Thelady that now came toward us over the little bridge was one whose acquaintance I could claim, and whose beauty I admired very greatly. Madonna Vittoria Crescimbeni was a very fair lady that was generous of her favors to those that were wealthy, and even to those that were not, if they happened to take her fancy, as indeed I am pleased to recall. She lived on the other side of Arno, in a gracious dwelling that had been built for her by a great lord that had given her everything, except his name, while he lived, and had died and left her a fortune. For all that, she was a light child; she carried herself with much show of discretion, and was only to be come at warily, as it were, and with circumspection; and because of her abundance she was at no man's beck and call, and could choose and refuse as it liked her. She was made something full of figure, with a face like an ancient statue, which was the less to be wondered at because her mother was a Greek; but her hair, of which she had a mightyquantity, was of that tawny red tincture that is familiar to those that woo Venetian women. As for her mouth, it was like flame, and her eyes were flames too, though of another hue, having a greenish light in them that could delight or frighten as she pleased. She went her ways in great state, having two small knavish blackamoor pages in gold tissue at her heels, and a little ways off she was followed by a brace of well-armed serving-rascals.
For my own part, I was mightily pleased to see her, for though she was, in the native ways of affairs, somewhat out of my star, still, as I said, she was to show later that she had an eye for a pretty fellow and owned a spirit above mere dross. I say no more. She seemed content enough to see me, but still more content to see Messer Guido. This was an experience in the ways of ladies with which those that walked with Messer Guido were familiar. Every woman that saw him admired him highly. So Vittoria smiled a little on me and a great deal on Messer Guido; and as for Dante, she glanced at him slightly and gave him little heed, for his habit was modest and his looks were not of a kind at once to tickle the fancy of such as she. Yet Dante looked at her curiously, though without ostentation, as one whose way it is instinctively to observe all men and all women with an exceeding keenness and clearness of vision.
Messer Guido greeted Madonna Vittoria verycourteously, as was ever his way with women. Were they fair or plain-favored, chaste or gay, he was ever their very gentle servant. And by this time Vittoria, being very close to us, paused and gave us the greeting of the day; and her pages came to a halt behind her, and her men-at-arms stood at ease a little space away.
The beautiful lady looked at us with a kind of wonder and a kind of mockery in her dark eyes. And when she spoke to us her voice was marvellously soft with a rich softness that made me, being then of a very sensual disposition, think instantly of old wine and ripe fruit, and darkened alcoves, and the wayward complaining of lutes. Indeed, wherever Monna Vittoria went she seemed to carry with her an atmosphere of subtle seclusion, of a cloistered lusciousness, of dim, green, guarded gardens, where the sighs of love's novices are stifled by the drip of stealthy fountains and the babble of fantastic birds. I suppose it was no more than my fancy, or a trick of my memory confusing later things with earlier, that makes me now, as I write, seem to recall what seemed like a smile on the face of the pagan effigy of Love as Madonna Vittoria swam into her company, as if the Greekish image recognized in the woman a creature of the early days when cunning fingers fashioned him. For, indeed, Vittoria was not modern in the sense that we Florentines are modern. She derived from aworld long dead and buried. Heavens, how Messer Alcibiades would have admired her!
"Good-morrow, gentle gentles," she began, in that caressing voice, "why are you absent from the sacrifice?"
Guido looked for the instant perplexed by the woman's words, and he moved a little nearer to her. As for Dante, he seemed to have forgotten us all, even to have forgotten his book, and though he had risen when Monna Vittoria approached, he had by this time sunk onto the stone seat again, and seemed drowned in a brown study.
"What sacrifice, lady?" Guido asked of Vittoria; and whenever Guido spoke to a woman, he spoke as if all the pleasures and destinies of the world depended upon that one woman's interest and caprice.
Madonna Vittoria smiled, self-satisfied, as all women smiled when Guido so addressed them. "Why, the sacrifice of the pearl to the pig," she answered; and she still smiled as she spoke, but there was a kind of anger in her eyes. "The sacrifice of a clean child to a coarse churl, the sacrifice of Folco Portinari's little Beatrice to my big Simone, that I do not choose to lose."
Here I broke in, laughing, for I took the drift of her meaning, and was wishful to prove myself alert. "Most allegorical lady," I protested, "I take you very clearly when you explain your ownfable." And I rubbed my hands, instantly pleased with myself and my nimbleness.
But Messer Guido still looked thoughtful. "If the ladies of Florence," he said, slowly, "make Madonna Beatrice their May-queen, that dainty deed does not deliver her to Simone of the Bardi."
Madonna Vittoria turned upon him with a sharpness seldom seen on a woman's face when it bent toward Messer Guido of the Cavalcanti. Her smooth forehead wrinkled with an unfamiliar frown; her full lips seemed to tighten and narrow to a red thread; her eyes were as a cat's eyes are when the cat is very, very angry.
"Who goes by her side," she asked, sourly, "as she goes through the city?" And she answered her own question with a name. "Simone dei Bardi." She went on: "Who is her father's faithful friend? Simone dei Bardi." She glanced from one to the other of us—Messer Guido and I, I mean, for Dante took no heed of her and she seemed to take no heed of him. "I will tell you," she said, fiercely, "the trap is baited for the prey, and, as things go, it seems as if I were like to lose my emerald, that I can spare ill, as well as a husband, that I could spare very readily were it not that I had a mind to marry him."
Now at this there was a pause, and in a little while I turned to Dante, thinking that it was high time he took a share in our parley.
"Is not," I said, "Monna Vittoria much to be pitied?"
Being thus questioned, Dante seemed to shake himself free from his lethargy, or his disdain, or whatever you may call it, and he answered very indifferently, as one that speaks of another that is not present, "I do not know the cause of her sorrow."
Monna Vittoria turned to him now very directly and faced him, and there was a kind of challenge in her carriage.
"Messer Dante," she said, "if you know nothing of me, I know something of you, for Messer Brunetto, your philosopher, is one of my very good friends. I had this trinket of him a week ago." And as she spoke she fingered an enamelled and jewelled pendant against her neck that must have cost the scholar a merry penny. "Well, Messer Dante, you who are young and of high spirit, would you have a queen of beauty married to a king of beasts?"
Dante shrugged his shoulders a little, feigning no interest in the handsome creature that addressed him. "The alliance sounds unnatural," he answered, carelessly, and looked as if he would be glad that the matter should end.
But Vittoria would not have it so. "Well, now," she said, "when all Florence is luting and fluting for the queen of beauty, the king of beasts walks warden by her side."
Still Dante showed no interest. "Who is this queen of beauty?" he asked, listlessly. And when Guido made answer that she was Folco Portinari's daughter Beatrice, he only shook his head a little and declared that he did not know her.
"She is new to Florence," I explained.
And Vittoria went on. "I will give her this credit, that she is a comely piece. Let us go and see the girl in her triumph." She addressed herself directly to Guido, but she had an after-glance for me as well.
Guido turned toward his new-made friend. "Will you come with us, Messer Dante?" he asked.
But Dante denied him. "Not I, by your leave," he replied. "I find folly enough here in my book without tramping the highways to face it in its pageant."
Now I felt a little vexed at his churlishness, for Madonna Vittoria was a lovely lady, and very pleasant company, and one worth obliging. So I spoke to the others, saying, "Well, well, let us not starve because Dante has no appetite." And therewith I caught a hand of Guido and a hand of Vittoria, and made to lead them from the place. And they both responded well enough to my summons.
But Monna Vittoria checked me a little and paused, and spoke again to Dante. "Farewell, Messer Dante," she said, sweetly. "Will you come visit me one of these days?"
But Dante, who had poked that hooked nose of his now in his book again, shook his head and made her no very civil answer. "Madonna," he said, "I have little money and less lust. God be with you."
So, lapped in that mood, we left him, and went our ways toward the Signory, and our Dante was soon out of sight, and, if truth be told, out of mind.
NowI proceed to tell under all caution what happened to our Dante, sitting there alone in the shady angle of that sunny place, after we had left him to go to the Signory. For, indeed, I did not see it, although I heard it from his lips, that had the gift, even then, to make the strangest things seem as real as, say, the door of a house. The tale was so told, in such twists of thought and turns of phrase, that it might, if you chose, be taken as an allegory or the vision of a dream; but, for my own part, I prefer to believe that it came about just as I shall set it down, for the world is merrier for a spice of the marvellous in its composition, and, for myself, I could believe anything of that same painted image.
It seems, then, that when Dante was left alone he turned to his book again, and set himself very resolutely to reading of the loves of Lancelot and Guinevere, in the hope, most like, to still that stirring of the spirit occasioned by our talk. And when the fall of our footsteps and the babble of ourvoices could be heard no more, he confessed that at first he felt grateful for the silence and the peace. But of a sudden it appeared to him that the silence was greater than there was any need or reason for it to be, that it seemed to him as if all Florence held its breath in the suspense of a great hush which lapped the world in its embrace—such a hush as might perchance occur before the coming of Doom. Then, after an interval that seemed too age-long to be endured, out of the very core of the silence Dante heard a voice calling to him that he had never heard before, and that spoke to him with such a sweet imperiousness that he was as physically and spiritually bound to obey and attend as ever Moses was on the holy hill. And the commanding voice cried to him, "Dante, behold a deity stronger than thou, who comes to govern thee."
Then it seemed to Dante that at the sound of that voice his consciousness returned to him, and, looking up from his book, he called aloud, "Who speaks to me?" And as he spoke he saw, or thought he saw—but I give it to you as he gave it to me—to his amazement, how the painted image of the beautiful youth that stood above the fountain seemed slowly to quicken into being, and how all the gaudy colors and gilding of the figure seemed to soften to the exquisite and tender hues of a life that was more marvellous than life. The hair of the youth wasradiantly sunny, his cheeks flamed and paled with a divine white and red, his perfect limbs and perfect body seemed moulded with such exquisite rounded flesh as the immortal gods assumed long ago when they deigned to descend from Olympus or appear in Cytherea, and speak to men and love them. And the pagan boy that stood above the plashing fountain lifted a hand toward Dante and parted his lips and spoke, and this was what he said: "The God Love speaks to you, Dante, and to none but you. Lift up your heart, for soon your happiness shall be made manifest unto you."
At this Dante, though, as he told me thereafter, he felt no fear, was full of a great astonishment, and he strove to speak and could not for an instant, and at last he cried out, "Must I believe you?" For it seemed to him as if the image uttered the very voice of truth, but that he, listening, rebelled against it.
Then the beautiful, breathing boy, that had been the beautiful, silent image, stretched out a hand to him in command, and said, "You that denied me must now believe me, for henceforth I shall govern your soul."
At these words Dante crossed himself, for all this seemed strange work for commonplace Florence in full day, and he tried to repeat a prayer, but wonderfully could remember none, and only his ears buzzed with the words of all the love-songs he hadever heard, and he entreated, "Leave me in peace." And as he spoke he stretched out his hands in supplication to the quickened image.
Now it is to be said that it seemed to Dante as if a kind of pale flame appeared to blaze all about the living image, and to spread from him in fine and delicate rays till it seemed to play on Dante's body and burn through the armor of the flesh and lurk about his naked heart. And the agony of that burning was beyond words, yet there was a kind of joy in it that was beyond thought.
And the God that was Love cried out again: "You pray in vain for peace who shall ever be peaceless from this time forth. For the unavoidable hour is at hand when you shall know my power. Farewell awhile." As the figure spoke those last words it seemed slowly to stiffen into stone again, and the beautiful, vital coloring faded away, and the pale, leaping flames vanished, and Dante found himself sitting and staring at the painted image above the lisping water that he had looked at unmoved a thousand times, as he passed it going to and fro on his way through the city.
Dante rubbed his forehead and wondered. "I have been dreaming," he murmured, "and the love-tale in the book colored my thoughts."
Now, though all this vision, or whatever you may please to call it, seemed brief enough, it took longer than the telling, for Messer Dante told methat the next thing he knew was that he heard my voice calling to him. Wherefore, the most will probably say that Messer Dante had fallen asleep in the heat of the day and dreamed a dream, but I do not think so. Now, Guido and I and Monna Vittoria had gone on our ways to the Signory, thinking to witness the crowning of the lady Beatrice of the Portinari, but we had not travelled very far when we heard the noise of many people mixed with the sound of music, and we knew that the procession was coming our way and that the ceremony at the Signory was over and done with. Then it seemed a shame to me that my friend should lose all the pleasure, and I said I would go back for him, and Messer Guido came with me because Monna Vittoria had found other friends and stayed in speech with them. And when Guido and I came back to the place where we had left Dante, I found him, as I say, seated upon the stone seat. His closed book lay by his side, and he was staring straight before him, as a man that is newly awakened from a trance. But I, taking little notice of his state at the moment, ran toward him and clapped him on the shoulder, calling to him: "They are moving this way!" I cried. "Come and see!"
But Dante did not seem to hear me, and sat gazing at that painted image that was such an old friend of mine and his, as if he had never seen it before. But presently, partly by persuasion, andpartly by pushing and urging, we got him to turn from the statue and accompany us a little ways till we came to a stand in the neighborhood of the Palace of the Portinari, toward which the procession of the May-day was making its way.
The open space of the Piazza of the Santa Felicita was now pretty well filled with the curious and the seekers for amusement, and all the air was full of sweet noises, and all the smiling faces shone in the warm sunlight. And Guido and I, piloting our Dante, pushed our way to the inner circle of the loiterers, and paused there, waiting for the coming of the merrymakers. And even as we paused the folk that we expected came upon us. They were a gallant company of youths and maidens, dressed all in their best and brightest, and there were excellent musicians with them that made the most noble of cheerful music, and the comely girls scattered flowers on the cobbles, and the comely youths laughed and shouted, and in the midst of the throng a dozen of the strongest lads were tugging at a chariot that carried a gilded throne, and on that throne was seated Madonna Beatrice of the Portinari. She was dressed in a robe of crimson silk, and she carried red roses in her hand, and I think that all who looked upon her held her as the loveliest maid in all Florence. I know that, for my part, I frankly admitted to myself that none of the girls that I was in love with at that time could hold acandle to her. Yet I knew for my sins that I could never be in love with Madonna Beatrice of the Portinari. Standing by her side was a big, thick-set, fierce-looking man, with a shag of black hair and a black beard like a spade, whom I knew well enough and whom all there knew well enough to be Messer Simone dei Bardi, the man of whom Guido and I had talked that morning. There was a great crowd behind the chariot, Reds and many Yellows, seemingly at peace that day, friends of Guido, and followers of Simone, and revellers of many kinds and townsfolk of many classes. I could see that Monna Vittoria was in the thick of the crowd that followed the Car of Triumph, and presently she made her way beneath the shelter of the arcade, and stood there hard by one of the pillars, watching the lady Beatrice on her throne and Simone dei Bardi keeping so close beside her. And Simone, as I believe, had no knowledge of Vittoria's presence.
Now, when that brave company came into the place where we stood, Dante, that had stood by our sides listlessly enough, turned away from us as suddenly and sharply as if he had received an order. So he turned, and, turning, he saw in full view the face of the lady Beatrice as she sat on her car of triumph; and, at the sight of her, he gave a great cry, and then stood silent and stiff as if spellbound.
Guido, delighted by the girl's beauty, cried to him, not looking at him, "Is she not fair?"
But I saw what strange case our Dante was in, and pulled at Guide's sleeve and jerked his attention to my friend, saying, "Our Dante stands at gaze as if he were sun-dazzled."
Guido turned to Messer Dante and saw the rapture in his face, and, seeing, questioned him. "Is she not fair?" he asked, and his glance travelled again to where the May-queen sat.
And Dante answered him, speaking very slowly, as a man might speak in some sweet sleep when he dreamed a dear dream, "She is the loveliest woman in the world." He paused for a moment, and then added, in a lower tone, "She is the child I worshipped."
Now, I could plainly read amazement and doubt on Messer Guido's face when he heard Dante speak thus strangely, and he caught at his arm and shook it a little gently, as one would do that wishes to wake a sleeping man. "You are dreaming, for sure," he said.
But Dante only answered him very quietly, still keeping his rapturous face fixed on the girl as she and her company came nearer. "She is the lady of my dreams."
Now I, that was glancing in much bewilderment from Dante, where he stood at gaze so radiant, to the fair girl on her gilded car, saw, or thought Isaw, all of a sudden, a look in the girl's eyes that betokened more knowledge of Dante than merely the knowledge that a man stood in the roadway and stared at her beauty. So I whispered to Guido in his ear, "See, she seems to note him, and, as I think, with recognition."
Now, even as I said this, the little company that carried the Queen of Beauty came to a halt some yards from the gate of the gray palace, and Messer Simone dei Bardi, quitting the side of her chariot, advanced toward the Palace of the Portinari to give the formal summons that the Queen of May demanded admittance, all of which was part and parcel of the ceremonial of the pretty sport. At the same instant Dante, quitting Guido's side, advanced a little nearer to the girl, who did not descend from her chair, but sat still in her chariot as if waiting for his coming, and the little crowd of juvenals about her fluttered aside before his resolute advance, and I thought even then how strong his young face looked, and how purposeful, for all his youth, that grim nose of his and the steady eyes above it, in contrast with the pink-and-white prettiness of the many slim lads that were the Queen of Beauty's satellites.
And Dante raised his voice and called to the girl as a friend calls to a friend: "Give me a rose for my rose, madonna! Give me a rose for my rose!"
Now the girl, as she sat, had in her lap a greatquantity of roses exceedingly red and large, and she took up one of these in answer to the call and cast it through the air to Dante, who caught it as it fell, and, catching it, lifted it to his lips with his eyes fixed on the girl. Then, whether because of his action or the eagerness of his gaze above the crimson petals I know not, but Madonna Beatrice flushed a little, and she gathered the rest of her roses into her arms and rose from her chair, and descended from her chariot and mounted the steps of the great house, whose doors had now opened to Simone's summons. Messer Folco of the Portinari stood smiling on his threshold, but Messer Simone, by his side, was not smiling, for he had seen that pretty business of the given rose, and I could note that its prettiness pleased him little. I think he would have stepped down then and there and eased his spleen, but Messer Folco, as his way was ever, wished to improve the occasion by making a speech.
"Friends and neighbors," he began, in his ample, affable voice, "Florentines all, in my daughter's name, and for my own sake, I thank you." Thereat there came a little cheer from the crowd, and then Folco turned toward his daughter, plainly very proud of her, but still flagrantly paternal and pompous.
"Come, child," he said, solemnly. "Come, you have been queen for a day, but your reign is over,and you are no more now than honest goodman Folco's daughter. Get you within." Then Madonna Beatrice she paused for a moment with two of her girl friends by her side and looked down upon her company very graciously and sweetly, and wished them farewell. Then the door of the palace opened and swallowed her up with her two companions, and when she had gone it seemed to us watching as if the sunshine had gone with her, though the street was still flooded with its light.
Then Messer Folco spoke again to the multitude, saying that there would be simple cheer and sport provided in his gardens that lay in the meadow-land on the other side of Arno for such as chose to go so far, at which his hearers cheered again, and made all speed to take him at his word and hurry away over the bridge. Thereafter Messer Folco turned to Messer Simone, as if inviting him to enter.
But Messer Simone shook his head. "Later, Messer Folco," I heard him say, "later; I have some busy hours before me." Then Messer Folco, acquiescing, entered his great house, and its great doors closed behind him, and those that were conveying the car wheeled it about and pulled it away, returning on the road by which they had come, and by this time most of the revellers had departed over bridge.
Guido and I, that were not tempted to travel so far as Messer Folco's river gardens, turning to ourcompanion, noted that Dante was standing entranced with his eyes fixed upon his rose, and I heard him murmur to himself, "O wonderful world, that can boast of so wonderful a woman!"
Now, when I say that all of Madonna Beatrice's escort had gone from there, I mean that the gay youths and maidens had departed, but Messer Simone dei Bardi had remained behind, leaning against the wall of the house with his arms folded and an evil smile on his face.
Messer Simone's own followers, seeing him, lingered, waiting upon his pleasure, and though most of the May-day merrymakers had disappeared, there were not a few idlers and passers-by.
There were a certain number of Messer Guido's friends there, too, that had joined him in the procession, and that now lingered in the hope to bear him with them to some merriment more to their liking than Messer Folco's transpontine hospitality. So that the open place was far from empty for all its bigness.
Nowwhen the door had shut upon Beatrice, Messer Simone shook himself from the wall and advanced with a steady, heavy stride to where Dante stood lost in contemplation of his rose, and I thought he looked like some ugly giant out of a fairy-tale, and his sullen eyes were full of mischief. He came hard by Messer Dante, and spoke to him roughly. "I do not care to see you and that flower in fellowship."
Now both Guido and I feared that this might breed a quarrel, so we lingered, and Messer Simone's people drew together, watching their lord, and some that were passing paused to note what was toward. But Messer Dante lifted his head very quietly, and looked calmly into Simone's angry face and spoke him seemingly fair. "The world is wide, friend," he said, very smoothly; "you have but to turn the corner, and I and my flower will no longer vex your vision."
But Simone was not to be so put off. "I have a mind to wear that rose myself," he said, savagely,and he came a little nearer to Dante as he spoke, and his followers dogged his advance, ready to obey his orders.
He looked so big and so strong and so brutal by the side of our friend that I was ill at ease, for I knew well what a truculent ruffian this Simone was.
But Dante seemed to be no more troubled than he would have been by the buzzing of a wasp. "Then you had better change your mind speedily," he answered, in an even voice, "lest being crossed in a peevish whim sour your blood."
Now, the being spoken to so sweetly, and yet with words that had so little of sweetness in them and no fear at all, teased Messer Simone's black blood till it bubbled like boiling pitch, and his voice had got a kind of silly scream in it, as he cried: "Why, you damnable reader of books, you pitiful clerk, do you think I will bandy words with you? Give me that rose instantly, or I will cut out your heart and eat it!"
Dante was still unruffled, and answered him very suavely, "If you cut out my heart you would still find the rose in it and the name of earth's loveliest lady."
Now at this Messer Simone's face showed as red as an old roof-tile, and his voice was hoarse with anger as he called, furiously, "Give me the flower!"
For a breathing while Dante made him no answer,while he gathered the rose carefully together in the cup of his hand and then slipped it into his bosom. Then he spoke to Simone with a grave impatience. "You are a boisterous braggart, and you scream like the east wind. I am very weary of you."
Simone slapped his big hand to the hilt of his sword. "Patter an Ave quickly," he growled, "ere I slay you with the sight of a drawn sword."
It was such a menace as might have fretted many a man that was brave enough, for Simone was out of the common tall and strong, but it fretted our Dante no whit, and he only smiled derisively at the giant.
By this time the brawl—for such it was proving to be—had begun to attract public notice, and those that walked halted to watch the altercation between the big man and the slim youth. I caught a glimpse of Monna Vittoria beneath the arcade, and saw amusement on her face and wonder, and some scorn of Simone and much admiration of Dante. But I had no time to concern myself with Vittoria, for now Messer Simone's fingers were gripping at the hilt of his weapon, but he did no more than grip the hilt of it. Indeed, I do not think that he would have drawn on an unarmed man, and very likely he meant no more than to frighten the scholar. If this were Messer Simone's purpose, it was frankly baffled by the fact that Dante did not seem to be frightened at all, but just stood hisground and watched his adversary with a light of quiet amusement in his eyes that was very exasperating to Simone. The whole quarrel had kindled and thriven so quickly that Messer Guido, who was standing apart and talking with certain of his friends, had as yet no knowledge of it, but now I moved to him and plucked him by the sleeve and told him what was toward. In truth, I felt no small alarm for my friend, for I knew him to have no more than that passable facility with the sword which is essential to gentility. Then Messer Guido turned and came with me, and his friends followed him, and our numbers added to the circle that was forming about the disputants. So now, while Messer Simone was still angrily handling his sword-hilt, and while the smile still lingered on Dante's lips, Messer Guido stepped nimbly between the two, being eager to keep the peace for the sake of his new-made friend that seemed so slight a thing by the side of Simone.
"How now!" Guido cried, aloud. "I hear shrill words that seem to squeak of weapons. What is your quarrel, gentles?"
If every man there present knew who Messer Simone of the Bardi was and what he stood for in Florence, so also every man there present knew who Messer Guido of the Cavalcanti was and what he stood for, and there were few that would have denied him the right to speak his mind orto question the cause of the quarrel. So Messer Guido stood between Dante and Simone, looking from one to the other of the pair and waiting for his answer.
Dante answered in a kind of ironic simplicity, and he seemed to me as I looked upon him like a man exalted out of all reason by some great joy. "It is but a gardener's wrangle—how best to guard roses from slugs."
Simone began to frown upon the brawl that himself had caused, and he looked toward Messer Guido, whom he knew, with a forced show of friendliness, and spoke with a gruff assumption of good-humor. "Messer Guido, will you tell this blockhead who I am?"
Now, Guido was as good a swordsman as the best man in Florence, and far better than the most that handled steel, and he thought and spoke in the wish to protect his new-made friend, whom he took to have no such skill as his own.
"Gently, gently," he said to Simone, and his tone was by no means gentle. "My friend's name is my name, and I take terms from no man. You will answer me now." And as he spoke he placed his hand upon his hilt, and made ready to draw.
Now at this Simone frowned again, for he had no personal quarrel with Messer Guido Cavalcanti, yet from the very bullness of his nature he would takea dare from no man. So he showed his teeth and eased his blade to make ready.
But Dante moved swiftly forward and pulled Messer Guido from between him and Messer Simone, doing this with a courtesy due to one of Messer Guido's standing, yet with a very plain decision. "Messer Guido," he said, "I entreat you to refrain. I guess your purpose, but I will not have it so. This is my quarrel, and, believe me, I can handle it."
Guido plucked him a little apart, and whispered him hurriedly. "This is Simone of the Bardi, a very notable soldier," he said.
I heard Dante answer him very calmly. "Were he a very notable devil, I would stand to him enough."
By this time Messer Simone was in such a black rage at being thwarted that he cared not what might come of it, and he called out to Dante, in a bellowing voice, "Come, sir, come! Will you fight or yield?"
Messer Dante's carriage showed very plainly that he would not yield; of a contrary, he moved composedly a little nearer to Simone, still smiling and stretching out his hands as he went, as if to show that he held no weapon. "Surely I will not yield," he said; and then questioned, "But how shall I fight, being swordless?"
Simone grinned hideously at him. "You shouldhave remembered that," he said, "before you chose to play hufty-dufty." Then he scowled and pointed to the armed men about them. "Some one will lend you a sword if you have the courage to hold it," he said, scornfully.
Once again Messer Guido intervened, eagerly, passionately. "For God's sake, forbear," he entreated Dante, and thrusting himself against the other. "Messer Simone," he said, "you cannot deny me if I take up this quarrel."
My Dante laid an arresting hand upon Messer Guido's arm. "Gently, Messer Guido," he said, "you are too good, and if I were a woman I could not choose a nobler champion. But being no better than a man, I must even champion myself to the best of my wit." He paused, and his eyes followed the course of Simone's gaze and then came back to Simone. "You are a soldier," he said; "it is your business to kill. You prize the life of other men lightly; 'tis but a puff of your heavy breath and out goes his candle. I am no such butcher, and though I am not unskilled in arms, we should be ill-matched, you and I." And as he spoke he laughed softly, as at some jest known only to himself.
Now Messer Guido, that was growing very angry, as I could see from the way in which the color quitted his cheeks, thrust himself in front of Dante, and he spoke to Simone boldly. "He says rightly,"he cried. "A stripling against your bulk. It were murder."
Simone always addressed Messer Guido with as much courtesy as he could compass, for the sake of his great house and his great friends, and his standing with the Reds, that was as high as his own with the Yellows. "Then he should not steal roses," he answered, quietly enough. But immediately thereafter, as if the mention of roses had stirred him to fury, his wrath foamed over again, and, turning to Dante, he shouted, "Give me the rose, you cowardly clerk, or I will pinch out your life between finger and thumb!" He held out his huge hand as he spoke, and to those who looked at it, or to me, at least, among the multitude, it seemed easy enough for him to carry out his threat, for Messer Dante looked so slight and spare in the front of such a ruffian.
But Messer Dante was in no ways discomposed, and he still kept smiling while he shook his head, and he answered very quietly: "Idle giant, you will do no such thing. For if you prize my life very little, you prize your own life very well. Now, while I think nothing of your life, I also think nothing of my own, and would rather end it here in this instant than surrender this flower. Why, I would see a hundred fellows like you dead and damned to save a single petal of it from the pollution of such filthy fingers." He paused for a moment and paidMesser Simone the tribute of a mocking inclination of the head. Then he spoke very clearly and sweetly. "I hope I make myself clear to your thick head."
Simone's red face grew redder. "By Paul's jaws, I will wring your squeaking neck!" he said, savagely, and made a move nearer to Dante.
But here Guido's paling face grew paler, and again he thrust himself between Dante and Simone, and his sword flashed into the air. "By Paul's jaws, you will not!" he cried; and then looking about him, he shouted, "A Cavalcanti! a Cavalcanti!"
At that cry all those that inclined to Messer Guido, and there were many in the place, bared their swords likewise and rallied about him in an eager press of angry men.
When Simone saw that the swords were out, he drew his own sword and raised it aloft and cried his cry, "A Bardi! a Bardi!"
Then the people of his following bared their weapons and gathered to his side, and such of the spectators as took no part in the quarrel drew a little apart, for fear they might come to harm in the brawl, but still went not very far, so eager is the curiosity of all Florentines to see sights. So the folk stood, two little armies of fighting men facing each other, as Greek and Trojan faced each other long ago, and ready for fighting, as Greek and Trojan fought, and as men always will fight with men, for the sake of a woman. And I, with my sworddrawn, being never so intent upon battle that I have not an eye to all things about me, could see, looking aloft, that a curtain was drawn from a window in the great house of the Portinari, and that a woman stood by the window, and I made sure that the woman's name was Beatrice.
But this Dante saw not and knew not, for he stood between the two opposing forces very composedly, with the same quiet smile upon his face, and he held up his hands toward either party as a man might do that wished to sunder and pacify quarrelling children. "Gently, friends, gently," he said; "there is a pleasant way to end this dilemma." Then he turned to me, and I never saw his face serener. "Friend Lappo," he said, "will you lend me your dice-bones a minute?"
It was characteristic of his readiness in the pinch of emergency that he knew where to apply for what he needed, for I was at that time a most inveterate gamester, and loved to stake my all, which for the most part was truly little enough, upon the toss of a die; and for my greater ease in this exercise, I ever carried the bones with me in a little inner pocket at my breast. Now, then, for Dante's pleasure, though indeed I did not know what he would be at, I lugged them out of their concealment, and dropped the three, one after the other, into his open palm, which he held to me extended there as steady as the palm of a stone image.
Dante laughed a little softly to himself as he looked at my dice where they lay, and indeed it was curious to see him and them in such close companionship, for Dante had no taste for those gamblers' games that I delighted in. Then he turned and showed the dice to Simone, who stared at him in amazed rage, and he spoke very pleasantly and evenly as he dandled the tools of chance. "Messer Simone," he said, "here be three cubes of bone that shall settle our quarrel better than shearing steel. We will throw on this ground here, you and I in turn, and he that has the ill-fortune to make the lowest cast shall, on his honor, very presently kill himself."
At this drolling challenge most of the spectators began to laugh, and the laughter ran through the ranks of Cavalcanti's adherents, and even found some echo, albeit soon stifled, among Bardi's men.
But Simone saw no laughter in the matter. "You are a fool!" he fumed. It was plain that he felt himself to be at a disadvantage before the gravity of Dante's disdainful courage, and that he was better with blows than with words. "You are a fool!" he repeated.
But Dante denied him. "I am wise." Then he moved his head a little this way and that, as if to show that he was addressing all his audience, and, indeed, there was not a man in all that assemblage that did not listen to him intently, Simone'sown following not excepted. "Fellow Florentines," he said, "here is a straight challenge. It equals the big man with the little; it fills me to the giant's girth and inches. It saves him from shame if he wins, for it were little to his credit to kill a civilian. It denies me if I win the vainglory of overcoming a Titan. Is not this an honest dare?"
As he finished speaking he looked about him, and saw sympathy and approval on the faces of most. As for me, I was so taken with his ingenuity and his insolence in thus braving the big fellow that I cried aloud, "Well dared; well done." And Guido called out sharply, addressing the Bardi, "Do you take him, Messer Simone? I will be surety for his pledge."
As Messer Guido dei Cavalcanti ended there went up a great shout of applause from the spectators, who were tickled with the thought of witnessing so new a way of ending a quarrel. While they were clapping their hands and laughing, a cunning, sharp-faced fellow named Maleotti, that was one of Bardi's men, came close to his master, and spoke to him in none so low a whisper that I could not hear his words. "Consider, signor," he said; "this were a mad wager to accept, for the State cannot spare you, and who can say how scraps of bone may fall? Yet, if you refuse and force a quarrel, the Cavalcanti outnumber us." As he spoke he indicated with quick glances of his evileyes that there were indeed many more in the place that seemed to side with Guido than friends to the Bardi.
While Messer Simone, seeing this, sucked his lips like one puzzled, Dante again addressed him in the same bantering manner. "Come," he cried, "'tis but a toss of three ivories and the world is lighter by one of us, and purgatory the more populous. You shall toss first or last, as you please." As he spoke he shook the dice invitingly on his extended palm, and laughed as he did so.
Simone answered him with a great frown and a great voice. "You should have been a mountebank and cried cures on a booth, for your wit is as nimble as an apothecary's flea. But if you have any man's blood in you, you will make such friends with master sword that hereafter we may talk to better purpose. Come, friends." So, with a scowling face, Messer Simone jammed his sword back again into its scabbard, and he and his fellows went away roughly, and the crowd parted very respectfully before them.
At the wish of Messer Guido, his friends and sympathizers went their ways; and as for the crowd of unconcerned spectators, they, understanding that there was nothing more to stare at, went their ways too, and in a little while the place that had been so full and busy was empty and idle, and Guido and I were left alone with Dante.
As we stood there in silence, Madonna Vittoria came forward from her shelter under the arcade and advanced to Dante, and addressed him. "Give me leave," she said, "to tell you that you are a man whose love any woman might be proud to wear. Beware of Simone dei Bardi. I know something of him. He is neither clever enough to forget nor generous enough to forgive. Remember, if you care to remember, that I am always your friend."
Dante saluted her. "I thank you," he said, in a dull, tired voice.
Then Madonna Vittoria went her way over the bridge with her people after her, and when she was gone I made bold to go up to where Dante stood thoughtful, and clapped him on the back in very hearty commendation of his courage and daring. "You have bubbled Simone well," I said, joyously.
But, to my surprise, Dante turned to me with a face that was not at all joyous. "I think he had the best of me in the end," he said, sadly. And as he spoke he hung his head for all the world like a schoolboy that had been reproved before his class.
Messer Guido, that was as tender to melancholy as a gentlewoman, caught him by the hand. "Are you teased by that fellow's taunt?" he asked.
Dante sighed, as he answered: "To the quick of my heart. Will you leave me, friends, to my thoughts?"
Isighed in my turn to see him so perverse who had been so triumphant. "He is as humorous as a chameleon," I protested. Then Guido and I took Dante by the arms to lead him away, I applauding him for his cunning, and Guido gently reproving him for his foolhardiness in getting into a quarrel with such a man of might as Messer Simone—had got him and us some few yards from the scene of the scuffle when Dante suddenly came to a halt and would budge no farther. When we asked him what ailed him, he told us that he had left his book behind him, the book that he had been so deep in a little while ago; and for all we could say to him, he would not be prevailed upon, but must needs return for his precious love-tale. So he quitted us and returned on his steps, and Guido and I looked at each other in some amusement, thinking what a strange fellow our Dante was, that could play scholar and lover and soldier in so many breaths, and could show so much care for some pages of written parchment. Then Guido would have mego with him, but I was of a mind to see what Dante would do next, and was fain to watch him. Guido disapproved of this, and he would not share in it, saying that it was not for us to dog the heels of a friend.
Guido went his way without me, for it seemed to me less scrupulous and seeking only to be amused that one who had done so much in a short time might well be counted upon to do more. I hid in the arcade, and I saw how Dante went straight to the seat where he had left his book, and found it still lying there, and took it up and thrust it into his bosom. And when he had done this he turned and went like one that walked in a dream—and I spying on him from my hiding-place—till he came to the front of the Palace of the Portinari, and there he paused and gazed wistfully at the gray walls. And I, concealing myself behind a convenient pillar of the colonnade, observed him unseen, and presently saw how the small door in the great door of the gray palace opened, and how Madonna Beatrice came out of it, followed by two girls, her companions. They both were pretty girls, I remember, that would have suited my taste very pleasantly. All three maidens stood on top of the steps looking at Dante where he stood, and Dante remained in his place and looked up at them silently and eagerly.
Madonna Beatrice seemed to hesitate for a moment,and then, quitting her companions, descended the steps and advanced toward Dante, who, seeing her purpose, advanced in his turn toward her, and they met in the middle of the now deserted square. I was very honestly—or dishonestly, which you may please—anxious to hear what these two might say to each other, so I lingered in my lurking-place, and there I lay at watch and strove to listen. And because the time was very peaceful, and I very quiet and the air very still and their young voices very clear, I could hear much and guess more, and piecing out the certain with the probable, record in my memory this delicate dialogue.
Madonna Beatrice spoke first, for Dante said nothing, and only gazed at her as the devout gaze at the picture of a saint, and there was some note of reproof in her voice as she spoke. "Messer," she said, "they tell me that you have fought for a rose."
Then Dante shook his head, and he smiled as he answered, blithely, "Madonna, I fought for my flag, for my honor, for the glory of the sempiternal rose."
Beatrice looked at him with a little wonder on her sweet face. "Was it very wise to risk a man's life for a trifle?" she asked.
Dante was silent for a short time, then he said: "There are trifles that outweigh the world in a true balance. I would die a death for every petal of that rose."
Beatrice began to laugh very daintily, and spread out her pretty palms. "This Florence is a very nest of nightingales," she said, softly; and then she added, quaintly, "You talk like a poet."
I heard Dante sigh heavily as he answered her fancy. "I would I were a poet, for then my worship would have words which now shines dumbly in my eyes."
Beatrice gave him a little mocking salutation. "You are very gallant," she said. "Farewell." There was a hint of reproof in her voice, and she made as if to go.
But Dante stopped her. "Stay, lady, stay," he protested. "I speak with a simple heart. I have been your servant ever since you took a rose from my hands. I am your servant forever, now that you have given me a rose. We are old friends, sweet lady, though we wear young faces, and friends may speak their minds to friends."
Then Beatrice asked him, "Who are you who risked your life for my rose?"
Dante answered her: "I am named Dante Alighieri. Yesterday I was nobody. To-day I would not change places with the Emperor, since I declare myself your servant."
Beatrice smiled a smile of sweet content, and I could see that she was both amused and pleased. "I am glad we are old friends," she said, "for so it was not unmaidenly of me to speak to you, butindeed I was grieved to think I had put you in peril. I did not think what I did when I threw you that flower. I only felt that we were children again, you and I. Forgive me."
"It was a happy peril," Dante declared, gladly.
Again Beatrice said him farewell and turned to go, and again Dante stayed her, and when she had paused he looked as if he knew not what to say; but at last he questioned, "When may we meet again?"
Beatrice answered him gravely. "Florence is not so wide a world that you should fear to lose sight of a friend."
Once more she made as if she would join her companion maidens, but as she did so Dante looked all about him with an air of great surprise, and I heard him say: "How dark the air grows. I fear an eclipse."
Beatrice, pausing in her path, cried to him, marvelling, "Why, the sun is at its brightest."
Dante shook his head. "I do not find it so when you are leaving me."
Then I think that Beatrice looked half alarmed and half diverted at the way of Dante's speech, and I heard her say, "Is not the spring of our friendship something too raw for such ripeness of compliment?"
Dante persisted. "I would speak simpler and straighter if I dared."
Then Beatrice shook her head and tried to wear an air of severity, but failed because she could not help smiling. "The arrows of your wit must not take me for their target," she said, and made a pretence to frown.
Then Dante, at a loss what to say, made the best plea he could when he pleaded, "Pity me."
At that cry the growing gravity on the girl's face softened to her familiar gentleness, for she was touched, as all women who are worthy of womanhood must be touched by that divine appeal. "Are you in need of pity?" she said, softly.
And Dante answered, instantly, "Neck-deep in need."
Then he sighed and Beatrice sighed, and she said, very kindly, "In that case, I pity you," and made again to leave him, and again the appeal in his eyes stayed her.
"Can you do no more than pity me?" he asked.
Beatrice was smiling now, for all she strove to be serious. "Why, you are for a greedy garner; you want flower, fruit, and all, in a breath."
I could see Messer Dante's face suddenly stiffen into solemnity; I could hear Messer Dante's voice, for all its youthful freshness, take upon it the gravity of age. "For nine years, day in and day out, I have thought of you," he sighed. "Have you ever thought of me?"
He looked steadfastly at the girl as he spoke,and if there was much of entreaty in his question there was something of command also, as if he chose to compel her to tell him the very truth. And the girl answered, indeed, as if she were compelled to speak and could not deny him, and her cheeks were as pink as the earliest roses as she answered him: "Sometimes."
Again Dante spoke and questioned her, and again in his carriage and in his voice there was that same note of command. "With what thoughts?"
But I could plainly see that if our Dante would seek to give orders to the girl with an authority that was beyond his years, the girl could meet his assumption of domination with a composure that was partly grave and partly humorous and wholly adorable.
She nodded very pleasantly at him as she answered, "Kind thoughts for the gentle child who gave his rose to a little girl."
I knew very well, as I leaned and listened, that the mind of Dante leaped back on that instant to the day he had told us of so little a while before, the day nine years ago when, as the sweet lady said, he gave his rose to a little girl. I knew, too, that the chance meeting with Madonna Beatrice on this fair morning must in some mighty fashion alter the life of my friend. The fantastic love which he, a child of nine, felt or professed to feel for the little girl of a like age was now, through this accident,setting his soul and body on fire and forcing him to say wild words, as a little while back it had forced him to do wild deeds, out of the very exhilaration of madness. And Dante spoke as all lovers speak when they wish to touch the hearts of their ladies, only making me who was listening not a little jealous, seeing that he spoke better than most that I knew of.
"Madonna," he said, "Madonna, the lover-poets of our city are very prodigal of protestations—what will they not do for their lady? They offer her the sun, moon, and stars for her playthings—and in the end she is fortunate if she gets so much as a farthing rushlight to burn at her shrine."
Beatrice was listening to him with the bright smile upon her face which for me was the best part of a beauty that, if I had been in Dante's place, I should have found a thought too seraphic and unearthly for my fancy.
"My heart," she assured him, "would never be touched by such sounding phrases."
Now Dante's face glowed with the fire that was in him, and his words seemed to glow as he spoke like gold coins dropping new-moulded from the mint. "I am no god to give you a god's gifts," he protested. "But of what a plain man may proffer from the heart of his heart and the soul of his soul, say, is there any gift I can give you in sign of my service?"
The bright smile on the face of Beatrice changed to a gracious air of thoughtfulness, and I think I should have been glad had I been wooing a woman in such fashion to have seen such a look on the face of my fair. "Messer Dante," she said, "you have some right to be familiar with me, for you risked your life for my rose. So I will answer your frankness frankly. Men have tried to please me and failed, for I think I am not easy to please greatly."
Dante stretched out both his hands to her. "Let me try to please you!" he cried.
The girl answered him, speaking very slowly, as if she were carefully turning her thoughts into words and weighing her words while she uttered them. "That is in your own hands. I do not cry for the sun and stars and the shining impossibilities. But I am a woman, and if a man did brave deeds (and by brave deeds I do not mean risking two souls for the sake of a rose) or good deeds (and by good deeds I do not mean the rhyming of pretty rhymes in my honor), and did them for love of me, why, I have so much of my grandmother Eve in me that I believe I should be pleased."
I saw Dante draw himself up as a soldier might in the ranks when he saw his general riding by and thought that the rider's eye was upon him. "With God's help," he vowed, "you shall hear better things of me."
There was a look of such fine kindness on Beatrice's face while he spoke thus as made even me, that am a man of common clay, and like love as I like wine and victuals, thrill in my hiding-place. "I hope as much," she said, softly—"almost believe as much. But I linger too long, and my comrades wonder. Farewell."
She gave him an enchanting salutation, and Dante bowed his head. "Farewell, most fair lady," he murmured.
Then Beatrice moved away from him, and ascended the steps where the two girls stood and waited for her, and she laid her white finger on the ring of brass that governed the lock of the little door, and the little door opened and she passed into the gray palace, she and her maids, and to me too, as I am very sure to Dante, the world seemed in a twinkling robbed of its sweetness. For though, as I have said, Madonna Beatrice was never a woman for me to love, I could well believe that to the man who loved her there could be no woman else on the whole wide earth, which, as I think, is an uncomfortable form of loving.
When she had gone Dante stood there very silent for a while, and it may be that I, tired of watching him, drifted into a doze, and leaned there for a while against my sheltering pillar with closed lids, as sometimes happens to men that are weary of waiting. If this were so, it would explain whyI did not see what seems to have happened then—or perhaps it was because I was of a temper and composition less fine than my friend's that I was not permitted to see such sights. But it appears, as I learned from his lips later, that as he stood there in all the ecstacy of his sweet intercourse with the well-beloved, the painted image of the God of Love that stood beside the bridge, above the fountain, came to life again, and moved and came in front of Dante and looked upon him very searchingly. The God of Love lifted the hand that carried his fateful arrow and pointed with the dart toward the gray palace, and it spoke to Dante in a voice of command, and said, "Behold thy heart." Then Dante felt no fear such as he had felt at the first appearance of the God of Love, but only an almost intolerable sense of joy at the glory and the beauty and the divinity of true and noble love. And he said to himself, as if he whispered a prayer, "O Blessed Beatrice," and therewith the figure of the God of Love departed back to its familiar place.
If I had, indeed, been dozing, my sleep lasted no longer than this, and I was conscious again, and saw Dante, and I leaped from my hiding-place and ran to where Dante stood alone in the square, with his hands against his face. I called to him, as I came up, "Dante, are you drowned in a wonder?" and at the sound of my voice Dante plucked the fingersfrom his face and stared at me vacantly, as if he did not know me. This gaze of ignorance lasted, it may be, for the better part of a minute.
Then Dante, seeming to recognize me, all of a sudden drew me toward him and spoke as a man speaks that tells strange truths truly. "Friend," he said, "you are well met, for you see me now as I am who will never see me again as I was. I am become a man, for I love God's loveliest woman. Enough of nobility in name; I mean to prove nobility in deed. Say to my friends that Dante of the Alighieri, a Florentine, and a lover, devotes himself for love's sake to the service of his city."
And when he had spoken he stood very still with his hands clasped before him, and I, because it is my way to laugh at all things, laughed at him, and cried out: "Holy Saint Plato, what a hot change of a cold heart! Bring bell, book, and candle, for Jack Idle is dead and Adam Active is his heir."
But Dante turned his face to me, and his eyes were shining very bright, and he looked younger than his youth, and he spoke to me not as if he were chiding my mirth, but as if he were telling me a piece of welcome news, and he said, very gently, "Here beginneth the New Life."