 CHAPTER 18 THE PORTRATE When Tito left the Via de Bardi that day, in exultant satisfaction at finding himself thoroughly free from the threatened peril, his thoughts no longer claimed by the immediate presence of Romula and her father, recurred to those futile hours of dread in which he was conscious at having not only felt but acted as he would not have done if he had had a truer foresight. He would not have parted with his ring, for Romula, and others to whom it was a familiar object, would be a little struck with the apparent sordidness of parting with a gem he had professedly cherished, unless he feigned as a reason the desire to make some special gift with the purchase money, and Tito had at that moment a nauseating weariness of simulation. He was well out of the possible consequences that might have fallen on him from that initial deception, and it was no longer a load on his mind. Kind fortune had brought him immunity, and he thought it was only fair that she should. Who was hurt by it? The results to Baldassare were too problematical to be taken into account. But he wanted now to be free from any hidden shackles that would gall him, though ever so little, under his ties to Romula. He was not aware that that very delight in immunity which prompted resolutions not to entangle himself again, was deadening the sensibilities which alone could save him from entanglement. But after all the sale of the ring was a slight matter. Was it also a slight matter that little Tessa was under a delusion which would doubtless fill her small head with expectations doomed to disappointment? Should he try to see the little thing alone again in un-deceiver at once, or should he leave the disclosure to time and chance? Happy dreams are pleasant, and they easily come to an end with daylight and the stir of life. The sweet, pouting, innocent, round thing. It was impossible not to think of her. Tito thought he should like some time to take her a present that would please her, and just learn if her stepfather treated her more cruelly now her mother was dead. Or should he at once un-deceive Tessa, and then tell Romula about her so that they might find some happier lot for the poor thing? No. That unfortunate little incident of the Cheretano and the marriage, and his allowing Tessa to part from him in delusion must never be known to Romula, and since no enlightenment could expel it from Tessa's mind, there would always be a risk of betrayal. Besides, even little Tessa might have some gall in her when she found herself disappointed in her love. Yes, she must be a little in love with him, and that might make it well that he should not see her again. Yet it was a trifling adventure such as a country girl would perhaps ponder on till some ruddy Contadino made acceptable love to her when she would break her resolution of secrecy and get it the truth that she was free. Dunque. Good-bye, Tessa, kindest wishes. Tito had made up his mind that the silly little affair of the Cheretano should have no further consequences for himself, and people are apt to think that resolutions taken on their own behalf will be firm. As for the fifty-five Florence, the purchase-money of the ring, Tito had made up his mind what to do with some of them. He would carry out a pretty ingenious thought, which would set him more at ease in accounting for the absence of his ring to Romula, and would also serve him as a means of guarding her mind for the recurrence of those monkish fancies which were especially repugnant to him. And with this thought in his mind he went to the Via Guelfonda to find Piero di Cosimo, the artist who at that time was preeminent in the fantastic mythological design which Tito's purpose required. Entering the court on which Piero's dwelling opened, Tito found the heavy iron knocker on the door thickly bound round with wool and ingeniously fastened with cords. Remembering the painter's practice of stuffing his ears against obtrusive noises, Tito was not much surprised at this mode of defense against visitor's thunder, and betook himself first to tapping modestly with his knuckles and then to a more important attempt to shake the door. In vain, Tito was moving away, blaming himself for wasting his time on this visit instead of waiting till he saw the painter again at Nello's, when a little girl entered the court with a basket of eggs on her arm, went up to the door and standing on tiptoe pushed up a small iron plate that ran in grooves, and putting her mouth to the aperture, thrust disclosed, cold out in a piping voice, Meser Piero! In a few moments Tito heard the sound of bolts, the door opened, and Piero presented himself in a red nightcap in a loose brown-serrish tunic, with sleeves rolled up to the shoulder. He darted a look of surprise at Tito, but without further notice of him stretched out his hand to take the basket from the child, re-entered the house, and presently returning with the empty basket said, How much to pay? You grosoni, Meser Piero! They are already boiled, my mother says. Piero took the coin out of the Leatherns' Garcella at his belt, and the little maiden trotted away, not without a few upward glances of odd admiration at the surprising young senior. Piero's glance was much less complimentary, as he said. What do you want at my door, Meser Greco? I saw you this morning at Nello's. If you had asked me then, I could have told you that I see no man in this house without knowing his business and agreeing with him beforehand. Pardon, Meser Piero, said Tito, with his imperturbable good humour. I acted without sufficient reflection. I remembered nothing but your admirable skill in inventing petty capresses, when a sudden desire for something of that sort prompted me to come to you. The painter's manners were too notoriously odd to all the world, for this reception to be held a special affront. But even if Tito had suspected any offensive intention, the impulse to resentment would have been less strong in him than the desire to conquer goodwill. Piero made a grimace which was habitual with him when he was spoken to with flattering suavity. He grinned, stretched out the corners of his mouth, and pressed down his brows so as to defy any divination of his feelings under that kind of stroking. And what may that need be, he said, after a moment's pause. In his heart he was tempted by the hinted opportunity of applying his invention. I want a very delicate miniature device taken from certain fables of the poets, which you will know how to combine for me. It must be painted on a wooden case I will show you the size in the form of a triptych. The inside may be simple gilding. It is on the outside I want the device. It is a favorite subject with you Florentines, the triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne, but I want it treated in a new way. A story in Ovid will give you the necessary hints. The young Bacchus must be seated in a ship, his head bound with clusters of grapes, and a spear entwined with vine leaves in his hand. Dark-buried ivy must wind around the masts and sails, the oars must be thursi, and the flowers must entwine themselves around the poop. Leopards and tigers must be crouching before him, and dolphins must be sporting round. But I want to have the fair-haired Ariadne with him made immortal with her golden crown. That is not in Ovid's story, but no matter you will conceive it all, and above there must be young love, such as you know how to paint, shooting with roses at the points of their arrows. Say no more, said Pyro, I have Ovid in the vulgar tongue. Find me the passage. I love not to be choked with other men's thoughts. You may come in. Pyro led the way through the first room, where a basket of eggs was deposited on the open hearth, near a heap of broken eggshells and a bank of ashes. In strange keeping with that sordid litter, there was a low bedstead of carved ebony, covered carelessly with a piece of rich oriental carpet that looked as if it had served to cover the steps to a Madonna's throne, and a carved cassone, or large chest, with painted devices on its sides and lid. There was hardly any other furniture in the large room, except castes, wooden steps, easels, and rough boxes all festooned with cobwebs. The next room was still larger, but it was also much more crowded. Apparently Pyro was keeping the festa, for the double door underneath the window, which admitted the painter's light from above, was thrown open, and showed a garden, or rather thicket, in which fig trees and vines grew entangled trailing wildness among nettles and hemlocks, and a tall cypress lifted its dark head from a stifling mass of yellowish mulberry leaves. It seemed as if that dank luxuriance had begun to penetrate, even within the walls of the wide and lofty room. For in one corner amidst a confused heap of carved marble fragments and rusty armor, tufts of long grass and dark feathery fennel had made their way, and a large stone vase tilted on one side seemed to be pouring out the ivy that streamed around. All about the walls hung pennant oil sketches of fantastic sea monsters, dances of satyrs and maynids. St. Margaret's resurrection out of the devouring dragon, Madonna's with a supernal light upon them, studies of plants and grotesque heads, and on irregular rough shelves a few books were scattered among great drooping bunches of corn, bullock's horns, pieces of dried honeycomb, stones with patches of rare-colored lichen, skulls and bones, peacock's feathers, and large bird's wings. Rising from amongst the dirty litter of the floor were lay figures, one in the frock of a vellum-browsen monk, strangely surmounted by a helmet with barred visor, another smothered with brocade and skin hastily tossed over it. Amongst this heterogeneous still life several speckled-and-white pigeons were perched or strutting, too tame to fly at the entrance of men, three corpulent toads were crawling in an intimate friendly way near the door-stone, and a white rabbit, apparently the model for that which was frightening cupid in the picture of Mars and Venus placed on the central easel, was twitching its nose with much content on a box full of bran. And now, Messer Greco, said Pirro, making a sign to Tito that he might sit down on a low stool near the door and then standing over him with folded arms. Don't be trying to see everything at once like Messer Dominedio, but let me know how large you would have this same triptych. Tito indicated the required dimensions and Pyro marked them on a piece of paper. And now for the book, said Pyro, reaching down a manuscript volume. There's nothing about the Ariadne there, said Tito, giving him the passage, but you will remember I want the crowned Ariadne by the side of the young Bacchus. She must have golden hair. Ha! said Pyro abruptly, pursing up his lips again, and you want there to be likenesses, eh? He added, looking down at Tito's face. Tito laughed and blushed. I know you were great at portraits, Messer Pyro, but I could not ask Ariadne to sit for you because the painting is a secret. There it is. I want her to sit to me. Giovanni Vespucci wants me to paint him a picture of Oedipus and Antigone at Colonos as he expounded it to me. I have a fancy for the subject, and I want Bardo and his daughter to sit for it. Now you ask them, and then I'll put the likeness into Ariadne. Agreed, if I can prevail with them. And your price for the Bacchus and Ariadne? Valle, if you get them to let me paint them, that will pay me. I'd rather not have your money. You may pay for the case. And when shall I sit for you? said Tito, for if we have one likeness we must have two. I don't want your likeness. I've got it already, said Piero. Only I've made you look frightened. I must take the fright out of it for Bacchus. As he was speaking, Piero laid down the book and went to look among some paintings, propped with their faces against the wall. He returned with an oil sketch in his hand. I called this as good a bit of portrait as I ever did, he said, looking at it as he advanced. Yours is a face that expresses fear well because it's naturally a bright one. I noticed it the first time I saw you. The rest of the picture is hardly sketched, but I painted you in thoroughly. Piero turned the sketch and held it towards Tito's eyes. He saw himself, with his right hand up lifted, holding a wine cup in the attitude of triumphant joy, but with his face turned away from the cup with an expression of such intense fear in the dilated eyes and pallid lips that he felt a cold stream through his veins, as if you were being thrown into sympathy with his imaged self. You were beginning to look like it already, said Piero, with a short laugh, moving the picture away again. He's seeing a ghost, that fine young man. I shall finish it some day when I've settled what sort of ghost is the most terrible, whether it should look solid like a dead man come to life or half transparent like a mist. Tito, rather ashamed of himself for a sudden sensitiveness, strangely opposed to his usual easy self-command, said carelessly, that is a subject after your own heart, Mr. Piero, a revel interrupted by a ghost. You seem to love the blending of the terrible with the gay. I suppose that is the reason your shelves are so well furnished with death's heads. While you're painting those roguish loves who are running away with the armor of Mars, I begin to think you are a cynic philosopher in the pleasant disguise of a cunning painter. Not I, Mr. Greco. A philosopher is the last sort of animal I should choose to resemble. I find it enough to live without spinning lies to account for life. Fouls, cackle, asses, bray, women, chatter, and philosophers spin false reasons. That's the effect the sight of the world brings out of them. Well, I am an animal that paints instead of cackling or braying or spinning lies. And now I think our business is done. You'll keep to your side of the bargain about the edifice and antiquity? I will do my best, said Tito, on this strong hint immediately moving towards the door. And you'll let me know at Nellows. No need to come here again. I understand, said Tito, laughingly, lifting his hand in sign of friendly parting. End of Chapter 18. Chapter 19 of Romola by George Elliot. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Romola by George Elliot. Chapter 19. The Old Man's Hope. Messer Bernardo Del Nero was as inexorable as Romola had expected in his advice that the marriage should be deferred till Easter. And in this matter, Bardo was entirely under the ascendancy of his sagacious and practical friend. Nevertheless, Bernardo himself, though he was as far from ever from any susceptibility to the personal fascination in Tito, which was felt by others, could not altogether resist that argument of success, which is always powerful with men of the world. Tito was making his way rapidly in high quarters. He was especially growing in favor with the young cardinal Giovanni de Medici, who had even spoken of Tito's forming part of his learned retinue on an approaching journey to Rome, and the bright young Greek who had a tongue that was always ready without ever being quarrelsome, was more and more wished for at gay suppers in the Villalarga, and at Florentine games in which he had no pretension to excel, and could admire the incomparable skill of Piero de Medici in the most graceful manner in the world. By an unfailing sequence, Tito's reputation as an agreeable companion in magnificent society made his learning and talent appear more lustrous, and he was really accomplished enough to prevent an exaggerated estimate from being hazardous to him. Messer Bernardo had old prejudices and attachments, which now began to argue down the newer and feebler prejudice against the young Greek stranger who was rather too supple. To the old Florentine it was impossible to despise the recommendation of standing well with the best Florentine families, and since Tito began to be thoroughly received into that circle whose views were the unquestioned standard of social value, it seemed irrational not to admit that there was no longer any check to satisfaction in the prospect of such a son-in-law for Bernardo and such a husband for Romula. It was undeniable that Tito's coming had been the dawn of a new life for both father and daughter, and the first promise had even been surpassed. The blind old scholar, whose proud truthfulness would never enter into that commerce of feigned and preposterous admiration, which, varied by a corresponding measurelessness in vituporation, made the wolf of all learned intercourse, had fallen into neglect even among his fellow citizens, and when he was alluded to at all it had long been usual to say that, though his blindness and this loss of his son were pitiable misfortunes, he was tiresome in contending for the value of his own labours, and that his discontent was a little inconsistent in a man who had been openly regardless of religious rites, and who in days past had refused offers made to him from various quarters, on the slight condition that he would take orders, without which it was not easy for patrons to provide for every scholar. But since Tito's coming there was no longer the same monotony in the thought that Bardo's name suggested. The old man it was understood had left off his planes, and the fair daughter was no longer to be shut up in dourless pride waiting for a parentado. The winning manners and growing favour of the handsome Greek, who was expected to enter into the double relation of son and husband, helped to make the new interest a thoroughly friendly one, and it was no longer a rare occurrence when a visitor enlivened the quiet library. Elderly men came, from that indefinite prompting to renew former intercourse, which arises when an old acquaintance begins to be newly talked about, and young men, whom Tito had asked leave to bring once, found it easy to go again when they overtook him on his way to the Via de Bardi, and resting their hands on his shoulder fell into easy chat with him. For it was pleasant to look at Romula's beauty, to see her like old Ferenzoola's type of womanly majesty, sitting with a certain grandeur, speaking with gravity, smiling with modesty, and casting around, as it were, an odour of queenliness, and she seemed to unfold like a strong white lily under this genial breath of admiration and homage. It was all one to her with her new bright life in Tito's love. Tito had even been the means of strengthening the hope in Bardo's mind that he might before his death receive the longed for security concerning his library, that it should not be merged in another collection, that it should not be transferred to a body of monks and be called by the name of a monastery, but that it should remain forever the Bardi library for the use of Florentines. For the old habit of trusting in the Medici could not die out while their influence was still the strongest lever in the state, and Tito, once possessing the ear of the cardinal Giovanni de Medici, might do more even than Messer Bernardo towards winning the desired interest, for he could demonstrate to a learned audience the peculiar value of Bardo's collection. Tito himself talked sanguinely of such a result, willing to cheer the old man, and conscious that Romula repaid those gentle words to her father with a sort of adoration that no direct tribute to herself could have won from her. This question of the library was the subject of more than one discussion with Bernardo Del Nero when Christmas was turned and the prospect of the marriage was becoming near, but always out of Bardo's hearing. For Bardo nursed a vague belief which they dared not disturb that his property apart from the library was adequate to meet all demands. He would not even, except under a momentary pressure of angry despondency, admit to himself that the will by which he had disinherited Dino would leave Romula the heir of nothing but debts, or that he needed anything from patronage beyond the security that a separate locality should be assigned to his library, in return for a deed of gift by which he made it over to the Florentine Republic. My opinion is, said Bernardo to Romula, in a consultation they had under the Lodger, that since you are to be married and Messertito will have a competent income, we should begin to wind up the affairs and ascertain exactly the sum that would be necessary to save the library from being touched, instead of letting the debts accumulate any longer. Your father needs nothing but his shred of mutton and his macaroni every day, and I think Messertito may engage to supply that for the years that remain. He can let it be in place of the Morgan cap. Tito has always known that my life is bound up with my father's," said Romula, and he is better to my father than I am. He delights in making him happy. Ah, he's not made of the same clay as other men, is he? said Bernardo, smiling. Thy father has thought of shutting women's folly out of thee by cramming thee with Greek and Latin, but thou hast been as ready to believe in the first pair of bright eyes and the first soft words that have come within reach of thee, as if thou couldst say nothing by heart but Paternoster's, like other Christian men's daughters. Now, Godfather, said Romula, shaking her head playfully. As if it were only bright eyes and soft words that made me love Tito. You know better. You know I love my father and you because you are both good, and I love Tito too because he is so good. I see it, I feel it in everything he says and does, and if he is handsome too, why should I not love him the better for that? It seems to me beauty is part of the finished language by which goodness speaks. You know you must have been a very handsome youth, Godfather. She looked up with one of her happy, loving smiles at the stately old man. You were about as tall as Tito, and you had very fine eyes, only you looked a little sterner and prouder, and Romula likes to have all the pride to herself, said Bernardo, not inaccessible to this pretty coaxing. However, it is well that in one way Tito's demands are more modest than those of any Florentine husband of fitting rank that we should have been likely to find for you. He wants no dowry. So it was settled in that way between Messer Bernardo Del Nero, Romula, and Tito. Bardo assented with a wave of the hand when Bernardo told him that he thought it would be well now to begin to sell property and clear off debts. Being accustomed to think of debts and property as a sort of thick wood that his imagination never even penetrated, still less got beyond. And Tito said about winning Messer Bernardo's respect by inquiring with his ready faculty into Florentine money-matters, the secrets of the Monty or public funds, the values of real property, and the profits of banking. You will soon forget that Tito is not a Florentine, Godfather, said Romula. See how he is learning everything about Florentine's! It seems to me he is one of the daimone who are of no particular country, child," said Bernardo, smiling. His mind is a little too nimble to be weighted with all the stuff we men carry about in our hearts. Romula smiled, too, in happy confidence. The secrets of Florence were at their fullest and noisiest. There were the masked processions, chanting songs, indispensable now they had once been introduced by Lorenzo the Magnificent. There was the favorite regaletto or round dance, footed in the piazza, under the blue frosty sky. There were practical jokes of all sorts, from throwing confets to throwing stones. Especially stones, for the boys and stipplings, always a strong element in Florentine crowds, became, at the height of carnival time, as loud and unmanageable as tree crickets. And it was their immemorial privilege to bar the way with poles to all passengers, until a tribute had been paid towards furnishing those lovers of strong sensations with suppers and bonfires. To conclude with the standing entertainment of stone-throwing, which was not entirely monotonous since the consequent maiming was various, and it was not always a single person who was killed. So the pleasures of the carnival were of a checkered kind, and if a painter were called upon to represent them truly, he would have to make a picture in which there would be so much grossness and barbarity that it must be turned with its face to the wall, except when it was taken down for the grave historical purpose of justifying a reforming zeal which, in ignorance of the facts, might be unfairly condemned for its narrowness. Still there was much of that more innocent picturesque merriment which is never wanting among a people with quick animal spirits and sensitive organs. There was not the heavy saddishness which belongs to the thicker northern blood, nor the stealthy fierceness which in the more southern regions of the peninsula makes the brawl lead to the dagger-thrust. It was the high mourning, but the merry spirits of the carnival were still inclined to lounge and recapitulate the last night's jests, when Tito Malema was walking at a brisk pace on the way to the Via de Bardi. Young Bernardo De Visi, who now looked at us out of Raphael's portrait as the keen-eyed cardinal de Babinia, was with him, and as they went they held animated talk about some subject that had evidently no relation to the sights and sounds to which they were pushing their way along the poor Santa Maria. Nevertheless, as they discussed, smiled and gesticulated, they both from time to time cast quick glances around them, and at the turning towards the long arno leading to the Ponte Rubicanti, Tito had become aware, in one of these rapid surveys, that there was someone not far off from him by whom he very much desired not to be recognized at that moment. His time and thoughts were thoroughly preoccupied, for he was looking forward to a unique occasion in his life. He was preparing for his betrothal, which was to take place on the evening of this very day. The ceremony had been resolved upon rather suddenly, for although preparations towards the marriage had been going forward for some time, chiefly in the application of Tito's Florence to the fitting up of rooms in Bardot's dwelling, which the library accepted had always been scantily furnished. It had been intended to defer both the betrothal and the marriage until after Easter, when Tito's year of probation, insisted on by Bernardo del Niro, would have been complete. But when an express proposition had come that Tito should follow the Cardinal Giovanni to Rome to help Bernardo dovesi with his superior knowledge of Greek in arranging a library, and there was no possibility of declining what lay so plainly on the road to advancement, he had become urgent in his entreaties that the betrothal might take place before his departure. There would be less delay before the marriage on his return, and it would be less painful to part if he and Romula were outwardly as well as inwardly pledged to each other, if he had a claim which defied Mr. Bernardo or anyone else to nullify it. For the betrothal at which rings were exchanged and mutual contracts were signed made more than half the legality of marriage to be completed on a separate occasion by the nuptial benediction, Romula's feelings had met Tito's in this wish, and the consent of the elders had been won. And now Tito was hastening, amidst arrangements for his departure the next day, to snatch a morning visit to Romula, to say and hear any last words that were needful to be said before the meeting for the betrothal in the evening. It was not a time when any recognition could be pleasant that was at all likely to detain him. Still less a recognition by Tessa, and it was unmistakably Tessa whom he had caught sight of moving along, with a timid and forlorn look towards that very turn of the long arno which he was just rounding. As he continued his talk with the young Dervisi, he had an uncomfortable undercurrent of consciousness which told him that Tessa had seen him and would certainly follow him. There was no escaping her along this direct road by the arno and over the Ponte Rubicanti, but she would not dare to speak to him or approach him while he was not alone, and he would continue to keep Dervisi with him till they reach Bardo's door. He quickened his pace and took up new threads of talk, but all the while the sense that Tessa was behind him, though he had no physical evidence of the fact, grew stronger and stronger. It was very irritating. Perhaps all the more so because a certain tenderness and pity for the poor little thing made the determination to escape, without any visible notice of her, a not altogether agreeable resource. Yetita persevered and carried his companion to the door, heavily managing his adio, without turning his face in the direction where it was possible for him to see any fortunate pair of blue eyes. And as he went up the stone steps he tried to get rid of unpleasant thoughts by saying to himself that after all Tessa might not have seen him, or if she had, might not have followed him. But perhaps because that possibility could not be relied on strongly, when the visit was over he came out of the doorway with a quick step and an air of unconsciousness as to anything that might be on his right hand or his left. Our eyes are so constructed, however, that they take in a wide angle without asking any leave of our will. And Tita knew that there was a little figure in a white hood standing near the doorway. Knew it quite well, before he felt a hand laid on his arm. It was a real grasp, and not a light timid touch, for poor Tessa seeing his rapid step had started forward with a desperate effort. But when he stopped and turned towards her her face wore a frightened look as if she dreaded the effect of her boldness. Tessa, said Tito, with more sharpness in his voice than she had ever heard in it before. Why are you here? You must not follow me. You must not stand about doorplaces waiting for me. Her blue eyes widened with tears, and she said nothing. Tito was afraid of something worse than ridicule. If he were seen in the Via de Bardi with a girlish contidina looking pathetically at him, it was a street of high silent looking dwellings, not of traffic. But Bernardo del Niro, or someone almost as dangerous, might come up at any moment, even if it had not been the day of his betrothal. The incident would have been awkward and annoying. Yet it would be brutal. It was impossible to drive Tessa away with harsh words. The accursed folly of his with the serratano, that it should have laid buried in the quiet way for months, and now start up before him as this unseasonable crop of vexation. He could not speak harshly, but he spoke hurriedly. Tessa, I cannot, must not talk to you here. I will go on to the bridge and wait for you there. Follow me slowly. He turned and walked fast to the Ponte Rubicante, and there leaned against the wall of one of the quaint little houses that rise at every distance on the bridge, looking towards the way by which Tessa would come. It would have softened a much harder heart than Tito's to see the little one advancing with her round face much paled and saddened, since he had parted from it at the door of the Nunziata. Happily it was the least frequented of the bridges, and there were scarcely any passengers on it at this moment. He lost no time in speaking as soon as she came near him. Now, Tessa, I have very little time. You must not cry. Why did you follow me this morning? You must not do so again. I thought to Tessa speaking in a whisper and struggling against a sob that would rise immediately in this new voice of Tito's. I thought you wouldn't be so long before you came to take care of me again, and the patrigno beats me, and I can't bear it any longer. And always when I come for a holiday, I walk about to find you, and I can't. Well, please don't send me away from you again. It has been so long, and I cry so now, because you never come to me. I can't help it, for the days are so long, and I don't mind about the goats and kids or anything, and I can't. The sobs came fast now, and the great tears. Tito felt that he could not do otherwise than comfort her. Send her away, yes, that he must do at once. But it was all the more impossible to tell her anything that would leave her in a state of hopeless grief. He saw new trouble in the background, but the difficulty of the moment was too pressing for him to weigh distant consequences. Tested my little one, he said, in his old caressing tones. You must not cry. Bear with the cross, patrigno, a little longer. I will come back to you. But I'm going now to Rome, a long, long way off. I shall come back in a few weeks, and then I promise you to come and see you. Promise me to be good and wait for me. It was the well-remembered voice again, and the mere sound was half enough to soothe Tessa. She looked up at him with trusting eyes that still glittered with tears, sobbing all the while in spite of her utmost efforts to obey him. Again he said in a gentle voice, Promise me, my Tessa. Yes she whispered, but you won't be long? No, not long, but I must go now, and remember what I told you, Tessa. Nobody must know that you ever see me, else you will lose me forever. And now, when I have left you, go straight home, and never follow me again. Wait till I come to you. Goodbye, my little Tessa, I will come. There was no help for it. He must turn and leave her without looking behind him to see how she bored, for he had no time to spare. When he did look round, he was in the Via Debenzi, where there was no seeing what was happening on the bridge. But Tessa was too trusting and obedient not to do just what he had told her. Yes, the difficulty was at an end for that day, yet this return of Tessa to him at a moment when it was impossible for him to put an end to all difficulty with her by un-deceiving her was an unpleasant incident to carry in his memory. But Tessa's mind was just now thoroughly penetrated with a hopeful first love associated with all happy prospects flattering to his ambition, and the future necessity of grieving Tessa could be scarcely more to him than the far-off cry of some little suffering animal buried in the thicket, to a merry cavalcade in the sunny plain. When, for the second time that day, Tessa was hastening across the Ponte Rubicante the thought of Tessa cause no perceptible diminution of his happiness, he was well muffled in his mantle, less perhaps to protect him from the cold than from the additional notice that would have been drawn upon him by his dainty apparel. He leaped up the stone steps by two at a time and said hurriedly to Masso, who met him, where is it de Miguelha? In the library, she is quite ready, and Mona Brigada and Monsieur Bernardo are already there with Sir Braccio, but none of the rest of the company. This could give me a few minutes alone. I will await her in the salado. Tito entered the room, which had been fitted up in the utmost contrast with the half-pallet, half-somber tints of the library. The walls were brightly frescoed with caprices of nymphs and loves sporting under the blue among flowers and birds. The only furniture besides the red leather seats in the central table were two tall white vases and a young fawn playing the flute, modeled by a promising youth named Michelangelo Bernardi. It was a room that gave a sense of being in the sunny open air. Tito kept his mantle round him and looked towards the door. It was not long before Romella entered, all white and gold, more than ever like a tall lily. Her white silk garment was bound by a golden girdle which fell with large tassels, and above that was the rippling gold of her hair, surmounted by the white mist of her long veil, which was fastened on her brow by a band of pearls. The gift of Bernardo del Niro, and was now parted off her face so that it all floated backward. Regina Mia satia as he took her hand and kissed it, still keeping his mantle round him. He could not help going backward to look at her again while she stood in calm delight, with that exquisite self-consciousness which rises under the gaze of admiring love. Romella, will you show me the next room now? Satito checking himself with the remembrance that the time might be short. She said, I should see it when you had arranged everything. Without speaking she led the way into the long narrow room, painted brightly like the other but only with birds and flowers. The furniture in it was all old. There were old faded objects for feminine use or ornament, arranged in an open cabinet between the two narrow windows. Above the cabinet was the portrait of Romella's mother, and below this, on the top of the cabinet, stood the crucifix which Romella had brought from San Marco. I have brought something under my mantle, said Satito, smiling, and throwing off the large loose garment, he showed the little tabernacle which had been painted by Piero de Cosimo. The painter had carried out Tito's intentions charmingly, and so far had atoned for his long delay. Do you know what this is for, my Romella? Added Tito, taking her by the hand and leading her towards the cabinet. It is a little shrine which is to hide away from you forever the remembrancer of sadness. You have done with sadness now, and we will bury all images of it. Burry them in a tomb of joy. See? A slight quiver passed across Romella's face as Tito took hold of the crucifix, but she had no wish to prevent his purpose. On the contrary, she herself wished to subdue certain importunate memories and questionings, which still flitted like unexplained shadows across her happier thought. He opened the tick and placed the crucifix within the central space, then closing it again, taking out the key and setting the little tabernacle in the spot where the crucifix head stood, said, Now, Romella, look and see if you are satisfied with the portraits old Pierrot has made of us. Is it not a dainty device? And the credit of choosing it is mine. Ah, it is you. It is perfect, said Romella, looking with moist, joyful eyes at the miniature batches with his purple clusters. And I am Ariadne, and you are crowning me. Yes, it is true, Tito. You have crowned my poor life. They held each other's hands while she spoke, and both looked at their image selves. But the reality was far more beautiful. She all lily-white and golden, and he with his dark glowing beauty above the purple-red-bordered tunic. And it was our good, strange Pierrot who painted it, said Romella. Did you put it into his head to paint me as Antagon, that he might have in my likeness for this? No, it was he who made my getting leave for him to paint you and your father a condition of his doing this for me. Ah, I see now what it was you gave up your precious ring for. I perceived you had some cunning plan to give me pleasure. Tito did not blench. And Romella's little illusion about him had long ceased to cause him anything but satisfaction. He only smiled and said, I might have spared my ring. Pierrot will accept no money from me. He thinks himself paid by painting you. And now, while I am away, you will look every day at those pretty symbols of our life together. The ship on the calm sea and the ivy that never withers, and those loves that have left off wounding us and shower soft petals that are like our kisses, and the leopards and tigers, they are the troubles of your life that are all quelled now, and the strange sea monsters with their merry eyes, let us see. They are the dull passages in the heavy books which have begun to be amusing since we have sat by each other. Tito meows said Romella in a half laughing voice of love, but you will give me the key, she added, holding out her hand for it. Not at all, said Tito, with playful decision opening his carcala and dropping in the little key. I shall drown it in the air now. But if I ever want to look for the crucifix again, for that very reason it is hidden, hidden by these images of youth and joy. He pressed a light kiss on her brow, and she said no more, ready to submit like all strong souls when she felt no valid reason for resistance. And then they joined the waiting company, which made a dignified little procession as it passed along the Ponte Rubicante towards Santa Croce. Slowly it passed, for bardo, uncustom for years to leave his own house, walked with a more timid step than usual, and that slow pace suited well with the gaudy dignity of Mesa Bartolomio Scala, who graced the occasion by his presence along with his daughter Alessandra. It was customary to have very long troops of kindred and friends at the Sposalizio, or betrothal, and it had even been found necessary in time past to limit the number by law to no more than four hundred, two hundred on each side, for since the guests were all feasted after this initial ceremony as well as after the noze, or marriage, the very first stage of matrimony had become a ruinous expense, as that scholarly Benedict Leonardo Bruno complained in his own case. But bardo, who in his poverty had kept himself proudly free from any appearance of claiming the advantages attached to a powerful family name, would have no invitations given on the strength of mere friendship, and the modest procession of twenty that followed the Sposy were, with three or four exceptions, friends of bardo's and Tito's, selected on personal grounds. Bernardo Del Niro walked as a vanguard before bardo, who was led on the right by Tito, while Ramala held her father's other hand. Bardo had himself been married at Santa Croce, and had insisted on Ramala's being betrothed and married there, rather than in the little church of Santaluccia, close by their house. Because he had a complete mental vision of the grand church where he hoped that a burial might be granted him among the Florentines, who had deserved well. Happily the way was short and direct, and lay aloof from the loudest ride of the carnival, if only they could return before any dancers or shows began in the great piazza of Santa Croce. The west was red as they passed the bridge, and shed a mellow light on the pretty procession, which had a touch of solemnity in the presence of the blind father. But when the ceremony was over, and Tito and Ramala came out onto the broad steps of the church, with the golden links of destiny on their fingers, the evening had deepened into struggling starlight, and the servants had their torches lit. While they came out, a strange dreary chant, as of a miserer, met their ears, and they saw that at the extreme end of the piazza there seemed to be a stream of people impelled by something approaching from the borgo de Gricci. It is one of their mass processions, I suppose, that Tito, who was now alone with Ramala, while Bernardo took charge of Bardo, and as he spoke there came slowly into view at a height far above the heads of the onlookers, a huge and ghastly image of winged time with a scythe and hourglass, surrounded by his winged children the hours. He was mounted on a high car, completely covered with black, and the bullocks that drew the car were also covered with black, the horns alone standing out white above the gloom, so that in the somber shadow of the houses it seemed to those at a distance as if time and his children were apparitions floating through the air, and behind them came what looked like a troop of the sheet of dead gliding above blackness, and as they glided slowly they chanted in a wailing strain. A cold horror seized on Ramala, for at the first moment it seemed as if her brother's vision, which could never be afaced from her mind, was being half fulfilled. She clung to Tito, who, dividing what was in her thoughts, said, "'What dismal fooling sometimes pleases you, Florentines. Don't list this as an invention of Pierro de Cossimo, who loves such grim merriment. Tito, I wish it had not happened. It will deepen the images of that vision which I would feign to be rid of. Nay, Ramala, you will look only at the images of our happiness now. I have locked all sadness away from you. But it is still there. It is only hidden,' said Ramala, in a low tone, hardly conscious that she spoke. "'See, they are all gone now,' said Tito. You will forget that scastly mummery when we are in the light, and can see each other's eyes. But Ariadne must never look backward now, only forward to the Easter, when she will triumph with her care to spell her." CHAPTER XXI Florence expects a guest. It was the 17th of November, 1494. More than eighteen months since Tito and Ramala had been finally united in the joyous Easter time, and had had a rainbow-tinted shower of comforts thrown over them after the ancient Greek fashion, in token that the heavens would shower sweets on them through all their double life. Since that Easter a great change had come over the prospects of Florence, and, as in the tree that bears a myriad of blossoms, each single bud with its fruit is dependent on the primary circulation of the sap. So the fortunes of Tito and Ramala were dependent on certain grand political and social conditions, which made an epoch in the history of Italy. In this very November, little more than a week ago, the spirit of the old centuries seemed to have re-entered the breasts of Florentines. The great bell in the palace-tower had rung up the hammer-sound of alarm, and the people had mustered with their rusty arms their tools and impromptu cudgels to drive up the Medici. The gate of San Gallo had been fairly shut on the arrogant, exasperating piero, galloping away towards Bologna with his hard horseman frightened behind him, and shut on his quina young brother, the Cardinal, escaping in the disguise of a Franciscan monk a price had been set on both their heads. After that there had been some sacking of houses according to old precedent. The ignominious images painted on the public buildings of the men who had conspired against the Medici and theirs gone by were effaced. The exiled enemies of the Medici were invited home. The half-fledged tyrants were fairly out of their splendid nest in the Via Larga, and the Republic had recovered the use of its will again. But now, a week later, the great palace in the Via Larga had been prepared for the reception of another tenant, and if drapery roofing the streets with unwanted colour, if banners and hangings pouring out of the windows, if carpets and tapestries stretched over all steps and pavements on which exceptional feet might tread were an unquestionable proof of joy, Florence was very joyful in the expectation of its new guest. The stream of colour flowed from the palace in the Via Larga round by the cathedral, then by the great piazza della signora, and across the Ponte Vecchio to the Porta San Frediano, the gate that looks towards Pisa. There, near the gate, a platform and canopy had been erected for the signora, and Messer Lucha Corsini, Doctor of Law, felt his heart palpitating a little with the sense that he had a Latin aeration to read, and every chief elder in Florence had to make himself ready with smooth chin and well-lined silk look-o to walk in procession, and the well-born youths were looking at their rich new tunics after the French mode which was to impress the stranger as having a peculiar grace when worn by Florentines, and a large body of the clergy from the archbishop in his effulgence to the train of monks, black, white, and grey, were consulting betimes in the morning how they should marshal themselves, with their burden of relics and sacred banners and consecrated jewels, that their movements might be adjusted to the expected arrival of the illustrious visitor at three o'clock in the afternoon. An unexampled visitor, for he had come through the passes of the Alps, with such an army as Italy had not seen before, with thousands of terrible Swiss, well used to fight for love and hatred as well as for hire, with a host of gallant cavaliers proud of a name, with an unprecedented infantry in which every man in a hundred carried an archibus, nay, with cannon of bronze, shooting not stones, but iron balls, drawn not by bullocks, but by horses, and capable of firing a second time before a city could mend the breach made by the first ball. Some compared the newcomer to Charlemagne, reputed rebuilder of Florence, welcome conqueror of degenerate kings, regulator and benefactor of the church. Some preferred the comparison to Cyrus, liberator of the chosen people, restorer of the temple. For he had come across the Alps with the most glorious projects. He was to march through Italy amidst the jubilees of a grateful and admiring people. He was to satisfy all conflicting complaints at Rome. He was to take possession by virtue of hereditary right and a little fighting of the kingdom of Naples, and from that convenient starting point he was to set out on the conquest of the Turks who were partly to be cut to pieces and partly converted to the faith of Christ. It was a scheme that seemed to be fit the most Christian king, head of a nation which, thanks to the devices of a subtle Louis XI, who had died in much fright as to his personal prospects ten years before, had become the strongest of Christian monarchies, and this anti-type of Cyrus and Charlemagne was no other than the son of that subtle Louis, the young Charles VIII of France. Surely, on a general statement, hardly anything could seem more grandiose or fitter to revive in the breasts of men the memory of great dispensations by which new strata had been laid in the history of mankind. And there was a very widely spread conviction that the advent of the French king and his army into Italy was one of those events at which marble statues might well be believed to perspire, phantasmal fiery warriors to fight in the air, and quadrupeds to bring forth monstrous births. That it did not belong to the usual order of Providence, but was in a peculiar sense the work of God. It was a conviction that rested less on the necessarily momentous character of a powerful foreign invasion than on certain moral emotions to which the aspect of the times gave the form of presentiments, emotions which had found a very remarkable utterance in the voice of a single man. That man was Fr. Girallamo Savonorola, prior of the Dominican Convent of San Marco in Florence. On a September morning, when men's ears were rigging with the news that the French army had entered Italy, he had preached in the Cathedral of Florence from the text, Behold I, even I, to bring a flood of waters upon the earth. He believed it was by supreme guidance that he had reached just so far in his exposition of Genesis the previous length, and he believed the flood of water, emblemat once of avenging wrath and purifying mercy, to be the divinely indicated symbol of the French army. His audience, some of whom were held to be among the choicest spirits of the age, the most cultivated men in the most cultivated of Italian cities, believed it too, and listened with shuddering awe. For this man had a power rarely paralleled of impressing his beliefs on others and of swaying very various minds, and as long as four years ago he had proclaimed from the Chief Pulpit of Florence that a scourge was about to descend on Italy, and that by this scourge the church was to be purified. Savonorola appeared to believe, and his hearers more or less waveringly believed, that he had a mission like that of the Hebrew prophets, and that the Florentines amongst whom his message was delivered were in some sense a second-chosen people. The idea of prophetic gifts was not a remote one in that age. Seers of visions, circumstantial heralds of things to be, were far from uncommon either outside or inside the cloister, but this very fact made Savonorola stand out the more conspicuously as a grand exception. While in others the gift of prophecy was very much like a far-fing candle illuminating small corners of human destiny with prophetic gossip, in Savonorola it was like a mighty beacon shining far out for the warning and guidance of men. And to some of the soberest minds, the supernatural character of his insight into the future gathered a strong attestation from the peculiar conditions of the age. At the close of 1492, the year in which Lorenzo de Medici died and Tito Malema came as a wanderer to Florence, Italy was enjoying a peace and prosperity unthreatened by any near and definite danger. There was no fear of famine, for the seasons had been plenteous in corn, and wine, and oil. New palaces had been rising in all fair cities, new villas on pleasant slopes and summits, and the men who had more than their share of these good things were in no fear of the larger number who had less. For the citizens' armor was getting rusty and populations seemed to have become tame, licking the hands of masters who paid for a ready-made army when they wanted it, as they paid for goods from Smyrna. Even the fear of the Turk had ceased to be active, and the Pope found it more immediately profitable to accept bribes from him for a little perspective poisoning than to form plans either for conquering or for converting him. All together this world with its partitioned empire and its roomy universal church seemed to be a handsome establishment for the few who were lucky or wise enough to reap the advantages of human folly, a world in which lust and obscenity, lying and treachery, oppression and murder, were pleasant, useful, and when properly managed, not dangerous. And as a sort of fringe or adornment to the substantial delights of tyranny, avarice, and lasciviousness there was the patronage of polite learning, and the fine arts, so that flattery could always be had in the choicest Latin to be commanded at that time, and sublime artists were at hand to paint the holy and the unclean with impartial skill. The church, it was said, had never been so disgraced in its head, had never shown so few signs of renovating, vital belief in its lower members, nevertheless it was much more prosperous than in some past days. The heavens were fair and smiling above, and below there were no signs of earthquake. Yet, at that time as we have seen, there was a man in Florence who for two years and more had been preaching that a scourge was at hand, that the world was certainly not framed for the last convenience of hypocrites, libertines and oppressors. From the midst of those smiling heavens he had seen a sword hanging, the sword of God's justice, which was speedily to descend with purifying punishment on the church and the world. In brilliant Ferrera seventeen years before, the contradiction between men's lives and their professed beliefs had pressed upon him with a force that had been enough to destroy his appetite for the world, and at the age of twenty-three had driven him into the cloister. He believed that God had committed to the church the sacred lamp of truth for the guidance and salvation of men, and he saw that the church, in its corruption, had become a sepulchre to hide the lamp. As the years went on scandals increased and multiplied, and hypocrisy seemed to have given place to impudence. Had the world then ceased to have a righteous ruler? Was the church finally forsaken? No, assuredly. In the sacred book there was a record of the past in which might be seen, as in a glass, what would be in the days to come, and the book showed that when the wickedness of the chosen people, type of the Christian church, had become crying, the judgments of God had descended on them. Nay, reason itself declared that vengeance was imminent, for what else would suffice to turn men from their obstinacy and evil? And unless the church were reclaimed, how could the promises be fulfilled, that the heathens should be converted, and the whole world become subject to the one true law? He had seen his belief reflected in visions, a mode of seeing which had been frequent with him from his youth up. But the real force of demonstration for Girolamo Savonarola lay in his own burning indignation at the sight of wrong, in his fervent belief in an unseen justice that would put an end to the wrong, and in an unseen purity to which lying and uncleanness were an abomination. To his ardent, power-loving soul, believing in great ends, and longing to achieve those ends by the exertion of its own strong will, the faith in a supreme and righteous ruler became one with the faith in a speedy divine interposition that would punish and reclaim. Meanwhile, under that splendid masquerade of dignities, sacred and secular, which seemed to make the life of lucky churchmen and princely families so luxurious and amusing, there were certain conditions at work which slowly tended to disturb the general festivity. Ludovicio Sforza, copious in gallantry, splendid patron of an incomparable Leonardo Da Vinci, holding the ducal crown of Milan in his grasp, and wanting to put it on his own head rather than let it rest on that of a feeble nephew who would take very little to poison him, was much afraid of the Spanish-born old King Ferdinand and the crown prince Alfonso of Naples, who, not like him cruelty and treachery which were useless to themselves, objected to the poisoning of a near relative for the advantage of a Lombard usurper. The royalties of Naples again were afraid of their suzerain, Pope Alexander Borgia. All three were anxiously watching Florence, lest with its midway territory it should determine the game by underhand backing, and all four, with every small state in Italy, were afraid of Venice. Venice, the cautious, the stable, and the strong, that wanted to stretch its arms not only along both sides of the Adriatic, but across to the ports of the western coast. Lorenzo de Medici, it was thought, did much to prevent the fatal outbreak of such jealousies keeping up the old Florentine alliance with Naples and the Pope, and yet persuading Milan that the alliance was for the general advantage. But young Piero de Medici's rash vanity had quickly nullified the effect of his father's wary policy, and Ludovico Sforza, roused to suspicion of a league against him, thought of a move which would checkmate his adversaries. He determined to invite the French king to march into Italy, and, as heir of the House of Anjou, take possession of Naples. Ambassadors, orators, as they were called in those haranguing times, went and came. A recusant cardinal determined not to acknowledge a pope elected by bribery and his own particular enemy, went and came also, and seconded the invitation with hot rhetoric, and the young king seemed to lend a willing ear. So that in 1493 the rumour spread, and became larder and larder, that Charles VIII of France was about to cross the Elks with a mighty army, and the Italian populations, accustomed since Italy had ceased to be the heart of the Roman Empire, to look for an arbitrator from afar, began vaguely to regard his coming as a means of avenging their wrongs and redressing their grievances. In that rumour Savonarola had heard the assurance that his prophecy was being verified. What was it that filled the ears of the prophets of old, but the distant tread of foreign armies coming to do the work of justice? He no longer looked vaguely to the horizon for the coming storm, he pointed to the rising cloud. The French army was that new deluge which was to purify the earth from iniquity. The French king, Charles VIII, was the instrument elected by God, as Cyrus had been of old, and all men who desired good rather than evil were to rejoice in his coming, for the scourge would fall destructively on the impenitent alone. Let any city of Italy, let Florence above all, Florence, beloved of God, since to its ear the warning voice had been specially sent, repent and turn from its ways, like Nivonar of old, and the storm cloud would roll over it and leave only refreshing raindrops. Frard Girolamo's word was powerful. Yet now that the new Cyrus had already been three months in Italy and was not far from the gates of Florence, his presence was expected there with mixed feelings, in which fear and distrust certainly predominated. At present it was not understood that he had redressed any grievances, and the Florentines clearly had nothing to thank him for. He held their strong frontier fortresses, which Piero de Medici had given up to him without securing any honourable terms in return. He had done nothing to quell the alarming revolt of Pisa, which had been encouraged by his prince to throw off the Florentine yoke, and orators, even with a profit at their head, could win no assurance from him, except that he would settle everything when he was once within the walls of Florence. Still, there was the satisfaction of knowing that the exasperating Piero de Medici had been fairly pelted out for the agnominous surrender of the fortresses, and in that act of energy the spirit of the Republic had recovered some of its old fire. The preparations for the equivocal guest were not entirely those of a city resigned to submission. Behind the bright drapery and banner's symbolical of joy there were preparations of another sort made with common accord by government and people. Well hidden within walls there were hired soldiers of the Republic hastily called in from the surrounding districts. There were old arms duly furbished, and sharp tools and heavy cudgels laid carefully at hand to be snatched up on short notice. There were excellent boards and stakes to form barricades upon occasion, and a good supply of stones to make a surprising hail from the upper windows. Above all there were people very strongly in the humour for fighting any personage who might be supposed to have designs of hectaring over them, they having lately tasted that new pleasure with much relish. This humour was not diminished by the sight of occasional parties of Frenchmen coming beforehand to choose their quarters with a hawk perhaps on their left wrist, and metaphorically speaking a piece of chalk in their right hand to mark Italian doors with all. Especially as creditable historians imply that many sons of France were at that time characterised by something approaching to a swagger which must have wetted the Florentine appetite for a little stone throwing. This was the temper of Florence on the morning of the 17th of November, 1494. End of Chapter 21 Chapter 22 of Ramallah This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Ramallah by George Elliott Chapter 22 The Prisoners The sky was grey but that made little difference in the Piazza del Duomo which was covered with its holiday sky of blue drapery and its constellations of yellow lilies and coats of arms. The sheaves of banners were unfurled at the angles of the baptistery, but there was no carpet yet on the steps of the Duomo, for the marble was being trodden by numerous feet that were not at all exceptional. It was the hour of the advent sermons and the very same reason which had flushed the streets with holiday colour were reasons why the preaching in the Duomo could least of all be dispensed with. But not all of the feet in the Piazza were hastening towards the steps. People of high and low degree were moving to and fro with the brisk pace of men who had errands before them. Groups of talkers were thickly scattered, some willing to be late for the sermon and others content not to hear it at all. The expression on the faces of these apparent loungers was not that of men who are enjoying the pleasant laziness of an opening holiday. Some were in close and eager discussion. Others were listening with keen interest to a single spokesman, and yet from time to time turned round with a scanning glance at any new pass or by. At the corner, looking towards the Via di Siritani, just where the artificial rainbow light of the Piazza ceased and the gray morning fell on the somber stone houses, there was a remarkable cluster of the working people. Most of them bearing on their dress or persons the signs of their daily labour, and almost all of them carrying some weapon, or some tool which might serve as a weapon upon occasion. Standing in the gray light of the street, with bare brawny arms and soiled garments, they made all the more striking the transition from the brightness of the Piazza. They were listening to the thin notary, Sir Sione, who had just paused on his way to the Duomo. His biting words could get only a contemptuous reception two years and a half before in the Mercado. But now he spoke with the more complacent humor of a man whose party is uppermost, and who is conscious of some influence with the people. Never talked to me, he was saying in his incisive voice, never talked to me of bloodthirsty Swiss or fierce French inventory. They might as well be in the narrow passes of the mountains, as in our streets. And peasants have destroyed the finest armies of Racon d'Artieri in time past, when they had once got them between steep precipices. I tell you, Florentines need to be afraid of no army in their own streets. That's true, Sir Sione, said a man whose arms and hands were discoloured by crimson dye, which looked like blood stains, and who had a small hatchet stuck in his belt. And those French Cavaliers who came in squaring themselves in their smart duplets the other day, saw a sample of the dinner we could serve up for them. I was carrying my cloth in Agnesanti when I saw my fine Missouri going by, looking round as if they thought the houses of the Vespucci and the Agli a poor pick of lodgings for them, and eyeing us Florentines like top knotted cocks as they are, as if they pitied us because we didn't know how to strut. Yes, my fine galley, said I, stick out your stomachs, I've got a meat ax in my belt that will go inside you all the easier, when presently the old cow load. Note one, Lavaca Maglia is a phrase for the sounding of the great bell in the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, and I knew something had happened, no matter what. So I threw my cloth in at the first doorway, and took hold of my meat ax, and ran after my fine Cavaliers towards the Bigden Nuova. And what is Aguccio, said I, when he came up with me? I think it's the Medici coming back, said Aguccio. Bambé, I expect so, and up we reared a barricade, and the Frenchman looked behind and saw themselves in a trap. And up comes a good swarm of Alchiampi. Note two, the poor artisans connected with the wool trade, wool beaters, carters, washers, etc. And one of them with a big scythe, he had in his hand, mowed off one of the fine Cavaliers' feathers. It's true, and the lass has peppered a few stones down to frighten them. However, Piero de Medici wasn't come after all, and it was a pity, for we'd have left him neither legs nor wings to go away with again. Well spoken, Otto, said a young bocce with his knife in his belt. And it's my belief Piero will be a good wall before he wants to come back, for he looked as frighten as a hunted chicken when we hustled and pelted him in the piazza. He's a coward, else he might have made a better stand when he's got his horsemen. But we'll swallow no Medici any more. Whatever else the French king wants to make us swallow. But I like not those French cannon they talk of, said Goro. Nonetheless fat for two years, additional grievances. San Giovanni defend us. If my Sir Domindio means so well by us as your freight says he does, Sir Cione, why shouldn't he have sent the French another way to Naples? Ah, Goro, said the dyer. That's a question worth putting. Thou art not such a pumpkin-head as I took thee for. Why, they might have gone to Naples by Belon, eh, Sir Cione? Or if they'd gone to Arezzo, we wouldn't have minded they're going to Arezzo. Fools, it would be for the good of Gloria Florence, Sir Cione began. But he was interrupted by the exclamation, looked there, which burst from several voices at once, while the faces were all turned to a party who were advancing along the Via de Serratani. It's Lorenzo Teramboni and one of the French noblemen who are in his house, said Sir Cione, in some contempt at this interruption. He pretends to look well satisfied, that deep Teramboni, but he's a Medician in his heart, mind that. The advancing party was rather a brilliant one, for there was not only the distinguished presence of Lorenzo Teramboni and the splendid costume of the Frenchman with his elaborately displayed white linen and gorgeous embroidery. There were two other Florentines of high berth and handsome dress stunned for the coming procession, and on the left hand of the Frenchman was a figure that was not to be eclipsed by any amount of intention or brocade, a figure we have often seen before. He wore nothing but black, for he was in mourning, but the black was presently to be covered by a red mantle, for he too was to walk in procession as Latin secretary to the ten. Tito Malema had become conspicuously serviceable in the intercourse with the French guests, from his familiarity with southern Italy and his readiness in the French tongue, which he had spoken in his early youth, and he had paid more than one visit to the French camp as Sigma. The luster of good fortune was upon him, he was smiling, listening, and explaining, with his usual graceful, unpretentious ease, and only a very keen eye bent on studying him could have marked a certain amount of change in him, which was not to be accounted for by the lapse of eighteen months. It was that change which comes from the final departure of moral youthfulness, from the distinct self-conscious adoption of a part in life. The lines of the face were as soft as ever, the eyes as pollucid, but something was gone. Something as indefinable as the changes in the morning twilight. The Frenchman was gathering instructions concerning ceremonial before riding back to Sigma, and now he was going to have a final survey of the Piazza del Duomo, where the royal procession was to pause for religious purposes. The distinguished party attracted the notice of all eyes as it entered the Piazza, but the gaze was not entirely cordial and admiring. They were remarks not altogether elusive and mysterious to the Frenchman's hoof-shaped shoes, delicate flattery of royal superfluity and toes, and there was no case that certain starlings as Medicians should be strictly inaudible. But Lorenzo Turamboni possessed that power of dissembling annoyance, which is demanded in a man who courts popularity, and Tito, besides his natural disposition to overcome ill will by good humor, had the unimpassioned feeling of the alien towards names and details that moved the deepest passion of the native. Arrived where they could get a good oblique view of the Duomo, the party paused. The festoons and devices placed over the central doorway excited some demure, and Turamboni, back into Piero de Cosimo, who, as was usual with him at this hour, was lounging in front of Nello's shop. There was soon an animated discussion, and it became highly amusing from the Frenchman's astonishment at Picro's odd pungency of statement, which Tito translated literally. Even snarling onlookers became curious, and their faces began to wear a half-smiling, half-humiliated expression of people who are not within hearing of the joke, which is producing infectious laughter. It was a delightful moment for Tito, for he was the only one of the party who could have made so amusing an interpreter, and with any disposition to triumphant self-gratulation, he reveled in the sense that he was an object of liking. He bashed in approving glances. The rainbow of light fell at both the laughing group, and the grave church-goers had all disappeared within the walls. It seemed as if the piazza had been decorated for a real Florentine holiday. Meanwhile, in the gray light of the anodorn streets, there were on-comers who made no show of linen and brocade, and whose humor was far from merry. Here, too, the French dress and hoof shoes were conspicuous, but they were being pressed upon by a larger and larger number of non-admiring Florentines. In the van of the crowd were three men in scanty clothing. Each had his hands bound together by a cord, and a rope was fastened round his neck and body in such a way that he who held the extremity of the rope might easily check any rebellious movement by the threat of throttling. The men who held the ropes were French soldiers, and by broken Italian phrases and strokes from the knotted end of the rope they from time to time stimulated their prisoners to beg. Two of them were obedient, and to every Florentine they encountered, had held out their bound hands and set impidious tones. For the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us something towards our ransom. We are Tuskens. We were made prisoners in Luna Gianna, but the third man remained obstinately silent under all the strokes from the knotted cord. He was very different in aspect from his two fellow prisoners. They were young and hardy, and in the scant clothing which the avarice of the captors had left them, looked like vulgar, sturdy mendicants. But he had passed the boundary of old age and could hardly be less than four or five and sixty. His beard, which had grown long and neglect, and the hair which fell thick and straight round his baldness, were nearly white. His thick-set figure was still firm and upright, though emaciated, and seemed to express energy in spite of age. An expression that was partly carried out in the dark eyes and strong dark eyebrows, which had a strangely isolated intensity of color in the midst of his yellow bloodless, deep-wrinkled face with its blank gray hairs. And yet there was something fitful in the eyes which contradicted the occasional flash of energy. After looking round with quick fierceness at windows and faces, they fell again with a lost and wandering look. But his lips were motionless, and he held his hands resolutely down. He would not beg. This sight had been witnessed by the Florentines with growing exasperation. Many standing at their doors or passing quietly along, had at once given money, some in half automatic response to an appeal in the name of God, others in that unquestioning awe of the French soldiery, which had been created by the reports of their cool warfare, and on which the French themselves counted as a guarantee of immunity in their acts of insolence. But as a group had proceeded farther into the heart of the city, that compliance had gradually disappeared, and the soldiers found themselves escorted by a gathering tube of men and boys, who kept up a chorus of exclamations sufficiently intelligible to foreign ears without any interpreter. The soldiers themselves began to dislike their position, for, with a strong inclination to use the weapons, they were checked by the necessity for keeping a secure hold on their prisoners, and they were now hurrying along in the hope of finding shelter in a hostelry. French dogs, bullock feet, snatched their pikes from them, cut the cords and make them run for the prisoners. They'll run as fast as geese. Don't you see they're webfooted? These were the cries which the soldiers vaguely understood to be jeers and probably threats, but everyone seemed disposed to give invitations of the spirited kind rather than to act upon them. Santadio hears the sights of the dyer as soon as he had divined the meaning of the advancing tummelt, and the fools do nothing but hoot. Come along! He added, snatching his acts from his belt and running to join the crowd, followed by the butcher and all the rest of his companions, except Goro, who hastily retreated up a narrow passage. The sight of the dyer running forward with blood-red arms and acts uplifted and with this cluster of rough companions behind him had a stimulating effect on the crowd. Not that he did anything else than pass beyond the soldiers and thrust himself well among his fellow citizens, flourishing his acts, but he served as a stirring symbol of street-fighting, like the waving of a well-known gonfalon. And the first sign that fire was ready to burst out was something as rapid as a little leaping tongue of flame. It was an act of the conjurer's impish lad Lolo, who was dancing and jeering in front of the ingenuous boys that made the majority of the crowd. Lolo had no great compassion for the prisoners, but being conscious of an excellent knife which was his unfailing companion, it had seemed to him from the first that to jump forward, cut a rope and leap back again before the soldier who held it could use his weapon will be an amusing and dexterous piece of mischief. And now, when the people began to hoot and jostle more vigorously, Lolo felt that his moment was come. He was close to the eldest prisoner. In an instant he had cut the cord. Run old when he piped in the prisoner's ears, as soon as the cord was into, and himself set the example of running as if he were helped along with wings like a scared fowl. The prisoner's sensations were not too slow for him to seize the opportunity. The idea of escape had been continually present with him, and he had gathered fresh hope from the temper of the crowd. He ran at once, but a speed would hardly have sufficed for him if the Florentines had not instantaneously rushed between him and his captor. He ran on into the Piazza, but he quickly heard the tramp of feet behind him, for the other two prisoners had been released, and the soldiers were struggling and fighting their way after them, in such tardigrade fashion as their shoved-shaped shoes would allow, impeded but not very resolutely attacked by the people. One of the two young prisoners turned lip, the borgo de San Lorenzo, and thus made a partial diversion of the hubbub. But the main struggle was still towards the Piazza, where all eyes were turned on it with alarmed curiosity. The cause could not be precisely guessed, for the French dress was screened by the impeding crowd. An escape of prisoners said Lorenzo Turamboni as he and his party turned around just against the steps of the Duomo and saw the prisoner rushing by them. The people are not content with having emptied the Bargello the other day. If there is no other authority in sight, they must fall on this beery and secure freedom to thieves. Ah, there is a French soldier. That is more serious. The soldier he saw was struggling along on the north side of the Piazza, but the object of his pursuit had taken the other direction. That object was the eldest prisoner who had wheeled round the Baptistery and was running towards the Duomo, determined to take refuge in that sanctuary rather than trust to his speed. But in mounting the steps his foot received a shock. He was precipitated towards the ground of Signori, whose backs were turned to him, and was only able to recover his balance as he clutched one of them by the arm. It was Tito Malema who felt that clutch. He turned his head and saw the face of his adoptive father, Baldzar's Calvo, close to his own. The two men looked at each other, silent his death. Baldzar was dark fierceness and a tightening grip of the soiled worn hands on the velvet clad arm. Tito was cheeks and lips all bloodless, fascinated by terror. It seemed a long wall to them, it was but a moment. The first sound Tito heard was the short laugh of Pierro de Cosimo, who stood close by him and was the only person that could see his face. Ha, ha, I know what a ghost should be now. This is another escaped prisoner, said Lorenzo Turamboni. Who is he, I wonder? Some madmen surely said Tito. He hardly knew how the words had come to his lips. There were moments when our passions speak and decide for us, and we seemed to stand by and wonder. They carry in them an inspiration of crime, that in one instant does the work of long premeditation. The two men had not taken their eyes off each other, and it seemed to Tito, when he had spoken, that some magical poison had darted from Baldzar's eyes and that he felt it rushing through his veins. But the next instant the grasp on his arm had relaxed and Baldzar had disappeared within the church. You are easily frightened, though, said Pierro, with another scornful laugh. My portrait is not as good as the original. But the old fellow had a tiger look. I must go into the Duomo and see him again. It is not pleasant to be laid hold of by a madman, if madman he be, said Lorenzo Turamboni in polite excuse of Tito. But perhaps he is only a ruffian. We shall hear. I think we must see if we have authority enough to stop this disturbance between our people and your countrymen, he added, addressing the Frenchmen. They advanced toward the crowd with their swords drawn, all the quiet spectators making an escort for them. Tito went too. It was necessary that he should know what others knew about Baldzar and the first palsy of terror was being succeeded by the rapid devices to which mortal danger will stimulate the timid. The rabble of men and boys, more inclined to hoot at the soldier and torment him than to receive or inflict any serious wounds, gave way at the approach of scenery with drawn swords, and the French soldier was interrogated. He and his companions had simply brought their prisoners into the city, that they might beg money for their ransom. Two of the prisoners were Tuscan soldiers taken in Lunigiana. The other, an elderly man, was with a party of Genoese, with whom the French foragers had come to blows near Fivizzano. He might be mad, but he was harmless. The soldier knew no more, being unable to understand a word the old man said. Tito heard so far, but he was deaf to everything else till he was specially addressed. It was Tornobwone who spoke. Will you go back with us, Malema? Or, since Miseria is going off to Sinyan now, will you wisely follow the fashion of the times and go to hear the frate, who will be like the torrent at its height this morning? It's what we must all do, you know, if we're to save our Medici and skins. I should go if I had the leisure. Tito's face had recovered its color now, and he could make an effort to speak with Gaiety. Of course I am among the admirers of the inspired orator, he said, smilingly, but unfortunately I shall be occupied with the secretario till the time of the procession. I am going into the Duomo to look at that savage old man again, said Piro. Then have the charity to show him to one of the hospitals for travelers, Piro Mio, said Tornobwone. The monks may find out whether he wants putting into a cage. The party separated, and Tito took his way to the Palazzo Vecchio, where he was defined by Talomeo Scala. It was not a long walk, but for Tito it was stretched out like the minutes of our morning dreams. The short spaces of street and piazza held memories and pre-visions and torturing fears that might have made the history of months. He felt as if a serpent had begun to coil round his limbs. Baldissare living and in Florence was a living revenge, which would no more rest than a winding serpent would rest until it had crushed its prey. It was not in the nature of that man to let an injury pass unavenged. His love and his hatred were of that passionate fervor which subjugates all the rest of the being, and makes a man sacrifice himself to his passion as if it were a deity to be worshipped with self destruction. Baldissare had relaxed his hold and had disappeared. Tito knew well how to interpret that. It meant that the vengeance was to be studied, that it might be sure. If he had not uttered those decisive words, he is a madman. If he could have summoned up the state of mind, the courage necessary for avowing his recognition of Baldissare would not the risk have been less. He might have declared himself to have had what he believed to be positive evidence of Baldissare's death, and the only persons who could ever have had positive knowledge to contradict him were Fra Luca, who was dead, and the crew of the companion Galli, who had brought him the news of the encounter with the pirates. The chances were infinite against Baldissare's having met again with any one of that crew, and Tito thought with bitterness that a timely, well-divised falsehood might have saved him from any fatal consequences. But to have told that falsehood would have required perfect self-command in the moment of a convulsive shock, he seemed to have spoken without any preconception. The words had leaped forth like a sudden birth that had been begotten and nourished in the darkness. Tito was experiencing that inexorable law of human souls, that we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil which gradually determines character. There was but one chance for him now, the chance of Baldissare's failure in finding his revenge, and Tito grasped at a thought more actively cruel than he had ever encouraged before. Might not his own unpremeditated words have some truth in them, enough truth at least to bear him out in his denial of any declaration Baldissare might make about him. The old man looked strange and wild, with his eager heart and brain suffering was likely enough to have produced madness. If it were so, the vengeance that strove to inflict disgrace might be baffled. But there was another form of vengeance not to be baffled by ingenious lying. Baldissare belonged to a race to whom the thrust of the dagger seems almost as natural impulse as the out-leap of the tiger's talons. Tito shrank with shuddering dread from disgrace, but he had also that physical dread which is inseparable from a soft, pleasure-loving nature, and which prevents a man from meeting wounds and death as a welcome relief from disgrace. His thoughts flew at once to some hidden defensive armor that might save him from a vengeance which no subtlety could parry. He wondered at the power of the passionate fear that possessed him. It was as if he had been smitten with a blighting disease that had suddenly turned the joyous sense of young life into pain. There was still one resource open to Tito. He might have turned back, sought Baldissare again, confessed everything to him, to Romala, to all the world. But he never thought of that. The repentance which cuts off all moorings to evil demands something more than selfish fear. He had no sense that there was strength and safety in truth, the only strength he trusted to lay in his ingenuity and his dissimulation. Now that the first shock which had called up the traitorous signs of fear was well past, he hoped to be prepared for all emergencies by cool deceit and defensive armor. It was a characteristic fact in Tito's experience at this crisis that no direct measures for ridding himself of Baldissare ever occurred to him. All other possibilities passed through his mind, even to his own flight from Florence, but he never thought of any scheme for removing his enemy. His dread generated no active malignity, and he would still have been glad not to give pain to any mortal. He had simply chosen to make life easy to himself, to carry his human lot, if possible, in such a way that it would pinch him nowhere. A choice had, at various times, landed him in unexpected positions. The question now was not whether he should divide the common pressure of destiny with his suffering fellow men, it was whether all the resources of lying would save him from being crushed by the consequences of that habitual choice. CHAPTER 24 INSIDE THE DUOMO When Baldissare, with his hands bound together and the rope round his neck and body, pushed his way behind the curtain and saw the interior of the Duomo before him, he gave a start of astonishment and stood still against the doorway. He had expected to see a vast nave, empty of everything but lifeless emblems, side alters with candles unlit, dim pictures, pale and rigid statues, with perhaps a few worshippers in the distant choir following a monotonous chant. That was the ordinary aspect of churches to a man who never went into them with any religious purpose. And he saw instead a vast multitude of warm living faces, upturned in breathless silence towards the pulpit, at the angle between the nave and the choir. The multitude was of all ranks, from magistrates and dames of gentle nurture to coarsely clad artisans and country people. In the pulpit was a Dominican friar, with strong features and dark hair, preaching with the crucifix in his hand. For the first few minutes, Baldissare noted nothing of his preaching. Silent as his entrance had been, some eyes near the doorway had been turned on him with surprise and suspicion. The rope indicated plainly enough that he was an escaped prisoner, but in that case the church was a sanctuary which he had a right to claim. His advanced years and look of wild misery were fitted to excite pity rather than alarm. And as he stood motionless, with eyes that soon wandered absently from the wide scene before him to the pavement at his feet, those who had observed his entrance presently ceased to regard him, and became absorbed again in the stronger interest of listening to the sermon. Among the eyes that had been turned towards him were Romulas. She had entered late through one of the side doors, and was so placed that she had a full view of the main entrance. She had looked long and attentively at Baldissare, for gray hairs made a peculiar appeal to her, and the stamp of some unwanted suffering in the face, confirmed by the cord round his neck, stirred in her those sensibilities towards the sorrows of age which her whole life had tended to develop. She fancied that his eyes had met hers in their first wandering gaze. But Baldissare had not in reality noted her. He had only had a startled consciousness of the general scene, and the consciousness was a mere flash that made no perceptible break in the fierce tumult of emotion which the encounter with Tito had created. Images from the past kept urging themselves upon him like delirious visions strangely blended with thirst and anguish. No distinct thought for the future could shape itself in the midst of that fiery passion. The nearest approach to such thought was the bitter sense of enfeebled powers, and a vague determination to universal distrust and suspicion. Suddenly he felt himself vibrating to loud tones, which seemed like the thundering echo of his own passion. A voice that penetrated his very marrow with its accent of triumphant certitude was saying, The day of vengeance is at hand! Baldissare quivered and looked up. He was too distant to see more than the general aspect of the preacher standing with his right arm outstretched, lifting up the crucifix, but he panted for the threatening voice again, as if it had been a promise of bliss. There was a pause before the preacher spoke again. He gradually lowered his arm. He deposited the crucifix on the edge of the pulpit, and crossed his arms over his breast, looking round at the multitude as if he would meet the glance of every individual face. All ye in Florence are my witnesses, for I spoke not in a corner. Ye are my witnesses that four years ago, when there were yet no signs of war and tribulation, I preached the coming of the scourge. I lifted up my voice as a trumpet to the prelates and princes and people of Italy, and said, The cup of your iniquity is full. Behold, the thunder of the Lord is gathering, and it shall fall and break the cup. And your iniquity, which seems to you as pleasant wine, shall be poured out upon you and shall be as molten lead. And you, O priests, who say, Ha, Ha, there is no presence in the sanctuary. The shekinah is not. The mercy seat is bare. We may sin behind the veil, and who shall punish us? To you, I said, The presence of God shall be revealed in his temple as a consuming fire, and your sacred garments shall become a winding sheet of flame. And for sweet music there shall be shrieks and hissing, and for soft couches there shall be thorns, and for the breath of wantons shall come the pestilence. Trust not in your gold and silver. Trust not in your high fortresses, for though the walls were of iron and the fortresses of adamant, the most high shall put terror into your hearts and weakness into your councils, so that you shall be confounded and flee like women. He shall break in pieces mighty men without number, and put others in their stead, for God will no longer endure the pollution of his sanctuary. He will thoroughly purge his church. And for as much as it is written that God will do nothing, but he revealeth it to his servants the prophets, he has chosen me, his unworthy servant, and made his purpose present to my soul in the living word of the scriptures and in the deeds of his providence, and by the ministry of angels he has revealed it to me in visions, and his word possesses me, so that I am but as the branch of the forest when the wind of heaven penetrates it, and it is not in me to keep silence, even though I may be a derision to the scornor. And for four years I have preached in obedience to the divine will, in the face of scoffing I have preached three things which the Lord has delivered to me, that in these times God will regenerate his church, and that before the regeneration must come the scourge over all Italy, and that these things will come quickly. But hypocrites who cloak their hatred of the truth with a show of love have said to me, come now, frate, leave your prophesying, it is enough to teach virtue. To these I answer. Yes, you say in your hearts God lives afar off, and his word is as a parchment written by dead men, and he deals not as in the days of old rebuking the nations and punishing the oppressors, and smiting the unholy priests as he smote the sons of Eli. But I cry again in your ears, God is near, and not afar off, his judgments change not. He is the God of armies, the strong men who go up to battle are his ministers, even as the storm and fire and pestilence. He drives them by the breath of his angels, and they come upon the chosen land which is forsaken the covenant. And thou, O Italy, art the chosen land, hast not God placed his sanctuary within thee, and thou hast polluted it? Behold, the ministers of his wrath are upon thee, they are at thy very doors. So, Honorola's voice had been rising in impassioned force up to this point, when he became suddenly silent, let his hands fall and clasped them quietly before him. His silence, instead of being the signal for small movements among his audience, seemed to be as strong a spell to them as his voice. Through the vast area of the cathedral men and women sat with faces upturned, like breathing statues, till the voice was heard again in clear low tones. Yet there is a pause, even as in the days when Jerusalem was destroyed, there was a pause that the children of God might flee from it. There is a stillness before the storm, low there is blackness above but not a leaf quakes. The winds are stayed that the voice of God's warning may be heard. Hear it now, O Florence, chosen city in the chosen land. Repent, and forsake evil, do justice, love mercy, put away all uncleanness from among you, that their spirit of truth and holiness may fill your souls and breathe through all your streets and habitations, and then the pestilence shall not enter, and the sword shall pass over you and leave you unhurt. For the sword is hanging from the sky, it is quivering, it is about to fall, the sword of God upon the earth swift and sudden. Did I not tell you, years ago, that I had beheld the vision and heard the voice, and behold, it is fulfilled? Is there not a king with his army at your gates? Does not the earth shake with the tread of horses and the wheels of swift cannon? Is there not a fierce multitude that can lay bare the land as with a sharp razor? I tell you, the French king with his army is the minister of God. God shall guide him, as the hand guides a sharp sickle, and the joints of the wicked shall melt before him, and they shall be mown down as stubble. He that fleeeth of them shall not flee away, and he that escapeeth of them shall not be delivered. And the tyrants who have made to themselves a throne out of the vices of the multitude, and the unbelieving priests who traffic in the souls of men and fill the very sanctuary with fornication shall be hurled from their soft couches into burning hell. And the pagans, and they who sinned under the old covenant shall stand aloof and say, Lo, these men have brought a stench of a new wickedness into the everlasting fire. But thou, O Florence, take the offered mercy. See, the cross is held out to you. Come, and be healed. Which among the nations of Italy has had a token like unto yours? The tyrant is driven out from among you. The men who held a bribe in their left hand at a rod in the right are gone forth, and no blood has been spilled. And now put away every other abomination from among you, and you shall be strong in the strength of the living God. Wash yourselves from the black pitch of your vices which have made you even as the heathens. Put away the envy and the hatred that have made your city as a nest of wolves, and there shall no harm happen to you, and the passage of armies shall be to you as a flight of birds, and rebellious pieces shall be given to you again, and famine and pestilence shall be far from your gates, and you shall be as a beacon among the nations. Mark, while you suffer the accursed thing to lie in the camp, you shall be afflicted and tormented, even though a remnant among you may be saved. These admonitions and promises had been spoken in an incisive tonal authority, but in the next sentence the preacher's voice melted into a strain of entreaty. Listen, O people over whom my heart yearns as the heart of a mother over the children she has travailed for. God is my witness, that but for your sakes I would willingly live as a turtle in the depths of the forest, singing low to my beloved, who is mine and I am his. For you I toil, for you I languish, for you my nights are spent in watching and my soul melteth away for very heaviness. Oh Lord, thou knowest I am willing, I am ready. Take me, stretch me on my cross, let the wicked who delight in blood and rob the poor and defile the temple of their bodies and harden themselves against thy mercy. Let them wag their heads and shoot out the lip at me. Let the thorns press upon my brow and let my sweat be anguish. I desire to be made like thee in thy great love, but let me see the fruit of my travail. Let this people be saved. Let me see them clothed in purity. Let me hear their voices rise in conquered as the voices of the angels. Let them see no wisdom but in thy eternal law, no beauty but in holiness. Then they shall lead the way before the nations, and the people from the four winds shall follow them and be gathered into the fold of the blessed. For it is thy will, O God, that the earth shall be converted unto thy law. It is thy will that wickedness shall cease, and love shall reign. Come, O blessed promise, and behold, I am willing. Lay me on the altar. Let my blood flow and the fire consume me, but let my witness be remembered among men that iniquity shall not prosper for ever. During the last appeal, Savonarola had stretched out his arms and lifted up his eyes to heaven. His strong voice had alternately trembled with emotion and risen again in renewed energy, but the passion with which he offered himself as a victim became at last too strong to allow of further speech, and he ended in a sob. Every changing tone, vibrating through the audience, shook them into answering emotion. There were plenty among them who had very moderate faith in the frate's prophetic mission, and who in their cooler moments loved him little. Nevertheless, they too were carried along by the great wave of feeling which gathered its force from the sympathies that lay deeper than all theory. A loud responding sob rose at once from the wide multitude, while Savonarola had fallen on his knees and buried his face in his mantle. He felt in that moment the rapture and glory of martyrdom without its agony. In that great sob of the multitude Baldasares had mingled. Among all the human beings present there was perhaps not one whose frame vibrated more strongly than his to the tones and words of the preacher, but it had vibrated like a harp of which all the strings had been wrenched away except one. That threat of a fiery inexorable vengeance, of a future into which the hated sinner might be pursued and held by the avenger and an eternal grapple, had come to him like the promise of an unquenchable fountain to unquenchable thirst. The doctrines of the sages, the old contempt for priestly superstitions, had fallen away from his soul like a forgotten language. If he could have remembered them, what answer could they have given to his great need like the answer given by this voice of energetic conviction? The thunder of denunciation fell on his passion wrought nerves with all the force of self-evidence. His thoughts never went beyond it into questions. He was possessed by it as the war horses possessed by the clash of sounds. No word that was not a threat touched his consciousness. He had no fiber to be thrilled by it. But the fierce, exultant delight to which he was moved by the idea of perpetual vengeance found at once a climax and a relieving outburst in the preacher's words of self-sacrifice. To Baldissare those words only brought the vague triumphant sense that he too was devoting himself, signing with his own blood the deed by which he gave himself over to an unending fire that would seem but coolness to his burning hatred. I rescued him. I cherished him. If I might clutch his heartstrings for ever. Come, O blessed promise, let my blood flow. Let the fire consume me. The one cord vibrated to its utmost. Baldissare clutched his own palms, driving his long nails into them, and burst into a sob with the rest. CHAPTER XXV While Baldissare was possessed by the voice of Sabo Narola, he had not noticed that another man had entered through the doorway behind him, and stood not far off observing him. It was Piero de Cosimo, who took no heed of the preaching, having come solely to look at the escaped prisoner, during the pause in which the preacher and his audience had given themselves up to inarticulate emotion. The newcomer advanced and touched Baldissare on the arm. He looked round with the tears still slowly rolling down his face, but with a vigorous sigh as if he had done with that outburst. The painter spoke to him in a low tone. Shall I cut your cords for you? I have heard how you were made prisoner. Baldissare did not reply immediately. He glanced suspiciously at the officious stranger. At last he said, if you will. Better come outside, said Piero. Baldissare again looked at him suspiciously, and Piero, partly guessing his thought, smiled, took a knife and cut the cords. He began to think that the idea of the prisoner's madness was not improbable. There was something so peculiar in the expression on his face. While he thought, if he does any mischief, he'll soon get tied up again. The poor devil shall have a chance, at least. You are afraid of me, he said again, in an undertone. You don't want to tell me anything about yourself. Baldissare was folding his arms in enjoyment of the long absent muscular sensation. He answered Piero with a less suspicious look and a tone which had some quiet decision in it. No, I have nothing to tell. As you please, said Piero, but perhaps you want shelter, and may not know how hospitable we Florentines are to visitors with torn doublets and empty stomachs. There's a hospital for poor travelers outside all our gates, and if you liked, I could put you in the way of one. There's no danger from your French soldier. He has been sent off. Baldissare nodded and turned in silent acceptance of the offer, and he and Piero left the church together. You wouldn't like to sit to me for your portrait, should you? said Piero, as they went along the Via del Urulio on the way to the gate of Santa Coche. I am a painter. I will give you money to get your portrait. The suspicion returned into Baldissare's glance as he looked at Piero and said decidedly, no. Ah, said the painter curtly. We'll go straight on, and you'll find the port of Santa Coche and outside that there's a hospital for travelers. Will you not accept any service from me? I give you thanks for what you have done already. I need no more. It is well, said Piero, with the shrug, and they turned away from each other. A mysterious old tiger thought the artist, well worth painting, ugly, with deep lines. Looks as if the plow and the harrow had gone over his heart. A fine contrast to my bland and smiling Mesa Greco, my back-o Trio Fonte, who has married the fair Antigone, in contradiction to all history and fitness. Aha, his scholar's blood curdled uncomfortably at the old fellow's clutch. When Piero re-entered the Piazzo del Duomo, the multitude who had been listening to fraud, Giro Lamo, were pouring out from all the doors, and the haste they made to go on their several ways was a proof how important they held the preaching which had detained them from the other occupations of the day. The artist leaned against an angle of the baptistery and watched the departing crowd, delighting in the variety of the garb and of the keen characteristic faces. Faces such as Mesa Gio had painted more than fifty years before, such as Dominique Guerrillon had not yet quite left off painting. This morning was a peculiar occasion, and the freight's audience, always multifarious, had represented even more completely than usual the various classes and political parties of Florence. They were men of high birth accustomed to public charges at home and abroad, who had become newly conspicuous not only as enemies of the Medici and friends of popular government, but a thorough piagnone espousing to the utmost the doctrines and practical teaching of the freight and frequenting Santa Marco as the seat of another Samuel. Some of them men of authoritative and handsome presence, like Francesco Valori, and perhaps also of a hot and arrogant temper, very much gratified by an immediate divine authority for bringing about freedom in their own way. Others, like Soderini, was less of the ardent piagnone and more of the wise politician. They were men, also a family, like Pierro Caponi, simply brave and doctrinal lovers of a sober Republican liberty, who preferred fighting to arguing and had no particular reasons for thinking any ideas faults that kept out the Medici and made room for public spirit. At their elbows were doctors of law who studies about Cursias and his brethren had not so entirely consumed their ardor as to prevent them from becoming enthusiastic piagnone. Mishir Luca Corsini himself, for example, who on a memorable occasion, yet to come, was to raise his learned arms in street stone-throwing for the cause of religion, freedom, and the freight, and among the dignities who carried their black luco or furred mantel with an air of habitual authority, there was an abundant sprinkling of men with more contemplative and sensitive faces, scholars inheriting such high names as Strozzi, and Asiasioli, who were already minded to take the cowl and join the community of San Marco. Artist, wrought to a new and higher ambition by the teaching of seven Erolah, like that young painter who had lately surpassed himself in his fresco of the divine child on the wall of the freight's bare cell, unconscious yet that he would one day himself wear the tauncher and the cowl and be called Fra Bartolomio. There was the mystic poet, Giro Lamo Benavini, hastening perhaps to carry tithings of the beloved freight speedy coming to his friend's Pico della Morandola, who was never to see the light of another morning. There were well-born women attired with such scrupulous plainness that their more refined grace was the chief distinction between them and their less aristocratic sisters. There was a predominant proportion of the genuine Popolani, or middle class, belonging both to the major and minor arts, conscious of purses threatened by war taxes, and more striking and various perhaps than all the other classes of the freight's disciples. There was a long stream of poor tradesmen and artisans, whose faith and hope in his divine message varied from the rude and undiscriminating trust in him as the friend of the poor and the enemy of the luxurious oppressive rich, to that eager tasting of all the subtleties of biblical interpretation which takes a peculiarly strong hold on the sedentary artisan, illuminating the long dim spaces beyond the board where he stitches, with the pale flame that seems to hem the light of divine science. But among these various disciples of the freight were scattered many who were not in the least his disciples. Some were Medicians who had already from motives of fear and policy begun to show the presiding spirit of the popular party of feigned deference. Others were sincere advocates of a free government, but regarded Sabonarola simply as an ambitious monk. Half sagacious, half fanatical, who had made himself a powerful instrument with the people and must be accepted as an important social fact. There were even some of his bitter enemies, members of the old aristocratic anti-Medician party, determined to try and get the reins once more tight in the hands of certain chief families, or else the sentious young men who detested him as the killjoy of Florence. For the sermons in the Diomo had already become political incidents, attracting the ears of curiosity and malice as well as of faith. The men of ideas, like young Nicolo Machiavelli, went to observe and write reports to friends away in country villas. The men of appetites, like Dolfo Spini, bent on hunting down the freight as a public nuisance, who made game scares, went to feed their hatred and lie in wait for grounds of accusation. Perhaps, while no preacher ever had a more massive influence than Sabonarola, no preacher ever had more heterogeneous materials to work upon, and one secret of the massive influence lay in the highly mixed character of his preaching. Baldesar, wrought into an ecstasy of self-martyring revenge, was only an extreme case among the partial and narrow sympathies of that audience. In Sabonarola's preaching there were strains that appealed to the very finest susceptibilities of men's natures, and there were elements that gratified low egoism, tickled gossiping curiosity, and fascinated timorous superstition. His need of personal predominance, his labyrinthine allegorical interpretations of the scriptures, his enigmatic visions and his false certitude about the divine intentions, never ceased in his own large soul to be ennobled by that fervid piety, that passionate sense of the infinite, that active sympathy, that clear-sighted demand for the subjection of selfish interest to the general good, which he had in common with the greatest of mankind. But for the mass of his audience all the pregnancy of his preaching lay in a strong assertion of supernatural claims, in his denunciatory visions in the false certitude which gave his sermons the interest of a political bulletin, and having once held that audience in his mastery it was necessary to his nature, it was necessary for their welfare that he should keep the mastery. The effect was inevitable, no man ever struggled to retain power over a mixed multitude without suffering vitiation. His standard must be their lower needs and not his own best insight. The mysteries of human character had seldom been presented in a way more fitted to check the judgments of facile knowingness that in Girolamo sabonarola, but we can give him a reverence that need no shutting of the eyes to fact. If we regard his life as a drama in which there were great inward modifications accompanying the outward changes, and up to this period when his most direct action on political affairs had only just begun, it is probable that his imperious need of ascendancy had burned indiscernible in the strong flame of the zeal for God and man. It was the fashion of old when an ox was led out for sacrifice to Jupiter to chalk the dark spots and give the offering a false show of unblemished whiteness. Let us fling away the chalk and boldly say, the victim is spotted, but it is not therefore in vain that his mighty heart is laid on the altar of men's highest hopes.