THE FELLOW could not stand quiet to hear the damning errors of his Cacus
in their turn enumerated. For one thing, I was telling the truth; for
another, I was unmasking him to the Duke and all the people present, who
showed by face and gesture first their surprise, and next their
conviction that what I said was true. All at once he burst out: “Ah, you
slanderous tongue! why don’t you speak about my design?” I retorted: “A
good draughtsman can never produce bad works; therefore I am inclined to
believe that your drawing is no better than your statues.” When he saw
the amused expression on the Duke’s face and the cutting gestures of the
bystanders, he let his insolence get the better of him, and turned to me
with that most hideous face of his, screaming aloud: “Oh, hold your
tongue, you ugly…” [1] At these words the Duke frowned, and the
others pursed their lips up and looked with knitted grows toward him.
The horrible affront half maddened me with fury; but in a moment I
recovered presence of mind enough to turn it off with a jest; “You
madman! you exceed the bounds of decency. Yet would to God that I
understood so noble an art as you allude to; they say that Jove used it
with Ganymede in paradise, and here upon this earth it is practised by
some of the greatest emperors and kings. I, however, am but a poor
humble creature, who neither have the power nor the intelligence to
perplex my wits with anything so admirable.” When I had finished this
speech, the Duke and his attendants could control themselves no longer,
but broke into such shouts of laughter that one never heard the like.
You must know, gentle readers, that though I put on this appearance of
pleasantry, my heart was bursting in my body to think that a fellow, the
foulest villain who ever breathed, should have dared in the presence of
so great a prince to cast an insult of that atrocious nature in my
teeth; but you must also know that he insulted the Duke, and not me; for
had I not stood in that august presence, I should have felled him dead
to earth. When the dirty stupid scoundrel observed that those gentlemen
kept on laughing, he tried to change the subject, and divert them from
deriding him; so he began as follows: “This fellow Benvenuto goes about
boasting that I have promised him a piece of marble.” I took him up at
once. “What! did you not send to tell me by your journeyman, Francesco,
that if I wished to work in marble you would give me a block? I accepted
it, and mean to have it.” He retorted: “Be very well assured that you
will never get it.” Still smarting as I was under the calumnious insults
he had flung at me, I lost my self-control, forgot I was in the presence
of the Duke, and called out in a storm of fury: “I swear to you that if
you do not send the marble to my house, you had better look out for
another world, for if you stay upon this earth I will most certainly rip
the wind out of your carcass. [2] Then suddenly awaking to the fact that
I was standing in the presence of so great a duke, I turned submissively
to his Excellency and said: “My lord, one fool makes a hundred; the
follies of this man have blinded me for a moment to the glory of your
most illustrious Excellency and to myself. I humbly crave your pardon.”
Then the Duke said to Bandinello: “Is it true that you promised him the
marble?” He replied that it was true. Upon this the Duke addressed me:
“Go to the Opera, and choose a piece according to your taste.” I
demurred that the man had promised to sent it home to me. The words that
passed between us were awful, and I refused to take the stone in any
other way. Next morning a piece of marble was brought to my house. On
asking who had sent it, they told me it was Bandinello, and that this
was the very block which he had promised. 3