"'His book is but the vesture of her spirit;
So too thy poet, that feels the living coal
Flame on his lips and leap to song, shall know,
To whom the glory, whose the unending merit;
Nor faltering shall his utterance be, nor slow
The mute confession of his inmost soul.'"
Reading, he became absorbed in this fantastic, but not unhandsome piece;
even Selvaggia pondered it with wide eyes and lips half parted. It was
certainly very wonderful that a man could say such things, she thought.
Were they true? Could they be true of any one in the world--even of
Beatrice Portinari, that wonderful dead lady? She had never, she
remembered, shown this particular sonnet to Nicoletta. What would
Nicoletta have said? Pooh, what nonsense it was, what arrant nonsense in
a man who could carry a sword, if he chose, and kill his enemies, or,
better still, with his head outwit them--that he should turn to pens and
ink and to fogging a poor girl! So Selvaggia, not so Ugolino. He got up
and whispered to the scowling Ridolfo; Ridolfo nodded, and the pair of
them went off presently together.
Oblique looks on Cino were the immediate outcome. He knew the young men
disliked him, but cared little for that so long as they left him free
to his devotions. A brisk little passage, a rally of words, with a bite
in some of them, should have warned him; but no, the stage he had
reached was out of range of the longest shots.
Said Ugolino at supper: "Messer Giurisconsulto, will you have a red
pepper?"
"Thank you, Messere," replied Cino, "it is over hot for my tongue."
The huge Ridolfo threw his head back to laugh. "Does a burnt man dread
the fire, or is he only to be fired one way? Why, man alive, my sister
has set a flaming coal to your lips, and I am told you burst out singing
instead of singeing."
Cino coloured at this lunge; yet his respect for the lady of his mind
was such that he could not evade it.
"You take the language of metaphor, Messere," said he, rather stiffly,
"to serve your occasions. You are of course within your rights. However,
I will beg leave to be excused the red pepper of Messer Ugolino."
"You prefer coals?" cried Ugolino, starting up. "Good! you shall have
them."
That was all; but the malign smile upon the dark youth's face gave a
ring to the words, and an omen.
Late that night Cino was in his chamber writing a _ballata_. His little
oil-lamp was by his side; the words flowed freely from his pen; tears
hot and honest were in his eyes as he felt rather than thought his
exquisite griefs. Despised and rejected of men was he--and why? For the
love of a beautiful lady. Eh, Mother of God, but that was worth the
pain! She had barely lifted her eyes upon him all that day, and while
her brothers gibed had been at no concern to keep straight her scornful
lip. Patience, he was learning his craft! The words flowed like blood
from a vein.
"Love struck me in the side,
And from the wound my soul took wing and flew
To Heaven, and all my pride
Fell, and I knew
There was no balm could stay that wound so wide."
At this moment came a rapping at his door. He went to open it, dreaming
no harm. There stood Ridolfo and Ugolino with swords in their right
hands; in his left Ugolino carried a brazier.
"Gentlemen," said Cino, "what is the meaning of this? Will you break in
upon the repose of your father's guest? And do you come armed against an
unarmed man?"
The pair of them, however, came into the room, and Ridolfo locked the
door behind him. "Look you, Cino," said he, "our father's guests are not
our guests, for our way is to choose our own. There is a vast difference
between us, and it lies in this, that you and the like of you are
word-mongers, phrasers, heart-strokers; whereas we, Master Cino, are, in
Scripture language, doers of the word, rounding our phrases with iron,
and putting in full-stops with the point when they are needed. And we do
not stroke girls' hearts, Cino, but as often as not break men's heads."
Cino, for all his dismay, could not forbear a glance at the speaker's
own damaged pate. "And, after all, Messer Ridolfo, in that you do but
as you are done by, and who will blame you?"
"Hark'ee, Master Giurista," broke in Ugolino, "we have come to prove
some of these fine words of yours. It will be well for you to answer
questions instead of bandying them. Now did you, or did you not report
that my sister Selvaggia touched your lips with a coal and set you off
singing?"
Cino, with folded arms, bent his head in assent: "I have said it,
Messere."
"Good! Now, such singing, though it is not to her taste, might be very
much to ours. In fact we have come to hear it, and that you might be
robbed of all excuse, we have brought the key with us. Brother, pray
blow up the brazier."
Ridolfo, with his great cheeks like bladders, blew the coals to a white
heat. "Now then," he said, grinning to Ugolino, "now then, the concert
may begin."
Cino, who by this time had seen what was in the wind, saw also what his
course must be. Whatever happened he could not allow a poet to be made
ridiculous. It was ridiculous to struggle with two armed men, and
unseemly; but suffering was never ridiculous. Patience, therefore! He
anticipated the burly Ridolfo, who, having done his bellows-work, was
now about to pin his victim from behind.
"Pray do not give yourself the pain to hold me, Messere," said he; "I am
not the man to deny you your amusement. Do what you will, I shall not
budge from here."
He stood where he was with his arms crossed, and he kept his word. The
red cinder hissed upon his lips; he shut his eyes, he ground his teeth
together, the sweat beaded his forehead and glistened in his hair. Once
he reeled over, and would have fallen if Ridolfo had not been there to
catch him; but he did not sing the tune they had expected, and presently
they let him alone. So much for Italian humour, which, you will see,
does not lack flavour. It was only the insensate obtuseness of the gull
which prevented Ugolino dying of laughter. Ridolfo was annoyed.
"Give me cold iron to play with another time," he growled; "I am sick of
your monkey-tricks." This hurt Ugolino a good deal, for it made him feel
a fool.
Will it be believed that the infatuate Master Cino spent the rest of the
night in a rapture of poetry? It was not voiced poetry, could never have
been written down; rather, it was a torrent of feeling upon which he
floated out to heaven, in which he bathed. It thrilled through every
fibre of his body till he felt the wings of his soul fluttering madly to
be free. This was the very ecstasy of love, to suffer the extreme
torment for the beloved! Ah, he was smitten deep enough at last; if
poetry were to be won through bloody sweat, the pains of the rack, the
crawling anguish of the fire, was not poetry his own? Yes, indeed; what
Dante had gained through exile and the death of Monna Beatrice was his
for another price, the price of his own blood. He forgot the physical
agony of his scorched mouth, forgot the insult, forgot everything but
this ineffable achievement, this desperate essay, this triumph, this
anointing. Cino, Cino, martyr for Love! Hail, Cino, crowned with thy
pain! He could have held up his bleeding heart and worshipped it. Surely
this was the greatest hour of his life.
Before he left Pitecchio, and that was before the dawn came upon it, he
wrote this letter to his mistress.
"To his unending Lady, the image of all lovely delight, the Lady
Selvaggia, Cino the poet, martyr for love, wisheth health and
honour with kissing of feet. Madonna, if sin it be to lift over
high the eyes, I have sinned very grievously; and if to have great
joy be assurance of forgiveness, then am I twice absolved. Such
bliss as I have had in the contemplation of your excellence cometh
not to many men, yet that which hath befallen me this night
(concerning which your honourable brothers shall inform you if you
ask them)--this indeed is to be blessed of love so high, so rarely,
that it were hard to believe myself the recipient, but for certain
bodily testimony which, I doubt not, I shall carry about me to my
last hour. I leave this house within a little while and go to the
hermitage of Santa Marcella Pistoiese, there to pray Almighty God
to make me worthy of my dignities and to contemplate the divine
image of you wherewith my heart is sealed. So fare you well!--The
most abject of your slaves,
"CINO."
His reason for giving the name of his new refuge was an honourable one,
and would appeal to a duellist. His flight, though necessary, should be
robbed of all appearance of flight; if they wanted him they could find
him. Other results it had--results which he could never have
anticipated, and which to have foreseen would have made him choose any
other form of disgrace. But this was out of the question; nothing known
to Cino or his philosophy could have told him the future of his conduct.
He placed his letter in an infallible place and left Pitecchio just as
the western sky was throbbing with warm light.
For the present I leave him on his way.