Уильям Моэм - Then and Now

The Duke’s soldiers, however, were not satisfied with plundering Oliverotto’s men. They set about sacking the city. They would have spared nothing but for the Duke’s stern measures; he did not want a ruined city, but a prosperous one from which he could get revenue, and he had the looters hanged. The city was in a turmoil. The shopkeepers had put up their shutters and honest citizens cowered in their houses behind locked doors. Soldiers broke into the wineshops and forced their owners at the sword’s point to give them wine. Men were lying dead in the streets and mongrel dogs lapped their blood.

MACHIAVELLI HAD followed the Duke to Sinigaglia. He spent an anxious day. It was dangerous to go out alone or unarmed and when obliged to leave the wretched inn where he had taken refuge he was careful to be accompanied by Piero and his servants. He had no wish to be killed by excitable Gascons the worse for liquor.

At eight o’clock that night the Duke sent for him. On the former occasions on which Machiavelli had had audience with him it had been in the presence of others, secretaries, churchmen or members of the suite; but on this occasion, to his surprise, the officer who ushered him into the room in which the Duke was seated immediately withdrew and for the first time they were alone.

The Duke was in high spirits. With his auburn hair and neat beard, his cheeks flushed and his eyes shining, he looked handsomer than Machiavelli had ever seen him. There was assurance in his mien and majesty in his bearing. He might be the bastard of a wicked priest but he bore himself like a king. As usual he came straight to the point.

“Well, I have done your masters a great service in ridding them of their enemies,” he said. “I desire you now to write to them to collect infantry and send it with their cavalry so that we can march together on Castello or Perugia.”

“Perugia?”

A cheerful smile lit up the Duke’s face.

“The Baglioni refused to sign the treaty with the others and he left them saying: ‘If Caesar Borgia wants me he can come and fetch me at Perugia and come armed.’ That is what I propose to do.”

Machiavelli thought that it had not done the others much good to sign the treaty, but contented himself with smiling.

“To crush Vitellozzo and destroy the Orsini would have cost the Signory a lot of money and then they wouldn’t have done it half so neatly as I have. I don’t think they should be ungrateful.”

“I’m sure they are not, Excellency.”

The Duke, a smile still on his lips, but his eyes shrewd, held Machiavelli with a steady gaze.

“Then let them show it. They haven’t stirred a finger and what I’ve done is worth a hundred thousand ducats to them. The obligation is not legal, but tacit, and it would be well if they started to discharge it.”

Machiavelli very well knew that the Signory would be outraged at such a demand and he had no wish to be the transmitter of it. He was glad to have a way out.

“I should tell Your Excellency that I have asked my government to recall me. I have pointed out to them that they should have here an envoy of more consequence and with fuller powers than mine. Your Excellency could more profitably discuss this matter with my successor.”

“You are right. I am tired of your government’s temporizing. The time has come for them to make the decision whether they will be with me or against me. I should have left here today, but if I had the town would have been sacked. Andrea Doria is to surrender the citadel tomorrow morning and then I shall set out for Castello and Perugia. When I have settled my business there I shall turn my attention to Siena.”

“Would the King of France consent to your taking cities that are under his protection?”

“He wouldn’t and I’m not so foolish as to think so. I propose to take them on behalf of the Church. All I want for myself is my own state of Romagna.”

Machiavelli sighed. He was filled with an unwilling admiration for this man whose spirit was so fiery and who was so confident in his power to get whatsoever he wanted.

“No one can doubt that you are favoured by fortune, Excellency,” he said.

“Fortune favours him who knows how to take advantage of his opportunity. Do you suppose it was a happy accident, by which I profited, that the governor of the citadel refused to surrender except to me personally?”

“I wouldn’t do Your Excellency that injustice. After what has happened today I can guess that you made it worth his while.”

The Duke laughed.

“I like you, Secretary. You are a man with whom one can talk. I shall miss you.” He paused and for what seemed quite a long time looked searchingly at Machiavelli. “I could almost wish that you were in my service.”

“Your Excellency is very kind. I am very well content to serve the Republic.”

“What does it profit you? The salary you receive is so miserable that to make both ends meet you have to borrow from your friends.”

This gave Machiavelli something of a turn, but then he remembered that the Duke must know of the twenty–five ducats Bartolomeo had lent him.

“I am careless of money and of an extravagant disposition,” he answered with a pleasant smile. “It is my own fault if from time to time I live beyond my means.”

“You would find it hard to do that if you were employed by me. It is very pleasant to be able to give a pretty lady a ring, a bracelet or a brooch when one wishes to obtain her favours.”

“I have made it my rule to satisfy my desires with women of easy virtue and modest pretensions.”

“A good rule enough if one’s desires were under one’s control, but who can tell what strange tricks love can play on him? Have you never discovered, Secretary, to what expense one is put when one loves a virtuous woman?”

The Duke was looking at him with mocking eyes and for an instant Machiavelli asked himself uneasily whether it was possible that he knew of his unsatisfied passion for Aurelia, but the thought had no sooner come into his mind than he rejected it. The Duke had more important things to occupy him than the Florentine envoy’s love affairs.

“I am willing to take it for granted and leave both the pleasure and the expense to others.”

The Duke gazed at him thoughtfully. You might have imagined that he was asking himself what kind of a man this was, but with no ulterior motive, from idle curiosity rather. So, when you find yourself alone with a stranger in the waiting room of an office to pass the time you try from the look of him to guess his business, his calling, his habits and his character.

“I should have thought you were too intelligent a man to be content to remain for the rest of your life in a subordinate position,” said the Duke.

“I have learnt from Aristotle that it is the better part of wisdom to cultivate the golden mean.”

“Is it possible that you are devoid of ambition?”

“Far from it, Excellency,” smiled Machiavelli. “My ambition is to serve my state to the best of my ability.”

“That is just what you will not be allowed to do. You know better than anyone that in a republic talent is suspect. A man attains high office because his mediocrity prevents him from being a menace to his associates. That is why a democracy is ruled not by the men who are most competent to rule it, but by the men whose insignificance can excite nobody’s apprehension. Do you know what are the cankers that eat the heart of a democracy?”

He looked at Machiavelli as though waiting for an answer, but Machiavelli said nothing.

“Envy and fear. The petty men in office are envious of their associates and rather than that one of them should gain reputation will prevent him from taking a measure on which may depend the safety and prosperity of the state; and they are fearful because they know that all about them are others who will stop at neither lies nor trickery to step into their shoes. And what is the result? The result is that they are more afraid of doing wrong than zealous to do right. They say that dog doesn’t bite dog: whoever invented that proverb had never lived under a democratic government.”