Antonio frowned and interrupted him. 'If you would lose your soul, Giovanni, then go to Messer Leonardo!'
'Though he be my near kinsman, and though he have lived twenty years longer than I, nevertheless in the Scripture it is written: "From an heretic, after the first and second admonition, turn thou away." Leonardo is a heretic and an infidel. His mind is darkened by Satanic pride; he seeks to penetrate into the mysteries of nature by steeping himself in mathematics and black magic.' Then, raising his eyes to heaven, he repeated from Savonarola's latest discourse: '"The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. We know them, these learned men; they all go to the house of the devil."'
'And have you heard, Antonio,' persisted Giovanni, still shyly, 'that Messer Leonardo is here in Florence? He has even now arrived from Milan.'
'The duke has sent him to buy, if possible, pictures from the galleries of the late Lorenzo the Magnificent.'
'Well, if he be here, then here he is. 'Tis of no moment to me,' said Antonio, turning away; and he proceeded to measure a length of green cloth with his _canna_.
From the church, bells rang out the call to vespers, and Dolfo stretched himself and clapped-to the ledger with an air of relief; for this day work was over, and the shops and the warehouses were shutting.
Giovanni stepped into the street. A narrow strip of grey sky, faintly tinged with the roseate of evening, showed between the humid roofs: a fine rain fell through the windless air. Suddenly from a window in a neighbouring alley was wafted a song:--
'O vaghe montanine pastorelle Donde venite si leggiadre e belle?'
(O shepherd-girls so fair, Say from what mountain air Light-footed have ye strayed?)
The voice was resonant and young: from the measured beat of the treadle Giovanni guessed at a loom, and at a girl singing as she threw the shuttle. He listened with vague enjoyment, and remembered that the spring had come, and felt his heart swelling with strange emotions of tenderness and melancholy.
'Nanna! Nanna! Where hast thou got to, thou little devil? What hath happened to thine ears? Haste thee! The vermicelli grows cold.' After which there was a swift clapping of wooden pattens across the floor, and then silence.