I must also recall his appearance when he was doing my portrait, how it changed until he became another person, with horrible sharp eyes, cold and unnatural, his whole face transformed into something cruel; he looked devilish.
He is not all that he makes himself out to be, as little, perhaps, as anybody else.
It is almost incredible that the same man should have done the Christ, sitting so pure and transfigured at His table of love.
ANGELICA went through the hall this evening and, as she passed by, the Prince told her to sit down for a moment with her embroidery. She was reluctant, though she dared not show it; she always avoids court life, nor is she suited to it nor fit to be exhibited as a princess. But who knows if she is the Prince’s daughter? She may just as well be a bastard. But Messer Bernardo knows nothing of that. He looked at her as she sat there with downcast eyes and silly parted lips, looked and looked as though she were something extraordinary. But then to him everything is extraordinary: a freak of nature like myself, or one of his wonderful stones which are so rare that he picks them up from the ground to admire them. He kept silent and seemed quite moved, though she simply sat there without uttering a single word, giving every token of embarrassment. The sudden stop in the conversation was quite awkward.
I don’t know what it was that affected him. Perhaps he pitied her for not being beautiful; he is a connoisseur of beauty and knows its importance. Perhaps that is why his gaze became so wistful and tender. I do not know, but neither do I care.
Naturally, the girl wanted to leave as soon as possible. She did not stay a minute longer than was absolutely necessary, but asked the Prince if she might go. On receiving his permission, she got up shyly and swiftly with her usual awkwardness, for her movements are still those of a child. It is strange that she should be so ungraceful.
As usual she was simply, almost commonly clad. She does not care about her dress, and neither does anybody else.
THE GREAT master Bernardo finds no peace of mind in his work. He goes from one thing to another, beginning, but never completing them. Why? He ought to occupy himself exclusively with that Last Supper of his, so as to get it finished someday; but he does nothing of the kind. He must have wearied of it. Instead, he has begun a portrait of the Princess.
Apparently she does not want to be painted, but it is the Prince’s wish. I understand her only too well! One may contemplate oneself in a mirror, but on leaving it one does not wish the reflection to remain there so that somebody else can take possession of it. I understand that, like me, she does not wish to be portrayed.
No one possesses himself! Detestable thought! No one possesses himself! Thus everything belongs to the others! Don’t we own even our faces? Do they belong to anybody who chooses to look at them? And one’s body? Can others own one’s body? I find the notion most repellent.
I, and I alone, will be the sole possessor of that which is mine. Nobody else may seize it, none outrage it. It belongs to me and nobody else. And after my death I want to continue to own myself. Nobody is going to poke about in my entrails. I do not wish them to be seen by strangers, though they can scarcely be as revolting as those of that scoundrel Francesco.
Messer Bernardo’s meddlings and his inquisitive interest in everything are repugnant to me. What is the use of it all? What sensible object does it serve? It repels me to think that he should have in his possession a portrait of me, that he should own me in this way. It is as though I were no longer sole owner of myself, as though I were also over there in Santa Croce, among his detestable monsters.
She can just as well be portrayed too! Why should she not endure the same insult as I? It gratifies me to think that she also will be exposed to his shameless scrutiny and take her turn in suffering his outrage.
But how can that strumpet be of any interest to him? I, who know her better than anybody else, have never found anything interesting about her.
We shall see what he will produce. After all, it has nothing to do with me. I don’t think he is any judge of human nature.
MESSER BERNARDO has amazed me. He has amazed me so much that I have lain pondering it nearly all night.
They sat talking last night on their usual lofty topics. But one could see that he was plunged in gloom. He sat with his hand on his great beard, meditating and weighed down with thoughts which cannot have caused him much pleasure. But when he spoke he was filled with fire and passion, fire which was not visible from without, but seemed buried in ashes. He was unlike himself; one might have been listening to another man.
He said: “In the end human thought accomplishes so little. Its wings are strong, but not as strong as the destiny which gave them to us. It will not let us escape nor reach out any further than it desires. Our journey is predestined and, after a brief roaming which fills us with joy and expectation, we are drawn back again as the falcon is drawn back by the leash in the hand of the falconer. When shall we attain liberty? When will the leash be severed and the falcon soar into the open spaces?
“When? Will it ever be? Or is it not the secret of our being that we are and always will be bound to the hand of the falconer? If this were changed then we should cease to be human beings and our fate would not longer be that of humanity.
“And yet we are such that we are always subject to the enticement of space, and believe that we belong to it. And yet it is ever present over us, it reveals itself to us as something veritable. It is as real as our imprisonment.”
He asked himself: “Why this limitless space to which we never can attain? What is the meaning of this unbounded immensity around us and around life, when we are such helpless prisoners and when life remains the same, no less enclosed within itself? What then is the use of the great dimensions? Why should our little destiny, our narrow vale, be surrounded by such vastness? Does it add to our happiness? It does not appear so. It looks as though we were the unhappier for it.”
I watched him closely, his somber mien and the strange weariness in his aged eyes.
He continued: “Are we the happier because we seek the truth? I know not. I merely seek it. All my life has been a restless search for it, and sometimes I have felt that I have apprehended it, I have caught a glimpse of its pure sky-but the sky has never opened itself for me, my eyes have never filled themselves with its endless spaces, without which nothing here can be fully understood. It is not vouchsafed to us. Therefore all my efforts really have been in vain. Therefore all that I have touched has been but partly true and partly completed. I think of my works with pain and so they will be regarded by all-as though it were a torso. All that I have created is imperfect and unfinished. All that I leave behind me is unfinished.
“But is there anything strange in that? It is the fate of mankind, the inescapable destiny of all human effort and all human achievement. Is it ever more than an attempt, an attempt at something which can never be achieved, which is not meant to be achieved by any of us? All human culture is but an attempt at something unattainable, something which far transcends our powers of realization. There it stands, mutilated, tragic as a torso. Is not the human spirit itself a torso?
“What use are wings when they can never be spread? They become a burden instead of a release. They weigh us down, we trail them and finally we hate them.
“And it comes as a relief when the falconer wearies of his cruel play and draws the hood over our head so that we no longer have to see anything.”
He sat there dark and gloomy, with bitter lines about his mouth, and in his eyes a dangerous gleam. Upon my word, I was astounded. Was this the same man as he who not long ago stood entranced by the measureless greatness of man, who proclaimed the power of man, how man should reign like a mighty potentate in his vast kingdom, who depicted him almost as the peer of the gods?