next time he was painting in the church of Santa Maria.
The third time he sat in a garden, sipped wine and talked."

"I hold you," he said, "to be a fortunate fisherman!
Just as this fisher I am painting, and whether it is Andrew
or Mark, I do not yet know, was a most fortunate fisherman!"
He ended meditatively, "Though whoever it is,
probably he was crucified or beheaded or burned."

I felt a certain shiver of premonition. The day that had
been warm and bright turned in a flash ashy and chill. Then
it swung back to its first fair seeming, or not to its first, but
to a deeper, brighter yet. The Fisherman by Galilee was
fortunate. Whoever perceived truth and beauty was fortunate,
fortunate now and forever!

We came back to Messer Leonardo. "I spent six months
at the court in Milan," said the fair man. "I painted the
Duke and the Duchess and two great courtiers. Messer
Leonardo was away. He returned, and I visited him and
found a master. Since that time I study light and shadow
and small things and seek out inner action."

He worked in silence, then again began to speak of painters,
Italian and Spanish. He asked me if I had seen such
and such pictures in Seville.

"Yes. They are good."

"Do you know Monsalvat?"