Уильям Моэм - Then and Now

This Count Lodovico, an intimate of Il Valentino’s, was one of the Roman gentlemen who had taken service under him as a lancer.

“How did you manage that?”

“Messer Bartolomeo spoke to the Duke’s treasurer about me and he arranged it.”

Machiavelli faintly raised his eyebrows. Not only had the boy seduced Bartolomeo’s wife, but he had used him to get a sought–after position with one of the Duke’s favourites. If he had not himself been so intimately concerned he would have found the situation humorous.

“Fortune favours audacity and youth,” he said. “You will go far. But let me give you some advice. Take care that like me you do not get a reputation for wit, since if you do no one will think you sensible, but notice men’s moods and adapt yourself to them; laugh with them when they are merry and pull a long face when they are solemn. It is absurd to be wise with fools and foolish with the wise: you must speak to each one in his own language. Be courteous; it costs little and helps much; to be of use and to know how to show yourself of use is to be doubly useful; it is idle to please yourself if you do not please others, and remember that you please them more by ministering to their vices than by encouraging their virtues. Never be so intimate with a friend that he may injure you should he become your enemy, and never use your enemy so ill that he can never become your friend. Be careful in your speech. There is always time to put in a word, never to withdraw one; truth is the most dangerous weapon a man can wield and so he must wield it with caution. For years I have never said what I believed nor ever believed what I have said, and if it sometimes happens that I tell the truth I conceal it among so many lies that it is hard to find.”

But while these old saws and homely commonplaces tripped off the end of his tongue Machiavelli’s thoughts were intent on something much more important and he scarcely listened to what he said. For he knew that a public man can be corrupt, incompetent, cruel, vindictive, vacillating, self–seeking, weak and stupid and yet attain to the highest honours in the state; but if he is ridiculous he is undone. Slander he can refute; abuse he can despise; but against ridicule he has no defence. Strange as it may seem, the Absolute has no sense of humour, and ridicule is the instrument the devil uses to hinder aspiring man on his arduous quest of perfection. Machiavelli valued the esteem of his fellow citizens. He had confidence in his own judgment and was ambitious to be employed in affairs of consequence. He was too clear–sighted not to see that in this abortive affair with Aurelia he cut a comic figure. If the story were told in Florence he would become a laughingstock, the helpless victim of brutal jest and cruel innuendo. A cold shiver ran down his spine at the thought of the pasquinades, the epigrams that his misadventure would suggest to the malicious wit of the Florentines. Even his friend Biagio, the easy butt of his jokes, would welcome the opportunity to pay off many an old score. He must stop Piero’s mouth or he was ruined. In a friendly way he put his hand on the lad’s shoulder and smiled pleasantly; but the eyes he fixed on Piero’s, the bright darting little eyes, were cold and hard.

“There is only one more thing I would say to you, dear boy. Fortune is inconstant and restless. She may grant you power, honour and riches, but also afflict you with servitude, infamy and poverty. The Duke also is her plaything and with a turn of her wheel she may plunge him to destruction. Then you will need friends in Florence. It would be imprudent of you to make enemies of those who can help you in distress. The Republic is suspicious of those who leave her service to enter that of those whom she mistrusts. A few words whispered in the right ear might easily lead to the confiscation of your property so that your mother, driven from her house, would have to live on the unwilling charity of her relatives. The Republic has a long arm; if she thought fit, it would not be hard to find a needy Gascon who for a few ducats would drive a dagger in your back. A letter might be allowed to fall into the Duke’s hands which would suggest that you were a Florentine spy, and the rack would force you to confess that it was true, and you would be hanged like a common thief. It would distress your mother. For your own sake then, and as you value your life, I recommend you to be secret. It is not wise to tell everything one knows.”

Machiavelli, his gaze fixed on Piero’s brown, liquid eyes, saw that he understood.

“Have no fear, Messere. I will be as secret as the grave.”

Machiavelli laughed lightly.

“I did not think you were a fool.”

Though it would leave him with only just enough money to get back to Florence, he thought this was a moment to be generous even to excess, so taking out his purse he gave Piero five ducats as a parting gift.

“You have served me well and faithfully,” he said, “and it will be a pleasure to me to give Biagio a good account of your zeal in my interests and in those of the Republic.”

He kissed him affectionately and they went downstairs hand in hand. Piero held the horse’s head while Machiavelli mounted. He walked by his side till they came to the city’s gate and there they parted.

MACHIAVELLI GAVE his horse a touch of the spur and it broke into an easy canter. The two servants followed close behind. He was in a vile temper. There was no denying it, they had made a perfect fool of him: Fra Timoteo, Aurelia, her mother and Piero; he didn’t know with which he was most angry. And the worst of it was that he didn’t see how he could settle his account with them; they had had a lot of fun at his expense and there was no way by which he could make them pay for it. Of course Aurelia was a fool, sly as all women were, but a fool; otherwise she wouldn’t have preferred a smooth–faced pretty boy to a man in the flower of his age, a man of affairs who was entrusted by his government with important negotiations. No intelligent person could deny that the comparison was all in his favour. No one could call him repulsive; Marietta had always told him she liked the way his hair grew on his head; it was like black velvet, she said. Thank God for Marietta: there was a woman you could trust; you could leave her for half a year and be certain that she would look neither to the right nor to the left. It was true that she had been rather troublesome of late, complaining through Biagio that he didn’t come back and didn’t write and left her without money. Well, in her condition one must expect women to be peevish. He had been gone three and a half months, she must be getting quite big, he wondered when she would be delivered; they had already made up their minds that the boy should be called Bernardo after his own father now with God. And if she grumbled at his long absence it was because she loved him, poor slut; it would be well to get back to her; that was the advantage of a wife, she was always there when you wanted her. Of course she wasn’t the beauty that Aurelia was, but she was virtuous and that was more than you could say for Monna Caterina’s daughter. He wished he had thought of bringing her back a present, but it hadn’t occurred to him till that moment and now he simply hadn’t the money.

He was a fool to have spent so much on Aurelia. There was the scarf, and the gloves and the attar of roses; and the gold chain, well, no, not gold, silver gilt, that he’d given to Monna Caterina; if she’d had a spark of decency she’d have returned that, it would have done very well to give to Marietta and would have pleased her. But when did women ever return the presents you made them?

An old procuress, that’s what she was, and not even honest. She knew quite well that the chain was the price he was paying her to arrange things for him and when she didn’t deliver the goods surely the least she could have done would be to return the purchase price. But she was an abandoned old wanton, he’d guessed that from his first glance of her, and she got a filthy satisfaction out of helping others to the debaucheries that she could no longer herself indulge in. He was prepared to bet a ducat that she’d put Piero and Aurelia to bed herself. They must have had a fine laugh when they ate the capons and the pastries he’d sent in by Piero and drunk his wine while he was standing at the door in the pelting rain. If Bartolomeo hadn’t been the fool he was he’d have known it was madness to entrust a woman like that with the charge of his wife’s fidelity.