacker than the investing darkness, his head bent, and shrouded in the cowl of a monk. She tried to scream, to call Ricciardetto, but her voice failed. She rose to flee and her legs refused to support her; she fell on her knees groaning:--

'Thou? Again? And wherefore?'

He raised his head slowly and threw back the cowl, and showed the visage of Gian Galeazzo Sforza, _the murdered duke_. The face had nothing in it corpse-like, nothing appalling, and he spoke gently and distinctly:

'Poor thing! Poor woman! Pardon me!'

He made a step towards her, and she felt a freezing and unearthly cold. She shrieked, and fell unconscious to the earth.