At last the Prince has roused himself from his stupor. His face is full of energy, with its short spade beard and lean pallid cheeks, the swift glance keeping almost imperceptible vigil like a bird of prey over its chosen territory. He must be about to hunt his favorite prey, the old archenemy of his clan.
Today I saw him hurrying up the palace steps closely followed by the Captain of the Guard. I think they had come from some military inspection. In the hall he threw his cloak to the servitors and stood there in his scarlet suit, strong and supple as a rapier, with a reckless smile on his thin lips. He looked as though he had just flung off a disguise, radiating unquenchable energy, in every way a man of action.
But I have always known that he was.
THE astrologers have declared that the times are particularly propitious to war, they could not have been better chosen. They have cast the Prince’s horoscope and discovered that he was born under the sign of the Lion. That is nothing new; it has been common knowledge from his birth, when it is said to have greatly exercised the imagination of his entourage, being a good and promising omen for a prince and causing much wonder and some anxiety among the people. That is why he is called Leone. Mars is now in juxtaposition to the Lion and soon the war god’s red star will reach the Prince’s own powerful constellation. Other celestial phenomena which exercise an influence on the Prince’s destiny are absolutely favorable, and so a happy issue to the campaign can be guaranteed. It would be almost unforgivable not to make use of such an unique opportunity.
Their predictions have not surprised me, for they always accord with the Prince’s wishes, especially since his father once had a stargazer thrashed for maintaining that a misfortune threatened the dynasty. He had calculated that an evil star, trailing blood and fire behind it, had shown itself in the sky just as the founder of the family was making his bloodstained ascent to the throne. The prophecy has not come true, or not more than in any other princely dynasty.
No, I am not surprised and, for once, I am quite pleased with them. They are really skilled in their science and at last they have been of some use, for it is very important that the Prince, the soldiers and all the people should believe that the stars are favorable to their plans and interested in them. The stars now have spoken and everybody is very satisfied with what they have said.
I never converse with the stars, but these people do.
ONCE AGAIN Maestro Bernardo has astonished me. Last night the Prince and he had one of their long confidential discussions, and, as so often before, sat eagerly talking until late at night. This proves to me that the sage has not lost his significance nor has he, by his speculative brood-ings, segregated himself from the restless world of today. Not at all. I was thoroughly mistaken.
It annoys me when I make a mistake like that, though nobody else can see through people and unmask them as I do.
When I was sent for, in order to wait on them as usual and fetch their wine goblets, they were both bending over some mysterious drawings which at first I could not understand. Later I got a better view of them and heard them being explained during the course of the conversation. They represented the most dreadful engines of war, intended to sow death and panic among the enemy; battle chariots to mow down the soldiery, furnished with long blades so that the ground about them was strewn with human limbs, and other devilish wheeled inventions to be propelled by galloping horses into the midst of the enemy’s ranks. Nothing, not even the greatest courage, could stop these covered wagons filled with inaccessible marksmen which, according to his descriptions, would be able to break through the strongest array, after which the infantry could press forward and do their part. There were instruments of murder so appalling that I, alas, who have never been able to dedicate myself to the art of war, could not properly understand. Mortars, culverins, and falconets spewing fire and stones and cannon balls which severed the heads and arms of the soldiers were depicted realistically and clearly, as though their representation had been as absorbing as all the rest. He also gave a detailed description of the terrible destruction caused by these various engines, of the havoc they would wreak, and he told of all this as calmly and precisely as if he were dealing with any of the other matters in which he takes an interest. One realized that he wanted to see his machines in action, as was quite logical, since they are so wonderful and his own inventions.
Maestro Bernardo has been planning this simultaneously with his other occupations, his nature studies when he examined his extraordinary pebbles and pulled his flowers apart, and his ferreting in Francesco’s body, which I remember him describing to the Prince as one of nature’s great unfathomable masterpieces and his picture of the Last Supper in Santa Croce with the celestial Christ sitting among His disciples at their love feast with Judas the betrayer crouched in his far corner.
He has been equally attracted and preoccupied by all these things, so why should he not be just as entranced by his marvelous machines? It may be that the human body is a most ingenious construction, though I cannot look upon it as such. But so is such an instrument and, again, it is his very own discovery.
Oddly enough the Prince was not so interested in those terrible contrivances which to my mind would be the most effective and which by their appearance alone might stampede a whole army; he preferred the less impressive ones which did not testify to such a macabre and powerful imagination, but which he maintained would be even more efficacious. He observed that the ghastliest of all were more suited to the future, but anything which could possibly be put into practice would be used. Grapnels for the investment of a fortress, a remarkable method of mining bastions and blowing them up, ingenious improvements for catapults and ordnance unknown to the enemy -clearly all these matters already had been fully discussed and partially exploited by them.
All this impressive material-the incredible profusion of ideas and inventions, the fertile, seemingly boundless inspiration-aroused the Prince’s deepest admiration, and he was enthusiastic in his praises of the master’s genius. Never before had he given such proof of the range of his imagination and ingenuity! All that evening they plunged into the tantalizing realm of fantasy, exchanging opinions as eagerly as during one of the most profitable evenings they had spent before. And I listened to them with pleasure, for I too for once was filled with delight and admiration.
Now I know why the Prince summoned the great Messer Bernardo, and why he has always treated him as an equal during his stay and always shown him such deep appreciation and flattering attention. I understand his burning interest in all Bernardo’s scholarly efforts, for his nature studies, his incredible knowledge which includes the practical and the useless, and that sensitive admiring verdict on the master’s art, his Last Supper in Santa Croce, and all the other works of the learned man. I undertsand it all!
He is a great prince!
LAST NIGHT I had a horrible dream. I thought that I saw Maestro Bernardo standing on a high mountain, tall and imposing with his gray hair and his mighty brow, but the air about his head was full of monsters flapping on bats’ wings, all the foul freaks which I knew from his drawings in Santa Croce. They fluttered about him like imps and it seemed as though he were their master. Their ghostly faces resembled those of lizards and toads, but his remained grave, stern and noble. He seemed just the same as usual. Then, by slow degrees, his body underwent a change. It became shrunken and misshapen, and crumpled wings sprouted forth which joined to the thin hairy legs like those of a bat. His face was as solemn as before, but he began to flutter his wings and suddenly he rose and flew away with the other gruesome creatures into the darkness of the night.