For the Blood Is the Life. Francis Marion Crawford
green and trunk hose of scarlet, the tight sleeve, slashed at the elbows where the fine linen showed in symmetrical puffs, the black shoes and the gold chain which hung about his neck. He was old, indeed, but his walk had a matchless grace and his erect form still showed the remains of the giant's strength. His dark eyes were brilliant still and emitted a lustre that illuminated the pale, regular features, too deathlike to convey any impression of life without that glance of the sparkling soul within.
He paused before the group and courteously bent his head. All rose to greet him, and if there was less of awe in the action there was perhaps more of reverence, than any had felt when the greater guest had entered.
"I am Lionardo," he said in a low and musical voice. " Lionardo, the artist —' from Vinci' they call me, because I was born there. I have joined you and the rest — these dear friends of mine who have made me one of them, and you who have conferred on us the privilege of once more exchanging thoughts and grasping hands with the living."
"There is none whom we will more gladly honour," said Augustus, gravely. " The privilege is ours, not yours. Be seated— be one of us if you will, as well as one of these — whom you have known so long."
"Long — yes — it seems long to me, very, very long. But I have not forgotten what it was to live. I loved life well. Men have said of me that I wasted much time — I have been laughed at as a blower of soap-bubbles, as a foolish fellow who spent his time in trying to teach lizards to fly. Perhaps it is true. I have learned the secret now, and I have learned that I could not have attained to it then. But it was sweet to seek after it."
"I have read those foolish stories," said Diana, whose eyes rested in rapt admiration on the grand features of the artist. " No one believes them — "
" Here in Italy," said Caesar, in his placid yet dominating tones, " people may say of you as the English said of their architect — si monumentum quceris, circumspice."
"They would have needed to bury my body by the sluices of the Lecco canal, to give the same force to the epitaph," answered Lionardo, with a soft laugh. Then with the courtesy natural to him he turned to Diana who had been speaking when interrupted by Caesar's quotation.
"I appreciate the kindly thought that makes you say that, Lady Diana — your name is Diana? Yes, it suits your face. I used to think I could guess people's names from their faces. Another of my foolish fancies. However, I am obliged to say that there is some truth in the report concerning the soap-bubbles. I had a theory that they were like drops of liquid — that each drop had a skin and that I could make drops of air and find out how they would act, by giving them artificial skins like those of other liquids. Something has been produced from the idea by modern students. The mistake I made was in attempting to work out my theory before proclaiming it. That is impossible. Modern students make a fat living by proclaiming their theories first and omitting to demonstrate them afterwards, taking for granted that no one will deny what persons of such importance as themselves choose to suggest."
"I have never heard that you were so cynical," said Lady Brenda.
"Nor in your presence could I be so long," rejoined the old artist, with a smile. " But I was not cynical in my time. I am cynical in yours. Save for such company as these gentlewomen, I would not choose to be alive to-day."
Caesar sighed and looked away from the rest, his nervous white hand tightening upon the carved arm of his deep-seated chair. It was a long, deep breath, drawn in with sudden and overwhelming thought of returning vitality and possibility, swelling the breast with the old imperial courage, the mighty grandeur of heart which had ruled the world; then relinquished and breathed out again in despair, deep, inconsolable and heart-rending, in the despair which the dead man whose deeds are all done and whose life-book is closed for ever feels when he gazes on the living whose race is not yet begun.
" Yes," said Lionardo, looking kindly at the conqueror's averted face, "you are right — for yourself. We are not all such as Caius. If I were to live again I should waste more time in disproving theories today than I ever wasted in trying to prove them four hundred years ago. We were all for progress under Ludovico Sforza. Borgia understood progress in his own way — but it was progress, too, for all that. He could have given lessons in more than one thing to many of your moderns. Even Pope Leo understood what progress meant, in spite of his ideas about my methods of painting. But nowadays everything goes backwards. A bag of money is paraded through the world bound on an ass's back, and everybody worships the ass, and men lie down and let him walk over them, thinking perchance that the beast may stumble, and the sack burst open, and that haply they may scrape up some of the coin in the filth of the road. We were more simple than the moderns. We had less money, but we knew better how to spend it."
"Is it true, I wonder," put in Augustus, " that the amount of money in circulation indicates progress while the way in which men spend it indicates civilisation?"
"No," said Caesar, answering for the rest. " The nation which has the greater wealth may not have progressed further than others, save in power. Power is not progress — it depends on other things. It is the result of a combination of strength and discipline under an intelligent leader. The highest power is generally reached by a people when the spirit of organisation has attained its greatest development in military matters but has not yet spread to the civil professions. The army is then held in the highest esteem and is the favourite profession. When the passion for order has extended to mercantile affairs, the nation's actual power as compared with other nations begins to decline. Interests of all kinds become vested in the maintenance of peace, and the warlike element falls into disrepute. It becomes the nation's business to lend money to other nations who are still in the military stage, herself meanwhile giving and receiving guarantees of peace. But though a people may be rich by commerce they may not have progressed; and again whole nations may be made fabulously wealthy by seizing the wealth of others. We Romans did that. We did not pretend to the culture of the Greeks; we certainly did not possess their skill in making money—but we possessed them and their country, and gold flowed in our streets. It did us very little good. We got it without progress, by force, and we spent it recklessly in paying men to tear each other to pieces. No — a large amount of money in circulation does not indicate progress, though it may be the result of it."
"Money is very uninteresting," said Gwendoline. "It always seems to me that the world would be much nicer without it."
"When you are as old as I am, you will appreciate your advantages, my dear," said Lady Brenda. " It is good to be rich, and I fancy it must be very disagreeable to be poor."
"But I know quite well how it feels to have money," objected Gwendoline. "I would like to know how it feels to have power — power such as you had," she added, looking at Caesar.
"Not many have known what it is," he answered, with a curious smile. " Each one who has possessed it has probably felt it in a different way. For my part, though I was accused of not being serious in my youth, like Lionardo here, I think I grew more than serious under the responsibility. Perhaps, however, it made less difference to me than it has to others. I was born to wealth, if not to power, and I resolved to make the most of my money. I made use of it by spending it all and then borrowing largely on the security of what I had squandered. They said I was not serious — but they made me leave the country nevertheless."
"I imagine," said Gwendoline, "that to have boundless power suddenly put into one's hands must make one feel as though one were to live for ever."
"Living for ever is a sad pastime without it," returned Caesar. "I am not of Lionardo's mind. I would live again."
"To die again as you died ?" asked Diana in a low voice.
" Yes," answered the dead conqueror, " to die again as I died, if need be, but to have power once 'more. And I know what I say—you cannot know. For death was horrible to me. Not the physical pain of it, though they were clumsy fellows; they were long in killing me — I thought it would never end. I could have done it better myself, and indeed I was more merciful to them than they to me. Not one of them died a natural death, for I pursued them one by one when I was dead. I have never seen them since ; they are not here. But none of them suffered as I did. I knew that my hour was come when I got that first wound in the throat, and as