Mona Lisa

by Alexander Lernet-Holenia

  For a brief moment Giocondo stood completely motionless, then, all of a sudden, instead of answering, he shoved Bougainville aside, drove his way through the ranks of the noblemen who stood in his way and quickly slid down the banister to the bottom of the stairs.

  “Stop!” Bougainville cried.

  However Giocondo had already reached the gate of the house and rushed out onto the street, and as Bougainville, who had followed him down the stairs, also reached the gate, Ser Francesco was already in the throng which had gathered in front of the house; and when Bougainville appeared the crowd greeted him with such a hostile howl that he dared not follow the fugitive, who was already out of sight.

  In the meantime the French noblemen, having kicked Ser Francesco’s servants out of the way, had begun to turn everything in the house upside down. Only there was no trace of Mona Lisa. All that was found in the house on the distaff side were two young, quite pretty servant girls who’d been dragged out of bed naked and, despite their screaming and screeching, were being passed around in triumph till it became painfully obvious that neither of them was the person sought, both subsequently dashing about and wringing their hands between the naked swords of the cavaliers like two disturbed chickens. But the disturbance came to an abrupt and sudden end. Giocondo returned at the head of a party of armed Florentine noblemen whom he had summoned to his aid. The Florentines stormed into the house and the French were hard put to save their skins. In the course of a short engagement during which even a few pistols shots were heard, though fortunately no one sustained any more serious injury than a couple of scratches, the French secured the exit and made their retreat in the face of the enraged mob, which had already filled all the streets and was pelting the unwelcome guests with stones, garbage and rotten vegetables.

  WHEN THE SCANDAL which his noblemen had caused reached his ears, La Trémoille fell into a towering rage since his relations with the city authorities, not the most sanguine at the best of times—for he and his followers, far from welcome, were barely tolerated—deteriorated sharply as a consequence. He was obliged despite the late hour to appear before the Signoria, who had also been alerted, to plead for pardon, promising to mete out punishment to the originators of the turmoil, and he upbraided his nobles in the severest terms. Above all, he wanted to establish what was behind this disturbance. Curiously, however, no one seemed to know all of a sudden. The noblemen excused themselves as being drunk. As they hadn’t found the woman whom Bougainville was after, they began to suspect whether she ever existed. In any case, they thought it was more prudent not even to mention her, and there was nothing for it but for La Trémoille, who had not established anything coherent, to confine them all under arrest in their quarters. Naturally, Giocondo too hesitated to say anything regarding the true reason for the hullabaloo, and in the event the whole occurrence was looked upon as nothing more than the drunken excesses of some court gallants.

  Bougainville, hemmed in by four walls, was, as a result of his failed undertaking, in a state of desperation. The fact that his beloved could not be found was beyond him. But at the same time a new fear began to gnaw at him that Giocondo, now he realized that the cat was out of the bag and that she was indeed being sought, would hold her in even stricter confinement and subject her to ever greater torment.

  In his desperation, he finally decided to draw La Trémoille into his confidence. He sent him a message, begging for an interview to discuss a highly urgent matter.

  When La Trémoille arrived, Bougainville thanked the Marshal most cordially for having granted him the pleasure of his visit.

  “The pleasure, my dear sir,” La Trémoille replied as he threw his hat on the table and sank into an easy chair, “the pleasure is certainly not on my side, you can believe me!”

  “In that case, Monseigneur,” Bougainville said, “I beg you to accept an expression of my profound regret. Above all, I have no idea what the cause of your renewed displeasure towards me is.”

  “My dear sir,” La Trémoille retorted, as he struck his riding crop across his calves, their boot leggings at half-mast, “on my way here, despite my escort, not only was I personally abused by the crowd, but insults were directed against France and the King. The nobility of Florence is up in arms against us and the inhabitants are like a disturbed hornets’ nest. Secret assassins have been trying to stab us in the back. The obeisance which I offered the Signoria was as good as ignored, in the night a local patriot hacked off the tail of my piebald flush with its hindquarters in the stables, and all in all, thanks to the general upheaval, we are in constant danger of quite simply being arrested. What do you say to that? Had I suspected what irresponsible pranks you, my dear sir, would give rise to, I would at least have commanded that one or two of our regiments had stayed behind in the vicinity for our protection. As it is they are by now far in the south and we find ourselves at the mercy of the Republic. I can’t even leave this damned city without arousing suspicion. And this all thanks to your mad escapade! Would you at least tell me the root cause of all this!” And, full of bitterness, he began to retie his shot-brocade trouser laces tighter round his thighs.*

  “Monseigneur,” Bougainville answered, “I can ask for no more than, with your permission, to be able to tell you all. It is for no other reason than that that I owe the honour of your visit…”

  “What,” La Trémoille cried, “you really want to tell me?”

  “Correct.”

  “Well, go ahead then!” yelled the Marshal.

  The report which Bougainville now delivered was first accompanied by furrowed brows, then by raised eyebrows with eyes dilated, finally by all the symptoms of anxiety which are easily understandable when one finds oneself confined in the same room as a madman. To cap it all, Bougainville demanded that the Marshal take personal charge of the liberation of Mona Lisa.

  “My dear sir,” La Trémoille said, getting up and not letting Bougainville out of his sight as he groped for his hat behind him, “my dear sir, not only am I not going to stick my nose in such insane undertakings, but I forbid you too in the strictest terms to contemplate such absurdities. Should you make the least attempt to the contrary, I shall deprive you of your dagger. The arrest under which I have put you naturally remains in force. Nor will you receive any visitors, instead you will employ the time and leisure which your confinement affords you to await the chirurgeon, whom I shall send to open one of your veins. I have spoken! God preserve you!”

  And, ignoring the protestations and pleas which Bougainville gave rein to, he hastily left the room. The young man was plunged into the most heartrending tumult. Had he not been certain of having found his beloved’s grave empty, he wouldn’t have been able to swear before God that he hadn’t made a mistake and, like all the rest, he would have had to doubt his own sanity. In the meantime, his confusion and love were intensified by the obstacles confronting him, the unattainability of his beloved and the fateful star which hovered over his undertaking, to the point where he really thought he was on the brink of insanity. In any case, it struck him as completely unthinkable that he should remain incarcerated within the four walls. After a short period of reflection, he therefore decided to disobey La Trémoille’s command and set out again on the quest for the missing woman. If he were only to find her, of which he still had not the slightest doubt that he would, he could be assured of the Marshal’s pardon.

  In the course of the afternoon, in the sweltering August heat, he went on horseback, accompanied by his servants, searching through two estates which were pointed out to him as belonging to Giocondo, and all for nothing, for even if the detainee might have been hidden there, after what happened yesterday it was safe to assume that Ser Francesco had already found a more secluded hiding place for her.

  The houses, the vineyards, the gardens and the groves which Bougainville searched were totally unfamiliar to him. And yet it seemed to him that he’d already visited them in his dreams in the distant past.

  As evening fell, after sp
ending the last few hours without having said a word, pierced though the heart by the memory of the beloved girl’s smile as if by poisonous arrows, he returned home to the city with a desperate resolve brewing in his bosom to pay Ser Francesco another visit, to put a knife to his breast and force him to yield up his secret.

  Nondescript grey and flamingo-coloured clouds hung motionless in the silver-grey air.

  As ill luck would have it, Bougainville, about to dismount in front of Giocondo’s house, suddenly spotted in the murky half-light a nobleman in the company of two servants in an alleyway who was about to enter the house. Bougainville immediately climbed off his horse and rushed towards him.

  “A word, if you please, Monsieur!” he said in French as he barred the way.

  “Monsieur,” replied the nobleman, a handsome though slightly supercilious young man with dark blue eyes and eyebrows that extended right across the bridge of his nose, also in French, “how may I be of service to you?” And he cast a quick glance at Bougainville and the group of flunkeys standing behind him with their horses.

  “Are you,” Bougainville asked, “acquainted with Ser Francesco del Giocondo? May I, for the sake of further information which I’d like to solicit from you, enquire if you are indeed well acquainted with him?”

  “Very well, as a matter of fact,” the nobleman responded, “so much so that I intend to pay him a visit to express my commiseration regarding certain events which occurred last night at his house.”

  “And what kind of events were they?” Bougainville asked, frowning.

  “An idiot,” the nobleman said, and since Bougainville was French, the former took particular care to enunciate every word individually, “an idiot, accompanied by a number of Monsieur La Trémoille’s cavaliers, forced his way into the house and demanded at all costs to know the whereabouts of Ser Francesco’s long-deceased wife. Since I’m not only a friend of his but was quite close to the deceased too, I consider it my duty to testify my abhorrence at such a gross violation of the dead person’s memory.” And with these words he looked into the eyes of the Frenchman with proud disdain.

  “My worthy Gentiluomo,” Bougainville said, placing his hand on his hip and at the same time feeling blood rush to his face in rage, “would you mind telling me kindly who you are, after which I shall, for a reason which you are about to find out, also disclose to you my name!”

  “I can easily,” the nobleman said, “grant you that favour. For your information, I am Amerigo Capponi!”

  “And I,” Bougainville yelled, “my dear Messer Capponi, seeing that you are not only deceiving Ser Francesco but have the effrontery to visit him in his house—I am no other than the idiot who broke into his house yesterday, and you are going to fight me now!”

  “I wouldn’t even dream of it,” Capponi exclaimed contemptuously. “You are a certified madman, and I’ve no intention whatsoever of crossing arms with every demented upstart. Get out of my way! Off with you!”

  “Sir,” Bougainville yelled, reaching for his dagger and pointing it at his opponent, “you’re a coward! But you are mistaken if you believe you can get away from me with your smooth talk! Draw if you don’t want me to skewer a defenceless man to the wall like a rat!”

  “That’s enough!” Capponi retorted. “I can’t put up with your ravings any longer! Make way!—Hey there, guards!” he called out in Italian, clapping his hands. “Get this imbecile out of the way!”

  At this command Capponi’s men immediately rushed forward and fell with their clubs upon Bougainville, who was hard put to ward off their blows. However, at this his own men were quick to enter the fray. Soon several passers-by participated in attacking the French. A riot ensued, everybody shouting, “To arms, to arms!” And everyone seemed to join in. In the heat of the affray, Capponi too felt obliged to draw his dagger. However, it was barely out of its sheath when one of Bougainville’s servants, having stolen up to him from the back, grabbed him by the neck. Capponi let go of the dagger, fell forward under the servant’s weight and the blade went right through his body.

  When they turned him over his eyes were already shut; only his eyelids with their long, almost feminine lashes still quivered imperceptibly and a reddish foam was gathering round his mouth.

  He died as he was carried into Giocondo’s house.

  * For over a century trouser laces were wound round the thighs, and for over a century they did not stay put, but slid down the legs. It was only in 1600 that trousers began to be fastened just below the knee. Truly, mankind needs a long time to progress one single step.

  AFTER THE DEATH OF CAPPONI, who was the son of one of the foremost Florentines, La Trémoille could do nothing to save Bougainville’s life. The rabble that had congregated around the Marshal’s residence was so menacing that he would have liked to wheel out his artillery were it not for the fact that the pieces, which Monsieur de Amboise had commissioned the founders to cast for him from church bells at the expense of the Milanese, had long ago trundled on their way to Umbria. It was clear that there was no way of leaving the city without an appropriate atonement, and it was just a matter of time before La Trémoille’s residence would be sacked. It was for this reason that he decided to make a sacrifice of Bougainville.

  He condemned him to death by the sword.

  Before his execution the young man had only one wish remaining: to see Giocondo’s wife.

  Instead he was visited in his room—which was now his prison cell, with a strong guard posted outside not so much to forestall his flight as to save him from being torn to pieces by a lynch mob—by Leonardo.

  “You poor, misguided man!” the painter exclaimed. “So you still do not believe that she is long dead!”

  “Who?” Bougainville asked.

  “Gioconda, of course! Ser Francesco’s wife. The root cause of your incurable passion! Are you really mad then?”

  Bougainville did not reply straightaway; he clenched his teeth and said at last, “Is it true then that this woman really no longer exists? I have to assume you are speaking the truth, my dear sir. Because no one would deceive a man who is about to die.”

  “Of course I’m telling you the truth!” Leonardo exclaimed. “And I’ve always been telling it. Only, in your madness, you refused to believe it, unfortunate man that you are!”

  Bougainville shrugged his shoulders and looked down; at last he said:

  “Incidentally, why do you call me unfortunate, Messer Leonardo? I would have been unfortunate only if I’d stayed alive, for, so long as I’d have lived, I wouldn’t have found Mona Lisa. But as it is, I’m going to see her very soon.”

  “Monsieur,” Leonardo said, “when a man who is faced as you are with an event which is, in the end, perhaps overrated, but nevertheless greatly feared—because of certain weaknesses which Nature has intentionally given us—one ought not to want to take certain comforting thoughts away from him. The Turks and Moors will insist that it’s only in heaven that they will first savour those earthly delights after which you, too, have hankered, but which have led to your destruction in the first place. Gentleman to gentleman though, frankly and without prevarication, but above all as one man of spirit to another, although to be sure you have failed to live up to that calling, I will say this to you: I’m afraid that you’re as unlikely to meet your beloved in heaven as you were on earth. I’m perfectly aware that you, condemned to die as you are, could accuse me of heresy. I can moreover assure you that I’ve no truck with either the fantasies of the dying or the fears of the living, with either heaven or hell. Neither the expectation of the bliss of faith in the next world nor of delights in some kind of earthly paradise-to-come can sustain us in this world. What can give us strength is solely the delight we derive from truth and beauty, from morality and a sense of honour.”

  “My dear sir,” Bougainville responded after a short silence, “you could well be right on this score, that nothing in the next world will come to us as cheaply as the Church would have us believe. You are wrong,
though, to dismiss the idea lock, stock and barrel. I have, in the hours that have so far been granted to me, thought about all this, and I tell you, there are some things that are eternal and undying. Above all, my dear sir—love. The loving embrace in which two souls are locked is far stronger than the bodily clinch of two corporeal lovers. But it’s hardly necessary to split love into bodily and sublime, into earthly and divine. In the end there is only one love. Because it is the only thing that unifies everything. Nothing is capable of separating two people who love each other—these binary stars eternally revolving round each other—not even God. One need only have been truly in love to realize that all else, heaven and hell included, is as nothing in comparison. There is also no actual death. In truth, there is one thing only—love. Do you not also find this to be so?”

  Leonardo did not respond; he kept his silence and looked thoughtfully at this young man whom he had just now considered totally insane and who, by virtue of the grandeur of his sentiments, had humbled the artist.

  “And now,” Bougainville continued, “now tell me also how it was at all possible that I could have assumed Giocondo’s wife was still alive? That she wasn’t in her grave! That it appeared inconceivable for me that she was dead!”

  “Very easily,” Leonardo said. “It was very easily possible. You fell in love with her. In addition, I have looked into the matter and discovered that she really does not lie buried in the Santa Croce tomb. She died during the plague. Hooded men came and buried her somewhere along with dozens or hundreds of other corpses. Giocondo, however, could not in view of his own and her family lineage allow the word to get around that she was buried in a communal grave. That is the secret of which you became a victim. Still, you may comfort yourself with one thought. Did I not tell you once that the woman one paints is never real? And so in reality one loves only the woman that does not really exist.”

  “Why should I comfort myself with that?” Bougainville asked. “Love does not need any comforting. It does not even need requiting. All it needs is itself.”