immortal person

Early the next morning, they were led down to the stables by their servants.The stable boy brought two white horses out of the stable and saddled them. Giovanni passed a bundle of grass to the horses' mouths, and suddenly found a row of small characters carved on the manger.He reached out to wipe off the attached moss, and the handwriting on the wooden board below was clearly revealed.

"Mars?"

"Huh?" Lorenzo turned around. "Oh. I engraved it when I was a child."

He pointed to the surrounding wooden fence. "It's on every box. Mars was my favorite. I had names for every pony and every hound I had back then...follow me."

They went outside the stables.Under the shade of a tall oak tree stands a small red marble stele, and behind it is a well-maintained green grassland, scattered with small and delicate white flowers.Lorenzo bent down and brushed the dust off the stele: "My former beagle is buried here. Capelao, Biondo, Rosina, Giotto and old Corta...they are all in the I died after I left."

"When was that?"

"Eight years old," recalls Lorenzo, "until my grandfather took me to Florence—he taught me throughout my childhood. Mother and Giuliano stayed in Carreggio, and I rarely saw them. "

He smiled. "Giuliano is always on my mother's lap while I recite one decree after another. I sometimes envy him for that."

There seemed to be an explanation for his strange estrangement with the Duchess.Giovanni imagined the scene, how the young Lorenzo would be taken away from his carefree life, away from his mother and peers, to his stern grandfather.What awaited this young man was the training that a duke should have. When his peers were still running wildly in the streets, he followed his grandfather to visit again and again, participating in debates, courts and banquets with malicious intentions.He imagined little Lorenzo standing like a lion cub surrounded by wolves in the reception room of the palace surrounded by foreign envoys.

Lorenzo had mounted his horse.He hadn't been hunting for a long time, and he looked particularly relaxed at this time.They passed through the vast wilderness in northern Tuscany, most of which are pastures and wastelands. Cattle and sheep roam freely among the grasslands; Knowing the Duke, he waved to them from a distance, and insisted on asking the Duke to stop and accept their gifts.So they tied the horses to the willows by the river, and took the honey and the long bread that the peasants stuffed into their bosoms, until the leather pouches around the horses' necks could hold no more.Lorenzo talked with them in a familiar tone like relatives and brothers. The farmers pointed to the green grape racks on the hillside and asked him to come and taste their new wine next year.Lorenzo nodded and agreed one by one: "Definitely."

Across the gentle slopes covered with green grass one after another, the smell of sulfur can be smelled from a distance.The famous hot springs of Europa are hidden in the rocks here, and the people of Tuscany believe that it can cure all diseases.Under the bright sunshine of the day, they spent morning after morning among the steaming rocks with warm mist, discovering for the first time that summer time can fly away as fast as wings.More often, they will stay in the manor.Giovanni soon discovered that the Carreggi Manor was even more magnificent than the Medici Palace in the city, because in the wilderness far away from the citizens, the owner did not have to worry about being jealous for showing too much wealth.The servants used horses to bring back the still warm mineral spring, pour it into the iron pipe buried in the wall, and just turn on the swan-shaped faucet beside the bathtub, and the masters can enjoy the spring water without going out.Bathing is a tradition of the Romans, and the Medici have also inherited it. The bathrooms in the manor are astonishingly large, just like the public baths in ancient Rome, but much more luxurious than that.The white, light red and sky blue mosaics on the wall spell out the picture of the birth of Cupid, and Venus is curled up in the shell and slowly rises from the foam of Cyprus.The precious bathtub is made of exotic stone brought back by the Portuguese fleet across the ocean. It is not cold but warm to the touch. It is spacious enough to accommodate two intertwined bodies.There are two silver-covered benches on the teal marble floor. After leaving the bath, they occasionally lie on the soft feather cushions of the benches, sometimes reading poetry to each other, and more often making love.Love, like breathing, brings vitality, dissolves all weariness and pain; the joy of peace overflows, "many waters cannot quench, and great waters cannot drown",[1] every desire is satisfied, and happiness makes people want to confirm themselves Whether your feet are off the ground.Sometimes Giovanni would wake up in the middle of the night to confirm that Lorenzo was still in his arms.He thought of himself sleeping with a gold coin in his hand, praying in his heart for eternity; he had never been so devout.

On the sixth day, Carreggie welcomed the first uninvited guest who broke into the gate of the manor - several of them had been blocked by the waiter with the shield of "the Duke is unwell".It was Lorenzo's uncle, Julius Tornaboni, with whom he had a brief but heated conversation and left at dusk; The carriage stopped under the apple trees of the manor, and Lorenzo received them one by one, and had a conversation of similar outlines about how the "foolish duke" had added seats to the Consulate and gave them up.

"You're giving one seat now, and maybe more soon..."

"What do you want to build? A 'new Athens on the Arno'? . . . For a leader, fantasies are more dangerous than cruelty."

Someone even asked bluntly: "Don't you want a crown?" The man pointed to the bronze head in the closet, "Think about the story of Augustus, haven't you always admired him?"

"Perhaps I like Caesar better," replied Lorenzo.

"Perhaps your grandfather has already played the role of Caesar," someone sighed, "why let go of fate's hand?"

In front of others, Lorenzo has always been calm and firm, never showing any regret for his decision.In his private time, Giovanni saw him standing on the edge of the terrace, looking at the silently rushing river in the distance.Giovanni went up and handed him the cloak against the cold.Not far away, there was a loud and distant bell, and Lorenzo's voice was as deep as a sigh: "...how to cut the Gordian knot?"[2]

He never shy away from Giovanni in politics, but Giovanni knew he wished to keep himself out of it.So the young man just stood beside him silently, knowing that Lorenzo did not need his consolation or explanation."I'm just worried that there's no chance of trial and error," Lorenzo said.

His hesitation ends here.The next moment, Lorenzo turned to him with a smile and asked him about the progress of the sculpture: they had brought the manuscript of Perseus, of which Giovanni had recently been working on a wax model.It is obviously easier to deal with rocks than to get along with people.Occasionally, he would regret that he could not help Lorenzo in this matter; but more often than not, he understood that everyone getting what he deserved was the result Lorenzo hoped for.

When the next guest came, Giovanni chose to stay in the room and organize Lorenzo's collection of antiques.The estate resembles the treasury of the Medici family, with its collection of precious stones, tapestries, sculptures and paintings, it is reminiscent of the cave of the dragon in the knight legend.On this day he came to the next door to Lorenzo's bedroom, and found a painted mahogany box under the huge Brussels tapestry.

This is a wooden box that has obviously been around for a long time. On the surface of the box, the Madonna and the Holy Child are painted. The Holy Child is depicted as a blond-haired, blue-eyed image, and a diamond ring symbolizing the Medici family is painted on the collar.He guessed that this may be the "birth box" that the family customized to celebrate the birth of Lorenzo many years ago.The contents in the box quickly confirmed his guess. He saw pieces of drawing paper scattered, the charcoal lines were very immature, obviously from the hands of young children, but Lorenzo's signature was seriously signed underneath. full name.He was even surprised to find a copy of "On Painting" printed many years ago, and every literate apprentice painter had read this book of Alberti.

"I also wanted to be an artist."He remembered Lorenzo's words back then, and it turned out that they were not casual words.

The second layer of the box contained many exquisite small items, nothing more than antique daggers inlaid with gems, jade cups, and ancient coins. He guessed that these were toys that Lorenzo liked when he was young.It was like a small treasure, and as he arranged them one by one, he couldn't help smiling: he seemed to see that the child who would become the Duke in the future had carefully hidden all his treasures here.

Immediately, he saw something that should never be here.

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[1] From "The Bible Song of Solomon"

[2] According to legend, a complex and difficult knot was finally cut by Alexander the Great with a sword.