Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1940 (3 page)

He polished the pearl upon his sleeve, and slid it
carefully into its velvet bag.

"I think that some, if not all, of the forgotten
things are buried in your mind," he observed. "With you I tried a
certain way that fools call black magic."

Hypnotism, that
was it. Guaracco had
hypnotized me. Had he, in reality, found in my sub-conscious mind those
technical matters that I seemed to have almost forgotten?

"Every minute of your company," he was
continuing, "convinces me that I did well to spare your life and enlist you
in my service. Now, draw for me again."

I obeyed, and he watched. Once again he praised me, and
swore that I should be placed as a student with Andrea Verrocchio. It had grown
late by now, and he escorted me to my bed chamber, bidding me goodnight in most
cordial terms.

But, when the door closed behind him, I heard the key turn
in the heavy bronze lock.

Apprenticeship

ON the following day fell the torrents of rain that had
been prayed for in such occult
fashion,
and the trip
to
Florence
was postponed.

To my chagrin, my memories of various details that had
been so clear during my Twentieth Century existence were even cloudier, so much
more so that I spent the morning making notes of what little I remembered.

These notes Guaracco appropriated, with as cordial a
speech of thanks as though I had done them expressly for him. I might have
pretested, but near at hand loitered the uglier of his two dwarfs, and there
might have been even a greater danger at the window behind me, or hidden among
the tapestry folds at my elbow.

So I gave over writing, and went to talk to Lisa, the
sober but lovely young girl to whom he had introduced me the night before. I
found her still shyly friendly, possessed of unfailing good manners and charm.
She had needlework to do, and I sat talking and listening, fascinated by the
play of her deft white fingers. While we were together I, at least, felt less
the sense of being a prisoner and an underling.

But the rain had ceased by sunset, and early the next
morning Guaracco knocked at my door to call out that we would go to
Florence
immediately after breakfast. We ate quickly, and went out into the fine early
sunlight.

Servants—Guaracco had several in a nearby cottage,
peculiar fellows but deeply devoted to him — brought around horses, a fine
white stallion for Guaracco and an ordinary bay for me.

I mounted, being glad that I had not forgotten how to
ride, and we cantered off along a clay-hardened highway, with a groom on a
patient mule behind us.

We had not far to ride to
Florence
.
I found the valley of the
Arno
much the same as I had
known it in my former existence, green and bounded by hills, sprinkled with
villas, clusters of peasant huts, and suburbs, with the town in the middle.

Florence
itself was smaller, newer,
more
beautiful. The town
lay secure with high, battlemented walls of stone, with the river running
through. I saw the swell of the Duomo, second cathedral of all Christendom,
great and round and pale, like the moon descended to Earth; and around it, the towers
of many white houses and palaces, and cool green of garden trees.

The gate we entered was perhaps twenty-five feet wide by
fifteen high, and the tall lintel of gray-brown stone bore a bas-relief of St.
Mark's lion, complete with wings and book; also several female figures which
appeared to have tails.

Within the walls, the town I had known as grubbily ancient
in the Twentieth
Century,
all shone new and fresh. By
the clean whiteness of the houses and by their style of architecture, I judged
that all, or nearly all, of the older
Florence
had been razed to allow this new Renaissance capital of the Medici its full
glory.

The streets were for the most part smoothly paved, or at
least had good gutters and cobbles. Some of them, the side ways, were too
narrow, even for one-way traffic, and darkly close with the upper stories of
the houses projecting. In many places these upper stories jutted out so far as
to make a covered way for pedestrians at either side. Here and there stood the enclosed
mansions and gardens of nobles or wealthy merchants, and at many crossings were
wide squares, with, occasionally, the statue of a saint or a hero.

Many folk were afoot or on horseback, though there were
few wains, and these of the most primitive. Most of the transport was done by
donkey pannier, or in baskets on the brawny shoulders of porters. The people seemed
prosperous, and in most cases happy. Later I was to be reminded that the
Florentines then enjoyed a unique freedom, and
were
wont to boast about it to less favored Milanese or Venetians.

AT last, at Guaracco's signal, we reined our animals
before a tall, barnlike structure of drab stone, fronting away from the brink
of the green
Arno
. It was several stories high,

pierced
with many barred windows and
furnished with a double door of iron grillwork.

"This is Verrocchio's bottega," said my guide,
and we dismounted, leaving our bridle-ends in the hands of the silent groom.

I moved toward the door, but Guaracco's big hand touched
my elbow. I turned inquiringly.

"Before you enter here, I have a thought to burn into
you," he said in a cold, hushed voice.

With his deep, penetrating eyes, his red beard and
suddenly sinister face, he might have sat for a traditional portrait of Judas.
I knew, more fiercely than ever, a dislike and distrust of him.

"You wish to exact a vow of fealty from me?" I
suggested. "Vows begin, Ser Guaracco, only when hope is dead."

He shook his head, and under his beard his mouth wriggled,
like a snake in singed grass.

"No," he replied. "I exact no vow. I say
simply that if you betray me in word or deed, if you seek ever to hurt or to
hinder me—if, in short, you do not adhere to the service I have set you I will
see that you die by the foulest death ever invented."

"I am not afraid of you," I said to him,
striving in my heart to make this the truth.

"Nor do I seek your fear," was his quick
rejoinder.
"Only your understanding.
Shall we go
in?"

The great front room of the academy was as large as a
riding hall, with lofty, musty beams on the ceiling, and whitewashed walls; not
as much light as one might wish to paint by, but with the windows all set
toward clear, open ground. The corners of the room were cluttered with art
materials, plaster molds, half-finished paintings on planks, broken chairs,
pots of paint, sheafs of brushes, and rolled parchments and canvases.

Three or four young men in shabby smocks stopped their
various tasks to gaze curiously at me—students, I supposed them to be. And from
behind a counterlike bench at the door, a man greeted Guaracco.

"Good-morrow, Ser Andrea," said my patron.
"I said once that I would watch out for a likely pupil for you. Here is
one—my own cousin, Leo."

The master of the bottega came from behind his bench. He
was a spidery little fellow of forty or thereabouts, clad in a long gown of
dark wool like a priest's, with ill-fitting, worn slippers on his flat feet.
His face was beardless, white and puffy, and he wore spectacles low upon his
snub nose. His hair, already gray, had begun to grow thin on top. His finest features
were his big, wise eyes and his slender, delicate hands.*

Guaracco praised me highly and finally produced my
drawings. Andrea Verrocchio carried them into the light and looked at them
narrowly, with pursed lips. Finally he turned his spectacles upon me.

"You draw well, boy," he commented. "Drawing
is the father of all the arts. Would you learn to paint?"

I told him, quite truthfully, that it was my ambition.

"If you study with me," he admonished, "you
must work entirely as I devise."

"To devise is the work of the master," I said,
respectfully. "To execute is the work of the apprentice."

"Well worded." He nodded, and smiled a trifle.
"Come here—look at this picture."

HE beckoned us across the room. Against the rear wall hung
a sizeable sheet of wood, held in place on a sort of scaffold with cords and pins.
Upon this had been painted, but not finished, an oil of the baptism of Jesus.
Some of the figures were executed with spirit and intelligence, but over one of
them, a kneeling angel, I could not but shake my head.

"You see the fault," murmured Andrea Verrocchio
beside me. "The draperies, Ser Leo, are not properly done."

* This is the accepted description of Andrea Verrocchio, who
was not only a painter and sculptor high in favor at court, but the teacher of
some of the most distinguished artists and craftsmen of his time.

"They are not, sir," I agreed, after a careful
examination.

He smiled slowly. The students, too, had gathered with us.
I had a sense of their critical suspicion. Perhaps they had worked at the
thing, and failed.

"Peradventure, boy, you can better it,"
suggested Verrocchio, in a tone that was full of superior doubt.

"May I use these paints?" I inquired, stooping
to some pots and brushes at the foot of the framework.

As I did so, I caught a glimpse of Guaracco's face, set in
an easy smile. For all his strange, menacing nature he at least trusted my
skill.

"Drapery is a science worth close study," I
lectured the group, as I mixed some colors upon a rectangular palette board.
"The part of the fold which is furthest from the ends where it is
confined"—I pointed with my brush to the fringe of the angel's robe
—"will return most closely to its original extended condition."

One of the students snickered at my words.

"Show us what you mean by these words,"
Verrocchio said.

"With your leave, I shall try to," I accepted
his challenge, and began to dash on my paint. Here was another old skill that I
had not lost. "Everything naturally desires to remain in its own
state," I elaborated. "Drapery desires to lie flat. If it is caught
into folds or pleats, thus,"—and I executed a crumpled crease upon the
knee of the angel—"it is forced to quit this condition of flatness and
obeys the law of this force in that part where it is most constrained."

I progressed to the hem.

"The part furthest away from such constraint," I
went on, "you will find, returns most nearly to its original state—that is
to say, lying extended and full."

"You say truth, Ser Leo, and you paint truth,
too," Verrocchio commended warmly, and turned quickly to Guaracco.
"Your kinsman stays here as my pupil and helper. Go forward with that
drapery, young sir. When you are finished, the picture can have no further
improvement." *

I worked away, caring little for the jealous staring of my
fellow students.

Meanwhile, Guaracco's groom brought in a bundle of
clothing for me, and Guaracco himself gave me a bag of clinking coins.

"I have paid the charge for your education, Cousin,"
he said to me. "Stay here, live and work here, and do me credit. Do not
forget what I require from you, according to your recent conversations. I shall
keep an eye and ear upon you. I may even take a house to be near you. Again I
say, do not forget."

And with this equivocal farewell he strolled out, the very
picture of a kindly and helpful kinsman.

So I became a pupil of Andrea Verrocchio, the finest
teacher of arts in
Florence
. I made
the acquaintance of my fellow students and found them not at all bad fellows,
some indeed quite adept at their work. I had a cell-like room with pallet bed
and table and chest of art materials. I listened dutifully to the precepts of
our instructor, and under his tutelage did many kinds of work.

VERROCCHIO'S aptitude and taste was for sculpture, and though
I thought this less intellectual than painting, for it cannot represent the
transparent or yielding things, I did not rebel.

My first piece of finished work, a gold ornament for the
King of Portugal, was called splendid by Verrocchio. He let me help him with
the great bronze busts he was fashioning for the palace of the Medici, and let me
do alone a series of ornamental shields of painted wood for a wealthy merchant.

* A painting that fits this description, and that might be
the same, exists today in
Florence
.
It is certain that the draperies of the kneeling angel are done more skilfully
than those of the other figures.

In the evenings, and sometimes in the daytime when work
was slack, I was permitted to go with my fellow students through the streets. I
could never weary myself with the sights and sounds and smells of
Florence
.

I loved the pageantry of the main thoroughfares—laden
beasts, processions of armed men going from one sentry post to another,
occasional rich coaches of the great or wealthy, cavaliers on prancing horses,
veiled ladies in mule-litters; rougher but still picturesque guildsmen,
artisans, beggars, burghers; an occasional captain of mercenaries, a
condottiero, slashed and swaggering, his long swordsheath hoisting up the hem
of his mantel; criers loudly acclaiming their wares of fruit, fish, wine or
what-not.

On the poorer, narrower streets there were hucksters and
small tradesmen with baskets and
trays ;
bevies of bright-eyed
girls, on the lookout for romantic adventure. There were palaces to see in the
wider spaces and the great sculptured bridges across the
Arno
.
Too, there were pleasant, cheap taverns, where young men might get good wine
and plenty for copper coins.

So it went for the month of May. Twice during that time,
Guaracco called to talk to me, in honeyed protestations of concern over the
welfare of his supposed cousin. But between the pleasant lines of his
conversation my inner ear could distinguish the warning and insistence of his
power over me.

Once he remarked that Lisa—"You remember our little
Lisa!"
—had sent me her warm regards.
I found
myself heartily grateful for that brief message from one who had treated me fairly
and kindly.

The first of June dawned bright and sultry hot. I was up
betimes, putting the last touches to an improvement on the scaffolding which
served Verrocchio as an easel for extra large pictures. I fitted its cords to
pulleys and winches so that the artist, instead of moving from one place to
another, could hold a certain position with advantageous lights and viewpoints,
while he lowered the picture itself, or lifted it or moved it from side to side
at his will.