A Jay of Italy

by Bernard Edward Joseph Capes

  *CHAPTER VII*

  Bernardo wrote to the Abbot of San Zeno:--

  'MOST DEAR AND HONOURED FATHER,--Many words from me would but dilute thewonder of my narrative. Also thou lovest brevity in all things butGod's praise. Know, then, how I have surpassed expectation in the earlypropagation of our creed, which is by Love to banish Law, that oldengine of necessarianism. [_Here follows a brief recapitulation of theevents which had landed him, a little sweet oracle of light, in the darkold castello of Milanl._] Man' (he goes on) 'is of all creatures themost susceptible to his environments. Thou shalt induce him but to feedon the olive branches of Peace in order that he may take their colour.O sorrow, then, on the false appetites which have warped his nature! onthe beastly doctrines which, Satan-engendered, have led him half tobelieve there is no wrong or right, but only necessity! Is there nosuch thing as discord in music, at which even a dog will howl? Harmonyis God--so plain. Yet there is a learned doctor here, one Lascaris whodisputeth this. My father, I do not think that learned doctors seek somuch the intrinsic truth of things as to impress their followers withtheir perspicacity in the pursuit. John led James over-the-way by a"short cut" of three miles, and James thought John a very clever fellow.Pray for me!...

  'I will speak first of the Duchess, to whom I delivered your letter.She is a most sweet lady, with eyes, so kind and loving were they, theymade me think of those soft stars which light the flocks to fold. Sheasked me did I remember my mother? "That is a strange question," quothI, "to a foundling." "Ah!" said she, "poor child! I had forgot how thoufell'st, a star, into Mary's lap. I would have taken care, for my part,not so to tumble out of heaven." "Nay," I said, "but if thou, a motherthere, hadst let slip thy baby first?" "What," she said, looking at meso strange and wistful, "did she follow, then?" My father, thou know'stmy fancies. "I cannot tell," I said. "Sometimes, in a dream, the dim,sad shadow of a woman's face seems to hang over me lying on that altar."She held out her arms to me, then withdrew them, and she was weeping."We are all wicked," she cried; "there is no heart, nor faith, norvirtue, in any of us!" and she ran away lamenting. Now, was not thatstrange? for she is in truth a lady of great virtue, a pure wife andmother, and to me most sweet-forgiving for an ill-favour I was forced todo her upon one of her servants. But not women nor men know their ownhearts. They wear the devil's livery for fashion's sake, when heintroduces it on a pretty sister or young gentleman, and so believethemselves bound to his service. But it is as easy as talking to makevirtue the mode. Thou shalt see.

  'Does not the beautiful Duomo itself stand in their midst, the fairestearnest of their true piety? Could intrinsic baseness conceive thisethereal fabric, or, year by year, graft it with sprigs of newloveliness? There is that in them yet like a little child thatstretches out its arms to the sky.

  'I have, besides the greatest, two converts, or half-converts, already,my dear Carlo and his Fool. The former is a great bull gallant, whom aspark will set roaring and a kiss allay. I love him greatly, and hebellows and prances, and swearing "I will not" follows to the pipe ofpeace. Alas! if I could woo him from a great wrong! It will happen,when men see honour whole, and not partisanly. In the meantime I haveevery reason to be charitable to that lady Beatrice, sith she holdsherself my mortal enemy. And indeed I excuse her for myself, but notfor the honest soul she keeps in thrall. My father, is it not a strangeparadox, that holding the senses such a rich possession and life socheap? Here is one would prolong the body's pleasure to eternity, yetat any moment will risk its destruction for a spite. Nathless she iswarm, loamy soil for the bearing of our right lily of love, and some dayshall be fruitful in cleanliness.

  'Now the Fool--poor Fool! I have won to temperance, and so Carlogrowleth, "A murrain on thee, spoil-sport! What want I with a soberFool? Take him, thou, to be valet to thy temperance!" by which gibe heseeks to cover a gracious act. And, lo! I have a Fool for servant, amost notable Fool and auxiliary, who, having sworn himself toabstinence, would unplug and sink to the bottomless abyss every floatinghogshead. In sooth the good soul is my shadow, and so they call him."Well," says he, "so be it. But what sort of fool art thou, to cast afool for shadow?" "Why, look," says I, for it was sunset on thegrass--"at least not so great a fool as thou." "That may well be," sayshe, "for you do not serve Messer Bembo." So caustic is he--a bitinglove; yet, as is proper between a man and his shadow, equal attached tome as I to him. And so, talking of his gift to me, brings me to thegreater gifts of the Duke.

  'O my father! How can I speak my gratitude to heaven and thy teaching,which brought me so swiftly, so wonderfully, to prevail with that dreadman! I think evil is like the false opal, which needs but the firsttouch of pure light to shatter it. I have come with no weapon but mylittle lamp of sunshine; and behold! in its flash the base isdiscredited and the truth acknowledged. It is all so easy, Christ guardme! There is a Providence in what men call chance. Only, my father,pray that thy child be not misled by flattery to usurp its prerogatives.Men, in this dim world, are all too prone to worship the visible symbolsof Immortality--to accept the prophet for the Master. I am alreadyfeted and caressed as if I were a god. The Duke hath impropriated to mean income of a thousand ducatos, with free residence in the castello,and a retinue to befit a prince. At all this I cavil not, sith itaffords me the sinews to a crusade. But what shall I say to hisdelegating me to the chief magistracy of Milan during his forthcomingabsence? for he is on the eve of an expedition into Piedmont, touchingthe lordship of Vercelli, which he claims through his wife Bona ofSavoy. Carlo, it is true, warns me against this perilous exaltation."Seek'st thou," says he, "to depose the devil? Well, the devil, on hisreturn, will treat thee like any other palace revolutionist." "Nay,"says I, "the devil was never the devil from choice. Restore him to aconverted dukedom, and he will aspire to be the saint of all." "Yes,"he said, "I can imagine Galeazzo endowing a hospital for Magdalenes andwashing the poor's feet. But I will stick to thee." A dear worldlinghe is, and only less uncertain than his master in these first infantsteps towards godliness. For vice is very childlike in itsself-plumings upon a little knowledge. Desiring beauty, it tears therose-bush or clutches the moth, and so sickens on disillusionment.Forbearance is the wisdom of the great.

  'The more destructive is a man, the simpler is he. Now, my father, thisdestroying Duke covets nothing so much as the applause of the world forgifts with which, in truth, he is ill-endowed. He cannot sing, orrhyme, or improvise but with the worst, yet, thinks he, they shall callme poet and musician, or burn. Well, he might fiddle over theholocaust, like Nero, and still be first cousin to a peacock. I toldhim so, but in gentler words, when he asked me to teach him my method."To every soul its capacities," says I, "and mine are not in ruling agreat duchy greatly." "So we are neither of us omnipotent," says he,with a smile. "Well, I will take the lesson to heart." Now, could sosimple a creature be all corrupt?

  'Of more complicated fibre is his brother, the Signior Ludovico. Verypolitic and abiding, he rushes at nothing; yet in the end, I think, mostthings come to him. He is gracious to thy child, as indeed are all;yet, God forgive me, I find something more inhuman in his gentlenessthan in Galeazzo's passion. These inexplicable antipathies are surelythe weapons of Satan; whereby it behoves us to overcome them. That sameLascaris attributes them to an accidental re-fusion of particles,opposed to other chance re-combinations, in a present body, of particlessimilarly antipathetic to us in a former existence--a long "short cut"over the way again.

  'Now, as for my days in this poignant city--where even the benches andclothes-chests, not to speak of most walls and ceilings, yea, and thevery stair-posts themselves, are painted with crowded devices of scrollsand figures in loveliest gold and azure and vermilion--thou mayestbelieve they are strange to me. Amidst this wealth I, thy simpleacolyte, am glorified, I say, and courted beyond measure. Yet fearnothing for me. I appraise this distinction at its right market value.The higher the Duke's favour, the greater
my presumptive influence.Believe me, dear, my urbanity towards his attentions is an investmentfor my Master. I am an honest factor.

  'In a week the Duke sets out. In the meantime, like an ambassador thatmust suffer present festival for the sake of future credit, I sit atfeasts and plays; or, perchance, rise to denounce the latter for nobetter than whores' saturnalia. (O my father! to see fair ladies, theDuchess herself, smile on such shameless bawdry!) Whereon the Dukethunders all to stop, with threats of fury on the actors to mend theirways, making the poor fools gasp bewildered. For how had _they_presumed upon custom? Bad habit is like the moth in fur, so easilyshaken out when first detected; so hardly when established. Once, moreto my liking, we have a mummers' dance, with clowns in rams' headsbutting; and again a harvest ballet, with all the seasons pictured verypretty. Another day comes a Mantuan who plays on three lutes at once,more curious than tuneful; and after him one who walks on a rope in thecourt, a steel cuirass about his body. Now happens their festival ofthe _Bacchidae_, a pagan survival, but certes sweet and graceful, withits songs and vines and dances. Maybe for my sake they purge it of somelicence. Well, Heaven witness to them what loss or gain thereby tobeauty.

  'Often the court goes hunting the wolf or deer--I care not; ora-picnicking by the river, which I like, and where we catch trouts andlampreys to cook and eat on the green; then run we races, perchance, orplay at ball. So merry and light-hearted--how can wickedness be otherthan an accident with these children of good-nature? To mark the jokesthey play on one another--mischievous sometimes--suggests to one aromping nursery, which yet I know not. Father, who was my mother? Itrow we romped somewhere in heaven. Once some gallants of them, being incollusion with the watch, enter, in the guise of robbers, MesserSecretary Simonetta's house at midnight, and bind and blindfold thatgreat man, and placing him on an ass in his night-gear (which is anexcuse for nothing), carry him through the streets as if to theirquarters. Which, having gained, they unbind; and lo! he is in the innerward of the castello, the Duke and a great company about him and shoutsof laughter; in which I could not help but join, though it was shameful.Next day the Duchess herself does not disdain a wrestling match with thelady Catherine, her adoptive daughter; when the lithe little serpent,enwreathing that stately Queen, doth pull her sitting on her lap,whereby she conquers. For all improvising and stories they have asgreat a passion as ingenuity; and therein, my gifts by Christ's ensamplelying, comes my opportunity. Dear Father, am I presumptuous in myfeeble might, like the boy Phaeton when he coaxed the Sun's reins fromPh[oe]bus, and scorched the wry road since called the Milky Way? That issuch an old tale as we tell by moonlight under trees--such as ChristHimself, the child-God, hath recounted to us, sitting shoulder-deep inmeadow-grass, or by the pretty falling streams. Is He that exacting,that exotic Deity, lusting only for adoration, eternally gluttonous ofpraise and never surfeited, whom squeamish indoor men, making Him thefetish of their closets, have reared for heaven's type? O, find Him inthe blown trees and running water; in the carol of sweet birds; in themines from whose entrails are drawn our ploughshares; yea, in thepursuit of maid by man! So, in these long walks and rests of life,shall He be no less our Prince because He is our joyous comrade. Forthis I know: Not to a pastor, a lord, a parent himself, doth the soul ofthe youth go out as to the companion of his own age and freedom.

  'Christ comes again as He journeyed with His Apostles, the bright wisecomrade, fitting earth to heaven in the puzzle of the spheres. We knowHim Human, my father, feeling the joy of weariness for repose' sake; notdisdaining the cool inn's sanctuary; expounding love by forbearance. Hebeareth Beauty redeemed on His brow. Before the clear gaze of His eyesall heaped sophistries melt away like April snow. He calleth us to thewoods and meadows. _Quasimodo geniti infantes rationabile sine dolo lacconcupiscete_. O, mine eyelids droop! We are seldom at rest herebefore two o' the morning. The beds have trellised gratings by day, tokeep the dogs from smirching their coverlets. _Ora pro me_!'