Turns out it is a neat little morality play that focuses on the plots and intrigues of Niccolo Machiavelli, the Florentine politician, diplomat, philosopher and writer in the early years of the 16th century.
There are two primary stories.
The ‘A’ story focuses on Machiavelli’s diplomatic embroilments with Cesare Borgia (often referred to in the text as The Duke), his contemporary in 16th century Italy, a mercenary leader and politician on whose career Machiavelli based his famous political treatise, The Prince.
In many ways, it is fascinating to note Machiavelli’s interactions with a character who is clearly his equal -- or superior -- in the field of, well, machiavellianism.
This exchange occurs while Machiavelli is serving on Borgia’s court as a Secretary, a kind of ambassador, from Florence, as Borgia plots his diplomatic and military moves to conquer the whole of Italy. It’s fun in the way it personifies the maxims and the tactics later espoused in The Prince, and in the way it plays with the idea of the two characters working together.
Machiavelli sighed. He was filled with an unwilling admiration for this man whose spirit was so fiery and who was so confident in his power to get whatsoever he wanted.
“No one can doubt that you are favoured by fortune, Excellency,” he said.
“Fortune favours him who knows how to take advantage of his opportunity. Do you suppose it was a happy accident, by which I profited, that the governor of the citadel refused to surrender to me personally?”
“I wouldn’t do Your Excellency that injustice. After what has happened today, I can guess that you made it worth his while.”
The Duke laughed.
“I like you, Secretary. You are a man with whom one can talk. I shall miss you.” He paused and for what seemed quite a long time looked searchingly at Machiavelli. “I could almost wish that you were in my service.”
“Your Excellency is very kind. I am very well content to serve the Republic.”
“What does it profit you? The salary you receive is so miserable that to make both ends meet you have to borrow from your friends.”
This gave Machiavelli something of a turn, but then he remembered that the Duke must know of the twenty-five ducats Bartolomeo had lent him.
“I am careless of money and of an extravagant disposition,” he answered with a pleasant smile. “It is my own fault if from time to time I live beyond my means.”
“You would find it hard to do that if you were employed by me. It is very pleasant to be able to give a pretty lady a ring, a bracelet or a brooch when one wishes to obtain her favours.”
“I have made it my rule to satisfy my desires with women of easy virtue and modest pretensions.”
“A good rule enough if one’s desires were under one’s control, but who can tell what strange tricks love can play on him? Have you never discovered, Secretary, to what expense one is put when one loves a virtuous woman?”
The Duke was looking at him with mocking eyes and for an instant Machiavelli asked himself uneasily whether it was possible that he knew of his unsatisfied passion for Aurelia, but the thought had no sooner come into his mind than he rejected it. The Duke had more important things to occupy him than the Florentine envoy’s love affairs.
These are references to the novel’s ‘B’ story (more on that soon) but, importantly, here, they are showing Machiavelli at the disadvantage of his “Prince.” Much of the fun of the novel is wrapped up in this idea. Machiavelli meets his Prince, and is undone by him.
The dialogue continues with Machiavelli saying:
“I am willing to take it for granted and leave both the pleasure and the expense to others.”
The Duke gazed at him thoughtfully. You might have imagined that he was asking himself what kind of a man this was, but with no ulterior motive, from idle curiosity rather. So, when you find yourself alone with a stranger in the waiting room of an office to pass the time you try from the look of him to guess his business, his calling, his habits and his character.
“I should have thought you were too intelligent a man to be content to remain for the rest of your life in a subordinate position,” said the Duke.
“I have learnt from Aristotle that it is the better part of wisdom to cultivate the golden mean.”
“Is it possible that you are devoid of ambition?”
“Far from it, Excellency,” smiled Machiavelli. “My ambition is to serve my state to the best of my ability.”
“That is just what you will not be allowed to do. You know better than anyone that in a republic talent is suspect. A man attains high office because his mediocrity prevents him from being a menace to his associates. That is why a democracy is ruled not by the men who are most competent to rule it, but by the men whose insignificance can excite nobody’s apprehension. Do you know what are the cankers that eat the heart of a democracy?”
Heed now. A real lesson in political science is about to follow.
He looked at Machiavelli as though waiting for an answer, but Machiavelli said nothing.
“Envy and fear. The petty men in office are envious of their associates and rather than that one of them should gain reputation will prevent him from taking a measure on which may depend the safety and prosperity of the state; and they are fearful because they know that all about them are others who will stop at neither lies nor trickery to step into their shoes. And what is the result? The result is that they are more afraid of doing wrong than zealous to do right. They say dog doesn’t bite dog: whoever invented that proverb never lived under a democratic government.”
Machiavelli remained silent. He knew only too well how much truth there was in what the Duke said. He remembered how hotly the election to his own subordinate post had been contested and with what bitterness his defeated rivals had taken it. He knew that he had colleagues who were watching his every step, ready to pounce upon any slip he made that might induce the Signory to dismiss him. The Duke continued.
“A prince in my position is free to choose men to serve him for their ability. He need not give a post to a man who is incapable of filling it because he needs his influence or because he had a party behind him whose services must be recognized. He fears no rival because he is above rivalry and so, instead of favouring mediocrity, which is the curse and bane of democracy, seeks out talent, energy, initiative and intelligence. No wonder things go from bad to worse in your republic; the last reason for which anyone gets office is his fitness for it.”
In the end, witnessing the Duke’s on-going words and actions to eliminate opponents and to consolidate his political power, Machiavelli is suitably impressed. Here he speaks to his friend, Bartolomeo, about the scope of the Duke’s vision and impact.
“A strange man,” he muttered, “perhaps a great one.”
“Of whom are you speaking?” asked Bartolomeo.
“Of the Duke of course. Of whom else could I have been speaking? He has rid himself of his enemies by the exercise of a duplicity so perfect that the onlooker can only wonder and admire. These painters with their colours and their brushes prate about the works of art they produce, but what are they in comparison with a work of art that is produced when your paints are living men and your brushes wit and cunning? The Duke is a man of action and impetuous, you would never have credited him with the wary patience that was needed to bring his beautiful stratagem to a successful issue. For four months he kept them guessing at his intentions; he worked on their fears, he traded on their jealousies, he confused them by his wiles, he fooled them with false promises; with infinite skill he sowed dissension among them, so that the Bentivogli in Bologna and Baglioni in Perugia deserted them. You know how ill it has served Baglioni: the Bentivogli’s turn will come. As suited his purpose he was friendly and genial, stern and menacing; and at last they stepped into the trap he had set. It was a masterpiece of deceit which deserves to go down to posterity for the neatness of its planning and the perfection of its execution.”
High praise, indeed -- especially from a character like Machiavelli who, in the novel’s ‘B’ story, attempts similar feats of deceit and treachery for another goal: seducing Aurelia, the young and bewitching wife of his friend Bartolomeo. Machiavelli pursues her with all the guile and duplicity of his Prince, but is thwarted at every turn by both circumstance and the unplanned for actions of confidants and patsies alike.
In the end, having been thwarted, Machiavelli grows philosophical, thinking it best to turn his whole adventure into a more idealized work of art.
“What is love in comparison with art?” he repeated. “Love is transitory, but art is eternal. Love is merely Nature’s device to induce us to bring into this vile world creatures who from the day of their birth to the day of their death will be exposed to hunger and thirst, sickness and sorrow, envy, hatred and malice. … The creation of man was not even a tragic mistake, it was a grotesque mischance. What is its justification? Art, I suppose. Lucretius, Horace, Catullus, Dante and Petrarch. And perhaps they would never have been driven to write their divine works if their lives had not been full of tribulation, for there is no question that if I had gone to bed with Aurelia I should never have had the idea of writing a play. So when you come to look at it, it’s all turned out for the best. I lost a trinket and picked up a jewel fit for a king’s crown.”
Maugham here is referring to another real-world work of Machiavelli, The Mandrake, a play about many of the same subjects and characters described in Then and Now. In this way, the novel tells the fictionalized account of how two of Machiavelli’s works came into being.
And in the writing of the play, Machiavelli discovers his supreme happiness.
Now that he had a plot the scenes succeeded one another with inevitability. They fell into place like the pieces of a puzzle. It was as though the play were writing itself and he, Machiavelli, were no more than an amanuensis. If he had been excited before, when the notion of making a play out of his misadventure had first come to him, he was doubly excited now that it all lay clear before his mind’s eye like a garden laid out with terraces and fountains, shady walks and pleasant arbours. When they stopped to dine, absorbed in his characters he paid no attention to what he ate; and when they started off again he was unconscious of the miles they travelled; they came near to Florence and the countryside was as familiar to him, and as dear, as the street he was born in, but he had no eyes for it; the sun, long past its meridian, was making its westering way to where met earth and sky, but he gave no heed to it. He was in a world of make-believe that rendered the real world illusory. He felt more than himself. He was Callimaco, young, handsome, rich, audacious, gay; and the passion with which he burnt for Lucrezia was of a tempestous violence that made the desire Machiavelli had had for Aurelia a pale slight thing. That was but a shadow, this was the substance. Machiavelli, had he only known it, was enjoying the supreme happiness that man is capable of experiencing, the activity of creation.
Machiavelli, yes, but I can’t help but see a little bit of Maugham poking through in those words as well.
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