It is over. Everything is over. Over!
When I heard the news and finally grasped its import, I crept away to the dwarfs’ apartment, so as to be alone with myself. I was afraid that my feelings might get the better of me, and that I should not be able to exercise manly self-control. Scarcely had I entered my little bare chamber when I began to shake all over in a paroxysm of sobs. I confess it: I could no longer hold it back. I pressed my clenched fists to my eyes in helpless fury and wept. Wept!
THE PRINCE keeps to his room, nor will he receive any visitofs. He eats there in solitude. I wait on him and am the only one to see him except the servant who carries in the food. He seems quite calm, but it is not easy to say what may be hiding behind that pallid mask of his. His face is chalk white, framed in its black beard, his gaze immobile and unseeing. He scarcely notices my presence, and not a word passes his thin bloodless lips. The wretched servant is terrified of him, but then he is a miserable coward.
When he heard of the Venetian refusal, that the damned shopkeepers’ republic intended to stop him from proceeding with the war, he flew into a passion such as I had never seen before. He literally foamed at the mouth with rage, a fearful sight. In his frenzy he seized his dagger and drove it into the table, nearly up to the hilt. If the despicable hucksters could have seen him then, I’ll warrant they would have laid their money on the table without any further haggling.
A particular source of vexation is that he never had any real opportunity of utilizing Messer Bernardo’s brilliant inventions. He would have been able to put them to good use, and he is convinced that with their aid we should have captured the city and that we were on the threshold of victory. But, if so, why did he not win it then?
It was a joy to witness his frenzy, but afterward I bethought me that perhaps he is not a very strong man. Why is he so dependent on others? Even on something so base and vile as money? Why did he not hurl our own unconquerable army against the city and crush it? Are not armies meant for that?
I merely ask. I am no strategist, maybe I do not understand the art of war, but my soul too is filled with pain and wonder over our incomprehensible fate.
I have unbuckled my armor. In sorrow and vexation I have put it aside in the dwarfs’ apartment. It hangs there as helplessly as a miserable jumping jack on its nail. Humiliated. Dishonored.
WE HAVE been at peace for nearly four weeks now. The palace, the town and the whole country are wrapped in gloom. It is strange how depression and uneasiness can spread themselves abroad during a prolonged peace. One knows exactly what it is going to feel like; the air begins to thicken and exude that stagnant suffocating vapidity which is so depressing to the senses; the returning soldiers are discontented, nothing suits them, and the stay-at-homes are irritable and snappish with them, perhaps because the war has not had the desired result. Daily life continues its sluggish futile aimless course. All the hopefulness and gaiety of the war have been swept away.
The court is moribund. Nobody passes through the main gate, except those of us who reside here, and we generally use one of the other entrances. There are no visitors from abroad, no guests are announced and none are invited. The halls are deserted and even the courtiers keep in the background. One seldom meets a soul in the empty corridors and the stairways echo beneath one’s solitary feet. It is almost uncanny, like an abandoned castle. And within, in his secluded chamber, the Prince strides up and down or sits brooding at his table, where the hole from his dagger blade gapes like an open wound. He sits glaring ahead of him, pondering over God knows what.
It is a gloomy depressing time. The day drags itself painfully along until at last it is evening again.
I have more than enough time to write my notes on my experiences and my meditations, but I have no energy at all. I spend most of my time sitting at the window, watching the sluggish gray-yellow river flowing outside the castle wall, staining it a bilious green.
The river which once upon a time witnessed our glorious victories in the land of il Toro!
NO, NO, this is monstrous 1 It is more upsetting than anything else which has happened during this terrible time! The earth reels beneath my feet and I have no more faith in anything under the sun!
Is it conceivable-the Prince thinks that he and the house of Montanza should make friends and sign a pact never to make war on each other again! They are going to stop this perpetual fighting and solemnly bind themselves to put an end to it forever. Never again will they draw their swords against each other! It seems that, to begin with, il Toro refused, presumably in annoyance because he had been recently attacked, but the Prince continued even more earnestly to urge his proposition. Why should our two people go on destroying each other, what is the use of all these meaningless wars? They have been going on intermittently for two centuries, and neither has been able definitely to defeat the other, so that both have been the losers in this eternal warfare. It has brought us nothing but famine and misery. How much better it would be if we could live in peace and mutual understanding, so that our countries could flourish and rejoice as they should have done from the beginning. Lodovico is reported to have begun to pay heed to the Prince’s proposals and found them reasonable. Now he has answered that he is of the same mind and has accepted an invitation to negotiate this lasting peace and sign the solemn treaty.
I think the world has gone mad! Lasting peace! No more war! What flummery, what childishness! Do they think they can change the cosmic system? What conceit! And what infidelity toward the past and the great traditions! No more war! Is there to be no more bloodshed, and are glory and honor to be of no further account? Will the silver bugle never blow again as the knights charge with their lances in rest? Will the troops never clash again and meet their heroic death on the field of battle? And then will there be nothing left to put a limit to the bottomless pride and arrogance of mankind? No Boccarossa with his broadsword, pock-marked and close-lipped, to show these people the powers that reign over them? Are the very foundations of life to be dislocated?
Reconciliation! Could anything be more shameful? Reconciliation with a mortal enemy! What perversity, what warped and repulsive artifice! And what degradation, what humiliation, for us, our army, our dead! What dishonor for our fallen heroes whose sacrifice was in vain. It is nauseating-ly horrible!
So that was what he was meditating. I often wondered what it might be-and that is what it was! And now he is in a better temper, he has begun to talk again as usual, and seems quite lively and pleased with himself. I suppose he thinks he has had a brilliant inspiration, a really great idea.
There are no words for my contempt. My faith in my lord, the Prince, has suffered a jar from which it cannot recover. He has sunk as deeply as any prince can. Eternal peace! Eternal armistice! No more wars in all eternity! Only peace, peace! Truly it is not easy to be the dwarf of such a lord.
THE WHOLE palace is upside down, thanks to this idiotic entertainment. One stumbles over brooms and pails, there are mounds of rubbish everywhere, whose dust clogs one’s throat when they are shoveled out of the windows. They have taken ancient tapestries down from the attic and rolled them out on the floor so that one treads on the sheepish love scenes; later they will be suspended on the walls to beautify this shameful “feast of peace and concord.” Guest apartments which had not been used for years have been put to rights again, and the servants run about like half-wits, scuttling to and fro in order to get everything done in time. This imbecile scheme of the Prince’s displeases them all, and besides, it involves so much toil and effort. They are doing up the Palazzo Geraldi, for it too will be occupied: Lodovico’s escort is going to be quartered there. They say it looks like a pigsty after Boccarossa’s stay. The larders are crammed with food, hundreds of oxen, calves and sheep, which the castellan has forced the wretched people to deliver, as well as grain and forage. They are, of course, annoyed, and the whole country is seething with discontent. I believe that, if they could, they would rebel against the Prince thanks to his stupid notion of a “peace feast.” Deer are slain in the parks, pheasants and hare are trapped and shot, and the boars are hunted in the mountains. The falconers come to the kitchen with their quails, partridges, and herons, pigeons are slaughtered, the capons in the coops are tested for their fat, and peacocks are selected for the great gala banquet which is to take place one of these days. The tailors are making costly attire for the Prince and Princess and all the patricians in the town, garments of rare materials from Venice -they can be had on credit, but none is given for the war. They fit and try on and go rushing in and out of the palace. Triumphal arches are being erected outside the castle and down the street where Lodovico and his train will pass. Baldachins are set up in front of the palace gate and inside the hall, and they are busy brushing and beating the carpets which are going to hang from the windows. The musicians drive one mad practicing their pieces all day long, and the court poets scribble some nonsense which is going to be recited in the great throne room. Nothing but preparations for this idiotic feast! It is the sole topic of conversation, nobody gives a thought to anything else. The whole court is in a turmoil and every corner is in disorder; one cannot take a step without getting in somebody’s way or stumbling over something; everything is in an indescribable muddle.