The Hound of Florence (16 page)

Bandini whistled.

“Peretti went pale too,” Rossellino continued. “‘Are you mad?' he bawled at the Captain, or rather, he tried to bawl, but his voice gave way. ‘No, I'm not mad,' said Ercole. ‘I say we've had enough of you! Clear out! We've put up with you too long, you dirty beast!' That was frank enough, Bandini, frank enough in all conscience . . . and we all felt a cold shudder go down our spines. Claudia burst into loud sobs, and Peretti . . . well, the whole thing happened in a flash. Peretti seized the table and was just going to jump across it and fall upon Ercole when suddenly the Captain flung his goblet at his face and struck him square between the eyes. Peretti dropped like a felled ox, and lay stiff as a board across the table. They had to carry him away—Caligula and the others.”

Again Bandini whistled. “Good!” he exclaimed. “Excellent!” And he roared with laughter. “But Ercole had better look out now,” he added after a while, clicking his tongue. And he burst out into fresh roars of laughter. “Splendid! I wish I had been there to see it!”

Lucas was burning with excitement. The monk was buried in his work.

“Dirty beast!” exclaimed Bandini in high delight. “Yes, that's the word . . . that's . . .”

“Hush!” growled Rossellino. “The Captain's here!”

The glass door was gently opened, and greeting everybody with an air of complete innocence, Ercole da Moreno went over to his chair and quietly took his seat. Giuseppe immediately hurried up to him with paints, brushes and a palette.

For some minutes all was quiet. Then suddenly there was a murmur of voices all speaking at once in the garden. “Claudia's coming!” cried little Giuseppe in high glee from a corner of the studio.

Lucas closed his eyes. He could see himself on the moonlit terrace, and he felt hot all over as he had done two days previously, when Claudia had waited for him, and he had been forced to go. He did not notice that the monk at his side had left his work and vanished. All he could hear was Bandini calling out in delight, “I wonder whether Peretti is with her today. What do you think, Ercole?”

The Captain made no reply.

But for Caligula, the mulatto, who remained outside the door, Claudia was alone. She was wearing a dark dress and a subdued colored cloak, and her expression as she advanced toward Bandini was quiet and timid.

“Let me stay here a little while,” she begged. “I want to be near you . . . today. . . .”

Her eyes fell on Lucas, who gazed up beseechingly at her. But she only drew herself up proudly and her sweet face hardened into an expression of angry contempt. Turning haughtily round she wandered slowly in and out among the statues, easels and furniture. By a roundabout course she at length, and apparently quite by chance, reached the Captain's armchair.

“My friend,” she whispered, stopping behind it, “my friend. . . . He'll never come to me again. . . . He ought never to have been allowed to come at all. . . . This morning I sent him word that he was never to let his face be seen in my house again. Do you hear . . . my friend?”

Leaning back, the Captain looked up at Claudia and smiled. She glided up to him and kissed him on his ruddy brow just where his thick tuft of snow-white hair shot up. Then she quickly left his side.

Stopping at the door, she turned her head to Lucas, her eyes flashing. “As for you, sir,” she exclaimed haughtily, “I want a word with you.”

Lucas sprang up and followed her with leaden feet. All he heard as he left the studio was a short whistle from Bandini.

Claudia crossed the courtyard and went into the garden without looking round. Lucas followed. They passed by the others. Filippo Volta looked up from his work to gaze across at them. The mulatto, Caligula, followed slowly some distance behind.

When they were under the thick overhanging foliage of the pergola, Claudia turned round so suddenly that Lucas almost fell into her arms as he staggered forward.

“You!” she cried in shrill tones, panting audibly. Her burning face was quite close to his. “You! So you spurned me, did you?”

Lucas could read the uncertainty beneath her threatening tone. It was not her anger that upset him, but this painful uncertainty which, despite her efforts to conceal it lurked in her eyes and the corners of her mouth.

Dropping on his knees, he buried his head in her dress and sobbed aloud, his despair making him oblivious of all else.

Claudia bent over him aghast.

“Hush, for heaven's sake!” she murmured in frightened tones, putting her hand over his mouth. “Child! . . . Hush!”

Lucas pulled himself together, but his shoulders and back were still heaving. She raised him to his feet. “Now tell me!” she said, speaking more gently, though she was still puzzled and astonished. “I waited for you—why did you not come?”

“I can't tell you,” he replied, gazing at her, his features distorted with woe. “I really cannot.” He was beside himself and his whisper sounded like a shriek of agony. “I really cannot tell you . . . but I am dying of love for you!”

She clasped him to her bosom. He could feel her kiss on his lips, and holding her close in his arms he forgot all else.

“When will you come?” she asked.

He kissed her shoulders and her neck. “Today,” he whispered between the kisses, “Today!” She struggled to release herself and afraid that the movement meant a refusal, he held her fast. “Today—today!” he implored.

Gently Claudia freed herself from his embrace. “No, not today,” she said, smiling graciously at him. “It cannot be today . . . but tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” And the light went out from his eyes.

She tried to comfort him. “Well then . . . the day after tomorrow . . .” and she gazed at him in astonishment. . . . “Either the day after tomorrow or at any rate soon. Good-bye.” And opening the little gate in the garden wall, she slipped out into the street.

Lucas remained rooted to the spot for some time. Caligula, the mulatto, passed him and squinting searchingly at him, slipped out through the little gate. But Lucas did not notice him.

• • •

That night the whole party was assembled in the osteria where Bandini's pupils had a private apartment of their own in which they could drink and enjoy themselves. Lucas paced restlessly up and down the stuffy old room. He found it impossible to remain seated. The fragrance of Claudia's golden hair was still about him, and his senses were still alive to the pulsating presence of her body. He was glad he could spend this evening with the others. He felt more at home with them now than he had done hitherto and more closely bound to them in heart and soul. Their presence blunted the exquisite sharpness of his joy, forcing him to moderate his spirits' wild exuberance.

Nevertheless it was impossible for him to sit still. He wandered round the table, almost dancing as he moved, making his way along the wall. The clatter of goblets and the twanging of a lute, mingled with the rise and fall of desultory conversation, fell pleasantly on his ear. He heard the sound of familiar voices, but the words they uttered sank unheeded into his being, swallowed up in the agitated flood of his thoughts, as drops of rain are swallowed up in the sea.

His restless eyes gazed round the walls, from which a strange array of figures, heads and arabesques seemed to beckon to him. There were saints and courtesans, kings and fools, mountains, churches and Palaces, all jumbled together. Licentious love scenes were depicted, while the heads of well-known men and women, often bewilderingly lifelike, looked down on him as though they were about to speak, only to become mere caricatures again on the whitewashed walls. Everything was there that the wanton spirits of young artists, in the fullness of youth and vigor and under the inspiration of unbridled fancy, could splash on to the wall. Lucas feasted his eyes on the mute tumult of color and charcoal, delighting in the consummate harmony achieved by the endless medley of forms, picking out with all the extravagant joy of recognition the writing that was familiar to him, and noting other kinds that were strange and probably belonged to days long since gone by. With his hand in his pocket, he was turning a piece of charcoal about in his fingers, stimulated by the multifarious forms he saw before him, but shyness prevented him from going any further. He did not feel sufficiently advanced to dare set any product of his meager talent beside the daring achievements of the others.

All he felt he wanted to do was to wander round and round the table. Then suddenly he overheard a remark: “The Archduke will not wait. He is going home . . . he won't wait until Bandini's picture is finished!”

He stood rooted to the spot and listened. It was Filippo Volta who had just spoken.

“Bandini will finish it in a fortnight . . . he won't take a day longer,” replied Rossellino sullenly.

Filippo Volta laughed good-naturedly. “And I tell you the Prince is going off in three or four days' time . . . not a moment later!”

Lucas clapped his hands together and listened—nay, his whole soul expanded and laid itself bare as though it were harkening to the strains of the sweetest music.

Presently Cosimo Rubinardo came along and joined in the conversation. He spoke with modest dignity, as he had done in the old days when he was a rich man and used to shower down ducats on the artists with a liberal hand. He seemed to regard his poverty with indifference, and even with a touch of pride.

“It's quite true, Pietro,” he said, leaning toward Rossellino, “the Archduke is not going to stop here more than three or four days now. They were discussing the subject this morning at Claudia's.”

Lucas's heart leaped with the joy and confidence that flooded his being, making his chest heave, loosening the choking he had felt in his throat for weeks, so that he could have shouted for joy. He almost capered round the room on his toes—three, four days; they might be five for all he cared! His thoughts shouted one against the other in his brain, until his ears buzzed. Three, four days—and then freedom! Freedom! Then I shall be here in Florence; here, or in Rome, but at all events where I choose to be. Oh how easy it has all been! How foolish of me to have been so miserable! What have I suffered after all? Suffered? Why it was nothing! A joke—a dream—three or four days . . . and then I shall be like other men!

“No, he's not going back to Vienna,” he heard the Captain's rich, sonorous voice saying. “He's going to travel about the Empire—going to Worms, I believe, or perhaps to Augsburg.”

Lucas went up to the table and dropped into his seat. “What's all this about Worms?” he asked with a laugh.

The Captain turned his merry eyes toward him.

“What's all this about Worms?” Lucas repeated scornfully. “Worms! . . . Florence is better!” he added, accentuating his words so as to make them sound comical.

“In a fortnight Bandini will have finished the picture,” repeated Rossellino stubbornly.

“Then I can look forward to the feast,” said Ercole da Moreno contentedly.

“What feast?” cried Lucas at the top of his voice.

The Captain looked down at him, cheerful though surprised.

“A magnificent feast, my son,” he explained, and under his white mustache he seemed to be smacking his lips in luxurious anticipation. “Bandini always gives a feast when he has finished a picture. His house is open from one morning to the next, authors come and make speeches or recite impromptu verses. All kinds of mountebanks come in; in fact the whole town is there. Anyone who likes can drink a glass of wine and go in and have a look at Bandini's picture. But he himself sits down to table with us from one morning to the next, and we have him all to ourselves. I'm delighted!”

Lucas brought his fist down on the table. “Quite right! I'm delighted too!” And he crowed for joy. “I'm delighted too!” Everyone laughed.

Suddenly a thin man in a black coat slipped into the room. The fact that he was very lame was hardly noticeable for he did not walk, but hopped, skipped and jumped about continuously. His face was very thin and so yellow that he might just have been recovering from the jaundice. His head was covered with thick iron-gray hair, springing from a low forehead; his black eyes shone feverishly and he held his toothless mouth ecstatically open.

“Here she is!” he cried in a half-audible whisper. “I'll bring her to you!” and he pointed convulsively to a little girl who was standing at the door. “Allow me to introduce you to the little marchioness, the Principessa Leonora . . . there she stands before the galaxy of illustrious artists and her magnificent young life is about to begin.” He spoke very fast, as though he were reading, and so low that he might almost have been talking to himself. “Come in, Leonora! Come in, Principessa!”

The child stepped innocently up to the table. She might have been twelve or thirteen years of age, and the youthful contours of her gracefully molded little body were outlined under her flimsy frock. Her pale face was extraordinarily noble, and full of a mysterious pride. She turned her beautiful eyes gravely from one to the other.

The thin man continued to jump and skip about. “First inspect her, inspect her carefully . . . and the artist among you, the master among you, the man who has eyes will be able to see at once. . . . The man who cannot see that she is an aristocrat, Leonora, a Principessa, will perhaps remember that Zacco Zaccone never descends to common prostitutes. He will perhaps remember that Zacco Zaccone can recognize Aphrodite's favorites when they are still in their cots, nay, even before they have quickened in the womb. Don't forget that Zacco Zaccone brought up Superba, whom the King of Naples made his slave; that he discovered Vittoria, who is sought after in Rome by cardinals, cardinals' favorites and German princes, and that he presented you with Claudia, who is now sparkling in Florence like a diamond! Come, Principessa Leonora!” he cried, and putting to his chin a little violin which he had been flourishing in his hand, he began to play.