 26 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 peasant road began to mingle with the peeling of the excited bells, it was a grand moment for those who were stationed on turtled 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 splendor of banners, and spears and plumes and silken circuits, 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 swish howl beardiers, fierce and ponderous, noble gaskons 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 splendor in nobles and knights and useful pages of choice lineage. At the Boston Jeweled Sword-Helts, at the satin scarfs embroidered with strange symbolical devices of pious or gallant meaning, at the gold chains and jeweled regrets, at the gorgeous horse-trappings and brocaded mantles, and at the transcendent canopy carried by select use 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, Fugran 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 Maestro Luca Crescini could have had a brief Latin welcome depending from his most illegible characters, would have been less confusing when the rain came on, and created 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 stepped forward and say a few words in French, said Sodorini, but no one of high importance chose to risk a second failure. You, Francesco Gatti, you can speak, but Gatti distrusted his own promptness, hung back, and pushing Tito said you, meloma. Tito stepped forward in an instant, and with an error profound deference that came as naturally to him as walking said the few needful words in the name of this 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 Gatti have the credit of the improvised welcome. No wonder Tito was popular, the touch-jone 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 modeled grotesque the imagination of his admirers would have been much assisted. It might have been wished that the scourge of Italian wickiness and champion of the honor 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 golden 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 be-pearled canopy, Fugran Magnificenza. And the people had cried Francia, Francia, with an enthusiasm proportion to the splendor of the canopy which they had tore to pieces as their spoil, according to immemorial custom. Royal lips had duly kissed at 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 Prado 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 Fugran Magnificenza. Along those illuminated streets Tito Malima 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-separagiety, 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 recognize Baldazar 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 Baldazar 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 di Bensi, 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 labor, 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 Capera, famous resort of all Florentines who cared for curious and beautiful ironwork. What makes a giant at work so late thought, Tito, but so much the better for me I can do that little bit of business tonight instead of tomorrow morning. Preoccupied as he was he could not help pausing a moment in admiration as he came in front of the workshop. The wide door, standing at the truncated angle of a great block or aisle of houses, was surmounted by a logear 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 and rhythmic eyes and fall, first hiding and the disclosing the profile of his firm mouth and powerful brow. Two slider 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 dine to pause and notice him. That was not until the smith had beaten the head of an axe to the dew sharpness of edge and dismissed it from his anvil. But in the meantime Tito had satisfied himself by a glance around the shop that the object of which he was in search had not disappeared. Niccolò gave an unceremonious but good-humored nod as he turned from the anvil and rested his hammer on his hip. What is it, may Sir 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 spearheads, 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 sides and spits in case of an uproar? We shall see. Arms are good, and Florence is likely to want them. The freight tells us we shall get Pisa again, and I hold with a freight. 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 freight 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 are a bit of a Medesian, mature Tito Malema, a bene. So I've been myself in my time before the cast 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 person that you 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 armor. It can't 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 Masso of Bressia. I should be loath 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 wanted 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, and 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 secondhand. You're not likely to have so much money with you. Let it be till tomorrow. I happened 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 armor 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 pognard, or arrow. But for my part, I would never put such a thing on. It's like carrying fear a boat 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. Adio! He folded the armor under his mantle and hastened across the Ponte Rubicante. End of Chapter 26 of Ramala. Chapter 27 of Ramala. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Ramala by George Elliot. Chapter 27. The Young Wife. While Tito was hastening across the bridge with the new bought armor under his mantle, Ramala 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 Ramala'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 Ramala 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 Cardinals. You know he has wanted so much by everyone. She answered in a tone of gentle excuse. 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, Ramala. 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 plateness. I shall die, and nothing will have been done. Make haste, my Ramala. I am ready, father, she said the next minute, holding the pen in her hand. But there was silence. Ramala took no note of this for a little while, accustomed to pauses and dictation, and when at last she looked round inquiringly there was no change of attitude. I am quite ready, father. Bardo was silent, and the silence was never again broken. Ramala looked back on that hour with some indignation against herself, because even with the first opus of her sorrow there had mingled the irrepressible thought, perhaps my life with Tita 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 uriadne under the snowing roses had felt more and more the presence of unexpected thorns. It was not Tita's fault. Ramala 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 the marriage, and even for some time after, Tita had seemed more unwearing 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. Ramala 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 the 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 her 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 preemptory, 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 Ramala 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 Ramala, 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 present felt even in the first moments when her father's place was empty. There was no longer any important acclaim to divide her from Tito. The young lives would flow in one current, and their true marriage would begin. But the sense of something like guilt toward her father in the 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 the 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 Santa Croce and the unfinished commentary on Tito's text was a collection of manuscripts and antiquities through to half a century's toil and frugality. The fulfillment of her father's lifelong ambition about this library was a sacramental obligation for Romula. The precious relic was saved from creditors, for when the deficit towards her payment had been ascertained, Bernardo Del Niro, though he was far from being among the wealthiest Florentines, had advanced the necessary sum of about a thousand Florence, a large sum in those days, accepting a lien on the collection as a security. The state where we pay me, he had said to Romula, 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 Medician collections in the Via Lager 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 Medician library was likely to be glad of a customer for it. With the 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 Romula these grave political changes had gathered their chief interest from their bearing on the fulfillment of her father's wish. She had been brought up in alerted 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 pings and the form 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 a 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 Romula's ardor 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 born for his sake, and Tito's airy, brilliant faculty had no attraction for her that was not merged in the deeper sympathies that belonged to young love and trust. Romula had had contact with no mind that could stir the larger possibilities of her nature, that they 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 influenced 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 secretarieship 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 years. This morning, for the first time, she had been to hear one of the admin's 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 Gialamo's voice and presence on her as a ground for expecting that a 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 role of distant thunder that seemed grand, but could not shake her. But when she heard seven arola invoke martyrdom, she sobbed with arrest. She felt herself penetrated with a new sensation. A strange sympathy was 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 apodge in which the 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 Niro 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 she really labored. The next time Tito came home, she would be careful to suppress all those promptings that seemed to isolate her from him. Romula was laboring as a loving woman must to subdue her nature to her husbands. 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 a hideous nightmare in which the world had seemed to break away all round her, and leave her feet overhanging in the darkness. Romula had never distinctly imagined such a future for herself. She was beginning to feel the presence of effort in the clinging trust which had once been mere repose. She waited and listened long, for Tito had not come straight home after leaving Nicolo Capera. And it was more than two hours after the time when he was crossing the Ponte Rubicante that Romula 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 Romula's face than in Tito's. The expression was more subdued, less cold, and more beseeching, and, as the pink flesh 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 onlooker would have said that Romula's nature was made to command and Tito's to bend, yet now Romula'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? Massa was there, and no more was said until they had crossed the anti-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 Romula's gentle voice was another. He just turned and kissed her when she took off his mantle. Then he went towards a highback chair, placed for him near the fire, threw himself into it, and flung away his cap, saying not peevishly but with the fatigued tone of remonstrance as he gave a slight shudder. Romula, I wish you would give up sitting in this library. Surely our own rooms are pleasanter in this chill weather. Romula 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 days at 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 Romula'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 tomorrow. The terrible resurrection of secret fears which, if Romula had known them, would have alienated her from him forever, 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, Romula. You must not be surprised if I am peevish. Ah, you have had so much to tire you today, said Romula, 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 armor, 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 today, then, said Romula 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. But is it that threatens you, my Tito, said Romula, looking terrified and clinging to him again? Everyone is threatened in these times, who is not a rabid enemy of the bodice. Don't look distressed, my Romula. This armor will make me safe against covert attacks. Tito put his hand on her neck and smiled. This little dialogue about the armor had broken through the new crust and made a channel for the sweet habit of kindness. But my godfather, then, said Romula, 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 Mr. Bernardo are protected by the position and their extensive family connections, which spread among all parties while I am a Greek that nobody would avenge. But Tito, it is a fear of some particular person or only a vague sense of danger that has made you think of wearing this. Romula was unable to repel the ideal 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 Romula. I shall consider that you have broken my confidence if you mention it to your godfather. Assuredly I will not mention it, said Romula, blushing. If you wish it to be a secret, but dearest Tito, she added after a moment's pause and in a tone of loving anxiety, it will make you very wretched. What will make me wretched, he said, with the scarcely perceptible movement across his face, as from some darting sensation? It is fear, this heavy armor. 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 me being punyarded or shot, why need I mind? I will give up the armor, shall I? No, Tito, no. I am fanciful. Do not heed what I have to say. 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. Ramala was silent a few moments. She shrank from insisting further on the subject of the armor. She tried to shake it off. Tell me what has happened today, she said, in a cheerful tone. Has all gone off well? Excellently well. First of all, the rain came and put an Anderluca Corsini's oration which nobody wanted to hear. And a ready-tongued personage. Some say it was Gaddy, some say it was Melema, but really it was done so quickly no one knows who it was. Had the honor of giving the Christianissimo the briefest possible welcome in bad French. Tito, it was you, I know, said Ramala 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 armor and jewels and trappings. Such as you saw at the last Florentine Geostra, only a great deal more of them. There was strutting and prancing and confusion and scrambling. And the people shouted and the Christianissimo smiling from ear to ear. And after that there was a great deal of flattery and eating and play. I was at Torambonis. I will tell you about it tomorrow. 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. Ramala's face saddened, but she checked herself and said cheerfully, You would not guess where I went today, Tito. I went to the Duomo to hear from Girolamo. Tito looked startled. He had immediately thought of Baltazar's entrance into the Duomo. But Ramala gave his look another meaning. You were 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 freight 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 it was strangely moved, I sobbed with the rest. Take care, Ramala, said Tito playfully, feeling we leave that she had said nothing about Baltazar. You have a touch of fanaticism in you. I shall have you seeing visions like your brother. No, it was the same with everyone else. He carried them all with him, unless it were that gross, dull, foe, spinny, whom I saw there making grimaces. There was even a wretched-looking man with a rope around his neck. An escaped prisoner, I should think, who had run in for shelter. A very walled-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 Dioma with Lorenzo Trombone 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 Pierrot de Cosimo. I saw Pierrot come in and cut off his rope and take him out of the church. What you want rest, Tito. You feel ill? Yes, the Tito rising. The horrible sense that he must live and continue a dread of what Baltzer had said or done pressed upon him like a cold weight. CHAPTER XXXVIII of Romula Romula by George Elliot CHAPTER XXVIII The Painted Record Four days later, Ramola was on her way to the house of Pierrot de Cosimo in the Villa Guadalajana. Some of the streets through which he 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 went out of its own country and in the presence of general inferiority, naturally assumed an air of conscious preeminence, and the Florentines who had taken such pains to play the host amiably were getting into the worst humor with their two superior guests. For after the smiling complements and festivities were over, after wondrous mysteries with unrivaled machinery of floating clouds and angels had been presented in churches, after the royal guest had honored 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, and as much 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 disappeared 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 offense 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 fiazza, wherever there was an opportunity of floating an insolent Frenchman. Under these circumstances the streets were not altogether a pleasant promenade for well-born women, but Ramola, shrouded in her black veil and mantle, and with old maso by her side, felt secure enough from and pertinent 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 favorite with the painter, and he was inclined to fulfill 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 Ramola was nervously anxious to have in her possession a copy of the only portrait existing of her father and 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. Ramola, by special favor, was allowed to intrude upon the painter without previous notice. She lifted the iron slide and called Piero in a flute-like tune as the little maiden with the eggs had done in Tito's presence. Piero was quick at answering, but when he opened the door he accounted for his quickness in a manner that was not complementary. Ah, Madonna, Robola, is it you? I thought my eggs would 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 Ramola, 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 a 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 Ramola uncovered them and glanced at him archly, and there come along with the light now, he added, lifting his eyes to her face and hair with the 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 there to stop my mouth while you scold me. Well, go 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. Qui promete non mantien, l'anima sua non va me bene. The door opening on the wild garden was closed now, and the painter was at work. Not at Ramola'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's, 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. He was not aware of what he had revealed as, peering at some detail on the painting which he had held in his hands, he went to place it on an easel. But Ramola 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 and astonishment, for presently she turned toward 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 portrayal 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 lifted it away with the spectra Ramola, pretended to be giving it a passing examination before putting it aside as a thing not good enough to show. But Ramola, who had the fact of the armor 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 Duomo. What was it that made you put him into that picture with Tito? Piero saw no better resource than to tell her 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 noting it's only a freakish dawg of mine. Piero ended contemptuously moving the sketch away with an error decision and putting it on a high shelf. Come and look at the edifice. 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 should entertain even a slightest suspicion against her husband. She merely said, in as quiet a tone as she could, he was a strange, piteously-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 edifice is pretty nearly finished. Tell me what you think of it. Ramola now gave her whole attention to her father's portrait, standing in law and silence before it. Ah, said she at last, you have done what I wanted. You have given it more of the listening look. Good Pierrot, 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 Pierrot, 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 paid 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 is enough if he himself, thanks, Mr. Domenedio, who has made him neither the one nor the other, but women think walls are held together with honey. You crusty Pierrot, I forgot how snappish you are. Here, put this nice sweetmeat in your mouth, said Ramola, smiling through her tears, and taking something very crisp and sweet from the little basket. Pierrot accepted it very much as that proverbial bear that dreams of pairs 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 and Tigioni, said Pierrot, putting his fingers in the basket for another. He had eaten nothing but hard eggs for a fortnight. Ramola stood opposite him, feeling her new anxiety suspended for a little while by the sight of this naïve enjoyment. Good-bye, Pierrot, she said presently, setting down the basket. I had promised 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 Pierrot, currently helping her with much deafness to fold her mantle and bail around her. I'm glad she asked no more questions about that sketch she thought when he'd 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. Pierrot 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 Ramola as she walked homeward. She could not help putting together the two facts of the chain-amour and the encounter mentioned by Pierrot 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 Menar, who holds something precious and want to believe that it is not broken. CHAPTER XXIX of Ramola 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 Cosmo 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 toward the piazza. Ah! he said, laying down the lute with emphasis. I would not for a gold flora 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 looked as frightened as if Satanasso had laid hold of him. I like to see your ready-smiling Miserie 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 chants stranger lays hold of him suddenly? Piero, keep that vinegar of thine as sauce to thine own eggs. What is it against my belle 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 a cannonball before breakfast. 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. Trees in Nello, a voice called out from the Inner Sanctum, that is not the doctrine of the State. Florentines 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. Florentines 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 Appiero here, if he makes such a point of valor, let him carry his biggest brush for a weapon and his pallet 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 hosans, said Piero. Who said anything about a wild beast, or about an unarmed man rushing into 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 Malema 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. Echo! There is a general laugh at Nello's defense, and it was clear that Piero's disinclination towards Tito was not shared by the company. The painter, with his undecipherable grimace, took the toe from his scarcella and stuffed his ears in indignant contempt, while Nello went on triumphantly. No, my Piero! I can't afford to have my bellerudito decried, and Florence can't afford it either, with her scholar's molting offer at the early age of forty. Our phoenix Pico just gone straight to paradise, as the frate has informed us, and the incompero Puliziano, not two months since, gone to—well, well—let us hope he has not gone to the eminent scholars in the Malibuol guy. By the way, said Francesco Tye, have you heard that Camilla Ruchelay has outdone the frate in her prophecies? She prophesied two years ago that Pico would die in the time of lilies. He 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 you, gay Camilla, if the frate can prove that any one of his visions has been as well fulfilled, I'll declare myself a piagnoni to-morrow. You are somewhat 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. There 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 Nicolo 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 Daito's bull's hide. It seems to me a dream may mean whatever comes after it. As our Franco Cicchetti says, a woman dreams overnight 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 Villalaga, 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 Villalaga 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 Malema, in smiling amusement at the compulsion he was under. His cap had slipped off his head and hung by the bichetto which was wound loosely round his neck, and as he saw the group at Nello's door he lifted up his finger in beckoning recognition. The next minute he had leaped from the bench onto 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 Caponi. Immediately there was a roar of voices, Caponi, Caponi, what's at our Piero? Ah, he wouldn't stand being sent from Herod to pilot. We knew Piero, or Sue 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 Caponi 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. Then Florentine, 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 Caponi back. The great spirit of your Florentine city did its work by a great word, without need of the great action 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 and 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 Caponi had somehow represented him, that he was the mind of which Caponi 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 Villalarga with a commission to this senioria. 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 wool-carders. 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 Baldissari 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 Baldissari 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 an intermittent blotch that comes in diseased vision. But this reappearance of Baldissari 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 piazzo del diomo, 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 to the inward drama of self-centered fear which he carried away from it. The crowd on Tito's disappearance had begun to turn their faces toward the outlets of the piazza in the direction of the Via Larga, when the sight of the Mezzieri, or Mace-bearers, entering from the Via de Mattelli, announced the approach of dignitaries. They must be the syndics, or commissioners, charged with the effecting of the treaty. The treaty must already be signed, and they had come away from the royal presence. Piero Capone 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 Bonsai, that the crowd waited for. It was not Francesco Valore popular as he had become in these late days. The moment belonged to another man, a firm presence, as little inclined to humor the people as to humor 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 Capone, Capone, well done Capone, 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 beer. Let us be glad that he got some thanks and praise while he lived. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. CHAPTER XXXIV of Ramola, The Avenger's Secret It was the first time that Baldassari had been in the piazzo 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 Baldassari'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 Baldassari'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 Baldassari reject Pierrot de Cosmo's friendly advances. He had been equally cautious at the hospital only telling an 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 woolen tunic to protect him from the cold, a pair of peasant's shoes, and a few dinari, 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 dinari 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 Baldassari 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 searched 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 toward Florence again, but he did not wish to enter the city till dusk, so he turned aside from the high road 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? Did 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 forever 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 unwrought with his emotions, and he had felt more and more constantly and painfully that uneasy sense of lost knowledge. But more than that, once or twice, when he had been strongly excited, he had seemed momentarily to be an 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 moved unbeknowned 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 anyone 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 Brati Feravecchi 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 had bought that ring at Florence of a young Greek well-dressed and with a handsome dark face, in the shop of a ring at Hier called Brati Feravecchi, in the street also called Feravecchi. This discovery had caused a violent agitation in Baldassari. 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 willfully 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 hopeless 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, Baldassari 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 Baldassari. 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 chance to meet the stranger who wore Tito's onyx ring, and though Baldassari would have been unable to describe the ring beforehand, the sight of it stirred the dormant fibres and he recognized 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 Baldassari shrunk 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 Baldassari 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 the 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 passions, 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 the 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 labored. 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 drafts 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 Baldassare'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 that 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 on 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 dare 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 brevy that they should never be opened, and at any previous moment in his life Baldasari 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 Baldasari's mind than with nervous fingers he snatched the brevy from his neck. It all rushed through his mind. The long years he had worn it, the far-off sunny balcony at Naples looking toward 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 duckets. Baldasari no sooner saw those possible duckets than he saw some of them exchanged for a ponyard. He did not want to use the ponyard 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 Baldasari'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 denari 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 Florence 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 Ultrano, and he thought of looking about for work as a porter. He had bought his dagger at Bratis. Paying his meditated visit there when evening at dusk he had found that singular rag merchant just returned from one of his rounds, emptying out his basket full of broken glass and old iron amongst his handsome show of miscellaneous second-hand goods. As Baldasari entered the shop and looked toward 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 had come from Genoa, and had been directed to Bratis' shop by an acquaintance in that city who had bought a very valuable ring here. Had the respectable trader any more such rings? Hereupon Bratis had much to say as to the unlikelihood of such rings being within the 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 peddler, he chose to be a peddler, 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 Bratis when they called him a peddler were a good deal further off the truth than the other side of Pisa. How was it that he could put the ring in a stranger's way? It was because he had a very particular knowledge of a handsome young senior, who did not look quite so fine a feathered bird when Bratis first set eyes on him as he did at the present time. And by a question or two Baldasari extracted without any trouble such a rough and rambling account of Tito's life as the peddler could give, since the time when he had found him sleeping under the logia de Cherchi. It never occurred to Bratis 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 peddler. And Baldasari left Bratis'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 you about his previous life, about his father? It would be difficult for Baldasari 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 at the Piazzo del Duomo, he had the fresh anguish of this consciousness in his mind, and Tito's ready speech fell upon him like a mockery of a glib-defying demon. As he went home to his heap of straw and passed by the book-sellers' shops in the Vio del Garbo, he paused to look at the volume 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 in 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 Baldissari. His strained eyes seemed still to see the white pages with the unintelligible black marks upon them. CHAPTER XXXI of Remola My Remola, said Tito the second morning after he had made his speech in the Piazzo del Duomo, I am to receive grand visitors to-day. The Milanese Count is coming again, and the Sennichal de Bocaire, the great favourite of the Christianissimo. I know you don't care to go through smiling ceremonies with these rustling magnets, whom we are not likely to see again, and as they will want to look at the antiquities in the library, perhaps you had better give up your work today and go to see your cousin Brigida. Remola 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 hands on his head, meaning to give a parting-cress. 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 pair when they have just fastened on it. Remola, 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 Masso with you. Still Tito did not look up, and Remola 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 Remola was out of the house, when 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 Remola 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 inclination leaned towards preserving Remola'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 Remola. 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 Remola 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 Baldissari 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. Or 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 Remola with him, and not, if possible, to carry any infamy. Success had given him a growing appetite for all the pleasures that depend on the advantageous social position, and at no moment could it look like a temptation to him, but only like a hideous alternative, to de-camp under dishonor, 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 Remola. 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 in 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 wrestling magnets came and went, the bargains had been concluded, and Remola 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. Remola 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 the 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 Remola, for Piero de 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 Niro came in. It is you, Godfather, how I wish you had come sooner. It is getting a little dusk, said Remola, 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 tomorrow, 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 in trade going on. That is joyful, said Remola. 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 senioria sent the mastiff of the city, Fragerolamo. 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 Remola, clasping him by the arm, led him in front of the pitcher. 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 Remola, in anxiety that he should see just what she saw. No child, no, said Bernardo, uncovering his gray 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 Remola, 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 pitcher 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 his shadows all his life. However, he had put his heart into that. Bernardo gave a slight shrug as he spoke the last words, but Remola 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 gone faloniere 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. Remola 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'm glad to know that his value is understood. You are contented then, Madonna or go gliosa, said Bernardo, smiling as he moved to the door, assuredly. Poor Remola, there was one thing that would have made the pang of disappointment in her husband harder to bear. It was that anyone 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 32 A REVELATION The next day, Remola, 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 with 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 lodger at the top of the house, and watched for the glimpses of the troops and their royal retinue, passing the bridges on their way to the Puerto San Piero that looks toward Siena and Rome. She even returned to her station when the gates had been closed, that she might feel herself vibrating with the great peel 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 idol 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 expecting yet. Before he came, she indented to leave the library and sit in the pretty salon 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 chill is 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 piquetto. 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, stroking her hair as his manner was, and seemed not to mind about taking off his mantle yet. Ramola quivered with delight. All the emotions of the day had been preparing in her a keen 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 Ramola, 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 Ramola'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 deppened by them. I fancied I was something like a pecanty possessed by a divine rage. Are not the people looking very joyful tonight? 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 grounds of gladness would be to have got out of Florence. Tito had sounded the desired keynote without any trouble or appearance of premeditation. He spoke with no emphasis, but he looked grave enough to make Ramola ask rather anxiously. Why, Tito, are there fresh troubles? No need of fresh ones, my Ramola. There are three strong parties in the city, all ready to fly at each other's throats, and if the fratis 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 lords 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 phonetics. 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 mother. She started. Tito, how could we leave Florence? Surely you did 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 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 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 Ramola 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 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 Ramola, 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 and disappointing herself by impractical dreams. Ramola 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 tide of 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 and 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 overestimate 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 Ramola. 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 forever, 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 anyone 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 death gods forever. You gave your life to your father while he lived. Why should you demand more of yourself? Because it was a trust, said Ramola in a low distinct voice. He trusted me. He trusted you, Tito. I did not expect you to feel anything else about it. To feel as I did, 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 airwoven fetters that mortals hang round themselves, spending their lives in misery under their mere imagination of weight. Your mind, which sees his ideas so readily, Maramola, is able to discriminate between substantial good and these brainwought 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. Ramola 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 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. Our faithfulness and love and sweet, grateful memory is 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 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 ascent. 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, Marimola, 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 have witted 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, Marimola. She turned her eyes on him in a 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, Ramola 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 hinted, I'm 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 Ramola for a little while. But it was absolutely necessary first that she should be reduced to passiveness. Try to calm yourself a little, Ramola, he said, leaning in the easiest attitude possible against a pedestal under the bust of a groomer 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. Ramola had paused and turned her eyes on him as she saw him take his stand and lodge the key in his scarcella. Her eyes were flashing, and her whole frame seemed to be possessed by Impletua's 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 conscience 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. Meso 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 a written agreement. The purchases have left Florence, and I hold the bonds for the purchase money. If my father had suspected you of being a faithless man, said Ramola in a tone of bitter scorn, which insisted on darting out before she could say anything else. He would have placed the libraries 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 a gathering passion, have you robbed somebody else who is not dead? Is that the reason you wear armour? Ramola had been driven to utter the words, as men are driven to use the latter of the horse whip. 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, Ramola. 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 Mesa Bernardo would be of that opinion. He would not, said Ramola. 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 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 de San Severino and the Son of Charles de Buccaire are now on their way with the King to Siena. They may be overtaken and persuaded to give up their purchase, said Ramola eagerly, her anger beginning to be surmounted by anxious thought. No, they may not, said Tito, with cool decision. Why? Because I did not choose that they should. But if you are paid the money, we will pay you the money, said Ramola. 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 passed. No, my Ramola, 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 turned 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 Mesa 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 Mesa 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 Ramola'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, Ramola. 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 no harm, and I shall disclose nothing. I will say nothing to pay him or you. You say, truly, the event is irrevocable. Then I shall do what you desire to more morning. Tonight, if possible, said Ramola, 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 Ramola, he said gently, not minding 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 Ramola, 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.