The Hound of Florence

  Lucas stood on his hill, as though he were at the top of a tower. The valley lay peacefully spread out at his feet. He scanned it, drunk with joy—the soft pale-green fields, slashed here and there by white streaks of road, the gleaming silver inlay of the rushing streams, the whole shimmering and smiling brightly amid straggling homesteads and towns.

  Immediately below, at no very great distance from the hills, and on the fringe of the plain which stretched as far as eye could see, gleamed the walls, roofs and towers of the city of Verona. Lucas felt as though he had but to spread his wings to float down to it. Never, during the whole of his journey, had he been filled with such impatience as he felt now. Down below there must surely be painters, sculptors and goldsmiths—men who would know all about Florence, about the masters who worked there and taught their craft, or about other places on Italian soil where such men could be found.

  Close at hand, a little below the turf-clad hill on which he was sitting, he caught sight of a short stretch of road that looked like a piece of ribbon. Lower down it appeared again, winding down the incline, and unrolling across the green plain in a straight line.

  It reminded him of his father who had traveled along that road in a northerly direction. It seemed to him incomprehensible that his father should have left this smiling garden, incredible that anyone who had been born and bred there could have forsaken such a glorious country.

  All his hopes, desires and thoughts darted—nay, flew along that white ribbon unfolding far away in the distance across the green fields. He banished the memory of the day before yesterday, which stirred faintly in his breast. Afraid of meeting Angelica in front of the church of Rovereto, he had kept to sidetracks on the outskirts of the town and thus slipped by the little place unnoticed. Again and again he had felt tempted to go through the center of it straight to the church, to find out whether she were really waiting for him. But he did not think she was, for he felt sure she must be much too frightened to wish to find him; nevertheless, he longed for her beauty and her love, and he felt tormented by remorse for having so light-heartedly whiled away his time with her. He was certain that he had not only distressed her, but given her a terrible fright into the bargain. At last he had shaken himself free of all these thoughts—his longing, his remorse, his hesitation—and had gone on his way, thinking of nothing but his distant goal. And behold, he was now sitting on the edge of the plain, with no desire to think of anything else!

  The sound of trotting horses, the rumble of carriage-­wheels and the murmur of human voices drew ever nearer and nearer. On the strip of road that encircled the hill on which he was sitting, there appeared a troop of horsemen; a string of coaches followed, brought up in the rear by another troop of horsemen. Lucas recognized the Archduke’s cavalcade. It burst upon his vision, with its horses and wagons, like actors appearing on the stage, or mechanical figures within a clock, only to disappear again, where a spur of the hill seemed to swallow up the roadway. But the snorting of the horses, the rattling of the chains, the screeching and groaning of the wheels, and the confused murmur of voices filled the air with life and animation.

  Lucas sprang to his feet and breathlessly waited until the procession once more came into view below. And lo, down in the depths he could see it again, rattling downhill. Enveloped in clouds of dust, it glided along as though borne on the bosom of the clouds.

  “There! . . .” cried Lucas, throwing out his arms to it. “There I am traveling to Verona! To-night I shall be in Verona!”

  • • •

  The market-place of Verona was thronged with people. On the cobblestones with which the square was paved, all kinds of vegetables lay piled up in green mounds, tangled masses of chickens tied by the feet cackled and squawked, the bleeding carcasses of bullocks, opened and cut up, gaped to view, while towering above it all a flaming mass of flowers and fruit rose in tier upon tier of gorgeous color.

  The bright rays of the morning sun poured down on this medley of humanity, animals and vegetables. Everything was radiant, bright and warm. The air was full of the scent of flowers, raw meat, oranges and blood, clothes, stagnant water, wet metal, onions and melons. It vibrated with the shrill voices of the crowd, snatches of song, the shouting and crying of children as they played about, harsh discordant whistles, the braying of donkeys under the whip, and the cackling of tied-up chickens. The plashing of the fountain, the marble columns and statues, the lion of St. Mark, soaring above the tumult, the houses, the countless balconies, the flapping of blinds, and the fluttering of clothes hung out to dry at the windows—everything seemed to take a hand in the general commotion. The whole market-place was palpitating with life.

  Lucas sauntered about, full of wonder and delight. All the turmoil seemed strange to him, but, at the same time, in the deepest recesses of his memory it was also familiar. He stopped by every group to try to hear what they were saying, and laughed happily when somebody caught him by the arm, offering him flowers, meat or whatnot for sale, asking him what he wanted, trying to discover his needs and his tastes, and using every ­possible artifice to inveigle him into buying and bargaining. He felt that everything that was taking place around him was a game, which he either knew, or thought he knew, because he grasped its meaning immediately—a childish, passionately eager game full of cunning and art, a game of looking into each other’s hearts and guessing what was inside them, a game full of excitement, anger and bright good cheer, eternally alluring and gloriously entertaining.

  He watched the craftsmen squatting before their open shops. They sat either in their doorways or on the pavement, surrounded by their wares, talking, shouting, laughing and chastising or fondling their children. Whenever the refrain of a song was wafted toward them, they would join in, as though, being lovers of order, they must perforce mend and patch up the snatches of melody torn from the general uproar, or felt it incumbent upon them to use the conductor’s baton. But this did not prevent them from working both fast and skillfully. Lucas smiled back when they smiled up at him, and answered them when they addressed him eagerly as though they were picking up the threads of a conversation that had just been interrupted.

  At one shop-door he caught sight of a gleaming array of figures. Closely packed, one above another, were numbers of small statues, goblets, dishes, busts, miniature columns, and all kinds of splendid vessels, in dazzling white plaster, shining tin, dark gold bronze, or ruddy copper. There were also a few pieces in veined marble that looked quite lifelike. Shining through the darkness of the shop and standing outlined in the twilight of the room, a dim, eloquent array of forms and figures, they loomed through the narrow opening of the door like riches bursting out of a cornucopia and falling at Lucas’s feet. He halted, filled with such surprise and delight that at first his eyes could only stray in helpless bewilderment over the mass of forms, heads and ornaments. It took some time before he could really see and distinguish individual objects.

  There stood a graceful Pallas, not more than seventeen inches high, but the majestic pose of the figure had an impelling grace that charmed him. Close by, on a copper basin, a beautifully chased lion’s head thrust its muzzle toward him. Further on a slender silver goblet rose to view, flaunting its luxurious arms and bearing its molded cover like a crown. Figures of women stood delicately sinuous, with arms gracefully uplifted supporting a marble shell. There was also a bronze Perseus, holding the Gorgon’s head in his outstretched hand.

  Lucas was lost in admiration as he examined it. He noticed how an expression of faint physical revulsion and one of triumphant pride struggled for mastery in the noble, boyish features of the Perseus. Lucas ­trembled with delight to think that such marvels of art existed, that at last he was in the country where they were created, and that he could understand them with the consummate ease with which a man understands his mother tongue. So that was Perseus! And that was the right way to fashion him, with that conflict of feeling expressed in his face that made him seem so
real! Lucas felt that an important secret had been revealed to him.

  Some force, of which he suddenly became conscious, compelled him to turn away from the Perseus. In the narrow doorway stood a man, looking intently at him. He was a young fellow with curly black hair, and before him on a high turn-table stood a little gray figure in clay, on which he was working. Questioningly Lucas and the young man gazed into each other’s eyes as though they had known each other for years.

  The young man was the first to smile. “A fine piece!” he observed courteously, indicating the Perseus by a nod of the head.

  “Did you do it?” whispered Lucas in awed tones.

  The young man laughed. “I do it? How could I do anything like that? It comes from Florence. Do you know Florence?”

  Lucas blushed. “No . . . but I am on my way there.”

  “Where from?”

  “From Vienna.”

  The young man scanned his features intently.

  “Vienna. That’s a long way.” Lured as by a spell, Lucas had unconsciously drawn closer to the little clay figure on the turn-table.

  “I was in Florence for three years,” observed the young man. “I was taught there.”

  “What is your name?” interrupted Lucas. “My name is Lucas Grassi. What is yours?”

  “Agostino Cassana.”

  “How splendid that I should have met you!” cried Lucas, “and that you should have studied in Florence. I am going there for the same purpose as you did, you see. I want to learn. My father was an artist before me; he came from Tuscany and went to Vienna because they are building Palaces there. But I was only a child then. And now I want to go to Florence.”

  “Go to Cesare Bandini,” said Agostino with a smile. “You won’t find a better master in all Italy.”

  “Was he yours?”

  Agostino nodded. “Just tell him you come from me. He was very fond of me; he did not want to let me go.”

  “Why didn’t you stay with him?”

  “I am a native of Verona. Besides, why should I have stayed there? I had been there three years! It isn’t as if I could have become a Cesare Bandini. Agostino Cassana I am, and Agostino Cassana I must remain!”

  They both laughed heartily.

  Presently Agostino asked Lucas how long he had been in Verona.

  The recollection of the previous day, when he had run about Verona as a dog, flashed through his mind. “I arrived here only this morning—before dawn,” he replied.

  “Have you seen the Can Grande yet?”

  Lucas had never even heard of the Can Grande.

  Throwing down his modelling tools, Agostino swathed the little figure in wet cloths and wiped his hands on his smock. “Come along!” he cried, as though in a great hurry.

  They elbowed their way together through the surging crowd on the market-place, hearing and seeing nothing about them, so absorbed were they in their own conversation. They did not even notice that they had to shout to make themselves heard.

  Lucas was describing all the dreams and desires he had cherished in solitude. He was aching to build, to carve statues, to paint pictures, and to chase vessels of gold and silver. Agostino laughed encouragingly as he confided all his plans to him, and was full of understanding and delight. It was all perfectly possible and must certainly be accomplished, and it could be accomplished by force of will. Why not? Agostino discussed the hewn stone and columns of the Palaces, the secret of their proportions, their color, the smoothness of the distempered walls, the durability of stretched canvas, of marble and gold, and all the tricks of the trade that happened to occur to him, as well as the peculiarities of the materials used, which were learned only by years of work on them. But as far as he himself was concerned, his one ambition was to be a sculptor. He wanted to carve statues of saints for the churches, and silver groups for the tables of grand nobles. He had commissions, and fresh orders came in every day. He was beginning to be well known. The little shop was not the only place he worked in. Later on, he said, he would have a large workshop with assistants and pupils.

  Going down a narrow passage, they came to a standstill on a little square in front of a small church. On the side wall there was a sarcophagus of a man, flanked by pillars supporting a tall tapering roof, on the top of which stood an equestrian statue outlined against the blue of the sky.

  Agostino pointed up. “The Can Grande,” he said, and gazed expectantly at Lucas.

  Above their heads the stone rider on the draped horse kept vigil. The tourney-helmet hanging over his back made him look as though he had wings, the sword in his hand was pointing upward, straight and solemn, ready for any emergency.

  “Very old,” whispered Agostino.

  Lucas gazed up in silent reverence. The statue, soaring above the shadow of the wall, bathed in sunlight, with the cool spring breeze playing about it, set Lucas aflame with enthusiasm. The sudden violent emotion threw wide the portals of his soul, drew it up to the heights, and flung it far away from its former plane into infinity.

  “It is small,” said Agostino, “but one does not notice that. As one goes away one remembers it as a big thing, a fine monument.”

  But Lucas did not hear what he was saying.

  “Wandering about the animated streets, they talked and laughed as though they had known each other all their lives.

  “How long are you staying in Verona?” Agostino enquired, as they took leave of one another.

  “I don’t know,” stammered Lucas, turning pale.

  “Which way do you want to go?” asked Agostino. “Did you come through Vicenza?”

  Lucas did not reply.

  Agostino became pressing. “You must go through Vicenza,” he exclaimed, in tones of entreaty. “It is a little bit out of your way from here, but not much. Take my advice and go through Vicenza, and just have a look at the Rotunda there—you know the one I mean?—by Palladio . . . and then go to Padua. Donatello’s wooden horse is there . . . then on to Ferrara. . . .”

  Lucas knew that he would have to be a dog on the journey across country toward his goal. He knew that it would not depend upon himself how long he remained in Verona, nor would he be able to choose the road. And he was overcome with shame and fear.

  “Come to me tomorrow,” Agostino continued eagerly. “Then I shall be able to tell you exactly how to plan your journey. . . .”

  “All right . . . tomorrow . . .” replied Lucas.

  • • •

  The Archduke entered Bologna in grand state.

  As the procession drove along the sunlit road toward the walls of the city, the chimes of a hundred bells rang out to greet them. Cannon were fired from the ramparts, short sharp bursts of thunder breaking the stillness of the spring morning, while the cheers from the vast crowd above their heads were wafted down to them like the rustling of tall trees.

  The Archduke alighted from his coach and went forward to meet the bright little group awaiting him at the city gates. There was the Cardinal, his scarlet robes conspicuous against the more somber garb of the figures about him. Surrounded by his priests, knights and councillors, he waited until the Archduke came up, receiving the Prince’s kiss on his hand with regal majesty, after which he bowed respectfully to his guest. He was a handsome young man, tall, narrow-­shouldered, and his face pale with the warm, mellow pallor of ivory. His eyes, like his hair and arched brows, were a deep, shining black, while his careless, genial manner was as attractive as it was dignified and balanced. The Archduke, who felt bashful in his presence, quickly turned to the others, and for a while the little group outside the walls laughed and chatted together. The bells were still ringing and the people cheering, as the cannon continued to boom above their heads.

  When at last the procession trotted through the gates amid the ring of horses’ hooves, the clank of arms and the rattle of wheels, the din and clatter were unspeakable.
The streets inside the town now lay open to view, lined with curious townsfolk, waving handkerchiefs and caps and cheering lustily. Slowly the procession advanced; the Archduke and the Cardinal, sitting side by side with nothing to say to each other, bowed right and left.

  “What a beautiful dog you have,” observed the Cardinal, as they alighted from the coach at the Palace. “What is his name?”

  “Cambyses.”

  “I see, I see—the great names of the ancient world,” observed the Cardinal, smiling. “Nowadays we have no other use for them so we call our dogs by the names of heathen kings and deities. . . .”

  The Archduke was at a loss for a reply.

  “What say you,” the Cardinal continued, and there was a tinge of mockery in his voice, “do you think that one day our world will have sunk so low that people will call their dogs after our great kings and popes?” He saw that the Archduke looked puzzled, and apparently anxious to put him at his ease, he stopped short. “Just look at your dog,” he added presently, “how devoutly he is looking up at the statue of Pope Julius. Isn’t it strange? He saw the statue high up above the gate even before I could point it out to you myself. He looks as though he might even be admiring it.”

  The Archduke glanced up from his dog to the great statue, which throned it above the gate in solemn majesty.

  “Who can tell what he sees up there?” he replied.