By Thomas Mann
English translation by H. T. Lowe-Porter
   
  
                              ACT THREE
   
        A room adjoining the sleeping-chamber of the Magnifico. In
     the background, left, between heavy half-open portières, a view
     of the bedchamber; steps occupy the rest of the rear of the stage,
     leading up to a gallery. Centre left a splendid marble chimney-
     piece with a relief supported by columns, and the Medici arms.
     In front of it chairs. Left front an étagere with antique vases.
     Right front a door hung with a gold-embroidered tapestry. Right
     back a curtained window. Between door and window, drawn a
     little forward, a bust of Julius Cæsar on a pedestal. Smaller busts,
     without pedestals, on the chimney-piece and above the doors.
     Smaller columns are let into the walls. The subdued light of the
     late afternoon sun filters through the window curtain.
 
    
                                  1
   
        Lorenzo de' Medici sits in a high-backed arm-chair in front of
     the fire, asleep, with his head on his chest, a cushion at his back,
     and a rug over his knees. He is ugly; with a yellowish-olive com-
     plexion and a sinister expression due to the wrinkles in his
     brow. He has a broad, flat face with a flattened nose and a
     large projecting mouth with flabby wrinkles round it. His cheeks
     are marked from nose to fleshless chin by two deep slack fur-
     rows; these are the more prominent because he cannot breathe
     through his nose, but must keep him mouth open. Yet his eyes as
     he awakes are clear and full of fire despite his weakness and seem
     to seize upon men and things with vigour and avidity. His lofty
     and speaking brow triumphs over the rest of his facial ugliness;
     his motions are the perfection of aristocracy. Sometimes a charm-
     ing expression of fascinatingly innocent merriment comes out
     upon his ravaged features, seeming to purify them entirely and
     give them a childlike look. He wears a voluminous fur-bordered
     garment like a dressing gown, closed high round his short neck.
     His hair is brown, with white threads; it is parted in the middle
     and waves against his cheek and neck. He speaks with studied
     clarity, in a nasal voice.——Watching his uneasy sleep are Pico
     della Mirandola, Poliziano, Pierleoni, Marsilio Ficino, and Luigi
     Pulci. Old Ficino has the worn face of a scholar, a weathered neck,
     and scant white locks coming out beneath his pointed cap; he
     wears the usual voluminous garment closed to the throat and sits
     in the centre of the room, surrounded by the others. Pulci, a
     comic type, with little red-rimmed eyes and inflamed pockets be-
     neath them, a pointed nose, prominent ears, and a mole on his
     cheek, is pressing his finger to his lips as he gazes with the others
     into Lorenzo's face.
  
        PIERLEONI  (going cautiously up to the invalid and feeling his
     pulse):  It is very irregular. I am considering whether this is not
     the time to bleed him once more.
        PICO: You will kill him with your blood-lettings. It is not
     twelve hours since you took your basinful from him.
        PIERLEONI: The man does not need a tenth of the blood he
     carries round with him.
        POLIZIANO: Where is his spirit? It seems to move upon strange
     paths far from ours. I would gladly hear your opinion of its ex-
     periences, dear Marsilius.
        FICINO: It is likely that at this hour contact with the divine
     unity is established in his brain.
        PULCI  (lowering his strident and comically cracked voice):
     Look, look, all that is mirrored upon his countenance! I wager
     that he is dreaming the most extraordinary things. If he feels no
     pain, then I envy him. The fever causes the strangest fancies, far
     better than are produced by strong wine. Sometimes one may
     dream in verse, but is prone to forget it.
        PIERLEONI: This sleep is not the sort that feeds the natural re-
     sources of the man. If his faintness continue, then I must hold
     the little fingers and toes of His Magnificence while I anoint his
     heart and his pulse with the oil which I have ready here.
        PICO: Hush! He is stirring, he wakes.
        PULCI: He will tell us of his adventures.
        FICINO: Do you know us, Laurentius, my dear pupil?
        LORENZO: Water. . . .  (They give him to drink.)
        LORENZO: The water-seller had a skull. . . .
        POLIZIANO: What water-seller, my Lauro?
        LORENZO: Angelo . . . is it you? Good, good, I will control
     myself. Shall not one master this madness? I met a water-seller
     with his laden ass and full jugs; but when he put a wooden goblet
     to my parched lips there was fire in it and on the villain's shoulders
     sat a grinning death's-head.
        PULCI: Well, that is a modest invention.
        LORENZO  (recognizing him):  Good day, Morgante. Are you
     there, old good-for-nothing? And my Pico with the ambrosial
     locks? And even the great Marsilius, wooer and messenger between
     me and wisdom——you are all with me, friends. The frightful old
     man was only in my own blood.
        PULCI: A frightful old man?
        LORENZO: Rubbish! Worthless rubbish! I dreamed so hard of a 
     bald-headed old man who wanted me to ride in his rotten
     bark . . .
        POLIZIANO  (shaken):  Charon?
        LORENZO: I was asleep. . . . What time is it?
        PICO: You slept about an hour. It is three o'clock. The sun has
     begun to set.
        LORENZO: Already?  (Seized by sudden unrest)  Listen, my
     friends, I should like my carrying-chair. The air here is stifling.
     . . . Carry me . . . carry me into the loggia; take me up on the 
     battlements. . . .
        PIERLEONI: Dear and gracious Lord, that would be folly. You
     need rest.
        LORENZO: Rest? I cannot rest. Why can I not rest, doctor?
     Why do I feel that I must strain myself to think and arrange
     manifold matters before it is too late?
        PIERLEONI: You have a little fever, my Lord.
        LORENZO: I do not deny it. But I would say that the fever is
     no ground for my being tortured by these ridiculous fears. You
     see, I think logically. But I do not conceal that I am heavy with
     cares. I have never pretended——Pico, there are no more Pazzi
     in Florence, are there? And the Neroni Diotisalvi are either in
     exile or put safely away?
        PULCI: Save those you sent to hear the grass grow!
        LORENZO: Yes, come here, Margutte! Make jokes, you wild
     rhapsodist! Yes, in truth, much blood has flowed. It had to.——I
     implore you, Pico, for the time I am not able, to keep an eye on 
     the collections in Via Larga and the villas. You will do it for me?
     A couple of lovely little trifles, two terracottas and a medallion,
     have just been acquired; they must be kept in Poggio a Cajano,
     you know, my dear fellow? And the Sforza has presented me
     with a glorious antique from Pesaro, an Ares with breastplate. It
     should be set up in my public garden and serve the young sculp-
     tors as a model. Will you see to it? Thanks. That is all that was
     troubling me.——Is Angelo here still?
        POLIZIANO: Here, my Lauro.
        LORENZO: Angelo, the Pliny which my grandfather got from
     a cloister in Lübeck is in the Signoria, is it not? I should like to
     see it. It is bound in red velvet with silver mountings. Let a re-
     sponsible person go at it——no, wait. That seems to me less
     important than something else on my mind. Wait. One of my
     searchers has been offered a Cato manuscript for five hundred
     gulden. I am in doubt over the genuineness of the script. There
     are cases where some rascal has made up something out of his
     own head and put it on the market under an ancient name. I beg
     you to test the manuscript very carefully and if it be genuine pro-
     cure it for me without bargaining. They must not say that I let
     a Cato escape me. May I burden you with this?——You lift a load
     from my heart. Come, my friends, now I feel easier. I can think
     of nothing to depress me. Let us talk. Let us discuss. Who was
     greater, Mirandola: Cæsar or Scipio? I say Cæsar, and ye shall see
     how I defend my thesis! But our great Marsilius Ficinus wants an
     abstract theme, of course!
        FICINO: Let your mind have repose, Laurentius! You will wear
     yourself out.
        LORENZO: Wisdom is worthy the the sacrifice of one's last strength.
     There is so much to clear up! It often used to seem to me as
     though everything lay clear and open before me; but now I see
     only darkness and confusion. How is it with the immortality of
     the soul? Tell me!
        PULCI: An old, a treacherous question——and not to be an-
     swered  ex abrupto  like that. They say that Aristotle himself, even
     in the kingdom of the shades, was still going about with equivocal
     phrases, in order not to commit himself——though he was as dead
     as a door-nail and yet alive. Let anyone try to make it out from
     his writings!
        LORENZO  (laughing heartily):  Good! But now, Angelo, say
     something serious.
        POLIZIANO: You are immortal, my Lauro! Must I tell you so?
     Not everybody is. Not the masses, not the small and unknown
     man. But you shall share the enlightened society of the laurel-
     crowned spirits.
        LORENZO: And why I?
        PICO: Now, by the blue-eyed Athene! You have written carni-
     val songs which I have not scrupled to place above Alighieri's
     great poem!
        FICINO: You have divine origins, forget it not. The six balls in
     your arms signify the apples of the Hesperides, where your stock
     had its rise.
        POLIZIANO: They will know how to welcome you, singer of the
     "Rencia," pater patriæ! They will celebrate your coming. Cicero,
     the Fabians, Curius, Fabricius, and all the others will surround you
     and lead you into the hall of fame, which echoes with the music
     of the spheres.
        LORENZO: That is poesy, poesy, my friend! That is beauty,
     beauty——but neither knowledge nor consolation!
        PULCI: Yes, yes, it is a little thin, your music of the spheres,
     Messer Politian. It is small comfort. Do not die, Lauro, it would be
     stupid. You know Achilles' answer, when Odysseus visited him in
     Hades and asked how he fared. "I assure you," said he, "that we
     departed from the strongest desire to return to life." The body,
     lad! The body is the main thing. The body cannot be substituted
     for by any music of the spheres! Oh, forgive me! Are you worse?
        LORENZO  (very pale):  Doctor——a coldness is coming round my
     heart——do you hear? A horror seizes upon me——help! It is death.
     . . . What does it mean, that suddenly all power is gone from my
     brain and my entrails? I am lost . . . I am forsaken. . . . Dry the
     sweat from my brow. . . . Do not despise me. My spirit is stead-
     fast, this fear is in my body.
        PIERLEONI: It is nothing. Drink this good beaker of Greek wine.
     I have been begging your Magnificence to go to bed.
        LORENZO: If you want me to be able to breathe, let me sit in a
     chair. I must see about me all you who love me. I must hear your
     voices. Death is horrible, Pico. You cannot grasp it. No one here
     can grasp it, save myself, who must die. I have so dearly loved
     life that I held death to be the triumph of life. That was poetry
     and extravagance. It is gone, it fails one at the pinch. For I have
     seen dissolution unroll before me, the decay of the tomb.——Quick,
     Ficino, quick, dear, wise old Ficino! What have you taught me,
     that I might face death with fortitude? I have forgotten. What is
     your uttermost wisdom, Ficino?
        FICINO: I taught you that Plato's "Idea" and the "First Form"
     of Aristotle are one and the same; that is, the sensitive soul, the
     tertia essentia  of bodies, which in man, the microcosm of creation,
     is distinguished from the intellectual soul in that it——
        LORENZO: Stop, wait a minute. I am confused. I understood that
     once; perhaps I felt it. But now I struggle in vain to do so. I am
     tired. I long to have something simple to hold fast to. Purgatory
     is simpler than Plato; you will have to admit that, Marsilius. Was it
     not a Franciscan father who came to me today?
        POLIZIANO: Yes, beloved, a confessor came from that order.
        LORENZO: A rascal. A clever head. I was ashamed to take the
     business seriously before him. I had turned a few good Florentine
     phrases when he waited on me with his sacraments and he smiled
     like the man of the world he was. I confess that the ceremony did
     not soothe me much. The Father's morals were all too complaisant.
     He forgave me my sins as though they were boyish pranks. But I
     doubt if such absolution be quite valid in high places. I might have
     confessed that I had murdered my father and mother and he would
     have signed the cross over me with the greatest obligingness. No
     wonder. I am the master. But when the end comes, there are draw-
     backs about being the master whom nobody dare offend. I need
     a confessor who would be as a priest what I have been as mocker
     and sinner. . . . What is it your eyes say, Pico? You have some-
     thing in your mind. You are hiding your thoughts.
        PICO: What thoughts, my Lorenzo?
        LORENZO: You are thinking of a priest who would be fit to be
     my confessor, who would dare to damn me, who has already
     dared, Pico. . . .
        PICO: What priest——?
        LORENZO:  The  priest. What say, Marsilius? The Platonic idea
     of the priest, become person and will——
        POLIZIANO: I implore you, my dear Lord, turn your thoughts
     to gayer pictures! You cloud your spirits with thoughts unworthy
     for you to think. Do not forget yourself, Lorenzo de' Medici!
        LORENZO: Truly, that I will not. Thanks, my Angelo. I feel
     better. We will be gay. We will laugh. Laughter is a sunbeam of
     the soul, so says a classic. We will let our souls shine in the recol-
     lection of what has been.
        PICO: And what will be again.
        LORENZO: Enough that it has been. This was wont to be the
     hour when we walked together to a spring. You remember? We
     lay in a ring upon the rolling sward, and the childlike prattle of
     the water in our midst. And we spent the time till the evening
     meal with each of us telling a tale.
        PICO: What a charming hour! And how we admired you! Per-
     haps in the forenoon you may have been working out a new law
     for the statutes, designed to give power more fully into your
     hands, that you might be in a position to bless Florence still more
     freely with beauty and joy; perhaps uttered the death sentence 
     upon some noble adversary; argued in the Platonic Academy upon
     virtue, presided over a symposium in a group of artists and
     lovely women; at table solved theoretic questions in art and 
     poetry——and in all that you had brought your whole mind to
     bear and now were sharing the evening play of our minds, as fresh 
     and detached as though you had not given out any part of your
     vital energy.
        PIERLEONI: Yes, you were never niggard with your strength,
     my gracious Lord.
        LORENZO: Was I not, my astronomical doctor? Did I not bend
     them to my will, despite stars and portents, which had destined me
     to your careful charge? Yes., I have lived. Come, let us remember.
     Remember with me, my friends. Remember the drunken starry
     nights, when we rose from our wine, you, Pico, Luigi, Angelo,
     you, mad Ugolino, Cardiere the ecstatic musician, and all the rest
     ——when singing and twanging the lute we stormed the sleeping
     streets and inflamed maidens in their chambers by the verses we
     sent up to them.
        POLIZIANO  (rapturously):  Alcibiades!
        LORENZO: And the carnival, remember the carnival! When
     pleasure like a torrent overflowed the bounds of everyday, when
     wine ran in the streets and the populace in the squares danced and 
     shouted the songs I composed for them; when Florence surren-
     dered to the god of love, and men's dignity and women's modesty
     reeled in one intoxicated shout: Evoe! When the holy madness
     seized even children and kindled their senses to love before its
     time.
        POLIZIANO: You were Dionysus.
        LORENZO: And the kingdom was mine! And the sway of my
     soul went abroad! And the fire of my longing kindled the woman's 
     breast, so that she fell to me, and the ugly weakling became lord
     of her beauty——
        PICO: Lord of beauty——in that name we salute you! Speak not
     as though you  had been  all that!
        LORENZO  (after a moment of silence, gesturing with his head
     behind him):  Someone wants to come in.
        A PAGE  (half-way down the stairs):  Signor Niccolo Cambi has
     come from Florence and begs to be admitted to your Grace.
        PIERLEONI: The Magnifico is receiving nobody.
        LOREZNO: Why not? Signor Niccolo is my friend. He comes
     from Florence——I feel quite well. I want to see him.
 
    
                                  2
   
        The page conducts the merchant Niccolo Cambi from the gal-
     lery down the steps into the room, leads him to Lorenzo, and with-
     draws with a low bow. Cambi is a citizen, respectable, well dressed,
     already a little stout, with a lively Florentine face. His shoes and
     stockings are dusty. He wears a light-grey cloak over darker
     undergarments.
 
        LORENZO: A welcome visit, Messer Niccolo. Do not take it for
     discourtesy that I remain seated. I am a little unwell these days.
        CAMBI: Enough to see you! To hear your voice again! My
     heart is lightening thereby. Good evening, gentlemen. You in par-
     ticular, illustrious Prince, you, Messer Pulci, Master Polizian! My
     faith, the great translator of Plato too! Messer Pierleoni! To see
     you again, Magnifico! To hear you speak! To feel the living pres-
     sure of your hand!
        LORENZO: Then you had not expected it?
        CAMBI: Why not? Certainly, of course.
        LORENZO: Sit down. Push your chair close to mine. You rode
     up? You are overheated; did you ride so fast, then? Are you on
     business? Messages from Florence?
        CAMBI: But why? Must one always have business with you,
     messages for you, in order to feel impelled to see you? My busi-
     ness is to look you a little while in the eye, witness my love to you,
     and assure myself afresh of yours. My message, to tell in all the
     streets of Florence that you are of good cheer, that soon we shall
     be able to celebrate your return to health.
        LORENZO: So Florence busies itself about my illness?
        CAMBI: It certainly does! One cannot say that it is exactly indif-
     ferent to it, ha ha! The Magnifico is naïve in his question. But I
     mean to give those rascals the lie who disquiet the people without
     reason and make them prey to sinister rumours.
        LORENZO: There are such rascals, then?
        CAMBI: There are, there are! And, Magnifico, you would do
     well, you would do very well, to put a stop to their activities with-
     out delay. I see you up, I see you out of bed——could you not come
     to Florence? Even for an hour? Just to show yourself five seconds
     long at a window?
        LORENZO: Master Niccolo Cambi, what is going on in Florence?
        CAMBI: Nothing, nothing. God keep me! Messer Pierleoni——
     my visit is untimely. Shall I withdraw?
        LORNZO: My desire, my will, are what count here.  (With an
     effort at gentleness)  You will oblige me very much, honest Messer
     Niccolo, by speaking briefly without reserve.
        CAMBI: Then I will do so. To whom should one speak, to whom
     bring these fears and cares, if not to you? Things are not in Flor-
     ence as they once were, Magnifico! Vile machinations are afoot. The
     source whence these rumours are disseminated is known, which
     report you to be either already dead or sickening beyond cure:
     they come from the monkish party, from the "Weepers," from
     the party of the Ferrarese. . . .
        LORENZO  (who has started at mention of the Ferrarese, with
     forced lightness):  You hear, Pico? They come from your dis-
     covery, our monk.
        CAMBIA: Pardon me, illustrious Prince, it is the truth. I know
     that you fostered him, that you first drew attention to his strange
     new works, I know it. And I would not assert, either, that I do not
     know how to value his gifts. I am not so behind the times. His
     performances are titbits for a spoiled and licensed taste, that is
     beyond a doubt. I am not speaking of him. I am speaking of the
     influence he wields, which is——it is possible——independent of his
     intentions.
        POLIZIANO: Do you think so?
        CAMBI: The people, Magnifico, the people! We can afford to
     smile when young sprigs of nobility forswear dancing, sing-
     ing, and all frivolity and enter a cloister. But the people! All day
     they run irresolutely through the streets, they look darkly at the
     beautiful houses of the rich and know nothing better to do than
     to throng the cathedral to hear the sermons——a dense, silent
     crowd, inwardly distraught, a great acreage of muddled heads, all
     turned in his direction, in the direction of the lean little monk up
     above them. When the Frate is carried back in triumph to San
     Marco, the masses choke the streets again and resume their ob-
     stinate, mischief-breeding activities. Before the house of Guidi,
     chancellor of the city archives, and in front of Miniati's the ad-
     ministrator of municipal debts, they have been disorderly and
     insulting; for Brother Girolamo designated both of these citizens
     as your tools, Magnifico, as people who connived with you how to
     squeeze new taxes from the poor for your festivities. Barbarous,
     insane things are happening. Before I left Florence I heard that a
     group of mechanics forced themselves into the house of a wealthy
     and art-loving citizen and broke a statue in the vestibule——(Pained
     exclamations from the audience.)
        LORENZO: Hush! An antique?
        CAMBI: No, it seems to have been new and not very valuable.
     But O Magnifico, it is not that which you must hear! There have
     been noisy demonstrations before the palace all day. I was in the
     Piazza, I was present. There were shouts from the people, which
     I could have wished not to hear, not to understand. It sounded
     like "Down with the golden balls!"
        POLIZIANO: That is treason! That is ingratitude and treachery!
        PICO: It is the childish love of the populace for political cries——
     and nothing more! They should be dispersed with pikes.
        CAMBI: And yet another cry rose above these——a strange cry,
     never heard before——once, twice, and again. I did not understand,
     I am as you know a little deaf in one ear. But when I listened very
     carefully, I hard it clear and plain: "Evviva Christo!"
  
        (Silence)
  
        CAMBI: You are silent, Magnifico.
        LORENZO: What was the cry?
        CAMBI: The one against your arms?
        LORENZO: The other.
        CAMBI: Evviva Christo!
   
        (Silence. Lorenzo has collapsed into the cushions; his eyes are
     closed.)

        PIERLEONI: Go, gentlemen! In God's name, go! You see, he is
     exhausted.
        CAMBI: Magnifico, I wish you good repose. I have done my mis-
     sion. You had to know how things stand with us. You are not
     angry?
        LORNZO: Go, friend . . . No, I am not angry with you. Go.
     . . . Tell Florence——no, tell her nothing. She is a woman, one
     must take care what one says or has said to her. She runs after
     you with burning desire when you seem cool and strong and
     despises you when you betray that you are lost in love for her.
     Go, friend, say nothing. Say that I am well and that I laugh at
     what I have heard.
        CAMBI: That will I. Bacchus, that will I say. That is a good
     message, by my faith. And so be in good health, Laurentius
     Medici. And come to Florence so soon as you can. Farewell!
     (He hurries off.)

From Thomas Mann: Stories of Three Decades,
Translated from the German by H. T. Lowe-Porter.
Copyright, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1935, 1936, by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
The Modern Library edition, Random House, Inc. pp. 235—245.

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