Explore "The Romance of Leonardo Da Vinci" by Dmitri Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
They were a merry company of knights and dames, just risen from supper and Malvoisie. Leonardo was there, and Marliani, the court physician, a man profoundly versed in alchemy. The ladies entered, and the quiet cell of the student was filled with perfumes, with the rustle of silk, with light chatter and laughter like the hum of birds. One damsel overturned a retort with her hanging sleeve, another meddling with a piece of iron slag cut her dainty glove, another spilt the mercury on the table and screamed with delight on seeing the living silver drops.
'And shall we really see Messer Satan in the fire at the moment of the lead's conversion? ' asked Madonna Filiberta of her Spanish lover; 'is it not a sin to assist at such experiments?'