*CHAPTER XXIV*
A despotism (Messer Bembo invitus) is the only absolute expression ofautomatic government. The fly-wheel moves, and every detail of themachinery, saw, knife, or punch, however distant, responds instantly toits initiative. Galeazzo, for example, had but to make, in Vigevano,the tenth part of a revolution, and behold, in Milan! MesserJacopo--saw, knife, and punch in one--had 'come down,' automatically,upon the objectives of that movement. Within a few minutes of Tassino'sreturn, Bernardo and his Fool, seized quietly and without resistance asthey were taking the air on the battlements, were being lowered withcords into the 'Hermit's Cell.'
_Sic itur ad astra_.
The Duke of Milan re-entered his capital on the 20th of December. HisDuchess met him with happy smiles and tears, loving complaints over hislong absence, a sweet tongue ready with vindication of her trust, shouldthat be demanded of her. The last week had done much to reassure her,in the near return to familiar conditions which it had witnessed; andshe felt herself almost in a position to restore to her Bluebeard thekey, unviolated, of the forbidden chamber. If only he would accept thatearnest of her loyalty without too close a questioning!
And, to her joy, he did; inasmuch, you see, as he had his own reasonsfor a diplomatic silence. It would appear, indeed, that recent greatevents had altogether banished from his memory the pious circumstancesof his departure to them. He had returned to find his duchy as to allmoral intents he had left and could have wished to recover it. Thefashion of Nature had shed its petals with the summer brocades, andMilan was itself again.
For the exquisite, who had set it, was vanished now some seven daysgone; and that is a long time for the straining out of a popularfashion. He had departed, carrying his Fool with him, none--save one ortwo in the secret--knew whither; but surmise was plentiful, and for themost part rabid. That he had fallen out of home favour latterly wasobvious and flagrant; now, the report grew that this alienation hadreceived its first impetus from Piedmont. That whisper in itself wasNature's very quietus. Eleven out of a dozen presumed upon it, andthemselves, to propitiate tyranny with a very debauch of reactionism toold licence. Moreover, scandal, in mere self-justification, must runintolerable riot. Nothing was too gross for it in its accounting forthis secession. The pure love which had striven to redeem it, ittortured into a text for filthy slanders. The Countess of Caprona hadher windows stoned in retaliation one day by a resentful crowd; thewretched girl Lucia was dragged from her bed and suffocated in a muddyditch. The logic of the mob.
The most merciful of these tales represented Bembo as having run back toSan Zeno, there to hide in terror and trembling his diminished head. Itwas the solution of things most comforting to Bona--one on which herconscience found repose. She wished the boy no evil; had acted as shedid merely in the interests of the State, she told herself. If, for amoment, her thoughts ever swerved to Tassino--now returned, as it waswhispered, to his old quarters with the Provost Marshal, and abidingthere a readjustment of affairs--she hid the treason under a lovelyblush, and vowed herself for ever more true wife and incorruptible.
So for the most part all was satisfactory again; and there remained onlyto alienate the popular sympathy from its idol. And that the Churchundertook to do. The moment the false prophet was exposed and deposed,it rose, shook the crumbs from its lap, and gave him his _coup de grace_in the public estimation.
'He but sought,' it thundered, 'to turn ye over, clods; to cleanse yourgross soil for the fairer growing of his roses.' A parable: but so farcomprehensible to the demos in that it implied its narrow escape fromsome cleaning process, a vindication of its prescriptive rights to gounwashed, and therefore convincing. Down sank the threateningswine-monster thereon; and, being further played upon with comfits of afestal Christmas-tide, did yield up incontinent its last breath ofrevivalism, and kick in joyful reassurance of its sty.
So the whole city absolved itself of redemption, and set to makingenthusiastic provision for the devil's entertainment against the seasonof peace and goodwill.
_Si finis bonus est, totum bonum erit_: nor less _Bona bona erit_. Onlythere was a rift within the happy wife's lute, which somehow put thewhole orchestra out of tune. She saw, for all her sweet chastened senseof relief, that the Duke was darkly troubled. The oppression of hismood communicated itself to hers; and she began to dream--horriblevisions of cloyed fingers, and clinging shrouds, and ropey cobwebs thatwould drop and lace her mouth and nostrils, the while she could notfight free a hand to clear them.
Then, double-damned in his own depression, by reason of its reactingthrough his partner on himself, the Duke one day sent for the ProvostMarshal.
'The season claims its mercies,' gloomed he. 'Take the boy out and sendhim home to his father.'
'His father!' jeered Jacopo brusquely, grunting in his beard. 'A's beensafe in his bosom these three days.'
'What!' gasped the tyrant.
'Dead, Messer, dead, that's all,' said the other impassively; 'passed ina moment, like a summer shower.'
There was nothing more to be said, then. As for poor Patch, he was toocheap a mend-conscience for the ducal mind even to consider. It tookinstead to brooding more and more on the drawn whiteness of itsDuchess's face, hating and sickened by it, yet fascinated. The airseemed full of portents in its ghostly glimmer. His fingers were alwaysitching to strike the hot blood into it. A loathly suspicion seized himthat perhaps here, after all, was revealed the illusive face of his longhaunting. Constantly he fancied he saw reflected in other faces abouthim some shadow of its menacing woe. Once he came near stabbing alieutenant of his guards, one Lampugnani, for no better reason than thathe had caught the fellow's eyes fixed upon him.
So the jovial season sped, and Christmas day was come and gone, bringingwith it and leaving, out of conviviality, some surcease of hisself-torment.
But, on that holy night, Madonna Bona was visited by a dream, more uglyand more definite than any that had terrified her hitherto. Groping ina vast cathedral gloom, she had come suddenly upon a murdered bodyprostrate on the stones. Dim, shadowy shapes were thronged around; theorgan thundered, and at its every peal the corpse from a hundred hideouswounds spouted jets of blood. She turned to run; the gloating streampursued her--rose to her hips, her lips--she awoke choking andscreaming.
That morning--it was St. Stephen's Day--the Duke was to hear Mass in theprivate chapel of the castello. He rose to attend it, only to find that,by some misunderstanding, the court chaplain had already departed, withthe sacred vessels, for the church dedicated to the Saint. The Bishopof Como, summoned to take his place, declined on the score of illness.Galeazzo decided to follow his chaplain.
Bona strove frantically to dissuade him from going. He read someconfirmation of his shapeless suspicions in her urgency, and was themore determined. She persisted; he came near striking her in his fury,and finally drove her from his presence, weeping and clamorous.
She was in despair, turning hither and thither, trusting no one. Atlength she bethought herself of an honest fellow, always a loyal friendand soldier of her lord, of whom, in this distracting pass, she mightmake use. She had spoken nothing to the Duke of her disposal of hisfavourite, Messer Lanti, leaving the explanation of her conduct to anauspicious moment. Now, in her emergency, she sent a message forCarlo's instant release, bidding him repair without delay to the palace.She had no reason, nor logic, nor any particular morality. She was inneed, and lusting for help--that was enough.
The messenger sped, and returned, but so did not the prisoner with him.Bona, sobbing, feverish, at the wit's end of her resources, went frommember to member of her lord's suite, imploring each to intervene. Aswell ask the jackalls to reprove the lion for his arrogance.
At eleven the Duke set out. His valet and chronicler, Bernardino Corio,relates how, at this pass, his master's behaviour seemed fraught withindecision and melancholy; how he put on, and then off, his coat ofmail, because it made him look too stout; ho
w he feared, yet was anxiousto go, because 'some of his mistresses' would be expecting him in thechurch (the true explanation of his unharnessing, perhaps); how hehalted before descending the stairs; how he called for his children, andappeared hardly able to tear himself away from them; how MadonnaCatherine rallied him with a kiss and a quip; how at length,reluctantly, he left the castle on foot, but, finding snow on theground, decided upon mounting his horse.
Viva! Viva! See the fine portly gentleman come forth--tall, handsome,they called him--in his petti-cote of crimson brocade, costly-furred andopened in front to reveal the doublet beneath, a blaze of gold-clothtorrid with rubies; see the flash and glitter that break out all overhim, surface coruscations, as it were, of an inner fire; see his face,already chilling to ashes, livid beneath the sparkle of its jewelledberretino! Is it that his glory consumes himself? Viva! Viva!--ifmuch shouting can frighten away the shadow that lies in the hollow ofhis cheek. It is thrown by one, invisible, that mounted behind him whenhe mounted, and now sits between his greatness and the sun. Viva!Viva! So, with the roar of life in his ears, he passes on to theeternal silence.
As he rides he whips his head hither and thither, each glance of hiseyes a quick furtive stab, a veritable _coup d'[oe]il_. He is gnawedand corroded with suspicion, mortally _nervous_--his manner lacksrepose. It shall soon find it. He will make a stately recumbent figureon a tomb.
The valet, after releasing his master's bridle, has run on by a shortcut to the church, where, at the door, he comes across MessersLampugnani and Olgiati lolling arm in arm. They wear _coats andstockings of mail, and short capes of red satin_. Corio wonders to seethem there, instead of in their right places among the Duke's escort.But it is no matter of his. There are some gentlemen will risk a gooddeal to assert their independence--or insolence.
In the meanwhile, the motley crowd gathering, the Duke's progress isslow. All the better for discussing him and his accompanyingmagnificence. He rides between the envoys of Ferrara and Mantua, agorgeous nucleus to a brilliant nebula. This, after all, is more'filling' than Nature. Some one likens him, audibly, to the head of acomet, trailing glory in his wake. He turns sharply, with a scowl.'Uh! Come sta duro!' mutters the delinquent. 'Like a thunderbolt,rather!'
At length he reaches the church door and dismounts. He throws his reinsto a huge Moor, standing ready, and sets his lips.
From within burst forth the strains of the choir--
'_Sic transit gloria mundi,_'
Bowing his head, he passes on to his doom.