NO sooner had I got to bed, than I ordered my serving-maids to carry
food and wine for all the men into the workshop; at the same time I
cried: “I shall not be alive tomorrow.” They tried to encourage me,
arguing that my illness would pass over, since it came from excessive
fatigue. In this way I spent two hours battling with the fever, which
steadily increased, and calling out continually: “I feel that I am
dying.” My housekeeper, who was named Mona Fiore da Castel del Rio, a
very notable manager and no less warm-hearted, kept chiding me for my
discouragement; but, on the other hand, she paid me every kind attention
which was possible. However, the sight of my physical pain and moral
dejection so affected her, that, in spite of that brave heart of hers,
she could not refrain from shedding tears; and yet, so far as she was
able, she took good care I should not see them. While I was thus
terribly afflicted, I beheld the figure of a man enter my chamber,
twisted in his body into the form of a capital S. He raised a
lamentable, doleful voice, like one who announces their last hour to men
condemned to die upon the scaffold, and spoke these words: “O Benvenuto!
your statue is spoiled, and there is no hope whatever of saving it.” No
sooner had I heard the shriek of that wretch than I gave a howl which
might have been heard from the sphere of flame. Jumping from my bed, I
seized my clothes and began to dress. The maids, and my lads, and every
one who came around to help me, got kicks or blows of the fist, while I
kept crying out in lamentation: “Ah! traitors! enviers! This is an act
of treason, done by malice prepense! But I swear by God that I will sift
it to the bottom, and before I die will leave such witness to the world
of what I can do as shall make a score of mortals marvel.”
When I had got my clothes on, I strode with soul bent on mischief toward
the workshop; there I beheld the men, whom I had left erewhile in such
high spirits, standing stupefied and downcast. I began at once and
spoke: “Up with you! Attend to me! Since you have not been able or
willing to obey the directions I gave you, obey me now that I am with
you to conduct my work in person. Let no one contradict me, for in cases
like this we need the aid of hand and hearing, not of advice.” When I
had uttered these words, a certain Maestro Alessandro Lastricati broke
silence and said: “Look you, Benvenuto, you are going to attempt an
enterprise which the laws of art do not sanction, and which cannot
succeed.” I turned upon him with such fury and so full of mischief, that
he and all the rest of them exclaimed with one voice: “On then! Give
orders! We will obey your least commands, so long as life is left in
us.” I believe they spoke thus feelingly because they thought I must
fall shortly dead upon the ground. I went immediately to inspect the
furnace, and found that the metal was all curdled; an accident which we
express by “being caked.” [1] I told two of the hands to cross the road,
and fetch from the house of the butcher Capretta a load of young
oak-wood, which had lain dry for above a year; this wood had been
previously offered me by Madame Ginevra, wife of the said Capretta. So
soon as the first armfuls arrived, I began to fill the grate beneath the
furnace. [2] Now oak-wood of that kind heats more powerfully than any
other sort of tree; and for this reason, where a slow fire is wanted, as
in the case of gun-foundry, alder or pine is preferred. Accordingly,
when the logs took fire, oh! how the cake began to stir beneath that
awful heat, to glow and sparkle in a blaze! At the same time I kept
stirring up the channels, and sent men upon the roof to stop the
conflagration, which had gathered force from the increased combustion in
the furnace; also I caused boards, carpets, and other hangings to be set
up against the garden, in order to protect us from the violence of the
rain.