All that the mother said came true, and the storks in Denmark are still called Peter, even to this day.
17
The Bronze Pig
In the town of Florence, not far from the Piazza del Granduca, there is a little street—I believe that it is called Porta Rossa—and there across from a small market place, where vegetables are sold, stands a fountain cast in the shape of a pig. Clear, fresh water spouts from its snout, which shines as brightly as bronze can, while the rest of the body is green with age. The snout is polished daily by schoolboys and beggars who rest their hands upon it, while leaning over to drink. It is a lovely sight to see the beautifully made animal embraced by a thirsty half-naked boy, who almost kisses its ancient snout with his fresh, young mouth.
Anyone who visits Florence can find the fountain; and if he can’t, he need only ask the first beggar he meets, and he will show him the way to the bronze pig.
It was late on a winter evening. The tops of the hills that surround the city were covered with snow. But it was not dark, for the moon was out; and the moon in Italy gives as much light as the sun does on a northern winter day.—No, I would even say that it gives more, for here the air is so clear, it seems to reflect the moon’s light; it is not cold and gray as the air in the north, which like a leaden lid seems to be pressing you down into the cold, wet earth, as if you were already buried and lying in your coffin.
In the ducal gardens, where thousands of flowers bloom in winter, a ragged little boy had sat all day under a large pine tree. He was the very picture of Italy: laughing, beautiful, and suffering. He was hungry and thirsty; and though he had held out his little hand all day, no one had dropped anything into it. Night fell, and the watchman who came to close the gardens drove him away. On a bridge over the Arno, the boy stood for a long time, staring into the water and dreaming, as he watched the reflections of the many stars, the beautiful marble bridge called Santa Trinita, and himself, shimmering in the river.
He walked back to the fountain, and, putting his arms around the bronze pig’s neck, he drank water from its shining spout. Nearby he found some lettuce leaves and a few chestnuts, and they were his dinner. It was cold and the streets were deserted. He was alone. He climbed up on the pig’s back and, leaning his curly head forward so that it rested on the pig’s head, he fell asleep.
It was midnight. The metal animal beneath him moved and said very distinctly, “Little boy, hold on tight, for I am going to run!”
And it did run; and thus began the strangest ride that anyone has ever taken. The pig went first to the Piazza del Granduca. The bronze horse, on which the duke was mounted, neighed loudly when it saw them. All the colored coats of arms of the old town hall shone brilliantly; Michelangelo’s David swung his sling. Every statue was alive. The metal figures around Perseus were much too alive; and the Sabine women screamed that horrible cry of fear before death, and it echoed throughout the beautiful square.
In the arcade of the Palazzo degli Uffizi where the nobles of Florence gathered for their masquerades, the bronze pig stopped.
“Hold tight,” the bronze pig warned, “for now we are going up the stairs.” The little boy did not answer; half joyfully, half fearfully, he clutched the neck of the pig.
They entered the long gallery. The boy knew it well, he had been there before: the walls were covered with paintings and here were the loveliest statues. But now the gallery was more brilliantly lighted than during the day; and every painting seemed more colorful, every bust and figure more beautiful. But the most magnificent moment—and that one the boy never would forget—was when the door to one of the smaller rooms opened. Here was the sculpture of a naked woman: beauty as only nature, marble, and the greatest of all artists can create it. She moved her lovely limbs, and the dolphins at her feet arched their backs and leaped about. Immortality was the message that could be read in her eyes. This sculpture is known to the world as the Medici Venus. On either side of her stood a marble statue, each proving that man’s spirit and art can give life, can create it from lifeless stone. One of the figures was of a man grinding his sword; the other showed two gladiators wrestling: for beauty’s sake the weapon was sharpened and the men fought.
The boy was almost blinded by the radiance of the colors of paintings on the walls. There was Titian’s Venus, the mortal woman whom the artist had loved, stretching herself out on her soft couch. She tossed her head, her naked breasts heaved; her curly hair fell on her naked shoulders, and her dark eyes revealed the passion of the blood that flowed in her veins.
Although every work of art was intensely alive, they did not dare to leave their frames or their pedestals. Maybe it was the golden halos of the Madonna, Jesus, and John the Baptist that made them all stay in their places, for the holy paintings were no longer works of art, they were the holy person they portrayed.
What beauty! What loveliness! The little boy saw it all, for the bronze pig walked slowly through every room of the palace.
One magnificent work of art superseded the other. But one painting appealed especially to the boy, because there were children in it. He had seen it once before in the daylight. It was the painting of Jesus Descending into the Underworld; and many hasten by it without a glance, not realizing that it contains a whole world of poetry. The painter, a Florentine, Agnolo Bronzino, had not chosen to portray the suffering of the dead but the expectation in their faces at the sight of Our Lord. Two of the children are embracing; one little boy stretches his hand out toward another child, at the same time he points to himself, as if he were saying: “I am going to paradise.” Some of the older people in the painting look uncertain. Filled as they are with doubt and hope, they beg humbly, while the children, in their innocence, demand.
The boy looked at that painting longer than he did at any of the others, and the bronze pig patiently stood still in front of it.
Someone sighed. Did the sound come from the painting or the bronze pig? The boy lifted his hands toward the children in the painting; but just at that moment the pig turned and ran through the galleries.
“Thank you and God bless you!” whispered the boy as the pig went bumpity … bumpity … down the stairs with him on his back.
“Thank yourself and God bless you!” replied the metal animal. “I have helped you and you have helped me, for only when an innocent child sits on my back, do I become alive and have the strength to run as I have tonight. Yes, I can even let the light from the lamp beneath the Blessed Virgin shine upon me. It is only into the church that I am not allowed to go; but with you on my back I can peep through the door. But don’t try to get down, for if you do, then I shall be dead, as I am in the daylight, when you see me in the Via Porta Rossa.”
“I will stay with you,” the child promised; and away they ran, through the streets of the town, till they came to the Church of Santa Croce.
The portals of the church opened by themselves. All the candles on the great altar were lit, and the light shone all the way out to the deserted square, where stood the bronze pig with a boy mounted on his back.
Above a tomb, along the left aisle, a thousand stars formed a halo. A coat of arms decorated the simple monument: on a blue background was a ladder that glowed as if it were on fire. It was the tomb of Galileo and the coat of arms could be the emblem of art itself, for the way of the artist is up a ladder of fire to the sky. Every true prophet of the spirit ascends toward heaven like Elijah!
Down the right aisle, all the marble figures on the richly decorated sarcophagi had come alive. Dante with laurel leaves on his head, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Alfieri: here they were, side by side, the glory of Italy! The Church of Santa Croce is not as large as Florence’s cathedral, but it is much more beautiful.
The marble clothes of the statues seemed to move, while the great men’s heads appeared to have turned so that they could look out into the night. From the altar came the sweet voices of the white-clad choir boys, who swung censers, from which the strong smell of incense pervaded the
air, even as far as the square.
The boy stretched his arms toward the light of the altar, and the bronze pig turned and ran so fast that the child had to hold on with all his strength not to fall off. The boy heard the wind whistling in his ears, then he heard a loud bang as the big doors of the church closed. He lost consciousness. He felt cold; then he opened his eyes, he was awake.
It was morning. He was sitting—almost falling off—the bronze pig, which stood as immobile as ever in the Via Porta Rossa.
Fearfully, the boy thought of the woman whom he called his mother. She had sent him out yesterday to beg, but no one had given him any money, not so much as the tiniest copper coin. He was hungry. Once more he embraced the bronze pig and drank water from its snout. He kissed it and made his way home through the dirty streets.
He lived in one of the narrowest lanes in the city; it was just broad enough for a loaded donkey to pass. An iron-studded door stood ajar; he slipped past it and began to climb a stone staircase that had a worn-out rope for a banister. The walls were filthy. He came to the courtyard; above there was a gallery all the way around the building. On its railings, clothes that were no more than rags had been hung out to dry. In the center of the yard there was a well, and from it heavy wires were strung to each of the apartments, so that water could be drawn without the inconvenience of having to carry it from below; and the pails danced in the air, spilling water down into the courtyard.
The boy went up another, even narrower, stone staircase. Two Russian sailors who were coming from their night’s bacchanal were rushing down the stairs, laughing, and they almost bumped into the child. A woman who was neither young nor old, with beautiful black hair, stood on the landing at the top of the stairs.
“How much did you get?” she asked the boy.
“Don’t be angry!” he begged. “I didn’t get anything; nothing at all!” The boy grabbed the hem of her skirt as if he were, in humility, about to kiss it.
They stepped inside, into the garret that was their home. Its misery I shall not describe. Only one thing needs to be mentioned: there was an earthenware pot filled with smoldering charcoal, and the woman put her hands around it in order to warm them.
She poked the child with her elbow and screamed, “Where is the money? I know you have money!”
The boy started to weep. She kicked out at him with her foot, and he wailed louder. “Keep still, you sniveling little thing, or I’ll bash your head in!” She swung the earthenware pot in the air as if she were about to carry out her threat. Screaming, the child threw himself down on the floor.
Another woman came rushing into the room. She, too, was carrying a dish containing burning charcoal. “Felicita, what are you doing to the child?” she cried.
“He’s my child, and I can murder him if I want to,” the woman answered. “And I can kill you too, Gianina!” And she flung her clay pot toward the intruder; and Gianina lifted hers in order to ward off the danger; and the two dishes met in mid-air, breaking in pieces and spreading burning charcoal all over the tiny room.
But the child had escaped. He ran down the stairs, across the courtyard, and out of the house. He ran as fast as he could, and he kept on running until he could hardly breathe. He had reached the Church of Santa Croce. He entered the church whose portals had opened for him the night before and he kneeled down in front of one of the tombs; it was Michelangelo’s. Still crying, he prayed. The only one, among all those who had come to attend mass, to notice him was an elderly man. He glanced at the child and then walked on.
The little boy felt weak from hunger. He climbed into the niche between the monument and the wall and fell asleep. He was awakened by someone tugging at his sleeve. It was the man who had been in the church earlier in the day.
“Are you ill?” the man demanded. “Where do you live?” He went on asking questions. The boy answered him; and finally the man took him by the hand and led him to his home.
It was a small house in one of the side streets. The man was a glovemaker; and his wife was sitting sewing gloves when they entered. A little white poodle, whose curly coat was cut so closely that its pink skin could be seen, hopped up on a table and sprang up on the boy, barking all the while.
“The two innocent souls recognize each other,” said the woman, and patted the dog.
The boy was given something to eat and allowed to stay for the night. The next day the glovemaker, Papa Giuseppi as he was called, would talk with his mother. The boy was given a bed to sleep on which was no more than a bench; but to the child who was used to sleeping on a stone floor, it seemed royal luxury. That night he dreamed about the bronze pig and the paintings he had seen.
When Papa Giuseppi left the house the next morning, the little boy was not happy. He was afraid that he would be taken back to his mother, and he cried and kissed the little dog. The glovemaker’s wife smiled and nodded to them both.
When Papa Giuseppi came home, he talked with his wife for a long time alone. When they were finished, she patted the child on the head and said kindly, “He is a sweet little boy. He can be as good a glovemaker as you are. Look at his fingers, how long and thin they are. I am sure Our Lady has meant for him to be a glovemaker.”
The boy stayed in their home and the glovemaker’s wife taught him how to sew. He was given plenty to eat, and he slept comfortably in his little bed. Soon his boyish spirit returned and he began to tease Bellissima, the little dog. This the glovemaker’s wife did not like. She was angry; she shook her finger at him and scolded him.
The child was sorry for what he had done. Thoughtful and repentant, he sat in his tiny room, which was also used for drying skins. There were bars on the window to prevent thieves from entering it. That night he could not sleep. Suddenly he heard a noise outside the window. Clappidy … Clap … The boy felt certain that it was the bronze pig who had come to comfort him. He jumped out of bed and ran to the window. He saw only the empty alley.
“Help the signore to carry his paints,” the woman said to the boy the following morning. The signore was their neighbor, a young painter. He was having difficulty carrying both a large canvas and his box of paints.
The boy took the paint box, and together they went to the gallery: the same one the boy had visited with the bronze pig. The child recognized many of the beautiful marble statues and the paintings. There was the lovely statue of Venus; and he saw again the pictures of Jesus, the Holy Mother, and John the Baptist.
The painter stopped in front of the painting of Jesus Descending into the Underworld by Bronzino, in which the children smile so sweetly in their certainty that soon they will be in heaven. The little boy smiled too, for this was his heaven.
“Now you can go home,” said the painter, when he noticed that the boy was still there, after he had finished setting up his easel.
“May I not watch you paint, sir?” the boy asked as courteously as he could. “I would so like to know how it is done.”
“I am not going to paint now, I am only going to draw,” explained the artist. In his hand he had a black crayon; how swiftly it moved across the white surface! With his eye he measured the figures in the painting, and soon the outline of Christ appeared.
“Don’t stand there gaping. Go home,” ordered the painter irritably.
The boy wandered back to the house of the glover, sat down at the table, and started to sew gloves. But his mind was still on the paintings he had seen, and he pricked his fingers and sewed badly that day. But he did not tease Bellissima.
That evening he noticed that the street door was open and he tiptoed outside. It was a chilly but beautiful starry night. Slowly he walked toward the Via Porta Rossa to see the bronze pig.
He bent down, kissed the pig on its shiny snout, and then mounted its back. “Blessed animal,” he whispered in its ear, “I have longed for you. Tonight we shall ride again.”
But the bronze pig was motionless, the clear, fresh water flowing from its mouth. Suddenly the boy felt something tugging at his pants
leg. It was Bellissima, the naked little dog—even in this light he could see its pink skin beneath its short cropped hair. The dog barked, as if it were saying, “Look, I have followed you. Why are you sitting up there?”
A goblin could not have frightened the boy more than the dog did. Bellissima out in the street at night, without his little sheepskin coat on! The dog was never allowed out in the winter without the coat that had been made especially for him. It was tied at the neck with a red ribbon, and it had little belts that were buckled under its stomach. The little dog looked like a little lamb when it went out walking with its mistress, the glovemaker’s wife. How the boy feared her anger when she found out that her darling was not at home!
His wish to ride again with the bronze pig was gone, though he kissed the metal animal as he slid off its back. He picked up the dog who was so cold, it was shivering. And the boy ran, with Bellissima in his arms, as fast as he could toward the glover’s house.
“Where are you running?” shouted a policeman. Bellissima began to bark. “Have you stolen this dog?” demanded the policeman, taking the animal from him.
“Oh, give it back to me!” wailed the boy.
“If it’s really yours—and you haven’t just stolen it—then you can tell them at home that they can get it back by coming to the police station.” And the policeman told the frightened child on which street the police station was to be found, and walked away with Bellissima in his arms.
How miserable the poor little boy was! He didn’t know whether he should go to the glovemaker’s and tell what had happened, or jump in the Arno. “She will kill me,” he thought. “But I don’t mind dying for them. I will go up to heaven to the Blessed Virgin and Jesus.” Having made his decision, he walked home to tell all and be killed.
The door was locked and he could not reach the knocker. The street was empty. He found a stone and banged on the door with it.
The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories Page 20