Уильям Моэм - Then and Now

“Out? Where? What for? Tiresome fellow, doesn’t he know yet that I hate being kept waiting? Send one of my servants to find him and be quick about it.”

She hurried to do his bidding and had hardly closed the door behind her when it was opened again and Piero came in.

Machiavelli stared at him in amazement: he was dressed, not in his own shabby riding clothes, but in the red and yellow of the Duke’s soldiers. There was a mischievous smile on his lips, but it somewhat lacked assurance.

“I’ve come to say good–bye to you, Messer Niccolò. I have enlisted in the Duke’s army.”

“I did not imagine you had put on that gaudy costume just for fun.”

“Don’t be angry with me, Messere. During the three months and more that I’ve been with you I’ve seen something of the world. I’ve been witness to great events and I’ve talked with men who were concerned in them. I’m strong and young and healthy. I can’t go back to Florence and spend the rest of my life driving a quill in the Second Chancery. I wasn’t made for that. I want to live.”

Machiavelli looked at him reflectively. The suspicion of a smile hovered on that razor blade which was his mouth.

“Why didn’t you tell me what you had in mind?”

“I thought you would prevent me from doing it.”

“I should have looked upon it as my duty to point out to you that a soldier’s life is hard, dangerous and ill–paid. He takes the risks and the commander gets the glory. He suffers from hunger and thirst and is exposed to the rigour of the elements. If he is captured by the enemy he is robbed of the very clothes on his back. If he is wounded he is left to die and should he recover and be useless for combat little is left him but to beg his food in the streets. He spends his life among coarse, brutal and licentious men to the ruin of his morals and the peril of his soul. I should have felt it my duty to point out to you that in the Chancery of the Republic you would have a position at once respectable and secure in which by industry and subservience to the whims of your superiors you could earn a salary just enough to keep body and soul together and after many years of faithful service, if you were adroit, slightly unscrupulous and very lucky you could count on advancement if the brother–in–law or the nephew by marriage of an influential person did not at the moment happen to want a job. But having done my duty I would have taken no further steps to prevent you from doing what you wished.”

Piero laughed with relief, for though he was attached to Machiavelli and admired him, he was not a little afraid of him.

“Then you are not vexed with me?”

“No, my dear boy. You have served me well and I have found you honest, loyal and energetic. Fortune favours the Duke and I can’t blame you for hitching your wagon to his star.”

“Then you will make it all right for me with my mother and Uncle Biagio?”

“Your mother will be brokenhearted. She will think I have led you astray and will blame me, but Biagio is a sensible man and will do his best to console her. And now, my dear, I must be off.”

He took the boy in his arms to kiss him on both cheeks, but as he did so noticed the shirt he was wearing. He pulled up the heavily embroidered collar.

“Where did you get that shirt?”

Piero flushed to the roots of his hair.

“Nina gave it to me.”

“Nina?”

“Monna Aurelia’s maid.”

Machiavelli recognized the fine linen he had brought Bartolomeo from Florence and he stared frowning at the elaborate needlework. Then he looked into Piero’s eyes. Beads of sweat stood on the lad’s forehead.

“Monna Aurelia had more material than she needed for Messer Bartolomeo and she gave Nina what she didn’t want.”

“And did Nina do that beautiful embroidery herself?”

“Yes.”

It was a clumsy lie.

“How many shirts did she give you?”

“Only two. There wasn’t material for more.”

“That will do very well. You will be able to wear one while the other is washed. You are a lucky young man. When I sleep with women they do not give me presents; they expect me to give them presents.”

“I only did it to oblige you, Messer Niccolò,” said Piero, with a disarming smile. “You urged me to make advances to her.”

Machiavelli knew very well that Aurelia would never have dreamt of giving her maid several yards of costly linen and he knew that the maid could never have drawn the intricate design. Monna Caterina herself had told him that only Aurelia could do that delicate handiwork. It was Aurelia who had given the boy the shirts. And why? Because he was her husband’s third cousin? Nonsense. The truth, the unpalatable truth, stared him in the face. On the night of the assignation, when Machiavelli had been sent for by the Duke, it was not with the maid that Piero had slept, but with her mistress. It was by no miraculous intervention of San Vitale that Bartolomeo’s wife was about to bear a son but by the very natural instrumentality of the young man who stood before him. That explained why Monna Caterina had given him ridiculous excuses for not arranging another opportunity for him to meet Aurelia and why Aurelia had avoided all further communication with him. Machiavelli was seized with cold fury. They had made a pretty fool of him, those two abandoned women and the boy whom he had befriended. He stepped back a little to have a good look at him.

Machiavelli had never set great store on masculine beauty; he considered it of small importance compared with the pleasant manner, the easy conversation and the audacious approach which had enabled him to get all the women he wanted; and though he had recognized that Piero was a personable youth he had never troubled to look closely at him. He examined him now with angry eyes. He was tall and well made, with broad shoulders, a slim waist and shapely legs. The uniform set off his figure to advantage. He had brown curly hair that covered his head like a tight–fitting cap, large round brown eyes under well–marked brows, an olive skin as smooth and clear as a girl’s, a small straight nose, a red, sensual mouth and ears that clung close to his skull. His expression was bold, frank, ingenuous and engaging.

“Yes,” reflected Machiavelli, “he has the beauty that would appeal to a silly woman. I never noticed it or I’d have been on my guard.”

He cursed himself for having been so stupid. But how could he suspect that Aurelia would give a thought to a lad, cousin though he was to her husband, who after all was no more than an errand boy just out of school? Machiavelli had used him to fetch and carry, to run hither and thither at his beck and call and if he had treated him with an indulgence he now regretted it was because Biagio was his uncle. Piero was not unintelligent, but he had none of the graces you learn by living in the great world, and having little to say for himself for the most part kept quiet in the presence of his betters. Machiavelli knew very well that, as for himself, he had a way with women; he had never failed to charm when to charm was his object and he thought there was little anyone could teach him in the art and science of gallantry. Piero was but a callow youth. Who in his senses could have supposed that Aurelia would cast so much as a glance of her fine eyes on him when she had at her feet a man of distinction, worldly wisdom and urbane conversation? It was preposterous.

Piero suffered his master’s long scrutiny with composure. He had recovered from his embarrassment and there was a wariness in his manner which suggested that he was alert.

“I’ve been very fortunate,” he remarked coolly, but as though he were somewhat inclined to take good luck as his due, “Count Lodovico Alvisi’s page fell ill on the way from Sinigaglia and had to go back to Rome, and he’s taken me in his place.”