The Hound of Florence

  “You are right,” said the Cardinal, smiling again. “Who knows why an animal like that looks up at the sky, and who can tell what he sees up there? But at all events he does not see a magnificent work of art—showing that after all he has something in common with certain bipeds!”

  And with a haughty shrug of his shoulders, he entered the Palace with the Archduke.

  • • •

  As soon as he was himself again, Lucas roamed about the streets of Bologna. Standing in front of the Palace, he contemplated the statue of Julius II, reveling in the way this great and masterful monument lent gravity, character and eloquence to the facade with which it was so boldly blended. He examined the facade of the Palace, delighted with the wealth of mysterious science that was daily being revealed to him, and the number of artistic secrets that had been unveiled before his eyes since he had been in this country. He stood before the Palaces of the Bentivoglio and the Maffei; he visited the churches when they were empty, and paid his tributes of devotion to the altar-pieces, the statues and the carvings. This country offered him all those things for which his soul had been starving; it surrounded him with an atmosphere so familiar and awakened so many hidden instincts that he was constantly stirred to the depths. It was only with the utmost difficulty that he succeeded in suppressing a word that was continually rising to his lips: Home. No, he must not pronounce that word yet! He was still a long way from his goal. For the time being he was nothing but a miserable dog. His master could kill him if he chose; any low brute of a stable-boy could beat him to death. He might lie by the roadside, or perish in the gutter, before they reached Florence. No, that word must not pass his lips until they had arrived, until the terrible fate that held him in its toils had been fulfilled, and left him a free man once more.

  One evening, as he was making his way with the crowd along the narrow street in front of the leaning Torre Asinelli, his foot struck against a small object which gave a faint ring. Bending over he picked up a purse, the worn leather folds of which he quickly unfastened. It contained only a few silver pieces and one gold coin, but to him it was the fulfilment of his heart’s desire. Until that day he had been a beggar on the roads, wandering through strange cities and along unfamiliar paths, unable to buy so much as a crust of bread. He had eaten his fill only when the dog Cambyses had been fed, and had found somewhere to lay his head only when Cambyses was allowed to occupy a place in the straw. But now his fingers clutched the key to a little manly freedom. The anxiety that had so long oppressed him with regard to what he would do to earn a livelihood when he reached Florence, fell like a load from his heart.

  Full of joy, he now took up his stand before the Palace, watching the constant animation and bustle at its gates. And every other day he became part of that bustle. He was a member of the throng within its gates, familiar with every corner of the stables, the stairs, the corridors, rooms, apartments and halls of the building. The day following he would stand outside it, apparently completely isolated, invisible and free. Hitherto, on his human days, filled with qualms that made him tremble, and a sense of shame that depressed him strangely, he had always avoided the proximity of the Archduke’s train. On this particular day, however, he took up his stand before the Palace gates, overcoming both his qualms and his sense of shame, which constantly threatened to get the upper hand, and watched the familiar figures of the grooms, Count Waltersburg, fat Master Pointner and the others. All unsuspecting, they passed close by him. He knew all about them, every line in their faces, every movement of their shoulders, every detail of their ways was known to him, their voices, their desires, and the kindness and hardness of their hearts. But, suspecting nothing, they scarcely vouchsafed him a glance; had they gazed into his eyes for hours, still they would have suspected nothing. They knew only Cambyses, the dog; of Lucas, the man, they knew nothing.

  The one person with whom he did not come face to face on these days was the Archduke himself, catching only a fleeting glimpse of him one morning in his coach, as he had done in Vienna on that first dismal November day. As he leaned back in the cushions the Archduke’s thin face wore a haughty, disdainful expression and his blue eyes swept the rows of spectators with an expression of contemptuous indifference. But Lucas was anxious to see him at close quarters, as he had seen Count Waltersburg and Pointner, the Groom-of-the-Chamber. Without quite knowing why, he felt impeled to do this. An irresistible impulse, prompted neither by affection nor hostility, urged him to meet the Archduke face to face if he possibly could.

  And he succeeded. One quiet afternoon he chanced to enter the church of San Petronio, and was wandering, a lonely figure, from altar to altar, and statue to statue, when suddenly the Archduke, accompanied by the Cardinal and a magnificent retinue of courtiers, entered the silent precincts. They were all talking loudly and the lofty vaulted arches echoed their voices. Lucas crept behind a column.

  “It was here that your Grace’s great ancestor, Charles V, was crowned,” Lucas heard the Cardinal say as the group came to a standstill close beside him.

  The Archduke took a short step forward, and was about to reply when he found himself face to face with Lucas. He drew back, turned his head in confusion, coughed, tried to pull himself together; but Lucas gazed at him with a calm, curious, almost imploring look. Everything he had thought and experienced during the last few weeks unconsciously shone out of his eyes, as he stood for the first time erect in human form before his master; and for a few seconds he held the Archduke’s eyes beneath the spell of his own, allowing him no escape.

  Embarrassed and indignant at his own discomfiture, the Archduke raised his hand.

  “What does that ragged lout over there want?” he whispered, turning to the Cardinal.

  At a sign from the latter, two gentlemen went up to Lucas, motioning him to go and threatening and upbraiding him.

  “Get out!” they hissed. “Be off at once!”

  Slowly Lucas left the church.

  The Archduke was breathing heavily. He thrust out his lower lip.

  “How rudely the fellow stared!”

  “Yes, he certainly had strange eyes,” was the Cardinal’s calm rejoinder.

  “So you noticed them too?” observed the Archduke, shaking his head thoughtfully. “Those eyes . . . I can’t think what they reminded me of. . . .”

  On the following evening it happened that a farewell banquet was being given in honor of the Archduke, who was leaving for Florence the next day. It was a merry crowd that assembled round the board, eating and drinking their fill of the good fare spread before them. The dog tried to find a place to lie down, squeezing between the chairs and sitting down in front of the sideboard. But he could not find a suitable spot. At last he stretched himself on the floor at the far end of the table where the young Italian noblemen were seated.

  Presently one of the latter rose and tried to get behind the other chairs to toast a friend who was sitting close to the Archduke. He was already slightly the worse for drink, and stumbled over the dog, who sprang to his feet in terror and tried quickly to get out of the way. But as he moved the young nobleman gave him such a vicious kick that the wretched animal, howling with pain, collapsed on the floor. Whereupon the young man set about venting his fury on the dog in good earnest.

  “Just you wait, you confounded brute,” he roared, “I’ll teach you to trip me up!”

  The dog’s howl of pain and distress suddenly changed to a fierce growl of rage. Still smarting from the kick, he sprang furiously at the man, and with his forepaws on his shoulders, with one bound forced him against the wall. In a trice, the hubbub in the banqueting hall was silenced. Two or three of the revellers had jumped to their feet, and the only sound that broke the stillness was the low savage growl of the dog and the angry groan of the astonished and terrified man who, with the dog’s jaws at his throat, was standing, white as death, with his back to the wall as though he were being crucified.

&nb
sp; The dog was barking loudly in his victim’s face. It sounded like a howl of hatred and reproach, and Pointner, behind his master’s chair, quickly whispered to him what had happened. The young nobleman had just succeeded in drawing his dagger from its sheath when the Archduke brought his fist down heavily on the table.

  “You dare touch a hair of my dog’s coat!” he roared. “How dare you kick my dog, you drunken sot! Put up your dagger, I say!”

  Immediately the dog released his enemy, dropped on all fours, and stood perfectly still. The tongue hanging out of his mouth alone betrayed his state of exhaustion. He was still growling with indignation.

  The young nobleman, ashamed and sobered, his clothes all disarranged, came away from the wall.

  “’Pon my soul, Messer Giovanni,” came the Cardinal’s calm voice, addressing him from the other end of the room, “you are certainly drunk, and you are an ill-­mannered lout! Leave the hall at once, sir!”

  Messer Giovanni crept noiselessly from the hall and the dog followed him as far as the door.

  • • •

  The dark woodland through which they had been laboriously climbing hour after hour had depressed the Archduke’s spirits. But, sitting inside the slowly advancing coach he had suddenly become aware that the road was growing flat again, that it was beginning to grow lighter, that a vast expanse of bright blue sky was gradually becoming visible, and that the screen of boughs and twigs through which the sun was shining was steadily growing thinner. And as the cavalcade suddenly emerged from the trees into open fields, he began to breathe more freely. Suddenly he leaned out and called a halt.

  The cuirassiers, eager to follow the gently sloping road into the valley, had already started off at a trot, but drawing rein, they turned the horses on to the grass by the side of the road and leaped down from their ­saddles. The column scattered right and left, and the rest of the carriages, with the pack-mules and the Archduke’s baggage-­wagons, which had yet to come up, began to pour higgledy-piggledy out of the woods.

  The fields stretched in radiant softness down the slope toward the valley. In a moment a throng of gaily dressed folk had spread over them. The sound of voices filled the air, to the accompaniment of the clank of chains and arms, the rattle of wheels, the creaking of saddles and harness, the stamping and neighing of horses, and the hubbub set up by the servants, busily taking hampers from the wagons in order to prepare a meal and arrange for the comfort of the company.

  A little way off the Archduke was walking up and down a piece of open ground with Count Waltersburg. He seemed in good spirits. Pointner followed them while the dog frolicked about.

  Far below in the distance, glowing in the rays of the sun, Tuscany beckoned invitingly to them. Its bright green fields extended as far as eye could see to the shimmering sapphire of the hills beyond, while dotted far and wide over the carpet of turf the white marble houses of town and village flashed their light up to the heights, and cupolas and turrets shone like precious stones.

  “Is that Florence over there?” asked the Archduke, pointing.

  Count Waltersburg peered into the distance with the air of an expert. “’Pon my soul, I do not know,” he replied at last.

  Pointner began to laugh, and Waltersburg turned round in a huff.

  “Just look, Your Grace, how that dog is standing!” cried Pointner. “He looks exactly as though he too were wondering whether it is Florence or not. . . .”

  They all turned to look at the dog who was standing with his neck stretched out and his ears pricked, looking down into the valley.

  “Well, Cambyses,” said the Archduke, smiling and bending down to pat him, “perhaps you know whether that is Florence?”

  The dog cringed with fear at his touch, but quickly raised his head to his master, ran forward a few steps, and then stopped still again, as though to examine the landscape once more.

  They took no further notice of him.

  Presently when the Archduke had sat down to table with Count Waltersburg, Pointner, who was waiting on them, suddenly exclaimed: “Whom is Cambyses making such a fuss about over there?”

  Turning they saw an old man with a gray beard emerging from the undergrowth, bowing to all sides, and talking, laughing and calling the dog, who was gamboling round him in a mad dance of joy, yelping with delight.

  The Archduke frowned and sprang to his feet. “Strange,” he murmured, and obviously put out, advanced toward the couple. The others followed.

  Neither the old man nor the dog noticed their approach. The dog seemed to be completely beside himself, and ran breathless round and round the man, now jumping violently up at him, as though he wanted to knock him down or embrace him, now scampering away as though daring the man to catch him. The man bent round and twisted about, until his little knapsack slid from his back up his neck, and laughed in bewildered delight.

  “Yes, well, what do you want?” he repeated softly. “What’s the matter with you? . . . Yes . . . Good dog! . . . Are we such friends then, for you to make such a fuss over me? . . . Yes. . . . Ha! . . . I never did. . . . Have you gone mad? . . . Yes, good dog! . . . But I tell you I don’t know you. . . .”

  “I say, you fellow!”

  At the sudden sound of the Archduke’s voice the old man started with fear, and his flustered movement forced the former, who had come close up to him, to step back a pace or two. The old man gazed in astonishment at the young Prince and his companions.

  “A crazy dog!” he exclaimed with a smile. But the stern expression in the Archduke’s eyes covered him with confusion. “A . . . crazy . . . dog!” he stammered under his breath.

  “What’s all this about the dog? What do you want with him?” demanded the Archduke with cold severity.

  But the old man had already regained his self-­possession and was laughing quite innocently.

  “Well that’s funny. What do I want with him? What I would like to know is what the dog wants with me? Don’t you see? God in heaven!” he exclaimed turning round angrily to Pointner, who had knocked his hat off his head. And looking furiously from one to the other, he was on the point of flinging himself without further ado on the Groom-of-the-Chamber. “I say, look here, you! . . .”

  “You must not keep your hat on in the presence of His Imperial Highness,” said Pointner calmly, seizing his wrist.

  The old man gave a little start of surprise. His arm dropped limply to his side, and calming down, he subjected the Archduke to a silent though kindly scrutiny. Then he gave a short whistle.

  “Oh indeed!” he drawled. He looked at the dog, who was standing watching and wagging his tail. “Oh indeed!” he repeated about half an octave higher as if he were just beginning to understand.

  “Who are you?” demanded the Archduke.

  “Oh, it’s easy enough to see what the fellow is,” Count Waltersburg interposed haughtily. “A tramp! Take a whip, Pointner, and drive the ragamuffin away.”

  “Now, now,” exclaimed the old man, drawing himself up. He stood proudly and stiffly before them, his vivacious little eyes sparkling, and his second “Now!” ringing out loud and defiant. “I am not a tramp! I cannot allow that!”

  “What the devil . . . !” ejaculated Waltersburg.

  But the old man shouted him down.

  “Nothing to do with the devil, my Lord Count Waltersburg. . . . Yes, don’t you see? Yes, his lordship may well stare! But I have seen you often enough, when you were only so high . . . yes, indeed . . . with your noble father . . . of course . . . and I won’t stand being thrashed!” He laughed again and glanced from one to the other with his merry flashing eyes.

  “Who are you?” the Archduke enquired in low, contemptuous tones.

  The old man gave him a friendly nod as though he quite agreed with him. “That’s how it is,” he said, wagging his head. “His Imperial Highness has already asked me that question, and if my Lord Co
unt will allow me to reply, I will give you all the information you require. . . .” And he winked merrily at the Count.

  “Quick!” commanded the Archduke.

  “At your service!” replied the old man with ­unruffled serenity. “I am Master-Tailor Wendelin Knapps of Prague. . . .” And he laughed. “Yes, indeed, of Prague, my Lord Count. And your noble father often used to come to my shop, and bring you with him; but in those days you were only a little chap.”

  “Then what are you doing here, out all alone in the wide, wide world?” exclaimed Count Waltersburg in surprise.

  The old man proceeded to explain, as though what he was saying were all a matter of course. “Well, just having a look round . . . taking a look at the wide, wide world . . . strolling about in fact. I heard of a country where it was always spring, and tales of the sea . . .” he was almost chanting now, “the sea. . . .”

  “What do you want with that dog?” the Archduke repeated impatiently.

  “Yes, of course . . . the dog. . . .” The old man hesitated. His face became a blank. “I don’t know the dog,” he answered at last.

  The Archduke, conscious of the opposition in the old man’s attitude, became embarrassed. “You lie . . .” he stammered.

  Shrugging his shoulders, the old man turned away. “Well, for all I care, it may be a lie,” he muttered softly to himself.

  Pointner, noticing the embarrassment in his master’s face, came up to him. “It is quite possible the old man is speaking the truth,” he said. “In fact, I feel pretty certain he is. How could the fellow possibly know Cambyses? Dogs like this often have crazy whims. . . . Some peculiar smell about a man, or something of the sort, is quite enough . . . isn’t that so? We humans may notice nothing, but a fellow comes along with something peculiar about him and the dogs go straight up to him and lick his hands. And another time they’ll bark at a man, and be nearer tearing him to bits than playing with him. How can we tell what goes on in a dog’s mind?”