Romola

by George Eliot


Contents

 Prologue. 
 CHAPTER I. The Shipwrecked Stranger
 CHAPTER II. Breakfast for Love
 CHAPTER III. The Barber’s Shop
 CHAPTER IV. First Impressions
 CHAPTER V. The Blind Scholar and his Daughter
 CHAPTER VI. Dawning Hopes
 CHAPTER VII. A Learned Squabble
 CHAPTER VIII. A Face in the Crowd
 CHAPTER IX. A Man’s Ransom
 CHAPTER X. Under the Plane-Tree
 CHAPTER XI. Tito’s Dilemma
 CHAPTER XII. The Prize is nearly Grasped
 CHAPTER XIII. The Shadow of Nemesis
 CHAPTER XIV. The Peasants’ Fair
 CHAPTER XV. The Dying Message
 CHAPTER XVI. A Florentine Joke
 CHAPTER XVII. Under the Loggia
 CHAPTER XVIII. The Portrait
 CHAPTER XIX. The Old Man’s Hope
 CHAPTER XX. The Day of the Betrothal
 CHAPTER XXI. Florence expects a Guest
 CHAPTER XXII. The Prisoners
 CHAPTER XXIII. After-Thoughts
 CHAPTER XXIV. Inside the Duomo
 CHAPTER XXV. Outside the Duomo
 CHAPTER XXVI. The Garment of Fear
 CHAPTER XXVII. The Young Wife
 CHAPTER XXVIII. The Painted Record
 CHAPTER XXIX. A Moment of Triumph
 CHAPTER XXX. The Avenger’s Secret
 CHAPTER XXXI. Fruit is Seed
 CHAPTER XXXII. A Revelation
 CHAPTER XXXIII. Baldassarre makes an Acquaintance
 CHAPTER XXXIV. No Place for Repentance
 CHAPTER XXXV. What Florence was thinking of
 CHAPTER XXXVI. Ariadne discrowns herself
 CHAPTER XXXVII. The Tabernacle Unlocked
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Black Marks become Magical
 CHAPTER XXXIX. A Supper in the Rucellai Gardens
 CHAPTER XL. An Arresting Voice
 CHAPTER XLI. Coming Back
 CHAPTER XLII. Romola in her Place
 CHAPTER XLIII. The Unseen Madonna
 CHAPTER XLIV. The Visible Madonna
 CHAPTER XLV. At the Barber’s Shop
 CHAPTER XLVI. By a Street Lamp
 CHAPTER XLVII. Check
 CHAPTER XLVIII. Counter-Check
 CHAPTER XLIX. The Pyramid of Vanities
 CHAPTER L. Tessa Abroad and at Home
 CHAPTER LI. Monna Brigida’s Conversion
 CHAPTER LII. A Prophetess
 CHAPTER LIII. On San Miniato
 CHAPTER LIV. The Evening and the Morning
 CHAPTER LV. Waiting
 CHAPTER LVI. The Other Wife
 CHAPTER LVII. Why Tito was Safe
 CHAPTER LVIII. A Final Understanding
 CHAPTER LIX. Pleading
 CHAPTER LX. The Scaffold
 CHAPTER LXI. Drifting Away
 CHAPTER LXII. The Benediction
 CHAPTER LXIII. Ripening Schemes
 CHAPTER LXIV. The Prophet in his Cell
 CHAPTER LXV. The Trial by Fire
 CHAPTER LXVI. A Masque of the Furies
 CHAPTER LXVII. Waiting by the River
 CHAPTER LXVIII. Romola’s waking
 CHAPTER LXIX. Homeward
 CHAPTER LXX. Meeting Again
 CHAPTER LXXI. The Confession
 CHAPTER LXXII. The Last Silence
 Epilogue. 




PROEM.


More than three centuries and a half ago, in the mid spring-time of
1492, we are sure that the angel of the dawn, as he travelled with
broad slow wing from the Levant to the Pillars of Hercules, and from
the summits of the Caucasus across all the snowy Alpine ridges to the
dark nakedness of the Western isles, saw nearly the same outline of
firm land and unstable sea—saw the same great mountain shadows on the
same valleys as he has seen to-day—saw olive mounts, and pine forests,
and the broad plains green with young corn or rain-freshened grass—saw
the domes and spires of cities rising by the river-sides or mingled
with the sedge-like masts on the many-curved sea-coast, in the same
spots where they rise to-day. And as the faint light of his course
pierced into the dwellings of men, it fell, as now, on the rosy warmth
of nestling children; on the haggard waking of sorrow and sickness; on
the hasty uprising of the hard-handed labourer; and on the late sleep
of the night-student, who had been questioning the stars or the sages,
or his own soul, for that hidden knowledge which would break through
the barrier of man’s brief life, and show its dark path, that seemed to
bend no whither, to be an arc in an immeasurable circle of light and
glory. The great river-courses which have shaped the lives of men have
hardly changed; and those other streams, the life-currents that ebb and
flow in human hearts, pulsate to the same great needs, the same great
loves and terrors. As our thought follows close in the slow wake of the
dawn, we are impressed with the broad sameness of the human lot, which
never alters in the main headings of its history—hunger and labour,
seed-time and harvest, love and death.

Even if, instead of following the dim daybreak, our imagination pauses
on a certain historical spot and awaits the fuller morning, we may see
a world-famous city, which has hardly changed its outline since the
days of Columbus, seeming to stand as an almost unviolated symbol,
amidst the flux of human things, to remind us that we still resemble
the men of the past more than we differ from them, as the great
mechanical principles on which those domes and towers were raised must
make a likeness in human building that will be broader and deeper than
all possible change. And doubtless, if the spirit of a Florentine
citizen, whose eyes were closed for the last time while Columbus was
still waiting and arguing for the three poor vessels with which he was
to set sail from the port of Palos, could return from the shades and
pause where our thought is pausing, he would believe that there must
still be fellowship and understanding for him among the inheritors of
his birthplace.

Let us suppose that such a Shade has been permitted to revisit the
glimpses of the golden morning, and is standing once more on the famous
hill of San Miniato, which overlooks Florence from the south.

The Spirit is clothed in his habit as he lived: the folds of his
well-lined black silk garment or _lucco_ hang in grave unbroken lines
from neck to ankle; his plain cloth cap, with its _becchetto_, or long
hanging strip of drapery, to serve as a scarf in case of need,
surmounts a penetrating face, not, perhaps, very handsome, but with a
firm, well-cut mouth, kept distinctly human by a close-shaven lip and
chin. It is a face charged with memories of a keen and various life
passed below there on the banks of the gleaming river; and as he looks
at the scene before him, the sense of familiarity is so much stronger
than the perception of change, that he thinks it might be possible to
descend once more amongst the streets, and take up that busy life where
he left it. For it is not only the mountains and the westward-bending
river that he recognises; not only the dark sides of Mount Morello
opposite to him, and the long valley of the Arno that seems to stretch
its grey low-tufted luxuriance to the far-off ridges of Carrara; and
the steep height of Fiesole, with its crown of monastic walls and
cypresses; and all the green and grey slopes sprinkled with villas
which he can name as he looks at them. He sees other familiar objects
much closer to his daily walks. For though he misses the seventy or
more towers that once surmounted the walls, and encircled the city as
with a regal diadem, his eyes will not dwell on that blank; they are
drawn irresistibly to the unique tower springing, like a tall
flower-stem drawn towards the sun, from the square turreted mass of the
Old Palace in the very heart of the city—the tower that looks none the
worse for the four centuries that have passed since he used to walk
under it. The great dome, too, greatest in the world, which, in his
early boyhood, had been only a daring thought in the mind of a small,
quick-eyed man—there it raises its large curves still, eclipsing the
hills. And the well-known bell-towers—Giotto’s, with its distant hint
of rich colour, and the graceful-spired Badia, and the rest—he looked
at them all from the shoulder of his nurse.

“Surely,” he thinks, “Florence can still ring her bells with the solemn
hammer-sound that used to beat on the hearts of her citizens and strike
out the fire there. And here, on the right, stands the long dark mass
of Santa Croce, where we buried our famous dead, laying the laurel on
their cold brows and fanning them with the breath of praise and of
banners. But Santa Croce had no spire then: we Florentines were too
full of great building projects to carry them all out in stone and
marble; we had our frescoes and our shrines to pay for, not to speak of
rapacious condottieri, bribed royalty, and purchased territories, and
our façades and spires must needs wait. But what architect can the
Frati Minori (the Franciscans) have employed to build that spire for
them? If it had been built in my day, Filippo Brunelleschi or
Michelozzo would have devised something of another fashion than
that—something worthy to crown the church of Arnolfo.”

At this the Spirit, with a sigh, lets his eyes travel on to the city
walls, and now he dwells on the change there with wonder at these
modern times. Why have five out of the eleven convenient gates been
closed? And why, above all, should the towers have been levelled that
were once a glory and defence? Is the world become so peaceful, then,
and do Florentines dwell in such harmony, that there are no longer
conspiracies to bring ambitious exiles home again with armed bands at
their back? These are difficult questions: it is easier and pleasanter
to recognise the old than to account for the new. And there flows Arno,
with its bridges just where they used to be—the Ponte Vecchio, least
like other bridges in the world, laden with the same quaint shops where
our Spirit remembers lingering a little on his way perhaps to look at
the progress of that great palace which Messer Luca Pitti had set
a-building with huge stones got from the Hill of Bogoli (now Boboli)
close behind, or perhaps to transact a little business with the
cloth-dressers in Oltrarno. The exorbitant line of the Pitti roof is
hidden from San Miniato; but the yearning of the old Florentine is not
to see Messer Luca’s too ambitious palace which he built unto himself;
it is to be down among those narrow streets and busy humming Piazze
where he inherited the eager life of his fathers. Is not the anxious
voting with black and white beans still going on down there? Who are
the Priori in these months, eating soberly-regulated official dinners
in the Palazzo Vecchio, with removes of tripe and boiled partridges,
seasoned by practical jokes against the ill-fated butt among those
potent signors? Are not the significant banners still hung from the
windows—still distributed with decent pomp under Orcagna’s Loggia every
two months?

Life had its zest for the old Florentine when he, too, trod the marble
steps and shared in those dignities. His politics had an area as wide
as his trade, which stretched from Syria to Britain, but they had also
the passionate intensity, and the detailed practical interest, which
could belong only to a narrow scene of corporate action; only to the
members of a community shut in close by the hills and by walls of six
miles’ circuit, where men knew each other as they passed in the street,
set their eyes every day on the memorials of their commonwealth, and
were conscious of having not simply the right to vote, but the chance
of being voted for. He loved his honours and his gains, the business of
his counting-house, of his guild, of the public council-chamber; he
loved his enmities too, and fingered the white bean which was to keep a
hated name out of the _borsa_ with more complacency than if it had been
a golden florin. He loved to strengthen his family by a good alliance,
and went home with a triumphant light in his eyes after concluding a
satisfactory marriage for his son or daughter under his favourite
loggia in the evening cool; he loved his game at chess under that same
loggia, and his biting jest, and even his coarse joke, as not beneath
the dignity of a man eligible for the highest magistracy. He had gained
an insight into all sorts of affairs at home and abroad: he had been of
the “Ten” who managed the war department, of the “Eight” who attended
to home discipline, of the Priori or Signori who were the heads of the
executive government; he had even risen to the supreme office of
Gonfaloniere; he had made one in embassies to the Pope and to the
Venetians; and he had been commissary to the hired army of the
Republic, directing the inglorious bloodless battles in which no man
died of brave breast wounds—_virtuosi colpi_—but only of casual falls
and tramplings. And in this way he had learned to distrust men without
bitterness; looking on life mainly as a game of skill, but not dead to
traditions of heroism and clean-handed honour. For the human soul is
hospitable, and will entertain conflicting sentiments and contradictory
opinions with much impartiality. It was his pride besides, that he was
duly tinctured with the learning of his age, and judged not altogether
with the vulgar, but in harmony with the ancients: he, too, in his
prime, had been eager for the most correct manuscripts, and had paid
many florins for antique vases and for disinterred busts of the ancient
immortals—some, perhaps, _truncis naribus_, wanting as to the nose, but
not the less authentic; and in his old age he had made haste to look at
the first sheets of that fine Homer which was among the early glories
of the Florentine press. But he had not, for all that, neglected to
hang up a waxen image or double of himself under the protection of the
Madonna Annunziata, or to do penance for his sins in large gifts to the
shrines of saints whose lives had not been modelled on the study of the
classics; he had not even neglected making liberal bequests towards
buildings for the Frati, against whom he had levelled many a jest.

For the Unseen Powers were mighty. Who knew—who was sure—that there was
_any_ name given to them behind which there was no angry force to be
appeased, no intercessory pity to be won? Were not gems medicinal,
though they only pressed the finger? Were not all things charged with
occult virtues? Lucretius might be right—he was an ancient, and a great
poet; Luigi Pulci, too, who was suspected of not believing anything
from the roof upward (_dal tetto in su_), had very much the air of
being right over the supper-table, when the wine and jests were
circulating fast, though he was only a poet in the vulgar tongue. There
were even learned personages who maintained that Aristotle, wisest of
men (unless, indeed, Plato were wiser?) was a thoroughly irreligious
philosopher; and a liberal scholar must entertain all speculations. But
the negatives might, after all, prove false; nay, seemed manifestly
false, as the circling hours swept past him, and turned round with
graver faces. For had not the world become Christian? Had he not been
baptised in San Giovanni, where the dome is awful with symbols of
coming judgment, and where the altar bears a crucified Image disturbing
to perfect complacency in one’s self and the world? Our resuscitated
Spirit was not a pagan philosopher, nor a philosophising pagan poet,
but a man of the fifteenth century, inheriting its strange web of
belief and unbelief; of Epicurean levity and fetichistic dread; of
pedantic impossible ethics uttered by rote, and crude passions acted
out with childish impulsiveness; of inclination towards a
self-indulgent paganism, and inevitable subjection to that human
conscience which, in the unrest of a new growth, was rilling the air
with strange prophecies and presentiments.

He had smiled, perhaps, and shaken his head dubiously, as he heard
simple folk talk of a Pope Angelico, who was to come by-and-by and
bring in a new order of things, to purify the Church from simony, and
the lives of the clergy from scandal—a state of affairs too different
from what existed under Innocent the Eighth for a shrewd merchant and
politician to regard the prospect as worthy of entering into his
calculations. But he felt the evils of the time, nevertheless; for he
was a man of public spirit, and public spirit can never be wholly
immoral, since its essence is care for a common good. That very
Quaresima or Lent of 1492 in which he died, still in his erect old age,
he had listened in San Lorenzo, not without a mixture of satisfaction,
to the preaching of a Dominican Friar, named Girolamo Savonarola, who
denounced with a rare boldness the worldliness and vicious habits of
the clergy, and insisted on the duty of Christian men not to live for
their own ease when wrong was triumphing in high places, and not to
spend their wealth in outward pomp even in the churches, when their
fellow-citizens were suffering from want and sickness. The Frate
carried his doctrine rather too far for elderly ears; yet it was a
memorable thing to see a preacher move his audience to such a pitch
that the women even took off their ornaments, and delivered them up to
be sold for the benefit of the needy.

“He was a noteworthy man, that Prior of San Marco,” thinks our Spirit;
“somewhat arrogant and extreme, perhaps, especially in his
denunciations of speedy vengeance. Ah, _Iddio non paga il Sabatol_
(‘God does not pay on a Saturday’)—the wages of men’s sins often linger
in their payment, and I myself saw much established wickedness of
long-standing prosperity. But a Frate Predicatore who wanted to move
the people—how could he be moderate? He might have been a little less
defiant and curt, though, to Lorenzo de’ Medici, whose family had been
the very makers of San Marco: was that quarrel ever made up? And our
Lorenzo himself, with the dim outward eyes and the subtle inward
vision, did he get over that illness at Careggi? It was but a sad,
uneasy-looking face that he would carry out of the world which had
given him so much, and there were strong suspicions that his handsome
son would play the part of Rehoboam. How has it all turned out? Which
party is likely to be banished and have its houses sacked just now? Is
there any successor of the incomparable Lorenzo, to whom the great Turk
is so gracious as to send over presents of rare animals, rare relics,
rare manuscripts, or fugitive enemies, suited to the tastes of a
Christian Magnifico who is at once lettered and devout—and also
slightly vindictive? And what famous scholar is dictating the Latin
letters of the Republic—what fiery philosopher is lecturing on Dante in
the Duomo, and going home to write bitter invectives against the father
and mother of the bad critic who may have found fault with his
classical spelling? Are our wiser heads leaning towards alliance with
the Pope and the Regno (The name given to Naples by way of distinction
among the Italian States), or are they rather inclining their ears to
the orators of France and of Milan?

“There is knowledge of these things to be had in the streets below, on
the beloved _marmi_ in front of the churches, and under the sheltering
Loggie, where surely our citizens have still their gossip and debates,
their bitter and merry jests as of old. For are not the well-remembered
buildings all there? The changes have not been so great in those
uncounted years. I will go down and hear—I will tread the familiar
pavement, and hear once again the speech of Florentines.”

Go not down, good Spirit! for the changes are great and the speech of
Florentines would sound as a riddle in your ears. Or, if you go, mingle
with no politicians on the _marmi_, or elsewhere; ask no questions
about trade in the Calimara; confuse yourself with no inquiries into
scholarship, official or monastic. Only look at the sunlight and
shadows on the grand walls that were built solidly, and have endured in
their grandeur; look at the faces of the little children, making
another sunlight amid the shadows of age; look, if you will, into the
churches, and hear the same chants, see the same images as of old—the
images of willing anguish for a great end, of beneficent love and
ascending glory; see upturned living faces, and lips moving to the old
prayers for help. These things have not changed. The sunlight and
shadows bring their old beauty and waken the old heart-strains at
morning, noon, and eventide; the little children are still the symbol
of the eternal marriage between love and duty; and men still yearn for
the reign of peace and righteousness—still own _that_ life to be the
highest which is a conscious voluntary sacrifice. For the Pope Angelico
is not come yet.




CHAPTER I.
The Shipwrecked Stranger.


The Loggia de’ Cerchi stood in the heart of old Florence, within a
labyrinth of narrow streets behind the Badia, now rarely threaded by
the stranger, unless in a dubious search for a certain severely simple
doorplace, bearing this inscription:


Qui Nacque Il Divino Poeta.


To the ear of Dante, the same streets rang with the shout and clash of
fierce battle between rival families; but in the fifteenth century,
they were only noisy with the unhistorical quarrels and broad jests of
woolcarders in the cloth-producing quarters of San Martino and Garbo.

Under this loggia, in the early morning of the 9th of April 1492, two
men had their eyes fixed on each other: one was stooping slightly, and
looking downward with the scrutiny of curiosity; the other, lying on
the pavement, was looking upward with the startled gaze of a
suddenly-awakened dreamer.

The standing figure was the first to speak. He was a grey-haired,
broad-shouldered man, of the type which, in Tuscan phrase, is moulded
with the fist and polished with the pickaxe; but the self-important
gravity which had written itself out in the deep lines about his brow
and mouth seemed intended to correct any contemptuous inferences from
the hasty workmanship which Nature had bestowed on his exterior. He had
deposited a large well-filled bag, made of skins, on the pavement, and
before him hung a pedlar’s basket, garnished partly with small
woman’s-ware, such as thread and pins, and partly with fragments of
glass, which had probably been taken in exchange for those commodities.

“Young man,” he said, pointing to a ring on the finger of the reclining
figure, “when your chin has got a stiffer crop on it, you’ll know
better than to take your nap in street-corners with a ring like that on
your forefinger. By the holy ’vangels! if it had been anybody but me
standing over you two minutes ago—but Bratti Ferravecchi is not the man
to steal. The cat couldn’t eat her mouse if she didn’t catch it alive,
and Bratti couldn’t relish gain if it had no taste of a bargain. Why,
young man, one San Giovanni, three years ago, the Saint sent a dead
body in my way—a blind beggar, with his cap well-lined with pieces—but,
if you’ll believe me, my stomach turned against the money I’d never
bargained for, till it came into my head that San Giovanni owed me the
pieces for what I spend yearly at the Festa; besides, I buried the body
and paid for a mass—and so I saw it was a fair bargain. But how comes a
young man like you, with the face of Messer San Michele, to be sleeping
on a stone bed with the wind for a curtain?”

The deep guttural sounds of the speaker were scarcely intelligible to
the newly-waked, bewildered listener, but he understood the action of
pointing to his ring: he looked down at it, and, with a half-automatic
obedience to the warning, took it off and thrust it within his doublet,
rising at the same time and stretching himself.

“Your tunic and hose match ill with that jewel, young man,” said
Bratti, deliberately. “Anybody might say the saints had sent _you_ a
dead body; but if you took the jewels, I hope you buried him—and you
can afford a mass or two for him into the bargain.”

Something like a painful thrill appeared to dart through the frame of
the listener, and arrest the careless stretching of his arms and chest.
For an instant he turned on Bratti with a sharp frown; but he
immediately recovered an air of indifference, took off the red
Levantine cap which hung like a great purse over his left ear, pushed
back his long dark-brown curls, and glancing at his dress, said,
smilingly—

“You speak truth, friend: my garments are as weather-stained as an old
sail, and they are not old either, only, like an old sail, they have
had a sprinkling of the sea as well as the rain. The fact is, I’m a
stranger in Florence, and when I came in footsore last night I
preferred flinging myself in a corner of this hospitable porch to
hunting any longer for a chance hostelry, which might turn out to be a
nest of blood-suckers of more sorts than one.”

“A stranger, in good sooth,” said Bratti, “for the words come all
melting out of your throat, so that a Christian and a Florentine can’t
tell a hook from a hanger. But you’re not from Genoa? More likely from
Venice, by the cut of your clothes?”

“At this present moment,” said the stranger, smiling, “it is of less
importance where I come from than where I can go to for a mouthful of
breakfast. This city of yours turns a grim look on me just here: can
you show me the way to a more lively quarter, where I can get a meal
and a lodging?”

“That I can,” said Bratti, “and it is your good fortune, young man,
that I have happened to be walking in from Rovezzano this morning, and
turned out of my way to Mercato Vecchio to say an Ave at the Badia.
That, I say, is your good fortune. But it remains to be seen what is my
profit in the matter. Nothing for nothing, young man. If I show you the
way to Mercato Vecchio, you’ll swear by your patron saint to let me
have the bidding for that stained suit of yours, when you set up a
better—as doubtless you will.”

“Agreed, by San Niccolò,” said the other, laughing. “But now let us set
off to this said Mercato, for I feel the want of a better lining to
this doublet of mine which you are coveting.”

“Coveting? Nay,” said Bratti, heaving his bag on his back and setting
out. But he broke off in his reply, and burst out in loud, harsh tones,
not unlike the creaking and grating of a cart-wheel: “_Chi
abbaratta_—_baratta_—_b’ratta_—_chi abbaratta cenci e vetri_—_b’ratta
ferri vecchi_?” (“Who wants to exchange rags, broken glass, or old
iron?”)

“It’s worth but little,” he said presently, relapsing into his
conversational tone. “Hose and altogether, your clothes are worth but
little. Still, if you’ve a mind to set yourself up with a lute worth
more than any new one, or with a sword that’s been worn by a Ridolfi,
or with a paternoster of the best mode, I could let you have a great
bargain, by making an allowance for the clothes; for, simple as I stand
here, I’ve got the best-furnished shop in the Ferravecchi, and it’s
close by the Mercato. The Virgin be praised! it’s not a pumpkin I carry
on my shoulders. But I don’t stay caged in my shop all day: I’ve got a
wife and a raven to stay at home and mind the stock. _Chi
abbaratta_—_baratta_—_b’ratta_? ... And now, young man, where do you
come from, and what’s your business in Florence?”

“I thought you liked nothing that came to you without a bargain,” said
the stranger. “You’ve offered me nothing yet in exchange for that
information.”

“Well, well; a Florentine doesn’t mind bidding a fair price for news:
it stays the stomach a little though he may win no hose by it. If I
take you to the prettiest damsel in the Mercato to get a cup of
milk—that will be a fair bargain.”

“Nay; I can find her myself, if she be really in the Mercato; for
pretty heads are apt to look forth of doors and windows. No, no.
Besides, a sharp trader, like you, ought to know that he who bids for
nuts and news, may chance to find them hollow.”

“Ah! young man,” said Bratti, with a sideway glance of some admiration,
“you were not born of a Sunday—the salt-shops were open when you came
into the world. You’re not a Hebrew, eh?—come from Spain or Naples, eh?
Let me tell you the Frati Minori are trying to make Florence as hot as
Spain for those dogs of hell that want to get all the profit of usury
to themselves and leave none for Christians; and when you walk the
Calimara with a piece of yellow cloth in your cap, it will spoil your
beauty more than a sword-cut across that smooth olive cheek of
yours.—_Abbaratta, baratta_—_chi abbaratta_?—I tell you, young man,
grey cloth is against yellow cloth; and there’s as much grey cloth in
Florence as would make a gown and cowl for the Duomo, and there’s not
so much yellow cloth as would make hose for Saint Christopher—blessed
be his name, and send me a sight of him this day!—_Abbaratta, baratta,
b’ratta_—_chi abbaratta_?”

“All that is very amusing information you are parting with for
nothing,” said the stranger, rather scornfully; “but it happens not to
concern me. I am no Hebrew.”

“See, now!” said Bratti, triumphantly; “I’ve made a good bargain with
mere words. I’ve made you tell me something, young man, though you’re
as hard to hold as a lamprey. San Giovanni be praised! a blind
Florentine is a match for two one-eyed men. But here we are in the
Mercato.”

They had now emerged from the narrow streets into a broad piazza, known
to the elder Florentine writers as the Mercato Vecchio, or the Old
Market. This piazza, though it had been the scene of a provision-market
from time immemorial, and may, perhaps, says fond imagination, be the
very spot to which the Fesulean ancestors of the Florentines descended
from their high fastness to traffic with the rustic population of the
valley, had not been shunned as a place of residence by Florentine
wealth. In the early decades of the fifteenth century, which was now
near its end, the Medici and other powerful families of the _popolani
grassi_, or commercial nobility, had their houses there, not perhaps
finding their ears much offended by the loud roar of mingled dialects,
or their eyes much shocked by the butchers’ stalls, which the old poet
Antonio Pucci accounts a chief glory, or _dignita_, of a market that,
in his esteem, eclipsed the markets of all the earth beside. But the
glory of mutton and veal (well attested to be the flesh of the right
animals; for were not the skins, with the heads attached, duly
displayed, according to the decree of the Signoria?) was just now
wanting to the Mercato, the time of Lent not being yet over. The proud
corporation, or “Art,” of butchers was in abeyance, and it was the
great harvest-time of the market-gardeners, the cheesemongers, the
vendors of macaroni, corn, eggs, milk, and dried fruits: a change which
was apt to make the women’s voices predominant in the chorus. But in
all seasons there was the experimental ringing of pots and pans, the
chinking of the money-changers, the tempting offers of cheapness at the
old-clothes stalls, the challenges of the dicers, the vaunting of new
linens and woollens, of excellent wooden-ware, kettles, and
frying-pans; there was the choking of the narrow inlets with mules and
carts, together with much uncomplimentary remonstrance in terms
remarkably identical with the insults in use by the gentler sex of the
present day, under the same imbrowning and heating circumstances.
Ladies and gentlemen, who came to market, looked on at a larger amount
of amateur fighting than could easily be seen in these later times, and
beheld more revolting rags, beggary, and rascaldom, than modern
householders could well picture to themselves. As the day wore on, the
hideous drama of the gaming-house might be seen here by any chance
open-air spectator—the quivering eagerness, the blank despair, the
sobs, the blasphemy, and the blows:—


“E vedesi chi perde con gran soffi,
E bestemmiar colla mano alia mascella,
E ricever e dar di molti ingoffi.”


But still there was the relief of prettier sights: there were
brood-rabbits, not less innocent and astonished than those of our own
period; there were doves and singing-birds to be bought as presents for
the children; there were even kittens for sale, and here and there a
handsome _gattuccio_, or “Tom,” with the highest character for mousing;
and, better than all, there were young, softly-rounded cheeks and
bright eyes, freshened by the start from the far-off castello (walled
village) at daybreak, not to speak of older faces with the unfading
charm of honest goodwill in them, such as are never quite wanting in
scenes of human industry. And high on a pillar in the centre of the
place—a venerable pillar, fetched from the church of San Giovanni—stood
Donatello’s stone statue of Plenty, with a fountain near it, where,
says old Pucci, the good wives of the market freshened their utensils,
and their throats also; not because they were unable to buy wine, but
because they wished to save the money for their husbands.

But on this particular morning a sudden change seemed to have come over
the face of the market. The _deschi_, or stalls, were indeed partly
dressed with their various commodities, and already there were
purchasers assembled, on the alert to secure the finest, freshest
vegetables and the most unexceptionable butter. But when Bratti and his
companion entered the piazza, it appeared that some common
preoccupation had for the moment distracted the attention both of
buyers and sellers from their proper business. Most of the traders had
turned their backs on their goods, and had joined the knots of talkers
who were concentrating themselves at different points in the piazza. A
vendor of old-clothes, in the act of hanging out a pair of long hose,
had distractedly hung them round his neck in his eagerness to join the
nearest group; an oratorical cheesemonger, with a piece of cheese in
one hand and a knife in the other, was incautiously making notes of his
emphatic pauses on that excellent specimen of _marzolino_; and elderly
market-women, with their egg-baskets in a dangerously oblique position,
contributed a wailing fugue of invocation.

In this general distraction, the Florentine boys, who were never
wanting in any street scene, and were of an especially mischievous
sort—as who should say, very sour crabs indeed—saw a great opportunity.
Some made a rush at the nuts and dried figs, others preferred the
farinaceous delicacies at the cooked provision stalls—delicacies to
which certain four-footed dogs also, who had learned to take kindly to
Lenten fare, applied a discriminating nostril, and then disappeared
with much rapidity under the nearest shelter; while the mules, not
without some kicking and plunging among impeding baskets, were
stretching their muzzles towards the aromatic green-meat.

“Diavolo!” said Bratti, as he and his companion came, quite unnoticed,
upon the noisy scene; “the Mercato is gone as mad as if the most Holy
Father had excommunicated us again. I must know what this is. But never
fear: it seems a thousand years to you till you see the pretty Tessa,
and get your cup of milk; but keep hold of me, and I’ll hold to my
bargain. Remember, I’m to have the first bid for your suit, specially
for the hose, which, with all their stains, are the best _panno di
garbo_—as good as ruined, though, with mud and weather stains.”

“Ola, Monna Trecca,” Bratti proceeded, turning towards an old woman on
the outside of the nearest group, who for the moment had suspended her
wail to listen, and shouting close in her ear: “Here are the mules
upsetting all your bunches of parsley: is the world coming to an end,
then?”

“Monna Trecca” (equivalent to “Dame Greengrocer”) turned round at this
unexpected trumpeting in her right ear, with a half-fierce,
half-bewildered look, first at the speaker, then at her disarranged
commodities, and then at the speaker again.

“A bad Easter and a bad year to you, and may you die by the sword!” she
burst out, rushing towards her stall, but directing this first volley
of her wrath against Bratti, who, without heeding the malediction,
quietly slipped into her place, within hearing of the narrative which
had been absorbing her attention; making a sign at the same time to the
younger stranger to keep near him.

“I tell you I saw it myself,” said a fat man, with a bunch of
newly-purchased leeks in his hand. “I was in Santa Maria Novella, and
saw it myself. The woman started up and threw out her arms, and cried
out and said she saw a big bull with fiery horns coming down on the
church to crush it. I saw it myself.”

“Saw what, Goro?” said a man of slim figure, whose eye twinkled rather
roguishly. He wore a close jerkin, a skull-cap lodged carelessly over
his left ear as if it had fallen there by chance, a delicate linen
apron tucked up on one side, and a razor stuck in his belt. “Saw the
bull, or only the woman?”

“Why, the woman, to be sure; but it’s all one, _mi pare_: it doesn’t
alter the meaning—_va_!” answered the fat man, with some contempt.

“Meaning? no, no; that’s clear enough,” said several voices at once,
and then followed a confusion of tongues, in which “Lights shooting
over San Lorenzo for three nights together”—“Thunder in the clear
starlight”—“Lantern of the Duomo struck with the sword of Saint
Michael”—“_Palle_” (Arms of the Medici)—“All smashed”—“Lions tearing
each other to pieces”—“Ah! and they might well”—“_Boto_[1] _caduto in
Santissima Nunziata_!”—“Died like the best of Christians”—“God will
have pardoned him”—were often-repeated phrases, which shot across each
other like storm-driven hailstones, each speaker feeling rather the
necessity of utterance than of finding a listener. Perhaps the only
silent members of the group were Bratti, who, as a new-comer, was busy
in mentally piecing together the flying fragments of information; the
man of the razor; and a thin-lipped, eager-looking personage in
spectacles, wearing a pen-and-ink case at his belt.

 [1] A votive image of Lorenzo, in wax, hung up in the Church of the
 Annunziata, supposed to have fallen at the time of his death. _Boto_
 is popular Tuscan for _Voto_.


“_Ebbene_, Nello,” said Bratti, skirting the group till he was within
hearing of the barber. “It appears the Magnifico is dead—rest his
soul!—and the price of wax will rise?”

“Even as you say,” answered Nello; and then added, with an air of extra
gravity, but with marvellous rapidity, “and his waxen image in the
Nunziata fell at the same moment, they say; or at some other time,
whenever it pleases the Frati Serviti, who know best. And several cows
and women have had still-born calves this Quaresima; and for the bad
eggs that have been broken since the Carnival, nobody has counted them.
Ah! a great man—a great politician—a greater poet than Dante. And yet
the cupola didn’t fall, only the lantern. _Che miracolo_!”

A sharp and lengthened “Pst!” was suddenly heard darting across the
pelting storm of gutturals. It came from the pale man in spectacles,
and had the effect he intended; for the noise ceased, and all eyes in
the group were fixed on him with a look of expectation.

“’Tis well said you Florentines are blind,” he began, in an incisive
high voice. “It appears to me, you need nothing but a diet of hay to
make cattle of you. What! do you think the death of Lorenzo is the
scourge God has prepared for Florence? Go! you are sparrows chattering
praise over the dead hawk. What! a man who was trying to slip a noose
over every neck in the Republic that he might tighten it at his
pleasure! You like that; you like to have the election of your
magistrates turned into closet-work, and no man to use the rights of a
citizen unless he is a Medicean. That is what is meant by qualification
now: _netto di specchio_[2] no longer means that a man pays his dues to
the Republic: it means that he’ll wink at robbery of the people’s
money—at robbery of their daughters’ dowries; that he’ll play the
chamberer and the philosopher by turns—listen to bawdy songs at the
Carnival and cry ‘Bellissimi!’—and listen to sacred lauds and cry again
‘Bellissimi!’ But this is what you love: you grumble and raise a riot
over your _quattrini bianchi_” (white farthings); “but you take no
notice when the public treasury has got a hole in the bottom for the
gold to run into Lorenzo’s drains. You like to pay for footmen to walk
before and behind one of your citizens, that he may be affable and
condescending to you. ‘See, what a tall Pisan we keep,’ say you, ‘to
march before him with the drawn sword flashing in our eyes!—and yet
Lorenzo smiles at us. What goodness!’ And you think the death of a man,
who would soon have saddled and bridled you as the Sforza has saddled
and bridled Milan—you think his death is the scourge God is warning you
of by portents. I tell you there is another sort of scourge in the
air.”

 [2] The phrase used to express the absence of disqualification—i.e.,
 the not being entered as a debtor in the public book—_specchio_.


“Nay, nay, Ser Cioni, keep astride your politics, and never mount your
prophecy; politics is the better horse,” said Nello. “But if you talk
of portents, what portent can be greater than a pious notary? Balaam’s
ass was nothing to it.”

“Ay, but a notary out of work, with his inkbottle dry,” said another
bystander, very much out at elbows. “Better don a cowl at once, Ser
Cioni: everybody will believe in your fasting.”

The notary turned and left the group with a look of indignant contempt,
disclosing, as he did so, the sallow but mild face of a short man who
had been standing behind him, and whose bent shoulders told of some
sedentary occupation.

“By San Giovanni, though,” said the fat purchaser of leeks, with the
air of a person rather shaken in his theories, “I am not sure there
isn’t some truth in what Ser Cioni says. For I know I have good reason
to find fault with the _quattrini bianchi_ myself. Grumble, did he say?
Suffocation! I should think we do grumble; and, let anybody say the
word, I’ll turn out into the piazza with the readiest, sooner than have
our money altered in our hands as if the magistracy were so many
necromancers. And it’s true Lorenzo might have hindered such work if he
would—and for the bull with the flaming horns, why, as Ser Cioni says,
there may be many meanings to it, for the matter of that; it may have
more to do with the taxes than we think. For when God above sends a
sign, it’s not to be supposed he’d have only one meaning.”

“Spoken like an oracle, Goro!” said the barber. “Why, when we poor
mortals can pack two or three meanings into one sentence, it were mere
blasphemy not to believe that your miraculous bull means everything
that any man in Florence likes it to mean.”

“Thou art pleased to scoff, Nello,” said the sallow, round-shouldered
man, no longer eclipsed by the notary, “but it is not the less true
that every revelation, whether by visions, dreams, portents, or the
written word, has many meanings, which it is given to the illuminated
only to unfold.”

“Assuredly,” answered Nello. “Haven’t I been to hear the Frate in San
Lorenzo? But then, I’ve been to hear Fra Menico in the Duomo too; and
according to him, your Fra Girolamo, with his visions and
interpretations, is running after the wind of Mongibello, and those who
follow him are like to have the fate of certain swine that ran headlong
into the sea—or some hotter place. With San Domenico roaring _è vero_
in one ear, and San Francisco screaming _è falso_ in the other, what is
a poor barber to do—unless he were illuminated? But it’s plain our Goro
here is beginning to be illuminated for he already sees that the bull
with the flaming horns means first himself, and secondly all the other
aggrieved taxpayers of Florence, who are determined to gore the
magistracy on the first opportunity.”

“Goro is a fool!” said a bass voice, with a note that dropped like the
sound of a great bell in the midst of much tinkling. “Let him carry
home his leeks and shake his flanks over his wool-beating. He’ll mend
matters more that way than by showing his tun-shaped body in the
piazza, as if everybody might measure his grievances by the size of his
paunch. The burdens that harm him most are his heavy carcass and his
idleness.”

The speaker had joined the group only in time to hear the conclusion of
Nello’s speech, but he was one of those figures for whom all the world
instinctively makes way, as it would for a battering-ram. He was not
much above the middle height, but the impression of enormous force
which was conveyed by his capacious chest and brawny arms bared to the
shoulder, was deepened by the keen sense and quiet resolution expressed
in his glance and in every furrow of his cheek and brow. He had often
been an unconscious model to Domenico Ghirlandajo, when that great
painter was making the walls of the churches reflect the life of
Florence, and translating pale aerial traditions into the deep colour
and strong lines of the faces he knew. The naturally dark tint of his
skin was additionally bronzed by the same powdery deposit that gave a
polished black surface to his leathern apron: a deposit which habit had
probably made a necessary condition of perfect ease, for it was not
washed off with punctilious regularity.

Goro turned his fat cheek and glassy eye on the frank speaker with a
look of deprecation rather than of resentment.

“Why, Niccolò,” he said, in an injured tone, “I’ve heard you sing to
another tune than that, often enough, when you’ve been laying down the
law at San Gallo on a festa. I’ve heard you say yourself, that a man
wasn’t a mill-wheel, to be on the grind, grind, as long as he was
driven, and then stick in his place without stirring when the water was
low. And you’re as fond of your vote as any man in Florence—ay, and
I’ve heard you say, if Lorenzo—”

“Yes, yes,” said Niccolò. “Don’t you be bringing up my speeches again
after you’ve swallowed them, and handing them about as if they were
none the worse. I vote and I speak when there’s any use in it: if
there’s hot metal on the anvil, I lose no time before I strike; but I
don’t spend good hours in tinkling on cold iron, or in standing on the
pavement as thou dost, Goro, with snout upward, like a pig under an
oak-tree. And as for Lorenzo—dead and gone before his time—he was a man
who had an eye for curious iron-work; and if anybody says he wanted to
make himself a tyrant, I say, ‘_Sia_; I’ll not deny which way the wind
blows when every man can see the weathercock.’ But that only means that
Lorenzo was a crested hawk, and there are plenty of hawks without
crests whose claws and beaks are as good for tearing. Though if there
was any chance of a real reform, so that Marzocco (the stone Lion,
emblem of the Republic) might shake his mane and roar again, instead of
dipping his head to lick the feet of anybody that will mount and ride
him, I’d strike a good blow for it.”

“And that reform is not far off, Niccolò,” said the sallow, mild-faced
man, seizing his opportunity like a missionary among the too
light-minded heathens; “for a time of tribulation is coming, and the
scourge is at hand. And when the Church is purged of cardinals and
prelates who traffic in her inheritance that their hands may be full to
pay the price of blood and to satisfy their own lusts, the State will
be purged too—and Florence will be purged of men who love to see
avarice and lechery under the red hat and the mitre because it gives
them the screen of a more hellish vice than their own.”

“Ay, as Goro’s broad body would be a screen for my narrow person in
case of missiles,” said Nello; “but if that excellent screen happened
to fall, I were stifled under it, surely enough. That is no bad image
of thine, Nanni—or, rather, of the Frate’s; for I fancy there is no
room in the small cup of thy understanding for any other liquor than
what he pours into it.”

“And it were well for thee, Nello,” replied Nanni, “if thou couldst
empty thyself of thy scoffs and thy jests, and take in that liquor too.
The warning is ringing in the ears of all men: and it’s no new story;
for the Abbot Joachim prophesied of the coming time three hundred years
ago, and now Fra Girolamo has got the message afresh. He has seen it in
a vision, even as the prophets of old: he has seen the sword hanging
from the sky.”

“Ay, and thou wilt see it thyself, Nanni, if thou wilt stare upward
long enough,” said Niccolò; “for that pitiable tailor’s work of thine
makes thy noddle so overhang thy legs, that thy eyeballs can see nought
above the stitching-board but the roof of thy own skull.”

The honest tailor bore the jest without bitterness, bent on convincing
his hearers of his doctrine rather than of his dignity. But Niccolò
gave him no opportunity for replying; for he turned away to the pursuit
of his market business, probably considering further dialogue as a
tinkling on cold iron.

“_Ebbene_” said the man with the hose round his neck, who had lately
migrated from another knot of talkers, “they are safest who cross
themselves and jest at nobody. Do you know that the Magnifico sent for
the Frate at the last, and couldn’t die without his blessing?”

“Was it so—in truth?” said several voices. “Yes, yes—God will have
pardoned him.”

“He died like the best of Christians.”

“Never took his eyes from the holy crucifix.”

“And the Frate will have given him his blessing?”

“Well, I know no more,” said he of the hosen, “only Guccio there met a
footman going back to Careggi, and he told him the Frate had been sent
for yesternight, after the Magnifico had confessed and had the holy
sacraments.”

“It’s likely enough the Frate will tell the people something about it
in his sermon this morning; is it not true, Nanni?” said Goro. “What do
you think?”

But Nanni had already turned his back on Goro, and the group was
rapidly thinning; some being stirred by the impulse to go and hear “new
things” from the Frate (“new things” were the nectar of Florentines);
others by the sense that it was time to attend to their private
business. In this general movement, Bratti got close to the barber, and
said—

“Nello, you’ve a ready tongue of your own, and are used to worming
secrets out of people when you’ve once got them well lathered. I picked
up a stranger this morning as I was coming in from Rovezzano, and I can
spell him out no better than I can the letters on that scarf I bought
from the French cavalier. It isn’t my wits are at fault,—I want no man
to help me tell peas from paternosters,—but when you come to foreign
fashions, a fool may happen to know more than a wise man.”

“Ay, thou hast the wisdom of Midas, who could turn rags and rusty nails
into gold, even as thou dost,” said Nello, “and he had also something
of the ass about him. But where is thy bird of strange plumage?”

Bratti was looking round, with an air of disappointment.

“Diavolo!” he said, with some vexation. “The bird’s flown. It’s true he
was hungry, and I forgot him. But we shall find him in the Mercato,
within scent of bread and savours, I’ll answer for him.”

“Let us make the round of the Mercato, then,” said Nello.

“It isn’t his feathers that puzzle me,” continued Bratti, as they
pushed their way together. “There isn’t much in the way of cut and
cloth on this side the Holy Sepulchre that can puzzle a Florentine.”

“Or frighten him either,” said Nello, “after he has seen an Englander
or a German.”

“No, no,” said Bratti, cordially; “one may never lose sight of the
Cupola and yet know the world, I hope. Besides, this stranger’s clothes
are good Italian merchandise, and the hose he wears were dyed in
Ognissanti before ever they were dyed with salt water, as he says. But
the riddle about him is—”

Here Bratti’s explanation was interrupted by some jostling as they
reached one of the entrances of the piazza, and before he could resume
it they had caught sight of the enigmatical object they were in search
of.




CHAPTER II.
Breakfast for Love.


After Bratti had joined the knot of talkers, the young stranger,
hopeless of learning what was the cause of the general agitation, and
not much caring to know what was probably of little interest to any but
born Florentines, soon became tired of waiting for Bratti’s escort; and
chose to stroll round the piazza, looking out for some vendor of
eatables who might happen to have less than the average curiosity about
public news. But as if at the suggestion of a sudden thought, he thrust
his hand into a purse or wallet that hung at his waist, and explored it
again and again with a look of frustration.

“Not an obolus, by Jupiter!” he murmured, in a language which was not
Tuscan or even Italian. “I thought I had one poor piece left. I must
get my breakfast for love, then!”

He had not gone many steps farther before it seemed likely that he had
found a quarter of the market where that medium of exchange might not
be rejected.

In a corner, away from any group of talkers, two mules were standing,
well adorned with red tassels and collars. One of them carried wooden
milk-vessels, the other a pair of panniers filled with herbs and
salads. Resting her elbow on the neck of the mule that carried the
milk, there leaned a young girl, apparently not more than sixteen, with
a red hood surrounding her face, which was all the more baby-like in
its prettiness from the entire concealment of her hair. The poor child,
perhaps, was weary after her labour in the morning twilight in
preparation for her walk to market from some castello three or four
miles off, for she seemed to have gone to sleep in that half-standing,
half-leaning posture. Nevertheless, our stranger had no compunction in
awaking her; but the means he chose were so gentle, that it seemed to
the damsel in her dream as if a little sprig of thyme had touched her
lips while she was stooping to gather the herbs. The dream was broken,
however, for she opened her blue baby-eyes, and started up with
astonishment and confusion to see the young stranger standing close
before her. She heard him speaking to her in a voice which seemed so
strange and soft, that even if she had been more collected she would
have taken it for granted that he said something hopelessly
unintelligible to her, and her first movement was to turn her head a
little away, and lift up a corner of her green serge mantle as a
screen. He repeated his words—

“Forgive me, pretty one, for awaking you. I’m dying with hunger, and
the scent of milk makes breakfast seem more desirable than ever.”

He had chosen the words “_muoio di fame_” because he knew they would be
familiar to her ears; and he had uttered them playfully, with the
intonation of a mendicant. This time he was understood; the corner of
the mantle was dropped, and in a few moments a large cup of fragrant
milk was held out to him. He paid no further compliments before raising
it to his lips, and while he was drinking, the little maiden found
courage to look up at the long dark curls of this singular-voiced
stranger, who had asked for food in the tones of a beggar, but who,
though his clothes were much damaged, was unlike any beggar she had
ever seen.

While this process of survey was going on, there was another current of
feeling that carried her hand into a bag which hung by the side of the
mule, and when the stranger set down his cup, he saw a large piece of
bread held out towards him, and caught a glance of the blue eyes that
seemed intended as an encouragement to him to take this additional
gift.

“But perhaps that is your own breakfast,” he said. “No, I have had
enough without payment. A thousand thanks, my gentle one.”

There was no rejoinder in words; but the piece of bread was pushed a
little nearer to him, as if in impatience at his refusal; and as the
long dark eyes of the stranger rested on the baby-face, it seemed to be
gathering more and more courage to look up and meet them.

“Ah, then, if I must take the bread,” he said, laying his hand on it,
“I shall get bolder still, and beg for another kiss to make the bread
sweeter.”

His speech was getting wonderfully intelligible in spite of the strange
voice, which had at first almost seemed a thing to make her cross
herself. She blushed deeply, and lifted up a corner of her mantle to
her mouth again. But just as the too presumptuous stranger was leaning
forward, and had his fingers on the arm that held up the screening
mantle, he was startled by a harsh voice close upon his ear.

“Who are _you_—with a murrain to you? No honest buyer, I’ll warrant,
but a hanger-on of the dicers—or something worse. Go! dance off, and
find fitter company, or I’ll give you a tune to a little quicker time
than you’ll like.”

The young stranger drew back and looked at the speaker with a glance
provokingly free from alarm and deprecation, and his slight expression
of saucy amusement broke into a broad beaming smile as he surveyed the
figure of his threatenor. She was a stout but brawny woman, with a
man’s jerkin slipped over her green serge gamurra or gown, and the
peaked hood of some departed mantle fastened round her sunburnt face,
which, under all its coarseness and premature wrinkles, showed a
half-sad, half-ludicrous maternal resemblance to the tender baby-face
of the little maiden—the sort of resemblance which often seems a more
croaking, shudder-creating prophecy than that of the death’s-head.

There was something irresistibly propitiating in that bright young
smile, but Monna Ghita was not a woman to betray any weakness, and she
went on speaking, apparently with heightened exasperation.

“Yes, yes, you can grin as well as other monkeys in cap and jerkin.
You’re a minstrel or a mountebank, I’ll be sworn; you look for all the
world as silly as a tumbler when he’s been upside down and has got on
his heels again. And what fool’s tricks hast thou been after, Tessa?”
she added, turning to her daughter, whose frightened face was more
inviting to abuse. “Giving away the milk and victuals, it seems; ay,
ay, thou’dst carry water in thy ears for any idle vagabond that didn’t
like to stoop for it, thou silly staring rabbit! Turn thy back, and
lift the herbs out of the panniers, else I’ll make thee say a few Aves
without counting.”

“Nay, Madonna,” said the stranger, with a pleading smile, “don’t be
angry with your pretty Tessa for taking pity on a hungry traveller, who
found himself unexpectedly without a quattrino. Your handsome face
looks so well when it frowns, that I long to see it illuminated by a
smile.”

“_Va via_! I know what paste you are made of. You may tickle me with
that straw a good long while before I shall laugh, I can tell you. Get
along, with a bad Easter! else I’ll make a beauty-spot or two on that
face of yours that shall spoil your kissing on this side Advent.”

As Monna Ghita lifted her formidable talons by way of complying with
the first and last requisite of eloquence, Bratti, who had come up a
minute or two before, had been saying to his companion, “What think you
of this pretty parrot, Nello? Doesn’t his tongue smack of Venice?”

“Nay, Bratti,” said the barber in an undertone, “thy wisdom has much of
the ass in it, as I told thee just now; especially about the ears. This
stranger is a Greek, else I’m not the barber who has had the sole and
exclusive shaving of the excellent Demetrio, and drawn more than one
sorry tooth from his learned jaw. And this youth might be taken to have
come straight from Olympus—at least when he has had a touch of my
razor.”

“_Orsù_! Monna Ghita!” continued Nello, not sorry to see some sport;
“what has happened to cause such a thunderstorm? Has this young
stranger been misbehaving himself?”

“By San Giovanni!” said the cautious Bratti, who had not shaken off his
original suspicions concerning the shabbily-clad possessor of jewels,
“he did right to run away from _me_, if he meant to get into mischief.
I can swear that I found him under the Loggia de’ Cerchi, with a ring
on his finger such as I’ve seen worn by Bernardo Rucellai himself. Not
another rusty nail’s worth do I know about him.”

“The fact is,” said Nello, eyeing the stranger good-humouredly, “this
_bello giovane_ has been a little too presumptuous in admiring the
charms of Monna Ghita, and has attempted to kiss her while her
daughter’s back is turned; for I observe that the pretty Tessa is too
busy to look this way at present. Was it not so, Messer?” Nello
concluded, in a tone of courtesy.

“You have divined the offence like a soothsayer,” said the stranger,
laughingly. “Only that I had not the good fortune to find Monna Ghita
here at first. I begged a cup of milk from her daughter, and had
accepted this gift of bread, for which I was making a humble offering
of gratitude, before I had the higher pleasure of being face to face
with these riper charms which I was perhaps too bold in admiring.”

“_Va, va_! be off, every one of you, and stay in purgatory till I pay
to get you out, will you?” said Monna Ghita, fiercely, elbowing Nello,
and leading forward her mule so as to compel the stranger to jump
aside. “Tessa, thou simpleton, bring forward thy mule a bit: the cart
will be upon us.”

As Tessa turned to take the mule’s bridle, she cast one timid glance at
the stranger, who was now moving with Nello out of the way of an
approaching market-cart; and the glance was just long enough to seize
the beckoning movement of his hand, which indicated that he had been
watching for this opportunity of an adieu.

“_Ebbene_,” said Bratti, raising his voice to speak across the cart; “I
leave you with Nello, young man, for there’s no pushing my bag and
basket any farther, and I have business at home. But you’ll remember
our bargain, because if you found Tessa without me, it was not my
fault. Nello will show you my shop in the Ferravecchi, and I’ll not
turn my back on you.”

“A thousand thanks, friend!” said the stranger, laughing, and then
turned away with Nello up the narrow street which led most directly to
the Piazza del Duomo.




CHAPTER III.
The Barber’s Shop.


“To tell you the truth,” said the young stranger to Nello, as they got
a little clearer of the entangled vehicles and mules, “I am not sorry
to be handed over by that patron of mine to one who has a less
barbarous accent, and a less enigmatical business. Is it a common thing
among you Florentines for an itinerant trafficker in broken glass and
rags to talk of a shop where he sells lutes and swords?”

“Common? No: our Bratti is not a common man. He has a theory, and lives
up to it, which is more than I can say for any philosopher I have the
honour of shaving,” answered Nello, whose loquacity, like an over-full
bottle, could never pour forth a small dose. “Bratti means to extract
the utmost possible amount of pleasure, that is to say, of hard
bargaining, out of this life; winding it up with a bargain for the
easiest possible passage through purgatory, by giving Holy Church his
winnings when the game is over. He has had his will made to that effect
on the cheapest terms a notary could be got for. But I have often said
to him, ‘Bratti, thy bargain is a limping one, and thou art on the lame
side of it. Does it not make thee a little sad to look at the pictures
of the Paradiso? Thou wilt never be able there to chaffer for rags and
rusty nails: the saints and angels want neither pins nor tinder; and
except with San Bartolommeo, who carries his skin about in an
inconvenient manner, I see no chance of thy making a bargain for
second-hand clothing.’ But God pardon me,” added Nello, changing his
tone, and crossing himself, “this light talk ill beseems a morning when
Lorenzo lies dead, and the Muses are tearing their hair—always a
painful thought to a barber; and you yourself, Messere, are probably
under a cloud, for when a man of your speech and presence takes up with
so sorry a night’s lodging, it argues some misfortune to have befallen
him.”

“What Lorenzo is that whose death you speak of?” said the stranger,
appearing to have dwelt with too anxious an interest on this point to
have noticed the indirect inquiry that followed it.

“What Lorenzo? There is but one Lorenzo, I imagine, whose death could
throw the Mercato into an uproar, set the lantern of the Duomo leaping
in desperation, and cause the lions of the Republic to feel under an
immediate necessity to devour one another. I mean Lorenzo de’ Medici,
the Pericles of our Athens—if I may make such a comparison in the ear
of a Greek.”

“Why not?” said the other, laughingly; “for I doubt whether Athens,
even in the days of Pericles, could have produced so learned a barber.”

“Yes, yes; I thought I could not be mistaken,” said the rapid Nello,
“else I have shaved the venerable Demetrio Calcondila to little
purpose; but pardon me, I am lost in wonder: your Italian is better
than his, though he has been in Italy forty years—better even than that
of the accomplished Marullo, who may be said to have married the Italic
Muse in more senses than one, since he has married our learned and
lovely Alessandra Scala.”

“It will lighten your wonder to know that I come of a Greek stock
planted in Italian soil much longer than the mulberry-trees which have
taken so kindly to it. I was born at Bari, and my—I mean, I was brought
up by an Italian—and, in fact, I am a Greek, very much as your peaches
are Persian. The Greek dye was subdued in me, I suppose, till I had
been dipped over again by long abode and much travel in the land of
gods and heroes. And, to confess something of my private affairs to
you, this same Greek dye, with a few ancient gems I have about me, is
the only fortune shipwreck has left me. But—when the towers fall, you
know it is an ill business for the small nest-builders—the death of
your Pericles makes me wish I had rather turned my steps towards Rome,
as I should have done but for a fallacious Minerva in the shape of an
Augustinian monk. ‘At Rome,’ he said, ‘you will be lost in a crowd of
hungry scholars; but at Florence, every corner is penetrated by the
sunshine of Lorenzo’s patronage: Florence is the best market in Italy
for such commodities as yours.’”

“_Gnaffè_, and so it will remain, I hope,” said Nello, “Lorenzo was not
the only patron and judge of learning in our city—heaven forbid!
Because he was a large melon, every other Florentine is not a pumpkin,
I suppose. Have we not Bernardo Rucellai, and Alamanno Rinuccini, and
plenty more? And if you want to be informed on such matters, I, Nello,
am your man. It seems to me a thousand years till I can be of service
to a _bel erudito_ like yourself. And, first of all, in the matter of
your hair. That beard, my fine young man, must be parted with, were it
as dear to you as the nymph of your dreams. Here at Florence, we love
not to see a man with his nose projecting over a cascade of hair. But,
remember, you will have passed the Rubicon, when once you have been
shaven: if you repent, and let your beard grow after it has acquired
stoutness by a struggle with the razor, your mouth will by-and-by show
no longer what Messer Angelo calls the divine prerogative of lips, but
will appear like a dark cavern fringed with horrent brambles.”

“That is a terrible prophecy,” said the Greek, “especially if your
Florentine maidens are many of them as pretty as the little Tessa I
stole a kiss from this morning.”

“Tessa? she is a rough-handed contadina: you will rise into the favour
of dames who bring no scent of the mule-stables with them. But to that
end, you must not have the air of a _sgherro_, or a man of evil repute:
you must look like a courtier, and a scholar of the more polished sort,
such as our Pietro Crinito—like one who sins among well-bred, well-fed
people, and not one who sucks down vile _vino di sotto_ in a chance
tavern.”

“With all my heart,” said the stranger. “If the Florentine Graces
demand it, I am willing to give up this small matter of my beard, but—”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Nello. “I know what you would say. It is the
_bella zazzera_—the hyacinthine locks, you do not choose to part with;
and there is no need. Just a little pruning—ecco!—and you will look not
unlike the illustrious prince Pico di Mirandola in his prime. And here
we are in good time in the Piazza San Giovanni, and at the door of my
shop. But you are pausing, I see: naturally, you want to look at our
wonder of the world, our Duomo, our Santa Maria del Fiore. Well, well,
a mere glance; but I beseech you to leave a closer survey till you have
been shaved: I am quivering with the inspiration of my art even to the
very edge of my razor. Ah, then, come round this way.”

The mercurial barber seized the arm of the stranger, and led him to a
point, on the south side of the piazza, from which he could see at once
the huge dark shell of the cupola, the slender soaring grace of
Giotto’s campanile, and the quaint octagon of San Giovanni in front of
them, showing its unique gates of storied bronze, which still bore the
somewhat dimmed glory of their original gilding. The inlaid marbles
were then fresher in their pink, and white, and purple, than they are
now, when the winters of four centuries have turned their white to the
rich ochre of well-mellowed meerschaum; the façade of the cathedral did
not stand ignominious in faded stucco, but had upon it the magnificent
promise of the half-completed marble inlaying and statued niches, which
Giotto had devised a hundred and fifty years before; and as the
campanile in all its harmonious variety of colour and form led the eyes
upward, high into the clear air of this April morning, it seemed a
prophetic symbol, telling that human life must somehow and some time
shape itself into accord with that pure aspiring beauty.

But this was not the impression it appeared to produce on the Greek.
His eyes were irresistibly led upward, but as he stood with his arms
folded and his curls falling backward, there was a slight touch of
scorn on his lip, and when his eyes fell again they glanced round with
a scanning coolness which was rather piquing to Nello’s Florentine
spirit.

“Well, my fine young man,” he said, with some impatience, “you seem to
make as little of our Cathedral as if you were the Angel Gabriel come
straight from Paradise. I should like to know if you have ever seen
finer work than our Giotto’s tower, or any cupola that would not look a
mere mushroom by the side of Brunelleschi’s there, or any marbles finer
or more cunningly wrought than these that our Signoria got from far-off
quarries, at a price that would buy a dukedom. Come, now, have you ever
seen anything to equal them?”

“If you asked me that question with a scimitar at my throat, after the
Turkish fashion, or even your own razor,” said the young Greek, smiling
gaily, and moving on towards the gates of the Baptistery, “I daresay
you might get a confession of the true faith from me. But with my
throat free from peril, I venture to tell you that your buildings smack
too much of Christian barbarism for my taste. I have a shuddering sense
of what there is inside—hideous smoked Madonnas; fleshless saints in
mosaic, staring down idiotic astonishment and rebuke from the apse;
skin-clad skeletons hanging on crosses, or stuck all over with arrows,
or stretched on gridirons; women and monks with heads aside in
perpetual lamentation. I have seen enough of those wry-necked
favourites of heaven at Constantinople. But what is this bronze door
rough with imagery? These women’s figures seem moulded in a different
spirit from those starved and staring saints I spoke of: these heads in
high relief speak of a human mind within them, instead of looking like
an index to perpetual spasms and colic.”

“Yes, yes,” said Nello, with some triumph. “I think we shall show you
by-and-by that our Florentine art is not in a state of barbarism. These
gates, my fine young man, were moulded half a century ago, by our
Lorenzo Ghiberti, when he counted hardly so many years as you do.”

“Ah, I remember,” said the stranger, turning away, like one whose
appetite for contemplation was soon satisfied. “I have heard that your
Tuscan sculptors and painters have been studying the antique a little.
But with monks for models, and the legends of mad hermits and martyrs
for subjects, the vision of Olympus itself would be of small use to
them.”

“I understand,” said Nello, with a significant shrug, as they walked
along. “You are of the same mind as Michele Marullo, ay, and as Angelo
Poliziano himself, in spite of his canonicate, when he relaxes himself
a little in my shop after his lectures, and talks of the gods awaking
from their long sleep and making the woods and streams vital once more.
But he rails against the Roman scholars who want to make us all talk
Latin again: ‘My ears,’ he says, ‘are sufficiently flayed by the
barbarisms of the learned, and if the vulgar are to talk Latin I would
as soon have been in Florence the day they took to beating all the
kettles in the city because the bells were not enough to stay the wrath
of the saints.’ Ah, Messer Greco, if you want to know the flavour of
our scholarship, you must frequent my shop: it is the focus of
Florentine intellect, and in that sense the navel of the earth—as my
great predecessor, Burchiello, said of _his_ shop, on the more
frivolous pretension that his street of the Calimara was the centre of
our city. And here we are at the sign of ‘Apollo and the Razor.’
Apollo, you see, is bestowing the razor on the Triptolemus of our
craft, the first reaper of beards, the sublime _Anonimo_, whose
mysterious identity is indicated by a shadowy hand.”

“I see thou hast had custom already, Sandro,” continued Nello,
addressing a solemn-looking dark-eyed youth, who made way for them on
the threshold. “And now make all clear for this signor to sit down. And
prepare the finest-scented lather, for he has a learned and a handsome
chin.”

“You have a pleasant little adytum there, I see,” said the stranger,
looking through a latticed screen which divided the shop from a room of
about equal size, opening into a still smaller walled enclosure, where
a few bays and laurels surrounded a stone Hermes. “I suppose your
conclave of _eruditi_ meets there?”

“There, and not less in my shop,” said Nello, leading the way into the
inner room, in which were some benches, a table, with one book in
manuscript and one printed in capitals lying open upon it, a lute, a
few oil-sketches, and a model or two of hands and ancient masks. “For
my shop is a no less fitting haunt of the Muses, as you will
acknowledge when you feel the sudden illumination of understanding and
the serene vigour of inspiration that will come to you with a clear
chin. Ah! you can make that lute discourse, I perceive. I, too, have
some skill that way, though the serenata is useless when daylight
discloses a visage like mine, looking no fresher than an apple that has
stood the winter. But look at that sketch: it is a fancy of Piero di
Cosimo’s, a strange freakish painter, who says he saw it by long
looking at a mouldy wall.”

The sketch Nello pointed to represented three masks—one a drunken
laughing Satyr, another a sorrowing Magdalen, and the third, which lay
between them, the rigid, cold face of a Stoic: the masks rested
obliquely on the lap of a little child, whose cherub features rose
above them with something of the supernal promise in the gaze which
painters had by that time learned to give to the Divine Infant.

“A symbolical picture, I see,” said the young Greek, touching the lute
while he spoke, so as to bring out a slight musical murmur. “The child,
perhaps, is the Golden Age, wanting neither worship nor philosophy. And
the Golden Age can always come back as long as men are born in the form
of babies, and don’t come into the world in cassock or furred mantle.
Or, the child may mean the wise philosophy of Epicurus, removed alike
from the gross, the sad, and the severe.”

“Ah! everybody has his own interpretation for that picture,” said
Nello; “and if you ask Piero himself what he meant by it, he says his
pictures are an appendix which Messer Domeneddio has been pleased to
make to the universe, and if any man is in doubt what they mean, he had
better inquire of Holy Church. He has been asked to paint a picture
after the sketch, but he puts his fingers to his ears and shakes his
head at that; the fancy is past, he says—a strange animal, our Piero.
But now all is ready for your initiation into the mysteries of the
razor.”

“Mysteries they may well be called,” continued the barber, with rising
spirits at the prospect of a long monologue, as he imprisoned the young
Greek in the shroud-like shaving-cloth; “mysteries of Minerva and the
Graces. I get the flower of men’s thoughts, because I seize them in the
first moment after shaving. (Ah! you wince a little at the lather: it
tickles the outlying limits of the nose, I admit.) And that is what
makes the peculiar fitness of a barber’s shop to become a resort of wit
and learning. For, look now at a druggist’s shop: there is a dull
conclave at the sign of ‘The Moor,’ that pretends to rival mine; but
what sort of inspiration, I beseech you, can be got from the scent of
nauseous vegetable decoctions?—to say nothing of the fact that you no
sooner pass the threshold than you see a doctor of physic, like a
gigantic spider disguised in fur and scarlet, waiting for his prey; or
even see him blocking up the doorway seated on a bony hack, inspecting
saliva. (Your chin a little elevated, if it please you: contemplate
that angel who is blowing the trumpet at you from the ceiling. I had it
painted expressly for the regulation of my clients’ chins.) Besides,
your druggist, who herborises and decocts, is a man of prejudices: he
has poisoned people according to a system, and is obliged to stand up
for his system to justify the consequences. Now a barber can be
dispassionate; the only thing he necessarily stands by is the razor,
always providing he is not an author. That was the flaw in my great
predecessor Burchiello: he was a poet, and had consequently a prejudice
about his own poetry. I have escaped that; I saw very early that
authorship is a narrowing business, in conflict with the liberal art of
the razor, which demands an impartial affection for all men’s chins.
Ecco, Messer! the outline of your chin and lip is as clear as a
maiden’s; and now fix your mind on a knotty question—ask yourself
whether you are bound to spell Virgil with an _i_ or an _e_, and say if
you do not feel an unwonted clearness on the point. Only, if you decide
for the _i_, keep it to yourself till your fortune is made, for the _e_
hath the stronger following in Florence. Ah! I think I see a gleam of
still quicker wit in your eye. I have it on the authority of our young
Niccolò Macchiavelli, himself keen enough to discern _il pelo nell’
uovo_, as we say, and a great lover of delicate shaving, though his
beard is hardly of two years’ date, that no sooner do the hairs begin
to push themselves, than he perceives a certain grossness of
apprehension creeping over him.”

“Suppose you let me look at myself,” said the stranger, laughing. “The
happy effect on my intellect is perhaps obstructed by a little doubt as
to the effect on my appearance.”

“Behold yourself in this mirror, then; it is a Venetian mirror from
Murano, the true _nosce teipsum_, as I have named it, compared with
which the finest mirror of steel or silver is mere darkness. See now,
how by diligent shaving, the nether region of your face may preserve
its human outline, instead of presenting no distinction from the
physiognomy of a bearded owl or a Barbary ape. I have seen men whose
beards have so invaded their cheeks, that one might have pitied them as
the victims of a sad, brutalising chastisement befitting our Dante’s
Inferno, if they had not seemed to strut with a strange triumph in
their extravagant hairiness.”

“It seems to me,” said the Greek, still looking into the mirror, “that
you have taken away some of my capital with your razor—I mean a year or
two of age, which might have won me more ready credit for my learning.
Under the inspection of a patron whose vision has grown somewhat dim, I
shall have a perilous resemblance to a maiden of eighteen in the
disguise of hose and jerkin.”

“Not at all,” said Nello, proceeding to clip the too extravagant curls;
“your proportions are not those of a maiden. And for your age, I myself
remember seeing Angelo Poliziano begin his lectures on the Latin
language when he had a younger beard than yours; and between ourselves,
his juvenile ugliness was not less signal than his precocious
scholarship. Whereas you—no, no, your age is not against you; but
between ourselves, let me hint to you that your being a Greek, though
it be only an Apulian Greek, is not in your favour. Certain of our
scholars hold that your Greek learning is but a wayside degenerate
plant until it has been transplanted into Italian brains, and that now
there is such a plentiful crop of the superior quality, your native
teachers are mere propagators of degeneracy. Ecco! your curls are now
of the right proportion to neck and shoulders; rise, Messer, and I will
free you from the encumbrance of this cloth. _Gnaffè_! I almost advise
you to retain the faded jerkin and hose a little longer; they give you
the air of a fallen prince.”

“But the question is,” said the young Greek, leaning against the high
back of a chair, and returning Nello’s contemplative admiration with a
look of inquiring anxiety; “the question is, in what quarter I am to
carry my princely air, so as to rise from the said fallen condition. If
your Florentine patrons of learning share this scholarly hostility to
the Greeks, I see not how your city can be a hospitable refuge for me,
as you seemed to say just now.”

“_Pian piano_—not so fast,” said Nello, sticking his thumbs into his
belt and nodding to Sandro to restore order. “I will not conceal from
you that there is a prejudice against Greeks among us; and though, as a
barber unsnared by authorship, I share no prejudices, I must admit that
the Greeks are not always such pretty youngsters as yourself: their
erudition is often of an uncombed, unmannerly aspect, and encrusted
with a barbarous utterance of Italian, that makes their converse hardly
more euphonious than that of a Tedesco in a state of vinous loquacity.
And then, again, excuse me—we Florentines have liberal ideas about
speech, and consider that an instrument which can flatter and promise
so cleverly as the tongue, must have been partly made for those
purposes; and that truth is a riddle for eyes and wit to discover,
which it were a mere spoiling of sport for the tongue to betray. Still
we have our limits beyond which we call dissimulation treachery. But it
is said of the Greeks that their honesty begins at what is the hanging
point with us, and that since the old Furies went to sleep, your
Christian Greek is of so easy a conscience that he would make a
stepping-stone of his father’s corpse.”

The flush on the stranger’s face indicated what seemed so natural a
movement of resentment, that the good-natured Nello hastened to atone
for his want of reticence.

“Be not offended, _bel giovane_; I am but repeating what I hear in my
shop; as you may perceive, my eloquence is simply the cream which I
skim off my clients’ talk. Heaven forbid I should fetter my
impartiality by entertaining an opinion. And for that same scholarly
objection to the Greeks,” added Nello, in a more mocking tone, and with
a significant grimace, “the fact is, you are heretics, Messer; jealousy
has nothing to do with it: if you would just change your opinion about
leaven, and alter your Doxology a little, our Italian scholars would
think it a thousand years till they could give up their chairs to you.
Yes, yes; it is chiefly religious scruple, and partly also the
authority of a great classic,—Juvenal, is it not? He, I gather, had his
bile as much stirred by the swarm of Greeks as our Messer Angelo, who
is fond of quoting some passage about their incorrigible
impudence—_audacia perdita_.”

“Pooh! the passage is a compliment,” said the Greek, who had recovered
himself, and seemed wise enough to take the matter gaily—


“‘Ingenium velox, audacia perdita, sermo
Promptus, et Isaeo torrentior.’


“A rapid intellect and ready eloquence may carry off a little
impudence.”

“Assuredly,” said Nello. “And since, as I see, you know Latin
literature as well as Greek, you will not fall into the mistake of
Giovanni Argiropulo, who ran full tilt against Cicero, and pronounced
him all but a pumpkin-head. For, let me give you one bit of advice,
young man—trust a barber who has shaved the best chins, and kept his
eyes and ears open for twenty years—oil your tongue well when you talk
of the ancient Latin writers, and give it an extra dip when you talk of
the modern. A wise Greek may win favour among us; witness our excellent
Demetrio, who is loved by many, and not hated immoderately even by the
most renowned scholars.”

“I discern the wisdom of your advice so clearly,” said the Greek, with
the bright smile which was continually lighting up the fine form and
colour of his young face, “that I will ask you for a little more. Who
now, for example, would be the most likely patron for me? Is there a
son of Lorenzo who inherits his tastes? Or is there any other wealthy
Florentine specially addicted to purchasing antique gems? I have a fine
Cleopatra cut in sardonyx, and one or two other intaglios and cameos,
both curious and beautiful, worthy of being added to the cabinet of a
prince. Happily, I had taken the precaution of fastening them within
the lining of my doublet before I set out on my voyage. Moreover, I
should like to raise a small sum for my present need on this ring of
mine,” (here he took out the ring and replaced it on his finger), “if
you could recommend me to any honest trafficker.”

“Let us see, let us see,” said Nello, perusing the floor, and walking
up and down the length of his shop. “This is no time to apply to Piero
de’ Medici, though he has the will to make such purchases if he could
always spare the money; but I think it is another sort of Cleopatra
that he covets most... Yes, yes, I have it. What you want is a man of
wealth, and influence, and scholarly tastes—not one of your learned
porcupines, bristling all over with critical tests, but one whose Greek
and Latin are of a comfortable laxity. And that man is Bartolommeo
Scala, the secretary of our Republic. He came to Florence as a poor
adventurer himself—a miller’s son—a ‘branny monster,’ as he has been
nicknamed by our honey-lipped Poliziano, who agrees with him as well as
my teeth agree with lemon-juice. And, by the by, that may be a reason
why the secretary may be the more ready to do a good turn to a strange
scholar. For, between you and me, _bel giovane_—trust a barber who has
shaved the best scholars—friendliness is much such a steed as Ser
Benghi’s: it will hardly show much alacrity unless it has got the
thistle of hatred under its tail. However, the secretary is a man
who’ll keep his word to you, even to the halving of a fennel-seed; and
he is not unlikely to buy some of your gems.”

“But how am I to get at this great man?” said the Greek, rather
impatiently.

“I was coming to that,” said Nello. “Just now everybody of any public
importance will be full of Lorenzo’s death, and a stranger may find it
difficult to get any notice. But in the meantime, I could take you to a
man who, if he has a mind, can help you to a chance of a favourable
interview with Scala sooner than anybody else in Florence—worth seeing
for his own sake too, to say nothing of his collections, or of his
daughter Romola, who is as fair as the Florentine lily before it got
quarrelsome and turned red.”

“But if this father of the beautiful Romola makes collections, why
should he not like to buy some of my gems himself?”

Nello shrugged his shoulders. “For two good reasons—want of sight to
look at the gems, and want of money to pay for them. Our old Bardo de’
Bardi is so blind that he can see no more of his daughter than, as he
says, a glimmering of something bright when she comes very near him:
doubtless her golden hair, which, as Messer Luigi Pulci says of his
Meridiana’s, ‘_raggia come stella per sereno_.’ Ah! here come some
clients of mine, and I shouldn’t wonder if one of them could serve your
turn about that ring.”




CHAPTER IV.
First Impressions.


“Good-day, Messer Domenico,” said Nello to the foremost of the two
visitors who entered the shop, while he nodded silently to the other.
“You come as opportunely as cheese on macaroni. Ah! you are in
haste—wish to be shaved without delay—ecco! And this is a morning when
every one has grave matter on his mind. Florence orphaned—the very
pivot of Italy snatched away—heaven itself at a loss what to do next.
_Oimè_! Well, well; the sun is nevertheless travelling on towards
dinner-time again; and, as I was saying, you come like cheese ready
grated. For this young stranger was wishing for an honourable trader
who would advance him a sum on a certain ring of value, and if I had
counted every goldsmith and money-lender in Florence on my fingers, I
couldn’t have found a better name than Menico Cennini. Besides, he hath
other ware in which you deal—Greek learning, and young eyes—a double
implement which you printers are always in need of.”

The grave elderly man, son of that Bernardo Cennini, who, twenty years
before, having heard of the new process of printing carried on by
Germans, had cast his own types in Florence, remained necessarily in
lathered silence and passivity while Nello showered this talk in his
ears, but turned a slow sideway gaze on the stranger.

“This fine young man has unlimited Greek, Latin, or Italian at your
service,” continued Nello, fond of interpreting by very ample
paraphrase. “He is as great a wonder of juvenile learning as Francesco
Filelfo or our own incomparable Poliziano. A second Guarino, too, for
he has had the misfortune to be shipwrecked, and has doubtless lost a
store of precious manuscripts that might have contributed some
correctness even to your correct editions, Domenico. Fortunately, he
has rescued a few gems of rare value. His name is—you said your name,
Messer, was—?”

“Tito Melema,” said the stranger, slipping the ring from his finger,
and presenting it to Cennini, whom Nello, not less rapid with his razor
than with his tongue, had now released from the shaving-cloth.

Meanwhile the man who had entered the shop in company with the
goldsmith—a tall figure, about fifty, with a short trimmed beard,
wearing an old felt hat and a threadbare mantle—had kept his eye fixed
on the Greek, and now said abruptly—

“Young man, I am painting a picture of Sinon deceiving old Priam, and I
should be glad of your face for my Sinon, if you’d give me a sitting.”

Tito Melema started and looked round with a pale astonishment in his
face as if at a sudden accusation; but Nello left him no time to feel
at a loss for an answer: “Piero,” said the barber, “thou art the most
extraordinary compound of humours and fancies ever packed into a human
skin. What trick wilt thou play with the fine visage of this young
scholar to make it suit thy traitor? Ask him rather to turn his eyes
upward, and thou mayst make a Saint Sebastian of him that will draw
troops of devout women; or, if thou art in a classical vein, put myrtle
about his curls and make him a young Bacchus, or say rather a Phoebus
Apollo, for his face is as warm and bright as a summer morning; it made
me his friend in the space of a ‘credo.’”

“Ay, Nello,” said the painter, speaking with abrupt pauses; “and if thy
tongue can leave off its everlasting chirping long enough for thy
understanding to consider the matter, thou mayst see that thou hast
just shown the reason why the face of Messere will suit my traitor. A
perfect traitor should have a face which vice can write no marks
on—lips that will lie with a dimpled smile—eyes of such agate-like
brightness and depth that no infamy can dull them—cheeks that will rise
from a murder and not look haggard. I say not this young man is a
traitor: I mean, he has a face that would make him the more perfect
traitor if he had the heart of one, which is saying neither more nor
less than that he has a beautiful face, informed with rich young blood,
that will be nourished enough by food, and keep its colour without much
help of virtue. He may have the heart of a hero along with it; I aver
nothing to the contrary. Ask Domenico there if the lapidaries can
always tell a gem by the sight alone. And now I’m going to put the tow
in my ears, for thy chatter and the bells together are more than I can
endure: so say no more to me, but trim my beard.”

With these last words Piero (called “di Cosimo,” from his master,
Cosimo Rosselli) drew out two bits of tow, stuffed them in his ears,
and placed himself in the chair before Nello, who shrugged his
shoulders and cast a grimacing look of intelligence at the Greek, as
much as to say, “A whimsical fellow, you perceive! Everybody holds his
speeches as mere jokes.”

Tito, who had stood transfixed, with his long dark eyes resting on the
unknown man who had addressed him so equivocally, seemed recalled to
his self-command by Piero’s change of position, and apparently
satisfied with his explanation, was again giving his attention to
Cennini, who presently said—

“This is a curious and valuable ring, young man. This intaglio of the
fish with the crested serpent above it, in the black stratum of the
onyx, or rather nicolo, is well shown by the surrounding blue of the
upper stratum. The ring has, doubtless, a history?” added Cennini,
looking up keenly at the young stranger.

“Yes, indeed,” said Tito, meeting the scrutiny very frankly. “The ring
was found in Sicily, and I have understood from those who busy
themselves with gems and sigils, that both the stone and intaglio are
of virtue to make the wearer fortunate, especially at sea, and also to
restore to him whatever he may have lost. But,” he continued, smiling,
“though I have worn it constantly since I quitted Greece, it has not
made me altogether fortunate at sea, you perceive, unless I am to count
escape from drowning as a sufficient proof of its virtue. It remains to
be seen whether my lost chests will come to light; but to lose no
chance of such a result, Messer, I will pray you only to hold the ring
for a short space as pledge for a small sum far beneath its value, and
I will redeem it as soon as I can dispose of certain other gems which
are secured within my doublet, or indeed as soon as I can earn
something by any scholarly employment, if I may be so fortunate as to
meet with such.”

“That may be seen, young man, if you will come with me,” said Cennini.
“My brother Pietro, who is a better judge of scholarship than I, will
perhaps be able to supply you with a task that may test your
capabilities. Meanwhile, take back your ring until I can hand you the
necessary florins, and, if it please you, come along with me.”

“Yes, yes,” said Nello, “go with Messer Domenico, you cannot go in
better company; he was born under the constellation that gives a man
skill, riches, and integrity, whatever that constellation may be, which
is of the less consequence because babies can’t choose their own
horoscopes, and, indeed, if they could, there might be an inconvenient
rush of babies at particular epochs. Besides, our Phoenix, the
incomparable Pico, has shown that your horoscopes are all a nonsensical
dream—which is the less troublesome opinion. _Addio! bel giovane_!
don’t forget to come back to me.”

“No fear of that,” said Tito, beckoning a farewell, as he turned round
his bright face at the door. “You are to do me a great service:—that is
the most positive security for your seeing me again.”

“Say what thou wilt, Piero,” said Nello, as the young stranger
disappeared, “I shall never look at such an outside as that without
taking it as a sign of a lovable nature. Why, thou wilt say next that
Leonardo, whom thou art always raving about, ought to have made his
Judas as beautiful as Saint John! But thou art as deaf as the top of
Mount Morello with that accursed tow in thy ears. Well, well: I’ll get
a little more of this young man’s history from him before I take him to
Bardo Bardi.”




CHAPTER V.
The Blind Scholar and his Daughter.


The Via de’ Bardi, a street noted in the history of Florence, lies in
Oltrarno, or that portion of the city which clothes the southern bank
of the river. It extends from the Ponte Vecchio to the Piazza de’ Mozzi
at the head of the Ponte alle Grazie; its right-hand line of houses and
walls being backed by the rather steep ascent which in the fifteenth
century was known as the hill of Bogoli, the famous stone-quarry whence
the city got its pavement—of dangerously unstable consistence when
penetrated by rains; its left-hand buildings flanking the river and
making on their northern side a length of quaint, irregularly-pierced
façade, of which the waters give a softened loving reflection as the
sun begins to decline towards the western heights. But quaint as these
buildings are, some of them seem to the historical memory a too modern
substitute for the famous houses of the Bardi family, destroyed by
popular rage in the middle of the fourteenth century.

They were a proud and energetic stock, these Bardi; conspicuous among
those who clutched the sword in the earliest world-famous quarrels of
Florentines with Florentines, when the narrow streets were darkened
with the high towers of the nobles, and when the old tutelar god Mars,
as he saw the gutters reddened with neighbours’ blood, might well have
smiled at the centuries of lip-service paid to his rival, the Baptist.
But the Bardi hands were of the sort that not only clutch the
sword-hilt with vigour, but love the more delicate pleasure of
fingering minted metal: they were matched, too, with true Florentine
eyes, capable of discerning that power was to be won by other means
than by rending and riving, and by the middle of the fourteenth century
we find them risen from their original condition of _popolani_ to be
possessors, by purchase, of lands and strongholds, and the feudal
dignity of Counts of Vernio, disturbing to the jealousy of their
republican fellow-citizens. These lordly purchases are explained by our
seeing the Bardi disastrously signalised only a few years later as
standing in the very front of European commerce—the Christian
Rothschilds of that time—undertaking to furnish specie for the wars of
our Edward the Third, and having revenues “in kind” made over to them;
especially in wool, most precious of freights for Florentine galleys.
Their august debtor left them with an august deficit, and alarmed
Sicilian creditors made a too sudden demand for the payment of
deposits, causing a ruinous shock to the credit of the Bardi and of
associated houses, which was felt as a commercial calamity along all
the coasts of the Mediterranean. But, like more modern bankrupts, they
did not, for all that, hide their heads in humiliation; on the
contrary, they seemed to have held them higher than ever, and to have
been among the most arrogant of those grandees, who under certain
noteworthy circumstances, open to all who will read the honest pages of
Giovanni Villani, drew upon themselves the exasperation of the armed
people in 1343. The Bardi, who had made themselves fast in their street
between the two bridges, kept these narrow inlets, like panthers at
bay, against the oncoming gonfalons of the people, and were only made
to give way by an assault from the hill behind them. Their houses by
the river, to the number of twenty-two (_palagi e case grandi_), were
sacked and burnt, and many among the chief of those who bore the Bardi
name were driven from the city. But an old Florentine family was
many-rooted, and we find the Bardi maintaining importance and rising
again and again to the surface of Florentine affairs in a more or less
creditable manner, implying an untold family history that would have
included even more vicissitudes and contrasts of dignity and disgrace,
of wealth and poverty, than are usually seen on the background of wide
kinship.[1] But the Bardi never resumed their proprietorship in the old
street on the banks of the river, which in 1492 had long been
associated with other names of mark, and especially with the Neri, who
possessed a considerable range of houses on the side towards the hill.

 [1] A sign that such contrasts were peculiarly frequent in Florence,
 is the fact that Saint Antonine, Prior of San Marco, and afterwards
 archbishop, in the first half of this fifteenth century, founded the
 society of Buonuomini di San Martino (Good Men of Saint Martin) with
 the main object of succouring the _poveri vergognosi_—in other words,
 paupers of good family. In the records of the famous Panciatichi
 family we find a certain Girolamo in this century who was reduced to
 such a state of poverty that he was obliged to seek charity for the
 mere means of sustaining life, though other members of his family were
 enormously wealthy.


In one of these Neri houses there lived, however, a descendant of the
Bardi, and of that very branch which a century and a half before had
become Counts of Vernio: a descendant who had inherited the old family
pride and energy, the old love of pre-eminence, the old desire to leave
a lasting track of his footsteps on the fast-whirling earth. But the
family passions lived on in him under altered conditions: this
descendant of the Bardi was not a man swift in street warfare, or one
who loved to play the signor, fortifying strongholds and asserting the
right to hang vassals, or a merchant and usurer of keen daring, who
delighted in the generalship of wide commercial schemes: he was a man
with a deep-veined hand cramped by much copying of manuscripts, who ate
sparing dinners, and wore threadbare clothes, at first from choice and
at last from necessity; who sat among his books and his marble
fragments of the past, and saw them only by the light of those far-off
younger days which still shone in his memory: he was a moneyless, blind
old scholar—the Bardo de’ Bardi to whom Nello, the barber, had promised
to introduce the young Greek, Tito Melema.

The house in which Bardo lived was situated on the side of the street
nearest the hill, and was one of those large sombre masses of stone
building pierced by comparatively small windows, and surmounted by what
may be called a roofed terrace or loggia, of which there are many
examples still to be seen in the venerable city. Grim doors, with
conspicuous scrolled hinges, having high up on each side of them a
small window defended by iron bars, opened on a groined entrance-court,
empty of everything but a massive lamp-iron suspended from the centre
of the groin. A smaller grim door on the left-hand admitted to the
stone staircase, and the rooms on the ground-floor. These last were
used as a warehouse by the proprietor; so was the first floor; and both
were filled with precious stores, destined to be carried, some perhaps
to the banks of the Scheldt, some to the shores of Africa, some to the
isles of the Aegean, or to the banks of the Euxine. Maso, the old
serving-man, when he returned from the Mercato with the stock of cheap
vegetables, had to make his slow way up to the second storey before he
reached the door of his master, Bardo, through which we are about to
enter only a few mornings after Nello’s conversation with the Greek.

We follow Maso across the ante-chamber to the door on the left-hand,
through which we pass as he opens it. He merely looks in and nods,
while a clear young voice says, “Ah, you are come back, Maso. It is
well. We have wanted nothing.”

The voice came from the farther end of a long, spacious room,
surrounded with shelves, on which books and antiquities were arranged
in scrupulous order. Here and there, on separate stands in front of the
shelves, were placed a beautiful feminine torso; a headless statue,
with an uplifted muscular arm wielding a bladeless sword; rounded,
dimpled, infantine limbs severed from the trunk, inviting the lips to
kiss the cold marble; some well-preserved Roman busts; and two or three
vases from Magna Grecia. A large table in the centre was covered with
antique bronze lamps and small vessels in dark pottery. The colour of
these objects was chiefly pale or sombre: the vellum bindings, with
their deep-ridged backs, gave little relief to the marble, livid with
long burial; the once splendid patch of carpet at the farther end of
the room had long been worn to dimness; the dark bronzes wanted
sunlight upon them to bring out their tinge of green, and the sun was
not yet high enough to send gleams of brightness through the narrow
windows that looked on the Via de’ Bardi.

The only spot of bright colour in the room was made by the hair of a
tall maiden of seventeen or eighteen, who was standing before a carved
_leggio_, or reading-desk, such as is often seen in the choirs of
Italian churches. The hair was of a reddish gold colour, enriched by an
unbroken small ripple, such as may be seen in the sunset clouds on
grandest autumnal evenings. It was confined by a black fillet above her
small ears, from which it rippled forward again, and made a natural
veil for her neck above her square-cut gown of black _rascia_, or
serge. Her eyes were bent on a large volume placed before her: one long
white hand rested on the reading-desk, and the other clasped the back
of her father’s chair.

The blind father sat with head uplifted and turned a little aside
towards his daughter, as if he were looking at her. His delicate
paleness, set off by the black velvet cap which surmounted his drooping
white hair, made all the more perceptible the likeness between his aged
features and those of the young maiden, whose cheeks were also without
any tinge of the rose. There was the same refinement of brow and
nostril in both, counterbalanced by a full though firm mouth and
powerful chin, which gave an expression of proud tenacity and latent
impetuousness: an expression carried out in the backward poise of the
girl’s head, and the grand line of her neck and shoulders. It was a
type of face of which one could not venture to say whether it would
inspire love or only that unwilling admiration which is mixed with
dread: the question must be decided by the eyes, which often seem
charged with a more direct message from the soul. But the eyes of the
father had long been silent, and the eyes of the daughter were bent on
the Latin pages of Politian’s ‘Miscellanea,’ from which she was reading
aloud at the eightieth chapter, to the following effect:—

“There was a certain nymph of Thebes named Chariclo, especially dear to
Pallas; and this nymph was the mother of Teiresias. But once when in
the heat of summer, Pallas, in company with Chariclo, was bathing her
disrobed limbs in the Heliconian Hippocrene, it happened that Teiresias
coming as a hunter to quench his thirst at the same fountain,
inadvertently beheld Minerva unveiled, and immediately became blind.
For it is declared in the Saturnian laws, that he who beholds the gods
against their will, shall atone for it by a heavy penalty... When
Teiresias had fallen into this calamity, Pallas, moved by the tears of
Chariclo, endowed him with prophecy and length of days, and even caused
his prudence and wisdom to continue after he had entered among the
shades, so that an oracle spake from his tomb: and she gave him a
staff, wherewith, as by a guide, he might walk without stumbling... And
hence, Nonnus, in the fifth book of the ‘Dionysiaca,’ introduces
Actreon exclaiming that he calls Teiresias happy, since, without dying,
and with the loss of his eyesight merely, he had beheld Minerva
unveiled, and thus, though blind, could for evermore carry her image in
his soul.”

At this point in the reading, the daughter’s hand slipped from the back
of the chair and met her father’s, which he had that moment uplifted;
but she had not looked round, and was going on, though with a voice a
little altered by some suppressed feeling, to read the Greek quotation
from Nonnus, when the old man said—

“Stay, Romola; reach me my own copy of Nonnus. It is a more correct
copy than any in Poliziano’s hands, for I made emendations in it which
have not yet been communicated to any man. I finished it in 1477, when
my sight was fast failing me.”

Romola walked to the farther end of the room, with the queenly step
which was the simple action of her tall, finely-wrought frame, without
the slightest conscious adjustment of herself.

“Is it in the right place, Romola?” asked Bardo, who was perpetually
seeking the assurance that the outward fact continued to correspond
with the image which lived to the minutest detail in his mind.

“Yes, father; at the west end of the room, on the third shelf from the
bottom, behind the bust of Hadrian, above Apollonius Rhodius and
Callimachus, and below Lucan and Silius Italicus.”

As Romola said this, a fine ear would have detected in her clear voice
and distinct utterance, a faint suggestion of weariness struggling with
habitual patience. But as she approached her father and saw his arms
stretched out a little with nervous excitement to seize the volume, her
hazel eyes filled with pity; she hastened to lay the book on his lap,
and kneeled down by him, looking up at him as if she believed that the
love in her face must surely make its way through the dark obstruction
that shut out everything else. At that moment the doubtful
attractiveness of Romola’s face, in which pride and passion seemed to
be quivering in the balance with native refinement and intelligence,
was transfigured to the most lovable womanliness by mingled pity and
affection: it was evident that the deepest fount of feeling within her
had not yet wrought its way to the less changeful features, and only
found its outlet through her eyes.

But the father, unconscious of that soft radiance, looked flushed and
agitated as his hand explored the edges and back of the large book.

“The vellum is yellowed in these thirteen years, Romola.”

“Yes, father,” said Romola, gently; “but your letters at the back are
dark and plain still—fine Roman letters; and the Greek character,” she
continued, laying the book open on her father’s knee, “is more
beautiful than that of any of your bought manuscripts.”

“Assuredly, child,” said Bardo, passing his finger across the page, as
if he hoped to discriminate line and margin. “What hired amanuensis can
be equal to the scribe who loves the words that grow under his hand,
and to whom an error or indistinctness in the text is more painful than
a sudden darkness or obstacle across his path? And even these
mechanical printers who threaten to make learning a base and vulgar
thing—even they must depend on the manuscript over which we scholars
have bent with that insight into the poet’s meaning which is closely
akin to the _mens divinior_ of the poet himself; unless they would
flood the world with grammatical falsities and inexplicable anomalies
that would turn the very fountain of Parnassus into a deluge of
poisonous mud. But find the passage in the fifth book, to which
Poliziano refers—I know it very well.”

Seating herself on a low stool, close to her father’s knee, Romola took
the book on her lap and read the four verses containing the exclamation
of Actreon.

“It is true, Romola,” said Bardo, when she had finished; “it is a true
conception of the poet; for what is that grosser, narrower light by
which men behold merely the petty scene around them, compared with that
far-stretching, lasting light which spreads over centuries of thought,
and over the life of nations, and makes clear to us the minds of the
immortals who have reaped the great harvest and left us to glean in
their furrows? For me, Romola, even when I could see, it was with the
great dead that I lived; while the living often seemed to me mere
spectres—shadows dispossessed of true feeling and intelligence; and
unlike those Lamiae, to whom Poliziano, with that superficial ingenuity
which I do not deny to him, compares our inquisitive Florentines,
because they put on their eyes when they went abroad, and took them off
when they got home again, I have returned from the converse of the
streets as from a forgotten dream, and have sat down among my books,
saying with Petrarca, the modern who is least unworthy to be named
after the ancients, ‘Libri medullitus delectant, colloquuntur,
consulunt, et viva quadam nobis atque arguta familiaritate junguntur.’”

“And in one thing you are happier than your favourite Petrarca,
father,” said Romola, affectionately humouring the old man’s
disposition to dilate in this way; “for he used to look at his copy of
Homer and think sadly that the Greek was a dead letter to him: so far,
he had the inward blindness that you feel is worse than your outward
blindness.”

“True, child; for I carry within me the fruits of that fervid study
which I gave to the Greek tongue under the teaching of the younger
Crisolora, and Filelfo, and Argiropulo; though that great work in which
I had desired to gather, as into a firm web, all the threads that my
research had laboriously disentangled, and which would have been the
vintage of my life, was cut off by the failure of my sight and my want
of a fitting coadjutor. For the sustained zeal and unconquerable
patience demanded from those who would tread the unbeaten paths of
knowledge are still less reconcilable with the wandering, vagrant
propensity of the feminine mind than with the feeble powers of the
feminine body.”

“Father,” said Romola, with a sudden flush and in an injured tone, “I
read anything you wish me to read; and I will look out any passages for
you, and make whatever notes you want.”

Bardo shook his head, and smiled with a bitter sort of pity. “As well
try to be a pentathlos and perform all the five feats of the palaestra
with the limbs of a nymph. Have I forgotten thy fainting in the mere
search for the references I needed to explain a single passage of
Callimachus?”

“But, father, it was the weight of the books, and Maso can help me; it
was not want of attention and patience.”

Bardo shook his head again. “It is not mere bodily organs that I want:
it is the sharp edge of a young mind to pierce the way for my somewhat
blunted faculties. For blindness acts like a dam, sending the streams
of thought backward along the already-travelled channels and hindering
the course onward. If my son had not forsaken me, deluded by debasing
fanatical dreams, worthy only of an energumen whose dwelling is among
tombs, I might have gone on and seen my path broadening to the end of
my life; for he was a youth of great promise. But it has closed in
now,” the old man continued, after a short pause; “it has closed in
now;—all but the narrow track he has left me to tread—alone in my
blindness.”

Romola started from her seat, and carried away the large volume to its
place again, stung too acutely by her father’s last words to remain
motionless as well as silent; and when she turned away from the shelf
again, she remained standing at some distance from him, stretching her
arms downwards and clasping her fingers tightly as she looked with a
sad dreariness in her young face at the lifeless objects around her—the
parchment backs, the unchanging mutilated marble, the bits of obsolete
bronze and clay.

Bardo, though usually susceptible to Romola’s movements and eager to
trace them, was now too entirely preoccupied by the pain of rankling
memories to notice her departure from his side.

“Yes,” he went on, “with my son to aid me, I might have had my due
share in the triumphs of this century: the names of the Bardi, father
and son, might have been held reverently on the lips of scholars in the
ages to come; not on account of frivolous verses or philosophical
treatises, which are superfluous and presumptuous attempts to imitate
the inimitable, such as allure vain men like Panhormita, and from which
even the admirable Poggio did not keep himself sufficiently free; but
because we should have given a lamp whereby men might have studied the
supreme productions of the past. For why is a young man like Poliziano
(who was not yet born when I was already held worthy to maintain a
discussion with Thomas of Sarzana) to have a glorious memory as a
commentator on the Pandects—why is Ficino, whose Latin is an offence to
me, and who wanders purblind among the superstitious fancies that
marked the decline at once of art, literature, and philosophy, to
descend to posterity as the very high priest of Platonism, while I, who
am more than their equal, have not effected anything but scattered
work, which will be appropriated by other men? Why? but because my son,
whom I had brought up to replenish my ripe learning with young
enterprise, left me and all liberal pursuits that he might lash himself
and howl at midnight with besotted friars—that he might go wandering on
pilgrimages befitting men who know of no past older than the missal and
the crucifix?—left me when the night was already beginning to fall on
me.”

In these last words the old man’s voice, which had risen high in
indignant protest, fell into a tone of reproach so tremulous and
plaintive that Romola, turning her eyes again towards the blind aged
face, felt her heart swell with forgiving pity. She seated herself by
her father again, and placed her hand on his knee—too proud to obtrude
consolation in words that might seem like a vindication of her own
value, yet wishing to comfort him by some sign of her presence.

“Yes, Romola,” said Bardo, automatically letting his left-hand, with
its massive prophylactic rings, fall a little too heavily on the
delicate blue-veined back of the girl’s right, so that she bit her lip
to prevent herself from starting. “If even Florence only is to remember
me, it can but be on the same ground that it will remember Niccolò
Niccoli—because I forsook the vulgar pursuit of wealth in commerce that
I might devote myself to collecting the precious remains of ancient art
and wisdom, and leave them, after the example of the munificent Romans,
for an everlasting possession to my fellow-citizens. But why do I say
Florence only? If Florence remembers me, will not the world remember
me? ... Yet,” added Bardo, after a short pause, his voice falling again
into a saddened key, “Lorenzo’s untimely death has raised a new
difficulty. I had his promise—I should have had his bond—that my
collection should always bear my name and should never be sold, though
the harpies might clutch everything else; but there is enough for
them—there is more than enough—and for thee, too, Romola, there will be
enough. Besides, thou wilt marry; Bernardo reproaches me that I do not
seek a fitting _parentado_ for thee, and we will delay no longer, we
will think about it.”

“No, no, father; what could you do? besides, it is useless: wait till
some one seeks me,” said Romola, hastily.

“Nay, my child, that is not the paternal duty. It was not so held by
the ancients, and in this respect Florentines have not degenerated from
their ancestral customs.”

“But I will study diligently,” said Romola, her eyes dilating with
anxiety. “I will become as learned as Cassandra Fedele: I will try and
be as useful to you as if I had been a boy, and then perhaps some great
scholar will want to marry me, and will not mind about a dowry; and he
will like to come and live with you, and he will be to you in place of
my brother... and you will not be sorry that I was a daughter.”

There was a rising sob in Romola’s voice as she said the last words,
which touched the fatherly fibre in Bardo. He stretched his hand upward
a little in search of her golden hair, and as she placed her head under
his hand, he gently stroked it, leaning towards her as if his eyes
discerned some glimmer there.

“Nay, Romola mia, I said not so; if I have pronounced an anathema on a
degenerate and ungrateful son, I said not that I could wish thee other
than the sweet daughter thou hast been to me. For what son could have
tended me so gently in the frequent sickness I have had of late? And
even in learning thou art not, according to thy measure, contemptible.
Something perhaps were to be wished in thy capacity of attention and
memory, not incompatible even with the feminine mind. But as Calcondila
bore testimony, when he aided me to teach thee, thou hast a ready
apprehension, and even a wide-glancing intelligence. And thou hast a
man’s nobility of soul: thou hast never fretted me with thy petty
desires as thy mother did. It is true, I have been careful to keep thee
aloof from the debasing influence of thy own sex, with their
sparrow-like frivolity and their enslaving superstition, except,
indeed, from that of our cousin Brigida, who may well serve as a
scarecrow and a warning. And though—since I agree with the divine
Petrarca, when he declares, quoting the ‘Aulularia’ of Plautus, who
again was indebted for the truth to the supreme Greek intellect,
‘Optimam foeminam nullam esse, alia licet alia pejor sit’—I cannot
boast that thou art entirely lifted out of that lower category to which
Nature assigned thee, nor even that in erudition thou art on a par with
the more learned women of this age; thou art, nevertheless—yes, Romola
mia,” said the old man, his pedantry again melting into tenderness,
“thou art my sweet daughter, and thy voice is as the lower notes of the
flute, ‘dulcis, durabilis, clara, pura, secans aëra et auribus sedens,’
according to the choice words of Quintilian; and Bernardo tells me thou
art fair, and thy hair is like the brightness of the morning, and
indeed it seems to me that I discern some radiance from thee. Ah! I
know how all else looks in this room, but thy form I only guess at.
Thou art no longer the little woman six years old, that faded for me
into darkness; thou art tall, and thy arm is but little below mine. Let
us walk together.”

The old man rose, and Romola, soothed by these beams of tenderness,
looked happy again as she drew his arm within hers, and placed in his
right-hand the stick which rested at the side of his chair. While Bardo
had been sitting, he had seemed hardly more than sixty: his face,
though pale, had that refined texture in which wrinkles and lines are
never deep; but now that he began to walk he looked as old as he really
was—rather more than seventy; for his tall spare frame had the
student’s stoop of the shoulders, and he stepped with the undecided
gait of the blind.

“No, Romola,” he said, pausing against the bust of Hadrian, and passing
his stick from the right to the left that he might explore the familiar
outline with a “seeing hand.” “There will be nothing else to preserve
my memory and carry down my name as a member of the great republic of
letters—nothing but my library and my collection of antiquities. And
they are choice,” continued Bardo, pressing the bust and speaking in a
tone of insistence. “The collections of Niccolò I know were larger; but
take any collection which is the work of a single man—that of the great
Boccaccio even—mine will surpass it. That of Poggio was contemptible
compared with mine. It will be a great gift to unborn scholars. And
there is nothing else. For even if I were to yield to the wish of Aldo
Manuzio when he sets up his press at Venice, and give him the aid of my
annotated manuscripts, I know well what would be the result: some other
scholar’s name would stand on the title-page of the edition—some
scholar who would have fed on my honey, and then declared in his
preface that he had gathered it all himself fresh from Hymettus. Else,
why have I refused the loan of many an annotated codex? why have I
refused to make public any of my translations? why? but because
scholarship is a system of licenced robbery, and your man in scarlet
and furred robe who sits in judgment on thieves, is himself a thief of
the thoughts and the fame that belong to his fellows. But against that
robbery Bardo de’ Bardi shall struggle—though blind and forsaken, he
shall struggle. I too have a right to be remembered—as great a right as
Pontanus or Merula, whose names will be foremost on the lips of
posterity, because they sought patronage and found it; because they had
tongues that could flatter, and blood that was used to be nourished
from the client’s basket. I have a right to be remembered.”

The old man’s voice had become at once loud and tremulous, and a pink
flush overspread his proud, delicately-cut features, while the
habitually raised attitude of his head gave the idea that behind the
curtain of his blindness he saw some imaginary high tribunal to which
he was appealing against the injustice of Fame.

Romola was moved with sympathetic indignation, for in her nature too
there lay the same large claims, and the same spirit of struggle
against their denial. She tried to calm her father by a still prouder
word than his.

“Nevertheless, father, it is a great gift of the gods to be born with a
hatred and contempt of all injustice and meanness. Yours is a higher
lot, never to have lied and truckled, than to have shared honours won
by dishonour. There is strength in scorn, as there was in the martial
fury by which men became insensible to wounds.”

“It is well said, Romola. It is a Promethean word thou hast uttered,”
answered Bardo, after a little interval in which he had begun to lean
on his stick again, and to walk on. “And I indeed am not to be pierced
by the shafts of Fortune. My armour is the _aes triplex_ of a clear
conscience, and a mind nourished by the precepts of philosophy. ‘For
men,’ says Epictetus, ‘are disturbed not by things themselves, but by
their opinions or thoughts concerning those things.’ And again,
‘whosoever will be free, let him not desire or dread that which it is
in the power of others either to deny or inflict: otherwise, he is a
slave.’ And of all such gifts as are dependent on the caprice of
fortune or of men, I have long ago learned to say, with Horace—who,
however, is too wavering in his philosophy, vacillating between the
precepts of Zeno and the less worthy maxims of Epicurus, and
attempting, as we say, ‘duabus sellis sedere’—concerning such
accidents, I say, with the pregnant brevity of the poet—

    ‘Sunt qui non habeant, est qui non curat habere.’

“He is referring to gems, and purple, and other insignia of wealth; but
I may apply his words not less justly to the tributes men pay us with
their lips and their pens, which are also matters of purchase, and
often with base coin. Yes, ‘_inanis_’—hollow, empty—is the epithet
justly bestowed on Fame.”

They made the tour of the room in silence after this; but Bardo’s
lip-born maxims were as powerless over the passion which had been
moving him, as if they had been written on parchment and hung round his
neck in a sealed bag; and he presently broke forth again in a new tone
of insistence.

“_Inanis_? yes, if it is a lying fame; but not if it is the just meed
of labour and a great purpose. I claim my right: it is not fair that
the work of my brain and my hands should not be a monument to me—it is
not just that my labour should bear the name of another man. It is but
little to ask,” the old man went on, bitterly, “that my name should be
over the door—that men should own themselves debtors to the Bardi
Library in Florence. They will speak coldly of me, perhaps: ‘a diligent
collector and transcriber,’ they will say, ‘and also of some critical
ingenuity, but one who could hardly be conspicuous in an age so
fruitful in illustrious scholars. Yet he merits our pity, for in the
latter years of his life he was blind, and his only son, to whose
education he had devoted his best years—’ Nevertheless, my name will be
remembered, and men will honour me: not with the breath of flattery,
purchased by mean bribes, but because I have laboured, and because my
labours will remain. Debts! I know there are debts; and there is thy
dowry, Romola, to be paid. But there must be enough—or, at least, there
can lack but a small sum, such as the Signoria might well provide. And
if Lorenzo had not died, all would have been secured and settled. But
now...”

At this moment Maso opened the door, and advancing to his master,
announced that Nello, the barber, had desired him to say, that he was
come with the Greek scholar whom he had asked leave to introduce.

“It is well,” said the old man. “Bring them in.”

Bardo, conscious that he looked more dependent when he was walking,
liked always to be seated in the presence of strangers, and Romola,
without needing to be told, conducted him to his chair. She was
standing by him at her full height, in quiet majestic self-possession,
when the visitors entered; and the most penetrating observer would
hardly have divined that this proud pale face, at the slightest touch
on the fibres of affection or pity, could become passionate with
tenderness, or that this woman, who imposed a certain awe on those who
approached her, was in a state of girlish simplicity and ignorance
concerning the world outside her father’s books.




CHAPTER VI.
Dawning Hopes.


When Maso opened the door again, and ushered in the two visitors,
Nello, first making a deep reverence to Romola, gently pushed Tito
before him, and advanced with him towards her father.

“Messer Bardo,” he said, in a more measured and respectful tone than
was usual with him, “I have the honour of presenting to you the Greek
scholar, who has been eager to have speech of you, not less from the
report I have made to him of your learning and your priceless
collections, than because of the furtherance your patronage may give
him under the transient need to which he has been reduced by shipwreck.
His name is Tito Melema, at your service.”

Romola’s astonishment could hardly have been greater if the stranger
had worn a panther-skin and carried a thyrsus; for the cunning barber
had said nothing of the Greek’s age or appearance; and among her
father’s scholarly visitors, she had hardly ever seen any but
middle-aged or grey-headed men. There was only one masculine face, at
once youthful and beautiful, the image of which remained deeply
impressed on her mind: it was that of her brother, who long years ago
had taken her on his knee, kissed her, and never come back again: a
fair face, with sunny hair, like her own. But the habitual attitude of
her mind towards strangers—a proud self-dependence and determination to
ask for nothing even by a smile—confirmed in her by her father’s
complaints against the world’s injustice, was like a snowy embankment
hemming in the rush of admiring surprise. Tito’s bright face showed its
rich-tinted beauty without any rivalry of colour above his black _sajo_
or tunic reaching to the knees. It seemed like a wreath of spring,
dropped suddenly in Romola’s young but wintry life, which had inherited
nothing but memories—memories of a dead mother, of a lost brother, of a
blind father’s happier time—memories of far-off light, love, and
beauty, that lay embedded in dark mines of books, and could hardly give
out their brightness again until they were kindled for her by the torch
of some known joy. Nevertheless, she returned Tito’s bow, made to her
on entering, with the same pale proud face as ever; but, as he
approached, the snow melted, and when he ventured to look towards her
again, while Nello was speaking, a pink flush overspread her face, to
vanish again almost immediately, as if her imperious will had recalled
it. Tito’s glance, on the contrary, had that gentle, beseeching
admiration in it which is the most propitiating of appeals to a proud,
shy woman, and is perhaps the only atonement a man can make for being
too handsome. The finished fascination of his air came chiefly from the
absence of demand and assumption. It was that of a fleet, soft-coated,
dark-eyed animal that delights you by not bounding away in indifference
from you, and unexpectedly pillows its chin on your palm, and looks up
at you desiring to be stroked—as if it loved you.

“Messere, I give you welcome,” said Bardo, with some condescension;
“misfortune wedded to learning, and especially to Greek learning, is a
letter of credit that should win the ear of every instructed
Florentine; for, as you are doubtless aware, since the period when your
countryman, Manuelo Crisolora, diffused the light of his teaching in
the chief cities of Italy, now nearly a century ago, no man is held
worthy of the name of scholar who has acquired merely the transplanted
and derivative literature of the Latins; rather, such inert students
are stigmatised as _opici_ or barbarians according to the phrase of the
Romans themselves, who frankly replenished their urns at the
fountain-head. I am, as you perceive, and as Nello has doubtless
forewarned you, totally blind: a calamity to which we Florentines are
held especially liable, whether owing to the cold winds which rush upon
us in spring from the passes of the Apennines, or to that sudden
transition from the cool gloom of our houses to the dazzling brightness
of our summer sun, by which the _lippi_ are said to have been made so
numerous among the ancient Romans; or, in fine, to some occult cause
which eludes our superficial surmises. But I pray you be seated: Nello,
my friend, be seated.”

Bardo paused until his fine ear had assured him that the visitors were
seating themselves, and that Romola was taking her usual chair at his
right-hand. Then he said—

“From what part of Greece do you come, Messere? I had thought that your
unhappy country had been almost exhausted of those sons who could
cherish in their minds any image of her original glory, though indeed
the barbarous Sultans have of late shown themselves not indisposed to
engraft on their wild stock the precious vine which their own fierce
bands have hewn down and trampled under foot. From what part of Greece
do you come?”

“I sailed last from Nauplia,” said Tito; “but I have resided both at
Constantinople and Thessalonica, and have travelled in various parts
little visited by Western Christians since the triumph of the Turkish
arms. I should tell you, however, Messere, that I was not born in
Greece, but at Bari. I spent the first sixteen years of my life in
Southern Italy and Sicily.”

While Tito was speaking, some emotion passed, like a breath on the
waters, across Bardo’s delicate features; he leaned forward, put out
his right-hand towards Romola, and turned his head as if about to speak
to her; but then, correcting himself, turned away again, and said, in a
subdued voice—

“Excuse me; is it not true—you are young?”

“I am three-and-twenty,” said Tito.

“Ah,” said Bardo, still in a tone of subdued excitement, “and you had,
doubtless, a father who cared for your early instruction—who, perhaps,
was himself a scholar?”

There was a slight pause before Tito’s answer came to the ear of Bardo;
but for Romola and Nello it began with a slight shock that seemed to
pass through him, and cause a momentary quivering of the lip; doubtless
at the revival of a supremely painful remembrance.

“Yes,” he replied, “at least a father by adoption. He was a Neapolitan,
and of accomplished scholarship, both Latin and Greek. But,” added
Tito, after another slight pause, “he is lost to me—was lost on a
voyage he too rashly undertook to Delos.”

Bardo sank backward again, too delicate to ask another question that
might probe a sorrow which he divined to be recent. Romola, who knew
well what were the fibres that Tito’s voice had stirred in her father,
felt that this new acquaintance had with wonderful suddenness got
within the barrier that lay between them and the alien world. Nello,
thinking that the evident check given to the conversation offered a
graceful opportunity for relieving himself from silence, said—

“In truth, it is as clear as Venetian glass that this fine young man
has had the best training; for the two Cennini have set him to work at
their Greek sheets already, and it seems to me they are not men to
begin cutting before they have felt the edge of their tools; they
tested him well beforehand, we may be sure, and if there are two things
not to be hidden—love and a cough—I say there is a third, and that is
ignorance, when once a man is obliged to do something besides wagging
his head. The _tonsor inequalis_ is inevitably betrayed when he takes
the shears in his hand; is it not true, Messer Bardo? I speak after the
fashion of a barber, but, as Luigi Pulci says—


“‘Perdonimi s’io fallo: chi m’ascolta
Intenda il mio volgar col suo latino.’”


“Nay, my good Nello,” said Bardo, with an air of friendly severity,
“you are not altogether illiterate, and might doubtless have made a
more respectable progress in learning if you had abstained somewhat
from the _cicalata_ and gossip of the street-corner, to which our
Florentines are excessively addicted; but still more if you had not
clogged your memory with those frivolous productions of which Luigi
Pulci has furnished the most peccant exemplar—a compendium of
extravagances and incongruities the farthest removed from the models of
a pure age, and resembling rather the _grylli_ or conceits of a period
when mystic meaning was held a warrant for monstrosity of form; with
this difference, that while the monstrosity is retained, the mystic
meaning is absent; in contemptible contrast with the great poem of
Virgil, who, as I long held with Filelfo, before Landino had taken upon
him to expound the same opinion, embodied the deepest lessons of
philosophy in a graceful and well-knit fable. And I cannot but regard
the multiplication of these babbling, lawless productions, albeit
countenanced by the patronage, and in some degree the example of
Lorenzo himself, otherwise a friend to true learning, as a sign that
the glorious hopes of this century are to be quenched in gloom; nay,
that they have been the delusive prologue to an age worse than that of
iron—the age of tinsel and gossamer, in which no thought has substance
enough to be moulded into consistent and lasting form.”

“Once more, pardon,” said Nello, opening his palms outwards, and
shrugging his shoulders, “I find myself knowing so many things in good
Tuscan before I have time to think of the Latin for them; and Messer
Luigi’s rhymes are always slipping off the lips of my customers:—that
is what corrupts me. And, indeed, talking of customers, I have left my
shop and my reputation too long in the custody of my slow Sandro, who
does not deserve even to be called a _tonsor inequalis_, but rather to
be pronounced simply a bungler in the vulgar tongue. So with your
permission, Messer Bardo, I will take my leave—well understood that I
am at your service whenever Maso calls upon me. It seems a thousand
years till I dress and perfume the damigella’s hair, which deserves to
shine in the heavens as a constellation, though indeed it were a pity
for it ever to go so far out of reach.”

Three voices made a fugue of friendly farewells to Nello, as he
retreated with a bow to Romola and a beck to Tito. The acute barber saw
that the pretty youngster, who had crept into his liking by some strong
magic, was well launched in Bardo’s favourable regard; and satisfied
that his introduction had not miscarried so far, he felt the propriety
of retiring.

The little burst of wrath, called forth by Nello’s unlucky quotation,
had diverted Bardo’s mind from the feelings which had just before been
hemming in further speech, and he now addressed Tito again with his
ordinary calmness.

“Ah! young man, you are happy in having been able to unite the
advantages of travel with those of study, and you will be welcome among
us as a bringer of fresh tidings from a land which has become sadly
strange to us, except through the agents of a now restricted commerce
and the reports of hasty pilgrims. For those days are in the far
distance which I myself witnessed, when men like Aurispa and Guarino
went out to Greece as to a storehouse, and came back laden with
manuscripts which every scholar was eager to borrow—and, be it owned
with shame, not always willing to restore; nay, even the days when
erudite Greeks flocked to our shores for a refuge, seem far-off
now—farther off than the on-coming of my blindness. But doubtless,
young man, research after the treasures of antiquity was not alien to
the purpose of your travels?”

“Assuredly not,” said Tito. “On the contrary, my companion—my
father—was willing to risk his life in his zeal for the discovery of
inscriptions and other traces of ancient civilisation.”

“And I trust there is a record of his researches and their results,”
said Bardo, eagerly, “since they must be even more precious than those
of Ciriaco, which I have diligently availed myself of, though they are
not always illuminated by adequate learning.”

“There _was_ such a record,” said Tito, “but it was lost, like
everything else, in the shipwreck I suffered below Ancona. The only
record left is such as remains in our—in my memory.”

“You must lose no time in committing it to paper, young man,” said
Bardo, with growing interest. “Doubtless you remember much, if you
aided in transcription; for when I was your age, words wrought
themselves into my mind as if they had been fixed by the tool of the
graver; wherefore I constantly marvel at the capriciousness of my
daughter’s memory, which grasps certain objects with tenacity, and lets
fall all those minutiae whereon depends accuracy, the very soul of
scholarship. But I apprehend no such danger with you, young man, if
your will has seconded the advantages of your training.”

When Bardo made this reference to his daughter, Tito ventured to turn
his eyes towards her, and at the accusation against her memory his face
broke into its brightest smile, which was reflected as inevitably as
sudden sunbeams in Romola’s. Conceive the soothing delight of that
smile to her! Romola had never dreamed that there was a scholar in the
world who would smile at a deficiency for which she was constantly made
to feel herself a culprit. It was like the dawn of a new sense to
her—the sense of comradeship. They did not look away from each other
immediately, as if the smile had been a stolen one; they looked and
smiled with frank enjoyment.

“She is not really so cold and proud,” thought Tito.

“Does _he_ forget too, I wonder?” thought Romola, “Yet I hope not, else
he will vex my father.”

But Tito was obliged to turn away, and answer Bardo’s question.

“I have had much practice in transcription,” he said; “but in the case
of inscriptions copied in memorable scenes, rendered doubly impressive
by the sense of risk and adventure, it may have happened that my
retention of written characters has been weakened. On the plain of the
Eurotas, or among the gigantic stones of Mycenae and Tyrins—especially
when the fear of the Turk hovers over one like a vulture—the mind
wanders, even though the hand writes faithfully what the eye dictates.
But something doubtless I have retained,” added Tito, with a modesty
which was not false, though he was conscious that it was politic,
“something that might be of service if illustrated and corrected by a
wider learning than my own.”

“That is well spoken, young man,” said Bardo, delighted. “And I will
not withhold from you such aid as I can give, if you like to
communicate with me concerning your recollections. I foresee a work
which will be a useful supplement to the ‘Isolario’ of Christoforo
Buondelmonte, and which may take rank with the ‘Itineraria’ of Ciriaco
and the admirable Ambrogio Traversari. But we must prepare ourselves
for calumny, young man,” Bardo went on with energy, as if the work were
already growing so fast that the time of trial was near; “if your book
contains novelties you will be charged with forgery; if my elucidations
should clash with any principles of interpretation adopted by another
scholar, our personal characters will be attacked, we shall be
impeached with foul actions; you must prepare yourself to be told that
your mother was a fish-woman, and that your father was a renegade
priest or a hanged malefactor. I myself, for having shown error in a
single preposition, had an invective written against me wherein I was
taxed with treachery, fraud, indecency, and even hideous crimes. Such,
my young friend—such are the flowers with which the glorious path of
scholarship is strewed! But tell me, then: I have learned much
concerning Byzantium and Thessalonica long ago from Demetrio
Calcondila, who has but lately departed from Florence; but you, it
seems, have visited less familiar scenes?”

“Yes; we made what I may call a pilgrimage full of danger, for the sake
of visiting places which have almost died out of the memory of the
West, for they lie away from the track of pilgrims; and my father used
to say that scholars themselves hardly imagine them to have any
existence out of books. He was of opinion that a new and more glorious
era would open for learning when men should begin to look for their
commentaries on the ancient writers in the remains of cities and
temples, nay, in the paths of the rivers, and on the face of the
valleys and the mountains.”

“Ah!” said Bardo, fervidly, “your father, then, was not a common man.
Was he fortunate, may I ask? Had he many friends?” These last words
were uttered in a tone charged with meaning.

“No; he made enemies—chiefly, I believe, by a certain impetuous
candour; and they hindered his advancement, so that he lived in
obscurity. And he would never stoop to conciliate: he could never
forget an injury.”

“Ah!” said Bardo again, with a long, deep intonation.

“Among our hazardous expeditions,” continued Tito, willing to prevent
further questions on a point so personal, “I remember with particular
vividness a hastily snatched visit to Athens. Our hurry, and the double
danger of being seized as prisoners by the Turks, and of our galley
raising anchor before we could return, made it seem like a fevered
vision of the night—the wide plain, the girdling mountains, the ruined
porticos and columns, either standing far aloof, as if receding from
our hurried footsteps, or else jammed in confusedly among the dwellings
of Christians degraded into servitude, or among the forts and turrets
of their Moslem conquerors, who have their stronghold on the
Acropolis.”

“You fill me with surprise,” said Bardo. “Athens, then, is not utterly
destroyed and swept away, as I had imagined?”

“No wonder you should be under that mistake, for few even of the Greeks
themselves, who live beyond the mountain boundary of Attica, know
anything about the present condition of Athens, or _Setine_, as the
sailors call it. I remember, as we were rounding the promontory of
Sunium, the Greek pilot we had on board our Venetian galley pointed to
the mighty columns that stand on the summit of the rock—the remains, as
you know well, of the great temple erected to the goddess Athena, who
looked down from that high shrine with triumph at her conquered rival
Poseidon;—well, our Greek pilot, pointing to those columns, said, ‘That
was the school of the great philosopher Aristotle.’ And at Athens
itself, the monk who acted as our guide in the hasty view we snatched,
insisted most on showing us the spot where Saint Philip baptised the
Ethiopian eunuch, or some such legend.”

“Talk not of monks and their legends, young man!” said Bardo,
interrupting Tito impetuously. “It is enough to overlay human hope and
enterprise with an eternal frost to think that the ground which was
trodden by philosophers and poets is crawled over by those
insect-swarms of besotted fanatics or howling hypocrites.”

“_Perdio_, I have no affection for them,” said Tito, with a shrug;
“servitude agrees well with a religion like theirs, which lies in the
renunciation of all that makes life precious to other men. And they
carry the yoke that befits them: their matin chant is drowned by the
voice of the muezzin, who, from the gallery of the high tower on the
Acropolis, calls every Mussulman to his prayers. That tower springs
from the Parthenon itself; and every time we paused and directed our
eyes towards it, our guide set up a wail, that a temple which had once
been won from the diabolical uses of the pagans to become the temple of
another virgin than Pallas—the Virgin Mother of God—was now again
perverted to the accursed ends of the Moslem. It was the sight of those
walls of the Acropolis, which disclosed themselves in the distance as
we leaned over the side of our galley when it was forced by contrary
winds to anchor in the Piraeus, that fired my father’s mind with the
determination to see Athens at all risks, and in spite of the sailors’
warnings that if we lingered till a change of wind, they would depart
without us: but, after all, it was impossible for us to venture near
the Acropolis, for the sight of men eager in examining ‘old stones’
raised the suspicion that we were Venetian spies, and we had to hurry
back to the harbour.”

“We will talk more of these things,” said Bardo, eagerly. “You must
recall everything, to the minutest trace left in your memory. You will
win the gratitude of after-times by leaving a record of the aspect
Greece bore while yet the barbarians had not swept away every trace of
the structures that Pausanias and Pliny described: you will take those
great writers as your models; and such contribution of criticism and
suggestion as my riper mind can supply shall not be wanting to you.
There will be much to tell; for you have travelled, you said, in the
Peloponnesus?”

“Yes; and in Boeotia also: I have rested in the groves of Helicon, and
tasted of the fountain Hippocrene. But on every memorable spot in
Greece conquest after conquest has set its seal, till there is a
confusion of ownership even in ruins, that only close study and
comparison could unravel. High over every fastness, from the plains of
Lacedaemon to the straits of Thermopylae, there towers some huge
Frankish fortress, once inhabited by a French or Italian marquis, now
either abandoned or held by Turkish bands.”

“Stay!” cried Bardo, whose mind was now too thoroughly preoccupied by
the idea of the future book to attend to Tito’s further narration. “Do
you think of writing in Latin or Greek? Doubtless Greek is the more
ready clothing for your thoughts, and it is the nobler language. But,
on the other hand, Latin is the tongue in which we shall measure
ourselves with the larger and more famous number of modern rivals. And
if you are less at ease in it, I will aid you—yes, I will spend on you
that long-accumulated study which was to have been thrown into the
channel of another work—a work in which I myself was to have had a
helpmate.”

Bardo paused a moment, and then added—

“But who knows whether that work may not be executed yet? For you, too,
young man, have been brought up by a father who poured into your mind
all the long-gathered stream of his knowledge and experience. Our aid
might be mutual.”

Romola, who had watched her father’s growing excitement, and divined
well the invisible currents of feeling that determined every question
and remark, felt herself in a glow of strange anxiety: she turned her
eyes on Tito continually, to watch the impression her father’s words
made on him, afraid lest he should be inclined to dispel these visions
of co-operation which were lighting up her father’s face with a new
hope. But no! He looked so bright and gentle: he must feel, as she did,
that in this eagerness of blind age there was piteousness enough to
call forth inexhaustible patience. How much more strongly he would feel
this if he knew about her brother! A girl of eighteen imagines the
feelings behind the face that has moved her with its sympathetic youth,
as easily as primitive people imagined the humours of the gods in fair
weather: what is she to believe in, if not in this vision woven from
within?

And Tito was really very far from feeling impatient. He delighted in
sitting there with the sense that Romola’s attention was fixed on him,
and that he could occasionally look at her. He was pleased that Bardo
should take an interest in him; and he did not dwell with enough
seriousness on the prospect of the work in which he was to be aided, to
feel moved by it to anything else than that easy, good-humoured
acquiescence which was natural to him.

“I shall be proud and happy,” he said, in answer to Bardo’s last words,
“if my services can be held a meet offering to the matured scholarship
of Messere. But doubtless,”—here he looked towards Romola—“the lovely
damigella, your daughter, makes all other aid superfluous; for I have
learned from Nello that she has been nourished on the highest studies
from her earliest years.”

“You are mistaken,” said Romola; “I am by no means sufficient to my
father: I have not the gifts that are necessary for scholarship.”

Romola did not make this self-depreciatory statement in a tone of
anxious humility, but with a proud gravity.

“Nay, my Romola,” said her father, not willing that the stranger should
have too low a conception of his daughter’s powers; “thou art not
destitute of gifts; rather, thou art endowed beyond the measure of
women; but thou hast withal the woman’s delicate frame, which ever
craves repose and variety, and so begets a wandering imagination. My
daughter,”—turning to Tito—“has been very precious to me, filling up to
the best of her power the place of a son. For I had once a son...”

Bardo checked himself: he did not wish to assume an attitude of
complaint in the presence of a stranger, and he remembered that this
young man, in whom he had unexpectedly become so much interested, was
still a stranger, towards whom it became him rather to keep the
position of a patron. His pride was roused to double activity by the
fear that he had forgotten his dignity.

“But,” he resumed, in his original tone of condescension, “we are
departing from what I believe is to you the most important business.
Nello informed me that you had certain gems which you would fain
dispose of, and that you desired a passport to some man of wealth and
taste who would be likely to become a purchaser.”

“It is true; for, though I have obtained employment, as a corrector
with the Cennini, my payment leaves little margin beyond the provision
of necessaries, and would leave less but that my good friend Nello
insists on my hiring a lodging from him, and saying nothing about the
rent till better days.”

“Nello is a good-hearted prodigal,” said Bardo; “and though, with that
ready ear and ready tongue of his, he is too much like the ill-famed
Margites—knowing many things and knowing them all badly, as I hinted to
him but now—he is nevertheless ‘abnormis sapiens,’ after the manner of
our born Florentines. But have you the gems with you? I would willingly
know what they are—yet it is useless: no, it might only deepen regret.
I cannot add to my store.”

“I have one or two intaglios of much beauty,” said Tito, proceeding to
draw from his wallet a small case.

But Romola no sooner saw the movement than she looked at him with
significant gravity, and placed her finger on her lips—


“Con viso che tacendo dicea, Taci.”


If Bardo were made aware that the gems were within reach, she knew well
he would want a minute description of them, and it would become pain to
him that they should go away from him, even if he did not insist on
some device for purchasing them in spite of poverty. But she had no
sooner made this sign than she felt rather guilty and ashamed at having
virtually confessed a weakness of her father’s to a stranger. It seemed
that she was destined to a sudden confidence and familiarity with this
young Greek, strangely at variance with her deep-seated pride and
reserve; and this consciousness again brought the unwonted colour to
her cheeks.

Tito understood her look and sign, and immediately withdrew his hand
from the case, saying, in a careless tone, so as to make it appear that
he was merely following up his last words, “But they are usually in the
keeping of Messer Domenico Cennini, who has strong and safe places for
these things. He estimates them as worth at least five hundred ducats.”

“Ah, then, they are fine intagli,” said Bardo. “Five hundred ducats!
Ah, more than a man’s ransom!”

Tito gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, and opened his long
dark eyes with questioning surprise at Bardo’s blind face, as if his
words—a mere phrase of common parlance, at a time when men were often
being ransomed from slavery or imprisonment—had had some special
meaning for him. But the next moment he looked towards Romola, as if
her eyes must be her father’s interpreters. She, intensely preoccupied
with what related to her father, imagined that Tito was looking to her
again for some guidance, and immediately spoke.

“Alessandra Scala delights in gems, you know, father; she calls them
her winter flowers; and the Segretario would be almost sure to buy any
gems that she wished for. Besides, he himself sets great store by rings
and sigils, which he wears as a defence against pains in the joints.”

“It is true,” said Bardo. “Bartolommeo has overmuch confidence in the
efficacy of gems—a confidence wider than what is sanctioned by Pliny,
who clearly shows that he regards many beliefs of that sort as idle
superstitions; though not to the utter denial of medicinal virtues in
gems. Wherefore, I myself, as you observe, young man, wear certain
rings, which the discreet Camillo Leonardi prescribed to me by letter
when two years ago I had a certain infirmity of sudden numbness. But
thou hast spoken well, Romola. I will dictate a letter to Bartolommeo,
which Maso shall carry. But it were well that Messere should notify to
thee what the gems are, together with the intagli they bear, as a
warrant to Bartolommeo that they will be worthy of his attention.”

“Nay, father,” said Romola, whose dread lest a paroxysm of the
collector’s mania should seize her father, gave her the courage to
resist his proposal. “Your word will be sufficient that Messere is a
scholar and has travelled much. The Segretario will need no further
inducement to receive him.”

“True, child,” said Bardo, touched on a chord that was sure to respond.
“I have no need to add proofs and arguments in confirmation of my word
to Bartolommeo. And I doubt not that this young man’s presence is in
accord with the tones of his voice, so that, the door being once
opened, he will be his own best advocate.”

Bardo paused a few moments, but his silence was evidently charged with
some idea that he was hesitating to express, for he once leaned forward
a little as if he were going to speak, then turned his head aside
towards Romola and sank backward again. At last, as if he had made up
his mind, he said in a tone which might have become a prince giving the
courteous signal of dismissal—

“I am somewhat fatigued this morning, and shall prefer seeing you again
to-morrow, when I shall be able to give you the secretary’s answer,
authorising you to present yourself to him at some given time. But
before you go,”—here the old man, in spite of himself, fell into a more
faltering tone—“you will perhaps permit me to touch your hand? It is
long since I touched the hand of a young man.”

Bardo had stretched out his aged white hand, and Tito immediately
placed his dark but delicate and supple fingers within it. Bardo’s
cramped fingers closed over them, and he held them for a few minutes in
silence. Then he said—

“Romola, has this young man the same complexion as thy brother—fair and
pale?”

“No, father,” Romola answered, with determined composure, though her
heart began to beat violently with mingled emotions. “The hair of
Messere is dark—his complexion is dark.” Inwardly she said, “Will he
mind it? will it be disagreeable? No, he looks so gentle and
good-natured.” Then aloud again—

“Would Messere permit my father to touch his hair and face?”

Her eyes inevitably made a timid entreating appeal while she asked
this, and Tito’s met them with soft brightness as he said, “Assuredly,”
and, leaning forward, raised Bardo’s hand to his curls, with a
readiness of assent, which was the greater relief to her, because it
was unaccompanied by any sign of embarrassment.

Bardo passed his hand again and again over the long curls and grasped
them a little, as if their spiral resistance made his inward vision
clearer; then he passed his hand over the brow and cheek, tracing the
profile with the edge of his palm and fourth finger, and letting the
breadth of his hand repose on the rich oval of the cheek.

“Ah,” he said, as his hand glided from the face and rested on the young
man’s shoulder. “He must be very unlike thy brother, Romola: and it is
the better. You see no visions, I trust, my young friend?”

At this moment the door opened, and there entered, unannounced, a tall
elderly man in a handsome black silk lucco, who, unwinding his
becchetto from his neck and taking off his cap, disclosed a head as
white as Bardo’s. He cast a keen glance of surprise at the group before
him—the young stranger leaning in that filial attitude, while Bardo’s
hand rested on his shoulder, and Romola sitting near with eyes dilated
by anxiety and agitation. But there was an instantaneous change: Bardo
let fall his hand, Tito raised himself from his stooping posture, and
Romola rose to meet the visitor with an alacrity which implied all the
greater intimacy, because it was unaccompanied by any smile.

“Well, god-daughter,” said the stately man, as he touched Romola’s
shoulder; “Maso said you had a visitor, but I came in nevertheless.”

“It is thou, Bernardo,” said Bardo. “Thou art come at a fortunate
moment. This, young man,” he continued, while Tito rose and bowed, “is
one of the chief citizens of Florence, Messer Bernardo del Nero, my
oldest, I had almost said my only friend—whose good opinion, if you can
win it, may carry you far. He is but three-and-twenty, Bernardo, yet he
can doubtless tell thee much which thou wilt care to hear; for though a
scholar, he has already travelled far, and looked on other things
besides the manuscripts for which thou hast too light an esteem.”

“Ah, a Greek, as I augur,” said Bernardo, returning Tito’s reverence
but slightly, and surveying him with that sort of glance which seems
almost to cut like fine steel. “Newly arrived in Florence, it appears.
The name of Messere—or part of it, for it is doubtless a long one?”

“On the contrary,” said Tito, with perfect good-humour, “it is most
modestly free from polysyllabic pomp. My name is Tito Melema.”

“Truly?” said Bernardo, rather scornfully, as he took a seat; “I had
expected it to be at least as long as the names of a city, a river, a
province, and an empire all put together. We Florentines mostly use
names as we do prawns, and strip them of all flourishes before we trust
them to our throats.”

“Well, Bardo,” he continued, as if the stranger were not worth further
notice, and changing his tone of sarcastic suspicion for one of
sadness, “we have buried him.”

“Ah!” replied Bardo, with corresponding sadness, “and a new epoch has
come for Florence—a dark one, I fear. Lorenzo has left behind him an
inheritance that is but like the alchemist’s laboratory when the wisdom
of the alchemist is gone.”

“Not altogether so,” said Bernardo. “Piero de’ Medici has abundant
intelligence; his faults are only the faults of hot blood. I love the
lad—lad he will always be to me, as I have always been ‘little father’
to him.”

“Yet all who want a new order of things are likely to conceive new
hopes,” said Bardo. “We shall have the old strife of parties, I fear.”

“If we could have a new order of things that was something else than
knocking down one coat of arms to put up another,” said Bernardo, “I
should be ready to say, ‘I belong to no party: I am a Florentine.’ But
as long as parties are in question, I am a Medicean, and will be a
Medicean till I die. I am of the same mind as Farinata degli Uberti: if
any man asks me what is meant by siding with a party, I say, as he did,
‘To wish ill or well, for the sake of past wrongs or kindnesses.’”

During this short dialogue, Tito had been standing, and now took his
leave.

“But come again at the same hour to-morrow,” said Bardo, graciously,
before Tito left the room, “that I may give you Bartolommeo’s answer.”

“From what quarter of the sky has this pretty Greek youngster alighted
so close to thy chair, Bardo?” said Bernardo del Nero, as the door
closed. He spoke with dry emphasis, evidently intended to convey
something more to Bardo than was implied by the mere words.

“He is a scholar who has been shipwrecked and has saved a few gems, for
which he wants to find a purchaser. I am going to send him to
Bartolommeo Scala, for thou knowest it were more prudent in me to
abstain from further purchases.”

Bernardo shrugged his shoulders and said, “Romola, wilt thou see if my
servant is without? I ordered him to wait for me here.” Then, when
Romola was at a sufficient distance, he leaned forward and said to
Bardo in a low, emphatic tone—

“Remember, Bardo, thou hast a rare gem of thy own; take care no one
gets it who is not likely to pay a worthy price. That pretty Greek has
a lithe sleekness about him, that seems marvellously fitted for
slipping easily into any nest he fixes his mind on.”

Bardo was startled: the association of Tito with the image of his lost
son had excluded instead of suggesting the thought of Romola. But
almost immediately there seemed to be a reaction which made him grasp
the warning as if it had been a hope.

“But why not, Bernardo? If the young man approved himself worthy—he is
a scholar—and—and there would be no difficulty about the dowry, which
always makes thee gloomy.”




CHAPTER VII.
A Learned Squabble.


Bartolommeo Scala, secretary of the Florentine Republic, on whom Tito
Melema had been thus led to anchor his hopes, lived in a handsome
palace close to the Porta Pinti, now known as the Casa Gherardesca. His
arms—an azure ladder transverse on a golden field, with the motto
_Gradatim_ placed over the entrance—told all comers that the miller’s
son held his ascent to honours by his own efforts a fact to be
proclaimed without wincing. The secretary was a vain and pompous man,
but he was also an honest one: he was sincerely convinced of his own
merit, and could see no reason for feigning. The topmost round of his
azure ladder had been reached by this time: he had held his
secretaryship these twenty years—had long since made his orations on
the _ringhiera_, or platform of the Old Palace, as the custom was, in
the presence of princely visitors, while Marzocco, the republican lion,
wore his gold crown on the occasion, and all the people cried, “Viva
Messer Bartolommeo!”—had been on an embassy to Rome, and had there been
made titular Senator, Apostolical Secretary, Knight of the Golden Spur;
and had, eight years ago, been Gonfaloniere—last goal of the Florentine
citizen’s ambition. Meantime he had got richer and richer, and more and
more gouty, after the manner of successful mortality; and the Knight of
the Golden Spur had often to sit with helpless cushioned heel under the
handsome loggia he had built for himself, overlooking the spacious
gardens and lawn at the back of his palace.

He was in this position on the day when he had granted the desired
interview to Tito Melema. The May afternoon sun was on the flowers and
the grass beyond the pleasant shade of the loggia; the too stately silk
lucco was cast aside, and the light loose mantle was thrown over his
tunic; his beautiful daughter Alessandra and her husband, the Greek
soldier-poet Marullo, were seated on one side of him: on the other, two
friends not oppressively illustrious, and therefore the better
listeners. Yet, to say nothing of the gout, Messer Bartolommeo’s
felicity was far from perfect: it was embittered by the contents of
certain papers that lay before him, consisting chiefly of a
correspondence between himself and Politian. It was a human foible at
that period (incredible as it may seem) to recite quarrels, and favour
scholarly visitors with the communication of an entire and lengthy
correspondence; and this was neither the first nor the second time that
Scala had asked the candid opinion of his friends as to the balance of
right and wrong in some half-score Latin letters between himself and
Politian, all springing out of certain epigrams written in the most
playful tone in the world. It was the story of a very typical and
pretty quarrel, in which we are interested, because it supplied
precisely that thistle of hatred necessary, according to Nello, as a
stimulus to the sluggish paces of the cautious steed, Friendship.
Politian, having been a rejected pretender to the love and the hand of
Scala’s daughter, kept a very sharp and learned tooth in readiness
against the too prosperous and presumptuous secretary, who had declined
the greatest scholar of the age for a son-in-law. Scala was a
meritorious public servant, and, moreover, a lucky man—naturally
exasperating to an offended scholar; but then—O beautiful balance of
things!—he had an itch for authorship, and was a bad writer—one of
those excellent people who, sitting in gouty slippers, “penned poetical
trifles” entirely for their own amusement, without any view to an
audience, and, consequently, sent them to their friends in letters,
which were the literary periodicals of the fifteenth century. Now Scala
had abundance of friends who were ready to praise his writings: friends
like Ficino and Landino—amiable browsers in the Medicean park along
with himself—who found his Latin prose style elegant and masculine; and
the terrible Joseph Scaliger, who was to pronounce him totally ignorant
of Latinity, was at a comfortable distance in the next century. But
when was the fatal coquetry inherent in superfluous authorship ever
quite contented with the ready praise of friends? That critical
supercilious Politian—a fellow-browser, who was far from amiable—must
be made aware that the solid secretary showed, in his leisure hours, a
pleasant fertility in verses, which indicated pretty clearly how much
he might do in that way if he were not a man of affairs.

Ineffable moment! when the man you secretly hate sends you a Latin
epigram with a false gender—hendecasyllables with a questionable
elision, at least a toe too much—attempts at poetic figures which are
manifest solecisms. That moment had come to Politian: the secretary had
put forth his soft head from the official shell, and the terrible
lurking crab was down upon him. Politian had used the freedom of a
friend, and pleasantly, in the form of a Latin epigram, corrected the
mistake of Scala in making the _culex_ (an insect too well-known on the
banks of the Arno) of the inferior or feminine gender. Scala replied by
a bad joke, in suitable Latin verses, referring to Politian’s
unsuccessful suit. Better and better. Politian found the verses very
pretty and highly facetious: the more was the pity that they were
seriously incorrect, and inasmuch as Scala had alleged that he had
written them in imitation of a Greek epigram, Politian, being on such
friendly terms, would enclose a Greek epigram of his own, on the same
interesting insect—not, we may presume, out of any wish to humble
Scala, but rather to instruct him; said epigram containing a lively
conceit about Venus, Cupid, and the _culex_, of a kind much tasted at
that period, founded partly on the zoological fact that the gnat, like
Venus, was born from the waters. Scala, in reply, begged to say that
his verses were never intended for a scholar with such delicate
olfactories as Politian, nearest of all living men to the perfection of
the ancients, and of a taste so fastidious that sturgeon itself must
seem insipid to him; defended his own verses, nevertheless, though
indeed they were written hastily, without correction, and intended as
an agreeable distraction during the summer heat to himself and such
friends as were satisfied with mediocrity, he, Scala, not being like
some other people, who courted publicity through the booksellers. For
the rest, he had barely enough Greek to make out the sense of the
epigram so graciously sent him, to say nothing of tasting its
elegances; but—the epigram was Politian’s: what more need be said?
Still, by way of postscript, he feared that his incomparable friend’s
comparison of the gnat to Venus, on account of its origin from the
waters, was in many ways ticklish. On the one hand, Venus might be
offended; and on the other, unless the poet intended an allusion to the
doctrine of Thales, that cold and damp origin seemed doubtful to Scala
in the case of a creature so fond of warmth; a fish were perhaps the
better comparison, or, when the power of flying was in question, an
eagle, or indeed, when the darkness was taken into consideration, a bat
or an owl were a less obscure and more apposite parallel, etcetera,
etcetera. Here was a great opportunity for Politian. He was not aware,
he wrote, that when he had Scala’s verses placed before him, there was
any question of sturgeon, but rather of frogs and gudgeons: made short
work with Scala’s defence of his own Latin, and mangled him terribly on
the score of the stupid criticisms he had ventured on the Greek epigram
kindly forwarded to him as a model. Wretched cavils, indeed! for as to
the damp origin of the gnat, there was the authority of Virgil himself,
who had called it the “_alumnus_ of the waters;” and as to what his
dear dull friend had to say about the fish, the eagle, and the rest, it
was “nihil ad rem;” for because the eagle could fly higher, it by no
means followed that the gnat could not fly at all, etcetera, etcetera.
He was ashamed, however, to dwell on such trivialities, and thus to
swell a gnat into an elephant; but, for his own part, would only add
that he had nothing deceitful or double about him, neither was he to be
caught when present by the false blandishments of those who slandered
him in his absence, agreeing rather with a Homeric sentiment on that
head—which furnished a Greek quotation to serve as powder to his
bullet.

The quarrel could not end there. The logic could hardly get worse, but
the secretary got more pompously self-asserting, and the scholarly
poet’s temper more and more venomous. Politian had been generously
willing to hold up a mirror, by which the too-inflated secretary,
beholding his own likeness, might be induced to cease setting up his
ignorant defences of bad Latin against ancient authorities whom the
consent of centuries had placed beyond question,—unless, indeed, he had
designed to sink in literature in proportion as he rose in honours,
that by a sort of compensation men of letters might feel themselves his
equals. In return, Politian was begged to examine Scala’s writings:
nowhere would he find a more devout admiration of antiquity. The
secretary was ashamed of the age in which he lived, and blushed for it.
_Some_, indeed, there were who wanted to have their own works praised
and exalted to a level with the divine monuments of antiquity; but he,
Scala, could not oblige them. And as to the honours which were
offensive to the envious, they had been well earned: witness his whole
life since he came in penury to Florence. The elegant scholar, in
reply, was not surprised that Scala found the Age distasteful to him,
since he himself was so distasteful to the Age; nay, it was with
perfect accuracy that he, the elegant scholar, had called Scala a
branny monster, inasmuch as he was formed from the off-scourings of
monsters, born amidst the refuse of a mill, and eminently worthy the
long-eared office of turning the paternal millstones (_in pistrini
sordibus natus et quidem pistrino dignissimus_)!

It was not without reference to Tito’s appointed visit that the papers
containing this correspondence were brought out to-day. Here was a new
Greek scholar whose accomplishments were to be tested, and on nothing
did Scala more desire a dispassionate opinion from persons of superior
knowledge than on that Greek epigram of Politian’s. After sufficient
introductory talk concerning Tito’s travels, after a survey and
discussion of the gems, and an easy passage from the mention of the
lamented Lorenzo’s eagerness in collecting such specimens of ancient
art to the subject of classical tastes and studies in general and their
present condition in Florence, it was inevitable to mention Politian, a
man of eminent ability indeed, but a little too arrogant—assuming to be
a Hercules, whose office it was to destroy all the literary
monstrosities of the age, and writing letters to his elders without
signing them, as if they were miraculous revelations that could only
have one source. And after all, were not his own criticisms often
questionable and his tastes perverse? He was fond of saying pungent
things about the men who thought they wrote like Cicero because they
ended every sentence with “esse videtur:” but while he was boasting of
his freedom from servile imitation, did he not fall into the other
extreme, running after strange words and affected phrases? Even in his
much-belauded ‘Miscellanea’ was every point tenable? And Tito, who had
just been looking into the ‘Miscellanea,’ found so much to say that was
agreeable to the secretary—he would have done so from the mere
disposition to please, without further motive—that he showed himself
quite worthy to be made a judge in the notable correspondence
concerning the _culex_. Here was the Greek epigram which Politian had
doubtless thought the finest in the world, though he had pretended to
believe that the “transmarini,” the Greeks themselves, would make light
of it: had he not been unintentionally speaking the truth in his false
modesty?

Tito was ready, and scarified the epigram to Scala’s content. O wise
young judge! He could doubtless appreciate satire even in the vulgar
tongue, and Scala—who, excellent man, not seeking publicity through the
booksellers, was never unprovided with “hasty uncorrected trifles,” as
a sort of sherbet for a visitor on a hot day, or, if the weather were
cold, why then as a cordial—had a few little matters in the shape of
Sonnets, turning on well-known foibles of Politian’s, which he would
not like to go any farther, but which would, perhaps, amuse the
company.

Enough: Tito took his leave under an urgent invitation to come again.
His gems were interesting; especially the agate, with the _lusus
naturae_ in it—a most wonderful semblance of Cupid riding on the lion;
and the “Jew’s stone,” with the lion-headed serpent enchased in it;
both of which the secretary agreed to buy—the latter as a reinforcement
of his preventives against the gout, which gave him such severe twinges
that it was plain enough how intolerable it would be if he were not
well supplied with rings of rare virtue, and with an amulet worn close
under the right breast. But Tito was assured that he himself was more
interesting than his gems. He had won his way to the Scala Palace by
the recommendation of Bardo de’ Bardi, who, to be sure, was Scala’s old
acquaintance and a worthy scholar, in spite of his overvaluing himself
a little (a frequent foible in the secretary’s friends); but he must
come again on the ground of his own manifest accomplishments.

The interview could hardly have ended more auspiciously for Tito, and
as he walked out at the Porta Pinti that he might laugh a little at his
ease over the affair of the _culex_, he felt that fortune could hardly
mean to turn her back on him again at present, since she had taken him
by the hand in this decided way.




CHAPTER VIII.
A Face in the Crowd.


It is easy to northern people to rise early on Midsummer morning, to
see the dew on the grassy edge of the dusty pathway, to notice the
fresh shoots among the darker green of the oak and fir in the coppice,
and to look over the gate at the shorn meadow, without recollecting
that it is the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist.

Not so to the Florentine—still less to the Florentine of the fifteenth
century: to him on that particular morning the brightness of the
eastern sun on the Arno had something special in it; the ringing of the
bells was articulate, and declared it to be the great summer festival
of Florence, the day of San Giovanni.

San Giovanni had been the patron saint of Florence for at least eight
hundred years—ever since the time when the Lombard Queen Theodolinda
had commanded her subjects to do him peculiar honour; nay, says old
Villani, to the best of his knowledge, ever since the days of
Constantino the Great and Pope Sylvester, when the Florentines deposed
their idol Mars, whom they were nevertheless careful not to treat with
contumely; for while they consecrated their beautiful and noble temple
to the honour of God and of the “Beato Messere Santo Giovanni,” they
placed old Mars respectfully on a high tower near the River Arno,
finding in certain ancient memorials that he had been elected as their
tutelar deity under such astral influences that if he were broken, or
otherwise treated with indignity, the city would suffer great damage
and mutation. But in the fifteenth century that discreet regard to the
feelings of the Man-destroyer had long vanished: the god of the spear
and shield had ceased to frown by the side of the Arno, and the
defences of the Republic were held to lie in its craft and its coffers.
For spear and shield could be hired by gold florins, and on the gold
florins there had always been the image of San Giovanni.

Much good had come to Florence since the dim time of struggle between
the old patron and the new: some quarrelling and bloodshed, doubtless,
between Guelf and Ghibelline, between Black and White, between orthodox
sons of the Church and heretic Paterini; some floods, famine, and
pestilence; but still much wealth and glory. Florence had achieved
conquests over walled cities once mightier than itself, and especially
over hated Pisa, whose marble buildings were too high and beautiful,
whose masts were too much honoured on Greek and Italian coasts. The
name of Florence had been growing prouder and prouder in all the courts
of Europe, nay, in Africa itself, on the strength of purest gold
coinage, finest dyes and textures, pre-eminent scholarship and poetic
genius, and wits of the most serviceable sort for statesmanship and
banking: it was a name so omnipresent that a Pope with a turn for
epigram had called Florentines “the fifth element.” And for this high
destiny, though it might partly depend on the stars and Madonna dell’
Impruneta, and certainly depended on other higher Powers less often
named, the praise was greatly due to San Giovanni, whose image was on
the fair gold florins.

Therefore it was fitting that the day of San Giovanni—that ancient
Church festival already venerable in the days of Saint Augustine—should
be a day of peculiar rejoicing to Florence, and should be ushered in by
a vigil duly kept in strict old Florentine fashion, with much dancing,
with much street jesting, and perhaps with not a little stone-throwing
and window-breaking, but emphatically with certain street sights such
as could only be provided by a city which held in its service a clever
Cecca, engineer and architect, valuable alike in sieges and in shows.
By the help of Cecca, the very saints, surrounded with their
almond-shaped glory, and floating on clouds with their joyous
companionship of winged cherubs, even as they may be seen to this day
in the pictures of Perugino, seemed, on the eve of San Giovanni, to
have brought their piece of the heavens down into the narrow streets,
and to pass slowly through them; and, more wonderful still, saints of
gigantic size, with attendant angels, might be seen, not seated, but
moving in a slow mysterious manner along the streets, like a procession
of colossal figures come down from the high domes and tribunes of the
churches. The clouds were made of good woven stuff, the saints and
cherubs were unglorified mortals supported by firm bars, and those
mysterious giants were really men of very steady brain, balancing
themselves on stilts, and enlarged, like Greek tragedians, by huge
masks and stuffed shoulders; but he was a miserably unimaginative
Florentine who thought only of that—nay, somewhat impious, for in the
images of sacred things was there not some of the virtue of sacred
things themselves? And if, after that, there came a company of merry
black demons well armed with claws and thongs, and other implements of
sport, ready to perform impromptu farces of bastinadoing and
clothes-tearing, why, that was the demons’ way of keeping a vigil, and
they, too, might have descended from the domes and the tribunes. The
Tuscan mind slipped from the devout to the burlesque, as readily as
water round an angle; and the saints had already had their turn, had
gone their way, and made their due pause before the gates of San
Giovanni, to do him honour on the eve of his _festa_. And on the
morrow, the great day thus ushered in, it was fitting that the
tributary symbols paid to Florence by all its dependent cities,
districts, and villages, whether conquered, protected, or of immemorial
possession, should be offered at the shrine of San Giovanni in the old
octagonal church, once the cathedral and now the baptistery, where
every Florentine had had the sign of the Cross made with the anointing
chrism on his brow; that all the city, from the white-haired man to the
stripling, and from the matron to the lisping child, should be clothed
in its best to do honour to the great day, and see the great sight; and
that again, when the sun was sloping and the streets were cool, there
should be the glorious race or Corso, when the unsaddled horses,
clothed in rich trappings, should run right across the city, from the
Porta al Prato on the north-west, through the Mercato Vecchio, to the
Porta Santa Croce on the south-east, where the richest of _Palii_, or
velvet and brocade banners with silk linings and fringe of gold, such
as became a city that half-clothed the well-dressed world, were mounted
on a triumphal car awaiting the winner or winner’s owner.

And thereafter followed more dancing; nay, through the whole day, says
an old chronicler at the beginning of that century, there were weddings
and the grandest gatherings, with so much piping, music and song, with
balls and feasts and gladness and ornament, that this earth might have
been mistaken for Paradise!

In this year of 1492, it was, perhaps, a little less easy to make that
mistake. Lorenzo the magnificent and subtle was dead, and an arrogant,
incautious Piero was come in his room, an evil change for Florence,
unless, indeed, the wise horse prefers the bad rider, as more easily
thrown from the saddle, and already the regrets for Lorenzo were
getting less predominant over the murmured desire for government on a
broader basis, in which corruption might be arrested, and there might
be that free play for everybody’s jealousy and ambition, which made the
ideal liberty of the good old quarrelsome, struggling times, when
Florence raised her great buildings, reared her own soldiers, drove out
would-be tyrants at the sword’s point, and was proud to keep faith at
her own loss. Lorenzo was dead, Pope Innocent was dying, and a
troublesome Neapolitan succession, with an intriguing, ambitious Milan,
might set Italy by the ears before long: the times were likely to be
difficult. Still, there was all the more reason that the Republic
should keep its religious festivals.

And Midsummer morning, in this year 1492, was not less bright than
usual. It was betimes in the morning that the symbolic offerings to be
carried in grand procession were all assembled at their starting-point
in the Piazza della Signoria—that famous piazza, where stood then, and
stand now, the massive turreted Palace of the People, called the
Palazzo Vecchio, and the spacious Loggia, built by Orcagna—the scene of
all grand State ceremonial. The sky made the fairest blue tent, and
under it the bells swung so vigorously that every evil spirit with
sense enough to be formidable, must long since have taken his flight;
windows and terraced roofs were alive with human faces; sombre stone
houses were bright with hanging draperies; the boldly soaring palace
tower, the yet older square tower of the Bargello, and the spire of the
neighbouring Badia, seemed to keep watch above; and below, on the broad
polygonal flags of the piazza, was the glorious show of banners, and
horses with rich trappings, and gigantic _ceri_, or tapers, that were
fitly called towers—strangely aggrandised descendants of those torches
by whose faint light the Church worshipped in the Catacombs. Betimes in
the morning all processions had need to move under the Midsummer sky of
Florence, where the shelter of the narrow streets must every now and
then be exchanged for the glare of wide spaces; and the sun would be
high up in the heavens before the long pomp had ended its pilgrimage in
the Piazza di San Giovanni.

But here, where the procession was to pause, the magnificent city, with
its ingenious Cecca, had provided another tent than the sky; for the
whole of the Piazza del Duomo, from the octagonal baptistery in the
centre to the façade of the cathedral and the walls of the houses on
the other sides of the quadrangle, was covered, at the height of forty
feet or more, with blue drapery, adorned with well-stitched yellow
lilies and the familiar coats of arms, while sheaves of many-coloured
banners drooped at fit angles under this superincumbent blue—a gorgeous
rainbow-lit shelter to the waiting spectators who leaned from the
windows, and made a narrow border on the pavement, and wished for the
coming of the show.

One of these spectators was Tito Melema. Bright, in the midst of
brightness, he sat at the window of the room above Nello’s shop, his
right elbow resting on the red drapery hanging from the window-sill,
and his head supported in a backward position by the right-hand, which
pressed the curls against his ear. His face wore that bland liveliness,
as far removed from excitability as from heaviness or gloom, which
marks the companion popular alike amongst men and women—the companion
who is never obtrusive or noisy from uneasy vanity or excessive animal
spirits, and whose brow is never contracted by resentment or
indignation. He showed no other change from the two months and more
that had passed since his first appearance in the weather-stained tunic
and hose, than that added radiance of good fortune, which is like the
just perceptible perfecting of a flower after it has drunk a morning’s
sunbeams. Close behind him, ensconced in the narrow angle between his
chair and the window-frame, stood the slim figure of Nello in holiday
suit, and at his left the younger Cennini—Pietro, the erudite corrector
of proof-sheets, not Domenico the practical. Tito was looking
alternately down on the scene below, and upward at the varied knot of
gazers and talkers immediately around him, some of whom had come in
after witnessing the commencement of the procession in the Piazza della
Signoria. Piero di Cosimo was raising a laugh among them by his
grimaces and anathemas at the noise of the bells, against which no kind
of ear-stuffing was a sufficient barricade, since the more he stuffed
his ears the more he felt the vibration of his skull; and declaring
that he would bury himself in the most solitary spot of the Valdarno on
a _festa_, if he were not condemned, as a painter, to lie in wait for
the secrets of colour that were sometimes to be caught from the
floating of banners and the chance grouping of the multitude.

Tito had just turned his laughing face away from the whimsical painter
to look down at the small drama going on among the checkered border of
spectators, when at the angle of the marble steps in front of the
Duomo, nearly opposite Nello’s shop, he saw a man’s face upturned
towards him, and fixing on him a gaze that seemed to have more meaning
in it than the ordinary passing observation of a stranger. It was a
face with tonsured head, that rose above the black mantle and white
tunic of a Dominican friar—a very common sight in Florence; but the
glance had something peculiar in it for Tito. There was a faint
suggestion in it, certainly not of an unpleasant kind. Yet what
pleasant association had he ever had with monks? None. The glance and
the suggestion hardly took longer than a flash of lightning.

“Nello!” said Tito, hastily, but immediately added, in a tone of
disappointment, “Ah, he has turned round. It was that tall, thin friar
who is going up the steps. I wanted you to tell me if you knew aught of
him?”

“One of the Frati Predicatori,” said Nello, carelessly; “you don’t
expect me to know the private history of the crows.”

“I seem to remember something about his face,” said Tito. “It is an
uncommon face.”

“What? you thought it might be our Fra Girolamo? Too tall; and he never
shows himself in that chance way.”

“Besides, that loud-barking ‘hound of the Lord’[1] is not in Florence
just now,” said Francesco Cei, the popular poet; “he has taken Piero
de’ Medici’s hint, to carry his railing prophecies on a journey for a
while.”

 [1] A play on the name of the Dominicans (_Domini Canes_) which was
 accepted by themselves, and which is pictorially represented in a
 fresco painted for them by Simone Memmi.


“The Frate neither rails nor prophesies against any man,” said a
middle-aged personage seated at the other corner of the window; “he
only prophesies against vice. If you think that an attack on your
poems, Francesco, it is not the Frate’s fault.”

“Ah, he’s gone into the Duomo now,” said Tito, who had watched the
figure eagerly. “No, I was not under that mistake, Nello. Your Fra
Girolamo has a high nose and a large under-lip. I saw him once—he is
not handsome; but this man...”

“Truce to your descriptions!” said Cennini. “Hark! see! Here come the
horsemen and the banners. That standard,” he continued, laying his hand
familiarly on Tito’s shoulder,—“that carried on the horse with white
trappings—that with the red eagle holding the green dragon between his
talons, and the red lily over the eagle—is the Gonfalon of the Guelf
party, and those cavaliers close round it are the chief officers of the
Guelf party. That is one of our proudest banners, grumble as we may; it
means the triumph of the Guelfs, which means the triumph of Florentine
will, which means triumph of the popolani.”

“Nay, go on, Cennini,” said the middle-aged man, seated at the window,
“which means triumph of the fat popolani over the lean, which again
means triumph of the fattest popolano over those who are less fat.”

“Cronaca, you are becoming sententious,” said the printer; “Fra
Girolamo’s preaching will spoil you, and make you take life by the
wrong handle. Trust me, your cornices will lose half their beauty if
you begin to mingle bitterness with them; that is the _maniera Tedesca_
which you used to declaim against when you came from Rome. The next
palace you build we shall see you trying to put the Frate’s doctrine
into stone.”

“That is a goodly show of cavaliers,” said Tito, who had learned by
this time the best way to please Florentines; “but are there not
strangers among them? I see foreign costumes.”

“Assuredly,” said Cennini; “you see there the Orators from France,
Milan, and Venice, and behind them are English and German nobles; for
it is customary that all foreign visitors of distinction pay their
tribute to San Giovanni in the train of that gonfalon. For my part, I
think our Florentine cavaliers sit their horses as well as any of those
cut-and-thrust northerners, whose wits lie in their heels and saddles;
and for yon Venetian, I fancy he would feel himself more at ease on the
back of a dolphin. We ought to know something of horsemanship, for we
excel all Italy in the sports of the Giostra, and the money we spend on
them. But you will see a finer show of our chief men by-and-by, Melema;
my brother himself will be among the officers of the Zecca.”

“The banners are the better sight,” said Piero di Cosimo, forgetting
the noise in his delight at the winding stream of colour as the
tributary standards advanced round the piazza. “The Florentine men are
so-so; they make but a sorry show at this distance with their patch of
sallow flesh-tint above the black garments; but those banners with
their velvet, and satin, and minever, and brocade, and their endless
play of delicate light and shadow!—_Va_! your human talk and doings are
a tame jest; the only passionate life is in form and colour.”

“Ay, Piero, if Satanasso could paint, thou wouldst sell thy soul to
learn his secrets,” said Nello. “But there is little likelihood of it,
seeing the blessed angels themselves are such poor hands at
chiaroscuro, if one may judge from their _capo-d’opera_, the Madonna
Nunziata.”

“There go the banners of Pisa and Arezzo,” said Cennini. “Ay, Messer
Pisano, it is no use for you to look sullen; you may as well carry your
banner to our San Giovanni with a good grace. ‘Pisans false,
Florentines blind’—the second half of that proverb will hold no longer.
There come the ensigns of our subject towns and signories, Melema; they
will all be suspended in San Giovanni until this day next year, when
they will give place to new ones.”

“They are a fair sight,” said Tito; “and San Giovanni will surely be as
well satisfied with that produce of Italian looms as Minerva with her
peplos, especially as he contents himself with so little drapery. But
my eyes are less delighted with those whirling towers, which would soon
make me fall from the window in sympathetic vertigo.”

The “towers” of which Tito spoke were a part of the procession esteemed
very glorious by the Florentine populace; and being perhaps chiefly a
kind of hyperbole for the all-efficacious wax taper, were also called
_ceri_. But inasmuch as hyperbole is impracticable in a real and
literal fashion, these gigantic _ceri_, some of them so large as to be
of necessity carried on wheels, were not solid but hollow, and had
their surface made not solely of wax, but of wood and pasteboard,
gilded, carved, and painted, as real sacred tapers often are, with
successive circles of figures—warriors on horseback, foot-soldiers with
lance and shield, dancing maidens, animals, trees and fruits, and in
fine, says the old chronicler, “all things that could delight the eye
and the heart;” the hollowness having the further advantage that men
could stand inside these hyperbolic tapers and whirl them continually,
so as to produce a phantasmagoric effect, which, considering the towers
were numerous, must have been calculated to produce dizziness on a
truly magnificent scale.

“_Pestilenza_!” said Piero di Cosimo, moving from the window, “those
whirling circles one above the other are worse than the jangling of all
the bells. Let me know when the last taper has passed.”

“Nay, you will surely like to be called when the contadini come
carrying their torches,” said Nello; “you would not miss the
country-folk of the Mugello and the Casentino, of whom your favourite
Leonardo would make a hundred grotesque sketches.”

“No,” said Piero, resolutely, “I will see nothing till the car of the
Zecca comes. I have seen clowns enough holding tapers aslant, both with
and without cowls, to last me for my life.”

“Here it comes, then, Piero—the car of the Zecca,” called out Nello,
after an interval during which towers and tapers in a descending scale
of size had been making their slow transit.

“_Fediddio_!” exclaimed Francesco Cei, “that is a well-tanned San
Giovanni! some sturdy Romagnole beggar-man, I’ll warrant. Our Signoria
plays the host to all the Jewish and Christian scum that every other
city shuts its gates against, and lets them fatten on us like Saint
Anthony’s swine.”

The car of the Zecca or Mint, which had just rolled into sight, was
originally an immense wooden tower or _cero_ adorned after the same
fashion as the other tributary _ceri_, mounted on a splendid car, and
drawn by two mouse-coloured oxen, whose mild heads looked out from rich
trappings bearing the arms of the Zecca. But the latter half of the
century was getting rather ashamed of the towers with their circular or
spiral paintings, which had delighted the eyes and the hearts of the
other half, so that they had become a contemptuous proverb, and any
ill-painted figure looking, as will sometimes happen to figures in the
best ages of art, as if it had been boned for a pie, was called a
_fantoccio da cero_, a tower-puppet; consequently improved taste, with
Cecca to help it, had devised for the magnificent Zecca a triumphal car
like a pyramidal catafalque, with ingenious wheels warranted to turn
all corners easily. Round the base were living figures of saints and
angels arrayed in sculpturesque fashion; and on the summit, at the
height of thirty feet, well bound to an iron rod and holding an iron
cross also firmly infixed, stood a living representative of Saint John
the Baptist, with arms and legs bare, a garment of tiger-skins about
his body, and a golden nimbus fastened on his head—as the Precursor was
wont to appear in the cloisters and churches, not having yet revealed
himself to painters as the brown and sturdy boy who made one of the
Holy Family. For where could the image of the patron saint be more
fitly placed than on the symbol of the Zecca? Was not the royal
prerogative of coining money the surest token that a city had won its
independence? and by the blessing of San Giovanni this “beautiful
sheepfold” of his had shown that token earliest among the Italian
cities. Nevertheless, the annual function of representing the patron
saint was not among the high prizes of public life; it was paid for
with something like ten shillings, a cake weighing fourteen pounds, two
bottles of wine, and a handsome supply of light eatables; the money
being furnished by the magnificent Zecca, and the payment in kind being
by peculiar “privilege” presented in a basket suspended on a pole from
an upper window of a private house, whereupon the eidolon of the
austere saint at once invigorated himself with a reasonable share of
the sweets and wine, threw the remnants to the crowd, and embraced the
mighty cake securely with his right arm through the remainder of his
passage. This was the attitude in which the mimic San Giovanni
presented himself as the tall car jerked and vibrated on its slow way
round the piazza to the northern gate of the Baptistery.

“There go the Masters of the Zecca, and there is my brother—you see
him, Melema?” cried Cennini, with an agreeable stirring of pride at
showing a stranger what was too familiar to be remarkable to
fellow-citizens. “Behind come the members of the Corporation of
Calimara,[2] the dealers in foreign cloth, to which we have given our
Florentine finish; men of ripe years, you see, who were matriculated
before you were born; and then comes the famous Art of Money-changers.”

 [2] “Arte di Calimara,” “arte” being, in this use of it, equivalent to
 corporation.


“Many of them matriculated also to the noble art of usury before you
were born,” interrupted Francesco Cei, “as you may discern by a certain
fitful glare of the eye and sharp curve of the nose which manifest
their descent from the ancient Harpies, whose portraits you saw
supporting the arms of the Zecca. Shaking off old prejudices now, such
a procession as that of some four hundred passably ugly men carrying
their tapers in open daylight, Diogenes-fashion, as if they were
looking for a lost quattrino, would make a merry spectacle for the
Feast of Fools.”

“Blaspheme not against the usages of our city,” said Pietro Cennini,
much offended. “There are new wits who think they see things more truly
because they stand on their heads to look at them, like tumblers and
mountebanks, instead of keeping the attitude of rational men. Doubtless
it makes little difference to Maestro Vaiano’s monkeys whether they see
our Donatello’s statue of Judith with their heads or their tails
uppermost.”

“Your solemnity will allow some quarter to playful fancy, I hope,” said
Cei, with a shrug, “else what becomes of the ancients, whose example
you scholars are bound to revere, Messer Pietro? Life was never
anything but a perpetual see-saw between gravity and jest.”

“Keep your jest then till your end of the pole is uppermost,” said
Cennini, still angry, “and that is not when the great bond of our
Republic is expressing itself in ancient symbols, without which the
vulgar would be conscious of nothing beyond their own petty wants of
back and stomach, and never rise to the sense of community in religion
and law. There has been no great people without processions, and the
man who thinks himself too wise to be moved by them to anything but
contempt, is like the puddle that was proud of standing alone while the
river rushed by.”

No one said anything after this indignant burst of Cennini’s till he
himself spoke again.

“Hark! the trumpets of the Signoria: now comes the last stage of the
show, Melema. That is our Gonfaloniere in the middle, in the starred
mantle, with the sword carried before him. Twenty years ago we used to
see our foreign Podesta, who was our judge in civil causes, walking on
his right-hand; but our Republic has been over-doctored by clever
_Medici_. That is the Proposto (Spokesman or Moderator) of the Priori
on the left; then come the other seven Priori; then all the other
magistracies and officials of our Republic. You see your patron the
Segretario?”

“There is Messer Bernardo del Nero also,” said Tito; “his visage is a
fine and venerable one, though it has worn rather a petrifying look
towards me.”

“Ah,” said Nello, “he is the dragon that guards the remnant of old
Bardo’s gold, which, I fancy, is chiefly that virgin gold that falls
about the fair Romola’s head and shoulders; eh, my Apollino?” he added,
patting Tito’s head.

Tito had the youthful grace of blushing, but he had also the adroit and
ready speech that prevents a blush from looking like embarrassment. He
replied at once—

“And a very Pactolus it is—a stream with golden ripples. If I were an
alchemist—”

He was saved from the need for further speech by the sudden fortissimo
of drums and trumpets and fifes, bursting into the breadth of the
piazza in a grand storm of sound—a roar, a blast, and a whistling, well
befitting a city famous for its musical instruments, and reducing the
members of the closest group to a state of deaf isolation.

During this interval Nello observed Tito’s fingers moving in
recognition of some one in the crowd below, but not seeing the
direction of his glance he failed to detect the object of this
greeting—the sweet round blue-eyed face under a white hood—immediately
lost in the narrow border of heads, where there was a continual eclipse
of round contadina cheeks by the harsh-lined features or bent shoulders
of an old spadesman, and where profiles turned as sharply from north to
south as weathercocks under a shifting wind.

But when it was felt that the show was ended—when the twelve prisoners
released in honour of the day, and the very _barberi_ or race-horses,
with the arms of their owners embroidered on their cloths, had followed
up the Signoria, and been duly consecrated to San Giovanni, and every
one was moving from the window—Nello, whose Florentine curiosity was of
that lively canine sort which thinks no trifle too despicable for
investigation, put his hand on Tito’s shoulder and said—

“What acquaintance was that you were making signals to, eh, _giovane
mio_?”

“Some little contadina who probably mistook me for an acquaintance, for
she had honoured me with a greeting.”

“Or who wished to begin an acquaintance,” said Nello. “But you are
bound for the Via de’ Bardi and the feast of the Muses: there is no
counting on you for a frolic, else we might have gone in search of
adventures together in the crowd, and had some pleasant fooling in
honour of San Giovanni. But your high fortune has come on you too soon:
I don’t mean the professor’s mantle—_that_ is roomy enough to hide a
few stolen chickens, but— Messer Endymion minded his manners after that
singular good fortune of his; and what says our Luigi Pulci?


“‘Da quel giorno in qua ch’amor m’accese
Per lei son fatto e gentile e cortese.’”


“Nello, _amico mio_, thou hast an intolerable trick of making life
stale by forestalling it with thy talk,” said Tito, shrugging his
shoulders, with a look of patient resignation, which was his nearest
approach to anger: “not to mention that such ill-founded babbling would
be held a great offence by that same goddess whose humble worshipper
you are always professing yourself.”

“I will be mute,” said Nello, laying his finger on his lips, with a
responding shrug. “But it is only under our four eyes that I talk any
folly about her.”

“Pardon! you were on the verge of it just now in the hearing of others.
If you want to ruin me in the minds of Bardo and his daughter—”

“Enough, enough!” said Nello. “I am an absurd old barber. It all comes
from that abstinence of mine, in not making bad verses in my youth: for
want of letting my folly run out that way when I was eighteen, it runs
out at my tongue’s end now I am at the unseemly age of fifty. But Nello
has not got his head muffled for all that; he can see a buffalo in the
snow. _Addio, giovane mio_.”




CHAPTER IX.
A Man’s Ransom.


Tito was soon down among the crowd, and, notwithstanding his
indifferent reply to Nello’s question about his chance acquaintance, he
was not without a passing wish, as he made his way round the piazza to
the Corso degli Adimari, that he might encounter the pair of blue eyes
which had looked up towards him from under the square bit of white
linen drapery that formed the ordinary hood of the contadina at festa
time. He was perfectly well aware that that face was Tessa’s; but he
had not chosen to say so. What had Nello to do with the matter? Tito
had an innate love of reticence—let us say a talent for it—which acted
as other impulses do, without any conscious motive, and, like all
people to whom concealment is easy, he would now and then conceal
something which had as little the nature of a secret as the fact that
he had seen a flight of crows.

But the passing wish about pretty Tessa was almost immediately eclipsed
by the recurrent recollection of that friar whose face had some
irrecoverable association for him. Why should a sickly fanatic, worn
with fasting, have looked at _him_ in particular, and where in all his
travels could he remember encountering that face before? Folly! such
vague memories hang about the mind like cobwebs, with tickling
importunity—best to sweep them away at a dash: and Tito had pleasanter
occupation for his thoughts. By the time he was turning out of the
Corso degli Adimari into a side-street he was caring only that the sun
was high, and that the procession had kept him longer than he had
intended from his visit to that room in the Via de’ Bardi, where his
coming, he knew, was anxiously awaited. He felt the scene of his
entrance beforehand: the joy beaming diffusedly in the blind face like
the light in a semi-transparent lamp; the transient pink flush on
Romola’s face and neck, which subtracted nothing from her majesty, but
only gave it the exquisite charm of womanly sensitiveness, heightened
still more by what seemed the paradoxical boy-like frankness of her
look and smile. They were the best comrades in the world during the
hours they passed together round the blind man’s chair: she was
constantly appealing to Tito, and he was informing her, yet he felt
himself strangely in subjection to Romola with that simplicity of hers:
he felt for the first time, without defining it to himself, that loving
awe in the presence of noble womanhood, which is perhaps something like
the worship paid of old to a great nature-goddess, who was not
all-knowing, but whose life and power were something deeper and more
primordial than knowledge. They had never been alone together, and he
could frame to himself no probable image of love-scenes between them:
he could only fancy and wish wildly—what he knew was impossible—that
Romola would some day tell him that she loved him. One day in Greece,
as he was leaning over a wall in the sunshine, a little black-eyed
peasant girl, who had rested her water-pot on the wall, crept gradually
nearer and nearer to him, and at last shyly asked him to kiss her,
putting up her round olive cheek very innocently. Tito was used to love
that came in this unsought fashion. But Romola’s love would never come
in that way: would it ever come at all?—and yet it was that topmost
apple on which he had set his mind. He was in his fresh youth—not
passionate, but impressible: it was as inevitable that he should feel
lovingly towards Romola as that the white irises should be reflected in
the clear sunlit stream; but he had no coxcombry, and he had an
intimate sense that Romola was something very much above him. Many men
have felt the same before a large-eyed, simple child.

Nevertheless, Tito had had the rapid success which would have made some
men presuming, or would have warranted him in thinking that there would
be no great presumption in entertaining an agreeable confidence that he
might one day be the husband of Romola—nay, that her father himself was
not without a vision of such a future for him. His first auspicious
interview with Bartolommeo Scala had proved the commencement of a
growing favour on the secretary’s part, and had led to an issue which
would have been enough to make Tito decide on Florence as the place in
which to establish himself, even if it had held no other magnet.
Politian was professor of Greek as well as Latin at Florence,
professorial chairs being maintained there, although the university had
been removed to Pisa; but for a long time Demetrio Calcondila, one of
the most eminent and respectable among the emigrant Greeks, had also
held a Greek chair, simultaneously with the too predominant Italian.
Calcondila was now gone to Milan, and there was no counterpoise or
rival to Politian such as was desired for him by the friends who wished
him to be taught a little propriety and humility. Scala was far from
being the only friend of this class, and he found several who, if they
were not among those thirsty admirers of mediocrity that were glad to
be refreshed with his verses in hot weather, were yet quite willing to
join him in doing that moral service to Politian. It was finally agreed
that Tito should be supported in a Greek chair, as Demetrio Calcondila
had been by Lorenzo himself, who, being at the same time the
affectionate patron of Politian, had shown by precedent that there was
nothing invidious in such a measure, but only a zeal for true learning
and for the instruction of the Florentine youth.

Tito was thus sailing under the fairest breeze, and besides convincing
fair judges that his talents squared with his good fortune, he wore
that fortune so easily and unpretentiously that no one had yet been
offended by it. He was not unlikely to get into the best Florentine
society: society where there was much more plate than the circle of
enamelled silver in the centre of the brass dishes, and where it was
not forbidden by the Signory to wear the richest brocade. For where
could a handsome young scholar not be welcome when he could touch the
lute and troll a gay song? That bright face, that easy smile, that
liquid voice, seemed to give life a holiday aspect; just as a strain of
gay music and the hoisting of colours make the work-worn and the sad
rather ashamed of showing themselves. Here was a professor likely to
render the Greek classics amiable to the sons of great houses.

And that was not the whole of Tito’s good fortune; for he had sold all
his jewels, except the ring he did not choose to part with, and he was
master of full five hundred gold florins.

Yet the moment when he first had this sum in his possession was the
crisis of the first serious struggle his facile, good-humoured nature
had known. An importunate thought, of which he had till now refused to
see more than the shadow as it dogged his footsteps, at last rushed
upon him and grasped him: he was obliged to pause and decide whether he
would surrender and obey, or whether he would give the refusal that
must carry irrevocable consequences. It was in the room above Nello’s
shop, which Tito had now hired as a lodging, that the elder Cennini
handed him the last quota of the sum on behalf of Bernardo Rucellai,
the purchaser of the two most valuable gems.

“_Ecco, giovane mio_!” said the respectable printer and goldsmith, “you
have now a pretty little fortune; and if you will take my advice, you
will let me place your florins in a safe quarter, where they may
increase and multiply, instead of slipping through your fingers for
banquets and other follies which are rife among our Florentine youth.
And it has been too much the fashion of scholars, especially when, like
our Pietro Crinito, they think their scholarship needs to be scented
and broidered, to squander with one hand till they have been fain to
beg with the other. I have brought you the money, and you are free to
make a wise choice or an unwise: I shall see on which side the balance
dips. We Florentines hold no man a member of an Art till he has shown
his skill and been matriculated; and no man is matriculated to the art
of life till he has been well tempted. If you make up your mind to put
your florins out to usury, you can let me know to-morrow. A scholar may
marry, and should have something in readiness for the _morgen-cap.
Addio_.”[1]

 [1] A sum given by the bridegroom to the bride the day after the
 marriage. _Morgengabe_.


As Cennini closed the door behind him, Tito turned round with the smile
dying out of his face, and fixed his eyes on the table where the
florins lay. He made no other movement, but stood with his thumbs in
his belt, looking down, in that transfixed state which accompanies the
concentration of consciousness on some inward image.

“A man’s ransom!”—who was it that had said five hundred florins was
more than a man’s ransom? If now, under this mid-day sun, on some hot
coast far away, a man somewhat stricken in years—a man not without high
thoughts and with the most passionate heart—a man who long years ago
had rescued a little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel
wrong, had reared him tenderly, and been to him as a father—if that man
_were_ now under this summer sun toiling as a slave, hewing wood and
drawing water, perhaps being smitten and buffeted because he was not
deft and active? If he were saying to himself, “Tito will find me: he
had but to carry our manuscripts and gems to Venice; he will have
raised money, and will never rest till he finds me out”? If that were
certain, could he, Tito, see the price of the gems lying before him,
and say, “I will stay at Florence, where I am fanned by soft airs of
promised love and prosperity; I will not risk myself for his sake”? No,
surely not, _if it were certain_. But nothing could be farther from
certainty. The galley had been taken by a Turkish vessel on its way to
Delos: _that_ was known by the report of the companion galley, which
had escaped. But there had been resistance, and probable bloodshed; a
man had been seen falling overboard: who were the survivors, and what
had befallen them amongst all the multitude of possibilities? Had not
he, Tito, suffered shipwreck, and narrowly escaped drowning? He had
good cause for feeling the omnipresence of casualties that threatened
all projects with futility. The rumour that there were pirates who had
a settlement in Delos was not to be depended on, or might be nothing to
the purpose. What, probably enough, would be the result if he were to
quit Florence and go to Venice; get authoritative letters—yes, he knew
that might be done—and set out for the Archipelago? Why, that he should
be himself seized, and spend all his florins on preliminaries, and be
again a destitute wanderer—with no more gems to sell.

Tito had a clearer vision of that result than of the possible moment
when he might find his father again, and carry him deliverance. It
would surely be an unfairness that he, in his full ripe youth, to whom
life had hitherto had some of the stint and subjection of a school,
should turn his back on promised love and distinction, and perhaps
never be visited by that promise again. “And yet,” he said to himself,
“if I were certain that Baldassarre Calvo was alive, and that I could
free him, by whatever exertions or perils, I would go now—now I have
the money: it was useless to debate the matter before. I would go now
to Bardo and Bartolommeo Scala, and tell them the whole truth.” Tito
did not say to himself so distinctly that if those two men had known
the whole truth he was aware there would have been no alternative for
him but to go in search of his benefactor, who, if alive, was the
rightful owner of the gems, and whom he had always equivocally spoken
of as “lost;” he did not say to himself—what he was not ignorant
of—that Greeks of distinction had made sacrifices, taken voyages again
and again, and sought help from crowned and mitred heads for the sake
of freeing relatives from slavery to the Turks. Public opinion did not
regard this as exceptional virtue.

This was his first real colloquy with himself: he had gone on following
the impulses of the moment, and one of those impulses had been to
conceal half the fact; he had never considered this part of his conduct
long enough to face the consciousness of his motives for the
concealment. What was the use of telling the whole? It was true, the
thought had crossed his mind several times since he had quitted Nauplia
that, after all, it was a great relief to be quit of Baldassarre, and
he would have liked to know _who_ it was that had fallen overboard. But
such thoughts spring inevitably out of a relation that is irksome.
Baldassarre was exacting, and had got stranger as he got older: he was
constantly scrutinising Tito’s mind to see whether it answered to his
own exaggerated expectations; and age—the age of a thickset,
heavy-browed, bald man beyond sixty, whose intensity and eagerness in
the grasp of ideas have long taken the character of monotony and
repetition, may be looked at from many points of view without being
found attractive. Such a man, stranded among new acquaintances, unless
he had the philosopher’s stone, would hardly find rank, youth, and
beauty at his feet. The feelings that gather fervour from novelty will
be of little help towards making the world a home for dimmed and faded
human beings; and if there is any love of which they are not widowed,
it must be the love that is rooted in memories and distils perpetually
the sweet balms of fidelity and forbearing tenderness.

But surely such memories were not absent from Tito’s mind? Far in the
backward vista of his remembered life, when he was only seven years
old, Baldassarre had rescued him from blows, had taken him to a home
that seemed like opened paradise, where there was sweet food and
soothing caresses, all had on Baldassarre’s knee; and from that time
till the hour they had parted, Tito had been the one centre of
Baldassarre’s fatherly cares.

And he had been docile, pliable, quick of apprehension, ready to
acquire: a very bright lovely boy, a youth of even splendid grace, who
seemed quite without vices, as if that beautiful form represented a
vitality so exquisitely poised and balanced that it could know no
uneasy desires, no unrest—a radiant presence for a lonely man to have
won for himself. If he were silent when his father expected some
response, still he did not look moody; if he declined some labour—why,
he flung himself down with such a charming, half-smiling, half-pleading
air, that the pleasure of looking at him made amends to one who had
watched his growth with a sense of claim and possession: the curves of
Tito’s mouth had ineffable good-humour in them. And then, the quick
talent to which everything came readily, from philosophical systems to
the rhymes of a street ballad caught up at a hearing! Would any one
have said that Tito had not made a rich return to his benefactor, or
that his gratitude and affection would fail on any great demand?

He did not admit that his gratitude had failed; but _it was not
certain_ that Baldassarre was in slavery, not certain that he was
living.

“Do I not owe something to myself?” said Tito, inwardly, with a slight
movement of his shoulders, the first he had made since he had turned to
look down at the florins. “Before I quit everything, and incur again
all the risks of which I am even now weary, I must at least have a
reasonable hope. Am I to spend my life in a wandering search? _I
believe he is dead_. Cennini was right about my florins: I will place
them in his hands to-morrow.”

When, the next morning, Tito put this determination into act he had
chosen his colour in the game, and had given an inevitable bent to his
wishes. He had made it impossible that he should not from henceforth
desire it to be the truth that his father was dead; impossible that he
should not be tempted to baseness rather than that the precise facts of
his conduct should not remain for ever concealed.

Under every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of guilty wishes,
whose unwholesome infecting life is cherished by the darkness. The
contaminating effect of deeds often lies less in the commission than in
the consequent adjustment of our desires—the enlistment of our
self-interest on the side of falsity; as, on the other hand, the
purifying influence of public confession springs from the fact, that by
it the hope in lies is for ever swept away, and the soul recovers the
noble attitude of simplicity.

Besides, in this first distinct colloquy with himself the ideas which
had previously been scattered and interrupted had now concentrated
themselves; the little rills of selfishness had united and made a
channel, so that they could never again meet with the same resistance.
Hitherto Tito had left in vague indecision the question whether, with
the means in his power, he would not return, and ascertain his father’s
fate; he had now made a definite excuse to himself for not taking that
course; he had avowed to himself a choice which he would have been
ashamed to avow to others, and which would have made him ashamed in the
resurgent presence of his father. But the inward shame, the reflex of
that outward law which the great heart of mankind makes for every
individual man, a reflex which will exist even in the absence of the
sympathetic impulses that need no law, but rush to the deed of fidelity
and pity as inevitably as the brute mother shields her young from the
attack of the hereditary enemy—that inward shame was showing its
blushes in Tito’s determined assertion to himself that his father was
dead, or that at least search was hopeless.




CHAPTER X.
Under the Plane-Tree.


On the day of San Giovanni it was already three weeks ago that Tito had
handed his florins to Cennini, and we have seen that as he set out
towards the Via de’ Bardi he showed all the outward signs of a mind at
ease. How should it be otherwise? He never jarred with what was
immediately around him, and his nature was too joyous, too
unapprehensive, for the hidden and the distant to grasp him in the
shape of a dread. As he turned out of the hot sunshine into the shelter
of a narrow street, took off the black cloth berretta, or simple cap
with upturned lappet, which just crowned his brown curls, pushing his
hair and tossing his head backward to court the cooler air, there was
no brand of duplicity on his brow; neither was there any stamp of
candour: it was simply a finely-formed, square, smooth young brow. And
the slow absent glance he cast around at the upper windows of the
houses had neither more dissimulation in it, nor more ingenuousness,
than belongs to a youthful well-opened eyelid with its unwearied
breadth of gaze; to perfectly pellucid lenses; to the undimmed dark of
a rich brown iris; and to a pure cerulean-tinted angle of whiteness
streaked with the delicate shadows of long eyelashes. Was it that
Tito’s face attracted or repelled according to the mental attitude of
the observer? Was it a cypher with more than one key? The strong,
unmistakable expression in his whole air and person was a negative one,
and it was perfectly veracious; it declared the absence of any uneasy
claim, any restless vanity, and it made the admiration that followed
him as he passed among the troop of holiday-makers a thoroughly willing
tribute.

For by this time the stir of the Festa was felt even in the narrowest
side-streets; the throng which had at one time been concentrated in the
lines through which the procession had to pass, was now streaming out
in all directions in pursuit of a new object. Such intervals of a Festa
are precisely the moments when the vaguely active animal spirits of a
crowd are likely to be the most petulant and most ready to sacrifice a
stray individual to the greater happiness of the greater number. As
Tito entered the neighbourhood of San Martino, he found the throng
rather denser; and near the hostelry of the _Bertucce_, or Baboons,
there was evidently some object which was arresting the passengers and
forming them into a knot. It needed nothing of great interest to draw
aside passengers unfreighted with a purpose, and Tito was preparing to
turn aside into an adjoining street, when, amidst the loud laughter,
his ear discerned a distressed childish voice crying, “Loose me! Holy
Virgin, help me!” which at once determined him to push his way into the
knot of gazers. He had just had time to perceive that the distressed
voice came from a young contadina, whose white hood had fallen off in
the struggle to get her hands free from the grasp of a man in the
parti-coloured dress of a _cerretano_, or conjuror, who was making
laughing attempts to soothe and cajole her, evidently carrying with him
the amused sympathy of the spectators. These, by a persuasive variety
of words signifying simpleton, for which the Florentine dialect is rich
in equivalents, seemed to be arguing with the contadina against her
obstinacy. At the first moment the girl’s face was turned away, and he
saw only her light-brown hair plaited and fastened with a long silver
pin; but in the next, the struggle brought her face opposite Tito’s,
and he saw the baby features of Tessa, her blue eyes filled with tears,
and her under-lip quivering. Tessa, too, saw _him_, and through the
mist of her swelling tears there beamed a sudden hope, like that in the
face of a little child, when, held by a stranger against its will, it
sees a familiar hand stretched out.

In an instant Tito had pushed his way through the barrier of
bystanders, whose curiosity made them ready to turn aside at the sudden
interference of this handsome young signor, had grasped Tessa’s waist,
and had said, “Loose this child! What right have you to hold her
against her will?”

The conjuror—a man with one of those faces in which the angles of the
eyes and eyebrows, of the nostrils, mouth, and sharply-defined jaw, all
tend upward—showed his small regular teeth in an impish but not
ill-natured grin, as he let go Tessa’s hands, and stretched out his own
backward, shrugging his shoulders, and bending them forward a little in
a half-apologetic, half-protesting manner.

“I mean the ragazza no evil in the world, Messere: ask this respectable
company. I was only going to show them a few samples of my skill, in
which this little damsel might have helped me the better because of her
kitten face, which would have assured them of open dealing; and I had
promised her a lapful of confetti as a reward. But what then? Messer
has doubtless better confetti at hand, and she knows it.”

A general laugh among the bystanders accompanied these last words of
the conjuror, raised, probably, by the look of relief and confidence
with which Tessa clung to Tito’s arm, as he drew it from her waist, and
placed her hand within it. She only cared about the laugh as she might
have cared about the roar of wild beasts from which she was escaping,
not attaching any meaning to it; but Tito, who had no sooner got her on
his arm than he foresaw some embarrassment in the situation, hastened
to get clear of observers who, having been despoiled of an expected
amusement, were sure to re-establish the balance by jests.

“See, see, little one! here is your hood,” said the conjuror, throwing
the bit of white drapery over Tessa’s head. “_Orsù_, bear me no malice;
come back to me when Messere can spare you.”

“Ah! Maestro Vaiano, she’ll come back presently, as the toad said to
the harrow,” called out one of the spectators, seeing how Tessa started
and shrank at the action of the conjuror.

Tito pushed his way vigorously towards the corner of a side-street, a
little vexed at this delay in his progress to the Via de’ Bardi, and
intending to get rid of the poor little contadina as soon as possible.
The next street, too, had its passengers inclined to make holiday
remarks on so unusual a pair; but they had no sooner entered it than he
said, in a kind but hurried manner, “Now, little one, where were you
going? Are you come by yourself to the Festa?”

“Ah, no!” said Tessa, looking frightened and distressed again; “I have
lost my mother in the crowd—her and my father-in-law. They will be
angry—he will beat me. It was in the crowd in San Pulinari—somebody
pushed me along and I couldn’t stop myself, so I got away from them.
Oh, I don’t know where they’re gone! Please, don’t leave me!”

Her eyes had been swelling with tears again, and she ended with a sob.

Tito hurried along again: the Church of the Badia was not far off. They
could enter it by the cloister that opened at the back, and in the
church he could talk to Tessa—perhaps leave her. No! it was an hour at
which the church was not open; but they paused under the shelter of the
cloister, and he said, “Have you no cousin or friend in Florence, my
little Tessa, whose house you could find; or are you afraid of walking
by yourself since you have been frightened by the conjuror? I am in a
hurry to get to Oltrarno, but if I could take you anywhere near—”

“Oh, I _am_ frightened: he was the devil—I know he was. And I don’t
know where to go. I have nobody: and my mother meant to have her dinner
somewhere, and I don’t know where. Holy Madonna! I shall be beaten.”

The corners of the pouting mouth went down piteously, and the poor
little bosom with the beads on it above the green serge gown heaved so,
that there was no longer any help for it: a loud sob _would_ come, and
the big tears fell as if they were making up for lost time. Here was a
situation! It would have been brutal to leave her, and Tito’s nature
was all gentleness. He wished at that moment that he had not been
expected in the Via de’ Bardi. As he saw her lifting up her holiday
apron to catch the hurrying tears, he laid his hand, too, on the apron,
and rubbed one of the cheeks and kissed the baby-like roundness.

“My poor little Tessa! leave off crying. Let us see what can be done.
Where is your home—where do you live?”

There was no answer, but the sobs began to subside a little and the
drops to fall less quickly.

“Come! I’ll take you a little way, if you’ll tell me where you want to
go.”

The apron fell, and Tessa’s face began to look as contented as a
cherub’s budding from a cloud. The diabolical conjuror, the anger and
the beating, seemed a long way off.

“I think I’ll go home, if you’ll take me,” she said, in a half whisper,
looking up at Tito with wide blue eyes, and with something sweeter than
a smile—with a childlike calm.

“Come, then, little one,” said Tito, in a caressing tone, putting her
arm within his again. “Which way is it?”

“Beyond Peretola—where the large pear-tree is.”

“Peretola? Out at which gate, pazzarella? I am a stranger, you must
remember.”

“Out at the Por del Prato,” said Tessa, moving along with a very fast
hold on Tito’s arm.

He did not know all the turnings well enough to venture on an attempt
at choosing the quietest streets; and besides, it occurred to him that
where the passengers were most numerous there was, perhaps, the most
chance of meeting with Monna Ghita and finding an end to his
knight-errant-ship. So he made straight for Porta Rossa, and on to
Ognissanti, showing his usual bright propitiatory face to the mixed
observers who threw their jests at him and his little heavy-shod maiden
with much liberality. Mingled with the more decent holiday-makers there
were frolicsome apprentices, rather envious of his good fortune;
bold-eyed women with the badge of the yellow veil; beggars who thrust
forward their caps for alms, in derision at Tito’s evident haste;
dicers, sharpers, and loungers of the worst sort; boys whose tongues
were used to wag in concert at the most brutal street games: for the
streets of Florence were not always a moral spectacle in those times,
and Tessa’s terror at being lost in the crowd was not wholly
unreasonable.

When they reached the Piazza d’Ognissanti, Tito slackened his pace:
they were both heated with their hurried walk, and here was a wider
space where they could take breath. They sat down on one of the stone
benches which were frequent against the walls of old Florentine houses.

“Holy Virgin!” said Tessa; “I am glad we have got away from those women
and boys; but I was not frightened, because you could take care of me.”

“Pretty little Tessa!” said Tito, smiling at her. “What makes you feel
so safe with me?”

“Because you are so beautiful—like the people going into Paradise: they
are all good.”

“It is a long while since you had your breakfast, Tessa,” said Tito,
seeing some stalls near, with fruit and sweetmeats upon them. “Are you
hungry?”

“Yes, I think I am—if you will have some too.”

Tito bought some apricots, and cakes, and comfits, and put them into
her apron.

“Come,” he said, “let us walk on to the Prato, and then perhaps you
will not be afraid to go the rest of the way alone.”

“But you will have some of the apricots and things,” said Tessa, rising
obediently and gathering up her apron as a bag for her store.

“We will see,” said Tito aloud; and to himself he said, “Here is a
little contadina who might inspire a better idyl than Lorenzo de’
Medici’s ‘Nencia da Barberino,’ that Nello’s friends rave about; if I
were only a Theocritus, or had time to cultivate the necessary
experience by unseasonable walks of this sort! However, the mischief is
done now: I am so late already that another half-hour will make no
difference. Pretty little pigeon!”

“We have a garden and plenty of pears,” said Tessa, “and two cows,
besides the mules; and I’m very fond of them. But my father-in-law is a
cross man: I wish my mother had not married him. I think he is wicked;
he is very ugly.”

“And does your mother let him beat you, poverina? You said you were
afraid of being beaten.”

“Ah, my mother herself scolds me: she loves my young sister better, and
thinks I don’t do work enough. Nobody speaks kindly to me, only the
Pievano (parish priest) when I go to confession. And the men in the
Mercato laugh at me and make fun of me. Nobody ever kissed me and spoke
to me as you do; just as I talk to my little black-faced kid, because
I’m very fond of it.”

It seemed not to have entered Tessa’s mind that there was any change in
Tito’s appearance since the morning he begged the milk from her, and
that he looked now like a personage for whom she must summon her little
stock of reverent words and signs. He had impressed her too differently
from any human being who had ever come near her before, for her to make
any comparison of details; she took no note of his dress; he was simply
a voice and a face to her, something come from Paradise into a world
where most things seemed hard and angry; and she prattled with as
little restraint as if he had been an imaginary companion born of her
own lovingness and the sunshine.

They had now reached the Prato, which at that time was a large open
space within the walls, where the Florentine youth played at their
favourite _Calcio_—a peculiar kind of football—and otherwise exercised
themselves. At this mid-day time it was forsaken and quiet to the very
gates, where a tent had been erected in preparation for the race. On
the border of this wide meadow, Tito paused and said—

“Now, Tessa, you will not be frightened if I leave you to walk the rest
of the way by yourself. Addio! Shall I come and buy a cup of milk from
you in the Mercato to-morrow morning, to see that you are quite safe?”

He added this question in a soothing tone, as he saw her eyes widening
sorrowfully, and the corners of her mouth falling. She said nothing at
first; she only opened her apron and looked down at her apricots and
sweetmeats. Then she looked up at him again and said complainingly—

“I thought you would have some, and we could sit down under a tree
outside the gate, and eat them together.”

“Tessa, Tessa, you little siren, you would ruin me,” said Tito,
laughing, and kissing both her cheeks. “I ought to have been in the Via
de’ Bardi long ago. No! I must go back now; you are in no danger.
There—I’ll take an apricot. Addio!”

He had already stepped two yards from her when he said the last word.
Tessa could not have spoken; she was pale, and a great sob was rising;
but she turned round as if she felt there was no hope for her, and
stepped on, holding her apron so forgetfully that the apricots began to
roll out on the grass.

Tito could not help looking after her, and seeing her shoulders rise to
the bursting sob, and the apricots fall—could not help going after her
and picking them up. It was very hard upon him: he was a long way off
the Via de’ Bardi, and very near to Tessa.

“See, my silly one,” he said, picking up the apricots. “Come, leave off
crying, I will go with you, and we’ll sit down under the tree. Come, I
don’t like to see you cry; but you know I must go back some time.”

So it came to pass that they found a great plane-tree not far outside
the gates, and they sat down under it, and all the feast was spread out
on Tessa’s lap, she leaning with her back against the trunk of the
tree, and he stretched opposite to her, resting his elbows on the rough
green growth cherished by the shade, while the sunlight stole through
the boughs and played about them like a winged thing. Tessa’s face was
all contentment again, and the taste of the apricots and sweetmeats
seemed very good.

“You pretty bird!” said Tito, looking at her as she sat eyeing the
remains of the feast with an evident mental debate about saving them,
since he had said he would not have any more. “To think of any one
scolding you! What sins do you tell of at confession, Tessa?”

“Oh, a great many. I am often naughty. I don’t like work, and I can’t
help being idle, though I know I shall be beaten and scolded; and I
give the mules the best fodder when nobody sees me, and then when the
Madre is angry I say I didn’t do it, and that makes me frightened at
the devil. I think the conjuror was the devil. I am not so frightened
after I’ve been to confession. And see, I’ve got a _Breve_ here that a
good father, who came to Prato preaching this Easter, blessed and gave
us all.” Here Tessa drew from her bosom a tiny bag carefully fastened
up. “And I think the holy Madonna will take care of me; she looks as if
she would; and perhaps if I wasn’t idle, she wouldn’t let me be
beaten.”

“If they are so cruel to you, Tessa, shouldn’t you like to leave them,
and go and live with a beautiful lady who would be kind to you, if she
would have you to wait upon her?”

Tessa seemed to hold her breath for a moment or two. Then she said
doubtfully, “I don’t know.”

“Then should you like to be my little servant, and live with me?” said
Tito, smiling. He meant no more than to see what sort of pretty look
and answer she would give.

There was a flush of joy immediately. “Will you take me with you now?
Ah! I shouldn’t go home and be beaten then.” She paused a little while,
and then added more doubtfully, “But I should like to fetch my
black-faced kid.”

“Yes, you must go back to your kid, my Tessa,” said Tito, rising, “and
I must go the other way.”

“By Jupiter!” he added, as he went from under the shade of the tree,
“it is not a pleasant time of day to walk from here to the Via de’
Bardi; I am more inclined to lie down and sleep in this shade.”

It ended so. Tito had an unconquerable aversion to anything unpleasant,
even when an object very much loved and desired was on the other side
of it. He had risen early; had waited; had seen sights, and had been
already walking in the sun: he was inclined for a siesta, and inclined
all the more because little Tessa was there, and seemed to make the air
softer. He lay down on the grass again, putting his cap under his head
on a green tuft by the side of Tessa. That was not quite comfortable;
so he moved again, and asked Tessa to let him rest his head against her
lap; and in that way he soon fell asleep. Tessa sat quiet as a dove on
its nest, just venturing, when he was fast asleep, to touch the
wonderful dark curls that fell backward from his ear. She was too happy
to go to sleep—too happy to think that Tito would wake up, and that
then he would leave her, and she must go home. It takes very little
water to make a perfect pool for a tiny fish, where it will find its
world and paradise all in one, and never have a presentiment of the dry
bank. The fretted summer shade, and stillness, and the gentle breathing
of some loved life near—it would be paradise to us all, if eager
thought, the strong angel with the implacable brow, had not long since
closed the gates.

It really was a long while before the waking came—before the long dark
eyes opened at Tessa, first with a little surprise, and then with a
smile, which was soon quenched by some preoccupying thought. Tito’s
deeper sleep had broken into a doze, in which he felt himself in the
Via de’ Bardi, explaining his failure to appear at the appointed time.
The clear images of that doze urged him to start up at once to a
sitting posture, and as he stretched his arms and shook his cap, he
said—

“Tessa, little one, you have let me sleep too long. My hunger and the
shadows together tell me that the sun has done much travel since I fell
asleep. I must lose no more time. Addio,” he ended, patting her cheek
with one hand, and settling his cap with the other.

She said nothing, but there were signs in her face which made him speak
again in as serious and as chiding a tone as he could command—

“Now, Tessa, you must not cry. I shall be angry; I shall not love you
if you cry. You must go home to your black-faced kid, or if you like
you may go back to the gate and see the horses start. But I can stay
with you no longer, and if you cry, I shall think you are troublesome
to me.”

The rising tears were checked by terror at this change in Tito’s voice.
Tessa turned very pale, and sat in trembling silence, with her blue
eyes widened by arrested tears.

“Look now,” Tito went on, soothingly, opening the wallet that hung at
his belt, “here is a pretty charm that I have had a long while—ever
since I was in Sicily, a country a long way off.”

His wallet had many little matters in it mingled with small coins, and
he had the usual difficulty in laying his finger on the right thing. He
unhooked his wallet, and turned out the contents on Tessa’s lap. Among
them was his onyx ring.

“Ah, my ring!” he exclaimed, slipping it on the forefinger of his
right-hand. “I forgot to put it on again this morning. Strange, I never
missed it! See, Tessa,” he added, as he spread out the smaller
articles, and selected the one he was in search of. “See this pretty
little pointed bit of red coral—like your goat’s horn, is it not?—and
here is a hole in it, so you can put it on the cord round your neck
along with your _Breve_, and then the evil spirits can’t hurt you: if
you ever see them coming in the shadow round the corner, point this
little coral horn at them, and they will run away. It is a ‘buona
fortuna,’ and will keep you from harm when I am not with you. Come,
undo the cord.”

Tessa obeyed with a tranquillising sense that life was going to be
something quite new, and that Tito would be with her often. All who
remember their childhood remember the strange vague sense, when some
new experience came, that everything else was going to be changed, and
that there would be no lapse into the old monotony. So the bit of coral
was hung beside the tiny bag with the scrap of scrawled parchment in
it, and Tessa felt braver.

“And now you will give me a kiss,” said Tito, economising time by
speaking while he swept in the contents of the wallet and hung it at
his waist again, “and look happy, like a good girl, and then—”

But Tessa had obediently put forward her lips in a moment, and kissed
his cheek as he hung down his head.

“Oh, you pretty pigeon!” cried Tito, laughing, pressing her round
cheeks with his hands and crushing her features together so as to give
them a general impartial kiss.

Then he started up and walked away, not looking round till he was ten
yards from her, when he just turned and gave a parting beck. Tessa was
looking after him, but he could see that she was making no signs of
distress. It was enough for Tito if she did not cry while he was
present. The softness of his nature required that all sorrow should be
hidden away from him.

“I wonder when Romola will kiss my cheek in that way?” thought Tito, as
he walked along. It seemed a tiresome distance now, and he almost
wished he had not been so soft-hearted, or so tempted to linger in the
shade. No other excuse was needed to Bardo and Romola than saying
simply that he had been unexpectedly hindered; he felt confident their
proud delicacy would inquire no farther. He lost no time in getting to
Ognissanti, and hastily taking some food there, he crossed the Arno by
the Ponte alia Carraja, and made his way as directly as possible
towards the Via de’ Bardi.

But it was the hour when all the world who meant to be in particularly
good time to see the Corso were returning from the Borghi, or villages
just outside the gates, where they had dined and reposed themselves;
and the thoroughfares leading to the bridges were of course the issues
towards which the stream of sightseers tended. Just as Tito reached the
Ponte Vecchio and the entrance of the Via de’ Bardi, he was suddenly
urged back towards the angle of the intersecting streets. A company on
horseback, coming from the Via Guicciardini, and turning up the Via de’
Bardi, had compelled the foot-passengers to recede hurriedly. Tito had
been walking, as his manner was, with the thumb of his right-hand
resting in his belt; and as he was thus forced to pause, and was
looking carelessly at the passing cavaliers, he felt a very thin cold
hand laid on his. He started round, and saw the Dominican friar whose
upturned face had so struck him in the morning. Seen closer, the face
looked more evidently worn by sickness and not by age; and again it
brought some strong but indefinite reminiscences to Tito.

“Pardon me, but—from your face and your ring,”—said the friar, in a
faint voice, “is not your name Tito Melema?”

“Yes,” said Tito, also speaking faintly, doubly jarred by the cold
touch and the mystery. He was not apprehensive or timid through his
imagination, but through his sensations and perceptions he could easily
be made to shrink and turn pale like a maiden.

“Then I shall fulfil my commission.”

The friar put his hand under his scapulary, and drawing out a small
linen bag which hung round his neck, took from it a bit of parchment,
doubled and stuck firmly together with some black adhesive substance,
and placed it in Tito’s hand. On the outside was written in Italian, in
a small but distinct character—

“_Tito Melema, aged twenty-three, with a dark, beautiful face, long
dark curls, the brightest smile, and a large onyx ring on his right
forefinger_.”

Tito did not look at the friar, but tremblingly broke open the bit of
parchment. Inside, the words were—

“_I am sold for a slave: I think they are going to take me to Antioch.
The gems alone will serve to ransom me_.”

Tito looked round at the friar, but could only ask a question with his
eyes.

“I had it at Corinth,” the friar said, speaking with difficulty, like
one whose small strength had been overtaxed—“I had it from a man who
was dying.”

“He is dead, then?” said Tito, with a bounding of the heart.

“Not the writer. The man who gave it me was a pilgrim, like myself, to
whom the writer had intrusted it, because he was journeying to Italy.”

“You know the contents?”

“I do not know them, but I conjecture them. Your friend is in slavery:
you will go and release him. But I am unable to talk now.” The friar,
whose voice had become feebler and feebler, sank down on the stone
bench against the wall from which he had risen to touch Tito’s hand,
adding—

“I am at San Marco; my name is Fra Luca.”




CHAPTER XI.
Tito’s Dilemma.


When Fra Luca had ceased to speak, Tito still stood by him in
irresolution, and it was not till, the pressure of the passengers being
removed, the friar rose and walked slowly into the church of Santa
Felicita, that Tito also went on his way along the Via de’ Bardi.

“If this monk is a Florentine,” he said to himself; “if he is going to
remain at Florence, everything must be disclosed.” He felt that a new
crisis had come, but he was not, for all that, too evidently agitated
to pay his visit to Bardo, and apologise for his previous
non-appearance. Tito’s talent for concealment was being fast developed
into something less neutral. It was still possible—perhaps it might be
inevitable—for him to accept frankly the altered conditions, and avow
Baldassarre’s existence; but hardly without casting an unpleasant light
backward on his original reticence as studied equivocation in order to
avoid the fulfilment of a secretly recognised claim, to say nothing of
his quiet settlement of himself and investment of his florins, when, it
would be clear, his benefactor’s fate had not been certified. It was at
least provisionally wise to act as if nothing had happened, and for the
present he would suspend decisive thought; there was all the night for
meditation, and no one would know the precise moment at which he had
received the letter.

So he entered the room on the second storey—where Romola and her father
sat among the parchment and the marble, aloof from the life of the
streets on holidays as well as on common days—with a face only a little
less bright than usual, from regret at appearing so late: a regret
which wanted no testimony, since he had given up the sight of the Corso
in order to express it; and then set himself to throw extra animation
into the evening, though all the while his consciousness was at work
like a machine with complex action, leaving deposits quite distinct
from the line of talk; and by the time he descended the stone stairs
and issued from the grim door in the starlight, his mind had really
reached a new stage in its formation of a purpose.

And when, the next day, after he was free from his professorial work,
he turned up the Via del Cocomero towards the convent of San Marco, his
purpose was fully shaped. He was going to ascertain from Fra Luca
precisely how much he conjectured of the truth, and on what grounds he
conjectured it; and, further, how long he was to remain at San Marco.
And on that fuller knowledge he hoped to mould a statement which would
in any case save him from the necessity of quitting Florence. Tito had
never had occasion to fabricate an ingenious lie before: the occasion
was come now—the occasion which circumstance never fails to beget on
tacit falsity; and his ingenuity was ready. For he had convinced
himself that he was not bound to go in search of Baldassarre. He had
once said that on a fair assurance of his father’s existence and
whereabout, he would unhesitatingly go after him. But, after all, _why_
was he bound to go? What, looked at closely, was the end of all life,
but to extract the utmost sum of pleasure? And was not his own blooming
life a promise of incomparably more pleasure, not for himself only, but
for others, than the withered wintry life of a man who was past the
time of keen enjoyment, and whose ideas had stiffened into barren
rigidity? Those ideas had all been sown in the fresh soil of Tito’s
mind, and were lively germs there: that was the proper order of
things—the order of nature, which treats all maturity as a mere nidus
for youth. Baldassarre had done his work, had had his draught of life:
Tito said it was _his_ turn now.

And the prospect was so vague:—“I think they are going to take me to
Antioch:” here was a vista! After a long voyage, to spend months,
perhaps years, in a search for which even now there was no guarantee
that it would not prove vain: and to leave behind at starting a life of
distinction and love: and to find, if he found anything, the old
exacting companionship which was known by rote beforehand. Certainly
the gems and therefore the florins were, in a sense, Baldassarre’s: in
the narrow sense by which the right of possession is determined in
ordinary affairs; but in that large and more radically natural view by
which the world belongs to youth and strength, they were rather his who
could extract the most pleasure out of them. That, he was conscious,
was not the sentiment which the complicated play of human feelings had
engendered in society. The men around him would expect that he should
immediately apply those florins to his benefactor’s rescue. But what
was the sentiment of society?—a mere tangle of anomalous traditions and
opinions, which no wise man would take as a guide, except so far as his
own comfort was concerned. Not that he cared for the florins save
perhaps for Romola’s sake: he would give up the florins readily enough.
It was the joy that was due to him and was close to his lips, which he
felt he was not bound to thrust away from him and so travel on,
thirsting. Any maxims that required a man to fling away the good that
was needed to make existence sweet, were only the lining of human
selfishness turned outward: they were made by men who wanted others to
sacrifice themselves for their sake. He would rather that Baldassarre
should not suffer: he liked no one to suffer; but could any philosophy
prove to him that he was bound to care for another’s suffering more
than for his own? To do so he must have loved Baldassarre devotedly,
and he did _not_ love him: was that his own fault? Gratitude! seen
closely, it made no valid claim: his father’s life would have been
dreary without him: are we convicted of a debt to men for the pleasures
they give themselves?

Having once begun to explain away Baldassarre’s claim, Tito’s thought
showed itself as active as a virulent acid, eating its rapid way
through all the tissues of sentiment. His mind was destitute of that
dread which has been erroneously decried as if it were nothing higher
than a man’s animal care for his own skin: that awe of the Divine
Nemesis which was felt by religious pagans, and, though it took a more
positive form under Christianity, is still felt by the mass of mankind
simply as a vague fear at anything which is called wrong-doing. Such
terror of the unseen is so far above mere sensual cowardice that it
will annihilate that cowardice: it is the initial recognition of a
moral law restraining desire, and checks the hard bold scrutiny of
imperfect thought into obligations which can never be proved to have
any sanctity in the absence of feeling. “It is good,” sing the old
Eumenides, in Aeschylus, “that fear should sit as the guardian of the
soul, forcing it into wisdom—good that men should carry a threatening
shadow in their hearts under the full sunshine; else, how should they
learn to revere the right?” That guardianship may become needless; but
only when all outward law has become needless—only when duty and love
have united in one stream and made a common force.

As Tito entered the outer cloister of San Marco, and inquired for Fra
Luca, there was no shadowy presentiment in his mind: he felt himself
too cultured and sceptical for that: he had been nurtured in contempt
for the tales of priests whose impudent lives were a proverb, and in
erudite familiarity with disputes concerning the Chief Good, which had
after all, he considered, left it a matter of taste. Yet fear was a
strong element in Tito’s nature—the fear of what he believed or saw was
likely to rob him of pleasure: and he had a definite fear that Fra Luca
might be the means of driving him from Florence.

“Fra Luca? ah, he is gone to Fiesole—to the Dominican monastery there.
He was taken on a litter in the cool of the morning. The poor Brother
is very ill. Could you leave a message for him?”

This answer was given by a _fra converso_, or lay brother, whose accent
told plainly that he was a raw contadino, and whose dull glance implied
no curiosity.

“Thanks; my business can wait.”

Tito turned away with a sense of relief. “This friar is not likely to
live,” he said to himself. “I saw he was worn to a shadow. And at
Fiesole there will be nothing to recall me to his mind. Besides, if he
should come back, my explanation will serve as well then as now. But I
wish I knew what it was that his face recalled to me.”




CHAPTER XII.
The Prize is nearly Grasped.


Tito walked along with a light step, for the immediate fear had
vanished; the usual joyousness of his disposition reassumed its
predominance, and he was going to see Romola. Yet Romola’s life seemed
an image of that loving, pitying devotedness, that patient endurance of
irksome tasks, from which he had shrunk and excused himself. But he was
not out of love with goodness, or prepared to plunge into vice: he was
in his fresh youth, with soft pulses for all charm and loveliness; he
had still a healthy appetite for ordinary human joys, and the poison
could only work by degrees. He had sold himself to evil, but at present
life seemed so nearly the same to him that he was not conscious of the
bond. He meant all things to go on as they had done before, both within
and without him: he meant to win golden opinions by meritorious
exertion, by ingenious learning, by amiable compliance: he was not
going to do anything that would throw him out of harmony with the
beings he cared for. And he cared supremely for Romola; he wished to
have her for his beautiful and loving wife. There might be a wealthier
alliance within the ultimate reach of successful accomplishments like
his, but there was no woman in all Florence like Romola. When she was
near him, and looked at him with her sincere hazel eyes, he was subdued
by a delicious influence as strong and inevitable as those musical
vibrations which take possession of us with a rhythmic empire that no
sooner ceases than we desire it to begin again.

As he trod the stone stairs, when he was still outside the door, with
no one but Maso near him, the influence seemed to have begun its work
by the mere nearness of anticipation.

“Welcome, Tito mio,” said the old man’s voice, before Tito had spoken.
There was a new vigour in the voice, a new cheerfulness in the blind
face, since that first interview more than two months ago. “You have
brought fresh manuscript, doubtless; but since we were talking last
night I have had new ideas: we must take a wider scope—we must go back
upon our footsteps.”

Tito, paying his homage to Romola as he advanced, went, as his custom
was, straight to Bardo’s chair, and put his hand in the palm that was
held to receive it, placing himself on the cross-legged leather seat
with scrolled ends, close to Bardo’s elbow.

“Yes,” he said, in his gentle way; “I have brought the new manuscript,
but that can wait your pleasure. I have young limbs, you know, and can
walk back up the hill without any difficulty.”

He did not look at Romola as he said this, but he knew quite well that
her eyes were fixed on him with delight.

“That is well said, my son.” Bardo had already addressed Tito in this
way once or twice of late. “And I perceive with gladness that you do
not shrink from labour, without which, the poet has wisely said, life
has given nothing to mortals. It is too often the ‘palma sine pulvere,’
the prize of glory without the dust of the race, that attracts young
ambition. But what says the Greek? ‘In the morning of life, work; in
the mid-day, give counsel; in the evening, pray.’ It is true, I might
be thought to have reached that helpless evening; but not so, while I
have counsel within me which is yet unspoken. For my mind, as I have
often said, was shut up as by a dam; the plenteous waters lay dark and
motionless; but you, my Tito, have opened a duct for them, and they
rush forward with a force that surprises myself. And now, what I want
is, that we should go over our preliminary ground again, with a wider
scheme of comment and illustration: otherwise I may lose opportunities
which I now see retrospectively, and which may never occur again. You
mark what I am saying, Tito?”

He had just stooped to reach his manuscript, which had rolled down, and
Bardo’s jealous ear was alive to the slight movement.

Tito might have been excused for shrugging his shoulders at the
prospect before him, but he was not naturally impatient; moreover, he
had been bred up in that laborious erudition, at once minute and
copious, which was the chief intellectual task of the age; and with
Romola near, he was floated along by waves of agreeable sensation that
made everything seem easy.

“Assuredly,” he said; “you wish to enlarge your comments on certain
passages we have cited.”

“Not only so; I wish to introduce an occasional _excursus_, where we
have noticed an author to whom I have given special study; for I may
die too soon to achieve any separate work. And this is not a time for
scholarly integrity and well-sifted learning to lie idle, when it is
not only rash ignorance that we have to fear, but when there are men
like Calderino, who, as Poliziano has well shown, have recourse to
impudent falsities of citation to serve the ends of their vanity and
secure a triumph to their own mistakes. Wherefore, my Tito, I think it
not well that we should let slip the occasion that lies under our
hands. And now we will turn back to the point where we have cited the
passage from Thucydides, and I wish you, by way of preliminary, to go
with me through all my notes on the Latin translation made by Lorenzo
Valla, for which the incomparable Pope Nicholas the Fifth—with whose
personal notice I was honoured while I was yet young, and when he was
still Thomas of Sarzana—paid him (I say not unduly) the sum of five
hundred gold scudi. But inasmuch as Valla, though otherwise of dubious
fame, is held in high honour for his severe scholarship, whence the
epigrammatist has jocosely said of him that since he went among the
shades, Pluto himself has not dared to speak in the ancient languages,
it is the more needful that his name should not be as a stamp
warranting false wares; and therefore I would introduce an _excursus_
on Thucydides, wherein my castigations of Valla’s text may find a
fitting place. My Romola, thou wilt reach the needful volumes—thou
knowest them—on the fifth shelf of the cabinet.”

Tito rose at the same moment with Romola, saying, “I will reach them,
if you will point them out,” and followed her hastily into the
adjoining small room, where the walls were also covered with ranges of
books in perfect order.

“There they are,” said Romola, pointing upward; “every book is just
where it was when my father ceased to see them.”

Tito stood by her without hastening to reach the books. They had never
been in this room together before.

“I hope,” she continued, turning her eyes full on Tito, with a look of
grave confidence—“I hope he will not weary you; this work makes him so
happy.”

“And me too, Romola—if you will only let me say, I love you—if you will
only think me worth loving a little.”

His speech was the softest murmur, and the dark beautiful face, nearer
to hers than it had ever been before, was looking at her with
beseeching tenderness.

“I do love you,” murmured Romola; she looked at him with the same
simple majesty as ever, but her voice had never in her life before sunk
to that murmur. It seemed to them both that they were looking at each
other a long while before her lips moved again; yet it was but a moment
till she said, “I know _now_ what it is to be happy.”

The faces just met, and the dark curls mingled for an instant with the
rippling gold. Quick as lightning after that, Tito set his foot on a
projecting ledge of the book-shelves and reached down the needful
volumes. They were both contented to be silent and separate, for that
first blissful experience of mutual consciousness was all the more
exquisite for being unperturbed by immediate sensation.

It had all been as rapid as the irreversible mingling of waters, for
even the eager and jealous Bardo had not become impatient.

“You have the volumes, my Romola?” the old man said, as they came near
him again. “And now you will get your pen ready; for, as Tito marks off
the scholia we determine on extracting, it will be well for you to copy
them without delay—numbering them carefully, mind, to correspond with
the numbers in the text which he will write.”

Romola always had some task which gave her a share in this joint work.
Tito took his stand at the leggio, where he both wrote and read, and
she placed herself at a table just in front of him, where she was ready
to give into her father’s hands anything that he might happen to want,
or relieve him of a volume that he had done with. They had always been
in that position since the work began, yet on this day it seemed new;
it was so different now for them to be opposite each other; so
different for Tito to take a book from her, as she lifted it from her
father’s knee. Yet there was no finesse to secure an additional look or
touch. Each woman creates in her own likeness the love-tokens that are
offered to her; and Romola’s deep calm happiness encompassed Tito like
the rich but quiet evening light which dissipates all unrest.

They had been two hours at their work, and were just desisting because
of the fading light, when the door opened and there entered a figure
strangely incongruous with the current of their thoughts and with the
suggestions of every object around them. It was the figure of a short
stout black-eyed woman, about fifty, wearing a black velvet berretta,
or close cap, embroidered with pearls, under which surprisingly massive
black braids surmounted the little bulging forehead, and fell in rich
plaited curves over the ears, while an equally surprising carmine tint
on the upper region of the fat cheeks contrasted with the surrounding
sallowness. Three rows of pearls and a lower necklace of gold reposed
on the horizontal cushion of her neck; the embroidered border of her
trailing black velvet gown and her embroidered long-drooping sleeves of
rose-coloured damask, were slightly faded, but they conveyed to the
initiated eye the satisfactory assurance that they were the splendid
result of six months’ labour by a skilled workman; and the
rose-coloured petticoat, with its dimmed white fringe and seed-pearl
arabesques, was duly exhibited in order to suggest a similar pleasing
reflection. A handsome coral rosary hung from one side of an
inferential belt, which emerged into certainty with a large clasp of
silver wrought in niello; and, on the other side, where the belt again
became inferential, hung a scarsella, or large purse, of crimson
velvet, stitched with pearls. Her little fat right-hand, which looked
as if it had been made of paste, and had risen out of shape under
partial baking, held a small book of devotions, also splendid with
velvet, pearls, and silver.

The figure was already too familiar to Tito to be startling, for Monna
Brigida was a frequent visitor at Bardo’s, being excepted from the
sentence of banishment passed on feminine triviality, on the ground of
her cousinship to his dead wife and her early care for Romola, who now
looked round at her with an affectionate smile, and rose to draw the
leather seat to a due distance from her father’s chair, that the coming
gush of talk might not be too near his ear.

“_La cugina_?” said Bardo, interrogatively, detecting the short steps
and the sweeping drapery.

“Yes, it is your cousin,” said Monna Brigida, in an alert voice,
raising her fingers smilingly at Tito, and then lifting up her face to
be kissed by Romola. “Always the troublesome cousin breaking in on your
wisdom,” she went on, seating herself and beginning to fan herself with
the white veil hanging over her arm. “Well, well; if I didn’t bring you
some news of the world now and then, I do believe you’d forget there
was anything in life but these mouldy ancients, who want sprinkling
with holy water if all I hear about them is true. Not but what the
world is bad enough nowadays, for the scandals that turn up under one’s
nose at every corner—_I_ don’t want to hear and see such things, but
one can’t go about with one’s head in a bag; and it was only
yesterday—well, well, you needn’t burst out at me, Bardo, I’m not going
to tell anything; if I’m not as wise as the three kings, I know how
many legs go into one boot. But, nevertheless, Florence is a wicked
city—is it not true, Messer Tito? for you go into the world. Not but
what one must sin a little—Messer Domeneddio expects that of us, else
what are the blessed sacraments for? And what I say is, we’ve got to
reverence the saints, and not to set ourselves up as if we could be
like them, else life would be unbearable; as it will be if things go on
after this new fashion. For what do you think? I’ve been at the wedding
to-day—Dianora Acciajoli’s with the young Albizzi that there has been
so much talk of—and everybody wondered at its being to-day instead of
yesterday; but, _cieli_! such a wedding as it was might have been put
off till the next Quaresima for a penance. For there was the bride
looking like a white nun—not so much as a pearl about her—and the
bridegroom as solemn as San Giuseppe. It’s true! And half the people
invited were _Piagnoni_—they call them _Piagnoni_ (funeral mourners:
properly, paid mourners) now, these new saints of Fra Girolamo’s
making. And to think of two families like the Albizzi and the Acciajoli
taking up such notions, when they could afford to wear the best! Well,
well, they invited me—but they could do no other, seeing my husband was
Luca Antonio’s uncle by the mother’s side—and a pretty time I had of it
while we waited under the canopy in front of the house, before they let
us in. I couldn’t stand in my clothes, it seemed, without giving
offence; for there was Monna Berta, who has had worse secrets in her
time than any I could tell of myself, looking askance at me from under
her hood like a _pinzochera_, (a Sister of the Third Order of Saint
Francis: an uncloistered nun) and telling me to read the Frate’s book
about widows, from which she had found great guidance. Holy Madonna! it
seems as if widows had nothing to do now but to buy their coffins, and
think it a thousand years till they get into them, instead of enjoying
themselves a little when they’ve got their hands free for the first
time. And what do you think was the music we had, to make our dinner
lively? A long discourse from Fra Domenico of San Marco, about the
doctrines of their blessed Fra Girolamo—the three doctrines we are all
to get by heart; and he kept marking them off on his fingers till he
made my flesh creep: and the first is, Florence, or the Church—I don’t
know which, for first he said one and then the other—shall be scourged;
but if he means the pestilence, the Signory ought to put a stop to such
preaching, for it’s enough to raise the swelling under one’s arms with
fright: but then, after that, he says Florence is to be regenerated;
but what will be the good of that when we’re all dead of the plague, or
something else? And then, the third thing, and what he said oftenest,
is, that it’s all to be in our days: and he marked that off on his
thumb, till he made me tremble like the very jelly before me. They had
jellies, to be sure, with the arms of the Albizzi and the Acciajoli
raised on them in all colours; they’ve not turned the world quite
upside down yet. But all their talk is, that we are to go back to the
old ways: for up starts Francesco Valori, that I’ve danced with in the
Via Larga when he was a bachelor and as fond of the Medici as anybody,
and he makes a speech about the old times, before the Florentines had
left off crying ‘Popolo’ and begun to cry ‘Palle’—as if that had
anything to do with a wedding!—and how we ought to keep to the rules
the Signory laid down heaven knows when, that we were not to wear this
and that, and not to eat this and that—and how our manners were
corrupted and we read bad books; though he can’t say that of _me_—”

“Stop, cousin!” said Bardo, in his imperious tone, for he had a remark
to make, and only desperate measures could arrest the rattling
lengthiness of Monna Brigida’s discourse. But now she gave a little
start, pursed up her mouth, and looked at him with round eyes.

“Francesco Valori is not altogether wrong,” Bardo went on. “Bernardo,
indeed, rates him not highly, and is rather of opinion that he
christens private grudges by the name of public zeal; though I must
admit that my good Bernardo is too slow of belief in that unalloyed
patriotism which was found in all its lustre amongst the ancients. But
it is true, Tito, that our manners have degenerated somewhat from that
noble frugality which, as has been well seen in the public acts of our
citizens, is the parent of true magnificence. For men, as I hear, will
now spend on the transient show of a Giostra sums which would suffice
to found a library, and confer a lasting possession on mankind. Still,
I conceive, it remains true of us Florentines that we have more of that
magnanimous sobriety which abhors a trivial lavishness that it may be
grandly open-handed on grand occasions, than can be found in any other
city of Italy; for I understand that the Neapolitan and Milanese
courtiers laugh at the scarcity of our plate, and think scorn of our
great families for borrowing from each other that furniture of the
table at their entertainments. But in the vain laughter of folly wisdom
hears half its applause.”

“Laughter, indeed!” burst forth Monna Brigida again, the moment, Bardo
paused. “If anybody wanted to hear laughter at the wedding to-day they
were disappointed, for when young Niccolò Macchiavelli tried to make a
joke, and told stories out of Franco Sacchetti’s book, how it was no
use for the Signoria to make rules for us women, because we were
cleverer than all the painters, and architects, and doctors of logic in
the world, for we could make black look white, and yellow look pink,
and crooked look straight, and, if anything was forbidden, we could
find a new name for it—Holy Virgin! the Piagnoni looked more dismal
than before, and somebody said Sacchetti’s book was wicked. Well, I
don’t read it—they can’t accuse _me_ of reading anything. Save me from
going to a wedding again, if that’s to be the fashion; for all of us
who were not Piagnoni were as comfortable as wet chickens. I was never
caught in a worse trap but once before, and that was when I went to
hear their precious Frate last Quaresima in San Lorenzo. Perhaps I
never told you about it, Messer Tito?—it almost freezes my blood when I
think of it. How he rated us poor women! and the men, too, to tell the
truth, but I didn’t mind that so much. He called us cows, and lumps of
flesh, and wantons, and mischief-makers—and I could just bear that, for
there were plenty others more fleshy and spiteful than I was, though
every now and then his voice shook the very bench under me like a
trumpet; but then he came to the false hair, and, O misericordia! he
made a picture—I see it now—of a young woman lying a pale corpse, and
us light-minded widows—of course he meant me as well as the rest, for I
had my plaits on, for if one is getting old, one doesn’t want to look
as ugly as the Befana,[1]—us widows rushing up to the corpse, like
bare-pated vultures as we were, and cutting off its young dead hair to
deck our old heads with. Oh, the dreams I had after that! And then he
cried, and wrung his hands at us, and I cried too. And to go home, and
to take off my jewels, this very clasp, and everything, and to make
them into a packet, _fù tutt’uno_; and I was within a hair of sending
them to the Good Men of Saint Martin to give to the poor, but, by
heaven’s mercy, I bethought me of going first to my confessor, Fra
Cristoforo, at Santa Croce, and he told me how it was all the work of
the devil, this preaching and prophesying of their Fra Girolamo, and
the Dominicans were trying to turn the world upside down, and I was
never to go and hear him again, else I must do penance for it; for the
great preachers Fra Mariano and Fra Menico had shown how Fra Girolamo
preached lies—and that was true, for I heard them both in the Duomo—and
how the Pope’s dream of San Francesco propping up the Church with his
arms was being fulfilled still, and the Dominicans were beginning to
pull it down. Well and good: I went away _con Dio_, and made myself
easy. I am not going to be frightened by a Frate Predicatore again. And
all I say is, I wish it hadn’t been the Dominicans that poor Dino
joined years ago, for then I should have been glad when I heard them
say he was come back—”

 [1] The name given to the grotesque black-faced figures, supposed to
 represent the Magi, carried about or placed in the windows on Twelfth
 Night: a corruption of Epifania.


“Silenzio!” said Bardo, in a loud agitated voice, while Romola half
started from her chair, clasped her hands, and looked round at Tito, as
if now she might appeal to him. Monna Brigida gave a little scream, and
bit her lip.

“Donna!” said Bardo, again, “hear once more my will. Bring no reports
about that name to this house; and thou, Romola, I forbid thee to ask.
My son is dead.”

Bardo’s whole frame seemed vibrating with passion, and no one dared to
break silence again. Monna Brigida lifted her shoulders and her hands
in mute dismay; then she rose as quietly as possible, gave many
significant nods to Tito and Romola, motioning to them that they were
not to move, and stole out of the room like a culpable fat spaniel who
has barked unseasonably.

Meanwhile, Tito’s quick mind had been combining ideas with
lightning-like rapidity. Bardo’s son was not really dead, then, as he
had supposed: he was a monk; he was “come back:” and Fra Luca—yes! it
was the likeness to Bardo and Romola that had made the face seem
half-known to him. If he were only dead at Fiesole at that moment! This
importunate selfish wish inevitably thrust itself before every other
thought. It was true that Bardo’s rigid will was a sufficient safeguard
against any intercourse between Romola and her brother; but _not_
against the betrayal of what he knew to others, especially when the
subject was suggested by the coupling of Romola’s name with that of the
very Tito Melema whose description he had carried round his neck as an
index. No! nothing but Fra Luca’s death could remove all danger; but
his death was highly probable, and after the momentary shock of the
discovery, Tito let his mind fall back in repose on that confident
hope.

They had sat in silence, and in a deepening twilight for many minutes,
when Romola ventured to say—

“Shall I light the lamp, father, and shall we go on?”

“No, my Romola, we will work no more to-night. Tito, come and sit by me
here.”

Tito moved from the reading-desk, and seated himself on the other side
of Bardo, close to his left elbow.

“Come nearer to me, figliuola mia,” said Bardo again, after a moment’s
pause. And Romola seated herself on a low stool and let her arm rest on
her father’s right knee, that he might lay his hand on her hair, as he
was fond of doing.

“Tito, I never told you that I had once a son,” said Bardo, forgetting
what had fallen from him in the emotion raised by their first
interview. The old man had been deeply shaken, and was forced to pour
out his feelings in spite of pride. “But he left me—he is dead to me. I
have disowned him for ever. He was a ready scholar as you are, but more
fervid and impatient, and yet sometimes rapt and self-absorbed, like a
flame fed by some fitful source; showing a disposition from the very
first to turn away his eyes from the clear lights of reason and
philosophy, and to prostrate himself under the influences of a dim
mysticism which eludes all rules of human duty as it eludes all
argument. And so it ended. We will speak no more of him: he is dead to
me. I wish his face could be blotted from that world of memory in which
the distant seems to grow clearer and the near to fade.”

Bardo paused, but neither Romola nor Tito dared to speak—his voice was
too tremulous, the poise of his feelings too doubtful. But he presently
raised his hand and found Tito’s shoulder to rest it on, while he went
on speaking, with an effort to be calmer.

“But _you_ have come to me, Tito—not quite too late. I will lose no
time in vain regret. When you are working by my side I seem to have
found a son again.”

The old man, preoccupied with the governing interest of his life, was
only thinking of the much-meditated book which had quite thrust into
the background the suggestion, raised by Bernardo del Nero’s warning,
of a possible marriage between Tito and Romola. But Tito could not
allow the moment to pass unused.

“Will you let me be always and altogether your son? Will you let me
take care of Romola—be her husband? I think she will not deny me. She
has said she loves me. I know I am not equal to her in birth—in
anything; but I am no longer a destitute stranger.”

“Is it true, my Romola?” said Bardo, in a lower tone, an evident
vibration passing through him and dissipating the saddened aspect of
his features.

“Yes, father,” said Romola, firmly. “I love Tito—I wish to marry him,
that we may both be your children and never part.”

Tito’s hand met hers in a strong clasp for the first time, while she
was speaking, but their eyes were fixed anxiously on her father.

“Why should it not be?” said Bardo, as if arguing against any
opposition to his assent, rather than assenting. “It would be a
happiness to me; and thou, too, Romola, wouldst be the happier for it.”

He stroked her long hair gently and bent towards her.

“Ah, I have been apt to forget that thou needest some other love than
mine. And thou wilt be a noble wife. Bernardo thinks I shall hardly
find a husband fitting for thee. And he is perhaps right. For thou art
not like the herd of thy sex: thou art such a woman as the immortal
poets had a vision of when they sang the lives of the heroes—tender but
strong, like thy voice, which has been to me instead of the light in
the years of my blindness... And so thou lovest him?”

He sat upright again for a minute, and then said, in the same tone as
before, “Why should it not be? I will think of it; I will talk with
Bernardo.”

Tito felt a disagreeable chill at this answer, for Bernardo del Nero’s
eyes had retained their keen suspicion whenever they looked at him, and
the uneasy remembrance of Fra Luca converted all uncertainty into fear.

“Speak for me, Romola,” he said, pleadingly. “Messer Bernardo is sure
to be against me.”

“No, Tito,” said Romola, “my godfather will not oppose what my father
firmly wills. And it is your will that I should marry Tito—is it not
true, father? Nothing has ever come to me before that I have wished for
strongly: I did not think it possible that I could care so much for
anything that could happen to myself.”

It was a brief and simple plea; but it was the condensed story of
Romola’s self-repressing colourless young life, which had thrown all
its passion into sympathy with aged sorrows, aged ambition, aged pride
and indignation. It had never occurred to Romola that she should not
speak as directly and emphatically of her love for Tito as of any other
subject.

“Romola mia!” said her father fondly, pausing on the words, “it is true
thou hast never urged on me any wishes of thy own. And I have no will
to resist thine; rather, my heart met Tito’s entreaty at its very first
utterance. Nevertheless, I must talk with Bernardo about the measures
needful to be observed. For we must not act in haste, or do anything
unbeseeming my name. I am poor, and held of little account by the
wealthy of our family—nay, I may consider myself a lonely man—but I
must nevertheless remember that generous birth has its obligations. And
I would not be reproached by my fellow-citizens for rash haste in
bestowing my daughter. Bartolommeo Scala gave his Alessandra to the
Greek Marullo, but Marullo’s lineage was well-known, and Scala himself
is of no extraction. I know Bernardo will hold that we must take time:
he will, perhaps, reproach me with want of due forethought. Be patient,
my children: you are very young.”

No more could be said, and Romola’s heart was perfectly satisfied. Not
so Tito’s. If the subtle mixture of good and evil prepares suffering
for human truth and purity, there is also suffering prepared for the
wrong-doer by the same mingled conditions. As Tito kissed Romola on
their parting that evening, the very strength of the thrill that moved
his whole being at the sense that this woman, whose beauty it was
hardly possible to think of as anything but the necessary consequence
of her noble nature, loved him with all the tenderness that spoke in
her clear eyes, brought a strong reaction of regret that he had not
kept himself free from that first deceit which had dragged him into the
danger of being disgraced before her. There was a spring of bitterness
mingling with that fountain of sweets. Would the death of Fra Luca
arrest it? He hoped it would.




CHAPTER XIII.
The Shadow of Nemesis.


It was the lazy afternoon time on the seventh of September, more than
two months after the day on which Romola and Tito had confessed their
love to each other.

Tito, just descended into Nello’s shop, had found the barber stretched
on the bench with his cap over his eyes; one leg was drawn up, and the
other had slipped towards the ground, having apparently carried with it
a manuscript volume of verse, which lay with its leaves crushed. In a
corner sat Sandro, playing a game at _mora_ by himself, and watching
the slow reply of his left fingers to the arithmetical demands of his
right with solemn-eyed interest.

Treading with the gentlest step, Tito snatched up the lute, and bending
over the barber, touched the strings lightly while he sang—

“Quant’ è bella giovinezza,
Che si fugge tuttavia!
Chi vuol esser lieto sia,
Di doman non c’è certezza.”[1]


 [1] “Beauteous is life in blossom!
And it fleeteth—fleeteth ever;
Whoso would be joyful—let him!
There’s no surety for the morrow.”

_Carnival Song by Lorenzo de’ Medici_.


Nello was as easily awaked as a bird. The cap was off his eyes in an
instant, and he started up.

“Ah, my Apollino! I am somewhat late with my siesta on this hot day, it
seems. That comes of not going to sleep in the natural way, but taking
a potion of potent poesy. Hear you, how I am beginning to match my
words by the initial letter, like a Trovatore? That is one of my bad
symptoms: I am sorely afraid that the good wine of my understanding is
going to run off at the spigot of authorship, and I shall be left an
empty cask with an odour of dregs, like many another incomparable
genius of my acquaintance. What is it, my Orpheus?” here Nello
stretched out his arms to their full length, and then brought them
round till his hands grasped Tito’s curls, and drew them out playfully.
“What is it you want of your well-tamed Nello? For I perceive a coaxing
sound in that soft strain of yours. Let me see the very needle’s eye of
your desire, as the sublime poet says, that I may thread it.”

“That is but a tailor’s image of your sublime poet’s,” said Tito, still
letting his fingers fall in a light dropping way on the strings. “But
you have divined the reason of my affectionate impatience to see your
eyes open. I want you to give me an extra touch of your art—not on my
chin, no; but on the zazzera, which is as tangled as your Florentine
politics. You have an adroit way of inserting your comb, which flatters
the skin, and stirs the animal spirits agreeably in that region; and a
little of your most delicate orange-scent would not lie amiss, for I am
bound to the Scala palace, and am to present myself in radiant company.
The young cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici is to be there, and he brings
with him a certain young Bernardo Dovizi of Bibbiena, whose wit is so
rapid that I see no way of out-rivalling it save by the scent of
orange-blossoms.”

Nello had already seized and flourished his comb, and pushed Tito
gently backward into the chair, wrapping the cloth round him.

“Never talk of rivalry, bel giovane mio: Bernardo Dovizi is a keen
youngster, who will never carry a net out to catch the wind; but he has
something of the same sharp-muzzled look as his brother Ser Piero, the
weasel that Piero de’ Medici keeps at his beck to slip through small
holes for him. No! you distance all rivals, and may soon touch the sky
with your forefinger. They tell me you have even carried enough honey
with you to sweeten the sour Messer Angelo; for he has pronounced you
less of an ass than might have been expected, considering there is such
a good understanding between you and the Secretary.”

“And between ourselves, Nello mio, that Messer Angelo has more genius
and erudition than I can find in all the other Florentine scholars put
together. It may answer very well for them to cry me up now, when
Poliziano is beaten down with grief, or illness, or something else; I
can try a flight with such a sparrow-hawk as Pietro Crinito, but for
Poliziano, he is a large-beaked eagle who would swallow me, feathers
and all, and not feel any difference.”

“I will not contradict your modesty there, if you will have it so; but
you don’t expect us clever Florentines to keep saying the same things
over again every day of our lives, as we must do if we always told the
truth. We cry down Dante, and we cry up Francesco Cei, just for the
sake of variety; and if we cry you up as a new Poliziano, heaven has
taken care that it shall not be quite so great a lie as it might have
been. And are you not a pattern of virtue in this wicked city? with
your ears double-waxed against all siren invitations that would lure
you from the Via de’ Bardi, and the great work which is to astonish
posterity?”

“Posterity in good truth, whom it will probably astonish as the
universe does, by the impossibility of seeing what was the plan of it.”

“Yes, something like that was being prophesied here the other day.
Cristoforo Landino said that the excellent Bardo was one of those
scholars who lie overthrown in their learning, like cavaliers in heavy
armour, and then get angry because they are over-ridden—which pithy
remark, it seems to me, was not a herb out of his own garden; for of
all men, for feeding one with an empty spoon and gagging one with vain
expectation by long discourse, Messer Cristoforo is the pearl. Ecco!
you are perfect now.” Here Nello drew away the cloth. “Impossible to
add a grace more! But love is not always to be fed on learning, eh? I
shall have to dress the zazzera for the betrothal before long—is it not
true?”

“Perhaps,” said Tito, smiling, “unless Messer Bernardo should next
recommend Bardo to require that I should yoke a lion and a wild boar to
the car of the Zecca before I can win my Alcestis. But I confess he is
right in holding me unworthy of Romola; she is a Pleiad that may grow
dim by marrying any mortal.”

“_Gnaffè_, your modesty is in the right place there. Yet fate seems to
have measured and chiselled you for the niche that was left empty by
the old man’s son, who, by the way, Cronaca was telling me, is now at
San Marco. Did you know?”

A slight electric shock passed through Tito as he rose from the chair,
but it was not outwardly perceptible, for he immediately stooped to
pick up the fallen book, and busied his fingers with flattening the
leaves, while he said—

“No; he was at Fiesole, I thought. Are you sure he is come back to San
Marco?”

“Cronaca is my authority,” said Nello, with a shrug. “I don’t frequent
that sanctuary, but he does. Ah,” he added, taking the book from Tito’s
hands, “my poor Nencia da Barberino! It jars your scholarly feelings to
see the pages dog’s-eared. I was lulled to sleep by the well-rhymed
charms of that rustic maiden—‘prettier than the turnip-flower,’ ‘with a
cheek more savoury than cheese.’ But to get such a well-scented notion
of the contadina, one must lie on velvet cushions in the Via Larga—not
go to look at the Fierucoloni stumping in to the Piazza della Nunziata
this evening after sundown.”

“And pray who are the Fierucoloni?” said Tito, indifferently, settling
his cap.

“The contadine who came from the mountains of Pistoia, and the
Casentino, and heaven knows where, to keep their vigil in the church of
the Nunziata, and sell their yarn and dried mushrooms at the Fierucola
(the little Fair), as we call it. They make a queer show, with their
paper lanterns, howling their hymns to the Virgin on this eve of her
nativity—if you had the leisure to see them. No?—well, I have had
enough of it myself, for there is wild work in the Piazza. One may
happen to get a stone or two about one’s ears or shins without asking
for it, and I was never fond of that pressing attention. Addio.”

Tito carried a little uneasiness with him on his visit, which ended
earlier than he had expected, the boy-cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici,
youngest of red-hatted fathers, who has since presented his broad dark
cheek very conspicuously to posterity as Pope Leo the Tenth, having
been detained at his favourite pastime of the chase, and having failed
to appear. It still wanted half an hour of sunset as he left the door
of the Scala palace, with the intention of proceeding forthwith to the
Via de’ Bardi; but he had not gone far when, to his astonishment, he
saw Romola advancing towards him along the Borgo Pinti.

She wore a thick black veil and black mantle, but it was impossible to
mistake her figure and her walk; and by her side was a short stout
form, which he recognised as that of Monna Brigida, in spite of the
unusual plainness of her attire. Romola had not been bred up to
devotional observances, and the occasions on which she took the air
elsewhere than under the loggia on the roof of the house, were so rare
and so much dwelt on beforehand, because of Bardo’s dislike to be left
without her, that Tito felt sure there must have been some sudden and
urgent ground for an absence of which he had heard nothing the day
before. She saw him through her veil and hastened her steps.

“Romola, has anything happened?” said Tito, turning to walk by her
side.

She did not answer at the first moment, and Monna Brigida broke in.

“Ah, Messer Tito, you do well to turn round, for we are in haste. And
is it not a misfortune?—we are obliged to go round by the walls and
turn up the Via del Maglio, because of the Fair; for the contadine
coming in block up the way by the Nunziata, which would have taken us
to San Marco in half the time.”

Tito’s heart gave a great bound, and began to beat violently.

“Romola,” he said, in a lower tone, “are you going to San Marco?”

They were now out of the Borgo Pinti and were under the city walls,
where they had wide gardens on their left-hand, and all was quiet.
Romola put aside her veil for the sake of breathing the air, and he
could see the subdued agitation in her face.

“Yes, Tito mio,” she said, looking directly at him with sad eyes. “For
the first time I am doing something unknown to my father. It comforts
me that I have met you, for at least I can tell _you_. But if you are
going to him, it will be well for you not to say that you met me. He
thinks I am only gone to my cousin, because she sent for me. I left my
godfather with him: _he_ knows where I am going, and why. You remember
that evening when my brother’s name was mentioned and my father spoke
of him to you?”

“Yes,” said Tito, in a low tone. There was a strange complication in
his mental state. His heart sank at the probability that a great change
was coming over his prospects, while at the same time his thoughts were
darting over a hundred details of the course he would take when the
change had come; and yet he returned Romola’s gaze with a hungry sense
that it might be the last time she would ever bend it on him with full
unquestioning confidence.

“The _cugina_ had heard that he was come back, and the evening
before—the evening of San Giovanni—as I afterwards found, he had been
seen by our good Maso near the door of our house; but when Maso went to
inquire at San Marco, Dino, that is, my brother—he was christened
Bernardino, after our godfather, but now he calls himself Fra Luca—had
been taken to the monastery at Fiesole, because he was ill. But this
morning a message came to Maso, saying that he was come back to San
Marco, and Maso went to him there. He is very ill, and he has adjured
me to go and see him. I cannot refuse it, though I hold him guilty; I
still remember how I loved him when I was a little girl, before I knew
that he would forsake my father. And perhaps he has some word of
penitence to send by me. It cost me a struggle to act in opposition to
my father’s feeling, which I have always held to be just. I am almost
sure you will think I have chosen rightly, Tito, because I have noticed
that your nature is less rigid than mine, and nothing makes you angry:
it would cost you less to be forgiving; though, if you had seen your
father forsaken by one to whom he had given his chief love—by one in
whom he had planted his labour and his hopes—forsaken when his need was
becoming greatest—even you, Tito, would find it hard to forgive.”

What could he say? He was not equal to the hypocrisy of telling Romola
that such offences ought not to be pardoned; and he had not the courage
to utter any words of dissuasion.

“You are right, my Romola; you are always right, except in thinking too
well of me.”

There was really some genuineness in those last words, and Tito looked
very beautiful as he uttered them, with an unusual pallor in his face,
and a slight quivering of his lip. Romola, interpreting all things
largely, like a mind prepossessed with high beliefs, had a tearful
brightness in her eyes as she looked at him, touched with keen joy that
he felt so strongly whatever she felt. But without pausing in her walk,
she said—

“And now, Tito, I wish you to leave me, for the _cugina_ and I shall be
less noticed if we enter the piazza alone.”

“Yes, it were better you should leave us,” said Monna Brigida; “for to
say the truth, Messer Tito, all eyes follow you, and let Romola muffle
herself as she will, every one wants to see what there is under her
veil, for she has that way of walking like a procession. Not that I
find fault with her for it, only it doesn’t suit my steps. And, indeed,
I would rather not have us seen going to San Marco, and that’s why I am
dressed as if I were one of the Piagnoni themselves, and as old as
Sant’ Anna; for if it had been anybody but poor Dino, who ought to be
forgiven if he’s dying, for what’s the use of having a grudge against
dead people?—make them feel while they live, say I—”

No one made a scruple of interrupting Monna Brigida, and Tito, having
just raised Romola’s hand to his lips, and said, “I understand, I obey
you,” now turned away, lifting his cap—a sign of reverence rarely made
at that time by native Florentines, and which excited Bernardo del
Nero’s contempt for Tito as a fawning Greek, while to Romola, who loved
homage, it gave him an exceptional grace.

He was half glad of the dismissal, half disposed to cling to Romola to
the last moment in which she would love him without suspicion. For it
seemed to him certain that this brother would before all things want to
know, and that Romola would before all things confide to him, what was
her father’s position and her own after the years which must have
brought so much change. She would tell him that she was soon to be
publicly betrothed to a young scholar, who was to fill up the place
left vacant long ago by a wandering son. He foresaw the impulse that
would prompt Romola to dwell on that prospect, and what would follow on
the mention of the future husband’s name. Fra Luca would tell all he
knew and conjectured, and Tito saw no possible falsity by which he
could now ward off the worst consequences of his former dissimulation.
It was all over with his prospects in Florence. There was Messer
Bernardo del Nero, who would be delighted at seeing confirmed the
wisdom of his advice about deferring the betrothal until Tito’s
character and position had been established by a longer residence; and
the history of the young Greek professor, whose benefactor was in
slavery, would be the talk under every loggia. For the first time in
his life he felt too fevered and agitated to trust his power of
self-command; he gave up his intended visit to Bardo, and walked up and
down under the walls until the yellow light in the west had quite
faded, when, without any distinct purpose, he took the first turning,
which happened to be the Via San Sebastiano, leading him directly
towards the Piazza dell’ Annunziata.

He was at one of those lawless moments which come to us all if we have
no guide but desire, and if the pathway where desire leads us seems
suddenly closed; he was ready to follow any beckoning that offered him
an immediate purpose.




CHAPTER XIV.
The Peasants’ Fair.


The moving crowd and the strange mixture of noises that burst on him at
the entrance of the piazza, reminded Tito of what Nello had said to him
about the Fierucoloni, and he pushed his way into the crowd with a sort
of pleasure in the hooting and elbowing, which filled the empty
moments, and dulled that calculation of the future which had so new a
dreariness for him, as he foresaw himself wandering away solitary in
pursuit of some unknown fortune, that his thought had even glanced
towards going in search of Baldassarre after all.

At each of the opposite inlets he saw people struggling into the
piazza, while above them paper lanterns, held aloft on sticks, were
waving uncertainly to and fro. A rude monotonous chant made a
distinctly traceable strand of noise, across which screams, whistles,
gibing chants in piping boyish voices, the beating of drums, and the
ringing of little bells, met each other in confused din. Every now and
then one of the dim floating lights disappeared with a smash from a
stone launched more or less vaguely in pursuit of mischief, followed by
a scream and renewed shouts. But on the outskirts of the whirling
tumult there were groups who were keeping this vigil of the Nativity of
the Virgin in a more methodical manner than by fitful stone-throwing
and gibing. Certain ragged men, darting a hard sharp glance around them
while their tongues rattled merrily, were inviting country people to
game with them on fair and open-handed terms; two masquerading figures
on stilts, who had snatched lanterns from the crowd, were swaying the
lights to and fro in meteoric fashion, as they strode hither and
thither; a sage trader was doing a profitable business at a small
covered stall, in hot _berlingozzi_, a favourite farinaceous delicacy;
one man standing on a barrel, with his back firmly planted against a
pillar of the loggia in front of the Foundling Hospital (Spedale degl’
Innocenti), was selling efficacious pills, invented by a doctor of
Salerno, warranted to prevent toothache and death by drowning; and not
far off, against another pillar, a tumbler was showing off his tricks
on a small platform; while a handful of ’prentices, despising the slack
entertainment of guerilla stone-throwing, were having a private
concentrated match of that favourite Florentine sport at the narrow
entrance of the Via de’ Febbrai.

Tito, obliged to make his way through chance openings in the crowd,
found himself at one moment close to the trotting procession of
barefooted, hard-heeled contadine, and could see their sun-dried,
bronzed faces, and their strange, fragmentary garb, dim with hereditary
dirt, and of obsolete stuffs and fashions, that made them look, in the
eyes of the city people, like a way-worn ancestry returning from a
pilgrimage on which they had set out a century ago. Just then it was
the hardy, scant-feeding peasant-women from the mountains of Pistoia,
who were entering with a year’s labour in a moderate bundle of yarn on
their backs, and in their hearts that meagre hope of good and that wide
dim fear of harm, which were somehow to be cared for by the Blessed
Virgin, whose miraculous image, painted by the angels, was to have the
curtain drawn away from it on this Eve of her Nativity, that its
potency might stream forth without obstruction.

At another moment he was forced away towards the boundary of the
piazza, where the more stationary candidates for attention and small
coin had judiciously placed themselves, in order to be safe in their
rear. Among these Tito recognised his acquaintance Bratti, who stood
with his back against a pillar, and his mouth pursed up in disdainful
silence, eyeing every one who approached him with a cold glance of
superiority, and keeping his hand fast on a serge covering which
concealed the contents of the basket slung before him. Rather surprised
at a deportment so unusual in an anxious trader, Tito went nearer and
saw two women go up to Bratti’s basket with a look of curiosity,
whereupon the pedlar drew the covering tighter, and looked another way.
It was quite too provoking, and one of the women was fain to ask what
there was in his basket?

“Before I answer that, Monna, I must know whether you mean to buy. I
can’t show such wares as mine in this fair for every fly to settle on
and pay nothing. My goods are a little too choice for that. Besides,
I’ve only two left, and I’ve no mind to soil them; for with the chances
of the pestilence that wise men talk of, there is likelihood of their
being worth their weight in gold. No, no: _andate con Dio_.”

The two women looked at each other.

“And what may be the price?” said the second.

“Not within what you are likely to have in your purse, buona donna,”
said Bratti, in a compassionately supercilious tone. “I recommend you
to trust in Messer Domeneddio and the saints: poor people can do no
better for themselves.”

“Not so poor!” said the second woman, indignantly, drawing out her
money-bag. “Come, now! what do you say to a grosso?”

“I say you may get twenty-one quattrini for it,” said Bratti, coolly;
“but not of me, for I haven’t got that small change.”

“Come; two, then?” said the woman, getting exasperated, while her
companion looked at her with some envy. “It will hardly be above two, I
think.”

After further bidding, and further mercantile coquetry, Bratti put on
an air of concession.

“Since you’ve set your mind on it,” he said, slowly raising the cover,
“I should be loth to do you a mischief; for Maestro Gabbadeo used to
say, when a woman sets her mind on a thing and doesn’t get it, she’s in
worse danger of the pestilence than before. Ecco! I have but two left;
and let me tell you, the fellow to them is on the finger of Maestro
Gabbadeo, who is gone to Bologna—as wise a doctor as sits at any door.”

The precious objects were two clumsy iron rings, beaten into the
fashion of old Roman rings, such as were sometimes disinterred. The
rust on them, and the entirely hidden character of their potency, were
so satisfactory, that the grossi were paid without grumbling, and the
first woman, destitute of those handsome coins, succeeded after much
show of reluctance on Bratti’s part in driving a bargain with some of
her yarn, and carried off the remaining ring in triumph. Bratti covered
up his basket, which was now filled with miscellanies, probably
obtained under the same sort of circumstances as the yarn, and, moving
from his pillar, came suddenly upon Tito, who, if he had had time,
would have chosen to avoid recognition.

“By the head of San Giovanni, now,” said Bratti, drawing Tito back to
the pillar, “this is a piece of luck. For I was talking of you this
morning, Messer Greco; but, I said, he is mounted up among the signori
now—and I’m glad of it, for I was at the bottom of his fortune—but I
can rarely get speech of him, for he’s not to be caught lying on the
stones now—not he! But it’s your luck, not mine, Messer Greco, save and
except some small trifle to satisfy me for my trouble in the
transaction.”

“You speak in riddles, Bratti,” said Tito. “Remember, I don’t sharpen
my wits, as you do, by driving hard bargains for iron rings: you must
be plain.”

“By the Holy ’Vangels! it was an easy bargain I gave them. If a Hebrew
gets thirty-two per cent, I hope a Christian may get a little more. If
I had not borne a conscience, I should have got twice the money and
twice the yarn. But, talking of rings, it is your ring—that very ring
you’ve got on your finger—that I could get you a purchaser for; ay, and
a purchaser with a deep money-bag.”

“Truly?” said Tito, looking at his ring and listening.

“A Genoese who is going straight away into Hungary, as I understand. He
came and looked all over my shop to see if I had any old things I
didn’t know the price of; I warrant you, he thought I had a pumpkin on
my shoulders. He had been rummaging all the shops in Florence. And he
had a ring on—not like yours, but something of the same fashion; and as
he was talking of rings, I said I knew a fine young man, a particular
acquaintance of mine, who had a ring of that sort. And he said, ‘Who is
he, pray? Tell him I’ll give him his price for it.’ And I thought of
going after you to Nello’s to-morrow; for it’s my opinion of you,
Messer Greco, that you’re not one who’d see the Arno run broth, and
stand by without dipping your finger.”

Tito had lost no word of what Bratti had said, yet his mind had been
very busy all the while. Why should he keep the ring? It had been a
mere sentiment, a mere fancy, that had prevented him from selling it
with the other gems; if he had been wiser and had sold it, he might
perhaps have escaped that identification by Fra Luca. It was true that
it had been taken from Baldassarre’s finger and put on his own as soon
as his young hand had grown to the needful size; but there was really
no valid good to anybody in those superstitious scruples about
inanimate objects. The ring had helped towards the recognition of him.
Tito had begun to dislike recognition, which was a claim from the past.
This foreigner’s offer, if he would really give a good price, was an
opportunity for getting rid of the ring without the trouble of seeking
a purchaser.

“You speak with your usual wisdom, Bratti,” said Tito. “I have no
objection to hear what your Genoese will offer. But when and where
shall I have speech of him?”

“To-morrow, at three hours after sunrise, he will be at my shop, and if
your wits are of that sharpness I have always taken them to be, Messer
Greco, you will ask him a heavy price; for he minds not money. It’s my
belief he’s buying for somebody else, and not for himself—perhaps for
some great signor.”

“It is well,” said Tito. “I will be at your shop, if nothing hinders.”

“And you will doubtless deal nobly by me for old acquaintance’ sake,
Messer Greco, so I will not stay to fix the small sum you will give me
in token of my service in the matter. It seems to me a thousand years
now till I get out of the piazza, for a fair is a dull, not to say a
wicked thing, when one has no more goods to sell.”

Tito made a hasty sign of assent and adieu, and moving away from the
pillar, again found himself pushed towards the middle of the piazza and
back again, without the power of determining his own course. In this
zigzag way he was carried along to the end of the piazza opposite the
church, where, in a deep recess formed by an irregularity in the line
of houses, an entertainment was going forward which seemed to be
especially attractive to the crowd. Loud bursts of laughter interrupted
a monologue which was sometimes slow and oratorical, at others rattling
and buffoonish. Here a girl was being pushed forward into the inner
circle with apparent reluctance, and there a loud laughing minx was
finding a way with her own elbows. It was a strange light that was
spread over the piazza. There were the pale stars breaking out above,
and the dim waving lanterns below, leaving all objects indistinct
except when they were seen close under the fitfully moving lights; but
in this recess there was a stronger light, against which the heads of
the encircling spectators stood in dark relief as Tito was gradually
pushed towards them, while above them rose the head of a man wearing a
white mitre with yellow cabalistic figures upon it.

“Behold, my children!” Tito heard him saying, “behold your opportunity!
neglect not the holy sacrament of matrimony when it can be had for the
small sum of a white quattrino—the cheapest matrimony ever offered, and
dissolved by special bull beforehand at every man’s own will and
pleasure. Behold the bull!” Here the speaker held up a piece of
parchment with huge seals attached to it. “Behold the indulgence
granted by his Holiness Alexander the Sixth, who, being newly elected
Pope for his peculiar piety, intends to reform and purify the Church,
and wisely begins by abolishing that priestly abuse which keeps too
large a share of this privileged matrimony to the clergy and stints the
laity. Spit once, my sons, and pay a white quattrino! This is the whole
and sole price of the indulgence. The quattrino is the only difference
the Holy Father allows to be put any longer between us and the
clergy—who spit and pay nothing.”

Tito thought he knew the voice, which had a peculiarly sharp ring, but
the face was too much in shadow from the lights behind for him to be
sure of the features. Stepping as near as he could, he saw within the
circle behind the speaker an altar-like table raised on a small
platform, and covered with a red drapery stitched all over with yellow
cabalistical figures. Half-a-dozen thin tapers burned at the back of
this table, which had a conjuring apparatus scattered over it, a large
open book in the centre, and at one of the front angles a monkey
fastened by a cord to a small ring and holding a small taper, which in
his incessant fidgety movements fell more or less aslant, whilst an
impish boy in a white surplice occupied himself chiefly in cuffing the
monkey, and adjusting the taper. The man in the mitre also wore a
surplice, and over it a chasuble on which the signs of the zodiac were
rudely marked in black upon a yellow ground. Tito was sure now that he
recognised the sharp upward-tending angles of the face under the mitre:
it was that of Maestro Vaiano, the mountebank, from whom he had rescued
Tessa. Pretty little Tessa! Perhaps she too had come in among the
troops of contadine.

“Come, my maidens! This is the time for the pretty who can have many
chances, and for the ill-favoured who have few. Matrimony to be
had—hot, eaten, and done with as easily as _berlingozzi_! And see!”
here the conjuror held up a cluster of tiny bags. “To every bride I
give a _Breve_ with a secret in it—the secret alone worth the money you
pay for the matrimony. The secret how to—no, no, I will not tell you
what the secret is about, and that makes it a double secret. Hang it
round your neck if you like, and never look at it; I don’t say _that_
will not be the best, for then you will see many things you don’t
expect: though if you open it you may break your leg, _è vero_, but you
will know a secret! Something nobody knows but me! And mark—I give you
the _Breve_, I don’t sell it, as many another holy man would: the
quattrino is for the matrimony, and the _Breve_ you get for nothing.
_Orsù, giovanetti_, come like dutiful sons of the Church and buy the
Indulgence of his Holiness Alexander the Sixth.”

This buffoonery just fitted the taste of the audience; the _fierucola_
was but a small occasion, so the townsmen might be contented with jokes
that were rather less indecent than those they were accustomed to hear
at every carnival, put into easy rhyme by the Magnifico and his poetic
satellites; while the women, over and above any relish of the fun,
really began to have an itch for the _Brevi_. Several couples had
already gone through the ceremony, in which the conjuror’s solemn
gibberish and grimaces over the open book, the antics of the monkey,
and even the preliminary spitting, had called forth peals of laughter;
and now a well-looking, merry-eyed youth of seventeen, in a loose tunic
and red cap, pushed forward, holding by the hand a plump brunette,
whose scanty ragged dress displayed her round arms and legs very
picturesquely.

“Fetter us without delay, Maestro!” said the youth, “for I have got to
take my bride home and paint her under the light of a lantern.”

“Ha! Mariotto, my son, I commend your pious observance...” The conjuror
was going on, when a loud chattering behind warned him that an
unpleasant crisis had arisen with his monkey.

The temper of that imperfect acolyth was a little tried by the
over-active discipline of his colleague in the surplice, and a sudden
cuff administered as his taper fell to a horizontal position, caused
him to leap back with a violence that proved too much for the slackened
knot by which his cord was fastened. His first leap was to the other
end of the table, from which position his remonstrances were so
threatening that the imp in the surplice took up a wand by way of an
equivalent threat, whereupon the monkey leaped on to the head of a tall
woman in the foreground, dropping his taper by the way, and chattering
with increased emphasis from that eminence. Great was the screaming and
confusion, not a few of the spectators having a vague dread of the
Maestro’s monkey, as capable of more hidden mischief than mere teeth
and claws could inflict; and the conjuror himself was in some alarm
lest any harm should happen to his familiar. In the scuffle to seize
the monkey’s string, Tito got out of the circle, and, not caring to
contend for his place again, he allowed himself to be gradually pushed
towards the church of the Nunziata, and to enter amongst the
worshippers.

The brilliant illumination within seemed to press upon his eyes with
palpable force after the pale scattered lights and broad shadows of the
piazza, and for the first minute or two he could see nothing
distinctly. That yellow splendour was in itself something supernatural
and heavenly to many of the peasant-women, for whom half the sky was
hidden by mountains, and who went to bed in the twilight; and the
uninterrupted chant from the choir was repose to the ear after the
hellish hubbub of the crowd outside. Gradually the scene became
clearer, though still there was a thin yellow haze from incense
mingling with the breath of the multitude. In a chapel on the left-hand
of the nave, wreathed with silver lamps, was seen unveiled the
miraculous fresco of the Annunciation, which, in Tito’s oblique view of
it from the right-hand side of the nave, seemed dark with the excess of
light around it. The whole area of the great church was filled with
peasant-women, some kneeling, some standing; the coarse bronzed skins,
and the dingy clothing of the rougher dwellers on the mountains,
contrasting with the softer-lined faces and white or red head-drapery
of the well-to-do dwellers in the valley, who were scattered in
irregular groups. And spreading high and far over the walls and ceiling
there was another multitude, also pressing close against each other,
that they might be nearer the potent Virgin. It was the crowd of votive
waxen images, the effigies of great personages, clothed in their habit
as they lived: Florentines of high name in their black silk lucco, as
when they sat in council; popes, emperors, kings, cardinals, and famous
condottieri with plumed morion seated on their chargers; all notable
strangers who passed through Florence or had aught to do with its
affairs—Mohammedans, even, in well-tolerated companionship with
Christian cavaliers; some of them with faces blackened and robes
tattered by the corroding breath of centuries, others fresh and bright
in new red mantle or steel corselet, the exact doubles of the living.
And wedged in with all these were detached arms, legs, and other
members, with only here and there a gap where some image had been
removed for public disgrace, or had fallen ominously, as Lorenzo’s had
done six months before. It was a perfect resurrection-swarm of remote
mortals and fragments of mortals, reflecting, in their varying degrees
of freshness, the sombre dinginess and sprinkled brightness of the
crowd below.

Tito’s glance wandered over the wild multitude in search of something.
He had already thought of Tessa, and the white hoods suggested the
possibility that he might detect her face under one of them. It was at
least a thought to be courted, rather than the vision of Romola looking
at him with changed eyes. But he searched in vain; and he was leaving
the church, weary of a scene which had no variety, when, just against
the doorway, he caught sight of Tessa, only two yards off him. She was
kneeling with her back against the wall, behind a group of
peasant-women, who were standing and looking for a spot nearer to the
sacred image. Her head hung a little aside with a look of weariness,
and her blue eyes were directed rather absently towards an altar-piece
where the Archangel Michael stood in his armour, with young face and
floating hair, amongst bearded and tonsured saints. Her right-hand,
holding a bunch of cocoons, fell by her side listlessly, and her round
cheek was paled, either by the light or by the weariness that was
expressed in her attitude: her lips were pressed poutingly together,
and every now and then her eyelids half fell: she was a large image of
a sweet sleepy child. Tito felt an irresistible desire to go up to her
and get her pretty trusting looks and prattle: this creature who was
without moral judgment that could condemn him, whose little loving
ignorant soul made a world apart, where he might feel in freedom from
suspicions and exacting demands, had a new attraction for him now. She
seemed a refuge from the threatened isolation that would come with
disgrace. He glanced cautiously round, to assure himself that Monna
Ghita was not near, and then, slipping quietly to her side, kneeled on
one knee, and said, in the softest voice, “Tessa!”

She hardly started, any more than she would have started at a soft
breeze that fanned her gently when she was needing it. She turned her
head and saw Tito’s face close to her: it was very much more beautiful
than the Archangel Michael’s, who was so mighty and so good that he
lived with the Madonna and all the saints and was prayed to along with
them. She smiled in happy silence, for that nearness of Tito quite
filled her mind.

“My little Tessa! you look very tired. How long have you been kneeling
here?”

She seemed to be collecting her thoughts for a minute or two, and at
last she said—

“I’m very hungry.”

“Come, then; come with me.”

He lifted her from her knees, and led her out under the cloisters
surrounding the atrium, which were then open, and not yet adorned with
the frescoes of Andrea del Sarto.

“How is it you are all by yourself, and so hungry, Tessa?”

“The Madre is ill; she has very bad pains in her legs, and sent me to
bring these cocoons to the Santissima Nunziata, because they’re so
wonderful; see!”—she held up the bunch of cocoons, which were arranged
with fortuitous regularity on a stem,—“and she had kept them to bring
them herself, but she couldn’t, and so she sent me because she thinks
the Holy Madonna may take away her pains; and somebody took my bag with
the bread and chestnuts in it, and the people pushed me back, and I was
so frightened coming in the crowd, and I couldn’t get anywhere near the
Holy Madonna, to give the cocoons to the Padre, but I must—oh, I must.”

“Yes, my little Tessa, you shall take them; but first come and let me
give you some berlingozzi. There are some to be had not far off.”

“Where did you come from?” said Tessa, a little bewildered. “I thought
you would never come to me again, because you never came to the Mercato
for milk any more. I set myself Aves to say, to see if they would bring
you back, but I left off, because they didn’t.”

“You see I come when you want some one to take care of you, Tessa.
Perhaps the Aves fetched me, only it took them a long while. But what
shall you do if you are here all alone? Where shall you go?”

“Oh, I shall stay and sleep in the church—a great many of them do—in
the church and all about here—I did once when I came with my mother;
and the _patrigno_ is coming with the mules in the morning.”

They were out in the piazza now, where the crowd was rather less
riotous than before, and the lights were fewer, the stream of pilgrims
having ceased. Tessa clung fast to Tito’s arm in satisfied silence,
while he led her towards the stall where he remembered seeing the
eatables. Their way was the easier because there was just now a great
rush towards the middle of the piazza, where the masqued figures on
stilts had found space to execute a dance. It was very pretty to see
the guileless thing giving her cocoons into Tito’s hand, and then
eating her berlingozzi with the relish of a hungry child. Tito had
really come to take care of her, as he did before, and that wonderful
happiness of being with him had begun again for her. Her hunger was
soon appeased, all the sooner for the new stimulus of happiness that
had roused her from her languor, and, as they turned away from the
stall, she said nothing about going into the church again, but looked
round as if the sights in the piazza were not without attraction to her
now she was safe under Tito’s arm.

“How can they do that?” she exclaimed, looking up at the dancers on
stilts. Then, after a minute’s silence, “Do you think Saint Christopher
helps them?”

“Perhaps. What do you think about it, Tessa?” said Tito, slipping his
right arm round her, and looking down at her fondly.

“Because Saint Christopher is so very tall; and he is very good: if
anybody looks at him he takes care of them all day. He is on the wall
of the church—too tall to stand up there—but I saw him walking through
the streets one San Giovanni, carrying the little Gesu.”

“You pretty pigeon! Do you think anybody could help taking care of
_you_, if you looked at them?”

“Shall you always come and take care of me?” said Tessa, turning her
face up to him, as he crushed her cheek with his left-hand. “And shall
you always be a long while first?”

Tito was conscious that some bystanders were laughing at them, and
though the licence of street fun, among artists and young men of the
wealthier sort as well as among the populace, made few adventures
exceptional, still less disreputable, he chose to move away towards the
end of the piazza.

“Perhaps I shall come again to you very soon, Tessa,” he answered,
rather dreamily, when they had moved away. He was thinking that when
all the rest had turned their backs upon him, it would be pleasant to
have this little creature adoring him and nestling against him. The
absence of presumptuous self-conceit in Tito made him feel all the more
defenceless under prospective obloquy: he needed soft looks and
caresses too much ever to be impudent.

“In the Mercato?” said Tessa. “Not to-morrow morning, because the
_patrigno_ will be there, and he is so cross. Oh! but you have money,
and he will not be cross if you buy some salad. And there are some
chestnuts. Do you like chestnuts?”

He said nothing, but continued to look down at her with a dreamy
gentleness, and Tessa felt herself in a state of delicious wonder;
everything seemed as new as if she were being carried on a chariot of
clouds.

“Holy Virgin!” she exclaimed again presently. “There is a holy father
like the Bishop I saw at Prato.”

Tito looked up too, and saw that he had unconsciously advanced to
within a few yards of the conjuror, Maestro Vaiano, who for the moment
was forsaken by the crowd. His face was turned away from them, and he
was occupied with the apparatus on his altar or table, preparing a new
diversion by the time the interest in the dancing should be exhausted.
The monkey was imprisoned under the red cloth, out of reach of
mischief, and the youngster in the white surplice was holding a sort of
dish or salver, from which his master was taking some ingredient. The
altar-like table, with its gorgeous cloth, the row of tapers, the sham
episcopal costume, the surpliced attendant, and even the movements of
the mitred figure, as he alternately bent his head and then raised
something before the lights, were a sufficiently near parody of sacred
things to rouse poor little Tessa’s veneration; and there was some
additional awe produced by the mystery of their apparition in this
spot, for when she had seen an altar in the street before, it had been
on Corpus Christi Day, and there had been a procession to account for
it. She crossed herself and looked up at Tito, but then, as if she had
had time for reflection, said, “It is because of the Nativita.”

Meanwhile Vaiano had turned round, raising his hands to his mitre with
the intention of changing his dress, when his quick eye recognised Tito
and Tessa who were both looking at him, their faces being shone upon by
the light of his tapers, while his own was in shadow.

“Ha! my children!” he said, instantly, stretching out his hands in a
benedictory attitude, “you are come to be married. I commend your
penitence—the blessing of Holy Church can never come too late.”

But whilst he was speaking, he had taken in the whole meaning of
Tessa’s attitude and expression, and he discerned an opportunity for a
new kind of joke which required him to be cautious and solemn.

“Should you like to be married to me, Tessa?” said Tito, softly, half
enjoying the comedy, as he saw the pretty childish seriousness on her
face, half prompted by hazy previsions which belonged to the
intoxication of despair.

He felt her vibrating before she looked up at him and said, timidly,
“Will you let me?”

He answered only by a smile, and by leading her forward in front of the
_cerretano_, who, seeing an excellent jest in Tessa’s evident delusion,
assumed a surpassing sacerdotal solemnity, and went through the mimic
ceremony with a liberal expenditure of _lingua furbesca_ or thieves’
Latin. But some symptoms of a new movement in the crowd urged him to
bring it to a speedy conclusion and dismiss them with hands
outstretched in a benedictory attitude over their kneeling figures.
Tito, disposed always to cultivate goodwill, though it might be the
least select, put a piece of four grossi into his hand as he moved
away, and was thanked by a look which, the conjuror felt sure, conveyed
a perfect understanding of the whole affair.

But Tito himself was very far from that understanding, and did not, in
fact, know whether, the next moment, he should tell Tessa of the joke
and laugh at her for a little goose, or whether he should let her
delusion last, and see what would come of it—see what she would say and
do next.

“Then you will not go away from me again,” said Tessa, after they had
walked a few steps, “and you will take me to where you live.” She spoke
meditatively, and not in a questioning tone. But presently she added,
“I must go back once to the Madre though, to tell her I brought the
cocoons, and that I am married, and shall not go back again.”

Tito felt the necessity of speaking now; and in the rapid thought
prompted by that necessity, he saw that by undeceiving Tessa he should
be robbing himself of some at least of that pretty trustfulness which
might, by-and-by, be his only haven from contempt. It would spoil Tessa
to make her the least particle wiser or more suspicious.

“Yes, my little Tessa,” he said, caressingly, “you must go back to the
Madre; but you must not tell her you are married—you must keep that a
secret from everybody; else some very great harm would happen to me,
and you would never see me again.”

She looked up at him with fear in her face.

“You must go back and feed your goats and mules, and do just as you
have always done before, and say no word to any one about me.”

The corners of her mouth fell a little.

“And then, perhaps, I shall come and take care of you again when you
want me, as I did before. But you must do just what I tell you, else
you will not see me again.”

“Yes, I will, I will,” she said, in a loud whisper, frightened at that
blank prospect.

They were silent a little while; and then Tessa, looking at her hand,
said—

“The Madre wears a betrothal ring. She went to church and had it put
on, and then after that, another day, she was married. And so did the
cousin Nannina. But then _she_ married Gollo,” added the poor little
thing, entangled in the difficult comparison between her own case and
others within her experience.

“But you must not wear a betrothal ring, my Tessa, because no one must
know you are married,” said Tito, feeling some insistence necessary.
“And the _buona fortuna_ that I gave you did just as well for
betrothal. Some people are betrothed with rings and some are not.”

“Yes, it is true, they would see the ring,” said Tessa, trying to
convince herself that a thing she would like very much was really not
good for her.

They were now near the entrance of the church again, and she remembered
her cocoons which were still in Tito’s hand.

“Ah, you must give me the _boto_,” she said; “and we must go in, and I
must take it to the Padre, and I must tell the rest of my beads,
because I was too tired before.”

“Yes, you must go in, Tessa; but I will not go in. I must leave you
now,” said Tito, too feverish and weary to re-enter that stifling heat,
and feeling that this was the least difficult way of parting with her.

“And not come back? Oh, where do you go?” Tessa’s mind had never formed
an image of his whereabout or his doings when she did not see him: he
had vanished, and her thought, instead of following him, had stayed in
the same spot where he was with her.

“I shall come back some time, Tessa,” said Tito, taking her under the
cloisters to the door of the church. “You must not cry—you must go to
sleep, when you have said your beads. And here is money to buy your
breakfast. Now kiss me, and look happy, else I shall not come again.”

She made a great effort over herself as she put up her lips to kiss
him, and submitted to be gently turned round, with her face towards the
door of the church. Tito saw her enter; and then with a shrug at his
own resolution, leaned against a pillar, took off his cap, rubbed his
hair backward, and wondered where Romola was now, and what she was
thinking of him. Poor little Tessa had disappeared behind the curtain
among the crowd of peasants; but the love which formed one web with all
his worldly hopes, with the ambitions and pleasures that must make the
solid part of his days—the love that was identified with his larger
self—was not to be banished from his consciousness. Even to the man who
presents the most elastic resistance to whatever is unpleasant, there
will come moments when the pressure from without is too strong for him,
and he must feel the smart and the bruise in spite of himself. Such a
moment had come to Tito. There was no possible attitude of mind, no
scheme of action by which the uprooting of all his newly-planted hopes
could be made otherwise than painful.




CHAPTER XV.
The Dying Message.


When Romola arrived at the entrance of San Marco she found one of the
Frati waiting there in expectation of her arrival. Monna Brigida
retired into the adjoining church, and Romola was conducted to the door
of the chapter-house in the outer cloister, whither the invalid had
been conveyed; no woman being allowed admission beyond this precinct.

When the door opened, the subdued external light blending with that of
two tapers placed behind a truckle-bed, showed the emaciated face of
Fra Luca, with the tonsured crown of golden hair above it, and with
deep-sunken hazel eyes fixed on a small crucifix which he held before
him. He was propped up into nearly a sitting posture; and Romola was
just conscious, as she threw aside her veil, that there was another
monk standing by the bed, with the black cowl drawn over his head, and
that he moved towards the door as she entered; just conscious that in
the background there was a crucified form rising high and pale on the
frescoed wall, and pale faces of sorrow looking out from it below.

The next moment her eyes met Fra Luca’s as they looked up at her from
the crucifix, and she was absorbed in that pang of recognition which
identified this monkish emaciated form with the image of her fair young
brother.

“Dino!” she said, in a voice like a low cry of pain. But she did not
bend towards him; she held herself erect, and paused at two yards’
distance from him. There was an unconquerable repulsion for her in that
monkish aspect; it seemed to her the brand of the dastardly
undutifulness which had left her father desolate—of the grovelling
superstition which could give such undutifulness the name of piety. Her
father, whose proud sincerity and simplicity of life had made him one
of the few frank pagans of his time, had brought her up with a silent
ignoring of any claims the Church could have to regulate the belief and
action of beings with a cultivated reason. The Church, in her mind,
belonged to that actual life of the mixed multitude from which they had
always lived apart, and she had no ideas that could render her
brother’s course an object of any other feeling than incurious,
indignant contempt. Yet the lovingness of Romola’s soul had clung to
that image in the past, and while she stood rigidly aloof, there was a
yearning search in her eyes for something too faintly discernible.

But there was no corresponding emotion in the face of the monk. He
looked at the little sister returned to him in her full womanly beauty,
with the far-off gaze of a revisiting spirit.

“My sister!” he said, with a feeble and interrupted but yet distinct
utterance, “it is well thou hast not longer delayed to come, for I have
a message to deliver to thee, and my time is short.”

Romola took a step nearer: the message, she thought, would be one of
affectionate penitence to her father, and her heart began to open.
Nothing could wipe out the long years of desertion; but the culprit,
looking back on those years with the sense of irremediable wrong
committed, would call forth pity. Now, at the last, there would be
understanding and forgiveness. Dino would pour out some natural filial
feeling; he would ask questions about his father’s blindness—how
rapidly it had come on? how the long dark days had been filled? what
the life was now in the home where he himself had been nourished?—and
the last message from the dying lips would be one of tenderness and
regret.

“Romola,” Fra Luca began, “I have had a vision concerning thee. Thrice
I have had it in the last two months: each time it has been clearer.
Therefore I came from Fiesole, deeming it a message from heaven that I
was bound to deliver. And I gather a promise of mercy to thee in this,
that my breath is preserved in order to—”

The difficult breathing which continually interrupted him would not let
him finish the sentence.

Romola had felt her heart chilling again. It was a vision, then, this
message—one of those visions she had so often heard her father allude
to with bitterness. Her indignation rushed to her lips.

“Dino, I thought you had some words to send to my father. You forsook
him when his sight was failing; you made his life very desolate. Have
you never cared about that? never repented? What is this religion of
yours, that places visions before natural duties?”

The deep-sunken hazel eyes turned slowly towards her, and rested upon
her in silence for some moments, as if he were meditating whether he
should answer her.

“No,” he said at last; speaking as before, in a low passionless tone,
as of some spirit not human, speaking through dying human organs. “No;
I have never repented fleeing from the stifling poison-breath of sin
that was hot and thick around me, and threatened to steal over my
senses like besotting wine. My father could not hear the voice that
called me night and day; he knew nothing of the demon-tempters that
tried to drag me back from following it. My father has lived amidst
human sin and misery without believing in them: he has been like one
busy picking shining stones in a mine, while there was a world dying of
plague above him. I spoke, but he listened with scorn. I told him the
studies he wished me to live for were either childish trifling—dead
toys—or else they must be made warm and living by pulses that beat to
worldly ambitions and fleshly lusts, for worldly ambitions and fleshly
lusts made all the substance of the poetry and history he wanted me to
bend my eyes on continually.”

“Has not my father led a pure and noble life, then?” Romola burst
forth, unable to hear in silence this implied accusation against her
father. “He has sought no worldly honours; he has been truthful; he has
denied himself all luxuries; he has lived like one of the ancient
sages. He never wished you to live for worldly ambitions and fleshly
lusts; he wished you to live as he himself has done, according to the
purest maxims of philosophy, in which he brought you up.”

Romola spoke partly by rote, as all ardent and sympathetic young
creatures do; but she spoke with intense belief. The pink flush was in
her face, and she quivered from head to foot. Her brother was again
slow to answer; looking at her passionate face with strange passionless
eyes.

“What were the maxims of philosophy to me? They told me to be strong,
when I felt myself weak; when I was ready, like the blessed Saint
Benedict, to roll myself among thorns, and court smarting wounds as a
deliverance from temptation. For the Divine love had sought me, and
penetrated me, and created a great need in me; like a seed that wants
room to grow. I had been brought up in carelessness of the true faith;
I had not studied the doctrines of our religion; but it seemed to take
possession of me like a rising flood. I felt that there was a life of
perfect love and purity for the soul; in which there would be no uneasy
hunger after pleasure, no tormenting questions, no fear of suffering.
Before I knew the history of the saints, I had a foreshadowing of their
ecstasy. For the same truth had penetrated even into pagan philosophy:
that it is a bliss within the reach of man to die to mortal needs, and
live in the life of God as the Unseen Perfectness. But to attain that I
must forsake the world: I must have no affection, no hope, wedding me
to that which passeth away; I must live with my fellow-beings only as
human souls related to the eternal unseen life. That need was urging me
continually: it came over me in visions when my mind fell away weary
from the vain words which record the passions of dead men: it came over
me after I had been tempted into sin and had turned away with loathing
from the scent of the emptied cup. And in visions I saw the meaning of
the Crucifix.”

He paused, breathing hard for a minute or two: but Romola was not
prompted to speak again. It was useless for her mind to attempt any
contact with the mind of this unearthly brother: as useless as for her
hand to try and grasp a shadow. When he spoke again his heaving chest
was quieter.

“I felt whom I must follow: but I saw that even among the servants of
the Cross who professed to have renounced the world, my soul would be
stifled with the fumes of hypocrisy, and lust, and pride. God had not
chosen me, as he chose Saint Dominic and Saint Francis, to wrestle with
evil in the Church and in the world. He called upon me to flee: I took
the sacred vows and I fled—fled to lands where danger and scorn and
want bore me continually, like angels, to repose on the bosom of God. I
have lived the life of a hermit, I have ministered to pilgrims; but my
task has been short: the veil has worn very thin that divides me from
my everlasting rest. I came back to Florence that—”

“Dino, you _did_ want to know if my father was alive,” interrupted
Romola, the picture of that suffering life touching her again with the
desire for union and forgiveness.

”—That before I died I might urge others of our brethren to study the
Eastern tongues, as I had not done, and go out to greater ends than I
did; and I find them already bent on the work. And since I came,
Romola, I have felt that I was sent partly to thee—not to renew the
bonds of earthly affection, but to deliver the heavenly warning
conveyed in a vision. For I have had that vision thrice. And through
all the years since first the Divine voice called me, while I was yet
in the world, I have been taught and guided by visions. For in the
painful linking together of our waking thoughts we can never be sure
that we have not mingled our own error with the light we have prayed
for; but in visions and dreams we are passive, and our souls are as an
instrument in the Divine hand. Therefore listen, and speak not
again—for the time is short.”

Romola’s mind recoiled strongly from listening to this vision. Her
indignation had subsided, but it was only because she had felt the
distance between her brother and herself widening. But while Fra Luca
was speaking, the figure of another monk had entered, and again stood
on the other side of the bed, with the cowl drawn over his head.

“Kneel, my daughter, for the Angel of Death is present, and waits while
the message of heaven is delivered: bend thy pride before it is bent
for thee by a yoke of iron,” said a strong rich voice, startlingly in
contrast with Fra Luca’s.

The tone was not that of imperious command, but of quiet
self-possession and assurance of the right, blended with benignity.
Romola, vibrating to the sound, looked round at the figure on the
opposite side of the bed. His face was hardly discernible under the
shadow of the cowl, and her eyes fell at once on his hands, which were
folded across his breast and lay in relief on the edge of his black
mantle. They had a marked physiognomy which enforced the influence of
the voice: they were very beautiful and almost of transparent delicacy.
Romola’s disposition to rebel against command, doubly active in the
presence of monks, whom she had been taught to despise, would have
fixed itself on any repulsive detail as a point of support. But the
face was hidden, and the hands seemed to have an appeal in them against
all hardness. The next moment the right-hand took the crucifix to
relieve the fatigued grasp of Fra Luca, and the left touched his lips
with a wet sponge which lay near. In the act of bending, the cowl was
pushed back, and the features of the monk had the full light of the
tapers on them. They were very marked features, such as lend themselves
to popular description. There was the high arched nose, the prominent
under-lip, the coronet of thick dark hair above the brow, all seeming
to tell of energy and passion; there were the blue-grey eyes, shining
mildly under auburn eyelashes, seeming, like the hands, to tell of
acute sensitiveness. Romola felt certain they were the features of Fra
Girolamo Savonarola, the prior of San Marco, whom she had chiefly
thought of as more offensive than other monks, because he was more
noisy. Her rebellion was rising against the first impression, which had
almost forced her to bend her knees.

“Kneel, my daughter,” the penetrating voice said again, “the pride of
the body is a barrier against the gifts that purify the soul.”

He was looking at her with mild fixedness while he spoke, and again she
felt that subtle mysterious influence of a personality by which it has
been given to some rare men to move their fellows.

Slowly Romola fell on her knees, and in the very act a tremor came over
her; in the renunciation of her proud erectness, her mental attitude
seemed changed, and she found herself in a new state of passiveness.
Her brother began to speak again—

“Romola, in the deep night, as I lay awake, I saw my father’s room—the
library—with all the books and the marbles and the leggio, where I used
to stand and read; and I saw you—you were revealed to me as I see you
now, with fair long hair, sitting before my father’s chair. And at the
leggio stood a man whose face I could not see. I looked, and looked,
and it was a blank to me, even as a painting effaced; and I saw him
move and take thee, Romola, by the hand; and then I saw thee take my
father by the hand; and you all three went down the stone steps into
the streets, the man whose face was a blank to me leading the way. And
you stood at the altar in Santa Croce, and the priest who married you
had the face of death; and the graves opened, and the dead in their
shrouds rose and followed you like a bridal train. And you passed on
through the streets and the gates into the valley, and it seemed to me
that he who led you hurried you more than you could bear, and the dead
were weary of following you, and turned back to their graves. And at
last you came to a stony place where there was no water, and no trees
or herbage; but instead of water, I saw written parchment unrolling
itself everywhere, and instead of trees and herbage I saw men of bronze
and marble springing up and crowding round you. And my father was faint
for want of water and fell to the ground; and the man whose face was a
blank loosed thy hand and departed: and as he went I could see his
face; and it was the face of the Great Tempter. And thou, Romola, didst
wring thy hands and seek for water, and there was none. And the bronze
and marble figures seemed to mock thee and hold out cups of water, and
when thou didst grasp them and put them to my father’s lips, they
turned to parchment. And the bronze and marble figures seemed to turn
into demons and snatch my father’s body from thee, and the parchments
shrivelled up, and blood ran everywhere instead of them, and fire upon
the blood, till they all vanished, and the plain was bare and stony
again, and thou wast alone in the midst of it. And then it seemed that
the night fell and I saw no more... Thrice I have had that vision,
Romola. I believe it is a revelation meant for thee: to warn thee
against marriage as a temptation of the enemy; it calls upon thee to
dedicate thyself—”

His pauses had gradually become longer and more frequent, and he was
now compelled to cease by a severe fit of gasping, in which his eyes
were turned on the crucifix as on a light that was vanishing. Presently
he found strength to speak again, but in a feebler, scarcely audible
tone.

“To renounce the vain philosophy and corrupt thoughts of the heathens:
for in the hour of sorrow and death their pride will turn to mockery,
and the unclean gods will—”

The words died away.

In spite of the thought that was at work in Romola, telling her that
this vision was no more than a dream, fed by youthful memories and
ideal convictions, a strange awe had come over her. Her mind was not
apt to be assailed by sickly fancies; she had the vivid intellect and
the healthy human passion, which are too keenly alive to the constant
relations of things to have any morbid craving after the exceptional.
Still the images of the vision she despised jarred and distressed her
like painful and cruel cries. And it was the first time she had
witnessed the struggle with approaching death: her young life had been
sombre, but she had known nothing of the utmost human needs; no acute
suffering—no heart-cutting sorrow; and this brother, come back to her
in his hour of supreme agony, was like a sudden awful apparition from
an invisible world. The pale faces of sorrow in the fresco on the
opposite wall seemed to have come nearer, and to make one company with
the pale face on the bed.

“Frate,” said the dying voice.

Fra Girolamo leaned down. But no other word came for some moments.

“Romola,” it said next.

She leaned forward too: but again there was silence. The words were
struggling in vain.

“Fra Girolamo, give her—”

“The crucifix,” said the voice of Fra Girolamo.

No other sound came from the dying lips.

“Dino!” said Romola, with a low but piercing cry, as the certainty came
upon her that the silence of misunderstanding could never be broken.

“Take the crucifix, my daughter,” said Fra Girolamo, after a few
minutes. “His eyes behold it no more.”

Romola stretched out her hand to the crucifix, and this act appeared to
relieve the tension of her mind. A great sob burst from her. She bowed
her head by the side of her dead brother, and wept aloud.

It seemed to her as if this first vision of death must alter the
daylight for her for evermore.

Fra Girolamo moved towards the door, and called in a lay Brother who
was waiting outside. Then he went up to Romola and said in a tone of
gentle command, “Rise, my daughter, and be comforted. Our brother is
with the blessed. He has left you the crucifix, in remembrance of the
heavenly warning—that it may be a beacon to you in the darkness.”

She rose from her knees, trembling, folded her veil over her head, and
hid the crucifix under her mantle. Fra Girolamo then led the way out
into the cloistered court, lit now only by the stars and by a lantern
which was held by some one near the entrance. Several other figures in
the dress of the dignified laity were grouped about the same spot. They
were some of the numerous frequenters of San Marco, who had come to
visit the Prior, and having heard that he was in attendance on the
dying Brother in the chapter-house, had awaited him here.

Romola was dimly conscious of footsteps and rustling forms moving
aside: she heard the voice of Fra Girolamo saying, in a low tone, “Our
brother is departed;” she felt a hand laid on her arm. The next moment
the door was opened, and she was out in the wide piazza of San Marco,
with no one but Monna Brigida, and the servant carrying the lantern.

The fresh sense of space revived her, and helped her to recover her
self-mastery. The scene which had just closed upon her was terribly
distinct and vivid, but it began to narrow under the returning
impressions of the life that lay outside it. She hastened her steps,
with nervous anxiety to be again with her father—and with Tito—for were
they not together in her absence? The images of that vision, while they
clung about her like a hideous dream not yet to be shaken off, made her
yearn all the more for the beloved faces and voices that would assure
her of her waking life.

Tito, we know, was not with Bardo; his destiny was being shaped by a
guilty consciousness, urging on him the despairing belief that by this
time Romola possessed the knowledge which would lead to their final
separation.

And the lips that could have conveyed that knowledge were for ever
closed. The prevision that Fra Luca’s words had imparted to Romola had
been such as comes from the shadowy region where human souls seek
wisdom apart from the human sympathies which are the very life and
substance of our wisdom; the revelation that might have come from the
simple questions of filial and brotherly affection had been carried
into irrevocable silence.




CHAPTER XVI.
A Florentine Joke.


Early the next morning Tito was returning from Bratti’s shop in the
narrow thoroughfare of the Ferravecchi. The Genoese stranger had
carried away the onyx ring, and Tito was carrying away fifty florins.
It did just cross his mind that if, after all, Fortune, by one of her
able devices, saved him from the necessity of quitting Florence, it
would be better for him not to have parted with his ring, since he had
been understood to wear it for the sake of peculiar memories and
predilections; still, it was a slight matter, not worth dwelling on
with any emphasis, and in those moments he had lost his confidence in
fortune. The feverish excitement of the first alarm which had impelled
his mind to travel into the future had given place to a dull, regretful
lassitude. He cared so much for the pleasures that could only come to
him through the good opinion of his fellow-men, that he wished now he
had never risked ignominy by shrinking from what his fellow-men called
obligations.

But our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act
apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds
never: they have an indestructible life both in and out of our
consciousness; and that dreadful vitality of deeds was pressing hard on
Tito for the first time.

He was going back to his lodgings in the Piazza di San Giovanni, but he
avoided passing through the Mercato Vecchio, which was his nearest way,
lest he should see Tessa. He was not in the humour to seek anything; he
could only await the first sign of his altering lot.

The piazza with its sights of beauty was lit up by that warm morning
sunlight under which the autumn dew still lingers, and which invites to
an idleness undulled by fatigue. It was a festival morning, too, when
the soft warmth seems to steal over one with a special invitation to
lounge and gaze. Here, too, the signs of the fair were present; in the
spaces round the octagonal baptistery, stalls were being spread with
fruit and flowers, and here and there laden mules were standing quietly
absorbed in their nose-bags, while their drivers were perhaps gone
through the hospitable sacred doors to kneel before the blessed Virgin
on this morning of her Nativity. On the broad marble steps of the Duomo
there were scattered groups of beggars and gossiping talkers: here an
old crone with white hair and hard sunburnt face encouraging a
round-capped baby to try its tiny bare feet on the warmed marble, while
a dog sitting near snuffed at the performance suspiciously; there a
couple of shaggy-headed boys leaning to watch a small pale cripple who
was cutting a face on a cherry-stone; and above them on the wide
platform men were making changing knots in laughing desultory chat, or
else were standing in close couples gesticulating eagerly.

But the largest and most important company of loungers was that towards
which Tito had to direct his steps. It was the busiest time of the day
with Nello, and in this warm season and at an hour when clients were
numerous, most men preferred being shaved under the pretty red and
white awning in front of the shop rather than within narrow walls. It
is not a sublime attitude for a man, to sit with lathered chin thrown
backward, and have his nose made a handle of; but to be shaved was a
fashion of Florentine respectability, and it is astonishing how gravely
men look at each other when they are all in the fashion. It was the
hour of the day, too, when yesterday’s crop of gossip was freshest, and
the barber’s tongue was always in its glory when his razor was busy;
the deft activity of those two instruments seemed to be set going by a
common spring. Tito foresaw that it would be impossible for him to
escape being drawn into the circle; he must smile and retort, and look
perfectly at his ease. Well! it was but the ordeal of swallowing bread
and cheese pills after all. The man who let the mere anticipation of
discovery choke him was simply a man of weak nerves.

But just at that time Tito felt a hand laid on his shoulder, and no
amount of previous resolution could prevent the very unpleasant
sensation with which that sudden touch jarred him. His face, as he
turned it round, betrayed the inward shock; but the owner of the hand
that seemed to have such evil magic in it broke into a light laugh. He
was a young man about Tito’s own age, with keen features, small
close-clipped head, and close-shaven lip and chin, giving the idea of a
mind as little encumbered as possible with material that was not
nervous. The keen eyes were bright with hope and friendliness, as so
many other young eyes have been that have afterwards closed on the
world in bitterness and disappointment; for at that time there were
none but pleasant predictions about Niccolò Macchiavelli, as a young
man of promise, who was expected to mend the broken fortunes of his
ancient family.

“Why, Melema, what evil dream did you have last night, that you took my
light grasp for that of a _sbirro_ or something worse?”

“Ah, Messer Niccolò!” said Tito, recovering himself immediately; “it
must have been an extra amount of dulness in my veins this morning that
shuddered at the approach of your wit. But the fact is, I have had a
bad night.”

“That is unlucky, because you will be expected to shine without any
obstructing fog to-day in the Rucellai Gardens. I take it for granted
you are to be there.”

“Messer Bernardo did me the honour to invite me,” said Tito; “but I
shall be engaged elsewhere.”

“Ah! I remember, you are in love,” said Macchiavelli, with a shrug,
“else you would never have such inconvenient engagements. Why, we are
to eat a peacock and ortolans under the loggia among Bernardo
Rucellai’s rare trees; there are to be the choicest spirits in Florence
and the choicest wines. Only, as Piero de’ Medici is to be there, the
choice spirits may happen to be swamped in the capping of impromptu
verses. I hate that game; it is a device for the triumph of small wits,
who are always inspired the most by the smallest occasions.”

“What is that you are saying about Piero de’ Medici and small wits,
Messer Niccolò?” said Nello, whose light figure was at that moment
predominating over the Herculean frame of Niccolò Caparra.

That famous worker in iron, whom we saw last with bared muscular arms
and leathern apron in the Mercato Vecchio, was this morning dressed in
holiday suit, and as he sat submissively while Nello skipped round him,
lathered him, seized him by the nose, and scraped him with magical
quickness, he looked much as a lion might if it had donned linen and
tunic and was preparing to go into society.

“A private secretary will never rise in the world if he couples great
and small in that way,” continued Nello. “When great men are not
allowed to marry their sons and daughters as they like, small men must
not expect to marry their words as they like. Have you heard the news
Domenico Cennini, here, has been telling us?—that Pagolantonio Soderini
has given Ser Piero da Bibbiena a box on the ear for setting on Piero
de’ Medici to interfere with the marriage between young Tommaso
Soderini and Fiammetta Strozzi, and is to be sent ambassador to Venice
as a punishment?”

“I don’t know which I envy him most,” said Macchiavelli, “the offence
or the punishment. The offence will make him the most popular man in
all Florence, and the punishment will take him among the only people in
Italy who have known how to manage their own affairs.”

“Yes, if Soderini stays long enough at Venice,” said Cennini, “he may
chance to learn the Venetian fashion, and bring it home with him. The
Soderini have been fast friends of the Medici, but what has happened is
likely to open Pagolantonio’s eyes to the good of our old Florentine
trick of choosing a new harness when the old one galls us; if we have
not quite lost the trick in these last fifty years.”

“Not we,” said Niccolò Caparra, who was rejoicing in the free use of
his lips again. “Eat eggs in Lent and the snow will melt. That’s what I
say to our people when they get noisy over their cups at San Gallo, and
talk of raising a _romor_ (insurrection): I say, never do you plan a
_romor_; you may as well try to fill Arno with buckets. When there’s
water enough Arno will be full, and that will not be till the torrent
is ready.”

“Caparra, that oracular speech of yours is due to my excellent
shaving,” said Nello. “You could never have made it with that dark rust
on your chin. Ecco, Messer Domenico, I am ready for you now. By the
way, my bel erudito,” continued Nello, as he saw Tito moving towards
the door, “here has been old Maso seeking for you, but your nest was
empty. He will come again presently. The old man looked mournful, and
seemed in haste. I hope there is nothing wrong in the Via de’ Bardi.”

“Doubtless Messer Tito knows that Bardo’s son is dead,” said Cronaca,
who had just come up.

Tito’s heart gave a leap—had the death happened before Romola saw him?

“No, I had not heard it,” he said, with no more discomposure than the
occasion seemed to warrant, turning and leaning against the doorpost,
as if he had given up his intention of going away. “I knew that his
sister had gone to see him. Did he die before she arrived?”

“No,” said Cronaca; “I was in San Marco at the time, and saw her come
out from the chapter-house with Fra Girolamo, who told us that the
dying man’s breath had been preserved as by a miracle, that he might
make a disclosure to his sister.”

Tito felt that his fate was decided. Again his mind rushed over all the
circumstances of his departure from Florence, and he conceived a plan
of getting back his money from Cennini before the disclosure had become
public. If he once had his money he need not stay long in endurance of
scorching looks and biting words. He would wait now, and go away with
Cennini and get the money from him at once. With that project in his
mind he stood motionless—his hands in his belt, his eyes fixed absently
on the ground. Nello, glancing at him, felt sure that he was absorbed
in anxiety about Romola, and thought him such a pretty image of
self-forgetful sadness, that he just perceptibly pointed his razor at
him, and gave a challenging look at Piero di Cosimo, whom he had never
forgiven for his refusal to see any prognostics of character in his
favourite’s handsome face. Piero, who was leaning against the other
doorpost, close to Tito, shrugged his shoulders: the frequent
recurrence of such challenges from Nello had changed the painter’s
first declaration of neutrality into a positive inclination to believe
ill of the much-praised Greek.

“So you have got your Fra Girolamo back again, Cronaca? I suppose we
shall have him preaching again this next Advent,” said Nello.

“And not before there is need,” said Cronaca, gravely. “We have had the
best testimony to his words since the last Quaresima; for even to the
wicked wickedness has become a plague; and the ripeness of vice is
turning to rottenness in the nostrils even of the vicious. There has
not been a change since the Quaresima, either in Rome or at Florence,
but has put a new seal on the Frate’s words—that the harvest of sin is
ripe, and that God will reap it with a sword.”

“I hope he has had a new vision, however,” said Francesco Cei,
sneeringly. “The old ones are somewhat stale. Can’t your Frate get a
poet to help out his imagination for him?”

“He has no lack of poets about him,” said Cronaca, with quiet contempt,
“but they are great poets and not little ones; so they are contented to
be taught by him, and no more think the truth stale which God has given
him to utter, than they think the light of the moon is stale. But
perhaps certain high prelates and princes who dislike the Frate’s
denunciations might be pleased to hear that, though Giovanni Pico, and
Poliziano, and Marsilio Ficino, and most other men of mark in Florence,
reverence Fra Girolamo, Messer Francesco Cei despises him.”

“Poliziano?” said Cei, with a scornful laugh. “Yes, doubtless he
believes in your new Jonah; witness the fine orations he wrote for the
envoys of Sienna, to tell Alexander the Sixth that the world and the
Church were never so well off as since he became Pope.”

“Nay, Francesco,” said Macchiavelli, smiling, “a various scholar must
have various opinions. And as for the Frate, whatever we may think of
his saintliness, you judge his preaching too narrowly. The secret of
oratory lies, not in saying new things, but in saying things with a
certain power that moves the hearers—without which, as old Filelfo has
said, your speaker deserves to be called, ‘non oratorem, sed aratorem.’
And, according to that test, Fra Girolamo is a great orator.”

“That is true, Niccolò,” said Cennini, speaking from the shaving-chair,
“but part of the secret lies in the prophetic visions. Our people—no
offence to you, Cronaca—will run after anything in the shape of a
prophet, especially if he prophesies terrors and tribulations.”

“Rather say, Cennini,” answered Cronaca, “that the chief secret lies in
the Frate’s pure life and strong faith, which stamp him as a messenger
of God.”

“I admit it—I admit it,” said Cennini, opening his palms, as he rose
from the chair. “His life is spotless: no man has impeached it.”

“He is satisfied with the pleasant lust of arrogance,” Cei burst out,
bitterly. “I can see it in that proud lip and satisfied eye of his. He
hears the air filled with his own name—Fra Girolamo Savonarola, of
Ferrara; the prophet, the saint, the mighty preacher, who frightens the
very babies of Florence into laying down their wicked baubles.”

“Come, come, Francesco, you are out of humour with waiting,” said the
conciliatory Nello. “Let me stop your mouth with a little lather. I
must not have my friend Cronaca made angry: I have a regard for his
chin; and his chin is in no respect altered since he became a Piagnone.
And for my own part, I confess, when the Frate was preaching in the
Duomo last Advent, I got into such a trick of slipping in to listen to
him that I might have turned Piagnone too, if I had not been hindered
by the liberal nature of my art; and also by the length of the sermons,
which are sometimes a good while before they get to the moving point.
But, as Messer Niccolò here says, the Frate lays hold of the people by
some power over and above his prophetic visions. Monks and nuns who
prophesy are not of that rareness. For what says Luigi Pulci?
‘Dombruno’s sharp-cutting scimitar had the fame of being enchanted;
but,’ says Luigi, ‘I am rather of opinion that it cut sharp because it
was of strongly-tempered steel.’ Yes, yes; Paternosters may shave
clean, but they must be said over a good razor.”

“See, Nello!” said Macchiavelli, “what doctor is this advancing on his
Bucephalus? I thought your piazza was free from those furred and
scarlet-robed lackeys of death. This man looks as if he had had some
such night adventure as Boccaccio’s Maestro Simone, and had his bonnet
and mantle pickled a little in the gutter; though he himself is as
sleek as a miller’s rat.”

“A–ah!” said Nello, with a low long-drawn intonation, as he looked up
towards the advancing figure—a round-headed, round-bodied personage,
seated on a raw young horse, which held its nose out with an air of
threatening obstinacy, and by a constant effort to back and go off in
an oblique line showed free views about authority very much in advance
of the age.

“And I have a few more adventures in pickle for him,” continued Nello,
in an undertone, “which I hope will drive his inquiring nostrils to
another quarter of the city. He’s a doctor from Padua; they say he has
been at Prato for three months, and now he’s come to Florence to see
what he can net. But his great trick is making rounds among the
contadini. And do you note those great saddle-bags he carries? They are
to hold the fat capons and eggs and meal he levies on silly clowns with
whom coin is scarce. He vends his own secret medicines, so he keeps
away from the doors of the druggists; and for this last week he has
taken to sitting in my piazza for two or three hours every day, and
making it a resort for asthmas and squalling bambini. It stirs my gall
to see the toad-faced quack fingering the greasy quattrini, or bagging
a pigeon in exchange for his pills and powders. But I’ll put a few
thorns in his saddle, else I’m no Florentine. Laudamus! he is coming to
be shaved; that’s what I’ve waited for. Messer Domenico, go not away:
wait; you shall see a rare bit of fooling, which I devised two days
ago. Here, Sandro!”

Nello whispered in the ear of Sandro, who rolled his solemn eyes,
nodded, and, following up these signs of understanding with a slow
smile, took to his heels with surprising rapidity.

“How is it with you, Maestro Tacco?” said Nello, as the doctor, with
difficulty, brought his horse’s head round towards the barber’s shop.
“That is a fine young horse of yours, but something raw in the mouth,
eh?”

“He is an accursed beast, the _vermocane_ seize him!” said Maestro
Tacco, with a burst of irritation, descending from his saddle and
fastening the old bridle, mended with string, to an iron staple in the
wall. “Nevertheless,” he added, recollecting himself, “a sound beast
and a valuable, for one who wanted to purchase, and get a profit by
training him. I had him cheap.”

“Rather too hard riding for a man who carries your weight of learning:
eh, Maestro?” said Nello. “You seem hot.”

“Truly, I am likely to be hot,” said the doctor, taking off his bonnet,
and giving to full view a bald low head and flat broad face, with high
ears, wide lipless mouth, round eyes, and deep arched lines above the
projecting eyebrows, which altogether made Nello’s epithet “toad-faced”
dubiously complimentary to the blameless batrachian. “Riding from
Peretola, when the sun is high, is not the same thing as kicking your
heels on a bench in the shade, like your Florence doctors. Moreover, I
have had not a little pulling to get through the carts and mules into
the Mercato, to find out the husband of a certain Monna Ghita, who had
had a fatal seizure before I was called in; and if it had not been that
I had to demand my fees—”

“Monna Ghita!” said Nello, as the perspiring doctor interrupted himself
to rub his head and face. “Peace be with her angry soul! The Mercato
will want a whip the more if her tongue is laid to rest.”

Tito, who had roused himself from his abstraction, and was listening to
the dialogue, felt a new rush of the vague half-formed ideas about
Tessa, which had passed through his mind the evening before: if Monna
Ghita were really taken out of the way, it would be easier for him to
see Tessa again—whenever he wanted to see her.

“_Gnaffè_, Maestro,” Nello went on, in a sympathising tone, “you are
the slave of rude mortals, who, but for you, would die like brutes,
without help of pill or powder. It is pitiful to see your learned lymph
oozing from your pores as if it were mere vulgar moisture. You think my
shaving will cool and disencumber you? One moment and I have done with
Messer Francesco here. It seems to me a thousand years till I wait upon
a man who carries all the science of Arabia in his head and
saddle-bags. Ecco!”

Nello held up the shaving-cloth with an air of invitation, and Maestro
Tacco advanced and seated himself under a preoccupation with his heat
and his self-importance, which made him quite deaf to the irony
conveyed in Nello’s officiously polite speech.

“It is but fitting that a great medicus like you,” said Nello,
adjusting the cloth, “should be shaved by the same razor that has
shaved the illustrious Antonio Benevieni, the greatest master of the
chirurgic art.”

“The chirurgic art!” interrupted the doctor, with an air of
contemptuous disgust. “Is it your Florentine fashion to put the masters
of the science of medicine on a level with men who do carpentry on
broken limbs, and sew up wounds like tailors, and carve away
excrescences as a butcher trims meat? _Via_! A manual art, such as any
artificer might learn, and which has been practised by simple barbers
like yourself—on a level with the noble science of Hippocrates, Galen,
and Avicenna, which penetrates into the occult influences of the stars
and plants and gems!—a science locked up from the vulgar!”

“No, in truth, Maestro,” said Nello, using his lather very
deliberately, as if he wanted to prolong the operation to the utmost,
“I never thought of placing them on a level: I know your science comes
next to the miracles of Holy Church for mystery. But there, you see, is
the pity of it,”—here Nello fell into a tone of regretful
sympathy—“your high science is sealed from the profane and the vulgar,
and so you become an object of envy and slander. I grieve to say it,
but there are low fellows in this city—mere _sgherri_, who go about in
nightcaps and long beards, and make it their business to sprinkle gall
in every man’s broth who is prospering. Let me tell you—for you are a
stranger—this is a city where every man had need carry a large nail
ready to fasten on the wheel of Fortune when his side happens to be
uppermost. Already there are stories—mere fables doubtless—beginning to
be buzzed about concerning you, that make me wish I could hear of your
being well on your way to Arezzo. I would not have a man of your metal
stoned, for though San Stefano was stoned, he was not great in medicine
like San Cosmo and San Damiano...”

“What stories? what fables?” stammered Maestro Tacco. “What do you
mean?”

“_Lasso_! I fear me you are come into the trap for your cheese,
Maestro. The fact is, there is a company of evil youths who go prowling
about the houses of our citizens carrying sharp tools in their
pockets;—no sort of door, or window, or shutter, but they will pierce
it. They are possessed with a diabolical patience to watch the doings
of people who fancy themselves private. It must be they who have done
it—it must be they who have spread the stories about you and your
medicines. Have you by chance detected any small aperture in your door,
or window-shutter? No? Well, I advise you to look; for it is now
commonly talked of that you have been seen in your dwelling at the
Canto di Paglia, making your secret specifics by night: pounding dried
toads in a mortar, compounding a salve out of mashed worms, and making
your pills from the dried livers of rats which you mix with saliva
emitted during the utterance of a blasphemous incantation—which indeed
these witnesses profess to repeat.”

“It is a pack of lies!” exclaimed the doctor, struggling to get
utterance, and then desisting in alarm at the approaching razor.

“It is not to me, or any of this respectable company, that you need to
say that, doctor. _We_ are not the heads to plant such carrots as those
in. But what of that? What are a handful of reasonable men against a
crowd with stones in their hands? There are those among us who think
Cecco d’Ascoli was an innocent sage—and we all know how he was burnt
alive for being wiser than his fellows. Ah, doctor, it is not by living
at Padua that you can learn to know Florentines. My belief is, they
would stone the Holy Father himself, if they could find a good excuse
for it; and they are persuaded that you are a necromancer, who is
trying to raise the pestilence by selling secret medicines—and I am
told your specifics have in truth an evil smell.”

“It is false!” burst out the doctor, as Nello moved away his razor; “it
is false! I will show the pills and the powders to these honourable
signori—and the salve—it has an excellent odour—an odour of—of salve.”
He started up with the lather on his chin, and the cloth round his
neck, to search in his saddle-bag for the belied medicines, and Nello
in an instant adroitly shifted the shaving-chair till it was in the
close vicinity of the horse’s head, while Sandro, who had now returned,
at a sign from his master placed himself near the bridle.

“Behold, Messeri!” said the doctor, bringing a small box of medicines
and opening it before them.

“Let any signor apply this box to his nostrils and he will find an
honest odour of medicaments—not indeed of pounded gems, or rare
vegetables from the East, or stones found in the bodies of birds; for I
practise on the diseases of the vulgar, for whom heaven has provided
cheaper and less powerful remedies according to their degree: and there
are even remedies known to our science which are entirely free of
cost—as the new _tussis_ may be counteracted in the poor, who can pay
for no specifics, by a resolute holding of the breath. And here is a
paste which is even of savoury odour, and is infallible against
melancholia, being concocted under the conjunction of Jupiter and
Venus; and I have seen it allay spasms.”

“Stay, Maestro,” said Nello, while the doctor had his lathered face
turned towards the group near the door, eagerly holding out his box,
and lifting out one specific after another; “here comes a crying
contadina with her baby. Doubtless she is in search of you; it is
perhaps an opportunity for you to show this honourable company a proof
of your skill. Here, buona donna! here is the famous doctor. Why, what
is the matter with the sweet _bimbo_?”

This question was addressed to a sturdy-looking, broad-shouldered
contadina, with her head-drapery folded about her face so that little
was to be seen but a bronzed nose and a pair of dark eyes and eyebrows.
She carried her child packed up in the stiff mummy-shaped case in which
Italian babies have been from time immemorial introduced into society,
turning its face a little towards her bosom, and making those sorrowful
grimaces which women are in the habit of using as a sort of pulleys to
draw down reluctant tears.

“Oh, for the love of the Holy Madonna!” said the woman, in a wailing
voice; “will you look at my poor bimbo? I know I can’t pay you for it,
but I took it into the Nunziata last night, and it’s turned a worse
colour than before; it’s the convulsions. But when I was holding it
before the Santissima Nunziata, I remembered they said there was a new
doctor come who cured everything; and so I thought it might be the will
of the Holy Madonna that I should bring it to you.”

“Sit down, Maestro, sit down,” said Nello. “Here is an opportunity for
you; here are honourable witnesses who will declare before the
Magnificent Eight that they have seen you practising honestly and
relieving a poor woman’s child. And then if your life is in danger, the
Magnificent Eight will put you in prison a little while just to insure
your safety, and after that, their sbirri will conduct you out of
Florence by night, as they did the zealous Frate Minore who preached
against the Jews. What! our people are given to stone-throwing; but we
have magistrates.”

The doctor, unable to refuse, seated himself in the shaving-chair,
trembling, half with fear and half with rage, and by this time quite
unconscious of the lather which Nello had laid on with such
profuseness. He deposited his medicine-case on his knees, took out his
precious spectacles (wondrous Florentine device!) from his wallet,
lodged them carefully above his flat nose and high ears, and lifting up
his brows, turned towards the applicant.

“O Santiddio! look at him,” said the woman, with a more piteous wail
than ever, as she held out the small mummy, which had its head
completely concealed by dingy drapery wound round the head of the
portable cradle, but seemed to be struggling and crying in a demoniacal
fashion under this imprisonment. “The fit is on him! _Ohimè_! I know
what colour he is; it’s the evil eye—oh!”

The doctor, anxiously holding his knees together to support his box,
bent his spectacles towards the baby, and said cautiously, “It may be a
new disease; unwind these rags, Monna!”

The contadina, with sudden energy, snatched off the encircling linen,
when out struggled—scratching, grinning, and screaming—what the doctor
in his fright fully believed to be a demon, but what Tito recognised as
Vaiano’s monkey, made more formidable by an artificial blackness, such
as might have come from a hasty rubbing up the chimney.

Up started the unfortunate doctor, letting his medicine-box fall, and
away jumped the no less terrified and indignant monkey, finding the
first resting-place for his claws on the horse’s mane, which he used as
a sort of rope-ladder till he had fairly found his equilibrium, when he
continued to clutch it as a bridle. The horse wanted no spur under such
a rider, and, the already loosened bridle offering no resistance,
darted off across the piazza, with the monkey, clutching, grinning, and
blinking, on his neck.

“_Il cavallo! Il Diavolo_!” was now shouted on all sides by the idle
rascals who gathered from all quarters of the piazza, and was echoed in
tones of alarm by the stall-keepers, whose vested interests seemed in
some danger; while the doctor, out of his wits with confused terror at
the Devil, the possible stoning, and the escape of his horse, took to
his heels with spectacles on nose, lathered face, and the shaving-cloth
about his neck, crying—“Stop him! stop him! for a powder—a florin—stop
him for a florin!” while the lads, outstripping him, clapped their
hands and shouted encouragement to the runaway.

The _cerretano_, who had not bargained for the flight of his monkey
along with the horse, had caught up his petticoats with much celerity,
and showed a pair of parti-coloured hose above his contadina’s shoes,
far in advance of the doctor. And away went the grotesque race up the
Corso degli Adimari—the horse with the singular jockey, the contadina
with the remarkable hose, and the doctor in lather and spectacles, with
furred mantle outflying.

It was a scene such as Florentines loved, from the potent and reverend
signor going to council in his lucco, down to the grinning youngster,
who felt himself master of all situations when his bag was filled with
smooth stones from the convenient dry bed of the torrent. The
grey-headed Domenico Cennini laughed no less heartily than the younger
men, and Nello was triumphantly secure of the general admiration.

“Aha!” he exclaimed, snapping his fingers when the first burst of
laughter was subsiding. “I have cleared my piazza of that unsavoury
fly-trap, _mi pare_. Maestro Tacco will no more come here again to sit
for patients than he will take to licking marble for his dinner.”

“You are going towards the Piazza della Signoria, Messer Domenico,”
said Macchiavelli. “I will go with you, and we shall perhaps see who
has deserved the _palio_ among these racers. Come, Melema, will you go
too?”

It had been precisely Tito’s intention to accompany Cennini, but before
he had gone many steps, he was called back by Nello, who saw Maso
approaching.

Maso’s message was from Romola. She wished Tito to go to the Via de’
Bardi as soon as possible. She would see him under the loggia, at the
top of the house, as she wished to speak to him alone.




CHAPTER XVII.
Under the Loggia.


The loggia at the top of Bardo’s house rose above the buildings on each
side of it, and formed a gallery round quadrangular walls. On the side
towards the street the roof was supported by columns; but on the
remaining sides, by a wall pierced with arched openings, so that at the
back, looking over a crowd of irregular, poorly-built dwellings towards
the hill of Bogoli, Romola could at all times have a walk sheltered
from observation. Near one of those arched openings, close to the door
by which he had entered the loggia, Tito awaited her, with a sickening
sense of the sunlight that slanted before him and mingled itself with
the ruin of his hopes. He had never for a moment relied on Romola’s
passion for him as likely to be too strong for the repulsion created by
the discovery of his secret; he had not the presumptuous vanity which
might have hindered him from feeling that her love had the same root
with her belief in him. But as he imagined her coming towards him in
her radiant beauty, made so loveably mortal by her soft hazel eyes, he
fell into wishing that she had been something lower, if it were only
that she might let him clasp her and kiss her before they parted. He
had had no real caress from her—nothing but now and then a long glance,
a kiss, a pressure of the hand; and he had so often longed that they
should be alone together. They were going to be alone now; but he saw
her standing inexorably aloof from him. His heart gave a great throb as
he saw the door move: Romola was there. It was all like a flash of
lightning: he felt, rather than saw, the glory about her head, the
tearful appealing eyes; he felt, rather than heard, the cry of love
with which she said, “Tito!”

And in the same moment she was in his arms, and sobbing with her face
against his.

How poor Romola had yearned through the watches of the night to see
that bright face! The new image of death; the strange bewildering doubt
infused into her by the story of a life removed from her understanding
and sympathy; the haunting vision, which she seemed not only to hear
uttered by the low gasping voice, but to live through, as if it had
been her own dream, had made her more conscious than ever that it was
Tito who had first brought the warm stream of hope and gladness into
her life, and who had first turned away the keen edge of pain in the
remembrance of her brother. She would tell Tito everything; there was
no one else to whom she could tell it. She had been restraining herself
in the presence of her father all the morning; but now, that
long-pent-up sob might come forth. Proud and self-controlled to all the
world beside, Romola was as simple and unreserved as a child in her
love for Tito. She had been quite contented with the days when they had
only looked at each other; but now, when she felt the need of clinging
to him, there was no thought that hindered her.

“My Romola! my goddess!” Tito murmured with passionate fondness, as he
clasped her gently, and kissed the thick golden ripples on her neck. He
was in paradise: disgrace, shame, parting—there was no fear of them any
longer. This happiness was too strong to be marred by the sense that
Romola was deceived in him; nay, he could only rejoice in her delusion;
for, after all, concealment had been wisdom. The only thing he could
regret was his needless dread; if, indeed, the dread had not been worth
suffering for the sake of this sudden rapture.

The sob had satisfied itself, and Romola raised her head. Neither of
them spoke; they stood looking at each other’s faces with that sweet
wonder which belongs to young love—she with her long white hands on the
dark-brown curls, and he with his dark fingers bathed in the streaming
gold. Each was so beautiful to the other; each was experiencing that
undisturbed mutual consciousness for the first time. The cold pressure
of a new sadness on Romola’s heart made her linger the more in that
silent soothing sense of nearness and love; and Tito could not even
seek to press his lips to hers, because that would be change.

“Tito,” she said at last, “it has been altogether painful, but I must
tell you everything. Your strength will help me to resist the
impressions that will not be shaken off by reason.”

“I know, Romola—I know he is dead,” said Tito; and the long lustrous
eyes told nothing of the many wishes that would have brought about that
death long ago if there had been such potency in mere wishes. Romola
only read her own pure thoughts in their dark depths, as we read
letters in happy dreams.

“So changed, Tito! It pierced me to think that it was Dino. And so
strangely hard: not a word to my father; nothing but a vision that he
wanted to tell me. And yet it was so piteous—the struggling breath, and
the eyes that seemed to look towards the crucifix, and yet not to see
it. I shall never forget it; it seems as if it would come between me
and everything I shall look at.”

Romola’s heart swelled again, so that she was forced to break off. But
the need she felt to disburden her mind to Tito urged her to repress
the rising anguish. When she began to speak again, her thoughts had
travelled a little.

“It was strange, Tito. The vision was about our marriage, and yet he
knew nothing of you.”

“What was it, my Romola? Sit down and tell me,” said Tito, leading her
to the bench that stood near. A fear had come across him lest the
vision should somehow or other relate to Baldassarre; and this sudden
change of feeling prompted him to seek a change of position.

Romola told him all that had passed, from her entrance into San Marco,
hardly leaving out one of her brother’s words, which had burnt
themselves into her memory as they were spoken. But when she was at the
end of the vision, she paused; the rest came too vividly before her to
be uttered, and she sat looking at the distance, almost unconscious for
the moment that Tito was near her. _His_ mind was at ease now; that
vague vision had passed over him like white mist, and left no mark. But
he was silent, expecting her to speak again.

“I took it,” she went on, as if Tito had been reading her thoughts; “I
took the crucifix; it is down below in my bedroom.”

“And now, my Romola,” said Tito, entreatingly, “you will banish these
ghastly thoughts. The vision was an ordinary monkish vision, bred of
fasting and fanatical ideas. It surely has no weight with you.”

“No, Tito; no. But poor Dino, _he_ believed it was a divine message. It
is strange,” she went on meditatively, “this life of men possessed with
fervid beliefs that seem like madness to their fellow-beings. Dino was
not a vulgar fanatic; and that Fra Girolamo—his very voice seems to
have penetrated me with a sense that there is some truth in what moves
them: some truth of which I know nothing.”

“It was only because your feelings were highly wrought, my Romola. Your
brother’s state of mind was no more than a form of that theosophy which
has been the common disease of excitable dreamy minds in all ages; the
same ideas that your father’s old antagonist, Marsilio Ficino, pores
over in the New Platonists; only your brother’s passionate nature drove
him to act out what other men write and talk about. And for Fra
Girolamo, he is simply a narrow-minded monk, with a gift of preaching
and infusing terror into the multitude. Any words or any voice would
have shaken you at that moment. When your mind has had a little repose,
you will judge of such things as you have always done before.”

“Not about poor Dino,” said Romola. “I was angry with him; my heart
seemed to close against him while he was speaking; but since then I
have thought less of what was in my own mind and more of what was in
his. Oh, Tito! it was very piteous to see his young life coming to an
end in that way. That yearning look at the crucifix when he was gasping
for breath—I can never forget it. Last night I looked at the crucifix a
long while, and tried to see that it would help him, until at last it
seemed to me by the lamplight as if the suffering face shed pity.”

“My Romola, promise me to resist such thoughts; they are fit for sickly
nuns, not for my golden-tressed Aurora, who looks made to scatter all
such twilight fantasies. Try not to think of them now; we shall not
long be alone together.”

The last words were uttered in a tone of tender beseeching, and he
turned her face towards him with a gentle touch of his right-hand.

Romola had had her eyes fixed absently on the arched opening, but she
had not seen the distant hill; she had all the while been in the
chapter house, looking at the pale images of sorrow and death.

Tito’s touch and beseeching voice recalled her; and now in the warm
sunlight she saw that rich dark beauty which seemed to gather round it
all images of joy—purple vines festooned between the elms, the strong
corn perfecting itself under the vibrating heat, bright winged
creatures hurrying and resting among the flowers, round limbs beating
the earth in gladness with cymbals held aloft, light melodies chanted
to the thrilling rhythm of strings—all objects and all sounds that tell
of Nature revelling in her force. Strange, bewildering transition from
those pale images of sorrow and death to this bright youthfulness, as
of a sun-god who knew nothing of night! What thought could reconcile
that worn anguish in her brother’s face—that straining after something
invisible—with this satisfied strength and beauty, and make it
intelligible that they belonged to the same world? Or was there never
any reconciling of them, but only a blind worship of clashing deities,
first in mad joy and then in wailing? Romola for the first time felt
this questioning need like a sudden uneasy dizziness and want of
something to grasp; it was an experience hardly longer than a sigh, for
the eager theorising of ages is compressed, as in a seed, in the
momentary want of a single mind. But there was no answer to meet the
need, and it vanished before the returning rush of young sympathy with
the glad loving beauty that beamed upon her in new radiance, like the
dawn after we have looked away from it to the grey west.

“Your mind lingers apart from our love, my Romola,” Tito said, with a
soft reproachful murmur. “It seems a forgotten thing to you.”

She looked at the beseeching eyes in silence, till the sadness all
melted out of her own.

“My joy!” she said, in her full clear voice.

“Do you really care for me enough, then, to banish those chill fancies,
or shall you always be suspecting me as the Great Tempter?” said Tito,
with his bright smile.

“How should I not care for you more than for everything else?
Everything I had felt before in all my life—about my father, and about
my loneliness—was a preparation to love you. You would laugh at me,
Tito, if you knew what sort of man I used to think I should marry—some
scholar with deep lines in his face, like Alamanno Rinuccini, and with
rather grey hair, who would agree with my father in taking the side of
the Aristotelians, and be willing to live with him. I used to think
about the love I read of in the poets, but I never dreamed that
anything like that could happen to me here in Florence in our old
library. And then _you_ came, Tito, and were so much to my father, and
I began to believe that life could be happy for me too.”

“My goddess! is there any woman like you?” said Tito, with a mixture of
fondness and wondering admiration at the blended majesty and simplicity
in her.

“But, dearest,” he went on, rather timidly, “if you minded more about
our marriage, you would persuade your father and Messer Bernardo not to
think of any more delays. But you seem not to mind about it.”

“Yes, Tito, I will, I do mind. But I am sure my godfather will urge
more delay now, because of Dino’s death. He has never agreed with my
father about disowning Dino, and you know he has always said that we
ought to wait until you have been at least a year in Florence. Do not
think hardly of my godfather. I know he is prejudiced and narrow, but
yet he is very noble. He has often said that it is folly in my father
to want to keep his library apart, that it may bear his name; yet he
would try to get my father’s wish carried out. That seems to me very
great and noble—that power of respecting a feeling which he does not
share or understand.”

“I have no rancour against Messer Bernardo for thinking you too
precious for me, my Romola,” said Tito: and that was true. “But your
father, then, knows of his son’s death?”

“Yes, I told him—I could not help it. I told him where I had been, and
that I had seen Dino die; but nothing else; and he has commanded me not
to speak of it again. But he has been very silent this morning, and has
had those restless movements which always go to my heart; they look as
if he were trying to get outside the prison of his blindness. Let us go
to him now. I had persuaded him to try to sleep, because he slept
little in the night. Your voice will soothe him, Tito: it always does.”

“And not one kiss? I have not had one,” said Tito, in his gentle
reproachful tone, which gave him an air of dependence very charming in
a creature with those rare gifts that seem to excuse presumption.

The sweet pink blush spread itself with the quickness of light over
Romola’s face and neck as she bent towards him. It seemed impossible
that their kisses could ever become common things.

“Let us walk once round the loggia,” said Romola, “before we go down.”

“There is something grim and grave to me always about Florence,” said
Tito, as they paused in the front of the house, where they could see
over the opposite roofs to the other side of the river, “and even in
its merriment there is something shrill and hard—biting rather than
gay. I wish we lived in Southern Italy, where thought is broken, not by
weariness, but by delicious languors such as never seem to come over
the ‘ingenia acerrima Florentina.’ I should like to see you under that
southern sun, lying among the flowers, subdued into mere enjoyment,
while I bent over you and touched the lute and sang to you some little
unconscious strain that seemed all one with the light and the warmth.
You have never known that happiness of the nymphs, my Romola.”

“No; but I have dreamed of it often since you came. I am very thirsty
for a deep draught of joy—for a life all bright like you. But we will
not think of it now, Tito; it seems to me as if there would always be
pale sad faces among the flowers, and eyes that look in vain. Let us
go.”




CHAPTER XVIII.
The Portrait.


When Tito left the Via de’ Bardi that day in exultant satisfaction at
finding himself thoroughly free from the threatened peril, his
thoughts, no longer claimed by the immediate presence of Romola and her
father, recurred to those futile hours of dread in which he was
conscious of having not only felt but acted as he would not have done
if he had had a truer foresight. He would not have parted with his
ring; for Romola, and others to whom it was a familiar object, would be
a little struck with the apparent sordidness of parting with a gem he
had professedly cherished, unless he feigned as a reason the desire to
make some special gift with the purchase-money; and Tito had at that
moment a nauseating weariness of simulation. He was well out of the
possible consequences that might have fallen on him from that initial
deception, and it was no longer a load on his mind; kind fortune had
brought him immunity, and he thought it was only fair that she should.
Who was hurt by it? The results to Baldassarre were too problematical
to be taken into account. But he wanted now to be free from any hidden
shackles that would gall him, though ever so little, under his ties to
Romola. He was not aware that that very delight in immunity which
prompted resolutions not to entangle himself again, was deadening the
sensibilities which alone could save him from entanglement.

But, after all, the sale of the ring was a slight matter. Was it also a
slight matter that little Tessa was under a delusion which would
doubtless fill her small head with expectations doomed to
disappointment? Should he try to see the little thing alone again and
undeceive her at once, or should he leave the disclosure to time and
chance? Happy dreams are pleasant, and they easily come to an end with
daylight and the stir of life. The sweet, pouting, innocent, round
thing! It was impossible not to think of her. Tito thought he should
like some time to take her a present that would please her, and just
learn if her step-father treated her more cruelly now her mother was
dead. Or, should he at once undeceive Tessa, and then tell Romola about
her, so that they might find some happier lot for the poor thing? No:
that unfortunate little incident of the _cerretano_ and the marriage,
and his allowing Tessa to part from him in delusion, must never be
known to Romola, and since no enlightenment could expel it from Tessa’s
mind, there would always be a risk of betrayal; besides even little
Tessa might have some gall in her when she found herself disappointed
in her love—yes, she _must_ be a little in love with him, and that
might make it well that he should not see her again. Yet it was a
trifling adventure such as a country girl would perhaps ponder on till
some ruddy contadino made acceptable love to her, when she would break
her resolution of secrecy and get at the truth that she was free.
_Dunque_—good-bye, Tessa! kindest wishes! Tito had made up his mind
that the silly little affair of the _cerretano_ should have no further
consequences for himself; and people are apt to think that resolutions
taken on their own behalf will be firm. As for the fifty-five florins,
the purchase-money of the ring, Tito had made up his mind what to do
with some of them; he would carry out a pretty ingenious thought which
would set him more at ease in accounting for the absence of his ring to
Romola, and would also serve him as a means of guarding her mind from
the recurrence of those monkish fancies which were especially repugnant
to him; and with this thought in his mind, he went to the Via Gualfonda
to find Piero di Cosimo, the artist who at that time was pre-eminent in
the fantastic mythological design which Tito’s purpose required.

Entering the court on which Piero’s dwelling opened, Tito found the
heavy iron knocker on the door thickly bound round with wool and
ingeniously fastened with cords. Remembering the painter’s practice of
stuffing his ears against obtrusive noises, Tito was not much surprised
at this mode of defence against visitors’ thunder, and betook himself
first to tapping modestly with his knuckles, and then to a more
importunate attempt to shake the door. In vain! Tito was moving away,
blaming himself for wasting his time on this visit, instead of waiting
till he saw the painter again at Nello’s, when a little girl entered
the court with a basket of eggs on her arm, went up to the door, and
standing on tiptoe, pushed up a small iron plate that ran in grooves,
and putting her mouth to the aperture thus disclosed, called out in a
piping voice, “Messer Piero!”

In a few moments Tito heard the sound of bolts, the door opened, and
Piero presented himself in a red night-cap and a loose brown serge
tunic, with sleeves rolled up to the shoulder. He darted a look of
surprise at Tito, but without further notice of him stretched out his
hand to take the basket from the child, re-entered the house, and
presently returning with the empty basket, said, “How much to pay?”

“Two grossoni, Messer Piero; they are all ready boiled, my mother
says.”

Piero took the coin out of the leathern scarsella at his belt, and the
little maiden trotted away, not without a few upward glances of awed
admiration at the surprising young signor.

Piero’s glance was much less complimentary as he said—

“What do you want at my door, Messer Greco? I saw you this morning at
Nello’s; if you had asked me then, I could have told you that I see no
man in this house without knowing his business and agreeing with him
beforehand.”

“Pardon, Messer Piero,” said Tito, with his imperturbable good-humour;
“I acted without sufficient reflection. I remembered nothing but your
admirable skill in inventing pretty caprices, when a sudden desire for
something of that sort prompted me to come to you.”

The painter’s manners were too notoriously odd to all the world for
this reception to be held a special affront; but even if Tito had
suspected any offensive intention, the impulse to resentment would have
been less strong in him than the desire to conquer goodwill.

Piero made a grimace which was habitual with him when he was spoken to
with flattering suavity. He grinned, stretched out the corners of his
mouth, and pressed down his brows, so as to defy any divination of his
feelings under that kind of stroking.

“And what may that need be?” he said, after a moment’s pause. In his
heart he was tempted by the hinted opportunity of applying his
invention.

“I want a very delicate miniature device taken from certain fables of
the poets, which you will know how to combine for me. It must be
painted on a wooden case—I will show you the size—in the form of a
triptych. The inside may be simple gilding: it is on the outside I want
the device. It is a favourite subject with you Florentines—the triumph
of Bacchus and Ariadne; but I want it treated in a new way. A story in
Ovid will give you the necessary hints. The young Bacchus must be
seated in a ship, his head bound with clusters of grapes, and a spear
entwined with vine-leaves in his hand: dark-berried ivy must wind about
the masts and sails, the oars must be thyrsi, and flowers must wreathe
themselves about the poop; leopards and tigers must be crouching before
him, and dolphins must be sporting round. But I want to have the
fair-haired Ariadne with him, made immortal with her golden crown—that
is not in Ovid’s story, but no matter, you will conceive it all—and
above there must be young Loves, such as you know how to paint,
shooting with roses at the points of their arrows—”

“Say no more!” said Piero. “I have Ovid in the vulgar tongue. Find me
the passage. I love not to be choked with other men’s thoughts. You may
come in.”

Piero led the way through the first room, where a basket of eggs was
deposited on the open hearth, near a heap of broken egg-shells and a
bank of ashes. In strange keeping with that sordid litter, there was a
low bedstead of carved ebony, covered carelessly with a piece of rich
oriental carpet, that looked as if it had served to cover the steps to
a Madonna’s throne; and a carved _cassone_, or large chest, with
painted devices on its sides and lid. There was hardly any other
furniture in the large room, except casts, wooden steps, easels and
rough boxes, all festooned with cobwebs.

The next room was still larger, but it was also much more crowded.
Apparently Piero was keeping the Festa, for the double door underneath
the window which admitted the painter’s light from above, was thrown
open, and showed a garden, or rather thicket, in which fig-trees and
vines grew in tangled trailing wildness among nettles and hemlocks, and
a tall cypress lifted its dark head from a stifling mass of yellowish
mulberry-leaves. It seemed as if that dank luxuriance had begun to
penetrate even within the walls of the wide and lofty room; for in one
corner, amidst a confused heap of carved marble fragments and rusty
armour, tufts of long grass and dark feathery fennel had made their
way, and a large stone vase, tilted on one side, seemed to be pouring
out the ivy that streamed around. All about the walls hung pen and
oil-sketches of fantastic sea-monsters; dances of satyrs and maenads;
Saint Margaret’s resurrection out of the devouring dragon; Madonnas
with the supernal light upon them; studies of plants and grotesque
heads; and on irregular rough shelves a few books were scattered among
great drooping bunches of corn, bullocks’ horns, pieces of dried
honeycomb, stones with patches of rare-coloured lichen, skulls and
bones, peacocks’ feathers, and large birds’ wings. Rising from amongst
the dirty litter of the floor were lay figures: one in the frock of a
Vallombrosan monk, strangely surmounted by a helmet with barred visor,
another smothered with brocade and skins hastily tossed over it.
Amongst this heterogeneous still life, several speckled and white
pigeons were perched or strutting, too tame to fly at the entrance of
men; three corpulent toads were crawling in an intimate friendly way
near the door-stone; and a white rabbit, apparently the model for that
which was frightening Cupid in the picture of Mars and Venus placed on
the central easel, was twitching its nose with much content on a box
full of bran.

“And now, Messer Greco,” said Piero, making a sign to Tito that he
might sit down on a low stool near the door, and then standing over him
with folded arms, “don’t be trying to see everything at once, like
Messer Domeneddio, but let me know how large you would have this same
triptych.”

Tito indicated the required dimensions, and Piero marked them on a
piece of paper.

“And now for the book,” said Piero, reaching down a manuscript volume.

“There’s nothing about the Ariadne there,” said Tito, giving him the
passage; “but you will remember I want the crowned Ariadne by the side
of the young Bacchus: she must have golden hair.”

“Ha!” said Piero, abruptly, pursing up his lips again. “And you want
them to be likenesses, eh?” he added, looking down into Tito’s face.

Tito laughed and blushed. “I know you are great at portraits, Messer
Piero; but I could not ask Ariadne to sit for you, because the painting
is a secret.”

“There it is! I want her to sit to me. Giovanni Vespucci wants me to
paint him a picture of Oedipus and Antigone at Colonos, as he has
expounded it to me: I have a fancy for the subject, and I want Bardo
and his daughter to sit for it. Now, you ask them; and then I’ll put
the likeness into Ariadne.”

“Agreed, if I can prevail with them. And your price for the Bacchus and
Ariadne?”

“_Baie_! If you get them to let me paint them, that will pay me. I’d
rather not have your money: you may pay for the case.”

“And when shall I sit for you?” said Tito; “for if we have one
likeness, we must have two.”

“I don’t want _your_ likeness; I’ve got it already,” said Piero, “only
I’ve made you look frightened. I must take the fright out of it for
Bacchus.”

As he was speaking, Piero laid down the book and went to look among
some paintings, propped with their faces against the wall. He returned
with an oil-sketch in his hand.

“I call this as good a bit of portrait as I ever did,” he said, looking
at it as he advanced. “Yours is a face that expresses fear well,
because it’s naturally a bright one. I noticed it the first time I saw
you. The rest of the picture is hardly sketched; but I’ve painted _you_
in thoroughly.”

Piero turned the sketch, and held it towards Tito’s eyes. He saw
himself with his right-hand uplifted, holding a wine-cup, in the
attitude of triumphant joy, but with his face turned away from the cup
with an expression of such intense fear in the dilated eyes and pallid
lips, that he felt a cold stream through his veins, as if he were being
thrown into sympathy with his imaged self.

“You are beginning to look like it already,” said Piero, with a short
laugh, moving the picture away again. “He’s seeing a ghost—that fine
young man. I shall finish it some day, when I’ve settled what sort of
ghost is the most terrible—whether it should look solid, like a dead
man come to life, or half transparent, like a mist.”

Tito, rather ashamed of himself for a sudden sensitiveness strangely
opposed to his usual easy self-command, said carelessly—

“That is a subject after your own heart, Messer Piero—a revel
interrupted by a ghost. You seem to love the blending of the terrible
with the gay. I suppose that is the reason your shelves are so well
furnished with death’s-heads, while you are painting those roguish
Loves who are running away with the armour of Mars. I begin to think
you are a Cynic philosopher in the pleasant disguise of a cunning
painter.”

“Not I, Messer Greco; a philosopher is the last sort of animal I should
choose to resemble. I find it enough to live, without spinning lies to
account for life. Fowls cackle, asses bray, women chatter, and
philosophers spin false reasons—that’s the effect the sight of the
world brings out of them. Well, I am an animal that paints instead of
cackling, or braying, or spinning lies. And now, I think, our business
is done; you’ll keep to your side of the bargain about the Oedipus and
Antigone?”

“I will do my best,” said Tito—on this strong hint, immediately moving
towards the door.

“And you’ll let me know at Nello’s. No need to come here again.”

“I understand,” said Tito, laughingly, lifting his hand in sign of
friendly parting.




CHAPTER XIX.
The Old Man’s Hope.


Messer Bernardo del Nero was as inexorable as Romola had expected in
his advice that the marriage should be deferred till Easter, and in
this matter Bardo was entirely under the ascendancy of his sagacious
and practical friend. Nevertheless, Bernardo himself, though he was as
far as ever from any susceptibility to the personal fascination in Tito
which was felt by others, could not altogether resist that argument of
success which is always powerful with men of the world. Tito was making
his way rapidly in high quarters. He was especially growing in favour
with the young Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, who had even spoken of
Tito’s forming part of his learned retinue on an approaching journey to
Rome; and the bright young Greek who had a tongue that was always ready
without ever being quarrelsome, was more and more wished for at gay
suppers in the Via Larga, and at Florentine games in which he had no
pretension to excel, and could admire the incomparable skill of Piero
de’ Medici in the most graceful manner in the world. By an unfailing
sequence, Tito’s reputation as an agreeable companion in “magnificent”
society made his learning and talent appear more lustrous: and he was
really accomplished enough to prevent an exaggerated estimate from
being hazardous to him. Messer Bernardo had old prejudices and
attachments which now began to argue down the newer and feebler
prejudice against the young Greek stranger who was rather too supple.
To the old Florentine it was impossible to despise the recommendation
of standing well with the best Florentine families, and since Tito
began to be thoroughly received into that circle whose views were the
unquestioned standard of social value, it seemed irrational not to
admit that there was no longer any check to satisfaction in the
prospect of such a son-in-law for Bardo, and such a husband for Romola.
It was undeniable that Tito’s coming had been the dawn of a new life
for both father and daughter, and the first promise had even been
surpassed. The blind old scholar—whose proud truthfulness would never
enter into that commerce of feigned and preposterous admiration which,
varied by a corresponding measurelessness in vituperation, made the
woof of all learned intercourse—had fallen into neglect even among his
fellow-citizens, and when he was alluded to at all, it had long been
usual to say that, though his blindness and the loss of his son were
pitiable misfortunes, he was tiresome in contending for the value of
his own labours; and that his discontent was a little inconsistent in a
man who had been openly regardless of religious rites, and who in days
past had refused offers made to him from various quarters, on the
slight condition that he would take orders, without which it was not
easy for patrons to provide for every scholar. But since Tito’s coming,
there was no longer the same monotony in the thought that Bardo’s name
suggested; the old man, it was understood, had left off his plaints,
and the fair daughter was no longer to be shut up in dowerless pride,
waiting for a _parentado_. The winning manners and growing favour of
the handsome Greek who was expected to enter into the double relation
of son and husband helped to make the new interest a thoroughly
friendly one, and it was no longer a rare occurrence when a visitor
enlivened the quiet library. Elderly men came from that indefinite
prompting to renew former intercourse which arises when an old
acquaintance begins to be newly talked about; and young men whom Tito
had asked leave to bring once, found it easy to go again when they
overtook him on his way to the Via de’ Bardi, and, resting their hands
on his shoulder, fell into easy chat with him. For it was pleasant to
look at Romola’s beauty; to see her, like old Firenzuola’s type of
womanly majesty, “sitting with a certain grandeur, speaking with
gravity, smiling with modesty, and casting around, as it were, an odour
of queenliness;”[1] and she seemed to unfold like a strong white lily
under this genial breath of admiration and homage; it was all one to
her with her new bright life in Tito’s love.

 [1] “Quando una donna è grande, ben formata, porta ben sua persona,
 siede con una certa grandezza, parla con gravità, ride con modestia, e
 finalmente getta quasi un odor di Regina; allora noi diciamo quella
 donna pare una maestà, ella ha una maestà.”—Firenzuola: _Della
 Bellezza delle Donne_.


Tito had even been the means of strengthening the hope in Bardo’s mind
that he might before his death receive the longed-for security
concerning his library: that it should not be merged in another
collection; that it should not be transferred to a body of monks, and
be called by the name of a monastery; but that it should remain for
ever the Bardi Library, for the use of Florentines. For the old habit
of trusting in the Medici could not die out while their influence was
still the strongest lever in the State; and Tito, once possessing the
ear of the Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, might do more even than Messer
Bernardo towards winning the desired interest, for he could demonstrate
to a learned audience the peculiar value of Bardi’s collection. Tito
himself talked sanguinely of such a result, willing to cheer the old
man, and conscious that Romola repaid those gentle words to her father
with a sort of adoration that no direct tribute to herself could have
won from her.

This question of the library was the subject of more than one
discussion with Bernardo del Nero when Christmas was turned and the
prospect of the marriage was becoming near—but always out of Bardo’s
hearing. For Bardo nursed a vague belief, which they dared not disturb,
that his property, apart from the library, was adequate to meet all
demands. He would not even, except under a momentary pressure of angry
despondency, admit to himself that the will by which he had
disinherited Dino would leave Romola the heir of nothing but debts; or
that he needed anything from patronage beyond the security that a
separate locality should be assigned to his library, in return for a
deed of gift by which he made it over to the Florentine Republic.

“My opinion is,” said Bernardo to Romola, in a consultation they had
under the loggia, “that since you are to be married, and Messer Tito
will have a competent income, we should begin to wind up the affairs,
and ascertain exactly the sum that would be necessary to save the
library from being touched, instead of letting the debts accumulate any
longer. Your father needs nothing but his shred of mutton and his
macaroni every day, and I think Messer Tito may engage to supply that
for the years that remain; he can let it be in place of the
_morgen-cap_.”

“Tito has always known that my life is bound up with my father’s,” said
Romola; “and he is better to my father than I am: he delights in making
him happy.”

“Ah, he’s not made of the same clay as other men, is he?” said
Bernardo, smiling. “Thy father has thought of shutting woman’s folly
out of thee by cramming thee with Greek and Latin; but thou hast been
as ready to believe in the first pair of bright eyes and the first soft
words that have come within reach of thee, as if thou couldst say
nothing by heart but Paternosters, like other Christian men’s
daughters.”

“Now, godfather,” said Romola, shaking her head playfully, “as if it
were only bright eyes and soft words that made me love Tito! You know
better. You know I love my father and you because you are both good,
and I love Tito too because he is so good. I see it, I feel it, in
everything he says and does. And if he is handsome, too, why should I
not love him the better for that? It seems to me beauty is part of the
finished language by which goodness speaks. You know _you_ must have
been a very handsome youth, godfather,”—she looked up with one of her
happy, loving smiles at the stately old man—“you were about as tall as
Tito, and you had very fine eyes; only you looked a little sterner and
prouder, and—”

“And Romola likes to have all the pride to herself?” said Bernardo, not
inaccessible to this pretty coaxing. “However, it is well that in one
way Tito’s demands are more modest than those of any Florentine husband
of fitting rank that we should have been likely to find for you; he
wants no dowry.”

So it was settled in that way between Messer Bernardo del Nero, Romola,
and Tito. Bardo assented with a wave of the hand when Bernardo told him
that he thought it would be well now to begin to sell property and
clear off debts; being accustomed to think of debts and property as a
sort of thick wood that his imagination never even penetrated, still
less got beyond. And Tito set about winning Messer Bernardo’s respect
by inquiring, with his ready faculty, into Florentine money-matters,
the secrets of the _Monti_ or public funds, the values of real
property, and the profits of banking.

“You will soon forget that Tito is not a Florentine, godfather,” said
Romola. “See how he is learning everything about Florence.”

“It seems to me he is one of the _demoni_, who are of no particular
country, child,” said Bernardo, smiling. “His mind is a little too
nimble to be weighted with all the stuff we men carry about in our
hearts.”

Romola smiled too, in happy confidence.




CHAPTER XX.
The Day of the Betrothal.


It was the last week of the Carnival, and the streets of Florence were
at their fullest and noisiest: there were the masqued processions,
chanting songs, indispensable now they had once been introduced by
Lorenzo the Magnificent; there was the favourite rigoletto, or round
dance, footed “in piazza” under the blue frosty sky; there were
practical jokes of all sorts, from throwing comfits to throwing
stones—especially stones. For the boys and striplings, always a strong
element in Florentine crowds, became at the height of Carnival-time as
loud and unmanageable as tree-crickets, and it was their immemorial
privilege to bar the way with poles to all passengers, until a tribute
had been paid towards furnishing those lovers of strong sensations with
suppers and bonfires: to conclude with the standing entertainment of
stone-throwing, which was not entirely monotonous, since the consequent
maiming was various, and it was not always a single person who was
killed. So that the pleasures of the Carnival were of a checkered kind,
and if a painter were called upon to represent them truly, he would
have to make a picture in which there would be so much grossness and
barbarity that it must be turned with its face to the wall, except when
it was taken down for the grave historical purpose of justifying a
reforming zeal which, in ignorance of the facts, might be unfairly
condemned for its narrowness. Still there was much of that more
innocent picturesque merriment which is never wanting among a people
with quick animal spirits and sensitive organs: there was not the heavy
sottishness which belongs to the thicker northern blood, nor the
stealthy fierceness which in the more southern regions of the peninsula
makes the brawl lead to the dagger-thrust.

It was the high morning, but the merry spirits of the Carnival were
still inclined to lounge and recapitulate the last night’s jests, when
Tito Melema was walking at a brisk pace on the way to the Via de’
Bardi. Young Bernardo Dovizi, who now looks at us out of Raphael’s
portrait as the keen-eyed Cardinal da Bibbiena, was with him; and, as
they went, they held animated talk about some subject that had
evidently no relation to the sights and sounds through which they were
pushing their way along the Por’ Santa Maria. Nevertheless, as they
discussed, smiled, and gesticulated, they both, from time to time, cast
quick glances around them, and at the turning towards the Lung’ Arno,
leading to the Ponte Rubaconte, Tito had become aware, in one of these
rapid surveys, that there was some one not far off him by whom he very
much desired not to be recognised at that moment. His time and thoughts
were thoroughly preoccupied, for he was looking forward to a unique
occasion in his life: he was preparing for his betrothal, which was to
take place on the evening of this very day. The ceremony had been
resolved upon rather suddenly; for although preparations towards the
marriage had been going forward for some time—chiefly in the
application of Tito’s florins to the fitting up of rooms in Bardo’s
dwelling, which, the library excepted, had always been scantily
furnished—it had been intended to defer both the betrothal and the
marriage until after Easter, when Tito’s year of probation, insisted on
by Bernardo del Nero, would have been complete. But when an express
proposition had come, that Tito should follow the Cardinal Giovanni to
Rome to help Bernardo Dovizi with his superior knowledge of Greek in
arranging a library, and there was no possibility of declining what lay
so plainly on the road to advancement, he had become urgent in his
entreaties that the betrothal might take place before his departure:
there would be the less delay before the marriage on his return, and it
would be less painful to part if he and Romola were outwardly as well
as inwardly pledged to each other—if he had a claim which defied Messer
Bernardo or any one else to nullify it. For the betrothal, at which
rings were exchanged and mutual contracts were signed, made more than
half the legality of marriage, to be completed on a separate occasion
by the nuptial benediction. Romola’s feeling had met Tito’s in this
wish, and the consent of the elders had been won.

And now Tito was hastening, amidst arrangements for his departure the
next day, to snatch a morning visit to Romola, to say and hear any last
words that were needful to be said before their meeting for the
betrothal in the evening. It was not a time when any recognition could
be pleasant that was at all likely to detain him; still less a
recognition by Tessa. And it was unmistakably Tessa whom he had caught
sight of moving along, with a timid and forlorn look, towards that very
turn of the Lung’ Arno which he was just rounding. As he continued his
talk with the young Dovizi, he had an uncomfortable undercurrent of
consciousness which told him that Tessa had seen him and would
certainly follow him: there was no escaping her along this direct road
by the Arno, and over the Ponte Rubaconte. But she would not dare to
speak to him or approach him while he was not alone, and he would
continue to keep Dovizi with him till they reached Bardo’s door. He
quickened his pace, and took up new threads of talk; but all the while
the sense that Tessa was behind him, though he had no physical evidence
of the fact, grew stronger and stronger; it was very irritating—perhaps
all the more so because a certain tenderness and pity for the poor
little thing made the determination to escape without any visible
notice of her, a not altogether agreeable resource. Yet Tito persevered
and carried his companion to the door, cleverly managing his “addio”
without turning his face in a direction where it was possible for him
to see an importunate pair of blue eyes; and as he went up the stone
steps, he tried to get rid of unpleasant thoughts by saying to himself
that after all Tessa might not have seen him, or, if she had, might not
have followed him.

But—perhaps because that possibility could not be relied on
strongly—when the visit was over, he came out of the doorway with a
quick step and an air of unconsciousness as to anything that might be
on his right-hand or his left. Our eyes are so constructed, however,
that they take in a wide angle without asking any leave of our will;
and Tito knew that there was a little figure in a white hood standing
near the doorway—knew it quite well, before he felt a hand laid on his
arm. It was a real grasp, and not a light, timid touch; for poor Tessa,
seeing his rapid step, had started forward with a desperate effort. But
when he stopped and turned towards her, her face wore a frightened
look, as if she dreaded the effect of her boldness.

“Tessa!” said Tito, with more sharpness in his voice than she had ever
heard in it before. “Why are you here? You must not follow me—you must
not stand about door-places waiting for me.”

Her blue eyes widened with tears, and she said nothing. Tito was afraid
of something worse than ridicule, if he were seen in the Via de’ Bardi
with a girlish contadina looking pathetically at him. It was a street
of high silent-looking dwellings, not of traffic; but Bernardo del
Nero, or some one almost as dangerous, might come up at any moment.
Even if it had not been the day of his betrothal, the incident would
have been awkward and annoying. Yet it would be brutal—it was
impossible—to drive Tessa away with harsh words. That accursed folly of
his with the _cerretano_—that it should have lain buried in a quiet way
for months, and now start up before him as this unseasonable crop of
vexation! He could not speak harshly, but he spoke hurriedly.

“Tessa, I cannot—must not talk to you here. I will go on to the bridge
and wait for you there. Follow me slowly.”

He turned and walked fast to the Ponte Rubaconte, and there leaned
against the wall of one of the quaint little houses that rise at even
distances on the bridge, looking towards the way by which Tessa would
come. It would have softened a much harder heart than Tito’s to see the
little thing advancing with her round face much paled and saddened
since he had parted from it at the door of the “Nunziata.” Happily it
was the least frequented of the bridges, and there were scarcely any
passengers on it at this moment. He lost no time in speaking as soon as
she came near him.

“Now, Tessa, I have very little time. You must not cry. Why did you
follow me this morning? You must not do so again.”

“I thought,” said Tessa, speaking in a whisper, and struggling against
a sob that _would_ rise immediately at this new voice of Tito’s—“I
thought you wouldn’t be so long before you came to take care of me
again. And the _patrigno_ beats me, and I can’t bear it any longer. And
always when I come for a holiday I walk about to find you, and I can’t.
Oh, please don’t send me away from you again! It has been so long, and
I cry so now, because you never come to me. I can’t help it, for the
days are so long, and I don’t mind about the goats and kids, or
anything—and I can’t—”

The sobs came fast now, and the great tears. Tito felt that he could
not do otherwise than comfort her. Send her away—yes; that he _must_
do, at once. But it was all the more impossible to tell her anything
that would leave her in a state of hopeless grief. He saw new trouble
in the background, but the difficulty of the moment was too pressing
for him to weigh distant consequences.

“Tessa, my little one,” he said, in his old caressing tones, “you must
not cry. Bear with the cross _patrigno_ a little longer. I will come
back to you. But I’m going now to Rome—a long, long way off. I shall
come back in a few weeks, and then I promise you to come and see you.
Promise me to be good and wait for me.”

It was the well-remembered voice again, and the mere sound was half
enough to soothe Tessa. She looked up at him with trusting eyes, that
still glittered with tears, sobbing all the while, in spite of her
utmost efforts to obey him. Again he said, in a gentle voice—

“Promise me, my Tessa.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “But you won’t be long?”

“No, not long. But I must _go now_. And remember what I told you,
Tessa. Nobody must know that you ever see me, else you will lose me for
ever. And now, when I have left you, go straight home, and never follow
me again. Wait till I come to you. Good-bye, my little Tessa: I _will_
come.”

There was no help for it; he must turn and leave her without looking
behind him to see how she bore it, for he had no time to spare. When he
did look round he was in the Via de’ Benci, where there was no seeing
what was happening on the bridge; but Tessa was too trusting and
obedient not to do just what he had told her.

Yes, the difficulty was at an end for that day; yet this return of
Tessa to him, at a moment when it was impossible for him to put an end
to all difficulty with her by undeceiving her, was an unpleasant
incident to carry in his memory. But Tito’s mind was just now
thoroughly penetrated with a hopeful first love, associated with all
happy prospects flattering to his ambition; and that future necessity
of grieving Tessa could be scarcely more to him than the far-off cry of
some little suffering animal buried in the thicket, to a merry
cavalcade in the sunny plain. When, for the second time that day, Tito
was hastening across the Ponte Rubaconte, the thought of Tessa caused
no perceptible diminution of his happiness. He was well muffled in his
mantle, less, perhaps, to protect him from the cold than from the
additional notice that would have been drawn upon him by his dainty
apparel. He leaped up the stone steps by two at a time, and said
hurriedly to Maso, who met him—

“Where is the damigella?”

“In the library; she is quite ready, and Monna Brigida and Messer
Bernardo are already there with Ser Braccio, but none of the rest of
the company.”

“Ask her to give me a few minutes alone; I will await her in the
_salotto_.”

Tito entered a room which had been fitted up in the utmost contrast
with the half-pallid, half-sombre tints of the library. The walls were
brightly frescoed with “caprices” of nymphs and loves sporting under
the blue among flowers and birds. The only furniture besides the red
leather seats and the central table were two tall white vases, and a
young faun playing the flute, modelled by a promising youth named
Michelangelo Buonarotti. It was a room that gave a sense of being in
the sunny open air.

Tito kept his mantle round him, and looked towards the door. It was not
long before Romola entered, all white and gold, more than ever like a
tall lily. Her white silk garment was bound by a golden girdle, which
fell with large tassels; and above that was the rippling gold of her
hair, surmounted by the white mist of her long veil, which was fastened
on her brow by a band of pearls, the gift of Bernardo del Nero, and was
now parted off her face so that it all floated backward.

“Regina mia!” said Tito, as he took her hand and kissed it, still
keeping his mantle round him. He could not help going backward to look
at her again, while she stood in calm delight, with that exquisite
self-consciousness which rises under the gaze of admiring love.

“Romola, will you show me the next room now?” said Tito, checking
himself with the remembrance that the time might be short. “You said I
should see it when you had arranged everything.”

Without speaking, she led the way into a long narrow room, painted
brightly like the other, but only with birds and flowers. The furniture
in it was all old; there were old faded objects for feminine use or
ornament, arranged in an open cabinet between the two narrow windows;
above the cabinet was the portrait of Romola’s mother; and below this,
on the top of the cabinet, stood the crucifix which Romola had brought
from San Marco.

“I have brought something under my mantle,” said Tito, smiling; and
throwing off the large loose garment, he showed the little tabernacle
which had been painted by Piero di Cosimo. The painter had carried out
Tito’s intention charmingly, and so far had atoned for his long delay.
“Do you know what this is for, my Romola?” added Tito, taking her by
the hand, and leading her towards the cabinet. “It is a little shrine,
which is to hide away from you for ever that remembrancer of sadness.
You have done with sadness now; and we will bury all images of it—bury
them in a tomb of joy. See!”

A slight quiver passed across Romola’s face as Tito took hold of the
crucifix. But she had no wish to prevent his purpose; on the contrary,
she herself wished to subdue certain importunate memories and
questionings which still flitted like unexplained shadows across her
happier thought.

He opened the triptych and placed the crucifix within the central
space; then closing it again, taking out the key, and setting the
little tabernacle in the spot where the crucifix had stood, said—

“Now, Romola, look and see if you are satisfied with the portraits old
Piero has made of us. Is it not a dainty device? and the credit of
choosing it is mine.”

“Ah! it is you—it is perfect!” said Romola, looking with moist joyful
eyes at the miniature Bacchus, with his purple clusters. “And I am
Ariadne, and you are crowning me! Yes, it is true, Tito; you have
crowned my poor life.”

They held each other’s hands while she spoke, and both looked at their
imaged selves. But the reality was far more beautiful; she all
lily-white and golden, and he with his dark glowing beauty above the
purple red-bordered tunic.

“And it was our good strange Piero who painted it?” said Romola. “Did
you put it into his head to paint me as Antigone, that he might have my
likeness for this?”

“No, it was he who made my getting leave for him to paint you and your
father, a condition of his doing this for me.”

“Ah! I see now what it was you gave up your precious ring for. I
perceived you had some cunning plan to give me pleasure.”

Tito did not blench. Romola’s little illusions about himself had long
ceased to cause him anything but satisfaction. He only smiled and said—

“I might have spared my ring; Piero will accept no money from me; he
thinks himself paid by painting you. And now, while I am away, you will
look every day at those pretty symbols of our life together—the ship on
the calm sea, and the ivy that never withers, and those Loves that have
left off wounding us and shower soft petals that are like our kisses;
and the leopards and tigers, they are the troubles of your life that
are all quelled now; and the strange sea-monsters, with their merry
eyes—let us see—they are the dull passages in the heavy books, which
have begun to be amusing since we have sat by each other.”

“Tito mio!” said Romola, in a half-laughing voice of love; “but you
will give me the key?” she added, holding out her hand for it.

“Not at all!” said Tito, with playful decision, opening his scarsella
and dropping in the little key. “I shall drown it in the Arno.”

“But if I ever wanted to look at the crucifix again?”

“Ah! for that very reason it is hidden—hidden by these images of youth
and joy.”

He pressed a light kiss on her brow, and she said no more, ready to
submit, like all strong souls, when she felt no valid reason for
resistance.

And then they joined the waiting company, which made a dignified little
procession as it passed along the Ponte Rubaconte towards Santa Croce.
Slowly it passed, for Bardo, unaccustomed for years to leave his own
house, walked with a more timid step than usual; and that slow pace
suited well with the gouty dignity of Messer Bartolommeo Scala, who
graced the occasion by his presence, along with his daughter
Alessandra. It was customary to have very long troops of kindred and
friends at the _sposalizio_, or betrothal, and it had even been found
necessary in time past to limit the number by law to no more than _four
hundred_—two hundred on each side; for since the guests were all
feasted after this initial ceremony, as well as after the _nozze_, or
marriage, the very first stage of matrimony had become a ruinous
expense, as that scholarly Benedict, Leonardo Bruno, complained in his
own case. But Bardo, who in his poverty had kept himself proudly free
from any appearance of claiming the advantages attached to a powerful
family name, would have no invitations given on the strength of mere
friendship; and the modest procession of twenty that followed the
_sposi_ were, with three or four exceptions, friends of Bardo’s and
Tito’s selected on personal grounds.

Bernardo del Nero walked as a vanguard before Bardo, who was led on the
right by Tito, while Romola held her father’s other hand. Bardo had
himself been married at Santa Croce, and had insisted on Romola’s being
betrothed and married there, rather than in the little church of Santa
Lucia close by their house, because he had a complete mental vision of
the grand church where he hoped that a burial might be granted him
among the Florentines who had deserved well. Happily the way was short
and direct, and lay aloof from the loudest riot of the Carnival, if
only they could return before any dances or shows began in the great
piazza of Santa Croce. The west was red as they passed the bridge, and
shed a mellow light on the pretty procession, which had a touch of
solemnity in the presence of the blind father. But when the ceremony
was over, and Tito and Romola came out on to the broad steps of the
church, with the golden links of destiny on their fingers, the evening
had deepened into struggling starlight, and the servants had their
torches lit.

While they came out, a strange dreary chant, as of a _Miserere_, met
their ears, and they saw that at the extreme end of the piazza there
seemed to be a stream of people impelled by something approaching from
the Borgo de’ Greci.

“It is one of their masqued processions, I suppose,” said Tito, who was
now alone with Romola, while Bernardo took charge of Bardo.

And as he spoke there came slowly into view, at a height far above the
heads of the onlookers, a huge and ghastly image of Winged Time with
his scythe and hour-glass, surrounded by his winged children, the
Hours. He was mounted on a high car completely covered with black, and
the bullocks that drew the car were also covered with black, their
horns alone standing out white above the gloom; so that in the sombre
shadow of the houses it seemed to those at a distance as if Time and
his children were apparitions floating through the air. And behind them
came what looked like a troop of the sheeted dead gliding above
blackness. And as they glided slowly, they chanted in a wailing strain.

A cold horror seized on Romola, for at the first moment it seemed as if
her brother’s vision, which could never be effaced from her mind, was
being half fulfilled. She clung to Tito, who, divining what was in her
thoughts, said—

“What dismal fooling sometimes pleases your Florentines! Doubtless this
is an invention of Piero di Cosimo, who loves such grim merriment.”

“Tito, I wish it had not happened. It will deepen the images of that
vision which I would fain be rid of.”

“Nay, Romola, you will look only at the images of our happiness now. I
have locked all sadness away from you.”

“But it is still there—it is only hidden,” said Romola, in a low tone,
hardly conscious that she spoke.

“See, they are all gone now!” said Tito. “You will forget this ghastly
mummery when we are in the light, and can see each other’s eyes. My
Ariadne must never look backward now—only forward to Easter, when she
will triumph with her Care-dispeller.”




CHAPTER XXI.
Florence expects a Guest.


It was the 17th of November 1494: more than eighteen months since Tito
and Romola had been finally united in the joyous Easter time, and had
had a rainbow-tinted shower of comfits thrown over them, after the
ancient Greek fashion, in token that the heavens would shower sweets on
them through all their double life.

Since that Easter a great change had come over the prospects of
Florence; and as in the tree that bears a myriad of blossoms, each
single bud with its fruit is dependent on the primary circulation of
the sap, so the fortunes of Tito and Romola were dependent on certain
grand political and social conditions which made an epoch in the
history of Italy.

In this very November, little more than a week ago, the spirit of the
old centuries seemed to have re-entered the breasts of Florentines. The
great bell in the palace tower had rung out the hammer-sound of alarm,
and the people had mustered with their rusty arms, their tools and
impromptu cudgels, to drive out the Medici. The gate of San Gallo had
been fairly shut on the arrogant, exasperating Piero, galloping away
towards Bologna with his hired horsemen frightened behind him, and shut
on his keener young brother, the cardinal, escaping in the disguise of
a Franciscan monk: a price had been set on both their heads. After
that, there had been some sacking of houses, according to old
precedent; the ignominious images, painted on the public buildings, of
the men who had conspired against the Medici in days gone by, were
effaced; the exiled enemies of the Medici were invited home. The
half-fledged tyrants were fairly out of their splendid nest in the Via
Larga, and the Republic had recovered the use of its will again.

But now, a week later, the great palace in the Via Larga had been
prepared for the reception of another tenant; and if drapery roofing
the streets with unwonted colour, if banners and hangings pouring out
of the windows, if carpets and tapestry stretched over all steps and
pavement on which exceptional feet might tread, were an unquestionable
proof of joy, Florence was very joyful in the expectation of its new
guest. The stream of colour flowed from the palace in the Via Larga
round by the Cathedral, then by the great Piazza della Signoria, and
across the Ponte Vecchio to the Porta San Frediano—the gate that looks
towards Pisa. There, near the gate, a platform and canopy had been
erected for the Signoria; and Messer Luca Corsini, doctor of law, felt
his heart palpitating a little with the sense that he had a Latin
oration to read; and every chief elder in Florence had to make himself
ready, with smooth chin and well-lined silk lucco, to walk in
procession; and the well-born youths were looking at their rich new
tunics after the French mode which was to impress the stranger as
having a peculiar grace when worn by Florentines; and a large body of
the clergy, from the archbishop in his effulgence to the train of
monks, black, white, and grey, were consulting betimes in the morning
how they should marshal themselves, with their burden of relics and
sacred banners and consecrated jewels, that their movements might be
adjusted to the expected arrival of the illustrious visitor, at three
o’clock in the afternoon.

An unexampled visitor! For he had come through the passes of the Alps
with such an army as Italy had not seen before: with thousands of
terrible Swiss, well used to fight for love and hatred as well as for
hire; with a host of gallant cavaliers proud of a name; with an
unprecedented infantry, in which every man in a hundred carried an
arquebus; nay, with cannon of bronze, shooting not stones but iron
balls, drawn not by bullocks but by horses, and capable of firing a
second time before a city could mend the breach made by the first ball.
Some compared the new-comer to Charlemagne, reputed rebuilder of
Florence, welcome conqueror of degenerate kings, regulator and
benefactor of the Church; some preferred the comparison to Cyrus,
liberator of the chosen people, restorer of the Temple. For he had come
across the Alps with the most glorious projects: he was to march
through Italy amidst the jubilees of a grateful and admiring people; he
was to satisfy all conflicting complaints at Rome; he was to take
possession, by virtue of hereditary right and a little fighting, of the
kingdom of Naples; and from that convenient starting-point he was to
set out on the conquest of the Turks, who were partly to be cut to
pieces and partly converted to the faith of Christ. It was a scheme
that seemed to befit the Most Christian King, head of a nation which,
thanks to the devices of a subtle Louis the Eleventh who had died in
much fright as to his personal prospects ten years before, had become
the strongest of Christian monarchies; and this antitype of Cyrus and
Charlemagne was no other than the son of that subtle Louis—the young
Charles the Eighth of France.

Surely, on a general statement, hardly anything could seem more
grandiose, or fitter to revive in the breasts of men the memory of
great dispensations by which new strata had been laid in the history of
mankind. And there was a very widely spread conviction that the advent
of the French king and his army into Italy was one of those events at
which marble statues might well be believed to perspire, phantasmal
fiery warriors to fight in the air, and quadrupeds to bring forth
monstrous births—that it did not belong to the usual order of
Providence, but was in a peculiar sense the work of God. It was a
conviction that rested less on the necessarily momentous character of a
powerful foreign invasion than on certain moral emotions to which the
aspect of the times gave the form of presentiments: emotions which had
found a very remarkable utterance in the voice of a single man.

That man was Fra Girolamo Savonarola, Prior of the Dominican convent of
San Marco in Florence. On a September morning, when men’s ears were
ringing with the news that the French army had entered Italy, he had
preached in the Cathedral of Florence from the text, “Behold I, even I,
do bring a flood of waters upon the earth.” He believed it was by
supreme guidance that he had reached just so far in his exposition of
Genesis the previous Lent; and he believed the “flood of water”—emblem
at once of avenging wrath and purifying mercy—to be the
divinely—indicated symbol of the French army. His audience, some of
whom were held to be among the choicest spirits of the age—the most
cultivated men in the most cultivated of Italian cities—believed it
too, and listened with shuddering awe. For this man had a power rarely
paralleled, of impressing his beliefs on others, and of swaying very
various minds. And as long as four years ago he had proclaimed from the
chief pulpit of Florence that a scourge was about to descend on Italy,
and that by this scourge the Church was to be purified. Savonarola
appeared to believe, and his hearers more or less waveringly believed,
that he had a mission like that of the Hebrew prophets, and that the
Florentines amongst whom his message was delivered were in some sense a
second chosen people. The idea of prophetic gifts was not a remote one
in that age: seers of visions, circumstantial heralds of things to be,
were far from uncommon either outside or inside the cloister; but this
very fact made Savonarola stand out the more conspicuously as a grand
exception. While in others the gift of prophecy was very much like a
farthing candle illuminating small corners of human destiny with
prophetic gossip, in Savonarola it was like a mighty beacon shining far
out for the warning and guidance of men. And to some of the soberest
minds the supernatural character of his insight into the future
gathered a strong attestation from the peculiar conditions of the age.

At the close of 1492, the year in which Lorenzo de’ Medici died and
Tito Melema came as a wanderer to Florence, Italy was enjoying a peace
and prosperity unthreatened by any near and definite danger. There was
no fear of famine, for the seasons had been plenteous in corn, and
wine, and oil; new palaces had been rising in all fair cities, new
villas on pleasant slopes and summits; and the men who had more than
their share of these good things were in no fear of the larger number
who had less. For the citizens’ armour was getting rusty, and
populations seemed to have become tame, licking the hands of masters
who paid for a ready-made army when they wanted it, as they paid for
goods of Smyrna. Even the fear of the Turk had ceased to be active, and
the Pope found it more immediately profitable to accept bribes from him
for a little prospective poisoning than to form plans either for
conquering or for converting him.

Altogether this world, with its partitioned empire and its roomy
universal Church, seemed to be a handsome establishment for the few who
were lucky or wise enough to reap the advantages of human folly: a
world in which lust and obscenity, lying and treachery, oppression and
murder, were pleasant, useful, and when properly managed, not
dangerous. And as a sort of fringe or adornment to the substantial
delights of tyranny, avarice, and lasciviousness, there was the
patronage of polite learning and the fine arts, so that flattery could
always be had in the choicest Latin to be commanded at that time, and
sublime artists were at hand to paint the holy and the unclean with
impartial skill. The Church, it was said, had never been so disgraced
in its head, had never shown so few signs of renovating, vital belief
in its lower members; nevertheless it was much more prosperous than in
some past days. The heavens were fair and smiling above; and below
there were no signs of earthquake.

Yet at that time, as we have seen, there was a man in Florence who for
two years and more had been preaching that a scourge was at hand; that
the world was certainly not framed for the lasting convenience of
hypocrites, libertines, and oppressors. From the midst of those smiling
heavens he had seen a sword hanging—the sword of God’s justice—which
was speedily to descend with purifying punishment on the Church and the
world. In brilliant Ferrara, seventeen years before, the contradiction
between men’s lives and their professed beliefs had pressed upon him
with a force that had been enough to destroy his appetite for the
world, and at the age of twenty-three had driven him into the cloister.
He believed that God had committed to the Church the sacred lamp of
truth for the guidance and salvation of men, and he saw that the
Church, in its corruption, had become a sepulchre to hide the lamp. As
the years went on scandals increased and multiplied, and hypocrisy
seemed to have given place to impudence. Had the world, then, ceased to
have a righteous Ruler? Was the Church finally forsaken? No, assuredly:
in the Sacred Book there was a record of the past in which might be
seen as in a glass what would be in the days to come, and the book
showed that when the wickedness of the chosen people, type of the
Christian Church, had become crying, the judgments of God had descended
on them. Nay, reason itself declared that vengeance was imminent, for
what else would suffice to turn men from their obstinacy in evil? And
unless the Church were reclaimed, how could the promises be fulfilled,
that the heathens should be converted and the whole world become
subject to the one true law? He had seen his belief reflected in
visions—a mode of seeing which had been frequent with him from his
youth up.

But the real force of demonstration for Girolamo Savonarola lay in his
own burning indignation at the sight of wrong; in his fervent belief in
an Unseen Justice that would put an end to the wrong, and in an Unseen
Purity to which lying and uncleanness were an abomination. To his
ardent, power-loving soul, believing in great ends, and longing to
achieve those ends by the exertion of its own strong will, the faith in
a supreme and righteous Ruler became one with the faith in a speedy
divine interposition that would punish and reclaim.

Meanwhile, under that splendid masquerade of dignities sacred and
secular which seemed to make the life of lucky Churchmen and princely
families so luxurious and amusing, there were certain conditions at
work which slowly tended to disturb the general festivity. Ludovico
Sforza—copious in gallantry, splendid patron of an incomparable
Leonardo da Vinci—holding the ducal crown of Milan in his grasp, and
wanting to put it on his own head rather than let it rest on that of a
feeble nephew who would take very little to poison him, was much afraid
of the Spanish-born old King Ferdinand and the Crown Prince Alfonso of
Naples, who, not liking cruelty and treachery which were useless to
themselves, objected to the poisoning of a near relative for the
advantage of a Lombard usurper; the royalties of Naples again were
afraid of their suzerain, Pope Alexander Borgia; all three were
anxiously watching Florence, lest with its midway territory it should
determine the game by underhand backing; and all four, with every small
state in Italy, were afraid of Venice—Venice the cautious, the stable,
and the strong, that wanted to stretch its arms not only along both
sides of the Adriatic but across to the ports of the western coast.

Lorenzo de’ Medici, it was thought, did much to prevent the fatal
outbreak of such jealousies, keeping up the old Florentine alliance
with Naples and the Pope, and yet persuading Milan that the alliance
was for the general advantage. But young Piero de’ Medici’s rash vanity
had quickly nullified the effect of his father’s wary policy, and
Ludovico Sforza, roused to suspicion of a league against him, thought
of a move which would checkmate his adversaries: he determined to
invite the French king to march into Italy, and, as heir of the house
of Anjou, take possession of Naples. Ambassadors—“orators,” as they
were called in those haranguing times—went and came; a recusant
cardinal, determined not to acknowledge a Pope elected by bribery (and
his own particular enemy), went and came also, and seconded the
invitation with hot rhetoric; and the young king seemed to lend a
willing ear. So that in 1493 the rumour spread and became louder and
louder that Charles the Eighth of France was about to cross the Alps
with a mighty army; and the Italian populations, accustomed, since
Italy had ceased to be the heart of the Roman empire, to look for an
arbitrator from afar, began vaguely to regard his coming as a means of
avenging their wrongs and redressing their grievances.

And in that rumour Savonarola had heard the assurance that his prophecy
was being verified. What was it that filled the ears of the prophets of
old but the distant tread of foreign armies, coming to do the work of
justice? He no longer looked vaguely to the horizon for the coming
storm: he pointed to the rising cloud. The French army was that new
deluge which was to purify the earth from iniquity; the French king,
Charles the Eighth, was the instrument elected by God, as Cyrus had
been of old, and all men who desired good rather than evil were to
rejoice in his coming. For the scourge would fall destructively on the
impenitent alone. Let any city of Italy, let Florence above
all—Florence beloved of God, since to its ear the warning voice had
been specially sent—repent and turn from its ways, like Nineveh of old,
and the storm-cloud would roll over it and leave only refreshing
raindrops.

Fra Girolamo’s word was powerful; yet now that the new Cyrus had
already been three months in Italy, and was not far from the gates of
Florence, his presence was expected there with mixed feelings, in which
fear and distrust certainly predominated. At present it was not
understood that he had redressed any grievances; and the Florentines
clearly had nothing to thank him for. He held their strong frontier
fortresses, which Piero de’ Medici had given up to him without securing
any honourable terms in return; he had done nothing to quell the
alarming revolt of Pisa, which had been encouraged by his presence to
throw off the Florentine yoke; and “orators,” even with a prophet at
their head, could win no assurance from him, except that he would
settle everything when he was once within the walls of Florence. Still,
there was the satisfaction of knowing that the exasperating Piero de’
Medici had been fairly pelted out for the ignominious surrender of the
fortresses, and in that act of energy the spirit of the Republic had
recovered some of its old fire.

The preparations for the equivocal guest were not entirely those of a
city resigned to submission. Behind the bright drapery and banners
symbolical of joy, there were preparations of another sort made with
common accord by government and people. Well hidden within walls there
were hired soldiers of the Republic, hastily called in from the
surrounding districts; there were old arms duly furbished, and sharp
tools and heavy cudgels laid carefully at hand, to be snatched up on
short notice; there were excellent boards and stakes to form barricades
upon occasion, and a good supply of stones to make a surprising hail
from the upper windows. Above all, there were people very strongly in
the humour for fighting any personage who might be supposed to have
designs of hectoring over them, they having lately tasted that new
pleasure with much relish. This humour was not diminished by the sight
of occasional parties of Frenchmen, coming beforehand to choose their
quarters, with a hawk, perhaps, on their left wrist, and,
metaphorically speaking, a piece of chalk in their right-hand to mark
Italian doors withal; especially as creditable historians imply that
many sons of France were at that time characterised by something
approaching to a swagger, which must have whetted the Florentine
appetite for a little stone-throwing.

And this was the temper of Florence on the morning of the 17th of
November 1494.




CHAPTER XXII.
The Prisoners.


The sky was grey, but that made little difference in the Piazza del
Duomo, which was covered with its holiday sky of blue drapery, and its
constellations of yellow lilies and coats of arms. The sheaves of
banners were unfurled at the angles of the Baptistery, but there was no
carpet yet on the steps of the Duomo, for the marble was being trodden
by numerous feet that were not at all exceptional. It was the hour of
the Advent sermons, and the very same reasons which had flushed the
streets with holiday colour were reasons why the preaching in the Duomo
could least of all be dispensed with.

But not all the feet in the Piazza were hastening towards the steps.
People of high and low degree were moving to and fro with the brisk
pace of men who had errands before them; groups of talkers were thickly
scattered, some willing to be late for the sermon, and others content
not to hear it at all.

The expression on the faces of these apparent loungers was not that of
men who are enjoying the pleasant laziness of an opening holiday. Some
were in close and eager discussion; others were listening with keen
interest to a single spokesman, and yet from time to time turned round
with a scanning glance at any new passer-by. At the corner, looking
towards the Via de’ Cerretani—just where the artificial rainbow light
of the Piazza ceased, and the grey morning fell on the sombre stone
houses—there was a remarkable cluster of the working people, most of
them bearing on their dress or persons the signs of their daily labour,
and almost all of them carrying some weapon, or some tool which might
serve as a weapon upon occasion. Standing in the grey light of the
street, with bare brawny arms and soiled garments, they made all the
more striking the transition from the brightness of the Piazza. They
were listening to the thin notary, Ser Cioni, who had just paused on
his way to the Duomo. His biting words could get only a contemptuous
reception two years and a half before in the Mercato, but now he spoke
with the more complacent humour of a man whose party is uppermost, and
who is conscious of some influence with the people.

“Never talk to me,” he was saying, in his incisive voice, “never talk
to me of bloodthirsty Swiss or fierce French infantry: they might as
well be in the narrow passes of the mountains as in our streets; and
peasants have destroyed the finest armies of our condottieri in time
past, when they had once got them between steep precipices. I tell you,
Florentines need be afraid of no army in their own streets.”

“That’s true, Ser Cioni,” said a man whose arms and hands were
discoloured by crimson dye, which looked like blood-stains, and who had
a small hatchet stuck in his belt; “and those French cavaliers, who
came in squaring themselves in their smart doublets the other day, saw
a sample of the dinner we could serve up for them. I was carrying my
cloth in Ognissanti, when I saw my fine Messeri going by, looking round
as if they thought the houses of the Vespucci and the Agli a poor pick
of lodgings for them, and eyeing us Florentines, like top-knotted cocks
as they are, as if they pitied us because we didn’t know how to strut.
‘Yes, my fine _Galli_,’ says I, ‘stick out your stomachs; I’ve got a
meat-axe in my belt that will go inside you all the easier;’ when
presently the old cow lowed,[1] and I knew something had happened—no
matter what. So I threw my cloth in at the first doorway, and took hold
of my meat-axe and ran after my fine cavaliers towards the Vigna Nuova.
And, ‘What is it, Guccio?’ said I, when he came up with me. ‘I think
it’s the Medici coming back,’ said Guccio. _Bembè_! I expected so! And
up we reared a barricade, and the Frenchmen looked behind and saw
themselves in a trap; and up comes a good swarm of our _Ciompi_[2] and
one of them with a big scythe he had in his hand mowed off one of the
fine cavalier’s feathers:—it’s true! And the lasses peppered a few
stones down to frighten them. However, Piero de’ Medici wasn’t come
after all; and it was a pity; for we’d have left him neither legs nor
wings to go away with again.”

 [1] “_La vacca muglia_” was the phrase for the sounding of the great
 bell in the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio.


 [2] The poorer artisans connected with the wool trade—wool-beaters,
 carders, washers, etcetera.


“Well spoken, Oddo,” said a young butcher, with his knife at his belt;
“and it’s my belief Piero will be a good while before he wants to come
back, for he looked as frightened as a hunted chicken, when we hustled
and pelted him in the piazza. He’s a coward, else he might have made a
better stand when he’d got his horsemen. But we’ll swallow no Medici
any more, whatever else the French king wants to make us swallow.”

“But I like not those French cannon they talk of,” said Goro, none the
less fat for two years’ additional grievances. “San Giovanni defend us!
If Messer Domeneddio means so well by us as your Frate says he does,
Ser Cioni, why shouldn’t he have sent the French another way to
Naples?”

“Ay, Goro,” said the dyer; “that’s a question worth putting. Thou art
not such a pumpkin-head as I took thee for. Why, they might have gone
to Naples by Bologna, eh, Ser Cioni? or if they’d gone to Arezzo—we
wouldn’t have minded their going to Arezzo.”

“Fools! It will be for the good and glory of Florence,” Ser Cioni
began. But he was interrupted by the exclamation, “Look there!” which
burst from several voices at once, while the faces were all turned to a
party who were advancing along the Via de’ Cerretani.

“It’s Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and one of the French noblemen who are in his
house,” said Ser Cioni, in some contempt at this interruption. “He
pretends to look well satisfied—that deep Tornabuoni—but he’s a
Medicean in his heart: mind that.”

The advancing party was rather a brilliant one, for there was not only
the distinguished presence of Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and the splendid
costume of the Frenchman with his elaborately displayed white linen and
gorgeous embroidery; there were two other Florentines of high birth in
handsome dresses donned for the coming procession, and on the left-hand
of the Frenchman was a figure that was not to be eclipsed by any amount
of intention or brocade—a figure we have often seen before. He wore
nothing but black, for he was in mourning; but the black was presently
to be covered by a red mantle, for he too was to walk in procession as
Latin Secretary to the Ten. Tito Melema had become conspicuously
serviceable in the intercourse with the French guests, from his
familiarity with Southern Italy, and his readiness in the French
tongue, which he had spoken in his early youth; and he had paid more
than one visit to the French camp at Signa. The lustre of good fortune
was upon him; he was smiling, listening, and explaining, with his usual
graceful unpretentious ease, and only a very keen eye bent on studying
him could have marked a certain amount of change in him which was not
to be accounted for by the lapse of eighteen months. It was that change
which comes from the final departure of moral youthfulness—from the
distinct self-conscious adoption of a part in life. The lines of the
face were as soft as ever, the eyes as pellucid; but something was
gone—something as indefinable as the changes in the morning twilight.

The Frenchman was gathering instructions concerning ceremonial before
riding back to Signa, and now he was going to have a final survey of
the Piazza del Duomo, where the royal procession was to pause for
religious purposes. The distinguished party attracted the notice of all
eyes as it entered the piazza, but the gaze was not entirely cordial
and admiring; there were remarks not altogether allusive and mysterious
to the Frenchman’s hoof-shaped shoes—delicate flattery of royal
superfluity in toes; and there was no care that certain snarlings at
“Mediceans” should be strictly inaudible. But Lorenzo Tornabuoni
possessed that power of dissembling annoyance which is demanded in a
man who courts popularity, and Tito, besides his natural disposition to
overcome ill-will by good-humour, had the unimpassioned feeling of the
alien towards names and details that move the deepest passions of the
native.

Arrived where they could get a good oblique view of the Duomo, the
party paused. The festoons and devices placed over the central doorway
excited some demur, and Tornabuoni beckoned to Piero di Cosimo, who, as
was usual with him at this hour, was lounging in front of Nello’s shop.
There was soon an animated discussion, and it became highly amusing
from the Frenchman’s astonishment at Piero’s odd pungency of statement,
which Tito translated literally. Even snarling onlookers became
curious, and their faces began to wear the half-smiling,
half-humiliated expression of people who are not within hearing of the
joke which is producing infectious laughter. It was a delightful moment
for Tito, for he was the only one of the party who could have made so
amusing an interpreter, and without any disposition to triumphant
self-gratulation he revelled in the sense that he was an object of
liking—he basked in approving glances. The rainbow light fell about the
laughing group, and the grave church-goers had all disappeared within
the walls. It seemed as if the piazza had been decorated for a real
Florentine holiday.

Meanwhile in the grey light of the unadorned streets there were
on-comers who made no show of linen and brocade, and whose humour was
far from merry. Here, too, the French dress and hoofed shoes were
conspicuous, but they were being pressed upon by a larger and larger
number of non-admiring Florentines. In the van of the crowd were three
men in scanty clothing; each had his hands bound together by a cord,
and a rope was fastened round his neck and body, in such a way that he
who held the extremity of the rope might easily check any rebellious
movement by the threat of throttling. The men who held the ropes were
French soldiers, and by broken Italian phrases and strokes from the
knotted end of the rope, they from time to time stimulated their
prisoners to beg. Two of them were obedient, and to every Florentine
they had encountered had held out their bound hands and said in piteous
tones—

“For the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards
our ransom! We are Tuscans: we were made prisoners in Lunigiana.”

But the third man remained obstinately silent under all the strokes
from the knotted cord. He was very different in aspect from his two
fellow-prisoners. They were young and hardy, and, in the scant clothing
which the avarice of their captors had left them, looked like vulgar,
sturdy mendicants. But he had passed the boundary of old age, and could
hardly be less than four or five and sixty. His beard, which had grown
long in neglect, and the hair which fell thick and straight round his
baldness, were nearly white. His thickset figure was still firm and
upright, though emaciated, and seemed to express energy in spite of
age—an expression that was partly carried out in the dark eyes and
strong dark eyebrows, which had a strangely isolated intensity of
colour in the midst of his yellow, bloodless, deep-wrinkled face with
its lank grey hairs. And yet there was something fitful in the eyes
which contradicted the occasional flash of energy: after looking round
with quick fierceness at windows and faces, they fell again with a lost
and wandering look. But his lips were motionless, and he held his hands
resolutely down. He would not beg.

This sight had been witnessed by the Florentines with growing
exasperation. Many standing at their doors or passing quietly along had
at once given money—some in half-automatic response to an appeal in the
name of God, others in that unquestioning awe of the French soldiery
which had been created by the reports of their cruel warfare, and on
which the French themselves counted as a guarantee of immunity in their
acts of insolence. But as the group had proceeded farther into the
heart of the city, that compliance had gradually disappeared, and the
soldiers found themselves escorted by a gathering troop of men and
boys, who kept up a chorus of exclamations sufficiently intelligible to
foreign ears without any interpreter. The soldiers themselves began to
dislike their position, for, with a strong inclination to use their
weapons, they were checked by the necessity for keeping a secure hold
on their prisoners, and they were now hurrying along in the hope of
finding shelter in a hostelry.

“French dogs!”

“Bullock-feet!”

“Snatch their pikes from them!”

“Cut the cords and make them run for their prisoners. They’ll run as
fast as geese—don’t you see they’re web-footed?” These were the cries
which the soldiers vaguely understood to be jeers, and probably
threats. But every one seemed disposed to give invitations of this
spirited kind rather than to act upon them.

“Santiddio! here’s a sight!” said the dyer, as soon as he had divined
the meaning of the advancing tumult, “and the fools do nothing but
hoot. Come along!” he added, snatching his axe from his belt, and
running to join the crowd, followed by the butcher and all the rest of
his companions, except Goro, who hastily retreated up a narrow passage.

The sight of the dyer, running forward with blood-red arms and axe
uplifted, and with his cluster of rough companions behind him, had a
stimulating effect on the crowd. Not that he did anything else than
pass beyond the soldiers and thrust himself well among his
fellow-citizens, flourishing his axe; but he served as a stirring
symbol of street-fighting, like the waving of a well-known gonfalon.
And the first sign that fire was ready to burst out was something as
rapid as a little leaping tongue of flame: it was an act of the
conjuror’s impish lad Lollo, who was dancing and jeering in front of
the ingenuous boys that made the majority of the crowd. Lollo had no
great compassion for the prisoners, but being conscious of an excellent
knife which was his unfailing companion, it had seemed to him from the
first that to jump forward, cut a rope, and leap back again before the
soldier who held it could use his weapon, would be an amusing and
dexterous piece of mischief. And now, when the people began to hoot and
jostle more vigorously, Lollo felt that his moment was come—he was
close to the eldest prisoner: in an instant he had cut the cord.

“Run, old one!” he piped in the prisoner’s ear, as soon as the cord was
in two; and himself set the example of running as if he were helped
along with wings, like a scared fowl.

The prisoner’s sensations were not too slow for him to seize the
opportunity: the idea of escape had been continually present with him,
and he had gathered fresh hope from the temper of the crowd. He ran at
once; but his speed would hardly have sufficed for him if the
Florentines had not instantaneously rushed between him and his captor.
He ran on into the piazza, but he quickly heard the tramp of feet
behind him, for the other two prisoners had been released, and the
soldiers were struggling and fighting their way after them, in such
tardigrade fashion as their hoof-shaped shoes would allow—impeded, but
not very resolutely attacked, by the people. One of the two younger
prisoners turned up the Borgo di San Lorenzo, and thus made a partial
diversion of the hubbub; but the main struggle was still towards the
piazza, where all eyes were turned on it with alarmed curiosity. The
cause could not be precisely guessed, for the French dress was screened
by the impeding crowd.

“An escape of prisoners,” said Lorenzo Tornabuoni, as he and his party
turned round just against the steps of the Duomo, and saw a prisoner
rushing by them. “The people are not content with having emptied the
Bargello the other day. If there is no other authority in sight they
must fall on the sbirri and secure freedom to thieves. Ah! there is a
French soldier: that is more serious.”

The soldier he saw was struggling along on the north side of the
piazza, but the object of his pursuit had taken the other direction.
That object was the eldest prisoner, who had wheeled round the
Baptistery and was running towards the Duomo, determined to take refuge
in that sanctuary rather than trust to his speed. But in mounting the
steps, his foot received a shock; he was precipitated towards the group
of signori, whose backs were turned to him, and was only able to
recover his balance as he clutched one of them by the arm.

It was Tito Melema who felt that clutch. He turned his head, and saw
the face of his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close to his own.

The two men looked at each other, silent as death: Baldassarre, with
dark fierceness and a tightening grip of the soiled worn hands on the
velvet-clad arm; Tito, with cheeks and lips all bloodless, fascinated
by terror. It seemed a long while to them—it was but a moment.

The first sound Tito heard was the short laugh of Piero di Cosimo, who
stood close by him and was the only person that could see his face.

“Ha, ha! I know what a ghost should be now.”

“This is another escaped prisoner,” said Lorenzo Tornabuoni. “Who is
he, I wonder?”

“_Some madman, surely_,” said Tito.

He hardly knew how the words had come to his lips: there are moments
when our passions speak and decide for us, and we seem to stand by and
wonder. They carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in one instant
does the work of long premeditation.

The two men had not taken their eyes off each other, and it seemed to
Tito, when he had spoken, that some magical poison had darted from
Baldassarre’s eyes, and that he felt it rushing through his veins. But
the next instant the grasp on his arm had relaxed, and Baldassarre had
disappeared within the church.




CHAPTER XXIII.
After-Thoughts.


“You are easily frightened, though,” said Piero, with another scornful
laugh. “My portrait is not as good as the original. But the old fellow
_had_ a tiger look: I must go into the Duomo and see him again.”

“It is not pleasant to be laid hold of by a madman, if madman he be,”
said Lorenzo Tornabuoni, in polite excuse of Tito, “but perhaps he is
only a ruffian. We shall hear. I think we must see if we have authority
enough to stop this disturbance between our people and your
countrymen,” he added, addressing the Frenchman.

They advanced toward the crowd with their swords drawn, all the quiet
spectators making an escort for them. Tito went too: it was necessary
that he should know what others knew about Baldassarre, and the first
palsy of terror was being succeeded by the rapid devices to which
mortal danger will stimulate the timid.

The rabble of men and boys, more inclined to hoot at the soldier and
torment him than to receive or inflict any serious wounds, gave way at
the approach of signori with drawn swords, and the French soldier was
interrogated. He and his companions had simply brought their prisoners
into the city that they might beg money for their ransom: two of the
prisoners were Tuscan soldiers taken in Lunigiana; the other, an
elderly man, was with a party of Genoese, with whom the French foragers
had come to blows near Fivizzano. He might be mad, but he was harmless.
The soldier knew no more, being unable to understand a word the old man
said. Tito heard so far, but he was deaf to everything else till he was
specially addressed. It was Tornabuoni who spoke.

“Will you go back with us, Melema? Or, since Messere is going off to
Signa now, will you wisely follow the fashion of the times and go to
hear the Frate, who will be like the torrent at its height this
morning? It’s what we must all do, you know, if we are to save our
Medicean skins. _I_ should go if I had the leisure.”

Tito’s face had recovered its colour now, and he could make an effort
to speak with gaiety.

“Of course I am among the admirers of the inspired orator,” he said,
smilingly; “but, unfortunately, I shall be occupied with the Segretario
till the time of the procession.”

“_I_ am going into the Duomo to look at that savage old man again,”
said Piero.

“Then have the charity to show him to one of the hospitals for
travellers, Piero mio,” said Tornabuoni. “The monks may find out
whether he wants putting into a cage.”

The party separated, and Tito took his way to the Palazzo Vecchio,
where he was to find Bartolommeo Scala. It was not a long walk, but,
for Tito, it was stretched out like the minutes of our morning dreams:
the short spaces of street and piazza held memories, and previsions,
and torturing fears, that might have made the history of months. He
felt as if a serpent had begun to coil round his limbs. Baldassarre
living, and in Florence, was a living revenge, which would no more rest
than a winding serpent would rest until it had crushed its prey. It was
not in the nature of that man to let an injury pass unavenged: his love
and his hatred were of that passionate fervour which subjugates all the
rest of the being, and makes a man sacrifice himself to his passion as
if it were a deity to be worshipped with self-destruction. Baldassarre
had relaxed his hold, and had disappeared. Tito knew well how to
interpret that: it meant that the vengeance was to be studied that it
might be sure. If he had not uttered those decisive words—“He is a
madman”—if he could have summoned up the state of mind, the courage,
necessary for avowing his recognition of Baldassarre, would not the
risk have been less? He might have declared himself to have had what he
believed to be positive evidence of Baldassarre’s death; and the only
persons who could ever have had positive knowledge to contradict him,
were Fra Luca, who was dead, and the crew of the companion galley, who
had brought him the news of the encounter with the pirates. The chances
were infinite against Baldassarre’s having met again with any one of
that crew, and Tito thought with bitterness that a timely, well-devised
falsehood might have saved him from any fatal consequences. But to have
told that falsehood would have required perfect self-command in the
moment of a convulsive shock: he seemed to have spoken without any
preconception: the words had leaped forth like a sudden birth that had
been begotten and nourished in the darkness.

Tito was experiencing that inexorable law of human souls, that we
prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or
evil which gradually determines character.

There was but one chance for him now; the chance of Baldassarre’s
failure in finding his revenge. And—Tito grasped at a thought more
actively cruel than any he had ever encouraged before: might not his
own unpremeditated words have some truth in them? Enough truth, at
least, to bear him out in his denial of any declaration Baldassarre
might make about him? The old man looked strange and wild; with his
eager heart and brain, suffering was likely enough to have produced
madness. If it were so, the vengeance that strove to inflict disgrace
might be baffled.

But there was another form of vengeance not to be baffled by ingenious
lying. Baldassarre belonged to a race to whom the thrust of the dagger
seems almost as natural an impulse as the outleap of the tiger’s
talons. Tito shrank with shuddering dread from disgrace; but he had
also that physical dread which is inseparable from a soft
pleasure-loving nature, and which prevents a man from meeting wounds
and death as a welcome relief from disgrace. His thoughts flew at once
to some hidden defensive armour that might save him from a vengeance
which no subtlety could parry.

He wondered at the power of the passionate fear that possessed him. It
was as if he had been smitten with a blighting disease that had
suddenly turned the joyous sense of young life into pain.

There was still one resource open to Tito. He might have turned back,
sought Baldassarre again, confessed everything to him—to Romola—to all
the world. But he never thought of that. The repentance which cuts off
all moorings to evil, demands something more than selfish fear. He had
no sense that there was strength and safety in truth; the only strength
he trusted to lay in his ingenuity and his dissimulation. Now that the
first shock, which had called up the traitorous signs of fear, was well
past, he hoped to be prepared for all emergencies by cool deceit—and
defensive armour.

It was a characteristic fact in Tito’s experience at this crisis, that
no direct measures for ridding himself of Baldassarre ever occurred to
him. All other possibilities passed through his mind, even to his own
flight from Florence; but he never thought of any scheme for removing
his enemy. His dread generated no active malignity, and he would still
have been glad not to give pain to any mortal. He had simply chosen to
make life easy to himself—to carry his human lot, if possible, in such
a way that it should pinch him nowhere; and the choice had, at various
times, landed him in unexpected positions. The question now was, not
whether he should divide the common pressure of destiny with his
suffering fellow-men; it was whether all the resources of lying would
save him from being crushed by the consequences of that habitual
choice.




CHAPTER XXIV.
Inside the Duomo.


When Baldassarre, with his hands bound together, and the rope round his
neck and body, pushed his way behind the curtain, and saw the interior
of the Duomo before him, he gave a start of astonishment, and stood
still against the doorway. He had expected to see a vast nave empty of
everything but lifeless emblems—side altars with candles unlit, dim
pictures, pale and rigid statues—with perhaps a few worshippers in the
distant choir following a monotonous chant. That was the ordinary
aspect of churches to a man who never went into them with any religious
purpose.

And he saw, instead, a vast multitude of warm, living faces, upturned
in breathless silence towards the pulpit, at the angle between the nave
and the choir. The multitude was of all ranks, from magistrates and
dames of gentle nurture to coarsely-clad artisans and country people.
In the pulpit was a Dominican friar, with strong features and dark
hair, preaching with the crucifix in his hand.

For the first few minutes Baldassarre noted nothing of his preaching.
Silent as his entrance had been, some eyes near the doorway had been
turned on him with surprise and suspicion. The rope indicated plainly
enough that he was an escaped prisoner, but in that case the church was
a sanctuary which he had a right to claim; his advanced years and look
of wild misery were fitted to excite pity rather than alarm; and as he
stood motionless, with eyes that soon wandered absently from the wide
scene before him to the pavement at his feet, those who had observed
his entrance presently ceased to regard him, and became absorbed again
in the stronger interest of listening to the sermon.

Among the eyes that had been turned towards him were Romola’s: she had
entered late through one of the side doors and was so placed that she
had a full view of the main entrance. She had looked long and
attentively at Baldassarre, for grey hairs made a peculiar appeal to
her, and the stamp of some unwonted suffering in the face, confirmed by
the cord round his neck, stirred in her those sensibilities towards the
sorrows of age, which her whole life had tended to develop. She fancied
that his eyes had met hers in their first wandering gaze; but
Baldassarre had not, in reality, noted her; he had only had a startled
consciousness of the general scene, and the consciousness was a mere
flash that made no perceptible break in the fierce tumult of emotion
which the encounter with Tito had created. Images from the past kept
urging themselves upon him like delirious visions strangely blended
with thirst and anguish. No distinct thought for the future could shape
itself in the midst of that fiery passion: the nearest approach to such
thought was the bitter sense of enfeebled powers, and a vague
determination to universal distrust and suspicion. Suddenly he felt
himself vibrating to loud tones, which seemed like the thundering echo
of his own passion. A voice that penetrated his very marrow with its
accent of triumphant certitude was saying—“The day of vengeance is at
hand!”

Baldassarre quivered and looked up. He was too distant to see more than
the general aspect of the preacher standing, with his right arm
outstretched, lifting up the crucifix; but he panted for the
threatening voice again as if it had been a promise of bliss. There was
a pause before the preacher spoke again. He gradually lowered his arm.
He deposited the crucifix on the edge of the pulpit, and crossed his
arms over his breast, looking round at the multitude as if he would
meet the glance of every individual face.

“All ye in Florence are my witnesses, for I spoke not in a corner. Ye
are my witnesses, that four years ago, when there were yet no signs of
war and tribulation, I preached the coming of the scourge. I lifted up
my voice as a trumpet to the prelates and princes and people of Italy
and said, The cup of your iniquity is full. Behold, the thunder of the
Lord is gathering, and it shall fall and break the cup, and your
iniquity, which seems to you as pleasant wine, shall be poured out upon
you, and shall be as molten lead. And you, O priests, who say, Ha, ha!
there is no Presence in the sanctuary—the Shechinah is nought—the
Mercy-seat is bare: we may sin behind the veil, and who shall punish
us? To you, I said, the presence of God shall be revealed in his temple
as a consuming fire, and your sacred garments shall become a
winding-sheet of flame, and for sweet music there shall be shrieks and
hissing, and for soft couches there shall be thorns, and for the breath
of wantons shall come the pestilence. Trust not in your gold and
silver, trust not in your high fortresses; for, though the walls were
of iron, and the fortresses of adamant, the Most High shall put terror
into your hearts and weakness into your councils, so that you shall be
confounded and flee like women. He shall break in pieces mighty men
without number, and put others in their stead. For God will no longer
endure the pollution of his sanctuary; he will thoroughly purge his
Church.

“And forasmuch as it is written that God will do nothing but he
revealeth it to his servants the prophets, he has chosen me, his
unworthy servant, and made his purpose present to my soul in the living
word of the Scriptures, and in the deeds of his providence; and by the
ministry of angels he has revealed it to me in visions. And his word
possesses me so that I am but as the branch of the forest when the wind
of heaven penetrates it, and it is not in me to keep silence, even
though I may be a derision to the scorner. And for four years I have
preached in obedience to the Divine will: in the face of scoffing I
have preached three things, which the Lord has delivered to me: that
_in these times God will regenerate his Church_, and that _before the
regeneration must come the scourge over all Italy_, and that _these
things will come quickly_.

“But hypocrites who cloak their hatred of the truth with a show of love
have said to me, ‘Come now, Frate, leave your prophesyings: it is
enough to teach virtue.’ To these I answer: ‘Yes, you say in your
hearts, God lives afar off, and his word is as a parchment written by
dead men, and he deals not as in the days of old, rebuking the nations,
and punishing the oppressors, and smiting the unholy priests as he
smote the sons of Eli. But I cry again in your ears: God is near and
not afar off; his judgments change not. He is the God of armies; the
strong men who go up to battle are his ministers, even as the storm,
and fire, and pestilence. He drives them by the breath of his angels,
and they come upon the chosen land which has forsaken the covenant. And
thou, O Italy, art the chosen land; has not God placed his sanctuary
within thee, and thou hast polluted it? Behold, the ministers of his
wrath are upon thee—they are at thy very doors!’”

Savonarola’s voice had been rising in impassioned force up to this
point, when he became suddenly silent, let his hands fall and clasped
them quietly before him. His silence, instead of being the signal for
small movements amongst his audience, seemed to be as strong a spell to
them as his voice. Through the vast area of the cathedral men and women
sat with faces upturned, like breathing statues, till the voice was
heard again in clear low tones.

“Yet there is a pause—even as in the days when Jerusalem was destroyed
there was a pause that the children of God might flee from it. There is
a stillness before the storm: lo, there is blackness above, but not a
leaf quakes: the winds are stayed, that the voice of God’s warning may
be heard. Hear it now, O Florence, chosen city in the chosen land!
Repent and forsake evil: do justice: love mercy: put away all
uncleanness from among you, that the spirit of truth and holiness may
fill your souls and breathe through all your streets and habitations,
and then the pestilence shall not enter, and the sword shall pass over
you and leave you unhurt.

“For the sword is hanging from the sky; it is quivering; it is about to
fall! _The sword of God upon the earth, swift and sudden_! Did I not
tell you, years ago, that I had beheld the vision and heard the voice?
And behold, it is fulfilled! Is there not a king with his army at your
gates? Does not the earth shake with the tread of horses and the wheels
of swift cannon? Is there not a fierce multitude that can lay bare the
land as with a sharp razor? I tell you the French king with his army is
the minister of God: God shall guide him as the hand guides a sharp
sickle, and the joints of the wicked shall melt before him, and they
shall be mown down as stubble: he that fleeth of them shall not flee
away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. And the
tyrants who have made to themselves a throne out of the vices of the
multitude, and the unbelieving priests who traffic in the souls of men
and fill the very sanctuary with fornication, shall be hurled from
their soft couches into burning hell; and the pagans and they who
sinned under the old covenant shall stand aloof and say: ‘Lo, these men
have brought the stench of a new wickedness into the everlasting fire.’

“But thou, O Florence, take the offered mercy. See! the Cross is held
out to you: come and be healed. Which among the nations of Italy has
had a token like unto yours? The tyrant is driven out from among you:
the men who held a bribe in their left-hand and a rod in the right are
gone forth, and no blood has been spilled. And now put away every other
abomination from among you, and you shall be strong in the strength of
the living God. Wash yourselves from the black pitch of your vices,
which have made you even as the heathens: put away the envy and hatred
that have made your city as a nest of wolves. And there shall no harm
happen to you: and the passage of armies shall be to you as a flight of
birds, and rebellious Pisa shall be given to you again, and famine and
pestilence shall be far from your gates, and you shall be as a beacon
among the nations. But, mark! while you suffer the accursed thing to
lie in the camp you shall be afflicted and tormented, even though a
remnant among you may be saved.”

These admonitions and promises had been spoken in an incisive tone of
authority; but in the next sentence the preacher’s voice melted into a
strain of entreaty.

“Listen, O people, over whom my heart yearns, as the heart of a mother
over the children she has travailed for! God is my witness that but for
your sakes I would willingly live as a turtle in the depths of the
forest, singing low to my Beloved, who is mine and I am his. For you I
toil, for you I languish, for you my nights are spent in watching, and
my soul melteth away for very heaviness. O Lord, thou knowest I am
willing—I am ready. Take me, stretch me on thy cross: let the wicked
who delight in blood, and rob the poor, and defile the temple of their
bodies, and harden themselves against thy mercy—let them wag their
heads and shoot out the lip at me: let the thorns press upon my brow,
and let my sweat be anguish—I desire to be made like thee in thy great
love. But let me see the fruit of my travail—let this people be saved!
Let me see them clothed in purity: let me hear their voices rise in
concord as the voices of the angels: let them see no wisdom but in thy
eternal law, no beauty but in holiness. Then they shall lead the way
before the nations, and the people from the four winds shall follow
them, and be gathered into the fold of the blessed. For it is thy will,
O God, that the earth shall be converted unto thy law: it is thy will
that wickedness shall cease and love shall reign. Come, O blessed
promise; and behold, I am willing—lay me on the altar: let my blood
flow and the fire consume me; but let my witness be remembered among
men, that iniquity shall not prosper for ever.”

During the last appeal, Savonarola had stretched out his arms and
lifted up his eyes to heaven; his strong voice had alternately trembled
with emotion and risen again in renewed energy; but the passion with
which he offered himself as a victim became at last too strong to allow
of further speech, and he ended in a sob. Every changing tone,
vibrating through the audience, shook them into answering emotion.
There were plenty among them who had very moderate faith in the Frate’s
prophetic mission, and who in their cooler moments loved him little;
nevertheless, they too were carried along by the great wave of feeling
which gathered its force from sympathies that lay deeper than all
theory. A loud responding sob rose at once from the wide multitude,
while Savonarola had fallen on his knees and buried his face in his
mantle. He felt in that moment the rapture and glory of martyrdom
without its agony.

In that great sob of the multitude Baldassarre’s had mingled. Among all
the human beings present, there was perhaps not one whose frame
vibrated more strongly than his to the tones and words of the preacher;
but it had vibrated like a harp of which all the strings had been
wrenched away except one. That threat of a fiery inexorable
vengeance—of a future into which the hated sinner might be pursued and
held by the avenger in an eternal grapple, had come to him like the
promise of an unquenchable fountain to unquenchable thirst. The
doctrines of the sages, the old contempt for priestly superstitions,
had fallen away from his soul like a forgotten language: if he could
have remembered them, what answer could they have given to his great
need like the answer given by this voice of energetic conviction? The
thunder of denunciation fell on his passion-wrought nerves with all the
force of self-evidence: his thought never went beyond it into
questions—he was possessed by it as the war-horse is possessed by the
clash of sounds. No word that was not a threat touched his
consciousness; he had no fibre to be thrilled by it. But the fierce
exultant delight to which he was moved by the idea of perpetual
vengeance found at once a climax and a relieving outburst in the
preacher’s words of self-sacrifice. To Baldassarre those words only
brought the vague triumphant sense that he too was devoting
himself—signing with his own blood the deed by which he gave himself
over to an unending fire, that would seem but coolness to his burning
hatred.

“I rescued him—I cherished him—if I might clutch his heart-strings for
ever! Come, O blessed promise! Let my blood flow; let the fire consume
me!”

The one cord vibrated to its utmost. Baldassarre clutched his own
palms, driving his long nails into them, and burst into a sob with the
rest.




CHAPTER XXV.
Outside the Duomo.


While Baldassarre was possessed by the voice of Savonarola, he had not
noticed that another man had entered through the doorway behind him,
and stood not far off observing him. It was Piero di Cosimo, who took
no heed of the preaching, having come solely to look at the escaped
prisoner. During the pause, in which the preacher and his audience had
given themselves up to inarticulate emotion, the new-comer advanced and
touched Baldassarre on the arm. He looked round with the tears still
slowly rolling down his face, but with a vigorous sigh, as if he had
done with that outburst. The painter spoke to him in a low tone—

“Shall I cut your cords for you? I have heard how you were made
prisoner.”

Baldassarre did not reply immediately; he glanced suspiciously at the
officious stranger. At last he said, “If you will.”

“Better come outside,” said Piero.

Baldassarre again looked at him suspiciously; and Piero, partly
guessing his thought, smiled, took out a knife, and cut the cords. He
began to think that the idea of the prisoner’s madness was not
improbable, there was something so peculiar in the expression of his
face. “Well,” he thought, “if he does any mischief, he’ll soon get tied
up again. The poor devil shall have a chance, at least.”

“You are afraid of me,” he said again, in an undertone; “you don’t want
to tell me anything about yourself.”

Baldassarre was folding his arms in enjoyment of the long-absent
muscular sensation. He answered Piero with a less suspicious look and a
tone which had some quiet decision in it.

“No, I have nothing to tell.”

“As you please,” said Piero, “but perhaps you want shelter, and may not
know how hospitable we Florentines are to visitors with torn doublets
and empty stomachs. There’s an hospital for poor travellers outside all
our gates, and, if you liked, I could put you in the way to one.
There’s no danger from your French soldier. He has been sent off.”

Baldassarre nodded, and turned in silent acceptance of the offer, and
he and Piero left the church together.

“You wouldn’t like to sit to me for your portrait, should you?” said
Piero, as they went along the Via dell’ Oriuolo, on the way to the gate
of Santa Croce. “I am a painter: I would give you money to get your
portrait.”

The suspicion returned into Baldassarre’s glance, as he looked at
Piero, and said decidedly, “No.”

“Ah!” said the painter, curtly. “Well, go straight on, and you’ll find
the Porta Santa Croce, and outside it there’s an hospital for
travellers. So you’ll not accept any service from me?”

“I give you thanks for what you have done already. I need no more.”

“It is well,” said Piero, with a shrug, and they turned away from each
other.

“A mysterious old tiger!” thought the artist, “well worth painting.
Ugly—with deep lines—looking as if the plough and the harrow had gone
over his heart. A fine contrast to my bland and smiling Messer Greco—my
_Bacco trionfante_, who has married the fair Antigone in contradiction
to all history and fitness. Aha! his scholar’s blood curdled
uncomfortably at the old fellow’s clutch!” When Piero re-entered the
Piazza del Duomo the multitude who had been listening to Fra Girolamo
were pouring out from all the doors, and the haste they made to go on
their several ways was a proof how important they held the preaching
which had detained them from the other occupations of the day. The
artist leaned against an angle of the Baptistery and watched the
departing crowd, delighting in the variety of the garb and of the keen
characteristic faces—faces such as Masaccio had painted more than fifty
years before: such as Domenico Ghirlandajo had not yet quite left off
painting.

This morning was a peculiar occasion, and the Frate’s audience, always
multifarious, had represented even more completely than usual the
various classes and political parties of Florence. There were men of
high birth, accustomed to public charges at home and abroad, who had
become newly conspicuous not only as enemies of the Medici and friends
of popular government, but as thorough Piagnoni, espousing to the
utmost the doctrines and practical teaching of the Frate, and
frequenting San Marco as the seat of another Samuel: some of them men
of authoritative and handsome presence, like Francesco Valori, and
perhaps also of a hot and arrogant temper, very much gratified by an
immediate divine authority for bringing about freedom in their own way;
others, like Soderini, with less of the ardent Piagnone, and more of
the wise politician. There were men, also of family, like Piero
Capponi, simply brave undoctrinal lovers of a sober republican liberty,
who preferred fighting to arguing, and had no particular reasons for
thinking any ideas false that kept out the Medici and made room for
public spirit. At their elbows were doctors of law whose studies of
Accursius and his brethren had not so entirely consumed their ardour as
to prevent them from becoming enthusiastic Piagnoni: Messer Luca
Corsini himself, for example, who on a memorable occasion yet to come
was to raise his learned arms in street stone-throwing for the cause of
religion, freedom, and the Frate. And among the dignities who carried
their black lucco or furred mantle with an air of habitual authority,
there was an abundant sprinkling of men with more contemplative and
sensitive faces: scholars inheriting such high names as Strozzi and
Acciajoli, who were already minded to take the cowl and join the
community of San Marco; artists, wrought to a new and higher ambition
by the teaching of Savonarola, like that young painter who had lately
surpassed himself in his fresco of the divine child on the wall of the
Frate’s bare cell—unconscious yet that he would one day himself wear
the tonsure and the cowl, and be called Fra Bartolommeo. There was the
mystic poet Girolamo Benevieni hastening, perhaps, to carry tidings of
the beloved Frate’s speedy coming to his friend Pico della Mirandola,
who was never to see the light of another morning. There were well-born
women attired with such scrupulous plainness that their more refined
grace was the chief distinction between them and their less
aristocratic sisters. There was a predominant proportion of the genuine
_popolani_ or middle class, belonging both to the Major and Minor Arts,
conscious of purses threatened by war-taxes. And more striking and
various, perhaps, than all the other classes of the Frate’s disciples,
there was the long stream of poorer tradesmen and artisans, whose faith
and hope in his Divine message varied from the rude and
undiscriminating trust in him as the friend of the poor and the enemy
of the luxurious oppressive rich, to that eager tasting of all the
subtleties of biblical interpretation which takes a peculiarly strong
hold on the sedentary artisan, illuminating the long dim spaces beyond
the board where he stitches, with a pale flame that seems to him the
light of Divine science.

But among these various disciples of the Frate were scattered many who
were not in the least his disciples. Some were Mediceans who had
already, from motives of fear and policy, begun to show the presiding
spirit of the popular party a feigned deference. Others were sincere
advocates of a free government, but regarded Savonarola simply as an
ambitious monk—half sagacious, half fanatical—who had made himself a
powerful instrument with the people, and must be accepted as an
important social fact. There were even some of his bitter enemies:
members of the old aristocratic anti-Medicean party—determined to try
and get the reins once more tight in the hands of certain chief
families; or else licentious young men, who detested him as the killjoy
of Florence. For the sermons in the Duomo had already become political
incidents, attracting the ears of curiosity and malice, as well as of
faith. The men of ideas, like young Niccolò Macchiavelli, went to
observe and write reports to friends away in country villas; the men of
appetites, like Dolfo Spini, bent on hunting down the Frate, as a
public nuisance who made game scarce, went to feed their hatred and lie
in wait for grounds of accusation.

Perhaps, while no preacher ever had a more massive influence than
Savonarola, no preacher ever had more heterogeneous materials to work
upon. And one secret of the massive influence lay in the highly mixed
character of his preaching. Baldassarre, wrought into an ecstasy of
self-martyring revenge, was only an extreme case among the partial and
narrow sympathies of that audience. In Savonarola’s preaching there
were strains that appealed to the very finest susceptibilities of men’s
natures, and there were elements that gratified low egoism, tickled
gossiping curiosity, and fascinated timorous superstition. His need of
personal predominance, his labyrinthine allegorical interpretations of
the Scriptures, his enigmatic visions, and his false certitude about
the Divine intentions, never ceased, in his own large soul, to be
ennobled by that fervid piety, that passionate sense of the infinite,
that active sympathy, that clear-sighted demand for the subjection of
selfish interests to the general good, which he had in common with the
greatest of mankind. But for the mass of his audience all the pregnancy
of his preaching lay in his strong assertion of supernatural claims, in
his denunciatory visions, in the false certitude which gave his sermons
the interest of a political bulletin; and having once held that
audience in his mastery, it was necessary to his nature—it was
necessary for their welfare—that he should _keep_ the mastery. The
effect was inevitable. No man ever struggled to retain power over a
mixed multitude without suffering vitiation; his standard must be their
lower needs and not his own best insight.

The mysteries of human character have seldom been presented in a way
more fitted to check the judgments of facile knowingness than in
Girolamo Savonarola; but we can give him a reverence that needs no
shutting of the eyes to fact, if we regard his life as a drama in which
there were great inward modifications accompanying the outward changes.
And up to this period, when his more direct action on political affairs
had only just begun, it is probable that his imperious need of
ascendancy had burned undiscernibly in the strong flame of his zeal for
God and man.

It was the fashion of old, when an ox was led out for sacrifice to
Jupiter, to chalk the dark spots, and give the offering a false show of
unblemished whiteness. Let us fling away the chalk, and boldly say,—the
victim is spotted, but it is not therefore in vain that his mighty
heart is laid on the altar of men’s highest hopes.




CHAPTER XXVI.
The Garment of Fear.


At six o’clock that evening most people in Florence were glad the
entrance of the new Charlemagne was fairly over. Doubtless when the
roll of drums, the blast of trumpets, and the tramp of horses along the
Pisan road began to mingle with the pealing of the excited bells, it
was a grand moment for those who were stationed on turreted roofs, and
could see the long-winding terrible pomp on the background of the green
hills and valley. There was no sunshine to light up the splendour of
banners, and spears, and plumes, and silken surcoats, but there was no
thick cloud of dust to hide it, and as the picked troops advanced into
close view, they could be seen all the more distinctly for the absence
of dancing glitter. Tall and tough Scotch archers, Swiss halberdiers
fierce and ponderous, nimble Gascons ready to wheel and climb, cavalry
in which each man looked like a knight-errant with his indomitable
spear and charger—it was satisfactory to be assured that they would
injure nobody but the enemies of God! With that confidence at heart it
was a less dubious pleasure to look at the array of strength and
splendour in nobles and knights, and youthful pages of choice
lineage—at the bossed and jewelled sword-hilts, at the satin scarfs
embroidered with strange symbolical devices of pious or gallant
meaning, at the gold chains and jewelled aigrettes, at the gorgeous
horse-trappings and brocaded mantles, and at the transcendent canopy
carried by select youths above the head of the Most Christian King. To
sum up with an old diarist, whose spelling and diction halted a little
behind the wonders of this royal visit,—“_fù gran magnificenza_.”

But for the Signoria, who had been waiting on their platform against
the gates, and had to march out at the right moment, with their orator
in front of them, to meet the mighty guest, the grandeur of the scene
had been somewhat screened by unpleasant sensations. If Messer Luca
Corsini could have had a brief Latin welcome depending from his mouth
in legible characters, it would have been less confusing when the rain
came on, and created an impatience in men and horses that broke off the
delivery of his well-studied periods, and reduced the representatives
of the scholarly city to offer a makeshift welcome in impromptu French.
But that sudden confusion had created a great opportunity for Tito. As
one of the secretaries he was among the officials who were stationed
behind the Signoria, and with whom these highest dignities were
promiscuously thrown when pressed upon by the horses.

“Somebody step forward and say a few words in French,” said Soderini.
But no one of high importance chose to risk a second failure. “You,
Francesco Gaddi—you can speak.” But Gaddi, distrusting his own
promptness, hung back, and pushing Tito, said, “You, Melema.”

Tito stepped forward in an instant, and, with the air of profound
deference that came as naturally to him as walking, said the few
needful words in the name of the Signoria; then gave way gracefully,
and let the king pass on. His presence of mind, which had failed him in
the terrible crisis of the morning, had been a ready instrument this
time. It was an excellent livery servant that never forsook him when
danger was not visible. But when he was complimented on his opportune
service, he laughed it off as a thing of no moment, and to those who
had not witnessed it, let Gaddi have the credit of the improvised
welcome. No wonder Tito was popular: the touchstone by which men try us
is most often their own vanity.

Other things besides the oratorical welcome had turned out rather worse
than had been expected. If everything had happened according to
ingenious preconceptions, the Florentine procession of clergy and laity
would not have found their way choked up and been obliged to take a
makeshift course through the back streets, so as to meet the king at
the Cathedral only. Also, if the young monarch under the canopy, seated
on his charger with his lance upon his thigh, had looked more like a
Charlemagne and less like a hastily modelled grotesque, the imagination
of his admirers would have been much assisted. It might have been
wished that the scourge of Italian wickedness and “Champion of the
honour of women” had had a less miserable leg, and only the normal sum
of toes; that his mouth had been of a less reptilian width of slit, his
nose and head of a less exorbitant outline. But the thin leg rested on
cloth of gold and pearls, and the face was only an interruption of a
few square inches in the midst of black velvet and gold, and the blaze
of rubies, and the brilliant tints of the embroidered and bepearled
canopy,—“_fù gran magnificenza_.”

And the people had cried _Francia, Francia_! with an enthusiasm
proportioned to the splendour of the canopy which they had torn to
pieces as their spoil, according to immemorial custom; royal lips had
duly kissed the altar; and after all mischances the royal person and
retinue were lodged in the Palace of the Via Larga, the rest of the
nobles and gentry were dispersed among the great houses of Florence,
and the terrible soldiery were encamped in the Prato and other open
quarters. The business of the day was ended.

But the streets still presented a surprising aspect, such as
Florentines had not seen before under the November stars. Instead of a
gloom unbroken except by a lamp burning feebly here and there before a
saintly image at the street-corners, or by a stream of redder light
from an open doorway, there were lamps suspended at the windows of all
houses, so that men could walk along no less securely and commodiously
than by day,—_fù gran magnificenza_.

Along those illuminated streets Tito Melema was walking at about eight
o’clock in the evening, on his way homeward. He had been exerting
himself throughout the day under the pressure of hidden anxieties, and
had at last made his escape unnoticed from the midst of after-supper
gaiety. Once at leisure thoroughly to face and consider his
circumstances, he hoped that he could so adjust himself to them and to
all probabilities as to get rid of his childish fear. If he had only
not been wanting in the presence of mind necessary to recognise
Baldassarre under that surprise!—it would have been happier for him on
all accounts; for he still winced under the sense that he was
deliberately inflicting suffering on his father: he would very much
have preferred that Baldassarre should be prosperous and happy. But he
had left himself no second path now: there could be no conflict any
longer: the only thing he had to do was to take care of himself.

While these thoughts were in his mind he was advancing from the Piazza
di Santa Croce along the Via dei Benci, and as he neared the angle
turning into the Borgo Santa Croce his ear was struck by a music which
was not that of evening revelry, but of vigorous labour—the music of
the anvil. Tito gave a slight start and quickened his pace, for the
sounds had suggested a welcome thought. He knew that they came from the
workshop of Niccolò Caparra, famous resort of all Florentines who cared
for curious and beautiful iron-work.

“What makes the giant at work so late?” thought Tito. “But so much the
better for me. I can do that little bit of business to-night instead of
to-morrow morning.”

Preoccupied as he was, he could not help pausing a moment in admiration
as he came in front of the workshop. The wide doorway, standing at the
truncated angle of a great block or “isle” of houses, was surmounted by
a loggia roofed with fluted tiles, and supported by stone columns with
roughly carved capitals. Against the red light framed in by the outline
of the fluted tiles and columns stood in black relief the grand figure
of Niccolò, with his huge arms in rhythmic rise and fall, first hiding
and then disclosing the profile of his firm mouth and powerful brow.
Two slighter ebony figures, one at the anvil, the other at the bellows,
served to set off his superior massiveness.

Tito darkened the doorway with a very different outline, standing in
silence, since it was useless to speak until Niccolò should deign to
pause and notice him. That was not until the smith had beaten the head
of an axe to the due sharpness of edge and dismissed it from his anvil.
But in the meantime Tito had satisfied himself by a glance round the
shop that the object of which he was in search had not disappeared.

Niccolò gave an unceremonious but good-humoured nod as he turned from
the anvil and rested his hammer on his hip.

“What is it, Messer Tito? Business?”

“Assuredly, Niccolò; else I should not have ventured to interrupt you
when you are working out of hours, since I take that as a sign that
your work is pressing.”

“I’ve been at the same work all day—making axes and spear-heads. And
every fool that has passed my shop has put his pumpkin-head in to say,
‘Niccolò, wilt thou not come and see the King of France and his
soldiers?’ and I’ve answered, ‘No: I don’t want to see their faces—I
want to see their backs.’”

“Are you making arms for the citizens, then, Niccolò, that they may
have something better than rusty scythes and spits in case of an
uproar?”

“We shall see. Arms are good, and Florence is likely to want them. The
Frate tells us we shall get Pisa again, and I hold with the Frate; but
I should be glad to know how the promise is to be fulfilled, if we
don’t get plenty of good weapons forged? The Frate sees a long way
before him; that I believe. But he doesn’t see birds caught with
winking at them, as some of our people try to make out. He sees sense,
and not nonsense. But you’re a bit of a Medicean, Messer Tito Melema.
Ebbene! so I’ve been myself in my time, before the cask began to run
sour. What’s your business?”

“Simply to know the price of that fine coat of mail I saw hanging up
here the other day. I want to buy it for a certain personage who needs
a protection of that sort under his doublet.”

“Let him come and buy it himself, then,” said Niccolò, bluntly. “I’m
rather nice about what I sell, and whom I sell to. I like to know who’s
my customer.”

“I know your scruples, Niccolò. But that is only defensive armour: it
can hurt nobody.”

“True: but it may make the man who wears it feel himself all the safer
if he should want to hurt somebody. No, no; it’s not my own work; but
it’s fine work of Maso of Brescia; I should be loth for it to cover the
heart of a scoundrel. I must know who is to wear it.”

“Well, then, to be plain with you, Niccolò mio, I want it myself,” said
Tito, knowing it was useless to try persuasion. “The fact is, I am
likely to have a journey to take—and you know what journeying is in
these times. You don’t suspect _me_ of treason against the Republic?”

“No, I know no harm of you,” said Niccolò, in his blunt way again. “But
have you the money to pay for the coat? For you’ve passed my shop often
enough to know my sign: you’ve seen the burning account-books. I trust
nobody. The price is twenty florins, and that’s because it’s
second-hand. You’re not likely to have so much money with you. Let it
be till to-morrow.”

“I happen to have the money,” said Tito, who had been winning at play
the day before, and had not emptied his purse. “I’ll carry the armour
home with me.”

Niccolò reached down the finely-wrought coat, which fell together into
little more than two handfuls.

“There, then,” he said, when the florins had been told down on his
palm. “Take the coat. It’s made to cheat sword, or poniard, or arrow.
But, for my part, I would never put such a thing on. It’s like carrying
fear about with one.”

Niccolò’s words had an unpleasant intensity of meaning for Tito. But he
smiled and said—

“Ah, Niccolò, we scholars are all cowards. Handling the pen doesn’t
thicken the arm as your hammer-wielding does. Addio!”

He folded the armour under his mantle, and hastened across the Ponte
Rubaconte.




CHAPTER XXVII.
The Young Wife.


While Tito was hastening across the bridge with the new-bought armour
under his mantle, Romola was pacing up and down the old library,
thinking of him and longing for his return.

It was but a few fair faces that had not looked forth from windows that
day to see the entrance of the French king and his nobles. One of the
few was Romola’s. She had been present at no festivities since her
father had died—died quite suddenly in his chair, three months before.

“Is not Tito coming to write?” he had said, when the bell had long ago
sounded the usual hour in the evening. He had not asked before, from
dread of a negative; but Romola had seen by his listening face and
restless movements that nothing else was in his mind.

“No, father, he had to go to a supper at the cardinal’s: you know he is
wanted so much by every one,” she answered, in a tone of gentle excuse.

“Ah! then perhaps he will bring some positive word about the library;
the cardinal promised last week,” said Bardo, apparently pacified by
this hope.

He was silent a little while; then, suddenly flushing, he said—

“I must go on without him, Romola. Get the pen. He has brought me no
new text to comment on; but I must say what I want to say about the New
Platonists. I shall die and nothing will have been done. Make haste, my
Romola.”

“I am ready, father,” she said, the next minute, holding the pen in her
hand.

But there was silence. Romola took no note of this for a little while,
accustomed to pauses in dictation; and when at last she looked round
inquiringly, there was no change of attitude.

“I am quite ready, father!”

Still Bardo was silent, and his silence was never again broken.

Romola looked back on that hour with some indignation against herself,
because even with the first outburst of her sorrow there had mingled
the irrepressible thought, “Perhaps my life with Tito will be more
perfect now.”

For the dream of a triple life with an undivided sum of happiness had
not been quite fulfilled. The rainbow-tinted shower of sweets, to have
been perfectly typical, should have had some invisible seeds of
bitterness mingled with them; the crowned Ariadne, under the snowing
roses, had felt more and more the presence of unexpected thorns. It was
not Tito’s fault, Romola had continually assured herself. He was still
all gentleness to her, and to her father also. But it was in the nature
of things—she saw it clearly now—it was in the nature of things that no
one but herself could go on month after month, and year after year,
fulfilling patiently all her father’s monotonous exacting demands. Even
she, whose sympathy with her father had made all the passion and
religion of her young years, had not always been patient, had been
inwardly very rebellious. It was true that before their marriage, and
even for some time after, Tito had seemed more unwearying than herself;
but then, of course, the effort had the ease of novelty. We assume a
load with confident readiness, and up to a certain point the growing
irksomeness of pressure is tolerable; but at last the desire for relief
can no longer be resisted. Romola said to herself that she had been
very foolish and ignorant in her girlish time: she was wiser now, and
would make no unfair demands on the man to whom she had given her best
woman’s love and worship. The breath of sadness that still cleaved to
her lot while she saw her father month after month sink from elation
into new disappointment as Tito gave him less and less of his time, and
made bland excuses for not continuing his own share of the joint
work—that sadness was no fault of Tito’s, she said, but rather of their
inevitable destiny. If he stayed less and less with her, why, that was
because they could hardly ever be alone. His caresses were no less
tender: if she pleaded timidly on any one evening that he should stay
with her father instead of going to another engagement which was not
peremptory, he excused himself with such charming gaiety, he seemed to
linger about her with such fond playfulness before he could quit her,
that she could only feel a little heartache in the midst of her love,
and then go to her father and try to soften his vexation and
disappointment. But all the while inwardly her imagination was busy
trying to see how Tito could be as good as she had thought he was, and
yet find it impossible to sacrifice those pleasures of society which
were necessarily more vivid to a bright creature like him than to the
common run of men. She herself would have liked more gaiety, more
admiration: it was true, she gave it up willingly for her father’s
sake—she would have given up much more than that for the sake even of a
slight wish on Tito’s part. It was clear that their natures differed
widely; but perhaps it was no more than the inherent difference between
man and woman, that made her affections more absorbing. If there were
any other difference she tried to persuade herself that the inferiority
was on her side. Tito was really kinder than she was, better tempered,
less proud and resentful; he had no angry retorts, he met all
complaints with perfect sweetness; he only escaped as quietly as he
could from things that were unpleasant.

It belongs to every large nature, when it is not under the immediate
power of some strong unquestioning emotion, to suspect itself, and
doubt the truth of its own impressions, conscious of possibilities
beyond its own horizon. And Romola was urged to doubt herself the more
by the necessity of interpreting her disappointment in her life with
Tito so as to satisfy at once her love and her pride. Disappointment?
Yes, there was no other milder word that would tell the truth. Perhaps
all women had to suffer the disappointment of ignorant hopes, if she
only knew their experience. Still, there had been something peculiar in
her lot: her relation to her father had claimed unusual sacrifices from
her husband. Tito had once thought that his love would make those
sacrifices easy; his love had not been great enough for that. She was
not justified in resenting a self-delusion. No! resentment must not
rise: all endurance seemed easy to Romola rather than a state of mind
in which she would admit to herself that Tito acted unworthily. If she
had felt a new heartache in the solitary hours with her father through
the last months of his life, it had been by no inexcusable fault of her
husband’s; and now—it was a hope that would make its presence felt even
in the first moments when her father’s place was empty—there was no
longer any importunate claim to divide her from Tito; their young lives
would flow in one current, and their true marriage would begin.

But the sense of something like guilt towards her father in a hope that
grew out of his death, gave all the more force to the anxiety with
which she dwelt on the means of fulfilling his supreme wish. That piety
towards his memory was all the atonement she could make now for a
thought that seemed akin to joy at his loss. The laborious simple life,
pure from vulgar corrupting ambitions, embittered by the frustration of
the dearest hopes, imprisoned at last in total darkness—a long
seed-time without a harvest—was at an end now, and all that remained of
it besides the tablet in Sante Croce and the unfinished commentary on
Tito’s text, was the collection of manuscripts and antiquities, the
fruit of half a century’s toil and frugality. The fulfilment of her
father’s lifelong ambition about this library was a sacramental
obligation for Romola.

The precious relic was safe from creditors, for when the deficit
towards their payment had been ascertained, Bernardo del Nero, though
he was far from being among the wealthiest Florentines, had advanced
the necessary sum of about a thousand florins—a large sum in those
days—accepting a lien on the collection as a security.

“The State will repay me,” he had said to Romola, making light of the
service, which had really cost him some inconvenience. “If the cardinal
finds a building, as he seems to say he will, our Signoria may consent
to do the rest. I have no children, I can afford the risk.”

But within the last ten days all hopes in the Medici had come to an
end: and the famous Medicean collections in the Via Larga were
themselves in danger of dispersion. French agents had already begun to
see that such very fine antique gems as Lorenzo had collected belonged
by right to the first nation in Europe; and the Florentine State, which
had got possession of the Medicean library, was likely to be glad of a
customer for it. With a war to recover Pisa hanging over it, and with
the certainty of having to pay large subsidies to the French king, the
State was likely to prefer money to manuscripts.

To Romola these grave political changes had gathered their chief
interest from their bearing on the fulfilment of her father’s wish. She
had been brought up in learned seclusion from the interests of actual
life, and had been accustomed to think of heroic deeds and great
principles as something antithetic to the vulgar present, of the Pnyx
and the Forum as something more worthy of attention than the councils
of living Florentine men. And now the expulsion of the Medici meant
little more for her than the extinction of her best hope about her
father’s library. The times, she knew, were unpleasant for friends of
the Medici, like her godfather and Tito: superstitious shopkeepers and
the stupid rabble were full of suspicions; but her new keen interest in
public events, in the outbreak of war, in the issue of the French
king’s visit, in the changes that were likely to happen in the State,
was kindled solely by the sense of love and duty to her father’s
memory. All Romola’s ardour had been concentrated in her affections.
Her share in her father’s learned pursuits had been for her little more
than a toil which was borne for his sake; and Tito’s airy brilliant
faculty had no attraction for her that was not merged in the deeper
sympathies that belong to young love and trust. Romola had had contact
with no mind that could stir the larger possibilities of her nature;
they lay folded and crushed like embryonic wings, making no element in
her consciousness beyond an occasional vague uneasiness.

But this new personal interest of hers in public affairs had made her
care at last to understand precisely what influence Fra Girolamo’s
preaching was likely to have on the turn of events. Changes in the form
of the State were talked of, and all she could learn from Tito, whose
secretaryship and serviceable talents carried him into the heart of
public business, made her only the more eager to fill out her lonely
day by going to hear for herself what it was that was just now leading
all Florence by the ears. This morning, for the first time, she had
been to hear one of the Advent sermons in the Duomo. When Tito had left
her, she had formed a sudden resolution, and after visiting the spot
where her father was buried in Santa Croce, had walked on to the Duomo.
The memory of that last scene with Dino was still vivid within her
whenever she recalled it, but it had receded behind the experience and
anxieties of her married life. The new sensibilities and questions
which it had half awakened in her were quieted again by that subjection
to her husband’s mind which is felt by every wife who loves her husband
with passionate devotedness and full reliance. She remembered the
effect of Fra Girolamo’s voice and presence on her as a ground for
expecting that his sermon might move her in spite of his being a
narrow-minded monk. But the sermon did no more than slightly deepen her
previous impression, that this fanatical preacher of tribulations was
after all a man towards whom it might be possible for her to feel
personal regard and reverence. The denunciations and exhortations
simply arrested her attention. She felt no terror, no pangs of
conscience: it was the roll of distant thunder, that seemed grand, but
could not shake her. But when she heard Savonarola invoke martyrdom,
she sobbed with the rest: she felt herself penetrated with a new
sensation—a strange sympathy with something apart from all the
definable interests of her life. It was not altogether unlike the
thrill which had accompanied certain rare heroic touches in history and
poetry; but the resemblance was as that between the memory of music,
and the sense of being possessed by actual vibrating harmonies.

But that transient emotion, strong as it was, seemed to lie quite
outside the inner chamber and sanctuary of her life. She was not
thinking of Fra Girolamo now; she was listening anxiously for the step
of her husband. During these three months of their double solitude she
had thought of each day as an epoch in which their union might begin to
be more perfect. She was conscious of being sometimes a little too sad
or too urgent about what concerned her father’s memory—a little too
critical or coldly silent when Tito narrated the things that were said
and done in the world he frequented—a little too hasty in suggesting
that by living quite simply as her father had done, they might become
rich enough to pay Bernardo del Nero, and reduce the difficulties about
the library. It was not possible that Tito could feel so strongly on
this last point as she did, and it was asking a great deal from him to
give up luxuries for which he really laboured. The next time Tito came
home she would be careful to suppress all those promptings that seemed
to isolate her from him. Romola was labouring, as a loving woman must,
to subdue her nature to her husband’s. The great need of her heart
compelled her to strangle, with desperate resolution, every rising
impulse of suspicion, pride, and resentment; she felt equal to any
self-infliction that would save her from ceasing to love. That would
have been like the hideous nightmare in which the world had seemed to
break away all round her, and leave her feet overhanging the darkness.
Romola had never distinctly imagined such a future for herself; she was
only beginning to feel the presence of effort in that clinging trust
which had once been mere repose.

She waited and listened long, for Tito had not come straight home after
leaving Niccolò Caparra, and it was more than two hours after the time
when he was crossing the Ponte Rubaconte that Romola heard the great
door of the court turning on its hinges, and hastened to the head of
the stone steps. There was a lamp hanging over the stairs, and they
could see each other distinctly as he ascended. The eighteen months had
produced a more definable change in Romola’s face than in Tito’s; the
expression was more subdued, less cold, and more beseeching, and, as
the pink flush overspread her face now, in her joy that the long
waiting was at an end, she was much lovelier than on the day when Tito
had first seen her. On that day, any on-looker would have said that
Romola’s nature was made to command, and Tito’s to bend; yet now
Romola’s mouth was quivering a little, and there was some timidity in
her glance.

He made an effort to smile, as she said—

“My Tito, you are tired; it has been a fatiguing day: is it not true?”

Maso was there, and no more was said until they had crossed the
ante-chamber and closed the door of the library behind them. The wood
was burning brightly on the great dogs; that was one welcome for Tito,
late as he was, and Romola’s gentle voice was another.

He just turned and kissed her when she took off his mantle; then he
went towards a high-backed chair placed for him near the fire, threw
himself into it, and flung away his cap, saying, not peevishly, but in
a fatigued tone of remonstrance, as he gave a slight shudder—

“Romola, I wish you would give up sitting in this library. Surely our
own rooms are pleasanter in this chill weather.”

Romola felt hurt. She had never seen Tito so indifferent in his manner;
he was usually full of lively solicitous attention. And she had thought
so much of his return to her after the long day’s absence! He must be
very weary.

“I wonder you have forgotten, Tito,” she answered, looking at him
anxiously, as if she wanted to read an excuse for him in the signs of
bodily fatigue. “You know I am making the catalogue on the new plan
that my father wished for; you have not time to help me, so I must work
at it closely.”

Tito, instead of meeting Romola’s glance, closed his eyes and rubbed
his hands over his face and hair. He felt he was behaving unlike
himself, but he would make amends to-morrow. The terrible resurrection
of secret fears, which, if Romola had known them, would have alienated
her from him for ever, caused him to feel an alienation already begun
between them—caused him to feel a certain repulsion towards a woman
from whose mind he was in danger. The feeling had taken hold of him
unawares, and he was vexed with himself for behaving in this new cold
way to her. He could not suddenly command any affectionate looks or
words; he could only exert himself to say what might serve as an
excuse.

“I am not well, Romola; you must not be surprised if I am peevish.”

“Ah, you have had so much to tire you to-day,” said Romola, kneeling
down close to him, and laying her arm on his chest while she put his
hair back caressingly.

Suddenly she drew her arm away with a start, and a gaze of alarmed
inquiry.

“What have you got under your tunic, Tito? Something as hard as iron.”

“It _is_ iron—it is chain-armour,” he said at once. He was prepared for
the surprise and the question, and he spoke quietly, as of something
that he was not hurried to explain.

“There was some unexpected danger to-day, then?” said Romola, in a tone
of conjecture. “You had it lent to you for the procession?”

“No; it is my own. I shall be obliged to wear it constantly, for some
time.”

“What is it that threatens you, my Tito?” said Romola, looking
terrified, and clinging to him again.

“Every one is threatened in these times, who is not a rabid enemy of
the Medici. Don’t look distressed, my Romola—this armour will make me
safe against covert attacks.”

Tito put his hand on her neck and smiled. This little dialogue about
the armour had broken through the new crust, and made a channel for the
sweet habit of kindness.

“But my godfather, then,” said Romola; “is not he, too, in danger? And
he takes no precautions—ought he not? since he must surely be in more
danger than you, who have so little influence compared with him.”

“It is just because I am less important that I am in more danger,” said
Tito, readily. “I am suspected constantly of being an envoy. And men
like Messer Bernardo are protected by their position and their
extensive family connections, which spread among all parties, while I
am a Greek that nobody would avenge.”

“But, Tito, is it a fear of some particular person, or only a vague
sense of danger, that has made you think of wearing this?” Romola was
unable to repel the idea of a degrading fear in Tito, which mingled
itself with her anxiety.

“I have had special threats,” said Tito, “but I must beg you to be
silent on the subject, my Romola. I shall consider that you have broken
my confidence, if you mention it to your godfather.”

“Assuredly I will not mention it,” said Romola, blushing, “if you wish
it to be a secret. But, dearest Tito,” she added, after a moment’s
pause, in a tone of loving anxiety, “it will make you very wretched.”

“What will make me wretched?” he said, with a scarcely perceptible
movement across his face, as from some darting sensation.

“This fear—this heavy armour. I can’t help shuddering as I feel it
under my arm. I could fancy it a story of enchantment—that some
malignant fiend had changed your sensitive human skin into a hard
shell. It seems so unlike my bright, light-hearted Tito!”

“Then you would rather have your husband exposed to danger, when he
leaves you?” said Tito, smiling. “If you don’t mind my being poniarded
or shot, why need I mind? I will give up the armour—shall I?”

“No, Tito, no. I am fanciful. Do not heed what I have said. But such
crimes are surely not common in Florence? I have always heard my father
and godfather say so. Have they become frequent lately?”

“It is not unlikely they will become frequent, with the bitter hatreds
that are being bred continually.”

Romola was silent a few moments. She shrank from insisting further on
the subject of the armour. She tried to shake it off.

“Tell me what has happened to-day,” she said, in a cheerful tone. “Has
all gone off well?”

“Excellently well. First of all, the rain came and put an end to Luca
Corsini’s oration, which nobody wanted to hear, and a ready-tongued
personage—some say it was Gaddi, some say it was Melema, but really it
was done so quickly no one knows who it was—had the honour of giving
the Cristianissimo the briefest possible welcome in bad French.”

“Tito, it was you, I know,” said Romola, smiling brightly, and kissing
him. “How is it you never care about claiming anything? And after
that?”

“Oh! after that, there was a shower of armour and jewels, and
trappings, such as you saw at the last Florentine _giostra_, only a
great deal more of them. There was strutting, and prancing, and
confusion, and scrambling, and the people shouted, and the
Cristianissimo smiled from ear to ear. And after that there was a great
deal of flattery, and eating, and play. I was at Tornabuoni’s. I will
tell you about it to-morrow.”

“Yes, dearest, never mind now. But is there any more hope that things
will end peaceably for Florence, that the Republic will not get into
fresh troubles?”

Tito gave a shrug. “Florence will have no peace but what it pays well
for; that is clear.”

Romola’s face saddened, but she checked herself, and said, cheerfully,
“You would not guess where I went to-day, Tito. I went to the Duomo, to
hear Fra Girolamo.”

Tito looked startled; he had immediately thought of Baldassarre’s
entrance into the Duomo; but Romola gave his look another meaning.

“You are surprised, are you not? It was a sudden thought. I want to
know all about the public affairs now, and I determined to hear for
myself what the Frate promised the people about this French invasion.”

“Well, and what did you think of the prophet?”

“He certainly has a very mysterious power, that man. A great deal of
his sermon was what I expected; but once I was strangely moved—I sobbed
with the rest.”

“Take care, Romola,” said Tito, playfully, feeling relieved that she
had said nothing about Baldassarre; “you have a touch of fanaticism in
you. I shall have you seeing visions, like your brother.”

“No; it was the same with every one else. He carried them all with him;
unless it were that gross Dolfo Spini, whom I saw there making
grimaces. There was even a wretched-looking man, with a rope round his
neck—an escaped prisoner, I should think, who had run in for shelter—a
very wild-eyed old man: I saw him with great tears rolling down his
cheeks, as he looked and listened quite eagerly.”

There was a slight pause before Tito spoke.

“I saw the man,” he said,—“the prisoner. I was outside the Duomo with
Lorenzo Tornabuoni when he ran in. He had escaped from a French
soldier. Did you see him when you came out?”

“No, he went out with our good old Piero di Cosimo. I saw Piero come in
and cut off his rope, and take him out of the church. But you want
rest, Tito? You feel ill?”

“Yes,” said Tito, rising. The horrible sense that he must live in
continual dread of what Baldassarre had said or done pressed upon him
like a cold weight.




CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Painted Record.


Four days later, Romola was on her way to the house of Piero di Cosimo,
in the Via Gualfonda. Some of the streets through which she had to pass
were lined with Frenchmen who were gazing at Florence, and with
Florentines who were gazing at the French, and the gaze was not on
either side entirely friendly and admiring. The first nation in Europe,
of necessity finding itself, when out of its own country, in the
presence of general inferiority, naturally assumed an air of conscious
pre-eminence; and the Florentines, who had taken such pains to play the
host amiably, were getting into the worst humour with their too
superior guests.

For after the first smiling compliments and festivities were over—after
wondrous Mysteries with unrivalled machinery of floating clouds and
angels had been presented in churches—after the royal guest had
honoured Florentine dames with much of his Most Christian ogling at
balls and suppers, and business had begun to be talked of—it appeared
that the new Charlemagne regarded Florence as a conquered city,
inasmuch as he had entered it with his lance in rest, talked of leaving
his viceroy behind him, and had thoughts of bringing back the Medici.
Singular logic this appeared to be on the part of an elect instrument
of God! since the policy of Piero de’ Medici, disowned by the people,
had been the only offence of Florence against the majesty of France.
And Florence was determined not to submit. The determination was being
expressed very strongly in consultations of citizens inside the Old
Palace, and it was beginning to show itself on the broad flags of the
streets and piazza wherever there was an opportunity of flouting an
insolent Frenchman. Under these circumstances the streets were not
altogether a pleasant promenade for well-born women; but Romola,
shrouded in her black veil and mantle, and with old Maso by her side,
felt secure enough from impertinent observation.

And she was impatient to visit Piero di Cosimo. A copy of her father’s
portrait as Oedipus, which he had long ago undertaken to make for her,
was not yet finished; and Piero was so uncertain in his work—sometimes,
when the demand was not peremptory, laying aside a picture for months;
sometimes thrusting it into a corner or coffer, where it was likely to
be utterly forgotten—that she felt it necessary to watch over his
progress. She was a favourite with the painter, and he was inclined to
fulfil any wish of hers, but no general inclination could be trusted as
a safeguard against his sudden whims. He had told her the week before
that the picture would perhaps be finished by this time; and Romola was
nervously anxious to have in her possession a copy of the only portrait
existing of her father in the days of his blindness, lest his image
should grow dim in her mind. The sense of defect in her devotedness to
him made her cling with all the force of compunction as well as
affection to the duties of memory. Love does not aim simply at the
conscious good of the beloved object: it is not satisfied without
perfect loyalty of heart; it aims at its own completeness.

Romola, by special favour, was allowed to intrude upon the painter
without previous notice. She lifted the iron slide and called Piero in
a flute-like tone, as the little maiden with the eggs had done in
Tito’s presence. Piero was quick in answering, but when he opened the
door he accounted for his quickness in a manner that was not
complimentary.

“Ah, Madonna Romola, is it you? I thought my eggs were come; I wanted
them.”

“I have brought you something better than hard eggs, Piero. Maso has
got a little basket full of cakes and _confetti_ for you,” said Romola,
smiling, as she put back her veil. She took the basket from Maso, and
stepping into the house, said—

“I know you like these things when you can have them without trouble.
Confess you do.”

“Yes, when they come to me as easily as the light does,” said Piero,
folding his arms and looking down at the sweetmeats as Romola uncovered
them and glanced at him archly. “And they are come along with the light
now,” he added, lifting his eyes to her face and hair with a painter’s
admiration, as her hood, dragged by the weight of her veil, fell
backward.

“But I know what the sweetmeats are for,” he went on; “they are to stop
my mouth while you scold me. Well, go on into the next room, and you
will see I’ve done something to the picture since you saw it, though
it’s not finished yet. But I didn’t promise, you know: I take care not
to promise:—


“‘Chi promette e non mantiene
L’anima sua non va mai bene.’”


The door opening on the wild garden was closed now, and the painter was
at work. Not at Romola’s picture, however. That was standing on the
floor, propped against the wall, and Piero stooped to lift it, that he
might carry it into the proper light. But in lifting away this picture,
he had disclosed another—the oil-sketch of Tito, to which he had made
an important addition within the last few days. It was so much smaller
than the other picture, that it stood far within it, and Piero, apt to
forget where he had placed anything, was not aware of what he had
revealed as, peering at some detail in the painting which he held in
his hands, he went to place it on an easel. But Romola exclaimed,
flushing with astonishment—

“That is Tito!”

Piero looked round, and gave a silent shrug. He was vexed at his own
forgetfulness.

She was still looking at the sketch in astonishment; but presently she
turned towards the painter, and said with puzzled alarm—

“What a strange picture! When did you paint it? What does it mean?”

“A mere fancy of mine,” said Piero, lifting off his skull-cap,
scratching his head, and making the usual grimace by which he avoided
the betrayal of any feeling. “I wanted a handsome young face for it,
and your husband’s was just the thing.”

He went forward, stooped down to the picture, and lifting it away with
its back to Romola, pretended to be giving it a passing examination,
before putting it aside as a thing not good enough to show.

But Romola, who had the fact of the armour in her mind, and was
penetrated by this strange coincidence of things which associated Tito
with the idea of fear, went to his elbow and said—

“Don’t put it away; let me look again. That man with the rope round his
neck—I saw him—I saw you come to him in the Duomo. What was it that
made you put him into a picture with Tito?”

Piero saw no better resource than to tell part of the truth.

“It was a mere accident. The man was running away—running up the steps,
and caught hold of your husband: I suppose he had stumbled. I happened
to be there, and saw it, and I thought the savage-looking old fellow
was a good subject. But it’s worth nothing—it’s only a freakish daub of
mine.” Piero ended contemptuously, moving the sketch away with an air
of decision, and putting it on a high shelf. “Come and look at the
Oedipus.”

He had shown a little too much anxiety in putting the sketch out of her
sight, and had produced the very impression he had sought to
prevent—that there was really something unpleasant, something
disadvantageous to Tito, in the circumstances out of which the picture
arose. But this impression silenced her: her pride and delicacy shrank
from questioning further, where questions might seem to imply that she
could entertain even a slight suspicion against her husband. She merely
said, in as quiet a tone as she could—

“He was a strange piteous-looking man, that prisoner. Do you know
anything more of him?”

“No more: I showed him the way to the hospital, that’s all. See, now,
the face of Oedipus is pretty nearly finished; tell me what you think
of it.”

Romola now gave her whole attention to her father’s portrait, standing
in long silence before it.

“Ah,” she said at last, “you have done what I wanted. You have given it
more of the listening look. My good Piero,”—she turned towards him with
bright moist eyes—“I am very grateful to you.”

“Now that’s what I can’t bear in you women,” said Piero, turning
impatiently, and kicking aside the objects that littered the floor—“you
are always pouring out feelings where there’s no call for them. Why
should you be grateful to me for a picture you pay me for, especially
when I make you wait for it? And if I paint a picture, I suppose it’s
for my own pleasure and credit to paint it well, eh? Are you to thank a
man for not being a rogue or a noodle? It’s enough if he himself thanks
Messer Domeneddio, who has made him neither the one nor the other. But
women think walls are held together with honey.”

“You crusty Piero! I forgot how snappish you are. Here, put this nice
sweetmeat in your mouth,” said Romola, smiling through her tears, and
taking something very crisp and sweet from the little basket.

Piero accepted it very much as that proverbial bear that dreams of
pears might accept an exceedingly mellow “swan-egg”—really liking the
gift, but accustomed to have his pleasures and pains concealed under a
shaggy coat.

“It’s good, Madonna Antigone,” said Piero, putting his fingers in the
basket for another. He had eaten nothing but hard eggs for a fortnight.
Romola stood opposite him, feeling her new anxiety suspended for a
little while by the sight of this _naïve_ enjoyment.

“Good-bye, Piero,” she said, presently, setting down the basket. “I
promise not to thank you if you finish the portrait soon and well I
will tell you, you were bound to do it for your own credit.”

“Good,” said Piero, curtly, helping her with much deftness to fold her
mantle and veil round her.

“I’m glad she asked no more questions about that sketch,” he thought,
when he had closed the door behind her. “I should be sorry for her to
guess that I thought her fine husband a good model for a coward. But I
made light of it; she’ll not think of it again.”

Piero was too sanguine, as open-hearted men are apt to be when they
attempt a little clever simulation. The thought of the picture pressed
more and more on Romola as she walked homeward. She could not help
putting together the two facts of the chain-armour and the encounter
mentioned by Piero between her husband and the prisoner, which had
happened on the morning of the day when the armour was adopted. That
look of terror which the painter had given Tito, had he seen it? What
could it all mean?

“It means nothing,” she tried to assure herself. “It was a mere
coincidence. Shall I ask Tito about it?” Her mind said at last, “No: I
will not question him about anything he did not tell me spontaneously.
It is an offence against the trust I owe him.” Her heart said, “I dare
not ask him.”

There was a terrible flaw in the trust: she was afraid of any hasty
movement, as men are who hold something precious and want to believe
that it is not broken.




CHAPTER XXIX.
A Moment of Triumph.


“The old fellow has vanished; went on towards Arezzo the next morning;
not liking the smell of the French, I suppose, after being their
prisoner. I went to the hospital to inquire after him; I wanted to know
if those broth-making monks had found out whether he was in his right
mind or not. However, they said he showed no signs of madness—only took
no notice of questions, and seemed to be planting a vine twenty miles
off. He was a mysterious old tiger. I should have liked to know
something more about him.”

It was in Nello’s shop that Piero di Cosimo was speaking, on the
twenty-fourth of November, just a week after the entrance of the
French. There was a party of six or seven assembled at the rather
unusual hour of three in the afternoon; for it was a day on which all
Florence was excited by the prospect of some decisive political event.
Every lounging-place was full, and every shopkeeper who had no wife or
deputy to leave in charge, stood at his door with his thumbs in his
belt; while the streets were constantly sprinkled with artisans pausing
or passing lazily like floating splinters, ready to rush forward
impetuously if any object attracted them.

Nello had been thrumming the lute as he half sat on the board against
the shop-window, and kept an outlook towards the piazza.

“Ah,” he said, laying down the lute, with emphasis, “I would not for a
gold florin have missed that sight of the French soldiers waddling in
their broad shoes after their runaway prisoners! That comes of leaving
my shop to shave magnificent chins. It is always so: if ever I quit
this navel of the earth something takes the opportunity of happening in
my piazza.”

“Yes, you ought to have been there,” said Piero, in his biting way,
“just to see your favourite Greek look as frightened as if Satanasso
had laid hold of him. I like to see your ready-smiling Messeri caught
in a sudden wind and obliged to show their lining in spite of
themselves. What colour do you think a man’s liver is, who looks like a
bleached deer as soon as a chance stranger lays hold of him suddenly?”

“Piero, keep that vinegar of thine as sauce to thine own eggs! What is
it against my _bel erudito_ that he looked startled when he felt a pair
of claws upon him and saw an unchained madman at his elbow? Your
scholar is not like those beastly Swiss and Germans, whose heads are
only fit for battering-rams, and who have such large appetites that
they think nothing of taking a cannon-ball before breakfast. We
Florentines count some other qualities in a man besides that vulgar
stuff called bravery, which is to be got by hiring dunderheads at so
much per dozen. I tell you, as soon as men found out that they had more
brains than oxen, they set the oxen to draw for them; and when we
Florentines found out that we had more brains than other men we set
them to fight for us.”

“Treason, Nello!” a voice called out from the inner sanctum; “that is
not the doctrine of the State. Florence is grinding its weapons; and
the last well-authenticated vision announced by the Frate was Mars
standing on the Palazzo Vecchio with his arm on the shoulder of San
Giovanni Battista, who was offering him a piece of honeycomb.”

“It is well, Francesco,” said Nello. “Florence has a few thicker skulls
that may do to bombard Pisa with; there will still be the finer spirits
left at home to do the thinking and the shaving. And as for our Piero
here, if he makes such a point of valour, let him carry his biggest
brush for a weapon and his palette for a shield, and challenge the
widest-mouthed Swiss he can see in the Prato to a single combat.”

“_Va_, Nello,” growled Piero, “thy tongue runs on as usual, like a mill
when the Arno’s full—whether there’s grist or not.”

“Excellent grist, I tell thee. For it would be as reasonable to expect
a grizzled painter like thee to be fond of getting a javelin inside
thee as to expect a man whose wits have been sharpened on the classics
to like having his handsome face clawed by a wild beast.”

“There you go, supposing you’ll get people to put their legs into a
sack because you call it a pair of hosen,” said Piero. “Who said
anything about a wild beast, or about an unarmed man rushing on battle?
Fighting is a trade, and it’s not my trade. I should be a fool to run
after danger, but I could face it if it came to me.”

“How is it you’re so afraid of the thunder, then, my Piero?” said
Nello, determined to chase down the accuser. “You ought to be able to
understand why one man is shaken by a thing that seems a trifle to
others—you who hide yourself with the rats as soon as a storm comes
on.”

“That is because I have a particular sensibility to loud sounds; it has
nothing to do with my courage or my conscience.”

“Well, and Tito Melema may have a peculiar sensibility to being laid
hold of unexpectedly by prisoners who have run away from French
soldiers. Men are born with antipathies; I myself can’t abide the smell
of mint. Tito was born with an antipathy to old prisoners who stumble
and clutch. Ecco!”

There was a general laugh at Nello’s defence, and it was clear that
Piero’s disinclination towards Tito was not shared by the company. The
painter, with his undecipherable grimace, took the tow from his
scarsella and stuffed his ears in indignant contempt, while Nello went
on triumphantly—

“No, my Piero, I can’t afford to have my _bel erudito_ decried; and
Florence can’t afford it either, with her scholars moulting off her at
the early age of forty. Our Phoenix Pico just gone straight to
Paradise, as the Frate has informed us; and the incomparable Poliziano,
not two months since, gone to—well, well, let us hope he is not gone to
the eminent scholars in the Malebolge.”

“By the way,” said Francesco Cei, “have you heard that Camilla Rucellai
has outdone the Frate in her prophecies? She prophesied two years ago
that Pico would die in the time of lilies. He has died in November.
‘Not at all the time of lilies,’ said the scorners. ‘Go to!’ says
Camilla; ‘it is the lilies of France I meant, and it seems to me they
are close enough under your nostrils.’ I say, ‘Euge, Camilla!’ If the
Frate can prove that any one of his visions has been as well fulfilled,
I’ll declare myself a Piagnone to-morrow.”

“You are something too flippant about the Frate, Francesco,” said
Pietro Cennini, the scholarly. “We are all indebted to him in these
weeks for preaching peace and quietness, and the laying aside of party
quarrels. They are men of small discernment who would be glad to see
the people slipping the Frate’s leash just now. And if the Most
Christian King is obstinate about the treaty to-day, and will not sign
what is fair and honourable to Florence, Fra Girolamo is the man we
must trust in to bring him to reason.”

“You speak truth, Messer Pietro,” said Nello; “the Frate is one of the
firmest nails Florence has to hang on—at least, that is the opinion of
the most respectable chins I have the honour of shaving. But young
Messer Niccolò was saying here the other morning—and doubtless
Francesco means the same thing—there is as wonderful a power of
stretching in the meaning of visions as in Dido’s bull’s hide. It seems
to me a dream may mean whatever comes after it. As our Franco Sacchetti
says, a woman dreams over-night of a serpent biting her, breaks a
drinking-cup the next day, and cries out, ‘Look you, I thought
something would happen—it’s plain now what the serpent meant.’”

“But the Frate’s visions are not of that sort,” said Cronaca. “He not
only says what will happen—that the Church will be scourged and
renovated, and the heathens converted—he says it shall happen quickly.
He is no slippery pretender who provides loopholes for himself, he is—”

“What is this? what is this?” exclaimed Nello, jumping off the board,
and putting his head out at the door. “Here are people streaming into
the piazza, and shouting. Something must have happened in the Via
Larga. Aha!” he burst forth with delighted astonishment, stepping out
laughing and waving his cap.

All the rest of the company hastened to the door. News from the Via
Larga was just what they had been waiting for. But if the news had come
into the piazza, they were not a little surprised at the form of its
advent. Carried above the shoulders of the people, on a bench
apparently snatched up in the street, sat Tito Melema, in smiling
amusement at the compulsion he was under. His cap had slipped off his
head, and hung by the becchetto which was wound loosely round his neck;
and as he saw the group at Nello’s door he lifted up his fingers in
beckoning recognition. The next minute he had leaped from the bench on
to a cart filled with bales, that stood in the broad space between the
Baptistery and the steps of the Duomo, while the people swarmed round
him with the noisy eagerness of poultry expecting to be fed. But there
was silence when he began to speak in his clear mellow voice—

“Citizens of Florence! I have no warrant to tell the news except your
will. But the news is good, and will harm no man in the telling. The
Most Christian King is signing a treaty that is honourable to Florence.
But you owe it to one of your citizens, who spoke a word worthy of the
ancient Romans—you owe it to Piero Capponi!”

Immediately there was a roar of voices. “Capponi! Capponi! What said
our Piero?” “Ah! he wouldn’t stand being sent from Herod to Pilate!”
“We knew Piero!” “_Orsù_! Tell us, what did he say?”

When the roar of insistence had subsided a little, Tito began again—

“The Most Christian King demanded a little too much—was obstinate—said
at last, ‘I shall order my trumpets to sound.’ Then, Florentine
citizens! your Piero Capponi, speaking with the voice of a free city,
said, ‘If you sound your trumpets, we will ring our bells!’ He snatched
the copy of the dishonouring conditions from the hands of the
secretary, tore it in pieces, and turned to leave the royal presence.”

Again there were loud shouts—and again impatient demands for more.

“Then, Florentines, the high majesty of France felt, perhaps for the
first time, all the majesty of a free city. And the Most Christian King
himself hastened from his place to call Piero Capponi back. The great
spirit of your Florentine city did its work by a great word, without
need of the great actions that lay ready behind it. And the King has
consented to sign the treaty, which preserves the honour, as well as
the safety, of Florence. The banner of France will float over every
Florentine galley in sign of amity and common privilege, but above that
banner will be written the word ‘Liberty!’

“That is all the news I have to tell; is it not enough?—since it is for
the glory of every one of you, citizens of Florence, that you have a
fellow-citizen who knows how to speak your will.”

As the shouts rose again, Tito looked round with inward amusement at
the various crowd, each of whom was elated with the notion that Piero
Capponi had somehow represented him—that he was the mind of which
Capponi was the mouthpiece. He enjoyed the humour of the incident,
which had suddenly transformed him, an alien, and a friend of the
Medici, into an orator who tickled the ears of the people blatant for
some unknown good which they called liberty. He felt quite glad that he
had been laid hold of and hurried along by the crowd as he was coming
out of the palace in the Via Larga with a commission to the Signoria.
It was very easy, very pleasant, this exercise of speaking to the
general satisfaction: a man who knew how to persuade need never be in
danger from any party; he could convince each that he was feigning with
all the others. The gestures and faces of weavers and dyers were
certainly amusing when looked at from above in this way.

Tito was beginning to get easier in his armour, and at this moment was
quite unconscious of it. He stood with one hand holding his recovered
cap, and with the other at his belt, the light of a complacent smile in
his long lustrous eyes, as he made a parting reverence to his audience,
before springing down from the bales—when suddenly his glance met that
of a man who had not at all the amusing aspect of the exulting weavers,
dyers, and woolcarders. The face of this man was clean-shaven, his hair
close-clipped, and he wore a decent felt hat. A single glance would
hardly have sufficed to assure any one but Tito that this was the face
of the escaped prisoner who had laid hold of him on the steps. But to
Tito it came not simply as the face of the escaped prisoner, but as a
face with which he had been familiar long years before.

It seemed all compressed into a second—the sight of Baldassarre looking
at him, the sensation shooting through him like a fiery arrow, and the
act of leaping from the cart. He would have leaped down in the same
instant, whether he had seen Baldassarre or not, for he was in a hurry
to be gone to the Palazzo Vecchio: this time he had not betrayed
himself by look or movement, and he said inwardly that he should not be
taken by surprise again; he should be prepared to see this face rise up
continually like the intermittent blotch that comes in diseased vision.
But this reappearance of Baldassarre so much more in his own likeness
tightened the pressure of dread: the idea of his madness lost its
likelihood now he was shaven and clad like a decent though poor
citizen. Certainly, there was a great change in his face; but how could
it be otherwise? And yet, if he were perfectly sane—in possession of
all his powers and all his learning, why was he lingering in this way
before making known his identity? It must be for the sake of making his
scheme of vengeance more complete. But he did linger: that at least
gave an opportunity for flight. And Tito began to think that flight was
his only resource.

But while he, with his back turned on the Piazza del Duomo, had lost
the recollection of the new part he had been playing, and was no longer
thinking of the many things which a ready brain and tongue made easy,
but of a few things which destiny had somehow made very difficult, the
enthusiasm which he had fed contemptuously was creating a scene in that
piazza in grand contrast with the inward drama of self-centred fear
which he had carried away from it.

The crowd, on Tito’s disappearance, had begun to turn their faces
towards the outlets of the piazza in the direction of the Via Larga,
when the sight of _mazzieri_, or mace-bearers, entering from the Via
de’ Martelli, announced the approach of dignitaries. They must be the
syndics, or commissioners charged with the effecting of the treaty; the
treaty must be already signed, and they had come away from the royal
presence. Piero Capponi was coming—the brave heart that had known how
to speak for Florence. The effect on the crowd was remarkable; they
parted with softening, dropping voices, subsiding into silence,—and the
silence became so perfect that the tread of the syndics on the broad
pavement, and the rustle of their black silk garments, could be heard,
like rain in the night. There were four of them; but it was not the two
learned doctors of law, Messer Guidantonio Vespucci and Messer Domenico
Bonsi, that the crowd waited for; it was not Francesco Valori, popular
as he had become in these late days. The moment belonged to another
man, of firm presence, as little inclined to humour the people as to
humour any other unreasonable claimants—loving order, like one who by
force of fortune had been made a merchant, and by force of nature had
become a soldier. It was not till he was seen at the entrance of the
piazza that the silence was broken, and then one loud shout of
“Capponi, Capponi! Well done, Capponi!” rang through the piazza.

The simple, resolute man looked round him with grave joy. His
fellow-citizens gave him a great funeral two years later, when he had
died in fight; there were torches carried by all the magistracy, and
torches again, and trains of banners. But it is not known that he felt
any joy in the oration that was delivered in his praise, as the banners
waved over his bier. Let us be glad that he got some thanks and praise
while he lived.




CHAPTER XXX.
The Avenger’s Secret.


It was the first time that Baldassarre had been in the Piazza del Duomo
since his escape. He had a strong desire to hear the remarkable monk
preach again, but he had shrunk from reappearing in the same spot where
he had been seen half naked, with neglected hair, with a rope round his
neck—in the same spot where he had been called a madman. The feeling,
in its freshness, was too strong to be overcome by any trust he had in
the change he had made in his appearance; for when the words “_some
madman, surely_,” had fallen from Tito’s lips, it was not their
baseness and cruelty only that had made their viper sting—it was
Baldassarre’s instantaneous bitter consciousness that he might be
unable to prove the words false. Along with the passionate desire for
vengeance which possessed him had arisen the keen sense that his power
of achieving the vengeance was doubtful. It was as if Tito had been
helped by some diabolical prompter, who had whispered Baldassarre’s
saddest secret in the traitor’s ear. He was not mad; for he carried
within him that piteous stamp of sanity, the clear consciousness of
shattered faculties; he measured his own feebleness. With the first
movement of vindictive rage awoke a vague caution, like that of a wild
beast that is fierce but feeble—or like that of an insect whose little
fragment of earth has given way, and made it pause in a palsy of
distrust. It was this distrust, this determination to take no step
which might betray anything concerning himself, that had made
Baldassarre reject Piero di Cosimo’s friendly advances.

He had been equally cautious at the hospital, only telling, in answer
to the questions of the brethren there, that he had been made a
prisoner by the French on his way from Genoa. But his age, and the
indications in his speech and manner that he was of a different class
from the ordinary mendicants and poor travellers who were entertained
in the hospital, had induced the monks to offer him extra charity: a
coarse woollen tunic to protect him from the cold, a pair of peasant’s
shoes, and a few _danari_, smallest of Florentine coins, to help him on
his way. He had gone on the road to Arezzo early in the morning; but he
had paused at the first little town, and had used a couple of his
_danari_ to get himself shaved, and to have his circle of hair clipped
short, in his former fashion. The barber there had a little hand-mirror
of bright steel: it was a long while, it was years, since Baldassarre
had looked at himself, and now, as his eyes fell on that hand-mirror, a
new thought shot through his mind. “Was he so changed that Tito really
did not know him?” The thought was such a sudden arrest of impetuous
currents, that it was a painful shock to him; his hand shook like a
leaf, as he put away the barber’s arm and asked for the mirror. He
wished to see himself before he was shaved. The barber, noticing his
tremulousness, held the mirror for him.

No, he was not so changed as that. He himself had known the wrinkles as
they had been three years ago; they were only deeper now: there was the
same rough, clumsy skin, making little superficial bosses on the brow,
like so many cipher-marks; the skin was only yellower, only looked more
like a lifeless rind. That shaggy white beard—it was no disguise to
eyes that had looked closely at him for sixteen years—to eyes that
ought to have searched for him with the expectation of finding him
changed, as men search for the beloved among the bodies cast up by the
waters. There was something different in his glance, but it was a
difference that should only have made the recognition of him the more
startling; for is not a known voice all the more thrilling when it is
heard as a cry? But the doubt was folly: he had felt that Tito knew
him. He put out his hand and pushed the mirror away. The strong
currents were rushing on again, and the energies of hatred and
vengeance were active once more.

He went back on the way towards Florence again, but he did not wish to
enter the city till dusk; so he turned aside from the highroad, and sat
down by a little pool shadowed on one side by alder-bushes still
sprinkled with yellow leaves. It was a calm November day, and he no
sooner saw the pool than he thought its still surface might be a mirror
for him. He wanted to contemplate himself slowly, as he had not dared
to do in the presence of the barber. He sat down on the edge of the
pool, and bent forward to look earnestly at the image of himself.

Was there something wandering and imbecile in his face—something like
what he felt in his mind?

Not now; not when he was examining himself with a look of eager
inquiry: on the contrary, there was an intense purpose in his eyes. But
at other times? Yes, it must be so: in the long hours when he had the
vague aching of an unremembered past within him—when he seemed to sit
in dark loneliness, visited by whispers which died out mockingly as he
strained his ear after them, and by forms that seemed to approach him
and float away as he thrust out his hand to grasp them—in those hours,
doubtless, there must be continual frustration and amazement in his
glance. And more horrible still, when the thick cloud parted for a
moment, and, as he sprang forward with hope, rolled together again, and
left him helpless as before; doubtless, there was then a blank
confusion in his face, as of a man suddenly smitten with blindness.

Could he prove anything? Could he even begin to allege anything, with
the confidence that the links of thought would not break away? Would
any believe that he had ever had a mind filled with rare knowledge,
busy with close thoughts, ready with various speech? It had all slipped
away from him—that laboriously-gathered store. Was it utterly and for
ever gone from him, like the waters from an urn lost in the wide ocean?
Or, was it still within him, imprisoned by some obstruction that might
one day break asunder?

It might be so; he tried to keep his grasp on that hope. For, since the
day when he had first walked feebly from his couch of straw, and had
felt a new darkness within him under the sunlight, his mind had
undergone changes, partly gradual and persistent, partly sudden and
fleeting. As he had recovered his strength of body, he had recovered
his self-command and the energy of his will; he had recovered the
memory of all that part of his life which was closely enwrought with
his emotions; and he had felt more and more constantly and painfully
the uneasy sense of lost knowledge. But more than that—once or twice,
when he had been strongly excited, he had seemed momentarily to be in
entire possession of his past self, as old men doze for an instant and
get back the consciousness of their youth: he seemed again to see Greek
pages and understand them, again to feel his mind moving unbenumbed
among familiar ideas. It had been but a flash, and the darkness closing
in again seemed the more horrible; but might not the same thing happen
again for longer periods? If it would only come and stay long enough
for him to achieve a revenge—devise an exquisite suffering, such as a
mere right arm could never inflict!

He raised himself from his stooping attitude, and, folding his arms,
attempted to concentrate all his mental force on the plan he must
immediately pursue. He had to wait for knowledge and opportunity, and
while he waited he must have the means of living without beggary. What
he dreaded of all things now was, that any one should think him a
foolish, helpless old man. No one must know that half his memory was
gone: the lost strength might come again; and if it were only for a
little while, _that_ might be enough.

He knew how to begin to get the information he wanted about Tito. He
had repeated the words “Bratti Ferravecchi” so constantly after they
had been uttered to him, that they never slipped from him for long
together. A man at Genoa, on whose finger he had seen Tito’s ring, had
told him that he bought that ring at Florence, of a young Greek,
well-dressed, and with a handsome dark face, in the shop of a
_rigattiere_ called Bratti Ferravecchi, in the street also called
Ferravecchi. This discovery had caused a violent agitation in
Baldassarre. Until then he had clung with all the tenacity of his
fervent nature to his faith in Tito, and had not for a moment believed
himself to be wilfully forsaken. At first he had said, “My bit of
parchment has never reached him; that is why I am still toiling at
Antioch. But he is searching; he knows where I was lost: he will trace
me out, and find me at last.” Then, when he was taken to Corinth, he
induced his owners, by the assurance that he should be sought out and
ransomed, to provide securely against the failure of any inquiries that
might be made about him at Antioch; and at Corinth he thought joyfully,
“Here, at last, he must find me. Here he is sure to touch, whichever
way he goes.” But before another year had passed, the illness had come
from which he had risen with body and mind so shattered that he was
worse than worthless to his owners, except for the sake of the ransom
that did not come. Then, as he sat helpless in the morning sunlight, he
began to think, “Tito has been drowned, or they have made _him_ a
prisoner too. I shall see him no more. He set out after me, but
misfortune overtook him. I shall see his face no more.” Sitting in his
new feebleness and despair, supporting his head between his hands, with
blank eyes and lips that moved uncertainly, he looked so much like a
hopelessly imbecile old man, that his owners were contented to be rid
of him, and allowed a Genoese merchant, who had compassion on him as an
Italian, to take him on board his galley. In a voyage of many months in
the Archipelago and along the seaboard of Asia Minor, Baldassarre had
recovered his bodily strength, but on landing at Genoa he had so weary
a sense of his desolateness that he almost wished he had died of that
illness at Corinth. There was just one possibility that hindered the
wish from being decided: it was that Tito might not be dead, but living
in a state of imprisonment or destitution; and if he lived, there was
still a hope for Baldassarre—faint, perhaps, and likely to be long
deferred, but still a hope, that he might find his child, his cherished
son again; might yet again clasp hands and meet face to face with the
one being who remembered him as he had been before his mind was broken.
In this state of feeling he had chanced to meet the stranger who wore
Tito’s onyx ring, and though Baldassarre would have been unable to
describe the ring beforehand, the sight of it stirred the dormant
fibres, and he recognised it. That Tito nearly a year after his father
had been parted from him should have been living in apparent prosperity
at Florence, selling the gem which he ought not to have sold till the
last extremity, was a fact that Baldassarre shrank from trying to
account for: he was glad to be stunned and bewildered by it, rather
than to have any distinct thought; he tried to feel nothing but joy
that he should behold Tito again. Perhaps Tito had thought that his
father was dead; somehow the mystery would be explained. “But at least
I shall meet eyes that will remember me. I am not alone in the world.”

And now again Baldassarre said, “I am not alone in the world; I shall
never be alone, for my revenge is with me.”

It was as the instrument of that revenge, as something merely external
and subservient to his true life, that he bent down again to examine
himself with hard curiosity—not, he thought, because he had any care
for a withered, forsaken old man, whom nobody loved, whose soul was
like a deserted home, where the ashes were cold upon the hearth, and
the walls were bare of all but the marks of what had been. It is in the
nature of all human passion, the lowest as well as the highest, that
there is a point where it ceases to be properly egoistic, and is like a
fire kindled within our being to which everything else in us is mere
fuel.

He looked at the pale black-browed image in the water till he
identified it with that self from which his revenge seemed to be a
thing apart; and he felt as if the image too heard the silent language
of his thought.

“I was a loving fool—I worshipped a woman once, and believed she could
care for me; and then I took a helpless child and fostered him; and I
watched him as he grew, to see if he would care for me only a
little—care for _me_ over and above the good he got from me. I would
have torn open my breast to warm him with my life-blood if I could only
have seen him care a little for the pain of my wound. I have laboured,
I have strained to crush out of this hard life one drop of unselfish
love. Fool! men love their own delights; there is no delight to be had
in me. And yet I watched till I believed I saw what I watched for. When
he was a child he lifted soft eyes towards me, and held my hand
willingly: I thought, this boy will surely love me a little: because I
give my life to him and strive that he shall know no sorrow, he will
care a little when I am thirsty—the drop he lays on my parched lips
will be a joy to him... Curses on him! I wish I may see him lie with
those red lips white and dry as ashes, and when he looks for pity I
wish he may see my face rejoicing in his pain. It is all a lie—this
world is a lie—there is no goodness but in hate. Fool! not one drop of
love came with all your striving: life has not given you one drop. But
there are deep draughts in this world for hatred and revenge. I have
memory left for that, and there is strength in my arm—there is strength
in my will—and if I can do nothing but kill him—”

But Baldassarre’s mind rejected the thought of that brief punishment.
His whole soul had been thrilled into immediate unreasoning belief in
that eternity of vengeance where he, an undying hate, might clutch for
ever an undying traitor, and hear that fair smiling hardness cry and
moan with anguish. But the primary need and hope was to see a slow
revenge under the same sky and on the same earth where he himself had
been forsaken and had fainted with despair. And as soon as he tried to
concentrate his mind on the means of attaining his end, the sense of
his weakness pressed upon him like a frosty ache. This despised body,
which was to be the instrument of a sublime vengeance, must be
nourished and decently clad. If he had to wait he must labour, and his
labour must be of a humble sort, for he had no skill. He wondered
whether the sight of written characters would so stimulate his
faculties that he might venture to try and find work as a copyist:
_that_ might win him some credence for his past scholarship. But no! he
dared trust neither hand nor brain. He must be content to do the work
that was most like that of a beast of burden: in this mercantile city
many porters must be wanted, and he could at least carry weights.
Thanks to the justice that struggled in this confused world in behalf
of vengeance, his limbs had got back some of their old sturdiness. He
was stripped of all else that men would give coin for.

But the new urgency of this habitual thought brought a new suggestion.
There was something hanging by a cord round his bare neck; something
apparently so paltry that the piety of Turks and Frenchmen had spared
it—a tiny parchment bag blackened with age. It had hung round his neck
as a precious charm when he was a boy, and he had kept it carefully on
his breast, not believing that it contained anything but a tiny scroll
of parchment rolled up hard. He might long ago have thrown it away as a
relic of his dead mother’s superstition; but he had thought of it as a
relic of her love, and had kept it. It was part of the piety associated
with such _brevi_, that they should never be opened, and at any
previous moment in his life Baldassarre would have said that no sort of
thirst would prevail upon him to open this little bag for the chance of
finding that it contained, not parchment, but an engraved amulet which
would be worth money. But now a thirst had come like that which makes
men open their own veins to satisfy it, and the thought of the possible
amulet no sooner crossed Baldassarre’s mind than with nervous fingers
he snatched the _breve_ from his neck. It all rushed through his
mind—the long years he had worn it, the far-off sunny balcony at Naples
looking towards the blue waters, where he had leaned against his
mother’s knee; but it made no moment of hesitation: all piety now was
transmuted into a just revenge. He bit and tore till the doubles of
parchment were laid open, and then—it was a sight that made him
pant—there _was_ an amulet. It was very small, but it was as blue as
those far-off waters; it was an engraved sapphire, which must be worth
some gold ducats. Baldassarre no sooner saw those possible ducats than
he saw some of them exchanged for a poniard. He did not want to use the
poniard yet, but he longed to possess it. If he could grasp its handle
and try its edge, that blank in his mind—that past which fell away
continually—would not make him feel so cruelly helpless: the sharp
steel that despised talents and eluded strength would be at his side,
as the unfailing friend of feeble justice. There was a sparkling
triumph under Baldassarre’s black eyebrows as he replaced the little
sapphire inside the bits of parchment and wound the string tightly
round them.

It was nearly dusk now, and he rose to walk back towards Florence. With
his _danari_ to buy him some bread, he felt rich: he could lie out in
the open air, as he found plenty more doing in all corners of Florence.
And in the next few days he had sold his sapphire, had added to his
clothing, had bought a bright dagger, and had still a pair of gold
florins left. But he meant to hoard that treasure carefully: his
lodging was an outhouse with a heap of straw in it, in a thinly
inhabited part of Oltrarno, and he thought of looking about for work as
a porter.

He had bought his dagger at Bratti’s. Paying his meditated visit there
one evening at dusk, he had found that singular rag-merchant just
returned from one of his rounds, emptying out his basketful of broken
glass and old iron amongst his handsome show of miscellaneous
second-hand goods. As Baldassarre entered the shop, and looked towards
the smart pieces of apparel, the musical instruments, and weapons,
which were displayed in the broadest light of the window, his eye at
once singled out a dagger hanging up high against a red scarf. By
buying the dagger he could not only satisfy a strong desire, he could
open his original errand in a more indirect manner than by speaking of
the onyx ring. In the course of bargaining for the weapon, he let drop,
with cautious carelessness, that he came from Genoa, and had been
directed to Bratti’s shop by an acquaintance in that city who had
bought a very valuable ring here. Had the respectable trader any more
such rings?

Whereupon Bratti had much to say as to the unlikelihood of such rings
being within reach of many people, with much vaunting of his own rare
connections, due to his known wisdom, and honesty. It might be true
that he was a pedlar—he chose to be a pedlar; though he was rich enough
to kick his heels in his shop all day. But those who thought they had
said all there was to be said about Bratti when they had called him a
pedlar, were a good deal further off the truth than the other side of
Pisa. How was it that he could put that ring in a stranger’s way? It
was, because he had a very particular knowledge of a handsome young
signor, who did not look quite so fine a feathered bird when Bratti
first set eyes on him as he did at the present time. And by a question
or two Baldassarre extracted, without any trouble, such a rough and
rambling account of Tito’s life as the pedlar could give, since the
time when he had found him sleeping under the Loggia de’ Cerchi. It
never occurred to Bratti that the decent man (who was rather deaf,
apparently, asking him to say many things twice over) had any curiosity
about Tito; the curiosity was doubtless about himself, as a truly
remarkable pedlar.

And Baldassarre left Bratti’s shop, not only with the dagger at his
side, but also with a general knowledge of Tito’s conduct and
position—of his early sale of the jewels, his immediate quiet
settlement of himself at Florence, his marriage, and his great
prosperity.

“What story had he told about his previous life—about his father?”

It would be difficult for Baldassarre to discover the answer to that
question. Meanwhile, he wanted to learn all he could about Florence.
But he found, to his acute distress, that of the new details he learned
he could only retain a few, and those only by continual repetition; and
he began to be afraid of listening to any new discourse, lest it should
obliterate what he was already striving to remember.

The day he was discerned by Tito in the Piazza del Duomo, he had the
fresh anguish of this consciousness in his mind, and Tito’s ready
speech fell upon him like the mockery of a glib, defying demon.

As he went home to his heap of straw, and passed by the booksellers’
shops in the Via del Garbo, he paused to look at the volumes spread
open. Could he by long gazing at one of those books lay hold of the
slippery threads of memory? Could he, by striving, get a firm grasp
somewhere, and lift himself above these waters that flowed over him?

He was tempted, and bought the cheapest Greek book he could see. He
carried it home and sat on his heap of straw, looking at the characters
by the light of the small window; but no inward light arose on them.
Soon the evening darkness came; but it made little difference to
Baldassarre. His strained eyes seemed still to see the white pages with
the unintelligible black marks upon them.




CHAPTER XXXI.
Fruit is Seed.


“My Romola,” said Tito, the second morning after he had made his speech
in the Piazza del Duomo, “I am to receive grand visitors to-day; the
Milanese Count is coming again, and the Seneschal de Beaucaire, the
great favourite of the Cristianissimo. I know you don’t care to go
through smiling ceremonies with these rustling magnates, whom we are
not likely to see again; and as they will want to look at the
antiquities and the library, perhaps you had better give up your work
to-day, and go to see your cousin Brigida.”

Romola discerned a wish in this intimation, and immediately assented.
But presently, coming back in her hood and mantle, she said, “Oh, what
a long breath Florence will take when the gates are flung open, and the
last Frenchman is walking out of them! Even you are getting tired, with
all your patience, my Tito; confess it. Ah, your head is hot.”

He was leaning over his desk, writing, and she had laid her hand on his
head, meaning to give a parting caress. The attitude had been a
frequent one, and Tito was accustomed, when he felt her hand there, to
raise his head, throw himself a little backward, and look up at her.
But he felt now as unable to raise his head as if her hand had been a
leaden cowl. He spoke instead, in a light tone, as his pen still ran
along.

“The French are as ready to go from Florence as the wasps to leave a
ripe pear when they have just fastened on it.”

Romola, keenly sensitive to the absence of the usual response, took
away her hand and said, “I am going, Tito.”

“Farewell, my sweet one. I must wait at home. Take Maso with you.”

Still Tito did not look up, and Romola went out without saying any
more. Very slight things make epochs in married life, and this morning
for the first time she admitted to herself not only that Tito had
changed, but that he had changed towards her. Did the reason lie in
herself? She might perhaps have thought so, if there had not been the
facts of the armour and the picture to suggest some external event
which was an entire mystery to her.

But Tito no sooner believed that Romola was out of the house than he
laid down his pen and looked up, in delightful security from seeing
anything else than parchment and broken marble. He was rather disgusted
with himself that he had not been able to look up at Romola and behave
to her just as usual. He would have chosen, if he could, to be even
more than usually kind; but he could not, on a sudden, master an
involuntary shrinking from her, which, by a subtle relation, depended
on those very characteristics in him that made him desire not to fail
in his marks of affection. He was about to take a step which he knew
would arouse her deep indignation; he would have to encounter much that
was unpleasant before he could win her forgiveness. And Tito could
never find it easy to face displeasure and anger; his nature was one of
those most remote from defiance or impudence, and all his inclinations
leaned towards preserving Romola’s tenderness. He was not tormented by
sentimental scruples which, as he had demonstrated to himself by a very
rapid course of argument, had no relation to solid utility; but his
freedom from scruples did not release him from the dread of what was
disagreeable. Unscrupulousness gets rid of much, but not of toothache,
or wounded vanity, or the sense of loneliness, against which, as the
world at present stands, there is no security but a thoroughly healthy
jaw, and a just, loving soul. And Tito was feeling intensely at this
moment that no devices could save him from pain in the impending
collision with Romola; no persuasive blandness could cushion him
against the shock towards which he was being driven like a timid animal
urged to a desperate leap by the terror of the tooth and the claw that
are close behind it.

The secret feeling he had previously had that the tenacious adherence
to Bardo’s wishes about the library had become under existing
difficulties a piece of sentimental folly, which deprived himself and
Romola of substantial advantages, might perhaps never have wrought
itself into action but for the events of the past week, which had
brought at once the pressure of a new motive and the outlet of a rare
opportunity. Nay, it was not till his dread had been aggravated by the
sight of Baldassarre looking more like his sane self, not until he had
begun to feel that he might be compelled to flee from Florence, that he
had brought himself to resolve on using his legal right to sell the
library before the great opportunity offered by French and Milanese
bidders slipped through his fingers. For if he had to leave Florence he
did not want to leave it as a destitute wanderer. He had been used to
an agreeable existence, and he wished to carry with him all the means
at hand for retaining the same agreeable conditions. He wished among
other things to carry Romola with him, and _not_, if possible, to carry
any infamy. Success had given him a growing appetite for all the
pleasures that depend on an advantageous social position, and at no
moment could it look like a temptation to him, but only like a hideous
alternative, to decamp under dishonour, even with a bag of diamonds,
and incur the life of an adventurer. It was not possible for him to
make himself independent even of those Florentines who only greeted him
with regard; still less was it possible for him to make himself
independent of Romola. She was the wife of his first love—he loved her
still; she belonged to that furniture of life which he shrank from
parting with. He winced under her judgment, he felt uncertain how far
the revulsion of her feeling towards him might go; and all that sense
of power over a wife which makes a husband risk betrayals that a lover
never ventures on, would not suffice to counteract Tito’s uneasiness.
This was the leaden weight which had been too strong for his will, and
kept him from raising his head to meet her eyes. Their pure light
brought too near him the prospect of a coming struggle. But it was not
to be helped; if they had to leave Florence, they must have money;
indeed, Tito could not arrange life at all to his mind without a
considerable sum of money. And that problem of arranging life to his
mind had been the source of all his misdoing. He would have been equal
to any sacrifice that was not unpleasant.

The rustling magnates came and went, the bargains had been concluded,
and Romola returned home; but nothing grave was said that night. Tito
was only gay and chatty, pouring forth to her, as he had not done
before, stories and descriptions of what he had witnessed during the
French visit. Romola thought she discerned an effort in his liveliness,
and attributing it to the consciousness in him that she had been
wounded in the morning, accepted the effort as an act of penitence,
inwardly aching a little at that sign of growing distance between
them—that there was an offence about which neither of them dared to
speak.

The next day Tito remained away from home until late at night. It was a
marked day to Romola, for Piero di Cosimo, stimulated to greater
industry on her behalf by the fear that he might have been the cause of
pain to her in the past week, had sent home her father’s portrait. She
had propped it against the back of his old chair, and had been looking
at it for some time, when the door opened behind her, and Bernardo del
Nero came in.

“It is you, godfather! How I wish you had come sooner! it is getting a
little dusk,” said Romola, going towards him.

“I have just looked in to tell you the good news, for I know Tito has
not come yet,” said Bernardo. “The French king moves off to-morrow: not
before it is high time. There has been another tussle between our
people and his soldiers this morning. But there’s a chance now of the
city getting into order once more and trade going on.”

“That is joyful,” said Romola. “But it is sudden, is it not? Tito
seemed to think yesterday that there was little prospect of the king’s
going soon.”

“He has been well barked at, that’s the reason,” said Bernardo,
smiling. “His own generals opened their throats pretty well, and at
last our Signoria sent the mastiff of the city, Fra Girolamo. The
Cristianissimo was frightened at that thunder, and has given the order
to move. I’m afraid there’ll be small agreement among us when he’s
gone, but, at any rate, all parties are agreed in being glad not to
have Florence stifled with soldiery any longer, and the Frate has
barked this time to some purpose. Ah, what is this?” he added, as
Romola, clasping him by the arm, led him in front of the picture. “Let
us see.”

He began to unwind his long scarf while she placed a seat for him.

“Don’t you want your spectacles, godfather?” said Romola, in anxiety
that he should see just what she saw.

“No, child, no,” said Bernardo, uncovering his grey head, as he seated
himself with firm erectness. “For seeing at this distance, my old eyes
are perhaps better than your young ones. Old men’s eyes are like old
men’s memories; they are strongest for things a long way off.”

“It is better than having no portrait,” said Romola, apologetically,
after Bernardo had been silent a little while. “It is less like him now
than the image I have in my mind, but then that might fade with the
years.” She rested her arm on the old man’s shoulder as she spoke,
drawn towards him strongly by their common interest in the dead.

“I don’t know,” said Bernardo. “I almost think I see Bardo as he was
when he was young, better than that picture shows him to me as he was
when he was old. Your father had a great deal of fire in his eyes when
he was young. It was what I could never understand, that he, with his
fiery spirit, which seemed much more impatient than mine, could hang
over the books and live with shadows all his life. However, he had put
his heart into that.”

Bernardo gave a slight shrug as he spoke the last words, but Romola
discerned in his voice a feeling that accorded with her own.

“And he was disappointed to the last,” she said, involuntarily. But
immediately fearing lest her words should be taken to imply an
accusation against Tito, she went on almost hurriedly, “If we could
only see his longest, dearest wish fulfilled just to his mind!”

“Well, so we may,” said Bernardo, kindly, rising and putting on his
cap. “The times are cloudy now, but fish are caught by waiting. Who
knows? When the wheel has turned often enough, I may be Gonfaloniere
yet before I die; and no creditor can touch these things.” He looked
round as he spoke. Then, turning to her, and patting her cheek, said,
“And you need not be afraid of my dying; my ghost will claim nothing.
I’ve taken care of that in my will.”

Romola seized the hand that was against her cheek, and put it to her
lips in silence.

“Haven’t you been scolding your husband for keeping away from home so
much lately? I see him everywhere but here,” said Bernardo, willing to
change the subject.

She felt the flush spread over her neck and face as she said, “He has
been very much wanted; you know he speaks so well. I am glad to know
that his value is understood.”

“You are contented then, Madonna Orgogliosa?” said Bernardo, smiling,
as he moved to the door.

“Assuredly.”

Poor Romola! There was one thing that would have made the pang of
disappointment in her husband harder to bear; it was, that any one
should know he gave her cause for disappointment. This might be a
woman’s weakness, but it is closely allied to a woman’s nobleness. She
who willingly lifts up the veil of her married life has profaned it
from a sanctuary into a vulgar place.




CHAPTER XXXII.
A Revelation.


The next day Romola, like every other Florentine, was excited about the
departure of the French. Besides her other reasons for gladness, she
had a dim hope, which she was conscious was half superstitious, that
those new anxieties about Tito, having come with the burdensome guests,
might perhaps vanish with them. The French had been in Florence hardly
eleven days, but in that space she had felt more acute unhappiness than
she had known in her life before. Tito had adopted the hateful armour
on the day of their arrival, and though she could frame no distinct
notion why their departure should remove the cause of his fear—though,
when she thought of that cause, the image of the prisoner grasping him,
as she had seen it in Piero’s sketch, urged itself before her and
excluded every other—still, when the French were gone, she would be rid
of something that was strongly associated with her pain.

Wrapped in her mantle she waited under the loggia at the top of the
house, and watched for the glimpses of the troops and the royal retinue
passing the bridges on their way to the Porta San Piero, that looks
towards Siena and Rome. She even returned to her station when the gates
had been closed, that she might feel herself vibrating with the great
peal of the bells. It was dusk then, and when at last she descended
into the library, she lit her lamp with the resolution that she would
overcome the agitation which had made her idle all day, and sit down to
work at her copying of the catalogue. Tito had left home early in the
morning, and she did not expect him yet. Before he came she intended to
leave the library, and sit in the pretty saloon, with the dancing
nymphs and the birds. She had done so every evening since he had
objected to the library as chill and gloomy.

To her great surprise, she had not been at work long before Tito
entered. Her first thought was, how cheerless he would feel in the wide
darkness of this great room, with one little oil-lamp burning at the
further end, and the fire nearly out. She almost ran towards him.

“Tito, dearest, I did not know you would come so soon,” she said,
nervously, putting up her white arms to unwind his becchetto.

“I am not welcome then?” he said, with one of his brightest smiles,
clasping her, but playfully holding his head back from her.

“Tito!” She uttered the word in a tone of pretty, loving reproach, and
then he kissed her fondly, stroked her hair, as his manner was, and
seemed not to mind about taking off his mantle yet. Romola quivered
with delight. All the emotions of the day had been preparing in her a
keener sensitiveness to the return of this habitual manner. “It will
come back,” she was saying to herself, “the old happiness will perhaps
come back. He is like himself again.”

Tito was taking great pains to be like himself; his heart was
palpitating with anxiety.

“If I had expected you so soon,” said Romola, as she at last helped him
to take off his wrappings, “I would have had a little festival prepared
to this joyful ringing of the bells. I did not mean to be here in the
library when you came home.”

“Never mind, sweet,” he said, carelessly. “Do not think about the fire.
Come—come and sit down.”

There was a low stool against Tito’s chair, and that was Romola’s
habitual seat when they were talking together. She rested her arm on
his knee, as she used to do on her father’s, and looked up at him while
he spoke. He had never yet noticed the presence of the portrait, and
she had not mentioned it—thinking of it all the more.

“I have been enjoying the clang of the bells for the first time, Tito,”
she began. “I liked being shaken and deafened by them: I fancied I was
something like a Bacchante possessed by a divine rage. Are not the
people looking very joyful to-night?”

“Joyful after a sour and pious fashion,” said Tito, with a shrug. “But,
in truth, those who are left behind in Florence have little cause to be
joyful: it seems to me, the most reasonable ground of gladness would be
to have got out of Florence.”

Tito had sounded the desired key-note without any trouble, or
appearance of premeditation. He spoke with no emphasis, but he looked
grave enough to make Romola ask rather anxiously—

“Why, Tito? Are there fresh troubles?”

“No need of fresh ones, my Romola. There are three strong parties in
the city, all ready to fly at each other’s throats. And if the Frate’s
party is strong enough to frighten the other two into silence, as seems
most likely, life will be as pleasant and amusing as a funeral. They
have the plan of a Great Council simmering already; and if they get it,
the man who sings sacred Lauds the loudest will be the most eligible
for office. And besides that, the city will be so drained by the
payment of this great subsidy to the French king, and by the war to get
back Pisa, that the prospect would be dismal enough without the rule of
fanatics. On the whole, Florence will be a delightful place for those
worthies who entertain themselves in the evening by going into crypts
and lashing themselves; but for everything else, the exiles have the
best of it. For my own part, I have been thinking seriously that we
should be wise to quit Florence, my Romola.”

She started. “Tito, how could we leave Florence? Surely you do not
think I could leave it—at least, not yet—not for a long while.” She had
turned cold and trembling, and did not find it quite easy to speak.
Tito must know the reasons she had in her mind.

“That is all a fabric of your own imagination, my sweet one. Your
secluded life has made you lay such false stress on a few things. You
know I used to tell you, before we were married, that I wished we were
somewhere else than in Florence. If you had seen more places and more
people, you would know what I mean when I say that there is something
in the Florentines that reminds me of their cutting spring winds. I
like people who take life less eagerly; and it would be good for my
Romola, too, to see a new life. I should like to dip her a little in
the soft waters of forgetfulness.”

He leaned forward and kissed her brow, and laid his hand on her fair
hair again; but she felt his caress no more than if he had kissed a
mask. She was too much agitated by the sense of the distance between
their minds to be conscious that his lips touched her.

“Tito, it is not because I suppose Florence is the pleasantest place in
the world that I desire not to quit it. It is because I—because we have
to see my father’s wish fulfilled. My godfather is old; he is
seventy-one; we could not leave it to him.”

“It is precisely those superstitions which hang about your mind like
bedimming clouds, my Romola, that make one great reason why I could
wish we were two hundred leagues from Florence. I am obliged to take
care of you in opposition to your own will: if those dear eyes, that
look so tender, see falsely, I must see for them, and save my wife from
wasting her life in disappointing herself by impracticable dreams.”

Romola sat silent and motionless: she could not blind herself to the
direction in which Tito’s words pointed: he wanted to persuade her that
they might get the library deposited in some monastery, or take some
other ready means to rid themselves of a task, and of a tie to
Florence; and she was determined never to submit her mind to his
judgment on this question of duty to her father; she was inwardly
prepared to encounter any sort of pain in resistance. But the
determination was kept latent in these first moments by the
heart-crushing sense that now at last she and Tito must be confessedly
divided in their wishes. He was glad of her silence; for, much as he
had feared the strength of her feeling, it was impossible for him, shut
up in the narrowness that hedges in all merely clever, unimpassioned
men, not to over-estimate the persuasiveness of his own arguments. His
conduct did not look ugly to himself, and his imagination did not
suffice to show him exactly how it would look to Romola. He went on in
the same gentle, remonstrating tone.

“You know, dearest—your own clear judgment always showed you—that the
notion of isolating a collection of books and antiquities, and
attaching a single name to them for ever, was one that had no valid,
substantial good for its object: and yet more, one that was liable to
be defeated in a thousand ways. See what has become of the Medici
collections! And, for my part, I consider it even blameworthy to
entertain those petty views of appropriation: why should any one be
reasonably glad that Florence should possess the benefits of learned
research and taste more than any other city? I understand your feeling
about the wishes of the dead; but wisdom puts a limit to these
sentiments, else lives might be continually wasted in that sort of
futile devotion—like praising deaf gods for ever. You gave your life to
your father while he lived; why should you demand more of yourself?”

“Because it was a trust,” said Romola, in a low but distinct voice. “He
trusted me, he trusted you, Tito. I did not expect you to feel anything
else about it—to feel as I do—but I did expect you to feel that.”

“Yes, dearest, of course I should feel it on a point where your
father’s real welfare or happiness was concerned; but there is no
question of that now. If we believed in purgatory, I should be as
anxious as you to have masses said; and if I believed it could now pain
your father to see his library preserved and used in a rather different
way from what he had set his mind on, I should share the strictness of
your views. But a little philosophy should teach us to rid ourselves of
those air-woven fetters that mortals hang round themselves, spending
their lives in misery under the mere imagination of weight. Your mind,
which seizes ideas so readily, my Romola, is able to discriminate
between substantial good and these brain-wrought fantasies. Ask
yourself, dearest, what possible good can these books and antiquities
do, stowed together under your father’s name in Florence, more than
they would do if they were divided or carried elsewhere? Nay, is not
the very dispersion of such things in hands that know how to value
them, one means of extending their usefulness? This rivalry of Italian
cities is very petty and illiberal. The loss of Constantinople was the
gain of the whole civilised world.”

Romola was still too thoroughly under the painful pressure of the new
revelation Tito was making of himself, for her resistance to find any
strong vent. As that fluent talk fell on her ears there was a rising
contempt within her, which only made her more conscious of her bruised,
despairing love, her love for the Tito she had married and believed in.
Her nature, possessed with the energies of strong emotion, recoiled
from this hopelessly shallow readiness which professed to appropriate
the widest sympathies and had no pulse for the nearest. She still spoke
like one who was restrained from showing all she felt. She had only
drawn away her arm from his knee, and sat with her hands clasped before
her, cold and motionless as locked waters.

“You talk of substantial good, Tito! Are faithfulness, and love, and
sweet grateful memories, no good? Is it no good that we should keep our
silent promises on which others build because they believe in our love
and truth? Is it no good that a just life should be justly honoured?
Or, is it good that we should harden our hearts against all the wants
and hopes of those who have depended on us? What good can belong to men
who have such souls? To talk cleverly, perhaps, and find soft couches
for themselves, and live and die with their base selves as their best
companions.”

Her voice had gradually risen till there was a ring of scorn in the
last words; she made a slight pause, but he saw there were other words
quivering on her lips, and he chose to let them come.

“I know of no good for cities or the world if they are to be made up of
such beings. But I am not thinking of other Italian cities and the
whole civilised world—I am thinking of my father, and of my love and
sorrow for him, and of his just claims on us. I would give up anything
else, Tito,—I would leave Florence,—what else did I live for but for
him and you? But I will not give up that duty. What have I to do with
your arguments? It was a yearning of _his_ heart, and therefore it is a
yearning of mine.”

Her voice, from having been tremulous, had become full and firm. She
felt that she had been urged on to say all that it was needful for her
to say. She thought, poor thing, there was nothing harder to come than
this struggle against Tito’s suggestions as against the meaner part of
herself.

He had begun to see clearly that he could not persuade her into assent:
he must take another course, and show her that the time for resistance
was past. That, at least, would put an end to further struggle; and if
the disclosure were not made by himself to-night, to-morrow it must be
made in another way. This necessity nerved his courage; and his
experience of her affectionateness and unexpected submissiveness, ever
since their marriage until now, encouraged him to hope that, at last,
she would accommodate herself to what had been his will.

“I am sorry to hear you speak in that spirit of blind persistence, my
Romola,” he said, quietly, “because it obliges me to give you pain. But
I partly foresaw your opposition, and as a prompt decision was
necessary, I avoided that obstacle, and decided without consulting you.
The very care of a husband for his wife’s interest compels him to that
separate action sometimes—even when he has such a wife as you, my
Romola.”

She turned her eyes on him in breathless inquiry.

“I mean,” he said, answering her look, “that I have arranged for the
transfer, both of the books and of the antiquities, where they will
find the highest use and value. The books have been bought for the Duke
of Milan, the marbles and bronzes and the rest are going to France: and
both will be protected by the stability of a great Power, instead of
remaining in a city which is exposed to ruin.”

Before he had finished speaking, Romola had started from her seat, and
stood up looking down at him, with tightened hands falling before her,
and, for the first time in her life, with a flash of fierceness in her
scorn and anger.

“You have _sold_ them?” she asked, as if she distrusted her ears.

“I have,” said Tito, quailing a little. The scene was unpleasant—the
descending scorn already scorched him.

“You are a treacherous man!” she said, with something grating in her
voice, as she looked down at him.

She was silent for a minute, and he sat still, feeling that ingenuity
was powerless just now. Suddenly she turned away, and said in an
agitated tone, “It may be hindered—I am going to my godfather.”

In an instant Tito started up, went to the door, locked it, and took
out the key. It was time for all the masculine predominance that was
latent in him to show itself. But he was not angry; he only felt that
the moment was eminently unpleasant, and that when this scene was at an
end he should be glad to keep away from Romola for a little while. But
it was absolutely necessary first that she should be reduced to
passiveness.

“Try to calm yourself a little, Romola,” he said, leaning in the
easiest attitude possible against a pedestal under the bust of a grim
old Roman. Not that he was inwardly easy: his heart palpitated with a
moral dread, against which no chain-armour could be found. He had
locked in his wife’s anger and scorn, but he had been obliged to lock
himself in with it; and his blood did not rise with contest—his olive
cheek was perceptibly paled.

Romola had paused and turned her eyes on him as she saw him take his
stand and lodge the key in his scarsella. Her eyes were flashing, and
her whole frame seemed to be possessed by impetuous force that wanted
to leap out in some deed. All the crushing pain of disappointment in
her husband, which had made the strongest part of her consciousness a
few minutes before, was annihilated by the vehemence of her
indignation. She could not care in this moment that the man she was
despising as he leaned there in his loathsome beauty—she could not care
that he was her husband; she could only feel that she despised him. The
pride and fierceness of the old Bardo blood had been thoroughly awaked
in her for the first time.

“Try at least to understand the fact,” said Tito, “and do not seek to
take futile steps which may be fatal. It is of no use for you to go to
your godfather. Messer Bernardo cannot reverse what I have done. Only
sit down. You would hardly wish, if you were quite yourself, to make
known to any third person what passes between us in private.”

Tito knew that he had touched the right fibre there. But she did not
sit down; she was too unconscious of her body voluntarily to change her
attitude.

“Why can it not be reversed?” she said, after a pause. “Nothing is
moved yet.”

“Simply because the sale has been concluded by written agreement; the
purchasers have left Florence, and I hold the bonds for the
purchase-money.”

“If my father had suspected you of being a faithless man,” said Romola,
in a tone of bitter scorn, which insisted on darting out before she
could say anything else, “he would have placed the library safely out
of your power. But death overtook him too soon, and when you were sure
his ear was deaf, and his hand stiff, you robbed him.” She paused an
instant, and then said, with gathered passion, “Have you robbed
somebody else, who is _not_ dead? Is that the reason you wear armour?”

Romola had been driven to utter the words as men are driven to use the
lash of the horsewhip. At first, Tito felt horribly cowed; it seemed to
him that the disgrace he had been dreading would be worse than he had
imagined it. But soon there was a reaction: such power of dislike and
resistance as there was within him was beginning to rise against a wife
whose voice seemed like the herald of a retributive fate. Her, at
least, his quick mind told him that he might master.

“It is useless,” he said, coolly, “to answer the words of madness,
Romola. Your peculiar feeling about your father has made you mad at
this moment. Any rational person looking at the case from a due
distance will see that I have taken the wisest course. Apart from the
influence of your exaggerated feelings on him, I am convinced that
Messer Bernardo would be of that opinion.”

“He would not!” said Romola. “He lives in the hope of seeing my
father’s wish exactly fulfilled. We spoke of it together only
yesterday. He will help me yet. Who are these men to whom you have sold
my father’s property?”

“There is no reason why you should not be told, except that it
signifies little. The Count di San Severino and the Seneschal de
Beaucaire are now on their way with the king to Siena.”

“They may be overtaken and persuaded to give up their purchase,” said
Romola, eagerly, her anger beginning to be surmounted by anxious
thought.

“No, they may not,” said Tito, with cool decision.

“Why?”

“Because I do not choose that they should.”

“But if you were paid the money?—we will pay you the money,” said
Romola.

No words could have disclosed more fully her sense of alienation from
Tito; but they were spoken with less of bitterness than of anxious
pleading. And he felt stronger, for he saw that the first impulse of
fury was past.

“No, my Romola. Understand that such thoughts as these are
impracticable. You would not, in a reasonable moment, ask your
godfather to bury three thousand florins in addition to what he has
already paid on the library. I think your pride and delicacy would
shrink from that.”

She began to tremble and turn cold again with discouragement, and sank
down on the carved chest near which she was standing. He went on in a
clear voice, under which she shuddered, as if it had been a narrow cold
stream coursing over a hot cheek.

“Moreover, it is not my will that Messer Bernardo should advance the
money, even if the project were not an utterly wild one. And I beg you
to consider, before you take any step or utter any word on the subject,
what will be the consequences of your placing yourself in opposition to
me, and trying to exhibit your husband in the odious light which your
own distempered feelings cast over him. What object will you serve by
injuring me with Messer Bernardo? The event is irrevocable, the library
is sold, and you are my wife.”

Every word was spoken for the sake of a calculated effect, for his
intellect was urged into the utmost activity by the danger of the
crisis. He knew that Romola’s mind would take in rapidly enough all the
wide meaning of his speech. He waited and watched her in silence.

She had turned her eyes from him, and was looking on the ground, and in
that way she sat for several minutes. When she spoke, her voice was
quite altered,—it was quiet and cold.

“I have one thing to ask.”

“Ask anything that I can do without injuring us both, Romola.”

“That you will give me that portion of the money which belongs to my
godfather, and let me pay him.”

“I must have some assurance from you, first, of the attitude you intend
to take towards me.”

“Do you believe in assurances, Tito?” she said, with a tinge of
returning bitterness.

“From you, I do.”

“I will do you no harm. I shall disclose nothing. I will say nothing to
pain him or you. You say truly, the event is irrevocable.”

“Then I will do what you desire to-morrow morning.”

“To-night, if possible,” said Romola, “that we may not speak of it
again.”

“It is possible,” he said, moving towards the lamp, while she sat
still, looking away from him with absent eyes.

Presently he came and bent down over her, to put a piece of paper into
her hand. “You will receive something in return, you are aware, my
Romola?” he said, gently, not minding so much what had passed, now he
was secure; and feeling able to try and propitiate her.

“Yes,” she said, taking the paper, without looking at him, “I
understand.”

“And you will forgive me, my Romola, when you have had time to
reflect.” He just touched her brow with his lips, but she took no
notice, and seemed really unconscious of the act. She was aware that he
unlocked the door and went out. She moved her head and listened. The
great door of the court opened and shut again. She started up as if
some sudden freedom had come, and going to her father’s chair where his
picture was propped, fell on her knees before it, and burst into sobs.




CHAPTER XXXIII.
Baldassarre makes an Acquaintance.


When Baldassarre was wandering about Florence in search of a spare
outhouse where he might have the cheapest of sheltered beds, his steps
had been attracted towards that sole portion of ground within the walls
of the city which is not perfectly level, and where the spectator,
lifted above the roofs of the houses, can see beyond the city to the
protecting hills and far-stretching valley, otherwise shut out from his
view except along the welcome opening made by the course of the Arno.
Part of that ground has been already seen by us as the hill of Bogoli,
at that time a great stone-quarry; but the side towards which
Baldassarre directed his steps was the one that sloped down behind the
Via de’ Bardi, and was most commonly called the hill of San Giorgio.
Bratti had told him that Tito’s dwelling was in the Via de’ Bardi; and,
after surveying that street, he turned up the slope of the hill which
he had observed as he was crossing the bridge. If he could find a
sheltering outhouse on that hill, he would be glad: he had now for some
years been accustomed to live with a broad sky about him; and,
moreover, the narrow passes of the streets, with their strip of sky
above, and the unknown labyrinth around them, seemed to intensify his
sense of loneliness and feeble memory.

The hill was sparsely inhabited, and covered chiefly by gardens; but in
one spot was a piece of rough ground jagged with great stones, which
had never been cultivated since a landslip had ruined some houses there
towards the end of the thirteenth century. Just above the edge of this
broken ground stood a queer little square building, looking like a
truncated tower roofed in with fluted tiles, and close by was a small
outhouse, apparently built up against a piece of ruined stone wall.
Under a large half-dead mulberry-tree that was now sending its last
fluttering leaves in at the open doorways, a shrivelled, hardy old
woman was untying a goat with two kids, and Baldassarre could see that
part of the outbuilding was occupied by live stock; but the door of the
other part was open, and it was empty of everything but some tools and
straw. It was just the sort of place he wanted. He spoke to the old
woman; but it was not till he got close to her and shouted in her ear,
that he succeeded in making her understand his want of a lodging, and
his readiness to pay for it. At first he could get no answer beyond
shakes of the head and the words, “No—no lodging,” uttered in the
muffled tone of the deaf. But, by dint of persistence, he made clear to
her that he was a poor stranger from a long way over seas, and could
not afford to go to hostelries; that he only wanted to lie on the straw
in the outhouse, and would pay her a quattrino or two a week for that
shelter. She still looked at him dubiously, shaking her head and
talking low to herself; but presently, as if a new thought occurred to
her, she fetched a hatchet from the house, and, showing him a chump
that lay half covered with litter in a corner, asked him if he would
chop that up for her: if he would, he might lie in the outhouse for one
night. He agreed, and Monna Lisa stood with her arms akimbo to watch
him, with a smile of gratified cunning, saying low to herself—

“It’s lain there ever since my old man died. What then? I might as well
have put a stone on the fire. He chops very well, though he does speak
with a foreign tongue, and looks odd. I couldn’t have got it done
cheaper. And if he only wants a bit of straw to lie on, I might make
him do an errand or two up and down the hill. Who need know? And sin
that’s hidden’s half forgiven. (‘Peccato celato e mezzo perdonato.’)
He’s a stranger: he’ll take no notice of _her_. And I’ll tell her to
keep her tongue still.”

The antecedent to these feminine pronouns had a pair of blue eyes,
which at that moment were applied to a large round hole in the shutter
of the upper window. The shutter was closed, not for any penal reasons,
but because only the opposite window had the luxury of glass in it: the
weather was not warm, and a round hole four inches in diameter served
all the purposes of observation. The hole was, unfortunately, a little
too high, and obliged the small observer to stand on a low stool of a
rickety character; but Tessa would have stood a long while in a much
more inconvenient position for the sake of seeing a little variety in
her life. She had been drawn to the opening at the first loud tones of
the strange voice speaking to Monna Lisa; and darting gently across her
room every now and then to peep at something, she continued to stand
there until the wood had been chopped, and she saw Baldassarre enter
the outhouse, as the dusk was gathering, and seat himself on the straw.

A great temptation had laid hold of Tessa’s mind; she would go and take
that old man part of her supper, and talk to him a little. He was not
deaf like Monna Lisa, and besides she could say a great many things to
him that it was no use to shout at Monna Lisa, who knew them already.
And he was a stranger—strangers came from a long way off and went away
again, and lived nowhere in particular. It was naughty, she knew, for
obedience made the largest part in Tessa’s idea of duty; but it would
be something to confess to the Padre next Pasqua, and there was nothing
else to confess except going to sleep sometimes over her beads, and
being a little cross with Monna Lisa because she was so deaf; for she
had as much idleness as she liked now, and was never frightened into
telling white lies. She turned away from her shutter with rather an
excited expression in her childish face, which was as pretty and
pouting as ever. Her garb was still that of a simple contadina, but of
a contadina prepared for a festa: her gown of dark-green serge, with
its red girdle, was very clean and neat; she had the string of red
glass beads round her neck; and her brown hair, rough from curliness,
was duly knotted up, and fastened with the silver pin. She had but one
new ornament, and she was very proud of it, for it was a fine gold
ring.

Tessa sat on the low stool, nursing her knees, for a minute or two,
with her little soul poised in fluttering excitement on the edge of
this pleasant transgression. It was quite irresistible. She had been
commanded to make no acquaintances, and warned that if she did, all her
new happy lot would vanish away, and be like a hidden treasure that
turned to lead as soon as it was brought to the daylight; and she had
been so obedient that when she had to go to church she had kept her
face shaded by her hood and had pursed up her lips quite tightly. It
was true her obedience had been a little helped by her own dread lest
the alarming stepfather Nofri should turn up even in this quarter, so
far from the Por’ del Prato, and beat her at least, if he did not drag
her back to work for him. But this old man was not an acquaintance; he
was a poor stranger going to sleep in the outhouse, and he probably
knew nothing of stepfather Nofri; and, besides, if she took him some
supper, he would like her, and not want to tell anything about her.
Monna Lisa would say she must not go and talk to him, therefore Monna
Lisa must not be consulted. It did not signify what she found out after
it had been done.

Supper was being prepared, she knew—a mountain of macaroni flavoured
with cheese, fragrant enough to tame any stranger. So she tripped
down-stairs with a mind full of deep designs, and first asking with an
innocent look what that noise of talking had been, without waiting for
an answer, knit her brow with a peremptory air, something like a kitten
trying to be formidable, and sent the old woman upstairs; saying, she
chose to eat her supper down below. In three minutes Tessa with her
lantern in one hand and a wooden bowl of macaroni in the other, was
kicking gently at the door of the outhouse; and Baldassarre, roused
from sad reverie, doubted in the first moment whether he were awake as
he opened the door and saw this surprising little handmaid, with
delight in her wide eyes, breaking in on his dismal loneliness.

“I’ve brought you some supper,” she said, lifting her mouth towards his
ear and shouting, as if he had been deaf like Monna Lisa. “Sit down and
eat it, while I stay with you.”

Surprise and distrust surmounted every other feeling in Baldassarre,
but though he had no smile or word of gratitude ready, there could not
be any impulse to push away this visitant, and he sank down passively
on his straw again, while Tessa placed herself close to him, put the
wooden bowl on his lap, and set down the lantern in front of them,
crossing her hands before her, and nodding at the bowl with a
significant smile, as much as to say, “Yes, you may really eat it.”
For, in the excitement of carrying out her deed, she had forgotten her
previous thought that the stranger would not be deaf, and had fallen
into her habitual alternative of dumb show and shouting.

The invitation was not a disagreeable one, for he had been gnawing a
remnant of dry bread, which had left plenty of appetite for anything
warm and relishing. Tessa watched the disappearance of two or three
mouthfuls without speaking, for she had thought his eyes rather fierce
at first; but now she ventured to put her mouth to his ear again and
cry—

“I like my supper, don’t you?”

It was not a smile, but rather the milder look of a dog touched by
kindness, but unable to smile, that Baldassarre turned on this round
blue-eyed thing that was caring about him.

“Yes,” he said; “but I can hear well—I’m not deaf.”

“It is true; I forgot,” said Tessa, lifting her hands and clasping
them. “But Monna Lisa is deaf, and I live with her. She’s a kind old
woman, and I’m not frightened at her. And we live very well: we have
plenty of nice things. I can have nuts if I like. And I’m not obliged
to work now. I used to have to work, and I didn’t like it; but I liked
feeding the mules, and I should like to see poor Giannetta, the little
mule, again. We’ve only got a goat and two kids, and I used to talk to
the goat a good deal, because there was nobody else but Monna Lisa. But
now I’ve got something else—can you guess what it is?”

She drew her head back, and looked with a challenging smile at
Baldassarre, as if she had proposed a difficult riddle to him.

“No,” said he, putting aside his bowl, and looking at her dreamily. It
seemed as if this young prattling thing were some memory come back out
of his own youth.

“You like me to talk to you, don’t you?” said Tessa, “but you must not
tell anybody. Shall I fetch you a bit of cold sausage?”

He shook his head, but he looked so mild now that Tessa felt quite at
her ease.

“Well, then, I’ve got a little baby. Such a pretty bambinetto, with
little fingers and nails! Not old yet; it was born at the Nativita,
Monna Lisa says. I was married one Nativita, a long, long while ago,
and nobody knew. O Santa Madonna! I didn’t mean to tell you that!”

Tessa set up her shoulders and bit her lip, looking at Baldassarre as
if this betrayal of secrets must have an exciting effect on him too.
But he seemed not to care much; and perhaps that was in the nature of
strangers.

“Yes,” she said, carrying on her thought aloud, “you are a stranger;
you don’t live anywhere or know anybody, do you?”

“No,” said Baldassarre, also thinking aloud, rather than consciously
answering, “I only know one man.”

“His name is not Nofri, is it?” said Tessa, anxiously.

“No,” said Baldassarre, noticing her look of fear. “Is that your
husband’s name?”

That mistaken supposition was very amusing to Tessa. She laughed and
clapped her hands as she said—

“No, indeed! But I must not tell you anything about my husband. You
would never think what he is—not at all like Nofri!”

She laughed again at the delightful incongruity between the name of
Nofri—which was not separable from the idea of the cross-grained
stepfather—and the idea of her husband.

“But I don’t see him very often,” she went on, more gravely. “And
sometimes I pray to the Holy Madonna to send him oftener, and once she
did. But I must go back to my bimbo now. I’ll bring it to show you
to-morrow. You would like to see it. Sometimes it cries and makes a
face, but only when it’s hungry, Monna Lisa says. You wouldn’t think
it, but Monna Lisa had babies once, and they are all dead old men. My
husband says she will never die now, because she’s so well dried. I’m
glad of that, for I’m fond of her. You would like to stay here
to-morrow, shouldn’t you?”

“I should like to have this place to come and rest in, that’s all,”
said Baldassarre. “I would pay for it, and harm nobody.”

“No, indeed; I think you are not a bad old man. But you look sorry
about something. Tell me, is there anything you shall cry about when I
leave you by yourself? _I_ used to cry once.”

“No, child; I think I shall cry no more.”

“That’s right; and I’ll bring you some breakfast, and show you the
bimbo. Good-night.”

Tessa took up her bowl and lantern, and closed the door behind her. The
pretty loving apparition had been no more to Baldassarre than a faint
rainbow on the blackness to the man who is wrestling in deep waters. He
hardly thought of her again till his dreamy waking passed into the more
vivid images of disturbed sleep.

But Tessa thought much of him. She had no sooner entered the house than
she told Monna Lisa what she had done, and insisted that the stranger
should be allowed to come and rest in the outhouse when he liked. The
old woman, who had had her notions of making him a useful tenant, made
a great show of reluctance, shook her head, and urged that Messer Naldo
would be angry if she let any one come about the house. Tessa did not
believe that. Naldo had said nothing against strangers who lived
nowhere; and this old man knew nobody except one person, who was not
Nofri.

“Well,” conceded Monna Lisa, at last, “if I let him stay for a while
and carry things up the hill for me, thou must keep thy counsel and
tell nobody.”

“No,” said Tessa, “I’ll only tell the bimbo.”

“And then,” Monna Lisa went on, in her thick undertone, “God may love
us well enough not to let Messer Naldo find out anything about it. For
he never comes here but at dark; and as he was here two days ago, it’s
likely he’ll never come at all till the old man’s gone away again.”

“Oh me! Monna,” said Tessa, clasping her hands, “I wish Naldo had not
to go such a long, long way sometimes before he comes back again.”

“Ah, child! the world’s big, they say. There are places behind the
mountains, and if people go night and day, night and day, they get to
Rome, and see the Holy Father.”

Tessa looked submissive in the presence of this mystery, and began to
rock her baby, and sing syllables of vague loving meaning, in tones
that imitated a triple chime.

The next morning she was unusually industrious in the prospect of more
dialogue, and of the pleasure she should give the poor old stranger by
showing him her baby. But before she could get ready to take
Baldassarre his breakfast, she found that Monna Lisa had been employing
him as a drawer of water. She deferred her paternosters, and hurried
down to insist that Baldassarre should sit on his straw, so that she
might come and sit by him again while he ate his breakfast. That
attitude made the new companionship all the more delightful to Tessa,
for she had been used to sitting on straw in old days along with her
goats and mules.

“I will not let Monna Lisa give you too much work to do,” she said,
bringing him some steaming broth and soft bread. “I don’t like much
work, and I daresay you don’t. I like sitting in the sunshine and
feeding things. Monna Lisa says, work is good, but she does it all
herself, so I don’t mind. She’s not a cross old woman; you needn’t be
afraid of her being cross. And now, you eat that, and I’ll go and fetch
my baby and show it you.”

Presently she came back with the small mummy-case in her arms. The
mummy looked very lively, having unusually large dark eyes, though no
more than the usual indication of a future nose.

“This is my baby,” said Tessa, seating herself close to Baldassarre.
“You didn’t think it was so pretty, did you? It is like the little
Gesu, and I should think the Santa Madonna would be kinder to me now,
is it not true? But I have not much to ask for, because I have
everything now—only that I should see my husband oftener. You may hold
the bambino a little if you like, but I think you must not kiss him,
because you might hurt him.”

She spoke this prohibition in a tone of soothing excuse, and
Baldassarre could not refuse to hold the small package. “Poor thing!
poor thing!” he said, in a deep voice which had something strangely
threatening in its apparent pity. It did not seem to him as if this
guileless loving little woman could reconcile him to the world at all,
but rather that she was with him against the world, that she was a
creature who would need to be avenged.

“Oh, don’t you be sorry for me,” she said; “for though I don’t see him
often, he is more beautiful and good than anybody else in the world. I
say prayers to him when he’s away. You couldn’t think what he is!”

She looked at Baldassarre with a wide glance of mysterious meaning,
taking the baby from him again, and almost wishing he would question
her as if he wanted very much to know more.

“Yes, I could,” said Baldassarre, rather bitterly.

“No, I’m sure you never could,” said Tessa, earnestly. “You thought he
might be Nofri,” she added, with a triumphant air of conclusiveness.
“But never mind; you couldn’t know. What is your name?”

He rubbed his hand over his knitted brow, then looked at her blankly
and said, “Ah, child, what is it?”

It was not that he did not often remember his name well enough; and if
he had had presence of mind now to remember it, he would have chosen
not to tell it. But a sudden question appealing to his memory, had a
paralysing effect, and in that moment he was conscious of nothing but
helplessness.

Ignorant as Tessa was, the pity stirred in her by his blank look taught
her to say—

“_Never_ mind: you are a stranger, it is no matter about your having a
name. Good-bye now, because I want my breakfast. You will come here and
rest when you like; Monna Lisa says you may. And don’t you be unhappy,
for we’ll be good to you.”

“Poor thing!” said Baldassarre again.




CHAPTER XXXIV.
No Place for Repentance.


Messer Naldo came again sooner than was expected: he came on the
evening of the twenty-eighth of November, only eleven days after his
previous visit, proving that he had not gone far beyond the mountains;
and a scene which we have witnessed as it took place that evening in
the Via de’ Bardi may help to explain the impulse which turned his
steps towards the hill of San Giorgio.

When Tito had first found this home for Tessa, on his return from Rome,
more than a year and a half ago, he had acted, he persuaded himself,
simply under the constraint imposed on him by his own kindliness after
the unlucky incident which had made foolish little Tessa imagine him to
be her husband. It was true that the kindness was manifested towards a
pretty trusting thing whom it was impossible to be near without feeling
inclined to caress and pet her; but it was not less true that Tito had
movements of kindness towards her apart from any contemplated gain to
himself. Otherwise, charming as her prettiness and prattle were in a
lazy moment, he might have preferred to be free from her; for he was
not in love with Tessa—he was in love for the first time in his life
with an entirely different woman, whom he was not simply inclined to
shower caresses on, but whose presence possessed him so that the simple
sweep of her long tresses across his cheek seemed to vibrate through
the hours. All the young ideal passion he had in him had been stirred
by Romola, and his fibre was too fine, his intellect too bright, for
him to be tempted into the habits of a gross pleasure-seeker. But he
had spun a web about himself and Tessa, which he felt incapable of
breaking: in the first moments after the mimic marriage he had been
prompted to leave her under an illusion by a distinct calculation of
his own possible need, but since that critical moment it seemed to him
that the web had gone on spinning itself in spite of him, like a growth
over which he had no power. The elements of kindness and
self-indulgence are hard to distinguish in a soft nature like Tito’s;
and the annoyance he had felt under Tessa’s pursuit of him on the day
of his betrothal, the thorough intention of revealing the truth to her
with which he set out to fulfil his promise of seeing her again, were a
sufficiently strong argument to him that in ultimately leaving Tessa
under her illusion and providing a home for her, he had been overcome
by his own kindness. And in these days of his first devotion to Romola
he needed a self-justifying argument. He had learned to be glad that
she was deceived about some things. But every strong feeling makes to
itself a conscience of its own—has its own piety; just as much as the
feeling of the son towards the mother, which will sometimes survive
amid the worst fumes of depravation; and Tito could not yet be easy in
committing a secret offence against his wedded love.

But he was all the more careful in taking precautions to preserve the
secrecy of the offence. Monna Lisa, who, like many of her class, never
left her habitation except to go to one or two particular shops, and to
confession once a year, knew nothing of his real name and whereabout:
she only know that he paid her so as to make her very comfortable, and
minded little about the rest, save that she got fond of Tessa, and
found pleasure in the cares for which she was paid. There was some
mystery behind, clearly, since Tessa was a contadina, and Messer Naldo
was a signor; but, for aught Monna Lisa knew, he might be a real
husband. For Tito had thoroughly frightened Tessa into silence about
the circumstances of their marriage, by telling her that if she broke
that silence she would never see him again; and Monna Lisa’s deafness,
which made it impossible to say anything to her without some
premeditation, had saved Tessa from any incautious revelation to her,
such as had run off her tongue in talking with Baldassarre. For a long
while Tito’s visits were so rare, that it seemed likely enough he took
journeys between them. They were prompted chiefly by the desire to see
that all things were going on well with Tessa; and though he always
found his visit pleasanter than the prospect of it—always felt anew the
charm of that pretty ignorant lovingness and trust—he had not yet any
real need of it. But he was determined, if possible, to preserve the
simplicity on which the charm depended; to keep Tessa a genuine
contadina, and not place the small field-flower among conditions that
would rob it of its grace. He would have been shocked to see her in the
dress of any other rank than her own; the piquancy of her talk would be
all gone, if things began to have new relations for her, if her world
became wider, her pleasures less childish; and the squirrel-like
enjoyment of nuts at discretion marked the standard of the luxuries he
had provided for her. By this means, Tito saved Tessa’s charm from
being sullied; and he also, by a convenient coincidence, saved himself
from aggravating expenses that were already rather importunate to a man
whose money was all required for his avowed habits of life.

This, in brief, had been the history of Tito’s relation to Tessa up to
a very recent date. It is true that once or twice before Bardo’s death,
the sense that there was Tessa up the hill, with whom it was possible
to pass an hour agreeably, had been an inducement to him to escape from
a little weariness of the old man, when, for lack of any positive
engagement, he might otherwise have borne the weariness patiently and
shared Romola’s burden. But the moment when he had first felt a real
hunger for Tessa’s ignorant lovingness and belief in _him_ had not come
till quite lately, and it was distinctly marked out by circumstances as
little to be forgotten as the oncoming of a malady that has permanently
vitiated the sight and hearing. It was the day when he had first seen
Baldassarre, and had bought the armour. Returning across the bridge
that night, with the coat of mail in his hands, he had felt an
unconquerable shrinking from an immediate encounter with Romola. She,
too, knew little of the actual world; she, too, trusted him; but he had
an uneasy consciousness that behind her frank eyes there was a nature
that could judge him, and that any ill-founded trust of hers sprang not
from pretty brute-like incapacity, but from a nobleness which might
prove an alarming touchstone. He wanted a little ease, a little repose
from self-control, after the agitation and exertions of the day; he
wanted to be where he could adjust his mind to the morrow, without
caring how he behaved at the present moment. And there was a sweet
adoring creature within reach whose presence was as safe and
unconstraining as that of her own kids,—who would believe any fable,
and remain quite unimpressed by public opinion. And so on that evening,
when Romola was waiting and listening for him, he turned his steps up
the hill.

No wonder, then, that the steps took the same course on this evening,
eleven days later, when he had had to recoil under Romola’s first
outburst of scorn. He could not wish Tessa in his wife’s place, or
refrain from wishing that his wife should be thoroughly reconciled to
him; for it was Romola, and not Tessa, that belonged to the world where
all the larger desires of a man who had ambition and effective
faculties must necessarily lie. But he wanted a refuge from a standard
disagreeably rigorous, of which he could not make himself independent
simply by thinking it folly; and Tessa’s little soul was that inviting
refuge.

It was not much more than eight o’clock when he went up the stone steps
to the door of Tessa’s room. Usually she heard his entrance into the
house, and ran to meet him, but not to-night; and when he opened the
door he saw the reason. A single dim light was burning above the dying
fire, and showed Tessa in a kneeling attitude by the head of the bed
where the baby lay. Her head had fallen aside on the pillow, and her
brown rosary, which usually hung above the pillow over the picture of
the Madonna and the golden palm-branches, lay in the loose grasp of her
right-hand. She had gone fast asleep over her beads. Tito stepped
lightly across the little room, and sat down close to her. She had
probably heard the opening of the door as part of her dream, for he had
not been looking at her two moments before she opened her eyes. She
opened them without any start, and remained quite motionless looking at
him, as if the sense that he was there smiling at her shut out any
impulse which could disturb that happy passiveness. But when he put his
hand under her chin, and stooped to kiss her, she said—

“I dreamed it, and then I said it was dreaming—and then I awoke, and it
was true.”

“Little sinner!” said Tito, pinching her chin, “you have not said half
your prayers. I will punish you by not looking at your baby; it is
ugly.”

Tessa did not like those words, even though Tito was smiling. She had
some pouting distress in her face, as she said, bending anxiously over
the baby—

“Ah, it is not true! He is prettier than anything. You do not think he
is ugly. You will look at him. He is even prettier than when you saw
him before—only he’s asleep, and you can’t see his eyes or his tongue,
and I can’t show you his hair—and it grows—isn’t that wonderful? Look
at him! It’s true his face is very much all alike when he’s asleep,
there is not so much to see as when he’s awake. If you kiss him very
gently, he won’t wake: you want to kiss him, is it not true?”

He satisfied her by giving the small mummy a butterfly kiss, and then
putting his hand on her shoulder and turning her face towards him,
said, “You like looking at the baby better than looking at your
husband, you false one!”

She was still kneeling, and now rested her hands on his knee, looking
up at him like one of Fra Lippo Lippi’s round-cheeked adoring angels.

“No,” she said, shaking her head; “I love you always best, only I want
you to look at the bambino and love him; I used only to want you to
love me.”

“And did you expect me to come again so soon?” said Tito, inclined to
make her prattle. He still felt the effects of the agitation he had
undergone—still felt like a man who has been violently jarred; and this
was the easiest relief from silence and solitude.

“Ah, no,” said Tessa, “I have counted the days—to-day I began at my
right thumb again—since you put on the beautiful chain-coat, that
Messer San Michele gave you to take care of you on your journey. And
you have got it on now,” she said, peeping through the opening in the
breast of his tunic. “Perhaps it made you come back sooner.”

“Perhaps it did, Tessa,” he said. “But don’t mind the coat now. Tell me
what has happened since I was here. Did you see the tents in the Prato,
and the soldiers and horsemen when they passed the bridges—did you hear
the drums and trumpets?”

“Yes, and I was rather frightened, because I thought the soldiers might
come up here. And Monna Lisa was a little afraid too, for she said they
might carry our kids off; she said it was their business to do
mischief. But the Holy Madonna took care of us, for we never saw one of
them up here. But something has happened, only I hardly dare tell you,
and that is what I was saying more Aves for.”

“What do you mean, Tessa?” said Tito, rather anxiously. “Make haste and
tell me.”

“Yes, but will you let me sit on your knee? because then I think I
shall not be so frightened.”

He took her on his knee, and put his arm round her, but looked grave:
it seemed that something unpleasant must pursue him even here.

“At first I didn’t mean to tell you,” said Tessa, speaking almost in a
whisper, as if that would mitigate the offence; “because we thought the
old man would be gone away before you came again, and it would be as if
it had not been. But now he is there, and you are come, and I never did
anything you told me not to do before. And I want to tell you, and then
you will perhaps forgive me, for it is a long while before I go to
confession.”

“Yes, tell me everything, my Tessa.” He began to hope it was after all
a trivial matter.

“Oh, you will be sorry for him: I’m afraid he cries about something
when I don’t see him. But that was not the reason I went to him first;
it was because I wanted to talk to him and show him my baby, and he was
a stranger that lived nowhere, and I thought you wouldn’t care so much
about my talking to him. And I think he is not a bad old man, and he
wanted to come and sleep on the straw next to the goats, and I made
Monna Lisa say, ‘Yes, he might,’ and he’s away all the day almost, but
when he comes back I talk to him, and take him something to eat.”

“Some beggar, I suppose. It was naughty of you, Tessa, and I am angry
with Monna Lisa. I must have him sent away.”

“No, I think he is not a beggar, for he wanted to pay Monna Lisa, only
she asked him to do work for her instead. And he gets himself shaved,
and his clothes are tidy: Monna Lisa says he is a decent man. But
sometimes I think he is not in his right mind: Lupo, at Peretola, was
not in his right mind, and he looks a little like Lupo sometimes, as if
he didn’t know where he was.”

“What sort of face has he?” said Tito, his heart beginning to beat
strangely. He was so haunted by the thought of Baldassarre, that it was
already he whom he saw in imagination sitting on the straw not many
yards from him. “Fetch your stool, my Tessa, and sit on it.”

“Shall you not forgive me?” she said, timidly, moving from his knee.

“Yes, I will not be angry—only sit down, and tell me what sort of old
man this is.”

“I can’t think how to tell you: he is not like my stepfather Nofri, or
anybody. His face is yellow, and he has deep marks in it; and his hair
is white, but there is none on the top of his head: and his eyebrows
are black, and he looks from under them at me, and says, ‘Poor thing!’
to me, as if he thought I was beaten as I used to be; and that seems as
if he couldn’t be in his right mind, doesn’t it? And I asked him his
name once, but he couldn’t tell it me: yet everybody has a name—is it
not true? And he has a book now, and keeps looking at it ever so long,
as if he were a Padre. But I think he is not saying prayers, for his
lips never move;—ah, you are angry with me, or is it because you are
sorry for the old man?”

Tito’s eyes were still fixed on Tessa; but he had ceased to see her,
and was only seeing the objects her words suggested. It was this absent
glance which frightened her, and she could not help going to kneel at
his side again. But he did not heed her, and she dared not touch him,
or speak to him: she knelt, trembling and wondering; and this state of
mind suggesting her beads to her, she took them from the floor, and
began to tell them again, her pretty lips moving silently, and her blue
eyes wide with anxiety and struggling tears.

Tito was quite unconscious of her movements—unconscious of his own
attitude: he was in that wrapt state in which a man will grasp painful
roughness, and press and press it closer, and never feel it. A new
possibility had risen before him, which might dissolve at once the
wretched conditions of fear and suppression that were marring his life.
Destiny had brought within his reach an opportunity of retrieving that
moment on the steps of the Duomo, when the Past had grasped him with
living quivering hands, and he had disowned it. A few steps, and he
might be face to face with his father, with no witness by; he might
seek forgiveness and reconciliation; and there was money now, from the
sale of the library, to enable them to leave Florence without
disclosure, and go into Southern Italy, where under the probable French
rule, he had already laid a foundation for patronage. Romola need never
know the whole truth, for she could have no certain means of
identifying that prisoner in the Duomo with Baldassarre, or of learning
what had taken place on the steps, except from Baldassarre himself; and
if his father forgave, he would also consent to bury, that offence.

But with this possibility of relief, by an easy spring, from present
evil, there rose the other possibility, that the fierce-hearted man
might refuse to be propitiated. Well—and if he did, things would only
be as they had been before; for there would be _no witness by_. It was
not repentance with a white sheet round it and taper in hand,
confessing its hated sin in the eyes of men, that Tito was preparing
for: it was a repentance that would make all things pleasant again, and
keep all past unpleasant things secret. And Tito’s soft-heartedness,
his indisposition to feel himself in harsh relations with any creature,
was in strong activity towards his father, now his father was brought
near to him. It would be a state of ease that his nature could not but
desire, if the poisonous hatred in Baldassarre’s glance could be
replaced by something of the old affection and complacency.

Tito longed to have his world once again completely cushioned with
goodwill, and longed for it the more eagerly because of what he had
just suffered from the collision with Romola. It was not difficult to
him to smile pleadingly on those whom he had injured, and offer to do
them much kindness: and no quickness of intellect could tell him
exactly the taste of that honey on the lips of the injured. The
opportunity was there, and it raised an inclination which hemmed in the
calculating activity of his thought. He started up, and stepped towards
the door; but Tessa’s cry, as she dropped her beads, roused him from
his absorption. He turned and said—

“My Tessa, get me a lantern; and don’t cry, little pigeon, I am not
angry.”

They went down the stairs, and Tessa was going to shout the need of the
lantern in Monna Lisa’s ear, when Tito, who had opened the door, said,
“Stay, Tessa—no, I want no lantern: go upstairs again, and keep quiet,
and say nothing to Monna Lisa.”

In half a minute he stood before the closed door of the outhouse, where
the moon was shining white on the old paintless wood.

In this last decisive moment, Tito felt a tremor upon him—a sudden
instinctive shrinking from a possible tiger-glance, a possible
tiger-leap. Yet why should he, a young man, be afraid of an old one? a
young man with armour on, of an old man without a weapon? It was but a
moment’s hesitation, and Tito laid his hand on the door. Was his father
asleep? Was there nothing else but the door that screened him from the
voice and the glance which no magic could turn into ease?

Baldassarre was not asleep. There was a square opening high in the wall
of the hovel, through which the moonbeams sent in a stream of pale
light; and if Tito could have looked through the opening, he would have
seen his father seated on the straw, with something that shone like a
white star in his hand. Baldassarre was feeling the edge of his
poniard, taking refuge in that sensation from a hopeless blank of
thought that seemed to lie like a great gulf between his passion and
its aim.

He was in one of his most wretched moments of conscious helplessness:
he had been poring, while it was light, over the book that lay open
beside him; then he had been trying to recall the names of his jewels,
and the symbols engraved on them; and though at certain other times he
had recovered some of those names and symbols, to-night they were all
gone into darkness. And this effort at inward seeing had seemed to end
in utter paralysis of memory. He was reduced to a sort of mad
consciousness that he was a solitary pulse of just rage in a world
filled with defiant baseness. He had clutched and unsheathed his
dagger, and for a long while had been feeling its edge, his mind
narrowed to one image, and the dream of one sensation—the sensation of
plunging that dagger into a base heart, which he was unable to pierce
in any other way.

Tito had his hand on the door and was pulling it: it dragged against
the ground as such old doors often do, and Baldassarre, startled out of
his dreamlike state, rose from his sitting posture in vague amazement,
not knowing where he was. He had not yet risen to his feet, and was
still kneeling on one knee, when the door came wide open and he saw,
dark against the moonlight, with the rays falling on one bright mass of
curls and one rounded olive cheek, the image of his reverie—not
shadowy—close and real like water at the lips after the thirsty dream
of it. No thought could come athwart that eager thirst. In one moment,
before Tito could start back, the old man, with the preternatural force
of rage in his limbs, had sprung forward, and the dagger had flashed
out. In the next moment the dagger had snapped in two, and Baldassarre,
under the parrying force of Tito’s arm, had fallen back on the straw,
clutching the hilt with its bit of broken blade. The pointed end lay
shining against Tito’s feet.

Tito had felt one great heart-leap of terror as he had staggered under
the weight of the thrust: he felt now the triumph of deliverance and
safety. His armour had been proved, and vengeance lay helpless before
him. But the triumph raised no devilish impulse; on the contrary, the
sight of his father close to him and unable to injure him, made the
effort at reconciliation easier. He was free from fear, but he had only
the more unmixed and direct want to be free from the sense that he was
hated. After they had looked at each other a little while, Baldassarre
lying motionless in despairing rage, Tito said in his soft tones, just
as they had sounded before the last parting on the shores of Greece—

“_Padre mio_!” There was a pause after those words, but no movement or
sound till he said—

“I came to ask your forgiveness!”

Again he paused, that the healing balm of those words might have time
to work. But there was no sign of change in Baldassarre: he lay as he
had fallen, leaning on one arm: he was trembling, but it was from the
shock that had thrown him down.

“I was taken by surprise that morning. I wish now to be a son to you
again. I wish to make the rest of your life happy, that you may forget
what you have suffered.”

He paused again. He had used the clearest and strongest words he could
think of. It was useless to say more, until he had some sign that
Baldassarre understood him. Perhaps his mind was too distempered or too
imbecile even for that: perhaps the shock of his fall and his
disappointed rage might have quite suspended the use of his faculties.

Presently Baldassarre began to move. He threw away the broken dagger,
and slowly and gradually, still trembling, began to raise himself from
the ground. Tito put out his hand to help him, and so strangely quick
are men’s souls that in this moment, when he began to feel his
atonement was accepted, he had a darting thought of the irksome efforts
it entailed. Baldassarre clutched the hand that was held out, raised
himself and clutched it still, going close up to Tito till their faces
were not a foot off each other. Then he began to speak, in a deep
trembling voice—

“I saved you—I nurtured you—I loved you. You forsook me—you robbed
me—you denied me. What can you give me? You have made the world
bitterness to me; but there is one draught of sweetness left—_that you
shall know agony_.”

He let fall Tito’s hand, and going backwards a little, first rested his
arm on a projecting stone in the wall, and then sank again in a sitting
posture on the straw. The outleap of fury in the dagger-thrust had
evidently exhausted him.

Tito stood silent. If it had been a deep yearning emotion which had
brought him to ask his father’s forgiveness, the denial of it might
have caused him a pang which would have excluded the rushing train of
thought that followed those decisive words. As it was, though the
sentence of unchangeable hatred grated on him and jarred him terribly,
his mind glanced round with a self-preserving instinct to see how far
those words could have the force of a substantial threat. When he had
come down to speak to Baldassarre, he had said to himself that if his
effort at reconciliation failed, things would only be as they had been
before. The first glance of his mind was backward to that thought
again, but the future possibilities of danger that were conjured up
along with it brought the perception that things were _not_ as they had
been before, and the perception came as a triumphant relief. There was
not only the broken dagger, there was the certainty, from what Tessa
had told him, that Baldassarre’s mind was broken too, and had no edge
that could reach him. Tito felt he had no choice now: he must defy
Baldassarre as a mad, imbecile old man; and the chances were so
strongly on his side that there was hardly room for fear. No; except
the fear of having to do many unpleasant things in order to save
himself from what was yet more unpleasant. And one of those unpleasant
things must be done immediately: it was very difficult.

“Do you mean to stay here?” he said.

“No,” said Baldassarre, bitterly, “you mean to turn me out.”

“Not so,” said Tito; “I only ask.”

“I tell you, you have turned me out. If it is your straw, you turned me
off it three years ago.”

“Then you mean to leave this place?” said Tito, more anxious about this
certainty than the ground of it.

“I have spoken,” said Baldassarre.

Tito turned and re-entered the house. Monna Lisa was nodding; he went
up to Tessa, and found her crying by the side of her baby.

“Tessa,” he said, sitting down and taking her head between his hands;
“leave off crying, little goose, and listen to me.”

He lifted her chin upward, that she might look at him, while he spoke
very distinctly and emphatically.

“You must never speak to that old man again. He is a mad old man, and
he wants to kill me. Never speak to him or listen to him again.”

Tessa’s tears had ceased, and her lips were pale with fright.

“Is he gone away?” she whispered.

“He will go away. Remember what I have said to you.”

“Yes; I will never speak to a stranger any more,” said Tessa, with a
sense of guilt.

He told her, to comfort her, that he would come again to-morrow; and
then went down to Monna Lisa to rebuke her severely for letting a
dangerous man come about the house.

Tito felt that these were odious tasks; they were very evil-tasted
morsels, but they were forced upon him. He heard Monna Lisa fasten the
door behind him, and turned away, without looking towards the open door
of the hovel. He felt secure that Baldassarre would go, and he could
not wait to see him go. Even _his_ young frame and elastic spirit were
shattered by the agitations that had been crowded into this single
evening.

Baldassarre was still sitting on the straw when the shadow of Tito
passed by. Before him lay the fragments of the broken dagger; beside
him lay the open book, over which he had pored in vain. They looked
like mocking symbols of his utter helplessness; and his body was still
too trembling for him to rise and walk away.

But the next morning, very early, when Tessa peeped anxiously through
the hole in her shutter, the door of the hovel was open, and the
strange old man was gone.




CHAPTER XXXV.
What Florence was thinking of.


For several days Tito saw little of Romola. He told her gently, the
next morning, that it would be better for her to remove any small
articles of her own from the library, as there would be agents coming
to pack up the antiquities. Then, leaning to kiss her on the brow, he
suggested that she should keep in her own room where the little painted
tabernacle was, and where she was then sitting, so that she might be
away from the noise of strange footsteps, Romola assented quietly,
making no sign of emotion: the night had been one long waking to her,
and, in spite of her healthy frame, sensation had become a dull
continuous pain, as if she had been stunned and bruised. Tito divined
that she felt ill, but he dared say no more; he only dared, perceiving
that her hand and brow were stone cold, to fetch a furred mantle and
throw it lightly round her. And in every brief interval that he
returned to her, the scene was nearly the same: he tried to propitiate
her by some unobtrusive act or word of tenderness, and she seemed to
have lost the power of speaking to him, or of looking at him.
“Patience!” he said to himself. “She will recover it, and forgive at
last. The tie to me must still remain the strongest.” When the stricken
person is slow to recover and look as if nothing had happened, the
striker easily glides into the position of the aggrieved party; he
feels no bruise himself, and is strongly conscious of his own amiable
behaviour since he inflicted the blow. But Tito was not naturally
disposed to feel himself aggrieved; the constant bent of his mind was
towards propitiation, and he would have submitted to much for the sake
of feeling Romola’s hand resting on his head again, as it did that
morning when he first shrank from looking at her.

But he found it the less difficult to wait patiently for the return of
his home happiness, because his life out of doors was more and more
interesting to him. A course of action which is in strictness a
slowly-prepared outgrowth of the entire character, is yet almost always
traceable to a single impression as its point of apparent origin; and
since that moment in the Piazza del Duomo, when Tito, mounted on the
bales, had tasted a keen pleasure in the consciousness of his ability
to tickle the ears of men with any phrases that pleased them, his
imagination had glanced continually towards a sort of political
activity which the troubled public life of Florence was likely enough
to find occasion for. But the fresh dread of Baldassarre, waked in the
same moment, had lain like an immovable rocky obstruction across that
path, and had urged him into the sale of the library, as a preparation
for the possible necessity of leaving Florence, at the very time when
he was beginning to feel that it had a new attraction for him. That
dread was nearly removed _now_: he must wear his armour still, he must
prepare himself for possible demands on his coolness and ingenuity, but
he did not feel obliged to take the inconvenient step of leaving
Florence and seeking new fortunes. His father had refused the offered
atonement—had forced him into defiance; and an old man in a strange
place, with his memory gone, was weak enough to be defied.

Tito’s implicit desires were working themselves out now in very
explicit thoughts. As the freshness of young passion faded, life was
taking more and more decidedly for him the aspect of a game in which
there was an agreeable mingling of skill and chance.

And the game that might be played in Florence promised to be rapid and
exciting; it was a game of revolutionary and party struggle, sure to
include plenty of that unavowed action in which brilliant ingenuity,
able to get rid of all inconvenient beliefs except that “ginger is hot
in the mouth,” is apt to see the path of superior wisdom.

No sooner were the French guests gone than Florence was as agitated as
a colony of ants when an alarming shadow has been removed, and the camp
has to be repaired. “How are we to raise the money for the French king?
How are we to manage the war with those obstinate Pisan rebels? Above
all, how are we to mend our plan of government, so as to hit on the
best way of getting our magistrates chosen and our laws voted?” Till
those questions were well answered trade was in danger of standing
still, and that large body of the working men who were not counted as
citizens and had not so much as a vote to serve as an anodyne to their
stomachs were likely to get impatient. Something must be done.

And first the great bell was sounded, to call the citizens to a
parliament in the Piazza de’ Signori; and when the crowd was wedged
close, and hemmed in by armed men at all the outlets, the Signoria (or
Gonfaloniere and eight Priors for the time being) came out and stood by
the stone lion on the platform in front of the Old Palace, and proposed
that twenty chief men of the city should have dictatorial authority
given them, by force of which they should for one year choose all
magistrates, and set the frame of government in order. And the people
shouted their assent, and felt themselves the electors of the Twenty.
This kind of “parliament” was a very old Florentine fashion, by which
the will of the few was made to seem the choice of the many.

The shouting in the Piazza was soon at an end, but not so the debating
inside the palace: was Florence to have a Great Council after the
Venetian mode, where all the officers of government might be elected,
and all laws voted by a wide number of citizens of a certain age and of
ascertained qualifications, without question of rank or party? or, was
it to be governed on a narrower and less popular scheme, in which the
hereditary influence of good families would be less adulterated with
the votes of shopkeepers. Doctors of law disputed day after day, and
far on into the night. Messer Pagolantonio Soderini alleged excellent
reasons on the side of the popular scheme; Messer Guidantonio Vespucci
alleged reasons equally excellent on the side of a more aristocratic
form. It was a question of boiled or roast, which had been prejudged by
the palates of the disputants, and the excellent arguing might have
been protracted a long while without any other result than that of
deferring the cooking. The majority of the men inside the palace,
having power already in their hands, agreed with Vespucci, and thought
change should be moderate; the majority outside the palace, conscious
of little power and many grievances, were less afraid of change.

And there was a force outside the palace which was gradually tending to
give the vague desires of that majority the character of a determinate
will. That force was the preaching of Savonarola. Impelled partly by
the spiritual necessity that was laid upon him to guide the people, and
partly by the prompting of public-men who could get no measures carried
without his aid, he was rapidly passing in his daily sermons from the
general to the special—from telling his hearers that they must postpone
their private passions and interests to the public good, to telling
them precisely what sort of government they must have in order to
promote that good—from “Choose whatever is best for all” to “Choose the
Great Council,” and “the Great Council is the will of God.”

To Savonarola these were as good as identical propositions. The Great
Council was the only practicable plan for giving an expression to the
public will large enough to counteract the vitiating influence of party
interests: it was a plan that would make honest impartial public action
at least possible. And the purer the government of Florence would
become—the more secure from the designs of men who saw their own
advantage in the moral debasement of their fellows—the nearer would the
Florentine people approach the character of a pure community, worthy to
lead the way in the renovation of the Church and the world. And Fra
Girolamo’s mind never stopped short of that sublimest end: the objects
towards which he felt himself working had always the same moral
magnificence. He had no private malice—he sought no petty
gratification. Even in the last terrible days, when ignominy, torture,
and the fear of torture, had laid bare every hidden weakness of his
soul, he could say to his importunate judges: “Do not wonder if it
seems to you that I have told but few things; for my purposes were few
and great.”[1]

 [1] “Se vi pare che io abbia detto poche cose, non ve ne maravigliate,
 perchè le mie cose erano poche e grandi.”




CHAPTER XXXVI.
Ariadne discrowns herself.


It was more than three weeks before the contents of the library were
all packed and carried away. And Romola, instead of shutting her eyes
and ears, had watched the process. The exhaustion consequent on violent
emotion is apt to bring a dreamy disbelief in the reality of its cause;
and in the evening, when the workmen were gone, Romola took her
hand-lamp and walked slowly round amongst the confusion of straw and
wooden cases, pausing at every vacant pedestal, every well-known object
laid prostrate, with a sort of bitter desire to assure herself that
there was a sufficient reason why her love was gone and the world was
barren for her. And still, as the evenings came, she went and went
again; no longer to assure herself, but because this vivifying of pain
and despair about her father’s memory was the strongest life left to
her affections. On the 23rd of December, she knew that the last
packages were going. She ran to the loggia at the top of the house that
she might not lose the last pang of seeing the slow wheels move across
the bridge.

It was a cloudy day, and nearing dusk. Arno ran dark and shivering; the
hills were mournful; and Florence with its girdling stone towers had
that silent, tomb-like look, which unbroken shadow gives to a city seen
from above. Santa Croce, where her father lay, was dark amidst that
darkness, and slowly crawling over the bridge, and slowly vanishing up
the narrow street, was the white load, like a cruel, deliberate Fate
carrying away her father’s lifelong hope to bury it in an unmarked
grave. Romola felt less that she was seeing this herself than that her
father was conscious of it as he lay helpless under the imprisoning
stones, where her hand could not reach his to tell him that he was not
alone.

She stood still even after the load had disappeared, heedless of the
cold, and soothed by the gloom which seemed to cover her like a
mourning garment and shut out the discord of joy. When suddenly the
great bell in the palace-tower rang out a mighty peal: not the
hammer-sound of alarm, but an agitated peal of triumph; and one after
another every other bell in every other tower seemed to catch the
vibration and join the chorus. And, as the chorus swelled and swelled
till the air seemed made of sound—little flames, vibrating too, as if
the sound had caught fire, burst out between the turrets of the palace
and on the girdling towers.

That sudden clang, that leaping light, fell on Romola like sharp
wounds. They were the triumph of demons at the success of her husband’s
treachery, and the desolation of her life. Little more than three weeks
ago she had been intoxicated with the sound of those very bells; and in
the gladness of Florence, she had heard a prophecy of her own gladness.
But now the general joy seemed cruel to her: she stood aloof from that
common life—that Florence which was flinging out its loud exultation to
stun the ears of sorrow and loneliness. She could never join hands with
gladness again, but only with those whom it was in the hard nature of
gladness to forget. And in her bitterness she felt that all rejoicing
was mockery. Men shouted paeans with their souls full of heaviness, and
then looked in their neighbours’ faces to see if there was really such
a thing as joy. Romola had lost her belief in the happiness she had
once thirsted for: it was a hateful, smiling, soft-handed thing, with a
narrow, selfish heart.

She ran down from the loggia, with her hands pressed against her ears,
and was hurrying across the antechamber, when she was startled by
unexpectedly meeting her husband, who was coming to seek her.

His step was elastic, and there was a radiance of satisfaction about
him not quite usual.

“What! the noise was a little too much for you?” he said; for Romola,
as she started at the sight of him, had pressed her hands all the
closer against her ears. He took her gently by the wrist, and drew her
arm within his, leading her into the saloon surrounded with the dancing
nymphs and fauns, and then went on speaking: “Florence is gone quite
mad at getting its Great Council, which is to put an end to all the
evils under the sun; especially to the vice of merriment. You may well
look stunned, my Romola, and you are cold. You must not stay so late
under that windy loggia without wrappings. I was coming to tell you
that I am suddenly called to Rome about some learned business for
Bernardo Rucellai. I am going away immediately, for I am to join my
party at San Gaggio to-night, that we may start early in the morning. I
need give you no trouble; I have had my packages made already. It will
not be very long before I am back again.”

He knew he had nothing to expect from her but quiet endurance of what
he said and did. He could not even venture to kiss her brow this
evening, but just pressed her hand to his lips, and left her. Tito felt
that Romola was a more unforgiving woman than he had imagined; her love
was not that sweet clinging instinct, stronger than all judgments,
which, he began to see now, made the great charm of a wife. Still, this
petrified coldness was better than a passionate, futile opposition. Her
pride and capability of seeing where resistance was useless had their
convenience.

But when the door had closed on Tito, Romola lost the look of cold
immobility which came over her like an inevitable frost whenever he
approached her. Inwardly she was very far from being in a state of
quiet endurance, and the days that had passed since the scene which had
divided her from Tito had been days of active planning and preparation
for the fulfilment of a purpose.

The first thing she did now was to call old Maso to her.

“Maso,” she said, in a decided tone, “we take our journey to-morrow
morning. We shall be able now to overtake that first convoy of cloth,
while they are waiting at San Piero. See about the two mules to-night,
and be ready to set off with them at break of day, and wait for me at
Trespiano.”

She meant to take Maso with her as far as Bologna, and then send him
back with letters to her godfather and Tito, telling them that she was
gone and never meant to return. She had planned her departure so that
its secrecy might be perfect, and her broken love and life be hidden
away unscanned by vulgar eyes. Bernardo del Nero had been absent at his
villa, willing to escape from political suspicions to his favourite
occupation of attending to his land, and she had paid him the debt
without a personal interview. He did not even know that the library was
sold, and was left to conjecture that some sudden piece of good fortune
had enabled Tito to raise this sum of money. Maso had been taken into
her confidence only so far that he knew her intended journey was a
secret; and to do just what she told him was the thing he cared most
for in his withered wintry age.

Romola did not mean to go to bed that night. When she had fastened the
door she took her taper to the carved and painted chest which contained
her wedding-clothes. The white silk and gold lay there, the long white
veil and the circlet of pearls. A great sob rose as she looked at them:
they seemed the shroud of her dead happiness. In a tiny gold loop of
the circlet a sugar-plum had lodged—a pink hailstone from the shower of
sweets: Tito had detected it first, and had said that it should always
remain there. At certain moments—and this was one of them—Romola was
carried, by a sudden wave of memory, back again into the time of
perfect trust, and felt again the presence of the husband whose love
made the world as fresh and wonderful to her as to a little child that
sits in stillness among the sunny flowers: heard the gentle tones and
saw the soft eyes without any lie in them, and breathed again that
large freedom of the soul which comes from the faith that the being who
is nearest to us is greater than ourselves. And in those brief moments
the tears always rose: the woman’s lovingness felt something akin to
what the bereaved mother feels when the tiny fingers seem to lie warm
on her bosom, and yet are marble to her lips as she bends over the
silent bed.

But there was something else lying in the chest besides the
wedding-clothes: it was something dark and coarse, rolled up in a close
bundle. She turned away her eyes from the white and gold to the dark
bundle, and as her hands touched the serge, her tears began to be
checked. That coarse roughness recalled her fully to the present, from
which love and delight were gone. She unfastened the thick white cord
and spread the bundle out on the table. It was the grey serge dress of
a sister belonging to the third order of Saint Francis, living in the
world but especially devoted to deeds of piety—a personage whom the
Florentines were accustomed to call a Pinzochera. Romola was going to
put on this dress as a disguise, and she determined to put it on at
once, so that, if she needed sleep before the morning, she might wake
up in perfect readiness to be gone. She put off her black garment, and
as she thrust her soft white arms into the harsh sleeves of the serge
mantle and felt the hard girdle of rope hurt her fingers as she tied
it, she courted those rude sensations: they were in keeping with her
new scorn of that thing called pleasure which made men base—that
dexterous contrivance for selfish ease, that shrinking from endurance
and strain, when others were bowing beneath burdens too heavy for them,
which now made one image with her husband. Then she gathered her long
hair together, drew it away tight from her face, bound it in a great
hard knot at the back of her head, and taking a square piece of black
silk, tied it in the fashion of a kerchief close across her head and
under her chin; and over that she drew the cowl. She lifted the candle
to the mirror. Surely her disguise would be complete to any one who had
not lived very near to her. To herself she looked strangely like her
brother Dino: the full oval of the cheek had only to be wasted; the
eyes, already sad, had only to become a little sunken. Was she getting
more like him in anything else? Only in this, that she understood now
how men could be prompted to rush away for ever from earthly delights,
how they could be prompted to dwell on images of sorrow rather than of
beauty and joy.

But she did not linger at the mirror: she set about collecting and
packing all the relics of her father and mother that were too large to
be carried in her small travelling-wallet. They were all to be put in
the chest along with her wedding-clothes, and the chest was to be
committed to her godfather when she was safely gone. First she laid in
the portraits; then one by one every little thing that had a sacred
memory clinging to it was put into her wallet or into the chest.

She paused. There was still something else to be stript away from her,
belonging to that past on which she was going to turn her back for
ever. She put her thumb and her forefinger to her betrothal ring; but
they rested there, without drawing it off. Romola’s mind had been
rushing with an impetuous current towards this act, for which she was
preparing: the act of quitting a husband who had disappointed all her
trust, the act of breaking an outward tie that no longer represented
the inward bond of love. But that force of outward symbols by which our
active life is knit together so as to make an inexorable external
identity for us, not to be shaken by our wavering consciousness, gave a
strange effect to this simple movement towards taking off her ring—a
movement which was but a small sequence of her energetic resolution. It
brought a vague but arresting sense that she was somehow violently
rending her life in two: a presentiment that the strong impulse which
had seemed to exclude doubt and make her path clear might after all be
blindness, and that there was something in human bonds which must
prevent them from being broken with the breaking of illusions.

If that beloved Tito who had placed the betrothal ring on her finger
was not in any valid sense the same Tito whom she had ceased to love,
why should she return to him the sign of their union, and not rather
retain it as a memorial? And this act, which came as a palpable
demonstration of her own and his identity, had a power unexplained to
herself, of shaking Romola. It is the way with half the truth amidst
which we live, that it only haunts us and makes dull pulsations that
are never born into sound. But there was a passionate voice speaking
within her that presently nullified all such muffled murmurs.

“It cannot be! I cannot be subject to him. He is false. I shrink from
him. I despise him!”

She snatched the ring from her finger and laid it on the table against
the pen with which she meant to write. Again she felt that there could
be no law for her but the law of her affections. That tenderness and
keen fellow-feeling for the near and the loved which are the main
outgrowth of the affections, had made the religion of her life: they
had made her patient in spite of natural impetuosity: they would have
sufficed to make her heroic. But now all that strength was gone, or,
rather, it was converted into the strength of repulsion. She had
recoiled from Tito in proportion to the energy of that young belief and
love which he had disappointed, of that lifelong devotion to her father
against which he had committed an irredeemable offence. And it seemed
as if all motive had slipped away from her, except the indignation and
scorn that made her tear herself asunder from him.

She was not acting after any precedent, or obeying any adopted maxims.
The grand severity of the stoical philosophy in which her father had
taken care to instruct her, was familiar enough to her ears and lips,
and its lofty spirit had raised certain echoes within her; but she had
never used it, never needed it as a rule of life. She had endured and
forborne because she loved: maxims which told her to feel less, and not
to cling close lest the onward course of great Nature should jar her,
had been as powerless on her tenderness as they had been on her
father’s yearning for just fame. She had appropriated no theories: she
had simply felt strong in the strength of affection, and life without
that energy came to her as an entirely new problem.

She was going to solve the problem in a way that seemed to her very
simple. Her mind had never yet bowed to any obligation apart from
personal love and reverence; she had no keen sense of any other human
relations, and all she had to obey now was the instinct to sever
herself from the man she loved no longer.

Yet the unswerving resolution was accompanied with continually varying
phases of anguish. And now that the active preparation for her
departure was almost finished, she lingered: she deferred writing the
irrevocable words of parting from all her little world. The emotions of
the past weeks seemed to rush in again with cruel hurry, and take
possession even of her limbs. She was going to write, and her hand
fell. Bitter tears came now at the delusion which had blighted her
young years, tears very different from the sob of remembered happiness
with which she had looked at the circlet of pearls and the pink
hailstone. And now she felt a tingling shame at the words of ignominy
she had cast, at Tito—“Have you robbed some one else who is _not_
dead?” To have had such words wrung from her—to have uttered them to
her husband seemed a degradation of her whole life. Hard speech between
those who have loved is hideous in the memory, like the sight of
greatness and beauty sunk into vice and rags.

That heart-cutting comparison of the present with the past urged itself
upon Romola till it even transformed itself into wretched sensations:
she seemed benumbed to everything but inward throbbings, and began to
feel the need of some hard contact. She drew her hands tight along the
harsh knotted cord that hung from her waist. She started to her feet
and seized the rough lid of the chest: there was nothing else to go in?
No. She closed the lid, pressing her hand upon the rough carving, and
locked it.

Then she remembered that she had still to complete her equipment as a
Pinzochera. The large leather purse or scarsella, with small coin in
it, had to be hung on the cord at her waist (her florins and small
jewels, presents from her godfather and cousin Brigida, were safely
fastened within her serge mantle)—and on the other side must hang the
rosary.

It did not occur to Romola, as she hung that rosary by her side, that
something else besides the mere garb would perhaps be necessary to
enable her to pass as a Pinzochera, and that her whole air and
expression were as little as possible like those of a sister whose
eyelids were used to be bent, and whose lips were used to move in
silent iteration. Her inexperience prevented her from picturing distant
details, and it helped her proud courage in shutting out any foreboding
of danger and insult. She did not know that any Florentine woman had
ever done exactly what she was going to do: unhappy wives often took
refuge with their friends, or in the cloister, she knew, but both those
courses were impossible to her; she had invented a lot for herself—to
go to the most learned woman in the world, Cassandra Fedele, at Venice,
and ask her how an instructed woman could support herself in a lonely
life there.

She was not daunted by the practical difficulties in the way or the
dark uncertainty at the end. Her life could never be happy any more,
but it must not, could not, be ignoble. And by a pathetic mixture of
childish romance with her woman’s trials, the philosophy which had
nothing to do with this great decisive deed of hers had its place in
her imagination of the future: so far as she conceived her solitary
loveless life at all, she saw it animated by a proud stoical heroism,
and by an indistinct but strong purpose of labour, that she might be
wise enough to write something which would rescue her father’s name
from oblivion. After all, she was only a young girl—this poor Romola,
who had found herself at the end of her joys.

There were other things yet to be done. There was a small key in a
casket on the table—but now Romola perceived that her taper was dying
out, and she had forgotten to provide herself with any other light. In
a few moments the room was in total darkness. Feeling her way to the
nearest chair, she sat down to wait for the morning.

Her purpose in seeking the key had called up certain memories which had
come back upon her during the past week with the new vividness that
remembered words always have for us when we have learned to give them a
new meaning. Since the shock of the revelation which had seemed to
divide her for ever from Tito, that last interview with Dino had never
been for many hours together out of her mind. And it solicited her all
the more, because while its remembered images pressed upon her almost
with the imperious force of sensations, they raised struggling thoughts
which resisted their influence. She could not prevent herself from
hearing inwardly the dying prophetic voice saying again and again,—“The
man whose face was a blank loosed thy hand and departed; and as he
went, I could see his face, and it was the face of the great Tempter...
And thou, Romola, didst wring thy hands and seek for water, and there
was none... and the plain was bare and stony again, and thou wast alone
in the midst of it. And then it seemed that the night fell, and I saw
no more.” She could not prevent herself from dwelling with a sort of
agonised fascination on the wasted face; on the straining gaze at the
crucifix; on the awe which had compelled her to kneel; on the last
broken words and then the unbroken silence—on all the details of the
death-scene, which had seemed like a sudden opening into a world apart
from that of her lifelong knowledge.

But her mind was roused to resistance of impressions that, from being
obvious phantoms, seemed to be getting solid in the daylight. As a
strong body struggles against fumes with the more violence when they
begin to be stifling, a strong soul struggles against phantasies with
all the more alarmed energy when they threaten to govern in the place
of thought.

What had the words of that vision to do with her real sorrows? That
fitting of certain words was a mere chance; the rest was all vague—nay,
those words themselves were vague; they were determined by nothing but
her brother’s memories and beliefs. He believed there was something
fatal in pagan learning; he believed that celibacy was more holy than
marriage; he remembered their home, and all the objects in the library;
and of these threads the vision was woven. What reasonable warrant
could she have had for believing in such a vision and acting on it?
None. True as the voice of foreboding had proved, Romola saw with
unshaken conviction that to have renounced Tito in obedience to a
warning like that, would have been meagre-hearted folly. Her trust had
been delusive, but she would have chosen over again to have acted on it
rather than be a creature led by phantoms and disjointed whispers in a
world where there was the large music of reasonable speech, and the
warm grasp of living hands.

But the persistent presence of these memories, linking themselves in
her imagination with her actual lot, gave her a glimpse of
understanding into the lives which had before lain utterly aloof from
her sympathy—the lives of the men and women who were led by such inward
images and voices.

“If they were only a little stronger in me,” she said to herself, “I
should lose the sense of what that vision really was, and take it for a
prophetic light. I might in time get to be a seer of visions myself,
like the Suora Maddalena, and Camilla Rucellai, and the rest.”

Romola shuddered at the possibility. All the instruction, all the main
influences of her life had gone to fortify her scorn of that sickly
superstition which led men and women, with eyes too weak for the
daylight, to sit in dark swamps and try to read human destiny by the
chance flame of wandering vapours.

And yet she was conscious of something deeper than that coincidence of
words which made the parting contact with her dying brother live anew
in her mind, and gave a new sisterhood to the wasted face. If there
were much more of such experience as his in the world, she would like
to understand it—would even like to learn the thoughts of men who sank
in ecstasy before the pictured agonies of martyrdom. There seemed to be
something more than madness in that supreme fellowship with suffering.
The springs were all dried up around her; she wondered what other
waters there were at which men drank and found strength in the desert.
And those moments in the Duomo when she had sobbed with a mysterious
mingling of rapture and pain, while Fra Girolamo offered himself a
willing sacrifice for the people, came back to her as if they had been
a transient taste of some such far-off fountain. But again she shrank
from impressions that were alluring her within the sphere of visions
and narrow fears which compelled men to outrage natural affections as
Dino had done.

This was the tangled web that Romola had in her mind as she sat weary
in the darkness. No radiant angel came across the gloom with a clear
message for her. In those times, as now, there were human beings who
never saw angels or heard perfectly clear messages. Such truth as came
to them was brought confusedly in the voices and deeds of men not at
all like the seraphs of unfailing wing and piercing vision—men who
believed falsities as well as truths, and did the wrong as well as the
right. The helping hands stretched out to them were the hands of men
who stumbled and often saw dimly, so that these beings unvisited by
angels had no other choice than to grasp that stumbling guidance along
the path of reliance and action which is the path of life, or else to
pause in loneliness and disbelief, which is no path, but the arrest of
inaction and death.

And so Romola, seeing no ray across the darkness, and heavy with
conflict that changed nothing, sank at last to sleep.




CHAPTER XXXVII.
The Tabernacle Unlocked.


Romola was waked by a tap at the door. The cold light of early morning
was in the room, and Maso was come for the travelling-wallet. The old
man could not help starting when she opened the door, and showed him,
instead of the graceful outline he had been used to, crowned with the
brightness of her hair, the thick folds of the grey mantle and the pale
face shadowed by the dark cowl.

“It is well, Maso,” said Romola, trying to speak in the calmest voice,
and make the old man easy. “Here is the wallet quite ready. You will go
on quietly, and I shall not be far behind you. When you get out of the
gates you may go more slowly, for I shall perhaps join you before you
get to Trespiano.”

She closed the door behind him, and then put her hand on the key which
she had taken from the casket the last thing in the night. It was the
original key of the little painted tabernacle: Tito had forgotten to
drown it in the Arno, and it had lodged, as such small things will, in
the corner of the embroidered scarsella which he wore with the purple
tunic. One day, long after their marriage, Romola had found it there,
and had put it by, without using it, but with a sense of satisfaction
that the key was within reach. The cabinet on which the tabernacle
stood had been moved to the side of the room, close to one of the
windows, where the pale morning light fell upon it so as to make the
painted forms discernible enough to Romola, who knew them well,—the
triumphant Bacchus, with his clusters and his vine-clad spear, clasping
the crowned Ariadne; the Loves showering roses, the wreathed vessel,
the cunning-eyed dolphins, and the rippled sea: all encircled by a
flowery border, like a bower of paradise. Romola looked at the familiar
images with new bitterness and repulsion: they seemed a more pitiable
mockery than ever on this chill morning, when she had waked up to
wander in loneliness. They had been no tomb of sorrow, but a lying
screen. Foolish Ariadne! with her gaze of love, as if that bright face,
with its hyacinthine curls like tendrils among the vines, held the deep
secret of her life!

“Ariadne is wonderfully transformed,” thought Romola. “She would look
strange among the vines and the roses now.”

She took up the mirror, and looked at herself once more. But the sight
was so startling in this morning light that she laid it down again,
with a sense of shrinking almost as strong as that with which she had
turned from the joyous Ariadne. The recognition of her own face, with
the cowl about it, brought back the dread lest she should be drawn at
last into fellowship with some wretched superstition—into the company
of the howling fanatics and weeping nuns who had been her contempt from
childhood till now. She thrust the key into the tabernacle hurriedly:
hurriedly she opened it, and took out the crucifix, without looking at
it; then, with trembling fingers, she passed a cord through the little
ring, hung the crucifix round her neck, and hid it in the bosom of her
mantle. “For Dino’s sake,” she said to herself. Still there were the
letters to be written which Maso was to carry back from Bologna. They
were very brief. The first said—

“Tito, my love for you is dead; and therefore, so far as I was yours, I
too am dead. Do not try to put in force any laws for the sake of
fetching me back: that would bring you no happiness. The Romola you
married can never return. I need explain nothing to you after the words
I uttered to you the last time we spoke long together. If you supposed
them to be words of transient anger, you will know now that they were
the sign of an irreversible change.

“I think you will fulfil my wish that my bridal chest should be sent to
my godfather, who gave it me. It contains my wedding-clothes and the
portraits and other relics of my father and mother.”

She folded the ring inside this letter, and wrote Tito’s name outside.
The next letter was to Bernardo del Nero:—

“Dearest Godfather,—If I could have been any good to your life by
staying I would not have gone away to a distance. But now I am gone. Do
not ask the reason; and if you love my father, try to prevent any one
from seeking me. I could not bear my life at Florence. I cannot bear to
tell any one why. Help to cover my lot in silence. I have asked that my
bridal chest should be sent to you: when you open it, you will know the
reason. Please to give all the things that were my mother’s to my
cousin Brigida, and ask her to forgive me for not saying any words of
parting to her.

“Farewell, my second father. The best thing I have in life is still to
remember your goodness and be grateful to you.

“Romola.”

Romola put the letters, along with the crucifix, within the bosom of
her mantle, and then felt that everything was done. She was ready now
to depart.

No one was stirring in the house, and she went almost as quietly as a
grey phantom down the stairs and into the silent street. Her heart was
palpitating violently, yet she enjoyed the sense of her firm tread on
the broad flags—of the swift movement, which was like a chained-up
resolution set free at last. The anxiety to carry out her act, and the
dread of any obstacle, averted sorrow; and as she reached the Ponte
Rubaconte, she felt less that Santa Croce was in her sight than that
the yellow streak of morning which parted the grey was getting broader
and broader, and that, unless she hastened her steps, she should have
to encounter faces.

Her simplest road was to go right on to the Borgo Pinti, and then along
by the walls to the Porta San Gallo, from which she must leave the
city, and this road carried her by the Piazza di Santa Croce. But she
walked as steadily and rapidly as ever through the piazza, not trusting
herself to look towards the church. The thought that any eyes might be
turned on her with a look of curiosity and recognition, and that
indifferent minds might be set speculating on her private sorrows, made
Romola shrink physically as from the imagination of torture. She felt
degraded even by that act of her husband from which she was helplessly
suffering. But there was no sign that any eyes looked forth from
windows to notice this tall grey sister, with the firm step, and proud
attitude of the cowled head. Her road lay aloof from the stir of early
traffic, and when she reached the Porta San Gallo, it was easy to pass
while a dispute was going forward about the toll for panniers of eggs
and market produce which were just entering.

Out! Once past the houses of the Borgo, she would be beyond the last
fringe of Florence, the sky would be broad above her, and she would
have entered on her new life—a life of loneliness and endurance, but of
freedom. She had been strong enough to snap asunder the bonds she had
accepted in blind faith: whatever befell her, she would no more feel
the breath of soft hated lips warm upon her cheek, no longer feel the
breath of an odious mind stifling her own. The bare wintry morning, the
chill air, were welcome in their severity: the leafless trees, the
sombre hills, were not haunted by the gods of beauty and joy, whose
worship she had forsaken for ever.

But presently the light burst forth with sudden strength, and shadows
were thrown across the road. It seemed that the sun was going to chase
away the greyness. The light is perhaps never felt more strongly as a
divine presence stirring all those inarticulate sensibilities which are
our deepest life, than in these moments when it instantaneously awakens
the shadows. A certain awe which inevitably accompanied this most
momentous act of her life became a more conscious element in Romola’s
feeling as she found herself in the sudden presence of the impalpable
golden glory and the long shadow of herself that was not to be escaped.
Hitherto she had met no one but an occasional contadino with mules, and
the many turnings of the road on the level prevented her from seeing
that Maso was not very far ahead of her. But when she had passed Pietra
and was on rising ground, she lifted up the hanging roof of her cowl
and looked eagerly before her.

The cowl was dropped again immediately. She had seen, not Maso, but—two
monks, who were approaching within a few yards of her. The edge of her
cowl making a pent-house on her brow had shut out the objects above the
level of her eyes, and for the last few moments she had been looking at
nothing but the brightness on the path and at her own shadow, tall and
shrouded like a dread spectre.

She wished now that she had not looked up. Her disguise made her
especially dislike to encounter monks: they might expect some pious
passwords of which she knew nothing, and she walked along with a
careful appearance of unconsciousness till she had seen the skirts of
the black mantles pass by her. The encounter had made her heart beat
disagreeably, for Romola had an uneasiness in her religious disguise, a
shame at this studied concealment, which was made more distinct by a
special effort to appear unconscious under actual glances.

But the black skirts would be gone the faster because they were going
down-hill; and seeing a great flat stone against a cypress that rose
from a projecting green bank, she yielded to the desire which the
slight shock had given her, to sit down and rest.

She turned her back on Florence, not meaning to look at it till the
monks were quite out of sight, and raising the edge of her cowl again
when she had seated herself, she discerned Maso and the mules at a
distance where it was not hopeless for her to overtake them, as the old
man would probably linger in expectation of her.

Meanwhile she might pause a little. She was free and alone.




CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Black Marks become Magical.


That journey of Tito’s to Rome, which had removed many difficulties
from Romola’s departure, had been resolved on quite suddenly, at a
supper, only the evening before.

Tito had set out towards that supper with agreeable expectations. The
meats were likely to be delicate, the wines choice, the company
distinguished; for the place of entertainment was the Selva or Orto de’
Rucellai, or, as we should say, the Rucellai Gardens; and the host,
Bernardo Rucellai, was quite a typical Florentine grandee. Even his
family name has a significance which is prettily symbolic: properly
understood, it may bring before us a little lichen, popularly named
_orcella_ or _roccella_, which grows on the rocks of Greek isles and in
the Canaries; and having drunk a great deal of light into its little
stems and button-heads, will, under certain circumstances, give it out
again as a reddish purple dye, very grateful to the eyes of men. By
bringing the excellent secret of this dye, called _oricello_, from the
Levant to Florence, a certain merchant, who lived nearly a hundred
years before our Bernardo’s time, won for himself and his descendants
much wealth, and the pleasantly-suggestive surname of Oricellari, or
Roccellari, which on Tuscan tongues speedily became Rucellai.

And our Bernardo, who stands out more prominently than the rest on this
purple background, had added all sorts of distinction to the family
name: he had married the sister of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and had had the
most splendid wedding in the memory of Florentine upholstery; and for
these and other virtues he had been sent on embassies to France and
Venice, and had been chosen Gonfaloniere; he had not only built himself
a fine palace, but had finished putting the black and white marble
façade to the church of Santa Maria Novella; he had planted a garden
with rare trees, and had made it classic ground by receiving within it
the meetings of the Platonic Academy, orphaned by the death of Lorenzo;
he had written an excellent, learned book, of a new topographical sort,
about ancient Rome; he had collected antiquities; he had a pure
Latinity. The simplest account of him, one sees, reads like a laudatory
epitaph, at the end of which the Greek and Ausonian Muses might be
confidently requested to tear their hair, and Nature to desist from any
second attempt to combine so many virtues with one set of viscera.

His invitation had been conveyed to Tito through Lorenzo Tornabuoni,
with an emphasis which would have suggested that the object of the
gathering was political, even if the public questions of the time had
been less absorbing. As it was, Tito felt sure that some party purposes
were to be furthered by the excellent flavours of stewed fish and old
Greek wine; for Bernardo Rucellai was not simply an influential
personage, he was one of the elect Twenty who for three weeks had held
the reins of Florence. This assurance put Tito in the best spirits as
he made his way to the Via della Scala, where the classic garden was to
be found: without it, he might have had some uneasy speculation as to
whether the high company he would have the honour of meeting was likely
to be dull as well as distinguished; for he had had experience of
various dull suppers even in the Rucellai gardens, and especially of
the dull philosophic sort, wherein he had not only been called upon to
accept an entire scheme of the universe (which would have been easy to
him), but to listen to an exposition of the same, from the origin of
things to their complete ripeness in the tractate of the philosopher
then speaking.

It was a dark evening, and it was only when Tito crossed the occasional
light of a lamp suspended before an image of the Virgin, that the
outline of his figure was discernible enough for recognition. At such
moments any one caring to watch his passage from one of these lights to
another might have observed that the tall and graceful personage with
the mantle folded round him was followed constantly by a very different
form, thickset and elderly, in a serge tunic and felt hat. The
conjunction might have been taken for mere chance, since there were
many passengers along the streets at this hour. But when Tito stopped
at the gate of the Rucellai gardens, the figure behind stopped too. The
_sportello_, or smaller door of the gate, was already being held open
by the servant, who, in the distraction of attending to some question,
had not yet closed it since the last arrival, and Tito turned in
rapidly, giving his name to the servant, and passing on between the
evergreen bushes that shone like metal in the torchlight. The follower
turned in too.

“Your name?” said the servant.

“Baldassarre Calvo,” was the immediate answer.

“You are not a guest; the guests have all passed.”

“I belong to Tito Melema, who has just gone in. I am to wait in the
gardens.”

The servant hesitated. “I had orders to admit only guests. Are you a
servant of Messer Tito?”

“No, friend, I am not a servant; I am a scholar.”

There are men to whom you need only say, “I am a buffalo,” in a certain
tone of quiet confidence, and they will let you pass. The porter gave
way at once, Baldassarre entered, and heard the door closed and chained
behind him, as he too disappeared among the shining bushes.

Those ready and firm answers argued a great change in Baldassarre since
the last meeting face to face with Tito, when the dagger broke in two.

The change had declared itself in a startling way.

At the moment when the shadow of Tito passed in front of the hovel as
he departed homeward, Baldassarre was sitting in that state of
after-tremor known to every one who is liable to great outbursts of
passion: a state in which physical powerlessness is sometimes
accompanied by an exceptional lucidity of thought, as if that
disengagement of excited passion had carried away a fire-mist and left
clearness behind it. He felt unable to rise and walk away just yet; his
limbs seemed benumbed; he was cold, and his hands shook. But in that
bodily helplessness he sat surrounded, not by the habitual dimness and
vanishing shadows, but by the clear images of the past; he was living
again in an unbroken course through that life which seemed a long
preparation for the taste of bitterness.

For some minutes he was too thoroughly absorbed by the images to
reflect on the fact that he saw them, and note the fact as a change.
But when that sudden clearness had travelled through the distance, and
came at last to rest on the scene just gone by, he felt fully where he
was: he remembered Monna Lisa and Tessa. Ah! _he_ then was the
mysterious husband; he who had another wife in the Via de’ Bardi. It
was time to pick up the broken dagger and go—go and leave no trace of
himself; for to hide his feebleness seemed the thing most like power
that was left to him. He leaned to take up the fragments of the dagger;
then he turned towards the book which lay open at his side. It was a
fine large manuscript, an odd volume of Pausanias. The moonlight was
upon it, and he could see the large letters at the head of the page:

ΜΕΣΣΕΝΙΚΑ. ΚΒ′.


In old days he had known Pausanias familiarly; yet an hour or two ago
he had been looking hopelessly at that page, and it had suggested no
more meaning to him than if the letters had been black weather-marks on
a wall; but at this moment they were once more the magic signs that
conjure up a world. That moonbeam falling on the letters had raised
Messenia before him, and its struggle against the Spartan oppression.

He snatched up the book, but the light was too pale for him to read
further by. No matter: he knew that chapter; he read inwardly. He saw
the stoning of the traitor Aristocrates—stoned by a whole people, who
cast him out from their borders to lie unburied, and set up a pillar
with verses upon it telling how Time had brought home justice to the
unjust. The words arose within him, and stirred innumerable vibrations
of memory. He forgot that he was old: he could almost have shouted. The
light was come again, mother of knowledge and joy! In that exultation
his limbs recovered their strength: he started up with his broken
dagger and book, and went out under the broad moonlight.

It was a nipping frosty air, but Baldassarre could feel no chill—he
only felt the glow of conscious power. He walked about and paused on
all the open spots of that high ground, and looked down on the domed
and towered city, sleeping darkly under its sleeping guardians, the
mountains; on the pale gleam of the river; on the valley vanishing
towards the peaks of snow; and felt himself master of them all.

That sense of mental empire which belongs to us all in moments of
exceptional clearness was intensified for him by the long days and
nights in which memory had been little more than the consciousness of
something gone. That city, which had been a weary labyrinth, was
material that he could subdue to his purposes now: his mind glanced
through its affairs with flashing conjecture; he was once more a man
who knew cities, whose sense of vision was instructed with large
experience, and who felt the keen delight of holding all things in the
grasp of language. Names! Images!—his mind rushed through its wealth
without pausing, like one who enters on a great inheritance.

But amidst all that rushing eagerness there was one End presiding in
Baldassarre’s consciousness,—a dark deity in the inmost cell, who only
seemed forgotten while his hecatomb was being prepared. And when the
first triumph in the certainty of recovered power had had its way, his
thoughts centred themselves on Tito. That fair slippery viper could not
escape him now; thanks to struggling justice, the heart that never
quivered with tenderness for another had its sensitive selfish fibres
that could be reached by the sharp point of anguish. The soul that
bowed to no right, bowed to the great lord of mortals, Pain.

He could search into every secret of Tito’s life now: he knew some of
the secrets already, and the failure of the broken dagger, which seemed
like frustration, had been the beginning of achievement. Doubtless that
sudden rage had shaken away the obstruction which stifled his soul.
Twice before, when his memory had partially returned, it had been in
consequence of sudden excitation: once when he had had to defend
himself from an enraged dog: once when he had been overtaken by the
waves, and had had to scramble up a rock to save himself.

Yes, but if this time, as then, the light were to die out, and the
dreary conscious blank come back again! This time the light was
stronger and steadier; but what security was there that before the
morrow the dark fog would not be round him again? Even the fear seemed
like the beginning of feebleness: he thought with alarm that he might
sink the faster for this excited vigil of his on the hill, which was
expending his force; and after seeking anxiously for a sheltered corner
where he might lie down, he nestled at last against a heap of warm
garden straw, and so fell asleep.

When he opened his eyes again it was daylight. The first moments were
filled with strange bewilderment: he was a man with a double identity;
to which had he awaked? to the life of dim-sighted sensibilities like
the sad heirship of some fallen greatness, or to the life of recovered
power? Surely the last, for the events of the night all came back to
him: the recognition of the page in Pausanias, the crowding resurgence
of facts and names, the sudden wide prospect which had given him such a
moment as that of the Maenad in the glorious amaze of her morning
waking on the mountain top.

He took up the book again, he read, he remembered without reading. He
saw a name, and the images of deeds rose with it: he saw the mention of
a deed, and he linked it with a name. There were stories of inexpiable
crimes, but stories also of guilt that seemed successful. There were
sanctuaries for swift-footed miscreants: baseness had its armour, and
the weapons of justice sometimes broke against it. What then? If
baseness triumphed everywhere else, if it could heap to itself all the
goods of the world and even hold the keys of hell, it would never
triumph over the hatred which it had itself awakened. It could devise
no torture that would seem greater than the torture of submitting to
its smile. Baldassarre felt the indestructible independent force of a
supreme emotion, which knows no terror, and asks for no motive, which
is itself an ever-burning motive, consuming all other desire. And now
in this morning light, when the assurance came again that the fine
fibres of association were active still, and that his recovered self
had not departed, all his gladness was but the hope of vengeance.

From that time till the evening on which we have seen him enter the
Rucellai gardens, he had been incessantly, but cautiously, inquiring
into Tito’s position and all his circumstances, and there was hardly a
day on which he did not contrive to follow his movements. But he wished
not to arouse any alarm in Tito: he wished to secure a moment when the
hated favourite of blind fortune was at the summit of confident ease,
surrounded by chief men on whose favour he depended. It was not any
retributive payment or recognition of himself for his own behoof, on
which Baldassarre’s whole soul was bent: it was to find the sharpest
edge of disgrace and shame by which a selfish smiler could be pierced;
it was to send through his marrow the most sudden shock of dread. He
was content to lie hard, and live stintedly—he had spent the greater
part of his remaining money in buying another poniard: his hunger and
his thirst were after nothing exquisite but an exquisite vengeance. He
had avoided addressing himself to any one whom he suspected of intimacy
with Tito, lest an alarm raised in Tito’s mind should urge him either
to flight or to some other counteracting measure which hard-pressed
ingenuity might devise. For this reason he had never entered Nello’s
shop, which he observed that Tito frequented, and he had turned aside
to avoid meeting Piero di Cosimo.

The possibility of frustration gave added eagerness to his desire that
the great opportunity he sought should not be deferred. The desire was
eager in him on another ground; he trembled lest his memory should go
again. Whether from the agitating presence of that fear, or from some
other causes, he had twice felt a sort of mental dizziness, in which
the inward sense or imagination seemed to be losing the distinct forms
of things. Once he had attempted to enter the Palazzo Vecchio and make
his way into a council-chamber where Tito was, and had failed. But now,
on this evening, he felt that his occasion was come.




CHAPTER XXXIX.
A Supper in the Rucellai Gardens.


On entering the handsome pavilion, Tito’s quick glance soon discerned
in the selection of the guests the confirmation of his conjecture that
the object of the gathering was political, though, perhaps, nothing
more distinct than that strengthening of party which comes from
good-fellowship. Good dishes and good wine were at that time believed
to heighten the consciousness of political preferences, and in the
inspired ease of after-supper talk it was supposed that people
ascertained their own opinions with a clearness quite inaccessible to
uninvited stomachs. The Florentines were a sober and frugal people; but
wherever men have gathered wealth, Madonna della Gozzoviglia and San
Buonvino have had their worshippers; and the Rucellai were among the
few Florentine families who kept a great table and lived splendidly. It
was not probable that on this evening there would be any attempt to
apply high philosophic theories; and there could be no objection to the
bust of Plato looking on, or even to the modest presence of the
cardinal virtues in fresco on the walls.

That bust of Plato had been long used to look down on conviviality of a
more transcendental sort, for it had been brought from Lorenzo’s villa
after his death, when the meetings of the Platonic Academy had been
transferred to these gardens. Especially on every thirteenth of
November, reputed anniversary of Plato’s death, it had looked down from
under laurel leaves on a picked company of scholars and philosophers,
who met to eat and drink with moderation, and to discuss and admire,
perhaps with less moderation, the doctrines of the great master:—on
Pico della Mirandola, once a Quixotic young genius with long curls,
astonished at his own powers and astonishing Rome with heterodox
theses; afterwards a more humble student with a consuming passion for
inward perfection, having come to find the universe more astonishing
than his own cleverness:—on innocent, laborious Marsilio Ficino, picked
out young to be reared as a Platonic philosopher, and fed on Platonism
in all its stages till his mind was perhaps a little pulpy from that
too exclusive diet:—on Angelo Poliziano, chief literary genius of that
age, a born poet, and a scholar without dulness, whose phrases had
blood in them and are alive still:—or, further back, on Leon Battista
Alberti, a reverend senior when those three were young, and of a much
grander type than they, a robust, universal mind, at once practical and
theoretic, artist, man of science, inventor, poet:—and on many more
valiant workers whose names are not registered where every day we turn
the leaf to read them, but whose labours make a part, though an
unrecognised part, of our inheritance, like the ploughing and sowing of
past generations.

Bernardo Rucellai was a man to hold a distinguished place in that
Academy even before he became its host and patron. He was still in the
prime of life, not more than four and forty, with a somewhat haughty,
cautiously dignified presence; conscious of an amazingly pure Latinity,
but, says Erasmus, not to be caught speaking Latin—no word of Latin to
be sheared off him by the sharpest of Teutons. He welcomed Tito with
more marked favour than usual and gave him a place between Lorenzo
Tornabuoni and Giannozzo Pucci, both of them accomplished young members
of the Medicean party.

Of course the talk was the lightest in the world while the brass bowl
filled with scented water was passing round, that the company might
wash their hands, and rings flashed on white fingers under the
wax-lights, and there was the pleasant fragrance of fresh white damask
newly come from France. The tone of remark was a very common one in
those times. Some one asked what Dante’s pattern old Florentine would
think if the life could come into him again under his leathern belt and
bone clasp, and he could see silver forks on the table? And it was
agreed on all hands that the habits of posterity would be very
surprising to ancestors, if ancestors could only know them.

And while the silver forks were just dallying with the appetising
delicacies that introduced the more serious business of the supper—such
as morsels of liver, cooked to that exquisite point that they would
melt in the mouth—there was time to admire the designs on the enamelled
silver centres of the brass service, and to say something, as usual,
about the silver dish for confetti, a masterpiece of Antonio
Pollajuolo, whom patronising Popes had seduced from his native Florence
to more gorgeous Rome.

“Ah, I remember,” said Niccolò Ridolfi, a middle-aged man, with that
negligent ease of manner which, seeming to claim nothing, is really
based on the lifelong consciousness of commanding rank—“I remember our
Antonio getting bitter about his chiselling and enamelling of these
metal things, and taking in a fury to painting, because, said he, ‘the
artist who puts his work into gold and silver, puts his brains into the
melting-pot.’”

“And that is not unlikely to be a true foreboding of Antonio’s,” said
Giannozzo Pucci. “If this pretty war with Pisa goes on, and the revolt
only spreads a little to our other towns, it is not only our silver
dishes that are likely to go; I doubt whether Antonio’s silver saints
round the altar of San Giovanni will not some day vanish from the eyes
of the faithful to be worshipped more devoutly in the form of coin.”

“The Frate is preparing us for that already,” said Tornabuoni. “He is
telling the people that God will not have silver crucifixes and
starving stomachs; and that the church is best adorned with the gems of
holiness and the fine gold of brotherly love.”

“A very useful doctrine of war-finance, as many a Condottiere has
found,” said Bernardo Rucellai, drily. “But politics come on after the
confetti, Lorenzo, when we can drink wine enough to wash them down;
they are too solid to be taken with roast and boiled.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Niccolò Ridolfi. “Our Luigi Pulci would have said
this delicate boiled kid must be eaten with an impartial mind. I
remember one day at Careggi, when Luigi was in his rattling vein, he
was maintaining that nothing perverted the palate like opinion.
‘Opinion,’ said he, ‘corrupts the saliva—that’s why men took to pepper.
Scepticism is the only philosophy that doesn’t bring a taste in the
mouth.’ ‘Nay,’ says poor Lorenzo de’ Medici, ‘you must be out there,
Luigi. Here is this untainted sceptic, Matteo Franco, who wants hotter
sauce than any of us.’ ‘Because he has a strong opinion of himself,’
flashes out Luigi, which is the original egg of all other opinion. _He_
a sceptic? He believes in the immortality of his own verses. He is such
a logician as that preaching friar who described the pavement of the
bottomless pit. Poor Luigi! his mind was like sharpest steel that can
touch nothing without cutting.”

“And yet a very gentle-hearted creature,” said Giannozzo Pucci. “It
seemed to me his talk was a mere blowing of soap-bubbles. What
dithyrambs he went into about eating and drinking! and yet he was as
temperate as a butterfly.”

The light talk and the solid eatables were not soon at an end, for
after the roast and boiled meats came the indispensable capon and game,
and, crowning glory of a well-spread table, a peacock cooked according
to the receipt of Apicius for cooking partridges, namely, with the
feathers on, but not plucked afterwards, as that great authority
ordered concerning his partridges; on the contrary, so disposed on the
dish that it might look as much as possible like a live peacock taking
its unboiled repose. Great was the skill required in that confidential
servant who was the official carver, respectfully to turn the classical
though insipid bird on its back, and expose the plucked breast from
which he was to dispense a delicate slice to each of the honourable
company, unless any one should be of so independent a mind as to
decline that expensive toughness and prefer the vulgar digestibility of
capon.

Hardly any one was so bold. Tito quoted Horace and dispersed his slice
in small particles over his plate; Bernardo Rucellai made a learned
observation about the ancient price of peacocks’ eggs, but did not
pretend to eat his slice; and Niccolò Ridolfi held a mouthful on his
fork while he told a favourite story of Luigi Pulci’s, about a man of
Siena, who, wanting to give a splendid entertainment at moderate
expense, bought a wild goose, cut off its beak and webbed feet, and
boiled it in its feathers, to pass for a pea-hen.

In fact, very little peacock was eaten; but there was the satisfaction
of sitting at a table where peacock was served up in a remarkable
manner, and of knowing that such caprices were not within reach of any
but those who supped with the very wealthiest men. And it would have
been rashness to speak slightingly of peacock’s flesh, or any other
venerable institution, at a time when Fra Girolamo was teaching the
disturbing doctrine that it was not the duty of the rich to be
luxurious for the sake of the poor.

Meanwhile, in the chill obscurity that surrounded this centre of
warmth, and light, and savoury odours, the lonely disowned man was
walking in gradually narrowing circuits. He paused among the trees, and
looked in at the windows, which made brilliant pictures against the
gloom. He could hear the laughter; he could see Tito gesticulating with
careless grace, and hear his voice, now alone, now mingling in the
merry confusion of interlacing speeches. Baldassarre’s mind was highly
strung. He was preparing himself for the moment when he could win his
entrance into this brilliant company; and he had a savage satisfaction
in the sight of Tito’s easy gaiety, which seemed to be preparing the
unconscious victim for more effective torture.

But the men seated among the branching tapers and the flashing cups
could know nothing of the pale fierce face that watched them from
without. The light can be a curtain as well as the darkness.

And the talk went on with more eagerness as it became less disconnected
and trivial. The sense of citizenship was just then strongly forced
even on the most indifferent minds. What the overmastering Fra Girolamo
was saying and prompting was really uppermost in the thoughts of every
one at table; and before the stewed fish was removed, and while the
favourite sweets were yet to come, his name rose to the surface of the
conversation, and, in spite of Rucellai’s previous prohibition, the
talk again became political. At first, while the servants remained
present, it was mere gossip: what had been done in the Palazzo on the
first day’s voting for the Great Council; how hot-tempered and
domineering Francesco Valori was, as if he were to have everything his
own way by right of his austere virtue, and how it was clear to
everybody who heard Soderini’s speeches in favour of the Great Council
and also heard the Frate’s sermons, that they were both kneaded in the
same trough.

“My opinion is,” said Niccolò Ridolfi, “that the Frate has a longer
head for public matters than Soderini or any Piagnone among them: you
may depend on it that Soderini is his mouthpiece more than he is
Soderini’s.”

“No, Niccolò; there I differ from you,” said Bernardo Ruccellai: “the
Frate has an acute mind, and readily sees what will serve his own ends;
but it is not likely that Pagolantonio Soderini, who has had long
experience of affairs, and has specially studied the Venetian Council,
should be much indebted to a monk for ideas on that subject. No, no;
Soderini loads the cannon; though, I grant you, Fra Girolamo brings the
powder and lights the match. He is master of the people, and the people
are getting master of us. Ecco!”

“Well,” said Lorenzo Tornabuoni, presently, when the room was clear of
servants, and nothing but wine was passing round, “whether Soderini is
indebted or not, _we_ are indebted to the Frate for the general amnesty
which has gone along with the scheme of the Council. We might have done
without the fear of God and the reform of morals being passed by a
majority of black beans; but that excellent proposition, that our
Medicean heads should be allowed to remain comfortably on our
shoulders, and that we should not be obliged to hand over our property
in fines, has my warm approval, and it is my belief that nothing but
the Frate’s predominance could have procured that for us. And you may
rely on it that Fra Girolamo is as firm as a rock on that point of
promoting peace. I have had an interview with him.”

There was a murmur of surprise and curiosity at the farther end of the
table; but Bernardo Rucellai simply nodded, as if he knew what
Tornabuoni had to say, and wished him to go on.

“Yes,” proceeded Tornabuoni, “I have been favoured with an interview in
the Frate’s own cell, which, let me tell you, is not a common favour;
for I have reason to believe that even Francesco Valori very seldom
sees him in private. However, I think he saw me the more willingly
because I was not a ready-made follower, but had to be converted. And,
for my part, I see clearly enough that the only safe and wise policy
for us Mediceans to pursue is to throw our strength into the scale of
the Frate’s party. We are not strong enough to make head on our own
behalf; and if the Frate and the popular party were upset, every one
who hears me knows perfectly well what other party would be uppermost
just now: Nerli, Alberti, Pazzi, and the rest—_Arrabbiati_, as somebody
christened them the other day—who, instead of giving us an amnesty,
would be inclined to fly at our throats like mad dogs, and not be
satisfied till they had banished half of us.”

There were strong interjections of assent to this last sentence of
Tornabuoni’s, as he paused and looked round a moment.

“A wise dissimulation,” he went on, “is the only course for moderate
rational men in times of violent party feeling. I need hardly tell this
company what are my real political attachments: I am not the only man
here who has strong personal ties to the banished family; but, apart
from any such ties, I agree with my more experienced friends, who are
allowing me to speak for them in their presence, that the only lasting
and peaceful state of things for Florence is the predominance of some
single family interest. This theory of the Frate’s, that we are to have
a popular government, in which every man is to strive only for the
general good, and know no party names, is a theory that may do for some
isle of Cristoforo Colombo’s finding, but will never do for our fine
old quarrelsome Florence. A change must come before long, and with
patience and caution we have every chance of determining the change in
our favour. Meanwhile, the best thing we can do will be to keep the
Frate’s flag flying, for if any other were to be hoisted just now it
would be a black flag for us.”

“It’s true,” said Niccolò Ridolfi, in a curt decisive way. “What you
say is true, Lorenzo. For my own part, I am too old for anybody to
believe that I’ve changed my feathers. And there are certain of us—our
old Bernardo del Nero for one—whom you would never persuade to borrow
another man’s shield. But we can lie still, like sleepy old dogs; and
it’s clear enough that barking would be of no use just now. As for this
psalm-singing party, who vote for nothing but the glory of God, and
want to make believe we can all love each other, and talk as if vice
could be swept out with a besom by the Magnificent Eight, their day
will not be a long one. After all the talk of scholars, there are but
two sorts of government: one where men show their teeth at each other,
and one where men show their tongues and lick the feet of the
strongest. They’ll get their Great Council finally voted
to-morrow—that’s certain enough—and they’ll think they’ve found out a
new plan of government; but as sure as there’s a human skin under every
lucco in the Council, their new plan will end like every other, in
snarling or in licking. That’s my view of things as a plain man. Not
that I consider it becoming in men of family and following, who have
got others depending on their constancy and on their sticking to their
colours, to go a-hunting with a fine net to catch reasons in the air,
like doctors of law. I say frankly that, as the head of my family, I
shall be true to my old alliances; and I have never yet seen any
chalk-mark on political reasons to tell me which is true and which is
false. My friend Bernardo Rucellai here is a man of reasons, I know,
and I have no objection to anybody’s finding fine-spun reasons for me,
so that they don’t interfere with my actions as a man of family who has
faith to keep with his connections.”

“If that is an appeal to me, Niccolò,” said Bernardo Rucellai, with a
formal dignity, in amusing contrast with Ridolfi’s curt and pithy ease,
“I may take this opportunity of saying, that while my wishes are partly
determined by long-standing personal relations, I cannot enter into any
positive schemes with persons over whose actions I have no control. I
myself might be content with a restoration of the old order of things;
but with modifications—with important modifications. And the one point
on which I wish to declare my concurrence with Lorenzo Tornabuoni is,
that the best policy to be pursued by our friends is, to throw the
weight of their interest into the scale of the popular party. For
myself, I condescend to no dissimulation; nor do I at present see the
party or the scheme that commands my full assent. In all alike there is
crudity and confusion of ideas, and of all the twenty men who are my
colleagues in the present crisis, there is not one with whom I do not
find myself in wide disagreement.”

Niccolò Ridolfi shrugged his shoulders, and left it to some one else to
take up the ball. As the wine went round the talk became more and more
frank and lively, and the desire of several at once to be the chief
speaker, as usual caused the company to break up into small knots of
two and three.

It was a result which had been foreseen by Lorenzo Tornabuoni and
Giannozzo Pucci, and they were among the first to turn aside from the
highroad of general talk and enter into a special conversation with
Tito, who sat between them; gradually pushing away their seats, and
turning their backs on the table and wine.

“In truth, Melema,” Tornabuoni was saying at this stage, laying one
hose-clad leg across the knee of the other, and caressing his ankle, “I
know of no man in Florence who can serve our party better than you. You
see what most of our friends are: men who can no more hide their
prejudices than a dog can hide the natural tone of his bark, or else
men whose political ties are so notorious, that they must always be
objects of suspicion. Giannozzo here, and I, I flatter myself, are able
to overcome that suspicion; we have that power of concealment and
finesse, without which a rational cultivated man, instead of having any
prerogative, is really at a disadvantage compared with a wild bull or a
savage. But, except yourself, I know of no one else on whom we could
rely for the necessary discretion.”

“Yes,” said Giannozzo Pucci, laying his hand on Tito’s shoulder, “the
fact is, Tito mio, you can help us better than if you were Ulysses
himself, for I am convinced that Ulysses often made himself
disagreeable. To manage men one ought to have a sharp mind in a velvet
sheath. And there is not a soul in Florence who could undertake a
business like this journey to Rome, for example, with the same safety
that you can. There is your scholarship, which may always be a pretext
for such journeys; and what is better, there is your talent, which it
would be harder to match than your scholarship. Niccolò Macchiavelli
might have done for us if he had been on our side, but hardly so well.
He is too much bitten with notions, and has not your power of
fascination. All the worse for him. He has lost a great chance in life,
and you have got it.”

“Yes,” said Tornabuoni, lowering his voice in a significant manner,
“you have only to play your game well, Melema, and the future belongs
to you. For the Medici, you may rely upon it, will keep a foot in Rome
as well as in Florence, and the time may not be far-off when they will
be able to make a finer career for their adherents even than they did
in old days. Why shouldn’t you take orders some day? There’s a
cardinal’s hat at the end of that road, and you would not be the first
Greek who has worn that ornament.”

Tito laughed gaily. He was too acute not to measure Tornabuoni’s
exaggerated flattery, but still the flattery had a pleasant flavour.

“My joints are not so stiff yet,” he said, “that I can’t be induced to
run without such a high prize as that. I think the income of an abbey
or two held ‘in commendam,’ without the trouble of getting my head
shaved, would satisfy me at present.”

“I was not joking,” said Tornabuoni, with grave suavity; “I think a
scholar would always be the better off for taking orders. But we’ll
talk of that another time. One of the objects to be first borne in
mind, is that you should win the confidence of the men who hang about
San Marco; that is what Giannozzo and I shall do, but you may carry it
farther than we can, because you are less observed. In that way you can
get a thorough knowledge of their doings, and you will make a broader
screen for your agency on our side. Nothing of course can be done
before you start for Rome, because this bit of business between Piero
de’ Medici and the French nobles must be effected at once. I mean when
you come back, of course; I need say no more. I believe you could make
yourself the pet votary of San Marco, if you liked; but you are wise
enough to know that effective dissimulation is never immoderate.”

“If it were not that an adhesion to the popular side is necessary to
your safety as an agent of our party, Tito mio,” said Giannozzo Pucci,
who was more fraternal and less patronising in his manner than
Tornabuoni, “I could have wished your skill to have been employed in
another way, for which it is still better fitted. But now we must look
out for some other man among us who will manage to get into the
confidence of our sworn enemies, the Arrabbiati; we need to know their
movements more than those of the Frate’s party, who are strong enough
to play above-board. Still, it would have been a difficult thing for
you, from your known relations with the Medici a little while back, and
that sort of kinship your wife has with Bernardo del Nero. We must find
a man who has no distinguished connections, and who has not yet taken
any side.”

Tito was pushing his hair backward automatically, as his manner was,
and looking straight at Pucci with a scarcely perceptible smile on his
lip.

“No need to look out for any one else,” he said, promptly. “I can
manage the whole business with perfect ease. I will engage to make
myself the special confidant of that thick-headed Dolfo Spini, and know
his projects before he knows them himself.”

Tito seldom spoke so confidently of his own powers, but he was in a
state of exaltation at the sudden opening of a new path before him,
where fortune seemed to have hung higher prizes than any he had thought
of hitherto. Hitherto he had seen success only in the form of favour;
it now flashed on him in the shape of power—of such power as is
possible to talent without traditional ties, and without beliefs. Each
party that thought of him as a tool might become dependent on him. His
position as an alien, his indifference to the ideas or prejudices of
the men amongst whom he moved, were suddenly transformed into
advantages; he became newly conscious of his own adroitness in the
presence of a game that he was called on to play. And all the motives
which might have made Tito shrink from the triple deceit that came
before him as a tempting game, had been slowly strangled in him by the
successive falsities of his life.

Our lives make a moral tradition for our individual selves, as the life
of mankind at large makes a moral tradition for the race; and to have
once acted nobly seems a reason why we should always be noble. But Tito
was feeling the effect of an opposite tradition: he had won no memories
of self-conquest and perfect faithfulness from which he could have a
sense of falling.

The triple colloquy went on with growing spirit till it was interrupted
by a call from the table. Probably the movement came from the listeners
in the party, who were afraid lest the talkers should tire themselves.
At all events it was agreed that there had been enough of gravity, and
Rucellai had just ordered new flasks of Montepulciano.

“How many minstrels are there among us?” he said, when there had been a
general rallying round the table. “Melema, I think you are the chief:
Matteo will give you the lute.”

“Ah, yes!” said Giannozzo Pucci, “lead the last chorus from Poliziano’s
‘Orfeo,’ that you have found such an excellent measure for, and we will
all fall in:—


“‘Ciascum segua, o Bacco, te:
Bacco, Bacco, evoe, evoe!’”


The servant put the lute into Tito’s hands, and then said something in
an undertone to his master. A little subdued questioning and answering
went on between them, while Tito touched the lute in a preluding way to
the strain of the chorus, and there was a confusion of speech and
musical humming all round the table. Bernardo Rucellai had said, “Wait
a moment, Melema;” but the words had been unheard by Tito, who was
leaning towards Pucci, and singing low to him the phrases of the
Maenad-chorus. He noticed nothing until the buzz round the table
suddenly ceased, and the notes of his own voice, with its soft
low-toned triumph, “Evoe, evoe!” fell in startling isolation.

It was a strange moment. Baldassarre had moved round the table till he
was opposite Tito, and as the hum ceased there might be seen for an
instant Baldassarre’s fierce dark eyes bent on Tito’s bright smiling
unconsciousness, while the low notes of triumph dropped from his lips
into the silence.

Tito looked up with a slight start, and his lips turned pale, but he
seemed hardly more moved than Giannozzo Pucci, who had looked up at the
same moment—or even than several others round the table; for that
sallow deep-lined face with the hatred in its eyes seemed a terrible
apparition across the wax-lit ease and gaiety. And Tito quickly
recovered some self-command. “A mad old man—he looks like it—he _is_
mad!” was the instantaneous thought that brought some courage with it;
for he could conjecture no inward change in Baldassarre since they had
met before. He just let his eyes fall and laid the lute on the table
with apparent ease; but his fingers pinched the neck of the lute hard
while he governed his head and his glance sufficiently to look with an
air of quiet appeal towards Bernardo Rucellai, who said at once—

“Good man, what is your business? What is the important declaration
that you have to make?”

“Messer Bernardo Rucellai, I wish you and your honourable friends to
know in what sort of company you are sitting. There is a traitor among
you.”

There was a general movement of alarm. Every one present, except Tito,
thought of political danger and not of private injury.

Baldassarre began to speak as if he were thoroughly assured of what he
had to say; but, in spite of his long preparation for this moment,
there was the tremor of overmastering excitement in his voice. His
passion shook him. He went on, but he did not say what he had meant to
say. As he fixed his eyes on Tito again the passionate words were like
blows—they defied premeditation.

“There is a man among you who is a scoundrel, a liar, a robber. I was a
father to him. I took him from beggary when he was a child. I reared
him, I cherished him, I taught him, I made him a scholar. My head has
lain hard that his might have a pillow. And he left me in slavery; he
sold the gems that were mine, and when I came again, he denied me.”

The last words had been uttered with almost convulsed agitation, and
Baldassarre paused, trembling. All glances were turned on Tito, who was
now looking straight at Baldassarre. It was a moment of desperation
that annihilated all feeling in him, except the determination to risk
anything for the chance of escape. And he gathered confidence from the
agitation by which Baldassarre was evidently shaken. He had ceased to
pinch the neck of the lute, and had thrust his thumbs into his belt,
while his lips had begun to assume a slight curl. He had never yet done
an act of murderous cruelty even to the smallest animal that could
utter a cry, but at that moment he would have been capable of treading
the breath from a smiling child for the sake of his own safety.

“What does this mean, Melema?” said Bernardo Rucellai, in a tone of
cautious surprise. He, as well as the rest of the company, felt
relieved that the tenor of the accusation was not political.

“Messer Bernardo,” said Tito, “I believe this man is mad. I did not
recognise him the first time he encountered me in Florence, but I know
now that he is the servant who years ago accompanied me and my adoptive
father to Greece, and was dismissed on account of misdemeanours. His
name is Jacopo di Nola. Even at that time I believe his mind was
unhinged, for, without any reason, he had conceived a strange hatred
towards me; and now I am convinced that he is labouring under a mania
which causes him to mistake his identity. He has already attempted my
life since he has been in Florence; and I am in constant danger from
him. But he is an object of pity rather than of indignation. It is too
certain that my father is dead. You have only my word for it; but I
must leave it to your judgment how far it is probable that a man of
intellect and learning would have been lurking about in dark corners
for the last month with the purpose of assassinating me; or how far it
is probable that, if this man were my second father, I could have any
motive for denying him. That story about my being rescued from beggary
is the vision of a diseased brain. But it will be a satisfaction to me
at least if you will demand from him proofs of his identity, lest any
malignant person should choose to make this mad impeachment a reproach
to me.”

Tito had felt more and more confidence as he went on; the lie was not
so difficult when it was once begun; and as the words fell easily from
his lips, they gave him a sense of power such as men feel when they
have begun a muscular feat successfully. In this way he acquired
boldness enough to end with a challenge for proofs.

Baldassarre, while he had been walking in the gardens and afterwards
waiting in an outer room of the pavilion with the servants, had been
making anew the digest of the evidence he would bring to prove his
identity and Tito’s baseness, recalling the description and history of
his gems, and assuring himself by rapid mental glances that he could
attest his learning and his travels. It might be partly owing to this
nervous strain that the new shock of rage he felt as Tito’s lie fell on
his ears brought a strange bodily effect with it: a cold stream seemed
to rush over him, and the last words of the speech seemed to be drowned
by ringing chimes. Thought gave way to a dizzy horror, as if the earth
were slipping away from under him. Every one in the room was looking at
him as Tito ended, and saw that the eyes which had had such fierce
intensity only a few minutes before had now a vague fear in them. He
clutched the back of a seat, and was silent.

Hardly any evidence could have been more in favour of Tito’s assertion.

“Surely I have seen this man before, somewhere,” said Tornabuoni.

“Certainly you have,” said Tito, readily, in a low tone. “He is the
escaped prisoner who clutched me on the steps of the Duomo. I did not
recognise him then; he looks now more as he used to do, except that he
has a more unmistakable air of mad imbecility.”

“I cast no doubt on your word, Melema,” said Bernardo Rucellai, with
cautious gravity, “but you are right to desire some positive test of
the fact.” Then turning to Baldassarre, he said, “If you are the person
you claim to be, you can doubtless give some description of the gems
which were your property. I myself was the purchaser of more than one
gem from Messer Tito—the chief rings, I believe, in his collection. One
of them is a fine sard, engraved with a subject from Homer. If, as you
allege, you are a scholar, and the rightful owner of that ring, you can
doubtless turn to the noted passage in Homer from which that subject is
taken. Do you accept this test, Melema? or have you anything to allege
against its validity? The Jacopo you speak of, was he a scholar?”

It was a fearful crisis for Tito. If he said “Yes,” his quick mind told
him that he would shake the credibility of his story: if he said “No,”
he risked everything on the uncertain extent of Baldassarre’s
imbecility. But there was no noticeable pause before he said, “No. I
accept the test.”

There was a dead silence while Rucellai moved towards the recess where
the books were, and came back with the fine Florentine Homer in his
hand. Baldassarre, when he was addressed, had turned his head towards
the speaker, and Rucellai believed that he had understood him. But he
chose to repeat what he had said, that there might be no mistake as to
the test.

“The ring I possess,” he said, “is a fine sard, engraved with a subject
from Homer. There was no other at all resembling it in Messer Tito’s
collection. Will you turn to the passage in Homer from which that
subject is taken? Seat yourself here,” he added, laying the book on the
table, and pointing to his own seat while he stood beside it.

Baldassarre had so far recovered from the first confused horror
produced by the sensation of rushing coldness and chiming din in the
ears as to be partly aware of what was said to him: he was aware that
something was being demanded from him to prove his identity, but he
formed no distinct idea of the details. The sight of the book recalled
the habitual longing and faint hope that he could read and understand,
and he moved towards the chair immediately.

The book was open before him, and he bent his head a little towards it,
while everybody watched him eagerly. He turned no leaf. His eyes
wandered over the pages that lay before him, and then fixed on them a
straining gaze. This lasted for two or three minutes in dead silence.
Then he lifted his hands to each side of his head, and said, in a low
tone of despair, “Lost, lost!”

There was something so piteous in the wandering look and the low cry,
that while they confirmed the belief in his madness they raised
compassion. Nay, so distinct sometimes is the working of a double
consciousness within us, that Tito himself, while he triumphed in the
apparent verification of his lie, wished that he had never made the lie
necessary to himself—wished he had recognised his father on the
steps—wished he had gone to seek him—wished everything had been
different. But he had borrowed from the terrible usurer Falsehood, and
the loan had mounted and mounted with the years, till he belonged to
the usurer, body and soul.

The compassion excited in all the witnesses was not without its danger
to Tito; for conjecture is constantly guided by feeling, and more than
one person suddenly conceived that this man might have been a scholar
and have lost his faculties. On the other hand, they had not present to
their minds the motives which could have led Tito to the denial of his
benefactor, and having no ill-will towards him, it would have been
difficult to them to believe that he had been uttering the basest of
lies. And the originally common type of Baldassarre’s person, coarsened
by years of hardship, told as a confirmation of Tito’s lie. If
Baldassarre, to begin with, could have uttered precisely the words he
had premeditated, there might have been something in the form of his
accusation which would have given it the stamp not only of true
experience but of mental refinement. But there had been no such
testimony in his impulsive agitated words: and there seemed the very
opposite testimony in the rugged face and the coarse hands that
trembled beside it, standing out in strong contrast in the midst of
that velvet-clad, fair-handed company.

His next movement, while he was being watched in silence, told against
him too. He took his hands from his head, and felt for something under
his tunic. Every one guessed what that movement meant—guessed that
there was a weapon at his side. Glances were interchanged; and Bernardo
Rucellai said, in a quiet tone, touching Baldassarre’s shoulder—

“My friend, this is an important business of yours. You shall have all
justice. Follow me into a private room.”

Baldassarre was still in that half-stunned state in which he was
susceptible to any prompting, in the same way as an insect that forms
no conception of what the prompting leads to. He rose from his seat,
and followed Rucellai out of the room.

In two or three minutes Rucellai came back again, and said—

“He is safe under lock and key. Piero Pitti, you are one of the
Magnificent Eight, what do you think of our sending Matteo to the
palace for a couple of sbirri, who may escort him to the Stinche? (The
largest prison in Florence.) If there is any danger in him, as I think
there is, he will be safe there; and we can inquire about him
to-morrow.”

Pitti assented, and the order was given.

“He is certainly an ill-looking fellow,” said Tornabuoni. “And you say
he has attempted your life already, Melema?”

And the talk turned on the various forms of madness, and the fierceness
of the southern blood. If the seeds of conjecture unfavourable to Tito
had been planted in the mind of any one present, they were hardly
strong enough to grow without the aid of much daylight and ill-will.
The common-looking, wild-eyed old man, clad in serge, might have won
belief without very strong evidence, if he had accused a man who was
envied and disliked. As it was, the only congruous and probable view of
the case seemed to be the one that sent the unpleasant accuser safely
out of sight, and left the pleasant serviceable Tito just where he was
before.

The subject gradually floated away, and gave place to others, till a
heavy tramp, and something like the struggling of a man who was being
dragged away, were heard outside. The sounds soon died out, and the
interruption seemed to make the last hour’s conviviality more resolute
and vigorous. Every one was willing to forget a disagreeable incident.

Tito’s heart was palpitating, and the wine tasted no better to him than
if it had been blood.

To-night he had paid a heavier price than ever to make himself safe. He
did not like the price, and yet it was inevitable that he should be
glad of the purchase.

And after all he led the chorus. He was in a state of excitement in
which oppressive sensations, and the wretched consciousness of
something hateful but irrevocable, were mingled with a feeling of
triumph which seemed to assert itself as the feeling that would subsist
and be master of the morrow.

And it _was_ master. For on the morrow, as we saw, when he was about to
start on his mission to Rome, he had the air of a man well satisfied
with the world.




CHAPTER XL.
An Arresting Voice.


When Romola sat down on the stone under the cypress, all things
conspired to give her the sense of freedom and solitude: her escape
from the accustomed walls and streets; the widening distance from her
husband, who was by this time riding towards Siena, while every hour
would take her farther on the opposite way; the morning stillness; the
great dip of ground on the roadside making a gulf between her and the
sombre calm of the mountains. For the first time in her life she felt
alone in the presence of the earth and sky, with no human presence
interposing and making a law for her.

Suddenly a voice close to her said—

“You are Romola de’ Bardi, the wife of Tito Melema.”

She knew the voice: it had vibrated through her more than once before;
and because she knew it, she did not turn round or look up. She sat
shaken by awe, and yet inwardly rebelling against the awe. It was one
of those black-skirted monks who was daring to speak to her, and
interfere with her privacy: that was all. And yet she was shaken, as if
that destiny which men thought of as a sceptred deity had come to her,
and grasped her with fingers of flesh.

“You are fleeing from Florence in disguise. I have a command from God
to stop you. You are not permitted to flee.”

Romola’s anger at the intrusion mounted higher at these imperative
words. She would not turn round to look at the speaker, whose examining
gaze she resented. Sitting quite motionless, she said—

“What right have you to speak to me, or to hinder me?”

“The right of a messenger. You have put on a religious garb, and you
have no religious purpose. You have sought the garb as a disguise. But
you were not suffered to pass me without being discerned. It was
declared to me who you were: it is declared to me that you are seeking
to escape from the lot God has laid upon you. You wish your true name
and your true place in life to be hidden, that you may choose for
yourself a new name and a new place, and have no rule but your own
will. And I have a command to call you back. My daughter, you must
return to your place.”

Romola’s mind rose in stronger rebellion with every sentence. She was
the more determined not to show any sign of submission, because the
consciousness of being inwardly shaken made her dread lest she should
fall into irresolution. She spoke with more irritation than before.

“I will not return. I acknowledge no right of priests and monks to
interfere with my actions. You have no power over me.”

“I know—I know you have been brought up in scorn of obedience. But it
is not the poor monk who claims to interfere with you: it is the truth
that commands you. And you cannot escape it. Either you must obey it,
and it will lead you; or you must disobey it, and it will hang on you
with the weight of a chain which you will drag for ever. But you will
obey it, my daughter. Your old servant will return to you with the
mules; my companion is gone to fetch him; and you will go back to
Florence.”

She started up with anger in her eyes, and faced the speaker. It was
Fra Girolamo: she knew that well enough before. She was nearly as tall
as he was, and their faces were almost on a level. She had started up
with defiant words ready to burst from her lips, but they fell back
again without utterance. She had met Fra Girolamo’s calm glance, and
the impression from it was so new to her, that her anger sank ashamed
as something irrelevant.

There was nothing transcendent in Savonarola’s face. It was not
beautiful. It was strong-featured, and owed all its refinement to
habits of mind and rigid discipline of the body. The source of the
impression his glance produced on Romola was the sense it conveyed to
her of interest in her and care for her apart from any personal
feeling. It was the first time she had encountered a gaze in which
simple human fellowship expressed itself as a strongly-felt bond. Such
a glance is half the vocation of the priest or spiritual guide of men,
and Romola felt it impossible again to question his authority to speak
to her. She stood silent, looking at him. And he spoke again.

“You assert your freedom proudly, my daughter. But who is so base as
the debtor that thinks himself free?”

There was a sting in those words, and Romola’s countenance changed as
if a subtle pale flash had gone over it.

“And you are flying from your debts: the debt of a Florentine woman;
the debt of a wife. You are turning your back on the lot that has been
appointed for you—you are going to choose another. But can man or woman
choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace or their
father and mother. My daughter, you are fleeing from the presence of
God into the wilderness.”

As the anger melted from Romola’s mind, it had given place to a new
presentiment of the strength there might be in submission, if this man,
at whom she was beginning to look with a vague reverence, had some
valid law to show her. But no—it was impossible; he could not know what
determined her. Yet she could not again simply refuse to be guided; she
was constrained to plead; and in her new need to be reverent while she
resisted, the title which she had never given him before came to her
lips without forethought, “My father, you cannot know the reasons which
compel me to go. None can know them but myself. None can judge for me.
I have been driven by great sorrow. I am resolved to go.”

“I know enough, my daughter: my mind has been so far illuminated
concerning you, that I know enough. You are not happy in your married
life; but I am not a confessor, and I seek to know nothing that should
be reserved for the seal of confession. I have a divine warrant to stop
you, which does not depend on such knowledge. You were warned by a
message from heaven, delivered in my presence—you were warned before
marriage, when you might still have lawfully chosen to be free from the
marriage-bond. But you chose the bond; and in wilfully breaking it—I
speak to you as a pagan, if the holy mystery of matrimony is not sacred
to you—you are breaking a pledge. Of what wrongs will you complain, my
daughter, when you yourself are committing one of the greatest wrongs a
woman and a citizen can be guilty of—withdrawing in secrecy and
disguise from a pledge which you have given in the face of God and your
fellow-men? Of what wrongs will you complain, when you yourself are
breaking the simplest law that lies at the foundation of the trust
which binds man to man—faithfulness to the spoken word? This, then, is
the wisdom you have gained by scorning the mysteries of the Church?—not
to see the bare duty of integrity, where the Church would have taught
you to see, not integrity only, but religion.”

The blood had rushed to Romola’s face, and she shrank as if she had
been stricken. “I would not have put on a disguise,” she began; but she
could not go on,—she was too much shaken by the suggestion in the
Frate’s words of a possible affinity between her own conduct and
Tito’s.

“And to break that pledge you fly from Florence: Florence, where there
are the only men and women in the world to whom you owe the debt of a
fellow-citizen.”

“I should never have quitted Florence,” said Romola, tremulously, “as
long as there was any hope of my fulfilling a duty to my father there.”

“And do you own no tie but that of a child to her father in the flesh?
Your life has been spent in blindness, my daughter. You have lived with
those who sit on a hill aloof, and look down on the life of their
fellow-men. I know their vain discourse. It is of what has been in the
times which they fill with their own fancied wisdom, while they scorn
God’s work in the present. And doubtless you were taught how there were
pagan women who felt what it was to live for the Republic; yet you have
never felt that you, a Florentine woman, should live for Florence. If
your own people are wearing a yoke, will you slip from under it,
instead of struggling with them to lighten it? There is hunger and
misery in our streets, yet you say, ‘I care not; I have my own sorrows;
I will go away, if peradventure I can ease them.’ The servants of God
are struggling after a law of justice, peace, and charity, that the
hundred thousand citizens among whom you were born may be governed
righteously; but you think no more of this than if you were a bird,
that may spread its wings and fly whither it will in search of food to
its liking. And yet you have scorned the teaching of the Church, my
daughter. As if you, a wilful wanderer, following your own blind
choice, were not below the humblest Florentine woman who stretches
forth her hands with her own people, and craves a blessing for them;
and feels a close sisterhood with the neighbour who kneels beside her
and is not of her own blood; and thinks of the mighty purpose that God
has for Florence; and waits and endures because the promised work is
great, and she feels herself little.”

“I was not going away to ease and self-indulgence,” said Romola,
raising her head again, with a prompting to vindicate herself. “I was
going away to hardship. I expect no joy: it is gone from my life.”

“You are seeking your own will, my daughter. You are seeking some good
other than the law you are bound to obey. But how will you find good?
It is not a thing of choice: it is a river that flows from the foot of
the Invisible Throne, and flows by the path of obedience. I say again,
man cannot choose his duties. You may choose to forsake your duties,
and choose not to have the sorrow they bring. But you will go forth;
and what will you find, my daughter? Sorrow without duty—bitter herbs,
and no bread with them.”

“But if you knew,” said Romola, clasping her hands and pressing them
tight, as she looked pleadingly at Fra Girolamo; “if you knew what it
was to me—how impossible it seemed to me to bear it.”

“My daughter,” he said, pointing to the cord round Romola’s neck, “you
carry something within your mantle; draw it forth, and look at it.”

Romola gave a slight start, but her impulse now was to do just what
Savonarola told her. Her self-doubt was grappled by a stronger will and
a stronger conviction than her own. She drew forth the crucifix. Still
pointing towards it, he said—

“There, my daughter, is the image of a Supreme Offering, made by
Supreme Love, because the need of man was great.”

He paused, and she held the crucifix trembling—trembling under a sudden
impression of the wide distance between her present and her past self.
What a length of road she had travelled through since she first took
that crucifix from the Frate’s hands! Had life as many secrets before
her still as it had for her then, in her young blindness? It was a
thought that helped all other subduing influences; and at the sound of
Fra Girolamo’s voice again, Romola, with a quick involuntary movement,
pressed the crucifix against her mantle and looked at him with more
submission than before.

“Conform your life to that image, my daughter; make your sorrow an
offering: and when the fire of Divine charity burns within you, and you
behold the need of your fellow-men by the light of that flame, you will
not call your offering great. You have carried yourself proudly, as one
who held herself not of common blood or of common thoughts; but you
have been as one unborn to the true life of man. What! you say your
love for your father no longer tells you to stay in Florence? Then,
since that tie is snapped, you are without a law, without religion: you
are no better than a beast of the field when she is robbed of her
young. If the yearning of a fleshly love is gone, you are without love,
without obligation. See, then, my daughter, how you are below the life
of the believer who worships that image of the Supreme Offering, and
feels the glow of a common life with the lost multitude for whom that
offering was made, and beholds the history of the world as the history
of a great redemption in which he is himself a fellow-worker, in his
own place and among his own people! If you held that faith, my beloved
daughter, you would not be a wanderer flying from suffering, and
blindly seeking the good of a freedom which is lawlessness. You would
feel that Florence was the home of your soul as well as your
birthplace, because you would see the work that was given you to do
there. If you forsake your place, who will fill it? You ought to be in
your place now, helping in the great work by which God will purify
Florence, and raise it to be the guide of the nations. What! the earth
is full of iniquity—full of groans—the light is still struggling with a
mighty darkness, and you say, ‘I cannot bear my bonds; I will burst
them asunder; I will go where no man claims me’? My daughter, every
bond of your life is a debt: the right lies in the payment of that
debt; it can lie nowhere else. In vain will you wander over the earth;
you will be wandering for ever away from the right.”

Romola was inwardly struggling with strong forces: that immense
personal influence of Savonarola, which came from the energy of his
emotions and beliefs: and her consciousness, surmounting all prejudice,
that his words implied a higher law than any she had yet obeyed. But
the resisting thoughts were not yet overborne.

“How, then, could Dino be right? He broke ties. He forsook his place.”

“That was a special vocation. He was constrained to depart, else he
could not have attained the higher life. It would have been stifled
within him.”

“And I too,” said Romola, raising her hands to her brow, and speaking
in a tone of anguish, as if she were being dragged to some torture.
“Father, you may be wrong.”

“Ask your conscience, my daughter. You have no vocation such as your
brother had. You are a wife. You seek to break your ties in self-will
and anger, not because the higher life calls upon you to renounce them.
The higher life begins for us, my daughter, when we renounce our own
will to bow before a Divine law. That seems hard to you. It is the
portal of wisdom, and freedom, and blessedness. And the symbol of it
hangs before you. That wisdom is the religion of the Cross. And you
stand aloof from it: you are a pagan; you have been taught to say, ‘I
am as the wise men who lived before the time when the Jew of Nazareth
was crucified.’ And that is your wisdom! To be as the dead whose eyes
are closed, and whose ear is deaf to the work of God that has been
since their time. What has your dead wisdom done for you, my daughter?
It has left you without a heart for the neighbours among whom you
dwell, without care for the great work by which Florence is to be
regenerated and the world made holy; it has left you without a share in
the Divine life which quenches the sense of suffering Self in the
ardours of an ever-growing love. And now, when the sword has pierced
your soul, you say, ‘I will go away; I cannot bear my sorrow.’ And you
think nothing of the sorrow and the wrong that are within the walls of
the city where you dwell: you would leave your place empty, when it
ought to be filled with your pity and your labour. If there is
wickedness in the streets, your steps should shine with the light of
purity; if there is a cry of anguish, you, my daughter, because you
know the meaning of the cry, should be there to still it. My beloved
daughter, sorrow has come to teach you a new worship: the sign of it
hangs before you.”

Romola’s mind was still torn by conflict. She foresaw that she should
obey Savonarola and go back: his words had come to her as if they were
an interpretation of that revulsion from self-satisfied ease, and of
that new fellowship with suffering, which had already been awakened in
her. His arresting voice had brought a new condition into her life,
which made it seem impossible to her that she could go on her way as if
she had not heard it; yet she shrank as one who sees the path she must
take, but sees, too, that the hot lava lies there. And the instinctive
shrinking from a return to her husband brought doubts. She turned away
her eyes from Fra Girolamo, and stood for a minute or two with her
hands hanging clasped before her, like a statue. At last she spoke, as
if the words were being wrung from her, still looking on the ground.

“My husband... he is not... my love is gone!”

“My daughter, there is the bond of a higher love. Marriage is not
carnal only, made for selfish delight. See what that thought leads you
to! It leads you to wander away in a false garb from all the
obligations of your place and name. That would not have been, if you
had learned that it is a sacramental vow, from which none but God can
release you. My daughter, your life is not as a grain of sand, to be
blown by the winds; it is a thing of flesh and blood, that dies if it
be sundered. Your husband is not a malefactor?”

Romola started. “Heaven forbid! No; I accuse him of nothing.”

“I did not suppose he was a malefactor. I meant, that if he were a
malefactor, your place would be in the prison beside him. My daughter,
if the cross comes to you as a wife, you must carry it as a wife. You
may say, ‘I will forsake my husband,’ but you cannot cease to be a
wife.”

“Yet if—oh, how could I bear—” Romola had involuntarily begun to say
something which she sought to banish from her mind again.

“Make your marriage-sorrows an offering too, my daughter: an offering
to the great work by which sin and sorrow are being made to cease. The
end is sure, and is already beginning. Here in Florence it is
beginning, and the eyes of faith behold it. And it may be our
blessedness to die for it: to die daily by the crucifixion of our
selfish will—to die at last by laying our bodies on the altar. My
daughter, you are a child of Florence; fulfil the duties of that great
inheritance. Live for Florence—for your own people, whom God is
preparing to bless the earth. Bear the anguish and the smart. The iron
is sharp—I know, I know—it rends the tender flesh. The draught is
bitterness on the lips. But there is rapture in the cup—there is the
vision which makes all life below it dross for ever. Come, my daughter,
come back to your place!”

While Savonarola spoke with growing intensity, his arms tightly folded
before him still, as they had been from the first, but his face alight
as from an inward flame, Romola felt herself surrounded and possessed
by the glow of his passionate faith. The chill doubts all melted away;
she was subdued by the sense of something unspeakably great to which
she was being called by a strong being who roused a new strength within
herself. In a voice that was like a low, prayerful cry, she said—

“Father, I will be guided. Teach me! I will go back.”

Almost unconsciously she sank on her knees. Savonarola stretched out
his hands over her; but feeling would no longer pass through the
channel of speech, and he was silent.




CHAPTER XLI.
Coming Back.


“Rise, my daughter,” said Fra Girolamo at last. “Your servant is
waiting not far off with the mules. It is time that I should go onward
to Florence.”

Romola arose from her knees. That silent attitude had been a sort of
sacrament to her, confirming the state of yearning passivity on which
she had newly entered. By the one act of renouncing her resolve to quit
her husband, her will seemed so utterly bruised that she felt the need
of direction even in small things. She lifted up the edge of her cowl,
and saw Maso and the second Dominican standing with their backs towards
her on the edge of the hill about ten yards from her; but she looked at
Savonarola again without speaking, as if the order to Maso to turn back
must come from him and not from her.

“I will go and call them,” he said, answering her glance of appeal;
“and I will recommend you, my daughter, to the Brother who is with me.
You desire to put yourself under guidance, and to learn that wisdom
which has been hitherto as foolishness to you. A chief gate of that
wisdom is the sacrament of confession. You will need a confessor, my
daughter, and I desire to put you under the care of Fra Salvestro, one
of the brethren of San Marco, in whom I most confide.”

“I would rather have no guidance but yours, father,” said Romola,
looking anxious.

“My daughter, I do not act as a confessor. The vocation I have
withdraws me from offices that would force me into frequent contact
with the laity, and interfere with my special duties.”

“Then shall I not be able to speak to you in private? if I waver, if—”
Romola broke off from rising agitation. She felt a sudden alarm lest
her new strength in renunciation should vanish if the immediate
personal influence of Savonarola vanished.

“My daughter, if your soul has need of the word in private from my
lips, you will let me know it through Fra Salvestro, and I will see you
in the sacristy or in the choir of San Marco. And I will not cease to
watch over you. I will instruct my brother concerning you, that he may
guide you into that path of labour for the suffering and the hungry to
which you are called as a daughter of Florence in these times of hard
need. I desire to behold you among the feebler and more ignorant
sisters as the apple-tree among the trees of the forest, so that your
fairness and all natural gifts may be but as a lamp through which the
Divine light shines the more purely. I will go now and call your
servant.”

When Maso had been sent a little way in advance, Fra Salvestro came
forward, and Savonarola led Romola towards him. She had beforehand felt
an inward shrinking from a new guide who was a total stranger to her:
but to have resisted Savonarola’s advice would have been to assume an
attitude of independence at a moment when all her strength must be
drawn from the renunciation of independence. And the whole bent of her
mind now was towards doing what was painful rather than what was easy.
She bowed reverently to Fra Salvestro before looking directly at him;
but when she raised her head and saw him fully, her reluctance became a
palpitating doubt. There are men whose presence infuses trust and
reverence; there are others to whom we have need to carry our trust and
reverence ready-made; and that difference flashed on Romola as she
ceased to have Savonarola before her, and saw in his stead Fra
Salvestro Maruffi. It was not that there was anything manifestly
repulsive in Fra Salvestro’s face and manner, any air of hypocrisy, any
tinge of coarseness; his face was handsomer than Fra Girolamo’s, his
person a little taller. He was the long-accepted confessor of many
among the chief personages in Florence, and had therefore had large
experience as a spiritual director. But his face had the vacillating
expression of a mind unable to concentrate itself strongly in the
channel of one great emotion or belief—an expression which is fatal to
influence over an ardent nature like Romola’s. Such an expression is
not the stamp of insincerity; it is the stamp simply of a shallow soul,
which will often be found sincerely striving to fill a high vocation,
sincerely composing its countenance to the utterance of sublime
formulas, but finding the muscles twitch or relax in spite of belief,
as prose insists on coming instead of poetry to the man who has not the
divine frenzy. Fra Salvestro had a peculiar liability to visions,
dependent apparently on a constitution given to somnambulism.
Savonarola believed in the supernatural character of these visions,
while Fra Salvestro himself had originally resisted such an
interpretation of them, and had even rebuked Savonarola for his
prophetic preaching: another proof, if one were wanted, that the
relative greatness of men is not to be gauged by their tendency to
disbelieve the superstitions of their age. For of these two there can
be no question which was the great man and which the small.

The difference between them was measured very accurately by the change
in Romola’s feeling as Fra Salvestro began to address her in words of
exhortation and encouragement. After her first angry resistance of
Savonarola had passed away, she had lost all remembrance of the old
dread lest any influence should drag her within the circle of
fanaticism and sour monkish piety. But now again, the chill breath of
that dread stole over her. It could have no decisive effect against the
impetus her mind had just received; it was only like the closing of the
grey clouds over the sunrise, which made her returning path monotonous
and sombre.

And perhaps of all sombre paths that on which we go back after treading
it with a strong resolution is the one that most severely tests the
fervour of renunciation. As they re-entered the city gates the light
snow-flakes fell about them; and as the grey sister walked hastily
homeward from the Piazza di San Marco, and trod the bridge again, and
turned in at the large door in the Via de’ Bardi, her footsteps were
marked darkly on the thin carpet of snow, and her cowl fell laden and
damp about her face.

She went up to her room, threw off her serge, destroyed the parting
letters, replaced all her precious trifles, unbound her hair, and put
on her usual black dress. Instead of taking a long exciting journey,
she was to sit down in her usual place. The snow fell against the
windows, and she was alone.

She felt the dreariness, yet her courage was high, like that of a
seeker who has come on new signs of gold. She was going to thread life
by a fresh clue. She had thrown all the energy of her will into
renunciation. The empty tabernacle remained locked, and she placed
Dino’s crucifix outside it.

Nothing broke the outward monotony of her solitary home, till the night
came like a white ghost at the windows. Yet it was the most memorable
Christmas-eve in her life to Romola, this of 1494.




CHAPTER XLII.
Romola in her Place.


It was the thirtieth of October 1496. The sky that morning was clear
enough, and there was a pleasant autumnal breeze. But the Florentines
just then thought very little about the land breezes: they were
thinking of the gales at sea, which seemed to be uniting with all other
powers to disprove the Frate’s declaration that Heaven took special
care of Florence.

For those terrible gales had driven away from the coast of Leghorn
certain ships from Marseilles, freighted with soldiery and corn; and
Florence was in the direst need, first of food, and secondly of
fighting men. Pale Famine was in her streets, and her territory was
threatened on all its borders.

For the French king, that new Charlemagne, who had entered Italy in
anticipatory triumph, and had conquered Naples without the least
trouble, had gone away again fifteen months ago, and was even, it was
feared, in his grief for the loss of a new-born son, losing the languid
intention of coming back again to redress grievances and set the Church
in order. A league had been formed against him—a Holy League, with Pope
Borgia at its head—to “drive out the barbarians,” who still garrisoned
the fortress of Naples. That had a patriotic sound; but, looked at more
closely, the Holy League seemed very much like an agreement among
certain wolves to drive away all other wolves, and then to see which
among themselves could snatch the largest share of the prey. And there
was a general disposition to regard Florence not as a fellow-wolf, but
rather as a desirable carcass. Florence, therefore, of all the chief
Italian States, had alone declined to join the League, adhering still
to the French alliance.

She had declined at her peril. At this moment Pisa, still fighting
savagely for liberty, was being encouraged not only by strong forces
from Venice and Milan, but by the presence of the German Emperor
Maximilian, who had been invited by the League, and was joining the
Pisans with such troops as he had in the attempt to get possession of
Leghorn, while the coast was invested by Venetian and Genoese ships.
And if Leghorn should fall into the hands of the enemy, woe to
Florence! For if that one outlet towards the sea were closed, hedged in
as she was on the land by the bitter ill-will of the Pope and the
jealousy of smaller States, how could succours reach her?

The government of Florence had shown a great heart in this urgent need,
meeting losses and defeats with vigorous effort, raising fresh money,
raising fresh soldiers, but not neglecting the good old method of
Italian defence—conciliatory embassies. And while the scarcity of food
was every day becoming greater, they had resolved, in opposition to old
precedent, not to shut out the starving country people, and the
mendicants driven from the gates of other cities, who came flocking to
Florence like birds from a land of snow.

These acts of a government in which the disciples of Savonarola made
the strongest element were not allowed to pass without criticism. The
disaffected were plentiful, and they saw clearly that the government
took the worst course for the public welfare. Florence ought to join
the League and make common cause with the other great Italian States,
instead of drawing down their hostility by a futile adherence to a
foreign ally. Florence ought to take care of her own citizens, instead
of opening her gates to famine and pestilence in the shape of starving
contadini and alien mendicants.

Every day the distress became sharper: every day the murmurs became
louder. And, to crown the difficulties of the government, for a month
and more—in obedience to a mandate from Rome—Fra Girolamo had ceased to
preach. But on the arrival of the terrible news that the ships from
Marseilles had been driven back, and that no corn was coming, the need
for the voice that could infuse faith and patience into the people
became too imperative to be resisted. In defiance of the Papal mandate
the Signoria requested Savonarola to preach. And two days ago he had
mounted again the pulpit of the Duomo, and had told the people only to
wait and be steadfast and the divine help would certainly come.

It was a bold sermon: he consented to have his frock stripped off him
if, when Florence persevered in fulfilling the duties of piety and
citizenship, God did not come to her rescue.

Yet at present, on this morning of the thirtieth, there were no signs
of rescue. Perhaps if the precious Tabernacle of the Madonna dell’
Impruneta were brought into Florence and carried in devout procession
to the Duomo, that Mother, rich in sorrows and therefore in mercy,
would plead for the suffering city? For a century and a half there were
records how the Florentines, suffering from drought, or flood, or
famine, or pestilence, or the threat of wars, had fetched the potent
image within their walls, and had found deliverance. And grateful
honour had been done to her and her ancient church of L’Impruneta; the
high house of Buondelmonti, patrons of the church, had to guard her
hidden image with bare sword; wealth had been poured out for prayers at
her shrine, for chantings, and chapels, and ever-burning lights; and
lands had been added, till there was much quarrelling for the privilege
of serving her. The Florentines were deeply convinced of her
graciousness to them, so that the sight of her tabernacle within their
walls was like the parting of the cloud, and the proverb ran, that the
Florentines had a Madonna who would do what they pleased.

When were they in more need of her pleading pity than now? And already,
the evening before, the tabernacle containing the miraculous hidden
image had been brought with high and reverend escort from L’Impruneta,
the privileged spot six miles beyond the gate of San Piero that looks
towards Rome, and had been deposited in the church of San Gaggio,
outside the gate, whence it was to be fetched in solemn procession by
all the fraternities, trades, and authorities of Florence.

But the Pitying Mother had not yet entered within the walls, and the
morning arose on unchanged misery and despondency. Pestilence was
hovering in the track of famine. Not only the hospitals were full, but
the courtyards of private houses had been turned into refuges and
infirmaries; and still there was unsheltered want. And early this
morning, as usual, members of the various fraternities who made it part
of their duty to bury the unfriended dead, were bearing away the
corpses that had sunk by the wayside. As usual, sweet womanly forms,
with the refined air and carriage of the well-born, but in the plainest
garb, were moving about the streets on their daily errands of tending
the sick and relieving the hungry.

One of these forms was easily distinguishable as Romola de’ Bardi. Clad
in the simplest garment of black serge, with a plain piece of black
drapery drawn over her head, so as to hide all her hair, except the
bands of gold that rippled apart on her brow, she was advancing from
the Ponte Vecchio towards the Por’ Santa Maria—the street in a direct
line with the bridge—when she found her way obstructed by the pausing
of a bier, which was being carried by members of the company of San
Jacopo del Popolo, in search for the unburied dead. The brethren at the
head of the bier were stooping to examine something, while a group of
idle workmen, with features paled and sharpened by hunger, were
clustering around and all talking at once.

“He’s dead, I tell you! Messer Domeneddio has loved him well enough to
take him.”

“Ah, and it would be well for us all if we could have our legs
stretched out and go with our heads two or three _bracci_ foremost!
It’s ill standing upright with hunger to prop you.”

“Well, well, he’s an old fellow. Death has got a poor bargain. Life’s
had the best of him.”

“And no Florentine, ten to one! A beggar turned out of Siena. San
Giovanni defend us! They’ve no need of soldiers to fight us. They send
us an army of starving men.”

“No, no! This man is one of the prisoners turned out of the Stinche. I
know by the grey patch where the prison badge was.”

“Keep quiet! Lend a hand! Don’t you see the brethren are going to lift
him on the bier?”

“It’s likely he’s alive enough if he could only look it. The soul may
be inside him if it had only a drop of _vernaccia_ to warm it.”

“In truth, I think he is not dead,” said one of the brethren, when they
had lifted him on the bier. “He has perhaps only sunk down for want of
food.”

“Let me try to give him some wine,” said Romola, coming forward. She
loosened the small flask which she carried at her belt, and, leaning
towards the prostrate body, with a deft hand she applied a small ivory
implement between the teeth, and poured into the mouth a few drops of
wine. The stimulus acted: the wine was evidently swallowed. She poured
more, till the head was moved a little towards her, and the eyes of the
old man opened full upon her with the vague look of returning
consciousness.

Then for the first time a sense of complete recognition came over
Romola. Those wild dark eyes opening in the sallow deep-lined face,
with the white beard, which was now long again, were like an
unmistakable signature to a remembered handwriting. The light of two
summers had not made that image any fainter in Romola’s memory: the
image of the escaped prisoner, whom she had seen in the Duomo the day
when Tito first wore the armour—at whose grasp Tito was paled with
terror in the strange sketch she had seen in Piero’s studio. A wretched
tremor and palpitation seized her. Now at last, perhaps, she was going
to know some secret which might be more bitter than all that had gone
before. She felt an impulse to dart away as from a sight of horror; and
again, a more imperious need to keep close by the side of this old man
whom, the divination of keen feeling told her, her husband had injured.
In the very instant of this conflict she still leaned towards him and
kept her right-hand ready to administer more wine, while her left was
passed under his neck. Her hands trembled, but their habit of soothing
helpfulness would have served to guide them without the direction of
her thought.

Baldassarre was looking at _her_ for the first time. The close
seclusion in which Romola’s trouble had kept her in the weeks preceding
her flight and his arrest, had denied him the opportunity he had sought
of seeing the Wife who lived in the Via de’ Bardi: and at this moment
the descriptions he had heard of the fair golden-haired woman were all
gone, like yesterday’s waves.

“Will it not be well to carry him to the steps of San Stefano?” said
Romola. “We shall cease then to stop up the street, and you can go on
your way with your bier.”

They had only to move onward for about thirty yards before reaching the
steps of San Stefano, and by this time Baldassarre was able himself to
make some efforts towards getting off the bier, and propping himself on
the steps against the church-doorway. The charitable brethren passed
on, but the group of interested spectators, who had nothing to do and
much to say, had considerably increased. The feeling towards the old
man was not so entirely friendly now it was quite certain that he was
alive, but the respect inspired by Romola’s presence caused the passing
remarks to be made in a rather more subdued tone than before.

“Ah, they gave him his morsel every day in the Stinche—that’s why he
can’t do so well without it. You and I, Cecco, know better what it is
to go to bed fasting.”

“_Gnaffè_! that’s why the Magnificent Eight have turned out some of the
prisoners, that they may shelter honest people instead. But if every
thief is to be brought to life with good wine and wheaten bread, we
Ciompi had better go and fill ourselves in Arno while the water’s
plenty.”

Romola had seated herself on the steps by Baldassarre, and was saying,
“Can you eat a little bread now? perhaps by-and-by you will be able, if
I leave it with you. I must go on, because I have promised to be at the
hospital. But I will come back if you will wait here, and then I will
take you to some shelter. Do you understand? Will you wait? I will come
back.”

He looked dreamily at her, and repeated her words, “come back.” It was
no wonder that his mind was enfeebled by his bodily exhaustion, but she
hoped that he apprehended her meaning. She opened her basket, which was
filled with pieces of soft bread, and put one of the pieces into his
hand.

“Do you keep your bread for those that can’t swallow, madonna?” said a
rough-looking fellow, in a red night-cap, who had elbowed his way into
the inmost circle of spectators—a circle that was pressing rather
closely on Romola.

“If anybody isn’t hungry,” said another, “I say, let him alone. He’s
better off than people who’ve got craving stomachs and no breakfast.”

“Yes, indeed; if a man’s a mind to die, it’s a time to encourage him,
instead of making him come back to life against his will. Dead men want
no trencher.”

“Oh, you don’t understand the Frate’s charity,” said a young man in an
excellent cloth tunic, whose face showed no signs of want. “The Frate
has been preaching to the birds, like Saint Anthony, and he’s been
telling the hawks they were made to feed the sparrows, as every good
Florentine citizen was made to feed six starving beggar-men from Arezzo
or Bologna. Madonna, there, is a pious Piagnone: she’s not going to
throw away her good bread on honest citizens who’ve got all the Frate’s
prophecies to swallow.”

“Come, madonna,” said he of the red cap, “the old thief doesn’t eat the
bread, you see: you’d better try _us_. We fast so much, we’re half
saints already.”

The circle had narrowed till the coarse men—most of them gaunt from
privation—had left hardly any margin round Romola. She had been taking
from her basket a small horn-cup, into which she put the piece of bread
and just moistened it with wine; and hitherto she had not appeared to
heed them. But now she rose to her feet, and looked round at them.
Instinctively the men who were nearest to her pushed backward a little,
as if their rude nearness were the fault of those behind. Romola held
out the basket of bread to the man in the night-cap, looking at him
without any reproach in her glance, as she said—

“Hunger is hard to bear, I know, and you have the power to take this
bread if you will. It was saved for sick women and children. You are
strong men; but if you do not choose to suffer because you are strong,
you have the power to take everything from the weak. You can take the
bread from this basket; but I shall watch by this old man; I shall
resist your taking the bread from _him_.”

For a few moments there was perfect silence, while Romola looked at the
faces before her, and held out the basket of bread. Her own pale face
had the slightly pinched look and the deepening of the eye-socket which
indicate unusual fasting in the habitually temperate, and the large
direct gaze of her hazel eyes was all the more impressive.

The man in the night-cap looked rather silly, and backed, thrusting his
elbow into his neighbour’s ribs with an air of moral rebuke. The
backing was general, every one wishing to imply that he had been pushed
forward against his will; and the young man in the fine cloth tunic had
disappeared.

But at this moment the armed servitors of the Signoria, who had begun
to patrol the line of streets through which the procession was to pass,
came up to disperse the group which was obstructing the narrow street.
The man addressed as Cecco retreated from a threatening mace up the
church-steps, and said to Romola, in a respectful tone—

“Madonna, if you want to go on your errands, I’ll take care of the old
man.”

Cecco was a wild-looking figure: a very ragged tunic, made shaggy and
variegated by cloth-dust and clinging fragments of wool, gave relief to
a pair of bare bony arms and a long sinewy neck; his square jaw shaded
by a bristly black beard, his bridgeless nose and low forehead, made
his face look as if it had been crushed down for purposes of packing,
and a narrow piece of red rag tied over his ears seemed to assist in
the compression. Romola looked at him with some hesitation.

“Don’t distrust me, madonna,” said Cecco, who understood her look
perfectly; “I am not so pretty as you, but I’ve got an old mother who
eats my porridge for me. What! there’s a heart inside me, and I’ve
bought a candle for the most Holy Virgin before now. Besides, see
there, the old fellow is eating his sop. He’s hale enough: he’ll be on
his legs as well as the best of us by-and-by.”

“Thank you for offering to take care of him, friend,” said Romola,
rather penitent for her doubting glance. Then leaning to Baldassarre,
she said, “Pray wait for me till I come again.”

He assented with a slight movement of the head and hand, and Romola
went on her way towards the hospital of San Matteo, in the Piazza di
San Marco.




CHAPTER XLIII.
The Unseen Madonna.


In returning from the hospital, more than an hour later, Romola took a
different road, making a wider circuit towards the river, which she
reached at some distance from the Ponte Vecchio. She turned her steps
towards that bridge, intending to hasten to San Stefano in search of
Baldassarre. She dreaded to know more about him, yet she felt as if, in
forsaking him, she would be forsaking some near claim upon her.

But when she approached the meeting of the roads where the Por’ Santa
Maria would be on her right-hand and the Ponte Vecchio on her left, she
found herself involved in a crowd who suddenly fell on their knees; and
she immediately knelt with them. The Cross was passing—the Great Cross
of the Duomo—which headed the procession. Romola was later than she had
expected to be, and now she must wait till the procession had passed.
As she rose from her knees, when the Cross had disappeared, the return
to a standing posture, with nothing to do but gaze, made her more
conscious of her fatigue than she had been while she had been walking
and occupied. A shopkeeper by her side said—

“Madonna Romola, you will be weary of standing: Gian Fantoni will be
glad to give you a seat in his house. Here is his door close at hand.
Let me open it for you. What! he loves God and the Frate as we do. His
house is yours.”

Romola was accustomed now to be addressed in this fraternal way by
ordinary citizens, whose faces were familiar to her from her having
seen them constantly in the Duomo. The idea of home had come to be
identified for her less with the house in the Via de’ Bardi, where she
sat in frequent loneliness, than with the towered circuit of Florence,
where there was hardly a turn of the streets at which she was not
greeted with looks of appeal or of friendliness. She was glad enough to
pass through the open door on her right-hand and be led by the
fraternal hose-vendor to an upstairs-window, where a stout woman with
three children, all in the plain garb of Piagnoni, made a place for her
with much reverence above the bright hanging draperies. From this
corner station she could see, not only the procession pouring in solemn
slowness between the lines of houses on the Ponte Vecchio, but also the
river and the Lung’ Arno on towards the bridge of the Santa Trinita.

In sadness and in stillness came the slow procession. Not even a
wailing chant broke the silent appeal for mercy: there was only the
tramp of footsteps, and the faint sweep of woollen garments. They were
young footsteps that were passing when Romola first looked from the
window—a long train of the Florentine youth, bearing high in the midst
of them the white image of the youthful Jesus, with a golden glory
above his head, standing by the tall cross where the thorns and the
nails lay ready.

After that train of fresh beardless faces came the mysterious-looking
Companies of Discipline, bound by secret rules to self-chastisement,
and devout praise, and special acts of piety; all wearing a garb which
concealed the whole head and face except the eyes. Every one knew that
these mysterious forms were Florentine citizens of various ranks, who
might be seen at ordinary times going about the business of the shop,
the counting-house, or the State; but no member now was discernible as
son, husband, or father. They had dropped their personality, and walked
as symbols of a common vow. Each company had its colour and its badge,
but the garb of all was a complete shroud, and left no expression but
that of fellowship.

In comparison with them, the multitude of monks seemed to be strongly
distinguished individuals, in spite of the common tonsure and the
common frock. First came a white stream of reformed Benedictines; and
then a much longer stream of the Frati Minori, or Franciscans, in that
age all clad in grey, with the knotted cord round their waists, and
some of them with the _zoccoli_, or wooden sandals, below their bare
feet;—perhaps the most numerous order in Florence, owning many zealous
members who loved mankind and hated the Dominicans. And after the grey
came the black of the Augustinians of San Spirito with more cultured
human faces above it—men who had inherited the library of Boccaccio,
and had made the most learned company in Florence when learning was
rarer; then the white over dark of the Carmelites; and then again the
unmixed black of the Servites, that famous Florentine order founded by
seven merchants who forsook their gains to adore the Divine Mother.

And now the hearts of all onlookers began to beat a little faster,
either with hatred or with love, for there was a stream of black and
white coming over the bridge—of black mantles over white scapularies;
and every one knew that the Dominicans were coming. Those of Fiesole
passed first. One black mantle parted by white after another, one
tonsured head after another, and still expectation was suspended. They
were very coarse mantles, all of them, and many were threadbare, if not
ragged; for the Prior of San Marco had reduced the fraternities under
his rule to the strictest poverty and discipline. But in the long line
of black and white there was at last singled out a mantle only a little
more worn than the rest, with a tonsured head above it which might not
have appeared supremely remarkable to a stranger who had not seen it on
bronze medals, with the sword of God as its obverse; or surrounded by
an armed guard on the way to the Duomo; or transfigured by the inward
flame of the orator as it looked round on a rapt multitude.

As the approach of Savonarola was discerned, none dared conspicuously
to break the stillness by a sound which would rise above the solemn
tramp of footsteps and the faint sweep of garments; nevertheless his
ear, as well as other ears, caught a mingled sound of slow hissing that
longed to be curses, and murmurs that longed to be blessings. Perhaps
it was the sense that the hissing predominated which made two or three
of his disciples in the foreground of the crowd, at the meeting of the
roads, fall on their knees as if something divine were passing. The
movement of silent homage spread: it went along the sides of the
streets like a subtle shock, leaving some unmoved, while it made the
most bend the knee and bow the head. But the hatred, too, gathered a
more intense expression; and as Savonarola passed up the Por’ Santa
Maria, Romola could see that some one at an upper window spat upon him.

Monks again—Frati Umiliati, or Humbled Brethren, from Ognissanti, with
a glorious tradition of being the earliest workers in the wool-trade;
and again more monks—Vallombrosan and other varieties of Benedictines,
reminding the instructed eye by niceties of form and colour that in
ages of abuse, long ago, reformers had arisen who had marked a change
of spirit by a change of garb; till at last the shaven crowns were at
an end, and there came the train of untonsured secular priests.

Then followed the twenty-one incorporated Arts of Florence in long
array, with their banners floating above them in proud declaration that
the bearers had their distinct functions, from the bakers of bread to
the judges and notaries. And then all the secondary officers of State,
beginning with the less and going on to the greater, till the line of
secularities was broken by the Canons of the Duomo, carrying a sacred
relic—the very head, enclosed in silver, of San Zenobio, immortal
bishop of Florence, whose virtues were held to have saved the city
perhaps a thousand years before.

Here was the nucleus of the procession. Behind the relic came the
archbishop in gorgeous cope, with canopy held above him; and after him
the mysterious hidden Image—hidden first by rich curtains of brocade
enclosing an outer painted tabernacle, but within this, by the more
ancient tabernacle which had never been opened in the memory of living
men, or the fathers of living men. In that inner shrine was the image
of the Pitying Mother, found ages ago in the soil of L’Impruneta,
uttering a cry as the spade struck it. Hitherto the unseen Image had
hardly ever been carried to the Duomo without having rich gifts borne
before it. There was no reciting the list of precious offerings made by
emulous men and communities, especially of veils and curtains and
mantles. But the richest of all these, it was said, had been given by a
poor abbess and her nuns, who, having no money to buy materials, wove a
mantle of gold brocade with their prayers, embroidered it and adorned
it with their prayers, and, finally, saw their work presented to the
Blessed Virgin in the great Piazza by two beautiful youths who spread
out white wings and vanished in the blue.

But to-day there were no gifts carried before the tabernacle: no
donations were to be given to-day except to the poor. That had been the
advice of Fra Girolamo, whose preaching never insisted on gifts to the
invisible powers, but only on help to visible need; and altars had been
raised at various points in front of the churches, on which the
oblations for the poor were deposited. Not even a torch was carried.
Surely the hidden Mother cared less for torches and brocade than for
the wail of the hungry people. Florence was in extremity: she had done
her utmost, and could only wait for something divine that was not in
her own power.

The Frate in the torn mantle had said that help would certainly come,
and many of the faint-hearted were clinging more to their faith in the
Frate’s word, than to their faith in the virtues of the unseen Image.
But there were not a few of the fierce-hearted who thought with secret
rejoicing that the Frate’s word might be proved false.

Slowly the tabernacle moved forward, and knees were bent. There was
profound stillness; for the train of priests and chaplains from
L’Impruneta stirred no passion in the onlookers. The procession was
about to close with the Priors and the Gonfaloniere: the long train of
companies and symbols, which have their silent music and stir the mind
as a chorus stirs it, was passing out of sight, and now a faint
yearning hope was all that struggled with the accustomed despondency.

Romola, whose heart had been swelling, half with foreboding, half with
that enthusiasm of fellowship which the life of the last two years had
made as habitual to her as the consciousness of costume to a vain and
idle woman, gave a deep sigh, as at the end of some long mental
tension, and remained on her knees for very languor; when suddenly
there flashed from between the houses on to the distant bridge
something bright-coloured. In the instant, Romola started up and
stretched out her arms, leaning from the window, while the black
drapery fell from her head, and the golden gleam of her hair and the
flush in her face seemed the effect of one illumination. A shout arose
in the same instant; the last troops of the procession paused, and all
faces were turned towards the distant bridge.

But the bridge was passed now: the horseman was pressing at full gallop
along by the Arno; the sides of his bay horse, just streaked with foam,
looked all white from swiftness; his cap was flying loose by his red
becchetto, and he waved an olive-branch in his hand. It was a
messenger—a messenger of good tidings! The blessed olive-branch spoke
afar off. But the impatient people could not wait. They rushed to meet
the on-comer, and seized his horse’s rein, pushing and trampling.

And now Romola could see that the horseman was her husband, who had
been sent to Pisa a few days before on a private embassy. The
recognition brought no new flash of joy into her eyes. She had checked
her first impulsive attitude of expectation; but her governing anxiety
was still to know what news of relief had come for Florence.

“Good news!”

“Best news!”

“News to be paid with hose!” (_novelle da calze_) were the vague
answers with which Tito met the importunities of the crowd, until he
had succeeded in pushing on his horse to the spot at the meeting of the
ways where the Gonfaloniere and the Priors were awaiting him. There he
paused, and, bowing low, said—

“Magnificent Signori! I have to deliver to you the joyful news that the
galleys from France, laden with corn and men, have arrived safely in
the port of Leghorn, by favour of a strong wind, which kept the enemy’s
fleet at a distance.”

The words had no sooner left Tito’s lips than they seemed to vibrate up
the streets. A great shout rang through the air, and rushed along the
river; and then another, and another; and the shouts were heard
spreading along the line of the procession towards the Duomo; and then
there were fainter answering shouts, like the intermediate plash of
distant waves in a great lake whose waters obey one impulse.

For some minutes there was no attempt to speak further: the Signoria
themselves lifted up their caps, and stood bare-headed in the presence
of a rescue which had come from outside the limit of their own
power—from that region of trust and resignation which has been in all
ages called divine.

At last, as the signal was given to move forward, Tito said, with a
smile—

“I ought to say, that any hose to be bestowed by the Magnificent
Signoria in reward of these tidings are due, not to me, but to another
man who had ridden hard to bring them, and would have been here in my
place if his horse had not broken down just before he reached Signa.
Meo di Sasso will doubtless be here in an hour or two, and may all the
more justly claim the glory of the messenger, because he has had the
chief labour and has lost the chief delight.”

It was a graceful way of putting a necessary statement, and after a
word of reply from the _Proposto_, or spokesman of the Signoria, this
dignified extremity of the procession passed on, and Tito turned his
horse’s head to follow in its train, while the great bell of the
Palazzo Vecchio was already beginning to swing, and give a louder voice
to the people’s joy in that moment, when Tito’s attention had ceased to
be imperatively directed, it might have been expected that he would
look round and recognise Romola; but he was apparently engaged with his
cap, which, now the eager people were leading his horse, he was able to
seize and place on his head, while his right-hand was still encumbered
by the olive-branch. He had a becoming air of lassitude after his
exertions; and Romola, instead of making any effort to be recognised by
him, threw her black drapery over her head again, and remained
perfectly quiet. Yet she felt almost sure that Tito had seen her; he
had the power of seeing everything without seeming to see it.




CHAPTER XLIV.
The Visible Madonna.


The crowd had no sooner passed onward than Romola descended to the
street, and hastened to the steps of San Stefano. Cecco had been
attracted with the rest towards the Piazza, and she found Baldassarre
standing alone against the church-door, with the horn-cup in his hand,
waiting for her. There was a striking change in him: the blank, dreamy
glance of a half-returned consciousness had given place to a fierceness
which, as she advanced and spoke to him, flashed upon her as if she had
been its object. It was the glance of caged fury that sees its prey
passing safe beyond the bars.

Romola started as the glance was turned on her, but her immediate
thought was that he had seen Tito. And as she felt the look of hatred
grating on her, something like a hope arose that this man might be the
criminal, and that her husband might not have been guilty towards him.
If she could learn that now, by bringing Tito face to face with him,
and have her mind set at rest!

“If you will come with me,” she said, “I can give you shelter and food
until you are quite rested and strong. Will you come?”

“Yes,” said Baldassarre, “I shall be glad to get my strength. I want to
get my strength,” he repeated, as if he were muttering to himself,
rather than speaking to her.

“Come!” she said, inviting him to walk by her side, and taking the way
by the Arno towards the Ponte Rubaconte as the more private road.

“I think you are not a Florentine,” she said, presently, as they turned
on to the bridge.

He looked round at her without speaking. His suspicious caution was
more strongly upon him than usual, just now that the fog of confusion
and oblivion was made denser by bodily feebleness. But she was looking
at him too, and there was something in her gentle eyes which at last
compelled him to answer her. But he answered cautiously—

“No, I am no Florentine; I am a lonely man.”

She observed his reluctance to speak to her, and dared not question him
further, lest he should desire to quit her. As she glanced at him from
time to time, her mind was busy with thoughts which quenched the faint
hope that there was nothing painful to be revealed about her husband.
If this old man had been in the wrong, where was the cause for dread
and secrecy!

They walked on in silence till they reached the entrance into the Via
de’ Bardi, and Romola noticed that he turned and looked at her with a
sudden movement as if some shock had passed through him. A few moments
after, she paused at the half-open door of the court and turned towards
him.

“Ah!” he said, not waiting for her to speak, “you are his wife.”

“Whose wife?” said Romola.

It would have been impossible for Baldassarre to recall any name at
that moment. The very force with which the image of Tito pressed upon
him seemed to expel any verbal sign. He made no answer, but looked at
her with strange fixedness.

She opened the door wide and showed the court covered with straw, on
which lay four or five sick people, while some little children crawled
or sat on it at their ease—tiny pale creatures, biting straws and
gurgling.

“If you will come in,” said Romola, tremulously, “I will find you a
comfortable place, and bring you some more food.”

“No, I will not come in,” said Baldassarre. But he stood still,
arrested by the burden of impressions under which his mind was too
confused to choose a course.

“Can I do nothing for you?” said Romola. “Let me give you some money
that you may buy food. It will be more plentiful soon.”

She had put her hand into her scarsella as she spoke, and held out her
palm with several _grossi_ in it. She purposely offered him more than
she would have given to any other man in the same circumstances. He
looked at the coins a little while, and then said—

“Yes, I will take them.”

She poured the coins into his palm, and he grasped them tightly.

“Tell me,” said Romola, almost beseechingly. “What shall you—”

But Baldassarre had turned away from her, and was walking again towards
the bridge. Passing from it, straight on up the Via del Fosso, he came
upon the shop of Niccolò Caparra, and turned towards it without a
pause, as if it had been the very object of his search. Niccolò was at
that moment in procession with the armourers of Florence, and there was
only one apprentice in the shop. But there were all sorts of weapons in
abundance hanging there, and Baldassarre’s eyes discerned what he was
more hungry for than for bread. Niccolò himself would probably have
refused to sell anything that might serve as a weapon to this man with
signs of the prison on him; but the apprentice, less observant and
scrupulous, took three _grossi_ for a sharp hunting-knife without any
hesitation. It was a conveniently small weapon, which Baldassarre could
easily thrust within the breast of his tunic, and he walked on, feeling
stronger. That sharp edge might give deadliness to the thrust of an
aged arm: at least it was a companion, it was a power in league with
him, even if it failed. It would break against armour, but was the
armour sure to be always there? In those long months while vengeance
had lain in prison, baseness had perhaps become forgetful and secure.
The knife had been bought with the traitor’s own money. That was just.
Before he took the money, he had felt what he should do with it—buy a
weapon. Yes, and if possible, food too; food to nourish the arm that
would grasp the weapon, food to nourish the body which was the temple
of vengeance. When he had had enough bread, he should be able to think
and act—to think first how he could hide himself, lest Tito should have
him dragged away again.

With that idea of hiding in his mind, Baldassarre turned up the
narrowest streets, bought himself some meat and bread, and sat down
under the first loggia to eat. The bells that swung out louder and
louder peals of joy, laying hold of him and making him vibrate along
with all the air, seemed to him simply part of that strong world which
was against him.

Romola had watched Baldassarre until he had disappeared round the
turning into the Piazza de’ Mozzi, half feeling that his departure was
a relief, half reproaching herself for not seeking with more decision
to know the truth about him, for not assuring herself whether there
were any guiltless misery in his lot which she was not helpless to
relieve. Yet what could she have done if the truth had proved to be the
burden of some painful secret about her husband, in addition to the
anxieties that already weighed upon her? Surely a wife was permitted to
desire ignorance of a husband’s wrong-doing, since she alone must not
protest and warn men against him. But that thought stirred too many
intricate fibres of feeling to be pursued now in her weariness. It was
a time to rejoice, since help had come to Florence; and she turned into
the court to tell the good news to her patients on their straw beds.

She closed the door after her, lest the bells should drown her voice,
and then throwing the black drapery from her head, that the women might
see her better, she stood in the midst and told them that corn was
coming, and that the bells were ringing for gladness at the news. They
all sat up to listen, while the children trotted or crawled towards
her, and pulled her black skirts, as if they were impatient at being
all that long way off her face. She yielded to them, weary as she was,
and sat down on the straw, while the little pale things peeped into her
basket and pulled her hair down, and the feeble voices around her said,
“The Holy Virgin be praised!”

“It was the procession!”

“The Mother of God has had pity on us!”

At last Romola rose from the heap of straw, too tired to try and smile
any longer, saying as she turned up the stone steps—

“I will come by-and-by, to bring you your dinner.”

“Bless you, madonna! bless you!” said the faint chorus, in much the
same tone as that in which they had a few minutes before praised and
thanked the unseen Madonna.

Romola cared a great deal for that music. She had no innate taste for
tending the sick and clothing the ragged, like some women to whom the
details of such work are welcome in themselves, simply as an
occupation. Her early training had kept her aloof from such womanly
labours; and if she had not brought to them the inspiration of her
deepest feelings, they would have been irksome to her. But they had
come to be the one unshaken resting-place of her mind, the one narrow
pathway on which the light fell clear. If the gulf between herself and
Tito which only gathered a more perceptible wideness from her attempts
to bridge it by submission, brought a doubt whether, after all, the
bond to which she had laboured to be true might not itself be false—if
she came away from her confessor, Fra Salvestro, or from some contact
with the disciples of Savonarola amongst whom she worshipped, with a
sickening sense that these people were miserably narrow, and with an
almost impetuous reaction towards her old contempt for their
superstition—she found herself recovering a firm footing in her works
of womanly sympathy. Whatever else made her doubt, the help she gave to
her fellow-citizens made her sure that Fra Girolamo had been right to
call her back. According to his unforgotten words, her place had not
been empty: it had been filled with her love and her labour. Florence
had had need of her, and the more her own sorrow pressed upon her, the
more gladness she felt in the memories, stretching through the two long
years, of hours and moments in which she had lightened the burden of
life to others. All that ardour of her nature which could no longer
spend itself in the woman’s tenderness for father and husband, had
transformed itself into an enthusiasm of sympathy with the general
life. She had ceased to think that her own lot could be happy—had
ceased to think of happiness at all: the one end of her life seemed to
her to be the diminishing of sorrow.

Her enthusiasm was continually stirred to fresh vigour by the influence
of Savonarola. In spite of the wearisome visions and allegories from
which she recoiled in disgust when they came as stale repetitions from
other lips than his, her strong affinity for his passionate sympathy
and the splendour of his aims had lost none of its power. His burning
indignation against the abuses and oppression that made the daily story
of the Church and of States had kindled the ready fire in her too. His
special care for liberty and purity of government in Florence, with his
constant reference of this immediate object to the wider end of a
universal regeneration, had created in her a new consciousness of the
great drama of human existence in which her life was a part; and
through her daily helpful contact with the less fortunate of her
fellow-citizens this new consciousness became something stronger than a
vague sentiment; it grew into a more and more definite motive of
self-denying practice. She thought little about dogmas, and shrank from
reflecting closely on the Frate’s prophecies of the immediate scourge
and closely following regeneration. She had submitted her mind to his
and had entered into communion with the Church, because in this way she
had found an immediate satisfaction for moral needs which all the
previous culture and experience of her life had left hungering. Fra
Girolamo’s voice had waked in her mind a reason for living, apart from
personal enjoyment and personal affection; but it was a reason that
seemed to need feeding with greater forces than she possessed within
herself, and her submissive use of all offices of the Church was simply
a watching and waiting if by any means fresh strength might come. The
pressing problem for Romola just then was not to settle questions of
controversy, but to keep alive that flame of unselfish emotion by which
a life of sadness might still be a life of active love.

Her trust in Savonarola’s nature as greater than her own made a large
part of the strength she had found. And the trust was not to be lightly
shaken. It is not force of intellect which causes ready repulsion from
the aberration and eccentricities of greatness, any more than it is
force of vision that causes the eye to explore the warts on a face
bright with human expression; it is simply the negation of high
sensibilities. Romola was so deeply moved by the grand energies of
Savonarola’s nature, that she found herself listening patiently to all
dogmas and prophecies, when they came in the vehicle of his ardent
faith and believing utterance.[1]

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can
feel trust and reverence. Romola’s trust in Savonarola was something
like a rope suspended securely by her path, making her step elastic
while she grasped it; if it were suddenly removed, no firmness of the
ground she trod could save her from staggering, or perhaps from
falling.

 [1] He himself had had occasion enough to note the efficacy of that
 vehicle. “If,” he says in the _Compendium Revelationum_, “you speak of
 such as have not heard these things from me, I admit that they who
 disbelieve are more than they who believe, because it is one thing to
 hear him who inwardly feels these things, and another to hear him who
 feels them not; ... and, therefore, it is well said by Saint Jerome,
 ‘Habet nescio quid latentis energiae vivae vocis actus, et in aures
 discipuli de auctoris ore transfusa fortis sonat.’”




CHAPTER XLV.
At the Barber’s Shop.


After that welcome appearance as the messenger with the olive-branch,
which was an unpromised favour of fortune, Tito had other commissions
to fulfil of a more premeditated character. He paused at the Palazzo
Vecchio, and awaited there the return of the Ten, who managed external
and war affairs, that he might duly deliver to them the results of his
private mission to Pisa, intended as a preliminary to an avowed embassy
of which Bernardo Rucellai was to be the head, with the object of
coming, if possible, to a pacific understanding with the Emperor
Maximilian and the League.

Tito’s talents for diplomatic work had been well ascertained, and as he
gave with fulness and precision the results of his inquiries and
interviews, Bernardo del Nero, who was at that time one of the Ten,
could not withhold his admiration. He would have withheld it if he
could; for his original dislike of Tito had returned, and become
stronger, since the sale of the library. Romola had never uttered a
word to her godfather on the circumstances of the sale, and Bernardo
had understood her silence as a prohibition to him to enter on the
subject, but he felt sure that the breach of her father’s wish had been
a blighting grief to her, and the old man’s observant eyes discerned
other indications that her married life was not happy.

“Ah,” he said, inwardly, “that doubtless is the reason she has taken to
listening to Fra Girolamo, and going amongst the Piagnoni, which I
never expected from her. These women, if they are not happy, and have
no children, must either take to folly or to some overstrained religion
that makes them think they’ve got all heaven’s work on their shoulders.
And as for my poor child Romola, it is as I always said—the cramming
with Latin and Greek has left her as much a woman as if she had done
nothing all day but prick her fingers with the needle. And this husband
of hers, who gets employed everywhere, because he’s a tool with a
smooth handle, I wish Tornabuoni and the rest may not find their
fingers cut. Well, well, _solco torto, sacco dritto_—many a full sack
comes from a crooked furrow; and he who will be captain of none but
honest men will have small hire to pay.”

With this long-established conviction that there could be no moral
sifting of political agents, the old Florentine abstained from all
interference in Tito’s disfavour. Apart from what must be kept sacred
and private for Romola’s sake, Bernardo had nothing direct to allege
against the useful Greek, except that he was a Greek, and that he,
Bernardo, did not like him; for the doubleness of feigning attachment
to the popular government, while at heart a Medicean, was common to
Tito with more than half the Medicean party. He only feigned with more
skill than the rest: that was all. So Bernardo was simply cold to Tito,
who returned the coldness with a scrupulous, distant respect. And it
was still the notion in Florence that the old tie between Bernardo and
Bardo made any service done to Romola’s husband an acceptable homage to
her godfather.

After delivering himself of his charge at the Old Palace, Tito felt
that the avowed official work of the day was done. He was tired and
adust with long riding; but he did not go home. There were certain
things in his scarsella and on his mind, from which he wished to free
himself as soon as possible, but the opportunities must be found so
skilfully that they must not seem to be sought. He walked from the
Palazzo in a sauntering fashion towards the Piazza del Duomo. The
procession was at an end now, but the bells were still ringing, and the
people were moving about the streets restlessly, longing for some more
definite vent to their joy. If the Frate could have stood up in the
great Piazza and preached to them, they might have been satisfied, but
now, in spite of the new discipline which declared Christ to be the
special King of the Florentines and required all pleasures to be of a
Christian sort, there was a secret longing in many of the youngsters
who shouted “Viva Gesu!” for a little vigorous stone throwing in sign
of thankfulness.

Tito, as he passed along, could not escape being recognised by some as
the welcome bearer of the olive-branch, and could only rid himself of
an inconvenient ovation, chiefly in the form of eager questions, by
telling those who pressed on him that Meo di Sasso, the true messenger
from Leghorn, must now be entering, and might certainly be met towards
the Porta San Frediano. He could tell much more than Tito knew.

Freeing himself from importunities in this adroit manner, he made his
way to the Piazza del Duomo, casting his long eyes round the space with
an air of the utmost carelessness, but really seeking to detect some
presence which might furnish him with one of his desired opportunities.
The fact of the procession having terminated at the Duomo made it
probable that there would be more than the usual concentration of
loungers and talkers in the Piazza and round Nello’s shop. It was as he
expected. There was a group leaning against the rails near the north
gates of the Baptistery, so exactly what he sought, that he looked more
indifferent than ever, and seemed to recognise the tallest member of
the group entirely by chance as he had half passed him, just turning
his head to give him a slight greeting, while he tossed the end of his
_becchetto_ over his left shoulder.

Yet the tall, broad-shouldered personage greeted in that slight way
looked like one who had considerable claims. He wore a
richly-embroidered tunic, with a great show of linen, after the newest
French mode, and at his belt there hung a sword and poniard of fine
workmanship. His hat, with a red plume in it, seemed a scornful protest
against the gravity of Florentine costume, which had been exaggerated
to the utmost under the influence of the Piagnoni. Certain undefinable
indications of youth made the breadth of his face and the large
diameter of his waist appear the more emphatically a stamp of
coarseness, and his eyes had that rude desecrating stare at all men and
things which to a refined mind is as intolerable as a bad odour or a
flaring light.

He and his companions, also young men dressed expensively and wearing
arms, were exchanging jokes with that sort of ostentatious laughter
which implies a desire to prove that the laughter is not mortified
though some people might suspect it. There were good reasons for such a
suspicion; for this broad-shouldered man with the red feather was Dolfo
Spini, leader of the Compagnacci, or Evil Companions—that is to say, of
all the dissolute young men belonging to the old aristocratic party,
enemies of the Mediceans, enemies of the popular government, but still
more bitter enemies of Savonarola. Dolfo Spini, heir of the great house
with the loggia, over the bridge of the Santa Trinita, had organised
these young men into an armed band, as sworn champions of extravagant
suppers and all the pleasant sins of the flesh, against reforming
pietists who threatened to make the world chaste and temperate to so
intolerable a degree that there would soon be no reason for living,
except the extreme unpleasantness of the alternative. Up to this very
morning he had been loudly declaring that Florence was given up to
famine and ruin entirely through its blind adherence to the advice of
the Frate, and that there could be no salvation for Florence but in
joining the League and driving the Frate out of the city—sending him to
Rome, in fact, whither he ought to have gone long ago in obedience to
the summons of the Pope. It was suspected, therefore, that Messer Dolfo
Spini’s heart was not aglow with pure joy at the unexpected succours
which had come in apparent fulfilment of the Frate’s prediction, and
the laughter, which was ringing out afresh as Tito joined the group at
Nello’s door, did not serve to dissipate the suspicion. For leaning
against the door-post in the centre of the group was a close-shaven,
keen-eyed personage, named Niccolò Macchiavelli, who, young as he was,
had penetrated all the small secrets of egoism.

“Messer Dolfo’s head,” he was saying, “is more of a pumpkin than I
thought. I measure men’s dulness by the devices they trust in for
deceiving others. Your dullest animal of all is he who grins and says
he doesn’t mind just after he has had his shins kicked. If I were a
trifle duller, now,” he went on, smiling as the circle opened to admit
Tito, “I should pretend to be fond of this Melema, who has got a
secretaryship that would exactly suit me—as if Latin ill-paid could
love better Latin that’s better paid! Melema, you are a pestiferously
clever fellow, very much in my way, and I’m sorry to hear you’ve had
another piece of good-luck to-day.”

“Questionable luck, Niccolò,” said Tito, touching him on the shoulder
in a friendly way; “I have got nothing by it yet but being laid hold of
and breathed upon by wool-beaters, when I am as soiled and battered
with riding as a _tabellario_ (letter-carrier) from Bologna.”

“Ah! you want a touch of my art, Messer Oratore,” said Nello, who had
come forward at the sound of Tito’s voice; “your chin, I perceive, has
yesterday’s crop upon it. Come, come—consign yourself to the priest of
all the Muses. Sandro, quick with the lather!”

“In truth, Nello, that is just what I most desire at this moment,” said
Tito, seating himself; “and that was why I turned my steps towards thy
shop, instead of going home at once, when I had done my business at the
Palazzo.”

“Yes, indeed, it is not fitting that you should present yourself to
Madonna Romola with a rusty chin and a tangled _zazzera_. Nothing that
is not dainty ought to approach the Florentine lily; though I see her
constantly going about like a sunbeam amongst the rags that line our
corners—if indeed she is not more like a moonbeam now, for I thought
yesterday, when I met her, that she looked as pale and worn as that
fainting Madonna of Fra Giovanni’s. You must see to it, my bel erudito:
she keeps too many fasts and vigils in your absence.”

Tito gave a melancholy shrug. “It is too true, Nello. She has been
depriving herself of half her proper food _every_ day during this
famine. But what can I do? Her mind has been set all aflame. A
husband’s influence is powerless against the Frate’s.”

“As every other influence is likely to be, that of the Holy Father
included,” said Domenico Cennini, one of the group at the door, who had
turned in with Tito. “I don’t know whether you have gathered anything
at Pisa about the way the wind sits at Rome, Melema?”

“Secrets of the council-chamber, Messer Domenico!” said Tito, smiling
and opening his palms in a deprecatory manner. “An envoy must be as
dumb as a father confessor.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Cennini. “I ask for no breach of that
rule. Well, my belief is, that if his Holiness were to drive Fra
Girolamo to extremity, the Frate would move heaven and earth to get a
General Council of the Church—ay, and would get it too; and I, for one,
should not be sorry, though I’m no Piagnone.”

“With leave of your greater experience, Messer Domenico,” said
Macchiavelli, “I must differ from you—not in your wish to see a General
Council which might reform the Church, but in your belief that the
Frate will checkmate his Holiness. The Frate’s game is an impossible
one. If he had contented himself with preaching against the vices of
Rome, and with prophesying that in some way, not mentioned, Italy would
be scourged, depend upon it Pope Alexander would have allowed him to
spend his breath in that way as long as he could find hearers. Such
spiritual blasts as those knock no walls down. But the Frate wants to
be something more than a spiritual trumpet: he wants to be a lever, and
what is more, he _is_ a lever. He wants to spread the doctrine of
Christ by maintaining a popular government in Florence, and the Pope,
as I know, on the best authority, has private views to the contrary.”

“Then Florence will stand by the Frate,” Cennini broke in, with some
fervour. “I myself should prefer that he would let his prophesying
alone, but if our freedom to choose our own government is to be
attacked—I am an obedient son of the Church, but I would vote for
resisting Pope Alexander the Sixth, as our forefathers resisted Pope
Gregory the Eleventh.”

“But pardon me, Messer Domenico,” said Macchiavelli, sticking his
thumbs into his belt, and speaking with that cool enjoyment of
exposition which surmounts every other force in discussion. “Have you
correctly seized the Frate’s position? How is it that he has become a
lever, and made himself worth attacking by an acute man like his
Holiness? Because he has got the ear of the people: because he gives
them threats and promises, which they believe come straight from God,
not only about hell, purgatory, and paradise, but about Pisa and our
Great Council. But let events go against him, so as to shake the
people’s faith, and the cause of his power will be the cause of his
fall. He is accumulating three sorts of hatred on his head—the hatred
of average mankind against every one who wants to lay on them a strict
yoke of virtue; the hatred of the stronger powers in Italy who want to
farm Florence for their own purposes; and the hatred of the people, to
whom he has ventured to promise good in this world, instead of
confining his promises to the next. If a prophet is to keep his power,
he must be a prophet like Mahomet, with an army at his back, that when
the people’s faith is fainting it may be frightened into life again.”

“Rather sum up the three sorts of hatred in one,” said Francesco Cei,
impetuously, “and say he has won the hatred of all men who have sense
and honesty, by inventing hypocritical lies. His proper place is among
the false prophets in the Inferno, who walk with their heads turned
hind-foremost.”

“You are too angry, my Francesco,” said Macchiavelli, smiling; “you
poets are apt to cut the clouds in your wrath. I am no votary of the
Frate’s, and would not lay down my little finger for his veracity. But
veracity is a plant of paradise, and the seeds have never flourished
beyond the walls. You, yourself, my Francesco, tell poetical lies only;
partly compelled by the poet’s fervour, partly to please your audience;
but _you_ object to lies in prose. Well, the Frate differs from you as
to the boundary of poetry, that’s all. When he gets into the pulpit of
the Duomo, he has the fervour within him, and without him he has the
audience to please. Ecco!”

“You are somewhat lax there, Niccolò,” said Cennini, gravely. “I myself
believe in the Frate’s integrity, though I don’t believe in his
prophecies, and as long as his integrity is not disproved, we have a
popular party strong enough to protect him and resist foreign
interference.”

“A party that seems strong enough,” said Macchiavelli, with a shrug,
and an almost imperceptible glance towards Tito, who was abandoning
himself with much enjoyment to Nello’s combing and scenting. “But how
many Mediceans are there among you? How many who will not be turned
round by a private grudge?”

“As to the Mediceans,” said Cennini, “I believe there is very little
genuine feeling left on behalf of the Medici. Who would risk much for
Piero de’ Medici? A few old staunch friends, perhaps, like Bernardo del
Nero; but even some of those most connected with the family are hearty
friends of the popular government, and would exert themselves for the
Frate. I was talking to Giannozzo Pucci only a little while ago, and I
am convinced there’s nothing he would set his face against more than
against any attempt to alter the new order of things.”

“You are right there, Messer Domenico,” said Tito, with a laughing
meaning in his eyes, as he rose from the shaving-chair; “and I fancy
the tender passion came in aid of hard theory there. I am persuaded
there was some jealousy at the bottom of Giannozzo’s alienation from
Piero de’ Medici; else so amiable a creature as he would never feel the
bitterness he sometimes allows to escape him in that quarter. He was in
the procession with you, I suppose?”

“No,” said Cennini; “he is at his villa—went there three days ago.”

Tito was settling his cap and glancing down at his splashed hose as if
he hardly heeded the answer. In reality he had obtained a much-desired
piece of information. He had at that moment in his scarsella a crushed
gold ring which he had engaged to deliver to Giannozzo Pucci. He had
received it from an envoy of Piero de’ Medici, whom he had ridden out
of his way to meet at Certaldo on the Siena road. Since Pucci was not
in the town, he would send the ring by Fra Michele, a Carthusian lay
Brother in the service of the Mediceans, and the receipt of that sign
would bring Pucci back to hear the verbal part of Tito’s mission.

“Behold him!” said Nello, flourishing his comb and pointing it at Tito,
“the handsomest scholar in the world or in the wolds, (‘Del mondo o di
maremma’) now he has passed through my hands! A trifle thinner in the
face, though, than when he came in his first bloom to Florence—eh? and,
I vow, there are some lines just faintly hinting themselves about your
mouth, Messer Oratore! Ah, mind is an enemy to beauty! I myself was
thought beautiful by the women at one time—when I was in my
swaddling-bands. But now—oimè! I carry my unwritten poems in cipher on
my face!”

Tito, laughing with the rest as Nello looked at himself tragically in
the hand-mirror, made a sign of farewell to the company generally, and
took his departure.

“I’m of our old Piero di Cosimo’s mind,” said Francesco Cei. “I don’t
half like Melema. That trick of smiling gets stronger than ever—no
wonder he has lines about the mouth.”

“He’s too successful,” said Macchiavelli, playfully. “I’m sure there’s
something wrong about him, else he wouldn’t have that secretaryship.”

“He’s an able man,” said Cennini, in a tone of judicial fairness. “I
and my brother have always found him useful with our Greek sheets, and
he gives great satisfaction to the Ten. I like to see a young man work
his way upward by merit. And the secretary Scala, who befriended him
from the first, thinks highly of him still, I know.”

“Doubtless,” said a notary in the background. “He writes Scala’s
official letters for him, or corrects them, and gets well paid for it
too.”

“I wish Messer Bartolommeo would pay _me_ to doctor his gouty Latin,”
said Macchiavelli, with a shrug. “Did _he_ tell you about the pay, Ser
Ceccone, or was it Melema himself?” he added, looking at the notary
with a face ironically innocent.

“Melema? no, indeed,” answered Ser Ceccone. “He is as close as a nut.
He never brags. That’s why he’s employed everywhere. They say he’s
getting rich with doing all sorts of underhand work.”

“It _is_ a little too bad,” said Macchiavelli, “and so many able
notaries out of employment!”

“Well, I must say I thought that was a nasty story a year or two ago
about the man who said he had stolen jewels,” said Cei. “It got hushed
up somehow; but I remember Piero di Cosimo said, at the time, he
believed there was something in it, for he saw Melema’s face when the
man laid hold of him, and he never saw a visage so ‘painted with fear,’
as our sour old Dante says.”

“Come, spit no more of that venom, Francesco,” said Nello, getting
indignant, “else I shall consider it a public duty to cut your hair
awry the next time I get you under my scissors. That story of the
stolen jewels was a lie. Bernardo Rucellai and the Magnificent Eight
knew all about it. The man was a dangerous madman, and he was very
properly kept out of mischief in prison. As for our Piero di Cosimo,
his wits are running after the wind of Mongibello: he has such an
extravagant fancy that he would take a lizard for a crocodile. No: that
story has been dead and buried too long—our noses object to it.”

“It is true,” said Macchiavelli. “You forget the danger of the
precedent, Francesco. The next mad beggarman may accuse you of stealing
his verses, or me, God help me! of stealing his coppers. Ah!” he went
on, turning towards the door, “Dolfo Spini has carried his red feather
out of the Piazza. That captain of swaggerers would like the Republic
to lose Pisa just for the chance of seeing the people tear the frock
off the Frate’s back. With your pardon, Francesco—I know he is a friend
of yours—there are few things I should like better than to see him play
the part of Capo d’Oca, who went out to the tournament blowing his
trumpets and returned with them in a bag.”




CHAPTER XLVI.
By a Street Lamp.


That evening, when it was dark and threatening rain, Romola, returning
with Maso and the lantern by her side, from the hospital of San Matteo,
which she had visited after vespers, encountered her husband just
issuing from the monastery of San Marco. Tito, who had gone out again
shortly after his arrival in the Via de’ Bardi, and had seen little of
Romola during the day, immediately proposed to accompany her home,
dismissing Maso, whose short steps annoyed him. It was only usual for
him to pay her such an official attention when it was obviously
demanded from him. Tito and Romola never jarred, never remonstrated
with each other. They were too hopelessly alienated in their inner life
ever to have that contest which is an effort towards agreement. They
talked of all affairs, public and private, with careful adherence to an
adopted course. If Tito wanted a supper prepared in the old library,
now pleasantly furnished as a banqueting-room, Romola assented, and saw
that everything needful was done: and Tito, on his side, left her
entirely uncontrolled in her daily habits, accepting the help she
offered him in transcribing or making digests, and in return meeting
her conjectured want of supplies for her charities. Yet he constantly,
as on this very morning, avoided exchanging glances with her; affected
to believe that she was out of the house, in order to avoid seeking her
in her own room; and playfully attributed to her a perpetual preference
of solitude to his society.

In the first ardour of her self-conquest, after she had renounced her
resolution of flight, Romola had made many timid efforts towards the
return of a frank relation between them. But to her such a relation
could only come by open speech about their differences, and the attempt
to arrive at a moral understanding; while Tito could only be saved from
alienation from her by such a recovery of her effusive tenderness as
would have presupposed oblivion of their differences. He cared for no
explanation between them; he felt any thorough explanation impossible:
he would have cared to have Romola fond again, and to her, fondness was
impossible. She could be submissive and gentle, she could repress any
sign of repulsion; but tenderness was not to be feigned. She was
helplessly conscious of the result: her husband was alienated from her.

It was an additional reason why she should be carefully kept outside of
secrets which he would in no case have chosen to communicate to her.
With regard to his political action he sought to convince her that he
considered the cause of the Medici hopeless; and that on that practical
ground, as well as in theory, he heartily served the popular
government, in which she had now a warm interest. But impressions
subtle as odours made her uneasy about his relations with San Marco.
She was painfully divided between the dread of seeing any evidence to
arouse her suspicions, and the impulse to watch lest any harm should
come that she might have arrested.

As they walked together this evening, Tito said—“The business of the
day is not yet quite ended for me. I shall conduct you to our door, my
Romola, and then I must fulfil another commission, which will take me
an hour, perhaps, before I can return and rest, as I very much need to
do.”

And then he talked amusingly of what he had seen at Pisa, until they
were close upon a loggia, near which there hung a lamp before a picture
of the Virgin. The street was a quiet one, and hitherto they had passed
few people; but now there was a sound of many approaching footsteps and
confused voices.

“We shall not get home without a wetting, unless we take shelter under
this convenient loggia,” Tito said, hastily, hurrying Romola, with a
slightly startled movement, up the step of the loggia.

“Surely it is useless to wait for this small drizzling rain,” said
Romola, in surprise.

“No: I felt it becoming heavier. Let us wait a little.” With that
wakefulness to the faintest indication which belongs to a mind
habitually in a state of caution, Tito had detected by the glimmer of
the lamp that the leader of the advancing group wore a red feather and
a glittering sword-hilt—in fact, was almost the last person in the
world he would have chosen to meet at this hour with Romola by his
side. He had already during the day had one momentous interview with
Dolfo Spini, and the business he had spoken of to Romola as yet to be
done was a second interview with that personage, a sequence of the
visit he had paid at San Marco. Tito, by a long-preconcerted plan, had
been the bearer of letters to Savonarola—carefully-forged letters; one
of them, by a stratagem, bearing the very signature and seal of the
Cardinal of Naples, who of all the Sacred College had most exerted his
influence at Rome in favour of the Frate. The purport of the letters
was to state that the Cardinal was on his progress from Pisa, and,
unwilling for strong reasons to enter Florence, yet desirous of taking
counsel with Savonarola at this difficult juncture, intended to pause
this very day at San Casciano, about ten miles from the city, whence he
would ride out the next morning in the plain garb of a priest, and meet
Savonarola, as if casually, five miles on the Florence road, two hours
after sunrise. The plot, of which these forged letters were the initial
step, was that Dolfo Spini with a band of his Compagnacci was to be
posted in ambush on the road, at a lonely spot about five miles from
the gates; that he was to seize Savonarola with the Dominican brother
who would accompany him according to rule, and deliver him over to a
small detachment of Milanese horse in readiness near San Casciano, by
whom he was to be carried into the Roman territory.

There was a strong chance that the penetrating Frate would suspect a
trap, and decline to incur the risk, which he had for some time
avoided, of going beyond the city walls. Even when he preached, his
friends held it necessary that he should be attended by an armed guard;
and here he was called on to commit himself to a solitary road, with no
other attendant than a fellow-monk. On this ground the minimum of time
had been given him for decision, and the chance in favour of his acting
on the letters was, that the eagerness with which his mind was set on
the combining of interests within and without the Church towards the
procuring of a General Council, and also the expectation of immediate
service from the Cardinal in the actual juncture of his contest with
the Pope, would triumph over his shrewdness and caution in the brief
space allowed for deliberation.

Tito had had an audience of Savonarola, having declined to put the
letters into any hands but his, and with consummate art had admitted
that incidentally, and by inference, he was able so far to conjecture
their purport as to believe they referred to a rendezvous outside the
gates, in which case he urged that the Frate should seek an armed guard
from the Signoria, and offered his services in carrying the request
with the utmost privacy. Savonarola had replied briefly that this was
impossible: an armed guard was incompatible with privacy. He spoke with
a flashing eye, and Tito felt convinced that he meant to incur the
risk.

Tito himself did not much care for the result. He managed his affairs
so cleverly, that all results, he considered, must turn to his
advantage. Whichever party came uppermost, he was secure of favour and
money. That is an indecorously naked statement; the fact, clothed as
Tito habitually clothed it, was that his acute mind, discerning the
equal hollowness of all parties, took the only rational course in
making them subservient to his own interest.

If Savonarola fell into the snare, there were diamonds in question and
papal patronage; if not, Tito’s adroit agency had strengthened his
position with Savonarola and with Spini, while any confidences he
obtained from them made him the more valuable as an agent of the
Mediceans.

But Spini was an inconvenient colleague. He had cunning enough to
delight in plots, but not the ability or self-command necessary to so
complex an effect as secrecy. He frequently got excited with drinking,
for even sober Florence had its “Beoni,” or topers, both lay and
clerical, who became loud at taverns and private banquets; and in spite
of the agreement between him and Tito, that their public recognition of
each other should invariably be of the coolest sort, there was always
the possibility that on an evening encounter he would be suddenly
blurting and affectionate. The delicate sign of casting the becchetto
over the left shoulder was understood in the morning, but the strongest
hint short of a threat might not suffice to keep off a fraternal grasp
of the shoulder in the evening.

Tito’s chief hope now was that Dolfo Spini had not caught sight of him,
and the hope would have been well founded if Spini had had no clearer
view of him than he had caught of Spini. But, himself in shadow, he had
seen Tito illuminated for an instant by the direct rays of the lamp,
and Tito in his way was as strongly marked a personage as the captain
of the Compagnacci. Romola’s black-shrouded figure had escaped notice,
and she now stood behind her husband’s shoulder in the corner of the
loggia. Tito was not left to hope long.

“Ha! my carrier-pigeon!” grated Spini’s harsh voice, in what he meant
to be an undertone, while his hand grasped Tito’s shoulder; “what did
you run into hiding for? You didn’t know it was comrades who were
coming. It’s well I caught sight of you; it saves time. What of the
chase to-morrow morning? Will the bald-headed game rise? Are the
falcons to be got ready?”

If it had been in Tito’s nature to feel an access of rage, he would
have felt it against this bull-faced accomplice, unfit either for a
leader or a tool. His lips turned white, but his excitement came from
the pressing difficulty of choosing a safe device. If he attempted to
hush Spini, that would only deepen Romola’s suspicion, and he knew her
well enough to know that if some strong alarm were roused in her, she
was neither to be silenced nor hoodwinked: on the other hand, if he
repelled Spini angrily the wine-breathing Compagnaccio might become
savage, being more ready at resentment than at the divination of
motives. He adopted a third course, which proved that Romola retained
one sort of power over him—the power of dread.

He pressed her hand, as if intending a hint to her, and said in a
good-humoured tone of comradeship—

“Yes, my Dolfo, you may prepare in all security. But take no trumpets
with you.”

“Don’t be afraid,” said Spini, a little piqued. “No need to play Ser
Saccente with me. I know where the devil keeps his tail as well as you
do. What! he swallowed the bait whole? The prophetic nose didn’t scent
the hook at all?” he went on, lowering his tone a little, with a
blundering sense of secrecy.

“The brute will not be satisfied till he has emptied the bag,” thought
Tito: but aloud he said,—“Swallowed all as easily as you swallow a cup
of Trebbiano. Ha! I see torches: there must be a dead body coming. The
pestilence has been spreading, I hear.”

“Santiddio! I hate the sight of those biers. Good-night,” said Spini,
hastily moving off.

The torches were really coming, but they preceded a church dignitary
who was returning homeward; the suggestion of the dead body and the
pestilence was Tito’s device for getting rid of Spini without telling
him to go. The moment he had moved away, Tito turned to Romola, and
said, quietly—

“Do not be alarmed by anything that _bestia_ has said, my Romola. We
will go on now: I think the rain has not increased.”

She was quivering with indignant resolution; it was of no use for Tito
to speak in that unconcerned way. She distrusted every word he could
utter.

“I will not go on,” she said. “I will not move nearer home until I have
some security against this treachery being perpetrated.”

“Wait, at least, until these torches have passed,” said Tito, with
perfect self-command, but with a new rising of dislike to a wife who
this time, he foresaw, might have the power of thwarting him in spite
of the husband’s predominance.

The torches passed, with the Vicario dell’ Arcivescovo, and due
reverence was done by Tito, but Romola saw nothing outward. If for the
defeat of this treachery, in which she believed with all the force of
long presentiment, it had been necessary at that moment for her to
spring on her husband and hurl herself with him down a precipice, she
felt as if she could have done it. Union with this man! At that moment
the self-quelling discipline of two years seemed to be nullified: she
felt nothing but that they were divided.

They were nearly in darkness again, and could only see each other’s
faces dimly.

“Tell me the truth, Tito—this time tell me the truth,” said Romola, in
a low quivering voice. “It will be safer for you.”

“Why should I desire to tell you anything else, my angry saint?” said
Tito, with a slight touch of contempt, which was the vent of his
annoyance; “since the truth is precisely that over which you have most
reason to rejoice—namely, that my knowing a plot of Spini’s enables me
to secure the Frate from falling a victim to it.”

“What is the plot?”

“That I decline to tell,” said Tito. “It is enough that the Frate’s
safety will be secured.”

“It is a plot for drawing him outside the gates that Spini may murder
him.”

“There has been no intention of murder. It is simply a plot for
compelling him to obey the Pope’s summons to Rome. But as I serve the
popular government, and think the Frate’s presence here is a necessary
means of maintaining it at present, I choose to prevent his departure.
You may go to sleep with entire ease of mind to-night.”

For a moment Romola was silent. Then she said, in a voice of anguish,
“Tito, it is of no use: I have no belief in you.”

She could just discern his action as he shrugged his shoulders, and
spread out his palms in silence. That cold dislike which is the anger
of unimpassioned beings was hardening within him.

“If the Frate leaves the city—if any harm happens to him,” said Romola,
after a slight pause, in a new tone of indignant resolution,—“I will
declare what I have heard to the Signoria, and you will be disgraced.
What if I am your wife?” she went on, impetuously; “I will be disgraced
with you. If we are united, I am that part of you that will save you
from crime. Others shall not be betrayed.”

“I am quite aware of what you would be likely to do, _anima mia_,” said
Tito, in the coolest of his liquid tones; “therefore if you have a
small amount of reasoning at your disposal just now, consider that if
you believe me in nothing else, you may believe me when I say I will
take care of myself, and not put it in your power to ruin me.”

“Then you assure me that the Frate is warned—he will not go beyond the
gates?”

“He shall not go beyond the gates.”

There was a moment’s pause, but distrust was not to be expelled.

“I will go back to San Marco now and find out,” Romola said, making a
movement forward.

“You shall not!” said Tito, in a bitter whisper, seizing her wrists
with all his masculine force. “I am master of you. You shall not set
yourself in opposition to me.”

There were passers-by approaching. Tito had heard them, and that was
why he spoke in a whisper. Romola was too conscious of being mastered
to have struggled, even if she had remained unconscious that witnesses
were at hand. But she was aware now of footsteps and voices, and her
habitual sense of personal dignity made her at once yield to Tito’s
movement towards leading her from the loggia.

They walked on in silence for some time, under the small drizzling
rain. The first rush of indignation and alarm in Romola had begun to
give way to more complicated feelings, which rendered speech and action
difficult. In that simpler state of vehemence, open opposition to the
husband from whom she felt her soul revolting had had the aspect of
temptation for her; it seemed the easiest of all courses. But now,
habits of self-questioning, memories of impulse subdued, and that proud
reserve which all discipline had left unmodified, began to emerge from
the flood of passion. The grasp of her wrists, which asserted her
husband’s physical predominance, instead of arousing a new fierceness
in her, as it might have done if her impetuosity had been of a more
vulgar kind, had given her a momentary shuddering horror at this form
of contest with him. It was the first time they had been in declared
hostility to each other since her flight and return, and the check
given to her ardent resolution then, retained the power to arrest her
now. In this altered condition her mind began to dwell on the
probabilities that would save her from any desperate course: Tito would
not risk betrayal by her; whatever had been his original intention, he
must be determined now by the fact that she knew of the plot. She was
not bound now to do anything else than to hang over him that certainty,
that if he deceived her, her lips would not be closed. And then, it was
possible—yes, she must cling to that possibility till it was
disproved—that Tito had never meant to aid in the betrayal of the
Frate.

Tito, on his side, was busy with thoughts, and did not speak again till
they were near home. Then he said—

“Well, Romola, have you now had time to recover calmness? If so, you
can supply your want of belief in me by a little rational inference:
you can see, I presume, that if I had had any intention of furthering
Spini’s plot, I should now be aware that the possession of a fair
Piagnone for my wife, who knows the secret of the plot, would be a
serious obstacle in my way.”

Tito assumed the tone which was just then the easiest to him,
conjecturing that in Romola’s present mood persuasive deprecation would
be lost upon her.

“Yes, Tito,” she said, in a low voice, “I think you believe that I
would guard the Republic from further treachery. You are right to
believe it: if the Frate is betrayed, I will denounce you.” She paused
a moment, and then said, with an effort, “But it was not so. I have
perhaps spoken too hastily—you never meant it. Only, why will you seem
to be that man’s comrade?”

“Such relations are inevitable to practical men, my Romola,” said Tito,
gratified by discerning the struggle within her. “You fair creatures
live in the clouds. Pray go to rest with an easy heart,” he added,
opening the door for her.




CHAPTER XLVII.
Check.


Tito’s clever arrangements had been unpleasantly frustrated by trivial
incidents which could not enter into a clever man’s calculations. It
was very seldom that he walked with Romola in the evening, yet he had
happened to be walking with her precisely on this evening when her
presence was supremely inconvenient. Life was so complicated a game
that the devices of skill were liable to be defeated at every turn by
air-blown chances, incalculable as the descent of thistle-down.

It was not that he minded about the failure of Spini’s plot, but he
felt an awkward difficulty in so adjusting his warning to Savonarola on
the one hand, and to Spini on the other, as not to incur suspicion.
Suspicion roused in the popular party might be fatal to his reputation
and ostensible position in Florence: suspicion roused in Dolfo Spini
might be as disagreeable in its effects as the hatred of a fierce dog
not to be chained.

If Tito went forthwith to the monastery to warn Savonarola before the
monks went to rest, his warning would follow so closely on his delivery
of the forged letters that he could not escape unfavourable surmises.
He could not warn Spini at once without telling him the true reason,
since he could not immediately allege the discovery that Savonarola had
changed his purpose; and he knew Spini well enough to know that his
understanding would discern nothing but that Tito had “turned round”
and frustrated the plot. On the other hand, by deferring his warning to
Savonarola until the morning, he would be almost sure to lose the
opportunity of warning Spini that the Frate had changed his mind; and
the band of Compagnacci would come back in all the rage of
disappointment. This last, however, was the risk he chose, trusting to
his power of soothing Spini by assuring him that the failure was due
only to the Frate’s caution.

Tito was annoyed. If he had had to smile it would have been an unusual
effort to him. He was determined not to encounter Romola again, and he
did not go home that night.

She watched through the night, and never took off her clothes. She
heard the rain become heavier and heavier. She liked to hear the rain:
the stormy heavens seemed a safeguard against men’s devices, compelling
them to inaction. And Romola’s mind was again assailed, not only by the
utmost doubt of her husband, but by doubt as to her own conduct. What
lie might he not have told her? What project might he not have, of
which she was still ignorant? Every one who trusted Tito was in danger;
it was useless to try and persuade herself of the contrary. And was not
she selfishly listening to the promptings of her own pride, when she
shrank from warning men against him? “If her husband was a malefactor,
her place was in the prison by his side”—that might be; she was
contented to fulfil that claim. But was she, a wife, to allow a husband
to inflict the injuries that would make him a malefactor, when it might
be in her power to prevent them? Prayer seemed impossible to her. The
activity of her thought excluded a mental state of which the essence is
expectant passivity.

The excitement became stronger and stronger. Her imagination, in a
state of morbid activity, conjured up possible schemes by which, after
all, Tito would have eluded her threat; and towards daybreak the rain
became less violent, till at last it ceased, the breeze rose again and
dispersed the clouds, and the morning fell clear on all the objects
around her. It made her uneasiness all the less endurable. She wrapped
her mantle round her, and ran up to the loggia, as if there could be
anything in the wide landscape that might determine her action; as if
there could be anything but roofs hiding the line of street along which
Savonarola might be walking towards betrayal.

If she went to her godfather, might she not induce him, without any
specific revelation, to take measures for preventing Fra Girolamo from
passing the gates? But that might be too late. Romola thought, with new
distress, that she had failed to learn any guiding details from Tito,
and it was already long past seven. She must go to San Marco: there was
nothing else to be done.

She hurried down the stairs, she went out into the street without
looking at her sick people, and walked at a swift pace along the Via
de’ Bardi towards the Ponte Vecchio. She would go through the heart of
the city; it was the most direct road, and, besides, in the great
Piazza there was a chance of encountering her husband, who, by some
possibility to which she still clung, might satisfy her of the Frate’s
safety, and leave no need for her to go to San Marco. When she arrived
in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, she looked eagerly into the pillared
court; then her eyes swept the Piazza; but the well-known figure, once
painted in her heart by young love, and now branded there by eating
pain, was nowhere to be seen. She hurried straight on to the Piazza del
Duomo. It was already full of movement: there were worshippers passing
up and down the marble steps, there were men pausing for chat, and
there were market-people carrying their burdens. Between those moving
figures Romola caught a glimpse of her husband. On his way from San
Marco he had turned into Nello’s shop, and was now leaning against the
door-post. As Romola approached she could see that he was standing and
talking, with the easiest air in the world, holding his cap in his
hand, and shaking back his freshly-combed hair. The contrast of this
ease with the bitter anxieties he had created convulsed her with
indignation: the new vision of his hardness heightened her dread. She
recognised Cronaca and two other frequenters of San Marco standing near
her husband. It flashed through her mind—“I will compel him to speak
before those men.” And her light step brought her close upon him before
he had time to move, while Cronaca was saying, “Here comes Madonna
Romola.”

A slight shock passed through Tito’s frame as he felt himself face to
face with his wife. She was haggard with her anxious watching, but
there was a flash of something else than anxiety in her eyes as she
said—

“Is the Frate gone beyond the gates?”

“No,” said Tito, feeling completely helpless before this woman, and
needing all the self-command he possessed to preserve a countenance in
which there should seem to be nothing stronger than surprise.

“And you are certain that he is not going?” she insisted.

“I am certain that he is not going.”

“That is enough,” said Romola, and she turned up the steps, to take
refuge in the Duomo, till she could recover from her agitation.

Tito never had a feeling so near hatred as that with which his eyes
followed Romola retreating up the steps.

There were present not only genuine followers of the Frate, but Ser
Ceccone, the notary, who at that time, like Tito himself, was secretly
an agent of the Mediceans.

Ser Francesco di Ser Barone, more briefly known to infamy as Ser
Ceccone, was not learned, not handsome, not successful, and the reverse
of generous. He was a traitor without charm. It followed that he was
not fond of Tito Melema.




CHAPTER XLVIII.
Counter-Check.


It was late in the afternoon when Tito returned home. Romola, seated
opposite the cabinet in her narrow room, copying documents, was about
to desist from her work because the light was getting dim, when her
husband entered. He had come straight to this room to seek her, with a
thoroughly defined intention, and there was something new to Romola in
his manner and expression as he looked at her silently on entering,
and, without taking off his cap and mantle, leaned one elbow on the
cabinet, and stood directly in front of her.

Romola, fully assured during the day of the Frate’s safety, was feeling
the reaction of some penitence for the access of distrust and
indignation which had impelled her to address her husband publicly on a
matter that she knew he wished to be private. She told herself that she
had probably been wrong. The scheming duplicity which she had heard
even her godfather allude to as inseparable from party tactics might be
sufficient to account for the connection with Spini, without the
supposition that Tito had ever meant to further the plot. She wanted to
atone for her impetuosity by confessing that she had been too hasty,
and for some hours her mind had been dwelling on the possibility that
this confession of hers might lead to other frank words breaking the
two years’ silence of their hearts. The silence had been so complete,
that Tito was ignorant of her having fled from him and come back again;
they had never approached an avowal of that past which, both in its
young love and in the shock that shattered the love, lay locked away
from them like a banquet-room where death had once broken the feast.

She looked up at him with that submission in her glance which belonged
to her state of self-reproof; but the subtle change in his face and
manner arrested her speech. For a few moments they remained silent,
looking at each other.

Tito himself felt that a crisis was come in his married life. The
husband’s determination to mastery, which lay deep below all blandness
and beseechingness, had risen permanently to the surface now, and
seemed to alter his face, as a face is altered by a hidden muscular
tension with which a man is secretly throttling or stamping out the
life from something feeble, yet dangerous.

“Romola,” he began, in the cool liquid tone that made her shiver, “it
is time that we should understand each other.” He paused.

“That is what I most desire, Tito,” she said, faintly. Her sweet pale
face; with all its anger gone and nothing but the timidity of
self-doubt in it, seemed to give a marked predominance to her husband’s
dark strength.

“You took a step this morning,” Tito went on, “which you must now
yourself perceive to have been useless—which exposed you to remark and
may involve me in serious practical difficulties.”

“I acknowledge that I was too hasty; I am sorry for any injustice I may
have done you.” Romola spoke these words in a fuller and firmer tone;
Tito, she hoped, would look less hard when she had expressed her
regret, and then she could say other things.

“I wish you once for all to understand,” he said, without any change of
voice, “that such collisions are incompatible with our position as
husband and wife. I wish you to reflect on the mode in which you were
led to that step, that the process may not be repeated.”

“That depends chiefly on you, Tito,” said Romola, taking fire slightly.
It was not at all what she had thought of saying, but we see a very
little way before us in mutual speech.

“You would say, I suppose,” answered Tito, “that nothing is to occur in
future which can excite your unreasonable suspicions. You were frank
enough to say last night that you have no belief in me. I am not
surprised at any exaggerated conclusion you may draw from slight
premises, but I wish to point out to you what is likely to be the fruit
of your making such exaggerated conclusions a ground for interfering in
affairs of which you are ignorant. Your attention is thoroughly awake
to what I am saying?”

He paused for a reply.

“Yes,” said Romola, flushing in irrepressible resentment at this cold
tone of superiority.

“Well, then, it may possibly not be very long before some other chance
words or incidents set your imagination at work devising crimes for me,
and you may perhaps rush to the Palazzo Vecchio to alarm the Signoria
and set the city in an uproar. Shall I tell you what may be the result?
Not simply the disgrace of your husband, to which you look forward with
so much courage, but the arrest and ruin of many among the chief men in
Florence, including Messer Bernardo del Nero.”

Tito had meditated a decisive move, and he had made it. The flush died
out of Romola’s face, and her very lips were pale—an unusual effect
with her, for she was little subject to fear. Tito perceived his
success.

“You would perhaps flatter yourself,” he went on, “that you were
performing a heroic deed of deliverance; you might as well try to turn
locks with fine words as apply such notions to the politics of
Florence. The question now is, not whether you can have any belief in
me, but whether, now you have been warned, you will dare to rush, like
a blind man with a torch in his hand, amongst intricate affairs of
which you know nothing.”

Romola felt as if her mind were held in a vice by Tito’s: the
possibilities he had indicated were rising before her with terrible
clearness.

“I am too rash,” she said. “I will try not to be rash.”

“Remember,” said Tito, with unsparing insistence, “that your act of
distrust towards me this morning might, for aught you knew, have had
more fatal effects than that sacrifice of your husband which you have
learned to contemplate without flinching.”

“Tito, it is not so,” Romola burst forth in a pleading tone, rising and
going nearer to him, with a desperate resolution to speak out. “It is
false that I would willingly sacrifice you. It has been the greatest
effort of my life to cling to you. I went away in my anger two years
ago, and I came back again because I was more bound to you than to
anything else on earth. But it is useless. You shut me out from your
mind. You affect to think of me as a being too unreasonable to share in
the knowledge of your affairs. You will be open with me about nothing.”

She looked like his good angel pleading with him, as she bent her face
towards him with dilated eyes, and laid her hand upon his arm. But
Romola’s touch and glance no longer stirred any fibre of tenderness in
her husband. The good-humoured, tolerant Tito, incapable of hatred,
incapable almost of impatience, disposed always to be gentle towards
the rest of the world, felt himself becoming strangely hard towards
this wife whose presence had once been the strongest influence he had
known. With all his softness of disposition, he had a masculine
effectiveness of intellect and purpose which, like sharpness of edge,
is itself an energy, working its way without any strong momentum.
Romola had an energy of her own which thwarted his, and no man, who is
not exceptionally feeble, will endure being thwarted by his wife.
Marriage must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.

No emotion darted across his face as he heard Romola for the first time
speak of having gone away from him. His lips only looked a little
harder as he smiled slightly and said—

“My Romola, when certain conditions are ascertained, we must make up
our minds to them. No amount of wishing will fill the Arno, as your
people say, or turn a plum into an orange. I have not observed even
that prayers have much efficacy that way. You are so constituted as to
have certain strong impressions inaccessible to reason: I cannot share
those impressions, and you have withdrawn all trust from me in
consequence. You have changed towards me; it has followed that I have
changed towards you. It is useless to take any retrospect. We have
simply to adapt ourselves to altered conditions.”

“Tito, it would not be useless for us to speak openly,” said Romola,
with the sort of exasperation that comes from using living muscle
against some lifeless insurmountable resistance. “It was the sense of
deception in you that changed me, and that has kept us apart. And it is
not true that I changed first. You changed towards me the night you
first wore that chain-armour. You had some secret from me—it was about
that old man—and I saw him again yesterday. Tito,” she went on, in a
tone of agonised entreaty, “if you would once tell me everything, let
it be what it may—I would not mind pain—that there might be no wall
between us! Is it not possible that we could begin a new life?”

This time there was a flash of emotion across Tito’s face. He stood
perfectly still; but the flash seemed to have whitened him. He took no
notice of Romola’s appeal, but after a moment’s pause, said quietly—

“Your impetuosity about trifles, Romola, has a freezing influence that
would cool the baths of Nero.” At these cutting words, Romola shrank
and drew herself up into her usual self-sustained attitude. Tito went
on. “If by ‘that old man’ you mean the mad Jacopo di Nola who attempted
my life and made a strange accusation against me, of which I told you
nothing because it would have alarmed you to no purpose, he, poor
wretch, has died in prison. I saw his name in the list of dead.”

“I know nothing about his accusation,” said Romola. “But I know he is
the man whom I saw with the rope round his neck in the Duomo—the man
whose portrait Piero di Cosimo painted, grasping your arm as he saw him
grasp it the day the French entered, the day you first wore the
armour.”

“And where is he now, pray?” said Tito, still pale, but governing
himself.

“He was lying lifeless in the street from starvation,” said Romola. “I
revived him with bread and wine. I brought him to our door, but he
refused to come in. Then I gave him some money, and he went away
without telling me anything. But he had found out that I was your wife.
Who is he?”

“A man, half mad, half imbecile, who was once my father’s servant in
Greece, and who has a rancorous hatred towards me because I got him
dismissed for theft. Now you have the whole mystery, and the further
satisfaction of knowing that I am again in danger of assassination. The
fact of my wearing the armour, about which you seem to have thought so
much, must have led you to infer that I was in danger from this man.
Was that the reason you chose to cultivate his acquaintance and invite
him into the house?”

Romola was mute. To speak was only like rushing with bare breast
against a shield.

Tito moved from his leaning posture, slowly took off his cap and
mantle, and pushed back his hair. He was collecting himself for some
final words. And Romola stood upright looking at him as she might have
looked at some on-coming deadly force, to be met only by silent
endurance.

“We need not refer to these matters again, Romola,” he said, precisely
in the same tone as that in which he had spoken at first. “It is enough
if you will remember that the next time your generous ardour leads you
to interfere in political affairs, you are likely, not to save any one
from danger, but to be raising scaffolds and setting houses on fire.
You are not yet a sufficiently ardent Piagnone to believe that Messer
Bernardo del Nero is the prince of darkness, and Messer Francesco
Valori the archangel Michael. I think I need demand no promise from
you?”

“I have understood you too well, Tito.”

“It is enough,” he said, leaving the room.

Romola turned round with despair in her face and sank into her seat. “O
God, I have tried—I cannot help it. We shall always be divided.” Those
words passed silently through her mind. “Unless,” she said aloud, as if
some sudden vision had startled her into speech—“unless misery should
come and join us!”

Tito, too, had a new thought in his mind after he had closed the door
behind him. With the project of leaving Florence as soon as his life
there had become a high enough stepping-stone to a life elsewhere,
perhaps at Rome or Milan, there was now for the first time associated a
desire to be free from Romola, and to leave her behind him. She had
ceased to belong to the desirable furniture of his life: there was no
possibility of an easy relation between them without genuineness on his
part. Genuineness implied confession of the past, and confession
involved a change of purpose. But Tito had as little bent that way as a
leopard has to lap milk when its teeth are grown. From all relations
that were not easy and agreeable, we know that Tito shrank: why should
he cling to them?

And Romola had made his relations difficult with others besides
herself. He had had a troublesome interview with Dolfo Spini, who had
come back in a rage after an ineffectual soaking with rain and long
waiting in ambush, and that scene between Romola and himself at Nello’s
door, once reported in Spini’s ear, might be a seed of something more
unmanageable than suspicion. But now, at least, he believed that he had
mastered Romola by a terror which appealed to the strongest forces of
her nature. He had alarmed her affection and her conscience by the
shadowy image of consequences; he had arrested her intellect by hanging
before it the idea of a hopeless complexity in affairs which defied any
moral judgment.

Yet Tito was not at ease. The world was not yet quite cushioned with
velvet, and, if it had been, he could not have abandoned himself to
that softness with thorough enjoyment; for before he went out again
this evening he put on his coat of chain-armour.




CHAPTER XLIX.
The Pyramid of Vanities.


The wintry days passed for Romola as the white ships pass one who is
standing lonely on the shore—passing in silence and sameness, yet each
bearing a hidden burden of coming change. Tito’s hint had mingled so
much dread with her interest in the progress of public affairs that she
had begun to court ignorance rather than knowledge. The threatening
German Emperor was gone again; and, in other ways besides, the position
of Florence was alleviated; but so much distress remained that Romola’s
active duties were hardly diminished, and in these, as usual, her mind
found a refuge from its doubt.

She dared not rejoice that the relief which had come in extremity and
had appeared to justify the policy of the Frate’s party was making that
party so triumphant, that Francesco Valori, hot-tempered chieftain of
the Piagnoni, had been elected Gonfaloniere at the beginning of the
year, and was making haste to have as much of his own liberal way as
possible during his two months of power. That seemed for the moment
like a strengthening of the party most attached to freedom, and a
reinforcement of protection to Savonarola; but Romola was now alive to
every suggestion likely to deepen her foreboding, that whatever the
present might be, it was only an unconscious brooding over the mixed
germs of Change which might any day become tragic. And already by
Carnival time, a little after mid-February, her presentiment was
confirmed by the signs of a very decided change: the Mediceans had
ceased to be passive, and were openly exerting themselves to procure
the election of Bernardo del Nero as the new Gonfaloniere.

On the last day of the Carnival, between ten and eleven in the morning,
Romola walked out, according to promise, towards the Corso degli
Albizzi, to fetch her cousin Brigida, that they might both be ready to
start from the Via de’ Bardi early in the afternoon, and take their
places at a window which Tito had had reserved for them in the Piazza
della Signoria, where there was to be a scene of so new and striking a
sort, that all Florentine eyes must desire to see it. For the Piagnoni
were having their own way thoroughly about the mode of keeping the
Carnival. In vain Dolfo Spini and his companions had struggled to get
up the dear old masques and practical jokes, well spiced with
indecency. Such things were not to be in a city where Christ had been
declared king.

Romola set out in that languid state of mind with which every one
enters on a long day of sight-seeing purely for the sake of gratifying
a child, or some dear childish friend. The day was certainly an epoch
in carnival-keeping; but this phase of reform had not touched her
enthusiasm: and she did not know that it was an epoch in her own life
when _another_ lot would begin to be no longer secretly but visibly
entwined with her own.

She chose to go through the great Piazza that she might take a first
survey of the unparalleled sight there while she was still alone.
Entering it from the south, she saw something monstrous and
many-coloured in the shape of a pyramid, or, rather, like a huge
fir-tree, sixty feet high, with shelves on the branches, widening and
widening towards the base till they reached a circumference of eighty
yards. The Piazza was full of life: slight young figures, in white
garments, with olive wreaths on their heads, were moving to and fro
about the base of the pyramidal tree, carrying baskets full of
bright-coloured things; and maturer forms, some in the monastic frock,
some in the loose tunics and dark-red caps of artists, were helping and
examining, or else retreating to various points in the distance to
survey the wondrous whole: while a considerable group, amongst whom
Romola recognised Piero di Cosimo, standing on the marble steps of
Orgagna’s Loggia, seemed to be keeping aloof in discontent and scorn.

Approaching nearer, she paused to look at the multifarious objects
ranged in gradation from the base to the summit of the pyramid. There
were tapestries and brocades of immodest design, pictures and
sculptures held too likely to incite to vice; there were boards and
tables for all sorts of games, playing-cards along with the blocks for
printing them, dice, and other apparatus for gambling; there were
worldly music-books, and musical instruments in all the pretty
varieties of lute, drum, cymbal, and trumpet; there were masks and
masquerading-dresses used in the old Carnival shows; there were
handsome copies of Ovid, Boccaccio, Petrarca, Pulci, and other books of
a vain or impure sort; there were all the implements of feminine
vanity—rouge-pots, false hair, mirrors, perfumes, powders, and
transparent veils intended to provoke inquisitive glances: lastly, at
the very summit, there was the unflattering effigy of a probably
mythical Venetian merchant, who was understood to have offered a heavy
sum for this collection of marketable abominations, and, soaring above
him in surpassing ugliness, the symbolic figure of the old debauched
Carnival.

This was the preparation for a new sort of bonfire—the Burning of
Vanities. Hidden in the interior of the pyramid was a plentiful store
of dry fuel and gunpowder; and on this last day of the festival, at
evening, the pile of vanities was to be set ablaze to the sound of
trumpets, and the ugly old Carnival was to tumble into the flames amid
the songs of reforming triumph.

This crowning act of the new festivities could hardly have been
prepared but for a peculiar organisation which had been started by
Savonarola two years before. The mass of the Florentine boyhood and
youth was no longer left to its own genial promptings towards street
mischief and crude dissoluteness. Under the training of Fra Domenico, a
sort of lieutenant to Savonarola, lads and striplings, the hope of
Florence, were to have none but pure words on their lips, were to have
a zeal for Unseen Good that should put to shame the lukewarmness of
their elders, and were to know no pleasures save of an angelic
sort—singing divine praises and walking in white robes. It was for them
that the ranges of seats had been raised high against the walls of the
Duomo; and they had been used to hear Savonarola appeal to them as the
future glory of a city specially appointed to do the work of God.

These fresh-cheeked troops were the chief agents in the regenerated
merriment of the new Carnival, which was a sort of sacred parody of the
old. Had there been bonfires in the old time? There was to be a bonfire
now, consuming impurity from off the earth. Had there been symbolic
processions? There were to be processions now, but the symbols were to
be white robes and red crosses and olive wreaths—emblems of peace and
innocent gladness—and the banners and images held aloft were to tell
the triumphs of goodness. Had there been dancing in a ring under the
open sky of the Piazza, to the sound of choral voices chanting loose
songs? There was to be dancing in a ring now, but dancing of monks and
laity in fraternal love and divine joy, and the music was to be the
music of hymns. As for the collections from street passengers, they
were to be greater than ever—not for gross and superfluous suppers, but
for the benefit of the hungry and needy; and, besides, there was the
collecting of the _Anathema_, or the Vanities to be laid on the great
pyramidal bonfire.

Troops of young inquisitors went from house to house on this exciting
business of asking that the Anathema should be given up to them.
Perhaps, after the more avowed vanities had been surrendered, Madonna,
at the head of the household, had still certain little reddened balls
brought from the Levant, intended to produce on a sallow cheek a sudden
bloom of the most ingenuous falsity? If so, let her bring them down and
cast them into the basket of doom. Or, perhaps, she had ringlets and
coils of “dead hair?”—if so, let her bring them to the streetdoor, not
on her head, but in her hands, and publicly renounce the Anathema which
hid the respectable signs of age under a ghastly mockery of youth. And,
in reward, she would hear fresh young voices pronounce a blessing on
her and her house.

The beardless inquisitors, organised into little regiments, doubtless
took to their work very willingly. To coerce people by shame, or other
spiritual pelting, into the giving up of things it will probably vex
them to part with, is a form of piety to which the boyish mind is most
readily converted; and if some obstinately wicked men got enraged and
threatened the whip or the cudgel, this also was exciting. Savonarola
himself evidently felt about the training of these boys the difficulty
weighing on all minds with noble yearnings towards great ends, yet with
that imperfect perception of means which forces a resort to some
supernatural constraining influence as the only sure hope. The
Florentine youth had had very evil habits and foul tongues: it seemed
at first an unmixed blessing when they were got to shout “_Viva Gesù_!”
But Savonarola was forced at last to say from the pulpit, “There is a
little too much shouting of ‘_Viva Gesù_!’ This constant utterance of
sacred words brings them into contempt. Let me have no more of that
shouting till the next Festa.”

Nevertheless, as the long stream of white-robed youthfulness, with its
little red crosses and olive wreaths, had gone to the Duomo at dawn
this morning to receive the communion from the hands of Savonarola, it
was a sight of beauty; and, doubtless, many of those young souls were
laying up memories of hope and awe that might save them from ever
resting in a merely vulgar view of their work as men and citizens.
There is no kind of conscious obedience that is not an advance on
lawlessness, and these boys became the generation of men who fought
greatly and endured greatly in the last struggle of their Republic.
Now, in the intermediate hours between the early communion and
dinner-time, they were making their last perambulations to collect alms
and vanities, and this was why Romola saw the slim white figures moving
to and fro about the base of the great pyramid.

“What think you of this folly, Madonna Romola?” said a brusque voice
close to her ear. “Your Piagnoni will make _l’inferno_ a pleasant
prospect to us, if they are to carry things their own way on earth.
It’s enough to fetch a cudgel over the mountains to see painters, like
Lorenzo di Credi and young Baccio there, helping to burn colour out of
life in this fashion.”

“My good Piero,” said Romola, looking up and smiling at the grim man,
“even you must be glad to see some of these things burnt. Look at those
gewgaws and wigs and rouge-pots: I have heard you talk as indignantly
against those things as Fra Girolamo himself.”

“What then?” said Piero, turning round on her sharply. “I never said a
woman should make a black patch of herself against the background. Va!
Madonna Antigone, it’s a shame for a woman with your hair and shoulders
to run into such nonsense—leave it to women who are not worth painting.
What! the most holy Virgin herself has always been dressed well; that’s
the doctrine of the Church:—talk of heresy, indeed! And I should like
to know what the excellent Messer Bardo would have said to the burning
of the divine poets by these Frati, who are no better an imitation of
men than if they were onions with the bulbs uppermost. Look at that
Petrarca sticking up beside a rouge-pot: do the idiots pretend that the
heavenly Laura was a painted harridan? And Boccaccio, now: do you mean
to say, Madonna Romola—you who are fit to be a model for a wise Saint
Catherine of Egypt—do you mean to say you have never read the stories
of the immortal Messer Giovanni?”

“It is true I have read them, Piero,” said Romola. “Some of them a
great many times over, when I was a little girl. I used to get the book
down when my father was asleep, so that I could read to myself.”

“_Ebbene_?” said Piero, in a fiercely challenging tone.

“There are some things in them I do not want ever to forget,” said
Romola; “but you must confess, Piero, that a great many of those
stories are only about low deceit for the lowest ends. Men do not want
books to make them think lightly of vice, as if life were a vulgar
joke. And I cannot blame Fra Girolamo for teaching that we owe our time
to something better.”

“Yes, yes, it’s very well to say so now you’ve read them,” said Piero,
bitterly, turning on his heel and walking away from her.

Romola, too, walked on, smiling at Piero’s innuendo, with a sort of
tenderness towards the old painter’s anger, because she knew that her
father would have felt something like it. For herself, she was
conscious of no inward collision with the strict and sombre view of
pleasure which tended to repress poetry in the attempt to repress vice.
Sorrow and joy have each their peculiar narrowness; and a religious
enthusiasm like Savonarola’s which ultimately blesses mankind by giving
the soul a strong propulsion towards sympathy with pain, indignation
against wrong, and the subjugation of sensual desire, must always incur
the reproach of a great negation. Romola’s life had given her an
affinity for sadness which inevitably made her unjust towards
merriment. That subtle result of culture which we call Taste was
subdued by the need for deeper motive; just as the nicer demands of the
palate are annihilated by urgent hunger. Moving habitually amongst
scenes of suffering, and carrying woman’s heaviest disappointment in
her heart, the severity which allied itself with self-renouncing
beneficent strength had no dissonance for her.




CHAPTER L.
Tessa Abroad and at Home.


Another figure easily recognised by us—a figure not clad in black, but
in the old red, green, and white—was approaching the Piazza that
morning to see the Carnival. She came from an opposite point, for Tessa
no longer lived on the hill of San Giorgio. After what had happened
there with Baldassarre, Tito had thought it best for that and other
reasons to find her a new home, but still in a quiet airy quarter, in a
house bordering on the wide garden grounds north of the Porta Santa
Croce.

Tessa was not come out sight-seeing without special leave. Tito had
been with her the evening before, and she had kept back the entreaty
which she felt to be swelling her heart and throat until she saw him in
a state of radiant ease, with one arm round the sturdy Lillo, and the
other resting gently on her own shoulder as she tried to make the tiny
Ninna steady on her legs. She was sure then that the weariness with
which he had come in and flung himself into his chair had quite melted
away from his brow and lips. Tessa had not been slow at learning a few
small stratagems by which she might avoid vexing Naldo and yet have a
little of her own way. She could read nothing else, but she had learned
to read a good deal in her husband’s face.

And certainly the charm of that bright, gentle-humoured Tito who woke
up under the Loggia de’ Cerchi on a Lenten morning five years before,
not having yet given any hostages to deceit, never returned so nearly
as in the person of Naldo, seated in that straight-backed, carved
arm-chair which he had provided for his comfort when he came to see
Tessa and the children. Tito himself was surprised at the growing sense
of relief which he felt in these moments. No guile was needed towards
Tessa: she was too ignorant and too innocent to suspect him of
anything. And the little voices calling him “Babbo” were very sweet in
his ears for the short while that he heard them. When he thought of
leaving Florence, he never thought of leaving Tessa and the little ones
behind. He was very fond of these round-cheeked, wide-eyed human things
that clung about him and knew no evil of him. And wherever affection
can spring, it is like the green leaf and the blossom—pure, and
breathing purity, whatever soil it may grow in. Poor Romola, with all
her self-sacrificing effort, was really helping to harden Tito’s nature
by chilling it with a positive dislike which had beforehand seemed
impossible in him; but Tessa kept open the fountains of kindness.

“Ninna is very good without me now,” began Tessa, feeling her request
rising very high in her throat, and letting Ninna seat herself on the
floor. “I can leave her with Monna Lisa any time, and if she is in the
cradle and cries, Lillo is as sensible as can be—he goes and thumps
Monna Lisa.”

Lillo, whose great dark eyes looked all the darker because his curls
were of a light-brown like his mother’s, jumped off Babbo’s knee, and
went forthwith to attest his intelligence by thumping Monna Lisa, who
was shaking her head slowly over her spinning at the other end of the
room. “A wonderful boy!” said Tito, laughing. “Isn’t he?” said Tessa,
eagerly, getting a little closer to him; “and I might go and see the
Carnival to-morrow, just for an hour or two, mightn’t I?”

“Oh, you wicked pigeon!” said Tito, pinching her cheek; “those are your
longings, are they? What have you to do with carnivals now you are an
old woman with two children?”

“But old women like to see things,” said Tessa, her lower lip hanging a
little. “Monna Lisa said she should like to go, only she’s so deaf she
can’t hear what is behind her, and she thinks we couldn’t take care of
both the children.”

“No, indeed, Tessa,” said Tito, looking rather grave, “you must not
think of taking the children into the crowded streets, else I shall be
angry.”

“But I have never been into the Piazza without leave,” said Tessa, in a
frightened, pleading tone, “since the Holy Saturday, and I think Nofri
is dead, for you know the poor _madre_ died; and I shall never forget
the Carnival I saw once; it was so pretty—all roses and a king and
queen under them—and singing. I liked it better than the San Giovanni.”

“But there’s nothing like that now, my Tessa. They are going to make a
bonfire in the Piazza—that’s all. But I cannot let you go out by
yourself in the evening.”

“Oh no, no! I don’t want to go in the evening. I only want to go and
see the procession by daylight. There _will_ be a procession—is it not
true?”

“Yes, after a sort,” said Tito, “as lively as a flight of cranes. You
must not expect roses and glittering kings and queens, my Tessa.
However, I suppose any string of people to be called a procession will
please your blue eyes. And there’s a thing they have raised in the
Piazza de’ Signori for the bonfire. You may like to see that. But come
home early, and look like a grave little old woman; and if you see any
men with feathers and swords, keep out of their way: they are very
fierce, and like to cut old women’s heads off.”

“Santa Madonna! where do they come from? Ah! you are laughing; it is
not so bad. But I will keep away from them. Only,” Tessa went on in a
whisper, putting her lips near Naldo’s ear, “if I might take Lillo with
me! He is very sensible.”

“But who will thump Monna Lisa then, if she doesn’t hear?” said Tito,
finding it difficult not to laugh, but thinking it necessary to look
serious. “No, Tessa, you could not take care of Lillo if you got into a
crowd, and he’s too heavy for you to carry him.”

“It is true,” said Tessa, rather sadly, “and he likes to run away. I
forgot that. Then I will go alone. But now look at Ninna—you have not
looked at her enough.”

Ninna was a blue-eyed thing, at the tottering, tumbling age—a fair
solid, which, like a loaded die, found its base with a constancy that
warranted prediction. Tessa went to snatch her up, and when Babbo was
paying due attention to the recent teeth and other marvels, she said,
in a whisper, “And shall I buy some confetti for the children?”

Tito drew some small coins from his scarsella, and poured them into her
palm.

“That will buy no end,” said Tessa, delighted at this abundance. “I
shall not mind going without Lillo so much, if I bring him something.”

So Tessa set out in the morning towards the great Piazza where the
bonfire was to be. She did not think the February breeze cold enough to
demand further covering than her green woollen dress. A mantle would
have been oppressive, for it would have hidden a new necklace and a new
clasp, mounted with silver, the only ornamental presents Tito had ever
made her. Tessa did not think at all of showing her figure, for no one
had ever told her it was pretty; but she was quite sure that her
necklace and clasp were of the prettiest sort ever worn by the richest
contadina, and she arranged her white hood over her head so that the
front of her necklace might be well displayed. These ornaments, she
considered, must inspire respect for her as the wife of some one who
could afford to buy them.

She tripped along very cheerily in the February sunshine, thinking much
of the purchases for the little ones, with which she was to fill her
small basket, and not thinking at all of any one who might be observing
her. Yet her descent from her upper storey into the street had been
watched, and she was being kept in sight as she walked by a person who
had often waited in vain to see if it were not Tessa who lived in that
house to which he had more than once dogged Tito. Baldassarre was
carrying a package of yarn: he was constantly employed in that way, as
a means of earning his scanty bread, and keeping the sacred fire of
vengeance alive; and he had come out of his way this morning, as he had
often done before, that he might pass by the house to which he had
followed Tito in the evening. His long imprisonment had so intensified
his timid suspicion and his belief in some diabolic fortune favouring
Tito, that he had not dared to pursue him, except under cover of a
crowd or of the darkness; he felt, with instinctive horror, that if
Tito’s eyes fell upon him, he should again be held up to obloquy, again
be dragged away; his weapon would be taken from him, and he should be
cast helpless into a prison-cell. His fierce purpose had become as
stealthy as a serpent’s, which depends for its prey on one dart of the
fang. Justice was weak and unfriended; and he could not hear again the
voice that pealed the promise of vengeance in the Duomo; he had been
there again and again, but that voice, too, had apparently been stifled
by cunning strong-armed wickedness. For a long while, Baldassarre’s
ruling thought was to ascertain whether Tito still wore the armour, for
now at last his fainting hope would have been contented with a
successful stab on this side the grave; but he would never risk his
precious knife again. It was a weary time he had had to wait for the
chance of answering this question by touching Tito’s back in the press
of the street. Since then, the knowledge that the sharp steel was
useless, and that he had no hope but in some new device, had fallen
with leaden weight on his enfeebled mind. A dim vision of winning one
of those two wives to aid him came before him continually, and
continually slid away. The wife who had lived on the hill was no longer
there. If he could find her again, he might grasp some thread of a
project, and work his way to more clearness.

And this morning he had succeeded. He was quite certain now where this
wife lived, and as he walked, bent a little under his burden of yarn,
yet keeping the green and white figure in sight, his mind was dwelling
upon her and her circumstances as feeble eyes dwell on lines and
colours, trying to interpret them into consistent significance.

Tessa had to pass through various long streets without seeing any other
sign of the Carnival than unusual groups of the country people in their
best garments, and that disposition in everybody to chat and loiter
which marks the early hours of a holiday, before the spectacle has
begun. Presently, in her disappointed search for remarkable objects,
her eyes fell on a man with a pedlar’s basket before him, who seemed to
be selling nothing but little red crosses to all the passengers. A
little red cross would be pretty to hang up over her bed; it would also
help to keep off harm, and would perhaps make Ninna stronger. Tessa
went to the other side of the street that she might ask the pedlar the
price of the crosses, fearing that they would cost a little too much
for her to spare from her purchase of sweets. The pedlar’s back had
been turned towards her hitherto, but when she came near him she
recognised an old acquaintance of the Mercato, Bratti Ferravecchi, and,
accustomed to feel that she was to avoid old acquaintances, she turned
away again and passed to the other side of the street. But Bratti’s eye
was too well practised in looking out at the corner after possible
customers, for her movement to have escaped him, and she was presently
arrested by a tap on the arm from one of the red crosses.

“Young woman,” said Bratti, as she unwillingly turned her head, “you
come from some castello a good way off, it seems to me, else you’d
never think of walking about, this blessed Carnival, without a red
cross in your hand. Santa Madonna! Four white quattrini is a small
price to pay for your soul—prices rise in purgatory, let me tell you.”

“Oh, I should like one,” said Tessa, hastily, “but I couldn’t spare
four white quattrini.”

Bratti had at first regarded Tessa too abstractedly as a mere customer
to look at her with any scrutiny, but when she began to speak he
exclaimed, “By the head of San Giovanni, it must be the little Tessa,
and looking as fresh as a ripe apple! What! you’ve done none the worse,
then, for running away from father Nofri? You were in the right of it,
for he goes on crutches now, and a crabbed fellow with crutches is
dangerous; he can reach across the house and beat a woman as he sits.”

“I’m married,” said Tessa, rather demurely, remembering Naldo’s command
that she should behave with gravity; “and my husband takes great care
of me.”

“Ah, then, you’ve fallen on your feet! Nofri said you were
good-for-nothing vermin; but what then? An ass may bray a good while
before he shakes the stars down. I always said you did well to run
away, and it isn’t often Bratti’s in the wrong. Well, and so you’ve got
a husband and plenty of money? Then you’ll never think much of giving
four white quattrini for a red cross. I get no profit; but what with
the famine and the new religion, all other merchandise is gone down.
You live in the country where the chestnuts are plenty, eh? You’ve
never wanted for polenta, I can see.”

“No, I’ve never wanted anything,” said Tessa, still on her guard.

“Then you can afford to buy a cross. I got a Padre to bless them, and
you get blessing and all for four quattrini. It isn’t for the profit; I
hardly get a danaro by the whole lot. But then they’re holy wares, and
it’s getting harder and harder work to see your way to Paradise: the
very Carnival is like Holy Week, and the least you can do to keep the
Devil from getting the upper hand is to buy a cross. God guard you!
think what the Devil’s tooth is! You’ve seen him biting the man in San
Giovanni, I should hope?”

Tessa felt much teased and frightened. “Oh, Bratti,” she said, with a
discomposed face, “I want to buy a great many confetti: I’ve got little
Lillo and Ninna at home. And nice coloured sweet things cost a great
deal. And they will not like the cross so well, though I know it would
be good to have it.”

“Come, then,” said Bratti, fond of laying up a store of merits by
imagining possible extortions and then heroically renouncing them,
“since you’re an old acquaintance, you shall have it for two quattrini.
It’s making you a present of the cross, to say nothing of the
blessing.”

Tessa was reaching out her two quattrini with trembling hesitation,
when Bratti said abruptly, “Stop a bit! Where do you live?”

“Oh, a long way off,” she answered, almost automatically, being
preoccupied with her quattrini; “beyond San Ambrogio, in the Via
Piccola, at the top of the house where the wood is stacked below.”

“Very good,” said Bratti, in a patronising tone; “then I’ll let you
have the cross on trust, and call for the money. So you live inside the
gates? Well, well, I shall be passing.”

“No, no!” said Tessa, frightened lest Naldo should be angry at this
revival of an old acquaintance. “I can spare the money. Take it now.”

“No,” said Bratti, resolutely; “I’m not a hard-hearted pedlar. I’ll
call and see if you’ve got any rags, and you shall make a bargain. See,
here’s the cross: and there’s Pippo’s shop not far behind you: you can
go and fill your basket, and I must go and get mine empty. _Addio,
piccina_.”

Bratti went on his way, and Tessa, stimulated to change her money into
confetti before further accident, went into Pippo’s shop, a little
fluttered by the thought that she had let Bratti know more about her
than her husband would approve. There were certainly more dangers in
coming to see the Carnival than in staying at home; and she would have
felt this more strongly if she had known that the wicked old man, who
had wanted to kill her husband on the hill, was still keeping her in
sight. But she had not noticed the man with the burden on his back.

The consciousness of having a small basketful of things to make the
children glad dispersed her anxiety, and as she entered the Via de’
Libraj her face had its visual expression of childlike content. And now
she thought there was really a procession coming, for she saw white
robes and a banner, and her heart began to palpitate with expectation.
She stood a little aside, but in that narrow street there was the
pleasure of being obliged to look very close. The banner was pretty: it
was the Holy Mother with the Babe, whose love for her Tessa had
believed in more and more since she had had her babies; and the figures
in white had not only green wreaths on their heads, but little red
crosses by their side, which caused her some satisfaction that she also
had her red cross. Certainly, they looked as beautiful as the angels on
the clouds, and to Tessa’s mind they too had a background of cloud,
like everything else that came to her in life. How and whence did they
come? She did not mind much about knowing. But one thing surprised her
as newer than wreaths and crosses; it was that some of the white
figures carried baskets between them. What could the baskets be for?

But now they were very near, and, to her astonishment, they wheeled
aside and came straight up to her. She trembled as she would have done
if Saint Michael in the picture had shaken his head at her, and was
conscious of nothing but terrified wonder till she saw close to her a
round boyish face, lower than her own, and heard a treble voice saying,
“Sister, you carry the Anathema about you. Yield it up to the blessed
Gesu, and He will adorn you with the gems of His grace.”

Tessa was only more frightened, understanding nothing. Her first
conjecture settled on her basket of sweets. They wanted that, these
alarming angels. Oh dear, dear! She looked down at it.

“No, sister,” said a taller youth, pointing to her necklace and the
clasp of her belt, “it is those vanities that are the Anathema. Take
off that necklace and unclasp that belt, that they may be burned in the
holy Bonfire of Vanities, and save _you_ from burning.”

“It is the truth, my sister,” said a still taller youth, evidently the
archangel of this band. “Listen to these voices speaking the divine
message. You already carry a red cross: let that be your only
adornment. Yield up your necklace and belt, and you shall obtain
grace.”

This was too much. Tessa, overcome with awe, dared not say “no,” but
she was equally unable to render up her beloved necklace and clasp. Her
pouting lips were quivering, the tears rushed to her eyes, and a great
drop fell. For a moment she ceased to see anything; she felt nothing
but confused terror and misery. Suddenly a gentle hand was laid on her
arm, and a soft, wonderful voice, as if the Holy Madonna were speaking,
said, “Do not be afraid; no one shall harm you.”

Tessa looked up and saw a lady in black, with a young heavenly face and
loving hazel eyes. She had never seen any one like this lady before,
and under other circumstances might have had awestruck thoughts about
her; but now everything else was overcome by the sense that loving
protection was near her. The tears only fell the faster, relieving her
swelling heart, as she looked up at the heavenly face, and, putting her
hand to her necklace, said sobbingly—

“I can’t give them to be burnt. My husband—he bought them for me—and
they are so pretty—and Ninna—oh, I wish I’d never come!”

“Do not ask her for them,” said Romola, speaking to the white-robed
boys in a tone of mild authority. “It answers no good end for people to
give up such things against their will. That is not what Fra Girolamo
approves: he would have such things given up freely.”

Madonna Romola’s word was not to be resisted, and the white train moved
on. They even moved with haste, as if some new object had caught their
eyes; and Tessa felt with bliss that they were gone, and that her
necklace and clasp were still with her.

“Oh, I will go back to the house,” she said, still agitated; “I will go
nowhere else. But if I should meet them again, and you not be there?”
she added, expecting everything from this heavenly lady.

“Stay a little,” said Romola. “Come with me under this doorway, and we
will hide the necklace and clasp, and then you will be in no danger.”

She led Tessa under the archway, and said, “Now, can we find room for
your necklace and belt in your basket? Ah! your basket is full of crisp
things that will break: let us be careful, and lay the heavy necklace
under them.”

It was like a change in a dream to Tessa—the escape from nightmare into
floating safety and joy—to find herself taken care of by this lady, so
lovely, and powerful, and gentle. She let Romola unfasten her necklace
and clasp, while she herself did nothing but look up at the face that
bent over her.

“They are sweets for Lillo and Ninna,” she said, as Romola carefully
lifted up the light parcels in the basket, and placed the ornaments
below them.

“Those are your children?” said Romola, smiling. “And you would rather
go home to them than see any more of the Carnival? Else you have not
far to go to the Piazza de’ Signori, and there you would see the pile
for the great bonfire.”

“No, oh no!” said Tessa, eagerly; “I shall never like bonfires again. I
will go back.”

“You live at some castello, doubtless,” said Romola, not waiting for an
answer. “Towards which gate do you go?”

“Towards Por’ Santa Croce.”

“Come, then,” said Romola, taking her by the hand and leading her to
the corner of a street nearly opposite. “If you go down there,” she
said, pausing, “you will soon be in a straight road. And I must leave
you now, because some one else expects me. You will not be frightened.
Your pretty things are quite safe now. Addio.”

“Addio, Madonna,” said Tessa, almost in a whisper, not knowing what
else it would be right to say; and in an instant the heavenly lady was
gone. Tessa turned to catch a last glimpse, but she only saw the tall
gliding figure vanish round the projecting stonework. So she went on
her way in wonder, longing to be once more safely housed with Monna
Lisa, undesirous of carnivals for evermore.

Baldassarre had kept Tessa in sight till the moment of her parting with
Romola: then he went away with his bundle of yarn. It seemed to him
that he had discerned a clue which might guide him if he could only
grasp the necessary details firmly enough. He had seen the two wives
together, and the sight had brought to his conceptions that vividness
which had been wanting before. His power of imagining facts needed to
be reinforced continually by the senses. The tall wife was the noble
and rightful wife; she had the blood in her that would be readily
kindled to resentment; she would know what scholarship was, and how it
might lie locked in by the obstructions of the stricken body, like a
treasure buried by earthquake. She could believe him: she would be
_inclined_ to believe him, if he proved to her that her husband was
unfaithful. Women cared about that: they would take vengeance for that.
If this wife of Tito’s loved him, she would have a sense of injury
which Baldassarre’s mind dwelt on with keen longing, as if it would be
the strength of another Will added to his own, the strength of another
mind to form devices.

Both these wives had been kind to Baldassarre, and their acts towards
him, being bound up with the very image of them, had not vanished from
his memory; yet the thought of their pain could not present itself to
him as a check. To him it seemed that pain was the order of the world
for all except the hard and base. If any were innocent, if any were
noble, where could the utmost gladness lie for them? Where it lay for
him—in unconquerable hatred and triumphant vengeance. But he must be
cautious: he must watch this wife in the Via de’ Bardi, and learn more
of her; for even here frustration was possible. There was no power for
him now but in patience.




CHAPTER LI.
Monna Brigida’s Conversion.


When Romola said that some one else expected her, she meant her cousin
Brigida, but she was far from suspecting how much that good kinswoman
was in need of her. Returning together towards the Piazza, they had
descried the company of youths coming to a stand before Tessa, and when
Romola, having approached near enough to see the simple little
contadina’s distress, said, “Wait for me a moment, cousin,” Monna
Brigida said hastily, “Ah, I will not go on: come for me to Boni’s
shop,—I shall go back there.”

The truth was, Monna Brigida had a consciousness on the one hand of
certain “vanities” carried on her person, and on the other of a growing
alarm lest the Piagnoni should be right in holding that rouge, and
false hair, and pearl embroidery, endamaged the soul. Their serious
view of things filled the air like an odour; nothing seemed to have
exactly the same flavour as it used to have; and there was the dear
child Romola, in her youth and beauty, leading a life that was
uncomfortably suggestive of rigorous demands on woman. A widow at
fifty-five whose satisfaction has been largely drawn from what she
thinks of her own person, and what she believes others think of it,
requires a great fund of imagination to keep her spirits buoyant. And
Monna Brigida had begun to have frequent struggles at her toilet. If
her soul would prosper better without them, was it really worth while
to put on the rouge and the braids? But when she lifted up the
hand-mirror and saw a sallow face with baggy cheeks, and crows’-feet
that were not to be dissimulated by any simpering of the lips—when she
parted her grey hair, and let it lie in simple Piagnone fashion round
her face, her courage failed. Monna Berta would certainly burst out
laughing at her, and call her an old hag, and as Monna Berta was really
only fifty-two, she had a superiority which would make the observation
cutting. Every woman who was not a Piagnone would give a shrug at the
sight of her, and the men would accost her as if she were their
grandmother. Whereas, at fifty-five a woman was not so very old—she
only required making up a little. So the rouge and the braids and the
embroidered berretta went on again, and Monna Brigida was satisfied
with the accustomed effect; as for her neck, if she covered it up,
people might suppose it was too old to show, and, on the contrary, with
the necklaces round it, it looked better than Monna Berta’s. This very
day, when she was preparing for the Piagnone Carnival, such a struggle
had occurred, and the conflicting fears and longings which caused the
struggle, caused her to turn back and seek refuge in the druggist’s
shop rather than encounter the collectors of the Anathema when Romola
was not by her side. But Monna Brigida was not quite rapid enough in
her retreat. She had been descried, even before she turned away, by the
white-robed boys in the rear of those who wheeled round towards Tessa,
and the willingness with which Tessa was given up was, perhaps,
slightly due to the fact that part of the troop had already accosted a
personage carrying more markedly upon her the dangerous weight of the
Anathema. It happened that several of this troop were at the youngest
age taken into peculiar training; and a small fellow of ten, his olive
wreath resting above cherubic cheeks and wide brown eyes, his
imagination really possessed with a hovering awe at existence as
something in which great consequences impended on being good or bad,
his longings nevertheless running in the direction of mastery and
mischief, was the first to reach Monna Brigida and place himself across
her path. She felt angry, and looked for an open door, but there was
not one at hand, and by attempting to escape now, she would only make
things worse. But it was not the cherubic-faced young one who first
addressed her; it was a youth of fifteen, who held one handle of a wide
basket.

“Venerable mother!” he began, “the blessed Jesus commands you to give
up the Anathema which you carry upon you. That cap embroidered with
pearls, those jewels that fasten up your false hair—let them be given
up and sold for the poor; and cast the hair itself away from you, as a
lie that is only fit for burning. Doubtless, too, you have other jewels
under your silk mantle.”

“Yes, lady,” said the youth at the other handle, who had many of Fra
Girolamo’s phrases by heart, “they are too heavy for you: they are
heavier than a millstone, and are weighting you for perdition. Will you
adorn yourself with the hunger of the poor, and be proud to carry God’s
curse upon your head?”

“In truth you are old, buona madre,” said the cherubic boy, in a sweet
soprano. “You look very ugly with the red on your cheeks and that black
glistening hair, and those fine things. It is only Satan who can like
to see you. Your Angel is sorry. He wants you to rub away the red.”

The little fellow snatched a soft silk scarf from the basket, and held
it towards Monna Brigida, that she might use it as her guardian angel
desired. Her anger and mortification were fast giving way to spiritual
alarm. Monna Berta and that cloud of witnesses, highly-dressed society
in general, were not looking at her, and she was surrounded by young
monitors, whose white robes, and wreaths, and red crosses, and dreadful
candour, had something awful in their unusualness. Her Franciscan
confessor, Fra Cristoforo, of Santa Croce, was not at hand to reinforce
her distrust of Dominican teaching, and she was helplessly possessed
and shaken by a vague sense that a supreme warning was come to her.
Unvisited by the least suggestion of any other course that was open to
her, she took the scarf that was held out, and rubbed her cheeks, with
trembling submissiveness.

“It is well, madonna,” said the second youth. “It is a holy beginning.
And when you have taken those vanities from your head, the dew of
heavenly grace will descend on it.” The infusion of mischief was
getting stronger, and putting his hand to one of the jewelled pins that
fastened her braids to the berretta, he drew it out. The heavy black
plait fell down over Monna Brigida’s face, and dragged the rest of the
head-gear forward. It was a new reason for not hesitating: she put up
her hands hastily, undid the other fastenings, and flung down into the
basket of doom her beloved crimson-velvet berretta, with all its
unsurpassed embroidery of seed-pearls, and stood an unrouged woman,
with grey hair pushed backward from a face where certain deep lines of
age had triumphed over _embonpoint_.

But the berretta was not allowed to lie in the basket. With impish zeal
the youngsters lifted it, and held it up pitilessly, with the false
hair dangling.

“See, venerable mother,” said the taller youth, “what ugly lies you
have delivered yourself from! And now you look like the blessed Saint
Anna, the mother of the Holy Virgin.”

Thoughts of going into a convent forthwith, and never showing herself
in the world again, were rushing through Monna Brigida’s mind. There
was nothing possible for her but to take care of her soul.

Of course, there were spectators laughing: she had no need to look
round to assure herself of that. Well! it would, perhaps, be better to
be forced to think more of Paradise. But at the thought that the dear
accustomed world was no longer in her choice, there gathered some of
those hard tears which just moisten elderly eyes, and she could see but
dimly a large rough hand holding a red cross, which was suddenly thrust
before her over the shoulders of the boys, while a strong guttural
voice said—

“Only four quattrini, madonna, blessing and all! Buy it. You’ll find a
comfort in it now your wig’s gone. Deh! what are we sinners doing all
our lives? Making soup in a basket, and getting nothing but the scum
for our stomachs. Better buy a blessing, madonna! Only four quattrini;
the profit is not so much as the smell of a danaro, and it goes to the
poor.”

Monna Brigida, in dim-eyed confusion, was proceeding to the further
submission of reaching money from her embroidered scarsella, at present
hidden by her silk mantle, when the group round her, which she had not
yet entertained the idea of escaping, opened before a figure as welcome
as an angel loosing prison-bolts.

“Romola, look at me!” said Monna Brigida, in a piteous tone, putting
out both her hands.

The white troop was already moving away, with a slight consciousness
that its zeal about the head-gear had been superabundant enough to
afford a dispensation from any further demand for penitential
offerings.

“Dear cousin, don’t be distressed,” said Romola, smitten with pity, yet
hardly able to help smiling at the sudden apparition of her kinswoman
in a genuine, natural guise, strangely contrasted with all memories of
her. She took the black drapery from her own head, and threw it over
Monna Brigida’s. “There,” she went on soothingly, “no one will remark
you now. We will turn down the Via del Palagio and go straight to our
house.”

They hastened away, Monna Brigida grasping Romola’s hand tightly, as if
to get a stronger assurance of her being actually there.

“Ah, my Romola, my dear child!” said the short fat woman, hurrying with
frequent steps to keep pace with the majestic young figure beside her;
“what an old scarecrow I am! I must be good—I mean to be good!”

“Yes, yes; buy a cross!” said the guttural voice, while the rough hand
was thrust once more before Monna Brigida: for Bratti was not to be
abashed by Romola’s presence into renouncing a probable customer, and
had quietly followed up their retreat. “Only four quattrini, blessing
and all—and if there was any profit, it would all go to the poor.”

Monna Brigida would have been compelled to pause, even if she had been
in a less submissive mood. She put up one hand deprecatingly to arrest
Romola’s remonstrance, and with the other reached out a grosso, worth
many white quattrini, saying, in an entreating tone—

“Take it, good man, and begone.”

“You’re in the right, madonna,” said Bratti, taking the coin quickly,
and thrusting the cross into her hand; “I’ll not offer you change, for
I might as well rob you of a mass. What! we must all be scorched a
little, but you’ll come off the easier; better fall from the window
than the roof. A good Easter and a good year to you!”

“Well, Romola,” cried Monna Brigida, pathetically, as Bratti left them,
“if I’m to be a Piagnone it’s no matter how I look!”

“Dear cousin,” said Romola, smiling at her affectionately, “you don’t
know how much better you look than you ever did before. I see now how
good-natured your face is, like yourself. That red and finery seemed to
thrust themselves forward and hide expression. Ask our Piero or any
other painter if he would not rather paint your portrait now than
before. I think all lines of the human face have something either
touching or grand, unless they seem to come from low passions. How fine
old men are, like my godfather! Why should not old women look grand and
simple?”

“Yes, when one gets to be sixty, my Romola,” said Brigida, relapsing a
little; “but I’m only fifty-five, and Monna Berta, and everybody—but
it’s no use: I will be good, like you. Your mother, if she’d been
alive, would have been as old as I am; we were cousins together. One
_must_ either die or get old. But it doesn’t matter about being old, if
one’s a Piagnone.”




CHAPTER LII.
A Prophetess.


The incidents of that Carnival day seemed to Romola to carry no other
personal consequences to her than the new care of supporting poor
cousin Brigida in her fluctuating resignation to age and grey hairs;
but they introduced a Lenten time in which she was kept at a high pitch
of mental excitement and active effort.

Bernardo del Nero had been elected Gonfaloniere. By great exertions the
Medicean party had so far triumphed, and that triumph had deepened
Romola’s presentiment of some secretly-prepared scheme likely to ripen
either into success or betrayal during these two months of her
godfather’s authority. Every morning the dim daybreak as it peered into
her room seemed to be that haunting fear coming back to her. Every
morning the fear went with her as she passed through the streets on her
way to the early sermon in the Duomo: but there she gradually lost the
sense of its chill presence, as men lose the dread of death in the
clash of battle.

In the Duomo she felt herself sharing in a passionate conflict which
had wider relations than any enclosed within the walls of Florence. For
Savonarola was preaching—preaching the last course of Lenten sermons he
was ever allowed to finish in the Duomo: he knew that excommunication
was imminent, and he had reached the point of defying it. He held up
the condition of the Church in the terrible mirror of his unflinching
speech, which called things by their right names and dealt in no polite
periphrases; he proclaimed with heightening confidence the advent of
renovation—of a moment when there would be a general revolt against
corruption. As to his own destiny, he seemed to have a double and
alternating prevision: sometimes he saw himself taking a glorious part
in that revolt, sending forth a voice that would be heard through all
Christendom, and making the dead body of the Church tremble into new
life, as the body of Lazarus trembled when the Divine voice pierced the
sepulchre; sometimes he saw no prospect for himself but persecution and
martyrdom:—this life for him was only a vigil, and only after death
would come the dawn.

The position was one which must have had its impressiveness for all
minds that were not of the dullest order, even if they were inclined,
as Macchiavelli was, to interpret the Frate’s character by a key that
presupposed no loftiness. To Romola, whose kindred ardour gave her a
firm belief in Savonarola’s genuine greatness of purpose, the crisis
was as stirring as if it had been part of her personal lot. It blent
itself as an exalting memory with all her daily labours; and those
labours were calling not only for difficult perseverance, but for new
courage. Famine had never yet taken its flight from Florence, and all
distress, by its long continuance, was getting harder to bear; disease
was spreading in the crowded city, and the Plague was expected. As
Romola walked, often in weariness, among the sick, the hungry, and the
murmuring, she felt it good to be inspired by something more than her
pity—by the belief in a heroism struggling for sublime ends, towards
which the daily action of her pity could only tend feebly, as the dews
that freshen the weedy ground to-day tend to prepare an unseen harvest
in the years to come.

But that mighty music which stirred her in the Duomo was not without
its jarring notes. Since those first days of glowing hope when the
Frate, seeing the near triumph of good in the reform of the Republic
and the coming of the French deliverer, had preached peace, charity,
and oblivion of political differences, there had been a marked change
of conditions: political intrigue had been too obstinate to allow of
the desired oblivion; the belief in the French deliverer, who had
turned his back on his high mission, seemed to have wrought harm; and
hostility, both on a petty and on a grand scale, was attacking the
Prophet with new weapons and new determination.

It followed that the spirit of contention and self-vindication pierced
more and more conspicuously in his sermons; that he was urged to meet
the popular demands not only by increased insistence and detail
concerning visions and private revelations, but by a tone of defiant
confidence against objectors; and from having denounced the desire for
the miraculous, and declared that miracles had no relation to true
faith, he had come to assert that at the right moment the Divine power
would attest the truth of his prophetic preaching by a miracle. And
continually, in the rapid transitions of excited feeling, as the vision
of triumphant good receded behind the actual predominance of evil, the
threats of coming vengeance against vicious tyrants and corrupt priests
gathered some impetus from personal exasperation, as well as from
indignant zeal.

In the career of a great public orator who yields himself to the
inspiration of the moment, that conflict of selfish and unselfish
emotion which in most men is hidden in the chamber of the soul, is
brought into terrible evidence: the language of the inner voices is
written out in letters of fire.

But if the tones of exasperation jarred on Romola, there was often
another member of Fra Girolamo’s audience to whom they were the only
thrilling tones, like the vibration of deep bass notes to the deaf.
Baldassarre had found out that the wonderful Frate was preaching again,
and as often as he could, he went to hear the Lenten sermon, that he
might drink in the threats of a voice which seemed like a power on the
side of justice. He went the more because he had seen that Romola went
too; for he was waiting and watching for a time when not only outward
circumstances, but his own varying mental state, would mark the right
moment for seeking an interview with her. Twice Romola had caught sight
of his face in the Duomo—once when its dark glance was fixed on hers.
She wished not to see it again, and yet she looked for it, as men look
for the reappearance of a portent. But any revelation that might be yet
to come about this old man was a subordinate fear now: it referred, she
thought, only to the past, and her anxiety was almost absorbed by the
present.

Yet the stirring Lent passed by; April, the second and final month of
her godfather’s supreme authority, was near its close; and nothing had
occurred to fulfil her presentiment. In the public mind, too, there had
been fears, and rumours had spread from Rome of a menacing activity on
the part of Piero de’ Medici; but in a few days the suspected Bernardo
would go out of power.

Romola was trying to gather some courage from the review of her futile
fears, when on the twenty-seventh, as she was walking out on her usual
errands of mercy in the afternoon, she was met by a messenger from
Camilla Rucellai, chief among the feminine seers of Florence, desiring
her presence forthwith on matters of the highest moment. Romola, who
shrank with unconquerable repulsion from the shrill volubility of those
illuminated women, and had just now a special repugnance towards
Camilla because of a report that she had announced revelations hostile
to Bernardo del Nero, was at first inclined to send back a flat
refusal. Camilla’s message might refer to public affairs, and Romola’s
immediate prompting was to close her ears against knowledge that might
only make her mental burden heavier. But it had become so thoroughly
her habit to reject her impulsive choice, and to obey passively the
guidance of outward claims, that, reproving herself for allowing her
presentiments to make her cowardly and selfish, she ended by
compliance, and went straight to Camilla.

She found the nervous grey-haired woman in a chamber arranged as much
as possible like a convent cell. The thin fingers clutching Romola as
she sat, and the eager voice addressing her at first in a loud whisper,
caused her a physical shrinking that made it difficult for her to keep
her seat.

Camilla had a vision to communicate—a vision in which it had been
revealed to her by Romola’s Angel, that Romola knew certain secrets
concerning her godfather, Bernardo del Nero, which, if disclosed, might
save the Republic from peril. Camilla’s voice rose louder and higher as
she narrated her vision, and ended by exhorting Romola to obey the
command of her Angel, and separate herself from the enemy of God.

Romola’s impetuosity was that of a massive nature, and, except in
moments when she was deeply stirred, her manner was calm and
self-controlled. She had a constitutional disgust for the shallow
excitability of women like Camilla, whose faculties seemed all wrought
up into fantasies, leaving nothing for emotion and thought. The
exhortation was not yet ended when she started up and attempted to
wrench her arm from Camilla’s tightening grasp. It was of no use. The
prophetess kept her hold like a crab, and, only incited to more eager
exhortation by Romola’s resistance, was carried beyond her own
intention into a shrill statement of other visions which were to
corroborate this. Christ himself had appeared to her and ordered her to
send his commands to certain citizens in office that they should throw
Bernardo del Nero from the window of the Palazzo Vecchio. Fra Girolamo
himself knew of it, and had not dared this time to say that the vision
was not of Divine authority.

“And since then,” said Camilla, in her excited treble, straining upward
with wild eyes towards Romola’s face, “the Blessed Infant has come to
me and laid a wafer of sweetness on my tongue in token of his pleasure
that I had done his will.”

“Let me go!” said Romola, in a deep voice of anger. “God grant you are
mad! else you are detestably wicked!”

The violence of her effort to be free was too strong for Camilla now.
She wrenched away her arm and rushed out of the room, not pausing till
she had hurriedly gone far along the street, and found herself close to
the church of the Badia. She had but to pass behind the curtain under
the old stone arch, and she would find a sanctuary shut in from the
noise and hurry of the street, where all objects and all uses suggested
the thought of an eternal peace subsisting in the midst of turmoil.

She turned in, and sinking down on the step of the altar in front of
Filippino Lippi’s serene Virgin appearing to Saint Bernard, she waited
in hope that the inward tumult which agitated her would by-and-by
subside.

The thought which pressed on her the most acutely was that Camilla
could allege Savonarola’s countenance of her wicked folly. Romola did
not for a moment believe that he had sanctioned the throwing of
Bernardo del Nero from the window as a Divine suggestion; she felt
certain that there was falsehood or mistake in that allegation.
Savonarola had become more and more severe in his views of resistance
to malcontents; but the ideas of strict law and order were fundamental
to all his political teaching. Still, since he knew the possibly fatal
effects of visions like Camilla’s, since he had a marked distrust of
such spirit-seeing women, and kept aloof from them as much as possible,
why, with his readiness to denounce wrong from the pulpit, did he not
publicly denounce these pretended revelations which brought new
darkness instead of light across the conception of a Supreme Will? Why?
The answer came with painful clearness: he was fettered inwardly by the
consciousness that such revelations were not, in their basis,
distinctly separable from his own visions; he was fettered outwardly by
the foreseen consequence of raising a cry against himself even among
members of his own party, as one who would suppress all Divine
inspiration of which he himself was not the vehicle—he or his
confidential and supplementary seer of visions, Fra Salvestro.

Romola, kneeling with buried face on the altar-step, was enduring one
of those sickening moments, when the enthusiasm which had come to her
as the only energy strong enough to make life worthy, seemed to be
inevitably bound up with vain dreams and wilful eye-shutting. Her mind
rushed back with a new attraction towards the strong worldly sense, the
dignified prudence, the untheoretic virtues of her godfather, who was
to be treated as a sort of Agag because he held that a more restricted
form of government was better than the Great Council, and because he
would not pretend to forget old ties to the banished family.

But with this last thought rose the presentiment of some plot to
restore the Medici; and then again she felt that the popular party was
half justified in its fierce suspicion. Again she felt that to keep the
Government of Florence pure, and to keep out a vicious rule, was a
sacred cause; the Frate was right there, and had carried her
understanding irrevocably with him. But at this moment the assent of
her understanding went alone; it was given unwillingly. Her heart was
recoiling from a right allied to so much narrowness; a right apparently
entailing that hard systematic judgment of men which measures them by
assents and denials quite superficial to the manhood within them. Her
affection and respect were clinging with new tenacity to her godfather,
and with him to those memories of her father which were in the same
opposition to the division of men into sheep and goats by the easy mark
of some political or religious symbol.

After all has been said that can be said about the widening influence
of ideas, it remains true that they would hardly be such strong agents
unless they were taken in a solvent of feeling. The great
world-struggle of developing thought is continually foreshadowed in the
struggle of the affections, seeking a justification for love and hope.

If Romola’s intellect had been less capable of discerning the
complexities in human things, all the early loving associations of her
life would have forbidden her to accept implicitly the denunciatory
exclusiveness of Savonarola. She had simply felt that his mind had
suggested deeper and more efficacious truth to her than any other, and
the large breathing-room she found in his grand view of human duties
had made her patient towards that part of his teaching which she could
not absorb, so long as its practical effect came into collision with no
strong force in her. But now a sudden insurrection of feeling had
brought about that collision. Her indignation, once roused by Camilla’s
visions, could not pause there, but ran like an illuminating fire over
all the kindred facts in Savonarola’s teaching, and for the moment she
felt what was true in the scornful sarcasms she heard continually flung
against him, more keenly than she felt what was false.

But it was an illumination that made all life look ghastly to her.
Where were the beings to whom she could cling, with whom she could work
and endure, with the belief that she was working for the right? On the
side from which moral energy came lay a fanaticism from which she was
shrinking with newly-startled repulsion; on the side to which she was
drawn by affection and memory, there was the presentiment of some
secret plotting, which her judgment told her would not be unfairly
called crime. And still surmounting every other thought was the dread
inspired by Tito’s hints, lest that presentiment should be converted
into knowledge, in such a way that she would be torn by irreconcilable
claims.

Calmness would not come even on the altar-steps; it would not come from
looking at the serene picture where the saint, writing in the rocky
solitude, was being visited by faces with celestial peace in them.
Romola was in the hard press of human difficulties, and that rocky
solitude was too far off. She rose from her knees that she might hasten
to her sick people in the courtyard, and by some immediate beneficent
action, revive that sense of worth in life which at this moment was
unfed by any wider faith. But when she turned round, she found herself
face to face with a man who was standing only two yards off her. The
man was Baldassarre.




CHAPTER LIII.
On San Miniato.


“I would speak with you,” said Baldassarre, as Romola looked at him in
silent expectation. It was plain that he had followed her, and had been
waiting for her. She was going at last to know the secret about him.

“Yes,” she said, with the same sort of submission that she might have
shown under an imposed penance. “But you wish to go where no one can
hear us?”

“Where _he_ will not come upon us,” said Baldassarre, turning and
glancing behind him timidly. “Out—in the air—away from the streets.”

“I sometimes go to San Miniato at this hour,” said Romola. “If you
like, I will go now, and you can follow me. It is far, but we can be
solitary there.”

He nodded assent, and Romola set out. To some women it might have
seemed an alarming risk to go to a comparatively solitary spot with a
man who had some of the outward signs of that madness which Tito
attributed to him. But Romola was not given to personal fears, and she
was glad of the distance that interposed some delay before another blow
fell on her. The afternoon was far advanced, and the sun was already
low in the west, when she paused on some rough ground in the shadow of
the cypress-trunks, and looked round for Baldassarre. He was not far
off, but when he reached her, he was glad to sink down on an edge of
stony earth. His thickset frame had no longer the sturdy vigour which
belonged to it when he first appeared with the rope round him in the
Duomo; and under the transient tremor caused by the exertion of walking
up the hill, his eyes seemed to have a more helpless vagueness.

“The hill is steep,” said Romola, with compassionate gentleness,
seating herself by him. “And I fear you have been weakened by want?”

He turned his head and fixed his eyes on her in silence, unable, now
the moment of speech was come, to seize the words that would convey the
thought he wanted to utter: and she remained as motionless as she
could, lest he should suppose her impatient. He looked like nothing
higher than a common-bred, neglected old man; but she was used now to
be very near to such people, and to think a great deal about their
troubles. Gradually his glance gathered a more definite expression, and
at last he said with abrupt emphasis—

“Ah! you would have been my daughter!”

The swift flush came in Romola’s face and went back again as swiftly,
leaving her with white lips a little apart, like a marble image of
horror. For her mind, the revelation was made. She divined the facts
that lay behind that single word, and in the first moment there could
be no check to the impulsive belief which sprang from her keen
experience of Tito’s nature. The sensitive response of her face was a
stimulus to Baldassarre; for the first time his words had wrought their
right effect. He went on with gathering eagerness and firmness, laying
his hand on her arm.

“You are a woman of proud blood—is it not true? You go to hear the
preacher; you hate baseness—baseness that smiles and triumphs. You hate
your husband?”

“Oh God! were you really his father?” said Romola, in a low voice, too
entirely possessed by the images of the past to take any note of
Baldassarre’s question. “Or was it as he said? Did you take him when he
was little?”

“Ah, you believe me—you know what he is!” said Baldassarre, exultingly,
tightening the pressure on her arm, as if the contact gave him power.
“You will help me?”

“Yes,” said Romola, not interpreting the words as he meant them. She
laid her palm gently on the rough hand that grasped her arm, and the
tears came to her eyes as she looked at him. “Oh, it is piteous! Tell
me—you were a great scholar; you taught him. How is it?”

She broke off. Tito’s allegation of this man’s madness had come across
her; and where were the signs even of past refinement? But she had the
self-command not to move her hand. She sat perfectly still, waiting to
listen with new caution.

“It is gone!—it is all gone!” said Baldassarre; “and they would not
believe me, because he lied, and said I was mad; and they had me
dragged to prison. And I am old—my mind will not come back. And the
world is against me.”

He paused a moment, and his eyes sank as if he were under a wave of
despondency. Then he looked up at her again, and said with renewed
eagerness—“But _you_ are not against me. He made you love him, and he
has been false to you; and you hate him. Yes, he made _me_ love him: he
was beautiful and gentle, and I was a lonely man. I took him when they
were beating him. He slept in my bosom when he was little, and I
watched him as he grew, and gave him all my knowledge, and everything
that was mine I meant to be his. I had many things; money, and books,
and gems. He had my gems—he sold them; and he left me in slavery. He
never came to seek me, and when I came back poor and in misery, he
denied me. He said I was a madman.”

“He told us his father was dead—was drowned,” said Romola, faintly.
“Surely he must have believed it then. Oh! he could not have been so
base _then_!”

A vision had risen of what Tito was to her in those first days when she
thought no more of wrong in him than a child thinks of poison in
flowers. The yearning regret that lay in that memory brought some
relief from the tension of horror. With one great sob the tears rushed
forth.

“Ah, you are young, and the tears come easily,” said Baldassarre, with
some impatience. “But tears are no good; they only put out the fire
within, and it is the fire that works. Tears will hinder us. Listen to
me.”

Romola turned towards him with a slight start. Again the possibility of
his madness had darted through her mind, and checked the rush of
belief. If, after all, this man were only a mad assassin? But her deep
belief in this story still lay behind, and it was more in sympathy than
in fear that she avoided the risk of paining him by any show of doubt.

“Tell me,” she said, as gently as she could, “how did you lose your
memory—your scholarship?”

“I was ill. I can’t tell how long—it was a blank. I remember nothing,
only at last I was sitting in the sun among the stones, and everything
else was darkness. And slowly, and by degrees, I felt something besides
that: a longing for something—I did not know what—that never came. And
when I was in the ship on the waters I began to know what I longed for;
it was for the Boy to come back—it was to find all my thoughts again,
for I was locked away outside them all. And I am outside now. I feel
nothing but a wall and darkness.”

Baldassarre had become dreamy again, and sank into silence, resting his
head between his hands; and again Romola’s belief in him had submerged
all cautioning doubts. The pity with which she dwelt on his words
seemed like the revival of an old pang. Had she not daily seen how her
father missed Dino and the future he had dreamed of in that son?

“It all came back once,” Baldassarre went on presently. “I was master
of everything. I saw all the world again, and my gems, and my books;
and I thought I had him in my power, and I went to expose him
where—where the lights were and the trees; and he lied again, and said
I was mad, and they dragged me away to prison... Wickedness is strong;
and he wears armour.”

The fierceness had flamed up again. He spoke with his former intensity,
and again he grasped Romola’s arm.

“But you will help me? He has been false to you too. He has another
wife, and she has children. He makes her believe he is her husband, and
she is a foolish, helpless thing. I will show you where she lives.”

The first shock that passed through Romola was visibly one of anger.
The woman’s sense of indignity was inevitably foremost. Baldassarre
instinctively felt her in sympathy with him.

“You hate him,” he went on. “Is it not true? There is no love between
you; I know that. I know women can hate; and you have proud blood. You
hate falseness, and you can love revenge.”

Romola sat paralysed by the shock of conflicting feelings. She was not
conscious of the grasp that was bruising her tender arm.

“You shall contrive it,” said Baldassarre, presently, in an eager
whisper. “I have learned by heart that you are his rightful wife. You
are a noble woman. You go to hear the preacher of vengeance; you will
help justice. But you will think for me. My mind goes—everything goes
sometimes—all but the fire. The fire is God: it is justice: it will not
die. You believe that—is it not true? If they will not hang him for
robbing me, you will take away his armour—you will make him go without
it, and I will stab him. I have a knife, and my arm is still strong
enough.”

He put his hand under his tunic, and reached out the hidden knife,
feeling the edge abstractedly, as if he needed the sensation to keep
alive his ideas.

It seemed to Romola as if every fresh hour of her life were to become
more difficult than the last. Her judgment was too vigorous and rapid
for her to fall into the mistake of using futile deprecatory words to a
man in Baldassarre’s state of mind. She chose not to answer his last
speech. She would win time for his excitement to allay itself by asking
something else that she cared to know. She spoke rather tremulously—

“You say she is foolish and helpless—that other wife—and believes him
to be her real husband. Perhaps he is: perhaps he married her before he
married me.”

“I cannot tell,” said Baldassarre, pausing in that action of feeling
the knife, and looking bewildered. “I can remember no more. I only know
where she lives. You shall see her. I will take you; but not now,” he
added hurriedly, “_he_ may be there. The night is coming on.”

“It is true,” said Romola, starting up with a sudden consciousness that
the sun had set and the hills were darkening; “but you will come and
take me—when?”

“In the morning,” said Baldassarre, dreaming that she, too, wanted to
hurry to her vengeance.

“Come to me, then, where you came to me to-day, in the church. I will
be there at ten; and if you are not there, I will go again towards
mid-day. Can you remember?”

“Mid-day,” said Baldassarre—“only mid-day. The same place, and mid-day.
And, after that,” he added, rising and grasping her arm again with his
left hand, while he held the knife in his right; “we will have our
revenge. He shall feel the sharp edge of justice. The world is against
me, but you will help me.”

“I would help you in other ways,” said Romola, making a first, timid
effort to dispel his illusion about her. “I fear you are in want; you
have to labour, and get little. I should like to bring you comforts,
and make you feel again that there is some one who cares for you.”

“Talk no more about that,” said Baldassarre, fiercely. “I will have
nothing else. Help me to wring one drop of vengeance on this side of
the grave. I have nothing but my knife. It is sharp; but there is a
moment after the thrust when men see the face of death,—and it shall be
my face that he will see.”

He loosed his hold, and sank down again in a sitting posture. Romola
felt helpless: she must defer all intentions till the morrow.

“Mid-day, then,” she said, in a distinct voice.

“Yes,” he answered, with an air of exhaustion. “Go; I will rest here.”

She hastened away. Turning at the last spot whence he was likely to be
in sight, she saw him seated still.




CHAPTER LIV.
The Evening and the Morning.


Romola had a purpose in her mind as she was hastening away; a purpose
which had been growing through the afternoon hours like a side-stream,
rising higher and higher along with the main current. It was less a
resolve than a necessity of her feeling. Heedless of the darkening
streets, and not caring to call for Maso’s slow escort, she hurried
across the bridge where the river showed itself black before the
distant dying red, and took the most direct way to the Old Palace. She
might encounter her husband there. No matter. She could not weigh
probabilities; she must discharge her heart. She did not know what she
passed in the pillared court or up the wide stairs; she only knew that
she asked an usher for the Gonfaloniere, giving her name, and begging
to be shown into a private room.

She was not left long alone with the frescoed figures and the newly-lit
tapers. Soon the door opened, and Bernardo del Nero entered, still
carrying his white head erect above his silk lucco.

“Romola, my child, what is this?” he said, in a tone of anxious
surprise as he closed the door.

She had uncovered her head and went towards him without speaking. He
laid his hand on her shoulder, and held her a little way from him that
he might see her better. Her face was haggard from fatigue and long
agitation, her hair had rolled down in disorder; but there was an
excitement in her eyes that seemed to have triumphed over the bodily
consciousness.

“What has he done?” said Bernardo, abruptly. “Tell me everything,
child; throw away pride. I am your father.”

“It is not about myself—nothing about myself,” said Romola, hastily.
“Dearest godfather, it is about you. I have heard things—some I cannot
tell you. But you are in danger in the palace; you are in danger
everywhere. There are fanatical men who would harm you, and—and there
are traitors. Trust nobody. If you trust, you will be betrayed.”

Bernardo smiled.

“Have you worked yourself up into this agitation, my poor child,” he
said, raising his hand to her head and patting it gently, “to tell such
old truth as that to an old man like me?”

“Oh no, no! they are not old truths that I mean,” said Romola, pressing
her clasped hands painfully together, as if that action would help her
to suppress what must not be told. “They are fresh things that I know,
but cannot tell. Dearest godfather, you know I am not foolish. I would
not come to you without reason. Is it too late to warn you against any
one, _every_ one who seems to be working on your side? Is it too late
to say, ‘Go to your villa and keep away in the country when these three
more days of office are over?’ Oh God! perhaps it is too late! and if
any harm comes to you, it will be as if I had done it!”

The last words had burst from Romola involuntarily: a long-stifled
feeling had found spasmodic utterance. But she herself was startled and
arrested.

“I mean,” she added, hesitatingly, “I know nothing positive. I only
know what fills me with fears.”

“Poor child!” said Bernardo, looking at her with quiet penetration for
a moment or two. Then he said: “Go, Romola—go home and rest. These
fears may be only big ugly shadows of something very little and
harmless. Even traitors must see their interest in betraying; the rats
will run where they smell the cheese, and there is no knowing yet which
way the scent will come.”

He paused, and turned away his eyes from her with an air of
abstraction, till, with a slow shrug, he added—

“As for warnings, they are of no use to me, child. I enter into no
plots, but I never forsake my colours. If I march abreast with
obstinate men, who will rush on guns and pikes, I must share the
consequences. Let us say no more about that. I have not many years left
at the bottom of my sack for them to rob me of. Go, child; go home and
rest.”

He put his hand on her head again caressingly, and she could not help
clinging to his arm, and pressing her brow against his shoulder. Her
godfather’s caress seemed the last thing that was left to her out of
that young filial life, which now looked so happy to her even in its
troubles, for they were troubles untainted by anything hateful.

“Is silence best, my Romola?” said the old man.

“Yes, now; but I cannot tell whether it always will be,” she answered,
hesitatingly, raising her head with an appealing look.

“Well, you have a father’s ear while I am above ground,”—he lifted the
black drapery and folded it round her head, adding—“and a father’s
home; remember that.” Then opening the door, he said: “There, hasten
away. You are like a black ghost; you will be safe enough.”

When Romola fell asleep that night, she slept deep. Agitation had
reached its limits; she must gather strength before she could suffer
more; and, in spite of rigid habit, she slept on far beyond sunrise.

When she awoke, it was to the sound of guns. Piero de’ Medici, with
thirteen hundred men at his back, was before the gate that looks
towards Rome.

So much Romola learned from Maso, with many circumstantial additions of
dubious quality. A countryman had come in and alarmed the Signoria
before it was light, else the city would have been taken by surprise.
His master was not in the house, having been summoned to the Palazzo
long ago. She sent out the old man again, that he might gather news,
while she went up to the loggia from time to time to try and discern
any signs of the dreaded entrance having been made, or of its having
been effectively repelled. Maso brought her word that the great Piazza
was full of armed men, and that many of the chief citizens suspected as
friends of the Medici had been summoned to the palace and detained
there. Some of the people seemed not to mind whether Piero got in or
not, and some said the Signoria itself had invited him; but however
that might be, they were giving him an ugly welcome; and the soldiers
from Pisa were coming against him.

In her memory of those morning hours, there were not many things that
Romola could distinguish as actual external experiences standing
markedly out above the tumultuous waves of retrospect and anticipation.
She knew that she had really walked to the Badia by the appointed time
in spite of street alarms; she knew that she had waited there in vain.
And the scene she had witnessed when she came out of the church, and
stood watching on the steps while the doors were being closed behind
her for the afternoon interval, always came back to her like a
remembered waking.

There was a change in the faces and tones of the people, armed and
unarmed, who were pausing or hurrying along the streets. The guns were
firing again, but the sound only provoked laughter. She soon knew the
cause of the change. Piero de’ Medici and his horsemen had turned their
backs on Florence, and were galloping as fast as they could along the
Siena road. She learned this from a substantial shop-keeping Piagnone,
who had not yet laid down his pike.

“It is true,” he ended, with a certain bitterness in his emphasis.
“Piero is gone, but there are those left behind who were in the secret
of his coming—we all know that; and if the new Signoria does its duty
we shall soon know who they are.”

The words darted through Romola like a sharp spasm; but the evil they
foreshadowed was not yet close upon her, and as she entered her home
again, her most pressing anxiety was the possibility that she had lost
sight for a long while of Baldassarre.




CHAPTER LV.
Waiting.


The lengthening sunny days went on without bringing either what Romola
most desired or what she most dreaded. They brought no sign from
Baldassarre, and, in spite of special watch on the part of the
Government, no revelation of the suspected conspiracy. But they brought
other things which touched her closely, and bridged the phantom-crowded
space of anxiety with active sympathy in immediate trial. They brought
the spreading Plague and the Excommunication of Savonarola.

Both these events tended to arrest her incipient alienation from the
Frate, and to rivet again her attachment to the man who had opened to
her the new life of duty, and who seemed now to be worsted in the fight
for principle against profligacy. For Romola could not carry from day
to day into the abodes of pestilence and misery the sublime excitement
of a gladness that, since such anguish existed, she too existed to make
some of the anguish less bitter, without remembering that she owed this
transcendent moral life to Fra Girolamo. She could not witness the
silencing and excommunication of a man whose distinction from the great
mass of the clergy lay, not in any heretical belief, not in his
superstitions, but in the energy with which he sought to make the
Christian life a reality, without feeling herself drawn strongly to his
side.

Far on in the hot days of June the Excommunication, for some weeks
arrived from Rome, was solemnly published in the Duomo. Romola went to
witness the scene, that the resistance it inspired might invigorate
that sympathy with Savonarola which was one source of her strength. It
was in memorable contrast with the scene she had been accustomed to
witness there.

Instead of upturned citizen-faces filling the vast area under the
morning light, the youngest rising amphitheatre-wise towards the walls,
and making a garland of hope around the memories of age—instead of the
mighty voice thrilling all hearts with the sense of great things,
visible and invisible, to be struggled for—there were the bare walls at
evening made more sombre by the glimmer of tapers; there was the black
and grey flock of monks and secular clergy with bent, unexpectant
faces; there was the occasional tinkling of little bells in the pauses
of a monotonous voice reading a sentence which had already been long
hanging up in the churches; and at last there was the extinction of the
tapers, and the slow, shuffling tread of monkish feet departing in the
dim silence.

Romola’s ardour on the side of the Frate was doubly strengthened by the
gleeful triumph she saw in hard and coarse faces, and by the
fear-stricken confusion in the faces and speech of many among his
strongly-attached friends. The question where the duty of obedience
ends, and the duty of resistance begins, could in no case be an easy
one; but it was made overwhelmingly difficult by the belief that the
Church was—not a compromise of parties to secure a more or less
approximate justice in the appropriation of funds, but—a living
organism, instinct with Divine power to bless and to curse. To most of
the pious Florentines, who had hitherto felt no doubt in their
adherence to the Frate, that belief in the Divine potency of the Church
was not an embraced opinion, it was an inalienable impression, like the
concavity of the blue firmament; and the boldness of Savonarola’s
written arguments that the Excommunication was unjust, and that, being
unjust, it was not valid, only made them tremble the more, as a
defiance cast at a mystic image, against whose subtle immeasurable
power there was neither weapon nor defence.

But Romola, whose mind had not been allowed to draw its early
nourishment from the traditional associations of the Christian
community in which her father had lived a life apart, felt her relation
to the Church only through Savonarola; his moral force had been the
only authority to which she had bowed; and in his excommunication she
only saw the menace of hostile vice: on one side she saw a man whose
life was devoted to the ends of public virtue and spiritual purity, and
on the other the assault of alarmed selfishness, headed by a lustful,
greedy, lying, and murderous old man, once called Rodrigo Borgia, and
now lifted to the pinnacle of infamy as Pope Alexander the Sixth. The
finer shades of fact which soften the edge of such antitheses are not
apt to be seen except by neutrals, who are not distressed to discern
some folly in martyrs and some judiciousness in the men who burnt them.
But Romola required a strength that neutrality could not give; and this
Excommunication, which simplified and ennobled the resistant position
of Savonarola by bringing into prominence its wider relations, seemed
to come to her like a rescue from the threatening isolation of
criticism and doubt. The Frate was now withdrawn from that smaller
antagonism against Florentine enemies into which he continually fell in
the unchecked excitement of the pulpit, and presented himself simply as
appealing to the Christian world against a vicious exercise of
ecclesiastical power. He was a standard-bearer leaping into the breach.
Life never seems so clear and easy as when the heart is beating faster
at the sight of some generous self-risking deed. We feel no doubt then
what is the highest prize the soul can win; we almost believe in our
own power to attain it. By a new current of such enthusiasm Romola was
helped through these difficult summer days. She had ventured on no
words to Tito that would apprise him of her late interview with
Baldassarre, and the revelation he had made to her. What would such
agitating, difficult words win from him? No admission of the truth;
nothing, probably, but a cool sarcasm about her sympathy with his
assassin. Baldassarre was evidently helpless: the thing to be feared
was, not that he should injure Tito, but that Tito, coming upon his
traces, should carry out some new scheme for ridding himself of the
injured man who was a haunting dread to him. Romola felt that she could
do nothing decisive until she had seen Baldassarre again, and learned
the full truth about that “other wife”—learned whether she were the
wife to whom Tito was first bound.

The possibilities about that other wife, which involved the worst wound
to her hereditary pride, mingled themselves as a newly-embittering
suspicion with the earliest memories of her illusory love, eating away
the lingering associations of tenderness with the past image of her
husband; and her irresistible belief in the rest of Baldassarre’s
revelation made her shrink from Tito with a horror which would perhaps
have urged some passionate speech in spite of herself if he had not
been more than usually absent from home. Like many of the wealthier
citizens in that time of pestilence, he spent the intervals of business
chiefly in the country: the agreeable Melema was welcome at many
villas, and since Romola had refused to leave the city, he had no need
to provide a country residence of his own.

But at last, in the later days of July, the alleviation of those public
troubles which had absorbed her activity and much of her thought, left
Romola to a less counteracted sense of her personal lot. The Plague had
almost disappeared, and the position of Savonarola was made more
hopeful by a favourable magistracy, who were writing urgent vindicatory
letters to Rome on his behalf, entreating the withdrawal of the
Excommunication.

Romola’s healthy and vigorous frame was undergoing the reaction of
languor inevitable after continuous excitement and over-exertion; but
her mental restlessness would not allow her to remain at home without
peremptory occupation, except during the sultry hours. In the cool of
the morning and evening she walked out constantly, varying her
direction as much as possible, with the vague hope that if Baldassarre
were still alive she might encounter him. Perhaps some illness had
brought a new paralysis of memory, and he had forgotten where she
lived—forgotten even her existence. That was her most sanguine
explanation of his non-appearance. The explanation she felt to be most
probable was, that he had died of the Plague.




CHAPTER LVI.
The Other Wife.


The morning warmth was already beginning to be rather oppressive to
Romola, when, after a walk along by the walls on her way from San
Marco, she turned towards the intersecting streets again at the gate of
Santa Croce.

The Borgo La Croce was so still, that she listened to her own footsteps
on the pavement in the sunny silence, until, on approaching a bend in
the street, she saw, a few yards before her, a little child not more
than three years old, with no other clothing than his white shirt,
pause from a waddling run and look around him. In the first moment of
coming nearer she could only see his back—a boy’s back, square and
sturdy, with a cloud of reddish-brown curls above it; but in the next
he turned towards her, and she could see his dark eyes wide with tears,
and his lower lip pushed up and trembling, while his fat brown fists
clutched his shirt helplessly. The glimpse of a tall black figure
sending a shadow over him brought his bewildered fear to a climax, and
a loud crying sob sent the big tears rolling.

Romola, with the ready maternal instinct which was one hidden source of
her passionate tenderness, instantly uncovered her head, and, stooping
down on the pavement, put her arms round him, and her cheeks against
his, while she spoke to him in caressing tones. At first his sobs were
only the louder, but he made no effort to get away, and presently the
outburst ceased with that strange abruptness which belongs to childish
joys and griefs: his face lost its distortion, and was fixed in an
open-mouthed gaze at Romola.

“You have lost yourself, little one,” she said, kissing him. “Never
mind! we will find the house again. Perhaps mamma will meet us.”

She divined that he had made his escape at a moment when the mother’s
eyes were turned away from him, and thought it likely that he would
soon be followed.

“Oh, what a heavy, heavy boy!” she said, trying to lift him. “I cannot
carry you. Come, then, you must toddle back by my side.”

The parted lips remained motionless in awed silence, and one brown fist
still clutched the shirt with as much tenacity as ever; but the other
yielded itself quite willingly to the wonderful white hand, strong but
soft.

“You _have_ a mamma?” said Romola, as they set out, looking down at the
boy with a certain yearning. But he was mute. A girl under those
circumstances might perhaps have chirped abundantly; not so this
square-shouldered little man with the big cloud of curls.

He was awake to the first sign of his whereabout, however. At the
turning by the front of San Ambrogio he dragged Romola towards it,
looking up at her.

“Ah, that is the way home, is it?” she said, smiling at him. He only
thrust his head forward and pulled, as an admonition that they should
go faster.

There was still another turning that he had a decided opinion about,
and then Romola found herself in a short street leading to open garden
ground. It was in front of a house at the end of this street that the
little fellow paused, pulling her towards some stone stairs. He had
evidently no wish for her to loose his hand, and she would not have
been willing to leave him without being sure that she was delivering
him to his friends. They mounted the stairs, seeing but dimly in that
sudden withdrawal from the sunlight, till, at the final landing-place,
an extra stream of light came from an open doorway. Passing through a
small lobby, they came to another open door, and there Romola paused.
Her approach had not been heard.

On a low chair at the farther end of the room, opposite the light, sat
Tessa, with one hand on the edge of the cradle, and her head hanging a
little on one side, fast asleep. Near one of the windows, with her back
turned towards the door, sat Monna Lisa at her work of preparing salad,
in deaf unconsciousness. There was only an instant for Romola’s eyes to
take in that still scene; for Lillo snatched his hand away from her and
ran up to his mother’s side, not making any direct effort to wake her,
but only leaning his head back against her arm, and surveying Romola
seriously from that distance.

As Lillo pushed against her, Tessa opened her eyes, and looked up in
bewilderment; but her glance had no sooner rested on the figure at the
opposite doorway than she started up, blushed deeply, and began to
tremble a little, neither speaking nor moving forward.

“Ah! we have seen each other before,” said Romola, smiling, and coming
forward. “I am glad it was _your_ little boy. He was crying in the
street; I suppose he had run away. So we walked together a little way,
and then he knew where he was, and brought me here. But you had not
missed him? That is well, else you would have been frightened.”

The shock of finding that Lillo had run away overcame every other
feeling in Tessa for the moment. Her colour went again, and, seizing
Lillo’s arm, she ran with him to Monna Lisa, saying, with a half sob,
loud in the old woman’s ear—

“Oh, Lisa, you are wicked! Why will you stand with your back to the
door? Lillo ran away ever so far into the street.”

“Holy Mother!” said Monna Lisa, in her meek, thick tone, letting the
spoon fall from her hands. “Where were _you_, then? I thought you were
there, and had your eye on him.”

“But you _know_ I go to sleep when I am rocking,” said Tessa, in
pettish remonstrance.

“Well, well, we must keep the outer door shut, or else tie him up,”
said Monna Lisa, “for he’ll be as cunning as Satan before long, and
that’s the holy truth. But how came he back, then?”

This question recalled Tessa to the consciousness of Romola’s presence.
Without answering, she turned towards her, blushing and timid again,
and Monna Lisa’s eyes followed her movement. The old woman made a low
reverence, and said—

“Doubtless the most noble lady brought him back.” Then, advancing a
little nearer to Romola, she added, “It’s my shame for him to have been
found with only his shirt on; but he kicked, and wouldn’t have his
other clothes on this morning, and the mother, poor thing, will never
hear of his being beaten. But what’s an old woman to do without a stick
when the lad’s legs get so strong? Let your nobleness look at his
legs.”

Lillo, conscious that his legs were in question, pulled his shirt up a
little higher, and looked down at their olive roundness with a
dispassionate and curious air. Romola laughed, and stooped to give him
a caressing shake and a kiss, and this action helped the reassurance
that Tessa had already gathered from Monna Lisa’s address to Romola.
For when Naldo had been told about the adventure at the Carnival, and
Tessa had asked him who the heavenly lady that had come just when she
was wanted, and had vanished so soon, was likely to be—whether she
could be the Holy Madonna herself?—he had answered, “Not exactly, my
Tessa; only one of the saints,” and had not chosen to say more. So that
in the dreamlike combination of small experience which made up Tessa’s
thought, Romola had remained confusedly associated with the pictures in
the churches, and when she reappeared, the grateful remembrance of her
protection was slightly tinctured with religious awe—not deeply, for
Tessa’s dread was chiefly of ugly and evil beings. It seemed unlikely
that good beings would be angry and punish her, as it was the nature of
Nofri and the devil to do. And now that Monna Lisa had spoken freely
about Lillo’s legs and Romola had laughed, Tessa was more at her ease.

“Ninna’s in the cradle,” she said. “_She’s_ pretty too.”

Romola went to look at the sleeping Ninna, and Monna Lisa, one of the
exceptionally meek deaf, who never expect to be spoken to, returned to
her salad.

“Ah! she is waking: she has opened her blue eyes,” said Romola. “You
must take her up, and I will sit down in this chair—may I?—and nurse
Lillo. Come, Lillo!”

She sat down in Tito’s chair, and put out her arms towards the lad,
whose eyes had followed her. He hesitated: and, pointing his small
fingers at her with a half-puzzled, half-angry feeling, said, “That’s
Babbo’s chair,” not seeing his way out of the difficulty if Babbo came
and found Romola in his place.

“But Babbo is not here, and I shall go soon. Come, let me nurse you as
he does,” said Romola, wondering to herself for the first time what
sort of Babbo he was whose wife was dressed in contadina fashion, but
had a certain daintiness about her person that indicated idleness and
plenty. Lillo consented to be lifted up, and, finding the lap
exceedingly comfortable, began to explore her dress and hands, to see
if there were any ornaments beside the rosary.

Tessa, who had hitherto been occupied in coaxing Ninna out of her
waking peevishness, now sat down in her low chair, near Romola’s knee,
arranging Ninna’s tiny person to advantage, jealous that the strange
lady too seemed to notice the boy most, as Naldo did.

“Lillo was going to be angry with me, because I sat in Babbo’s chair,”
said Romola, as she bent forward to kiss Ninna’s little foot. “Will he
come soon and want it?”

“Ah, no!” said Tessa, “you can sit in it a long while. I shall be sorry
when you go. When you first came to take care of me at the Carnival, I
thought it was wonderful; you came and went away again so fast. And
Naldo said, perhaps you were a saint, and that made me tremble a
little, though the saints are very good, I know; and you were good to
me, and now you have taken care of Lillo. Perhaps you will always come
and take care of me. That was how Naldo did a long while ago; he came
and took care of me when I was frightened, one San Giovanni. I couldn’t
think where he came from—he was so beautiful and good. And so are you,”
ended Tessa, looking up at Romola with devout admiration.

“Naldo is your husband. His eyes are like Lillo’s,” said Romola,
looking at the boy’s darkly-pencilled eyebrows, unusual at his age. She
did not speak interrogatively, but with a quiet certainty of inference
which was necessarily mysterious to Tessa.

“Ah! you know him!” she said, pausing a little in wonder. “Perhaps you
know Nofri and Peretola, and our house on the hill, and everything.
Yes, like Lillo’s; but not his hair. His hair is dark and long—” she
went on, getting rather excited. “Ah! if you know it, ecco!”

She had put her hand to a thin red silk cord that hung round her neck,
and drew from her bosom the tiny old parchment _Breve_, the horn of red
coral, and a long dark curl carefully tied at one end and suspended
with those mystic treasures. She held them towards Romola, away from
Ninna’s snatching hand.

“It is a fresh one. I cut it lately. See how bright it is!” she said,
laying it against the white background of Romola’s fingers. “They get
dim, and then he lets me cut another when his hair is grown; and I put
it with the _Breve_, because sometimes he is away a long while, and
then I think it helps to take care of me.”

A slight shiver passed through Romola as the curl was laid across her
fingers. At Tessa’s first mention of her husband as having come
mysteriously she knew not whence, a possibility had risen before Romola
that made her heart beat faster; for to one who is anxiously in search
of a certain object the faintest suggestions have a peculiar
significance. And when the curl was held towards her, it seemed for an
instant like a mocking phantasm of the lock she herself had cut to wind
with one of her own five years ago. But she preserved her outward
calmness, bent not only on knowing the truth, but also on coming to
that knowledge in a way that would not pain this poor, trusting,
ignorant thing, with the child’s mind in the woman’s body. “Foolish and
helpless:” yes; so far she corresponded to Baldassarre’s account.

“It is a beautiful curl,” she said, resisting the impulse to withdraw
her hand. “Lillo’s curls will be like it, perhaps, for _his_ cheek,
too, is dark. And you never know where your husband goes to when he
leaves you?”

“No,” said Tessa, putting back her treasures out of the children’s way.
“But I know Messer San Michele takes care of him, for he gave him a
beautiful coat, all made of little chains; and if he puts that on,
nobody can kill him. And perhaps, if—”

Tessa hesitated a little, under a recurrence of that original dreamy
wonder about Romola which had been expelled by chatting contact—“if you
_were_ a saint, you would take care of him, too, because you have taken
care of me and Lillo.”

An agitated flush came over Romola’s face in the first moment of
certainty, but she had bent her cheek against Lillo’s head. The feeling
that leaped out in that flush was something like exultation at the
thought that the wife’s burden might be about to slip from her
overladen shoulders; that this little ignorant creature might prove to
be Tito’s lawful wife. A strange exultation for a proud and high-born
woman to have been brought to! But it seemed to Romola as if that were
the only issue that would make duty anything else for her than an
insoluble problem. Yet she was not deaf to Tessa’s last appealing
words; she raised her head, and said, in her clearest tones—

“I will always take care of you if I see you need me. But that
beautiful coat? your husband did not wear it when you were first
married? Perhaps he used not to be so long away from you then?”

“Ah, yes! he was. Much—much longer. So long, I thought he would never
come back. I used to cry. Oh me! I was beaten then; a long, long while
ago at Peretola, where we had the goats and mules.”

“And how long had you been married before your husband had that
chain-coat?” said Romola, her heart beating faster and faster.

Tessa looked meditative, and began to count on her fingers, and Romola
watched the fingers as if they would tell the secret of her destiny.

“The chestnuts were ripe when we were married,” said Tessa, marking off
her thumb and fingers again as she spoke; “and then again they were
ripe at Peretola before he came back, and then again, after that, on
the hill. And soon the soldiers came, and we heard the trumpets, and
then Naldo had the coat.”

“You had been married more than two years. In which church were you
married?” said Romola, too entirely absorbed by one thought to put any
question that was less direct. Perhaps before the next morning she
might go to her godfather and say that she was not Tito Melema’s lawful
wife—that the vows which had bound her to strive after an impossible
union had been made void beforehand.

Tessa gave a slight start at Romola’s new tone of inquiry, and looked
up at her with a hesitating expression. Hitherto she had prattled on
without consciousness that she was making revelations, any more than
when she said old things over and over again to Monna Lisa.

“Naldo said I was never to tell about that,” she said, doubtfully. “Do
you think he would not be angry if I told you?”

“It is right that you should tell me. Tell me everything,” said Romola,
looking at her with mild authority.

If the impression from Naldo’s command had been much more recent than
it was, the constraining effect of Romola’s mysterious authority would
have overcome it. But the sense that she was telling what she had never
told before made her begin with a lowered voice.

“It was not in a church—it was at the Nativita, when there was a fair,
and all the people went overnight to see the Madonna in the Nunziata,
and my mother was ill and couldn’t go, and I took the bunch of cocoons
for her; and then he came to me in the church and I heard him say,
‘Tessa!’ I knew him because he had taken care of me at the San
Giovanni, and then we went into the piazza where the fair was, and I
had some _berlingozzi_, for I was hungry and he was very good to me;
and at the end of the piazza there was a holy father, and an altar like
what they have at the processions outside the churches. So he married
us, and then Naldo took me back into the church and left me; and I went
home, and my mother died, and Nofri began to beat me more, and Naldo
never came back. And I used to cry, and once at the Carnival I saw him
and followed him, and he was angry, and said he would come some time, I
must wait. So I went and waited; but, oh! it was a long while before he
came; but he would have come if he could, for he was good; and then he
took me away, because I cried and said I could not bear to stay with
Nofri. And, oh! I was so glad, and since then I have been always happy,
for I don’t mind about the goats and mules, because I have Lillo and
Ninna now; and Naldo is never angry, only I think he doesn’t love Ninna
so well as Lillo, and she _is_ pretty.”

Quite forgetting that she had thought her speech rather momentous at
the beginning, Tessa fell to devouring Ninna with kisses, while Romola
sat in silence with absent eyes. It was inevitable that in this moment
she should think of the three beings before her chiefly in their
relation to her own lot, and she was feeling the chill of
disappointment that her difficulties were not to be solved by external
law. She had relaxed her hold of Lillo, and was leaning her cheek
against her hand, seeing nothing of the scene around her. Lillo was
quick in perceiving a change that was not agreeable to him; he had not
yet made any return to her caresses, but he objected to their
withdrawal, and putting up both his brown arms to pull her head towards
him, he said, “Play with me again!”

Romola, roused from her self-absorption, clasped the lad anew, and
looked from him to Tessa, who had now paused from her shower of kisses,
and seemed to have returned to the more placid delight of contemplating
the heavenly lady’s face. That face was undergoing a subtle change,
like the gradual oncoming of a warmer, softer light. Presently Romola
took her scissors from her scarsella, and cut off one of her long wavy
locks, while the three pair of wide eyes followed her movements with
kitten-like observation.

“I must go away from you now,” she said, “but I will leave this lock of
hair that it may remind you of me, because if you are ever in trouble
you can think that perhaps God will send me to take care of you again.
I cannot tell you where to find me, but if I ever know that you want
me, I will come to you. Addio!”

She had set down Lillo hurriedly, and held out her hand to Tessa, who
kissed it with a mixture of awe and sorrow at this parting. Romola’s
mind was oppressed with thoughts; she needed to be alone as soon as
possible, but with her habitual care for the least fortunate, she
turned aside to put her hand in a friendly way on Monna Lisa’s shoulder
and make her a farewell sign. Before the old woman had finished her
deep reverence, Romola had disappeared.

Monna Lisa and Tessa moved towards each other by simultaneous impulses,
while the two children stood clinging to their mother’s skirts as if
they, too, felt the atmosphere of awe.

“Do you think she _was_ a saint?” said Tessa, in Lisa’s ear, showing
her the lock.

Lisa rejected that notion very decidedly by a backward movement of her
fingers, and then stroking the rippled gold, said—

“She’s a great and noble lady. I saw such in my youth.”

Romola went home and sat alone through the sultry hours of that day
with the heavy certainty that her lot was unchanged. She was thrown
back again on the conflict between the demands of an outward law, which
she recognised as a widely-ramifying obligation, and the demands of
inner moral facts which were becoming more and more peremptory. She had
drunk in deeply the spirit of that teaching by which Savonarola had
urged her to return to her place. She felt that the sanctity attached
to all close relations, and, therefore, pre-eminently to the closest,
was but the expression in outward law of that result towards which all
human goodness and nobleness must spontaneously tend; that the light
abandonment of ties, whether inherited or voluntary, because they had
ceased to be pleasant, was the uprooting of social and personal virtue.
What else had Tito’s crime towards Baldassarre been but that
abandonment working itself out to the most hideous extreme of falsity
and ingratitude?

And the inspiring consciousness breathed into her by Savonarola’s
influence that her lot was vitally united with the general lot had
exalted even the minor details of obligation into religion. She was
marching with a great army; she was feeling the stress of a common
life. If victims were needed, and it was uncertain on whom the lot
might fall, she would stand ready to answer to her name. She had stood
long; she had striven hard to fulfil the bond, but she had seen all the
conditions which made the fulfilment possible gradually forsaking her.
The one effect of her marriage-tie seemed to be the stifling
predominance over her of a nature that she despised. All her efforts at
union had only made its impossibility more palpable, and the relation
had become for her simply a degrading servitude. The law was sacred.
Yes, but rebellion might be sacred too. It flashed upon her mind that
the problem before her was essentially the same as that which had lain
before Savonarola—the problem where the sacredness of obedience ended,
and where the sacredness of rebellion began. To her, as to him, there
had come one of those moments in life when the soul must dare to act on
its own warrant, not only without external law to appeal to, but in the
face of a law which is not unarmed with Divine lightnings—lightnings
that may yet fall if the warrant has been false.

Before the sun had gone down she had adopted a resolve. She would ask
no counsel of her godfather or of Savonarola until she had made one
determined effort to speak freely with Tito and obtain his consent that
she should live apart from him. She desired not to leave him
clandestinely again, or to forsake Florence. She would tell him that if
he ever felt a real need of her, she would come back to him. Was not
that the utmost faithfulness to her bond that could be required of her?
A shuddering anticipation came over her that he would clothe a refusal
in a sneering suggestion that she should enter a convent as the only
mode of quitting him that would not be scandalous. He knew well that
her mind revolted from that means of escape, not only because of her
own repugnance to a narrow rule, but because all the cherished memories
of her father forbade that she should adopt a mode of life which was
associated with his deepest griefs and his bitterest dislike.

Tito had announced his intention of coming home this evening. She would
wait for him, and say what she had to say at once, for it was difficult
to get his ear during the day. If he had the slightest suspicion that
personal words were coming, he slipped away with an appearance of
unpremeditated ease. When she sent for Maso to tell him that she would
wait for his master, she observed that the old man looked at her and
lingered with a mixture of hesitation and wondering anxiety; but
finding that she asked him no question, he slowly turned away. Why
should she ask questions? Perhaps Maso only knew or guessed something
of what she knew already.

It was late before Tito came. Romola had been pacing up and down the
long room which had once been the library, with the windows open, and a
loose white linen robe on instead of her usual black garment. She was
glad of that change after the long hours of heat and motionless
meditation; but the coolness and exercise made her more intensely
wakeful, and as she went with the lamp in her hand to open the door for
Tito, he might well have been startled by the vividness of her eyes and
the expression of painful resolution, which was in contrast with her
usual self-restrained quiescence before him. But it seemed that this
excitement was just what he expected.

“Ah! it is you, Romola. Maso is gone to bed,” he said, in a grave,
quiet tone, interposing to close the door for her. Then, turning round,
he said, looking at her more fully than he was wont, “You have heard it
all, I see.”

Romola quivered. _He_ then was inclined to take the initiative. He had
been to Tessa. She led the way through the nearest door, set down her
lamp, and turned towards him again.

“You must not think despairingly of the consequences,” said Tito, in a
tone of soothing encouragement, at which Romola stood wondering, until
he added, “The accused have too many family ties with all parties not
to escape; and Messer Bernardo del Nero has other things in his favour
besides his age.”

Romola started, and gave a cry as if she had been suddenly stricken by
a sharp weapon.

“What! you did not know it?” said Tito, putting his hand under her arm
that he might lead her to a seat; but she seemed to be unaware of his
touch.

“Tell me,” she said, hastily—“tell me what it is.”

“A man, whose name you may forget—Lamberto dell’ Antella—who was
banished, has been seized within the territory: a letter has been found
on him of very dangerous import to the chief Mediceans, and the
scoundrel, who was once a favourite hound of Piero de’ Medici, is ready
now to swear what any one pleases against him or his friends. Some have
made their escape, but five are now in prison.”

“My godfather?” said Romola, scarcely above a whisper, as Tito made a
slight pause.

“Yes: I grieve to say it. But along with him there are three, at least,
whose names have a commanding interest even among the popular
party—Niccolò Ridolfi, Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and Giannozzo Pucci.”

The tide of Romola’s feelings had been violently turned into a new
channel. In the tumult of that moment there could be no check to the
words which came as the impulsive utterance of her long-accumulating
horror. When Tito had named the men of whom she felt certain he was the
confederate, she said, with a recoiling gesture and low-toned
bitterness—

“And _you_—you are safe?”

“You are certainly an amiable wife, my Romola,” said Tito, with the
coldest irony. “Yes; I am safe.”

They turned away from each other in silence.




CHAPTER LVII.
Why Tito was Safe.


Tito had good reasons for saying that he was safe. In the last three
months, during which he had foreseen the discovery of the Medicean
conspirators as a probable event, he had had plenty of time to provide
himself with resources. He had been strengthening his influence at Rome
and at Milan, by being the medium of secret information and indirect
measures against the Frate and the popular party; he had cultivated
more assiduously than ever the regard of this party, by showing subtle
evidence that his political convictions were entirely on their side;
and all the while, instead of withdrawing his agency from the
Mediceans, he had sought to be more actively employed and exclusively
trusted by them. It was easy to him to keep up this triple game. The
principle of duplicity admitted by the Mediceans on their own behalf
deprived them of any standard by which they could measure the
trustworthiness of a colleague who had not, like themselves, hereditary
interests, alliances, and prejudices, which were intensely Medicean. In
their minds, to deceive the opposite party was fair stratagem; to
deceive their own party was a baseness to which they felt no
temptation; and, in using Tito’s facile ability, they were not keenly
awake to the fact that the absence of traditional attachments which
made him a convenient agent was also the absence of what among
themselves was the chief guarantee of mutual honour. Again, the Roman
and Milanese friends of the aristocratic party, or Arrabbiati, who were
the bitterest enemies of Savonarola, carried on a system of underhand
correspondence and espionage, in which the deepest hypocrisy was the
best service, and demanded the heaviest pay; so that to suspect an
agent because he played a part strongly would have been an absurd want
of logic. On the other hand, the Piagnoni of the popular party, who had
the directness that belongs to energetic conviction, were the more
inclined to credit Tito with sincerity in his political adhesion to
them, because he affected no religious sympathies.

By virtue of these conditions, the last three months had been a time of
flattering success to Tito. The result he most cared for was the
securing of a future position for himself at Rome or at Milan; for he
had a growing determination, when the favourable moment should come, to
quit Florence for one of those great capitals where life was easier,
and the rewards of talent and learning were more splendid. At present,
the scale dipped in favour of Milan; and if within the year he could
render certain services to Duke Ludovico Sforza, he had the prospect of
a place at the Milanese court which outweighed the advantages of Rome.

The revelation of the Medicean conspiracy, then, had been a subject of
forethought to Tito; but he had not been able to foresee the mode in
which it would be brought about. The arrest of Lamberto dell’ Antella
with a tell-tale letter on his person, and a bitter rancour against the
Medici in his heart, was an incalculable event. It was not possible, in
spite of the careful pretexts with which his agency had been guarded,
that Tito should escape implication: he had never expected this in case
of any wide discovery concerning the Medicean plots. But his quick mind
had soon traced out the course that would secure his own safety with
the fewest unpleasant concomitants. It is agreeable to keep a whole
skin; but the skin still remains an organ sensitive to the atmosphere.

His reckoning had not deceived him. That night, before he returned
home, he had secured the three results for which he most cared: he was
to be freed from all proceedings against him on account of complicity
with the Mediceans; he was to retain his secretaryship for another
year, unless he previously resigned it; and, lastly, the price by which
he had obtained these guarantees was to be kept as a State secret. The
price would have been thought heavy by most men; and Tito himself would
rather not have paid it.

He had applied himself first to win the mind of Francesco Valori, who
was not only one of the Ten under whom he immediately held his
secretaryship, but one of the special council appointed to investigate
the evidence of the plot. Francesco Valori, as we have seen, was the
head of the Piagnoni, a man with certain fine qualities that were not
incompatible with violent partisanship, with an arrogant temper that
alienated his friends, nor with bitter personal animosities—one of the
bitterest being directed against Bernardo del Nero. To him, in a brief
private interview, after obtaining a pledge of secrecy, Tito avowed his
own agency for the Mediceans—an agency induced by motives about which
he was very frank, declaring at the same time that he had always
believed their efforts futile, and that he sincerely preferred the
maintenance of the popular government; affected to confide to Valori,
as a secret, his own personal dislike for Bernardo del Nero; and, after
this preparation, came to the important statement that there was
another Medicean plot, of which, if he obtained certain conditions from
the government, he could, by a journey to Siena and into Romagna, where
Piero de’ Medici was again trying to gather forces, obtain documentary
evidence to lay before the council. To this end it was essential that
his character as a Medicean agent should be unshaken for all Mediceans,
and hence the fact that he had been a source of information to the
authorities must be wrapped in profound secrecy. Still, some odour of
the facts might escape in spite of precaution, and before Tito could
incur the unpleasant consequences of acting against his friends, he
must be assured of immunity from any prosecution as a Medicean, and
from deprivation of office for a year to come.

These propositions did not sound in the ear of Francesco Valori
precisely as they sound to us. Valori’s mind was not intensely bent on
the estimation of Tito’s conduct; and it _was_ intensely bent on
procuring an extreme sentence against the five prisoners. There were
sure to be immense efforts to save them; and it was to be wished (on
public grounds) that the evidence against them should be of the
strongest, so as to alarm all well-affected men at the dangers of
clemency. The character of legal proceedings at that time implied that
evidence was one of those desirable things which could only be come at
by foul means. To catch a few people and torture them into confessing
everybody’s guilt was one step towards justice; and it was not always
easy to see the next, unless a traitor turned up. Lamberto dell’
Antella had been tortured in aid of his previous willingness to tell
more than he knew; nevertheless, additional and stronger facts were
desirable, especially against Bernardo del Nero, who, so far as
appeared hitherto, had simply refrained from betraying the late plot
after having tried in vain to discourage it; for the welfare of
Florence demanded that the guilt of Bernardo del Nero should be put in
the strongest light. So Francesco Valori zealously believed; and
perhaps he was not himself aware that the strength of his zeal was
determined by his hatred. He decided that Tito’s proposition ought to
be accepted, laid it before his colleagues without disclosing Tito’s
name, and won them over to his opinion. Late in the day, Tito was
admitted to an audience of the Special Council, and produced a deep
sensation among them by revealing another plot for insuring the mastery
of Florence to Piero de’ Medici, which was to have been carried into
execution in the middle of this very month of August. Documentary
evidence on this subject would do more than anything else to make the
right course clear. He received a commission to start for Siena by
break of day; and, besides this, he carried away with him from the
council-chamber a written guarantee of his immunity and of his
retention of office.

Among the twenty Florentines who bent their grave eyes on Tito, as he
stood gracefully before them, speaking of startling things with easy
periphrasis, and with that apparently unaffected admission of being
actuated by motives short of the highest, which is often the intensest
affectation, there were several whose minds were not too entirely
preoccupied to pass a new judgment on him in these new circumstances;
they silently concluded that this ingenious and serviceable Greek was
in future rather to be used for public needs than for private intimacy.
Unprincipled men were useful, enabling those who had more scruples to
keep their hands tolerably clean in a world where there was much dirty
work to be done. Indeed, it was not clear to respectable Florentine
brains, unless they held the Frate’s extravagant belief in a possible
purity and loftiness to be striven for on this earth, how life was to
be carried on in any department without human instruments whom it would
not be unbecoming to kick or to spit upon in the act of handing them
their wages. Some of these very men who passed a tacit judgment on Tito
were shortly to be engaged in a memorable transaction that could by no
means have been carried through without the use of an unscrupulousness
as decided as his; but, as their own bright poet Pulci had said for
them, it is one thing to love the fruits of treachery, and another
thing to love traitors—


“Il tradimento a molti piace assai,
Ma il traditore a gnun non piacque mal.”


The same society has had a gibbet for the murderer and a gibbet for the
martyr, an execrating hiss for a dastardly act, and as loud a hiss for
many a word of generous truthfulness or just insight: a mixed condition
of things which is the sign, not of hopeless confusion, but of
struggling order.

For Tito himself, he was not unaware that he had sunk a little in the
estimate of the men who had accepted his services. He had that degree
of self-contemplation which necessarily accompanies the habit of acting
on well-considered reasons, of whatever quality; and if he could have
chosen, he would have declined to see himself disapproved by men of the
world. He had never meant to be disapproved; he had meant always to
conduct himself so ably that if he acted in opposition to the standard
of other men they should not be aware of it; and the barrier between
himself and Romola had been raised by the impossibility of such
concealment with her. He shrank from condemnatory judgments as from a
climate to which he could not adapt himself. But things were not so
plastic in the hands of cleverness as could be wished, and events had
turned out inconveniently. He had really no rancour against Messer
Bernardo del Nero: he had a personal liking for Lorenzo Tornabuoni and
Giannozzo Pucci. He had served them very ably, and in such a way that
if their party had been winners he would have merited high reward; but
was he to relinquish all the agreeable fruits of life because their
party had failed? His proffer of a little additional proof against them
would probably have no influence on their fate; in fact, he felt
convinced they would escape any extreme consequences; but if he had not
given it, his own fortunes, which made a promising fabric, would have
been utterly ruined. And what motive could any man really have, except
his own interest? Florentines whose passions were engaged in their
petty and precarious political schemes might have no self-interest
separable from family pride and tenacity in old hatreds and
attachments; a modern simpleton who swallowed whole one of the old
systems of philosophy, and took the indigestion it occasioned for the
signs of a divine afflux or the voice of an inward monitor, might see
his interest in a form of self-conceit which he called self-rewarding
virtue; fanatics who believed in the coming Scourge and Renovation
might see their own interest in a future palm-branch and white robe:
but no man of clear intellect allowed his course to be determined by
such puerile impulses or questionable inward fumes. Did not Pontanus,
poet and philosopher of unrivalled Latinity, make the finest possible
oration at Naples to welcome the French king, who had come to dethrone
the learned orator’s royal friend and patron? and still Pontanus held
up his head and prospered. Men did not really care about these things,
except when their personal spleen was touched. It was weakness only
that was despised; power of any sort carried its immunity; and no man,
unless by very rare good fortune, could mount high in the world without
incurring a few unpleasant necessities which laid him open to enmity,
and perhaps to a little hissing, when enmity wanted a pretext.

It was a faint prognostic of that hissing, gathered by Tito from
certain indications when he was before the council, which gave his
present conduct the character of an epoch to him, and made him dwell on
it with argumentative vindication. It was not that he was taking a
deeper step in wrong-doing, for it was not possible that he should feel
any tie to the Mediceans to be stronger than the tie to his father; but
his conduct to his father had been hidden by successful lying: his
present act did not admit of total concealment—in its very nature it
was a revelation. And Tito winced under his new liability to disesteem.

Well! a little patience, and in another year, or perhaps in half a
year, he might turn his back on these hard, eager Florentines, with
their futile quarrels and sinking fortunes. His brilliant success at
Florence had had some ugly flaws in it: he had fallen in love with the
wrong woman, and Baldassarre had come back under incalculable
circumstances. But as Tito galloped with a loose rein towards Siena, he
saw a future before him in which he would no longer be haunted by those
mistakes. He had much money safe out of Florence already; he was in the
fresh ripeness of eight-and-twenty; he was conscious of well-tried
skill. Could he not strip himself of the past, as of rehearsal
clothing, and throw away the old bundle, to robe himself for the real
scene?

It did not enter into Tito’s meditations on the future, that, on
issuing from the council-chamber and descending the stairs, he had
brushed against a man whose face he had not stayed to recognise in the
lamplight. The man was Ser Ceccone—also willing to serve the State by
giving information against unsuccessful employers.




CHAPTER LVIII.
A Final Understanding.


Tito soon returned from Siena, but almost immediately set out on
another journey, from which he did not return till the seventeenth of
August. Nearly a fortnight had passed since the arrest of the accused,
and still they were in prison, still their fate was uncertain. Romola
had felt during this interval as if all cares were suspended for her,
other than watching the fluctuating probabilities concerning that fate.
Sometimes they seemed strongly in favour of the prisoners; for the
chances of effective interest on their behalf were heightened by delay,
and an indefinite prospect of delay was opened by the reluctance of all
persons in authority to incur the odium attendant on any decision. On
the one side there was a loud cry that the Republic was in danger, and
that lenity to the prisoners would be the signal of attack for all its
enemies; on the other, there was a certainty that a sentence of death
and confiscation of property passed on five citizens of distinguished
name, would entail the rancorous hatred of their relatives on all who
were conspicuously instrumental to such a sentence.

The final judgment properly lay with the Eight, who presided over the
administration of criminal justice; and the sentence depended on a
majority of six votes. But the Eight shrank from their onerous
responsibility, and asked in this exceptional case to have it shared by
the Signoria (or the Gonfaloniere and the eight Priors). The Signoria
in its turn shrugged its shoulders, and proposed the appeal to the
Great Council. For, according to a law passed by the earnest persuasion
of Savonarola nearly three years before, whenever a citizen was
condemned to death by the fatal six votes (called the _set fave_ or
_six beans_, beans being in more senses than one the political pulse of
Florence), he had the right of appealing from that sentence to the
Great Council.

But in this stage of the business, the friends of the accused resisted
the appeal, determined chiefly by the wish to gain delay; and, in fact,
strict legality required that sentence should have been passed prior to
the appeal. Their resistance prevailed, and a middle course was taken;
the sentence was referred to a large assembly convened on the
seventeenth, consisting of all the higher magistracies, the smaller
council or Senate of Eighty, and a select number of citizens.

On this day Romola, with anxiety heightened by the possibility that
before its close her godfather’s fate might be decided, had obtained
leave to see him for the second time, but only in the presence of
witnesses. She had returned to the Via de’ Bardi in company with her
cousin Brigida, still ignorant whether the council had come to any
decisive issue; and Monna Brigida had gone out again to await the
momentous news at the house of a friend belonging to one of the
magistracies, that she might bring back authentic tidings as soon as
they were to be had.

Romola had sunk on the first seat in the bright saloon, too much
agitated, too sick at heart, to care about her place, or be conscious
of discordance in the objects that surrounded her. She sat with her
back to the door, resting her head on her hands. It seemed a long while
since Monna Brigida had gone, and Romola was expecting her return. But
when the door opened she knew it was not Monna Brigida who entered.

Since she had parted from Tito on that memorable night, she had had no
external proof to warrant her belief that he had won his safety by
treachery; on the contrary, she had had evidence that he was still
trusted by the Mediceans, and was believed by them to be accomplishing
certain errands of theirs in Romagna, under cover of fulfilling a
commission of the government. For the obscurity in which the evidence
concerning the conspirators was shrouded allowed it to be understood
that Tito had escaped any implication.

But Romola’s suspicion was not to be dissipated: her horror of his
conduct towards Baldassarre projected itself over every conception of
his acts; it was as if she had seen him committing a murder, and had
had a diseased impression ever after that his hands were covered with
fresh blood.

As she heard his step on the stone floor, a chill shudder passed
through her; she could not turn round, she could not rise to give any
greeting. He did not speak, but after an instant’s pause took a seat on
the other side of the table just opposite to her. Then she raised her
eyes and looked at him; but she was mute. He did not show any
irritation, but said, coolly—

“This meeting corresponds with our parting, Romola. But I understand
that it is a moment of terrible suspense. I am come, however, if you
will listen to me, to bring you the relief of hope.”

She started, and altered her position, but looked at him dubiously.

“It will not be unwelcome to you to hear—even though it is I who tell
it—that the council is prorogued till the twenty-first. The Eight have
been frightened at last into passing a sentence of condemnation, but
the demand has now been made on behalf of the condemned for the Appeal
to the Great Council.”

Romola’s face lost its dubious expression; she asked eagerly—

“And when is it to be made?”

“It has not yet been granted; but it _may_ be granted. The Special
Council is to meet again on the twenty-first to deliberate whether the
Appeal shall be allowed or not. In the meantime there is an interval of
three days, in which chances may occur in favour of the prisoners—in
which interest may be used on their behalf.”

Romola started from her seat. The colour had risen to her face like a
visible thought, and her hands trembled. In that moment her feeling
towards Tito was forgotten.

“Possibly,” said Tito, also rising, “your own intention may have
anticipated what I was going to say. You are thinking of the Frate.”

“I am,” said Romola, looking at him with surprise. “Has he done
anything? Is there anything to tell me?”

“Only this. It was Messer Francesco Valori’s bitterness and violence
which chiefly determined the course of things in the council to-day.
Half the men who gave in their opinion against the prisoners were
frightened into it, and there are numerous friends of Fra Girolamo both
in this Special Council and out of it who are strongly opposed to the
sentence of death—Piero Guicciardini, for example, who is one member of
the Signoria that made the stoutest resistance; and there is Giovan
Battista Ridolfi, who, Piagnone as he is, will not lightly forgive the
death of his brother Niccolò.”

“But how can the Appeal be denied,” said Romola, indignantly, “when it
is the law—when it was one of the chief glories of the popular
government to have passed the law?”

“They call this an exceptional case. Of course there are ingenious
arguments, but there is much more of loud bluster about the danger of
the Republic. But, you see, no opposition could prevent the assembly
from being prorogued, and a certain powerful influence rightly applied
during the next three days might determine the wavering courage of
those who desire that the Appeal should be granted, and might even give
a check to the headlong enmity of Francesco Valori. It happens to have
come to my knowledge that the Frate has so far interfered as to send a
message to him in favour of Lorenzo Tornabuoni. I know you can
sometimes have access to the Frate: it might at all events be worth
while to use your privilege now.”

“It is true,” said Romola, with an air of abstraction. “I cannot
believe that the Frate would approve denying the Appeal.”

“I heard it said by more than one person in the court of the Palazzo,
before I came away, that it would be to the everlasting discredit of
Fra Girolamo if he allowed a government which is almost entirely made
up of his party, to deny the Appeal, without entering his protest, when
he has been boasting in his books and sermons that it was he who got
the law passed.[1] But between ourselves, with all respect for your
Frate’s ability, my Romola, he has got into the practice of preaching
that form of human sacrifices called killing tyrants and wicked
malcontents, which some of his followers are likely to think
inconsistent with lenity in the present case.”

 [1] The most recent, and in some respects the best, biographer of
 Savonarola, Signor Villari, endeavours to show that the Law of Appeal
 ultimately enacted, being wider than the law originally contemplated
 by Savonarola, was a source of bitter annoyance to him, as a
 contrivance of the aristocratic party for attaching to the measures of
 the popular government the injurious results of licence. But in taking
 this view the estimable biographer lost sight of the fact that, not
 only in his sermons, but in a deliberately prepared book (the
 _Compendium Revelationum_) written long after the Appeal had become
 law, Savonarola enumerates among the benefits secured to Florence,
 “_the Appeal from the Six Votes, advocated by me, for the greater
 security of the citizens_.”


“I know, I know,” said Romola, with a look and tone of pain. “But he is
driven into those excesses of speech. It used to be different. I _will_
ask for an interview. I cannot rest without it. I trust in the
greatness of his heart.”

She was not looking at Tito; her eyes were bent with a vague gaze
towards the ground, and she had no distinct consciousness that the
words she heard came from her husband.

“Better lose no time, then,” said Tito, with unmixed suavity, moving
his cap round in his hands as if he were about to put it on and depart.
“And now, Romola, you will perhaps be able to see, in spite of
prejudice, that my wishes go with yours in this matter. You will not
regard the misfortune of my safety as an offence.”

Something like an electric shock passed through Romola: it was the full
consciousness of her husband’s presence returning to her. She looked at
him without speaking.

“At least,” he added, in a slightly harder tone, “you will endeavour to
base our intercourse on some other reasonings than that because an evil
deed is possible, _I_ have done it. Am I alone to be beyond the pale of
your extensive charity?”

The feeling which had been driven back from Romola’s lips a fortnight
before rose again with the gathered force of a tidal wave. She spoke
with a decision which told him that she was careless of consequences.

“It is too late, Tito. There is no killing the suspicion that deceit
has once begotten. And now I know everything. I know who that old man
was: he was your father, to whom you owe everything—to whom you owe
more than if you had been his own child. By the side of that, it is a
small thing that you broke my trust and my father’s. As long as you
deny the truth about that old man, there is a horror rising between us:
the law that should make us one can never be obeyed. I too am a human
being. I have a soul of my own that abhors your actions. Our union is a
pretence—as if a perpetual lie could be a sacred marriage.”

Tito did not answer immediately. When he did speak it was with a
calculated caution, that was stimulated by alarm.

“And you mean to carry out that independence by quitting me, I
presume?”

“I desire to quit you,” said Romola, impetuously.

“And supposing I do not submit to part with what the law gives me some
security for retaining? You will then, of course, proclaim your reasons
in the ear of all Florence. You will bring forward your mad assassin,
who is doubtless ready to obey your call, and you will tell the world
that you believe his testimony because he is so rational as to desire
to assassinate me. You will first inform the Signoria that I am a
Medicean conspirator, and then you will inform the Mediceans that I
have betrayed them, and in both cases you will offer the excellent
proof that you believe me capable in general of everything bad. It will
certainly be a striking position for a wife to adopt. And if, on such
evidence, you succeed in holding me up to infamy, you will have
surpassed all the heroines of the Greek drama.”

He paused a moment, but she stood mute. He went on with the sense of
mastery.

“I believe you have no other grievance against me—except that I have
failed in fulfilling some lofty indefinite conditions on which you gave
me your wifely affection, so that, by withdrawing it, you have
gradually reduced me to the careful supply of your wants as a fair
Piagnone of high condition and liberal charities. I think your success
in gibbeting me is not certain. But doubtless you would begin by
winning the ear of Messer Bernardo del Nero?”

“Why do I speak of anything?” cried Romola, in anguish, sinking on her
chair again. “It is hateful in me to be thinking of myself.”

She did not notice when Tito left the room, or know how long it was
before the door opened to admit Monna Brigida. But in that instant she
started up and said—

“Cousin, we must go to San Marco directly. I must see my confessor, Fra
Salvestro.”




CHAPTER LIX.
Pleading.


The morning was in its early brightness when Romola was again on her
way to San Marco, having obtained through Fra Salvestro, the evening
before, the promise of an interview with Fra Girolamo in the
chapter-house of the convent. The rigidity with which Savonarola
guarded his life from all the pretexts of calumny made such interviews
very rare, and whenever they were granted, they were kept free from any
appearance of mystery. For this reason the hour chosen was one at which
there were likely to be other visitors in the outer cloisters of San
Marco.

She chose to pass through the heart of the city that she might notice
the signs of public feeling. Every loggia, every convenient corner of
the piazza, every shop that made a rendezvous for gossips, was astir
with the excitement of gratuitous debate; a languishing trade tending
to make political discussion all the more vigorous. It was clear that
the parties for and against the death of the conspirators were bent on
making the fullest use of the three days’ interval in order to
determine the popular mood. Already handbills were in circulation; some
presenting, in large print, the alternative of justice on the
conspirators or ruin to the Republic; others in equally large print
urging the observance of the law and the granting of the Appeal. Round
these jutting islets of black capitals there were lakes of smaller
characters setting forth arguments less necessary to be read: for it
was an opinion entertained at that time (in the first flush of triumph
at the discovery of printing), that there was no argument more widely
convincing than question-begging phrases in large type.

Romola, however, cared especially to become acquainted with the
arguments in smaller type, and, though obliged to hasten forward, she
looked round anxiously as she went that she might miss no opportunity
of securing copies. For a long way she saw none but such as were in the
hands of eager readers, or else fixed on the walls, from which in some
places the sbirri were tearing them down. But at last, passing behind
San Giovanni with a quickened pace that she might avoid the many
acquaintances who frequented the piazza, she saw Bratti with a stock of
handbills which he appeared to be exchanging for small coin with the
passers-by. She was too familiar with the humble life of Florence for
Bratti to be any stranger to her, and turning towards him she said,
“Have you two sorts of handbills, Bratti? Let me have them quickly.”

“Two sorts,” said Bratti, separating the wet sheets with a slowness
that tried Romola’s patience. “There’s ‘Law,’ and there’s ‘Justice.’”

“Which sort do you sell most of?”

“‘Justice’—‘Justice’ goes the quickest,—so I raised the price, and made
it two danari. But then I bethought me the ‘Law’ was good ware too, and
had as good a right to be charged for as ‘Justice;’ for people set no
store by cheap things, and if I sold the ‘Law’ at one danaro, I should
be doing it a wrong. And I’m a fair trader. ‘Law,’ or ‘Justice,’ it’s
all one to me; they’re good wares. I got ’em both for nothing, and I
sell ’em at a fair profit. But you’ll want more than one of a sort?”

“No, no: here’s a white quattrino for the two,” said Romola, folding up
the bills and hurrying away.

She was soon in the outer cloisters of San Marco, where Fra Salvestro
was awaiting her under the cloister, but did not notice the approach of
her light step. He was chatting, according to his habit, with lay
visitors; for under the auspices of a government friendly to the Frate,
the timidity about frequenting San Marco, which had followed on the
first shock of the Excommunication, had been gradually giving way. In
one of these lay visitors she recognised a well-known satellite of
Francesco Valori, named Andrea Cambini, who was narrating or expounding
with emphatic gesticulation, while Fra Salvestro was listening with
that air of trivial curiosity which tells that the listener cares very
much about news and very little about its quality. This characteristic
of her confessor, which was always repulsive to Romola, was made
exasperating to her at this moment by the certainty she gathered, from
the disjointed words which reached her ear, that Cambini was narrating
something relative to the fate of the conspirators. She chose not to
approach the group, but as soon as she saw that she had arrested Fra
Salvestro’s attention, she turned towards the door of the
chapter-house, while he, making a sign of approval, disappeared within
the inner cloister. A lay Brother stood ready to open the door of the
chapter-house for her, and closed it behind her as she entered.

Once more looked at by those sad frescoed figures which had seemed to
be mourning with her at the death of her brother Dino, it was
inevitable that something of that scene should come back to her; but
the intense occupation of her mind with the present made the
remembrance less a retrospect than an indistinct recurrence of
impressions which blended themselves with her agitating fears, as if
her actual anxiety were a revival of the strong yearning she had once
before brought to this spot—to be repelled by marble rigidity. She gave
no space for the remembrance to become more definite, for she at once
opened the handbills, thinking she should perhaps be able to read them
in the interval before Fra Girolamo appeared. But by the time she had
read to the end of the one that recommended the observance of the law,
the door was opening, and doubling up the papers she stood expectant.

When the Frate had entered she knelt, according to the usual practice
of those who saw him in private; but as soon as he had uttered a
benedictory greeting she rose and stood opposite to him at a few yards’
distance. Owing to his seclusion since he had been excommunicated, it
had been an unusually long while since she had seen him, and the late
months had visibly deepened in his face the marks of over-taxed mental
activity and bodily severities; and yet Romola was not so conscious of
this change as of another, which was less definable. Was it that the
expression of serene elevation and pure human fellowship which had once
moved her was no longer present in the same force, or was it that the
sense of his being divided from her in her feeling about her godfather
roused the slumbering sources of alienation, and marred her own vision?
Perhaps both causes were at work. Our relations with our fellow-men are
most often determined by coincident currents of that sort; the
inexcusable word or deed seldom comes until after affection or
reverence has been already enfeebled by the strain of repeated excuses.

It was true that Savonarola’s glance at Romola had some of that
hardness which is caused by an egotistic prepossession. He divined that
the interview she had sought was to turn on the fate of the
conspirators, a subject on which he had already had to quell inner
voices that might become loud again when encouraged from without.
Seated in his cell, correcting the sheets of his ‘Triumph of the
Cross,’ it was easier to repose on a resolution of neutrality.

“It is a question of moment, doubtless, on which you wished to see me,
my daughter,” he began, in a tone which was gentle rather from
self-control than from immediate inclination. “I know you are not wont
to lay stress on small matters.”

“Father, you know what it is before I tell you,” said Romola,
forgetting everything else as soon as she began to pour forth her plea.
“You know what I am caring for—it is for the life of the old man I love
best in the world. The thought of him has gone together with the
thought of my father as long as I remember the daylight. That is my
warrant for coming to you, even if my coming should have been needless.
Perhaps it is: perhaps you have already determined that your power over
the hearts of men shall be used to prevent them from denying to
Florentines a right which you yourself helped to earn for them.”

“I meddle not with the functions of the State, my daughter,” said Fra
Girolamo, strongly disinclined to reopen externally a debate which he
had already gone through inwardly. “I have preached and laboured that
Florence should have a good government, for a good government is
needful to the perfecting of the Christian life; but I keep away my
hands from particular affairs which it is the office of experienced
citizens to administer.”

“Surely, father—” Romola broke off. She had uttered this first word
almost impetuously, but she was checked by the counter-agitation of
feeling herself in an attitude of remonstrance towards the man who had
been the source of guidance and strength to her. In the act of
rebelling she was bruising her own reverence.

Savonarola was too keen not to divine something of the conflict that
was arresting her—too noble, deliberately to assume in calm speech that
self-justifying evasiveness into which he was often hurried in public
by the crowding impulses of the orator.

“Say what is in your heart; speak on, my daughter,” he said, standing
with his arms laid one upon the other, and looking at her with quiet
expectation.

“I was going to say, father, that this matter is surely of higher
moment than many about which I have heard you preach and exhort
fervidly. If it belonged to you to urge that men condemned for offences
against the State should have the right to appeal to the Great
Council—if—” Romola was getting eager again—“if you count it a glory to
have won that right for them, can it less belong to you to declare
yourself against the right being denied to almost the first men who
need it? Surely that touches the Christian life more closely than
whether you knew beforehand that the Dauphin would die, or whether Pisa
will be conquered.”

There was a subtle movement, like a subdued sign of pain, in
Savonarola’s strong lips, before he began to speak.

“My daughter, I speak as it is given me to speak—I am not master of the
times when I may become the vehicle of knowledge beyond the common
lights of men. In this case I have no illumination beyond what wisdom
may give to those who are charged with the safety of the State. As to
the law of Appeal against the Six Votes, I laboured to have it passed
in order that no Florentine should be subject to loss of life and goods
through the private hatred of a few who might happen to be in power;
but these five men, who have desired to overthrow a free government and
restore a corrupt tyrant, have been condemned with the assent of a
large assembly of their fellow-citizens. They refused at first to have
their cause brought before the Great Council. They have lost the right
to the appeal.”

“How can they have lost it?” said Romola. “It is the right to appeal
against condemnation, and they have never been condemned till now; and,
forgive me, father, it _is_ private hatred that would deny them the
appeal; it _is_ the violence of the few that frightens others; else why
was the assembly divided again directly after it had seemed to agree?
And if anything weighs against the observance of the law, let this
weigh for it—this, that you used to preach more earnestly than all
else, that there should be no place given to hatred and bloodshed
because of these party strifes, so that private ill-will should not
find its opportunities in public acts. Father, you know that there is
private hatred concerned here: will it not dishonour you not to have
interposed on the side of mercy, when there are many who hold that it
is also the side of law and justice?”

“My daughter,” said Fra Girolamo, with more visible emotion than
before, “there is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against
the common good. The safety of Florence, which means even more than the
welfare of Florentines, now demands severity, as it once demanded
mercy. It is not only for a past plot that these men are condemned, but
also for a plot which has not yet been executed; and the devices that
were leading to its execution are not put an end to: the tyrant is
still gathering his forces in Romagna, and the enemies of Florence, who
sit in the highest places of Italy, are ready to hurl any stone that
will crush her.”

“What plot?” said Romola, reddening, and trembling with alarmed
surprise.

“You carry papers in your hand, I see,” said Fra Girolamo, pointing to
the handbills. “One of them will, perhaps, tell you that the government
has had new information.”

Romola hastily opened the handbill she had not yet read, and saw that
the government had now positive evidence of a second plot, which was to
have been carried out in this August time. To her mind it was like
reading a confirmation that Tito had won his safety by foul means; his
pretence of wishing that the Frate should exert himself on behalf of
the condemned only helped the wretched conviction. She crushed up the
paper in her hand, and, turning to Savonarola, she said, with new
passion, “Father, what safety can there be for Florence when the worst
man can always escape? And,” she went on, a sudden flash of remembrance
coming from the thought about her husband, “have not you yourself
encouraged this deception which corrupts the life of Florence, by
wanting more favour to be shown to Lorenzo Tornabuoni, who has worn two
faces, and flattered you with a show of affection, when my godfather
has always been honest? Ask all Florence who of those five men has the
truest heart, and there will not be many who will name any other name
than Bernardo del Nero. You did interpose with Francesco Valori for the
sake of one prisoner: you have _not_ then been neutral; and you know
that your word will be powerful.”

“I do not desire the death of Bernardo,” said Savonarola, colouring
deeply. “It would be enough if he were sent out of the city.”

“Then why do you not speak to save an old man of seventy-five from
dying a death of ignominy—to give him at least the fair chances of the
law?” burst out Romola, the impetuosity of her nature so roused that
she forgot everything but her indignation. “It is not that you feel
bound to be neutral; else why did you speak for Lorenzo Tornabuoni? You
spoke for him because he is more friendly to San Marco; my godfather
feigns no friendship. It is not, then, as a Medicean that my godfather
is to die; it is as a man you have no love for!”

When Romola paused, with cheeks glowing, and with quivering lips, there
was dead silence. As she saw Fra Girolamo standing motionless before
her, she seemed to herself to be hearing her own words over again;
words that in this echo of consciousness were in strange, painful
dissonance with the memories that made part of his presence to her. The
moments of silence were expanded by gathering compunction and
self-doubt. She had committed sacrilege in her passion. And even the
sense that she could retract nothing of her plea, that her mind could
not submit itself to Savonarola’s negative, made it the more needful to
her to satisfy those reverential memories. With a sudden movement
towards him she said—

“Forgive me, father; it is pain to me to have spoken those words—yet I
cannot help speaking. I am little and feeble compared with you; you
brought me light and strength. But I submitted because I felt the
proffered strength—because I saw the light. _Now_ I cannot see it.
Father, you yourself declare that there comes a moment when the soul
must have no guide but the voice within it, to tell whether the
consecrated thing has sacred virtue. And therefore I must speak.”

Savonarola had that readily-roused resentment towards opposition,
hardly separable from a power-loving and powerful nature, accustomed to
seek great ends that cast a reflected grandeur on the means by which
they are sought. His sermons have much of that red flame in them. And
if he had been a meaner man his susceptibility might have shown itself
in irritation at Romola’s accusatory freedom, which was in strong
contrast with the deference he habitually received from his disciples.
But at this moment such feelings were nullified by that hard struggle
which made half the tragedy of his life—the struggle of a mind
possessed by a never-silent hunger after purity and simplicity, yet
caught in a tangle of egoistic demands, false ideas, and difficult
outward conditions, that made simplicity impossible. Keenly alive to
all the suggestions of Romola’s remonstrating words, he was rapidly
surveying, as he had done before, the courses of action that were open
to him, and their probable results. But it was a question on which
arguments could seem decisive only in proportion as they were charged
with feeling, and he had received no impulse that could alter his bias.
He looked at Romola, and said—

“You have full pardon for your frankness, my daughter. You speak, I
know, out of the fulness of your family affections. But these
affections must give way to the needs of the Republic. If those men who
have a close acquaintance with the affairs of the State believe, as I
understand they do, that the public safety requires the extreme
punishment of the law to fall on the five conspirators, I cannot
control their opinion, seeing that I stand aloof from such affairs.”

“Then you desire that they should die? You desire that the Appeal
should be denied them?” said Romola, feeling anew repelled by a
vindication which seemed to her to have the nature of a subterfuge.

“I have said that I do not desire their death.”

“Then,” said Romola, her indignation rising again, “you can be
indifferent that Florentines should inflict death which you do not
desire, when you might have protested against it—when you might have
helped to hinder it, by urging the observance of a law which you held
it good to get passed. Father, you used not to stand aloof: you used
not to shrink from protesting. Do not say you cannot protest where the
lives of men are concerned; say rather, you desire their death. Say
rather, you hold it good for Florence that there shall be more blood
and more hatred. Will the death of five Mediceans put an end to parties
in Florence? Will the death of a noble old man like Bernardo del Nero
save a city that holds such men as Dolfo Spini?”

“My daughter, it is enough. The cause of freedom, which is the cause of
God’s kingdom upon earth, is often most injured by the enemies who
carry within them the power of certain human virtues. The wickedest man
is often not the most insurmountable obstacle to the triumph of good.”

“Then why do you say again, that you do not desire my godfather’s
death?” said Romola, in mingled anger and despair. “Rather, you hold it
the more needful he should die because he is the better man. I cannot
unravel your thoughts, father; I cannot hear the real voice of your
judgment and conscience.”

There was a moment’s pause. Then Savonarola said, with keener emotion
than he had yet shown—

“Be thankful, my daughter, if your own soul has been spared perplexity;
and judge not those to whom a harder lot has been given. _You_ see one
ground of action in this matter. I see many. I have to choose that
which will further the work intrusted to me. The end I seek is one to
which minor respects must be sacrificed. The death of five men—were
they less guilty than these—is a light matter weighed against the
withstanding of the vicious tyrannies which stifle the life of Italy,
and foster the corruption of the Church; a light matter weighed against
the furthering of God’s kingdom upon earth, the end for which I live
and am willing myself to die.”

Under any other circumstances, Romola would have been sensitive to the
appeal at the beginning of Savonarola’s speech; but at this moment she
was so utterly in antagonism with him, that what he called perplexity
seemed to her sophistry and doubleness; and as he went on, his words
only fed that flame of indignation, which now again, more fully than
ever before, lit up the memory of all his mistakes, and made her trust
in him seem to have been a purblind delusion. She spoke almost with
bitterness.

“Do you, then, know so well what will further the coming of God’s
kingdom, father, that you will dare to despise the plea of mercy—of
justice—of faithfulness to your own teaching? Has the French king,
then, brought renovation to Italy? Take care, father, lest your enemies
have some reason when they say, that in your visions of what will
further God’s kingdom you see only what will strengthen your own
party.”

“And that is true!” said Savonarola, with flashing eyes. Romola’s voice
had seemed to him in that moment the voice of his enemies. “The cause
of my party _is_ the cause of God’s kingdom.”

“I do not believe it!” said Romola, her whole frame shaken with
passionate repugnance. “God’s kingdom is something wider—else, let me
stand outside it with the beings that I love.”

The two faces were lit up, each with an opposite emotion, each with an
opposite certitude. Further words were impossible. Romola hastily
covered her head and went out in silence.




CHAPTER LX.
The Scaffold.


Three days later the moon that was just surmounting the buildings of
the piazza in front of the Old Palace within the hour of midnight, did
not make the usual broad lights and shadows on the pavement. Not a
hand’s-breadth of pavement was to be seen, but only the heads of an
eager struggling multitude. And instead of that background of silence
in which the pattering footsteps and buzzing voices, the lute-thrumming
or rapid scampering of the many night wanderers of Florence stood out
in obtrusive distinctness, there was the background of a roar from
mingled shouts and imprecations, tramplings and pushings, and
accidental clashing of weapons, across which nothing was
distinguishable but a darting shriek, or the heavy dropping toll of a
bell.

Almost all who could call themselves the public of Florence were awake
at that hour, and either enclosed within the limits of that piazza, or
struggling to enter it. Within the palace were still assembled in the
council-chamber all the chief magistracies, the eighty members of the
senate, and the other select citizens who had been in hot debate
through long hours of daylight and torchlight whether the Appeal should
be granted or whether the sentence of death should be executed on the
prisoners forthwith, to forestall the dangerous chances of delay. And
the debate had been so much like fierce quarrel that the noise from the
council-chamber had reached the crowd outside. Only within the last
hour had the question been decided: the Signoria had remained divided,
four of them standing out resolutely for the Appeal in spite of the
strong argument that if they did not give way their houses should be
sacked, until Francesco Valori, in brief and furious speech, made the
determination of his party more ominously distinct by declaring that if
the Signoria would not defend the liberties of the Florentine people by
executing those five perfidious citizens, there would not be wanting
others who would take that cause in hand to the peril of all who
opposed it. The Florentine Cato triumphed. When the votes were counted
again, the four obstinate white beans no longer appeared; the whole
nine were of the fatal affirmative black, deciding the death of the
five prisoners without delay—deciding also, only tacitly and with much
more delay, the death of Francesco Valori.

And now, while the judicial Eight were gone to the Bargello to prepare
for the execution, the five condemned men were being led barefoot and
in irons through the midst of the council. It was their friends who had
contrived this: would not Florentines be moved by the visible
association of such cruel ignominy with two venerable men like Bernardo
del Nero and Niccolò Ridolfi, who had taken their bias long before the
new order of things had come to make Mediceanism retrograde—with two
brilliant popular young men like Tornabuoni and Pucci, whose absence
would be felt as a haunting vacancy wherever there was a meeting of
chief Florentines? It was useless: such pity as could be awakened now
was of that hopeless sort which leads not to rescue, but to the tardier
action of revenge.

While this scene was passing upstairs Romola stood below against one of
the massive pillars in the court of the palace, expecting the moment
when her godfather would appear, on his way to execution. By the use of
strong interest she had gained permission to visit him in the evening
of this day, and remain with him until the result of the council should
be determined. And now she was waiting with his confessor to follow the
guard that would lead him to the Bargello. Her heart was bent on
clinging to the presence of the childless old man to the last moment,
as her father would have done; and she had overpowered all
remonstrances. Giovan Battista Ridolfi, a disciple of Savonarola, who
was going in bitterness to behold the death of his elder brother
Niccolò, had promised that she should be guarded, and now stood by her
side.

Tito, too, was in the palace; but Romola had not seen him. Since the
evening of the seventeenth they had avoided each other, and Tito only
knew by inference from the report of the Frate’s neutrality that her
pleading had failed. He was now surrounded with official and other
personages, both Florentine and foreign, who had been awaiting the
issue of the long-protracted council, maintaining, except when he was
directly addressed, the subdued air and grave silence of a man whom
actual events are placing in a painful state of strife between public
and private feeling. When an allusion was made to his wife in relation
to those events, he implied that, owing to the violent excitement of
her mind, the mere fact of his continuing to hold office under a
government concerned in her godfather’s condemnation, roused in her a
diseased hostility towards him; so that for her sake he felt it best
not to approach her.

“Ah, the old Bardi blood!” said Cennini, with a shrug. “I shall not be
surprised if this business shakes _her_ loose from the Frate, as well
as some others I could name.”

“It is excusable in a woman, who is doubtless beautiful, since she is
the wife of Messer Tito,” said a young French envoy, smiling and bowing
to Tito, “to think that her affections must overrule the good of the
State, and that nobody is to be beheaded who is anybody’s cousin; but
such a view is not to be encouraged in the male population. It seems to
me your Florentine polity is much weakened by it.”

“That is true,” said Niccolò Macchiavelli; “but where personal ties are
strong, the hostilities they raise must be taken due account of. Many
of these half-way severities are mere hot-headed blundering. The only
safe blows to be inflicted on men and parties are the blows that are
too heavy to be avenged.”

“Niccolò,” said Cennini, “there is a clever wickedness in thy talk
sometimes that makes me mistrust thy pleasant young face as if it were
a mask of Satan.”

“Not at all, my good Domenico,” said Macchiavelli, smiling, and laying
his hand on the elder’s shoulder. “Satan was a blunderer, an introducer
of _novita_, who made a stupendous failure. If he had succeeded, we
should all have been worshipping him, and his portrait would have been
more flattered.”

“Well, well,” said Cennini, “I say not thy doctrine is not too clever
for Satan: I only say it is wicked enough for him.”

“I tell you,” said Macchiavelli, “my doctrine is the doctrine of all
men who seek an end a little farther off than their own noses. Ask our
Frate, our prophet, how his universal renovation is to be brought
about: he will tell you, first, by getting a free and pure government;
and since it appears that this cannot be done by making all Florentines
love each other, it must be done by cutting off every head that happens
to be obstinately in the way. Only if a man incurs odium by sanctioning
a severity that is not thorough enough to be final, he commits a
blunder. And something like that blunder, I suspect, the Frate has
committed. It was an occasion on which he might have won some lustre by
exerting himself to maintain the Appeal; instead of that, he has lost
lustre, and has gained no strength.”

Before any one else could speak, there came the expected announcement
that the prisoners were about to leave the council-chamber; and the
majority of those who were present hurried towards the door, intent on
securing the freest passage to the Bargello in the rear of the
prisoners’ guard; for the scene of the execution was one that drew
alike those who were moved by the deepest passions and those who were
moved by the coldest curiosity.

Tito was one of those who remained behind. He had a native repugnance
to sights of death and pain, and five days ago whenever he had thought
of this execution as a possibility he had hoped that it would not take
place, and that the utmost sentence would be exile: his own safety
demanded no more. But now he felt that it would be a welcome guarantee
of his security when he had learned that Bernardo del Nero’s head was
off the shoulders. The new knowledge and new attitude towards him
disclosed by Romola on the day of his return, had given him a new dread
of the power she possessed to make his position insecure. If any act of
hers only succeeded in making him an object of suspicion and odium, he
foresaw not only frustration, but frustration under unpleasant
circumstances. Her belief in Baldassarre had clearly determined her
wavering feelings against further submission, and if her godfather
lived she would win him to share her belief without much trouble.
Romola seemed more than ever an unmanageable fact in his destiny. But
if Bernardo del Nero were dead, the difficulties that would beset her
in placing herself in opposition to her husband would probably be
insurmountable to her shrinking pride. Therefore Tito had felt easier
when he knew that the Eight had gone to the Bargello to order the
instant erection of the scaffold. Four other men—his intimates and
confederates—were to die, besides Bernardo del Nero. But a man’s own
safety is a god that sometimes makes very grim demands. Tito felt them
to be grim: even in the pursuit of what was agreeable, this paradoxical
life forced upon him the desire for what was disagreeable. But he had
had other experience of this sort, and as he heard through the open
doorway the shuffle of many feet and the clanking of metal on the
stairs, he was able to answer the questions of the young French envoy
without showing signs of any other feeling than that of sad resignation
to State necessities.

Those sounds fell on Romola as if her power of hearing had been exalted
along with every other sensibility of her nature. She needed no arm to
support her; she shed no tears. She felt that intensity of life which
seems to transcend both grief and joy—in which the mind seems to itself
akin to elder forces that wrought out existence before the birth of
pleasure and pain. Since her godfather’s fate had been decided, the
previous struggle of feeling in her had given way to an identification
of herself with him in these supreme moments: she was inwardly
asserting for him that, if he suffered the punishment of treason, he
did not deserve the name of traitor; he was the victim to a collision
between two kinds of faithfulness. It was not given him to die for the
noblest cause, and yet he died because of his nobleness. He might have
been a meaner man and found it easier not to incur this guilt. Romola
was feeling the full force of that sympathy with the individual lot
that is continually opposing itself to the formulae by which actions
and parties are judged. She was treading the way with her second father
to the scaffold, and nerving herself to defy ignominy by the
consciousness that it was not deserved.

The way was fenced in by three hundred armed men, who had been placed
as a guard by the orders of Francesco Valori, for among the apparent
contradictions that belonged to this event, not the least striking was
the alleged alarm on the one hand at the popular rage against the
conspirators, and the alleged alarm on the other lest there should be
an attempt to rescue them in the midst of a hostile crowd. When they
had arrived within the court of the Bargello, Romola was allowed to
approach Bernardo with his confessor for a moment of farewell. Many
eyes were bent on them even in that struggle of an agitated throng, as
the aged man, forgetting that his hands were bound with irons, lifted
them towards the golden head that was bent towards him, and then,
checking that movement, leaned to kiss her. She seized the fettered
hands that were hung down again, and kissed them as if they had been
sacred things.

“My poor Romola,” said Bernardo, in a low voice, “I have only to die,
but thou hast to live—and I shall not be there to help thee.”

“Yes,” said Romola, hurriedly, “you _will_ help me—always—because I
shall remember you.”

She was taken away and conducted up the flight of steps that led to the
loggia surrounding the grand old court. She took her place there,
determined to look till the moment when her godfather laid his head on
the block. Now while the prisoners were allowed a brief interval with
their confessor, the spectators were pressing into court until the
crowd became dense around the black scaffold, and the torches fixed in
iron rings against the pillars threw a varying startling light at one
moment on passionless stone carvings, at another on some pale face
agitated with suppressed rage or suppressed grief—the face of one among
the many near relatives of the condemned, who were presently to receive
their dead and carry them home.

Romola’s face looked like a marble image against the dark arch as she
stood watching for the moment when her godfather would appear at the
foot of the scaffold. He was to suffer first, and Battista Ridolfi, who
was by her side, had promised to take her away through a door behind
them when she would have seen the last look of the man who alone in all
the world had shared her pitying love for her father. And still, in the
background of her thought, there was the possibility striving to be a
hope, that some rescue might yet come, something that would keep that
scaffold unstained by blood.

For a long while there was constant movement, lights flickering, heads
swaying to and fro, confused voices within the court, rushing waves of
sound through the entrance from without. It seemed to Romola as if she
were in the midst of a storm-troubled sea, caring nothing about the
storm, caring only to hold out a signal till the eyes that looked for
it could seek it no more.

Suddenly there was stillness, and the very tapers seemed to tremble
into quiet. The executioner was ready on the scaffold, and Bernardo del
Nero was seen ascending it with a slow firm step. Romola made no
visible movement, uttered not even a suppressed sound: she stood more
firmly, caring for _his_ firmness. She saw him pause, saw the white
head kept erect, while he said, in a voice distinctly audible—

“It is but a short space of life that my fellow-citizens have taken
from me.”

She perceived that he was gazing slowly round him as he spoke. She felt
that his eyes were resting on her, and that she was stretching out her
arms towards him. Then she saw no more till—a long while after, as it
seemed—a voice said, “My daughter, all is peace now. I can conduct you
to your house.”

She uncovered her head and saw her godfather’s confessor standing by
her, in a room where there were other grave men talking in subdued
tones.

“I am ready,” she said, starting up. “Let us lose no time.”

She thought all clinging was at an end for her: all her strength now
should be given to escape from a grasp under which she shuddered.




CHAPTER LXI.
Drifting Away.


On the eighth day from that memorable night Romola was standing on the
brink of the Mediterranean, watching the gentle summer pulse of the sea
just above what was then the little fishing village of Viareggio.

Again she had fled from Florence, and this time no arresting voice had
called her back. Again she wore the grey religious dress; and this
time, in her heart-sickness, she did not care that it was a disguise. A
new rebellion had risen within her, a new despair. Why should she care
about wearing one badge more than another, or about being called by her
own name? She despaired of finding any consistent duty belonging to
that name. What force was there to create for her that supremely
hallowed motive which men call duty, but which can have no inward
constraining existence save through some form of believing love?

The bonds of all strong affection were snapped. In her marriage, the
highest bond of all, she had ceased to see the mystic union which is
its own guarantee of indissolubleness, had ceased even to see the
obligation of a voluntary pledge: had she not proved that the things to
which she had pledged herself were impossible? The impulse to set
herself free had risen again with overmastering force; yet the freedom
could only be an exchange of calamity. There is no compensation for the
woman who feels that the chief relation of her life has been no more
than a mistake. She has lost her crown. The deepest secret of human
blessedness has half whispered itself to her, and then for ever passed
her by.

And now Romola’s best support under that supreme woman’s sorrow had
slipped away from her. The vision of any great purpose, any end of
existence which could ennoble endurance and exalt the common deeds of a
dusty life with divine ardours, was utterly eclipsed for her now by the
sense of a confusion in human things which made all effort a mere
dragging at tangled threads; all fellowship, either for resistance or
advocacy, mere unfairness and exclusiveness. What, after all, was the
man who had represented for her the highest heroism: the heroism not of
hard, self-contained endurance, but of willing, self-offering love?
What was the cause he was struggling for? Romola had lost her trust in
Savonarola, had lost that fervour of admiration which had made her
unmindful of his aberrations, and attentive only to the grand curve of
his orbit. And now that her keen feeling for her godfather had thrown
her into antagonism with the Frate, she saw all the repulsive and
inconsistent details in his teaching with a painful lucidity which
exaggerated their proportions. In the bitterness of her disappointment
she said that his striving after the renovation of the Church and the
world was a striving after a mere name which told no more than the
title of a book: a name that had come to mean practically the measures
that would strengthen his own position in Florence; nay, often
questionable deeds and words, for the sake of saving his influence from
suffering by his own errors. And that political reform which had once
made a new interest in her life seemed now to reduce itself to narrow
devices for the safety of Florence, in contemptible contradiction with
the alternating professions of blind trust in the Divine care.

It was inevitable that she should judge the Frate unfairly on a
question of individual suffering, at which she looked with the eyes of
personal tenderness, and _he_ with the eyes of theoretic conviction. In
that declaration of his, that the cause of his party was the cause of
God’s kingdom, she heard only the ring of egoism. Perhaps such words
have rarely been uttered without that meaner ring in them; yet they are
the implicit formula of all energetic belief. And if such energetic
belief, pursuing a grand and remote end, is often in danger of becoming
a demon-worship, in which the votary lets his son and daughter pass
through the fire with a readiness that hardly looks like sacrifice;
tender fellow-feeling for the nearest has its danger too, and is apt to
be timid and sceptical towards the larger aims without which life
cannot rise into religion. In this way poor Romola was being blinded by
her tears.

No one who has ever known what it is thus to lose faith in a fellow-man
whom he has profoundly loved and reverenced, will lightly say that the
shock can leave the faith in the Invisible Goodness unshaken. With the
sinking of high human trust, the dignity of life sinks too; we cease to
believe in our own better self, since that also is part of the common
nature which is degraded in our thought; and all the finer impulses of
the soul are dulled. Romola felt even the springs of her once active
pity drying up, and leaving her to barren egoistic complaining. Had not
_she_ had her sorrows too? And few had cared for her, while she had
cared for many. She had done enough; she had striven after the
impossible, and was weary of this stifling crowded life. She longed for
that repose in mere sensation which she had sometimes dreamed of in the
sultry afternoons of her early girlhood, when she had fancied herself
floating naïad-like in the waters.

The clear waves seemed to invite her: she wished she could lie down to
sleep on them and pass from sleep into death. But Romola could not
directly seek death; the fulness of young life in her forbade that. She
could only wish that death would come.

At the spot where she had paused there was a deep bend in the shore,
and a small boat with a sail was moored there. In her longing to glide
over the waters that were getting golden with the level sun-rays, she
thought of a story which had been one of the things she had loved to
dwell on in Boccaccio, when her father fell asleep and she glided from
her stool to sit on the floor and read the ‘Decamerone.’ It was the
story of that fair Gostanza who in her lovelorn-ness desired to live no
longer, but not having the courage to attack her young life, had put
herself into a boat and pushed off to sea; then, lying down in the
boat, had wrapt her mantle round her head, hoping to be wrecked, so
that her fear would be helpless to flee from death. The memory had
remained a mere thought in Romola’s mind, without budding into any
distinct wish; but now, as she paused again in her walking to and fro,
she saw gliding black against the red gold another boat with one man in
it, making towards the bend where the first and smaller boat was
moored. Walking on again, she at length saw the man land, pull his boat
ashore and begin to unload something from it. He was perhaps the owner
of the smaller boat also: he would be going away soon, and her
opportunity would be gone with him—her opportunity of buying that
smaller boat. She had not yet admitted to herself that she meant to use
it, but she felt a sudden eagerness to secure the possibility of using
it, which disclosed the half-unconscious growth of a thought into a
desire.

“Is that little boat yours also?” she said to the fisherman, who had
looked up, a little startled by the tall grey figure, and had made a
reverence to this holy Sister wandering thus mysteriously in the
evening solitude.

It _was_ his boat; an old one, hardly seaworthy, yet worth repairing to
any man who would buy it. By the blessing of San Antonio, whose chapel
was in the village yonder, his fishing had prospered, and he had now a
better boat, which had once been Gianni’s who died. But he had not yet
sold the old one. Romola asked him how much it was worth, and then,
while he was busy, thrust the price into a little satchel lying on the
ground and containing the remnant of his dinner. After that, she
watched him furling his sail and asked him how he should set it if he
wanted to go out to sea, and then pacing up and down again, waited to
see him depart.

The imagination of herself gliding away in that boat on the darkening
waters was growing more and more into a longing, as the thought of a
cool brook in sultriness becomes a painful thirst. To be freed from the
burden of choice when all motive was bruised, to commit herself,
sleeping, to destiny which would either bring death or else new
necessities that might rouse a new life in her!—it was a thought that
beckoned her the more because the soft evening air made her long to
rest in the still solitude, instead of going back to the noise and heat
of the village.

At last the slow fisherman had gathered up all his movables and was
walking away. Soon the gold was shrinking and getting duskier in sea
and sky, and there was no living thing in sight, no sound but the
lulling monotony of the lapping waves. In this sea there was no tide
that would help to carry her away if she waited for its ebb; but Romola
thought the breeze from the land was rising a little. She got into the
boat, unfurled the sail, and fastened it as she had learned in that
first brief lesson. She saw that it caught the light breeze, and this
was all she cared for. Then she loosed the boat from its moorings, and
tried to urge it with an oar, till she was far out from the land, till
the sea was dark even to the west, and the stars were disclosing
themselves like a palpitating life over the wide heavens. Resting at
last, she threw back her cowl, and, taking off the kerchief underneath,
which confined her hair, she doubled them both under her head for a
pillow on one of the boat’s ribs. The fair head was still very young
and could bear a hard pillow.

And so she lay, with the soft night air breathing on her while she
glided on the water and watched the deepening quiet of the sky. She was
alone now: she had freed herself from all claims, she had freed herself
even from that burden of choice which presses with heavier and heavier
weight when claims have loosed their guiding hold.

Had she found anything like the dream of her girlhood? No. Memories
hung upon her like the weight of broken wings that could never be
lifted—memories of human sympathy which even in its pains leaves a
thirst that the Great Mother has no milk to still. Romola felt orphaned
in those wide spaces of sea and sky. She read no message of love for
her in that far-off symbolic writing of the heavens, and with a great
sob she wished that she might be gliding into death.

She drew the cowl over her head again and covered her face, choosing
darkness rather than the light of the stars, which seemed to her like
the hard light of eyes that looked at her without seeing her. Presently
she felt that she was in the grave, but not resting there: she was
touching the hands of the beloved dead beside her, and trying to wake
them.




CHAPTER LXII.
The Benediction.


About ten o’clock on the morning of the twenty-seventh of February the
currents of passengers along the Florentine streets set decidedly
towards San Marco. It was the last morning of the Carnival, and every
one knew there was a second Bonfire of Vanities being prepared in front
of the Old Palace; but at this hour it was evident that the centre of
popular interest lay elsewhere.

The Piazza di San Marco was filled by a multitude who showed no other
movement than that which proceeded from the pressure of new-comers
trying to force their way forward from all the openings: but the front
ranks were already close-serried and resisted the pressure. Those ranks
were ranged around a semicircular barrier in front of the church, and
within this barrier were already assembling the Dominican Brethren of
San Marco.

But the temporary wooden pulpit erected over the church-door was still
empty. It was presently to be entered by the man whom the Pope’s
command had banished from the pulpit of the Duomo, whom the other
ecclesiastics of Florence had been forbidden to consort with, whom the
citizens had been forbidden to hear on pain of excommunication. This
man had said, “A wicked, unbelieving Pope who has gained the pontifical
chair by bribery is not Christ’s Vicar. His curses are broken swords:
he grasps a hilt without a blade. His commands are contrary to the
Christian life: it is lawful to disobey them—nay, _it is not lawful to
obey them_.” And the people still flocked to hear him as he preached in
his own church of San Marco, though the Pope was hanging terrible
threats over Florence if it did not renounce the pestilential
schismatic and send him to Rome to be “converted”—still, as on this
very morning, accepted the Communion from his excommunicated hands. For
how if this Frate had really more command over the Divine lightnings
than that official successor of Saint Peter? It was a momentous
question, which for the mass of citizens could never be decided by the
Frate’s ultimate test, namely, what was and what was not accordant with
the highest spiritual law. No: in such a case as this, if God had
chosen the Frate as his prophet to rebuke the High Priest who carried
the mystic raiment unworthily, he would attest his choice by some
unmistakable sign. As long as the belief in the Prophet carried no
threat of outward calamity, but rather the confident hope of
exceptional safety, no sign was needed: his preaching was a music to
which the people felt themselves marching along the way they wished to
go; but now that belief meant an immediate blow to their commerce, the
shaking of their position among the Italian States, and an interdict on
their city, there inevitably came the question, “What miracle showest
thou?” Slowly at first, then faster and faster, that fatal demand had
been swelling in Savonarola’s ear, provoking a response, outwardly in
the declaration that at the fitting time the miracle would come;
inwardly in the faith—not unwavering, for what faith is so?—that if the
need for miracle became urgent, the work he had before him was too
great for the Divine power to leave it halting. His faith wavered, but
not his speech: it is the lot of every man who has to speak for the
satisfaction of the crowd, that he must often speak in virtue of
yesterday’s faith, hoping it will come back to-morrow.

It was in preparation for a scene which was really a response to the
popular impatience for some supernatural guarantee of the Prophet’s
mission, that the wooden pulpit had been erected above the church-door.
But while the ordinary Frati in black mantles were entering and
arranging themselves, the faces of the multitude were not yet eagerly
directed towards the pulpit: it was felt that Savonarola would not
appear just yet, and there was some interest in singling out the
various monks, some of them belonging to high Florentine families, many
of them having fathers, brothers, or cousins among the artisans and
shopkeepers who made the majority of the crowd. It was not till the
tale of monks was complete, not till they had fluttered their books and
had begun to chant, that people said to each other, “Fra Girolamo must
be coming now.”

That expectation rather than any spell from the accustomed wail of
psalmody was what made silence and expectation seem to spread like a
paling solemn light over the multitude of upturned faces, all now
directed towards the empty pulpit.

The next instant the pulpit was no longer empty. A figure covered from
head to foot in black cowl and mantle had entered it, and was kneeling
with bent head and with face turned away. It seemed a weary time to the
eager people while the black figure knelt and the monks chanted. But
the stillness was not broken, for the Frate’s audiences with Heaven
were yet charged with electric awe for that mixed multitude, so that
those who had already the will to stone him felt their arms unnerved.

At last there was a vibration among the multitude, each seeming to give
his neighbour a momentary aspen-like touch, as when men who have been
watching for something in the heavens see the expected presence
silently disclosing itself. The Frate had risen, turned towards the
people, and partly pushed back his cowl. The monotonous wail of
psalmody had ceased, and to those who stood near the pulpit, it was as
if the sounds which had just been filling their ears had suddenly
merged themselves in the force of Savonarola’s flashing glance, as he
looked round him in the silence. Then he stretched out his hands,
which, in their exquisite delicacy, seemed transfigured from an animal
organ for grasping into vehicles of sensibility too acute to need any
gross contact: hands that came like an appealing speech from that part
of his soul which was masked by his strong passionate face, written on
now with deeper lines about the mouth and brow than are made by
forty-four years of ordinary life.

At the first stretching out of the hands some of the crowd in the front
ranks fell on their knees, and here and there a devout disciple farther
off; but the great majority stood firm, some resisting the impulse to
kneel before this excommunicated man (might not a great judgment fall
upon him even in this act of blessing?)—others jarred with scorn and
hatred of the ambitious deceiver who was getting up this new comedy,
before which, nevertheless, they felt themselves impotent, as before
the triumph of a fashion.

But then came the voice, clear and low at first, uttering the words of
absolution—“_Misereatur vestri_”—and more fell on their knees: and as
it rose higher and yet clearer, the erect heads became fewer and fewer,
till, at the words “_Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus_” it rose to a
masculine cry, as if protesting its power to bless under the clutch of
a demon that wanted to stifle it: it rang like a trumpet to the
extremities of the Piazza, and under it every head was bowed.

After the utterance of that blessing, Savonarola himself fell on his
knees and hid his face in temporary exhaustion. Those great jets of
emotion were a necessary part of his life; he himself had said to the
people long ago, “Without preaching I cannot live.” But it was a life
that shattered him.

In a few minutes more, some had risen to their feet, but a larger
number remained kneeling, and all faces were intently watching him. He
had taken into his hands a crystal vessel, containing the consecrated
Host, and was about to address the people.

“You remember, my children, three days ago I besought you, when I
should hold this Sacrament in my hand in the face of you all, to pray
fervently to the Most High that if this work of mine does not come from
Him, He will send a fire and consume me, that I may vanish into the
eternal darkness away from His light which I have hidden with my
falsity. Again I beseech you to make that prayer, and to make it
_now_.”

It was a breathless moment: perhaps no man really prayed, if some in a
spirit of devout obedience made the effort to pray. Every consciousness
was chiefly possessed by the sense that Savonarola was praying, in a
voice not loud, but distinctly audible in the wide stillness.

“Lord, if I have not wrought in sincerity of soul, if my word cometh
not from Thee, strike me in this moment with Thy thunder, and let the
fires of Thy wrath enclose me.”

He ceased to speak, and stood motionless, with the consecrated Mystery
in his hand, with eyes uplifted, and a quivering excitement in his
whole aspect. Every one else was motionless and silent too, while the
sunlight, which for the last quarter of an hour had here and there been
piercing the greyness, made fitful streaks across the convent wall,
causing some awe-stricken spectators to start timidly. But soon there
was a wider parting, and with a gentle quickness, like a smile, a
stream of brightness poured itself on the crystal vase, and then spread
itself over Savonarola’s face with mild glorification.

An instantaneous shout rang through the Piazza, “Behold the answer!”

The warm radiance thrilled through Savonarola’s frame, and so did the
shout. It was his last moment of untroubled triumph, and in its
rapturous confidence he felt carried to a grander scene yet to come,
before an audience that would represent all Christendom, in whose
presence he should again be sealed as the messenger of the supreme
righteousness, and feel himself full charged with Divine strength. It
was but a moment that expanded itself in that prevision. While the
shout was still ringing in his ears he turned away within the church,
feeling the strain too great for him to bear it longer.

But when the Frate had disappeared, and the sunlight seemed no longer
to have anything special in its illumination, but was spreading itself
impartially over all things clean and unclean, there began, along with
the general movement of the crowd, a confusion of voices in which
certain strong discords and varying scales of laughter made it evident
that, in the previous silence and universal kneeling, hostility and
scorn had only submitted unwillingly to a momentary spell.

“It seems to me the plaudits are giving way to criticism,” said Tito,
who had been watching the scene attentively from an upper loggia in one
of the houses opposite the church. “Nevertheless it was a striking
moment, eh, Messer Pietro? Fra Girolamo is a man to make one understand
that there was a time when the monk’s frock was a symbol of power over
men’s minds rather than over the keys of women’s cupboards.”

“Assuredly,” said Pietro Cennini. “And until I have seen proof that Fra
Girolamo has much less faith in God’s judgments than the common run of
men, instead of having considerably more, I shall not believe that he
would brave Heaven in this way if his soul were laden with a conscious
lie.”




CHAPTER LXIII.
Ripening Schemes.


A month after that Carnival, one morning near the end of March, Tito
descended the marble steps of the Old Palace, bound on a pregnant
errand to San Marco. For some reason, he did not choose to take the
direct road, which was but a slightly-bent line from the Old Palace; he
chose rather to make a circuit by the Piazza di Santa Croce, where the
people would be pouring out of the church after the early sermon.

It was in the grand church of Santa Croce that the daily Lenten sermon
had of late had the largest audience. For Savonarola’s voice had ceased
to be heard even in his own church of San Marco, a hostile Signoria
having imposed silence on him in obedience to a new letter from the
Pope, threatening the city with an immediate interdict if this
“wretched worm” and “monstrous idol” were not forbidden to preach, and
sent to demand pardon at Rome. And next to hearing Fra Girolamo
himself, the most exciting Lenten occupation was to hear him argued
against and vilified. This excitement was to be had in Santa Croce,
where the Franciscan appointed to preach the Quaresimal sermons had
offered to clench his arguments by walking through the fire with Fra
Girolamo. Had not that schismatical Dominican said, that his prophetic
doctrine would be proved by a miracle at the fitting time? Here, then,
was the fitting time. Let Savonarola walk through the fire, and if he
came out unhurt, the Divine origin of his doctrine would be
demonstrated; but if the fire consumed him, his falsity would be
manifest; and that he might have no excuse for evading the test, the
Franciscan declared himself willing to be a victim to this high logic,
and to be burned for the sake of securing the necessary minor premiss.

Savonarola, according to his habit, had taken no notice of these pulpit
attacks. But it happened that the zealous preacher of Santa Croce was
no other than the Fra Francesco di Puglia, who at Prato the year before
had been engaged in a like challenge with Savonarola’s fervent follower
Fra Domenico, but had been called home by his superiors while the heat
was simply oratorical. Honest Fra Domenico, then, who was preaching
Lenten sermons to the women in the Via del Cocomero, no sooner heard of
this new challenge, than he took up the gauntlet for his master, and
declared himself ready to walk through the fire with Fra Francesco.
Already the people were beginning to take a strong interest in what
seemed to them a short and easy method of argument (for those who were
to be convinced), when Savonarola, keenly alive to the dangers that lay
in the mere discussion of the case, commanded Fra Domenico to withdraw
his acceptance of the challenge and secede from the affair. The
Franciscan declared himself content: he had not directed his challenge
to any subaltern, but to Fra Girolamo himself.

After that, the popular interest in the Lenten sermons had flagged a
little. But this morning, when Tito entered the Piazza di Santa Croce,
he found, as he expected, that the people were pouring from the church
in large numbers. Instead of dispersing, many of them concentrated
themselves towards a particular spot near the entrance of the
Franciscan monastery, and Tito took the same direction, threading the
crowd with a careless and leisurely air, but keeping careful watch on
that monastic entrance, as if he expected some object of interest to
issue from it.

It was no such expectation that occupied the crowd. The object they
were caring about was already visible to them in the shape of a large
placard, affixed by order of the Signoria, and covered with very
legible official handwriting. But curiosity was somewhat balked by the
fact that the manuscript was chiefly in Latin, and though nearly every
man knew beforehand approximately what the placard contained, he had an
appetite for more exact knowledge, which gave him an irritating sense
of his neighbour’s ignorance in not being able to interpret the learned
tongue. For that aural acquaintance with Latin phrases which the
unlearned might pick up from pulpit quotations constantly interpreted
by the preacher could help them little when they saw written Latin; the
spelling even of the modern language being in an unorganised and
scrambling condition for the mass of people who could read and
write,[1] while the majority of those assembled nearest to the placard
were not in the dangerous predicament of possessing that little
knowledge.

 [1] The old diarists throw in their consonants with a regard rather to
 quantity than position, well typified by the _Ragnolo Braghiello_
 (Agnolo Gabriello) of Boccaccio’s Ferondo.


“It’s the Frate’s doctrines that he’s to prove by being burned,” said
that large public character Goro, who happened to be among the foremost
gazers. “The Signoria has taken it in hand, and the writing is to let
us know. It’s what the Padre has been telling us about in his sermon.”

“Nay, Goro,” said a sleek shopkeeper, compassionately, “thou hast got
thy legs into twisted hose there. The Frate has to prove his doctrines
by _not_ being burned: he is to walk through the fire, and come out on
the other side sound and whole.”

“Yes, yes,” said a young sculptor, who wore his white-streaked cap and
tunic with a jaunty air. “But Fra Girolamo objects to walking through
the fire. Being sound and whole already, he sees no reason why he
should walk through the fire to come out in just the same condition. He
leaves such odds and ends of work to Fra Domenico.”

“Then I say he flinches like a coward,” said Goro, in a wheezy treble.
“Suffocation! that was what he did at the Carnival. He had us all in
the Piazza to see the lightning strike him, and nothing came of it.”

“Stop that bleating,” said a tall shoemaker, who had stepped in to hear
part of the sermon, with bunches of slippers hanging over his
shoulders. “It seems to me, friend, that you are about as wise as a
calf with water on its brain. The Frate will flinch from nothing: he’ll
say nothing beforehand, perhaps, but when the moment comes he’ll walk
through the fire without asking any grey-frock to keep him company. But
I would give a shoestring to know what this Latin all is.”

“There’s so much of it,” said the shopkeeper, “else I’m pretty good at
guessing. Is there no scholar to be seen?” he added, with a slight
expression of disgust.

There was a general turning of heads, which caused the talkers to
descry Tito approaching in their rear.

“Here is one,” said the young sculptor, smiling and raising his cap.

“It is the secretary of the Ten: he is going to the convent, doubtless;
make way for him,” said the shopkeeper, also doffing, though that mark
of respect was rarely shown by Florentines except to the highest
officials. The exceptional reverence was really exacted by the
splendour and grace of Tito’s appearance, which made his black mantle,
with its gold fibula, look like a regal robe, and his ordinary black
velvet cap like an entirely exceptional head-dress. The hardening of
his cheeks and mouth, which was the chief change in his face since he
came to Florence, seemed to a superficial glance only to give his
beauty a more masculine character. He raised his own cap immediately
and said—

“Thanks, my friend, I merely wished, as you did, to see what is at the
foot of this placard—ah, it is as I expected. I had been informed that
the government permits any one who will, to subscribe his name as a
candidate to enter the fire—which is an act of liberality worthy of the
magnificent Signoria—reserving of course the right to make a selection.
And doubtless many believers will be eager to subscribe their names.
For what is it to enter the fire, to one whose faith is firm? A man is
afraid of the fire, because he believes it will burn him; but if he
believes the contrary?”—here Tito lifted his shoulders and made an
oratorical pause—“for which reason I have never been one to disbelieve
the Frate, when he has said that he would enter the fire to prove his
doctrine. For in his place, if you believed the fire would not burn
you, which of you, my friends, would not enter it as readily as you
would walk along the dry bed of the Mugnone?”

As Tito looked round him during this appeal, there was a change in some
of his audience very much like the change in an eager dog when he is
invited to smell something pungent. Since the question of burning was
becoming practical, it was not every one who would rashly commit
himself to any general view of the relation between faith and fire. The
scene might have been too much for a gravity less under command than
Tito’s.

“Then, Messer Segretario,” said the young sculptor, “it seems to me Fra
Francesco is the greater hero, for he offers to enter the fire for the
truth, though he is sure the fire will burn him.”

“I do not deny it,” said Tito, blandly. “But if it turns out that Fra
Francesco is mistaken, he will have been burned for the wrong side, and
the Church has never reckoned such victims to be martyrs. We must
suspend our judgment until the trial has really taken place.”

“It is true, Messer Segretario,” said the shopkeeper, with subdued
impatience. “But will you favour us by interpreting the Latin?”

“Assuredly,” said Tito. “It does but express the conclusions or
doctrines which the Frate specially teaches, and which the trial by
fire is to prove true or false. They are doubtless familiar to you.
First, that Florence—”

“Let us have the Latin bit by bit, and then tell us what it means,”
said the shoemaker, who had been a frequent hearer of Fra Girolamo.

“Willingly,” said Tito, smiling. “You will then judge if I give you the
right meaning.”

“Yes, yes; that’s fair,” said Goro.

“_Ecclesia Dei indiget renovatione_; that is, the Church of God needs
purifying or regenerating.”

“It is true,” said several voices at once.

“That means, the priests ought to lead better lives; there needs no
miracle to prove that. That’s what the Frate has always been saying,”
said the shoemaker.

“_Flagellabitur_,” Tito went on. “That is, it will be scourged.
_Renovabitur_: it will be purified. _Florentia quoque post flagellam
renovabitur et prosperabitur_: Florence also, after the scourging,
shall be purified and shall prosper.”

“That means we are to get Pisa again,” said the shopkeeper.

“And get the wool from England as we used to do, I should hope,” said
an elderly man, in an old-fashioned berretta, who had been silent till
now. “There’s been scourging enough with the sinking of the trade.”

At this moment, a tall personage, surmounted by a red feather, issued
from the door of the convent, and exchanged an indifferent glance with
Tito; who, tossing his becchetto carelessly over his left shoulder,
turned to his reading again, while the bystanders, with more timidity
than respect, shrank to make a passage for Messer Dolfo Spini.

“_Infideles convertentur ad Christum_,” Tito went on. “That is, the
infidels shall be converted to Christ.”

“Those are the Turks and the Moors. Well, I’ve nothing to say against
that,” said the shopkeeper, dispassionately.

“_Haec autem omnia erunt temporibus nostris_: and all these things
shall happen in our times.”

“Why, what use would they be else?” said Goro.

“_Excommunicato nuper lata contra Reverendum Patrem nostrum Fratrem
Hieronymum nulla est_: the excommunication lately pronounced against
our reverend father, Fra Girolamo, is null. _Non observantes eam non
peccant_: those who disregard it are not committing a sin.”

“I shall know better what to say to that when we have had the Trial by
Fire,” said the shopkeeper.

“Which doubtless will clear up everything,” said Tito. “That is all the
Latin—all the conclusions that are to be proved true or false by the
trial. The rest you can perceive is simply a proclamation of the
Signoria in good Tuscan, calling on such as are eager to walk through
the fire, to come to the Palazzo and subscribe their names. Can I serve
you further? If not—”

Tito, as he turned away, raised his cap and bent slightly, with so easy
an air that the movement seemed a natural prompting of deference.

He quickened his pace as he left the Piazza, and after two or three
turnings he paused in a quiet street before a door at which he gave a
light and peculiar knock. It was opened by a young woman whom he
chucked under the chin as he asked her if the Padrone was within, and
he then passed, without further ceremony, through another door which
stood ajar on his right-hand. It admitted him into a handsome but
untidy room, where Dolfo Spini sat playing with a fine stag-hound which
alternately snuffed at a basket of pups and licked his hands with that
affectionate disregard of her master’s morals sometimes held to be one
of the most agreeable attributes of her sex. He just looked up as Tito
entered, but continued his play, simply from that disposition to
persistence in some irrelevant action, by which slow-witted sensual
people seem to be continually counteracting their own purposes. Tito
was patient.

“A handsome _bracca_ that,” he said, quietly, standing with his thumbs
in his belt. Presently he added, in that cool liquid tone which seemed
mild, but compelled attention, “When you have finished such caresses as
cannot possibly be deferred, my Dolfo, we will talk of business, if you
please. My time, which I could wish to be eternity at your service, is
not entirely my own this morning.”

“Down, Mischief, down!” said Spini, with sudden roughness.
“Malediction!” he added, still more gruffly, pushing the dog aside;
then, starting from his seat, he stood close to Tito, and put a hand on
his shoulder as he spoke.

“I hope your sharp wits see all the ins and outs of this business, my
fine necromancer, for it seems to me no clearer than the bottom of a
sack.”

“What is your difficulty, my cavalier?”

“These accursed Frati Minori at Santa Croce. They are drawing back now.
Fra Francesco himself seems afraid of sticking to his challenge; talks
of the Prophet being likely to use magic to get up a false
miracle—thinks he himself might be dragged into the fire and burned,
and the Prophet might come out whole by magic, and the Church be none
the better. And then, after all our talking, there’s not so much as a
blessed lay brother who will offer himself to pair with that pious
sheep Fra Domenico.”

“It is the peculiar stupidity of the tonsured skull that prevents them
from seeing of how little consequence it is whether they are burned or
not,” said Tito. “Have you sworn well to them that they shall be in no
danger of entering the fire?”

“No,” said Spini, looking puzzled; “because one of them will be obliged
to go in with Fra Domenico, who thinks it a thousand years till the
fagots are ready.”

“Not at all. Fra Domenico himself is not likely to go in. I have told
you before, my Dolfo, only your powerful mind is not to be impressed
without more repetition than suffices for the vulgar—I have told you
that now you have got the Signoria to take up this affair and prevent
it from being hushed up by Fra Girolamo, nothing is necessary but that
on a given day the fuel should be prepared in the Piazza, and the
people got together with the expectation of seeing something
prodigious. If, after that, the Prophet quits the Piazza without any
appearance of a miracle on his side, he is ruined with the people: they
will be ready to pelt him out of the city, the Signoria will find it
easy to banish him from the territory, and his Holiness may do as he
likes with him. Therefore, my Alcibiades, swear to the Franciscans that
their grey-frocks shall not come within singeing distance of the fire.”

Spini rubbed the back of his head with one hand, and tapped his sword
against his leg with the other, to stimulate his power of seeing these
intangible combinations.

“But,” he said presently, looking up again, “unless we fall on him in
the Piazza, when the people are in a rage, and make an end of him and
his lies then and there, Valori and the Salviati and the Albizzi will
take up arms and raise a fight for him. I know that was talked of when
there was the hubbub on Ascension Sunday. And the people may turn round
again: there may be a story raised of the French king coming again, or
some other cursed chance in the hypocrite’s favour. The city will never
be safe till he’s out of it.”

“He _will_ be out of it before long, without your giving yourself any
further trouble than this little comedy of the Trial by Fire. The wine
and the sun will make vinegar without any shouting to help them, as
your Florentine sages would say. You will have the satisfaction of
delivering your city from an incubus by an able stratagem, instead of
risking blunders with sword-thrusts.”

“But suppose he _did_ get magic and the devil to help him, and walk
through the fire after all?” said Spini, with a grimace intended to
hide a certain shyness in trenching on this speculative ground. “How do
you know there’s nothing in those things? Plenty of scholars believe in
them, and this Frate is bad enough for anything.”

“Oh, of course there are such things,” said Tito, with a shrug: “but I
have particular reasons for knowing that the Frate is not on such terms
with the devil as can give him any confidence in this affair. The only
magic he relies on is his own ability.”

“Ability!” said Spini. “Do you call it ability to be setting Florence
at loggerheads with the Pope and all the powers of Italy—all to keep
beckoning at the French king who never comes? You may call him able,
but I call him a hypocrite, who wants to be master of everybody, and
get himself made Pope.”

“You judge with your usual penetration, my captain, but our opinions do
not clash. The Frate, wanting to be master, and to carry out his
projects against the Pope, requires the lever of a foreign power, and
requires Florence as a fulcrum. I used to think him a narrow-minded
bigot, but now, I think him a shrewd ambitious man who knows what he is
aiming at, and directs his aim as skilfully as you direct a ball when
you are playing at _maglio_.”

“Yes, yes,” said Spini, cordially, “I can aim a ball.”

“It is true,” said Tito, with bland gravity; “and I should not have
troubled you with my trivial remark on the Frate’s ability, but that
you may see how this will heighten the credit of your success against
him at Rome and at Milan, which is sure to serve you in good stead when
the city comes to change its policy.”

“Well, thou art a good little demon, and shalt have good pay,” said
Spini, patronisingly; whereupon he thought it only natural that the
useful Greek adventurer should smile with gratification as he said—

“Of course, any advantage to me depends entirely on your—”

“We shall have our supper at my palace to-night,” interrupted Spini,
with a significant nod and an affectionate pat on Tito’s shoulder, “and
I shall expound the new scheme to them all.”

“Pardon, my magnificent patron,” said Tito; “the scheme has been the
same from the first—it has never varied except in your memory. Are you
sure you have fast hold of it now?”

Spini rehearsed.

“One thing more,” he said, as Tito was hastening away. “There is that
sharp-nosed notary, Ser Ceccone; he has been handy of late. Tell me,
you who can see a man wink when you’re behind him, do you think I may
go on making use of him?”

Tito dared not say “No.” He knew his companion too well to trust him
with advice when all Spini’s vanity and self-interest were not engaged
in concealing the adviser.

“Doubtless,” he answered, promptly. “I have nothing to say against
Ceccone.”

That suggestion of the notary’s intimate access to Spini caused Tito a
passing twinge, interrupting his amused satisfaction in the success
with which he made a tool of the man who fancied himself a patron. For
he had been rather afraid of Ser Ceccone. Tito’s nature made him
peculiarly alive to circumstances that might be turned to his
disadvantage; his memory was much haunted by such possibilities,
stimulating him to contrivances by which he might ward them off. And it
was not likely that he should forget that October morning more than a
year ago, when Romola had appeared suddenly before him at the door of
Nello’s shop, and had compelled him to declare his certainty that Fra
Girolamo was not going outside the gates. The fact that Ser Ceccone had
been a witness of that scene, together with Tito’s perception that for
some reason or other he was an object of dislike to the notary, had
received a new importance from the recent turn of events. For after
having been implicated in the Medicean plots, and having found it
advisable in consequence to retire into the country for some time, Ser
Ceccone had of late, since his reappearance in the city, attached
himself to the Arrabbiati, and cultivated the patronage of Dolfo Spini.
Now that captain of the Compagnacci was much given, when in the company
of intimates, to confidential narrative about his own doings, and if
Ser Ceccone’s powers of combination were sharpened by enmity, he might
gather some knowledge which he could use against Tito with very
unpleasant results.

It would be pitiable to be balked in well-conducted schemes by an
insignificant notary; to be lamed by the sting of an insect whom he had
offended unawares. “But,” Tito said to himself, “the man’s dislike to
me can be nothing deeper than the ill-humour of a dinnerless dog; I
shall conquer it if I can make him prosperous.” And he had been very
glad of an opportunity which had presented itself of providing the
notary with a temporary post as an extra _cancelliere_ or registering
secretary under the Ten, believing that with this sop and the
expectation of more, the waspish cur must be quite cured of the
disposition to bite him.

But perfect scheming demands omniscience, and the notary’s envy had
been stimulated into hatred by causes of which Tito knew nothing. That
evening when Tito, returning from his critical audience with the
Special Council, had brushed by Ser Ceccone on the stairs, the notary,
who had only just returned from Pistoja, and learned the arrest of the
conspirators, was bound on an errand which bore a humble resemblance to
Tito’s. He also, without giving up a show of popular zeal, had been
putting in the Medicean lottery. He also had been privy to the
unexecuted plot, and was willing to tell what he knew, but knew much
less to tell. He also would have been willing to go on treacherous
errands, but a more eligible agent had forestalled him. His
propositions were received coldly; the council, he was told, was
already in possession of the needed information, and since he had been
thus busy in sedition, it would be well for him to retire out of the
way of mischief, otherwise the government might be obliged to take note
of him. Ser Ceccone wanted no evidence to make him attribute his
failure to Tito, and his spite was the more bitter because the nature
of the case compelled him to hold his peace about it. Nor was this the
whole of his grudge against the flourishing Melema. On issuing from his
hiding-place, and attaching himself to the Arrabbiati, he had earned
some pay as one of the spies who reported information on Florentine
affairs to the Milanese court; but his pay had been small,
notwithstanding his pains to write full letters, and he had lately been
apprised that his news was seldom more than a late and imperfect
edition of what was known already. Now Ser Ceccone had no positive
knowledge that Tito had an underhand connection with the Arrabbiati and
the Court of Milan, but he had a suspicion of which he chewed the cud
with as strong a sense of flavour as if it had been a certainty.

This fine-grown vigorous hatred could swallow the feeble opiate of
Tito’s favours, and be as lively as ever after it. Why should Ser
Ceccone like Melema any the better for doing him favours? Doubtless the
suave secretary had his own ends to serve; and what right had he to the
superior position which made it possible for him to show favour? But
since he had tuned his voice to flattery, Ser Ceccone would pitch his
in the same key, and it remained to be seen who would win at the game
of outwitting.

To have a mind well oiled with that sort of argument which prevents any
claim from grasping it, seems eminently convenient sometimes: only the
oil becomes objectionable when we find it anointing other minds on
which we want to establish a hold.

Tito, however, not being quite omniscient, felt now no more than a
passing twinge of uneasiness at the suggestion of Ser Ceccone’s power
to hurt him. It was only for a little while that he cared greatly about
keeping clear of suspicions and hostility. He was now playing his final
game in Florence, and the skill he was conscious of applying gave him a
pleasure in it even apart from the expected winnings. The errand on
which he was sent to San Marco was a stroke in which he felt so much
confidence that he had already given notice to the Ten of his desire to
resign his office at an indefinite period within the next month or two,
and had obtained permission to make that resignation suddenly, if his
affairs needed it, with the understanding that Niccolò Macchiavelli was
to be his provisional substitute, if not his successor. He was acting
on hypothetic grounds, but this was the sort of action that had the
keenest interest for his diplomatic mind. From a combination of general
knowledge concerning Savonarola’s purposes with diligently observed
details he had framed a conjecture which he was about to verify by this
visit to San Marco. If he proved to be right, his game would be won,
and he might soon turn his back on Florence. He looked eagerly towards
that consummation, for many circumstances besides his own weariness of
the place told him that it was time for him to be gone.




CHAPTER LXIV.
The Prophet in his Cell.


Tito’s visit to San Marco had been announced beforehand, and he was at
once conducted by Fra Niccolò, Savonarola’s secretary, up the spiral
staircase into the long corridors lined with cells—corridors where Fra
Angelico’s frescoes, delicate as the rainbow on the melting cloud,
startled the unaccustomed eye here and there, as if they had been
sudden reflections cast from an ethereal world, where the Madonna sat
crowned in her radiant glory, and the Divine infant looked forth with
perpetual promise.

It was an hour of relaxation in the monastery, and most of the cells
were empty. The light through the narrow windows looked in on nothing
but bare walls, and the hard pallet and the crucifix. And even behind
that door at the end of a long corridor, in the inner cell opening from
an antechamber where the Prior usually sat at his desk or received
private visitors, the high jet of light fell on only one more object
that looked quite as common a monastic sight as the bare walls and hard
pallet. It was but the back of a figure in the long white Dominican
tunic and scapulary, kneeling with bowed head before a crucifix. It
might have been any ordinary Fra Girolamo, who had nothing worse to
confess than thinking of wrong things when he was singing _in coro_, or
feeling a spiteful joy when Fra Benedetto dropped the ink over his own
miniatures in the breviary he was illuminating—who had no higher
thought than that of climbing safely into Paradise up the narrow ladder
of prayer, fasting, and obedience. But under this particular white
tunic there was a heart beating with a consciousness inconceivable to
the average monk, and perhaps hard to be conceived by any man who has
not arrived at self-knowledge through a tumultuous inner life: a
consciousness in which irrevocable errors and lapses from veracity were
so entwined with noble purposes and sincere beliefs, in which
self-justifying expediency was so inwoven with the tissue of a great
work which the whole being seemed as unable to abandon as the body was
unable to abandon glowing and trembling before the objects of hope and
fear, that it was perhaps impossible, whatever course might be adopted,
for the conscience to find perfect repose.

Savonarola was not only in the attitude of prayer, there were Latin
words of prayer on his lips; and yet he was not praying. He had entered
his cell, had fallen on his knees, and burst into words of
supplication, seeking in this way for an influx of calmness which would
be a warrant to him that the resolutions urged on him by crowding
thoughts and passions were not wresting him away from the Divine
support; but the previsions and impulses which had been at work within
him for the last hour were too imperious; and while he pressed his
hands against his face, and while his lips were uttering audibly, “_Cor
mundum crea in me_” his mind was still filled with the images of the
snare his enemies had prepared for him, was still busy with the
arguments by which he could justify himself against their taunts and
accusations.

And it was not only against his opponents that Savonarola had to defend
himself. This morning he had had new proof that his friends and
followers were as much inclined to urge on the Trial by Fire as his
enemies: desiring and tacitly expecting that he himself would at last
accept the challenge and evoke the long-expected miracle which was to
dissipate doubt and triumph over malignity. Had he not said that God
would declare himself at the fitting time? And to the understanding of
plain Florentines, eager to get party questions settled, it seemed that
no time could be more fitting than this. Certainly, if Fra Domenico
walked through the fire unhurt, _that_ would be a miracle, and the
faith and ardour of that good brother were felt to be a cheering
augury; but Savonarola was acutely conscious that the secret longing of
his followers to see him accept the challenge had not been dissipated
by any reasons he had given for his refusal.

Yet it was impossible to him to satisfy them; and with bitter distress
he saw now that it was impossible for him any longer to resist the
prosecution of the trial in Fra Domenico’s case. Not that Savonarola
had uttered and written a falsity when he declared his belief in a
future supernatural attestation of his work; but his mind was so
constituted that while it was easy for him to believe in a miracle
which, being distant and undefined, was screened behind the strong
reasons he saw for its occurrence, and yet easier for him to have a
belief in inward miracles such as his own prophetic inspiration and
divinely-wrought intuitions; it was at the same time insurmountably
difficult to him to believe in the probability of a miracle which, like
this of being carried unhurt through the fire, pressed in all its
details on his imagination and involved a demand not only for belief
but for exceptional action.

Savonarola’s nature was one of those in which opposing tendencies
co-exist in almost equal strength: the passionate sensibility which,
impatient of definite thought, floods every idea with emotion and tends
towards contemplative ecstasy, alternated in him with a keen perception
of outward facts and a vigorous practical judgment of men and things.
And in this case of the Trial by Fire, the latter characteristics were
stimulated into unusual activity by an acute physical sensitiveness
which gives overpowering force to the conception of pain and
destruction as a necessary sequence of facts which have already been
causes of pain in our experience. The promptitude with which men will
consent to touch red-hot iron with a wet finger is not to be measured
by their theoretic acceptance of the impossibility that the iron will
burn them: practical belief depends on what is most strongly
represented in the mind at a given moment. And with the Frate’s
constitution, when the Trial by Fire was urged on his imagination as an
immediate demand, it was impossible for him to believe that he or any
other man could walk through the flames unhurt—impossible for him to
believe that even if he resolved to offer himself, he would not shrink
at the last moment.

But the Florentines were not likely to make these fine distinctions. To
the common run of mankind it has always seemed a proof of mental vigour
to find moral questions easy, and judge conduct according to concise
alternatives. And nothing was likely to seem plainer than that a man
who at one time declared that God would not leave him without the
guarantee of a miracle, and yet drew back when it was proposed to test
his declaration, had said what he did not believe. Were not Fra
Domenico and Fra Mariano, and scores of Piagnoni besides, ready to
enter the fire? What was the cause of their superior courage, if it was
not their superior faith? Savonarola could not have explained his
conduct satisfactorily to his friends, even if he had been able to
explain it thoroughly to himself. And he was not. Our naked feelings
make haste to clothe themselves in propositions which lie at hand among
our store of opinions, and to give a true account of what passes within
us something else is necessary besides sincerity, even when sincerity
is unmixed. In these very moments, when Savonarola was kneeling in
audible prayer, he had ceased to hear the words on his lips. They were
drowned by argumentative voices within him that shaped their reasons
more and more for an outward audience.

“To appeal to heaven for a miracle by a rash acceptance of a challenge,
which is a mere snare prepared for me by ignoble foes, would be a
tempting of God, and the appeal would not be responded to. Let the
Pope’s legate come, let the ambassadors of all the great Powers come
and promise that the calling of a General Council and the reform of the
Church shall hang on the miracle, and I will enter the flames, trusting
that God will not withhold His seal from that great work. Until then I
reserve myself for higher duties which are directly laid upon me: it is
not permitted to me to leap from the chariot for the sake of wrestling
with every loud vaunter. But Fra Domenico’s invincible zeal to enter
into the trial may be the sign of a Divine vocation, may be a pledge
that the miracle—”

But no! when Savonarola brought his mind close to the threatened scene
in the Piazza, and imagined a human body entering the fire, his belief
recoiled again. It was not an event that his imagination could simply
see: he felt it with shuddering vibrations to the extremities of his
sensitive fingers. The miracle could not be. Nay, the trial itself was
not to happen: he was warranted in doing all in his power to hinder it.
The fuel might be got ready in the Piazza, the people might be
assembled, the preparatory formalities might be gone through: all this
was perhaps inevitable now, and he could no longer resist it without
bringing dishonour on—himself? Yes, and therefore on the cause of God.
But it was not really intended that the Franciscan should enter the
fire, and while _he_ hung back there would be the means of preventing
Fra Domenico’s entrance. At the very worst, if Fra Domenico were
compelled to enter, he should carry the consecrated Host with him, and
with that Mystery in his hand, there might be a warrant for expecting
that the ordinary effects of fire would be stayed; or, more probably,
this demand would be resisted, and might thus be a final obstacle to
the trial.

But these intentions could not be avowed: he must appear frankly to
await the trial, and to trust in its issue. That dissidence between
inward reality and outward seeming was not the Christian simplicity
after which he had striven through years of his youth and prime, and
which he had preached as a chief fruit of the Divine life. In the
stress and heat of the day, with cheeks burning, with shouts ringing in
the ears, who is so blest as to remember the yearnings he had in the
cool and silent morning and know that he has not belied them?

“O God, it is for the sake of the people—because they are blind—because
their faith depends on me. If I put on sackcloth and cast myself among
the ashes, who will take up the standard and head the battle? Have I
not been led by a way which I knew not to the work that lies before
me?”

The conflict was one that could not end, and in the effort at prayerful
pleading the uneasy mind laved its smart continually in thoughts of the
greatness of that task which there was no man else to fulfil if he
forsook it. It was not a thing of everyday that a man should be
inspired with the vision and the daring that made a sacred rebel.

Even the words of prayer had died away. He continued to kneel, but his
mind was filled with the images of results to be felt through all
Europe; and the sense of immediate difficulties was being lost in the
glow of that vision, when the knocking at the door announced the
expected visit.

Savonarola drew on his mantle before he left his cell, as was his
custom when he received visitors; and with that immediate response to
any appeal from without which belongs to a power-loving nature
accustomed to make its power felt by speech, he met Tito with a glance
as self-possessed and strong as if he had risen from resolution instead
of conflict.

Tito did not kneel, but simply made a greeting of profound deference,
which Savonarola received quietly without any sacerdotal words, and
then desiring him to be seated, said at once—

“Your business is something of weight, my son, that could not be
conveyed through others?”

“Assuredly, father, else I should not have presumed to ask it. I will
not trespass on your time by any proem. I gathered from a remark of
Messer Domenico Mazzinghi that you might be glad to make use of the
next special courier who is sent to France with despatches from the
Ten. I must entreat you to pardon me if I have been too officious; but
inasmuch as Messer Domenico is at this moment away at his villa, I
wished to apprise you that a courier carrying important letters is
about to depart for Lyons at daybreak to-morrow.”

The muscles of Fra Girolamo’s face were eminently under command, as
must be the case with all men whose personality is powerful, and in
deliberate speech he was habitually cautious, confiding his intentions
to none without necessity. But under any strong mental stimulus, his
eyes were liable to a dilatation and added brilliancy that no strength
of will could control. He looked steadily at Tito, and did not answer
immediately, as if he had to consider whether the information he had
just heard met any purpose of his.

Tito, whose glance never seemed observant, but rarely let anything
escape it, had expected precisely that dilatation and flash of
Savonarola’s eyes which he had noted on other occasions. He saw it, and
then immediately busied himself in adjusting his gold fibula, which had
got wrong; seeming to imply that he awaited an answer patiently.

The fact was that Savonarola had expected to receive this intimation
from Domenico Mazzinghi, one of the Ten, an ardent disciple of his whom
he had already employed to write a private letter to the Florentine
ambassador in France, to prepare the way for a letter to the French
king himself in Savonarola’s handwriting, which now lay ready in the
desk at his side. It was a letter calling on the king to assist in
summoning a General Council, that might reform the abuses of the
Church, and begin by deposing Pope Alexander, who was not rightfully
Pope, being a vicious unbeliever, elected by corruption and governing
by simony.

This fact was not what Tito knew, but what his constructive talent,
guided by subtle indications, had led him to guess and hope.

“It is true, my son,” said Savonarola, quietly,—“it is true I have
letters which I would gladly send by safe conveyance under cover to our
ambassador. Our community of San Marco, as you know, has affairs in
France, being, amongst other things, responsible for a debt to that
singularly wise and experienced Frenchman, Signor Philippe de Comines,
on the library of the Medici, which we purchased; but I apprehend that
Domenico Mazzinghi himself may return to the city before evening, and I
should gain more time for preparation of the letters if I waited to
deposit them in his hands.”

“Assuredly, reverend father, that might be better on all grounds,
except one, namely, that if anything occurred to hinder Messer
Domenico’s return, the despatch of the letters would require either
that I should come to San Marco again at a late hour, or that you
should send them to me by your secretary; and I am aware that you wish
to guard against the false inferences which might be drawn from a too
frequent communication between yourself and any officer of the
government.” In throwing out this difficulty Tito felt that the more
unwillingness the Frate showed to trust him, the more certain he would
be of his conjecture.

Savonarola was silent; but while he kept his mouth firm, a slight glow
rose in his face with the suppressed excitement that was growing within
him. It would be a critical moment—that in which he delivered the
letter out of his own hands.

“It is most probable that Messer Domenico will return in time,” said
Tito, affecting to consider the Frate’s determination settled, and
rising from his chair as he spoke. “With your permission, I will take
my leave, father, not to trespass on your time when my errand is done;
but as I may not be favoured with another interview, I venture to
confide to you—what is not yet known to others, except to the
magnificent Ten—that I contemplate resigning my secretaryship, and
leaving Florence shortly. Am I presuming too much on your interest in
stating what relates chiefly to myself?”

“Speak on, my son,” said the Frate; “I desire to know your prospects.”

“I find, then, that I have mistaken my real vocation in forsaking the
career of pure letters, for which I was brought up. The politics of
Florence, father, are worthy to occupy the greatest mind—to occupy
yours—when a man is in a position to execute his own ideas; but when,
like me, he can only hope to be the mere instrument of changing
schemes, he requires to be animated by the minor attachments of a born
Florentine: also, my wife’s unhappy alienation from a Florentine
residence since the painful events of August naturally influences me. I
wish to join her.”

Savonarola inclined his head approvingly.

“I intend, then, soon to leave Florence, to visit the chief courts of
Europe, and to widen my acquaintance with the men of letters in the
various universities. I shall go first to the court of Hungary, where
scholars are eminently welcome; and I shall probably start in a week or
ten days. I have not concealed from you, father, that I am no religious
enthusiast; I have not my wife’s ardour; but religious enthusiasm, as I
conceive, is not necessary in order to appreciate the grandeur and
justice of your views concerning the government of nations and the
Church. And if you condescend to intrust me with any commission that
will further the relations you wish to establish, I shall feel
honoured. May I now take my leave?”

“Stay, my son. When you depart from Florence I will send a letter to
your wife, of whose spiritual welfare I would fain be assured, for she
left me in anger. As for the letters to France, such as I have ready—”

Savonarola rose and turned to his desk as he spoke. He took from it a
letter on which Tito could see, but not read, an address in the Frate’s
own minute and exquisite handwriting, still to be seen covering the
margins of his Bibles. He took a large sheet of paper, enclosed the
letter, and sealed it.

“Pardon me, father,” said Tito, before Savonarola had time to speak,
“unless it were your decided wish, I would rather not incur the
responsibility of carrying away the letter. Messer Domenico Mazzinghi
will doubtless return, or, if not, Fra Niccolò can convey it to me at
the second hour of the evening, when I shall place the other despatches
in the courier’s hands.”

“At present, my son,” said the Frate, waiving that point, “I wish you
to address this packet to our ambassador in your own handwriting, which
is preferable to my secretary’s.”

Tito sat down to write the address while the Frate stood by him with
folded arms, the glow mounting in his cheek, and his lip at last
quivering. Tito rose and was about to move away, when Savonarola said
abruptly—“Take it, my son. There is no use in waiting. It does not
please me that Fra Niccolò should have needless errands to the
Palazzo.”

As Tito took the letter, Savonarola stood in suppressed excitement that
forbade further speech. There seems to be a subtle emanation from
passionate natures like his, making their mental states tell
immediately on others; when they are absent-minded and inwardly excited
there is silence in the air.

Tito made a deep reverence and went out with the letter under his
mantle.

The letter was duly delivered to the courier and carried out of
Florence. But before that happened another messenger, privately
employed by Tito, had conveyed information in cipher, which was carried
by a series of relays to armed agents of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of
Milan, on the watch for the very purpose of intercepting despatches on
the borders of the Milanese territory.




CHAPTER LXV.
The Trial by Fire.


Little more than a week after, on the seventh of April, the great
Piazza della Signoria presented a stranger spectacle even than the
famous Bonfire of Vanities. And a greater multitude had assembled to
see it than had ever before tried to find place for themselves in the
wide Piazza, even on the day of San Giovanni.

It was near mid-day, and since the early morning there had been a
gradual swarming of the people at every coign of vantage or
disadvantage offered by the façades and roofs of the houses, and such
spaces of the pavement as were free to the public. Men were seated on
iron rods that made a sharp angle with the rising wall, were clutching
slim pillars with arms and legs, were astride on the necks of the rough
statuary that here and there surmounted the entrances of the grander
houses, were finding a palm’s-breadth of seat on a bit of architrave,
and a footing on the rough projections of the rustic stonework, while
they clutched the strong iron rings or staples driven into the walls
beside them.

For they were come to see a Miracle: cramped limbs and abraded flesh
seemed slight inconveniences with that prospect close at hand. It is
the ordinary lot of mankind to hear of miracles, and more or less to
believe in them; but now the Florentines were going to see one. At the
very least they would see half a miracle; for if the monk did not come
whole out of the fire, they would see him enter it, and infer that he
was burned in the middle.

There could be no reasonable doubt, it seemed, that the fire would be
kindled, and that the monks would enter it. For there, before their
eyes, was the long platform, eight feet broad, and twenty yards long,
with a grove of fuel heaped up terribly, great branches of dry oak as a
foundation, crackling thorns above, and well-anointed tow and rags,
known to make fine flames in Florentine illuminations. The platform
began at the corner of the marble terrace in front of the Old Palace,
close to Marzocco, the stone lion, whose aged visage looked frowningly
along the grove of fuel that stretched obliquely across the Piazza.

Besides that, there were three large bodies of armed men: five hundred
hired soldiers of the Signoria stationed before the palace; five
hundred Compagnacci under Dolfo Spini, far-off on the opposite side of
the Piazza; and three hundred armed citizens of another sort, under
Marco Salviati, Savonarola’s friend, in front of Orgagna’s Loggia,
where the Franciscans and Dominicans were to be placed with their
champions.

Here had been much expense of money and labour, and high dignities were
concerned. There could be no reasonable doubt that something great was
about to happen; and it would certainly be a great thing if the two
monks were simply burned, for in that case too God would have spoken,
and said very plainly that Fra Girolamo was not His prophet.

And there was not much longer to wait, for it was now near mid-day.
Half the monks were already at their post, and that half of the Loggia
that lies towards the Palace was already filled with grey mantles; but
the other half, divided off by boards, was still empty of everything
except a small altar. The Franciscans had entered and taken their
places in silence. But now, at the other side of the Piazza was heard
loud chanting from two hundred voices, and there was general
satisfaction, if not in the chanting, at least in the evidence that the
Dominicans were come. That loud chanting repetition of the prayer, “Let
God arise, and let His enemies be scattered,” was unpleasantly
suggestive to some impartial ears of a desire to vaunt confidence and
excite dismay; and so was the flame-coloured velvet cope in which Fra
Domenico was arrayed as he headed the procession, cross in hand, his
simple mind really exalted with faith, and with the genuine intention
to enter the flames for the glory of God and Fra Girolamo. Behind him
came Savonarola in the white vestment of a priest, carrying in his
hands a vessel containing the consecrated Host. He, too, was chanting
loudly; he, too, looked firm and confident, and as all eyes were turned
eagerly on him, either in anxiety, curiosity, or malignity, from the
moment when he entered the Piazza till he mounted the steps of the
Loggia and deposited the Sacrament on the altar, there was an
intensifying flash and energy in his countenance responding to that
scrutiny.

We are so made, almost all of us, that the false seeming which we have
thought of with painful shrinking when beforehand in our solitude it
has urged itself on us as a necessity, will possess our muscles and
move our lips as if nothing but that were easy when once we have come
under the stimulus of expectant eyes and ears. And the strength of that
stimulus to Savonarola can hardly be measured by the experience of
ordinary lives. Perhaps no man has ever had a mighty influence over his
fellows without having the innate need to dominate, and this need
usually becomes the more imperious in proportion as the complications
of life make Self inseparable from a purpose which is not selfish. In
this way it came to pass that on the day of the Trial by Fire, the
doubleness which is the pressing temptation in every public career,
whether of priest, orator, or statesman, was more strongly defined in
Savonarola’s consciousness as the acting of a part, than at any other
period in his life. He was struggling not against impending martyrdom,
but against impending ruin.

Therefore he looked and acted as if he were thoroughly confident, when
all the while foreboding was pressing with leaden weight on his heart,
not only because of the probable issues of this trial, but because of
another event already past—an event which was spreading a sunny
satisfaction through the mind of a man who was looking down at the
passion-worn prophet from a window of the Old Palace. It was a common
turning-point towards which those widely-sundered lives had been
converging, that two evenings ago the news had come that the Florentine
courier of the Ten had been arrested and robbed of all his despatches,
so that Savonarola’s letter was already in the hands of the Duke of
Milan, and would soon be in the hands of the Pope, not only heightening
rage, but giving a new justification to extreme measures. There was no
malignity in Tito Melema’s satisfaction: it was the mild
self-gratulation of a man who has won a game that has employed
hypothetic skill, not a game that has stirred the muscles and heated
the blood. Of course that bundle of desires and contrivances called
human nature, when moulded into the form of a plain-featured Frate
Predicatore, more or less of an impostor, could not be a pathetic
object to a brilliant-minded scholar who understood everything. Yet
this tonsured Girolamo with the high nose and large under lip was an
immensely clever Frate, mixing with his absurd superstitions or
fabrications very remarkable notions about government: no babbler, but
a man who could keep his secrets. Tito had no more spite against him
than against Saint Dominic. On the contrary, Fra Girolamo’s existence
had been highly convenient to Tito Melema, furnishing him with that
round of the ladder from which he was about to leap on to a new and
smooth footing very much to his heart’s content. And everything now was
in forward preparation for that leap: let one more sun rise and set,
and Tito hoped to quit Florence. He had been so industrious that he
felt at full leisure to amuse himself with to-day’s comedy, which the
thick-headed Dolfo Spini could never have brought about but for him.

Not yet did the loud chanting cease, but rather swelled to a deafening
roar, being taken up in all parts of the Piazza by the Piagnoni, who
carried their little red crosses as a badge, and, most of them, chanted
the prayer for the confusion of God’s enemies with the expectation of
an answer to be given through the medium of a more signal personage
than Fra Domenico. This good Frate in his flame-coloured cope was now
kneeling before the little altar on which the Sacrament was deposited,
awaiting his summons.

On the Franciscan side of the Loggia there was no chanting and no
flame-colour: only silence and greyness. But there was this
counterbalancing difference, that the Franciscans had two champions: a
certain Fra Giuliano was to pair with Fra Domenico, while the original
champion, Fra Francesco, confined his challenge to Savonarola.

“Surely,” thought the men perched uneasily on the rods and pillars,
“all must be ready now. This chanting might stop, and we should see
better when the Frati are moving towards the platform.”

But the Frati were not to be seen moving yet. Pale Franciscan faces
were looking uneasily over the boarding at that flame-coloured cope. It
had an evil look and might be enchanted, so that a false miracle would
be wrought by magic. Your monk may come whole out of the fire, and yet
it may be the work of the devil.

And now there was passing to and fro between the Loggia and the marble
terrace of the Palazzo, and the roar of chanting became a little
quieter, for every one at a distance was beginning to watch more
eagerly. But it soon appeared that the new movement was not a
beginning, but an obstacle to beginning. The dignified Florentines
appointed to preside over this affair as moderators on each side, went
in and out of the Palace, and there was much debate with the
Franciscans. But at last it was clear that Fra Domenico, conspicuous in
his flame-colour, was being fetched towards the Palace. Probably the
fire had already been kindled—it was difficult to see at a distance—and
the miracle was going to begin.

Not at all. The flame-coloured cope disappeared within the Palace; then
another Dominican was fetched away; and for a long while everything
went on as before—the tiresome chanting, which was not miraculous, and
Fra Girolamo in his white vestment standing just in the same place. But
at last something happened: Fra Domenico was seen coming out of the
Palace again, and returning to his brethren. He had changed all his
clothes with a brother monk, but he was guarded on each flank by a
Franciscan, lest coming into the vicinity of Savonarola he should be
enchanted again.

“Ah, then,” thought the distant spectators, a little less conscious of
cramped limbs and hunger, “Fra Domenico is not going to enter the fire.
It is Fra Girolamo who offers himself after all. We shall see him move
presently, and if he comes out of the flames we shall have a fine view
of him!”

But Fra Girolamo did not move, except with the ordinary action
accompanying speech. The speech was bold and firm, perhaps somewhat
ironically remonstrant, like that of Elijah to the priests of Baal,
demanding the cessation of these trivial delays. But speech is the most
irritating kind of argument for those who are out of hearing, cramped
in the limbs, and empty in the stomach. And what need was there for
speech? If the miracle did not begin, it could be no one’s fault but
Fra Girolamo’s, who might put an end to all difficulties by offering
himself now the fire was ready, as he had been forward enough to do
when there was no fuel in sight.

More movement to and fro, more discussion; and the afternoon seemed to
be slipping away all the faster because the clouds had gathered, and
changed the light on everything, and sent a chill through the
spectators, hungry in mind and body.

_Now_ it was the crucifix which Fra Domenico wanted to carry into the
fire and must not be allowed to profane in that manner. After some
little resistance Savonarola gave way to this objection, and thus had
the advantage of making one more concession; but he immediately placed
in Fra Domenico’s hands the vessel containing the consecrated Host. The
idea that the presence of the sacred Mystery might in the worst
extremity avert the ordinary effects of fire hovered in his mind as a
possibility; but the issue on which he counted was of a more positive
kind. In taking up the Host he said quietly, as if he were only doing
what had been presupposed from the first—

“Since they are not willing that you should enter with the crucifix, my
brother, enter simply with the Sacrament.”

New horror in the Franciscans; new firmness in Savonarola. “It was
impious presumption to carry the Sacrament into the fire: if it were
burned the scandal would be great in the minds of the weak and
ignorant.”

“Not at all: even if it were burned, the Accidents only would be
consumed, the Substance would remain.” Here was a question that might
be argued till set of sun and remain as elastic as ever; and no one
could propose settling it by proceeding to the trial, since it was
essentially a preliminary question. It was only necessary that both
sides should remain firm—that the Franciscans should persist in not
permitting the Host to be carried into the fire, and that Fra Domenico
should persist in refusing to enter without it.

Meanwhile the clouds were getting darker, the air chiller. Even the
chanting was missed now it had given way to inaudible argument; and the
confused sounds of talk from all points of the Piazza, showing that
expectation was everywhere relaxing, contributed to the irritating
presentiment that nothing decisive would be done. Here and there a
dropping shout was heard; then, more frequent shouts in a rising scale
of scorn.

“Light the fire and drive them in!”

“Let us have a smell of roast—we want our dinner!”

“Come Prophet, let us know whether anything is to happen before the
twenty-four hours are over!”

“Yes, yes, what’s your last vision?”

“Oh, he’s got a dozen in his inside; they’re the small change for a
miracle!”

“Ola, Frate, where are you? Never mind wasting the fuel!”

Still the same movement to and fro between the Loggia and the Palace;
still the same debate, slow and unintelligible to the multitude as the
colloquies of insects that touch antennas to no other apparent effect
than that of going and coming. But an interpretation was not long
wanting to unheard debates in which Fra Girolamo was constantly a
speaker: it was he who was hindering the trial; everybody was appealing
to him now, and he was hanging back.

Soon the shouts ceased to be distinguishable, and were lost in an
uproar not simply of voices, but of clashing metal and trampling feet.
The suggestions of the irritated people had stimulated old impulses in
Dolfo Spini and his band of Compagnacci; it seemed an opportunity not
to be lost for putting an end to Florentine difficulties by getting
possession of the arch-hypocrite’s person; and there was a vigorous
rush of the armed men towards the Loggia, thrusting the people aside,
or driving them on to the file of soldiery stationed in front of the
Palace. At this movement, everything was suspended both with monks and
embarrassed magistrates except the palpitating watch to see what would
come of the struggle.

But the Loggia was well guarded by the band under the brave Salviati;
the soldiers of the Signoria assisted in the repulse; and the trampling
and rushing were all backward again towards the Tetto de’ Pisani, when
the blackness of the heavens seemed to intensify in this moment of
utter confusion; and the rain, which had already been felt in scattered
drops, began to fall with rapidly growing violence, wetting the fuel,
and running in streams off the platform, wetting the weary hungry
people to the skin, and driving every man’s disgust and rage inwards to
ferment there in the damp darkness.

Everybody knew now that the Trial by Fire was not to happen. The
Signoria was doubtless glad of the rain, as an obvious reason, better
than any pretext, for declaring that both parties might go home. It was
the issue which Savonarola had expected and desired; yet it would be an
ill description of what he felt to say that he was glad. As that rain
fell, and plashed on the edge of the Loggia, and sent spray over the
altar and all garments and faces, the Frate knew that the demand for
him to enter the fire was at an end. But he knew too, with a certainty
as irresistible as the damp chill that had taken possession of his
frame, that the design of his enemies was fulfilled, and that his
honour was not saved. He knew that he should have to make his way to
San Marco again through the enraged crowd, and that the hearts of many
friends who would once have defended him with their lives would now be
turned against him.

When the rain had ceased he asked for a guard from the Signoria, and it
was given him. Had he said that he was willing to die for the work of
his life? Yes, and he had not spoken falsely. But to die in
dishonour—held up to scorn as a hypocrite and a false prophet? “O God!
_that_ is not martyrdom! It is the blotting out of a life that has been
a protest against wrong. Let me die because of the worth that is in me,
not because of my weakness.”

The rain had ceased, and the light from the breaking clouds fell on
Savonarola as he left the Loggia in the midst of his guard, walking as
he had come, with the Sacrament in his hand. But there seemed no glory
in the light that fell on him now, no smile of heaven: it was only that
light which shines on, patiently and impartially, justifying or
condemning by simply showing all things in the slow history of their
ripening. He heard no blessing, no tones of pity, but only taunts and
threats. He knew this was a foretaste of coming bitterness; yet his
courage mounted under all moral attack, and he showed no sign of
dismay.

“Well parried, Frate!” said Tito, as Savonarola descended the steps of
the Loggia. “But I fear your career at Florence is ended. What say you,
my Niccolò?”

“It is a pity his falsehoods were not all of a wise sort,” said
Macchiavelli, with a melancholy shrug. “With the times so much on his
side as they are about Church affairs, he might have done something
great.”




CHAPTER LXVI.
A Masque of the Furies.


The next day was Palm Sunday, or Olive Sunday, as it was chiefly called
in the olive-growing Valdarno; and the morning sun shone with a more
delicious clearness for the yesterday’s rain. Once more Savonarola
mounted the pulpit in San Marco, and saw a flock around him whose faith
in him was still unshaken; and this morning in calm and sad sincerity
he declared himself ready to die: in front of all visions he saw his
own doom. Once more he uttered the benediction, and saw the faces of
men and women lifted towards him in venerating love. Then he descended
the steps of the pulpit and turned away from that sight for ever.

For before the sun had set Florence was in an uproar. The passions
which had been roused the day before had been smouldering through that
quiet morning, and had now burst out again with a fury not unassisted
by design, and not without official connivance. The uproar had begun at
the Duomo in an attempt of some Compagnacci to hinder the evening
sermon, which the Piagnoni had assembled to hear. But no sooner had
men’s blood mounted and the disturbances had become an affray than the
cry arose, “To San Marco! the fire to San Marco!”

And long before the daylight had died, both the church and convent were
being besieged by an enraged and continually increasing multitude. Not
without resistance. For the monks, long conscious of growing hostility
without, had arms within their walls, and some of them fought as
vigorously in their long white tunics as if they had been Knights
Templars. Even the command of Savonarola could not prevail against the
impulse to self-defence in arms that were still muscular under the
Dominican serge. There were laymen too who had not chosen to depart,
and some of them fought fiercely: there was firing from the high altar
close by the great crucifix, there was pouring of stones and hot embers
from the convent roof, there was close fighting with swords in the
cloisters. Notwithstanding the force of the assailants, the attack
lasted till deep night.

The demonstrations of the Government had all been against the convent;
early in the attack guards had been sent for, not to disperse the
assailants, but to command all within the convent to lay down their
arms, all laymen to depart from it, and Savonarola himself to quit the
Florentine territory within twelve hours. Had Savonarola quitted the
convent then, he could hardly have escaped being torn to pieces; he was
willing to go, but his friends hindered him. It was felt to be a great
risk even for some laymen of high name to depart by the garden wall,
but among those who had chosen to do so was Francesco Valori, who hoped
to raise rescue from without.

And now when it was deep night—when the struggle could hardly have
lasted much longer, and the Compagnacci might soon have carried their
swords into the library, where Savonarola was praying with the Brethren
who had either not taken up arms or had laid them down at his
command—there came a second body of guards, commissioned by the
Signoria to demand the persons of Fra Girolamo and his two coadjutors,
Fra Domenico and Fra Salvestro.

Loud was the roar of triumphant hate when the light of lanterns showed
the Frate issuing from the door of the convent with a guard who
promised him no other safety than that of the prison. The struggle now
was, who should get first in the stream that rushed up the narrow
street to see the Prophet carried back in ignominy to the Piazza where
he had braved it yesterday—who should be in the best place for reaching
his ear with insult, nay, if possible, for smiting him and kicking him.
This was not difficult for some of the armed Compagnacci who were not
prevented from mixing themselves with the guards.

When Savonarola felt himself dragged and pushed along in the midst of
that hooting multitude; when lanterns were lifted to show him deriding
faces; when he felt himself spit upon, smitten and kicked with grossest
words of insult, it seemed to him that the worst bitterness of life was
past. If men judged him guilty, and were bent on having his blood, it
was only death that awaited him. But the worst drop of bitterness can
never be wrung on to our lips from without: the lowest depth of
resignation is not to be found in martyrdom; it is only to be found
when we have covered our heads in silence and felt, “I am not worthy to
be a martyr; the Truth shall prosper, but not by me.”

But that brief imperfect triumph of insulting the Frate, who had soon
disappeared under the doorway of the Old Palace, was only like the
taste of blood to the tiger. Were there not the houses of the
hypocrite’s friends to be sacked? Already one-half of the armed
multitude, too much in the rear to share greatly in the siege of the
convent, had been employed in the more profitable work of attacking
rich houses, not with planless desire for plunder, but with that
discriminating selection of such as belonged to chief Piagnoni, which
showed that the riot was under guidance, and that the rabble with clubs
and staves was well officered by sword-girt Compagnacci. Was there
not—next criminal after the Frate—the ambitious Francesco Valori,
suspected of wanting with the Frate’s help to make himself a Doge or
Gonfaloniere for life? And the grey-haired man who, eight months ago,
had lifted his arm and his voice in such ferocious demand for justice
on five of his fellow-citizens, only escaped from San Marco to
experience what _others_ called justice—to see his house surrounded by
an angry, greedy multitude, to see his wife shot dead with an arrow,
and to be himself murdered, as he was on his way to answer a summons to
the Palazzo, by the swords of men named Ridolfi and Tornabuoni.

In this way that Masque of the Furies, called Riot, was played on in
Florence through the hours of night and early morning.

But the chief director was not visible: he had his reasons for issuing
his orders from a private retreat, being of rather too high a name to
let his red feather be seen waving amongst all the work that was to be
done before the dawn. The retreat was the same house and the same room
in a quiet street between Santa Croce and San Marco, where we have seen
Tito paying a secret visit to Dolfo Spini. Here the Captain of the
Compagnacci sat through this memorable night, receiving visitors who
came and went, and went and came, some of them in the guise of armed
Compagnacci, others dressed obscurely and without visible arms. There
was abundant wine on the table, with drinking-cups for chance comers
and though Spini was on his guard against excessive drinking, he took
enough from time to time to heighten the excitement produced by the
news that was being brought to him continually.

Among the obscurely-dressed visitors Ser Ceccone was one of the most
frequent, and as the hours advanced towards the morning twilight he had
remained as Spini’s constant companion, together with Francesco Cei,
who was then in rather careless hiding in Florence, expecting to have
his banishment revoked when the Frate’s fall had been accomplished.

The tapers had burnt themselves into low shapeless masses, and holes in
the shutters were just marked by a sombre outward light, when Spini,
who had started from his seat and walked up and down with an angry
flush on his face at some talk that had been going forward with those
two unmilitary companions, burst out—

“The devil spit him! he shall pay for it, though. Ha, ha! the claws
shall be down on him when he little thinks of them. So _he_ was to be
the great man after all! He’s been pretending to chuck everything
towards my cap, as if I were a blind beggarman, and all the while he’s
been winking and filling his own scarsella. I should like to hang skins
about him and set my hounds on him! And he’s got that fine ruby of
mine, I was fool enough to give him yesterday. Malediction! And he was
laughing at me in his sleeve two years ago, and spoiling the best plan
that ever was laid. I was a fool for trusting myself with a rascal who
had long-twisted contrivances that nobody could see to the end of but
himself.”

“A Greek, too, who dropped into Florence with gems packed about him,”
said Francesco Cei, who had a slight smile of amusement on his face at
Spini’s fuming. “You did _not_ choose your confidant very wisely, my
Dolfo.”

“He’s a cursed deal cleverer than you, Francesco, and handsomer too,”
said Spini, turning on his associate with a general desire to worry
anything that presented itself.

“I humbly conceive,” said Ser Ceccone, “that Messer Francesco’s poetic
genius will outweigh—”

“Yes, yes, rub your hands! I hate that notary’s trick of yours,”
interrupted Spini, whose patronage consisted largely in this sort of
frankness. “But there comes Taddeo, or somebody: now’s the time! What
news, eh?” he went on, as two Compagnacci entered with heated looks.

“Bad!” said one. “The people have made up their minds they were going
to have the sacking of Soderini’s house, and now they have been balked
we shall have them turning on us, if we don’t take care. I suspect
there are some Mediceans buzzing about among them, and we may see them
attacking your palace over the bridge before long, unless we can find a
bait for them another way.”

“I have it!” said Spini, and seizing Taddeo by the belt he drew him
aside to give him directions, while the other went on telling Cei how
the Signoria had interfered about Soderini’s house.

“Ecco!” exclaimed Spini, presently, giving Taddeo a slight push towards
the door. “Go, and make quick work.”




CHAPTER LXVII.
Waiting by the River.


About the time when the two Compagnacci went on their errand, there was
another man who, on the opposite side of the Arno, was also going out
into the chill grey twilight. His errand, apparently, could have no
relation to theirs; he was making his way to the brink of the river at
a spot which, though within the city walls, was overlooked by no
dwellings, and which only seemed the more shrouded and lonely for the
warehouses and granaries which at some little distance backward turned
their shoulders to the river. There was a sloping width of long grass
and rushes made all the more dank by broad gutters which here and there
emptied themselves into the Arno.

The gutters and the loneliness were the attraction that drew this man
to come and sit down among the grass, and bend over the waters that ran
swiftly in the channelled slope at his side. For he had once had a
large piece of bread brought to him by one of those friendly runlets,
and more than once a raw carrot and apple-parings. It was worth while
to wait for such chances in a place where there was no one to see, and
often in his restless wakefulness he came to watch here before
daybreak; it might save him for one day the need of that silent begging
which consisted in sitting on a church-step by the wayside out beyond
the Porta San Frediano.

For Baldassarre hated begging so much that he would perhaps have chosen
to die rather than make even that silent appeal, but for one reason
that made him desire to live. It was no longer a hope; it was only that
possibility which clings to every idea that has taken complete
possession of the mind: the sort of possibility that makes a woman
watch on a headland for the ship which held something dear, though all
her neighbours are certain that the ship was a wreck long years ago.
After he had come out of the convent hospital, where the monks of San
Miniato had taken care of him as long as he was helpless; after he had
watched in vain for the Wife who was to help him, and had begun to
think that she was dead of the pestilence that seemed to fill all the
space since the night he parted from her, he had been unable to
conceive any way in which sacred vengeance could satisfy itself through
his arm. His knife was gone, and he was too feeble in body to win
another by work, too feeble in mind, even if he had had the knife, to
contrive that it should serve its one purpose. He was a shattered,
bewildered, lonely old man; yet he desired to live: _he_ waited for
something of which he had no distinct vision—something dim,
formless—that startled him, and made strong pulsations within him, like
that unknown thing which we look for when we start from sleep, though
no voice or touch has waked us. Baldassarre desired to live; and
therefore he crept out in the grey light, and seated himself in the
long grass, and watched the waters that had a faint promise in them.

Meanwhile the Compagnacci were busy at their work. The formidable bands
of armed men, left to do their will with very little interference from
an embarrassed if not conniving Signoria, had parted into two masses,
but both were soon making their way by different roads towards the
Arno. The smaller mass was making for the Ponte Rubaconte, the larger
for the Ponte Vecchio; but in both the same words had passed from mouth
to mouth as a signal, and almost every man of the multitude knew that
he was going to the Via de’ Bardi to sack a house there. If he knew no
other reason, could he demand a better?

The armed Compagnacci knew something more, for a brief word of command
flies quickly, and the leaders of the two streams of rabble had a
perfect understanding that they would meet before a certain house a
little towards the eastern end of the Via de’ Bardi, where the master
would probably be in bed, and be surprised in his morning sleep.

But the master of that house was neither sleeping nor in bed; he had
not been in bed that night. For Tito’s anxiety to quit Florence had
been stimulated by the events of the previous day: investigations would
follow in which appeals might be made to him delaying his departure:
and in all delay he had an uneasy sense that there was danger.
Falsehood had prospered and waxed strong; but it had nourished the twin
life, Fear. He no longer wore his armour, he was no longer afraid of
Baldassarre; but from the corpse of that dead fear a spirit had
risen—the undying _habit_ of fear. He felt he should not be safe till
he was out of this fierce, turbid Florence; and now he was ready to go.
Maso was to deliver up his house to the new tenant; his horses and
mules were awaiting him in San Gallo; Tessa and the children had been
lodged for the night in the Borgo outside the gate, and would be
dressed in readiness to mount the mules and join him. He descended the
stone steps into the courtyard, he passed through the great doorway,
not the same Tito, but nearly as brilliant as on the day when he had
first entered that house and made the mistake of falling in love with
Romola. The mistake was remedied now: the old life was cast off, and
was soon to be far behind him.

He turned with rapid steps towards the Piazza dei Mozzi, intending to
pass over the Ponte Rubaconte; but as he went along certain sounds came
upon his ears that made him turn round and walk yet more quickly in the
opposite direction. Was the mob coming into Oltrarno? It was a
vexation, for he would have preferred the more private road. He must
now go by the Ponte Vecchio; and unpleasant sensations made him draw
his mantle close round him, and walk at his utmost speed. There was no
one to see him in that grey twilight. But before he reached the end of
the Via de’ Bardi, like sounds fell on his ear again, and this time
they were much louder and nearer. Could he have been deceived before?
The mob must be coming over the Ponte Vecchio. Again he turned, from an
impulse of fear that was stronger than reflection; but it was only to
be assured that the mob was actually entering the street from the
opposite end. He chose not to go back to his house: after all they
would not attack _him_. Still, he had some valuables about him; and all
things except reason and order are possible with a mob. But necessity
does the work of courage. He went on towards the Ponte Vecchio, the
rush and the trampling and the confused voices getting so loud before
him that he had ceased to hear them behind.

For he had reached the end of the street, and the crowd pouring from
the bridge met him at the turning and hemmed in his way. He had not
time to wonder at a sudden shout before he felt himself surrounded,
not, in the first instance, by an unarmed rabble, but by armed
Compagnacci; the next sensation was that his cap fell off, and that he
was thrust violently forward amongst the rabble, along the narrow
passage of the bridge. Then he distinguished the shouts, “Piagnone!
Medicean! Piagnone! Throw him over the bridge!”

His mantle was being torn off him with strong pulls that would have
throttled him if the fibula had not given way. Then his scarsella was
snatched at; but all the while he was being hustled and dragged; and
the snatch failed—his scarsella still hung at his side. Shouting,
yelling, half motiveless execration rang stunningly in his ears,
spreading even amongst those who had not yet seen him, and only knew
there was a man to be reviled. Tito’s horrible dread was that he should
be struck down or trampled on before he reached the open arches that
surmount the centre of the bridge. There was one hope for him, that
they might throw him over before they had wounded him or beaten the
strength out of him; and his whole soul was absorbed in that one hope
and its obverse terror.

Yes—they _were_ at the arches. In that moment Tito, with bloodless face
and eyes dilated, had one of the self-preserving inspirations that come
in extremity. With a sudden desperate effort he mastered the clasp of
his belt, and flung belt and scarsella forward towards a yard of clear
space against the parapet, crying in a ringing voice—

“There are diamonds! there is gold!”

In the instant the hold on him was relaxed, and there was a rush
towards the scarsella. He threw himself on the parapet with a desperate
leap, and the next moment plunged—plunged with a great plash into the
dark river far below.

It was his chance of salvation; and it was a good chance. His life had
been saved once before by his fine swimming, and as he rose to the
surface again after his long dive he had a sense of deliverance. He
struck out with all the energy of his strong prime, and the current
helped him. If he could only swim beyond the Ponte alla Carrara he
might land in a remote part of the city, and even yet reach San Gallo.
Life was still before him. And the idiot mob, shouting and bellowing on
the bridge there, would think he was drowned.

They did think so. Peering over the parapet along the dark stream, they
could not see afar off the moving blackness of the floating hair, and
the velvet tunic-sleeves.

It was only from the other way that a pale olive face could be seen
looking white above the dark water: a face not easy even for the
indifferent to forget, with its square forehead, the long low arch of
the eyebrows, and the long lustrous agate-like eyes. Onward the face
went on the dark current, with inflated quivering nostrils, with the
blue veins distended on the temples. One bridge was passed—the bridge
of Santa Trinita. Should he risk landing now rather than trust to his
strength? No. He heard, or fancied he heard, yells and cries pursuing
him. Terror pressed him most from the side of his fellow-men: he was
less afraid of indefinite chances, and he swam on, panting and
straining. He was not so fresh as he would have been if he had passed
the night in sleep.

Yet the next bridge—the last bridge—was passed. He was conscious of it;
but in the tumult of his blood, he could only feel vaguely that he was
safe and might land. But where? The current was having its way with
him: he hardly knew where he was: exhaustion was bringing on the dreamy
state that precedes unconsciousness.

But now there were eyes that discerned him—aged eyes, strong for the
distance. Baldassarre, looking up blankly from the search in the runlet
that brought him nothing, had seen a white object coming along the
broader stream. Could that be any fortunate chance for _him_? He looked
and looked till the object gathered form: then he leaned forward with a
start as he sat among the rank green stems, and his eyes seemed to be
filled with a new light. Yet he only watched—motionless. Something was
being brought to him.

The next instant a man’s body was cast violently on the grass two yards
from him, and he started forward like a panther, clutching the velvet
tunic as he fell forward on the body and flashed a look in the man’s
face.

Dead—was he dead? The eyes were rigid. But no, it could not be—Justice
had brought him. Men looked dead sometimes, and yet the life came back
into them. Baldassarre did not feel feeble in that moment. He knew just
what he could do. He got his large fingers within the neck of the tunic
and held them there, kneeling on one knee beside the body and watching
the face. There was a fierce hope in his heart, but it was mixed with
trembling. In his eyes there was only fierceness: all the slow-burning
remnant of life within him seemed to have leaped into flame.

Rigid—rigid still. Those eyes with the half-fallen lids were locked
against vengeance. _Could_ it be that he was dead? There was nothing to
measure the time: it seemed long enough for hope to freeze into
despair.

Surely at last the eyelids were quivering: the eyes were no longer
rigid. There was a vibrating light in them; they opened wide.

“Ah, yes! You see me—you know me!”

Tito knew him; but he did not know whether it was life or death that
had brought him into the presence of his injured father. It might be
death—and death might mean this chill gloom with the face of the
hideous past hanging over him for ever.

But now Baldassarre’s only dread was, lest the young limbs should
escape him. He pressed his knuckles against the round throat, and knelt
upon the chest with all the force of his aged frame. Let death come
now!

Again he kept his watch on the face. And when the eyes were rigid
again, he dared not trust them. He would never lose his hold till some
one came and found them. Justice would send some witness, and then he,
Baldassarre, would declare that he had killed this traitor, to whom he
had once been a father. They would perhaps believe him now, and then he
would be content with the struggle of justice on earth—then he would
desire to die with his hold on this body, and follow the traitor to
hell that he might clutch him there.

And so he knelt, and so he pressed his knuckles against the round
throat, without trusting to the seeming death, till the light got
strong and he could kneel no longer. Then he sat on the body, still
clutching the neck of the tunic. But the hours went on, and no witness
came. No eyes descried afar off the two human bodies among the tall
grass by the riverside. Florence was busy with greater affairs, and the
preparation of a deeper tragedy.

Not long after those two bodies were lying in the grass, Savonarola was
being tortured, and crying out in his agony, “I will confess!”

It was not until the sun was westward that a waggon drawn by a mild
grey ox came to the edge of the grassy margin, and as the man who led
it was leaning to gather up the round stones that lay heaped in
readiness to be carried away, he detected some startling object in the
grass. The aged man had fallen forward, and his dead clutch was on the
garment of the other. It was not possible to separate them: nay, it was
better to put them into the waggon and carry them as they were into the
great Piazza, that notice might be given to the Eight.

As the waggon entered the frequented streets there was a growing crowd
escorting it with its strange burden. No one knew the bodies for a long
while, for the aged face had fallen forward, half hiding the younger.
But before they had been moved out of sight, they had been recognised.

“I know that old man,” Piero di Cosimo had testified. “I painted his
likeness once. He is the prisoner who clutched Melema on the steps of
the Duomo.”

“He is perhaps the same old man who appeared at supper in my gardens,”
said Bernardo Rucellai, one of the Eight. “I had forgotten him. I
thought he had died in prison. But there is no knowing the truth now.”

Who shall put his finger on the work of justice, and say, “It is
there”? Justice is like the Kingdom of God—it is not without us as a
fact, it is within us as a great yearning.




CHAPTER LXVIII.
Romola’s waking.


Romola in her boat passed from dreaming into long deep sleep, and then
again from deep sleep into busy dreaming, till at last she felt herself
stretching out her arms in the court of the Bargello, where the
flickering flames of the tapers seemed to get stronger and stronger
till the dark scene was blotted out with light. Her eyes opened and she
saw it was the light of morning. Her boat was lying still in a little
creek; on her right-hand lay the speckless sapphire-blue of the
Mediterranean; on her left one of those scenes which were and still are
repeated again and again like a sweet rhythm, on the shores of that
loveliest sea.

In a deep curve of the mountains lay a breadth of green land, curtained
by gentle tree-shadowed slopes leaning towards the rocky heights. Up
these slopes might be seen here and there, gleaming between the
tree-tops, a pathway leading to a little irregular mass of building
that seemed to have clambered in a hasty way up the mountain-side, and
taken a difficult stand there for the sake of showing the tall belfry
as a sight of beauty to the scattered and clustered houses of the
village below. The rays of the newly-risen sun fell obliquely on the
westward horn of this crescent-shaped nook: all else lay in dewy
shadow. No sound came across the stillness; the very waters seemed to
have curved themselves there for rest.

The delicious sun-rays fell on Romola and thrilled her gently like a
caress. She lay motionless, hardly watching the scene; rather, feeling
simply the presence of peace and beauty. While we are still in our
youth there can always come, in our early waking, moments when mere
passive existence is itself a Lethe, when the exquisiteness of subtle
indefinite sensation creates a bliss which is without memory and
without desire. As the soft warmth penetrated Romola’s young limbs, as
her eyes rested on this sequestered luxuriance, it seemed that the
agitating past had glided away like that dark scene in the Bargello,
and that the afternoon dreams of her girlhood had really come back to
her. For a minute or two the oblivion was untroubled; she did not even
think that she could rest here for ever, she only felt that she rested.
Then she became distinctly conscious that she was lying in the boat
which had been bearing her over the waters all through the night.
Instead of bringing her to death, it had been the gently lulling cradle
of a new life. And in spite of her evening despair she was glad that
the morning had come to her again: glad to think that she was resting
in the familiar sunlight rather than in the unknown regions of death.
_Could_ she not rest here? No sound from Florence would reach her.
Already oblivion was troubled; from behind the golden haze were
piercing domes and towers and walls, parted by a river and enclosed by
the green hills.

She rose from her reclining posture and sat up in the boat, willing, if
she could, to resist the rush of thoughts that urged themselves along
with the conjecture how far the boat had carried her. Why need she
mind? This was a sheltered nook where there were simple villagers who
would not harm her. For a little while, at least, she might rest and
resolve on nothing. Presently she would go and get some bread and milk,
and then she would nestle in the green quiet, and feel that there was a
pause in her life. She turned to watch the crescent-shaped valley, that
she might get back the soothing sense of peace and beauty which she had
felt in her first waking.

She had not been in this attitude of contemplation more than a few
minutes when across the stillness there came a piercing cry; not a
brief cry, but continuous and more and more intense. Romola felt sure
it was the cry of a little child in distress that no one came to help.
She started up and put one foot on the side of the boat ready to leap
on to the beach; but she paused there and listened: the mother of the
child must be near, the cry must soon cease. But it went on, and drew
Romola so irresistibly, seeming the more piteous to her for the sense
of peace which had preceded it, that she jumped on to the beach and
walked many paces before she knew what direction she would take. The
cry, she thought, came from some rough garden growth many yards on her
right-hand, where she saw a half-ruined hovel. She climbed over a low
broken stone fence, and made her way across patches of weedy green
crops and ripe but neglected corn. The cry grew plainer, and convinced
that she was right she hastened towards the hovel; but even in that
hurried walk she felt an oppressive change in the air as she left the
sea behind. Was there some taint lurking amongst the green luxuriance
that had seemed such an inviting shelter from the heat of the coming
day? She could see the opening into the hovel now, and the cry was
darting through her like a pain. The next moment her foot was within
the doorway, but the sight she beheld in the sombre light arrested her
with a shock of awe and horror. On the straw, with which the floor was
scattered, lay three dead bodies, one of a tall man, one of a girl
about eight years old, and one of a young woman whose long black hair
was being clutched and pulled by a living child—the child that was
sending forth the piercing cry. Romola’s experience in the haunts of
death and disease made thought and action prompt: she lifted the little
living child, and in trying to soothe it on her bosom, still sent to
look at the bodies and see if they were really dead. The strongly
marked type of race in their features, and their peculiar garb, made
her conjecture that they were Spanish or Portuguese Jews, who had
perhaps been put ashore and abandoned there by rapacious sailors, to
whom their property remained as a prey. Such things were happening
continually to Jews compelled to abandon their homes by the
Inquisition: the cruelty of greed thrust them from the sea, and the
cruelty of superstition thrust them back to it.

“But, surely,” thought Romola, “I shall find some woman in the village
whose mother’s heart will not let her refuse to tend this helpless
child—if the real mother is indeed dead.”

This doubt remained, because while the man and girl looked emaciated
and also showed signs of having been long dead, the woman seemed to
have been hardier, and had not quite lost the robustness of her form.
Romola, kneeling, was about to lay her hand on the heart; but as she
lifted the piece of yellow woollen drapery that lay across the bosom,
she saw the purple spots which marked the familiar pestilence. Then it
struck her that if the villagers knew of this, she might have more
difficulty than she had expected in getting help from them; they would
perhaps shrink from her with that child in her arms. But she had money
to offer them, and they would not refuse to give her some goat’s milk
in exchange for it.

She set out at once towards the village, her mind filled now with the
effort to soothe the little dark creature, and with wondering how she
should win some woman to be good to it. She could not help hoping a
little in a certain awe she had observed herself to inspire, when she
appeared, unknown and unexpected, in her religious dress. As she passed
across a breadth of cultivated ground, she noticed, with wonder, that
little patches of corn mingled with the other crops had been left to
over-ripeness untouched by the sickle, and that golden apples and dark
figs lay rotting on the weedy earth. There were grassy spaces within
sight, but no cow, or sheep, or goat. The stillness began to have
something fearful in it to Romola; she hurried along towards the
thickest cluster of houses, where there would be the most life to
appeal to on behalf of the helpless life she carried in her arms. But
she had picked up two figs, and bit little pieces from the sweet pulp
to still the child with.

She entered between two lines of dwellings. It was time that villagers
should have been stirring long ago, but not a soul was in sight. The
air was becoming more and more oppressive, laden, it seemed, with some
horrible impurity. There was a door open; she looked in, and saw grim
emptiness. Another open door; and through that she saw a man lying dead
with all his garments on, his head lying athwart a spade handle, and an
earthenware cruse in his hand, as if he had fallen suddenly.

Romola felt horror taking possession of her. Was she in a village of
the unburied dead? She wanted to listen if there were any faint sound,
but the child cried out afresh when she ceased to feed it, and the cry
filled her ears. At last she saw a figure crawling slowly out of a
house, and soon sinking back in a sitting posture against the wall. She
hastened towards the figure; it was a young woman in fevered anguish,
and she, too, held a pitcher in her hand. As Romola approached her she
did not start; the one need was too absorbing for any other idea to
impress itself on her.

“Water! get me water!” she said, with a moaning utterance.

Romola stooped to take the pitcher, and said gently in her ear, “You
shall have water; can you point towards the well?”

The hand was lifted towards the more distant end of the little street,
and Romola set off at once with as much speed as she could use under
the difficulty of carrying the pitcher as well as feeding the child.
But the little one was getting more content as the morsels of sweet
pulp were repeated, and ceased to distress her with its cry, so that
she could give a less distracted attention to the objects around her.

The well lay twenty yards or more beyond the end of the street, and as
Romola was approaching it her eyes were directed to the opposite green
slope immediately below the church. High up, on a patch of grass
between the trees, she had descried a cow and a couple of goats, and
she tried to trace a line of path that would lead her close to that
cheering sight, when once she had done her errand to the well. Occupied
in this way, she was not aware that she was very near the well, and
that some one approaching it on the other side had fixed a pair of
astonished eyes upon her.

Romola certainly presented a sight which, at, that moment and in that
place, could hardly have been seen without some pausing and
palpitation. With her gaze fixed intently on the distant slope, the
long lines of her thick grey garment giving a gliding character to her
rapid walk, her hair rolling backward and illuminated on the left side
by the sun-rays, the little olive baby on her right arm now looking out
with jet-black eyes, she might well startle that youth of fifteen,
accustomed to swing the censer in the presence of a Madonna less fair
and marvellous than this.

“She carries a pitcher in her hand—to fetch water for the sick. It is
the Holy Mother, come to take care of the people who have the
pestilence.”

It was a sight of awe: she would, perhaps, be angry with those who
fetched water for themselves only. The youth flung down his vessel in
terror, and Romola, aware now of some one near her, saw the black and
white figure fly as if for dear life towards the slope she had just
been contemplating. But remembering the parched sufferer, she
half-filled her pitcher quickly and hastened back.

Entering the house to look for a small cup, she saw salt meat and meal:
there were no signs of want in the dwelling. With nimble movement she
seated baby on the ground, and lifted a cup of water to the sufferer,
who drank eagerly and then closed her eyes and leaned her head
backward, seeming to give herself up to the sense of relief. Presently
she opened her eyes, and, looking at Romola, said languidly—

“Who are you?”

“I came over the sea,” said Romola, “I only came this morning. Are all
the people dead in these houses?”

“I think they are all ill now—all that are not dead. My father and my
sister lie dead upstairs, and there is no one to bury them: and soon I
shall die.”

“Not so, I hope,” said Romola. “I am come to take care of you. I am
used to the pestilence; I am not afraid. But there must be some left
who are not ill. I saw a youth running towards the mountain when I went
to the well.”

“I cannot tell. When the pestilence came, a great many people went
away, and drove off the cows and goats. Give me more water!”

Romola, suspecting that if she followed the direction of the youth’s
flight, she should find some men and women who were still healthy and
able, determined to seek them out at once, that she might at least win
them to take care of the child, and leave her free to come back and see
how many living needed help, and how many dead needed burial. She
trusted to her powers of persuasion to conquer the aid of the timorous,
when once she knew what was to be done.

Promising the sick woman to come back to her, she lifted the dark
bantling again, and set off towards the slope. She felt no burden of
choice on her now, no longing for death. She was thinking how she would
go to the other sufferers, as she had gone to that fevered woman.

But, with the child on her arm, it was not so easy to her as usual to
walk up a slope, and it seemed a long while before the winding path
took her near the cow and the goats. She was beginning herself to feel
faint from heat, hunger, and thirst, and as she reached a double
turning, she paused to consider whether she would not wait near the
cow, which some one was likely to come and milk soon, rather than toil
up to the church before she had taken any rest. Raising her eyes to
measure the steep distance, she saw peeping between the boughs, not
more than five yards off, a broad round face, watching her attentively,
and lower down the black skirt of a priest’s garment, and a hand
grasping a bucket. She stood mutely observing, and the face, too,
remained motionless. Romola had often witnessed the overpowering force
of dread in cases of pestilence, and she was cautious.

Raising her voice in a tone of gentle pleading, she said, “I came over
the sea. I am hungry, and so is the child. Will you not give us some
milk?”

Romola had divined part of the truth, but she had not divined that
preoccupation of the priest’s mind which charged her words with a
strange significance. Only a little while ago, the young acolyte had
brought word to the Padre that he had seen the Holy Mother with the
Babe, fetching water for the sick: she was as tall as the cypresses,
and had a light about her head, and she looked up at the church. The
pievano (parish priest) had not listened with entire belief: he had
been more than fifty years in the world without having any vision of
the Madonna, and he thought the boy might have misinterpreted the
unexpected appearance of a villager. But he had been made uneasy, and
before venturing to come down and milk his cow, he had repeated many
Aves. The pievano’s conscience tormented him a little: he trembled at
the pestilence, but he also trembled at the thought of the mild-faced
Mother, conscious that that Invisible Mercy might demand something more
of him than prayers and “Hails.” In this state of mind—unable to banish
the image the boy had raised of the Mother with the glory about her
tending the sick—the pievano had come down to milk his cow, and had
suddenly caught sight of Romola pausing at the parted way. Her pleading
words, with their strange refinement of tone and accent, instead of
being explanatory, had a preternatural sound for him. Yet he did not
quite believe he saw the Holy Mother: he was in a state of alarmed
hesitation. If anything miraculous were happening, he felt there was no
strong presumption that the miracle would be in his favour. He dared
not run away; he dared not advance.

“Come down,” said Romola, after a pause. “Do not fear. Fear rather to
deny food to the hungry when they ask you.”

A moment after, the boughs were parted, and the complete figure of a
thickset priest with a broad, harmless face, his black frock much worn
and soiled, stood, bucket in hand, looking at her timidly, and still
keeping aloof as he took the path towards the cow in silence.

Romola followed him and watched him without speaking again, as he
seated himself against the tethered cow, and, when he had nervously
drawn some milk, gave it to her in a brass cup he carried with him in
the bucket. As Romola put the cup to the lips of the eager child, and
afterwards drank some milk herself, the Padre observed her from his
wooden stool with a timidity that changed its character a little. He
recognised the Hebrew baby, he was certain that he had a substantial
woman before him; but there was still something strange and
unaccountable in Romola’s presence in this spot, and the Padre had a
presentiment that things were going to change with him. Moreover, that
Hebrew baby was terribly associated with the dread of pestilence.

Nevertheless, when Romola smiled at the little one sucking its own
milky lips, and stretched out the brass cup again, saying, “Give us
more, good father,” he obeyed less nervously than before.

Romola on her side was not unobservant; and when the second supply of
milk had been drunk, she looked down at the round-headed man, and said
with mild decision—

“And now tell me, father, how this pestilence came, and why you let
your people die without the sacraments; and lie unburied. For I am come
over the sea to help those who are left alive—and you, too, will help
them now.”

He told her the story of the pestilence: and while he was telling it,
the youth, who had fled before, had come peeping and advancing
gradually, till at last he stood and watched the scene from behind a
neighbouring bush.

Three families of Jews, twenty souls in all, had been put ashore many
weeks ago, some of them already ill of the pestilence. The villagers,
said the priest, had of course refused to give shelter to the
miscreants, otherwise than in a distant hovel, and under heaps of
straw. But when the strangers had died of the plague, and some of the
people had thrown the bodies into the sea, the sea had brought them
back again in a great storm, and everybody was smitten with terror. A
grave was dug, and the bodies were buried; but then the pestilence
attacked the Christians, and the greater number of the villagers went
away over the mountain, driving away their few cattle, and carrying
provisions. The priest had not fled; he had stayed and prayed for the
people, and he had prevailed on the youth Jacopo to stay with him; but
he confessed that a mortal terror of the plague had taken hold of him,
and he had not dared to go down into the valley.

“You will fear no longer, father,” said Romola, in a tone of
encouraging authority; “you will come down with me, and we will see who
is living, and we will look for the dead to bury them. I have walked
about for months where the pestilence was, and see, I am strong. Jacopo
will come with us,” she added, motioning to the peeping lad, who came
slowly from behind his defensive bush, as if invisible threads were
dragging him.

“Come, Jacopo,” said Romola again, smiling at him, “you will carry the
child for me. See! your arms are strong, and I am tired.”

That was a dreadful proposal to Jacopo, and to the priest also; but
they were both under a peculiar influence forcing them to obey. The
suspicion that Romola was a supernatural form was dissipated, but their
minds were filled instead with the more effective sense that she was a
human being whom God had sent over the sea to command them.

“Now we will carry down the milk,” said Romola, “and see if any one
wants it.”

So they went all together down the slope, and that morning the
sufferers saw help come to them in their despair. There were hardly
more than a score alive in the whole valley; but all of these were
comforted, most were saved, and the dead were buried.

In this way days, weeks, and months passed with Romola till the men
were digging and sowing again, till the women smiled at her as they
carried their great vases on their heads to the well, and the Hebrew
baby was a tottering tumbling Christian, Benedetto by name, having been
baptised in the church on the mountain-side. But by that time she
herself was suffering from the fatigue and languor that must come after
a continuous strain on mind and body. She had taken for her dwelling
one of the houses abandoned by their owners, standing a little aloof
from the village street; and here on a thick heap of clean straw—a
delicious bed for those who do not dream of down—she felt glad to lie
still through most of the daylight hours, taken care of along with the
little Benedetto by a woman whom the pestilence had widowed.

Every day the Padre and Jacopo and the small flock of surviving
villagers paid their visit to this cottage to see the blessed Lady, and
to bring her of their best as an offering—honey, fresh cakes, eggs, and
polenta. It was a sight they could none of them forget, a sight they
all told of in their old age—how the sweet and sainted lady with her
fair face, her golden hair, and her brown eyes that had a blessing in
them, lay weary with her labours after she had been sent over the sea
to help them in their extremity, and how the queer little black
Benedetto used to crawl about the straw by her side and want everything
that was brought to her, and she always gave him a bit of what she
took, and told them if they loved her they must be good to Benedetto.

Many legends were afterwards told in that valley about the blessed Lady
who came over the sea, but they were legends by which all who heard
might know that in times gone by a woman had done beautiful loving
deeds there, rescuing those who were ready to perish.




CHAPTER LXIX.
Homeward.


In those silent wintry hours when Romola lay resting from her
weariness, her mind, travelling back over the past, and gazing across
the undefined distance of the future, saw all objects from a new
position. Her experience since the moment of her waking in the boat had
come to her with as strong an effect as that of the fresh seal on the
dissolving wax. She had felt herself without bonds, without motive;
sinking in mere egoistic complaining that life could bring her no
content; feeling a right to say, “I am tired of life, I want to die.”
That thought had sobbed within her as she fell asleep, but from the
moment after her waking when the cry had drawn her, she had not even
reflected, as she used to do in Florence, that she was glad to live
because she could lighten sorrow—she had simply lived, with so
energetic an impulse to share the life around her, to answer the call
of need and do the work which cried aloud to be done, that the reasons
for living, enduring, labouring, never took the form of argument.

The experience was like a new baptism to Romola. In Florence the
simpler relations of the human being to his fellow-men had been
complicated for her with all the special ties of marriage, the State,
and religious discipleship, and when these had disappointed her trust,
the shock seemed to have shaken her aloof from life and stunned her
sympathy. But now she said, “It was mere baseness in me to desire
death. If everything else is doubtful, this suffering that I can help
is certain; if the glory of the cross is an illusion, the sorrow is
only the truer. While the strength is in my arm I will stretch it out
to the fainting; while the light visits my eyes they shall seek the
forsaken.”

And then the past arose with a fresh appeal to her. Her work in this
green valley was done, and the emotions that were disengaged from the
people immediately around her rushed back into the old deep channels of
use and affection. That rare possibility of self-contemplation which
comes in any complete severance from our wonted life made her judge
herself as she had never done before: the compunction which is
inseparable from a sympathetic nature keenly alive to the possible
experience of others, began to stir in her with growing force. She
questioned the justness of her own conclusions, of her own deeds: she
had been rash, arrogant, always dissatisfied that others were not good
enough, while she herself had not been true to what her soul had once
recognised as the best. She began to condemn her flight: after all, it
had been cowardly self-care; the grounds on which Savonarola had once
taken her back were truer, deeper than the grounds she had had for her
second flight. How could she feel the needs of others and not feel,
above all, the needs of the nearest?

But then came reaction against such self-reproach. The memory of her
life with Tito, of the conditions which made their real union
impossible, while their external union imposed a set of false duties on
her which were essentially the concealment and sanctioning of what her
mind revolted from, told her that flight had been her only resource.
All minds, except such as are delivered from doubt by dulness of
sensibility, must be subject to this recurring conflict where the
many-twisted conditions of life have forbidden the fulfilment of a
bond. For in strictness there is no replacing of relations: the
presence of the new does not nullify the failure and breach of the old.
Life has lost its perfection: it has been maimed; and until the wounds
are quite scarred, conscience continually casts backward, doubting
glances.

Romola shrank with dread from the renewal of her proximity to Tito, and
yet she was uneasy that she had put herself out of reach of knowing
what was his fate—uneasy that the moment might yet come when he would
be in misery and need her. There was still a thread of pain within her,
testifying to those words of Fra Girolamo, that she could not cease to
be a wife. Could anything utterly cease for her that had once mingled
itself with the current of her heart’s blood?

Florence, and all her life there, had come back to her like hunger; her
feelings could not go wandering after the possible and the vague: their
living fibre was fed with the memory of familiar things. And the
thought that she had divided herself from them for ever became more and
more importunate in these hours that were unfilled with action. What if
Fra Girolamo had been wrong? What if the life of Florence was a web of
inconsistencies? Was she, then, something higher, that she should shake
the dust from off her feet, and say, “This world is not good enough for
me”? If she had been really higher, she would not so easily have lost
all her trust.

Her indignant grief for her godfather had no longer complete possession
of her, and her sense of debt to Savonarola was recovering
predominance. Nothing that had come, or was to come, could do away with
the fact that there had been a great inspiration in him which had waked
a new life in her. Who, in all her experience, could demand the same
gratitude from her as he? His errors—might they not bring calamities?

She could not rest. She hardly knew whether it was her strength
returning with the budding leaves that made her active again, or
whether it was her eager longing to get nearer Florence. She did not
imagine herself daring to enter Florence, but the desire to be near
enough to learn what was happening there urged itself with a strength
that excluded all other purposes.

And one March morning the people in the valley were gathered together
to see the blessed Lady depart. Jacopo had fetched a mule for her, and
was going with her over the mountains. The Padre, too, was going with
her to the nearest town, that he might help her in learning the safest
way by which she might get to Pistoja. Her store of trinkets and money,
untouched in this valley, was abundant for her needs.

If Romola had been less drawn by the longing that was taking her away,
it would have been a hard moment for her when she walked along the
village street for the last time, while the Padre and Jacopo, with the
mule, were awaiting her near the well. Her steps were hindered by the
wailing people, who knelt and kissed her hands, then clung to her
skirts and kissed the grey folds, crying, “Ah, why will you go, when
the good season is beginning and the crops will be plentiful? Why will
you go?”

“Do not be sorry,” said Romola, “you are well now, and I shall remember
you. I must go and see if my own people want me.”

“Ah, yes, if they have the pestilence!”

“Look at us again, Madonna!”

“Yes, yes, we will be good to the little Benedetto!”

At last Romola mounted her mule, but a vigorous screaming from
Benedetto as he saw her turn from him in this new position, was an
excuse for all the people to follow her and insist that he must ride on
the mule’s neck to the foot of the slope.

The parting must come at last, but as Romola turned continually before
she passed out of sight, she saw the little flock lingering to catch
the last waving of her hand.




CHAPTER LXX.
Meeting Again.


On the fourteenth of April Romola was once more within the walls of
Florence. Unable to rest at Pistoja, where contradictory reports
reached her about the Trial by Fire, she had gone on to Prato; and was
beginning to think that she should be drawn on to Florence in spite of
dread, when she encountered that monk of San Spirito who had been her
godfather’s confessor. From him she learned the full story of
Savonarola’s arrest, and of her husband’s death. This Augustinian monk
had been in the stream of people who had followed the waggon with its
awful burthen into the Piazza, and he could tell her what was generally
known in Florence—that Tito had escaped from an assaulting mob by
leaping into the Arno, but had been murdered on the bank by an old man
who had long had an enmity against him. But Romola understood the
catastrophe as no one else did. Of Savonarola the monk told her, in
that tone of unfavourable prejudice which was usual in the Black
Brethren (Frati Neri) towards the brother who showed white under his
black, that he had confessed himself a deceiver of the people.

Romola paused no longer. That evening she was in Florence, sitting in
agitated silence under the exclamations of joy and wailing, mingled
with exuberant narrative, which were poured into her ears by Monna
Brigida, who had backslided into false hair in Romola’s absence, but
now drew it off again and declared she would not mind being grey, if
her dear child would stay with her.

Romola was too deeply moved by the main events which she had known
before coming to Florence, to be wrought upon by the doubtful gossiping
details added in Brigida’s narrative. The tragedy of her husband’s
death, of Fra Girolamo’s confession of duplicity under the coercion of
torture, left her hardly any power of apprehending minor circumstances.
All the mental activity she could exert under that load of awe-stricken
grief, was absorbed by two purposes which must supersede every other;
to try and see Savonarola, and to learn what had become of Tessa and
the children.

“Tell me, cousin,” she said abruptly, when Monna Brigida’s tongue had
run quite away from troubles into projects of Romola’s living with her,
“has anything been seen or said since Tito’s death of a young woman
with two little children?”

Brigida started, rounded her eyes, and lifted up her hands.

“Cristo! no. What! was he so bad as that, my poor child? Ah, then, that
was why you went away, and left me word only that you went of your own
free will. Well, well; if I’d known that, I shouldn’t have thought you
so strange and flighty. For I did say to myself, though I didn’t tell
anybody else, ‘What was she to go away from her husband for, leaving
him to mischief, only because they cut poor Bernardo’s head off? She’s
got her father’s temper,’ I said, ‘that’s what it is.’ Well, well;
never scold me, child: Bardo _was_ fierce, you can’t deny it. But if
you had only told me the truth, that there was a young hussey and
children, I should have understood it all. Anything seen or said of
her? No; and the less the better. They say enough of ill about him
without that. But since that was the reason you went—”

“No, dear cousin,” said Romola, interrupting her earnestly, “pray do
not talk so. I wish above all things to find that young woman and her
children, and to take care of them. They are quite helpless. Say
nothing against it; that is the thing I shall do first of all.”

“Well,” said Monna Brigida, shrugging her shoulders and lowering her
voice with an air of puzzled discomfiture, “if that’s being a Piagnone,
I’ve been taking peas for paternosters. Why, Fra Girolamo said as good
as that widows ought not to marry again. Step in at the door and it’s a
sin and a shame, it seems; but come down the chimney and you’re
welcome. _Two_ children—Santiddio!”

“Cousin, the poor thing has done no conscious wrong: she is ignorant of
everything. I will tell you—but not now.”

Early the next morning Romola’s steps were directed to the house beyond
San Ambrogio where she had once found Tessa; but it was as she had
feared: Tessa was gone. Romola conjectured that Tito had sent her away
beforehand to some spot where he had intended to join her, for she did
not believe that he would willingly part with those children. It was a
painful conjecture, because, if Tessa were out of Florence, there was
hardly a chance of finding her, and Romola pictured the childish
creature waiting and waiting at some wayside spot in wondering,
helpless misery. Those who lived near could tell her nothing except
that old deaf Lisa had gone away a week ago with her goods, but no one
knew where Tessa had gone. Romola saw no further active search open to
her; for she had no knowledge that could serve as a starting-point for
inquiry, and not only her innate reserve but a more noble sensitiveness
made her shrink from assuming an attitude of generosity in the eyes of
others by publishing Tessa’s relation to Tito, along with her own
desire to find her. Many days passed in anxious inaction. Even under
strong solicitation from other thoughts Romola found her heart
palpitating if she caught sight of a pair of round brown legs, or of a
short woman in the contadina dress.

She never for a moment told herself that it was heroism or exalted
charity in her to seek these beings; she needed something that she was
bound specially to care for; she yearned to clasp the children and to
make them love her. This at least would be some sweet result, for
others as well as herself, from all her past sorrow. It appeared there
was much property of Tito’s to which she had a claim; but she
distrusted the cleanness of that money, and she had determined to make
it all over to the State, except so much as was equal to the price of
her father’s library. This would be enough for the modest support of
Tessa and the children. But Monna Brigida threw such planning into the
background by clamorously insisting that Romola must live with her and
never forsake her till she had seen her safe in Paradise—else why had
she persuaded her to turn Piagnone?—and if Romola wanted to rear other
people’s children, she, Monna Brigida, must rear them too. Only they
must be found first.

Romola felt the full force of that innuendo. But strong feeling
unsatisfied is never without its superstition, either of hope or
despair. Romola’s was the superstition of hope: _somehow_ she was to
find that mother and the children. And at last another direction for
active inquiry suggested itself. She learned that Tito had provided
horses and mules to await him in San Gallo; he was therefore going to
leave Florence by the gate of San Gallo, and she determined, though
without much confidence in the issue, to try and ascertain from the
gatekeepers if they had observed any one corresponding to the
description of Tessa with her children, to have passed the gates before
the morning of the ninth of April. Walking along the Via San Gallo, and
looking watchfully about her through her long widow’s veil, lest she
should miss any object that might aid her, she descried Bratti
chaffering with a customer. That roaming man, she thought, might aid
her: she would not mind talking of Tessa to _him_. But as she put aside
her veil and crossed the street towards him, she saw something hanging
from the corner of his basket which made her heart leap with a much
stronger hope.

“Bratti, my friend,” she said abruptly, “where did you get that
necklace?”

“Your servant, madonna,” said Bratti, looking round at her very
deliberately, his mind not being subject to surprise. “It’s a necklace
worth money, but I shall get little by it, for my heart’s too tender
for a trader’s; I have promised to keep it in pledge.”

“Pray tell me where you got it;—from a little woman named Tessa, is it
not true?”

“Ah! if you know her,” said Bratti, “and would redeem it of me at a
small profit, and give it her again, you’d be doing a charity, for she
cried at parting with it—you’d have thought she was running into a
brook. It’s a small profit I’ll charge you. You shall have it for a
florin, for I don’t like to be hard-hearted.”

“Where is she?” said Romola, giving him the money, and unclasping the
necklace from the basket in joyful agitation.

“Outside the gate there, at the other end of the Borgo, at old Sibilla
Manetti’s: anybody will tell you which is the house.”

Romola went along with winged feet, blessing that incident of the
Carnival which had made her learn by heart the appearance of this
necklace. Soon she was at the house she sought. The young woman and the
children were in the inner room—were to have been fetched away a
fortnight ago and more—had no money, only their clothes, to pay a poor
widow with for their food and lodging. But since madonna knew them—
Romola waited to hear no more, but opened the door.

Tessa was seated on the low bed: her crying had passed into tearless
sobs, and she was looking with sad blank eyes at the two children, who
were playing in an opposite corner—Lillo covering his head with his
skirt and roaring at Ninna to frighten her, then peeping out again to
see how she bore it. The door was a little behind Tessa, and she did
not turn round when it opened, thinking it was only the old woman:
expectation was no longer alive. Romola had thrown aside her veil and
paused a moment, holding the necklace in sight. Then she said, in that
pure voice that used to cheer her father—

“Tessa!”

Tessa started to her feet and looked round.

“See,” said Romola, clasping the beads on Tessa’s neck, “God has sent
me to you again.”

The poor thing screamed and sobbed, and clung to the arms that fastened
the necklace. She could not speak. The two children came from their
corner, laid hold of their mother’s skirts, and looked up with wide
eyes at Romola.

That day they all went home to Monna Brigida’s, in the Borgo degli
Albizzi. Romola had made known to Tessa, by gentle degrees, that Naldo
could never come to her again: not because he was cruel, but because he
was dead.

“But be comforted, my Tessa,” said Romola. “I am come to take care of
you always. And we have got Lillo and Ninna.”

Monna Brigida’s mouth twitched in the struggle between her awe of
Romola and the desire to speak unseasonably.

“Let be, for the present,” she thought; “but it seems to me a thousand
years till I tell this little contadina, who seems not to know how many
fingers she’s got on her hand, who Romola is. And I _will_ tell her
some day, else she’ll never know her place. It’s all very well for
Romola;—nobody will call their souls their own when she’s by; but if
I’m to have this puss-faced minx living in my house she must be humble
to me.”

However, Monna Brigida wanted to give the children too many sweets for
their supper, and confessed to Romola, the last thing before going to
bed, that it would be a shame not to take care of such cherubs.

“But you must give up to me a little, Romola, about their eating, and
those things. For you have never had a baby, and I had twins, only they
died as soon as they were born.”




CHAPTER LXXI.
The Confession.


When Romola brought home Tessa and the children, April was already near
its close, and the other great anxiety on her mind had been wrought to
its highest pitch by the publication in print of Fra Girolamo’s Trial,
or rather of the confessions drawn from him by the sixteen Florentine
citizens commissioned to interrogate him. The appearance of this
document, issued by order of the Signoria, had called forth such strong
expressions of public suspicion and discontent, that severe measures
were immediately taken for recalling it. Of course there were copies
accidentally mislaid, and a second edition, _not_ by order of the
Signoria, was soon in the hands of eager readers.

Romola, who began to despair of ever speaking with Fra Girolamo, read
this evidence again and again, desiring to judge it by some clearer
light than the contradictory impressions that were taking the form of
assertions in the mouths of both partisans and enemies.

In the more devout followers of Savonarola his want of constancy under
torture, and his retraction of prophetic claims, had produced a
consternation too profound to be at once displaced as it ultimately was
by the suspicion, which soon grew into a positive datum, that any
reported words of his which were in inexplicable contradiction to their
faith in him, had not come from the lips of the prophet, but from the
falsifying pen of Ser Ceccone, that notary of evil repute, who had made
the digest of the examination. But there were obvious facts that at
once threw discredit on the printed document. Was not the list of
sixteen examiners half made up of the prophet’s bitterest enemies? Was
not the notorious Dolfo Spini one of the new Eight prematurely elected,
in order to load the dice against a man whose ruin had been determined
on by the party in power? It was but a murder with slow formalities
that was being transacted in the Old Palace. The Signoria had resolved
to drive a good bargain with the Pope and the Duke of Milan, by
extinguishing the man who was as great a molestation to vicious
citizens and greedy foreign tyrants as to a corrupt clergy. The Frate
had been doomed beforehand, and the only question that was pretended to
exist now was, whether the Republic, in return for a permission to lay
a tax on ecclesiastical property, should deliver him alive into the
hands of the Pope, or whether the Pope should further concede to the
Republic what its dignity demanded—the privilege of hanging and burning
its own prophet on its own piazza.

Who, under such circumstances, would give full credit to this so-called
confession? If the Frate had denied his prophetic gift, the denial had
only been wrenched from him by the agony of torture—agony that, in his
sensitive frame, must quickly produce raving. What if these wicked
examiners declared that he had only had the torture of the rope and
pulley thrice, and only on one day, and that his confessions had been
made when he was under no bodily coercion—was that to be believed? He
had been tortured much more; he had been tortured in proportion to the
distress his confessions had created in the hearts of those who loved
him.

Other friends of Savonarola, who were less ardent partisans, did not
doubt the substantial genuineness of the confession, however it might
have been coloured by the transpositions and additions of the notary;
but they argued indignantly that there was nothing which could warrant
a condemnation to death, or even to grave punishment. It must be clear
to all impartial men that if this examination represented the only
evidence against the Frate, he would die, not for any crime, but
because he had made himself inconvenient to the Pope, to the rapacious
Italian States that wanted to dismember their Tuscan neighbour, and to
those unworthy citizens who sought to gratify their private ambition in
opposition to the common weal.

Not a shadow of political crime had been proved against him. Not one
stain had been detected on his private conduct: his fellow-monks,
including one who had formerly been his secretary for several years,
and who, with more than the average culture of his companions, had a
disposition to criticise Fra Girolamo’s rule as Prior, bore testimony,
even after the shock of his retraction, to an unimpeachable purity and
consistency in his life, which had commanded their unsuspecting
veneration. The Pope himself had not been able to raise a charge of
heresy against the Frate, except on the ground of disobedience to a
mandate, and disregard of the sentence of excommunication. It was
difficult to justify that breach of discipline by argument, but there
was a moral insurgence in the minds of grave men against the Court of
Rome, which tended to confound the theoretic distinction between the
Church and churchmen, and to lighten the scandal of disobedience.

Men of ordinary morality and public spirit felt that the triumph of the
Frate’s enemies was really the triumph of gross licence. And keen
Florentines like Soderini and Piero Guicciardini may well have had an
angry smile on their lips at a severity which dispensed with all law in
order to hang and burn a man in whom the seductions of a public career
had warped the strictness of his veracity; may well have remarked that
if the Frate had mixed a much deeper fraud with a zeal and ability less
inconvenient to high personages, the fraud would have been regarded as
an excellent oil for ecclesiastical and political wheels.

Nevertheless such shrewd men were forced to admit that, however poor a
figure the Florentine government made in its clumsy pretence of a
judicial warrant for what had in fact been predetermined as an act of
policy, the measures of the Pope against Savonarola were necessary
measures of self-defence. Not to try and rid himself of a man who
wanted to stir up the Powers of Europe to summon a General Council and
depose him, would have been adding ineptitude to iniquity. There was no
denying that towards Alexander the Sixth Savonarola was a rebel, and,
what was much more, a dangerous rebel. Florence had heard him say, and
had well understood what he meant, that he would not _obey the devil_.
It was inevitably a life and death struggle between the Frate and the
Pope; but it was less inevitable that Florence should make itself the
Pope’s executioner.

Romola’s ears were filled in this way with the suggestions of a faith
still ardent under its wounds, and the suggestions of worldly
discernment, judging things according to a very moderate standard of
what is possible to human nature. She could be satisfied with neither.
She brought to her long meditations over that printed document many
painful observations, registered more or less consciously through the
years of her discipleship, which whispered a presentiment that
Savonarola’s retraction of his prophetic claims was not merely a
spasmodic effort to escape from torture. But, on the other hand, her
soul cried out for some explanation of his lapses which would make it
still possible for her to believe that the main striving of his life
had been pure and grand. The recent memory of the selfish discontent
which had come over her like a blighting wind along with the loss of
her trust in the man who had been for her an incarnation of the highest
motives, had produced a reaction which is known to many as a sort of
faith that has sprung up to them out of the very depths of their
despair. It was impossible, she said now, that the negative
disbelieving thoughts which had made her soul arid of all good, could
be founded in the truth of things: impossible that it had not been a
living spirit, and no hollow pretence, which had once breathed in the
Frate’s words, and kindled a new life in her. Whatever falsehood there
had been in him, had been a fall and not a purpose; a gradual
entanglement in which he struggled, not a contrivance encouraged by
success.

Looking at the printed confessions, she saw many sentences which bore
the stamp of bungling fabrication: they had that emphasis and
repetition in self-accusation which none but very low hypocrites use to
their fellow-men. But the fact that these sentences were in striking
opposition, not only to the character of Savonarola, but also to the
general tone of the confessions, strengthened the impression that the
rest of the text represented in the main what had really fallen from
his lips. Hardly a word was dishonourable to him except what turned on
his prophetic annunciations. He was unvarying in his statement of the
ends he had pursued for Florence, the Church, and the world; and, apart
from the mixture of falsity in that claim to special inspiration by
which he sought to gain hold of men’s minds, there was no admission of
having used unworthy means. Even in this confession, and without
expurgation of the notary’s malign phrases, Fra Girolamo shone forth as
a man who had sought his own glory indeed, but sought it by labouring
for the very highest end—the moral welfare of men—not by vague
exhortations, but by striving to turn beliefs into energies that would
work in all the details of life.

“Everything that I have done,” said one memorable passage, which may
perhaps have had its erasures and interpolations, “I have done with the
design of being for ever famous in the present and in future ages; and
that I might win credit in Florence; and that nothing of great import
should be done without my sanction. And when I had thus established my
position in Florence, I had it in my mind to do great things in Italy
and beyond Italy, by means of those chief personages with whom I had
contracted friendship and consulted on high matters, such as this of
the General Council. And in proportion as my first efforts succeeded, I
should have adopted further measures. Above all, when the General
Council had once been brought about, I intended to rouse the princes of
Christendom, and especially those beyond the borders of Italy, to
subdue the infidels. It was not much in my thoughts to get myself made
a Cardinal or Pope, for when I should have achieved the work I had in
view, I should, without being Pope, have been the first man in the
world in the authority I should have possessed, and the reverence that
would have been paid me. If I had been made Pope, I would not have
refused the office: but it seemed to me that to be the head of that
work was a greater thing than to be Pope, because a man without virtue
may be Pope; but _such a work as I contemplated demanded a man of
excellent virtues_.”

That blending of ambition with belief in the supremacy of goodness made
no new tone to Romola, who had been used to hear it in the voice that
rang through the Duomo. It was the habit of Savonarola’s mind to
conceive great things, and to feel that he was the man to do them.
Iniquity should be brought low; the cause of justice, purity, and love
should triumph; and it should triumph by his voice, by his work, by his
blood. In moments of ecstatic contemplation, doubtless, the sense of
self melted in the sense of the Unspeakable, and in that part of his
experience lay the elements of genuine self-abasement; but in the
presence of his fellow-men for whom he was to act, pre-eminence seemed
a necessary condition of his life.

And perhaps this confession, even when it described a doubleness that
was conscious and deliberate, really implied no more than that wavering
of belief concerning his own impressions and motives which most human
beings who have not a stupid inflexibility of self-confidence must be
liable to under a marked change of external conditions. In a life where
the experience was so tumultuously mixed as it must have been in the
Frate’s, what a possibility was opened for a change of self-judgment,
when, instead of eyes that venerated and knees that knelt, instead of a
great work on its way to accomplishment, and in its prosperity stamping
the agent as a chosen instrument, there came the hooting and the
spitting and the curses of the crowd; and then the hard faces of
enemies made judges; and then the horrible torture, and with the
torture the irrepressible cry, “It is true, what you would have me say:
let me go: do not torture me again: yes, yes, I am guilty. O God! Thy
stroke has reached me!”

As Romola thought of the anguish that must have followed the
confession—whether, in the subsequent solitude of the prison,
conscience retracted or confirmed the self-taxing words—that anguish
seemed to be pressing on her own heart and urging the slow bitter
tears. Every vulgar self-ignorant person in Florence was glibly
pronouncing on this man’s demerits, while _he_ was knowing a depth of
sorrow which can only be known to the soul that has loved and sought
the most perfect thing, and beholds itself fallen.

She had not then seen—what she saw afterwards—the evidence of the
Frate’s mental state after he had had thus to lay his mouth in the
dust. As the days went by, the reports of new unpublished examinations,
eliciting no change of confessions, ceased; Savonarola was left alone
in his prison and allowed pen and ink for a while, that, if he liked,
he might use his poor bruised and strained right arm to write with. He
wrote; but what he wrote was no vindication of his innocence, no
protest against the proceedings used towards him: it was a continued
colloquy with that divine purity with which he sought complete reunion;
it was the outpouring of self-abasement; it was one long cry for inward
renovation. No lingering echoes of the old vehement self-assertion,
“Look at my work, for it is good, and those who set their faces against
it are the children of the devil!” The voice of Sadness tells him, “God
placed thee in the midst of the people even as if thou hadst been one
of the excellent. In this way thou hast taught others, and hast failed
to learn thyself. Thou hast cured others: and thou thyself hast been
still diseased. Thy heart was lifted up at the beauty of thy own deeds,
and through this thou hast lost thy wisdom and art become, and shalt be
to all eternity, nothing... After so many benefits with which God has
honoured thee, thou art fallen into the depths of the sea; and after so
many gifts bestowed on thee, thou, by thy pride and vainglory, hast
scandalised all the world.” And when Hope speaks and argues that the
divine love has not forsaken him, it says nothing now of a great work
to be done, but only says, “Thou art not forsaken, else why is thy
heart bowed in penitence? That too is a gift.”

There is no jot of worthy evidence that from the time of his
imprisonment to the supreme moment, Savonarola thought or spoke of
himself as a martyr. The idea of martyrdom had been to him a passion
dividing the dream of the future with the triumph of beholding his work
achieved. And now, in place of both, had come a resignation which he
called by no glorifying name.

_But therefore he may the more fitly be called a martyr by his
fellow-men to all time_. For power rose against him not because of his
sins, but because of his greatness—not because he sought to deceive the
world, but because he sought to make it noble. And through that
greatness of his he endured a double agony: not only the reviling, and
the torture, and the death-throe, but the agony of sinking from the
vision of glorious achievement into that deep shadow where he could
only say, “I count as nothing: darkness encompasses me: yet the light I
saw was the true light.”




CHAPTER LXXII.
The Last Silence.


Romola had seemed to hear, as if they had been a cry, the words
repeated to her by many lips—the words uttered by Savonarola when he
took leave of those brethren of San Marco who had come to witness his
signature of the confession: “Pray for me, for God has withdrawn from
me the spirit of prophecy.”

Those words had shaken her with new doubts as to the mode in which he
looked back at the past in moments of complete self-possession. And the
doubts were strengthened by more piteous things still, which soon
reached her ears.

The nineteenth of May had come, and by that day’s sunshine there had
entered into Florence the two Papal Commissaries, charged with the
completion of Savonarola’s trial. They entered amid the acclamations of
the people, calling for the death of the Frate. For now the popular cry
was, “It is the Frate’s deception that has brought on all our
misfortunes; let him be burned, and all things right will be done, and
our evils will cease.”

The next day it is well certified that there was fresh and fresh
torture of the shattered sensitive frame; and now, at the first sight
of the horrible implements, Savonarola, in convulsed agitation, fell on
his knees, and in brief passionate words _retracted his confession_,
declared that he had spoken falsely in denying his prophetic gift, and
that if he suffered, he would suffer for the truth—“The things that I
have spoken, I had them from God.”

But not the less the torture was laid upon him, and when he was under
it he was asked why he had uttered those retracting words. Men were not
demons in those days, and yet nothing but concessions of guilt were
held a reason for release from torture. The answer came: “I said it
that I might seem good; tear me no more, I will tell you the truth.”

There were Florentine assessors at this new trial, and those words of
twofold retraction had soon spread. They filled Romola with dismayed
uncertainty.

“But,”—it flashed across her—“there will come a moment when he may
speak. When there is no dread hanging over him but the dread of
falsehood, when they have brought him into the presence of death, when
he is lifted above the people, and looks on them for the last time,
they cannot hinder him from speaking a last decisive word. I will be
there.”

Three days after, on the 23rd of May 1498, there was again a long
narrow platform stretching across the great piazza, from the Palazzo
Vecchio towards the Tetta de’ Pisani. But there was no grove of fuel as
before: instead of that, there was one great heap of fuel placed on the
circular area which made the termination of the long narrow platform.
And above this heap of fuel rose a gibbet with three halters on it; a
gibbet which, having two arms, still looked so much like a cross as to
make some beholders uncomfortable, though one arm had been truncated to
avoid the resemblance.

On the marble terrace of the Palazzo were three tribunals; one near the
door for the Bishop, who was to perform the ceremony of degradation on
Fra Girolamo and the two brethren who were to suffer as his followers
and accomplices; another for the Papal Commissaries, who were to
pronounce them heretics and schismatics, and deliver them over to the
secular arm; and a third, close to Marzocco, at the corner of the
terrace where the platform began, for the Gonfaloniere, and the Eight
who were to pronounce the sentence of death.

Again the Piazza was thronged with expectant faces: again there was to
be a great fire kindled. In the majority of the crowd that pressed
around the gibbet the expectation was that of ferocious hatred, or of
mere hard curiosity to behold a barbarous sight. But there were still
many spectators on the wide pavement, on the roofs, and at the windows,
who, in the midst of their bitter grief and their own endurance of
insult as hypocritical Piagnoni, were not without a lingering hope,
even at this eleventh hour, that God would interpose, by some sign, to
manifest their beloved prophet as His servant. And there were yet more
who looked forward with trembling eagerness, as Romola did, to that
final moment when Savonarola might say, “O people, I was innocent of
deceit.”

Romola was at a window on the north side of the Piazza, far away from
the marble terrace where the tribunals stood; and near her, also
looking on in painful doubt concerning the man who had won his early
reverence, was a young Florentine of two-and-twenty, named Jacopo
Nardi, afterwards to deserve honour as one of the very few who, feeling
Fra Girolamo’s eminence, have written about him with the simple desire
to be veracious. He had said to Romola, with respectful gentleness,
when he saw the struggle in her between her shuddering horror of the
scene and her yearning to witness what might happen in the last moment—

“Madonna, there is no need for you to look at these cruel things. I
will tell you when he comes out of the Palazzo. Trust to me; I know
what you would see.”

Romola covered her face, but the hootings that seemed to make the
hideous scene still visible could not be shut out. At last her arm was
touched, and she heard the words, “He comes.” She looked towards the
Palace, and could see Savonarola led out in his Dominican garb; could
see him standing before the Bishop, and being stripped of the black
mantle, the white scapulary and long white tunic, till he stood in a
close woollen under-tunic, that told of no sacred office, no rank. He
had been degraded, and cut off from the Church Militant.

The baser part of the multitude delight in degradations, apart from any
hatred; it is the satire they best understand. There was a fresh hoot
of triumph as the three degraded brethren passed on to the tribunal of
the Papal Commissaries, who were to pronounce them schismatics and
heretics. Did not the prophet look like a schismatic and heretic now?
It is easy to believe in the damnable state of a man who stands
stripped and degraded.

Then the third tribunal was passed—that of the Florentine officials who
were to pronounce sentence, and amongst whom, even at her distance,
Romola could discern the odious figure of Dolfo Spini, indued in the
grave black lucco, as one of the Eight.

Then the three figures, in their close white raiment, trod their way
along the platform, amidst yells and grating tones of insult.

“Cover your eyes, Madonna,” said Jacopo Nardi; “Fra Girolamo will be
the last.”

It was not long before she had to uncover them again. Savonarola was
there. He was not far off her now. He had mounted the steps; she could
see him look round on the multitude.

But in the same moment expectation died, and she only saw what he was
seeing—torches waving to kindle the fuel beneath his dead body, faces
glaring with a yet worse light; she only heard what _he_ was
hearing—gross jests, taunts, and curses.

The moment was past. Her face was covered again, and she only knew that
Savonarola’s voice had passed into eternal silence.




Epilogue.


On the evening of the 22nd of May 1509, five persons, of whose history
we have known something, were seated in a handsome upper room opening
on to a loggia which, at its right-hand corner, looked all along the
Borgo Pinti, and over the city gate towards Fiesole and the solemn
heights beyond it.

At one end of the room was an archway opening into a narrow inner room,
hardly more than a recess, where the light fell from above on a small
altar covered with fair white linen. Over the altar was a picture,
discernible at the distance where the little party sat only as the
small full-length portrait of a Dominican Brother. For it was shaded
from the light above by overhanging branches and wreaths of flowers,
and the fresh tapers below it were unlit. But it seemed that the
decoration of the altar and its recess was not complete. For part of
the floor was strewn with a confusion of flowers and green boughs, and
among them sat a delicate blue-eyed girl of thirteen, tossing her long
light-brown hair out of her eyes, as she made selections for the
wreaths she was weaving, or looked up at her mother’s work in the same
kind, and told her how to do it with a little air of instruction.

For that mother was not very clever at weaving flowers or at any other
work. Tessa’s fingers had not become more adroit with the years—only
very much fatter. She got on slowly and turned her head about a good
deal, and asked Ninna’s opinion with much deference; for Tessa never
ceased to be astonished at the wisdom of her children. She still wore
her contadina gown: it was only broader than the old one; and there was
the silver pin in her rough curly brown hair, and round her neck the
memorable necklace, with a red cord under it, that ended mysteriously
in her bosom. Her rounded face wore even a more perfect look of
childish content than in her younger days: everybody was so good in the
world, Tessa thought; even Monna Brigida never found fault with her
now, and did little else than sleep, which was an amiable practice in
everybody, and one that Tessa liked for herself.

Monna Brigida was asleep at this moment, in a straight-backed
arm-chair, a couple of yards off. Her hair, parting backward under her
black hood, had that soft whiteness which is not like snow or anything
else, but is simply the lovely whiteness of aged hair. Her chin had
sunk on her bosom, and her hands rested on the elbow of her chair. She
had not been weaving flowers or doing anything else: she had only been
looking on as usual, and as usual had fallen asleep.

The other two figures were seated farther off, at the wide doorway that
opened on to the loggia. Lillo sat on the ground with his back against
the angle of the door-post, and his long legs stretched out, while he
held a large book open on his knee, and occasionally made a dash with
his hand at an inquisitive fly, with an air of interest stronger than
that excited by the finely-printed copy of Petrarch which he kept open
at one place, as if he were learning something by heart.

Romola sat nearly opposite Lillo, but she was not observing him. Her
hands were crossed on her lap and her eyes were fixed absently on the
distant mountains: she was evidently unconscious of anything around
her. An eager life had left its marks upon her: the finely-moulded
cheek had sunk a little, the golden crown was less massive; but there
was a placidity in Romola’s face which had never belonged to it in
youth. It is but once that we can know our worst sorrows, and Romola
had known them while life was new.

Absorbed in this way, she was not at first aware that Lillo had ceased
to look at his book, and was watching her with a slightly impatient
air, which meant that he wanted to talk to her, but was not quite sure
whether she would like that entertainment just now. But persevering
looks make themselves felt at last. Romola did presently turn away her
eyes from the distance and met Lillo’s impatient dark gaze with a
brighter and brighter smile. He shuffled along the floor, still keeping
the book on his lap, till he got close to her and lodged his chin on
her knee.

“What is it, Lillo?” said Romola, pulling his hair back from his brow.
Lillo was a handsome lad, but his features were turning out to be more
massive and less regular than his father’s. The blood of the Tuscan
peasant was in his veins.

“Mamma. Romola, what am I to be?” he said, well contented that there
was a prospect of talking till it would be too late to con “Spirto
gentil” any longer.

“What should you like to be, Lillo? You might be a scholar. My father
was a scholar, you know, and taught me a great deal. That is the reason
why I can teach you.”

“Yes,” said Lillo, rather hesitatingly. “But he is old and blind in the
picture. Did he get a great deal of glory?”

“Not much, Lillo. The world was not always very kind to him, and he saw
meaner men than himself put into higher places, because they could
flatter and say what was false. And then his dear son thought it right
to leave him and become a monk; and after that, my father, being blind
and lonely, felt unable to do the things that would have made his
learning of greater use to men, so that he might still have lived in
his works after he was in his grave.”

“I should not like that sort of life,” said Lillo. “I should like to be
something that would make me a great man, and very happy
besides—something that would not hinder me from having a good deal of
pleasure.”

“That is not easy, my Lillo. It is only a poor sort of happiness that
could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We
can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a
great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of
the world as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings
so much pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being
what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it
is good. There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world,
that no man can be great—he can hardly keep himself from
wickedness—unless he gives up thinking much about pleasure or rewards,
and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful. My father had the
greatness that belongs to integrity; he chose poverty and obscurity
rather than falsehood. And there was Fra Girolamo—you know why I keep
to-morrow sacred: _he_ had the greatness which belongs to a life spent
in struggling against powerful wrong, and in trying to raise men to the
highest deeds they are capable of. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act
nobly and seek to know the best things God has put within reach of men,
you must learn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will
happen to you because of it. And remember, if you were to choose
something lower, and make it the rule of your life to seek your own
pleasure and escape from what is disagreeable, calamity might come just
the same; and it would be calamity falling on a base mind, which, is
the one form of sorrow that has no balm in it, and that may well make a
man say, ‘It would have been better for me if I had never been born.’ I
will tell you something, Lillo.”

Romola paused for a moment. She had taken Lillo’s cheeks between her
hands, and his young eyes were meeting hers.

“There was a man to whom I was very near, so that I could see a great
deal of his life, who made almost every one fond of him, for he was
young, and clever, and beautiful, and his manners to all were gentle
and kind. I believe, when I first knew him, he never thought of
anything cruel or base. But because he tried to slip away from
everything that was unpleasant, and cared for nothing else so much as
his own safety, he came at last to commit some of the basest deeds—such
as make men infamous. He denied his father, and left him to misery; he
betrayed every trust that was reposed in him, that he might keep
himself safe and get rich and prosperous. Yet calamity overtook him.”

Again Romola paused. Her voice was unsteady, and Lillo was looking up
at her with awed wonder.

“Another time, my Lillo—I will tell you another time. See, there are
our old Piero di Cosimo and Nello coming up the Borgo Pinti, bringing
us their flowers. Let us go and wave our hands to them, that they may
know we see them.”

“How queer old Piero is!” said Lillo as they stood at the corner of the
loggia, watching the advancing figures. “He abuses you for dressing the
altar, and thinking so much of Fra Girolamo, and yet he brings you the
flowers.”

“Never mind,” said Romola. “There are many good people who did not love
Fra Girolamo. Perhaps I should never have learned to love him if he had
not helped me when I was in great need.”