A Jay of Italy by Bernard Capes — Read

In a street of the quarter Giovia the armourer Lupo had his smithy. He had been a notable artisan in a town famous for its steel and niello work; but in his age, as in any, a plethora of fine production must cheapen the value of the individual producer. Therefore when a vengeful caprice blinded him, and his door remained shut and his chimney ceased to smoke, patronage transferred its custom to the next house or street without a qualm; and his achievements in his particular business were forgotten, or confounded with those of fellow-craftsmen, deriving, perhaps, in their art from him. It was a sample of that banal heartlessness of society, which in a moral age breeds collectivists, and desperadoes in an age of lawlessness. And of the two one may pronounce the latter the more logical.

In Milan men came quickly to maturity, whether in the art of forging a blade or using it. Life flamed up and out on swift ideals of passion. Parental love, high education, the intricate cults of beauty and chivalry, were all gambling investments in a speculative market. The odds were always in favour of that old broker Death. Yet the knowledge abated nothing of the zeal. It was strange to be so fastidious of the terms of so hazardous a lease. One might be saving, just, virtuous -- one's life-tenancy was not made thereby a whit securer. The ten commandments lay at the mercy of a dagger-point; wherefore men hurried to realise themselves timely, and to cram the stores of years into a rich banquet or two.