Читать книгу The Carnival of Florence - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 4

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Andrea, kneeling in the Church of Santa Croce, looked at the straight figure and bent head of Aprilis kneeling before him and wondered why he loved her, and despised himself for loving her, and endeavoured to think of her and her faults so contemptuously that he should love her no more.

The great church was brightly and softly lit by the glow, half dull rose, half dull purple, of the June sun streaming through the high stained-glass window, in which gay colours predominated, and falling on the warm red floor, the tinted marbles of the wall and floor monuments, and the coloured gowns of the little group of worshippers who knelt among the brown benches, looking like dolls under that great lift of arch and painted roof and on that vast expanse of floor.

The altar shone in its own light of tall yellow candles, scarlet and gold ran in one stream of brilliancy through altar cloth and altar furniture; behind the altar the lady chapel was dimmed by a shadow the colour of clear amber, through which the vivid, precise lines of the gorgeous window blazed.

A priest, looking minute in the wide space and so adorned as to appear one with his images, was standing before an immense book, of which a monk in a brown habit turned over the pages; the blood-red rose in the centre of the priest's chasuble was the one thing about him noticeable; as he moved and bowed and bent the rose seemed to float alone before the altar, into which the white and gold of his vestments was absorbed.

His voice, rising in the chaunts, stirred but did not fill the silence; the clink of the censers in the hands of the little acolytes was distinctly heard through the soft murmur of the Latin.

The church was very pleasant and full of a gentle atmosphere of peace and holiness, of a placid sense of a perfect understanding with the almighty powers of heaven and a complete ignoring of the troubles and agonies of the world. All the kneeling figures looked composed and holy; the priest seemed as remote from humanity as if he ministered on the steps of heaven.

Andrea knew that this was but the effect of the silence of the worshippers; the lofty lines and great spaces of the church; the tempered, coloured light; the candles on the high altar and the noble sound of the classic phrases. Aprilis, kneeling so motionless, so devout, looked like one of Messere Perugino's saints, but Andrea knew that she was a true child of Florence, and was filled with none but worldly thoughts; he knew that the air of holiness that encompassed her was but a trick of shape and colour, the way the light fell on her downcast face, the effect of the slender line of her delicate figure.

All illusion, thought Andrea, but without bitterness. He did not yet know his own mind, whether he cared most for things spiritual or things earthly; he was alternately drawn by the glamour of pagan joy and beauty and the stern appeal of the Christian creed; he loved Aprilis, and in her he believed there was no soul, therefore his reason tried to deny and mock this love.

In the conflict an indifference had fallen on him; he seemed to stand passive in the confusions of the world; to-day he looked at Aprilis with greater coldness than he had ever looked before.

He was able to tell himself that he had seen more beautiful girls in Florence, and to imagine that he himself had endowed her with the charms for which he held her precious. The service was soon over; the priest and the monk passed into the sacristy, followed by the acolytes; the worshippers rose and came slowly down the long aisle, over the flat alabaster tombs of knights and churchmen. Andrea still knelt in his place and waited for Aprilis to pass.

She came even more slowly than the others; behind her walked two other women, her father's sister and a cousin who was a paid dependent and guardian. Aprilis was Madonna Aprilis di Ser Rosario Fiorivanti (a name that seemed set with flowers, Andrea thought), and her family, though not noble, were wealthy, and she moved in luxurious ways, and was far above the aspirations of Andrea, though he was one of the Salvucci of San Gimignano and of better blood; but he was poor and had to use his learning to obtain a living, while Ser Rosario di Fiorivanti was a great banker and money-lender, who was undoubtedly planning a sumptuous match for his daughter.

With lowered eyes she passed him, immaculate in her reserve and air of aloofness; she seemed a precious thing set apart for some exquisite end, a creature not to be profaned by vulgar admiration; the two stout women following her guarded her with jealous looks.

It was easy to see that the Fiorivanti set a great value on Aprilis. She herself seemed well aware of this value, and yet to hold herself modestly, as one whom the world could not greatly affect.

Tall, yet not beyond a just womanly height, she had that voluptuous slenderness Ser Sandro di Botticelli had given to the pagan goddesses he had painted for Lorenzo dei Medici; her close, dark-red gown, open at the sides below the waist over a dull-green under robe, and laced across with gold, set off her figure cunningly.

Her fair hair, bleached, gilded and waved, went smoothly back into a wide meshed net of gold thread, on her smooth brow hung a single pearl by a little fine gilt thread—the ferroniera—the fashionable adornment of the moment.

Her close sleeves were slashed over green silk and tied with gold ribbons; against the soft line of her bosom her clasped hands held a prayer-book.

"She is really what she seems?" mused Andrea, confused by her air of remoteness and purity.

Then, as she passed him, she raised her eyes, recognizing him with a little glance and a little trembling smile.

"She is as much a woman as the naked Venuses they turn up in the fields," thought Andrea; "in her heart she is no choicer than the little flower-seller on the Lung' Arno—but the Fiorivanti knows how to set up her price." He followed her to the door, despite the frowns of her companions, lifting the leathern cover for her passage. She thanked him gravely, turning her head so that for an instant her face was close to his.

Her countenance was as smooth and fair as that of a child, her warm pallor, her faint pink lips, her gold-brown eyes and fine slanting brows had in the gold shade of the church the exquisite look of tinted alabaster. Then she moved away with her slow, well-taught movements and went out on to the broad sunlight that dazzled on the steps.

Andrea came behind her, looking at her with more curiosity than love.

Aprilis spoke now; her voice was low and quite expressionless.

"We shall see you at the Carnival to-morrow, Ser Andrea?"

"The Carnival?"

"Messere had forgotten that to-morrow was the first day of San Giovanni?" Her tone was the same, but she gave him another of those innocent but wholly worldly glances that so affected his judgment of her enshrined holiness.

"Now I remember, Madonna."

The cousin pulled her sleeve and the aunt said it was getting late; with the stiffest reverence to Andrea the three ladies descended the long white steps to where their chariot waited, drawn into the little strip of shade that edged one side of the great piazza.

"So she was thinking of the Carnival," thought Andrea, "and probably of nothing else all the time she was at her prayers."

He came down the steps slowly, watching the departing chariot and heedless of the steady beat of the sun, which was beginning, day by day, to increase into full strength. The vast square of the piazza, so often the scene of tourney and elaborate merrymaking, was now deserted, the blinds were down in the windows of the painted houses, under the shadow of their projecting upper storeys a few passers-by stood and conversed.

The heat was over the city like a stillness; the old woman selling candles outside the church was asleep in the darkness of the porch, a beggar child was asleep on the steps; as the few people came from the church he sat up, yawning, to whine for money.

Andrea descended into the piazza; he felt suddenly tired of the town, and a longing for the sweet open airs of the hills; but he had to stay in Florence at the pleasure of his master, the great and learned Prince Conte della Mirandola, to whom he was secretary. He crossed the burningly hot extent of the piazza to the shadow of the houses.

There two men were standing before the open door that led into the darkness of a stone-worker's shop; one held a slim black vase of antique shape painted with red figures. Andrea brightened with pleasure at the sight of him; Cristofano degli Albizzi was one of his master's acquaintance, and, despite the difference in their position, one of his own.

"Ah, Andrea!" exclaimed the young noble, "look what was found yesterday at Pratolino—some peasant discovered a treasure-trove in his vineyard—come within and see the rest—Messere Giorgio bought them all!"

Andrea's eyes shone; he completely forgot Aprilis as he followed Cristofano into the dark shop of Messere Giorgio, the stone-cutter.

There, on a bench, used for cutting and setting the fine marble needed for mosaic work, were displayed the relics of the ancient world, turned up after so many hundred years from the soil that had sheltered them so securely. Behind them stood the stout master mason with clay-stained apron, surveying with a critical admiration the objects on which he had spent many good ducats, for the peasants were beginning to know the value of their finds in the eyes of the cultured Florentines.

Andrea saw two vases similar to that Cristofano held, one of thick glass coloured by the long burial with delicate shot tints of pink, blue and gold. A huge statuette of a boy binding on his sandals, green as jade in parts from verdigris, and a marble head with wings bound to the hair, one broken close to the waving locks and fillet, the other still grandly pointing outwards.

Placed a little apart was a crown of acorns and oak leaves formed of beaten gold and a bracelet of the same workmanship representing laurel leaves and berries.

Messere Giorgio told Andrea that a farmer near Pratolino had been sinking a new well in his vineyard, when he had come upon these objects lying close together as if they had been buried there for purposes of safety.

The village priest had heard of the discovery and roused the peasants to raid the vineyard and seize the heathen devils, who would, he said, bring a curse on them all. There had been a fight with pitchforks in the moonlight, and the priest had carried off in triumph a little alabaster figure of Hermes, which he had ground into powder and used for whitewashing the stems of his fruit trees against the ants.

"Poor Hermes!" said Andrea; "to lie so long in the earth only for such an end!"

Messere Giorgio made a grimace.

"The priests are like that, they destroy all of what they find—and the peasants help them, out of fear, thinking these things are devils," he said.

"Perhaps they are," answered Andrea whimsically.

He could, for all his learning and worldly culture, understand something of the peasant's feelings of terror; these beautiful fragments, representing an age so long dead that now it was scarcely to be comprehended, these broken symbols of the pagan beliefs that had so long been anathema, excited in him a feeling of attraction that was almost awe, almost fear.

He took up the mutilated head, the winged Victory, and looked into the perfect, serene features, discoloured with earth, and as he looked his awe increased; it seemed to him that in meddling with these half-understood gods they were meddling with something more powerful than they guessed, something that was beyond their destruction or their worship, and though so ancient, most terribly alive.

"They say I may be denounced to the Inquisition for having these in my shop," smiled Messere Giorgio.

"Not in Florence," said Cristofano. "Here the old learning and the old art will ever be protected, my Giorgio."

"But Fra Girolamo grows great," answered the stone-cutter, "and is in among the people like a wind among the grasses, bending all to his direction."

Cristofano turned to Andrea, who was still gazing at the head with the broken wings.

"How is it that you were in Santa Croce to-day?" he asked. "Fra Girolamo was preaching in the Duomo."

"I know—I have heard him," answered Andrea indifferently. "He is very fierce and terrible, but his eloquence affects me little more than Fra Mariano's empty elegancies."

"He had the people to-day," remarked the young noble thoughtfully. "His sermon was a delirium—the church full, all weeping, sobbing, falling on their faces, calling on Christ to pity Florence and save her from her sins. He is a man of great power, of growing power, Andrea."

"The Magnifico would give much to get him out of Florence," smiled the stone-cutter, "and His Holiness much to have him in Rome, safe in Castel San Angelo, eh, Messere?"

"He spoke to-day of Pope Medici and Sforza with more hatred than men speak usually of the devil," said Cristofano.

"He throws himself against a force that will shatter him," remarked Andrea; he turned to the stone-cutter. "The Conte della Mirandola will buy this head if you will put it aside for him," he said.

He spoke from the intense desire he had to keep the Victory within his own sight; as he was too poor for such purchases he used the magnificence of his master to attain his ends.

"I will take these two gold wreaths," said Cristofano; "the Magnifico has some like them, but these are finer—also keep for me the glass bottle if the price be not too high."

Messere Giorgio put the articles aside.

"These are tear vases, are they not?" asked Andrea, looking at the pottery vessels.

Cristofano smiled.

"I think they are rather what the women used to put their paints and ointments in," he replied.

"The women!" exclaimed Andrea. "What were the women like then? Were they models for such faces as this?"

He pointed to the mysterious loveliness of the Victory.

"Ay," laughed Cristofano, "as much as Messere Liondado's Madonnas are a true likeness of Cecilia Bergamini or Lucrezia Crivelli, was this the true likeness of some foolish woman."

The glance of the two young men met, and Andrea smiled too.

"You have heard of the betrothal of Madonna Aprilis di Ser Rosario Fiorivanti?" asked Cristofano suddenly.

Andrea still smiled; he had been expecting this news so long that he was forearmed against it; at the moment he thought of her almost with indifference.

"It is to the Conte della Gherardesca," continued Cristofano. "The betrothal is to be the first day of the festa of San Giovanni—to-morrow."

"I saw her in Santa Croce," said Andrea, "and spoke to her—she never told me of her betrothal."

"She will want to keep her admirers—it is a fine husband for her—a Gherardesca! Her grandfather sold wash balls on the Ponte Vecchio."

"Well, the Medici themselves began no better," smiled the stone-cutter; "only, it was herb pills, not wash balls, they hawked in Florence."

Andrea was turning away when Cristofano stayed him.

"Wait! Arc you deep in work?"

"I have no work," replied Andrea rather sadly, "beyond the little the Conte gives me. He does not write as he once did."

"You are free to-day?"

"The Conte is at Settignano and returns to-night—till then I am free."

"Walk with me to my villa, then; it is pleasant beyond the walls."

"I should like it above all things."

With pleasant farewells to the stone-cutter the two young men left the shop, and turning down the Borgo Santa Croce, traversed the Lung' Arno, della Zecca Vecchia and delle Grazie, crossed the Ponte della Trinita, and leaving the city by the great Porta Romana, climbed the steep hill of the Roggio Baroncelli.

When they reached the summit they turned through the pleasant orchards and fields of the Bogoli towards the two churches of San Miniato and San Salvatore.