Voices from the Past Part 74

"I don't understand..."

"It seems to me...I feel that the future has something tragic... I'm worried... Do you believe in foretelling?"

He had been jousting: I blamed fatigue. But he would not be put aside by a few casual words.

"Mon Pere...tell me...some say that you can foretell?

Is that true?"

"I can not."

"Who can?"

"n.o.body."

"n.o.body?"

"Divinations...those occult doings...forget them. You must think clearly, your Majesty. Don't let men hoodwink you. n.o.body knows tomorrow."

"Tonight, as I walked through the tunnel from the chateau...tonight I had three guards... I was afraid...like a Borgia...a.s.sa.s.sinations...pretty bad..."

He laughed at himself.

It has been sunny and cool for several days: I have gone on pleasant walks, along the river, through the chateau gardens, through the grove that leads into the King's forest: paths are becoming familiar: I shake hands with old trees. At the chateau I have watched the King play tennis: they are having a tournament. Francis plays with ugly ferocity. His partners play warily. I see that diplomacy begins on the tennis courts.

Studio

September 3, 1517

My lamp is guttering. Candle stubs are smoking.

Was it thirty years ago, in Milan, that I understood?

Windows were open and heat-lightning was flickering beyond my studio. My anatomy drawings were spread on the corner table. Then I saw. Saw clearly. Knew. Saw that man's blood resembles the tides of the sea; from the seat of the heart it circulated throughout the body. Let an artery or vein burst or suffer injury and blood raced to the injured spot. Incessant currents of the blood, pa.s.sing through the arteries and veins, caused them to thicken and become callous. So, I had additional proof of circulation. Each dissection revealed further confirmation of the system. Why was I slow in grasping the obvious?

I have explained my theory to some but was often rebuffed and yet when I told her-using my drawings-she grasped the significance. She understood many things. And when she lay dying there seemed little left for me... I held her hand. Her eyes were closed. Grey eyes. She never spoke. G.o.d, how I stumbled down those rat infested stairs, stairs with a cross gouged in each step. Ah, those flooded streets!

Some men of science and art have copies of my first treatise. Some. They hesitate. Resent. Last year I explained circulation to King Francis. He was not interested; he fondled his diamond-studded belt and stared stupidly at me. I must tell Francesco that the treatise is packed in the third trunk-the one with the smashed lock.

I must sequence my drawings:

1 - Skin

2 - Muscles

3 - Tendons

4 - Bones

Indicate effect of emotions, labor, illness, age.

Cloux

October 15, 1517

Francesco is copying this:

I have been unable to write or work for several days.

These days she is in my mind all of the time. Maturina begs me to eat...my appet.i.te has gone. The weather is perfect but I can not go outside. Here, in my studio, I have her portrait to console me; sometimes I have to turn away from it. I thought that she would live for many years. I thought that she was contented. Her family loved her.

The letter, written by her brother, says nothing about how Mona died. Was she ill a long while? I can't remember when she wrote me last time...was it as much as a year ago? Why am I confused? Did the plague kill her? Was she with her family? How they will miss her! The letter took four months to reach me-a hundred and twenty days! She died in Genoa, on the 2nd or 3rd of July. I can't make out the date.

The King knows of her death. Francesco told him, because I can not ride with the hunters... I can not ride... Francis has presented me with a small jeweled hourgla.s.s. A note accompanied it.

Life and death...old friends, old enemies.

My face is a cemetery.

Gossips said that Mona was my mistress.

We were friends.

In those days, when I was beginning her portrait, I had Gorgio play for her: she liked his viola da gamba skill.

He would usually appear a little late, but always with a smile, a bow. Sometimes a choir boy sang motets; it seems to me he recited poetry too. Did he always wear a brown cloak?

Our sittings were often far apart: there was illness in her family: she was away from Florence for months at a time: on her return it was hard to recapture our mood.

She was patient with me but I have often stood before her picture quite perplexed...especially if the light had changed...my colors had changed.

I was late for one of our sittings and she put on an ap.r.o.n and scrubbed brushes and mortars, made my apprentices scurry; then laughed at my objections.

"Next time you're late, I'll clean your leggio," she said, and smiled teasingly.

Her smile...I used to think of it as hiding family secrets, feminine secrets, her own loneliness ("Yes, Leonardo...yes...there are times...")