The Hound of Florence (12 page)

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“Have you made friends with him yet?”

Cesare Bandini was sitting on the fat officer's armchair as he asked the question. He spoke quietly, glancing over at Lucas, who was sitting some distance away by the side of the monk, absorbed in his work.

Captain Ercole da Moreno, the fat officer, was standing behind Bandini, as excited and modest as a young pupil, watching the Maestro with fevered brow and his mop of white hair almost standing up on end as his teacher criticised and corrected the little Madonna picture. Short, bull-necked Pietro Rossellino also left his turn-table and joined them. Cesare Bandini inclined his head this way and that, screwed up his eyes, and touched the picture here and there with his fine pointed brush, humming softly to himself. The two pupils stood behind his chair, watching in intent silence. Captain Ercole was breathing heavily. Now and again Bandini said a word or two. “Yes . . . that's all right. . . .” or “What about this fold here . . . you meant it to look like that, didn't you?” And Ercole da Moreno would give a loud snort. “The expression should be a little more serene, Ercole,” Bandini continued. “It's all in the eyes . . . and here in the cheeks. You'll get it right in time.”

“Oof!” gasped the Captain.

Presently Bandini leaned back in the arm-chair, and glancing across at Lucas again, whispered: “Have you made friends with him yet?”

“He's been once or twice to the osteria with us, yes,” replied Pietro Rossellino.

“And what do you make of him?” asked Bandini, leaning back in the chair and glancing up enquiringly at the Captain.

“A good fellow!” replied Ercole.

“Yes, I like him,” Bandini observed with a smile. “He works like one possessed. He plays with his task like a child, grapples with it like a man, and thinks of nothing else. At least, when he's at his easel, he has the strength to forget everything else.”

“But has he genius?” Rossellino exclaimed peevishly.

Bandini smiled. “Just look at him, Pietro, and tell me how he could possibly fail to have genius. I want to paint him—or rather I want to teach him to paint himself. It will be a picture worthy of taking its place by the side of the best great masters' portraits of themselves as young men. At all events I for one can never look at him without thinking—the portrait of a great master as a young man. . . .”

“It sounds all right, Bandini,” said Ercole, shaking his great mane of hair. “You may be right . . . I don't understand enough about it.”

“Why, the man has his calling written all over his drawn features,” exclaimed Bandini. “He's all will, one single thought breathes from every pore. Have you ever looked into his eyes? What a powerful soul, what a potent spirit lies hid in them! But it is impossible to read them. They reveal nothing, those eyes of his—nothing either about his soul or his spirit. All they do is to absorb, devour the whole world about them; they pilfer everything they rest on.”

“Thief!” snorted Ercole.

“Ye-es,” chanted Bandini, with a contented little laugh. “Every man who conquers the world is a thief. But he pays her back two or three times over at compound interest, so that after all he is a prince. That fellow is only just beginning, and that's why today he is still a beggar. Later on he too will be a prince. He does not know it. Yet he is half aware of it. He is burning with the desire to become what he will be in time. Just you watch him. He looks poor and weak and wretched, doesn't he? But he has the iron thinness of the man fighting with Fate, the man who will do or die! What a brave, proud nose he has! Do you notice how slender it is at the root and thin between the eyes? The height of the bridge is exactly right, and it stands out with noble determination. What do you think, Pietro? I don't know, but I almost feel as if the feature I like best about him is his mouth.”

“Too small,” whispered Pietro.

“Possibly,” replied Bandini, describing figures in the air with his finely shaped hand, as though his attention were focussed on some picture. “Possibly. All the same . . . his mouth . . . his mouth . . . what does its expression signify? Those fine lips do not breathe, they imbibe. They are silent and yet seem always as if they must speak. They are insatiable. God in Heaven! how frantically eager that mouth is for life!”

“What one would like to know,” snorted Ercole, “what one would like to know is whether he has ever kissed a woman.”

“Why don't you ask him if you want to know so badly?” laughed Bandini, unexpectedly rising from his seat. And a sudden shadow passed across his face as he once more glanced over at Lucas. “Well, we'll see how he turns out,” he remarked in a changed voice as he returned to his own easel.

Presently the garden door was flung open, and Filippo Volta, the man who had introduced Lucas on his first visit to the studio, appeared on the threshold.

“Claudia is here!” he cried gleefully. “She wants to know whether she may come in.”

“Ye-es,” replied a sing-song voice from behind Bandini's easel.

Filippo Volta hesitated. “I only ask because she happens to have Count Peretti with her. . . .”

Bandini did not reply and after a moment Filippo Volta vanished. Outside the sound of a woman laughing could be heard, together with a confused murmur of voices and the rustle of skirts.

A little knot of people pressed through the garden door and scattered, allowing a tall young woman to step proudly forward.

Deeply moved by her appearance, Lucas turned quickly to the monk who was sitting beside him. “Reverend brother—who is that?” he stammered in low tones.

But the monk, who had already sprung to his feet, left the place without vouchsafing a reply.

A rude and blustering man's voice could suddenly be heard asserting itself. “Just look at Claudia, Bandini! Yesterday I bought the pearls she has in her hair and only an hour ago I bought the cloak she is wearing. We want to know what you think of them.”

“Silence, you idiot!” exclaimed Claudia sharply. “Can't you wait until you're asked?”

Everybody laughed, even Count Peretti joining in. He stood there fat and conceited, his brutal face with its massive chin thrust forward, and his sharp little eyes screwed up. Utterly at a loss to know what to say or do, he merely looked knowing and laughed.

“Bandini,” observed Claudia, “I have not come about the pearls or the stupid cloak. . . . I wanted to see you and enjoy the pleasure of your company again.” Her voice sounded gentle, almost tender, with a proud golden ring in it, vibrating with joy and expectation.

Bandini went on painting.

Lucas gazed in utter bewilderment at the young woman. Her blue velvet cloak, embroidered with silver lilies, hung in heavy, luxurious folds from her slender shoulders, enveloping her frame like solemn music, while the broad sweep of its ermine border was held up behind by the hands of a little Moorish servant, who stood stiff and motionless behind her, allowing only the whites of his eyes to move. Lucas gazed spellbound at the gold brocade and white lace which hardly hid her breast; he noticed the edging of soft downy fur tenderly encircling her dazzling white neck, and on the latter he saw the tiny curls which seemed almost to breathe. He saw her hair shimmering with the pearls entwined in its meshes and crowning her lovely face like a helmet of gold, and he caught the proud and happy glance in her sparkling blue eyes.

“May I look at what you are painting, Bandini?” she asked. “I haven't been here for such a long time.”

Bandini made some reply in his sing-song voice and went on painting. Claudia came closer. But suddenly drawing herself up, she turned to Peretti, who was pressing after her. “What do you want?” she asked sternly.

Peretti gave a loud guffaw. “Just listen, Bandini, she is asking what I want! Just as if I didn't want to see your picture, too!”

“Don't make such a noise in here, you idiot!” snapped Claudia. “It's quite impossible to bring you into decent company. . . . Hold your tongue, I tell you!” And she repeated her orders even more sharply, when Peretti tried to laugh. “Bandini never gave you permission to look at his picture,” she added.

Peretti had retreated a step or two. “Bandini,” he cried, “what do you say to that? She says you haven't given me permission!”

Bandini did not reply at once. But presently, without interrupting his work, he said calmly, “Perhaps you will have an opportunity of seeing the picture when it is finished.” His tone was cheerful and courteous but his words seemed to fix a great gulf between himself and Peretti.

For a moment the studio was plunged in silence, the only sound that could be heard being the puffing and blowing of Captain Ercole behind his little Madonna picture.

“Bandini, I'll buy your picture!” cried Peretti. “I'll buy it as it stands, and give it to Claudia. How much do you want for it? I'll buy it on the spot. . . . I don't even wish to see it.”

He spoke with great excitement, a note of anger lurking in his words; but he made no attempt to get closer. He turned to Claudia's two young female servants as he spoke, and to the fat old mulatto who was standing beside the Moorish boy, and then glanced round the studio expectantly to see what impression his offer had produced.

“Aren't you going to stop blustering and swaggering about like a mountebank, you lout?” exclaimed Claudia, turning to him with an impatient laugh. She was now standing behind Bandini's easel.

“Come, Claudia,” said Bandini when silence had been restored, “your way of addressing Peretti is new to me.”

“It is not my way, but his,” laughed Claudia. “It's the way which suits him; it is only what he deserves.”

Bandini smiled.

“Yes,” Claudia went on gravely and simply, “ever since he was a child the fellow has always been addressed as my lord this and my lord that, and may it please your lordship, and heaven knows what other tomfoolery. . . . It is too ridiculous . . . an idiot like him! It's high time he learned that he is a blockhead, a booby, an absolute buffoon and nothing else. He must be told it once and for all. The information is long overdue. . . . Oh, you leave it to me, Bandini, he is only getting what he deserves.”

“Oh, I'm not objecting,” replied Bandini with a smile.

“No! That's all right!” cried Claudia in high glee.

“Do you suppose he does not know he is only getting what he deserves?” she asked presently in grave, eager tones. “And he takes it well from me. He likes it. The fool does not understand what I mean, and that's why he enjoys it. A man like him imagines he is something quite different, if you please—above everything and everybody!”

Peretti gave a derisive laugh.

“Hush!” cried Claudia angrily. “You have no idea, Bandini,” she continued, “what liberties a fellow like that has the impudence and presumption to take! The things he has done already! Oh, it's not the least bit of good calling him a blockhead, a lout, an idiot and God knows what else. He should be made to feel—yes, feel—that there is someone stronger, than he is. Good heavens! if only some man could come along—some man who would knock him down with one blow!”

Lucas was twitching with longing to fulfill the wish of the fair Claudia on the spot. He was seized with a mad courage, a blessed madness. As he sprang to his feet his drawing-board fell to the ground with a crash. He almost fell down himself. But he came to his senses almost immediately. Claudia had looked at him!

Standing between the two maids, Peretti was laughing coarsely and winking at the mulatto.

“Well, did you hear what I said, Bandini,” he cried quite unconcerned, “I'll buy that picture. . . .”

Once again Bandini allowed a few moments to elapse, and then in calm and distant tones, replied: “The picture belongs to his Grace the Archduke.”

“Oh really!” interposed Claudia gleefully. “That woman there on the triumphal car—Victory or whoever she is—the more I look at her—surely she's meant for me!”

“Certainly,” replied Bandini, “she is not unlike you in many ways. . . .”

“From memory!” Claudia exclaimed in astonishment. “Did you actually paint me from memory?”

“Of course!”

“How lovely to think that you remember me so well!” she continued with a sweet smile. “How delightful of you, Bandini. But—why didn't you send for me? Wouldn't that have been better?”

“No!”

“Why not?”

“I did not need you.”

Claudia's gentle laugh rippled through the room. “But how silly of you, Bandini. You wanted to paint me, and yet you did not need me . . . no, really, Bandini, you are silly although you are such a dear! So you did not need me . . . can you explain that to me?

“No!”

“You see, you can't even explain it to me. And why not?”

“Because you would not understand, Claudia.”

“But explain it all the same,” she begged, suddenly dropping into caressing tones, and imploring him humbly and gently. “Please do, I shan't leave you a moment's peace until you have explained.”

“I wanted, Claudia, to paint you as you might be,” was Bandini's mild rejoinder. “That is why I did not need you, that is why I did not wish to have you here in person. Do you understand?”

Claudia hesitated. “I . . . don't know,” she replied. “I hate that picture!” she added with a sudden revulsion of feeling.

Bandini took no notice of the remark. He continued calmly, “But I should like to paint a study of you now, and your visit happens to be extremely opportune.”

“Really?” cried Claudia, recovering her good cheer. “Do you want to paint me? How lovely! Do you really want to paint me? Now at once?”

“I want to paint your bust,” replied Bandini. “So will you be so good as to undress?”

“Peppina! Carletta!” cried Claudia excitedly, and began hurriedly trying to unfasten her tight-fitting bodice.